Like fire, nerves licked up any fuel they could capture, tongues incendiary with doubt nipped from the quivering pump of the human heart. Their crackling tendrils savored fear, smacked lips at childhood insecurities, sucked sweet marrow from every bone of crippling failure. Just as District Seven’s redwoods served as a perfect meal for destruction, so did Max and every trauma burning under her. Every child killed, every pair of moon-wide eyes felled by axe or tremor-wracked hands… her fault, her fault — who else’s fault could it be? “Chocolate. Sure,” Max repeated, tongue swiped over chapped lips, voice sandpapered with its familiar husk. She took a handful of sweets in their bright, crinkling wrappers, then cleared the rest of the box out, stuffing the last traces of silver foil deep in her pockets. Strange, how the morsels tasted more bitter than delicate. Strange, how fear of hunger still circled after all these years. Back in Seven, an empty stomach reeked of singed bark in the splintered walls of a log cabin, tingled like pine stew, roared with all the uncontainable pain of a spreading wildfire. And it burned, and it burned, and it still burned. Max spun the cap off her flask, swishing away traces of cocoa with leathered spice. Why hide her dependency? It wasn’t shameful anymore to be seen half-drowned in liquor — better a drunk than an addict. Better an addict than a killer. Better a killer than a child still too weak-willed to face home. “How’re your kids, Lea?” Max asked, swallowing. It was a delicate question — her friend (could she call her one?) could only reveal so much about her tributes. That, and the move to Twelve had surely done a number on her ego, though how anyone could mistake potential slaughter outcomes for prestige was still baffling. Despite their difference in outlook, Max sat, gaze tracing the other’s hands as they fiddled. Like moth’s wings, too much friction and their delicate shapes would tear away. Like moth’s wings, such sheltered palms could be crushed under her grip in seconds, but they weren’t. Such restraint, she held as proof of her humanity. “My kids are, um…quick. Poised. More refined than most from Seven, but no less skilled. Good with weapons. They’d run a strong solo game, though I’m sure an alliance or two couldn’t hurt. ‘Friendship pays’ and all that, you know?”
