Sunrise on the Reaping

Haymitch Abernathy wakes on his sixteenth birthday, which falls on reaping day for the Fiftieth Hunger Games and the second Quarter Quell. His widowed mother supports Haymitch and his ten-year-old brother, Sid, by taking in laundry. Haymitch slips outside District 12 to work for bootlegger Hattie Meeney, who pays his wages to his mother and gives him a pint of white liquor for his birthday. Rumors surrounding his father's death in a mine fire have left the Abernathy family associated with past rebellion.

Released early by Hattie, Haymitch meets his girlfriend, Lenore Dove, in the Meadow. Lenore sings a forbidden song about unequal law and challenges Haymitch's belief that the reaping is inevitable, asking him to imagine the sun rising on a world without it. She gives him a C-shaped flint striker that Tam Amber forged from her design. Back home, Sid gives him a piece of flint, and Haymitch later trades the white liquor at the apothecary and buys Lenore a bag of gumdrops.

At the reaping, Haymitch calculates that five years of tesserae have put twenty slips with his name in the boys' ball, with the Quarter Quell doubling the number of tributes. Drusilla Sickle draws Louella McCoy and Maysilee Donner, then Wyatt Callow and Woodbine Chance. Woodbine turns and runs instead of approaching the stage. His relatives and other residents obstruct the Peacekeepers, but a shooter on the Justice Building roof kills him before he reaches the alley.

After Woodbine Chance is shot at the end of the reaping, the broadcast screens briefly go dark while District 12's square erupts. Peacekeepers fire into the crowd, hitting several people, and order everyone to the ground. When Lenore Dove helps Woodbine's mother resist the soldiers taking his body, Haymitch runs to protect her and intercepts a Peacekeeper's rifle butt with his temple. Drusilla Sickle decides to use Haymitch as the replacement male tribute. Plutarch Heavensbee intervenes when Drusilla orders Lenore shot, arguing that Lenore can provide useful reaction footage.

With only minutes left in the delayed broadcast, Drusilla and Plutarch stage a second version of the boys' drawing. Wyatt Callow is called again, followed by Haymitch, while the cameras present the replacement as part of an orderly reaping. Haymitch and Lenore refuse to give Plutarch the tearful farewell he wants. After the broadcast ends, Drusilla initially denies District 12's tributes their family good-byes because of the disorder in the square.

Plutarch instead bargains with the families for reaction footage. Louella's family refuses to perform until the crew captures their real distress, while Haymitch's mother agrees to reenact her reaction in exchange for two minutes with him. Haymitch gives Ma his remaining money and peanuts, gives Sid his knife and the gumdrops intended for Lenore, and tells Sid he is now the man of the house. As Peacekeepers pull the family apart, Ma reminds Haymitch of his father's warning to a previously reaped girl not to let the Capitol use her. Haymitch is shocked unconscious while resisting, then taken to the train. When it finally leaves during a storm, he sees Lenore on a ridge with the gumdrops, wailing where the Capitol cameras cannot turn their farewell into entertainment.

On the train, Haymitch grieves the life he expected to have with Lenore Dove and worries about his mother and Sid. A memory of Sid naming constellations reveals that his mother's name is Willamae. Haymitch also recalls the Covey's former life as traveling musicians and how, after the war, Peacekeepers killed the adults and confined the surviving children to District 12. He regrets leaving the cistern unfilled but not the final time he spent with Lenore, and briefly thinks Woodbine's quick death may have been preferable to the arena.

Several hours later, Plutarch releases Haymitch from his compartment and brings him to Louella, Wyatt, and Maysilee. Haymitch distrusts Plutarch for exploiting his family but remembers that Plutarch also secured his last embrace with them and probably prevented Lenore from being shot. Haymitch and thirteen-year-old Louella agree to be allies. Maysilee then insists that a Capitol attendant bring Louella plates and utensils rather than treating her as inferior, although old resentments between the two girls quickly reappear.

The tributes watch Capitol News recap all twelve reapings. Plutarch explains that District 12 has no living victor to serve automatically as mentor, although the district did have one female victor long ago. His edited sequence removes Woodbine's killing and the subsequent disorder without altering the individual shots, arranging the footage so Wyatt and Haymitch appear to have been drawn normally. Wyatt recognizes the technique as stacking the deck. Plutarch says he is trying to make the four tributes more attractive to sponsors, while Maysilee argues that the rearrangement mainly makes the Capitol look competent. Haymitch concludes that Plutarch's friendliness and favors are methods of managing him. Tibby then arrives with a sixteen-candle birthday cake.

Haymitch refuses the Capitol birthday cake while a cameraman waits to record his reaction. Remembering his father's warning to Sarshee Whitcomb not to let the Capitol use her or "paint their posters" with her blood, he turns away rather than give Plutarch the footage. Plutarch has the cake removed and apologizes, but Haymitch suspects even the apology is another way of managing him.

After Plutarch announces that District 12 will receive a stylist, Drusilla insults the dress Louella's mother made. Maysilee mocks Drusilla's clothes and age. Drusilla slaps her, Maysilee immediately slaps back, and Drusilla attacks her with a riding crop until two Peacekeepers pull her away. Maysilee continues taunting Drusilla despite the welts. Plutarch warns the four tributes that, because they lack their own district mentor, Drusilla may still be their strongest Capitol advocate.

That night Louella tells Haymitch she does not want Wyatt as an ally because she believes his father is one of the Booker Boys who profit from gambling on the Hunger Games. Her evidence is Wyatt's practiced coin trick and her brother Cayson's earlier condemnation of Mr. Callow. Haymitch and Louella infer that Wyatt may be involved as well and agree not to ally with him, but the source does not establish that inference as fact. At the Capitol station they encounter the District 1 tributes. Wyatt immediately analyzes Panache Barker's size, training, likely family connection to former victor Palladium Barker, betting odds, and temperament, then tells the others that even if they do not want him, they need his knowledge.

At the Capitol station, Wyatt corrects Louella's accusation: he says he is not a Booker Boy but an oddsmaker who calculates betting odds, while his family takes the bets. The four District 12 tributes are then transported in a windowless van to the old Academy gymnasium being used as the Tribute Center. There the boys and girls are separated, stripped, chemically washed with insecticide, shaved, photographed, and prepared for public display. A Peacekeeper identifies Haymitch's flint striker as his proposed arena token and says it will be evaluated later.

Haymitch's University-student prep team, Proserpina and Vitus, tell him that Magno Stift is again District 12's stylist. While waiting, Haymitch thinks about Lenore Dove's earlier arrests. He believes she secretly weakened the rope before Clay Chance's execution and later burned a Panem flag beneath the reaping stage, but Lenore has never admitted either act to him. When the dressed tributes begin passing through the gym, District 1 tribute Silka threatens Maysilee after Maysilee mocks her costume.

Magno arrives late and gives District 12 the same worn miner costumes he has used for years. The four are rushed to the chariot staging area and packed into an undersized chariot pulled by skittish horses. Haymitch steadies a frightened Louella and promises that the two of them will stay together to the end. During the parade, a firework panics their horses. Their chariot races out of control until a collision with District 6 destroys a wheel and throws Haymitch and Louella onto the pavement.

Haymitch lands beside a pool of blood and realizes it is not his. The chapter ends with his recognition that Louella is the tribute who has "escaped the arena," while the extent of her injury is confirmed only at the start of the next chapter.

Haymitch confirms that Louella died when her head struck the pavement in the chariot crash. Maysilee places one of her flower necklaces around Louella's neck as a token from home. When Peacekeepers approach to remove the body, Maysilee urges Haymitch not to surrender Louella quietly. He runs with her through the wreckage, steals District 1's chariot when Panache and Silka lose control of its horses, and rides to President Snow's mansion.

Haymitch lays Louella beneath Snow's balcony and applauds the president, forcing attention onto a death caused by the Capitol's own ceremony. Snow first appears amused, then watches the screen showing Haymitch and seems to focus on Haymitch's flint striker before Peacekeepers drag him away. Spectators call after Haymitch and discuss sponsoring him; he responds by spitting at one of them. Back at the stable, Maysilee says that even if the Capitol is not frightened, it now knows District 12 is present.

Wyatt coldly notes that Louella's death and injuries to other districts improve District 12's odds. After Haymitch attacks Wyatt's family business, Maysilee argues that none of them had much choice about the lives their families had assigned them. Haymitch later studies the full forty-eight-tribute roster and meets twelve-year-old Ampert from District 3. Ampert demonstrates that he can pick his handcuff with a safety pin and says he is building a non-Career alliance that already includes all of Districts 7 and 8, with District 11 considering it. Haymitch declines because Louella was his ally.

Haymitch, Maysilee, and Wyatt are eventually taken to District 12's apartment without Drusilla, Magno, or a listed mentor. There they meet Wiress, the previous year's District 3 victor, and Mags, a District 4 victor. Haymitch initially doubts Wiress because he remembers her winning a mirrored arena through observation and concealment rather than combat. Mags then embraces him, expresses sympathy for Louella, and Haymitch finally lets himself cry.

After Mags comforts him over Louella's death, Haymitch bathes, eats bean and ham hock soup that reminds him of home, and sleeps. The next morning Mags and Wiress ask the District 12 tributes what they want from the Games besides survival. Haymitch says he does not want Lenore Dove or his family to watch him die slowly. Wyatt also wants a quick death rather than one prolonged for gamblers, while Maysilee does not want to beg or plead.

Haymitch then says he wants the audience to remember that the tributes are human beings and to consider whether fifty years is enough punishment for the districts. Wiress describes every arena as a killing machine that can potentially be outsmarted. Mags and Wiress advise the tributes about weapons, water, food, shelter, fire, allies, and clues hidden in training. Maysilee and Wyatt agree to ally with one another, and Haymitch says he will ask Ampert whether they can join his growing anti-Career group.

At the training gym, Haymitch, Maysilee, and Wyatt practice knife throwing with District 7. Haymitch meets Ringina and decides he could ally with her. Panache suddenly sucker-punches Haymitch near the knife station and is tased and dragged away by Peacekeepers. For a moment several tributes are holding knives while only a few Peacekeepers are nearby. Haymitch and Ringina both recognize that they could have attacked their guards. After Ringina says they could have taken them, Plutarch appears and asks why they did not.

Plutarch presses Haymitch and Ringina on why the districts continue accepting Capitol rule. Ringina points to the Capitol's weapons, while Haymitch says people comply because they do not want to die. Plutarch argues that the numerical advantage of the districts still makes the arrangement worth questioning. He also tells Haymitch that the public broadcast of the chariot procession ended when the firework went off, so Capitol News can present the ceremony as flawless.

Haymitch introduces Maysilee and Wyatt to the alliance. Maysilee braids Ampert's black cord into a token necklace, and Ampert tells Haymitch that his father wants to meet him. The man is Beetee, District 3's victor. Beetee explains that Snow is punishing him for planning to sabotage Capitol communications: Beetee is too valuable to kill, so Ampert was reaped and Beetee has been forced to mentor his own son. While teaching Haymitch how to make a potato battery, Beetee confirms that an arena is a machine and that a machine can theoretically be broken. Under surveillance he explains that breaking one link disables a circuit, then secretly passes Haymitch a packet containing coins, nails, wire, and bulbs.

At lunch, the alliance includes Districts 3, 7, 8, 10, and 12. Ampert proposes using their numbers to hunt the Careers instead of being hunted. Haymitch then recruits the injured District 6 tributes after seeing the Careers steal their lunches. The new members are Wellie, Miles, Atread, and Velo. The six-district group adopts the name Newcomers, and Maysilee gains the other tributes' respect by turning their district tokens into braided necklaces and ornaments. District 11 remains undecided.

After training, Haymitch, Maysilee, and Wyatt continue planning in the van, but only Haymitch is ordered out at a large white marble building. Plutarch meets him at the entrance and says President Snow has reconsidered Haymitch's performance with Louella beneath the mansion balcony. Haymitch realizes he has been brought there to face the consequences.

Plutarch takes Haymitch into the Heavensbee family mansion, where the portraits, servants, and immense library make the family's wealth unmistakable. In the library Plutarch identifies an ancestor, Trajan Heavensbee, and discovers that Haymitch knows the poem about Lenore and nepenthe. He then shows Haymitch a carnivorous Nepenthes plant in the conservatory.

President Snow arrives visibly ill and vomits repeatedly. Snow says he has food poisoning from bad oysters and refuses a doctor. When Plutarch sends Haymitch for milk, Haymitch drinks the available milk himself rather than give it to Snow, and Plutarch covers for him by blaming the servants. Once Snow improves, he summons Haymitch to sit opposite him and examines the flint striker Lenore gave him. Snow reads its inscription, recognizes Lenore Dove's initials, and demonstrates that he knows the Covey naming tradition and enough about Lenore to unsettle Haymitch.

Snow tells Haymitch that his behavior has guaranteed he will die in the arena. He says Haymitch's conduct from this point forward will determine whether that death is clean and quick or deliberately prolonged and agonizing for Lenore, Willamae, and Sid to watch. He orders Haymitch to stop unauthorized displays and says he has a belated birthday gift that must be treated with gratitude. At Snow's command, a girl who appears to be Louella McCoy steps into the doorway. The chapter does not yet establish who she really is.

Haymitch immediately recognizes that the girl presented as Louella cannot be the real Louella, whose death he witnessed. She has Louella's size, features, scar, braids, training clothes, and Maysilee's necklace, but her voice and manner are wrong. Snow calls her a body double and says the Capitol will tell the limited witnesses that Louella recovered from the parade accident. Haymitch concludes that the replacement is part of the effort to erase the Capitol's failure.

Plutarch says he did not know about the substitution. He guesses that the girl may be the child of traitors, has probably been drugged and programmed, and may not know her own identity. Back at the apartment, the girl repeatedly states that she is Louella McCoy from District 12. Her extreme hunger and reaction to a seeded District 11 roll lead Mags and Wiress to suspect she may originally be from District 11. Mags finds a drug-delivery device attached to her chest. The group accepts responsibility for her and, because Haymitch cannot call her Louella, renames her Lou Lou.

That evening the tributes and mentors review training clues. Wyatt notices the emphasis on tarps and suspects a wet arena; Maysilee notes that District 12's black clothing could help at night; Haymitch reports Beetee's potato-battery lesson. Haymitch and Wyatt sleep on the girls' floor so Lou Lou will not be isolated, and Haymitch takes first watch.

During the night, the apartment suddenly loses power. Beetee enters carrying a potato-powered light and explains that Wiress has disabled the building's electricity and surveillance for about ten minutes. He describes the arena's hidden Sub-A level and its onsite computer system, which controls essential arena functions. Haymitch says he is serious about breaking the arena. Beetee explains that reaching the protected computer directly is effectively impossible, but that the machine depends on supporting systems. He ends by telling Haymitch that their plan is to drown it.

Beetee completes the arena-sabotage plan. A large water reservoir lies beneath the northern part of the arena, above Sub-A. Haymitch and Ampert are to locate a mutt portal, enter the utility corridors, reach the tank, and use a specially designed explosive to rupture it so gravity floods the arena's computer system. Beetee says Ampert is expected to die regardless because Snow reaped him as punishment; he asks Haymitch only not to let his son suffer. Haymitch knows the basics of mine explosives, and his flint striker can provide the ignition if he can find a sparking stone.

After the power returns, Haymitch keeps the plan secret from Maysilee and Wyatt. The next morning Wiress suspects that Lou Lou has a two-way audio implant because she repeatedly paws at her ear. The group decides not to discuss secrets around her and recognizes that they can also feed false information through her. At training, Ampert says Beetee considers District 9 essential to the alliance.

Haymitch approaches District 9 during shelter training. After Panache destroys Kerna's sunflower token, Maysilee repairs it with improvised flour-and-water glue while Haymitch establishes rapport with Kerna. By lunch, Districts 9 and 11 have both joined. The Newcomers now contain all four tributes from Districts 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12, thirty-two tributes total, while District 5 has joined the Careers.

For his private Gamemaker session, Haymitch decides to present himself as selfish and focused on winning so his larger goal of breaking the arena will remain concealed. He tells Head Gamemaker Faustina Gripper that he was reaped illegally, that the real Louella was killed and replaced with a body double, and that he has thirty-one allies willing to defend him. He is dismissed without performing a physical skill. After his flint striker is taken for token inspection, the evening scores are announced: Maysilee and Wyatt receive sixes, Lou Lou receives a three, and Haymitch receives a one. The source gives no official explanation for Haymitch's score.

Haymitch worries that his score of one will eliminate sponsor support. Maysilee and Mags suggest it may at least make him distinctive, but no one knows why the Gamemakers chose it. When Haymitch says he essentially accused the Gamemakers of murdering the tributes, Lou Lou abruptly shouts agreement and then suffers a painful high-pitched signal in her ear, reinforcing the suspicion that the Capitol can control or monitor her implant.

The next morning all four District 12 tokens are returned. Maysilee examines Haymitch's flint striker and then hints that she knows a secret about Lenore Dove involving orange paint on Lenore's fingernails at the mayor's birthday party. She refuses to explain without a secret in trade. Wyatt identifies his scrip coin as zinc and Maysilee identifies her flower medallion as copper, giving the group possible materials for a potato battery.

Drusilla conducts interview practice. Lou Lou can initially do little beyond repeat her programmed identity, but when Drusilla shakes her she screams that the Capitol is murdering them; Maysilee then tells Drusilla outright that the real Louella is dead and Lou Lou is a tortured body double. Wyatt presents himself as an oddsmaker who can continuously evaluate the field. Maysilee chooses to attack Capitol fashion and taste. Drusilla tells Haymitch that open rebellion is unusable for the interview and advises him to seem like a charming, naughty rascal instead of a dangerous rebel.

Proserpina and Vitus report that Magno Stift is sick, vomiting, and behaving erratically, possibly because rumors that he uses hallucinogenic toad venom are true. Drusilla leaves to complain, while the prep teams become preoccupied with how Magno's failure could affect their grades. District 12 is left in worn black training clothes until an unidentified young woman with lavender hair arrives carrying four black hats, clothing bags, and shoes.

The unidentified woman from the previous chapter is Effie Trinket, Proserpina's older sister. She has brought vintage black formalwear belonging to Great-Aunt Messalina and Great-Uncle Silius so District 12 will not have to interview in worn training clothes. Effie dresses Wyatt in a tuxedo, Haymitch in a suit with a cocktail-glass vest, Lou Lou in black lace, and Maysilee in a velvet gown. Haymitch decides the vest supports Drusilla's "rascal" strategy, so he will present himself as a bootlegger without implicating Hattie.

Backstage, Beetee quietly gives Haymitch the final sabotage instructions. Haymitch must head north, track returning mutts to locate a portal, and meet Ampert after Ampert acquires an explosive. Ampert's replacement token is braided from fuse with a blasting cap hidden inside it. The four District 9 sunflower tokens have been replaced with shellacked explosive material that can be softened with water and friction; Ampert is expected to scavenge one after a District 9 tribute dies. Haymitch warns Wellie that he plans to separate from the Newcomers because the Gamemakers may target him.

During the televised interviews, Caesar Flickerman humiliates Panache, while District 3 introduces the Newcomer strategy and the alliance presents a coordinated case for collective strength. Lou Lou initially delights the audience with Magno's snake but then repeatedly accuses the Capitol audience of murdering the tributes. She collapses after the accusations, and Haymitch suspects the Capitol used her drug pump to stop her. Haymitch follows with his rascal persona, jokes about his score of one, attacks the Careers as stupid, and claims he illegally makes District 12 white liquor. The audience responds strongly, and Wiress tells him he has sponsors.

Afterward Plutarch persuades Drusilla to bring District 12 to the Heavensbee mansion for proper photographs and promotional footage. In the conservatory, Plutarch tells Haymitch that a desire for freedom exists in the Capitol as well as the districts. He hands Haymitch the swan telephone, saying someone wants to speak with him. The chapter ends when Haymitch hears Lenore Dove ask whether it is really him; the conversation itself has not yet occurred.

Lenore Dove tells Haymitch that Peacekeepers arrested her after she responded to his training score of one by playing forbidden songs at the Justice Building. A crowd gathered and sang with her. She says she is being released the next morning, but blames herself for Haymitch's reaping and says she cannot bear a world without him. Haymitch rejects her self-blame, makes her promise not to get herself killed, and promises that they will find each other again somehow. They exchange their "all-fire" declaration before the line cuts off.

Plutarch admits he arranged the call through an old friend in District 12 and risked severe punishment because he needs Haymitch to trust information about the arena. He says the arena sun is synchronized with the real sun, allowing Haymitch to identify north, and that Gamemakers previously discussed opening planted berms like those in the Heavensbee garden, suggesting the mutt portals may be concealed inside such mounds. Plutarch explicitly tells Haymitch not to let the Capitol control the narrative and urges him to blow the reservoir. Haymitch remains uncertain whether Plutarch is a genuine ally, but recognizes that the information would be essential if true.

Back in the Heavensbee library, Plutarch coaches District 12 for promotional footage. He argues that public opinion is driven by emotion and that the unapologetically district Newcomers can make the Careers look like Capitol imitators. The group develops the mocking label "Near Beer Careers" and related lines for the propos. Plutarch tells Haymitch that, in this matter, he is on their side.

At the District 12 apartment that night, Haymitch tells Maysilee and Wyatt he intends to enter the arena alone because his score of one may draw Gamemaker attacks onto anyone near him. He does not reveal the sabotage plan, his call with Lenore, Snow's threat, or Plutarch's information. Maysilee interprets the decision as another rejection of alliance, and Haymitch clarifies that he does not want anyone with him.

On launch morning, Haymitch gives Maysilee Beetee's potato-light packet as a peace offering before District 12 is searched, implanted with tracking devices, and taken by hovercraft to the arena. During the flight Lou Lou sings a District 11 harvest song and instantly completes another when Chicory begins it. The District 11 tributes do not recognize her, but the songs strengthen the evidence that she came from their district. When Chicory asks Lou Lou's real name, the implant in Lou Lou's ear appears to punish her for trying to answer.

At Sub-A, Haymitch, Maysilee, Wyatt, and Lou Lou share a final group embrace before entering separate launch rooms. Effie arrives at Haymitch's room to check his arena clothing and promises to do her best to return his flint-striker token to Lenore if he dies. When Haymitch rises into the arena, he sees an idyllic meadow, woods to his left, and a snowcapped mountain to his right. Using Plutarch's claim that the artificial sun matches the real sun, he identifies the woods as north.

At the gong Haymitch runs diagonally toward a spring-green backpack, collecting a spear and knife without entering the central bloodbath. He sees Kerna and hears screams behind him but forces himself to keep running north. Eighteen cannon shots follow the initial slaughter. Haymitch reaches the woods, inventories a pack containing a hammock, binoculars, two gallons of water, apples, eggs, potatoes, and charcoal tablets, and spots his first flower-covered berm, confirming part of Plutarch's intelligence.

The forest appears to duplicate the supplies in Haymitch's pack: abundant fruit, eggs, water, and likely potatoes. After drinking from a stream, Haymitch watches a dove-colored rabbit drink from the same water, stiffen, and die with blood at its mouth. The chapter ends at that warning, before Haymitch has established exactly what in the arena is poisonous.

Haymitch realizes the stream water is poisonous when burning abdominal pain follows his drink. Remembering his grandmother's use of charcoal for "fire, wind, or poison," he swallows the black tablets from his pack and eventually vomits and begins to recover. He then recognizes the pack as an arena clue: its clean water and ordinary foods probably duplicate poisonous versions growing freely around him, so he decides that only supplies from the Cornucopia are safe to consume.

Still too sick to continue north, Haymitch hides inside a dense blueberry patch. That night the fallen-tribute projection confirms twenty opening-day deaths: four Careers and sixteen Newcomers. Wyatt is among the dead, along with Miles, Velo, both District 7 boys, all four District 8 tributes, all four District 9 tributes, both District 10 girls, Tile, and others. Haymitch is especially shaken by Wyatt and worries whether Ampert was able to recover an explosive sunflower from District 9.

The next morning Lou Lou finds Haymitch after receiving the repeated instruction "Find Haymitch" through her bad ear. Haymitch suspects the Gamemakers directed her to him but refuses to abandon her. They continue north together. Haymitch uses his spear to retrieve stones from a poisonous stream and eventually finds a gray crystal that produces sparks when struck with Lenore's flint striker. He demonstrates fire-making, cooks safe potatoes from his pack, and examines the flower-covered berms while waiting for a chance to identify a mutt portal.

Lou Lou recognizes a berm planted with bee balm and buries herself in its flowers. Yellow pollen coats her, then she begins coughing, bleeding from her eyes, nose, and mouth, and convulsing. Haymitch initially thinks she is having an allergic reaction but realizes the arena has made the flowers lethal. He begs the Gamemakers to stop her suffering and tears the drug pump from her chest. The chapter ends before her death is confirmed.

Lou Lou's cannon fires at the start of the chapter, confirming her death. Haymitch tells the Gamemakers that they caused it and calls them murderers. When a hovercraft arrives to collect her body, he carries her into dense willows rather than surrender her immediately. He then realizes that this open defiance is exactly the behavior Snow ordered him to stop and may cost him the chance to sabotage the arena.

The Capitol responds with brilliant blue butterfly mutts whose stingers deliver electric shocks. Haymitch flees until he reaches the gas-plant berm. Using Lenore's flint striker and his sparking stone, he ignites the volatile plants, burns many of the butterflies, and discovers that his arena clothing resists the flames. He then follows the surviving mutts under the cover of apparent retaliation. They return to a berm labeled butterfly bush. As the hidden portal closes, Haymitch wedges a burning branch in its seam, leaving a narrow opening that he can later pry apart.

That night the memorial confirms that Lou Lou and another District 1 boy have died, leaving twenty-six tributes. The next morning Haymitch receives his first sponsor gift: fresh rolls, cheese, grape juice, and a glass. He later climbs high enough to see Ampert approaching the northern woods and marks a route back to the butterfly berm.

Ampert arrives wearing two District 9 sunflower tokens, one bloodstained. He tells Haymitch that Panache killed Wyatt with a sword, that Maysilee became separated during the bloodbath but is still alive as far as he knows, and that the remaining Newcomers want Haymitch back. Haymitch refuses to rejoin them, publicly maintaining that his score of one and Gamemaker targeting make him dangerous to others. He feeds Ampert, gives him a tour of the woods as a cover story, and brings him to the butterfly berm. Ampert sleeps while Haymitch prepares firewood and other materials for the nighttime bombing, expecting that the blast or flood may kill him.

After dark, Ampert removes his token and covertly unweaves the black fuse while the two boys maintain the fiction that he is making a snare. Haymitch puts on one of the bloodstained District 9 sunflower tokens containing explosive material. After midnight Ampert gives Haymitch the softened explosive, fuse, and blasting cap. Haymitch pries open the butterfly berm with his spear, gives Ampert his knife, and descends the utility ladder alone while Ampert stays at the surface.

In the corridor below, Haymitch immediately finds the enormous ribbed wall of the northern water tank. He presses the explosive against it, inserts the blasting cap, lights the fuse, and runs back to the ladder. On his ascent, rainbow-winged bat mutts with large claws attack him. Haymitch uses a torch for defense and secures his belt around the ladder so the expected flood will not tear him away.

The explosion ruptures the tank and a violent surge completely submerges the corridor. Haymitch survives by clinging to the ladder until the current weakens, then climbs back into the arena. Ampert is gone. Following the sound of chattering animals, Haymitch finds golden carnivorous squirrel mutts swarming a body. He tries to drive them off, but they are programmed specifically for Ampert and ignore Haymitch. When they are recalled, only Ampert's stripped skeleton, tracker, ax, and Haymitch's knife remain. The cannon confirms his death.

Enraged that he failed Beetee's request not to let Ampert suffer, Haymitch attacks the arena with the ax. The ground begins to shake and the arena systems malfunction: berms open and close erratically, mutts behave chaotically, a tree throws sparks, streams steam, and the artificial sky flickers away to reveal the real night sky. Haymitch realizes the sabotage has flooded the arena's computer system and temporarily broken the arena. He celebrates and sings the forbidden song about stealing the common back.

A low hum then begins. The artificial sky returns as backup systems restore control. Haymitch climbs a tree to see whether the Games have truly ended and watches the distant mountain erupt in a fountain of lethal gold. The sabotage succeeded in breaking the arena, but it did not end the Games.

After the artificial sky returns, Haymitch concludes that the arena was damaged but not incapacitated. The mountain erupts in a simulated volcano, sending a toxic cloud and sparkling ash across the arena. Haymitch fears that Maysilee and the other tributes near the mountain may have been killed. His fire-resistant arena clothing protects him from the airborne material, but he falls into despair over the apparent failure of the sabotage and Ampert's death.

By morning Haymitch recognizes the low hum beneath the ground as the backup generator Beetee said sits outside the upper end of the arena. Remembering Mags's concern for her district partner, he decides that even if he cannot end the Games, he can still try to help Maysilee or another surviving Newcomer. He then notices that the softened explosive sunflower he still wears is intact but useless without another detonation source. This leads him to a new objective: travel as far north as possible, escape the arena, and try to destroy the external generator with his knife and Ampert's ax.

A light rain tastes safe and washes the volcanic ash from the forest, but Haymitch captures very little of it. At the northern end of the woods he finds a tall holly hedge shaped like a V. He enters through a narrow opening and becomes hopelessly lost in a maze whose paths and apparent sun position frustrate his attempts to maintain direction. After hours of panic, a gray rabbit appears and leads him back out.

Haymitch emerges directly into an ambush by three Careers. Acting on reflex, he stabs a District 4 girl in the abdomen, hamstrings her male district partner, and then kills the wounded boy with Ampert's ax. Panache disarms Haymitch and prepares to kill him. Haymitch stalls by appealing to Panache's concern about looking stupid and cowardly, but Panache rejects the argument and raises his sword. The chapter ends when a dart suddenly pierces Panache's throat; the shooter is not identified until the next chapter.

Maysilee emerges from the trees holding a blowgun, revealing that she fired the dart into Panache's throat. Panache dies, and three cannon shots confirm the deaths of Panache and the two District 4 tributes, Barba and Angler, whom Haymitch killed in self-defense. Haymitch is shaken by having taken two lives. Maysilee treats his wounds and explains that the volcano's "lava" was a chemical-burning gel rather than real heat. The two agree to ally again, with Maysilee retaining twelve poisoned darts.

That evening they share Haymitch's remaining grape juice and compare what they know. The memorial shows sixteen more deaths, leaving ten tributes alive: Careers Silka and Maritte; Newcomers Haymitch, Maysilee, Hull, Chicory, Ringina, Autumn, Wellie, and Buck. Maysilee says Panache was her second kill after Loupe from District 1; she believes she also hit Camilla from District 2 with a dart, but cannot know whether the dart or volcano ultimately killed Camilla. Mags sends Haymitch and Maysilee bean-and-ham-hock soup. Before sleeping, they acknowledge that protecting one another has made them family, and Maysilee accepts Haymitch as her brother after recalling her promise to Ampert to be his sister.

On the fifth morning, Haymitch still intends to go north toward the hedge and generator but does not disclose the plan to Maysilee because the cameras may be listening. Together they improve a tarp into a rain catcher, then find three Career backpacks containing medicine, a blowtorch, another tarp, food, and other supplies. At the blueberry patch, Maysilee replenishes the poison for her darts and tells Haymitch that Wyatt died while shielding Lou Lou.

When they reach the northern hedge, Haymitch explains that the path inside is a maze and proposes cutting straight through. Maysilee senses that something is wrong but joins him. Their first cuts trigger the black-spotted holly "berries," which are ladybug mutts. The insects swarm their arms, latch onto their skin, swell to acorn size, and begin exploding with Haymitch's blood. The chapter ends during that attack.

Haymitch and Maysilee flee the hedge and remove the ladybug mutts one by one as the insects drink their blood and burst. Both are weakened by blood loss. Rain then gives them a chance to wash themselves and successfully use their tarps as water catchers. Calling themselves "blood kin," they talk about the families who will live with the damage caused by the Games, including Haymitch's brother Sid and Maysilee's twin Merrilee.

Two cannon shots sound as they begin heading south toward the Cornucopia in search of food. On the way Maysilee hears what first sounds like a crying baby. They follow a human scream and find Buck and Chicory already incapacitated by long metallic quills while Hull tries to defend them from a huge porcupine mutt. The creature can launch its barbed quills despite Haymitch's assumption that porcupines cannot shoot them. Haymitch and Maysilee use doubled tarps as shields, but the mutt wounds them as well.

Haymitch then changes tactics and lures the porcupine away with olives. By the time they reach the victims, two cannons have sounded. Maysilee pours antidote into Hull's mouth while Haymitch removes quills from his body, but a third cannon eventually confirms Hull's death. Haymitch and Maysilee close the dead tributes' eyes and arrange their bodies before the hovercraft retrieves them.

Hidden in a patch of katniss, Maysilee says one of them must survive and become the worst victor in Hunger Games history by refusing the Capitol's scripts and celebrations. They lock pinkies on the promise that one of them will "paint the posters" instead of allowing the Capitol to use their blood for its own. A sponsor gift provides food, and the evening memorial confirms Ringina, Autumn, Buck, Chicory, and Hull dead. Five tributes remain: Haymitch, Maysilee, Wellie, Silka, and Maritte.

That night Maysilee sings the childhood ladybug song while keeping watch. The combination of ladybugs, fire, and the blowtorch gives Haymitch a new idea. The chapter ends when he realizes how they can cut directly through the northern hedge.

On Day 6, Haymitch and Maysilee wake to a sponsor breakfast of cornbread, buttermilk, and peaches that Maysilee arranges decoratively as another "poster" asserting the tributes' humanity. Haymitch steers them north under the pretense of searching for Wellie, then admits that he wants another attempt at the hedge. Without revealing the generator objective to the cameras, he suggests they might find something mechanical beyond it or turn the ladybugs into a weapon.

Before reaching the hedge, Silka and Maritte ambush them. Haymitch and Maysilee flee toward a high-pitched mechanical whine and slide into a clearing where three young Gamemakers are repairing an open poppy-covered berm. All four tributes and the Gamemakers are surprised. When the Gamemakers try to retreat into Sub-A, Maritte throws her trident through the young man holding a mop, Maysilee shoots the woman holding the drill with a poison dart, and the third Gamemaker dives headfirst into the opening and dies when her skull strikes the concrete below.

A hovercraft immediately bombs the clearing with tear gas. Haymitch and Maysilee escape north, but Maysilee is furious that Haymitch froze instead of helping attack the Gamemakers and that Maritte acted while he did not. Haymitch admits he has no defense for his hesitation. Their argument softens after Maysilee recognizes that he has already resisted the Capitol in other ways and suspects he has a larger secret plan.

Maysilee shows Haymitch a photograph of her grandmother and repeats her grandmother's reassurance that nothing the Capitol can take is worth keeping. Haymitch recognizes the line as part of a song Lenore Dove sings. When Maysilee remarks that Lenore "got the jump on us" by doing nothing, she does not explain what she means.

They return to the hedge with the blowtorch and a burning branch. Haymitch burns a straight tunnel while Maysilee destroys the attacking ladybug mutts. Beyond the hedge they reach the actual northern edge of the arena: a roughly hundred-foot cliff with sharp rocks below. The backup generator sits at the bottom, close in horizontal distance but unreachable from their position. The chapter ends with Haymitch calling it the end of the road; no new sabotage method has yet been found.

At the cliff, Haymitch discovers that the generator below is protected by a force field when rocks he throws toward it reverse direction and return to him warmer than before. Unable to reach the machine, he refuses to go back into the artificial arena. He and Maysilee consider separating rather than risk eventually having to kill one another, but a cannon reminds them how quickly the field is shrinking. Maysilee returns through the hedge to retrieve their potatoes while Haymitch remains near the cliff.

Maysilee's screams bring Haymitch running back through the burned tunnel. Pink waterbird mutts with sword-like beaks are attacking her and ignoring him, showing that they are programmed specifically to punish Maysilee. Haymitch fights the flock with his ax, but one bird drives its beak through her throat. As she dies unable to speak, Maysilee locks her pinkie around Haymitch's and he nods to renew their promise that one of them will keep fighting the Capitol. Haymitch refuses to clean up her body for the cameras, regarding her wounded but unbowed death as her final poster.

Haymitch takes Maysilee's blowgun, which contains one remaining poisoned dart, and her copper-flower necklace. Mags sends strawberry ice cream and black coffee, evoking Maysilee and giving Haymitch space to grieve. The memorial shows only Maritte and Maysilee, leaving Haymitch, Wellie, and Silka as the final three. Haymitch decides that if he cannot survive, he should protect Wellie so a Newcomer rather than a Career becomes victor.

Following the sound of Wellie's bicycle-bell token, Haymitch finds her nearly starved and dehydrated high in a tree. He gives her water, builds a small potato-powered light using Beetee's hidden kit and Maysilee's copper medallion, secures her safely to the branches during rain, and later feeds her sponsor-sent vanilla pudding and chocolate. During the night Silka sits crying at the base of the same tree. Haymitch drops chocolate down to her, creating a brief moment in which the final three district tributes share food without fighting.

At dawn Haymitch notices black residue from Maysilee's necklace cord and realizes Beetee's unfinished sentence at the interview buffet referred to another replaced component. Hidden under a tarp, he unwinds the cord and confirms that it is a backup fuse with a blasting cap attached. Combined with the explosive District 9 sunflower, Lenore's flint striker, and a sparking stone, he again has a complete explosive system. Unable to reach the generator, he plans instead to feed and hide Wellie, lure Silka to the Cornucopia, and destroy both Silka and the Games' central symbol.

Wellie is too frightened of abandonment to remain in the tree, so Haymitch carries her down and later hides her behind wild grapevines with Maysilee's loaded blowgun and a small knife while he looks for dry firewood. A sponsor parachute then delivers a golden-eagle milk pitcher identical to the one in Plutarch's library. Haymitch considers whether it might be encouragement from Plutarch but decides it is more likely a poisoned message from Snow. Believing the cameras will make refusal look like an attempt to let Wellie die, he concludes that he may have to drink it himself.

Before Haymitch drinks any milk, a cannon interrupts him. He immediately throws the pitcher aside and races back to Wellie. Silka has decapitated her after Wellie's single poison dart lodged harmlessly in Silka's sleeve. Haymitch and Silka fight with axes. Silka badly wounds Haymitch across the abdomen and nearly strangles him, while Haymitch drives a knife over his shoulder and destroys one of her eyes. He retreats through the burned hedge to the cliff.

At the cliff Silka throws her ax at Haymitch. He collapses beneath it, and the force field reverses the weapon's trajectory so that the returning ax lodges in Silka's head. Her cannon eventually fires. Mortally wounded and expecting Snow to kill him even if he survives, Haymitch abandons the earlier Cornucopia plan and assembles one final bomb from the District 9 sunflower explosive, Maysilee's fuse and blasting cap, Capitol card and candy-wrapper tinder, Lenore's flint striker, and his sparking stone.

Gamemakers order Haymitch to stop and fire bullets around his hands, confirming that they fear what he is attempting. After Silka's cannon leaves him the sole tribute, Haymitch lights the shortened fuse and throws the sunflower bomb into the canyon toward the force field. An explosion rocks the world. The chapter ends with Haymitch losing consciousness while believing that he dies happy; his actual survival state is not established until the next chapter.

Haymitch wakes alive in a Capitol laboratory after the force-field explosion. He is naked, restrained to a metal table, heavily treated for his abdominal wound, and still wearing Lenore's flint striker, which someone has retied around his neck. Avoxes are confined behind glass and mutt experiments, including a snake killing a gray rabbit, surround him. Drugs repeatedly return him to unconsciousness when he becomes disruptive. He later wakes in the District 12 tribute apartment with a healed but severe abdominal scar and a drug pump attached to his chest.

Kept alone for days, Haymitch worries about everyone who may be punished for the arena sabotage. The television shows curated fragments of old Hunger Games. One recording features an unnamed Covey girl singing in the Capitol during what Haymitch infers was the Tenth Hunger Games. He speculates that she may be District 12's erased female victor and, after calculating that Snow would have been eighteen at the time, wonders whether the curly-haired young man she reaches toward could have been Snow. The source does not confirm either identification. The possibility nevertheless makes Haymitch fear that Snow's knowledge of Lenore and the Covey may be personal rather than merely gathered by informants.

After Haymitch smashes furniture and tries to break out, Peacekeepers restrain him and Effie, Proserpina, and Vitus prepare him for the Victor's Ceremony. Mags arrives in a wheelchair and Wiress is visibly distressed, leaving Haymitch convinced that they have been badly harmed. At the ceremony, the Capitol audience gives Haymitch a standing ovation and demands to see his abdominal scar.

The official recap shows Haymitch how thoroughly the Capitol has rewritten the Quarter Quell. Woodbine's killing, the disorder in District 12, Haymitch's replacement selection, Louella's chariot death, the Newcomers' unity, Haymitch's protection of Lou Lou and Ampert, the reservoir bombing, the arena breakdown, the exposed Gamemakers, Snow's milk pitcher, and Haymitch's final sunflower bomb are omitted or rearranged. Deaths and timelines are shifted, the arena is shown as intact, and Haymitch is framed first as a selfish rascal and later as a violent competitor who happens to reach Maysilee and Wellie too late. Silka's force-field death remains because it explains Haymitch's victory, but the recap shows no evidence of his final attack on the force field.

The final aerial view reveals the arena's eye-like design, with the Cornucopia as pupil. President Snow then places the victor's crown on Haymitch. Haymitch quietly remarks that Snow lands on top and waits for punishment, but Snow only tells him to enjoy his homecoming.

At the presidential after-party, Haymitch is locked inside a golden birdcage and performs cheerful compliance in hopes that Snow will spare Lenore and his family. Plutarch quietly tells him that there is no news about his family and that Lenore was never released from the District 12 base as she had promised during their telephone call. Haymitch spends the next ten days being paraded through Capitol parties, interviews, and fashion shoots, accepting every humiliation to protect the people he loves.

When Haymitch is finally sent home, the Capitol loads the coffins of Louella, Maysilee, and Wyatt onto the train with him. He arrives alone at the District 12 station before dawn. Walking toward the Seam, he discovers his house already engulfed in fire. Neighbors restrain him from entering and tell him that they tried but could not save Willamae and Sid, who died holding one another. Haymitch is sedated and later attends a funeral with graves for his mother and brother together, Louella, Maysilee, Wyatt, and Jethro Callow, who hanged himself after Wyatt's body returned.

After the funeral Haymitch studies the burned house and concludes that the fire was deliberate arson ordered by Snow for his homecoming. He is taken to his new house in the Victor's Village, then slips away during the night because he is determined to see Lenore and considers leaving District 12 so Snow will have no reason to target her. At dawn Lenore, now released but under house arrest, brings her geese into the Meadow.

Haymitch and Lenore reunite joyfully. Lenore finds a bag of gumdrops in the Meadow and begins eating them. When she says the gumdrops Sid originally delivered are still under her pillow, Haymitch realizes this is a different bag. The new candies are all bloodred rather than assorted colors, and he connects them to Snow. Lenore spits out the second gumdrop at Haymitch's command but has already swallowed the first. With no charcoal antidote available, she rapidly collapses.

As the sun rises, Lenore makes Haymitch promise not to let it rise on the reaping. Haymitch promises while pleading with her to stay. She reciprocates his declaration of love and dies in his arms.

After Lenore Dove's death, Haymitch repeatedly dreams of feeding her the poisoned gumdrop. He deliberately drives away everyone who still cares about him because Snow's punishment has convinced him that loving anyone puts that person in danger. He exhausts Asterid's sleep syrup and turns to Bascom Pie's white liquor, seeking oblivion while holding onto Lenore's impossible demand that he stop the reaping.

Haymitch first searches the District 12 graveyard and Covey home for Lenore. Weeks later Burdock finds him wandering the woods and leads him to a hidden Covey graveyard, where Lenore is buried among stones marked with lines from the poems that supplied Covey names. Haymitch stays at her grave through a night and another dawn, buries her flint striker before the headstone, and begs to be released from his promise so he can die. No sign comes.

Later, drunk in a back alley, Haymitch wakes beside bright orange graffiti reading "NO CAPITOL, NO HANGING TREE!" and "NO CAPITOL, NO REAPING!" He remembers Maysilee's unresolved clue about orange paint on Lenore's fingernails. Haymitch concludes that Lenore painted this hidden rebel message before the Games and treats it as her answer: he promised to keep fighting. The earlier fingernail clue is resolved here, not before.

Effie arrives for the Victory Tour believing the official stories that Haymitch's family died in an accident and Lenore died of appendicitis. Plutarch later tells Haymitch that Magno was fired and Drusilla was injured, leaving Effie as his escort. In District 11, Plutarch takes Haymitch to an unmonitored attic. Haymitch says Wiress and Mags were tortured and assumes Beetee is dead; Plutarch corrects the latter, saying Beetee is too valuable to kill and will not kill himself because his wife is pregnant. Plutarch asks Haymitch to help a long-term resistance that may need generations and an army.

Haymitch refuses the appeal. He says his attempt to stop another reaping got everyone he loved killed and tells Plutarch he needs someone else. Haymitch avoids him for the rest of the tour. Back in District 12, when Plutarch argues that having nothing to lose gives Haymitch power, Haymitch accuses him of helping manufacture and broadcast the Capitol's propaganda. Plutarch answers only that he is still in the game.

Haymitch withdraws almost completely into the Victor's Village, drinks heavily, and keeps Capitol News running continuously while pretending that watching it serves Lenore's promise. He allows virtually no human contact except Bascom Pie when he needs more liquor. His final certainty is that every birthday will bring another District 12 girl and boy for him to mentor toward the Hunger Games, another sunrise on the reaping. The chapter closes on his memory of Sid wishing him a happy birthday.