LIFE UPDATES (MACK - 99/100 OFF-CYCLE)
JULY
Farina wins the 99th Games. Mack and Cain play a game at District Zero together, one about jealousy. It ends with Cain punching a sponsor, with Mack realizing he's saved her again -- again -- both with his fist and with his association, which has kept her insulated from this dark underbelly. When Ariston says, It’s time you and Cain moved in together, she just nods. She doesn't mind. In fact, she's grateful to not be alone.
AUGUST
Cain’s apartment in the Capitol is so clean, it squeaks. Spartan, like he thinks someone’s inspecting. They probably are. Mack doesn't have much to her name. Only what they gave her. Only what she's accumulated since her Games. It all fits in one bag. They operate like roommates, or maybe more like she's a guest, crashing on the couch between places. He’s polite. Boyish. Too careful. She tests his limits with toothpaste left uncapped, bras on the door handle, making morning coffee in her underwear. Sometimes he argues with her, calls her messy and annoying. Other times, he stammers and turns red. She thinks it’s kind of cute.
SEPTEMBER
The awkwardness mellows. She learns he does this little tap-tap rhythm on the side of mugs when he’s thinking. He starts to learn her songs, which are Covey, and he doesn't ask about them yet, but he's starting to want to. They develop a rhythm: she makes messes, he cleans them. She lights candles, he blows them out after she falls asleep. She teases. He laughs. He comes home with flowers one day, then insists they're just for decor. They start to look like something. Not quite lovers, not quite friends. But something.
OCTOBER
The Bacchanalia for Cress and Slate’s birthday is a wine-drenched fever dream. Jasper’s there, looking thinner than she remembers. She spends the night trying to get that spark back behind his eyes. It catches, just a few times. When Venus' touch seeps into everything, she reaches for Cain, and they go home. There are no more drugs in the air when they reach the apartment, but there's just as much desire. For the first time, Mack sleeps in the bed with him.
NOVEMBER
Something starts to bloom. Quiet at first. Cain brushes her hair out of her face while she’s asleep on the couch. She kisses his cheek one night, just to see what he’ll do. He stares at her like she’s a sunbeam he wasn’t allowed to look at. She sees it then — he’s afraid of her. Or maybe he’s afraid of what he wants. She stops teasing quite so hard. Starts letting him win at cards. They get drunk together one night and wake up tangled but clothed. They don’t speak of it, but neither of them pulls away anymore.
DECEMBER
They visit the Gunns for Hearth Day, which Mack fucking hates. She's excited to see Archer, though. They go snowboarding, and this time, Cain laughs when Mack pushes him into the snow. They play with Keres and Kratos, and Mack tries her best to coax him out, lying on her stomach, taking it slow. Cain sits with her for a whole afternoon, his hand on her lower back, thumb drawing lazily, affectionate and slow. She admits that she's been reading Mega Trona comics, and that thrills him, so they hide out on the rope loft and pour over them together. Up there, they kiss once, then again, then stop and laugh at themselves, afraid of Archer walking in again. When she tells him she's getting the itch to catch out, he looks hurt, scared. He looks like he's trying to find a way to ask her not to go.
JANUARY
Pontus falls. The arrest rocks the Capitol. Almanac 95 drops like thunder in the underground, and Ash in the Orchard spreads like wildfire. Mack’s voice is in it — hers and the old voices, the Covey songs sung in fields and railcars and jail cells. Back in the Capitol, Mack and Cain have found full flow. They want to give it another chance. One night, they go there. It’s slow. Tender. Sober.
After, one of them whispers, What if we just don’t go back?
And the other says, Okay.
They make a plan.
FEBRUARY
The day comes. She waits at the depot, boots laced, bag on her back, heart thudding like a train engine. Cain appears. And then, so do Peacekeepers. The train begins to rumble to life, turning its wheels, and Mack leaps up, turning to help Cain. He stops. There’s an apology in his eyes that splits her in two. He's frozen, obedient. He watches her go. She jumps to another train at the next station. Then again. Then again, so no one can follow. She turns off her phone. She keeps going.
FEBRUARY – JUNE
She vanishes. Not gone, just dispersed. In Nine, she sings in a barn. In Three, in a basement. In Eleven, in the fields, the lyrics catching on the wind. She passes out zines and copies of Almanac 95, tucks them in coat pockets, leaves them on stoops. She performs Ash in the Orchard wherever she goes. In Twelve, she meets Maia at the Hob — a Covey elder who remembers things Mack never learned. She seeks out her wisdom, her mentorship. Maia is skeptical, but Mack is persistent. Maybe she reminds Maia of Slate, or Galen. They talk of roots. Of memory. Mack writes new verses every night. Old ones echo back.
JULY
She comes home. Or what passes for it -- District Six, for Reaping Day. They take her at the checkpoint, and they force her on the stage beside Mandi and Cat and Otto. After, she's escorted to the train. You’ve been summoned, they tell her. Ariston and Nerissa are waiting.
