The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (A Hunger Games Novel) (The Hunger Games)

Clemensia gave a bloodcurdling scream, shaking her hand madly to rid it of the vipers. The tiny puncture wounds left by their fangs oozed the neon colors of their skins. Pus dyed bright pink, yellow, and blue dripped down her fingers.

Lab assistants in white jackets materialized. Two pinned Clemensia to the floor while a third injected her with a scary-looking hypodermic needle filled with black fluid. Her lips turned purple and then bloodless before she passed out. The assistants dropped her onto a stretcher and whisked her away.

Coriolanus began to follow them, but Dr. Gaul stopped him with her voice. “Not you, Mr. Snow. You stay here.”

“But I — She —” he stammered. “Will she die?”

“Anyone’s guess,” said Dr. Gaul. She had dipped a hand back into the tank and was lightly trailing her gnarled fingers over her pets. “Clearly, her scent was not on the paper. So, you wrote the proposal alone?”

“I did.” There was no point in lying. Lying had probably killed Clemensia. Obviously, he was dealing with a lunatic who should be handled with extreme care.

“Good. The truth, finally. I’ve no use for liars. What are lies but attempts to conceal some sort of weakness? If I see that side of you again, I’ll cut you off. If Dean Highbottom punishes you for it, I won’t stand in his way. Are we clear?” She wrapped one of the pink snakes around her wrist like a bracelet and seemed to be admiring it.

“Very clear,” said Coriolanus.

“It’s good, your proposal,” she said. “Well thought out and simple to execute. I’m going to recommend my team review it and implement a version of the first stage.”

“All right,” said Coriolanus, afraid to make more than the blandest of responses, surrounded as he was by lethal creatures that did her bidding.

Dr. Gaul laughed. “Oh, go home. Or go see your friend if she’s still there to see. It’s time for my crackers and milk.”

Coriolanus hurried off, bumping into a lizard tank and sending its inhabitants into a frenzy. He made a wrong turn, then another, and found himself in a ghoulish section of the lab where the glass cases housed humans with animal parts grafted to their bodies. Tiny feathered ruffs around their necks; talons, or even tentacles, in place of fingers; and something — perhaps gills? — embedded in their chests. His appearance startled them, and when a few opened their mouths to plead with him, he realized they were Avoxes. Their cries reverberated and he caught a glimpse of small black birds perched above them. The name jabberjay popped into his mind. A brief chapter in his genetics class. The failed experiment, the bird that could repeat human speech, that had been a tool for espionage until the rebels had figured out its abilities and sent it back carrying false information. Now the useless creatures were creating an echo chamber filled with the Avoxes’ pitiful wails.

Finally, a woman in a lab coat and oversized pink bifocals intercepted him, scolded him for disturbing the birds, and escorted him back to the elevator. As he waited, a security camera blinked down at him and he compulsively tried to smooth out the lone, crumpled page of his proposal he’d crushed in his hand. Peacekeepers met him above, returned both his and Clemensia’s book bags, and marched him out of the Citadel.

Coriolanus made it down the street and around the corner before his legs gave way and he dropped onto the curb. The sun hurt his eyes, and he couldn’t seem to catch his breath. He was exhausted, having not slept the night before, but hyper with adrenaline. What had just happened? Was Clemensia dead? He had not begun to come to terms with Arachne’s violent end, and now this. It was like the Hunger Games. Only they weren’t district kids. The Capitol was supposed to protect them. He thought of Sejanus telling Dr. Gaul it was the government’s job to protect everybody, even the people in the districts, but he still wasn’t sure how to square that with the fact that they’d been such recent enemies. But certainly the child of a Snow should be a top priority. He could be dead if Clemensia had written the proposal instead of him. He buried his head in his hands, confused, angry, and most of all afraid. Afraid of Dr. Gaul. Afraid of the Capitol. Afraid of everything. If the people who were supposed to protect you played so fast and loose with your life . . . then how did you survive? Not by trusting them, that was for sure. And if you couldn’t trust them, who could you trust? All bets were off.

Coriolanus knotted up at the memory of the snake fangs sinking into flesh. Poor Clemmie, could she really be dead? And in that nightmarish way. If she was, was it his fault? For not calling her out for lying? It seemed such a minor infraction, but would Dr. Gaul place blame on him for covering for her? If she died, he could be in all kinds of trouble.

He guessed that in an emergency, a person would be taken to the nearby Capitol Hospital, so he found himself running in its direction. Once inside the cool entrance hall, he followed the signs to the emergency room. As soon as the automated door slid open, he could hear Clemensia screaming, just as she had when the snakes bit her. At least she was still alive. He babbled something to the nurse at the counter, and she made enough sense of it to have him take a seat just as a wave of dizziness hit him. He must have looked terrible, because she brought him two packets of nutritional crackers and a glass of sweet, fizzy lemon drink, which he tried to sip and ended up gulping down, longing for a refill. The sugar made him feel a bit better, although not enough to try the crackers, which he pocketed. By the time the attending doctor emerged from the back, he was almost in control of himself. The doctor reassured him. They’d treated the victims of mishaps at the lab before. Since the antidote had been swiftly administered, there was every reason to believe Clemensia would survive, although there might be some neurological damage. She’d be hospitalized until they were sure she was stable. If he checked back in a few days, she might be ready for visitors.

Coriolanus thanked the doctor, handed over her book bag, and agreed when he suggested that the best thing would be to return home. As he retraced his steps to the entrance, he spotted Clemensia’s parents rushing in his direction and managed to conceal himself in a doorway. He didn’t know what the Dovecotes had been told, but he had no interest in talking to them, especially before he’d worked out his story.

The lack of a plausible story, preferably one that absolved him of being an accessory to her condition, made his return to school or even home impossible.

Tigris would not be home until supper at the earliest, and the Grandma’am would be horrified by his situation. Strangely, he found the only person he wanted to talk to was Lucy Gray, who was both clever and unlikely to repeat his words.

His feet carried him to the zoo before he had really considered the difficulties he would encounter there. A pair of impressively armed Peacekeepers were on guard at the main entrance, with several more milling around behind them. At first they waved him away; instructions were to allow no visitors to the zoo. But Coriolanus played the mentor card, and at this point some of them recognized him as the boy who’d tried to save Arachne. His celebrity was enough to convince them to call in a request for an exception. The Peacekeeper spoke to Dr. Gaul directly, and Coriolanus could hear her distinctive cackle shooting out of the phone, even though he stood several yards away. He was allowed in with a Peacekeeper, but only for a short time.

Trash from the fleeing crowd was still strewn along the path to the monkey house. Dozens of rats darted about, gnawing on leftovers, from bits of rotting food to shoes lost in the panic. Although the sun was high, several raccoons foraged, scooping up tidbits in their clever little hands. One chewed on a dead rat, warning the others to give it a wide berth.

“Not the zoo I remember,” said the Peacekeeper. “Nothing but kids in cages and vermin running loose.”

At points along the path, Coriolanus could see small containers of white powder tucked under boulders or against walls. He remembered the poison used by the Capitol during the siege — a time with little food but plenty of rats. Humans, particularly dead ones, had become their daily fare. During the worst of it, of course, humans had eaten humans as well. There was no point in feeling superior to the rats.

“Is that rat poison?” he asked the Peacekeeper.

“Yeah, some new stuff they’re trying out today. But the rats are so smart, they won’t go near it.” He shrugged. “It’s what they gave us to work with.”

Inside the cage, the tributes, shackled again, pressed against the back wall or positioned themselves behind the rock formations, as if trying to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible.

“You have to keep your distance,” said the Peacekeeper. “Your girl isn’t likely a threat, but who knows? Another might attack you. You have to stay back where they can’t touch you.”

Coriolanus nodded and went to his usual rock but remained standing behind it. He didn’t feel threatened by the tributes — they were the least of his problems — but he didn’t want to give Dean Highbottom any other excuse to punish him.

At first he couldn’t locate Lucy Gray. Then he made eye contact with Jessup, who sat propped against the back wall, holding what appeared to be the Snows’ handkerchief to his neck. Jessup gave something beside him a shake, and Lucy Gray sat straight up with a start.

For a moment she seemed disoriented. When she spotted Coriolanus, she wiped the sleep from her eyes and combed her loose hair back with her fingers. She lost her balance as she rose, and reached out to catch herself on Jessup’s arm. Still unsteady, she began to make her way across the cage to him, dragging the chains with her. Was it the heat? The trauma of the killing? Hunger? Since the Capitol wasn’t feeding the tributes, she’d had nothing since Arachne’s murder, when she’d vomited up the precious food from the crowd, and probably his bread pudding and the apple from the morning as well. So she’d gone almost five days on a meat loaf sandwich and a plum. He was going to have to find a way to get her more to eat, even if it was cabbage soup.

When she’d crossed the waterless moat, he held up a cautionary hand. “I’m sorry, we can’t get close.”

Lucy Gray stopped a few feet from the bars. “Surprised you got in at all.” Her throat, her skin, her hair — everything seemed parched in the hot afternoon sun. A bad bruise on her arm had not been there the previous night. Who had hit her? Another tribute, or a guard?

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said.

She shrugged. “It’s nothing. Jessup and I take turns sleeping. Capitol rats have a taste for people.”

“The rats are trying to eat you?” Coriolanus asked, revolted at the thought.

“Well, something bit Jessup’s neck the first night we were here. Too dark to see what, but he mentioned fur. And last night, something crawled over my leg.” She indicated a container of white powder by the bars. “That stuff doesn’t do a lick of good.”

Coriolanus had a terrible image of her lying dead under a swarm of rats. It wiped away the last few shreds of resistance he had, and despair engulfed him. For her. For himself. For the both of them. “Oh, Lucy Gray, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry about all of this.”

“It’s not your fault,” she said.

“You must hate me. You should. I would hate me,” he said.

“I don’t hate you. The Hunger Games weren’t your idea,” she replied.

“But I’m participating in them. I’m helping them happen!” His head dropped in shame. “I should be like Sejanus and at least try to quit.”

“No, don’t! Please don’t. Don’t leave me to go through this alone!” She took a step toward him and almost fainted. Her hands caught the bars, and she slid down to the ground.

Ignoring the guard’s warning, he impulsively stepped over the rock and crouched down across the bars from her. “Are you all right?” She nodded, but she didn’t look all right. He’d wanted to tell her about the scare with the snakes and Clemensia’s brush with death. He’d hoped to ask her advice, but it all paled in comparison to her situation. He remembered the crackers the nurse had given him and fumbled for the crumpled packets in his pocket. “I brought you these. They’re not big, but they’re very nutritious.”

That sounded stupid. How could their nutritional value matter to her? He realized he was just parroting what his teachers had said during the war, when one of the incentives for going to school had been the free snack provided by the government. The scratchy, tasteless things washed down with water were all some of the kids had to eat for the day. He remembered their little clawlike hands tearing into the wrapping and the desperate crunching that followed.

Lucy Gray immediately ripped open a packet and stuffed one of the two crackers into her mouth, chewing and swallowing the dry thing with difficulty. She pressed a hand against her stomach, sighed, and ate the second more slowly. The food seemed to focus her, and her voice sounded calmer.

“Thanks,” she said. “That’s better.”

“Eat the others,” he urged, nodding to the second packet.

She shook her head. “No. I’ll save these for Jessup. He’s my ally now.”

“Your ally?” Coriolanus was perplexed. How could one have an ally in the Games?

“Uh-huh. The tributes from District Twelve are going down together,” said Lucy Gray. “He’s not the brightest star in the Dipper, but he’s strong as an ox.”

Two crackers seemed a small price to pay for Jessup’s protection. “I’ll get you more to eat as soon as I can. And it looks like people are going to be allowed to send food into the arena. It’s official now.”

“That’d be good. More food would be good.” She leaned her head forward and rested it on the bars. “Then, like you said, it might make sense to sing. Make people want to help me.”

“At the interview,” he suggested. “You could sing the valley song again.”

“Maybe.” Her brow furrowed in thought. “They showing this in all Panem, or just the Capitol?”

“All Panem, I think,” he answered. “But you won’t get anything from the districts.”

“Not expecting to. Not the point,” she said. “Maybe I will sing, though. Be better with a guitar or something.”

“I can try to find you one.” Not that the Snows had any instruments. Except for the Grandma’am’s daily anthem and his mother’s long-ago bedtime songs, there’d been little music in his life until Lucy Gray appeared. He rarely listened to the Capitol radio broadcast, which mostly played marches and propaganda songs. Those all sounded the same to him.

“Hey!” The Peacekeeper waved at him from the path. “That’s too close! Time’s up anyway.”

Coriolanus rose. “I better go if I want them to let me in again.”

“Sure. Sure. And thanks. For the crackers and all,” said Lucy Gray, grasping the bars to struggle to her feet.

He reached through the bars to help her up. “It’s nothing.”

“Not to you maybe,” she said. “But it’s meant the world having someone show up like I mattered.”

“You do matter,” he said.

“Well, there’s a lot of evidence to the contrary.” She rattled her chains and gave them a tug. And then, as if remembering something, she looked up at the sky.

“You matter to me,” he insisted. The Capitol may not value her, but he did. Hadn’t he just poured his heart out to her?

“Time to go, Mr. Snow!” the Peacekeeper called.

“You matter to me, Lucy Gray,” he repeated. His words drew her eyes back to him, but she still seemed distant.

“Look, kid, don’t make me report you,” said the Peacekeeper.

“I’ve got to go.” Coriolanus started to leave.

“Hey!” she said with a certain urgency. He turned back. “Hey, I want you to know I don’t really believe you’re here for grades or glory. You’re a rare bird, Coriolanus.”

“You, too,” he said.

She dipped her head in agreement and headed back to Jessup, her chains leaving a trail in the dirty straw and rat droppings. When she reached her partner, she lay down and curled up in a ball, as if exhausted by the brief encounter.

Twice he tripped on his way out of the zoo, and he recognized that he was too tired to come up with any good solutions to anything. It was late enough now that his arrival at home wouldn’t seem suspicious, so he headed back to the apartment. He had the misfortune to bump into his classmate Persephone Price, the daughter of the infamous Nero Price, who’d once cannibalized the maid. They ended up walking together, since they were neighbors. She’d been assigned to mentor Mizzen, a sturdy thirteen-year-old boy from District 4, and so had been present when he and Clemensia had been called from class. He dreaded any discussion of the proposal, but she was still too distraught over Arachne’s death to talk about anything else. Usually, he avoided Persephone altogether, because he could never help wondering if she had known the ingredients of her wartime stew. For some time, he’d felt afraid of her, but now she only inspired disgust, no matter how many times he reminded himself of her innocence. With her dimples and hazel green eyes, she was prettier than any girl in his year, with the possible exception of Clemensia . . . well, pre-snakebite Clemensia. But the idea of kissing her repulsed him. Even now, as she gave him a tearful hug good-bye, all he could think of was that severed leg.

Coriolanus dragged himself up the stairs, his thoughts darker than ever at the memory of the poor maid collapsed from hunger in the street. How long could he expect Lucy Gray to last? She was fading fast. Weak and distracted. Injured and broken. But most of all, slowly starving to death. By tomorrow, she might not be able to stand. If he didn’t find a way to feed her, she’d be dead before the Hunger Games even began.