Chapter Text
THUNK
Alina groans as she stands up straight, wiping the sweat from her forehead.
If there’s one thing she hates the most about living in the Victor’s Square, it’s that she has to cut firewood all by herself.
THUNK
There was a brief moment, when she was having a bad week and couldn’t get out of bed, that she considered paying one of the kids from her old orphanage to cut it for her. She had shaken the thought off quickly and resigned herself to shivering. Alina knows exactly what kind of treatment that kid would get with a couple of extra coins in their pocket.
THUNK
Now she somewhat appreciates the reason to get out of bed on those bad days. Something to force the memories and aches down because she will die if she doesn’t get a fire started or figure out how to get the heat going.
Centralized heating, the representative from the Capitol told her during the tour, I won’t show you how to set it up because it’s August, but it’s easy enough. Even someone from this District would be able to figure it out.
Well, apparently not. Thankfully they had the foresight to put in fireplaces in both the living room and the main bedroom, so Alina hasn’t died yet.
Alina had asked Botkin about the heating once the weather had turned shortly after they got back from the Capitol and he had given her a very helpful hell if I know, I don’t trust them to not shut it off the second they decide they hate me. I just keep a fire going.
THUNK
The log splits into small enough pieces for the fire, falling over onto the frozen gravel.
She’s chopped too much, she knows. But Botkin’s been complaining about his shoulder when she sees him once every week, and his protests whenever she brings extra firewood over have never been all that convincing.
Alina gathers an armful and takes it over to her fellow victor. She doesn’t knock, doesn’t see him moving around in the living room. He might still be asleep. She leaves it at his front door, takes her own firewood, and heads inside.
She’s lonely.
It’s stupid. She’s nearly an adult. Botkin is just across the road. She won the last Hunger Games and in any other District that would have made her a celebrity.
Here, however, her coming home instead of Mal means more empty stomachs; the only person in the District brave enough to cross the fence to hunt left dead in a field, mauled by dogs, then cremated and sent back to Ana Kuya in a little metal urn.
Alina didn’t ask for his ashes. She had no right to.
She takes to feeding a stray cat. Doesn’t name it, doesn’t want to get attached to it. She calls it cat, gives it milk in a little dish, shares meat with it when she has extra, which she usually does. Cat brought her a dead mouse just last week, so she must be doing something right.
Mostly, though, she just lays around.
It’s been a tradition starting when she and Botkin got back from the Capitol. Alina had laid in bed for days, barely moving. Botkin came up to check on her and sighed when he realized he had to take care of a catatonic victor again.
Still. He fed her the bone broth. Brought her tea. Got her moving after a week.
A month passed with Alina anxiously brushing a hand over her stomach, checking for an unwanted alien feeling. She didn’t even know what to look for, still doesn’t, but October passed, then November tipped into December, her period came and went, and she let herself relax.
Now that she’s not permanently spiralling about something and instead only spiralling about something on occasion, she lays around reading.
She had, perhaps stupidly, sent a letter to Morozova a month after she got back from the Capitol asking him for a book. Just one, she didn’t want to seem greedy or like she was only asking him because she felt entitled to something. Alina received no response, and figured that Morozova got what he wanted from her, and didn’t care to deepen their relationship any further.
When the train came by for a coal pickup about two weeks later, a Peacekeeper came by her house with a crate. Not a big crate, he was able to carry it, but still. A crate.
Alina managed to get the lid off it, and inside was at least two dozen books and a short letter.
She read that first.
Alina
I hope these suit your tastes. If not, send another letter with the titles of what you enjoyed and what you hated, and I will make another selection better tailored to your tastes.
Aleksander x
She rolled her eyes at the kiss at the end of the letter, and cast it into the fire just as she did the last.
Alina had mostly been expecting books that told of the Capitol-approved history of Panem, or maybe a manual of how to best train a Tribute to prepare them for slaughter.
The rest of the day, which was long considering she got her delivery just before noon, was spent sorting through books.
Most of the covers are solid, some made of what seemed to be paper, some made of leather, some with thin paper covers that are barely thicker than the pages themselves. Alina doesn’t recognize any of the names, but that’s to be expected. She reads the covers and and the first few pages of each of the books to gather what they’re about, unfamiliar names like Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde, names that sound a little more like names she’s used to like Fyodor Dostoevsky and Lev Tolstoy, and names that made no sense to her and had her squinting at the cover in confusion thinking something was scratched off, like Homer and Ovid.
Alina learns not long after that, perhaps much later in her life than some would, that she is a voracious reader.
It turns out that lying perfectly still rotting in her bed is far less healing than doing it with a book. It takes a week to figure out which of the books on the shorter end will have the easiest vocabulary, then another week for her to get into a proper pace. She didn’t even realize how absorbed in her books she was until Botkin had come up to her room, a jar of broth in one hand and a cup of water in the other.
He had been taken aback, but ultimately pleased that she wasn’t on death’s door again.
Botkin had asked where the books were from, turning over a thin little book with THEOGONY printed in the middle of the blank cover with a look of confusion on his face.
Alina, despite everything he does for her, had lied to him.
And that’s really where it all started. Once she began lying, she couldn’t stop.
Where are the books from?
I ordered them from the Capitol.
Who keeps sending you letters?
Genya. She says hi.
How are you these days?
Better, thank you.
And it does make things better. Alina feels like she has a second, easier to digest Alina tucked in behind her ribs to bring out whenever she has to talk to people. One that knows what to say, when to smile and nod, when to get out of bed once a week to avoid someone thinking she’s laying half-dead in her room.
Someone, perhaps someone more or less naive than her, would like to argue that she’s changed. There is no second Alina, just a before Alina and an after Alina. An Alina without a collar and an Alina with a collar. She would like to argue that that would mean there are indeed two Alinas.
Maybe she has changed. Maybe.
But acknowledging that she’s changed means acknowledging that something changed her, and she is somehow still too stubborn for that. Too stubborn to admit that the girl that went into that arena is long dead, and that whatever came out was then forcefully shoved into place by President Morozova.
But how can she deny what’s right in front of her?
Very easily, actually.
And she will continue to do so.
Alina hasn’t had any dreams or nightmares since getting back from the Capitol. She either doesn’t sleep, or sleeps so soundly nothing usually comes of it.
Well, she had one dream while curled up on her couch covered in thick blankets by the fire, but once doesn’t mean there’s a pattern.
It was her and Mal out in the meadow the day before Mal’s first Reaping. Alina wouldn’t be entered until the next year. They just laid in the grass, holding hands, trying to remember one another.
Alina doesn’t remember where the calluses on his hands were. It’s only been six months. She wonders how long it will be until the only way she’ll remember his face is by watching old footage of him in the Games.
The dream had been nice enough. A good memory, for once.
She doesn’t remember the colour of the shirt he’d been wearing, or if he even had any calluses on his hands yet. Still. A good memory.
Alina sets out a water bowl for the cat and checks the calendar she keeps by the refrigerator she still doesn’t properly understand how to use. She flips past September, then October, then November. She counts the days in her head, remembering the market was in full swing yesterday. The only way that would be is if it were a Sunday. She counts the Sundays since she and Botkin got back, then counts them again just to be sure.
Huh. It’s her birthday.
If she had known in advance, maybe she could’ve written to Morozova and guilted him into sending her more books. Tell him she likes the ones where the only concerns are getting married and whether the man who proposed is too proud, when war is something far away and never mentioned, where love is the beginning and the end. Where the war is a little more forward, yet still in the background, where a soldier’s only goal is returning to his wife after twenty years away.
Alina learnt that she’s a romantic. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, not to her, at least. Just that perhaps Morozova wouldn’t have the recommendations for second chances and grand reunions. Maybe she ought to just ask him for war stories.
Well, she would have if she had remembered her birthday, but she didn’t. So instead of carving out her heart for Morozova’s consumption, she’ll go to the bakery and get herself something to celebrate.
The Stepanovs’ bakery is just how she remembers it; peeling white paint, large, welcoming porch, and the rich smell of sugar wafting all the way up the street a welcoming sign after the freezing cold trek to the other side of town.
Alina pushes open the door, an old but trustworthy bell announcing her arrival, and immediately forgets every baked good she’s ever enjoyed.
Maria Stepanova, Alexei’s mother, turns around to greet her, and her face immediately breaks into a large grin.
“Alina, is that you? It’s been too long!” she says cheerfully. “How are you, honey?”
“Good, Mrs. Stepanova, thank you,” Alina says politely, “and yourself?”
“Business as usual. People tend to have money for pastries in the summer more so than the winter, so it’s been pretty slow.”
Alina’s eyes trail along the case of baked goods. Half a dozen doughnuts, half a dozen apple fritters, half a dozen danishes with nuts and raisins spilling out of them, and more she doesn’t even know the name of.
“How’s Alexei?”
Mrs. Stepanova seems very happy that Alina mentioned him. “He’s very well, I’d hope! He’s been more serious about taking over after the summer, he’s just in the back taking inventory right now.”
After the summer, of course, being when his mortality was suddenly brought into gleaming focus.
Alina gives Mrs. Stepanova her best victor’s smile. “Give him my best, if you can.”
“Of course, honey, no problem at all,” she says kindly. “Now, are you wanting anything? I see you eyeing those cinnamon rolls.”
Is that what those are?
“Yes, uhm…” is this too greedy? “Can I get two of everything from the top row?”
The second row is all breads for meals, and as much as Alina loves a thick slice of rye, it is her birthday.
“Everything?” Mrs. Stepanov laughs. “You’re that hungry?”
“I’m gonna give half to Botkin,” Alina says quickly, ringing her hands in anxiety, that overhanging fear of being judged, that lingering guilt of eating more than her share.
“Well, alright,” she smiles warmly. “You’d want two boxes, then?”
“If it’s not too much trouble.”
Alina watches Mrs. Stepanova pack up the pastries as she tries to pretend her mouth isn’t trying to drown her in her own saliva. She then pays a little too much and waves away any attempt from Mrs. Stepanova of giving her change, and heads back out to brave the December chill.
The bastard isn’t home.
It’s either that or he’s ignoring her, and he really isn’t one to ignore her.
Maybe he’s finally caught onto her lies and has decided she’s not worth the trouble.
Alina tries the front door. It’s unlocked. He’s home.
“Botkin?” Alina calls into the house. No answer. She realizes with a chill zipping up her spine, a trickle of fear pooling low in her stomach, that this is what it must be like for him to come to see her and find her catatonic in bed.
Alina drops his box of pastries on his dining table, the first room to the left of the foyer, right across from the living room that is so achingly similar to hers and yet so, so different.
She should check on him. Knows he’s had drinking problems in the past. Knows he struggles with the memories just as much as he does, but—
Before Alina lets the thought sink in, she turns around and heads back across the way to her own home.
Guilt swirls in her gut, but when doesn’t it?
Just another move of cowardice from the victor of the 74th Hunger Games, as if that would be a surprise to anyone. If anything, this is truly in character for her. Botkin would probably be more surprised if she went up to his room to check on him than he would be finding that box of pastries on his table with no note.
She lets the cat in with her, its fiery orange fur swirling around the brown of her boots as its purrs drift happily up to her ears. Alina gives it a soft little greeting in a cooing baby voice, then squats to remove her boots as quickly as possible.
She hardly remembers last year’s birthday. It was likely spent like every one before it: with Mal, eating a squished and partially burnt pastry he traded Alexei a bird or two for.
This year is notably improved: more than one pastry, it’s not squished or burnt, and there’s no Mal.
The last one isn’t an improvement. But it also is at the same time. She doesn’t think he’d handle this big empty house all to himself very well.
Alina rolls her eyes at herself for making everything about Mal yet again as the cat makes itself at home in front of the fireplace, its tiny little claws kneading peacefully into the rug.
How simple joy seems for a cat. She wouldn’t mind being a cat.
Her hand drifts up to her neck and under the thick black knit of her scarf, and her fingers loop into the necklace hiding beneath. A laugh bubbles up from her chest, amusing herself more than it has any right doing.
She kind of is a cat, in a way.
Alina pops open the box of pastries, and reaches for the—what had Mrs. Stepanova called it?—cinnamon roll, deciding it will be her first offering.
“Here’s to seventeen,” Alina says, then takes a gluttonous-sized bite.
It’s delicious. The icing is so sweet it hurts her teeth, the spices so unfamiliar it burns her tongue just a bit, just enough for it to be foreign yet enjoyable. It’s exactly like digging into a massive volume of text about what she thought was law and it ended up being about a man in a far off country that was probably made up committing a crime just because he could. Foreign, yet enjoyable.
She manages to eat three full pastries before her eyelids begin to droop and she lets herself doze off to the soft crackling of the fire, limbs warm and tender from the long walk she’s no longer used to, with a blanket tucked up under her chin.
She dreams of Mal again.
Like it’s a shock, really. She only ever dreams of Mal, if she dreams at all.
They’re in their meadow, staring up at the sky, watching actual clouds and clouds of dark smoke go by as they try to pick out shapes. Alina had never been good at this game, seeing rocks where Mal sees rabbits, a house where he sees a dog.
Ana Kuya is calling for them. She doesn’t see this as odd, even if she should. Maybe their old matron had a change of heart, decided perhaps she does care for the two wayward orphans who skip out on chores to stare up at that field of blue.
Alina stands as Ana Kuya’s voice comes again, a little more irritated this time, and turns to Mal to offer him a hand up.
In the second it took her to turn, the meadow turns to a lush field with the grass cropped short, the sun having set around them, casting them in a night’s artificial dark. Her best friend is still on the ground, now seemingly miles away with warped, mangled dogs coming at him from all sides.
She hears him as her heart stutters in her chest, horror freezing her lungs as a chill spills down her spine.
Alina! Kill me, please— please, Alina—!
She knows the routine. Has done it time and time again in her dreams ever since it happened.
Alina!
She automatically raises her arm, javelin poised, hand shaking as it does every single time, and as she is unable to break the cycle, she throws it.
It hits its mark, a solid thud as it lands in the centre of Mal’s chest, and Alina is startled out of her sleep by the blast of cannonfire.
She turns off of the edge of the couch and throws up directly onto the floor, startling the cat out of its slumber.
f*ck.
She forgot this is why she doesn’t eat before going to sleep.
Alina lays there for a moment longer with the world spinning around her, one hand braced on the coffee table. She wonders if she would still have nightmares like this if the tribute she killed hadn’t been Mal.
“f*ck my life.” Alina groans, and lays back so she can dig the heels of her palms into her eyes. “f*ck!”
It echoes in her empty home, almost mocking her as the silence rings in her ears.
With no one to respond, she rises, and goes to get a mop.
Gazing out at the snow steadily falling, lazily flipping through a book titled Hamlet to see if it’s something she would like with the cat curled up and sleeping soundly beside her, Alina toys with the concept of ending her life.
She has before, of course. Regularly. Ever since she heard that cannon go off and was left staring down at her childhood best friend with a javelin sticking out of his chest, leading all the way up to being pushed up against the wall of the president’s foyer in full view of anyone who cared to look. Most of the methods Alina thinks about she throws out immediately, her thoughts steeped in shame and the stark awareness that no matter what she does, it will be Botkin that finds her.
He’s been too kind to her already. He doesn’t deserve that.
Then again, he also doesn’t deserve her lying to him.
She could always wander out into the woods Mal used to hunt in. Survive off of the land or wait until it swallows her whole. It’s a comforting thought, the idea of giving back to the forest after taking Mal from it. Maybe she’ll get eaten by a pack of feral dogs or wolves. Make it really come full circle.
Stubbornly, she has to admit that she won’t do it. Despite everything, Alina doesn’t have it in her to follow through.
What Alina can do, however, is consider the options she has for her future that don’t involve premature death.
In eight months, when all this snow has melted and the summer sun is brutally beating on the cracked dirt roads of District 12 yet again, it will be her job to lead two children from her District to the slaughterhouse of the Capitol.
Is this it? Lining up kids to be killed for the rest of her life?
She wonders if anyone’s ever stepped outside of the norm. She wonders hard enough, in fact, that it carries her across the road to Botkin’s to ask him that very question.
She quickly finds herself seated in his living room, watching steam swirl up from her cup of tea, words stuck under her tongue until pleasantries are exchanged.
“Am I allowed to leave 12?”
Alina perhaps did not wait long enough after said pleasantries if Botkin’s frown is anything to go off of. It’s that frown that sits on his face like it’s meant to be there, but just a little deepened to show it’s new and handcrafted just for her. His eyebrows sink into their familiar position, and he takes a long sip of his tea to avoid answering.
“You are,” he finally says, “as long as you stay within the bounds of the Districts themselves. And you would need to order a seat on the coal train, so you’d likely have to go through the transport minister in the Capitol to get a passenger car hooked up,” Botkin thinks on it for a moment, and shrugs. “You could try asking Ivanov.”
Of course, the mayor. Alina doesn’t know why she didn’t think of it.
Botkin watches her as she thinks on it.
“Why do you ask?” he says. Of course he’s suspicious.
“Just curious.”
“Alina.”
He doesn’t do this. They don’t do this.
“It’s nothing,” she says easily. “Just want a change in scenery.”
“Then go for a walk,” Botkin tells her. “Go down to the Seam and back. The Capitol is not what you think it is.”
A small, disbelieving laugh bubbles in her throat. “You’re talking to me as if I’m a child with no concept of the world around me.”
“You’re right, I am,” and his voice is somehow level, even when hers shakes, “because you are, Alina. One day you’ll look back to this exact moment and realize that you are a child, and that all the world wants to do is eat you whole while you’re too stubborn to look up at its jaws. The Capitol will not be kinder to you than District 12, and I assure you that whatever President Morozova has promised you, it’s not worth it.”
She stands, and heads towards the front door to get her coat.
“Thank you for the tea, I’ll see you later.”
“Alina—”
She slams the door shut behind her.
The next day, one that’s sunny and so cold it burns her cheeks, she walks to the mayor’s house.
It’s weird, seeing it there. Sure, it’s a few blocks down from her home now, but while growing up in the Seam, the mayor seemed like some disgusting, far-off leech. He showed up once a year during butter week, looked vaguely uncomfortable being surrounded by so many children while his wife pinched cheeks adoringly, then was out within the hour. Of course, for that whole hour, the orphans had to spend the entire week scrubbing baseboards, washing walls, and dusting anything with a flat enough surface to collect said dust. They spend the whole week cleaning whatever clothes have the least amount of holes so hard their skin cracks. Then the bastard leaves.
And now he lives up the street, now he knows her by name, and now he will get her to the Capitol.
What a year it’s been.
No one talks to her on the street despite her passing at least a dozen people out for walks, which hasn’t changed since before she was a victor. The only thing that has changed is now she doesn’t have holes in her boots and no one shoos her away from the mayor’s house.
“Is he home?” Alina asks one of the two Peacekeepers at the gate. “The mayor?”
She had barely seen him. They need winter outfits that aren’t white.
“He is,” the Peacekeeper says in a very monotonous voice that he clearly thinks is chipper. “Do you have official business with him?”
“I do.”
Technically.
“Go ahead.”
Life is easier as a victor. Infinitely harder, as well. But mostly easier. If any of them have managed to stop having nightmares, they were living their best lives.
Alina rings the doorbell, and waits.
It doesn’t take too long, just long enough for Mayor Ivanov’s wife to get to the door.
“Yes? What is— oh! Alina Starkov, our own victor, what a surprise!”
“Good morning, Mrs. Ivanova. How are you?” Alina greets, victor’s smile firmly in place.
“Oh, quite alright, thank you. Are you here for my Dmitri?”
They’re so in love she just might throw up.
“I am, yes.”
“Well, come inside, he’s just up in his study,” she moves to the side, gesturing for Alina to enter. “What’s in the bag?”
Alina holds it up for them both to see. “I didn’t want to drop by unannounced and empty handed. I got some doughnuts from the Stepanov’s bakery.”
Mrs. Ivanov grins and kisses Alina’s cheek. “You’re too kind, Alina, far kinder than any of Dima’s other friends. Please, come on in.”
Their house is, understandably, quite large. The foyer is home to a gorgeous dark wood staircase, and the faint smell of dinner wafts from the kitchen just up the hall.
“Misha!” Mrs. Ivanova calls into the house. “Get your father, will you?”
A boy comes running out of the living room then skids to a halt.
“Alina?”
Of course, it’s that Misha.
“Good morning, Misha,” Alina greets.
His hair’s grown out. No longer is he another one of the Keramzin’s orphanage flock, with all of the younger boys that idolized Mal sporting the same close-cropped haircut. His hair that now reaches his ears glows amber in the bright light from the snow outside, and he manages a small smile despite the fact he must hate her guts for killing Mal.
“Morning.”
He then quickly takes off up the stairs, likely where Mayor Ivanov’s office is located.
“He’s pretty shy,” Mrs. Ivanova says in a way that makes Alina want to scream I know, I know, he’s like my little brother, I taught him to write, I know— “but you two knew each other, didn’t you?”
Alina nods, offering a small smile. “Yeah, a bit.”
The top stair creeks, the sure sound of someone standing on it. Alina and Mrs. Ivanova look up to see Misha there.
“Papa wants you up in his office.”
Alina hands off the bag of doughnuts to Mrs. Ivanova, then does as she’s told.
The mayor’s house looks very similar to those in the Victor’s Square. Two floors, foyer, living and dining room right off of that, kitchen down the hall next to the stairs. So when Alina climbs up those stairs, she feels like she’s in some other world where someone else won the Hunger Games and is living in her house. She passes several black and white photographs of severe looking people posed for portraits as she ascends, and comes across one final one, of the mayor and his wife both looking much younger, at the top of the stairs.
The door to the office at the end of the hall, which Alina knows to be an office because her own house holds a large, wooden desk in that very room, is ajar. She can hear the faint clacking of a typewriter getting louder as she gets closer. A smell she now knows after her time in the Capitol to be tobacco wafts down to her, and then she knocks.
“Come in.”
Mayor Ivanov, an older, lazy yet well-meaning man, sits there smoking. His greying black hair, a sign that he was from the Seam just as Alina’s and Botkin’s families had been, falls onto his forehead to cover his furrowed brows.
He finally looks up at her in the doorway, takes off his glasses, and puts out what Alina is pretty sure is a cigarette on the saucer holding his empty tea cup.
“What can I do for you, Miss Starkov?”
“I—”
“Sit down. This isn’t your matron’s office, you aren’t in trouble.”
Thoroughly scolded, Alina sits down.
“I need a favour from you.”
He runs a hand over his stubble, assessing Alina’s entire being.
“And what would that be?”
“Botkin told me that you would be able to get me onto a train to the Capitol.”
Ivanov laughs, shaking his head. “The Capitol?”
Alina swallows the lump in her throat.
“Yes.”
Mayor Ivanov stares at her for a long moment, then shrugs.
“The next train doesn’t leave until Monday morning, but…” he sighs, long and deep, a man with too much on his mind. “There’s a Peacekeeper shift change. Got some new trainees coming in, some guys who earned a vacation going out. They might have an extra bed.”
What the hell is a vacation?
“That’s all I need,” Alina says. “You know us Seam kids, we don’t need much.”
He laughs, and slowly nods his agreement.
“Alright, I’ll let their captain know. There shouldn’t be an issue, you know how it is by now,” he drinks deeply from a glass that is likely filled with something not meant to be consumed prior to ten in the morning. “Victors get special privileges. Who am I to deny you?”
Really? It’s that easy?
“That’s it?” Alina asks. “I don’t need to do anything?”
“Miss Starkov, if I denied the request of one of our District’s two victors, Morozova would put my head on a pike. Yes, that’s it,” he lifts up his tea cup, and frowns when he notices it’s empty. “If that will be all, could you tell my wife to come up here on your way out?”
“Certainly, Mayor Ivanov,” Alina says, rising. “Thank you for your time.”
“Based on what I’ve heard from the Peacekeepers, thank you, Miss Starkov, for being the least difficult victor in the history of the Hunger Games.”
Alina only nods, then goes downstairs to do as she’s told.
The difference between what she knows to be the usual victor’s car and the car the Peacekeepers ride in is night and day.
The beds, because that’s all the car really consists of, are up around her head, with another bed under each that can be used as a bench during the day if the person who sleeps there is so inclined to put their bedding away. It’s all just pods of four beds with little tables between them, two top bunks and two bottom bunks separated by a thin barrier, then another set of four. It’s simple, providing nothing more than its basic function.
Alina really doesn’t mind it.
She has the bottom bunk at one end of the car flush against the wall, and someone has taken the top bunk in her grouping of four, but Mayor Ivanov had been right—the car isn’t full. It brings Alina some kind of comfort that her presence doesn’t negatively impact anyone at all. The person she shares with goes all the way to the other end during the day and plays cards with his friends, leaving Alina to sit next to the window with a book and watch mile after mile pass by.
They stop in the two Districts that are on their route and offload some coal while some of the Peacekeepers get off and head to a market. The one that sleeps in her pod buys something called a baguette when they pass through District 9 and shares it with her, both halves split open and generously covered with golden butter.
She learns when they’re hours outside of the Capitol that the person’s name is Harshaw, and that he’s from District 3. He got to hop out and see his parents during their hour to offload, and if Alina had bothered to look, his father ran alongside the train until it got too fast, waving goodbye to his only son.
“He’s a bit of a sap, my old man,” Harshaw tells her, affection dripping off his words. “But that’s love, isn’t it? In a few years I’ll have enough seniority to pick my assignment for myself, then I’ll be seein’ him everyday. He’ll be trying to push me back on a train before I know it.”
Alina thinks that a year ago she would’ve been jealous. Actually, she knows she would’ve been. She watched the Reapings every year when some kid who, to a six year old, looked like an adult got pushed onto a train while their mother cried, or older kids from her orphanage who at least had friends to mourn for them. Alina had hoped when she was Reaped that that’s when her mother would finally show up again, pushing out from the crowd to give her a kiss goodbye and beg for her forgiveness.
Alina would’ve given it.
But she isn’t jealous, has no right to be, actually, when the only person she had who would miss her is the one she killed.
“That’s parents for you,” Alina says instead, like she knows. “They love you to the point of needing time away.”
Harshaw laughs, something loud and carefree that makes her smile just that bit, and he tips his glass of tea to her with a grip so loose on the metal holder that he nearly spills it. “And we love them for it.”
Alina smiles at him, and distracts herself by picking up her book to find her place.
“Yeah, we do.”
The Capitol looks different the third time Alina sees it on the horizon. The towers are a little less perfect, the gleam on the glass a little less otherworldly. Now that she knows the people who live there are just like the people back home in personality, it’s a little less daunting to approach.
“So,” Harshaw says as they pack up their belongings. They both barely have a bag to fill. “Any big plans while you’re in the city?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Alina plays at being friendly, like she doesn’t have one reason and one reason only for being in the Capitol. “Wander around. Dye my hair pink.”
“So what everyone else does.”
“Basically, yeah.”
“Cool.”
They don’t talk again until the train pulls into the station.
Alina’s never come this way before, to the industrial district. Come to think of it, she has no idea where the industrial district even is, or where it is in relation to—
“Hey, so, where are you headed?” Harshaw asks, coming up to where she is standing and probably looking very stupid in the centre of the platform, watching workers mill around her.
“I need to visit the president,” Alina says honestly, hoping he’ll be the only one not to judge. “I’m in the area, it would be rude not to.”
Harshaw nods along with her. “Makes sense, victor business, I get it.” Pauses. “Well, I don’t get it, but I get it.”
Alina laughs. “Right.”
“Anyways,” he says, blush creeping up his very pale ears and clashing horribly with the red of his hair. “Do you need a ride?”
“Harshaw, I would love one.”
Alina spends a half hour packed in the back of a van with her bag in her lap, no seatbelts as that would mean being able to hold less people, pressed shoulder to shoulder between Harshaw and a large, muscular blond who speaks entirely in grunts. It’s freezing cold, Harshaw tells her the heat is busted and has been busted for years. Alina is really starting to think that this heating the Capitol talks so much about is a myth.
They slam to a stop after a particularly rough corner, and a yell comes from the driver of Harshaw, it’s your friend’s stop!
“President’s tower, in one piece, as promised.”
“Thank you so much,” Alina says honestly, accepting a very firm hug from the man. “Hopefully I’ll see you around again.”
Harshaw shrugs. “I like 12. If I volunteer to go there on the next assignment, they’ll throw me onto the train before I can change my mind.”
“When’s the next shift?”
“March.”
“Cool.” Alina says, nodding. “See you in March, then.”
“Harshaw, tell your friend to move her ass!”
It’s nice to not be treated like a victor for once.
When Alina gets out of the van, she has no idea where she is.
She’s on a narrow street with all sorts of mess she isn’t used to seeing in the Capitol. Some large, green metal boxes are lined up against the side of the tower in front of her, all smelling of rotting food and waste. She never thought the Capitol would smell.
Alina approaches what seems to be a door, and tries the handle. Much to her surprise, it’s unlocked.
So, she pulls it, and immediately her senses are overwhelmed. There’s the clash of metal on metal, sizzling of something being burned or fried, and a cacophony of much more pleasant scents than whatever there was outside.
“Time left on the risotto?”
“Five minutes, chef!”
“Fire those steaks! Dubrov!”
“Yes, chef?”
“See what that girl wants!”
Alina starts when the attention is turned to her, and a man in a white coat wiping sweat off his brow quickly runs up to her.
“We weren’t expecting deliveries today, I’m sorry, the manager isn’t around to sign.”
“I’m not making a delivery,” Alina stutters.
“Then what do you want?”
He sounds impatient. Mad. She never thought herself the type to throw around who she knows, but—
“I’m a guest of President Morozova.”
He pales instantly, and turns around to yell into the kitchen.
“Mikhail! Mikhail! Guest of the president!”
The person Alina assumes is Mikhail drops his pan, spilling half of the, what had they called it, risotto?
“David’s just out in the foyer,” the chef says to Mikhail, “take her to him, then get out of my f*ckin’ kitchen, butterfingers.”
Mikhail gulps, and Alina crosses the room to him to help him get away quicker. “Yes, chef.”
Alina is then led down a narrow corridor past laundry rooms and seemingly endless supply rooms until they pause at a door, which Mikhail pushes open just far enough to get his head through.
“David!” he whisper-yells into the foyer. “David!”
A moment, then another voice.
“Yes?”
“Guest used the back door. Help her out.”
Mikhail then quickly removes his head, then all but pushes Alina out of the door.
“Ah! Miss Starkov!” David says, clearly surprised even if his tone doesn’t show it. “You’re not supposed to be here, I don’t think they’ve made enough food…”
The chatter from the ballroom betrays that she came on the worst possible day.
“I’m not here for the dinner,” Alina says, assuming it even is a dinner. “I’m here for a personal visit, to see the president.”
He’s holding some sort of tablet in his hand, on which he moves things around until he makes some sort of pleased noise.
“Not a problem, he’s given you clearance. You can head on up to the guest floor.”
Of course he has.
“Thank you, David.”
He turns away from her, and goes back to whatever he had been doing before.
Alina thinks he may hate her.
The interior of the elevator looks the same as she remembers, and honestly she would be concerned if it didn’t. It’s nice to see the Capitol just after sunset, the sky still barely blue as the sun runs and hides behind the looming mountains. She wasn’t given time to appreciate it during her last visit when the solitude of the elevator was used by Morozova to see just how close he could get to f*cking her before they arrived at their floor, so she appreciates it while she has the chance.
The Capitol sinks beneath her as the elevator zips up to the twenty-fifth floor, chiming happily that she’s arrived at the one place that, at least a few months ago, she had been hoping to never see again.
Morozova’s apartment, just like the Capitol, is much more beautiful now that Alina can actually pay attention to it.
The plain white walls aren’t as plain as she remembers, as now she passes by painting after painting, some just of nature, some of people in very odd clothing, one that has her squinting at a figure tied to the mast of a ship and, oh, she knows that story. Alina wonders if all of the paintings are of people she could know the identity of one day.
Someone dressed in all white, which is odd as she remembers Morozova’s staff having been dressed in black before, stops her as she wanders around another corner.
“Are you lost?”
Alina starts, her limbs all locking up as she freezes in surprise.
“Uh, yeah. Sorry. I’m looking for President Morozova’s, uhm, bedroom?”
Alina is given a look half of judgement and half of damn, really? You snagged him?
“Follow me.”
Halfway there the hallway starts to feel familiar, a table that Alina remembers being eaten out against, a wall that Morozova shoved her into face first and took his, and only his, pleasure from her, and of course where they had eaten breakfast with Ivan and Fedyor that first morning.
“It’s right here,” the maid or cleaner or general staff person says once they stop, gesturing to those familiar dark wooden double doors.
Alina thanks her, then lets herself in.
The first thing she does is immediately head for the bathroom.
There were no, and she truly means zero, showers on the train here. She hasn’t washed in three days, and she feels like it. It would be different, perhaps, if she wasn’t stuck in a stuffy car with several other people the whole way, but it really doesn’t matter now.
Alina strips with all of the speed of someone who had maybe ten seconds of privacy to change before one of the other children at the orphanage came around the corner, tossing all of her clothes into a pile in the corner of the room. She can ask where to put them when Morozova shows up.
A shiver runs down her spine at the thought of seeing him again.
As she steps into the large space divided from the rest of the room with a pane of glass and turns on the hot water to just below boiling, she shakes her head at herself for how ridiculous she’s being. Now is really not the time to be second guessing whether or not she wants to see Morozova again. It was her that needed a change of scenery, her that got a bed on a train just so she could come here, and her that is literally naked in Morozova’s bathroom. Maybe he’s picked up some new conventionally attractive girl that doesn’t have as much trauma, and she’s stepping on their toes. Morozova will really be in for a shock, then.
She laughs to herself. She knows he hasn’t.
With that, Alina steps under the water, and lets all of it wash away.
Lacking anything of her own to clean herself with, Alina uses a big handful of Morozova’s shampoo, and when she washes that out she stares in confusion at something called conditioner before trying that as well. A bar of soap is something she is much more familiar with, but skips washing her face with it as she had spotted a bottle labelled face wash. A wary sniff of all of the products before she used them finally gives Alina the source of that woodsy smell Morozova carries around with him, something that’s particularly masculine in a way that, mixed with a faint spice, feels all warm and heady.
And now she smells just like him.
After what is probably far too long, Alina shuts the water off, and then is really out of her comfort zone. At least the last time she had showered it had been with Morozova, so she didn’t have to shuffle inside every single drawer in the search of a comb or brush. She eventually just settles for combing her hair out with her fingers while silently thanking the universe that she at least found a spare (hopefully) unused toothbrush.
A while later, Alina is sprawled out in the middle of Morozova’s bed, her damp hair braided, and dressed for sleep in one of Morozova’s—what had he called it, a sweatshirt? —and a pair of very loose-fitting boxers.
Once again, she can’t stop thinking about why she’s even here. Perhaps it’s for the familiarity of it? The fact that although she’s become a liar and a snob for expensive pastries, she’s still the same girl Morozova, and only Morozova knows? After all, a person is probably their most base self when they are broken down to nothing but pleasure and the desperation to come. At least, that’s what Alina thinks. Maybe she’s wrong or just overly naive, but she’s pretty sure that at seventeen, she’s allowed to be a little unsure about the world.
As her eyelids begin to close, Alina relishes in the fact Morozova’s bed is just as soft as she remembers, though his blankets are nice and thick for winter rather than the thinner ones he had used during the fall. Alina burrows herself under the covers after reaching over to turn off the bedside lamp that must’ve been left on for his eventual return, and lets the exhaustion of travel drag her under.
Alina wakes up to a gentle rocking, her brain warm and fuzzy and slow to start, like the engines of the old trucks they have in District 12. It turns and turns and turns and starts up with an unwilling groan, the same kind Alina gives now, pushing herself towards the warmth at her back. The feeling almost makes her think she’s back on the train, but instead of the wheels on the tracks she hears—
“That’s it,” a honeyed voice says next to her ear. “Stay like that, darling. Just like that, I’m almost done.”
So she does, she lets herself be soothed back into that warm space between sleeping and waking, because it feels so good. The voice behind her keeps talking, but she barely hears it. Whoever’s speaking doesn’t even register to her.
“My own little pet bed warmer,” the voice coos, the soft sound of his words clashing with the near-painful grip on her thigh. “Waiting right here for your master to come back.”
Alina presses her face into the pillows, muffling a moan as pleasure sparks in her gut.
“Shh, it’s alright, just take it. Let it happen, darling. It’s what you need, isn’t it?”
She doesn’t know, but he must. It would make the most sense. She nods with little understanding, and squirms when whatever is pushing inside of her twitches, filling her with more warmth, making her even sleepier. The person at her back tips his forehead into her hair, quieting an already nearly silent groan.
“Thank you, darling,” he tells her, then presses a kiss to the back of her head. Alina panics for a moment that the warmth will leave her, but it doesn’t. She sinks right into it, then falls back asleep.
The next time Alina wakes it’s already morning and there’s no one at her back. She stretches with a whine, and the feeling of bare skin against the sheets below her proving last night to have not been a dream. She twists around, coming face to face—well, face to hip—with President Morozova himself.
He’s sitting up in bed next to her with a book in his hand, shirtless and slightly ruffled, clearly having had a good night’s sleep.
“I was about to request breakfast,” he says, and Alina’s heart gives a little lurch at the sound of his voice after not hearing it since October. “Did you want to eat here, or in the kitchen?”
Alina stretches again, and props herself up against the pillows. “Here.”
“Alright, darling, I’ll be a moment.”
She dozes in the few seconds he’s gone, only waking back up when he sits back down beside her and pulls her up onto his lap.
“Would you like to tell me what you’re doing in my bed and not in your District?”
Alina turns to rest her head on his shoulder, breathing in that Morozova smell. The same smell that now clings to her hair and skin.
“I needed a change of scenery.”
He chuckles. “Is the victor’s allowance not high enough for you?”
“I think you overestimate how much there is to do in 12.”
Morozova hums, pressing kisses along her shoulder and neck.
“I suppose that’s why your District has one of the higher numbers of citizens aged eighteen and younger.”
Alina nearly starts at the casual way he reminds her that he knows just about everything there is to know about her home District.
“I suppose so,” Alina agrees.
Morozova’s hand comes up to her throat, working to both hold her against him and simply play with her collar. “You’re still wearing it,” he says.
“Mhm, you made it difficult to remove.”
“You could have. If you wanted to.”
She almost tells him that she had tried, but with no success. Instead, Alina just shakes her head and offers more of her throat to Morozova. He takes the offering, biting at the skin there, not caring about whether or not he leaves marks now that the other victors aren’t around.
He palms one of her breasts over her—his—shirt. “How long are you staying?”
“How long will you have me?”
Morozova hums, perhaps genuinely thinking on it, perhaps pretending to, and bites a bruise high on her throat just under her jaw.
“I’d chain you to my bed if I could.”
Alina huffs out a laugh, not really thinking he’s joking but maybe just to try and make it seem less serious.
“No, really, I need to be able to figure out—”
“I think you would actually enjoy that, wouldn’t you?” Morozova asks, cutting her off even though he likely doesn’t want an answer. “District 12’s newest little victor reduced to nothing but the president’s own bed warmer.” He tuts, more out of an attempt to shame her than actual disappointment. “What would the other victors think?”
She doesn’t answer and is thankful that she never bothered to try as with a knock, breakfast is brought in.
They eat in silence, something that is actually very terrible as Alina has found she missed the rumble of Morozova’s voice in his chest at her back quite a lot. She doesn’t want to ask him anything, though. Everything she asks him, no matter the topic, his answer always makes her feel rather small. Like he’s talking to a child.
Well, she supposes he is, according to Botkin, anyways. For as long as she’s young enough to be Reaped, she is a child in the eyes of the law, as well as the majority of the people in District 12.
But certainly not in the eyes of Morozova.
To prove her point, once they finish their meal and their dishes are taken away, Morozova turns them both over and f*cks Alina into the mattress, and he actually f*cks her this time, not like he did last night. Clearly he hadn’t meant to wake her up, if the bruising hold he has on her hips now is anything to go off of.
“f*ck,” Morozova hisses. “I missed this c*nt.”
Alina angles her hips up a bit more for him, and he drives into her a little harder to reward—punish? —her for it.
“I’m serious about chaining you to my bed, you know,” he huffs, and Alina moans as she probably, she’s pretty sure, comes. She can never be sure anymore, he completely rewrote the concept of an org*sm for her. “Had one of the bedknobs replaced with a perfect place to latch your leash to.”
“You—ah—you were optimistic.”
“Just investing for the future, darling,” Morozova grabs a handful of her hair and pulls her head back. “I know what I want, and I know how to get it.”
Alina says nothing to that, and instead gives him exactly what he wants by lying nice and still as he comes inside of her.
The next day, Alina wakes up alone.
She had been expecting it, really, but still finds herself surprised.
Turning over in bed makes it obvious that Morozova tried his best not to wake her, the bed perfectly made on just his half, looking as though he hadn’t slept there at all. She knows he did, as she had fallen asleep tangled with him the night before, but still. The only sign of him ever having been there is a note using Morozova’s stationary, written in what Alina knows to be Morozova’s hand.
Alina,
I have several meetings today that I could not move around, and therefore have to forgo any attempt at being a good host. If I remember correctly from your last visit to the Capitol, you are an early riser. Breakfast should be ready for you in the dining room. I am sure you remember which I am speaking of.
After breakfast I have made an appointment for you with Genya. I understand the two of you are close, and if you wish to have some clothes for your stay, I insist on providing you with them. Do not worry about the cost.
I will see you tonight. Stay out of trouble.
A x
There’s no fire in his room for Alina to burn the letter in as she normally does, so instead she tucks it into the waistband of her sleep shorts and goes to find the breakfast Morozova mentioned.
She does know her way to the dining room from last time, that familiar rectangular table that’s nearly small enough to be a square, where Fedyor and Ivan watched Alina grind on Morozova’s thigh while pretending they weren’t even there.
Food is set out for her, as was promised. There’s pastries, meats and cheeses, a few hard-boiled eggs, fresh fruit, and a pot of coffee. That’s the strongest smell in the room by far, so Alina rushes to pour herself a cup of that first in one of Morozova’s excessively fancy cups with the gilded rims. She puts in the appropriate amount of milk and forgoes the sugar, groaning at the taste of it the moment it hits her tongue.
“Of course the coffee here is better,” she mutters to herself, and decides she’ll have to strong arm Morozova into sending her back home with some.
Alina readies a plate for herself, eating more than she would’ve a few months ago when she was actively trying to starve to death. It would be far too painful, anyways. If Alina is going to end her life, she’ll choose something quick.
She still isn’t quite used to eating until she’s full. Part of her always waits for the guilt of other children here need to eat, too to settle in to know when to stop. But being alone in a room that’s silent besides her chewing and that stupid fountain still faithfully bubbling away in the corner means that guilt never comes. So she eats enough. Enough of everything, and another jam-filled croissant for the road.
Acknowledging she’s changed means acknowledging that something’s changed her, or maybe her appetite has just returned. Maybe it had just been there all along, waiting for Alina to finally have enough food to feed it.
After breakfast, showering, and getting dressed in the same pants she wore here and one of Morzova’s button ups under a thick, chunky knit sweater of his, Alina rides the elevator down to the ground floor to find Morozova’s driver waiting for her. He dips his head to her in greeting, and Alina offers a soft good morning as to not come across weird, but mentally kicks herself for it as she’s pretty sure most don’t bother doing so, making her come across even weirder.
They go out onto the street where a black car is waiting for them. The windows are slightly darkened but still clear enough to see through, showing off the sleek, clean interior before the driver opens the door for her.
“I’m, uhm,” she stutters, “going to see Genya Safin?”
The driver dips his head again. “I know, Miss Starkov. President Morozova filled me in on your plans before he left this morning.”
Oh.
“Of course,” Alina smiles weakly, and steps into the car.
It’s during the short, barely ten-minute-long drive over to see Genya that the differences between the Capitol and District 12 begin to build up in Alina’s mind. None of the people out on the street or in the weird, long cars following along train tracks set into the road look like Harshaw or his friends, or even like her. All of the people look how everyone knows the people in the Capitol to look, wearing all bright colours or sharp, unnatural angles. All the people on the street, that is, as the driver up front looks more like he would belong in a coal mine than in the streets of the Capitol.
She doesn’t know how she didn’t make the connection earlier when dumped unceremoniously in an alley behind Morozova’s building, that the back streets likely don’t ever get seen by those other than those working in them. There’s a divide here, just as there is back home. She wonders if there’s a Seam here, too. If there’s a hidden colony of people who look just like she does, but with their clothes still ragged and their faces still muddy.
She doesn’t want to believe it. Something about the disgusting wealth of the Capitol makes her want to hope that there is at least one place in this country that poverty cannot touch.
“We’re here, Miss Starkov.”
Alina looks over in surprise, finding the driver looking at her through a small, narrow mirror set into the roof of the car.
“Thank you, uhm,” she burrows her hands into the hem of her sweater, “how do I let you know when to come get me?”
“Miss Safin will be in touch with me, not to worry.”
It seems everyone knows how to handle Alina except for Alina.
“Alright, thank you.”
Before he’s able to get up to open the door for her, Alina finds the handle and does it for herself. She doesn’t think she’s quite at the point of needing someone to open doors for her.
It does take her a few tries to close it with enough force to get it to actually stay shut, but that’s another thing.
Now, Alina doesn’t know the Capitol very well, but she does know what a store looks like, and this is about as close to a store back in District 12 as she thinks the Capitol is capable of having.
In glowing, curly red letters above the glass entryway showing the entire interior of the shop is the word Safin. Pride finds its way into Alina’s chest. Genya has her own shop.
She pushes the door open, and a soft bell jingles above her. It seems to travel across the hard, shiny, white stone floors. There’s almost more seating than there is clothes, shoved between racks and in front of mirrors, dresses battling couches for dominance.
“Hello, welcome!” A woman calls from a counter in the middle of the shop. Alina is immediately struck by how beautiful she is. Smooth brown hair with a slight curl, a kind smile, and a red dress that perfectly fits her curves. “Do you have an appointment?”
“I think so? I’m here to see Genya.”
The woman smiles, and starts checking the screen in front of her. “Are you Alina?”
“Yeah, that’s me.”
“In that case, Genya should be ready for you in her office,” the woman points to a door hanging ajar nestled between two racks of coats. “Just walk right in.”
Alina thanks the woman, and makes her way over to the door. She knocks on it, just to make sure she doesn’t startle her friend, and enters when she hears her distracted call of come in.
She’s facing away from the door, sitting at a table with a bolt of burnt orange fabric in front of her.
“You know,” she starts, “most people call ahead if they’re going to be late, but I assume there’s a reason you blocked off my whole morning.”
“You’ll have to accept my apology,” Alina says, biting down a smile when Genya freezes at the sound of her voice. “I wasn’t told what time my appointment was for, only to come in the morning.”
Genya turns around, pulling glasses off of her nose as she does so, looking, for lack of a better word, horrified.
“Alina.”
“Hi, Genya.”
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Alina frowns. She doesn’t sound happy to see her. “President Morozova told me he made me an appointment with you, if now’s not a good time I can come back l—”
“No, no,” she stands, and crosses the room to her. “Here. In the Capitol.”
Ah.
“I wanted a change of scenery.”
“In the Capitol.”
Alina scoffs. “Why does everyone seem so surprised that I wanted to come to the Capitol?”
Genya leans back against the second desk in her room, this one being sturdier, made of near-black wood. She wonders if Morozova knows it comes this dark, his is still visibly brown.
“Alina. It’s good to see you. Truly.” Genya’s face softens, seemingly just now hearing her own tone. “It’s just that most victors avoid this place like the plague.”
What is a “plague”?
“I’m still new to all of this,” Alina says. “You’ll have to give me some time to start hating it.”
Genya laughs, and Alina finally feels warm again.
“Well, if you’re here, you might as well look good,” Genya claps, standing up straight. “I assume you’re here for clothes?”
Alina shrugs. “I’m not sure, Morozova said he would pay for them, but I don’t know if that means that’s why I’m here, so…”
She waves her off. “I’ve been dying to dress you properly since you won your Games. Come on, you’re in good hands.”
Alina had no idea there’s so many options for clothes.
Well, she knew, but just forgot that they could be worn by her.
Genya has a hard time wrapping her head around Alina’s preference for comfort, for poorly fitting clothes made in soft cotton or linen. She manages to get her in some dresses, more of that gauzy fabric that Alina wore last time she was in the Capitol for some nicer ones, two in stiff, brand new linen, and a final one in black—what had Genya called it?—silk, with golden embroidered flowers. Alina doesn’t think she’ll ever wear the last one, but she does agree with Genya that she looks beautiful in it.
In addition to those, she’s given new shirts and pants, two skirts that go down past her knees, as well as socks and undergarments, all in new soft fabrics.
“And those shoes,” Genya had hissed part way through the morning, “good God, your shoes.”
She tries not to take Genya’s comments personally.
By lunch, somewhere around two o’clock, Alina’s ready to go back to sleep. She’s simply not used to this much excitement, and as much as she loves Genya, it’s too much.
After they eat, Alina sprawls out on Genya’s couch in her apartment above her shop, barely able to keep her eyes open as Genya catches her up on more Capitol gossip.
“And it’s not that I don’t want a relationship, it’s only that I…” Genya blushes in the middle of her story, “have my eye on someone.”
Alina hums. “Do I know them?”
“Probably not,” she says far too quickly to be convincing.
“I might!” Alina laughs. “Maybe I’ve heard their name? I’ll have you know I’m a very good listener.”
Genya sighs, shaking her head. “His name is David. He’s one of President Morozova’s top inventors for the Hunger Games.”
“Oh, I met him!” Alina says, sitting up. “But, to be honest, I thought he was Morozova’s assistant, he was walking around with one of those, what are they, tablets?”
“Yes, well,” Genya blushes again, “he doesn’t really like being around people, and his mind is pretty much only on his inventions.”
The implied he doesn’t even notice when I’m around hangs between them, and Alina reaches to the other end of the couch to take Genya’s hand in hers. “If he doesn't see you, he’s an idiot.”
“He’s actually incredibly smart—”
“Fine, an incredibly smart idiot. If he bothered to notice you he would know what he’s missing.”
Genya shakes her head again. “I’m at peace with the fact he’ll never notice me.”
Alina shrugs. “You never know. Sometimes the most unlikely people pay attention to us.”
Her friend gets a weird look on her face, something Alina will likely never be able to describe, and all Genya does in response is squeeze Alina’s hand.
Silence settles between them, but not as comfortably as Alina would like. Sometimes silence settles like a blanket, like that game children play where they fluff it up so it makes a little tent for them, just for a moment, until it falls over their giggling forms. But sometimes silence settles like flood water in floorboards. Damp, damaging, rusting. That kind of silence alters.
“I should get you back,” Genya says. “President Morozova is going to think I stole you.”
Alina laughs, not noticing Genya doesn’t, and takes her offered hand up.
Morozova is still in a meeting when the driver takes her to yet another building, leaving her seated in the café downstairs while the driver takes Alina’s many, many bags of clothes back to Morozova’s apartment. She gets a slice of honey cake and something called a cappuccino, sweating nervously at the thought of having to tell Morozova to pay her bill, but the owner took one look at her, recognized her, and refused to let her pay.
“Alina Starkov!” the owner had whispered excitedly to the person making her cappuccino, “in my shop! A victor in my shop! The very thought of it!”
Morozova comes into the shop just as Alina’s finishing her drink, the stress and a few years of age melting away from his face when he sees her.
“Alina,” he greets, holding a hand out for her to stand. “You look lovely.”
She’s in one of the new linen dresses in a soft green, Morozova’s sweater still over top due to the lack of sleeves on the dress, and leggings under it to keep her from freezing in the December air. She looks the same, if not more poorly dressed, than every time she has seen him prior to this, and isn’t entirely sure why her outfit requires a compliment. Still, she thanks him for it.
Morozova leads the two of them to the exit after opening his wallet and leaving some coins on the table, holding the door open for Alina to go through first. As the door shuts behind them, Alina faintly hears the president! In my shop! The very thought of it!
Morozova takes them down the street, just to the end of the block where they turn a corner onto another street.
“Where are we going?” Alina asks.
“Do you know what a zoo is?” he asks in lieu of answering her question. Or perhaps this is him answering. Whatever a zoo is.
“No, should I?”
“No, I don’t see any reason for you to,” Morozova says kindly, taking Alina’s hand in his. “That’s similar to what we’re going to. It’s a place that holds animals for people to look at.”
“Animals,” Alina says skeptically. “Like…deer, and mice?”
“Something like that, darling, yes.”
It seems stupid, but she doesn’t say that out loud. She knows what mice look like.
Morozova gets them in through a side entrance on a short glass-walled building, where white-wearing armoured guards let them in without a second glance. He tells her they’re avoiding the main entrance as people understandably get pretty excited when they see him.
The zoo, as a guide in white, long coat explains to the two of them as he leads them into an elevator and then down a dark hall to a door labelled FELIDAE, is where the Capitol houses all of their experimental breeds used in the Hunger Games, or breeds intended for the Games that never made it out of the lab, that are still useful enough to not be euthanized. That means killed, Morozova whispers in her ear as her eyebrows scrunch in confusion.
The man in the coat leads them through a hall of very, very big cats. They pass lions and jaguars with little fanfare besides naming them, lamely pointing to the most beautiful creature Alina’s ever seen with a halfhearted just your typical Siberian tiger before moving on. There’s an orange one with dark spots that’s the same height as Alina that reminds her of the cat she takes care of back home, except that cat doesn’t have longer canines than seems practical. So maybe not as much like the cat she takes care of back home.
“The sabertooth we had made for the 32nd Games,” the man explains as they all watch it pace back and forth behind glass Alina personally doesn’t think is thick enough. “A successful project, I would say.”
Morozova hums. “Yes, one of Ilya’s more brutal ideas.”
The man chuckles. “He always did have an eye for freaks of nature. We’re keeping that one around just in case, as Ilya had requested in his will. Now if you’ll follow me.”
There’s two other cat-like creatures in the hall, all separated by metres and metres of space so they can’t see one another. One, a smaller cat the size of cat races over across false branches in its enclosure until it’s pressed up against the glass, hissing and spitting at them. Our modified ocelot. Failure. Two kittens at only six weeks of age managed to slaughter the entire team of scientists rearing them. Still, useful for research into what causes such bloodlust. And then a larger cat, patterned similarly to the ocelot but with far longer limbs. Serval. Doing very well, still in active breeding. His eyes wander to Alina. I apologize, Mr. President. The information is too sensitive for the public.
They exit the hall, pushing into another dark passageway, illuminated in blue by something down at the end. The other two push into the hall, but Alina pauses, entranced.
“Ah, Project Charybdis. Far too sensitive for your eyes, Miss Starkov.”
Something dark and unfathomably large passes over the light, and Alina stumbles back in fear against Morozova.
“The next hall, if you please,” Morozova orders, his hand coming around Alina’s waist to pull her closer. She can tell by the way his hand twitched up to her throat that he wishes he had that chain with him for her necklace.
The door they push into is labelled CANIDAE, and when Alina hears the muffled barking and whining, she immediately wishes she was back in the hall with whatever is in that tank.
“Of course, our more crowded hall of the lot. The team has a bias towards this particular family, hence the attempted revival of Project Firebird for the sake of diversity. I fear the viewers might get sick of dogs.”
The only reason Alina’s moving at all is the hand tight on her hip.
They’re led past various wolves and something called a painted dog, pausing much to Alina’s horror in front of a pack of what Alina knows all too well.
Human eyes meet human eyes, blinking dumbly with an inhuman expression, fur colour matching that of human skin.
Alina squints, the dog’s brown eyes looking all too familiar, almost like—
“This should look familiar!” he says cheerfully, startling Alina enough that she pushes back against Morozova. “They’re called hyenas, but we crossbred them with some older breeds of dogs to increase the bite strength. How do you think we did, Miss Starkov?”
She stares in horror at one she’s sure is staring right back. “Very well.”
“I thought so, too!” he grins, leading them along. “The reception from the public was far above what we expected. There will be more hyena crossbreeds in the future, that’s for certain. That noise they make is truly chilling. A laughter just close enough to that of humans to make the folks at home cringe.”
Alina takes Morozova’s hand off of her hip and holds it as hard as she can. Maybe she’ll break one of his bones. Maybe her nails will puncture his skin. Some sort of punishment for dragging her down this hallway.
“Is the botany exhibit open to the public at the moment?” Morozova asks.
“It is,” the man says with a hint of disappointment. Alina doesn’t even want to know how many other freaks of nature they have hiding in this place. “The rejects of all projects are housed in one place; insects, birds, plants. Perfect for those with a, uhm—” he sneaks a glance at Alina, “weaker stomach.”
Morozova gestures the man forward. “Lead the way.”
Maybe not a punishment, then.
It’s not quieter in the large, glass walled room they’re led to, up at the very top of the building. There’s families around, brightly dressed parents with children wearing similar colours running around and pointing things out to one another while the adults focus on flowers and trees.
“They’re from all over the world,” Morozova explains. “From before the war.”
“Cool,” Alina breathes, staring up and up and up at a tree, watching two green and orange birds affectionately groom one another. “So it isn’t just things created for the Games?”
“No, no, not at all. They’re simply here for our entertainment.”
Alina hums, and allows herself to be led around the room as her heartbeat begins to finally settle.
Children run past them screaming in excitement as they chase butterflies, marking things down in a little booklet which must serve as a checklist for their visit.
Morozova points out a woodpecker, one that looks just like they do back home, and more little songbirds to her. He also leads her to flowers in what Alina assumes is every colour to exist. It’s on a little group of pansies that he shows her an insect scuttling its way along a petal.
“These ones,” he says, pointing to a larger than normal yellow ladybug, “we had engineered for your Games.”
Alina leans a bit closer, squinting at it. “I don’t remember seeing any.”
“Yes, well,” his hand finds hers again, “they were supposed to bite, releasing a venom that feels like a terrible burn.”
“It didn’t work?”
Morozova sighs. “Not even close. All it does is release a slightly foul smelling liquid when threatened. We put them all in here and told the public they were discovered around the ruins of District 13.”
Alina giggles. “It’s the thought that counts.”
He gives her a long, long look, before chuckling.
“I suppose it is, isn’t it? Maybe we shouldn’t have exiled that engineer.”
They continue to wander until they reach one of the large walls of glass panels, looking out onto the city around them. Alina gasps as she sees the sunset peeking out over the mountains, the barely there piece of that shining red orb, the sky steeped in a bloody hue that shifts to yellow, then an impossibly deep blue. All the buildings around them’s lights twinkle as the darkness becomes too much to stubbornly bear. It’s life, life in the city Alina always associates with death.
“It's gorgeous,” she murmurs, tears for some reason pricking at her eyes.
A child runs in front of them, calling for their friend to slow down.
“The Capitol isn’t all Hunger Games business, Alina. It’s a home to many, and a beautiful one at that.”
The friend stops abruptly, letting the two of them crash to the ground in a pile of giggles.
Alina laughs, a tinge of disbelief in her voice just from the pure shock of what she’s feeling. “Yeah, I…I see that.”
“Good,” Morozova murmurs. “I hoped you would.”
