Pregnant in the Games

Chapter 34: Plan

"Calm down, Willow," Peeta said. "A message has already been sent down to Talon, Rayne and Gale. They're going to receive a note. They'll know exactly where you've gone and why. They'll understand. It's what you had to do for Crystal." 

"I suspect they'll be out of there in just a couple of hours, if everything goes right," President Snow said. 

"Here's the plan," Katniss started off. "We knew that we had to do something about Luke. Obviously we can't let him continue to be Head Gamemaker. Especially not now, since you're out. He has no reason to be keeping Gale, Rayne or Talon alive. However, we couldn't do anything that would involve Panem knowing about what Luke did. We're trying to protect Crystal. If Panem knows that Luke is a murderer, then Crystal will live her entire life under a shameful shadow. We don't want that. We also just can't kill Luke, either. That will bring up too many questions. Plus, there's a lot of potential things that could go wrong with that. Even if we did manage to kill Luke and Panem believed whatever lie we made up, what would happen if someone found out the lie? All of us would be killed for what we did.

"So we came up with a different plan," Katniss continued. "We're going to go in and take Talon, Rayne and Gale out of the Games first." 

I smiled. I like this plan. 

"The removal of those three will completely end the Games. Everything will go up in confusion. What happened? Why are the Games over? Panem will be in an uproar. Luke, as Head Gamemaker, will be responsible. We hope that Panem's anger will be enough to force him to run away." 

"We figure that this way, Panem won't put any blame on Crystal and we don't have to tell very many lies," Peeta said. 

"What if we get caught sending out the hovercraft?" I asked. "There would be some bad repercussions for that." 

"Don't worry about that, Willow," President Snow said. "All of the Peacekeepers in the building have been notified of the plan. If anyone besides Luke walks into the room as the hovercraft is being sent off, they will know exactly what is happening. All we have to do is keep Luke away from there." 

"What if he doesn't run off?" I asked. 

"Then I'll kill him," President Snow answered casually. "Then we'll make up some excuse. Hopefully it won't come to that." 

"What exactly are we going to do?"

"Well, you're about to go down to headquarters with Crystal," Katniss said. "Soon after you arrive, Luke will receive a call from President Snow that he needs to come up to his office immediately. When Luke gets here, only President Snow will be here. The rest of us are going to come into the headquarters with you as soon as he's gone. We'll send out the hovercraft immediately to pick up Talon, Rayne and Gale." 

"I'll be keeping Luke very busy," President Snow said. "There will be no televisions around, so he won't realize what's going on. As soon as Talon, Rayne and Gale are in a secure location where Luke can't get to them, I'll dismiss Luke. Based off of the bogus assignment I will be telling him about, he should go out to the streets. He'll be walking around the Capitol moments after the ending of the Hunger Games. It only take moments for people to swarm him. He will be very confused, at first. Once he finally understands the outrage, hopefully he'll just run off." 

I swallowed. "Okay. Sounds good." 

"Well, the plan can be put into motion right now, sweetheart. Are you ready?" Haymitch asked. 

I nodded.

The ride down one floor in the elevator was the longest ten seconds of my life. I'm so nervous. Everything needs to go perfectly. If one thing gets screwed up, then it will be awful. People could die, knowing what Luke is capable of. I hope all of this is worth it.