Alder had been sent back to the Capitol a few days early, shuttling papers and intel for the Vox back to the nexus of Vox command, now set up out of the old Presidential Mansion.
The last month had been confusing. Difficult. Emotionally fraught. He didn't know what to make of the Games coming back. On one hand, the betrayal from Caucus cut like a dull knife, straight to his core. Everything he'd fought for, for all these years, that many people had died for-- all to bring it back?
However, he knew firsthand how callous and cruel the Tarren were in their pursuit of what Panem had. He knew they wouldn't hesitate to kill and torture, that they were desperate enough to go to the extreme. Most of Panem did not understand this, not in the same way he did. So their numbers were dwindling, and they were staring down a very, very dark abyss if they lost the war. Every fucking day would be the Hunger Games, if they were lucky to live long enough to see Panem fall in the first place.
So maybe, more than he cared to admit, he understood Caucus' logic, if he felt ill thinking about the methods. He had half a mind to go talk to her himself, and as he stood at the front steps of the mansion, a frown tugging at his expression and elevated breath fogging in the January air, he started to seriously consider it. He had experience she didn't. Both with the Tarren and the Games. Maybe he could make her see the Games were a mistake, that it was violence for nothing, no matter what anyone thought. He'd been there, he'd felt how futile it was the last several years.
Maybe he might have, if someone familiar didn't give him a small wave, breaking his concentration.
"Enna. Hi," he greeted, tucking the envelope he was meant to deliver a little tighter under his arm. How long had he been zoned out? "Glad to see you alive and okay. I've heard it's been weird around here."
"What's it like?" Cade asked as casually as he could muster, but truth was, he wanted to know everything Cain would tell him while he was still going through the same training Cade was considering. Asking Everett didn't count-- he went to a Peacekeeper Academy as a teen. While Cain was a Career, it hadn't been specifically for this, and it had been a while ago. A closer comparison. "Joining the Vox, I mean? How do they treat you?"
He'd pulled Cat into a crushing hug as soon as he'd seen her in Seven's District center, of course, where both of them had evidently been sent by the Vox to keep holding what they could of the District. But he didn't begin with the usual greetings, and Caucus' speech from the morning had replaced what warmth he might usually see from feeling his friend with any icy, sick feeling.
"You saw?" he breathed into her ear, trying to keep his voice from cracking. Games. Again. And while he understood where it was coming from, saw firsthand just how badly help was needed lest everyone in Panem die, it still made him feel sick to his stomach that this had been the proposed solution. He wanted to talk with someone who understood, who could either validate what he was feeling, or help him put his qualms about it to rest. Maybe it really was a necessary war measure? Maybe he didn't really understand war after all?
It had taken four days of walking to finally reach the Vox outpost Waverley had instructed him to get to. By the last day, he was out of food, exhausted, and no amount of rain water he collected during the cold overnights with a few hours of sleep fought for in a threadbare sleeping bag felt like enough.
He'd thought that maybe the Vox would deny him entry-- surely word had gotten around that he'd given away information while imprisoned. However, they brought him in in a rush, even with a shocking lack of regard. It seemed this attack had them scrambling and spread thin to hold a line, especially outside of District Centers.
In fact, they all but shoved him into a spare room with some food and water, which Alder didn't argue too much against. He showered, then slept in what felt like a miraculously soft bed for the first time in weeks. He only woke for brief intervals over the next 24 hours, too bone tired and sore to do anything except sleep. He should try to get in touch with Maverick or Linden, but the times he attempted to find someone to help, they brushed him off, and he didn't need much encouragement to go lay back down and try again later. What would he do? Phone lines were down, radios were kept open for essential messages only, and who knew what happened to mail. His best bet would be get back to the District Center once he was well enough again to continue travel.
He woke sometime mid-afternoon on the third day to a knock on his door. At first, he decided to not get it, rolled over and pulled the covers over his head. The knocks came again, more insistent this time, hurried.
With a sigh, he pushed off the covers and padded across the wood floor to answer. Maybe they needed him for a mission. This period of rest hadn't been bound to last long anyway. "Yeah, what?" he croaked out as he opened the door while pinching the bridge of his nose. The dull headache persisted.
He squinted up at the person, expecting a Vox and not--
"Mav," he breathed, all exhaustion, irritation, trepidation abandoned. He threw his arms around his shoulders, pressed his nose into his neck and melted against him in relief. "How the hell did you find me?"
Alder woke up the morning of the Reapings feeling awful. His throat hurt, his sinuses ached, and when he sat up the world seemed to spin around him. Of course. He supposed that eventually all the time spent with other Vox, now in the crowded Capitol, and with much more limited nutrition than usual, this was bound to happen. It felt like a cold, he was lucky it wasn't worse.
He didn't know when Mav was due to get here, trains were unreliable right now. He messaged him to come up to the seventh floor when he got here, but he wouldn't see it, probably. Alder hadn't been able to get any technology connection to work reliably out in the Districts since summertime. It hadn't even occurred to him to try to check if someone had tried to get in touch with him until he'd been in the Capitol a couple of days-- who would be reaching out who wasn't also out in the districts?
He turned on the TV at low volume, turning to press his face into his pillows and listen to the new Vox personalities give a sort of grim, funeral dirge sort of coverage to the Reapings. They really played up it was "the last one", that it was "an unfortunate and necessary measure." His head hurt even worse trying to parse out for himself how he was feeling about it all. He dozed off, lulled by the low noise and exhaustion now gripping him down to his bones.
A knock on the door woke him with a start, and with a sharp inhale he sat up. Immediate regret-- his head fucking hurt, and now his muscles were protesting too. "Yeah?" he called, voice scratchy and heels of his hands pressed into his forehead.
He should, of course, be prepared to see familiar faces in the Capitol a couple of days before the Games began again, but it was still strange, in general, to be in this version of the Capitol with the usual fare of people he generally associated with the worst times of year.
Well. He supposed now, for at least one more Games, he'd still have to.
Except Merielle was standing near the produce (or... where the produce should be, there was one sad looking apple and some canned pears that seemed to date to the Dark Days put out on the shelves today), with an unreadable look on her face. He didn't know Merielle very well, but the Victors who were cast into the Games the way they had been did look out for one another.
Cade had decided to take a walk after Caucus' announcement. At the very least, his monitor didn't prevent him from freely pacing the Capitol's streets, or dropping by the handful of shops that had managed to not shutter closed after... well, everything. So maybe the coffee he was getting today was in a chipped mug of questionable cleanliness, he paid out the ass, and it was fucking close to water (no doubt they were getting skimpy on the grounds), but it somewhat resembled normal. So he was sitting at a table, sipping, and beside him, looked like Link had had the same idea.
"Heya, Link," Cade greeted with a wide smile, one that he wasn't really sure he meant. He was too tired to mean it anymore. "What do you think?" He paused, then laughed dryly, raising his cup for another sip of shitty coffee-flavored water. "That rhymed. Just mean... you know. Whaddya think of what Caucus said today? Games again, huh? Might liven shit up."
Alder tracked the days in the glacial drift of the shuttered square of light across the floor. It was too high up to look out of to see what was happening beyond in his hometown, but if he angled himself right, he could see the sky between the iron bars. Of course, this time of year it was usually clouds and rain, but if he was lucky, sometimes they’d take enough shape to keep him entertained for an hour or two.
When the light finally died for the day, he let himself dig another notch into the wooden frame attached to the wall with a chain that supported a mattress so hard a slab of granite would have been kinder. He’d then curl up as far away from it as he could, the glass pane thin and letting in a draft that he swore put his second Arena to some shame.
Of course, he’d, at first, sworn to every Tarren who tried him that he’d never give any information up. The Capitol had already done it all to him, he’d thought– torture in the physical, psychological, and emotional senses. What could they possibly do to him that the Snow regime hadn’t done?
It was the wrong question to ask. The Tarrens were brutal and efficient, and the man, who he’d figured out was called Saska, was especially so. It was only the third day when they gave up on more traditional methods of information gathering and dragged in the small girl they’d seen him helping after the attack.
At first, he was confused. Then Saska unwrapped the bandage around her hand, and asked the same questions they had been trying Alder for for three days. When he refused to answer, he dug his thumb into the deep cut across her palm. Her cries of pain shot through him, and within moments he was begging them to stop, that he’d tell them whatever they wanted, just let her go.
For several weeks, it went on like this. Every time Alder denied information or they thought he was lying, they dragged in another member of his community, ready to torture them instead.
He did his best to hold back, to deny them a full picture of the Vox or their new, fragile Panem. Sometimes he managed to pull it off. Sometimes, they were able to sense he was hiding something and went even harder than usual on him, on his former friends. Those were the days he hated himself most; the ones where he couldn’t do the right thing for everyone. No matter what he did, he was betraying someone. He wouldn’t be surprised if the community torched his house with him inside it after all of this.
Food and water came twice a day, morning and night. Barely enough to eat and stay functional, though Alder wasn’t sure if it was another act of Tarren deprivation or out of scarcity, considering there was very little to eat even before their arrival. He started making a mark on the floor with his fingernail at the edge of the box of light when food came and then when they came to interrogate, and he found it to be a fairly accurate idea of when the guards would visit. There was some drift in the marks as the days shortened, but it was routine. Saska ran a tight ship, it seemed.
The thought occurred to Alder as he sipped at it from his plastic cup and stared out the window, thinking to himself that the bars reminded him of the iron fire poker he’d accidentally left outside in a storm after it was his imaginary sword for an evening had been abandoned for dinner. In a short couple of weeks, the iron had rusted and ruined it from what it once was, and it never really was the same after that.
He paused mid-drink, setting down the cup and getting to his feet. He couldn’t get a good view of the bars from the floor, but he quickly determined once he scrambled up to balance on the edge of his bed frame, he had a decent view of the whole sill. The bars were sunk into the concrete, but it looked like it had been there for a very, very long time. Maybe even Dark Days long time. Around the bars, there were divots in the concrete from years of condensation off the poorly-sealed window sliding down the metal and wearing away at the rock.
Already, he could see the beginnings of rust there– all it would need was a little more encouragement.
There was no way the cell had surveillance. This settlement had never been important enough, and again, the jail barely used except for odd jobs. This was confirmed after two days of Alder pouring his daily water into the window sill, particularly around the bars, and there was no mention of nor punishment for such odd behavior.
Day after day, he did this, sparing as little water as he possibly could for himself to stay alive, and dumping the rest into the window. He was paranoid he’d be caught checking when another round of interrogations happened unannounced, so he only allowed himself to check on the progress by standing on the edge of his bed once every few days, despite the constant temptation.
At first, what happened was disappointing. Things were maybe a little slimier than usual, and all he had a consistent, pounding headache to show for his efforts. But as the days passed, an unmistakable coating of orange rust crawled up the bottom of the bars. A couple of times, there was a little salt on the top of his meal, which he tried to scrape off and add to the water pools to speed things up.
Now, he was able to walk up to the bars and stick his finger up against the bottom of a bar. He could withdraw his hand and see how far the residue went up his finger. It was difficult to not let out a celebratory whoop of excitement the day it reached his first knuckle. It was working.
It wouldn’t be enough to bust himself out, it was still iron. But it was a start, and he didn’t know how long he’d be here. Months? Years?
He did not have to wait that long. His settlement was used to tight rule, and they were used to shirking it, too. He should have expected it, really. They had nothing to lose, and they had plenty of practice organizing themselves the past few years.
He thought at first that the sounds were the Tarren again. Yelling, explosions, gunfire. He stood up on the edge of the bed to crane his neck and peer out the window. He couldn’t see much, but the pops of light below the sill confirmed something was going on.
Alder fell off the bed when the window glass shattered, startled and catching himself in an awkward position against the concrete. His mouth fell open when a head peeked up above the ledge, through the bars.
Waverley grinned widely at him.
“He’s in here!” she called over her shoulder, then turned back to Alder. “We’re gonna get you out. Any idea who has the keys?”
“I have a better idea. Does anyone have a truck?”
***
Alder knew they would, some transport trucks had been stolen and hidden by the Vox, and he imagined some would have been tucked away now, too, just in case. Sure enough, they’d rolled them in for their own coup against the Tarren. It didn’t even take much– a chain wrapped around the iron bars and a whole lot of gas. Where the bars had rusted out at the bottom, they popped free, bending wide enough for Alder to shimmy out.
He could have cried with relief when his feet hit the frozen ground. It was cut short by a pop of gunfire nearby. Both he and Waverley jumped and crouched down on instinct.
“What’s going on?” he asked, leaning back against the concrete side of the building. “How can I help?”
“You’re not going in,” Waverley dismissed immediately, frowning at him. “You’re running.”
“Running? No I am not fucking runn–”
“You’re running,” she insisted again, shifting a bag off her shoulders and pushing it into Alder’s arms. “Don’t question me, you don’t have time. Even if we win here, you might not be okay. Not everyone’s happy you came home, some think you invited the attack. Others are unhappy you gave up information.”
An icy chill ran down his back. It felt stupid to have thought word wouldn’t have gotten out about that, but of course it had. Dozens of people watched him do it.“But I–”
“I know!” she cut him off impatiently. “I know. We don’t all feel that way, but you’re still not safe here.”
Another explosion. Yelling. It sounded close. They both flinched and pressed tighter to the wall.
Waverley took his hand and squeezed it, meeting his eyes in the dark. “I’m sorry, Alder. You have to go.” She paused, then added, quietly. “Your mom and dad would be so proud of the man you grew into.”
His throat felt tight. Someone his family had known since before he was born, someone who had watched him grow up, after everything she knew, everything she’d watched him do, she still felt they’d be proud. “Thanks,” he managed to choke out. It didn’t feel deserved.
With a nod, she let go of his hand and reached for something in her pocket. There was the telltale jingle of keys as she removed it, already moving toward the truck. “I’ll distract for a few minutes so you can get to the treeline. Go south, follow the main road but stay out of sight from it. Don’t stop until the leaves are still changing, that’s about as far as the Tarren have managed to get, then Settlement 56C shouldn’t be far. That’s the nearest Vox outpost. Good luck.”
Alder had a thousand questions. He hadn’t stopped to consider that they’d already taken other settlements. Already, though, Waverly was opening the truck door and putting the keys in the ignition.
He turned and ran, leaving the sound of Waverley’s truck tires screeching and crunching into the gravel road behind him.
