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“I’m not Primrose, you fat fuck,” I tell the cat twining around my legs. “She’s not here. She hasn’t been here in months. Shoo.”
Mother and Father are in the town square with the rest of our family, gathering for Freedom Day. So is Prim, on a break from her medic training in the Capitol. And so is Gale.
Which means I’ll have no competition for anything I bring down. I plan on hunting something that will make him seethe with envy well into the fall.
A voice behind me: “I thought I’d find you here.”
I whirl into a fighting stance. My fists come up. But it’s just-
“Grandfather! You said you’d be in the Capitol with your bodyguards.”
He chuckles, his single pale eye glinting. “Of course I had to say that, my dear. My spies told me an enemy was monitoring my letters.”
“Makes sense.”
Grandfather is the only person I know who can say “My granddaughter must have eaten her twin in the womb,” and make it a compliment. He’s not my real grandfather- he’s married to Father’s aunt, and something happened to her that meant she couldn’t have children- but I met him when I was too young to tell the difference. Even though Primrose is the one who looks just like him as a child, sometimes I think I’m his favorite. When I was younger, we’d spend hours playing chess together. He didn’t care if I won or lost- not as much as he cared about teaching me how to cheat, beaming at me whenever I caught him switching pieces around.
Father taught me how to deal with threats in the woods. Poisonous mushrooms. Rabid animals.
Grandfather made sure I could defend myself against everything else.
“Does anyone know you’re here?” I get my hunting gear together. Arrows. Bow.
“Just my spouses. I sent them a coded message.” My great-aunt and great-uncle. The three of them helped stop the Games. That’s why Freedom Day is a celebration. Performances in the town square, because the rest of my family actually likes singing in public. Fireworks, which Grandfather hates because they sound like gunshots and I hate because they hurt my ears. The kind of fancy food I usually only have at the mayor’s house. And, without fail, attempts on Grandfather’s life.
Maybe this year he’ll decide I’m old enough to tell the story of how he lost his eye.
“If you’re going out, take these.” He hands me two vials. One I’ve seen before. “This one is-“
“For if anyone comes near the house with a gun,” I finish. I slip the vial into my belt pouch. Grandfather’s enemies haven’t tracked him to District Twelve in a while, but I could kill if I had to.
I’ve killed before. Once. He wouldn’t believe Grandfather wasn’t home- and thought a knife to Prim’s throat would make me talk. I hesitated, and she bled for it.
I got hours of lectures on post-traumatic stress disorder afterwards. The main thing I took away from it was that I’d never hesitate again.
The other vial is deep violet. Like nightlock. “What’s this one for?”
“The mountain lion. You mentioned it was scaring away your game.” He leans closer. “And I think a certain baker’s boy wouldn’t mind a fur coat for his delivery routes when winter comes.”
I wilt like grass in a drought. “Grandfather, if you’ve been bugging the cottage again to teach me how to spot cameras, I’ll take your other eye.” No one knows I’m in love. And that’s just how I like it. I’d rather roll in a hive of wasps than have anyone give me knowing glances when I go to buy bread. Whenever he gives me a free cupcake, I devour it before anyone sees and hide the paper in a box under my bed. Once I wrote Katniss Mellark on a cupcake wrapper. Then I panicked and ate that, too.
“Of course not. But I know how long it takes to walk to the bakery and back when you don’t stop to talk, versus how long it takes when you do.”
The fact that he can see right through me rankles even worse than the possibility of being spied on. “If you tell anyone-“
“My other eye. I know. That’s why I always carry a strong sedative.” He smiles, though I know he’s not joking about the sedative.
I hoist my bow and quiver. “I love you, too.”
The mountain lion is nowhere to be seen. Gone to ground in the heat, I guess. But I bag a wild turkey- and two masked assassins prowling around the cottage. No time to bury the bodies. I hide them under a haystack in the meadow and wash off the blood. When the rest of the family returns, I’m so busy preparing the turkey that I don’t think anything of Grandfather’s white head leaning close to Prim’s blonde one.
Not until I notice her slipping on her sandals. “You’re heading out?”
She nods. “Grandfather said I should invite your friend Peeta, since we won’t be able to eat that wild turkey by ourselves.”
“If you’re going to change out of your hunting clothes, you should wear that dress you wore to the wedding in District Four. The yellow one that looks like candlelight.” Grandfather tells me as Prim darts out the back door. He’s already stolen a handful of crackers from the cheese plate, and there are crumbs in his beard when he smiles. “I think it would be very appropriate for greeting our guest.”
Prim doesn’t know. She’s just an adorable little pawn in Grandfather’s latest scheme.
But Grandfather… I’ll get back at him. He knows I’ll get back at him.
He’d be disappointed if I didn’t try.