A/N: Just a oneshot I've had in mind for a while. It's in Enobaria's POV. Thank you for clicking on this fic and I hope you enjoy.
THE LITTLE VAMPIRE SLAYER
Sometimes it's not so easy
To be the teacher's pet
"Don't Stand So Close to Me" — The Police
When I escaped the Arena, it was like someone painted the world different colors while I was away. Winning the Hunger Games was my lifelong dream, but I forgot that nightmares are dreams too.
Due to those two revelations, I am sitting in my house at the Victor's Village, holding a stolen peacekeeper's gun to my own temple. My sweaty fingers keep slipping around as I try to figure out how to squeeze the trigger. I was never trained with a weapon that the Hunger Games never used but it did not take a genius to figure out the basics.
Hold gun. Pull trigger. End pain.
I take a deep breath and close my eyes, but they flash open again when someone barges through my door, his heavy footsteps relentlessly thudding against the wooden floor as he walks right into my kitchen.
"Get out, Brutus," I hiss, saliva spraying through the uncomfortable new teeth the surgeons outfitted me with while I was out cold. Waking up to them did not help my confusion.
"You gonna off yourself, girl?" he coldly asks, crossing his arms and broadening his stance. "Fine. I came to check on you because you're a mess. You haven't even reached your Victory Tour and you're a borderline alcoholic spewing bullshit no one wants to hear."
"So?" I snarl, glowering.
"As your mentor, here's an order: find a way to make yourself human again or pull the damned trigger," he growls.
I squeeze it. Nothing happens. Fiercely, I throw the gun at the wall. It slams loudly against the kitchen tile and then clatters on the floor. The peacekeepers must have a safeguard I did not know about.
"Huh," calmly says Brutus, chuckling and rolling his eyes. "I thought you'd choose the first one. I really thought you were a smart kid."
"Make myself human again? Didn't you notice President Snow's upgrades?" I snarl at a man I once revered, gesturing at my still-uncomfortable teeth. "I can't make myself human again. I'm a monster and I have to learn to love being one. Stay out of my way."
I stand up and brush past him, leaving my own house. As I blink in the strong sunlight, I realize the soaring sensation in my chest. It only took a useless attempt on my life to see the truth.
Since I was twelve, I have been trained to put off this moment of clarity as long as I could stand and fight, slash and stab, and reign victorious. Under the strength, the wit and the endless training was the knowledge that someday, someway, I would no longer be fast enough, smart enough, or lucky enough.
And the monster inside of me would win.
Four years after the day Brutus barged in on my suicide attempt, I size up the latest Academy recruits. Every twelve-year-old girl and boy averts their eyes except for one. A tiny girl looks straight up at me instead of bowing her worthless head in respect.
I stand in front of her and wait for her to crumble but she does not.
"What's your name, soldier?" I demand.
"Clove Conium," the girl replies without hesitation.
"Kneel, Clove Conium," I fiercely order with the strength of the monster within.
Unafraid, the orphan spits, "Make me."
"As you wish," I sardonically snarl. She might be a child, but she attends the Academy now. I punch her in the gut and she falls onto her knees. "There we go."
Clove does not shed a single tear.
Good. Maybe I can work with the indignant whelp.
[X]
Clove has a good feel for knives. I admit I spend more time on her than the other students. Most of them will fail miserably and end up as peacekeepers in outlying districts. Why would I waste my time on someone who will not reign victorious?
She is thirteen when she first tells me the worst words I can imagine. The girl sits in my office, because she has no friends among the other children. I tolerate her if she does my chores.
"I want to be just like you," says Clove, kicking her legs back and forth as she clings to the table she sits on. "I always wanted to be just like you."
At first, I am speechless. "Good," I say. "You should strive to be the best."
She nods and smiles at my bravado, which I hate. I hate all of it. When she says that, I feel the gun to my temple again. I feel the old discomfort in my mouth that went away long ago. I look around and try to remember what the colors were before I won.
"I think you're the best," Clove says, smiling the way she never does around the other kids.
"I am," I sharply reply, slamming my books shut. "You need to get to your next class, soldier."
She jumps down from my desk and waves to me before she leaves the room.
[X]
The first Games I mentor, my girl wins. I go to great lengths to get her there and she succeeded, bringing more glory to my name. People adore her, her ruthless spirit and her bright blue eyes. I am as impartial towards her as an instructor must be.
"I just wanted to be like you," she said at her Victory Ceremony, smiling at me beneath the crown that did not quite fit her head. "I wanted to be famous and feared and beautiful at the same time. Just like you."
I nodded then. No words were necessary, thankfully.
Right now, I walk through her unlocked front door to check in on her. I am supposed to offer her the obligatory job at the Academy, to pretend that we have a choice.
When I enter the living room, calling out her name, I see her slumped on her sofa. The television keeps blaring replays of her allegedly stunned Games. My eyes drift away from it and land on the blood pouring from her sloppily slit wrists. She must have just hacked at them with a blade.
I should try to save her, or at least take her pulse, but I just stand there and stare.
It is probably better this way.
They say she dies of a heart attack.
[X]
The jobs I work in the Capitol grate on me. President Snow introduced me to my first client on my Victory Tour and I complied without hesitation. I was taught to be loyal to the Capitol no matter what it asked me to do, and so, for four years, I have served the highest bidders.
At home, I tend not to face those memories. But, today, Laurel—an Academy mentor a few years older than me—waltzes into my office and looks me up and down.
"You need to go on a date. I imagine you're lonely without all the Capitol lovers."
I host the brief mental fantasy of bashing her face into the stone wall before I merely clear my throat and clasp my hands on top of my desk and smile at her. When I lean forward, she steps back. A victor should be ashamed of fearing anything, even me and my monstrous grin.
"That wouldn't interest me," I purr. "If I wanted romance in my life I would seek it myself."
She cocks her head to the side. "What's your type?"
"I don't have one," I say, leaning back in my seat.
Before the Hunger Games I liked pretty girls who were attracted to danger.
Now, I try not to think about sex or love.
[X]
A few months later, on a morning jog through the Academy corridors, I see Clove in the hallway outside of the Headmaster's Office. She gazes at the Academy Tenets framed on the wall, and her eyes gradually drift up to the engraving on the stone.
We are evil men in the Garden of Paradise, sent by the forces of death to spread destruction wherever we go.
"Memorizing the rules?" I ask, stopping and standing beside her. When I examine the girl, I see blood all over her face, trickled down from her nose. She has more dried on her neck and shoulder. "Whose blood is that?"
"Some is mine, some isn't. I'm not cleaned up because I'm in trouble," Clove admits. "But the Headmaster's talking to Cato first."
"Cato? He's that favorite, isn't he? Brutus is thinking about choosing him as a mentee early."
"I broke his arm," Clove admits, incapable of hiding her tiny smile.
"Why?" I ask, cocking an eyebrow.
Clove shrugs and plainly states, "He kissed me. We got in a fistfight."
I feel like someone stabbed a stake into my chest. No one kisses this little kid, this one I already am grooming for the Games. "Why were you anywhere near him?"
"You're the one who upgraded me," snaps Clove, sliding into the indignant stance I thought I beat out of her. "I'm in his class now and it's not my fault."
"I am going to forget I heard that insubordinance because breaking the arm of a boy that big has earned you some form of reward." I wink, although I should not.
Clove's eyelids flutter when she realizes the consequences of her disrespect towards me. "Thank you, sir. I meant no disrespect, sir."
"Good," I snap.
Clove lightly bows.
[X]
"So, you break Academy regs and end up on the fast-track to becoming a tribute," I say when Clove Conium reports to my office at dawn. "Welcome to advanced training."
Clove says in a somehow respectful tone, her hands clasped behind her stiff back, "Sir, I broke Academy regs by breaking the arm of the highest ranking student."
I laugh. "It was a wise decision. Training will not be easy."
"I know, Enobaria."
Swiftly, I stand, slamming my fist down on my desk. "Children and other mentors call me Enobaria. You will call me God."
"Yes… God, sir." Clove nods once at me.
I smirk at how quickly she learns.
[X]
On a rainy day, my view of Clove Conium suddenly changes. I watch her battle moving targets with throwing knives. She slips around in the mud but manages to keep her balance like I taught her. But I stop focusing on the knives in her hand or the targets she hits and misses; I notice how the rain makes her uniform cling tightly to her figure.
When did that little orphan turn into a woman?
"How did it I do, sir?" asks Clove and I look up at her, my eyes wide.
I was not paying attention.
"Not well," I say. "Try again."
Clove nods and goes to reset the targets.
[X]
After passing her first two tests, Clove is prepared to endure exposure training. I am to supervise as she and the five other potential tributes under my wing sit in the ice cold forest. Being a victor, they give me a tent with a heater inside.
I make them hike and when one boy stops and stumbles, I shove him to the ground and leave him behind.
"No room for weakness," I bark, and the other five run much faster.
That night, I sit in my tent. It rains torrentially outside and the kids all build their own shelters like they were taught in the theory class. I emerge from my tent every so often to check on their progress. Clove sits with her eyes closed beneath dripping, half-frozen leaves.
I watch her shiver, her lips turning blue. My other mentees are equally broken, but I only have eyes for her. Slowly, I step forward and grab Clove by the arm.
"You did the best on the hike and the hunting training. For the last half of the night you may stay in my tent out of the rain as a prize," I say, taking her by the wrist inside of the waterproofed canvas.
Clove sits by the radiator, nearly wrapping herself around it. I watch her, carefully controlling my breath.
We lie close together but, of course, do nothing of a sexual kind.
I am better than my clients.
[X]
When we return to the Academy after exposure training, the rainy season continues with a downpour every single day. After classes, Clove again shows up in my office like she always does. Even if friends are forbidden, kids make them. Not her. I grab a soccer ball and toss it onto the slippery field. Clove cocks an eyebrow and looks at me like I am insane.
"If you beat me, I'll let you out of class early tomorrow," I say, wickedly smirking at her.
She runs forward and starts to play against me. Clove and I are equally matched. She does not make a mistake until the crash of thunder startles her and she crashes into me. We fall to the ground and, panting, lock eyes.
She is almost seventeen. I am not messed up.
She is a student. I am not supposed to break the rules of the Academy.
She kisses me. I kiss her back.
We dig into each other on that field. Anyone could have caught us pressed against each other, approaching sex further and further until she begins to remove her shirt and I push her away.
"This can't happen," I say.
She whispers, rendered infinitesimally small by our actions, "Yes, sir."
I walk away.
[X]
When I am down to three mentees in my advanced training program, I have to spend more time with Clove Conium than I would prefer.
The temptation and frustration make me want to break my own bones to rid them of the agonized sensation. I want to chew off my own leg like an animal in a trap. As I sit in my home with the fancy bottle of emerald green liquor perched on my knee tears begin to flow from my eyes and I realize I forgot how to cry until this girl jammed herself into my brain.
I am clinging to my desk, uncontrollably weeping, when a young mentee walks in uninvited.
"I apologize, sir. I…" Clove begins to back away, clearly horrified by seeing me weak.
No one ever has before.
Monsters do not cry.
"Stay," I order, and my little soldier would never disobey.
Clove remains there, sitting at a desk and trying not to look at me as I gasp for breath. She rises once I sink back into my seat and begin to catch my breath.
"Did I do this?" Clove asks, suddenly nervous. I have seen her face foes larger than herself and face me when punished without any anxiety. But my tears scare her.
"You think too highly of yourself," I spit. "And you think too highly of me."
Clove whispers, "This doesn't change that I want to be just like you."
I stand, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her down. "I hate it when people say that. Despite my bravado at the Academy, I think only idiots and the pathetic would want to be like me. You are not an idiot and you are not pathetic; you are my best chance at glory."
I release her and she stands up straight. We are the same height now.
Clove kisses me on the lips and gets a mouthful of teeth.
She moans.
I close my office door to hide us inside.
[X]
In the morning, in my quarters, Clove starts putting on her uniform. I watch her tags dangle from her neck as she begins to pull on her pants. But I grab her by the wrist and pull her back onto the bed.
"You can't leave so soon, soldier," I whisper in her ear as I tightly hold her.
Clove's eyes glitter when she mockingly says, "What if I'm the lay 'em and leave 'em type?"
"Don't toy with me this early," I bark. "I just want a couple more minutes with my star mentee and I never fail to get what I want."
"Are you always such a bitch in the morning?" grumbles Clove.
I laugh. "Count on it, kid."
[X]
Clove asks one day while cleaning my office, after a thousand trysts and countless more days training together, "Permission to speak freely, sir?"
"Granted," I say, carelessly capping my pen.
"I think I love you," Clove says, blurting it out as fast as she can. "I think I have since I was a little schoolgirl with a crush."
It takes me an eternity to respond. I need to take several deep breaths and sort out my thoughts before I decide to be honest. She will soon be a victor and soon be on my level.
"I don't want your love unless you know I am repulsive, and love me even as you know it. I am a monster, Clove Conium. A monster with a wicked soul and sharp teeth." I stand up and stride over to her, I dig the nails I manicure into the shape of claws down into her shoulder. She does not even wince. I lean in close to her. "Do you still love me?"
"You're a monster," Clove whispers, "but you're my monster."
"I belong to no one," I snap, shoving her towards the wall. "Get the fuck out."
Clove looks briefly wounded, but then collects herself to be icy and ruthless once more.
"Yes, sir," and she vanishes.
I smash my fist onto my desk. My clients buy me; in their eyes, I am their monster. Clove cannot be the same. I will not offer my affection to someone like those in the Capitol.
Shaking my head and clenching my pointed teeth, I abandon my work and go to lie down in my quarters, staring at the grey stone ceiling and counting the minute cracks.
[X]
That year, I bring home a second victor. She somehow remains sunny in disposition, but with her gorgeous features and windchime laugh I know she will break once someone buys her for the first time. We all do around that time.
When I report for duty at the Academy, the Headmaster gladly congratulates me then suddenly sobers before he gravely speaks. "Clove Conium has been imprisoned for ten days."
"Why?" I snarl, saliva spraying from my fangs. He does not even flinch. My first response was visceral, but then I realize it may be because of what the two of us have done.
"She killed another student. She got in a fight in the showers and slit the girl's throat with a razor she was using to shave her legs," growls the Headmaster. "I've seen few kills so callous here."
"We should reward that. We are evil men in the Garden of Paradise, sir. I think she fits the bill. I take responsibility for her, and I believe she will be our district's next victor. Did she not prove that ten days ago?"
The Headmaster sighs. "She did, but if she wastes another life we've trained for five years, I'll kick her out onto the streets. Clove won't be a victor; she won't even be a peacekeeper."
"I understand."
[X]
Clove locks eyes with me at her private training lesson. We boxed for hours, ignoring blood in our mouths and bruises on our beautiful faces. I wait for her to speak.
"You haven't said anything about the kid I killed. Everybody's talking about it," Clove says after tearing her mouth guard out and spitting up some blood.
"I see no point," I say, removing my own very custom one.
Clove insists, "There is no difference between us anymore."
Aghast, I demand, "Is that why you did it?"
"No," Clove says, and I believe her. "She threw the first punch because I beat her in a spar and she wanted to teach me a lesson. But if you're a monster, I'm a monster. And monsters need to look out for each other, since humans are merely prey."
I study her and nod. "You and me are nothing more than wicked monsters wearing human skin. Now that you have made your first kill, I think we do have much more in common. And right for the throat too."
"That was just impulse, sir," Clove says.
I smirk. "You always had halfway decent instinct, soldier."
[X]
In my quarters, Clove sits on my bed and toys with the tags on her neck. She knows what we both will not speak about.
"He knows about us," Clove breathes, clearly ashamed.
I sit up as fast as lightning. "Who?"
"Cato," she mutters.
I have seen them together a few times and sensed chemistry, but they were not friends as far as I knew. But I still shout, to conceal my own ignorance, "I knew it. I knew you felt something for him."
"Cato means nothing to me," growls Clove, standing and clenching her fists.
I harshly say, "If he meant nothing to you, you would've kept this secret. Why did he need to know?"
"Because he loves me."
"You could've just knocked his teeth out. I think it'd send a clearer message."
"He's my only friend. I like him, but I don't love him."
I bitterly say, "Friends are not advised at the Academy."
"Neither is sleeping with your mentor. I guess I'm a natural born rule breaker and a natural born killer."
I close my eyes. "Goodnight, Clove. I hope you have sweet dreams of Cato."
Clove clasps her hands on her lap and stays awake all night.
[X]
I watch Clove and Cato laughing with each other in the yard.
They play soccer in the rain.
I clench my fists and fantasize about ripping his throat out.
[X]
I watch Clove and Cato walk beside each other in the hallways.
They whisper to each other so softly that I cannot hear.
I clench my fists and fantasize about ripping his throat out.
[X]
One day, I kick Cato out of class for no good reason. Most think I am throwing a temper tantrum or am in a bad mood. Monsters lash out that way. Clove sees through it and comes up to me after training.
"Enobaria," Clove says, "I love you and I only love you and I will only ever love you and once I'm a victor I'm going to marry you and I will stud my Victor's crown with diamonds instead of a ring. And I will wed you in a white gown after my Victory Tour. You are my monster, whether you want that or not. He is my best friend and will never be anything more."
I see the truth on her face, the pained downward curve of her lips, the ferocious fire in her eyes. Sighing, I rub my temples.
"That doesn't sound bad," I say, my lips twitching. I almost smile.
"I want you, fangs and all," Clove insists with a burning fire in her voice.
Slowly, knowing how I doom myself but how I love it all the same, I walk to her, grab her by the neck and press her lips against mine.
Gently, I bite down on her lower lip.
She clings to me all night.
[X]
The Heads of the Academy choose Clove for the Games a year early. They think she has the best skill and the best chance of winning the 74th Hunger Games. I strongly agree.
When I watch her walk to the stage and say into the microphone, "I, Clove Conium, volunteer as tribute," pride swells in my chest.
Her eyes fall on me as Satin Athens holds her hand up and shows her off to the cameras and crowd.
Then Cato comes up beside her. Brutus and I both found it foolish for the Heads to choose them both together. Friends are few and far between at the Academy and they both cared for each other like no other students did. My mentor and I do not believe they can kill each other.
All the same, we have no choice.
[X]
I train her privately after she surveys the other tributes for a few days.
I kiss her often, even if I know President Snow watches.
I forget about rules because I know in a very short time she will be mine.
[X]
On the night before the Hunger Games, we lie in bed together. Satin Athens would wail over it and Brutus glowered. He suspected, of course, but now I did not care about concealing it from him.
"I want you to know something," I say. "You make me want to live, Clove. Not survive; not exist. Live. You better feel the same way about me, soldier."
"I do," Clove says without hesitation.
I lie down and gaze up at her. Soon, I will wake up to her face every day. It will be the face of a famed and glorious victor.
"If you die in that Arena, at least we're going to Hell together," I joke.
Severely, Clove says, "Enobaria, we're not going to Hell. But wherever we go, we'll be together."
I fall asleep with a small smile on my lips.
Tonight, I do not have a single nightmare.
[X]
I hear her cannon fire and stand up. No one bothers to try to stop me as I walk away from the control room, my fists clenched and my teeth digging into my lower lip until they draw blood.
As I sit in the bathroom, I keep my eyes closed for as long as I can. Then I open them and see someone repainted the world again. Clove is nothing but another pained memory. She is nothing but another fleeting dream.
But if she was a dream…
She was my first and only good one.
After the war ends and the rebels win, I cannot figure out why I lived and so many died. Maybe monsters simply cannot be killed by such mortal means. As Panem rebuilds, I deteriorate. The rebellion doctors who shrink the heads of the Victors give me sleeping pills, and anti-anxiety tablets to replace alcohol. I get my hands on some painkillers from one the rebel hospitals in my home district.
When I return to District Two, I sit at my kitchen table where I once—in what feels like another life—held a gun to my temple and then embraced being a monster. The full bottle of sleeping pills sits on the table in front of me. Beside it, the bottle of anti-anxiety medication. And, lastly, in the center, rests the bottle of painkillers.
I get up and grab one of the bottles of water from the rations. When I unscrew the cap, I breathe my first sigh of relief since the 74th Hunger Games.
To savor the moment, I take the painkillers one by one. Slowly, over the course of time, to the tune of construction outside.
"You make me want to live, Clove. Not survive; not exist. Live."
Then I take the sleeping pills one at a time.
"You and I are nothing more than wicked monsters wearing human skins."
Lastly, I devour the anti-anxiety tablets.
"If you die in that Arena, at least we're going to burn in Hell together."
"Enobaria, we're not going to Hell. But, wherever we go, we'll be together."
I lie down on the sofa and close my eyes. The cold flooding my veins must be what dying feels like. It is an oddly pleasant sensation.
When I open my eyes again, I see her above me, holding out her hand.
"I want you with me," whispers Clove in her white gown and diamond crown. "Fangs and all."
Without hesitation, I grab her wrist and let her pull me into eternity.
end