It starts with a word.
"No," Nero says, prying Lyme's hand away from her wrist.
"I wasn't doing anything." Lyme doesn't look at him, just curls her fingers and tries to dig her nails into the soft flesh of his hand. It doesn't work; he's bigger than she is, especially now that she's dropping weight like crazy, and his hands are the size of her head.
"You're not fooling me, little girl," Nero tells her, and he keeps her left arm still at her side while lifting up her right. Her wrist is raw and oozing blood, and it's not a big deal. It's scratches. Any Career gets worse injuries than that when they're seven; Lyme had her palms and the soles of her feet sliced open with tree branches for talking back when she was four.
She had to get skin grafts for the burns on her legs, but you don't see Nero being a baby about that .
"It was itching," Lyme says instead, yanking her hand free, and this time he lets her. It's clear he lets her, too; he holds on for half a second before releasing her, just long enough to tell her that she didn't do this on her own. Something hot and twisting builds up in her stomach. "I just wanted to make it stop."
"No," Nero says again. "C'mon, let's spar it out."
Sparring is good, at least; it lets her leak the violence out like lancing a boil. (People say that all the time but Lyme doesn't know what it means, and she's almost curious. The best way to make something go away is to cut it out; wouldn't it be nice if everything was that easy, slide in a scalpel and watch it bubble and ooze and drip until it's gone.)
"No," Nero says when Lyme asks if she can go into town.
"I just want to get out of here." Lyme scowls, curled up on the couch with a blanket wrapped around her despite the heat. "I'm going crazy."
"You can go out soon, but not yet," he says, patient - too patient, it's getting on her nerves. "The first time I went out after my win, I nearly took the head off some asshole I decided looked at me the wrong way. You're still a little jumpy. Nothing wrong with that, we'll get you sorted, but it's best to wait until fall, at least. People won't always piss you off by then."
"People have always pissed me off," Lyme mutters, digging her chin into her knees. "People suck."
Nero laughs like she managed to surprise him. "That they do, sweetheart. But like it or not, nobody in this village will be killing anyone ever again, and I'm not gonna have you getting blood on your knuckles unless it's another victor's and you have my permission. Okay?"
Lyme sinks down and frowns until her forehead muscles ache and she gives herself a headache, and after a while of that Nero clucks his tongue and tugs her up to spar again.
"No." This time he caught her with a paring knife, slipping it under her skin and peeling it back, but the ink from her victor's tattoo goes down too deep, too deep. The pain dizzies her, leaves her reeling, and it doesn't take much for Nero to get the knife away from her. He snaps the blade in his fingers and tosses it in the trash. "It's not going away, remember that. You're a victor now. You could cut your whole hand off at the elbow and it wouldn't change that."
She wanted this, is the crazy thing. Lyme closes her eyes against the blood and lets Nero bandage her again, and she thinks back to all those years at the Centre, convinced she was made for this and nothing else. That much is still true - there's nothing else she would ever be than this, a societally-sanctioned killer. If she hadn't been the kind that gets crowns and parades, she would've become one another way. Too much anger, too much hate, a whole tornado of rage wrapped up in a not-pretty girl's body.
She's grateful. She is. But at the same time Lyme wonders if it might've been better being the other kind. Stalking the alleys, looking for men who trapped women in dark corners; watching the streets for women with bruised faces and downcast eyes, children with unnatural shuffling gaits who shy away from touch; finding the assholes who did it and cutting them into pieces.
"No," Nero says again, not looking up from the gauze he's affixing around her wrist.
"No what?" Lyme demands. "I didn't do anything!"
"No whatever you're thinking, little girl, because I know your faces and that's not a good one." Nero raises an eyebrow. "Prove me wrong."
Lyme tells him, because when your mentor asks that's what you do, and he says she'll never say anything that scares him but she almost wants to try. He goes still, then closes his eyes, and Lyme blows out a breath. "Well? At least if I was a serial killer, I'd only have killed people who deserved it. I liked killing at the Centre, I liked - they did bad things, and I wanted to make them pay for it, but I killed ten kids and they didn't do anything . Isn't that worse?"
Nero lets out a long sigh, then wraps his arms around her and pulls her close. Lyme fights him for a second but there's no point, and she hides her face in his chest because at least then no one knows her eyes are burning. "Remember what I told you," Nero says, running his fingers through her hair. He means the week before when she tried to scrub the tattoo away with salt, and Lyme shakes her head. "What's done is done, Lyme. But we do what we can to make up for it."
"But it never goes away." Lyme grips his shirt, pain still twingeing in her wrist.
"No," Nero says, softly.
No, when she sneaks a razor from his bathroom and drags it down her forearm.
No, when she tries to hide her medication in the cracks of the couch.
No, when she turns the shower on its hottest setting until the skin on her back blisters.
No, no, no. A lifetime of no after an adolescence of yes, of try harder, of you can do it, keep going, don't stop, push push push, be the best and forget the rest. It's not what they promised her.
The problem is, she doesn't know what she wants instead.
Once Lyme breaks a glass in the kitchen. Not on purpose for once, but she's tired and squirrelly and the smooth surface slips in her fingers and it falls, shattering on the hardwood. The medication that Nero still won't let her taper off from keeps her brain muzzy, and the sunlight streams in through the window and catches on the tiny shards and all she can think is how pretty it is. Glass is sharp and bright and shiny, glittering like a sword blade, and the Centre always taught her that blades look best when stained with blood.
It's not a glass anymore, just pieces, and Lyme isn't a tribute anymore, just a victor, and both of them are broken and have no purpose and her mind buzzes buzzes buzzes like bees and maybe if she could just see some blood she'd remember why she's here -
"Lyme?" Nero calls from the other room, looking back at her through the gap between the counter and the cupboards above. Sometimes they sit together on the bar stools and watch the TV from the kitchen, but today he's on the couch. "You doing okay?"
Lyme blinks. "I think there's something in my foot." There's a weird, prickly burning in the sole, and her voice sounds faraway. Nero is even farther when he curses and heaves himself up, and before Lyme can stop him he's picked her up and carried her over to the sofa. "It's fine," Lyme tells him. His face is impassive but it always is, he never lets her see beneath it and it's not fair, why should she be stripped raw and naked and bleeding in front of him and he get to keep his calm always?
"It is fine, because I'm gonna make it fine, so just stay there." Nero grabs a med kit from under the sink - they're all over the house - and brings it back, dragging her foot into his lap. He pulls out a pair of tweezers and a strip of bandage and a bottle of disinfectant, and Lyme turns onto her side and rests her head against the cushion and drifts while he fixes her. The antiseptic burns, hot and clean, jarring her out of it with a gasp, but then Nero's hands are warm and strong and steady as they wrap the gauze around her foot.
"That was my fault," Nero says, fingers warm against her ankle, thumb brushing over the jut of bone and making the hairs prickle. Nobody has waxed her since the Capitol and Lyme isn't allowed razors and honestly she kind of never wants them again. No more smooth and hairless and girlish for her, not ever. "I'll get plastic sent over. How you feeling, honey?"
Lyme sucks in a breath that gets stuck halfway. "I don't know." Sometimes she says it to be annoying ( you tell me, you're the mentor ) but today it's true. Today there's nothing but a big grey emptiness inside her, and the blood didn't help and the pain didn't help and there is no helping, not for her.
"Well, I'm right here," Nero says, squeezing her foot, and Lyme closes her eyes.
Nero nudges Lyme awake. Lyme cracks one eye open, and the only reason she doesn't snarl at him is that the patch of sunlight on the wall is white, not pink or orange. "Sleeping late today," Nero says casually, sitting down on the edge of the bed. His weight makes the mattress dip, and Lyme starts to slide down toward him before she digs her knee into a spring to keep herself steady. "Everything okay?"
"Fine." There's no clock by the bed because otherwise Lyme can't stop calculating how many times she wakes up at night. "Just don't feel like getting up."
"Well, too bad for you, little girl." Nero pulls the blankets back, and Lyme would be grumpier about that except it's not cold in the house and she was feeling a little scratchy and over-warm anyway. Still, it's the principle. "We're getting up and going for a walk up the trails. The lake's real pretty this time of year."
Lyme glares at him as he fishes out some clothes and tosses them at her. "I asked to go outside last week and you said no."
"Last week it wasn't a good idea."
"And now it is, when I don't want to anymore?" Lyme grabs the shirt and pants and holds them to her chest, teeth clenched hard enough to give her a headache. "So, what, I'm supposed to use reverse psychology on you to get what I want? Pretend I don't want to go outside and then you'll let me?"
Nero shoots her a look from underneath his eyebrows. "No, you're supposed to trust me that I know better than you. It's for your own good, little girl."
(the snap of the leather as he slaps his belt against his palm in warning; the whistle as it cuts through the air and smacks against skin; the sting as the buckle slams into her back, leaving bruises and blood and welts; it's for your own good little girl this stops when you cry little girl this hurts me more than you arms bending muscles burning bones breaking with a creak-crack-snap and fire you brought this on yourself little girl why didn't you just do what I asked little girl I know better than you )
"Get out!" the scream rises up inside her and burst its way through her throat before Lyme even registers the words. She throws the clothes at him because it's the only thing in reach but it's not enough. Her mind is a big white buzzing blank and Nero is there, staring, gawking with big eyes and he won't leave , he's in her house and in her room and in her space and she asked for a woman and they gave her a man and that's what men like him do, they don't care. They don't care what she wants, they care about power and putting girls in their place and showing them exactly where they should be and how they should obey and if they don't obey then well looks like you need a lesson -
"Fuck." Nero backs up and holds out his hands, palms facing her, and he pulls himself in and makes himself small. It would be funny except it isn't. "Lyme. Hey. I'm not touching you, okay, I'll stay right here, just sit down."
"And what if I don't?" Lyme snarls, but he used her name - her real name, the one she chose for herself, not the one they gave her that came with chains and hair ribbons - and that drags her back, at least a little. "What are you gonna do?"
"Then you don't sit." Nero swallows, his throat bobbing, and she could wrap her hands around his neck and squeeze but she'd never be able to hold on long enough unless she got him on the ground and used her whole weight. "Sit or don't, but I'll stay right here."
The room presses in close against her, the walls shuffling in, and so Lyme sits, in the middle of the bed where the walls can't get to her, wrapping her arms around her legs. She digs her feet into the blankets to stop herself from rocking. "What do you want?" she asks finally. Her tattoo itches and her fingers twitch to pick at it but she won't, she's stronger than this.
"It's not about what I want, it's about what you need."
"Yeah, but that's bullshit," Lyme says, and the words hit him like a slap to the face and make him flinch and that feels nice. Powerful. "You chose me because you wanted me even though another mentor would be better. So right from the start this was about you, right?"
Nero leans back until his head hits the wall with a low thunk . "I chose you because nobody else would understand. Callista came from Peacekeepers, they didn't hug it out or anything but they were good parents, raised her well, even saw her off in the Justice Building and gave her their blessing. She wouldn't get it."
"Just because you think you understand doesn't mean you were right for me," Lyme says, her throat tightening to choke off the words, but she pushes them through. Her entire body hums like a power line, and the thing is - the thing is, just because Nero had a shitty father doesn't mean he understands shit about her life. He was never a girl, never had to listen to horror stories of the day his body would one day flip a switch and he'd crave babies and marriage and sex and everything whether he wanted to or not. Never learned about the terror of childbirth as something that could be forced upon him - parasites growing inside, eating him from the inside out, then finally bursting out in a mess of blood and shit and fluid to ruin his life for the next eighteen years - any time some man decided he felt like it.
For Nero, growing up would've meant holding out, ducking the blows or taking the hits in gritted silence until he got big enough to get away. Because for boys there was an away, there was an until , but for girls - for Lyme, young and angry and bitter and terrified - there was nowhere to go. Nowhere without men, without those monsters who looked at girls like toys and treats and trinkets, who took what they wanted until they didn't want it anymore and threw the trash away.
Nero swallows, and he wipes his hands on his jeans once, twice, three times before running them both over the top of his head, linking his fingers together at the back of his skull. He stands straight and still, but even so he reminds Lyme of the lizards she speared with the tip of her sword before roasting them over her fire in the Arena. "Fuck," he mutters finally, under his breath, and when he looks up his eyes make her want to take a step back. "Look, you're right about one thing, I was selfish. I wanted to save you from all the shit you went through, and that was about me, not you. You're right."
Lyme should probably feel triumphant, or vindictive, or something, but it's just like when she woke up in the hospital expecting to feel like a victor and finding nothing but emptiness. "So now what?"
"Well -" Nero swallows again, and this is off book, it has to be. This conversation is not part of the mentor training manual, just like his talking about shitty parents and sharing cocoa with her at the eleventh hour. "It's always gonna be a little bit about us - and you, when you have a kid of your own. Mentoring is about doing whatever you can to save the kid, but the thing is, if it works, the two of you are stuck with each other for the rest of your lives. If you can get the kid sponsors and help them win but not connect with them later, then you're better off as the backup, running the ring and playing consultant. You might've trusted Callista or Adessa quicker out of the box, but they didn't get what made you tick and I did. I do . And without that, it would've come back to bite both of you in recovery. Sometimes we play the long game. Sometimes a kid grabs us so tight there's nothing we can do but fight."
It's a whole other world that Lyme never really thought about - in the Centre they're taught to listen to their mentor, to trust their expertise, but nothing about afterward because in the Centre there is no after - and here's the whole world tilting itself sideways and expecting her to stand. Lyme frowns. "You can't do that every year."
"There are enough mentors and candidates in Two that yeah, we can," Nero says, matter of fact. "If there's a candidate who doesn't grab any of the mentors, unless someone higher up insists, they're put on the backup track and they age out as the replacement. We're not like the other districts. Every person in this Village is here because someone else wanted them."
An image flashes in her mind: sitting in front of the mirror while her mother raked a brush through her tangled hair, catching the thin-lipped sour-lemon expression of disappointment in the reflection. Lyme grits her teeth against the memory and drowns it, quick and methodical. "But sometimes you play the long game and they die." It doesn't hit her until after that she said 'they', not 'we'. She's not a tribute anymore, never again.
Nero nods, chewing on his lip. "Most of the time they die," he says, his voice going dark and ugly and bleeding and faraway. "I always told myself the hurt would be worth it, if ever one came back to me. And I can tell you right now, looking at you, it's true."
Lyme looks away, her face flaming, but there's no one watching and nobody laughing and Nero doesn't push it. "That still doesn't tell me why you have to call me that," she says, throwing out he words like knives, and he won't have an answer to that one because there is no answer. "How am I supposed to trust you when you talk like him?"
"I'll stop if you want me to," Nero says without hesitating, and Lyme sits back and blinks. "I'm serious. If you're thinking of your old man every time I say it, then it's not doing what I want it to." He pauses, and Lyme refuses to take the bait and ask him what he does want it to, but he doesn't continue and she really doesn't want to sit here all day, so finally she rolls her eyes and makes a 'go on' gesture. Nero doesn't make a big deal out of her caving, just keeps talking. "You think 'girl' is an insult, and he's the one who taught you that. It's shitty and it's wrong, and if you're ever going to be a mentor you can't be thinking that."
She scowls. "It is, though."
"No, it's not, except by people who are shit-heads." Nero narrows his eyes. "Look what he did to you. You hate men and you look down on women, where the hell is that supposed to leave you? How are you supposed to interact with people when that's what you're going with? You're not killing anymore, sweetheart, this is the real world, and in the real world it's not you on a pedestal with everyone at your feet, and it's not you with a sword and everyone trying to kill you, either. You can't go through life spitting on one half of the population and sneering at the other, and you damn well won't save any kids that way."
Lyme bites the inside of her cheek until she'll be poking it with her tongue for the next three days, and Nero waits to see if she has anything to say before continuing. He's reined himself in a little, drumming his fingers against his leg. "I call you a girl because that's what you are, just like Odin calls Brutus 'my boy' because that's what he is."
"Yeah, except you don't call me 'my girl'," Lyme counters, and she's slipping on ice but she has to dig her feet in somewhere. "You call me 'little girl'. That's what he used to say to put me in my place."
"That's what I'm doing, just differently," Nero says, and this time Lyme gapes at him and nearly chokes on air because she'd thought he would at last be cagey about it. "You are a cocky little shit, Lyme, and that's part of the reason I wanted you, but it's also going to get you in trouble. You don't respect anybody except yourself, and if you think you'll last five minutes in the Capitol with that attitude you'll find your kid chomped by a mutt three hours in just to show you who's the boss."
Lyme sinks down into a low slouch, and maybe if she doesn't make eye contact she won't have to admit Nero has a point. The trainers always harped on her about overconfidence, even pitted her against older, prettier girls to bring her down, and she'd hated it then and thought she'd escaped it now. If winning the Games didn't give her license to be cocky, then what did?
Nero chuckles, and Lyme glares at him but it's not mean, or mocking; there's understanding there, and a fair dash of bitterness, too. He crosses the room - slowly, slowly, giving her enough time to tell him no if she wants - before sitting on the far end of the bed. "Okay, and see, this? This is why Callista and Adessa wouldn't work for you, because I get it. Respect for people like us, it means the boot grinding your face into the dirt. Respect is something that someone takes from you and leaves you bloody, and knowing your place means taking the hits because they tell you that you deserve it."
"And now you're going to tell me I'm wrong," Lyme says wryly, but she presses her hands against her legs to stop the shaking. ( You will respect me little girl if it's the last thing you ever do ) "I can't wait."
"Respect is earned," Nero says firmly. "Never taken. You can't force it. And knowing your place is a good thing, you think I don't know mine? No Two victor, no matter how good their Games, no matter how many kids they save, will ever be above the Capitol. No victor will ever be above their mentor. It's not about stomping on ants, it's about working together and making a world that makes sense. You start pulling out pieces and the whole tower falls over. Our whole system is built on trust. You trust that the people above you will do right by you; they trust that you'll do your job. That's all it is."
Lyme leans her head back against the wall and looks up, but the underside of the windowsill block her view of the sky outside. "It sounds nice when you say it, but so does a lot of stuff." Like how all she had to do to get everything she ever wanted was murder a handful of teenagers. In reality nothing is ever free.
"Yeah, well, you'll have to take it on faith for now, but I'm not feeding you bullshit." Nero nudges her with his foot, and she's too tired to snap at him. Or maybe she just doesn't feel like it either way. "There's nothing wrong with being a girl. There's nothing better about being a guy. There's everything wrong with being an abusive shit no matter what sex you are. I call you 'little girl' because you are, you're a girl and you're in my care and I'm going to take care of you just like you're gonna take care of somebody else someday."
She opens her mouth to say she doesn't need anyone to take care of her, but then Lyme's gaze snags on the healing gashes on her forearm, the blood-spotted bandages covering her feet, and maybe she does. She heaves a breath and presses her hand to her face, and Nero doesn't say anything, doesn't touch her, just sits there, a solid presence at the edge of her awareness.
"You said we were going for a walk," Lyme says finally, digging her palms hard enough against her eyes that the blackness behind her lids fractures into a spiralling burst of colours.
"That's right." Nero still doesn't move. "Where d'you think you wanna go?"
Lyme exhales and sits back, eyes stinging. "You said there was a lake, right?"
"Yeah, there's a gazebo, could grab some lunch and take it with us." Nero holds out a hand, and maybe she's crazy, maybe she's weak and stupid and gullible, but maybe it doesn't matter. Lyme reaches over and takes it, his fingers warm and solid as they hold hers. "Welcome to a whole new world, little girl."
Lyme snorts and wipes her eyes. "See, now you've ruined it," she accuses him. Nero grins and winks at her, and the shadows from the tree branches dance in the sun-patches on her wall. "You're making the sandwiches then."
"Deal," Nero says, and squeezes her hand.
NOTE: we're not done, there's more to come. Nero's POV is up next.