[2]
“Blood alone moves the wheels of history.”
Martin Luther
I manage to suppress my fear until the moment I enter the waiting room, but once I see the florescent lights and peeling plastic chairs, my mind races to calculate my chances.
I ate more this month, almost twice as much as usual. It has been stormy at the lake, the churning waters depositing on the shore a particularly wide variety of junk to sell. More money means food rich in nutrients, means my blood should be full of vitamins. But my palms still slip and slide, sweaty against the edge of the chair. I visualize my numbers eking out just on top of vitamin and mineral quotas. This calms me. In my mind it’s as if the sheet as already been printed. Isabella Swan, blood satisfaction level: average. It will be fine. It already is.
I take out the Savory Bar and begin to chew it furiously, knowing that it won’t digest in time. I should have eaten it on the way over, but I was distracted by Rosalie’s name everywhere.
The Savory Bar is not at all savory, but chalky and hard — it tastes distinctly of dust. But food isn’t for our pleasure; it’s for maintaining health and vitality to give to the Empire. Because the truth is, at the end of the day, we are the real food.
As I chew, I find my eye caught by the posters displayed across the walls. Each has a giant red V (I vaguely wish that I had come up with a different name for the empire now, because all I can picture after I wrote this was V for Vendetta, but oh well, I suppose there are worse allusions.) and a slogan of the Volterran Empire.
“Opportunity is the gateway to honor.”
“The burden of responsibility is best shouldered by those who have arms strong enough to carry it.”
“Your vitality is your greatest asset.”
“Isabella Swan,” the nasally monotone of the receptionist calls.
She’s dressed in real clothes, not a jumpsuit. If that didn’t make her wealth conspicuous enough, she’s fat. Rolls of it spill over her small chair, and push through her tight, floral sleeves. Working at the Blood Bank is perhaps the most lucrative career — besides Peacemaker — but she should be careful. If she eats too much, she could get diabetes. That warrants an immediate reclassification. No vampire wants to drink blood so sweet you can’t taste life in it, can’t taste the pain.
“Here,” I say, reaching up and pulling my ID away from my jumpsuit. She scans it, and the light above the door she guards turns green.
I hate that even now my hands shake as I take back the ID. How many times have I done this? How many times, no matter how little I ‘ve eaten, have I logged in just above quota levels? Every time. But all of that will mean nothing if my blood doesn’t meet standards today.(To be honest? I edited in a lot of the suspense ex-post-facto. I edit A LOT. Sometimes I move around whole sections of the story which causes problems that are pain to work out.)
“Proceed to Bloodletting room six, please.”
I push the metal bumper on the door and it swings open to reveal a hallway filled with doors identical to the one I just pushed. I pick the sixth one and open it.
“Hello, you must be Isabella Swan.” The woman sitting in the small swiveling chair is the exact opposite of the receptionist: small, not much older than me and very blonde.
“That’s what my ID says, doesn’t it?” For a moment I worry that maybe Greasy Sal actually did filch my ID, and I unconsciously finger the cord that attaches it to my jumpsuit.
A soft laugh spills from her lips. “I’m just introducing myself. I’m Primrose Everdeen.” She holds out a hand.
I look at it skeptically. “Usually, they just take my blood. Did I do something wrong?”
No laugh this time, just a musical sigh as she retracts her hand. “No, no. I just think sometimes there are ways to make the experience more pleasant.”
“The opportunity to give my greatest asset to the Empire outweighs any inconvenience,” I say. I think this was on a poster in the waiting room a couple of years ago. I hope that if I play the role of model citizen, I can get this over with quicker.
She looks at me strangely, and for a moment I worry I haven’t been convincing enough. The truth is that I hate blood— always have.(Twilight reference! Ahoy! Look Bella is actually sort of similar to real Bella!) Even when we were rich and I was in training school for the Morphing Games, and had to see blood almost every day, I never got over the aversion.
To convince her of my sincerity I offer up my wrist, and she ties a small rubber tourniquet around it, bringing my veins to prominence. After a flash of silver, I close my eyes. I don’t want to see the long, thin needle pierce my flesh.
My fear of Bloodlettings started when I was little when I came with my mom for hers. Every time I saw the needle stuck in her arm and the blood snake out of her through the clear tube, I was sure they were trying to kill her.
My mom would always hold my hand and whisper, “I’ll love you forever.”
(Full disclosure. SHAMELESSLY STOLE THIS FROM THE CHILDREN’S BOOK I’ll love you forever. I will shamelessly steal a lot from Children’s books as this story goes on. See the audio guide for a recording of my version of the melody as apparently there is no official melody and the ones I found on youtube were lame.)
And I would always say back, “I’ll like you for always.”
Most times those words were enough to comfort me, but once there was a plague in District 11. We had to increase our blood quotas to cut the difference. They had to take almost half a liter from Mom that month and with every second she got weaker. By the end she looked as pale as the white, linoleum floor.
I was seven and a half and had enough control not to scream and shout, but not enough stop the tears. When it was over they bandaged her up and she held me in my arms. “I love you forever; I’ll like you for always. As long as I’m living, my duckling you’ll be. For you are my duckling and always shall be,” she sang-spoke to me.
This managed to get a rise out of seven-year old me, and banish my fear for her. “I’m not a duckling; I’m a Swan,” I said, pouting. (I thought I was really clever after I wrote this, until I realized everyone and there mother does this in Twicanon. Oh well.)
“I know, Bella, I know.”
Three people died that year from being overdrawn. Even more died when the standards for blood nutrition was raised, so that anyone having blood with less than perfect vitamin, mineral, PH and glucose levels, was reclassified as Chattel and sent to the capitol to die. It was scary, but after my family survived that, I remember thinking we could handle anything. (Theme ahoy! Sometimes the greatest perils aren’t outside forces but troubles within our own familial unit. Maybe the Swan’s could have survived the upcoming tragedy of losing Renee were it not for their own weakness.)
“All done,” Prim, says. She neatly places the needle and her gloves into a small contained labeled BIOHAZARD. The smell of disinfectant wafts over to me as she opens it with her foot. It’s the only smell I hate more than the smell of piss in our backyard.
She pats me on the arm, her gaze tinged with real concern. How odd. “You should eat your cookie now,” she says.
On the counter beside me is a uniformly shaped cookie wrapped in a half-transparent, white plastic. “No, I’m fine.” I always save the cookies from blood lettings to give to Charlie or Ben.
“We don’t want you passing out in the waiting room,” she says firmly.
Under her surprisingly deliberate gaze, I unwrap the cookie and take a small bite. It’s the sweetest thing I’ve tasted in a long time: crunchy on the outside, but bendy and soft at the core.
“Your health and vitality are your greatest assets,” she says. If it wasn’t crazy, I would say she almost gives me a little smirk.
If it’s the quickest way to get away from her, then I’ll down the whole cookie. I don’t want to spend another moment with someone who smiles at me and tells me her name for reasons I can’t understand. Also, the longer I’m in here, the longer I live in suspense over my result.
But before I can rush out the door, she asks, “Isabella Swan, correct?”
“Yes, Primrose Everdeen,” I mock. What is with this woman and feeling the need to confirm my identity? (Sometimes Bella get’s a little bit snarky reader on us. As if she’s outside the action. I try to limit it, but sometimes it sneaks in.)
“Your brother is Benjamin Swan?” She leans forward, eyes bright. What does she know. What has my brother done?
“Yes, why?”
“Oh, nothing, he’s just next on my list,” she says, but there’s something about it that rings false.
“That doesn’t make sense. Why would my brother sign up for a blood letting today? He’s going to volunteer.” The moment the words come out of my mouth, I wish I could take them back. Telling people your business can be deadly.
“H-he is?” she asks, looking down on at the list. She glances up at me, not accusingly. “You don’t sound happy about it.”
I could lie and say that I’m thrilled my brother wants to go into the arena, but that would just make her more suspicious. “We used to be Gold Levels,” I explain, “But still, he doesn’t have nearly enough training, and he has a bad eye.”
“He doesn’t sound like he’s suited for it,” she says, eyes still cast down at the list.
I let out a sigh of relief. She’s on my side. I guess her agreement could be a lie too, to bait me into saying something even worse. But it doesn’t matter if she screams that the Volturi are monsters and deserve to die, I won’t follow suit, no matter how much I agreed.
I have had a simple strategy since my mother died and my brother lost his eye: atone for my mistakes and stay safe.
Still, sometimes even I have to take risks, especially when it comes to making sure my brother doesn’t volunteer for the Morphing Games. “Could you, you know, try and talk him out of it?”
“He really is volunteering,” she repeats, in shock. Why this is so startling, I don’t know.
“I know— boys are stupid, right?” I wish that was all. I wish he was just careless, arrogant and ignorant of the reality of violence. I wish I could be like a normal big sister and be annoyed with my little brother for being messy or silly or crude.
“I just can’t believe it.” Her finger keeps tracing the letters of his name over and over again.(this is just onehuge Foreshadow clump. Because originally I wrote a big reveal about Prim in Chapter six and twinerdforlife, my good friend who I beta for was like WOW didn’t see that coming. So I added in a little suspense.)
“People volunteer all the time,” I say, unsure what exactly is unclear about my brother volunteering. Almost every year at least one of the Prospectives is there by choice.
“Yes, but I thought he would have told me.” She looks up at me, and there is suddenly way too much fear in her eyes for someone she doesn’t know.
“What?”
“I mean, I didn’t think he would schedule his appointment for the day of the reaping if he was planning to volunteer.”
“Are you friends with my brother?”
“No, I . . .” she says. She’s lying, but why? And perhaps even more importantly, how does she, a Gold Level, know my brother? After, her response there’s no question that she does.
I don’t have time to think about it; I’m already late for meeting Jacob. “Well, if you could just maybe mention what I said . . .”
She nods more resolutely than I’d expect. “I will definitely try. I don’t think he sounds like he’s the kind of person suited to the Morphing Games.”
“Thanks,” I say. “Well, I’ve got to go now. I need to find out my results. ” I push my shoulder against the door and turn the handle with my right hand, slipping through the crack.
Muffled through the closed door behind me, I hear her reply softly, “Anytime.”
As I enter the waiting room, I can feel the fat receptionist watching me. When I turn to catch her in her spying, her eyes snap back to scanning the computer in front of her. I imagine she gets a sick satisfaction from knowing the fate of everyone around her before they do.
It’s impossible to tell what my result is from her face, although I know it’s already there on the computer.
As I walk toward her I make contingency plans. If I come in below quota I can always volunteer for the Morphing Games— but no, I would rather die, pig to the butcher’s knife than rooster in a cockfight. If I have to go, fine. But I’m not going to put on a show. And anyway, if anyone deserves to fall below quota, it’s me.
“Congratulations,” the woman begins, without any enthusiasm at all. (This receptionist reminds me of the one from Monsters Inc. See picture of her in the visual glossary.)
My breath doesn’t dislodge from my chest; congratulations doesn’t mean anything. She could be congratulating me for being reallocated to the Capitol to better serve Volterra. . . with my life.
She turns the monitor around to me, and I search out the purple dot on the screen that represents me. And there I am, a tiny speck, riding just over the edge of the red line. Thankfully, on the upper quadrant.
All I can think as I turn from the monitor and walk towards the door is that I’m safe.
I’m so preoccupied with this thought, that I don’t notice my brother until I trip over his outstretched feet. He’s engrossed, too, lounging, slouched on one of the plastic chairs, reading a small pamphlet on Morphing Game strategy. He has it almost to his nose.
“Hey,” I say cautiously, afraid he’ll dart like he always does when I’m near.
His eyes widen, and his face turns in my general direction. But one of his eyes, the one that is clouded over with white, doesn’t make full contact with me. (Personal note. My own brother is visually impaired and while I’ve never blinded him our relationship has always been rocky. He’s nothing like Ben, he loves me inspite of me being a very shitty sister. And I try and do my best.)
“Bella,” he says, entirely devoid of emotion. Sometimes, Ben is too much like Charlie for my taste. Except with Ben it’s my fault.
“In for your Bloodletting?” he asks
“Just had it.”
“Finally fall below quota?”
My eyes widen. Much like the fear I feel at the blood letting, it doesn’t matter how many times my brother casually wishes for my death, it never loses its force.
“Cut it out,” I say, conscious of the eyes of the receptionist trained on me, a fat caterpillar eager for another piece of gossip to consume, hopeful that maybe it will finally turn her into a butterfly.
“The opportunity to inform you of your unfailing dumbassery is my greatest honor.”
“You can’t do it,” I say.
“Can’t do what?” he asks, playing dumb, knowing that I’m putting myself in danger by saying explicitly that he shouldn’t volunteer in public. It was alright to talk about it with Prim because she brought it up, and if she tried to report me, I could just as easily report her in turn.
Fine, let him see how things have changed; how much I care for him. Let him see what kind of risks I’ll take. “You can’t volunteer for the Morphing Games.”
If he seems surprised by the fact that I’ve just put myself at risk of minor treason, I wouldn’t know; his face is as blank as ever.
“Don’t think I can win?” He taps his left eye. “This thing? Doesn’t matter. And if I win it’ll matter even less. Perfect vision, Bella — vampires have it.” The eye swivels slightly as he speaks, never focusing on any one thing.
“I know you can win; I just think you shouldn’t, you shouldn’t volunteer.” I am edging closer and closer to outright heresy. I wish I could bring Ben to my secret place outside of the city walls and tell him what I mean to say, but I can’t. I’m not sure he won’t tell the authorities about it, just to spite me.
His brow furrows. “Don’t want me having more glory than you?” (Glory will be a theme replayed again and again. I think this is the first time I introduce it.)
“Wake up,” I hiss through clenched teeth. “We’re level grays now and haven’t been in a real training school in years. There will be people in the games who haven’t missed a day of training, people whose only goal is to kill people like you.”
The blind eye swivels to my face and seems almost to rest on it a moment. “I know all about people trying to kill me.”
“No,” I say with a bitter chuckle, “you don’t.”
He had only been a level four in training when we left; I was level ten and my best friend in school was also the girl who had broken my arm, strangled me and accidentally shot an arrow into my shoulder. Her name was Rosalie Hale.
When my mother complained, she was told by the school that they had never seen a friendship as strong as ours. They said it was the mark of good future Prospective to express affection through violence.
Rosalie told me this, so I’m not sure that it’s true, but I believed her then. So, when I wanted to be friends with a girl in the year below me I broke two of her ribs in the sparring match. I didn’t understand why she didn’t want me to see her in the hospital; I was just helping her become a better future Prospective.
“Benjamin Swan,” the receptionist calls out.
He moves to stand up, but I grab him by the collar and pull him toward me. “Don’t fucking do it. Please, I’ll love you for—”
He pushes me off him with a look of pure disgust. “I’m going to volunteer. If you want to become a vampire too, you’re just going to have to try to kill me for it like everyone else—”
“Benjamin Swan, please report to my desk immediately.” The caterpillar receptionist is getting agitated; she keeps pressing the button above the door, causing it to strobe red.
I can’t help but try one more time, not to stop him from entering the Morphing Games, but to convince him of one fact he will never believe. “Ben . . . just — I love you, okay?”
He sighs, and gives a little smile so soft for a moment I’m convinced that maybe this time it’s worked. Maybe this time he’ll forgive me. “You know, if I enter the games, I don’t have to hear my big sister lie to me anymore. I can’t think of a better prize.”
It’s funny, the feeling in my gut. I’ve been stabbed, cut, broken more bones than promises, but hearing him say that? I don’t think anything else hurts more. Shock creeps through me, forcing me to watch him as he walks away towards the receptionist.
He offers his ID, and the receptionist scans it. The shock wears off slightly to be replaced by surprise, as Prim peeks from behind the door. He flirts lightly with her, smirking and gesticulating a little too wildly. She smiles and nods, though. I wonder if he’s been harassing her. Pretty, rich, older woman, horny teenage boy— it wouldn’t be the first time. (Hello Marriage of Figaro reference!)
I contemplate waiting for him, but decide that I’ve already made enough of a scene for one day.
I have to meet Jacob, anyway. Glancing at the clock on the wall above the door, I realize I’m already late.