Chapter Text
The walls in the dining room are blindingly white — the only room untouched by their artistry.
The knife in her hand isn’t sharp enough. So dull, it couldn’t even cut through the piece of meat.
Her stomach growls. The pills stopped working hours after the final cannon blasted, signalling the Games ending, so now she’s doing everything to hold back the shaking. She’s used to this . She can do it.
But —
Jinx feels the weight of eyes on her as she pushes the blade again and again, firmer each time, wishing it was herself beneath it instead of the bland chicken. Another part of her wishes she could devour herself instead. She knows she messed up. Bad. The quickest, loudest cannon the Panem has ever seen had completely blown up the message of the Hunger Games. Tarnished the mastermind behind it. Made a laughingstock out of them.
President Silco. The man who had given her purpose outside of being a jinx . The man she owes the world.
“Would you care to enlighten me about what happened?”
She forces a giggle, like she didn’t lose her mind using every possible way — all muttations and environmental changes — to fix her mishap in the Control Room. “It was a… surprise. People love my surprises.”
“Do they now?”
She tenses. She already knows that look he’s giving, without needing to look up; it’s the one specially reserved for her. No other person could survive disappointing and humiliating The Eye and live to tell the tale. She’s so lucky she’s loved.
“I gave them what they wanted,” she says and drinks from the glass of water hurriedly. “After the cameras caught it all and people ate it up — the stupid little confession, the tears, the drama of the underdogs — I tried to stop it but it just fits. You always said sentiment sells.”
Her head is aching. The hunger, frustration, anger, and disappointment ricochet behind her eyes.
“And what is this sentiment that is yours to sell?”
She opens her mouth but words get stuck on her throat like vomit pushed down. She thinks of the young boy from District 10, laid down on a bed of flowers and sung to sleep. She thinks of the star-crossed lovers from Twelve, how they managed to weave a story to sell, to push her into a corner. Outmaneuvering her.
Silco taught her this lesson once.
Justice and protection weren’t ideals easy to come by. They need control; it was the central point. And control required sacrifice. Spectacle . He’d learned that the hard way, betrayed by Vander, by Zaun, by the Districts who claimed to fight with him. He wanted to spare her the same heartbreak.
“They weren’t supposed to–he wasn’t —” She cut herself off. Bit her tongue. “The nightlock was a wrong choice.”
“Hm.” She hears the soft whiff of velvet as he leans back. “The nightlock worked on the Piltie boy from 2 and the girl from 10. Gave us such a beautiful spectacle, actually. So I’m inclined to disagree, my dear.”
And he’s right. Jinx doesn’t fail. She just can’t. Not since she’d been made Head Gamemaker–the youngest ever, appointed at seventeen, fresh from the Academy with top marks and a reputation for turning theory into spectacle, precision into chaos. Explosions, drama, blood in the snow.
She made the Hunger Games the event, and it gave her a reason to keep going on.
That had been Silco’s second year as President. Her first as his loose cannon. Every year since: higher ratings, bigger deaths, louder applause.
She pays her dues to Silco in blood and smoke — ensuring Pilties never forget their crimes, their gilded cages, and their hand in creating the Games that now included their children; the Zaunites will never forget the consequences of betraying him for Vander’s dream.
Until him.
The boy with the long white locs and the body of a dancer volunteered for his friend’s son. Ekko Fraser—the Boy on Fire. He stood in the Parade with eyes like soot and fury, and when he said he loved someone in the Capitol, the whole nation listened. They believed him.
He looked at Jinx like he wanted her dead. And she couldn’t lie; it thrilled her. Set fire rushing through her veins.
At the Tribute Showcase, he’d swung his bat straight into the Gamemakers’ balcony—knocking the coyote head taxidermy clean off the wall she’d been lounging against. She’d laughed, while everyone else ducked in alarm. He wasn’t just dangerous. He was performing.
And she should’ve known better. Should’ve shut it down earlier. Should’ve rewritten the narrative.
“I didn’t expect they’d do that,” she mutters, more to herself than him. “I did everything I could. Everything planned, everything improvised. I should’ve pulled something else, I know that, but it was too late.”
Silco sighs.
“You expect me to believe a pair of malnourished children bested you in a game of wits? I did not drag us out of the Districts and into this pigsty; I did not burn the world and build it anew so you could sit in that chair, so you could tell me you didn’t expect this.”
She finally looks up, and instead of the tyrant the Districts make of him, instead of the Eye of Zaun, all she sees is a disappointed father.
“I focused on making the Games longer than it should've,” she admits, voice cracking despite herself. “I wanted to see how they’d react to my new mutts. The experiments. I thought —”
Silco’s good eye twitches. A muscle in his jaw shifts.
“You cannot afford softness with these people, Jinx.”
She scoffs. “I don’t think anyone would dare call me soft.” Her smile curves sharp and proud. “If they did… they wouldn’t be around to repeat it.”
Silco doesn’t budge. Not even a blink.
“You think hardness is just blood and bombs, and I admit it’s my own fault for keeping you so sheltered. But softness sinks deeper than that.” He leans forward, elbows on the table and fingers clasped together. “It’s in the hesitation. The moment of affection. The look you gave that boy from Twelve when he stared you down at the Parade.”
She stiffens and her hands curl into tight fists. “I don’t hold any affection for him!”
He waves a hand in response, silencing her.
“It’s that crack you won’t admit you have. And it’s that crack that’s made them believe. You’ve given them hope, Jinx. Hope that Fraser and Nasaaj are more than just pretty tributes, no, Victors. That they are above the rules that keep our nation alive. That they can win even without your help.”
He pauses, voice going quiet.
“And that… that is the kind of softness that burns empires to the ground.”
A beat passes.
She swallows the acid rising in her throat. The fury. The guilt.
“I’ll do better next time,” she says, words steady but dull. “I promise — I’m going to make them pay for this.”
Silco seems to consider this for a moment and nods. “I know you will,” his bad eye glinting obsidian in the light — a testament to his pain. “You always do.”
This was the worst incident since the hybrid project at the Academy and yet Silco still trusted her.
Still believed in her.
“But, my dear, everything has a price.” He taps the table thrice, and in comes a Avox, tall, willowy with vacant eyes. “In this case… it’s dessert.”
An elegant dish set in a clear glass is placed before her. Jinx’s heart thunders at the sight of what is in it.
Nightlock berries. Glossy and fatal.
Her fingers itch. For her gun, her crossbow, her bombs, her tablet. Anything to ground her. No. No.
She sees the golden-haired boy from District 1. Ezreal — was that his name? Arrogance and relief fading from his eyes, hands stained black by the berries. His mouth gapes as he poison sets in, hands reaching out to her —
She stands abruptly. Her hand clips the edge of the plate. The dish topples and the berries scatter across the marble floor like spilled rare pearls.
Silco raises a brow.
“Rude.”
Her head is reeling. He wouldn’t do this to her. “You said you trusted me!” She hates how her voice cracks, like she was Powder again, begging for forgiveness, for acceptance. “This was a small thing. I keep them watching. I keep them entertained. Those Pilties with their heads half-stuck in a compact wouldn’t know they’re bleeding if I didn’t make the blood look pretty! You need m—”
“Eat,” he commands.
But his eyes are trained towards the Avox.
The girl freezes. She’s young. No older than the tributes. Her hands shake as she reaches for the berry.
Jinx opens her mouth. A protest, a plea — she doesn’t even know which.
But Silco cuts her a glance that silences everything inside her.
The girl kneels down to retrieve one and lifts the berry to her lips.
Chews.
Swallows.
It doesn’t take long.
Her long limbs convulse, body crashing to the floor. Eyes wide. Foaming lips. The thud echoes louder than it should in a room this silent.
Again, Silco doesn’t flinch.
He just turns back to Jinx. Calm. Composed.
“Actions have consequences, Jinx. You’ve been raised above them, but not immune to them.”
He steps over the corpse like it’s a spill on the carpet.
“I broke the Capitol from the inside. Poisoned it with its own medicine. Do you remember what it took?” His voice lowers, thick with memory and threat. “I bled out the old gods. Burned their sons in their mansions. Laughed while they choked on smoke and silk. All for a world where fairness finally meant everyone paid the same price. Zaunite, Piltovan — no favorites. No illusions of safety. If you live under my sky, you risk the reap.”
He hunches beside her, eyes level, calm as death.
“And you — you’re the face of this fairness. You don’t get to falter. You don’t get to fail. Because if the world sees even you crack…”
He glances at the Avox's body.
“…they’ll stop fearing what happens next.”
She doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. Just stares at the still-warm corpse, her own pulse loud in her ears.
Silco straightens, smooths his sleeves.
“Clean this up,” he mutters to the Peacekeepers as he exits the room. “And prepare her another one. My daughter deserves a good night’s sleep.”