But the Games are a brutal farce. The mentors are desperate, the arena is a ruined amphitheater, and the tributes are treated like animals. Coriolanus cheats. He smuggles a compact of rat poison into Lucy Gray’s food, intending for her to use it strategically. Instead, she uses it to kill the vicious tribute from District 2, but not before Coriolanus is caught by his ruthless classmate, Sejanus Plinth. Sejanus, a wealthy District 2 transplant who despises the Games, tries to free the tributes. He is caught. Coriolanus, to save himself, betrays Sejanus to Dr. Volumnia Gaul, the deranged Gamemaker who sees humanity as chaos needing control. As a reward, Coriolanus is not expelled. Instead, he is given a "prize": two weeks of Peacekeeper duty in District 12—a death sentence for a Capitol boy.
“You’ll have to kill me before I let you go back to the Capitol,” she whispers, half-laughing. He picks up the gun. But the Games are a brutal farce
Coriolanus and Lucy Gray fall into a wild, desperate romance. He sneaks into the woods with her, learns the Covey’s songs, tastes real freedom for the first time. He even kills a rebel Peacekeeper to protect her. But when Sejanus is sentenced to death for a rebellion plot, Coriolanus—ever the survivor—records Sejanus’s treasonous words and sends them to Dr. Gaul. Sejanus is hanged. Coriolanus is promoted. Now alone with Lucy Gray in a cabin deep in the woods, Coriolanus discovers the gun used in a triple murder—the mayor’s daughter and two others—is missing. He realizes Lucy Gray may not be the victim he thought. The snake at the reaping? The poison? The songs that twist truth? He begins to see her as a threat. He smuggles a compact of rat poison into
In a frantic chase through the forest, Coriolanus fires into the mockingjays, whose songbirds echo Lucy Gray’s ballad back at him. He shoots blindly. When the silence falls, he finds only a bloody scarf by the lake. Lucy Gray is gone—dead, or vanished into legend. He is caught