first light breaks | yejide, reaping

It takes the keepers the longest to find her.

Not of her own accord, but they don't care about technicalities.

They burst down each encampment's door, teeth gleaming and eyes narrowed. Sometimes they question their prey before leaving, briskly, heading towards the next tent. Other times they pour out their rage, ignorance spilled over like a boiling kettle. But the Capitol picked the wrong nodes, a breadth-first search when they should have started at the center.

"They'll find you sooner or later," Somerset says, as they sit in tent 57. The television is still streaming, Gaia Dais' face plastered on the screen. From Six. She wonders if it was a kind place, a beautiful place.

Around them, there is silence. They listen for the telling thrum of footsteps.

Somerset leans forward on her one remaining arm, staring straight into Yejide's eyes. The old woman's gaze is warm, but not kind. She is only still here because they have not kept track of who they kicked to the floor, then kicked once more.

"We can hide her," a woman says with a start. She is tall, her braids disheveled. She stands with a cane she is still not used to. "Before they get here. There's still time-"

"For them to pick another, or kill all of us and then her. Just because they can."

"She's just a kid."

"So are the rest of them. So are your girls."

"You leave them out of this, they've done nothing."
None of us have done-

"-anything. That don't matter."

Her Ma had done nothing. Now she lay dead.

Her Mom had done something. Now she lay dead.

The choir bickers like wind chimes smacking against each other, and only stop when they've realized she's stepped out of the tent, standing in the middle of a sea of white.

Ade rushes out after her, but only gets so far before Trini, always the smart one, holds him back. She stares at her twin for two more seconds, studying each inch of his face.

"Goodbye." She sniffs.

And the sea meets the sand. She turns, staring up at a tidal wave.

"Y'all can stop looking."

Her voice is a bundle of reeds, drenched in rainwater.

"I'm right here."