Chapter Text
The uproar was such that even Haymitch Abernathy, who had been promptly banished to the Victors’ Village upon winning the Fiftieth Hunger Games, heard about it: A strangely dressed teenager, well-fed and looking like no one from their district, had wandered into the Seam from the wilds beyond the fence. She had been brought to the peacekeepers, placed in the group home, and was now attending the district school with all of the other children.
Word had been sent to the Capitol.
For himself, Haymitch was ambivalent about the girl’s existence. That she was there – alive, healthy, and speaking a forgotten language – meant that there were other places and other people out there, ones that were not part of Panem. None of that was going to do him or the other Victors a damn bit of good however. Panem would never let any of the Victors escape, not now that they were known and broken and beloved by the Capitol. And existing was not going to do the girl any good either. She was going to pay and pay dearly for daring to exist when she should not.
Haymitch wanted nothing to do with any of it, so he didn’t. He bought his rotgut, imported his canned goods and liquors, and kept to himself like every other year. He was determined to know and hear as little about the girl as possible, which worked out rather well since most people became suspiciously silent when he was near anyway, but not even Haymitch could ignore the sudden infusion of quiet buoyancy and color in a district that was generally known for being dour, downtrodden, and gray. There were other places out there, and the Capitol wouldn’t notice if they went missing… unless the coal quotas stopped being met, of course.
Haymitch envied his neighbors’ anonymity as bitterly as they envied his wealth.
The days steadily lengthened, the temperature rose, and that year’s Victory Tour came to the district before any official word of what to do with the wild girl. This year’s Victor, a girl out of District Four named Annie Cresta, was barking mad. She had lost her mind when her district partner was beheaded about thirty seconds into last year’s games.
Haymitch had to hand it to District Four’s Career program because, mad or not, Annie Cresta had still managed to kill several other tributes at the cornucopia, including her district partner’s killer, survive over a week on her own, and end her Games by treading water for twenty-six hours. Even when she had lost her mind, she had still had her training to fall back on.
There were good, solid reasons that Haymitch had never brought home a living, breathing Victor, reasons beyond his alcoholism, a crippling lack of funding, and his general refusal to be whored out. (No, not even during that ten year period when all of his tributes who managed to survive the cornucopia were torn to shreds by mutts instead.)
When the Victory Tour arrived in District Twelve, Haymitch prepared himself to go through the usual motions (meeting the new Victor at the train, the speech in the square, the dance that night, and getting on the train the next morning) in the usual way: he got a little drunk the day before, misjudged, and ended up thoroughly soused.
Fortunately or unfortunately depending on your perspective, when one was a Victor ‘meeting the train’ did not actually mean going out to wait for it on the train platform. What it actually meant for Haymitch was waiting in his house until his prep team, which had ridden into the district with the Victory Tour, arrived to try to sober him up, stuff him full of pills designed to undo some of the damage that he had been doing to himself since he left the Capitol, and make him look less like himself. It was only after he had been transformed into something passable by Capitol eyes that Haymitch was allowed into the train station and on camera.
That year, Haymitch was making use of one of the floating prep teams commonly used as stopgaps by older Victors whose prep teams had quit, retired, or died while those Victors searched for replacements. Floating prep teams were invariably young, fresh out of the academy, and doing their time as a common resource in the hopes of being impressive or likeable or lucky enough to be offered a permanent position by one of the Victors, hopefully from one of the lower numbered districts.
Haymitch had used that particular team of two a couple of times and did not entirely loathe them, which was not to say that he liked them either. They were just… there and mostly inoffensive about it. And they seemed capable of mostly resisting the impulse to make him look as ridiculous as they often did, a rare virtue when dealing with people from the Capitol.
When the knock came, Haymitch answered it. At the sight of him, Portia sighed.
“Well, at least you don’t have vomit in your hair this time.”
Haymitch raised a bottle to her in a silent toast. “Where’s Cinna?”
“On the train,” Portia replied as she edged into Haymitch’s house. “He’s doing Orpha’s prep.”
Portia managed to get him cleaned up, but the sobriety issue was a lost cause. Despite her best efforts, the local Peacekeepers had to practically carry Haymitch to the train station. Haymitch was not sure, but at some point he lost his bottle and even his emergency flask. He thought Portia had stolen them, but it might have been a Peacekeeper.
It worried Haymitch because what if he got thirsty?
He would have argued against his losses but as he began to he got distracted vomiting into the bushes that lined the perimeter of the train station. When he finished, Haymitch looked up to find Portia gone and Mags standing next to him and armed with a bottle of water and a disapproving expression.
Haymitch took the bottle and ignored her censure. He swished a mouthful of water around in his mouth and spat it into the bushes.
“You’re looking good,” he said finally.
“You look the same as ever,” she snapped, as if Haymitch was the first Victor to disgrace a clump of bushes. “Have a mint.”
Haymitch popped the little hard candy in his mouth and refrained from asking if she carried them for District Four’s most celebrated Victors. It was better not to know.
“So, aside from the new girl who’s on the train?” asked Haymitch. “Anyone I know?”
Mags snorted.
“Orpha came,” she said and Haymitch nodded. That was to be expected. It was tradition for successful mentors go on the Tour with their newly minted Victors, partly to allow them to enjoy their success but mostly because they were expected to keep their Victors in line. Even six months after being fished out of their arenas, most Victors were usually still at least half mad.
The rest of the list was equally predictable – an assortment of stylists, Peacekeepers, and current Capitol favorites among District Four’s rather large pool of Victors, including Finnick Odair. There was no one among Four’s Victors or support staff that Haymitch particularly looked forward to seeing, although he was on fairly friendly terms with Mags and Finnick.
“Which ones of you are mentoring next year?” Haymitch asked as if he did not already know. Mags was practically an institution within the Games, and last year’s Victor always mentored the next year’s tributes. It would be Mags and Annie Cresta, although the rest of Four’s Victors would no doubt be in and out of the Mentor’s Lounge to help watch over the tributes in the arena, work out strategies, and scare up sponsorship money. The difference in resources between inner districts and outer districts was not just felt in terms of pre-Games training. It was in the help offered to tributes during the Games and the support given to Victors after they left the arena.
“Come on,” Mags ordered. “Orpha will introduce you to Annie.”
“Is there anything that I should know?” Haymitch asked as he fell into step with the older Victor.
“Move slowly, speak softly, be calming, and keep an eye out for knives. She keeps stealing them from the dining car.”
Haymitch nodded, his fingers ghosting across the knife that he almost always carried. He understood the impulse, even if the other notes were worrying.
Annie Cresta and her mentor from last year, Orpha Tallow, were waiting for him in the exact center of the train station. Four’s other Victors, most of whom would be living in the Capitol during the six month period between the Victory Tour and the end of the next set of Games, were arranged in a row behind Orpha and Annie while assorted stylists and carefully selected members of Twelve’s merchant class made up the crowd of onlookers. The peacekeepers skulked in the corners of the room, out of the direct line of the camera shots taken but their presence still felt.
Tall and thin as a rail, Orpha Tallow had tired eyes, bitten nails, and a cigarette permanently clamped in the corner of her mouth. Haymitch knew from experience that none of her cigarettes were ever filled with mere tobacco.
Annie was crouched on the floor, her hair tangled and her hands clamped over her ears. Her sea green dress was a puff of fabric around her. There was a long smear of blood across the floor’s bright tiles.
Next to Haymitch, Mags cursed and rushed over to help Orpha persuade District Four’s newest victor to stand up and pretend to be happy to be there. Uninterested in trying to help, Haymitch stayed where he was and waited to be needed for the photo shoot.
It took forty-five minutes to get Annie up on her feet, drugged to the gills, and sluggishly responding to questions. Her eyes were too wide and too bright eyes, her hands shook, and her hair was still somewhat tangled but she better than before and deemed good enough for the cameras. By then, Annie’s victim, a burly peacekeeper recently assigned to District Twelve, had been stitched up and sent home to recuperate.
Haymitch and Annie were formally introduced by Orpha, the sweet smoke from Orpha’s cigarette curling through the air between them and twisting through Haymitch’s stomach. Annie did not offer her hand to Haymitch, he was not offended, and they both tried not to vomit on the other’s shoes.
Since everyone’s shoes stayed dried and no one tried to stab anyone else, Haymitch considered it a wildly successful meet and greet. Better than last year’s at any rate, although from the looks of it, Annie was still more than half mad. Orpha probably had her hands full.
When the camera crew declared the train station scene over, everyone was herded out to the town square for the next carefully orchestrated scene.
In the square, all of the Victors had to stand on the stage that was only used twice a year for Reapings and Victory Tours. Below them stood the meager crowd that was District Twelve, the families of the two dead tributes front, center, and cordoned off from the rest of the mandatory audience. Her eyes glazed from whatever she was being liberally dosed with, Annie trembled as she delivered her canned speech, starting, stopping, and stumbling over the words. Haymitch ignored her words, all of his concentration on staying more or less upright. Finnick’s hand, warm and steady on his elbow, helped with that.
When the speeches, congratulations, and condolences were finally over, the crowd gratefully dispersed. Orpha took possession of Annie again, and everyone gratefully left the stage.
There were a few hours between the speeches in the square and the dance, hours in which everyone who was attending it was meant to get ready. Haymitch preferred to use that time to drink; unfortunately his prep team of two seemed to have different ideas. They forced food, coffee, and medicinal pills into him, and left him on a couch in the Justice Building. Haymitch was so distracted by the churning in his stomach and the blazing pain spreading through his organs that he barely noticed when Portia returned to leave a glass of something on the little table near Haymitch’s head. As it probably wasn’t something alcoholic, Haymitch paid it no mind.
By the time that Cinna returned to fetch him, Haymitch’s physical misery had dulled to an all over ache and a general sense of queasiness. Worse, he was actually beginning to sober up.
Cinna did not have to do much to get Haymitch on his feet and moving towards the booze.
“Remember, no liquor while you’re on those pills,” Cinna warned, and Haymitch grimaced.
He knew from personal experience that although the pills’ warning labels said ‘no alcoholic beverages’ in reality there was actually quite a bit of wiggle room. Capitol citizens, the people the product had originally been developed for, did not like being entirely sober any more than he did, although their reasons and preferred substances differed.
The first thing Haymitch did on entering the Justice Building’s ballroom, which was filled with peeling gilt and had dust in the corners, was to acquire a beverage, alcoholic naturally.
Fresh drink in hand, Haymitch was ready to mingle with a roomful of people that, although he had grown up with most of them, he had absolutely no interest in and who had absolutely no interest in him to the point where neither side would be particularly bothered if the other suddenly and inexplicably died. It made for a macabre sort of liberation; at least it did on Haymitch’s side of the equation.
Mingling went about like it always did for Haymitch in his home district, and he soon remembered why he spent so much time drunk and in his house. Unfortunately, going home to drink and glower hatefully at the nearest wall was not an option. Instead, Haymitch went to find the other Victors, intent on inflicting his company on them for the rest of the evening. He was less familiar with Four’s Victors than he was with the Victors out of Eleven or Three, but Victors were Victors. They were the last people who would hold survival against someone.
Interestingly, none of the District Four Victors were in the Justice Building’s ballroom. In fact, none of them were in the building at all. Haymitch found them outside, combing the district.
“We’ve lost Annie,” Finnick said bluntly. “Can you think of anywhere she might be hiding?”
“No,” sighed Haymitch. He tossed back his drink and put the glass on one of the Justice Building’s windowsills. “But I’ll help you look.”
Victors were Victors, after all, and the last people to hold survival against someone.
Fourteen hours after Annie had wandered off, Orpha found her in District Twelve’s group home. Haymitch heard the particulars while nursing a glass of the hard stuff in the bar car on the train.
“She had curled up in bed with another girl as peaceful as you please,” said Orpha, while puffing smoke like a chimney. “The other girl was using her as a hot water bottle.”
Haymitch snorted. “She’s lucky your girl didn’t stab her.”
“Annie came from the group home,” Finnick said softly. “It would be familiar to her.”
Haymitch, who vaguely remembered something about Finnick coming from Four’s group home too, filled his mouth with spirits and said nothing.
“It was the wild girl,” added Orpha carelessly, “the one from beyond the fences.”
Haymitch scowled down into his drink. From the corner of his eye, he saw Finnick’s shoulders straighten. His were hardly the only ones. Rebellion ran deep among Four’s fishermen and Victors. Haymitch had no doubt that everything Four’s Victors had managed to learn about the wild girl while they were in Twelve would be transmitted to the rebellion… the one that he refused to notice on general principle.
“Oh?” creaked Mags, whose shoulders had remained still. After decades in the Games, she was a crafty and pragmatic liar. “How was she?”
Orpha snorted. “She tried to protect Annie from me.”
People like her did not last long in Panem. Given her origins, Haymitch had not expected anything else. While the others danced around wild, half-formed ideas to rescue the wild girl and hide her in their districts, Haymitch half listened but mostly drank. He was clever enough to know impossibility when he encountered it. And honestly, he was uninterested in the wild girl or her fate or what she symbolized. She wasn’t a Victor, and for Haymitch those were the only people that he had left.
Annie’s Victory Tour rolled through each district in turn, the train leaving each district longer by a few cars. Housed within the new additions were next year’s mentors and this year’s guests of the Capitol, victors who would spend the next six months living in the Capitol and following President Snow’s orders. The mentors would be sent home as soon as they had finished with Annie’s Victory Party at the Presidential Mansion and registering as mentors for the next set of Games. The Capitol’s guests would return to their districts with the mentors and corpses after the Seventy-First Hunger Games, and, if invited back to the Capitol next year, return with the Seventy-First’s Victory Tour to do another six months in the Capitol.
Some on the train, like Haymitch and Cecelia out of Eight, belonged solely to the former category, while others, like Finnick Odair out of Four, belonged solely to the latter category. There were a few rare ducks, mostly from outer districts, that belonged to both categories because their districts did not have enough victors to satisfy all of the Capitol’s demands on their district without someone or even everyone doubling up.
Sometimes, Haymitch was grateful that there was no longer anyone that he loved.
From District Seven onwards, he and Johanna Mason – the new example for a new generation – toasted freedom and vengeance. Neither of them was a nice drunk.
Of course, no one else on that train was particularly nice either. They had all killed someone to survive. Most of them had killed several someones, a few of them doing it gleefully. And all of them had their vices – alcohol, sex, and drugs being the most common. The few Victors who didn’t, like Cecelia, were freakish even on a train filled with murderers, addicts, and whores.
When the train pulled into the Capitol, a crowd was waiting for them. Capitol fashions, like the citizens who wore them, were as frivolous and ridiculous as ever. Haymitch did not take as much caustic delight in that as others might have (and definitely did.) Mostly, he drank and tried not to think about how the woman with the pink feathers in her hair and glittering yellow beak on her face reminded him of his arena. It was difficult though, especially since she was waving a sign with his name on it.
“Ooooh, look!” exclaimed Effie. She nodded at the lady with the beak. “Haymitch! You still have a fan!”
“Great,” said Haymitch flatly. He staunchly ignored his urge to stab the bird-woman, because she was not a real, throat gouging mutt-bird. And he was not in his arena.
The Capitol was nothing like his arena.
Except for when it was exactly like his arena.
Haymitch drank more.
Registering as District Twelve’s mentor was fairly simple. Haymitch merely had to show up at the Training Center and, under winking camera lens, flashing lights, and reporters, put his name in with the secretaries waiting there. The mentors usually did it after the train ride and before being prepped for Ceasar’s interview with that year’s victor. It was also a chance to play to the cameras, start drumming up support for the as yet unknown tributes… and size up the competition. Most of the outer districts had the same mentors from year to year but the Career districts had people to choose from. Even when they came from Career districts, different mentors favored different strategies.
There were a lot of familiar faces milling around the recording table. Haymitch, Beetee, Wiress, Seeder, Chaff, Blight, Johanna, Cecelia, and Woof were all givens. District Four had a large pool of Victors to choose from, but the sight of Annie Cresta and Mags milling about near the table was hardly surprising. As that year’s Victor, Annie was expected to serve as one of the next year’s mentors. And having recently spent roughly two weeks in her general vicinity, Haymitch knew enough about Annie Cresta to know that it would not go well for her or her tribute.
Cashmere and Gloss, siblings out of District One, were a surprise, though. The last that Haymitch had heard, they were both highly popular with and sought after by the Capitol’s citizens. It was less surprising that they were mentoring in the same year. Word had it that they had been practically inseparable since Gloss had won his Games.
Brutus from District Two was also a surprise, since Lyme usually mentored District Two’s boys. Enobaria, while also a new face, was not a particularly shocking choice as district mentor. The girls’ mentor for District Two changed every year, but it was usually someone who had wiles, feminine and otherwise. Enobaria probably fit the bill.
Haymitch registered, briefly chatted with one or two of the others, and then went to spend the next few days in the Victors’ medical bay having the previous six months’ excesses excised from his body by the doctors assigned there. He was hardly the only one to occupy a bed. By unspoken agreement, everyone thoroughly ignored each other.
They were all deemed well enough to attend Annie’s ball in the Presidential Palace, which was when various escorts, Effie included, began coming around and making noises about not embarrassing the districts this year. As victors, they bore it with about the amount of good grace that could be expected, (which was none at all,) then proceeded to do whatever they had been going to do anyway.
It was in the course of sampling the free liquor on one of the tables that Haymitch bumped into Annie Cresta again. He was discreetly leaning against a potted tree until his balance firmed up, and she was hiding behind it. Haymitch had only interacted with her the once in District Twelve’s train station, but that one time had been wildly successful, especially when compared to his introductions in the previous few years, and who knew, maybe she was saner than she looked. It seemed unlikely though, what with the way that she was rocking and humming to herself. Haymitch decided to stick around for awhile, keeping a bleary eye on her until one of Four’s Victors arrived to collect her.
It was while Haymitch was about this self-imposed task that Plutarch Heavensbee sidled up to him. Haymitch, who would usually have enacted a strategic retreat at that point, stood his ground and glared at the game maker. Plutarch either didn’t notice or failed to care.
“Aaah, Haymitch, just the man I was looking for,” oozed the game maker.
Haymitch scowled at Plutarch. He had done the math once when he was slightly more sober than usual and in the mood to punish himself, and Plutarch was about the right age to have been a junior game maker during Haymitch’s own Games. It had hardly been a surprise.
Haymitch had done the math because he had recognized the Fifty-Sixth arena, had known it in his bones and seen it in his nightmares. Although the arena’s landscape had been different, a frozen wasteland whereas his had been a fairytale forest, it had lacked basic survival resources, been overly complicated in its design, and had possessed more mutts, all of them vicious and deadly, than any of that year’s tributes had known what to do with. It had been Plutarch Heavensbee’s first year as head game maker in his own right but those three things would all become hallmarks of his evolving style of game making.
Haymitch especially despised Plutarch’s turns as head game maker.
“Plutarch,” Haymitch said curtly.
“I hear that District Twelve has finally become interesting.”
“Not that I noticed.”
“The wild girl,” continued Plutarch, ignoring Haymitch. “I suppose you’ve seen her.”
“No, can’t say that I have.”
Plutarch’s eyebrows twitched. “Not even once? Maybe on the street? I hear District Twelve is small enough for things like that to happen.”
“Folks in District Twelve tend to keep the kids clear of me.”
“You can’t tell me that you haven’t been the slightest bit interested in her or where she’s come from.”
“I have my interests.” Haymitch tipped his glass meaningfully at Plutarch. “Teenagers from the wilds aren’t one of them.”
Plutarch heaved a sigh. “I see that I shall have to get my news elsewhere.”
Haymitch turned and looked down his line of sight to one Effie Trinket, her head thrown back as she laughed at something that one of the President’s junior secretaries was saying.
“Good luck,” Haymitch replied, not meaning it at all. As Plutarch finally began to move away from him, Haymitch tipped his head back and bitterly drained his glass.
When Plutarch was gone, Haymitch tipped his head towards Annie. “You ready to come out yet?”
The tree rustled but no girl appeared.
Haymitch sighed.
While he didn’t think he had anything left to lose, Haymitch was in no hurry to be proven wrong. And he never wished to discover what more could be taken from him.
And if there was one thing that the Capitol was good at, it was taking more.
Haymitch did not particularly like District Twelve but it was always a relief to return to it, probably because the only time he ever left it was on the Capitol’s business. And District Twelve had the added charms of both not being in the Capitol and also being the site of his house. So he gratefully went home to read and drink too much and try to avoid the nightmares.
Haymitch was generally successful on at least one of those fronts, occasionally even two of them.
The night before the reaping, Haymitch toasted the soon to be dead and woke up with the pointed toe of Effie’s sparkly purple pump digging into his side. Haymitch retaliated by vomiting on her foot. Vicious satisfaction, unfocused and nearly obscured by his throbbing hangover, warmed his heart for the entire split second it took Effie to realize what had happened and begin screaming at him.
Stumbling to his feet, Haymitch quickly retreated from her piercing shriek. He ended up in the downstairs bathroom.
Years ago, Haymitch had worked out that on some days it better not to even attempt the stairs in his house. He had not survived the Fiftieth Hunger Games to be killed by his prize. With that in mind, one year he had put a portion of his annual salary towards renovating his downstairs bathroom. Now, his living room was smaller but his downstairs bathroom was roomy, tiled, and had a shower complete with garbage disposal in addition to the usual sink and toilet. There was no mirror.
Haymitch turned on the shower and went to liberate a bottle of white liquor from beneath the sink. He took several pulls of the stuff, ignoring the burn as it slid down his throat.
The surest way to avoid a hangover was the keep drinking.
Bottle in hand, Haymitch stumbled back toward the shower. He did not even bother to take off his clothes before he got in.
Much later, Haymitch emerged from his shower scrubbed, warm, and somewhat drunk to find Cinna sitting on the lid of his toilet, a bright green parasol propped against the wall.
Cinna looked thoroughly disapproving.
Haymitch, well past caring what Cinna or anyone else thought of him, submitted to Cinna’s scrutiny, tooth brushing, and primping, but he ignored the accompanying lecture. Cinna did his makeup, dressed him, and made him eat toast. And, just before Haymitch staggered out the front door, Cinna took his current bottle away.
“There will be plenty more waiting for you on the train,” Cinna said firmly, his grip on the bottle surprisingly strong.
Haymitch would have argued the point but just then Effie, now wearing a pair of sparkling red pumps with large, purple feathers on their heels, dragged him out the door. Thanks to his breakfast (the booze, not the bread) Haymitch was already too unsteady on his feet to hold his ground and either continue the argument with Cinna or get another bottle. Instead, he found himself tripping down his front steps, half supported and entirely guided by Effie Trinket’s grip on his arm.
The entire walk to town, she railed at him about her destroyed pair of shoes.
If he were a better man, Haymitch might offer to replace them.
He was not a better man.
And he hated Effie when he was not indifferent to her.
She was making it very difficult to be indifferent to her that morning.
It was almost a relief when they reached town, and Effie, conscious of her image, finally shut up about the damn shoes.
Together, they walked through the town. Haymitch pretended not to notice when people that he had known his whole life shied away from him. For once, it was not Effie’s fault.
To a greater or lesser degree, they had been shying away from him like that since he had come home from his games. The other victors talked about the old friends, pretty girls, and distant relatives who had come out of the woodwork to help them spend their winnings. But Haymitch had come home to find nothing and no one waiting for him. His family and his girl had been murdered. His childhood home had been burned to the ground. And everyone had seen him murder two out of the three District Twelve tributes on national television.
No one had wanted to stand too close to him much less be seen speaking with him.
These days, some people could bring themselves to nearly overlook who he was (and what he had done to survive) in, say, December or February. But on reaping day, no one wanted to come near him, as if he was bad luck or possibly vindictive enough to have Effie choose their children just to spite them.
After twenty-odd years, he was used to it. He certainly no longer cared that it happened.
Haymitch scowled at the baker and sent him scurrying back into his shop, never mind that Haymitch was one of the very few people who ever bought his pretty, overpriced cakes.
In the square, Effie hustled Haymitch up onto the stage where he gratefully collapsed into his assigned seat. From there, he watched the children file into their assigned pens, their parents loitering around the edges of the square in small clumps that alternated between resentful and terrified, and in due time ignored the mayor speech. It was the same string of justifications that had been mouthed in every district in Panem since the very first set of Hunger Games.
And then came the reaping, Effie clattering up to the girls’ ball, the ridiculous feathers on her shoes waggling in her wake.
She made an enormous production out of riffling through the slips, each of which was treated with a chemical that would later stain them pink where she had touched it, before pulling out a single name.
“Buffy Summers!”
It was easy to see who the name belonged to. The population of the girls’ eighteen year olds block shrank away from a single girl, short and blonde.
The peacekeepers fetched her.
As they roughly prodded her up onto the stage, Haymitch recognized her as the girl who had wandered out of the forest. Well, at least that answered the question of what the Capitol intended to do with her.
When Effie rushed to her, prattling about the honor she had been chosen for, the girl smiled and nodded, her expression pleasant but uncomprehending. Her bright, pleasant smile never wavering, the girl let Effie guide her to where she was supposed to stand.
The outsider had absolutely no idea what was going on.
Haymitch’s guts twisted and ached.
Cinna had been wrong.
He needed a drink right then and there.
He needed to drink until he blacked out and it was suddenly tomorrow when he would be too busy vomiting to care that this year’s female tribute was going to trustingly follow he and Effie to her death.
At least the others had always known what was happening.
The boys’ tribute, fifteen and skinny, certainly knew what to expect. He was shaking and glaring as he stumbled up onto the stage. He did not let Effie touch him and, when it came time to shake hands, he roughly grabbed the girl’s hand, pumped it up and down once, and let go of her immediately.
There was no lingering friendship or pity in Burdock Jones.
As usual, Haymitch allowed himself to be hustled into the Justice Building with the tributes where he watched a steady stream of people enter and exit Burdock’s room during the hour’s grace period granted to tributes and their loved ones.
No one visited Buffy Summers, not to say goodbye, wish her good luck, or give her a token. Apparently no one, except the rebellion, was going to miss her after she died.
Rather than considering what he might be feeling at any length, Haymitch went to go find a drink.