The Hunger Games - Surviving the Storm - Book 3

Chapter 21

My family and I spent as much time as possible in District 12 before it was time to return to the Capitol. If it wasn't for work we would have stayed longer but both my parents had classes to teach and business' to run. The train ride back to the Capitol was better then the trip to 12. No one tried to kill me this time around which was a relief.

The word about my attacker was that she had been scheduled to carry out her setence of death this morning. As the duty of the ruler of Panem we had to watch it to make sure everything went in order to the protocol. The sentencing was recorded live and from the trains tv room we watched the red headed woman die.

I held my beautiful daughter in my arms and watched her eyes flicker open from her nap. I still couldn't believe that I had a family of my own, that I was happily married. The first moment I knew I was a contender in the games I felt like I would make it. The second time I ended I felt like my life would end in the arena. Yet here I sat holding a sacrade vessel that was half me and half my love. In the arms of my husband sat our son, half his father half me. Life seemed perfect.

I wouldn't even have to worry about their futures because they didn't have to worry about going into the games like I had to. We had 30+ years to not have to worry about the games. 30+ years to truly live without fear.

The door slid back and there stood my mother and father, beaming brightly.

"How are you doing today?" My mother asked.

Of course she would ask me this since the incident at Mayor Madges. I was seriously put out when I found out that my best friends father had erased every and any memory of her existence. I looked across the room at the large portrait of Lia, her mother and her father that I had been fortunate enought to scavange from Madges garbage before I left.

"I'm fine mom." I replied serenely.

"That's good because once we arrive in the Capitol you have a hearing with the disciplinary board." She replied.

I sighed. "Of course Madge wasn't blood for me destroying her dinner." I stopped myself before I could continue on, that was meant to have been a personal thought not an outspoken comment. "Mom, how did she even become the monster she is. I specifically recall you talking about Madge as if she was a family friend when I was a kid." I added.

"She was a family friend until she tried to get me to tear Gale and Bailey apart." My mother replied.

"Why would she even think you would do such things?" I asked in disbelief. "You and Gale were best friends for the longest time."

"She promised to make his family rich and when he denied her offer she asked me to step in, she promised me immunity for my children when it game time for them to be in the games."

"She can't do that, even if she did and the Capitol found out the entire family would have been slaughtered."

My mother nodded her head. "I know this and so did she but she was willing to risk it all for his heart. When Lia showed up in the second half of the games I knew it was Madge's doing. Lia was the only thing that kept him tied down, without her in the way Madge had a clear path to Gale." she finished.

Suddenly the hatred I had for the woman sky rocketed, it threatened to over take me but I knew that if I did anything in spite of this situation and new found news I would have to answer for it. I couldn't do anything that put me at risk of leaving my children motherless.

"Mom, how do you handle your anger?" I asked curiously.

My mother was hardly ever angered or upset, what was her secret?

She looked at my husband and smiled before returning her gaze to me. "I don't do anything different then I normally do." she answered apparently amused.