Sorry I've been MIA for so long! I hate looking at computers outside of work and this needed major editing because I didn't like how it sounded. And then I didn't like how it sounded for about 2 weeks and then I gave up for a bit. But I'm back, and this is back, and it's almost done, I swear. I want this to be done by the end of summer so I can stop worrying about it.
Let's Kill (Tonight)
Part Fourteen
trust | trəst
noun
firm belief in the reliability, ability, or strength of someone or something
synonyms: confidence, certainty, belief, faith, assurance, conviction, reliance
Asleep, her mind wanders without constraint. There is no one and nothing to keep her grounded, to differentiate the real from the imagined from the remembered. The tendrils of her unconscious snip at strings and unravel the web her multiple pasts have created and unleash upon her terrors that only she could conjure up. She wakes often with sweaty palms and a racing heart, stomach in her throat and breaths like pants.
Tonight is no different.
Her brain has manifested a scene she doesn't quite recall, but it's familiar enough she knows something about it holds a seed of truth.
Sweat slithers uncomfortably down her spine, pooling in the dip at her lower back. A rock digs into her back; she imagines it breaking away at her skin, slowly and surely making its way into her tendons and muscles and veins. She's probably bleeding.
Skye Hamilton sits on her, leaning up on her knees to keep her in place, and there is this maniacal gleam in her eyes. In the way she smiles. Massie recognizes that look. She's spent days becoming apprehensive of it.
She starts babbling, Skye does, about honor and pride and winning and how Massie never smiles but everyone loves her anyway, and Massie would respond in kind, probably say something witty and mean, but she can't. She can't breathe; she can't talk. She can hardly focus on anything—thoughts, movements, plans—with the weight on her throat.
Her mouth hurts from what feels like smiling too hard, forcing her cheeks into a position they are very rarely in (because Skye is right: Massie does not smile, not really). While blood trickles down her face, sticky and wet and warm, her throat tightens and her head swims and her leg kicks out, a useless endeavor.
And Skye is no longer there, a limp form to her right, kind of like that boy from Three, the one who died, the one related to another Victor she can't remember right now, and Kemp is above her, big and dark and still as fiercely handsome as Massie remembered. A different kind of handsome than Derrick, who is pretty with his statuesque edges. Kemp was always the kind of frighteningly attractive that fathers warned their daughters against; he was sharp smirks and perfect words, poised like weapons on his tongue.
The colors of his eyes change so quickly Massie feels even more nauseous than she thought possible. She can't remember what they looked like. She doesn't think she remembers the shape of his nose either. It looks too delicate to be his.
There is one thing she does remember, one thing she could never forget. Even awake, his voice haunts her, and it is that deep baritone that rumbles in her ear, even as he chokes her death.
His eyes are blue and green and brown and black and back again and his voice is a sensual whisper, a caress, as he says, "Do not trust Two. Trust me."
Trust you? Massie wants to snap back. How can I when you're trying to kill me?
He seems to hear her anyway and smiles, teeth gleaming. "You always knew what kind of person I was, even if you refused to believe it," he replies. "Can you say that about anyone else?"
Massie has no chance to formulate an answer because he kills her.
She is silent as she dies, esophagus crushed beneath his hands, neck nothing but a bruised slab of flesh, but she is screaming—she is shrieking—as she wakes, shouts echoing around the train car she's been forced to call home for the past half a year.
She tells Cam she doesn't remember what she dreamt, and as he smiles at her, soft and friendly and very much not out to get her, she swears she can see the vicious twist of Kemp's infamous smirk mar his features.
Cam runs his fingers through her hair like he always does when she's stressed like this and doesn't ask any more questions. She can see he wants to, all of them poised at the tip of his tongue, but she appreciates him holding back.
Kemp's words rotate round and round in her head like a carousel, even as Cam slowly but surely lulls her back to sleep.
Can you say that about anyone else?
Cam has one blue eye and one green eye. His dark hair is long now, falling into them. Normally Massie would brush it out of the way, some sort of thank you for always taking care of her, but she is more focused on the answer she has to Kemp's question, because she's finally formed one.
Can't you say that about anyone else?
No.
The train chugs over the border.
…
There's nothing really wrong with Two. It is similar to every other district she's been to, divided by rich and poor, Victor and not. There's a train station, a Justice Building, and a town square. There are houses and employment offices and schools and places to hide. There's a mountain, too, where the military might is hidden, but Massie is used to odd things like that; One houses miles and miles of caves and mines and dark, dank locations where gems and jewels are found.
There's nothing wrong with Two, okay, but it has the same feeling the arena did. Like it's bursting with energy, with tricks, with twists—all hidden where you can't find them. Massie shakes the hand of some important figure here, maybe the mayor, maybe the head of the Academy, she's not sure, and is convinced the second she looks away they are going to turn into some kind of mutt.
She is not safe here, she knows that, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize most people here do not like her. Unlike the other times, there is no one to cling to; Cam, as she recalls, is quite popular here and he is whisked away the second they see him.
He squeezes her hand—two quick pulses—in what she thinks is reassurance and finds herself not reassured (or even assured) at all. She is empty without him, itchy in a way she can't explain. Everyone is looking at her and not in the way they normally do, like they are sort of scared of her but more interested and inspired by a storyline she never remembered writing. They are inspecting, they are watching, they are waiting.
They know that both of their tributes were murdered by two others who were, by all means, better than them, but only because they outlived them. Ripple's death was the soundtrack of Landon and Skye's mutual demises, and Two is not a district that finds love endearing.
It's a love story that she's tangled in—an inter-district love story that should have never come to pass—but that's not the love story they should be telling. If it all goes well, if Massie gets her head out of her ass and figures it out, it will be the love story that saves the world.
But, really, it will be Ripple.
Ripple, who was twelve and didn't belong there and knew all this shit about natural healing aids. Ripple, who was seen as Derrick Harrington's biggest weakness. Ripple, who was loved by both Derrick and Massie and suffered for it.
Massie feels nauseous, realizes she's been looking into the face of someone who has to be related to Landon Crane, and blinks.
Part of her can still feel the way his gaze made her feel like he was trying to skin her alive. All of her remembers the footage of him torturing Ripple to death.
"They can smell fear," Alicia Rivera hisses, sinking her nails into Massie's elbow. The shock of pain is enough to clear Massie's head, even as she inhales sharply. "Fix your face and your posture and remember that you're better than all of them. You are a Victor, Massie; it's high time you started acting like it."
She likes to think she acts like a Victor all the time, if the PTSD and survivor's guilt and overall anxiety are anything to go by, but she reckons that's not the type of behavior Alicia is alluding to.
So she acts. It's what she's been doing the past few months.
All she has to do is think of her dad, strong and mysterious, and Cam, alluring and attentive, and Derrick, charismatic and pretty.
Massie lets her mouth smile even as her insides stew and lays the fingers of her other hand over Alicia's.
Her smirk must work; there is a grumbling through the crowd, the one meant to unnerve her, no doubt, and people start slinking away. It's almost like they're disappointed she hasn't melted into a puddle and Massie finds herself thrilled with their reaction. They think she's hanging on by a thread—and she is, don't you worry—but she will never show them that. At least not so blatantly.
There is nothing wrong with Two. Their morals are questionable, but so are the ones in her own hometown, and they value the Games in a way not many, not even the other Career districts, do. Their intensity and their drive and… and what they believe is honorable (read: winning the Hunger Games or dying trying) are unnerving, but it's nothing Massie can't handle. She survived Twelve, didn't she, and she massacred their tributes for no reason other than, well, she could.
"Good," Alicia murmurs. Her voice is a soft caress in Massie's ear. "Keep that up and you'll be fine here."
Nothing to worry about here. She's survived the Capitol, the president, the arena, and everything else in between. She can handle this. She can, even as dream Kemp's voice brushed against her brain, soft like a summer breeze.
Do not trust Two.
"Come," Alicia instructs. "My prep squad is your prep squad. Let's get you ready for tonight. Two loves a good party."
Massie lets her lead her away, instilling confidence in every step she takes until she is full of it, as forced as it may be. That does not shake the unease that settles in the small of her back. It does not stop her from feeling like something is wrong, like something is going to happen.
When she turns her head just a smidge—not even enough for anyone to notice—she sees bright blue eyes staring back at her.
She clenches her jaw.
…
Joyce tuts exasperatedly when Massie shakes her head and digs her fingers in the younger girl's hair. Pulls the strands tight enough to keep her in place and snaps, "Don't."
"But I can't wear this," she argues, vehement and angry, missing Jakkob and his gentle hands more than she should. Alicia's prep team are harsh and mean. "I look… I look…"
"Beautiful?" the woman, eyes altered like a cat's, interrupts. She twists locks of dark hair into place. "Regal? Like you belong?"
"Like a bride," Massie retorts. "Pure. Innocent. Easily breakable." She sniffs, rudely tugs at the heavy skirts of her dress, three layers of tulle that feel more like several pounds of concrete. "Why do I have to wear white?"
She wants to ask why do I have to wear this but doesn't. She's been picking her own outfits out this whole time, pieces provided by Jakkob, but still, each of them had been of her own choosing. This, she knows, is not something he'd leave for her.
A pin is stuck in her hair. It stabs at her scalp, digging in a bit too tight. Deliberate, probably.
"It's what was chosen for you," Joyce says, and that's that.
"Is it Alicia's?" Even as she asks it she knows it isn't. She'd never fit in something tailored for Alicia, and it's not like the people in Two would alter so drastically something for her.
The lace of her top itches as Joyce answers, "No. It's new. It came with a note attached. Did you not see it when you put it on?"
"No."
There is a heavy sigh behind her, then rustling. "It was this," her borrowed stylist informs her. "Now will you please stand still? I'm almost done with your hair."
It's barely a note, just a few scrawled our words, but Massie takes them in greedily. I saw this, it says, and thought you'd look beautiful in it. It is signed D with a flourish.
She doesn't know many people with names that begin with that letter and while she does not recognize the handwriting she does not peg Dylan Marvil as the type of person to think she'd look beautiful in a white dress fit for a bride. So it has to be—it must be—from Derrick.
Because, honestly, who else would it be from?
Massie remains still, even as her hair is tugged this way and that. Even as the fabric of her top digs uncomfortably into her back. Even as her eye is poked with a mascara wand.
When she looks at herself in the mirror, she is pleased to see no jewels have been placed anywhere on her body. Her hair is free of them, volumized and twisted into a braided half-updo that could rival that of anyone currently in the Capitol. She looks great, there's no doubt about that, but she is pleasantly surprised by it anyway; she is less a bride and more a ballerina, especially with the shoes her feet are shoved into—pink flats that lace up to just below her knee, the only color in her entire outfit. Her lips are painted the same shade to match and Massie feels like a doll, the kind her mother hoarded in her closet, eternally smiling and waiting for someone to play with them.
Even if the dress is a thoughtful gift, she knows everything about her is deliberate from her hair to her shoes. She is made to be the complete opposite of the district—less of a threat than the blacks and reds and grays that take over the community. Weird, though, since she killed one of their own, but she touches the back of her head daintily, brushing the braids and wonders very vaguely and very briefly if they are meant to represent the coils of the rope that tied her up that fateful night three of the tributes died.
"Stop touching," Joyce snaps, whacking her hand away. "You'll ruin them."
What are they supposed to be? A reminder of who these people are? A subtle leash, telling her who is in control even if she is a Victor?
Massie drops her arms, lets them lay straight at her sides. She squints at Joyce, wonders if she hates her too, wonders if she had done things like this to Skye before she entered the arena.
If the braids are a reminder that she was once tied up and at the mercy of a Two girl, it may do some good to mess them up later on. Send her own reminder. She made it out of their chains once before. She can survive this night, too.
…
Massie is certain wine is not supposed to taste like this, warm and thick and heavy on her tongue. It is bitter and dry like a merlot is supposed to be, but the texture and temperature are complete contrasts to what she is used to. To what she knows.
Still, she swallows and sips, swallows and sips, pretending she is not slowly convincing herself she is drinking blood.
Because blood feels like this. She would know. She's done her time with blood: her own, someone else's. She's stood in it as it pooled around her shoes on the stage in Three. She's licked it from Derrick's fingers. She's felt it as it dripped from a wound on her stomach.
The mere thought of it makes her skin crawl. She can see it, the things that can happen to people that make them bleed. She can see the things she's done to make sure of it. The things she's done that resulted in death, because what is the point of blood if it does not result in the end of life?
Everyone is watching her. They are all watching her, the important figures in Two surrounding her at this party. In a sea of tuxes and fancy dresses and pantsuits, all veering towards the colors of nightmares, Massie sticks out like a sore thumb, and they are all watching as she breaks down.
Her hand trembles as she drinks. Trembles as she remembers Claire and Miles, Skye, Carrie, Kemp. Remembers how they died, what she'd done, how she dug and dug and hurt and hurt until they were nothing but flesh, dead beneath her hands and her blades.
It is hot now.
Hard to breathe.
Massie takes another hefty swallow of the wine—it has to be wine it can't not be wine—and tries to remember the breathing techniques she'd needed months ago. She's not about to pitch a fit here, even if this place feels like it's only purpose is to cause her stress.
It's just…
The whole layout is irksome, like some shrine to Hunger Games past. It's on an equal, or worse, playing field as the president's eerie memorabilia room, this space. This—is it a ballroom? What is it? Whatever it is, it's located in a rather popular hotel in Two, named something in French or German or some other dead language, and it's got an entire wall of skulls. Skulls, grinning and staring and knowing.
Massie is too tightly wound to check them out, to see if they're real, but there are two snakes currently slithering across the floor, and those are definitely not not-alive, so she's convinced they're, like, the heads of dead tributes. She wouldn't be surprised.
The thought upsets her, makes her wonder if Skye and Landon are there somewhere, and she drains her glass. The sides are stained red, and she imagines her teeth are too, and she's surprised she hasn't spilled any on this white, white dress, so white she's glowing here, and she places the thing on a waiter's passing tray. She accepts another, sniffs at it petulantly, and decides if she's going down, she's going down swinging, am I right?
"Slow down on that, yeah?" Alicia materializes at her side, plucking a handkerchief out of nowhere and dropping it over the rim of Massie's glass. "Things are not all they seem here."
Mind a little hazy, Massie blurts, "Please tell me I'm not drinking blood."
Alicia laughs, a little bit startled, and replies, "Blood? No. But the alcohol is strong here, and you don't want to be that girl, do you?"
"That girl" meaning the Victor that can't handle her liquor and vomits all over the place. Kristen Gregory did that when she toured, and it was news for months after it was over. They'd speculated it time and time again that it was no surprise when they started discussing her alcoholism. But given the way this room is set up, Massie has no doubt they intend to break new Victors here: it's a decorated nightmare. It feels like the walls are caving in and the dead are speaking to you and if you turn around someone is going to axe you, just sever you right down the middle. No wonder people go heavy on the drink; they're trying to escape what already haunts them.
Two revels in the haunt. In the terror. In the gore. Massie saw it in Skye and Landon. Had seen it in herself, even though this sort of macabre did not travel fully to One.
Just remembering the way she'd delighted in death and murder makes her shiver now. Makes her knock Alicia's napkin off her cup and take a swig.
"I said it's strong," Alicia snaps.
"If I could drink my weight in every other district and not make a scene in public, I can do it here too," decides Massie.
"No," Alicia says again. "You still have to make rounds and talk to all these people who came out to see you. You don't have a buffer here like everywhere else."
A buffer.
Cam.
She doesn't have Cam, like she did everywhere else, because he's… he's off doing god knows what. The thought settles uncomfortably in her stomach, right where the heavy wine is. Nausea lurches up to her throat and sticks to the roof of her mouth, metallic and fierce. She's alone. Alone.
How can she possibly do this without him and his carefully curated speeches and flippant smiles and easy conversation topics? How can she even manage a minute on her own when she's more inclined to stay in corners and sip at drinks she never bothered to figure out the contents of? How can she—how can she do anything?
Given everything she now knows, which is just a lot of things she doesn't know, Massie is probably not the best person to leave unsupervised.
"Will they even like me without him?" she blurts out—because of course she does—and feels stupid and insecure ten seconds later. Her tongue presses against the back of her teeth as she averts her gaze.
The skeleton wall leers back at her.
"I do," Alicia answers with the dignity of someone who is not watching another person fall apart in front of her.
"You do what?" Massie asks. The skull closes its mouth, opens it again. An eye winks, but that can't be right. There's nothing there, just empty space.
Alicia grabs her hand. Massie's is clammy. "Like you without him," she provides.
An answering scoff. Disbelieving. "Only because he told you to."
"Don't tell anyone," Alicia whispers conspiratorially, "but I found Skye pretentious and annoying. I was happy when she was gone. I don't know what I would have done had she won."
"She'd have gone crazy if she had," supplies Massie.
"She already was, wasn't she, though?" Alicia drops Massie's glass, half full, on a table. "It happens to the best of us here. The worst, too."
Massie finally looks away from the wall, either intrigued by the subject or overwhelmed by the tricks her mind is playing on her. It's hard to tell. "How'd you escape it?"
It's weird, maybe, that Alicia dabs at Massie's mouth like she's a child, napkin coming back stained red from the wine and pink from her lipstick. "Who says I did?" There is no response for that, of course, so Massie remains silent, lets Alicia take the reigns. "Come on. I'll help you out for as long as I can."
"What?"
"My talents are needed elsewhere soon," Alicia tells her, "but I can do enough in the time we have. Remember what I'm about to tell you."
She leads her from her alcove, murmuring this way and that about the mayor, who Massie's met already, and the Head of the Peacekeeper Division, who is enamored with the teachings and strategies of the Ancient Greeks, and the Senior Trainer at the Academy, who will want to talk Massie's knife skills.
For the next forty minutes, and the hour after that, Massie loses herself.
…
Alicia may have been right: the wine may have been stronger than she anticipated.
Or maybe the old Massie is still inside her somewhere, eager to talk about training strategies and death, debate the meaning of honor and the angle of a blade for the perfect kill.
(It's not like she really ever willingly did anything for the rebellion, if you recall. She's merely selfish, and selfish people do not often change.)
…
Massie smacks her lips after that last glass of wine and finds the warm, heavy taste she'd so adamantly been against earlier oddly refreshing. Maybe her taste buds have opened up, or maybe she's finally stopped being so nervous, but there's hints of fruits in there, small bursts of citrus and the sweet tang of apple.
It's good, the wine is, and Massie deserves another, if only in celebration. She's managed to speak to everyone here like a normal, proper Victor, even after Alicia slunk away to do god knows what. That's a theme here, Massie notes, that all her friends are always off doing something she doesn't know, something she would probably dislike. She doesn't want to think about that, though, so she dispels it from her mind and accepts another drink.
To me, she thinks, eying a figure as it cuts through the crowd to head towards her. She hasn't seen this one yet, and she's gone around this ballroom a number of times in the past two hours. She's even stared at that skull wall and expressed apologies to Skye's family, even if she doesn't mean them. That girl deserved to die; she was a whole nuisance and an embarrassment to the name "Career."
She's thinking about the reckless way that girl walked and the way she used to make all that noise when her glass is plucked out of her hand.
"Hey," she exclaims, slapping her palm against his bicep as he knocks back her drink in one large swallow. "You know, that's rude—"
"Alicia told you not to drink that, Massie."
"She said to slow down actually, not to not drink it," the girl retorts. "Why does it even matter to you?"
"Because you matter to me," he says.
Massie frowns, crossing her arms over her chest. "Okay, and you're allowed to drink it but I'm not?"
He shrugs a shoulder, all presumptuous and annoying, the hint of a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. "I haven't spent the past three hours drinking nothing but wine," he replies, and Massie hates him.
Except she doesn't, of course, and if he thinks wearing a tiny black mask is going to keep his identity a secret he is terribly mistaken. She tells him this. The last part, not the first.
"True," he agrees and he takes it off. "They already know I'm here. I've been—summoned." His eyebrows pinch at the word, mouth forming it in distaste.
Massie watches his tongue run over his teeth before asking, "How long have you been here?"
"A day and a half," he answers.
"Who?"
"The general's wife."
"The general—"
Derrick looks like he wants to reach out and touch her. In fact, his arm lifts, fingers reaching out, but he merely shoves both fists into the pockets of his slacks. Rolling onto his heels, he murmurs, "The entirety of the Capitol's military is here. Of course there is a general."
"A war general?"
"What other kinds of generals do you know?" Derrick laughs. When he does, his nose wrinkles. Massie finds it adorable. "War has always been on the horizon. It's just a matter of finding the right time. The right person."
"I'm not," Massie begins.
"I know," he cuts in quickly, easily, "but you're part of it. You made that choice."
"I just—I'm not that person," Massie says. Maybe they shouldn't be talking about this here. Maybe she shouldn't be trying to remember who the general is, if she's met him, if she's met his wife. Maybe she shouldn't be looking for them so blatantly in the crowd, eyes fixed on the tables and people behind Derrick, who probably shouldn't be here, standing so close to her. "I'm not good enough to be that person. I don't have the intentions or conscience to be that person."
Derrick shifts so she has to look at him. "You're good enough for me."
"Still surprising."
"Why's that?"
"I've spent most of the time I've known you fantasizing about killing you," she admits freely. It's like her ability to keep things to herself has been tampered with. Probably the alcohol in her system. "I dream about it a lot, the ways I'll do it. It's like the brainwashing never went away sometimes. I wake up expecting to be in the arena still, before everything happened. Or the arena they made for me, where I don't like you at all."
He blinks and for one prolonged second Massie sees the shock in his eyes. The eyes that aren't hers, brighter, browner, ringed with green. She doesn't like how he's looking at her, but she can't remember why he is. Did she say something to upset him?
It's gone, that look, before she can really focus on it and she takes a step back when he lifts a hand to tuck her hair behind her ear. She doesn't know why she does it. It's like she's startled by him and not in the way she should be, but in a way that implies he's going to hurt her, and she knows—she knows—deep down he never has, never will.
"Are you okay?" he asks. If she focuses hard enough she can hear the pain in his voice, like this is a version of her he doesn't like, or doesn't know, but she doesn't feel any different.
Her eyes flit from his to the skull wall, to the tables of guests, to a flurry of motion in the hallway beyond. "Someone told me," she says, "that their favorite part of the Games was when I stabbed Kemp to death."
"That was—it was memorable," Derrick offers.
Massie nods. "My favorite part was when I killed Skye." She looks away from the wall, from the head she's decided is Skye's, and glances up at Derrick's face. "What was yours?"
"When it was over," he answers slowly. "Massie, are you—"
"I wonder why I always let other people make decisions for me," she goes on, as if he's never spoken. When it was over: what a terrible answer. "I could have been great if I didn't have every person in One telling me Kemp was better than me. I could've been the Career they all expected me to be. I had a clearer head than him, but because I was a girl they thought me more emotional. Did you know that?"
"No, I didn't," Derrick replies. "That's not what you wanted, though. That's not who you are. You're not a Career, not really."
"What I wanted," Massie starts, wriggling her glass out of his hand. He hasn't finished all of it. "What I wanted was to be more than they made me. I did that."
"You did," agrees Derrick. He watches her finish the wine and grabs her elbow. A flutter of heat surges through Massie's body, envelopes her heart, wraps her in a cocoon. "You're everything and more."
"I am," she murmurs. "They should be scared of me now."
"And they are," Derrick says. He's so good at following her thoughts, at matching her conversations. At least she thinks so. She doesn't see the strain in his mouth or the frown in his brow. "They see what you can be. What you are. They tried to tamper with it, remember? They tried to make you hate me. Love them."
"Silly," Massie remarks. She shakes his hand off her, catches it with her own. Intertwines their fingers. "I could never—you saved me."
Derrick smiles, and Massie cannot tell that it's forced and uncomfortable, cannot feel the worry in the kiss he presses to her forehead. "You saved me," he tells her, cupping her cheeks. "If I could spend the rest of my life with you, I would."
"Why can't you?" Massie asks.
He kisses her again, this time at the corner of her mouth, where she can feel the heat of him, and says, "It's not that easy."
"Yes, it is," she says. "We can make it that easy."
Derrick takes his lip between his teeth, gnaws on it as he debates his next words. "You shot that idea down pretty thoroughly, if I recall."
"Only because I was scared. I'm not scared anymore."
He looks like he's got a hundred things he wants to say, maybe a hundred things he shouldn't say, but he sees something behind her, something that makes him shut his mouth and straighten his spine.
Massie turns to look, but he takes her hands, keeps her facing forward. "I have to go," he tells her. His eyes take her in hungrily. "You're the prettiest girl I know."
He doesn't care, and she doesn't care, and maybe it doesn't matter anymore—Derrick captures her mouth with his. It's short, but it's enough, and it leaves Massie's lips tingling long after he's gone.
Five minutes later, all she can taste is his confusion and disappointment, so very different from what he usually is, but she cannot remember why he left her that way. She can't remember much of anything, and as the skull wall stares at her, and someone decides to replay the most gruesome kills of her Games (and every other Games there is), Massie finds she likes not knowing. Not remembering.
She drinks more wine.
…
Eventually they have to sit for dinner, which reminds Massie that she hasn't eaten anything of substance all day. She's just been drinking wine and munching on appetizers she doesn't remember the taste of for hours. They seat her with no one she knows—she sees Cam at a table across the room, Derrick at a different one, and Alicia with every important figure in Two—but Massie is not concerned, not anymore, and she breaks a piece of bread to dip in olive oil.
Olive oil, which is something not everyone gets in these districts—a commodity that people here and in One take for granted. Probably Four, too, how else do they cook their fish? She ponders this—the things she's allowed to have that others aren't, and to a lesser extent the injustices the people of the outer districts face that she will never understand.
She chews on her bread, mind a whirlwind. Waiters flit around her, dropping off plates and refilling her water glass, but she hardly registers their presence. It isn't until there is a polite cough next to her that she pulls herself out of her thoughts, making no sense anymore.
"Thinking hard about something?" the boy—no, that's not right, but man does not do it either—asks. He has a very easy smile, directed her way, and eyes the color of a calm sea. She thinks she's seen him before, but she doesn't remember. She thinks she would: a face like that? Hard to forget. "Can't imagine there is much a Victor needs to puzzle over as much as you are."
These words are spoken to her oddly and that gives her pause. Her gaze roams over him, looks for something that announces who he is, but can't find it.
Massie answers, "Just because I have won doesn't mean my problems have disappeared. Everyone always assumes the worst is over once you get out of the arena, but most of the time the worst is still waiting for you to get back."
Not that she can relate to that. Life was fine for her before and it is fine (sort of) for her now. But if there is one thing she's learned this tour, it's that life is not always so easy for everyone else.
She's also not sure why she answered him like that, but she can't fuss about it now. What's done is done.
"Pretty deep," this guy replies. She hears the for a girl from One he kept to himself and fights to keep her mouth from frowning.
Instead she smiles, big and fake, because even in her inebriated state she knows when she's being made fun of, and she returns, "To be honest, I'm just thinking about this bread."
"It's good," he says, "the best in all the districts."
"I personally think Four has the best," Massie disagrees, "with the seaweed and the salt. It's very good."
"Right." His gaze flickers from her to the table Derrick is at. Massie won't move her head to see, but she's certain he, Derrick, is staring at her. He's been doing that all night, since they separated, as often as he can. She can always tell when he's looking at her; the hair on the back of her neck stands on end without fail. "I forgot you had a soft spot for Four."
Massie rips apart another piece of bread. Crumbs fly all over the place: her lap, her plate, the centerpiece of (dying?) flowers (what?). This gives her time for contemplation, but there is nothing to contemplate, not really, and when she swallows, she merely asks, "What did you say your name was?"
"I didn't," he responds smoothly. His finger fiddles with his wine glass, filled the same as hers, though the color is more pink than red. "I'm Danny Robbins."
"You're far from home," she notes.
He smiles again, all teeth. It looks more menacing than it ought to be. "I like it in Two."
"What's in Two that you like?" She fakes a cough so she can grab her napkin and looks over at Derrick quickly.
He's deep in a conversation with some woman, a blonde bombshell of a person, and Massie swallows back her irritation at it, her jealousy, and catches Cam's eye instead. Her own widen, but she's not sure he can see that, not sure if she's conveying anything other than overindulgence and annoyance. Derrick has always been able to figure her body language out; partnering up in the Games does that to people. Makes them easy to read.
"What's not to like?" Danny reels her back in.
Massie dabs at her mouth. Says, "Honestly? Everything."
Danny throws his head back as he laughs, like she's said something so humorous he can't help it. It's the truth though, there's nothing here she likes. Two is not meant to be liked; Two is meant to be feared. That is the staunch difference between her district and this one. People visit One for entertainment, for fun. No one visits Two for reasons other than imprisonment.
(Two holds the jails, too, if your crimes warrant that. Massie knows most lives of criminals end in death, so the prisons here are unnecessary. Who knows what they are actually used for.)
"You're serious?"
"Of course," she replies. "Don't tell anyone, but I don't find mountains and caves appealing."
"You're more partial to the skyscrapers and artificial starlight of One, I presume."
"That and the jewels that line our streets." Massie quirks a smile, recalling her home, which she's missed, which she'll see in a few days. "They're paved with diamonds, did you know? Emeralds, too. We like things to sparkle in One."
Danny leans forward to tuck her hair behind her ear, much like Derrick did earlier. "You like your things to be pretty, too, I hear."
"Yeah." She takes her bottom lip between her teeth then lets go when she notices him staring. "Nothing is ugly at home."
When he pulls his hand away, spending far too long cupping her cheek, Massie feels itchy, like she wants to scrub at her face for hours to get his touch off her skin. There is a very obvious difference between the way he held her and Derrick did, and even though her conversation with the latter ended in disappointment, he at least never once touched her like she was property, his to own. She doesn't even know Danny Robbins, not really, and his fingers feel like he's claiming her.
There is a crash as she turns away from him, facing a plate full of chicken and vegetables she is positive she didn't ask for. She slices her knife through the meat, watches from beneath her lashes as someone hurries to clean the mess at Derrick's table. Shards of glass litter the plate in front of him, and his gaze is narrowed towards her—but she hasn't done anything. Has she? She still can't remember much of the conversation they had earlier, but she couldn't have… he'd kissed her, in front of everyone, something he should not have done, so surely—
But then Danny says something to her, and when she looks over at him, he's busy smirking at the boy several feet away from them, and she knows.
What she knows is not something she is tangibly aware of, but it is that sitting next to Danny Robbins is not accidental, nor is it safe, and there is nothing she can do about it.
Massie replies back, though she hears none of what comes out of her mouth, and signals for more wine. She is certain that it is the only way she will make it out of whatever this is in one piece.
"Are you getting the same thing you had before?" Danny asks. His voice rings in her ears, louder than before. He's moved closer to her. "The merlot?"
"Uh," is Massie's eloquent response.
He shoves his glass over, the one full of pink, sparkly liquid, and insists she try it. "It's rosé. Two has the best rosé."
"One of the reasons you're here all the time?" quips Massie.
"One of the many, yes."
Massie is certain Two does not have the best rosé. Is certain they don't even make wine here. There are no vineyards here, no means to farm, no fertile land. She is positive they buy this from, like, Ten, or Eleven, or wherever else that is not here.
She tastes it, though, because he may be right, just wrong about where it's from, and she has been drinking too much of this merlot. It reminds her of blood, so she should branch out.
"Oh," she exclaims. "It is good!"
"Told you." Danny looks smug, like he made it himself. "You finish that. I'll get another for myself."
"No, that's not…" Necessary, she thinks feebly, but he doesn't hear it, busy ordering another glass for himself—and another for her, it turns out, when the waiter comes back.
"Thanks," Massie squeaks. "You didn't have to."
Danny's only response is a shrug and then he's focusing on his food.
Massie swallows a particularly large mouthful and blatantly turns her face to look for someone she knows. What she finds is empty seats; Alicia, Cam, and Derrick are gone, and she is surrounded by strangers, most of them people who hate her on principle.
Across from her, behind everyone else, the wall of skulls grin wildly at her, like they're in on a secret.
…
The room is spinning.
The room is spinning, and she should go to bed now because she's had too many glasses of wine—which is her own fault, it always is—and the only thing she needs now is sleep or more food. She thinks she'll vomit if more food is involved, so she says her goodbyes to her tablemates, most of which she did not interact with at all, and exits the room.
And the hallway… the hallway is upside down, she's convinced.
Massie's palm slams against the wall as she forces herself to right the world, to take the floor off the ceiling and the ceiling off the floor. With careful consideration, it flips, but the overwhelming urge to vomit takes over and she breathes in deep, losing it. She's no longer right side up, which doesn't matter, not really; all she needs to be is on the third floor, where her room is. If she can just get there, regardless of what it all looks like…
She knows somewhere around here, she'll be able to find Cam and Derrick and Alicia. They're here, she's seen them, she's touched them, and all she wants is for one of them to be near her. To take care of her. She's never really wanted that before, but she feels so awful and out of whack. She's never been gladder that the parties the districts throw for her are not televised. If they were, she'd be the laughing stock of the country by now.
In, out, she tells herself. In, out. In… out…
Her head feels less full and her limbs are hers to control again, so she takes a tentative step forward.
Not going to fall. A good sign.
She steps again.
She makes it up one flight of stairs before the world feels like it's closing in on her. The air is hard to breathe. The light is too bright. It's not even that far, just a few more steps and she'll be on the right floor; she'll be able to go to sleep…
Her heart hammers in her chest like something is wrong, like something bad is going to happen. Massie takes a breath, then another, then another, and tries to calm herself down. She can't. She doesn't like it here, so she can't find a reason to keep herself from panicking.
In, out, she reminds herself. In, out. You're fine.
Another voice cuts through her thoughts, one she just recently dreamt about but hasn't heard in months. Kemp hisses, No, you're not. Turn left now like it's an order. She is so startled by it, by the arrival of one of her hallucinations, that she listens, ducking into an dark alcove.
It smells like cleaning products here, like bleach and water and pine. Massie sniffs, releases, and sniffs again, her hands in fists at her side. The hall beyond in the fluorescent light twists and flips and distorts, and she is glad she listened to her conscience this time around instead of continuing on. It may have sounded like Kemp, but it knew she was going to fall over and gave her the option to wait it out.
This is the last time she drinks, she decides. This is not worth it, even if it made the dinner more bearable. She'd rather deal with embarrassment and ridicule head on than have to fight herself.
After what feels like a lifetime, Massie moves again.
The floor is where it is supposed to be, but the lights are very bright. Too bright, actually, and she closes her eyes for a moment, trying to right herself. When she opens them again, she's met with two of the same hallway, the alcohol skewing her vision, and she lets out a whimper.
She just wants to go home, even if home is far away and she's really talking about a hotel bed. She just wants to be there, not here, but she's fucked herself over and she's stuck in a hallway, not knowing what floor she's on. She could be right outside her room and she wouldn't even know! She's just stupid and dizzy and upset and now she's on the floor because she decided the best course of action was to slide down the wall and cry about how dumb she is—
And now her shoes are annoying. They're too tight and too tall and she wants them off. Massie leans forward and fumbles with the clasp, fingers too bulky and uncoordinated to remove her shoes, and she's hyper aware of them, of how they feel, of the discomfort, and she wants them off off OFF.
Massie kicks out, annoyed with herself, and pulls her foot against the carpet over and over, trying to dislodge the strap in any way she can. Her feet hurt. Please. Please. Please.
"Hey," a voice she recognizes says. It's loud. Or maybe it isn't and she's used to the silence that surrounds her. Who knows. "Stop. Let me help you."
She does. Stop, that is, and her foot is picked up by tanned hands, the clasp of her heel undone on one shoe and then the other. With both heels off, she feels free, feels comfortable, feels less like the world is going to collapse on her, and she sighs.
"Thank you," she wants to say, but the words are stuck in her throat. She merely mumbles something that is supposed to convey gratitude, and lets her savior help her up off the floor.
The hands that bring her upright are warm and calloused to the touch. Once they have her leaning against the wall, they duck down to get her shoes and then they're touching her again, but they're touching her in all the wrong places. She might need them to hold her arms or her waist or whatever will keep her from falling over, but she doesn't need them to tug at her hair or run their fingers down her throat or pull at her top until the sleeves of her dress are down to her elbows.
Kick him, the voice in her head says.
Kick him, Kemp says. Kick him and run.
Massie feels the pads of his fingers against her hot skin and can't. She can't.
You can, Kemp snaps. I've never known a version of you that couldn't defend yourself. Fight it.
He doesn't understand, though. Doesn't understand that she can't move, can't move, can't move, is stuck. In her mind, she reaches out to grab her assailant, reaches to break fingers so she can flee, but her arms are stuck at her sides, helpless. No matter how hard she forces her mind to work, she is somehow disconnected.
He laughs, this person, as if he can see her struggle. "It's funny," he says, which she knows, because he is laughing at her. "They claimed it would be harder than this, but you're not as tough as you make yourself out to be, are you? You're just a little girl who can't do anything."
You are not, Kemp hisses. You can get out of this. Massie, focus. You can—
But there are fingers where they are not supposed to be because she never invited them there, and her skirts are being pulled up, and she thinks she may hear a zipper being pulled, and the rustling of fabric as it falls, and she feels something she shouldn't feel, and she's not sure why, and… and… and…
You are not as weak as he says you are. You are better.
Better. Better. Better.
Something fills her. It's hot and uncontrollable and Massie reacts immediately, leaning forward and digging her teeth into the open flesh of neck. He yelps, the man before her, and Massie is able to pick her hands up, though the action seems hard, her wrists heavy, and shove him back. She may not be strong enough to get him fully away from her, but she has enough power to make him stagger back, and then she's running.
She's running with her dress half off, with her skirts ripped, with her feet bare.
She's running with the ceiling on the floor and the floor on the ceiling.
She's running with two staircases in front of her, her vision blurred.
She's running and she hopes what she picks is real, and she's climbing stair after stair after stair, somehow knowing the next floor is where she wants to be. Is safe.
Massie makes it to the third floor, heart racing, hands shaking, mind a whole mess, when she realizes she doesn't remember her room number.
She doesn't remember her room number and whoever was downstairs is most certainly behind her and she is alone—all of her friends are unaccounted for, doing something else, doing someone else—so all she can do is pray the numbers that come to mind are the ones she needs.
Trust me, Kemp says to her, like he did in her dream. Trust me. Seven down and on the left.
And only because she used to trust him in real life, you know, before he went crazy, Massie stumbles down the hall, counting.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six—
She can see the seventh door. She can see it, but she's too slow to get to it.
Arms wrap around her waist, pulling her back, and she falls.
She falls, but she screams as she does it, because he may think she's weak, but she's not. She is as tough as they say she is, and sometimes being tough means being as loud as you can be. It means getting someone else's attention when you can't protect yourself.
So she yells as she tumbles backwards, and she yells as he fights her, because she can get her limbs to work this time around. He shouts when her foot connects with his cheek, and she screeches when he tries to cover her mouth, and even with blood over his lips, this man manages to smile.
Massie kicks out again, but he dodges, and he pins her knees down with his own, hovering over her.
"This could have been easy, you know," he tells her. "You could've stayed downstairs and I could've escorted you back to your room. I could have helped you get to bed like the gentleman I am"—here Massie laughs because she know she is anything but and he whacks her face with the back of his hand— "but you had to make things difficult, so I have to, too. And what a shame it is." He smooths her hair back, fingers dancing across her cheekbone, her neck, her cleavage. "You're so pretty and you wore the dress and it's such a waste to kill someone as beautiful as you. But it's what I mu—"
She had felt the footsteps earlier, vibrations on the carpeted floor, but she'd thought she'd imagined them because she'd been imagining a lot of things recently and didn't want to get her hopes up.
But here they are, the legs that made the footsteps, and there her attacker goes, tackled to the ground several feet away from her.
Massie takes a deep breath, pushes herself to her elbows, then her hands, and crawls backwards as fast she can. She doesn't know if the owner of those feet is nice, doesn't know if she'll make it out of here unscathed (if she can call herself unscathed right now), so she's not taking any chances. She'll find a place to hide, she will, she just needs to get back up, Massie, get up get up get up!
She bumps into something solid, but not a wall. There are knees at the back of her head and a shoe beneath her hand. It shines in the light.
For one moment, Massie feels her heart in her throat. Dread crashes over her—of course he has an accomplice, it's so dumb to do things alone—and she succumbs to it, to what she knows is about it happen but refuses to acknowledge. They're not going to just kill her. They're going to play with her first, these people who hate her.
But then—
Cam squats down beside her and pulls her sleeves back up, his touch soft and familiar and gentle. He buttons the back of her top so she is secure in it and runs his fingers through her hair, undoing the braids Joyce had put in them. She feels the weight of it on her back and feels safer with the waves covering her skin. She's never been gladder for Cam or for the length of her hair before.
It's warm and smells of chocolate, her hair, which has always been a calming scent to her. Massie breathes in deep, burying her nose in it, and counts back from twenty because Kemp tells her to.
Her eyes open again to a hallway that is easier for her to see. She's not as dizzy as she was before and with Cam's hands on her shoulders, she feels like maybe she can make it out of this district in one piece. His thumb has tucked itself in one of the holes that's been ripped into the back of her lace top. He rubs at her skin absently. Massie breathes in time with it.
Drugged, Kemp tells her. She blinks, thinks she can see him in front of her, dark skin and light eyes—she thinks; she doesn't remember what he looks like—and he is peering at her with a careful intensity, checking her for any other apparent injuries. Danny Robbins drugged you. You shouldn't have taken wine from him. Kemp glances behind her, at Cam, who definitely does not know he's here with her, but goes rigid at something. They shouldn't have left you alone. They know better than to do that here. You cannot trust Two. I told you that.
"I don't," Massie answers. She's not sure if she said it out loud or not.
Kemp shakes his head. Be careful. You don't get to die yet, Massie. I will be very mad if you do.
She nods. "Sorry."
Don't apologize for this. It's not your fault, Kemp replies. Just get out of here and help those two idiots clean up their mess. You can do this. You're important. You've always been important.
He fades away, and Massie wishes she had a chance to touch him, to hold his hand, to recall what he used to feel like, but it's useless. It's useless to think fondly of him too because he tried to own her, tried to kill her, but she does. He was a boy once, as innocent as one can be in a Career district. He was a boy once, and she loved him with as much of her heart as she could give.
I miss you, she thinks. She shouldn't, but she does.
A part of her swears she hears him say it back though that is not right. Kemp Hurley would never miss her unless he had something to gain from it.
Cam is laughing when she comes back to reality. No, Cam is cackling. The sound is grating. Too loud and too boisterous. Massie has a headache.
"That was in poor taste," he says, and his voice is harder than she remembers. Sharp like a blade, even with the laugh in it. "Did you have to?"
Derrick's legs enter her line of vision. She doesn't see past his knees, still staring forward at the spot in front of her. His voice, though, she hears it with her whole body. Unlike Cam's, it's exactly the same. She just doesn't understand the words he's saying.
"He talks too much." It's so casual, even though the air around them is anything but. It's tense. It's building up. "I did the world a service."
Her brother snorts again. His fingers run through her hair again, massaging his knuckles into her scalp. "Not sure what we're supposed to do with the body though."
Body? What body?
Massie's head comes to attention, neck snapping as she looks up and around. Avoiding Derrick's gaze seems imperative at this point, so she glances around him at the figure down the hall.
Derrick must've been the one to tackle him, Danny Robbins, when Massie was able to get away. He got him pretty far from her, almost halfway to the other side of the hall, and now he lays there, unnaturally still, like a pile of human parts with no purpose.
Body.
She understands now.
Her eyes shift to his. She's overwhelmed by the emotion she sees there—not that she's not used to how expressive he can be, but by the sheer number of things he's feeling. He's always been the most open out of the two of them, that's what makes him so likable, but now… now he's an open book, laying everything bare for her (and Cam, she guesses, who is still talking to him).
It makes her take in a deep, shuddering breath, the kind that digs down down down into the stomach and comes back up. With it comes another urge to throw up, to cleanse herself. She fights it. She fights it and reads everything Derrick is allowing her to see.
He says to Cam: "We can move it to our room for the time being. It's where he wanted to be anyway."
He says to Massie: I should have never left you alone. I should have ditched that woman. I am angry. I am scared. I never want to be without you. I love you. I killed that guy for you. Don't leave me again. Are you okay? Are you hurt? Did he—?
All Massie can do now is blink in response. She doesn't know the answer to his questions. She doesn't even really know what happened.
Yes, you do, she thinks, and it's in her own voice this time. Kemp is long gone. Danny Robbins did this. You knew he was going to. He made you uncomfortable this whole night. You know what happened.
"I'm fine," she says. It's the first thing she's said in what feels like hours. It's also a lie.
Derrick's eyes narrow. Cam knocks his knee into her back. It's only then that she realizes she's shaking.
"You're bleeding," her—her… boyfriend sounds too silly for what Derrick is to her—he says this though, tells her what's going on with her body.
Massie frowns. Lifts her hand, touches the spot on her face that kind of aches, and sees that her fingers come back red. She is bleeding. Odd. She rubs the liquid between her thumb and her index. It's sticky, kind of tacky.
"I guess I am," she notes.
"Did you hit your head hard?"
She shrugs. "Dunno."
"You don't know?"
"I don't know much of anything that happened today," Massie answers, just as sharp as his words are. "But I do know you killed him. That's what you did, right?"
There is a beat of heavy silence; Derrick's gaze slides from hers to Cam's above her. They share a look boys often do, things unspoken being shared between them with just a facial expression. She can't read it from down here, but she doesn't think she'd be able to if she were standing either. There are some things she is not privy to.
Finally, Derrick replies, "I had to."
"You had to," she repeats dully. "You didn't have to do anything."
His cheeks color drastically then, the hue of extreme sunburn. His jaw clenches, unclenches. Clenches again. "You didn't see what I saw," he says, voice soft. It's barely a whisper, but Massie hears it like he's screaming.
Despite that, despite the horror he clearly feels, Massie lifts her chin and retorts evenly, "And what is it you saw?"
His answer is swift, like he's been waiting for this: "Every one of my nightmares come to life."
"I don't think that warrants killing a person," Massie hisses. It's lackluster at best, a poor attempt to keep control. "We're not savages, Derrick, we're not still in the arena, we don't just kill people—"
"We do if they're trying to kill you," he snaps. "I won't stand by and just… just let it run its course, if that's what you're implying. I know where we are."
"Sure, but you killed him," Massie emphasizes. "You just… you murdered him! I'm sure you could have, I don't know, not done that?"
"I know what I did," he grounds out. "I don't regret what I did. In fact, I kind of hope he didn't really die so I can have the satisfaction of breaking his neck a second time."
It's really unfair that Massie is so fucking fascinated with his hands. Even as she's mad at him, her eyes move on their own volition, staring at the size of his palms, the length of his fingers, the veins that run along them. And just to be a little shit, because he knows this about her, he cracks them, the fingers. He balls them into fists, lets go, basically puts on a whole show for her.
They're so strong. So capable. She knows what those hands can do: cruelly and gently.
Massie takes a deep breath, traces the lines of his shirt, stained with blood along the collar, a button missing, three from the top. There is a nasty clump of broken blood vessels on the side of his neck, kind of like a claw mark, like Danny Robbins tried to dig his fingers in there and pull. He is a whole mess, disheveled and dirty, but when she looks at his face again, he is doing nothing but staring at her like he always does. Like he is in love with her.
She remembers he kissed her in front of everyone tonight. That couldn't have gone over well.
The fire sufficiently stamped out of her, Massie sags against Cam's legs. She feels him brace himself to hold her up and she forces all her weight into her palms, pressed into the carpet. It's just another dead body. Just another murder under the belts. It can't make them any worse than they already are, can it?
"How are we supposed to explain it though?" she asks.
Derrick's facial expression slackens. Smooths out. He doesn't look happy, per se, but he does look relieved she's no longer snapping at him.
He answers, "They did send him after you. Anything could happen while he tried to—to—"
His voice cracks and tapers off, so Cam jumps in with a quick, "We're in Two. Any awful sort of thing could happen here. It wouldn't be surprising."
"No," agrees Massie. She's tired now. Exhausted, more like. "But if we keep this up, we won't need to come up with a story, they'll already know it was us."
"Not us," Derrick interjects. "Me."
Massie forces herself to her feet, a little wobbly as she comes up. Her head swims for a total of four seconds. "You're stupid if you think I'd let them separate us again. Us." She flips her hair over her shoulder. "Come on, lets get him inside."
"Are you good to walk?"
"Of course I'm good to walk. Come on. The party will be ending soon. We have to move."