stirred to cry again | teddy & skye

It was a miracle that Flynn had made it back in one piece. Just seeing someone half her age have to go into the Games made Skye sick, not to mention that it was only a few years after Walter. If she had any say in anything in this world, she wouldn’t make anyone younger than 16 head into that wretched arena.

And now they’d selected new tributes, and all Skye could do was hope that they were old enough to fend for themselves. The boyish voice she heard floating through the open door of the train told her otherwise, though. She’d only heard about the reaping from the other stylists — Willa Copeland and Robin Keeni — her lambs for this year’s slaughter, one that apparently had to be carried on stage and the other being related to some ghost of Hunger Games past. One day the Capitol would stop getting a kick out of rupturing entire bloodlines in the arena, but Skye suspected that day wasn’t anytime soon.

When a familiar head of curls appeared in her line of sight, Skye felt the tightness in her chest loosen just a little bit. She approached Teddy slowly with a smile, although she was certain it didn’t reach her eyes. She could say so many things — hello, or what’ve you been up to for six months, but the first thing that came out of her mouth was ”he’s so young, T.”

header words: "the children of the poor", gwendolyn brooks