Grain & Blood | A Hunger Games collection

System Overload: Chapter Twenty

Iris is clearly nervous as we walk inside. She keeps squeezing my hand, taking deep breaths as her eyes flit nervously around the space. I rub my thumb against hers, trying to comfort the butterflies that must be flooding her stomach.

"Why do so many people care?" she asks with a sigh as I follow her into a room with two beds, a dressing table, a wardrobe and not much else, "Nobody cared before. They were happy to see us die. Why now, when we need it least?"

I genuinely don't have an answer for that.

Iris flops onto the bed, exhausted, and I start to look around the room. On the dressing table is a single, pearl-backed hairbrush, shining like the pearls from the oyster beds in District 4. I carefully lift it and turn it in my hands, the smooth, metallic material reminding me of home.

Mud and clay between my bare toes, dirt under my fingernails. The thin but long expanse of the oyster beds spread on before me, spotted with birds in the hot midday sun.

"Remember, you're just there to look pretty," Iris says from the bed, "Not that you would have any trouble with that."

"Okay."

Time ticks by and we get changed into white and blue dresses, not much better than the pink dress but at least I no longer look like I'm three.

Then the moment when it really counts. Iris and I are taken down to the stage to address District 7. She's written the script, I'm just supposed to stand there, and I have no qualms with that.

We step out onto the stage, hand in hand, as the crowd gives a half-hearted cheer.

"Most people hearing this have lost someone close to them. Those of District 7, in particular the families of the tributes. I have lost someone close to me too. My brother. He died in the same Hunger Games that I won. I'm sure all of you remember that moment, but for a different reason. It's also the moment that Thenet died, at my hand. Two deaths, one of a killer, one of a boy who would never hurt a soul. We all know which is which. Don't lie to yourself. I would say that I'm sorry but I don't like to lie on public television, especially when I'm apologising to those who have lost someone. I miss my brother, and I feel for the families of the tributes. It's hard. But I don't for a second regret what I had to do."

She pauses for a second, and turns towards the girl's family. "Rubella was a friend. And I do regret that I didn't ally with her, try to keep her alive. Maybe she wouldn't have died how she did, in such a devastating way."

Iris steps away from the microphone to reluctant applause. If I knew that was her speech, then I would not have let her say a word of it. Not sensible, not safe.