HEART OF GOLD | CORIOLANUS SNOW

𝘾𝙃𝘼𝙋𝙏𝙀𝙍 6

"I do," Lilith croaked out.

As she glanced up from her notebook, Athena and Olympia looked over. Their recognition was immediate.

"Oh, Lil," moaned Athena, hastening over, Olympia hot on her heels, "I'm so sorry!"

"I'm okay," said Lilith, resolved to be, but she was comforted all the same when the two engulfed her in a long group hug, and clung onto them as if they were buoys that would keep her afloat amidst this whirlpool of anguish that threatened to drag her under.

Not as if—they were buoys that kept her afloat. Knowing she had them, that they would have her back no matter what, made her feel less vulnerable, made the void her mother's loss had created seem smaller and less devastating. With them, she was safe. With them, she was never alone. She supposed it was like having two older sisters to rely on, looking out for you always, but she would never quite know.

Athena was first to extricate herself, but only to fetch some warm honeysuckle tea. Accepting the glass cup with whispered thanks, Lilith cradled it and began sipping. Strangely, it was this drink, with all its associations with her mother, that never failed to calm her down.

Neither of them attempted to coax any information out of her regarding the tenth Games, not that Lilith would be able to divulge much. A lot of it had been lost to time, even more to pain, and she realized only a handful of momentous recollections she'd hung onto remained. With a squeeze of Lilith's shoulders, as if to say I'm letting go now, but I'm not going anywhere, Olympia detached herself from the trio and headed back to the Phi X.

"There's something fishy about this page," she remarked, dropping into the chair Athena had vacated.

It was only in Olympia's hands that Lilith ever appreciated the true proficiency of the Phi X. It had been a gift from her Uncle Merc—Mercury Starling, her mother's younger brother, current CEO of Starling Consolidated, and founder of its subsidiary Phoenix, Inc., the company that developed the pretty little thing. With its iridescent gilded shell, capsule shape, and hollowed core of a vent, it could easily pass off as a golden vase. Granted, hers was a one-if-a-kind, Gold-family edition, but the regular ones in stores bore gleaming aluminium bodies that were equally stunning.

But for all its expert—"X"—features and upgrades, the top-of-the-range machine performed comparably to Lilith's PhiBook for her everyday usage. Having grown quite accustomed to the convenience of portable devices, moreover, Lilith hardly ever resorted to it. Even when she'd looked up the names of past victors, it had been a midnight whim she accomplished in bed and on her laptop (the lag really wasn't that unbearable). Only Olympia, who sometimes used it to test out the computer games she designed, and with her complex code now, could really tap its potential.

Over her shoulder, Athena and Lilith watched as Olympia worked her magic. Within a minute, she was already over the University's firewall and weaving her way through the intricate system towards the Hunger Games repository. Still, it came up short. Undeterred, she was soon penetrating the Capitol Archives themselves, which was the eventual source of the school's database.

A shadow of worry tugged at Lilith. She wasn't so much concerned about being implicated; Olympia was too good at covering her digital tracks. She just couldn't help but think that this daring, this blatant disregard for rules and boundaries would one day be her best friend's undoing.

There was everything here, and suddenly, original footage from the First Hunger Games was rolling: from President Ravinstill, in the same military uniform he donned every year but with almost no gray hair, opening the ceremony to the traditional sounding of the gong; a boy, the burliest of the lot, slashing away at his opponents with a sword. He looked maniacal, and when he started sucking blood straight out of his victims' necks, Olympia hurriedly switched off the stream.