Сьюзен Коллинз - The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

She plucked the splinter free. “There. Well, I hope old you doesn’t haunt new you. We’ve already got enough ghosts between us.”

The moment passed, but it had killed the conversation. Neither of them spoke again until the halfway point, where they stopped for a breather.

Lucy Gray unscrewed the plastic jug and offered it to him. “Will they miss you yet?”

“Probably not until dinner. You?” He took a deep drink of water.

“Only one up when I left was Tam Amber. I told him I was going to find out about a goat. We’ve been talking about building a herd. Sell the milk as a sideline,” she said. “I’ve probably got a few more hours before they start looking. Might be night before they think about the hanging tree and find the wagon. They’ll put it together.”

He handed her the jug. “Will they try to follow you?”

“Maybe. But we’ll be too far gone.” She took a swig and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Will they hunt you?”

He doubted the Peacekeepers would be concerned anytime soon. Why would he desert with elite officers’ school waiting? If anyone even noticed he was missing, they’d probably think he’d gone into town with another Peacekeeper. Unless they found the gun, of course. He didn’t want to go into all the school stuff now while the wound was still fresh. “I don’t know. Even when they realize I’ve run, they won’t know where to look.”

They hiked on toward the lake, each lost in their own thoughts. It all seemed unreal to him, as if this were just a pleasure outing, as the one two Sundays ago had been. As if they were going for a picnic, and he must be sure to get back in time for fried baloney and curfew. But no. When they reached the lake, they’d move on into the wilderness, to a life consumed with the most basic type of survival. How would they eat? Where would they live? And what on earth would they do with themselves, when the challenges of obtaining food and shelter had been met? Her with no music. Him with no school, or military, or anything. Have a family? It seemed too bleak an existence to condemn a child to. Any child, let alone one of his own. What was there to aspire to once wealth, fame, and power had been eliminated? Was the goal of survival further survival and nothing more?

Preoccupied as he was with these questions, the second leg of the journey to the lake passed quickly. They set down their loads on the shore, and Lucy Gray went directly to find branches for fishing poles. “We don’t know what lies ahead, so we better fill up here,” she said. She showed him how to attach the heavy thread and hooks to their poles. Clawing through the soft mud for worms disgusted him, and he wondered if this would be a daily activity. It would, if they were hungry enough. They baited the hooks and sat silently on the bank, waiting for a strike as the birds chattered around them. She caught two. He caught nothing.

Heavy, dark clouds rolled in, providing some relief from the beating sun but adding to his oppression. This was his life now. Digging for worms and being at the mercy of the weather. Elemental. Like an animal. He knew this would be easier if he wasn’t such an exceptional person. The best and the brightest humanity had to offer. The youngest to pass the officer candidate test. If he’d been useless and stupid, the loss of civilization would not have hollowed out his insides in this manner. He’d have taken it in stride. Thick, cold raindrops began to plop down on him, leaving wet marks on his fatigues.

“Never be able to cook in this,” Lucy Gray said. “Better go inside. There’s a fireplace in there we can use.”

She could only mean the one lake house that still had a roof. Probably his last roof, until he built one himself. How did you build a roof anyway? It had not been a question on the officer candidate test.

After she’d quickly cleaned the fish and wrapped them in leaves, they gathered up their bundles and hurried to the house as the rain pelted them. It might’ve been fun, if it hadn’t been his real life. Just an adventure for a few hours, with a charming girl and a fulfilling future elsewhere. The door was jammed, but Lucy Gray bumped it with her hip and it swung open. They scrambled in out of the wet and dropped their belongings. It was only one room, with concrete walls, ceiling, and floor. There was no sign of electricity, but light came through the windows on four sides and the single door. His eyes lit on the fireplace, full of old ashes, with a neat pile of dried wood stacked beside it. At least they wouldn’t have to forage for that.

Lucy Gray crossed to the fireplace, laid the fish down on the little concrete hearth, and began to arrange layers of wood and twigs on an old metal grate. “We keep some wood in here so there’s always some dry.”

Coriolanus considered the possibility of just staying in the sturdy little house, with plenty of wood around and the lake to fish in. But no, it would be too dangerous to put down roots this close to District 12. If the Covey knew of this spot, surely other people did, too. He had to deny himself even this last shred of protection. Would he end up in a cave after all? He thought of the beautiful Snow penthouse, with its marble floors and crystal chandeliers. His home. His rightful home. The wind blew a splatter of rain in, peppering his pants with icy drops. He swung the door shut behind him and froze. The door had concealed something. A long burlap bag. From the opening poked the barrel of a shotgun.

It couldn’t be. Unable to breathe, he nudged the bag open with his boot, revealing the shotgun and a Peacekeeper’s rifle. A little more and he could recognize the grenade launcher. Beyond question, these were the black market guns Sejanus had bought in the shed. And among them the murder weapons.

Lucy Gray lit the fire. “I brought along an old metal can thinking maybe we could carry live coals from place to place. I don’t have many matches, and it’s hard to get a fire going from flint.”

“Uh-huh,” said Coriolanus. “Good idea.” How had the weapons gotten here? It made sense, really. Billy Taupe could have brought Spruce to the lake, or maybe Spruce had simply known about it anyway. It would have been useful to the rebels during the war, to have as a hideout. And Spruce had been smart enough to know he couldn’t risk hiding the evidence in District 12.

“Hey, what’d you find there?” Lucy Gray joined him and leaned down, pulling the burlap from the weapons. “Oh. Are these the ones they had in the shed?”

“I think they must be,” he said. “Should we take the guns along?”

Lucy Gray drew back, rose to her feet, and considered them for a long moment. “Rather not. I don’t trust them. This will come in handy, though.” She pulled out a long knife, turning the blade over in her hand. “I think I’ll go dig up some katniss, since we got the fire going anyway. There’s a good patch by the lake.”

“I thought they weren’t ready,” he said.

“Two weeks can make a lot of difference,” she said.

“It’s still raining,” he objected. “You’ll get soaked.”

She laughed. “Well, I’m not made of sugar.”

In truth, he was happy for a minute alone to think. After she left, he lifted the bottom of the burlap bag, and the weapons slid out onto the floor. Kneeling beside the pile, he picked up the Peacekeeper’s rifle he’d killed Mayfair with and cradled it in his arms. Here it was. The murder weapon. Not in a Capitol forensic lab, but here, in his hands, in the middle of the wilderness, where it posed no threat at all. All he had to do was destroy it, and he would be free from the hangman’s noose. Free to go back to the base. Free to go forward to District 2. Free to rejoin the human race without fear. Tears of relief flooded his eyes, and he began to laugh out of sheer joy. How would he do it? Burn it in a bonfire? Disassemble it and scatter the parts to the four winds? Throw it into the lake? Once the gun was gone, there’d be nothing to connect him to the murders. Absolutely nothing.