A Circus of Eagles [An HG Fanfic]

Models - Columbia

I ask, "You?"

"If I have to."

I shouldn't kiss him, but I do. Strange how easy it feels so soon, how hungry it makes me. If this is what I have to do to get him to fight for me, die for me, at least it's pleasant. And-

But I know that's not how I work, and I know nobody who knows me will believe that either. I can't even convince myself. I kiss him because it's like the most gentle of electric shocks, because he doesn't compare me now to what I looked like before and because he genuinely doesn't care, because, at the end of it all, I want to.

"I wish-" he starts.

"The cameras."

"Ooh, Columbia has principles."

Despite myself, I smile. "Someone has to."

"You know what, you've just ruined the dreams of women all over Panem," he says, in his arrogant persona, but he's laughing. At me? At himself? At this whole stupid situation? "And some of the men too."

"Fine by me." In what we have of the moonlight he looks pale, softer, ever so slightly unreal. His acting doesn't look quite convincing. Not to me, anyway. "What are their dreams to me?"

Titan, people-pleaser to the bone, says, "Everything?"

***

The anthem, the eagle swallowed up by flames. I don't sing along or react. The light gives the arena a blood-red, fire-orange tint. I look around but there's nothing out there to see, just headstones, then the fog. No other tributes looking towards the sky. No Caitlin, pointedly sardonic. No Thalia.

The first photograph is Dustrio, baby-faced, with fluffy blonde hair. Why are our pictures in colour, when the district tributes were all monochrome? I didn't like him, didn't dislike him. Just a face behind a camera. He could have been the next big director, the next Risto, except what will he be, now? A memory. Not mine. Doubtless Caitlin would have had a few snappy phrases about him, but his face disappears from my mind almost as soon as his picture fades.

He's replaced by Syl's district partner, the spiky girl with the gaunt look and the attitude. I had her marked down as potentially dangerous. Seeing her up there is almost a relief. I scarcely saw her, never spoke to her. She's not really real to me. She's just a face in the sky.

Then there's Syl. I take Titan's hand; I heard them laughing together a few times, and though we carried the body between us it was Titan who seemed to take most of the weight. You couldn't believe anybody could crush the life out of someone so solid, but Milo did. It was Titan who got him off in the end, after Caitlin had been knocked out. He wrenched him off and the Avox ran, deceptively fast, and though I sent a knife after him I missed. By then the cannon had gone. Syl was staring at nothing. He wasn't even bruising then, so it looked like he was asleep. Neither of us tried to revive him.

After Syl is the anthem, the eagle again. I watch the symbol of my people go up in flames. I imagine the rebel Gamemakers I saw on the balcony grinning when they thought of it, watching the Capitol faces around them. I thought it was a joke when they announced we'd signed the Circuses Treaty. But if anybody is laughing now, it's the rebels. And that's twenty six against thousands and thousands. I'd forgotten that, until now, when it strikes me that I'm looking out on all their graves. If they all rose up I'd be dead in minutes.

Titan squeezes my hand. "What's wrong?"

"Everything."

He doesn't ask what I mean, or try and get me to elaborate. He just nods and pulls me a little closer. He's warm. I rest my head on his chest, listen to his heartbeat. It's loud and strong; I can feel it through his jacket. Night here is cold, not the time to be striding around with your muscles on display, not when there's no sponsors to impress. Titan, it seems, has only just learned this. But people want to see me. He believes it. He genuinely does. He'll think nothing of freezing himself half to death because he thinks some people want to see his pecs. I saw a shiver of it in his face when I shouted at him; he believes everybody loves him, wants to see him, wants to speak to him. He can't imagine otherwise, because if the people don't love him, who is he? I could hate him for it. I could pity him. I don't know what I'm doing instead.