The party was nearly over. Poppy knew she should go home, but she knew why she came in the first place.
Drunk and with feet and hands clumsy, she made her way down a hallway where the lights were already turned off. She could hear the noise at the end, where there was a strip of light slipping out of the kitchen door. There was no talking, of course not. But there were dishes clinking, water running, food being scraped off plates with barely a bite taken probably. She took a deep breath, tasted the alcohol still sticky on her lips.
When she pushed open the door, everything fell silent. Her eyes took longer than usual to adjust to the sudden brightness, and she stared around at a handful of Avoxes. Their figures were blurry, doubled. A warmer light entered her periphery, but she didn’t turn. They all looked young. Probably too young to have been here when the raid happened. None of them knew Arissa, yet they were probably holding the same dishes she once did. Probably cut vegetables and fruit with the same knives she once held.
Arissa used to love to cook. She dreamed of opening a restaurant. Poppy used to be her certified taste-tester when she tried out something new. If approved, she’d make enough for the whole family to enjoy. Her mother’s latest design sketches would be moved from the dining room table to an old desk in the corner, her father would pour fresh water for the kitchen flowers, and the whole family would eat together. Sometimes her mother even had a new candle, but the home was so full of flowers it wasn’t necessary. Her family would laugh and smile and argue over that table.
Her family was once happy.
Poppy threw a fire extinguisher at the dining table last year and broke it in the middle of an argument with her father. She knew he missed his sister in the same way she missed Arissa, that he was grieving for someone living. At least she was living.
“Poppy, getting into things you shouldn’t. As usual.”
She turned and swung, but instantly, a Peacekeeper had her wrist in a tight enough grip to bruise. She was off-kilter and she would’ve missed anyway. They couldn’t catch her saliva, though, and she spit at her aunt. It was tinged with something red she’d drank earlier, and it didn’t even reach her aunt’s shoes.
She’d spoken to her aunt maybe a handful of times since she became president. Every year, her family obliged to sit next to her at the Reapings in the Capitol, but they did not speak. The first two years she came to visit with Adam on Hearth Day, but that stopped after Poppy threw a vase at them. The few words they’d exchanged in five years were sharp, cold. It cut her the first time she heard her aunt match her tone. She’d thought she was the secret favorite. Apparently not.
“How’s Adam?”
“He misses you.”
“Tell him I wish it was him instead of Benjy.”
She almost choked on her own sudden vileness. Her brother. Her brother, and she’d said such a thing. Her eyes stung as she felt a familiar ball of phlegm rise in her throat. The grief usually choked her around this time of night.
“I’ll tell him you miss him, too,” Titaniara said, and it sounded so gentle and tender that for a moment, Poppy wanted nothing more than to hug her aunt. She hadn’t hugged her since she was barely five feet tall, and now they were staring at each other eye-to-eye.
Poppy sniffled, blinking to try to pull herself together. There was a reason she’d come down here, and the sudden clinking of silverware and plates reminded her. She swallowed down the lump in her throat for now. “Which room was it?” she asked.
“I’m sorry?”
“I’m not a fucking idiot.”
“I filled it in.”
Poppy tried to swing again, but this time the Peacekeeper latched on and didn’t let go. Her aunt took such a serene step back, it only enraged her more. She started to kick out, and the Peacekeeper twisted both her arms behind her back. A robotic voice told her to stay still or she would be tased.
“Do it!” She was panting as she struggled. “Fucking kill me here, you fucking bitch! Fill in every fucking room where you left your family to die!”
The jolt made her throw up almost immediately. She couldn’t breathe as the electricity raced through her muscles. Her vision went dark as her body spasmed and convulsed. She thought she was going to die. She couldn’t leave. Sara and Ian needed her there. Sara was eligible to be Reaped now. Poppy needed to stay alive for her.
When her body stopped shaking, she was on the floor next to her own vomit. The Peacekeeper reached down to pull her up on weak legs and march her out of the hallway, then off the premises. She was left with nothing, with every car now gone.
Her aunt was nowhere to be seen.
The sky was already starting to lighten as a new day began in Panem. Her parents would be worried sick.
The shock of the taser aggravated an old sports injury that hadn’t hurt in months. Still drunk, now dazed, she began limping down the long driveway. She was halfway down the street when a sleek car pulled up. Under the glow of the now-rising sun, it almost looked golden. Her brother looked like a god in the light, rolling his window down with a stone cold expression. He’d never been one to show his feelings.
“Why are you out here right now?” he asked. It was quiet, but judgmental. Scratch that, he could show one emotion: judgment. “Are you hurt? Is it the knee? I’ll take you home.”
She was hurt.
She definitely broke a finger when she punched him in the face.
