The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (The Hunger Games, #0)

by Suzanne Collins

“We should kill them all.” The words slipped out before he could stop them. “Kill them all? Why?” said Dr. Kay in surprise. “They’re unnatural.” He tried to twist the comment so it sounded like it came from a bird lover. “Perhaps they’ll hurt the other species.”

He didn’t mind the jabberjays so much — they seemed rather interesting from a military standpoint — but something about the mockingjays repelled him.

Nature running amok. They should die out, and die out soon.

Birds. Always birds with her, when it came to the Covey. Singing, perching, feathers in their hats. Pretty birds all. He told her about his assignment with the jabberjays, thinking she might be impressed that he’d been singled out to work with them, but it only seemed to make her sad.

He was still upset, but it was stupid. She hadn’t accused him of anything, really. The conversation had just gotten off track. It was all on account of those stupid birds.

Wait? What? She vanished into thin air?

us. And you’re like us. You want to think for yourself. You push back. I know because of what you did for me in the Games.”

Who needed wealth and success and power when they had love? Didn’t it conquer all?

This elimination of the Capitol birds from the equation deeply disturbed him. Here they were, multiplying like rabbits, completely unchecked. Unauthorized. Co-opting Capitol technology. He didn’t like it one bit.

Not even two months ago.

Once Coriolanus heard it, he’d be as good as a rebel himself. A traitor to the Capitol. He should panic, or run, or at least try to shut Sejanus up. But he did none of these things.

Coriolanus pressed record, and the jabberjay fell silent.

Coriolanus realized he had not thought through the ramifications of sending the jabberjay.

It had been a questionable act, but it would not result in Sejanus’s death, by snakes or otherwise.

frightened and infuriated him. This breaking of the contract. This invitation to chaos and all that could follow. Didn’t these people understand that the whole system would collapse without the Capitol’s control? That they all might as well run away to the north and live like animals, because that’s what they’d be reduced to?

Miserable, but alive. And, most importantly, someone else’s problem.

confronting Sejanus. He hoped it would come to blows. Someone should pay for the indignities of the Snow family, and who better than a Plinth?

Why didn’t she write something about him instead of dwelling on that nobody? He was the one who’d saved her life after Billy Taupe had bought her a ticket to the arena.

He’d killed for the second time. If Bobbin’s death had been self-defense, what was Mayfair’s? Not premeditated murder. Not murder at all, really. Just another form of self-defense.

At any rate, he knew that he’d shoot her again if he had it all to do over, and somehow that supported the rightness of his actions.

In many ways, he felt closer to her than ever now that they had this new and unbreakable bond.

Sejanus’s cry, the bang of the trapdoors, and the jabberjays picking up Sejanus’s last word, screaming it over and over into the dazzling sun. “Ma! Ma! Ma! Ma! Ma!”

They wanted to see him crack, but he refused to give them the satisfaction.

had killed Sejanus as surely as if he’d bludgeoned him to death like Bobbin or gunned him down like Mayfair. He’d killed the person who considered him his brother. But even as the vileness of the act threatened to drown him, a tiny voice kept asking, What choice did you have? What choice? No choice. Sejanus had been bent on self-destruction, and Coriolanus had been swept along in his wake, only to be deposited at the foot of the hanging tree himself.

Technically, Coriolanus had given him a few more weeks of life and a second chance, an opportunity to mend his ways. But he hadn’t. Couldn’t. Didn’t care to. He was what he was. Maybe the wilderness would have been best for him. Poor Sejanus. Poor sensitive, foolish, dead Sejanus.

An overwhelming flush of love ran through him at her reminder that he was not alone in this tragedy. They were back in the arena, fighting for survival, just the two of them against the world.

They would hang him, but she would be there, knowing he was still a genuinely good person. Not a monster who’d cheated or betrayed his friend, but someone who’d really tried to be noble in impossible circumstances. Someone who had risked everything to save her in the Games. Someone who’d risked it all again to save her from Mayfair. The hero of her life.

mention of trust. Before need, before love, came trust. The thing she valued most. And he, Coriolanus Snow, was the one she trusted.

This might be his song, but she was singing it to Coriolanus. Snow lands on top.

choice.” Realizing that sounded halfhearted, he added, “You’re all that matters to me now.”

“Like my voice. When I sang the anthem in the Capitol,” Coriolanus remembered.

Someday something will kill me, but it won’t be you.”

“People aren’t so bad, really,” she said. “It’s what the world does to them. Like us, in the arena. We did things in there we’d never have considered if they’d just left us alone.”

“I think there’s a natural goodness built into human beings. You know when you’ve stepped across the line into evil, and it’s your life’s challenge to try and stay on the right side of that line.”

“I’m with you there. Three seems enough for one lifetime. And certainly enough for one summer.”

“There. Well, I hope old you doesn’t haunt new you. We’ve already got enough ghosts between us.”

This was his life now. Digging for worms and being at the mercy of the weather. Elemental. Like an animal. He knew this would be easier if he wasn’t such an exceptional person. The best and the brightest humanity had to offer. The youngest to pass the officer candidate test. If he’d been useless and stupid, the loss of civilization would not have hollowed out his insides in this manner. He’d have taken it in stride.

“It’s still raining,” he objected. “You’ll get soaked.” She laughed. “Well, I’m not made of sugar.”

Lucy Gray possessed an extraordinary talent for self-preservation.

No, Lucy Gray was no lamb. She was not made of sugar. She was a victor.

No question, she was hiding from him. But why? There could only be one answer. Because she’d figured it out. All of it. That destroying the guns would wash away all physical evidence of his connection to the murders.

Their romance would be revealed, along with the details of how he’d cheated in the Hunger Games. Dean Highbottom might be brought in as a character witness. He couldn’t risk it.

The idea of life without him must be breaking her heart.

If he’d felt better, he’d have laughed at the irony of how quickly their relationship had deteriorated into their own private Hunger Games.

Good, thought Coriolanus. It will remind me to be more careful.

The lake water had reduced his mother’s rose-scented powder to a nasty paste, and he threw the whole thing in the trash. The photos stuck together and shredded when he tried to separate them, so they went the way of the powder. Only the compass had survived the outing.

“I’d elaborate on it. They’re not just to punish the districts, they’re part of the eternal war. Each one is its own battle. One we can hold in the palm of our hand, instead of waging a real war that could get out of our control.”

“And they’re a reminder of what we did to each other, what we have the potential to do again, because of who we are,”

“Creatures who need the Capitol to survive.”

“Every last copy gone, never to be aired again.” She grinned. “I’ve a master in the vault, of course, but that’s just for my own amusement.”