"Innocence is not to be taken lightly, my ass!" Tears stream down the ten-year-old girl's face, staining it red as the woman hovers over her, shouting insults at the poor girl.
"You have to be the god damn spitting image of last year's victor, and if you don't start now-" the woman clenches her fists and lets out an exasperated huff as the girl huddles on the floor, her District Two pendant stained with tears as she chokes on her words.
"M-miss Delta... In-innocence is not to be t-taken li-" the girl drops the word as Delta's hand throws itself across the shivering girl's face. Clasping her cheek, she sinks to the ground, wincing.
"You're a career. Get on your fucking feet and act like one, Vazquez." Delta says each word as if it were venom, watching the girl bring herself to her knees, watching her tears sting her already burning face.
Wiping tears from her eyes, the girl stands up and whispers. "Innocence is not to be taken lightly because it's the only thing I have. It's the only thing you haven't taken from me." Tears begin to burn her vision as she turns on her heel and begins to run. But there's nowhere to run.
As she reaches the corner of the large room, she looks around desperately, breathing heavily and quickly. She buries her head in her hands, knowing that this is the end. She knows that Delta doesn't give second chances.
The twenty-four-year old woman is sprinting towards her, bearing down on her with a battle-axe in hand. The rest of the room is quiet. The plants hang with oblivious docility from the ceiling, the weapons that she can barely lift are secured in the racks, and the rope looms over the tall room, shimmering in the dawn light from the one small window that peeks into District Two's dusty ground. The rope.
As Delta slows down to deliver the blow, the small girl rolls out of the way, stepping quickly and lightly towards the rope. She catches it with one hand and begins to place her bare feet nervously on the rough rope, feeling it bore into her hands.
As she climbs, she grasps the rope as hard as her sweating hands can muster, seizing it and not letting go. But she knows that one false movement is going to kill her. Any fool would know that, she thinks, climbing the rope aggressively, placing her hands on it and going up as if it were nothing. It is nothing. Unless you make a mistake.
As the girl reaches the top, she clasps it one last time, placing her feet on it. But she makes a mistake.
Dangling by one hand, she fights to get herself steady, but she can't. She tumbles towards the floor, fumbling for the rope. As she catches the rope halfway, skidding down, the rope burns her hands as she holds onto it for all she is worth. As she reaches the ground she breaks into a quiet sob. Delta begins to cackle, laughing deeply as the girl rubs her hands together.
"Please don't kill me," she begs, on her knees with her hands clasped.
Delta raises her eyebrows in mockery. "Kill you? No, I would never do that to such an angel, to a girl with such athletic ability. Reform you? Take everything you have? Yes.'' Frightened, the girl shivers, crying harder. "Even my innocence? All I want is my innocence," she says meekly, avoiding Delta's gaze.
Smirking, Delta answers her, "I said everything, Clove Vazquez. Everything you know is dead, gone. And soon your innocence will be too."
They both stay silent for minutes, Clove looking down and Delta staring at her disapprovingly.
"I am still innocent, I have innocence and I am going to retain that,'' Clove whispers loudly, turning to stare. She wipes the tears from her eyes and stands up, pulling her shoulders back. She trembles in fear, nearly covering her head and cowering. But with a fearful, focused gaze, she clenches everything and braces herself for a beating.
Delta sighs, exasperated. "Pick up that knife right now. You are becoming a Career. You are a gem." She glares and folds her arms over her chest, dropping her battle-axe. "You might think that you're going to be innocent, but you are mine now."
Clove's tears had exasperated minutes ago, and although her red face was still prominent, she was becoming a fighter slowly.
"Who you are is not where you've been." She turns away after snatching the knife. "You're still an innocent."
She wrenches the knife in the wooden lock on the door, twisting it until the lock snaps in half. She throws it on the ground, swinging the door open. She enters the cool September air and stalks away, slamming the door shut behind her.
Once she was outside, outside of the cruel world where she had not been for weeks, she placed the knife on the ground. She ran to the fence. The fence faced a mountain that was literally vertical, holes in the fence nearly everywhere. At one of the holes, she lay down and contemplated.
She muttered to herself, tracing elegant patterns in a patch of talc. "Will I volunteer? Should I? I could win, I could. . ." She buried her head in her hands, choking back tears. "I will. I will volunteer because of that sick woman. Because- because-" She trails off, lying down in a bed of leaves.
She didn't finish her line, she drifted off. She would have said it in a breathy voice, she would have screamed it, knowing no one was listening. But instead, she fell asleep, she never said it again.
Lost your balance on a tightrope,
Lost your mind trying to get it back.
She became what Delta wanted her, soon enough. She became a cold-hearted, ruthless murderer.
She watched the seventy-fourth Hunger Games over and over again. She watched Clove volunteer, she watched her claim life after life. And she watched her die. Delta knew she deserved it.
She deserved it for pretending.
Delta had known that the girl with the knives would never be what Clove had said. She would never achieve the 'you're still an innocent' state of mind. Delta never realized that it wasn't her that changed her.
She flicked the television off after Clove sunk to the ground with Cato clutching her hand.
But little did she know her last thoughts. She wouldn't know what Clove thought. 'It's okay, life is a tough crowd,' she has whispered as she died. She still remembered Delta after five years. Clove knew that Delta didn't have it. She had wanted it, she still had it in her mind. Innocence was the thing she retained with death.