Snowdrop

Chapter 19

Ember and Bailey run for her. A knife flashes, lodges in Rouge’s neck before she has time to call for her district partner.
A cannon fires, and for one fleeting moment they think it could be Melia’s. But as they collapse beside her, she’s convulsing on the ground. Her hands slip over the wound in her chest, but there’s nothing they can do for her now.
“Melia!” Ember’s cry is like that of a dying animal. He reaches out and takes his sister’s hand, pressing her fingers to his lips, as though this tiny gesture can do her any good.
Melia doesn’t seem to notice him. Her breath comes in horrible gurgles, foamy blood frothing from her mouth. She’s gasping, like she wants to say something, but she can’t.
“We’ve gotta do something!” Bailey screams. “We gotta do something! You’ve – you’ve got bandages – you can save her!” She’s hyperventilating, pressing a trembling hand against the wound in an effort to staunch the flow of blood.
But Ember doesn’t move. He grips his sister’s hand tightly, his knuckles blotched white. Tears slide down his face, tracking through the sweat and grime, but he doesn’t say a word.
Melia gives a small cough, blood trickling down the side of her face. She gives a last feeble scrape across her chest, her fingers catching on a silver chain. Hot, sticky crimson bubbles up through Bailey’s fingers. Then she goes still.
The cannon fires.
“No,” says Bailey. “N-no… no… no!” She gives a sharp cry, her eyes widening in abject horror.
A voice in the back of her mind says they should move, get out of there, but they stay where they are. They should leave, so the bodies can be taken away, but they can’t bear to leave her.
It’s Ember who lets go first.
“Come on, Bailey,” he says, his voice hollow. He takes Bailey’s hand, not caring about the blood. Either not caring, or simply not noticing.
He leads her a few metres away, wraps his arms around her. Bailey turns her head away, burying her face in his chest, so she doesn’t have to watch as Melia’s last spark goes out. Her shoulders shake with sobs, and it’s all she can do to stop herself falling apart.
She hears the hovercraft, but she doesn’t bother to retrieve the knives. The less weapons there are in the arena, the better. The roar of the hovercraft stops, and they know she’s gone.
Ember’s face is pale, smeared with his sister’s blood. He squeezes Bailey’s shoulder and leads her away, not looking back.
Their allies – if they can call them that anymore – watch as they approach. Haymitch looks absolutely horrified. Cella just looks down, picking at her nails.
Bailey’s grief turns into rage at the sight of them. She tears away from Ember and flies at Haymitch. Kicking, punching, scratching.
“You traitor!” she screams. “You foul, loathsome cowardly traitor! You planned this! You made her go first! You made up the stupid plan that got her killed.”
He just sits calmly, blood trickling from a nasty scratch above his eye, accepting her wrath. “Except, sweetheart, you didn’t have to agree.”
“I never!” Bailey gasps. “Shut up! You never planned to go in fighting. You and Cella – you and Cella!” She turns on the older girl, striking her with the back of her hand so hard she falls back.
“Stop it,” Ember says, ripping Bailey away. “Just stop it.”
Cella cups the side of her face in her hand. Already her eye is starting to swell, and the harsh purple mark of Bailey’s knuckle shows up through her dark skin. Good.

Far away, in a place called District Twelve, a family sits.
Except, they’re not a family anymore.
The older sister drops the rag she’s been using to clean the table, a cry escaping her lips before she can stop it.
The mother stares at the television, but her eyes are vacant. She doesn’t see her youngest son pull the friend away from the traitor. She doesn’t see the traitor escape, clutching a cold water bottle to her cheek.
A cup falls, breaks, the cold tea spilling across the floor, but nobody moves to clean it up. It seeps through the cracks in the floorboards, dyeing them a dark brown startlingly similar to dried blood.
The older brother comes home, clasping the younger sister’s hand, his face grey. “Oh, God,” he says, sinking into a chair. “Oh, God.” He saw it happen. He saw it, in the Square, and then people turned to him and began offering condolences. Hugs. Food.
The younger sister saw it, too. She saw the girl fall, but by that point everyone on the screen was such a mess of tangled hair and skin and bones that she couldn’t even recognise her own sister. But the death was bloody and horrible, and as she watched the girl choke on her own blood, she screamed.