In 12, the world flips. The Peacekeepers are bored, the miners resentful. But Lucy Gray is there, having won the Games largely due to Coriolanus’s cheating. She is not free. The mayor’s daughter, whose dress she sullied, is dead—poisoned by Lucy Gray’s snake? Or by the mayor’s rage? The mayor wants Lucy Gray dead.
His tribute is Lucy Gray Baird, a charismatic, scrappy girl from the Covey—a traveling musician clan forced to settle in 12. At the reaping, instead of weeping, she thrusts a snake down the mayor’s daughter’s dress and, when dragged to the stage, sings a haunting ballad: “The hanging tree, where I swore I’d never be…” The Capitol is mesmerized. Coriolanus is smitten. In 12, the world flips
“You’ll have to kill me before I let you go back to the Capitol,” she whispers, half-laughing. He picks up the gun. She is not free
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. The mayor wants Lucy Gray dead