❝𝐃𝐑𝐀𝐏𝐄𝐓𝐎𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐈𝐀❞ ━ TREECH

29. closer

June realizes she has to blindly trust her brother as she always does but she hopes he won’t be stupid enough to put the kerchief into the snake tank. In fact, she’d call him stupid if he did. They’d find it and the consequences would be fatal for all of them. It’s not her primary concern but that might even drag her mother into it. That woman is the last person that should know about their plans. Almost — there’s still Dr. Gaul after all.

Her father drives her to the Academy that morning. It’s still unusual to enter the classroom without her brother being there but there are empty gaps everywhere she looks. Felix and Gaius are still in the hospital with no news of either one of them and no one has heard anything from Clemmie in a while either. She might be released soon but there’s no denying that the incident with the snakes has left its marks on her.

She takes her usual seat between Lyssie and Pup and when Dr. Gaul enters the room, it fills her with both dread and relief at the same time.

Unlike Highbottom, who looks as exhausted and burnt out as ever, Dr. Gaul is in high spirits. They go over last night’s events and review the performances and June can’t help but feel a bit bashful and proud all the same upon hearing that Treech seems to have gotten the second highest amount of sponsors, right behind Lucy Gray.

It relieves her to know she likely won’t need to worry about being able to provide him with food and water in the arena, however, she still admittedly feels a little bit unsettled at the thought of the Games lasting longer than usual. At this rate, they might even go on for days and there’s a growing part inside of her that hopes it will be over sooner rather than later. The betting pot is in his favor as well and while he’s not at the top, he’s at least in the top five among Tanner, Coral, Jessup and Reaper.

Lucy Gray takes the cake though. She outshines all of them but that's hardly a surprise. She even manages to score three times as many donations as Treech so there’s no doubt Coriolanus will have an easy time keeping her alive. The only downside is that the betting pot isn’t in her favor and while her performance has moved the Capitol citizens deeply, it doesn’t make her odds at winning any better. Coriolanus seems very pleased though and June is once again amazed by his ability to look so smug and composed at the same time.

Dr. Gaul looks at it with a strange kind of amusement that makes her feel uneasy.

“Look at all of these people,” she says. “Sending bread to a slip of a girl with a broken heart, even though they don’t believe she can win. What’s the lesson there?”

“At dogfights, I’ve seen people back mutts that can barely stand,” Festus says. “People love a long shot.”

A dreamy smile crosses Persephone’s face. “People love a good love song, more like.” she suggests.

Livia seems as unimpressed as ever. Since the tantrum she threw didn’t work in her favor and she’s still tribute-less, June is almost surprised she’s not about to throw another hissy fit when she speaks up next.

“People are fools,” she sneers. “She doesn’t stand a chance.”

“But there are a lot of romantics,” Pup says and bats his eyelashes at her in an exaggerated manner.

June somehow manages to disguise her laugh as a cough and she sees Lyssie next to her shaking her head with an amused smile. Livia only looks disgusted.

“Yes, romantic notions, idealistic notions can all be very attractive,” Dr. Gaul says and sits down on a lab stool. “Which seems like a good segue into your essays. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

When it turns out she’s not collecting the assignments but rather handpicks a few students to read segments of their essays, June isn’t sure if she prefers it. She comes to the conclusion that the combination of dread and relief has hardly ever been evoked in her by anyone, but it comes naturally to Dr. Gaul which she finds incredibly unsettling. It’s like the woman can look straight into their heads