06. Somewhere Dark
The story in which a typical, angst-ridden teenager leads a nation in rebellion.
AUTHOR’S NOTE :: Sorry this is late af. Break time’s over.
PRELUDE , 01, 02, 03, 04, 05
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SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN KISSES, I LOSE MYSELF – step outside myself and wander somewhere dark. Somewhere cool and quiet – somewhere I am a creature of instinct and feeling, not logic and reason. I’m not at all sure what’s happened until I crash back into my body in the middle of the night. I snap upright, suddenly aware of the softness of the mattress beneath me and coldness of air against my bare skin. My heart drops into my stomach even before I turn my head and see him there, sprawled beside me across the bed. His charcoal waves spill over the pillow like molten lava. His eyes are closed, his jaw loose and hanging, his bare chest rising and falling in the shallow breaths of a man asleep. Though he’s lying on his back, I catch glimpses of them: thin, angry pink slices in his shoulders. My chest tightens. My heart is ground into powder herbs in a mortar. Images flood my mind: images I’ve spent the past two and a half years burying in the deepest recesses of my mind. Images of black hair and white skin and red sheets and blood flooding porcelain tiles. My stomach churns. Bile rises in the back of my throat.
I cannot be here. Not in this bed, not in this room.
Gathering the comforter to cover me, I stumble out of bed, out the door, and down the hallway. I make it maybe five steps before my knees give out and I collapse into the wall. I slide down the concrete, land on top of my legs, and immediately double over. The tears don’t wait for me to hit the floor and hide my face – they’re already coming, pouring out of me like a bursting dam and soaking the comforter.
I thought I was getting better. I thought I’d found purpose. I thought I had a reason to live again. But me leading this revolution isn’t me taking back my power. It’s me atoning for sins that cannot be atoned. Jarrod’s screams are still in my ears, still ringing. “You put me here. IT WAS YOUR IDEA. YOU COULD HAVE CALLED IT OFF AT ANY TIME. BUT YOU DIDN’T.” And he was right.
If I hadn’t gone through with Katie’s plan two years ago, if I had just stood up for myself, I wouldn’t have ended up in District 12. Katie and Jarrod never would’ve been evicted from the Capitol. Katie never could’ve been Reaped. She would never have had to fight in the Hunger Games. She never would’ve died. Asher Rinehart never would’ve slit his own throat to protect me. He never would’ve fallen into the Capitol’s clutches, giving his all to save a girl who couldn’t even save herself, let alone him.
But it’s more than that. I’ve been surviving on the knowledge that I’m changing things. That the world is getting better because of me. But every time I open my mouth, one of my friends gets tortured. Ordinary people take up arms against a force that they can never defeat. Innocent people get brave – too brave. They get themselves killed.
And the hospital. All those people. Those two girls. That wouldn’t have happened if not for me. President Winsor would never go so far as to bomb a hospital if it weren’t for me. Everyone treats me like I’m some kind of savior, but I’m not. I open my mouth, and I speak the warrant for another person’s death. I’m not the messiah everyone’s been waiting for.
I’m the executioner.
The bedroom door creaks open behind me. He calls my name. The call’s followed by quick, soft footsteps until he’s crouching beside me. I feel the familiar weight and warmth of his hand on my back. Thankfully, Darius has the clarity of mind to shrug into his pajamas before coming after me. His eyes are still swollen with tiredness. He rubs one with his free hand while caressing my back with the other. I turn, hiding behind my hair, trying my damnedest not let him see me like this – like the emotional wreck that I am, but he won’t let me get away. He bows his head against mine and speaks softly. “Andy. It’s okay.”
“No!” The sob punches out of me with more volume than I intended. I force a breath and hold it for a few seconds before I continue. “Nothing is okay. Everyone’s dead because of me. And everyone who isn’t dying for me is getting hurt by me.”
He casts down his gaze, considering this a moment. Then, a soft chuckle parts his lips. “I don’t know if I count, but you haven’t hurt me yet.”
“Oh, please.” The words are out before I can stop them. They drip with venom. “What do you think just happened? Do you think that was some kind of declaration of love, and now we’ll run into the sunset together?” I turn my head and stare a hole in the wall. “I needed someone. You were there. That’s all.”
“Like you needed someone last night?” He doesn’t hesitate. His answer’s already there, like he knew which open wound I would strike for before I took my blow. “You didn’t need someone to talk to about Asher, or your reservations about the plan – you had someone. You have Maggie. I’m sure you went to her first. But she couldn’t give you what you needed. Otherwise, you never would’ve come to me.”
“You don’t know what I need!” I spit, grinding my teeth. I refuse to look at him – to fall victim to those burning hazel eyes that have weakened my resolve every time.
“You need strength.”
His voice drops even softer, barely above a whisper.
“You’ve been relying on your own since Leo died, and it’s gotten you far. So far.” He wets his lips. “But one person cannot take on an entire world alone. Not even you.”
I pivot even farther into the wall, burrowing my face into it. I want to start singing – anything to drown out the truth in what he’s saying. Anything to stop myself from needing him – even wanting him – at my side. “I’m not alone,” I argue. “You said it yourself. I have people. I have Maggie. And Ethan. And Aaron.”
“Andy, you sleep alone.” His hand is heavy on my shoulder, his breath warm on my neck. “You live alone. You’ve cut yourself from your family. You’re retreating further and further inside of yourself. Right now, you’re running away from me.”
Right there, stuck between a Darius and a hard place, I see it. If I turn any further into the wall, I’ll prove his point. So I draw a breath, gather my courage, and turn back to him. Back to those hazel fires, quietly burning.
“Let me help you.” He cups my face in his hand. Something about his touch feels beyond familiar – as if, when the universe was created, we were forged from the dust of the same star. As if we were made, after billions and billions of years of smiles and laughter and heartbreaks and tears, to find our way here. He rubs his thumb across my cheek. “If you need strength, take mine.”
A lock breaks inside my chest. Every part of me seems to reach for him at once, with such force that I cannot stop myself. I fling my arms around him and bury my face in his bosom. And then, I dissolve. Everything – every doubt, every fear, every last piece of self-loathing – pours of me through these tears. His arms tighten around me. He lifts me up, clean off the floor, and carries me back to the bed. When he lays me down, he settles in beside me, and for the rest of the night, he does not let go.
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“You missed training.” Maggie slams her tray down on the table as she sits on the bench across from me. It’s Wednesday, so her plate boasts a short stack of chocolate chip pancakes: the most involved breakfast we here in 13 ever eat. I look up at her and shrug.
“I overslept.”
She stares at me in a moment of disbelief. “Andy. You don’t sleep.”
I do when I’m wrapped up in Darius Hart.
The thought startles me. I jump a little in my seat, then immediately bow my head to hide the flush in my cheeks. “I was really tired after 8 yesterday,” I say lamely. Then, I risk a glance up at her from under my lashes. A goofy grin is already stretching the corners of her mouth. I snap immediately into wide-eyed defense mode. “What? Those helicopter rides don’t make you a little sleepy?”
“Not the kind of sleepy I need to blush about!” Maggie leans in. “Spill it, Boyle. What the hell’d you get up to last night.”
Since I’m on an “open up and let people in” kick, I start to tell her. From the beginning, even. From the day we met in the sick house and I saved him from a drug overdose and he nearly vomited all over my shoes. I’m already creating this whole romantic comedy out of it in my head – despite the fact that the real story isn’t that romantic and isn’t at all comedic – but I don’t get the chance. Because Asher Rinehart, in his dazzling white suit, appears in medium close up on the gigantic screen over Maggie’s head.
Any shred of happiness in my body dries up, leaving my insides to shrivel.
“People of Panem.”
His voice rings through the cafeteria, bringing everyone to silence.
Something looks off about him today. He’s lost some of his golden brown marshmallow tan. When I squint, I notice the red circling his eyes. And when I squint even harder, I can see – buried under layers of foundation that some Capitol make-up artist tried her hardest to match to his skin – traces of black and purple on the bridge of his nose and the inside of his right eye.
My internal organs suddenly feel as though they’re turning inside out.
“You may have heard that yesterday, a hospital in District 8, full of sick patients and orphaned children, was bombed. You also may have seen a televised message from Andrea Boyle, insisting to you that President Winsor ordered the bombing. It is true that we have Peacekeepers on the ground in that District, but they are to do their jobs. They are there to restore and maintain the peace.”
His eyes flash. The muscles in his face seem to clench.
“President Winsor does not believe the people are the enemy. Her cabinet would never allow such action to be taken against her citizens – her farmers, her textile workers, her engineers, her scientists, her doctors and healers… her people.”
I straighten. More to myself than anyone, I pray, “Asher, no.”
“President Winsor believes Andy Boyle and the rebel army alone are the enemy. She and her cabinet have no interest in taking innocent lives. So ask yourselves this: Why was Andy Boyle outside a hospital on the outskirts of the District, so far away from the current conflict, at the exact moment a bomb struck?”
I shake my head. “Asher, no.”
“The rebel army has resorted to framing President Winsor and her cabinet for this attack.”
My jaw drops.
“We’ve also intercepted information about a second attack.”
My brain does an instant one-eighty from “how could she” to “what the hell.” I immediately look to Maggie, asking with wide eyes and furrowed brows if there was a field mission planned that I didn’t know about.
“According to their sources, the planes have just left.”
Maggie appears just as confused as I am. She shakes her head at me. I look back at Asher on the screen, pleading with him for answers.
“In twenty minutes, they will bomb District 13.”