The Hunger Games: Staying True. (Completed)

Chapter Thirty Two: Some Blackmail, Some Confessions. (Edited)

"That was hardly necessary." Plutarch is holding a handkerchief to his split lip. I'm lucky he didn't notify the soldiers waiting outside, else I might have been shot just for having the nerve to hit him.

"You deserved it." I grumble back, stomping away from him. There isn't anywhere to go though, so I just stomp to the bare bed and sit down on it, crossing my arms and legs, scowling at him from my seat.

"You know," He says, approaching carefully, "You used to be so much more compliant when you were working for me. Never asked any questions. Followed every order. You were the perfect soldier."

"I was the perfect puppet." I spit at him, my scowl is more welcoming than the clap of thunder, but he keeps coming anyway. He halts just a foot in front of me, close enough to reach for me if he wants to. He doesn't.

"Yes." He nods, eyes downcast now. "I did take advantage of that. I did. I'll own up to that, Emerald. I used you. But I used you all. We all needed to sacrifice for the cause."

"Funny how everyone else is dead, I'm locked up, and you're the one that gets to walk free. You never sacrificed a damn thing, Plutarch."

"Just years of my life."

"Everyone else sacrificed their lives!" I holler at him, uncoiling to my feet in an angry burst of movement. "Don't you fucking dare try to preach to me about sacrifice."

"You're right." He heaves a sigh and holds up his hands. He was never scared of my outbursts. I used to think it was because he knew me. Now I know it's because he knew just how to control me.

"You manipulated me." I accuse him. "You manipulated everyone, didn't you? You were pulling my chain, Snow's, Coin's even. Everything that has happened has happened because of you."

"Not everything." He murmurs.

"That's why you've avoided me. Avoided me like the damn plague, because you knew I'd realise that you were behind every fucking scheme."

"Not every scheme!"

"But most of them!" I scream, and move to lunge at him, but I pull myself back at the last moment. He brought those soldiers because he knew it would deter me from hurting him, or killing him, which I am inclined to do. He has always known that I would do anything to survive. If surviving means I don't get to rip out his throat, then I won't.

"Was it really Coin who told Coal to capture Chaim?" I ask. I've suspected for a while.

There was just a moment. Just a moment after Coal had revealed Chaim to me, and he'd been ecstatic, half crazy with joy that he'd been babbling incoherently. My days in this empty bedroom have given me time to review every single second of that final fight. Coal had said, in his delerium, he'd gasped out 'Just like she told me to. Just like she knew you'd want. Very clever, very clever, she is.'

He'd been speaking of Coin. That much is obvious. But would Coin have really thought of that herself? She was so obsessed with power, would she have risked ruining her own image for the sake of bringing me and Coal together, just for us to fight? She could have brought us together in any number of different ways.

But she made sure that I was angry. She made sure that the stakes were high enough that Coal and I would fight over it. That we'd fight and one of us would die. She'd wanted me to die.

But only one other person could have predicated my reaction. Could have predicated that if I found out that Coin had orchestrated Chaim's death, then I'd kill her for it. That I would do it publicly. That I'd sacrifice my life and the lives of everyone I cared about to do it.