The corridors of District 13 are quite lonely, even during the day, but particularly at night. The steel walls, the cold light, the echoes from a distant soldier; it's eerie enough to send shivers up your spine. Nothing scares me, nothing at all. Except... except...
"Mason?"
I stop dead in my tracks, my heart skipping a beat. I swallow hard and turn around slowly, my heartbeat reverberating off the metallic surroundings.
"Hawthorne? What the hell?!" I say, pushing him in anger. He stumbles back slightly, looking bemused but laughs.
"Did I scare you, Mason?"
"No," I scowl, chewing at the inside of my mouth
"How come you're up?"
"Did some late night training. I want to go on that mission to the Capitol."
"You know they won't let you go if you're still hooked to the good stuff," he says, leaning on the wall.
"I'm trying, okay?" I hiss, scratching my arm to hide the needle scars.
They shouldn't have given it to me in the first place. It's addicting stuff and I have an addictive personality. I tried, tested and experimented with many things in my youth, after winning. Drugs, sex, adrenaline seeking. Nothing filled the heart-shaped hole that was left after my family were taken away from me.
"Do you really want to go?" he asks me.
"Of course," I scoff. "If the Capitol is going down, I want to be a part of it."
His reply is only a nod. The mechanical sounds of the underground District breaks the awkward silence, making it even more awkward.
"I should..." he mumbles.
"Yeah, me too..." I say, rolling my eyes as I start to walk past him. His fingers grip onto mine quickly, holding me in frozen moment.
"Mason?"
I look down at his hand holding mine and back up into his grey eyes.
"Johanna..." He says. "I could do with some company..."
"What makes you think that I'd want to come with you?" I say coldly. He shrugs slightly.
"I've got a big compartment. It gets... lonely."
He's thinking of her. It's all over his. He can't have her so he's trying to get at the closest thing to her: her roommate.
"I may have been like that before, Hawthorne, but now... Oh no."
"Johanna, please."
Now I'm not so sure. The voice seems genuine, as do the eyes.
"If you really meant no," he says. "How come you're still holding my hand?"
I look down. How could I have not noticed how our hands are still interlinked, the way my thumb softly massages his soft dark skin.
Maybe he could fit the heart-shaped gap in my soul.
