The Hunger Games has been proven to test everyone's virtue, not just the young and unfortunate kids plucked from their districts and thrown into the arena. Venus Hummingstill has never cracked under pressure. Regardless of everything being stripped...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Coriolanus could not tear his mind away from his kiss with Lucy Gray.
It left him giddy, beyond doubt that he had crossed a line, but he didn't regret it...at least not fully. Racking his brain, he wondered how much Venus saw. Is that why she wanted to talk to Lucy Gray? They would be talking about him right now. Did Venus tell Lucy Gray about their time in the hospital? How he mentioned he cared for the both of them?
He walked home alone, savoring the bittersweet parting, electrified by his daring. Maybe he'd broken a rule or two by giving her the Rose compact that belonged to his mother and suggesting she fill it with rat poison, who knew? There was no real rule book for the Hunger Games. Okay, he probably had. But even so, it was worth it. For her and for winning the Plinth prize. Then again, the whole point in winning it was to put him back on the map and have him be a worthy contender for Venus. Now with his uncertainties about Lucy Gray, it seems to have muddied the waters of his mind. Still, he wasn't telling anyone about the compact, not even Tigris.
He felt more in control this way, having something to do besides watch.
After the Grandma'am had gone to bed, he confided in Tigris. "I think she's fallen in love with me." He said.
"Of course she has. What do you feel for her?" She asked.
"I don't know." He answered. "I kissed her goodbye."
Tigris raised her brows. "Goodbye? Why would you be saying goodbye to Venus?"
"I..." He was caught off guard. He couldn't begin to act confused as to why Tigris believed he was speaking on the girl. Coryo thought about how to explain it further, but all he could think about was those big brown eyes and how disappointed they looked. "I kissed Lucy Gray, and I believe Venus caught us." He admitted, looking to his cousin for guidance.
The truth was, he didn't have much experience when it came to girls, and even less when it came to love. Keeping the Snows' situation a secret had always been the tip priority. The cousins rarely had anyone to the apartment, even when Tigris had fallen hard in her final year of the Academy. Her reluctance to bring her sweetheart home had been taken as lack of commitment and had been a deciding factor in the breakup.
Coriolanus took the incident as a warning not to become too deeply entangled with anyone himself. Plenty of his classmates had been interested in him, but he'd skillfully kept them at arm's length. The excuse of that broken elevator had come in handy, and the Grandma'am had had several fictional ailments that required absolute quiet. There had been that one thing, last year, in the alley behind the train station, but that wasn't really romance so much as a dare Festus had put him up to. Between the posca and the darkness, the memory was sketchy at best. On reflection, he had never even learned her name, but it had earned him the reputation of being rather a player.
But Lucy Gray was his tribute, headed into the Arena. While Venus was the girl who had it all, headed to University once this was all over. Even if the circumstances were different, Lucy Gray would still be a girl from Twelve, or at least not Capitol. A second-class citizen. Human, but bestial. Smart, perhaps, but not evolved. Not to be given the same respect as Venus Hummingstill.
