my village, my child // self
“Among the dead are Livia Levine, a young Gamemaker from Three. She leaves behind a daughter, Olympia.”
His hair was matted with blood.
Most of it was not his.
The scalpel was still in the pocket of the clothes he’d been handed back as he was wheeled out of the hospital.
They told him to set frequent alarms to keep himself awake. He did not find it necessary. Every time he closed his eyes, Vidia’s lifeless wolf eyes stared back.
Chip turned his good ear toward the television as the list of dead was read off again. It was not just the gauze wrapped over the left side of his head that was keeping noises muffled. The doctors said it was likely he might have permanent hearing loss. It’d been hard to focus on them, just as it was hard to focus on the television he technically wasn’t supposed to be watching with his concussion. Regardless, the message stuck. And it left him sick.
Everything left him sick. The concussion made every movement nauseating and painstaking. He hadn’t gotten off his couch since getting home. Not until he finally processed Livia’s name.
He remembered when she was hired, not long after him. District Three was the second most-represented district among the Gamemakers after the Capitol. She’d been pawned off on every former resident of District Three, including its least impressive victor. He remembered she was nice. And he remembered Evie leaning over the back of the sofa to look over his shoulder one day as he scrolled through social media. She’d made him stop so she could look at Livia’s post announcing her daughter’s birth.
He’d thought little of it since. Until now.
He pushed himself off the couch, still in little more than a hospital gown and boxers as he tried to find where he’d dropped his close. Flakes of dried blood were fall all over his floor and hands and arms as he tried to find the pocket of his pants. His hand touched the blade of the scalpel and he quickly pulled his hand back. He rocked to the side, hitting the floor hard as he curled up. He balled his hands into fists as he held them close, eyes shut as he forced himself to see the bright blue looking back at him.
Had Vidia deserved to die?
Maybe not. But Chip knew she probably wasn’t getting out of that lab alive. And Chip deserved to kill her.
“Again, one of those dead just a young woman with a young child. What was her name daughter’s again?” “Olympia.” “Olympia. Just tragic now that Olympia has to grow up without her mother.”
It might’ve been minutes or it might’ve been hours before he pushed himself up off the floor. It was hard to distinguish. He forgot he’d even been looking for his phone. He had to grip the back of the couch to stay standing as he looked at the television. Pictures of all the Gamemakers who’d died were lit up on the screen. Fittingly, it reminded him of his own arena, watching the faces of dead tributes light up the sky.
A clump of matted hair fell in his eyes. He pushed it away, and it fell back as he tried to focus once again on the news.
“And Vidia Vickers, the absolute genius behind the Quarter Quell...”
He walked to the bathroom and turned on the shower. He forgot to turn on the cold water tap, just stood there watching as the water poured down and began to steam. Steam filled the entire bathroom, and he did not move as he watched it.
He went to a rarely used shelf in his bathroom cupboard. An electric razor he hadn’t used in a long time. Beads of sweat were starting to form on his skin as the steam sank deep into his pores. He shook off the hospital gown, but it did little to change things. He plugged in the razor, and he looked in the mirror.
The blood had been cleaned off his face at the hospital, but he could still see rings around where they hadn’t quite scrubbed it clean. Around his left ear they’d shaved off some of his hair, trying to get a closer look at the damage. The razor was humming and buzzing, waiting to be put to use. He placed it just above where the nurses had shaved, and began to drag it back. Long, tangled curls fell to the floor in a heap.
He wished for someone else to be doing this. He wished it was Perl sitting him down at a chair because she couldn’t reach, telling him she might as well shave it all off because there was no way to cut and style all those snarls. He wished it was Olive saying she’d been waiting to do this for weeks as she told him what to order for dinner. He wished it was Paslee, who’d say nothing but offer a resounding “hmph” of triumph with each strand that hit the floor. He wished it was Belle or Electra or Clover, the faces he’d known since childhood who’d each given him a bandaid or a glass of water or some form of comfort over the course of his life. He wished it was his mother, who only moved gently and would’ve gotten distracted halfway through with an idea for a painting.
But there was no one. There was just him.
When there was nothing but stubble, he finally clicked the razor off. He’d had to wipe down the mirror several times so he could still see. He splashed cold water on his face and over his head, and remembered to turn on the cold water tap in his shower. He set several reminders on his phone to keep him awake through the night, and a reminder to book a train ticket to Three.
He was not alone. The time had come for him to be depended on and not dependent.
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A week later he was cleared to travel, but with precautions. He got on the next train to Three, and there was no need to set alarms to make sure he did not doze off at an odd time. He couldn’t seem to find anything that would actually distract him or hold his attention. Eventually he stood, arms crossed, watching as Panem flew by as he got closer to his niece.
The Victor’s Village was quiet when he arrived early in the morning. The sun had just started to rise as he walked through the entrance. There was only a small ripple of activity from the corner of his eye, and he looked over to see the district’s oldest victor drinking out of a mug. She’d never been a kind woman, but once when he was ten she helped him make a rocket. She yelled him at him a year later when he set a rocket off that destroyed her vegetable garden. Her yard was possibly the only spot in the Village where he hadn’t thrown up or passed out.
She was the one who’d pulled him from the grass the morning of Perl’s funeral and shoved him into the shower with his clothes still on. He hadn’t seen her since that day.
“She normally starts with the chalk around seven,” she declared without prompting.
Her voice was so unfamiliar Chip wasn’t sure if he even heard her correctly. “Uh...th-thanks.”
He kept his eyes on Belle’s house for some indication of movement behind the curtains, but there was none. When he entered his own home, he was struck with a sudden swirl of dust that made him sneeze. He found the remote to his television somewhere among the couch cushions and turned the television on.
“-Levine, she leaves behind-”
He shut the television off quickly and went to the kitchen. Everything was covered in dust. He didn’t even know where to find a rag to wipe it off, so he just batted at it the dust on the kettle with his hands and found some old tea in the cupboards. Before it was steeped, he heard movement outside. He didn’t even look through a window to see who it was, just headed to his front door that he’d left ajar despite the cold air seeping in.
First he saw Belle. Then he saw a familiar face in an upstairs window. His long legs carried him fast with each stride, but Evie was apparently going even faster as she came sprinting out the front door. He dropped to his knees in the grass and hugged her close. He wasn’t sure if it was him or her shaking more as they cried.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
“What’s a clone?”
Chip folded his hands together on the table, glancing out the window to see the nation streaming by as he considered the best way to answer his niece’s question. “Y-You know tr-tracing paper?” She nodded. “I-It’s like th-that. The same picture. J-Just made a differ-rent way. N-Not th-the r-real picture.”
“Why did they do that to Mommy?”
“Uh...sh-she was a good picture to copy.”
“Will they do it again?”
He scratched at cartilage on his left ear. He did not hear his own nail moving against his skin. He saw Vidia, and he blinked it away. “I-I don’t th-think so.”
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Snow was keeping most people home in the Capitol. After an afternoon of building snowmen and making snow angels and drinking hot chocolate, Evie was fast asleep. Paslee was in her space. It was just Chip left completely alone for the first time in two weeks, with only the television to keep him company. With so many people likely trapped at home, rehashing news of the Tower attack seemed the only way to pass time.
“And we know, Livia Levine left beyond a baby girl...”
Chip still didn’t know if the keycard he stole gave the rebels access. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever know. Maybe nothing he did or didn’t do had any impact on the outcome of that day. He knew the blood directly on his own hands, and he had no regret about it. It was the indirect blood, the possibility he’d been responsible for taking a parent away from someone, that felt like a constant, sharp pressure at the base of his skull.
“Thankfully, she’s been adopted by another Gamemaker so we know she will have a good life. And...”
This was new. This was entirely new. He didn’t know another Gamemaker had adopted Livia’s daughter. He pushed himself off the couch and took up a seat at the counter where his phone was charging. He sent out several texts to people he hadn’t contacted in weeks. It didn’t take long to get a response. Colette Neptune. She was taking care of Olympia. He could access and talk to the person now in charge of this child of Three. He could help.
He’d had Colette’s phone number for some time now, though he’d never, ever had a reason to use it. Until now.
It’s Chip. How’s Olympia?
