Chapter 1

Defiance

Spruce

There's no anesthesia when they patch up the wounds from the abominations. They make sure to do a good job otherwise. They need me alive to torture – they think I have more information than I do.

I scream in pain – because I'm only human – but I refuse to beg for death. The Games have turned my passing hatred for the Capitol's government into a burning, miserable abhorrence that I hope is going to see me through to the bitter end. And I know it will be bitter. Once I talk, at "best" they'll alter my face the way so many Capitol residents have theirs altered, cut out my tongue, and make me an Avox. At "worst" they'll execute me.

Clint screams next to me. They keep us together … probably to make it more bitter when we turn on each other, or in hopes that the added bonus of hearing each other being tortured will drive us to insanity faster.

They throw us into dirty cells next to each other and leave us for four days – with small portions of water and food pushed through a hole in the cell door.

Then … he shows up. He pulls me out first.

"Hello … naughty defiant child," he says in a cheery voice. He's got this wicked grin that burns itself instantly into my mind. He's brown-headed and blue-eyed with a craggy face … but there's something very wrong with that face, like it doesn't quite fit right. I put it down to too many cosmetic surgeries, but that doesn't make it any less creepy.

He takes me to a room with a shallow metal tub of water. It's like what I bathed in at home. I wonder if he's going to drown and revive me – that's been an effective torture method throughout the ages, judging by the way they used to dunk witches.

Then I see the wires going into it, and I stop moving. My body tenses up and even though I know better I can't not resist what's about to happen. I can't resist the Other Guy.

Punch, fight, run, escape. Too many. Pain.

The first time the torturer revives me – in itself pretty painful – I'm shaking. The Other Guy took the first round for me, but I feel the ache in my muscles and I choke on the water still in my lungs. He is kneeling over me, compressing my chest and breathing for me with an apparatus. If he'd been doing it the old-fashioned way, I would have bit his lips. I start to retch and he relies on me to turn myself over to vomit up water – he'd probably laugh and enjoy it if I choked to death.

"Do you have anything you want to tell me, naughty child?" he asks me.

"Go to hell," I answer. I don't know anything to tell … and what little I do know I'm keeping to myself.

"I had hoped you would be one of the smart ones, Mr. Banner," he says as he stands up, and the guards grab me again.

The Other Guy is no help this time.

Getting shocked by Anthony's cattle prod hurt, but this hurts far worse – every muscle seizes up. Water rushes down my throat as I'm powerless to stop it – my lungs scream for air and the sensation of the water running down my nose and throat is horrible. I'm endlessly grateful when I finally black out.

He revives me, then does this to me once more, then decides that's enough for the day. He personally takes me back to my cell – soaked in dirty water and probably urine – and throws me in. I shake against the hard floor of the cell, wondering how long my resolve can hold out.

The torturer takes Clint next, and my resolve returns.

They do an awful thing to Clint. They tell him his brother could take him home if he'd just vouch for his character and come get him. Thankfully, I don't think Clint's broken enough to believe it yet.

The only "comfort" in our cells is a television screen. I watch Peeta being interviewed as victor, and eventually going on his Victory Tour, and I'm just glad one of us escaped the wrath of the Capitol.

They show us news that says that all the rebels and the tributes they rescued died – but I don't buy it for a minute.

Lester is our least favorite guard. He has the night shift, and he bangs on the walls of our cell every time we try to sleep, and regales us with trivia about one of the television programs they watch in the Capitol at the top of his lungs. It's awful, but at least he never has to feed us – I can just imagine the "special ingredients" we would find in our already disgusting rations if he had to.

Lester likes to stick his face in the little hole in our cell doors that usually offers food, so we know exactly what he looks like as he taunts us. He torments us by claiming that he "was there" when they shot down the hovercrafts, and Katniss, Brandy, Stephen and Rue were all in them. He says they were alive at first, but he gives us a graphic account about how he and some other soldiers took turns raping them, and then shot Katniss in the stomach and let her bleed out slowly and horrifically before burning the little girls alive. He says they hung Stephen with a long rope after making him watch all this. We know it's made up but his imagination is revolting. It turns my stomach but I swallow my bile and try to shut him out. Clint apparently can't do that – the first time Lester told us the story, Clint tried to keep his cool but he ended up rushing the door and Lester used that as an excuse to taser him. Now he just makes allusions to it and I know it makes Clint's blood boil but he doesn't say anything to him, even as Lester gets progressively more graphic, until finally even the other guards are freaked out and tell him to shut up.

One night he stood at Clint's cell and asked, "So did your brother have to service fat old women after he won?"
"Yeah, he says your mother liked it best," Clint said back, and I laughed in spite of myself. So did the other two guards, who usually stay dead silent during our nightly torment. Or at least – I laughed until Lester used the taser on Clint without even a flimsy pretense this time.

Lester tells me things to the effect of knowing all about what my father did to my mother and insinuates Briar probably did "weirder" things to me too. I'm not exactly offended by the attack on my father's character, so I always just roll over and go back to sleep. Or try to, anyway – he throws things through that little window at me to keep me up. I don't know how he throws the pebbles and paper clips with such accuracy through such a little window, but they hurt enough to keep me up.

He only threw the pebbles at Clint once – Clint threw it right back at him and got him in the eye. After a lot of hollering and cursing, Lester went in the cell with three other guys and beat Clint to a bloody pulp.

I don't think Lester is specifically told to do any of this to us, but the torturer approves – he smiled at Lester's handiwork when he came to get Clint a couple of days after the beating.

The torturer likes whipping too. I'm sure my back has huge scars – I'm not sure if I form keloids or not.

But mostly, he likes psychological things. Other people in our cell block have their families or friends brought in to be whipped, drowned, electrocuted, mutilated, or some horrible combination therein, in front of them. The only reason that's not my fate or Clint's fate is that they know seeing Dad beat probably wouldn't break me, and Duke is a victor who'll be missed.

But he finds my weak spot anyway.

We've been captive for about six months. The torturer pulls me out of my cell and brings me to the drowning/shocking room. I show my contempt by yawning. It's not lost on him. I manage a surprising level of nonchalance.

Until I see Willow Lawson tied up in the chair they use for shocks when he doesn't feel like getting the floor wet.

"Please don't hurt her," I beg. "She didn't do anything to the Capitol …"
"Do you have something to tell me, Mr. Banner?" he asks. That's always his question. I almost speak, but can't quite do it.

"Spruce … where am I?" she asks in tears, and I turn to look at her.

I slide into the back of my own mind.

Smash. Smash stupid, ugly face. Smash guards. Kick, punch, tear …

Stupid ugly torturer is red underneath gross plasticy skin.

Loud sound like fireworks. Don't like it. Willow hurt – help her.

Smash. Tear. Break. Smash.

Too many.

Pain.

I hear mumbled voices around me, but can't quite open my eyes. "This kid cost me quite a bit of money," a man grumbles.

"All the more reason to take him as a subject, General," the torturer says. "I believe you will find him … most promising."

"I'd better. Kid's already wasted enough of my money. Betty – get this kid cleaned up!"

I wake up strapped to a table with a beautiful woman standing over me. She looks to be about three years older than me, and she's absolutely stunning with long black hair and beautiful dark brown eyes and perfect, alabaster skin. "It's okay," she says gently as she starts to clean the wounds I apparently obtained in fighting the torturer and his men. I realize it doesn't hurt nearly as much as it should. Even pain I've had for months is gone. "Did you give me …"
"Sh …" she says quickly, and I don't say any more because I don't want to get her in trouble. We're in a room that's so small it only holds her and me – I'm sure there are guards posted at the door.

"What … what are they going to use me for?" I ask.

"They're … they have a project," she says vaguely. "They need subjects." I shudder and wonder what horrors they'll subject me to.

"Who's Rebeckah?" she asks, seeing my tattoo.

"My mother," I answer. "She passed away two years ago." She nods sympathetically as she cleans a cut above my eye. It's not just the painkillers easing the pain – she's extremely gentle. "Did you watch me in the Games?" I ask, suddenly curious.

"I … I did," she says softly. "You were brave."

At that moment the door opens and she falls silent. "How does it look, Betty?" the man I heard talking earlier asks from the doorway.

"I'm doing what I can – but try to go easy on him today, he's not in good shape," she tells him. He's a big man – tall and broad shouldered, with an impressive mustache and all gray hair.

"No room for going easy, sweetie," he says. Judging by their familiarity and the age difference between them, I guess he's her father.

"Well … I'll have him ready," she says reluctantly.

"That's my girl." He leaves us, and she's almost in tears as she looks at me again. This is not at all encouraging, and I know whatever's coming isn't good.

"You okay, Spruce?" Clint calls to me. We can hear each other in our cells.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I lie. They injected me with something, and now I'm shaking and sweating like with the flu, only dramatically worse. And I have no idea what they did to Willow once the Other Guy freaked out. I'm very glad for the painkillers Betty gave me – they numb me inside too.

"Do you think … do you think Tony's really as bad as they say?" he asks me. They've been showing us, over and over again, highly edited versions of footage from the Games. We see him pinning Brandy to the ground, and they very clumsily cut it so it looks like he raped her. Clint laughed at it at first, but they've shown it so many times he doesn't know what's real or not anymore. Now when they show it he screams in horrible agony, and I know they're doing something to him besides just showing him footage, but I can't see what it is.

"No – if he had raped her, they would have flooded the cave or something. Something to make sure their victor wasn't a rapist. Remember Titus? They don't let savages win."

"I know … I just … He kept her for so long …"
"You know why he kept her, Clint," I say angrily, losing my patience. "He kept her for bait – he probably just grabbed her because she was close and easy."

"Okay. I'm sure," Clint says, but he doesn't sound sure. I worry about him – how long will it be before he believes the lies about his brother and Katniss too?

Cover Image

(Amazing) cover image created for this story by Peter Grønbech. You can find him in deviantart under the name Billebryn.

Author's Note

The point of a long rope is the victim strangles and dies horribly rather than it breaking their neck. And on that cheery note, we're back.