top 8 interview: piper shaye

[Deleted]

"Okay, so just ruin my life then."

He had lived more and more of his life out of his own body. Even since Piper went into his shell, Lorenzo's just reverted back to that obsession. The blue static screen burns his eyes at night but he can't stop watching his sister; as if she'll know he's watching somehow. It'll make up for all the times he ignored her stupid questions and missed those visiting days. He lays back with the phone on his chest, dial tone buzzing like every comma he's missed out of Beck's voice.

They haven't talked much lately.

Probably because he was just as preoccupied, until yesterday. Lorenzo didn't get a chance to call him -- Beck didn't pick up his phone that night. He's a victor though, there's no reason to be scared for him; there's nothing Beck can do to himself that the capitol wouldn't let happen. He's fine, no matter how much he's hurting. It's the one perk Lorenzo's always loved about victors: no matter how much his mother cried herself to sleep, she'd never die before him. He was just Enzo, little old zombie with the second chance and the second his heart stops again, that's it.

Lorenzo'll be long gone before Beck. He might have sent off Piper and Luke, but Lorenzo'll be damned if he gets to see them again first. They wake up and Saffron nags him to clean up; shave his neck, comb his hair. When Piper comes out of the arena, it'll be the first thing she sees. It's top eight, there's a twelve percent that it's her.

They take him to the district center, the last place he saw Piper and got to remember what she looked like as a kid. What it was like when there was more to her eyes than survival, "Lorenzo Emberstatt! We've got a lot of questions, but firstly, how have you been?" It's been a long time coming. He scratches his jaw, nearly joked at how casual this is for them. Life must be easiest for its audience.

"Good! I've been great, got to go on a vacation for once, ha."

"Oh, we've heard! There's so many opportunities opening in Panem for you, you must be so grateful."

"Of course, yeah. You know, I've heard Shy's gone on a vacation, too. Some snow resort," the interviewer doesn't laugh. He's got a beetle in his eye, that was fuckin' funny, idiot. "Miss that guy, hope life's treating him well!" What if I just play stupid? Lorenzo shakes his hair, scratching the back of his head -- Saffron warned him what they'd do to Piper. She had been interviewed a decade ago, Emberly Lowe dies on the beach front and he loses a cousin he never expected to have.

Four years go by, and Lorenzo's dead under a grapevine. And six years go by, and Piper isn't do much better holding a dead brother she never expected to know; "he's under a lot of pressure, being the last career alive," he tries not to pay attention much. The words go by and he plays with his hands, change topics where he can -- "doing surprisingly well with the arena change, we didn't think he'd be a natural in the snow!"

"Haha, yeah." Oh, "I wouldn't know, never seen snow. Y'know?"

"Right! Piper and you both,"

"And most of Ten, I would say."

"Right,"

"Y'know, or the capitol! I don't know the last time y'all saw Snow."

Shouldn't have said that, "so your sister. If you could say one last thing to her, what would it be?"

Piper Shaye, you fucking idiot. You've done better than me, no second chances? Luke tried his hardest, it only gets harder. Keep your head down. No friends left? There's not enough to say, he fumbles with his words like he usually did with Piper -- I love you? She'd laugh and he would to, "like your hair, sis," he says, looking from the interviewer to the cameras with arched brows. "Love, Enzo? Probably, I'm glad you're not dead." That's the fucking least, he forgot how hard it was to do all the capitol interviews. Mace and Saff, and even Kieran now with mayor, that's all their deal; he didn't get half of that shit.

He got a dead sister and a network of pen pals, though, for the free price of trauma. Shy killed his ass good and they went their separate ways, where do they go now? Piper has to do what he couldn't do then, and what he couldn't do last year, "haha, she sure is lucky to still be alive! She's a fighter, that one," he says, as if she didn't kill a girl to stay alive.

She's closer than Lorenzo ever was, and yet he's in the clear and she isn't.

Why am I alive again?

"Pssh, you're telling me. If you like to bet, she's the one to go on," not Shy, or Carmen's guardian from eleven. Not the kids with multiple kids, but his baby sister and her club. He knows her better than anyone in that arena, like he knew Temple and Beck and Mace and Minx, and if you ignore Maxwell and Kahinta then they're 100%! She's in his sweater and she's got blood in her hair and he remembers the time she scrapped her knee on the creek rocks and cried for hours.

He remembers Piper punching him after stealing her one legged ugly ass cat plushie, and he remembers the way she screamed outside his door when he said he was running away without her. Piper showed up at their house when he had moved on, and she hadn't, and then she was forced too. He remembers the way she screamed his name before being taken away, and the way he stood on the side. The same way he stands in the district center, cameras on him the way Temple stood talking about Kahinta.

Lorenzo remembers how deep that grave was, and the silence that fell over the Jones.

He remembers too damn much, "she's pretty good, y'know!"

"We'll keep that in mind! There have been many discussion boards on how she'd fair up fighting Shy, and surely you're interested in seeing that fight too,"

"Oh yeah. Fer shure," I hate it here.

"With District Ten behind her, we're all excited to see Piper's good fight! Let's all wish her good luck at the Top Eight." They say, lemon yellow hair sickly against the warm sun of district ten.

It's a twelve percent chance, and three more episodes until he sees his sister again. One way or another.

"Good luck, sis," he waves at the camera, nothing behind his eyes and a wide, wide smile.