Chapter 2
Her mind feels hazy, and she blinks slowly.
It only takes a millisecond to register the horrified gasp from the eighteen-year-old section sticking out from all the other sighs of relief of eighteen-year-old girls.
And she knows who was picked based on the way all the other seventeen-year-olds surrounding Johanna clear a circle around her as if her name being reaped is contagious.
Holy fuck, it’s me.
The only person who doesn’t clear away from Johanna is Daisy. No, she actually steps in closer.
Johanna can’t look at her.
“No, no, no,” Daisy desperately mutters and shakes her head with tears in her eyes. A soft hand tangles tightly in the fabric of Johanna’s shirt. As if that action can protect her.
How is she already homesick?
Johanna shouldn’t be so flummoxed; she woke up this morning with a bad gut feeling. And she’s drawn a pretty shit card in life, so she should’ve always expected that she would end up getting reaped at some point.
Her knees buckle, but from the way nobody around her reaches out to help and Daisy’s stuttering shock distracting her, Johanna collapses onto the dirty town square. The last syllables of the name Johanna Mason are still reverberating from the speakers, but all Johanna can hear is the loud ripping of her shoddy stitches on her skirt tearing. Her massive, oversized shirt untucks out of her skirt from Daisy’s grip.
Oh, she fainted.
The next thing Johanna sees besides all the horrified eyes trained on her is the gray fluffy overcast clouds breaking for a moment, and the sun shines down on the town square as if a spotlight is on Johanna.
“Please, no.” Daisy is crouched next to her and grasping onto Johanna, crying and holding onto her.
Yet Johanna barely notices.
For a mere moment, she tries to convince herself this is a dream, but then four Peacekeepers harshly shove Daisy out of the way and roughly yank Johanna up to her feet. And she knows this is her reality.
Her legs still wobble as if they’ve been dead asleep for years.
Johanna is in such astonishment she doesn’t realize how violently tears fall down her face and that she is shivering like a dying leaf.
As if searching out for some comfort, she meets her sister’s big eyes and she sees how her own life has been ended, and with it, a part of Katherine breaks irrevocably.
She will be the one stuck behind after Johanna dies. Destined to no longer have a little sister, and its visibly gutting Katherine. And it’s all on camera – for the whole nation to see.
It's not just insurmountable grief though, it’s mainly terror on Katherine’s face. She isn’t fainting and shaking like Johanna, but she is basically wailing, and her face is bright red from the tears as she shoves her way to the edge of the eighteen-year-old section to stare at her sister being corralled to the stage.
“Johanna!” Katherine cries and desperately reaches out to her, but one of the Peacekeepers hauling her knocks her sister’s hand away with a baton.
The loud echo of impact on the back of Katherine’s knuckles drowns out the noise of the toes of her shoes are dragged the dusty pavement.
A part of Johanna immediately feels relief that Katherine survived all her reapings.
If it had to be one of them, she knew it should be herself.
Johanna has always been the bravest sibling, maybe besides Willow. And she tries to repeat this mantra that she is brave and strong, but it lacks any gravity when thousands of people are witnessing her public break down.
The fear has made every muscle in her body stop working and her sense of balance is destroyed. Johanna’s panting cries fill the Town Square. As she shivers and struggles on the stairs, the looming Peacekeepers give her one more urging shove.
And Johanna is a very coordinated person, but apparently the shock has ripped that ability from her. Because in addition to fainting, shaking, and sobbing like a weakling to getting her name called, she ends up falling up the steps. The only thing that keeps her from bashing her nose and teeth in on the stage is her hands jutting out to catch herself. Layers of skin rip off her palms which turn slick with hot blood. There’s also a painful tearing cut on her knee from a nail that sliced her.
Great.
Johanna Mason is the unluckiest person alive.
For all her tough bravado, she’s become a quivering, cowardly, weeping, and bloody little girl.
Truly becoming a lamb to the slaughter.
Oh, how the Careers will salivate at the sobbing and actively bleeding prey on the stage in District 7.
And she’s too fucking useless to walk after her stumble – which was really just her being shoved up steps by several grown men.
Two Peacekeepers snag bruising grips on her elbows and carry her up the stage. Her legs kick helplessly in the air, and she can’t even tell who is screaming and wailing.
Is it Katherine?
Or even worse, is it Johanna?
She thinks if may be both of them.
Please, just shoot her now. Don’t make her go into an arena.
Bianca, ever the efficient escort, clacks her heels all the way up to the stage steps, replacing the Peacekeepers harsh hold on Johanna.
The woman towers over her, especially in her heels and it starts to remind Johanna of how much bigger everyone in this arena is going to be.
Bianca is a bit gentler in urging her to the center of stage, discretely smoothing out the wrinkles in the back of her dingy top from all the manhandling. Johanna shouldn’t be comforted by the action since this woman is just as evil as every other Capitol idiot who is preparing to send a child off to slaughter, but the tiny act of politeness in all this terror helps Johanna take steadier steps.
“Johanna Mason, everyone!” Bianca excitedly hollers into the microphone, slightly winded at aiding in essentially carrying the cowardly girl to the center of the stage.
Johanna can’t bring herself to raise her head when Bianca does the routine call for volunteers. She sobs and her shoulders shake in the silence as nobody comes to save Johanna from this hellish death sentence, not that she was expecting it. “Let’s give a round of applause for our girl tribute this year, Johanna Mason.”
And just like that, her death warrant is signed and sealed with her tears.
Smattered, depressed claps fill the town square as it does every year, but Johanna cannot hear it over her sister cries in the crowd and echoing all throughout Panem.
It’s like something about Katherine being so devastated that jump starts Johanna’s panicked and laggy brain, likely due to her protective nature of all her siblings.
Her mind begins to flash memories behind her eyes in milliseconds, remembering nights when she’d held Katherine crying about the upcoming reapings. Katherine could only ever be calmed down by strategizing how she’d play if the worst thing happened.
Turns out Katherine had been wasting that anxiety all these years, since she just officially aged out.
But each time Katherine needled her about it, Johanna would just say she wants to stay off the radar and underestimated to avoid being targeted until the end of the games. As this is usually the only way to play it to win if you’re not from a Career district.
Anyone who comes out swinging from an outer district is an immediate death sentence.
And so is sobbing on stage.
Snot drips from her nose and over her soaking wet lips as her shoulders shake with sobs like an inconsolable toddler and her eyes locking on Katherine’s make her mind lock back into place.
She needs to remember the games have already begun and everything she’s doing is being observed. And she feels herself filled with imminent doom that she’s already botched her chances by crying at being reaped.
There is now a sadistic target on her back. But the reminder of this only makes Johanna’s terrified devastation grow and more sobs rip out of her lungs that manage to reach the microphone. It makes her pathetic wails echo back at her through expensive speakers.
Her shoulders continue to shake with the hiccups of her sob as Bianca goes over to the boy’s bowl and grabs a name snug at the bottom.
“Birch Sherwood.”
Wait.
Johanna knows that name.
Birch goes to school with her.
It’s a bit odd that two kids from a town as small as Elmwood get reaped in one year, but this wouldn’t be the first time. Her eyes land on the bulky boy angrily shoving out of the eighteen crowd. He even bumps into a sniveling Katherine and a fire alights in Johanna’s gut with her reminder of her bubbling hatred for this boy.
Johanna immediately begins to think about everything she knows about her new adversary.
Birch Sherwood – aka Bitch Shitwood, as Johanna and Daisy like to refer to him – is Daisy’s douchey neighbor. He once caught the girls making out behind Daisy’s house and he catcalled them, and he is one of the main culprits of calling the Mason girls whores at school.
He’s just the biggest ass in school. Birch and his little gaggle of rich meatheads make the habit of bullying poor kids.
Since he’s from the same town as her, he also has the advantage of negligent Peacekeepers not caring about kids breaking manual labor laws. He’s also going to be wicked with an axe.
But unlike the Mason family, the Sherwood’s are filthy rich. Probably the second most wealthy family after the Tobin’s. The source of their wealth juxtaposes their holier than thou snotty exterior. The family gained their wealth from Birch’s father having a prominent role in black market dealings of hallucinogenic mushrooms that grow in certain corners of District 7.
He is well over six-feet-tall and has never skipped a meal in his life.
Birch looms over Johanna on the stage in a way that makes her already petite and underweight frame look even more extreme. His gigantic hand encompasses hers when Bianca makes them shake hands and he barely even acknowledges Johanna or pumps her arm. He just squeezes it painfully and turns to face the crowd. And he doesn’t hide his disgust at the blood from Johanna’s torn palm staining his skin as he wipes it on the edge of his crisp new pants.
Johanna chances a glance at herself on one of the screens again and due to Birch’s size, it makes her look like a toddler. More fear rushes through her so that she can’t stop crying and all this is doing is making the target on her back even larger.
As the Peacekeepers hurry to cart her off into the Justice Building and inside an elevator for her last hour of goodbyes, she thinks on how lucky she is that her social circles never overlapped with Birch so he likely won’t be able to reveal much about Johanna to any other tributes.
Johanna doesn’t really think of the boy. And Birch doesn’t think of anyone but himself. His head is so far up his ass he probably doesn’t know that Johanna won the axe throwing tournament this year.
She tells herself that Birch’s arrogance will be his downfall, that he’ll end up as cannon fodder for the Careers by day three. But the seed of doubt remains. She doesn’t know him. She doesn’t know what he’ll do, how he’ll play the Games.
Take that and multiply it by 23 – that’s petrifying.
A Peacekeeper sequesters her in the largest and fanciest room she has ever been in. The door slams shut behind her and she wobbles over to a royal purple couch and her legs give out, making her collapse into the soft cushions.
Johanna tries calming herself for the few minutes it will take to get her first visitors, she finds that running her hands along the velvet couch is calming. It’s nice to feel so much of such a fancy fabric, she’s never owned something with fabric this soft. She remembers back as kids when she and Daisy went through Daisy’s mom’s nicer clothing, Johanna was always awed, enjoying the beauty of such fashion she could never afford.
The door swings in and Johanna rushes onto her feet, collapsing into her mother’s embrace and allowing herself to sob with her mom for a moment. They grieve Johanna’s impending death together and Johanna tries to memorize the fleeting feeling of her mom’s arms. Johanna feels like such a young child in the way she wishes her mom could pull her into her arms and protect her. The way that every parent in the districts wishes they could protect their children from the vile Hunger Games.
Pulling away, she barely glances at her dad who hovers uncomfortably by the door.
“Mom, you gotta feel how comfy this couch is,” Johanna’s shaky right-hand wipes at her snotty nose and she uses her other hand to usher her mom to sit down next to her.
“Jo,” her mom quietly whispers as her much larger hands encompass Johanna’s tiny ones. “I’m so sorry.”
Johanna can decipher her mom’s coded language: I’m so sorry I cannot protect you from this, I wish I could. But by saying something that blatant, if a Peacekeeper was feeling particularly cranky a sentence like that could warrant an arrest for treason. Parents can’t be outspoken about their children being ripped from their homes by the government to fight to the death for entertainment, that would be questioning the righteous power of the Capitol too much.
Her nose sniffles, as she tries to stop her flow of tears. Johanna doesn’t know what there is to say at her own funeral like this, because even if she plays the games perfectly, there are too many factors out of her control. Johanna cannot conceptualize a reality where she will be alive within a few weeks.
The minutes tick by too quickly, and Johanna grips harder on her mom’s hands, hoping it will slow the clock. From the clock on the wall, it is likely that there can’t be more than five minutes left of this goodbye.
Her mom drops her hands to reach up to her own neck to unclip her necklace and place it ceremoniously in Johanna’s hands, “Will you wear this as your token?”
Johanna looks dumbly at the silver chain necklace that is a family heirloom, the pendant from the chain long having been sold in desperation when food was scarce.
The calloused fingers of her mother unclasp the necklace. Johanna takes comfort and turns to have her mom place it on her neck, allowing it to feel like her mother will be with her in the arena. Johanna’s hand moves back to rest on the chain.
“Are you sure? You only ever wear this on Reaping Day and it’s been in your family for decades, what if they don’t return it with my corpse or if it falls off in the arena?” Johanna questions.
Johanna’s mom winces and shuts her eyes at the bluntness. A shiver and sob minutely rips out of her mother.
“The women in my family splurged on this expensive necklace for the purpose if anyone was ever reaped. My grandmother was the one to initially own this. She gave it down to my mother who handed it down to me when my oldest children were reaping age. Please wear it, for me, it will help me feel like some of our family can be with you, since I can’t.” She pauses and stutters, “Because I can’t be there to protect you.”
Her last words peter out quietly and Johanna blinks and nods dumbly at this new information she had never heard her mother speak of in her entire life. Shoving that information into a tiny box in her brain that she can unpack on the ride to the Capitol, Johanna just nods and drops the chain she is playing with that dangles from her neck to hug her mother tightly.
“You’ve always been such a fighter, Jo,” her mom says seriously once she pulls away from the hug to grip onto her shoulders with a serious expression, “You’re one of the bravest and toughest kids I know. Don’t count yourself out yet.”
Johanna nods.
“I love you,” her mother says before squeezing her tightly one more time and delivering a kiss to the top of her head.
“I love you too,” Johanna parrots, feeling the absence of her mother too soon.
She watches dumbly as her mom gets up and moves for the door to trade spots with her dad, who has remained gruff and silent. Johanna figures there’s only a few minutes of her time left with her parents.
Her father’s heavy boots shuffle on the ground and he comes to a stop in front of the couch, and Johanna jumps to her feet to immediately size him up. He opens his mouth and then shuts it, and Johanna rolls her eyes. His bright blue eyes are bloodshot, likely from his hangover, not due to any grief at the loss of his daughter.
“You know that you’re the reason I’m standing here,” she evenly hisses. “Your addiction has finally sent one of your kids off to the arena to die, I hope you’re happy.”
“My house my rules,” he counters, his voice having that harsh edge it always does when he sobers up from his hangover, right before the pain of the early stages of withdrawal kicks in.
“Yeah, but its mom’s house. You’re an unemployed deadbeat who steals from your wife and kids you beat on so you can get as hammered as possible every day of your pathetic life,” Johanna hisses, suddenly feeling the gravity of her situation and the red-hot anger, her father deserves.
Her hand shoots out and slaps him harshly across the face, and she shoves hard at his chest, making his shaky hungover ass stumble several feet back, only staying upright after knocking stuff off the nearest surface he grips onto. She feels a surge of power at the sight of overpowering the man who has slapped her around more times than she can count, she barely ever gets the chance to fight back, because the few times she had resulted in Johanna having broken bones and her mom’s salary going towards a trip to the nearest healer for the injuries.
“I hope when I die in there, that she finally gets the courage to fucking kill you. And on the unlikely chance I win, I hope you know, we will finally leave you, and you can rot and die in that shack alone.”
The door swings open as her dad unsteadily sizes her up and shoves Johanna. She was expecting it, so she barely stumbles, but the incoming noises of Peacekeepers changes to quicker shuffling.
“You’ll never win,” her dad hisses and slaps her with his meaty fat palm.
Her neck cracks and stars spike through her skull from how hard it makes her head spin.
She blinks rapidly.
But when she can see straight, Johanna feels one blissful moment of appreciation for her oppressors as the white clad Peacekeepers rush to yank her dad’s hands behind his back.
They just fully witnessed him assaulting a Hunger Games Tribute, egregious behavior towards the Capitol’s newest property.
Their eyes lock and Johanna blinks out the tears forming from the pulsing wound on her face, and she smiles cruelly at him the same way he smiles when he is at his most vile and angry moments.
She tastes copper and thinks the corner of her bottom lip is swelling.
“He has receipts for betting slips in his pocket!” Johanna evenly says to the Peacekeepers restraining him. The look on her dad’s face as it drops in horror when one of the other Peacekeepers reaches into his pocket and pulls out the stubs from his pocket.
The look on his face flashes to what she assumes the bloodthirsty Careers will look like when they kill Johanna in the arena. A look of pure murder and hatred.
Her father begins to cause a ruckus, thrashing against his captors who are dragging him out. She chuckles, feeling very litigious today.
It isn’t a crime that will get her dad executed, but she will feel some peace knowing that she probably just got her dad placed in the stocks for the next week. And that he won’t profit from her being reaped like he wants to.
In the chaos of her gigantic dad being dragged out, her mother uses that window to rush forward and hug Johanna one more time. Her mother breathes out her words into Johanna’s hair as she latches her own arms around her mom with such urgency it is as if she if five years old again and never wanting to be separated from the woman.
“I love you, Johanna.”
“Mom, I don’t want to go, please.” Johanna can’t help her childish terror.
Something natural – an animal begging its mother for protection.
But the cruelty of their government goes against this natural order.
Johanna knows begging her mom is cruel to stick on her. It is visibly destroying her mom to be forced to stand by while her daughter is dragged away. Johanna knows her mom can’t help, no matter how bad she wants to. “I’m so scared.”
“I know,” her mom pulls back and holds Johanna’s chin in her hands as tears flood her cheeks. “But I can’t help you now,” the words seem to destroy something in her mother as she says it.
Johanna nods and tries to look to the ground, but her mom keeps her chin up. Her mother’s brown eyes bore into hers. And for a second, Johanna just looks at her mother, picturing that this is what Johanna would’ve ended up looking like if she had the luxury to grow old.
To age.
She never will.
Johanna watches in horror as her mom is dragged away by Peacekeepers, the woman overstaying her welcome in the time it took them to detain her father.
“I love you, mom,” Johanna painfully chokes out as her mom is pulled over the threshold of the door. It kills her watching her mom reach out for her again, trying to hug her child one last time. She can hear her mom yelling her love and other jumbled reassurances, but the door slams between them.
And for a pained ringing moment, Johanna sits alone with the fresh memories of her last conversation and sights of her mother in her life.
It’s like she’s floating outside her body in the musty room. And the air conditioning in the building is about to blow her away, just forced to sit passenger to watching her life end.
Johanna collapses into the couch by the time the door opens again. She barely makes out a flash of red before the barreling form of her nephew crashes into her lap. Johanna numbly wraps her arms around the tiny child’s body.
A kid too young to even truly understand the concept of death, but unfortunately today her nephew is being exposed to the sheer cruelty of the world.
“Aunt Jo, don’t go,” is sobbed into her chest and she thinks she can feel her chest cracking.
Is this how her mother just felt when Johanna begged about not wanting to go either? She feels something in her break as an aunt watching this kid, she loves so much have her ripped away from him.
Johanna chokes out a sob and another hand rests on her upper shoulder.
It’s Willow, looking at her with steady, red eyes. She can tell her sister has done her fair share of crying but is attempting to quell her tears during this goodbye, and she will continue her crying after Johanna leaves. She is trying to spare Johanna by being strong.
And Willow will always be the strongest person she knows, but the way tears still shimmer in her sister’s eyes as a poorly concealed look of pain rests on her face makes Johanna feel all the painful reality of the loss her family is enduring.
“Jack, why don’t we let Aunt Jo hug the rest of us,” Willow evenly offers.
“No!” He petulantly cries and tightens his hold on her, and for several moments Johanna fears how the Peacekeepers are going to pry a five-year-old out of her arms. Will they hurt him if he refuses to let go?
“Jack,” Johanna whispers wetly. The small boy looks up at her with wet eyes, strings of snot are hanging from his nose and dripping into his mouth. Johanna uses the edge of her sleeve to wipe away at his face, “How about I hold you like old times so I can still hug my siblings? Your mom and uncles are going to be sad if they can’t say goodbye. You don’t want that, do you?” Johanna says, seeing three of her siblings standing in the peripheral.
It’s Willow, Conner, and River. Johanna is assuming Katherine will come in next either alone or with a few of her friends.
Jack reluctantly agrees, and Johanna makes him get off her so she can stand before she leans down and holds him on her hip like he’s a toddler. It’s much harder now that he is five, his weight is more to adjust to holding, but Johanna remembers this is the last time she will ever hold her nephew and she thinks she can tough this one out
River hugs her first, then Conner, and then Willow. Johanna doesn’t want to let go of any of them as she silently cries into her siblings’ shirts. Willow doesn’t fully let go of Johanna, keeping her hands on Johanna’s shoulders as she pulls back. Her sister wipes away Johanna’s tears.
“Please take care of Katherine, she’s not going to handle this well,” Johanna says as her sister continues to look at her.
It’s almost comedic timing how right after she says this River hiccups out a sob. Shockingly, he is the one who shows the most emotion right now. This trio in front of her has always been her protectors. It has been clear her entire life the three siblings have had some sort of pact to protect their two youngest siblings. Their devastation is evident as River sobs into his fist, Conner looks at her with his usual stoic expression struggling to remain impassive, and Willow seems to be fighting a war behind her eyes.
And Katherine’s description this morning fits perfectly, it’s like losing a child for Willow. She knows because it is the identical look her mother gave her five minutes ago.
Willow, her brothers. They spent their entire lives protecting Johanna, and it was all for nothing.
““I’m so sorry, Jo. I wish I was, if I was eighteen, I would’ve –“ Willow begins and she breaks up sobbing.
She genuinely means it too.
That is the type of person her sister is, she would’ve selflessly given up her life if either of her younger sisters were picked. But she’s too old for it, so all she can do is watch.
“I wouldn’t have wanted you to,” Johanna earnestly states. “Couldn’t live with that guilt. Or with letting you get all that attention?”
Her weak joke barely pulls a smile at the edge of Conner’s mouth and the twins don’t even register the joke.
Jack tightens his desperate hold around her neck, and he has his face buried in Johanna’s shoulders. She can feel all her ties and reasons for living in all these goodbyes and it gives her some sadistic illusion if she fights hard enough, she may be able to come home. But the chances of that are nigh and not up to her.
Willow wipes her nose and mouth with her sleeve, and sniffles until she can talk.
“Don’t just roll over and take this,” Willow urgently says while gripping onto Johanna’s shoulders. “How many times have you beaten up those two oafs?” Willow quizzes, nodding her head in their brothers’ direction.
“Rude,” River glares at his twin sister.
“About half the time,” Johanna shrugs, feeling the weight of the world in her sister’s desperate grasp on her shoulders. Distantly, she can feel a dribble of Jack’s sobbing snot roll down her collarbone and into her shirt.
Jeez, she should remind her family to rehydrate Jack before they go back home.
“Exactly, and that’s about the biggest a teen can get,” Willow responds. Johanna risks a glance at her brothers, both towering, hulking figures.
“Yeah, but I lost the other half of the time. And very obviously because of brute force and strength,” Johanna rolls her eyes.
“Don’t think about that. Think about how you won those fights whenever you decide to take on people that are much larger than you. You use your head,” Willow instructs, tapping a finger on Johanna’s temple.
“I know we all make fun of how nerdy Katherine is, but don’t forget how smart you are too,” Conner pipes up.
“Exactly, when you use your head, you know how to pick a fight and win. Yeah, you may fight a little dirty, but there are about to be no rules,” Willow continues. “We will make sure to take care of Katherine, but you remember to take care of yourself.”
“Sibling fist fights are very different than hand to hand combat where only one survives,” Johanna grumbles. She feels something uncomfortable shift inside of her at the idea of actually killing someone, “It means kill or be killed.”
“I know, but it doesn’t change the fact that all of us believe in you,” Willow determinedly says and lets go of Johanna’s shoulders.
Conner comes up to her next, and he gives her a one arm hug so he can keep his arm in place to help support the weight of Jack.
“I saw them arresting dad. You did what all of us never could, you’ve already made your family proud,” he says simply.
And while her “dad” isn’t a dad, Conner basically is. He’s only eight years older than her. But he’s always been there for her. She barely sees him now and it’s because he is being there for her. His job pays relatively well, and he does it to save away for a home so all the siblings and their mom could move out one day.
He’s the one who taught her how to use an axe when she was way too young, and he was being a reckless tween. He, unfortunately, gave her a very awkward sex talk when he caught her making out with a boy in the shed. (As if she didn’t know that since Willow had just given birth). He taught her how to drive his rig.
“That means a lot, thanks,” she says with wet eyes.
“I don’t want to hog time, and I haven’t been keeping track, so I’ll be brief. I love you. You’re my favorite youngest sister.”
“That’s such a stupid dad thing to say,” she says it with barely any humor in her tone.
“Yeah, well,” he says with a simple shrug. Conner gives her a proper hug and ruffles Johanna’s hair. He also ruffles Jack’s hair.
As River steps forward to sweep her in a weepy bear hold, she can vaguely hear Conner beginning to murmur urgings for Jack to let go of Johanna.
“Don’t bullshit me like the rest of them,” she pleads.
“I won’t,” River evenly states. “Remember that time we went out in town with you on my shoulders. We’d put on that weird trench coat and pretend to be one adult to see what we could buy?”
Johanna snorts, she’s pretty sure she was seven and he was eleven. Literally everybody could see what it was. It even made Peacekeepers chuckle at their antics.
“Yeah, and then you thought you could just throw me off and I’d land on my feet, but I doubled down and took you down with me?” She chuckles.
They went hope limping with her brother having a mild concussion and both of them covered in scrapes and bruises. Both were grounded, but it made everyone laugh. Even their dad chuckled, before calling them both dumber when together than apart, which was true.
“Yeah, just one of my favorite memories of my life,” Rivers states simply. “Stay stupid, stupid.”
Johanna almost feels her body dying from the pain, “You too. And be a good twin brother, okay?” She doesn’t even say it quietly, as she nods at Willow. Willow seems to still be in her own world of trying not to cry while glaring around the room.
The Peacekeepers return when her arms are about to give out under the weight of holding her nephew who has just been playing with her hair and snuggling into her neck to occasionally cry.
“You’re my favorite, little guy,” she quietly murmurs it into Jack’s ear as he whimpers and tightens his hold on her. “But you have to let me go.”
It takes Conner and Willow to pry Jack out of her arms as he begins screaming. They separate them just before Peacekeepers were about to intervene.
To do what? She’s really glad she didn’t find out.
By the time Johanna returns to the couch in the eerily quiet room she feels as if all her energy has been sucked out of her. Dealing with the goodbyes with her nephew and siblings was so painful, and she knows with Katherine will be even harder.
Katherine comes rushing into the room next. Their shared friends, Mac and Casey, trail behind her. It’s surprising seeing how much Katherine has gathered herself since Johanna last saw her. Each person gives her a brief hug, but her friends sit down on the couch, likely understanding this time is mainly going to be dedicated to her sister.
“You need to make learning first aid a priority,” are the first words out of her sister’s mouth.
“Huh?” Johanna just kind of blurts out.
“You don’t need help in training with weapons, you can climb trees, we’ve foraged our entire lives, you can set decent snares.” Katherine pragmatically announces, “The only thing you’re lacking in knowledge to survive in the arena is first aid.”
“Katherine, what’s the point?” Johanna shrugs.
“Are you actually going to bow out of this without a fight?” Katherine counters, almost sounding offended at how easily Johanna is accepting her fate.
“Did you and Willow rehearse things to say?” Johanna grumbles. “You’re the smart one here, I’m just being realistic. Only one person comes out alive, it’s a low likelihood to be me. You’re the one who loves math here.”
“But you can improve your chances by playing to win,” Katherine counters. “I was doing the math while waiting to see you, you already have several characteristics heavily favored in Hunger Games history.”
“So, this is how you’re gonna cope with it?” Johanna asks dryly, she huffs and crosses her arms. “Just gonna logic your way through it instead of actually acknowledging your younger sister is going to die.”
“No, you aren’t!” Katherine hisses, almost bellowing.
And everything about how Katherine has come storming into this room is absolutely shocking.
But maybe Johanna should just entertain her, the things she has been struggling with for the last hour is coming to terms with how her death being televised is going to irreparably harm her family. She is scared of death, but she knows once she is dead she doesn’t need to worry about anything anymore. Meanwhile her family and friends will be left behind to pick up the pieces.
Johanna can’t conceptualize surviving this, she doesn’t think any tribute going into the games can except for the deluded Careers.
But once the shock wears off, she knows who she is, she is going to fight. It’s only in her nature, and her sister is so damn smart, she may offer very valuable information.
It will also comfort her sister by talking about this.
“You aren’t,” Katherine repeats, spitting out her own denial with a pained smile. “The characteristics you have favored are outdoor survival skills, weapon competence, attraction factor-“
“Okay, okay. Stop the robot mode,” she says referencing a term the siblings use to reign Katherine in when she gets a little too wrapped in all her logic. Johanna squeezes Katherine’s hand and her sister blinks at her a few times. Johanna exhales, and softly prods, “Just don’t be so technical about it, it’s scaring me. What can I do to improve my chances?”
Katherine lets out a relieved sigh and smiles warmly at her and it helps Johanna feel some calm. Her sister spends the next chunk of their moments of their goodbyes stressing the importance of using her size to her advantage by climbing trees other tributes may not be able to follow her up. She also annoyingly quizzes her on several topics about encountering predators that they’ve come to know their entire lives by living so far north in the district.
The room almost even feels light with their usual banter in the group as Mac and Casey chuckle at Johanna reciting the childish mantra about encountering bears at her sister’s insistence.
It makes her think of all the pleasant afternoons sneaking off in the woods as a group. All the afternoons on the lake, the sleepovers, just doing homework together. She remembers the time they all pranked Katherine’s crappy ex-boyfriend. Or about the time that Mac managed to get a betting pool going when Johanna was about to fight with a boy after school. They all split the profits for Johanna’s win, she had enough money to buy some candy and a cheap perfume.
All that stuff is gone forever.
And she knows all those times to come in her group will be tainted. They won’t be able to ignore the Johanna sized hole in the group. Tainting every memory with grief.
“In terms of mentors, you’re going to want Archer,” Katherine babbles. “He’s been mentor to all the other victors.”
“I don’t think I get a choice,” Johanna interrupts, feeling like her brain is about to explode. It makes her ready to fight seeing how confident her sister is on her return home if she plays smartly.
She can feel their time is starting to close, “I appreciate how much thought you’ve put into this Katherine. I love your dorky ass, never change. And do not settle for some job at the mill, don’t let that brain go to waste,” Johanna lectures, cutting her sister off to steer the conversation in the direction of a goodbye since she knows their time left is fleeting. Johanna taps her finger on her sister’s temple mirroring the motion Willow did a mere fifteen minutes ago.
Katherine eyes finally begin to fill with tears, but she doesn’t double down with denial. Instead, she looks at Johanna with their “we aren’t twins, but we are” twin-look where they basically can just read each other’s mind with barely a glance.
They come to an indubitable understanding that Johanna is going to use all her sister’s wisdom to fight. They both need each other to survive. Without Johanna, Katherine would become way too tightly wound. And Johanna would have been a hot-headed irresponsible shit if her sister hadn’t reigned her in their entire lives. Johanna doesn’t want Katherine to survive watching Johanna die in the games. When she thinks about the roles being reversed, she knows she’d lose her reason to go on without her sister.
“I am going to be so mad at you if you die,” Katherine responds sarcastically with a loud wet chuckle as she lets herself cry. Johanna hugs her older sister, clinging onto her. They’ve rarely an affectionate pair, but knowing this may be the last they see of each other, she never wants to let go.
The Peacekeepers fling open the door.
Johanna squeezes her sister tightly, “I know, I’ll try not to. I love you, and I’ll haunt your ass if you end up working in a mill.”
She gives her sister a wane smile as she points a jokingly threatening finger at her. Mac and Casey rush up and both gather Johanna in a hug.
“I’m sorry we didn’t get more time. You guys mean a lot to me. Please look after Katherine,” Johanna whispers out. Both her friends nod and both hurriedly wish her goodbye. And then with a slamming door, she is all alone.
Johanna wipes at her raw reddened cheeks. She chokes on sobs and tries to choke down some water. She thinks she’s cried more in the last hour than she’s ever cried in her entire life.
It is obvious who will be her last visitor.
The first syllable of Daisy’s name begins to form on her lips when the door opens.
Daisy is rushing forward and pulling Johanna into her arms so intensely that the sounds from her mouth die on her lips and a choked, agonizing sob falls out of her mouth. Daisy’s arms strengthen their hold around Johanna’s waist and Johanna’s soaking face quickly dampens the beautiful blue dress Daisy wore to The Reaping. A soothing hand is rubbing between her shoulders and her sobs die down enough that she can try to enjoy her last few minutes with Daisy.
Johanna pulls away with the fear she may become a blubbering mess again if she remains held like this. Daisy’s eyes are bloodshot and devastated, but dry.
A warm part of her mind commits the color of Daisy’s eyes right now to memory. Clear green eyes look so devastated yet so sure of something that has been hanging over them for a year.
Daisy lets go of Johanna’s waist in favor of desperately grabbing both sides of Johanna’s face and hurriedly pushing forward to kiss her square on the mouth.
The familiar rush she feels when pressing her lips against Daisy’s blooms behind her eyes again.
The way Daisy is kissing her brings her back to life, so determined and full of meaning as if she is trying to fit in a lifetime of kisses all into this moment. For the first time since her name was read out at the reaping, she feels somewhat grounded, like she can stand back up and pull herself out of the never-ending grief that consumed her when her life was stolen from her.
If a lifetime of kisses like this are awaiting her, Johanna can understand a reason to fight for her life in the upcoming weeks.
Johanna could keep kissing Daisy for every ticking minute they have left together, but Daisy pulls back too soon. One hand moves to wrap behind the back of Johanna’s neck, gripping it gently yet firmly to keep her in place when Johanna tries to lean back in with lidded eyes. Daisy has a similar hold on Johanna’s jaw in her other hand. She is staring at Johanna again with that determined gaze.
“You come back to me, okay?” Daisy firmly states, desperation tinges every syllable she enunciates. “I love you, and I need you to come back home to me. I’ve been an idiot the last few months. And I’m so sorry, I’ve been hurting you trying to deny it. But I always knew, it will always be you. I want everything with you.”
Hearing the first admission of romantic love makes a warmth surge through her that dulls some of her pain.
This is all Johanna wanted. For months, Johanna wished she had this sure of a love admission by Daisy, and it makes her stomach flutter and a rush of joyful warmth flows through her. But soon her feelings of mutual love and comfort are replaced by regret and grief over a future with Daisy that has been ripped away.
It’s too late.
“I want to, I do. I love you too. It’s just,” Johanna shakes her head and Daisy’s thumb wipes away at the tears on her cheek. “We both know there is no way I’d actually win.”
“No,” Daisy interrupts abruptly. “No. I disagree.”
“You’re just saying that to make me feel better about my death sentence,” Johanna grumbles and wipes at her nose. “Everyone is.”
“Johanna, when have I ever been the type of person to do something like that?” Daisy asks with candor. And Johanna knows, both girls are no bullshit people and straight forward, not wanting to bother using their energy to fake emotions for other people’s sake. The only thing the two girls were ever indirect about was the growing romantic tensions in their relationship. “I really mean it. Like if someone hypothetically asked me out of every person I’ve met, who I would think could win the Hunger Games, my answer would be you.”
Johanna chokes out a laugh and snorts at that. She makes sure to catch those green eyes in a glare before delivering her patented eye roll. The hand on the back of her neck tightens in desperation, and it feels so good, she tries to live in this moment forever.
She wishes she could just die here in Daisy’s arms.
“Johanna, you’re so smart and strong. I know you are clever enough to survive this thing. We both know you’re wicked with throwing an axe. You can fight. And District 7 often has the homecourt advantage for the Arena.” Daisy pulls back to passionately list out these points and uses her fingers to count these points.
It makes her feel a little better, Daisy has never lied to her. If Daisy thinks she can win, maybe there is a chance.
“Yeah, and we have so many victors to show for that,” Johanna sarcastically argues.
“Because District 7 is competent and a threat. Our tributes almost routinely make it to the Final Eight.”
Johanna tries to rack her mind that has been a haze of overpowering emotions. In her lifetime, she has witnessed about three or four times where someone from District 7 came in second place to a Career.
Johanna sighs, trying to let herself feel the support Daisy is giving her. “Even if you’re right, how can I bounce back from the easy target I put on myself by throwing a fit on that stage?”
A beat of silence passes between them as they both ponder on it.
Crying makes you a coward. And Careers relish in torturing cowards.
But if Johanna were to be such a weakling, she could become obsolete.
Not even worth the effort of killing, because something else will easily take her out.
Her eyes widen and Johanna meets Daisy’s gaze, both pairs of eyes alight as they come to the same realization with the same thought they voice in unison.
“Lean into it.”
It’s the tiniest scrap of hope. Her mind starts rushing with the strategy that weaves in her mind.
“You did always say, the underdog strategy is smart,” Daisy says.
“But instead of flying under the radar by being unremarkable, I could make myself seem so pathetically weak and harmless that killing me won’t worth the effort,” Johanna puzzles her grieving thoughts together.
And thinking like this helps take away from the pain of the grief of her future being stolen. Her mind whirs, “Let them pick each other off, and maybe once there is a few people left…” Johanna trails off.
“And if you get an axe,” Daisy whistles lowly after the statement.
A heavy silence passes between them, realization that they are talking about Johanna taking other people’s lives. That is killing. It’s a lot different from wood or painted targets.
But if killing will bring her back home, Johanna thinks she could do it.
Daisy raises Johanna’s head to look at her and their gaze is intense, “And if you get an axe, then you can come home to me, and we can be together.”
It is interesting to see how differently she is already being treated since becoming a Tribute. Enjoying new luxuries like this fancy room, Peacekeepers hauling her dad away from the room for hitting her, and people being honest with her in sharing their last words. The hope behind that statement makes Johanna feel some fight alight within her. Maybe she can play this right and come back home.
“But how would that even work? I’d be in the Victor’s Village,” Johanna counters.
“I’ll finish school, and I can move. We can figure it out, all I need is for you to come home.”
Johanna allows all the vulnerability and fear to show on her face as she gives Daisy an intense, watery look, “Do you promise?”
“Yes,” Daisy answers it so simply that Johanna finally allows herself to feel her love for Daisy in the way she has been wanting to for a year.
It is something worth fighting for.
Johanna kisses Daisy again desperately, holding onto her cheeks. Her tears mix with the intense feelings of love, grief, and comfort they find within this moment together. Johanna vaguely hears the door open way too soon for her liking.
Johanna pulls back, “I love you; I love you; I love you.” She hisses the words out desperately like a mantra.
“I love you, Johanna,” Daisy says and her voice cracks on the last syllable of Johanna’s name. Daisy rushes forward to give one last peck, their last kiss. Daisy’s sweet perfume and delicate touch on Johanna’s unbruised cheek lingers.
“You fight to come home to me, okay?”
The Peacekeepers are now pulling Daisy out when she refuses to move, and Johanna doesn’t tear her eyes away from those beautiful green eyes welling with tears.
Johanna swallows thickly, “I promise!” She calls out and she gives a small nod to Daisy before the door slams shut between them, likely separating them for the rest of Johanna’s short life.
Shortly after Daisy is hauled off, Johanna is surrounded by a group of Peacekeepers directing her out of the Justice Building and towards the train station. Her face is blotchy, and her cheeks are still stained with tears. The blinding flashes of cameras and overlapping chatter overwhelm her with the reality of the fact that she is leaving her home and being sent to death.
The desperate fight to survive has come alight in the last hour in the way every person saying goodbye to her took time to try and impart knowledge or remind Johanna that if she plays smart she may have a chance.
Johanna ruminates as they shove her into a town car, thinking back on the last whirlwind of an hour and a half. Her mind has been whirring since she was reaped, but something stuck into place when Johanna and Daisy both came to the realization of the power Johanna may have by employing a coward strategy.
Everyone will think she’s a sniveling idiot, too weak and terrified to survive the bloodbath, putting Johanna so far off of everybody’s radar she won’t be worth the effort.
The fact that her cowardly, sniveling reaction was genuine will stay with Johanna alone.
As far as her siblings know, the Games began the moment Johanna fainted from her name being pulled. It gives her comfort that Daisy will update them on her strategy, and they may see her pathetic goodbyes as a response of shock or already leaning into the strategy.
But this way they can see her as strong until the end and will maybe find it easier to grieve her.
Johanna doesn’t want her siblings and mom to remember her as that pathetically weak and cowardly creature huddling in on herself center stage.
She ruminates on her size, thinking of how it is both a curse for entering the Hunger Games when so slight and underfed. And thanks to the quick temper all the Mason’s inherited from their father, Johanna can hold her own in a fight.
An hour ago, upon initial impression when Johanna stumbled onto that stage shaking like a leaf and teary-eyed. And just now as she is ushered onto the train, she continues to sob with her beet red cheeks continuing to stay stained with tears.
With all these tears she’s made herself a weakling.
And maybe, just maybe, she can trick everyone.
She knows that despite her being so fucking close to never getting reaped and being seventeen, her competitors will view her in the same way people often view the unfortunate twelve-year-olds. Like a wounded, pathetic baby animal that will stand virtually no chance of surviving and imposes no threat to the Careers, so they’re often entirely overlooked.
And she is going to capitalize on that.
Not a single soul in that arena will know what a threat she is.
Not until it’s too late.