Sunrise on the Reaping

On his sixteenth birthday, Haymitch Abernathy expects to face another reaping and then return to his life with his mother Willamae, his younger brother Sid, and his girlfriend Lenore Dove. The Fiftieth Hunger Games are the second Quarter Quell, so District 12 must send twice the usual number of tributes. Drusilla Sickle initially draws Louella McCoy, Maysilee Donner, Wyatt Callow, and Woodbine Chance. Woodbine runs from the square and is shot dead from the Justice Building roof. When Haymitch protects Lenore during the violence that follows, Drusilla designates him as Woodbine's replacement and, with Plutarch Heavensbee, stages a new version of the boys' drawing for the delayed broadcast. Haymitch is sent to the Capitol knowing from the outset that the public record of the Games can be rearranged to hide what actually happened.

Louella dies in a chariot crash before the Games begin. Haymitch carries her body beneath President Snow's balcony and publicly applauds the president, drawing attention to a death caused by the Capitol's own ceremony. Snow later retaliates by presenting a drugged and programmed girl as Louella's body double. The District 12 group renames her Lou Lou; evidence suggests she may originally be from District 11, but her identity is never recovered. Haymitch, Maysilee, Wyatt, and Lou Lou are assisted by Mags and Wiress. Beetee, whose son Ampert was deliberately reaped after Beetee planned to sabotage Capitol communications, recruits Haymitch into a second plan: enter the arena's hidden utility system and rupture a northern reservoir so that the water floods the computer infrastructure beneath the arena. Meanwhile, a large alliance called the Newcomers grows to include thirty-two tributes from Districts 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12. Haymitch also receives covert help from Plutarch, who tells him that the arena sun matches the real sun and that planted berms may conceal mutt portals. Haymitch never becomes certain how far Plutarch can be trusted.

Inside the arena, the landscape is designed to appear abundant while natural food and water are poisonous. Haymitch survives contaminated water using charcoal from his pack. Wyatt dies in the opening fighting while protecting Lou Lou, and Lou Lou later dies after a bee-balm berm poisons her. Haymitch locates a mutt portal by tracking electric butterfly mutts and meets Ampert there. Using explosive material hidden in District 9 sunflower tokens, a fuse and blasting cap supplied through Beetee's plan, and Lenore's flint striker for ignition, Haymitch descends alone into Sub-A and ruptures the reservoir. The flood temporarily disables arena control: the artificial sky disappears, systems malfunction, and the real night sky becomes visible. Ampert is then killed by squirrel mutts programmed specifically for him. Backup systems restore the arena, and a simulated volcano begins killing more tributes.

Haymitch next tries to reach the external backup generator at the north end of the arena. After killing two Careers in self-defense, he is saved from Panache Barker by Maysilee, who has become a skilled blowgun fighter. Haymitch and Maysilee renew their alliance, call each other brother and sister, and promise that if one survives, that victor will reject the Capitol's script and "paint the posters" instead. They later encounter three Gamemakers repairing a damaged berm; Maritte kills one, Maysilee kills another, and the third dies falling into Sub-A. Haymitch freezes during the encounter, and the Capitol responds with tear-gas bombs. He and Maysilee eventually burn through the northern hedge and discover the backup generator below a steep cliff, protected by a force field that reverses objects thrown toward it. Pink waterbird mutts programmed specifically for Maysilee then kill her. Her last act is to lock pinkies with Haymitch, reaffirming their promise.

With only Haymitch, Wellie, and Silka remaining, Haymitch finds the starving Wellie and tries to keep her alive. After discovering that Maysilee's token cord is a backup fuse with a blasting cap, he initially plans to destroy the Cornucopia and leave Wellie as victor. Silka instead finds and decapitates Wellie. Haymitch fights Silka until she throws her ax at him near the cliff; the generator's force field reverses the ax and drives it into Silka's head. Now the final tribute and badly wounded, Haymitch uses the remaining District 9 explosive, Maysilee's fuse, and Lenore's flint striker to throw one last bomb toward the force field. The blast knocks him unconscious. The Capitol keeps him alive, treats him in a laboratory, and then rewrites the Games for the Victor's Ceremony. The official recap erases Woodbine's killing, Louella's real death, the Newcomer alliance, Haymitch's two sabotage attempts, the exposed Gamemakers, Snow's threatening milk pitcher, and the final bomb. Snow crowns Haymitch after a version of events that turns his coordinated defiance into the story of a selfish and increasingly violent victor.

Snow's punishment continues after the Games. Haymitch is locked in a golden cage at the presidential after-party and forced through ten days of public appearances before returning home with the coffins of Louella, Maysilee, and Wyatt. In District 12 he finds his house burning and learns that Willamae and Sid have died inside. Haymitch concludes that Snow ordered the arson. Lenore, who had been detained during the Games, is eventually released under house arrest. When Haymitch reunites with her in the Meadow, she finds a new bag of bloodred gumdrops. The original gumdrops Sid delivered are still under her pillow. Haymitch realizes the new candies are poisoned, but Lenore has already swallowed one. She dies in his arms after making him promise not to let the sun rise on another reaping.

Haymitch responds by isolating himself and drinking heavily. Burdock eventually leads him to Lenore's hidden Covey grave, where Haymitch buries her flint striker. Later, orange anti-Capitol graffiti resolves an earlier clue about orange paint on Lenore's fingernails, and Haymitch recognizes the message as Lenore's work and as a reminder of his promise. On the Victory Tour, Plutarch asks Haymitch to help a resistance that may require generations and an army. Haymitch refuses and later accuses Plutarch of helping create the Capitol propaganda that erased what the tributes did. He returns to the Victor's Village expecting that every birthday will bring another District 12 girl and boy for him to mentor toward death.

The Epilogue takes place years later, after the rebellion and the end of the Hunger Games. Haymitch reveals that Burdock was Katniss Everdeen's father and that he watched Katniss grow from a baby into the girl he later mentored with Peeta Mellark. After the war, he finally contributes to Katniss and Peeta's memorial book and tells them about Burdock, Maysilee, Sid, Lenore, and the others he had tried to forget. Katniss later brings him goose eggs to hatch, and Peeta builds an incubator. Haymitch credits Katniss with finally keeping the sun from rising on another reaping. His liver is badly damaged and he still drinks, but he no longer believes the Capitol succeeded in taking Lenore from him. In his memory or imagination, she has aged alongside him. The book ends with that enduring exchange: Lenore tells Haymitch she loves him like all-fire, and he answers that he loves her like all-fire too.