For the third week in a row she wakes screaming, her throat raw, the sweaty sheets tangled in her legs. Almost like an instinct, she looks around the room for the danger but then her vision is blurring because tears are stinging her eyes again, threatening to spill out as she realises she can't look for it. The danger is trapped in the cage inside of her, pumping blood through her body and some days she wishes it would stop, because she doesn't care anymore. And God, is she crying? She never cries. She was tough, brave. And now she's a quivering mess, weighed down by grief and afraid to leave her house because what must they think about her? That she's heartless and cruel? And maybe once upon a time she would be happy with that, but he knew she wasn't and it breaks her more and more every day
She lies back down, pulls the sheets up from her legs and under the chin, and then throws them back down when she gets too hot. Her hair is in the same ponytail it was in yesterday, the wisps that escaped sticking to her forehead with sweat. She gives herself a few seconds to calm down, get her breath. Without wanting to, her mind flickers to the Feast. No. She shuts her eyes, but the memories keep coming back, taunting her and hissing cruel words.
Her killing Twelve. Eleven trying to kill her. Cato just coming just in time to save her and now she's wishing he didn't because the picture is so clear now, and she hears his pleading voice when he thinks she's dead and she's not but she wishes she was. And then the three of them are on that goddamn horn, and they kill Loverboy and the announcement is made and here, it reaches here and she takes a gulp of air and she pushes her fingers into her eyes wanting nothing more than for the thoughts to go away but they cling to her refusing to leave and she's never given up, but she does now. She lets the memories wash over her in a crashing wave, one she nearly drowns in, and every time she tries to stand up its too deep and she's picked up and thrown back into the icy water.
He throws down his sword, takes a step forward to her with his arms out, ready to embrace her. But she's so angry at the Capitol and just wants to hurt something, and when she pushes him in his unprotected chest, she doesn't realise what she's done until all she can hear are his screams and the mutts below tearing at his flesh and suddenly she's back in her bedroom, throwing up.
She runs to her bathroom, shaking and covered in her own vomit. She stares down at her hands, hands of a killer and stained in blood, his blood. She spends the rest of the night scrubbing them hard, trying to get rid of the invisible red until actual blood seeps into the sink, mixing with the water. And she stops and begins to draw patterns in it, mixing the thick red swirls with the weak clear. And she has an idea.
And at six twenty two in the morning, she climbs into her bathtub and never comes out.
i kind of hate this and im supposed to be working on my Glimmer one shot but hey, i love Clove.