Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #21: Dreams of Survival. This is going to be one of two chapters where, like in Slaughter, it is in the tributes in a state of unwind, the tributes in a state of relaxing with each other and spilling each other's guts out to one another. I know I am going to cry writing this chapter, and I'm doing some of just so you all can cry with me too and not make it awkward. Last chapter was the Interviews, a massive chapter and we heard from Cyril, Anahita, Sophiana, Ponty, Cambric, Audhild, Zola, and Mirek, as well as Tach, Sage, Rodric, and Maren from the chapters beforehand: these last two tribute chapters before everything goes to shit is going to have the POV's of the twelve left over, a balance of three v three per gender like always... and I'll just say this, some tribute sections just might be longer than others due to the content I know I want to put into them, unless we want like a 20k chapter and I don't want that lol. Now, I hope you enjoy Chapter #21: Dreams of Survival.
~ And so sayeth the Lord, those who weep do so because they've been touched by the Lord's brilliance, and they've realized their mistakes.
Satin Spinel: District 1 Female P.O.V (18)
An awkward silence fills the floor. It has soaked itself into her skin, digging around and bumping into the solid parts of her soul. Satin bites off all the cuticles on her fingers, feeling the sting of the air on her exposed skin, eyes searching the dark corners of the apartment for answers that do not exist. Two days ago, just two days ago, she feels like everything is going right, she's on the right track for leading the Careers and winning the Games, and that all the problems in her life will be erased as easy as scrubbing the blood off of her fingers after slicing a dummy open. Then a missed knife throw happens, a curse slips out of her mouth, a golden 9 flashes under her face, a brat from Four scores some ungodly score of an 11, and it culminates with the same brat having the audacity to tell her that he's calling the shots, bringing in some scared little kid into the mix, and if she has a problem with it, that she's out of the Careers.
Her? Satin Spinel being kicked out of the Careers? The thing she has worked for her entire life? What sort of fucking drug is that guy on? It only happens because Satin doesn't immediately say, 'No problem', but rather opens her mouth to protest for what she believes in, and it is Jules's hand on her shoulder - why is she taller than him, she wonders, he's so much shorter than her it is almost comical - that does it for her. She brushes the hand off, sneering, but making sure the look lingers on Cyril's face the longest, before hightailing it out of there while Aris roars his own list of injustices. Satin knows when she isn't wanted, she's seen it happen enough in her own life, but what stings most is Cyril not saying anything. Cyril, standing there, perhaps a bit stunned but she's not sure, she can't read his face. It hurts more when she sees him go straight away to tell Anahita the good news, to go tell her the gospel, but oh no, Satin is expected to go on stage and spill her guts out to the entire nation after being kicked to the curb like a pile of garbage.
She's currently lying on her bed, looking up at the ceiling, rubbing a finger over her knuckle. What would her mother be telling her, if she were to see her? Satin scoffs to herself, she knows exactly what would be being said. Something being thrown, a table probably overturned, and the fact that no matter the obstacle, Satin needs to win those Games to bring more money home so mommy can't get more white powder, and like the good child she is, she'll shake her blonde haired head and do whatever mommy asks of her little girl. Satin closes her eyes, feeling the rising ache of tears threatening to spill down her cheeks, she keeping them at bay. Spinel's don't cry. Satin doesn't cry. A moment later, however, something makes her sit up on the edge of her bed, one hand resting just off of the cusp where the comforter ends, she grasping onto thin air.
A laugh.
A male laugh.
Cyril's laugh.
Satin slinks off of her bed, checking the analog clock sitting just in the corner on her dresser, the emerald blocked lines staring back at her mechanically, the device giving off a low hum, a sweet hum that helps her sleep. It's late, nearing 1 A.M. She's never known Cyril to be one to stay up late, it is entirely unlike him. The girl, having switched out of her interview outfit, a dress she hates to part with - it had been designed by the hands of God himself, she swears, the way the fabric moves with her as she walks like she's being encased in a cotton coffin - has slipped into a nightgown, aquamarine in color. It isn't her personal choice, nor her favorite color, but if she's having to switch alliances, she might as well switch wearing the same clothes over and over again.
Her feet are bare against the glistening wooden floors, she stepping out into the living room, hanging by one of the pillars against the far wall, while Cyril's laugh echoes around the apartment. He's sitting on the floor, his head resting up against one of the couches, a fresh, quite full glass of a dark liquid - Satin can smell it from here; it's brandy - in his right hand, a cherry balancing on the rim of the glass. She brushes up against the column, a little louder than she'd like, Cyril's head turning over towards the direction of the disturbance. His cheeks are puffy, bright red like the cherry stem, and his face morphs into a gleaming smile. "Hey! There you are! I was wondering when you'd show up!"
She rubs her exposed arms, surveying the apartment. Besides an Avox standing in the corner near the elevator, head bowed down. Satin wonders, for a moment in a lull of silence, how much they hear, the sorts of gossip they know but cannot express. She's always found it strange that none of them, not a single Avox in the history of Panem, has ever written a book about what they've heard. It isn't like they've gotten their hands and fingers chopped off either. Something else also seems strange to her too: the lack of the victors and escorts. Lance, Kevia, Emmett, and Valencia would all be on the floor sleeping in their prescribed rooms, given that the Games are tomorrow. Where were they all?
"Where is everyone?" she asks, frowning, looking about to see that it just Cyril and his silent protector hanging menacingly by the far side of the room.
"Well..." Cyril starts, drooping his head a little, a drawl spilling out of his throat. He's quite drunk, Satin surmises, "My father is drinking himself to death somewhere like he was for Interviews. Lance hasn't shown up all night, Kevia is doing what she normally does, and that is also finding herself a good drink, and Valencia doesn't sleep here,"
"And what are you doing?" is the next question Satin spills, before rolling her eyes at herself. Of course she knows what he's doing. She's not an idiot. Actually, she needs to check up the answer on that.
Cyril smiles at his full glass of brandy. The alcohol isn't in a small glass, nor is it a shot sized one either, he having poured what looks like the last part of it, it being whatever Kevia does not steal for herself, into one of the grand glasses, the kind that Satin fills up with orange juice in the morning. "Like father, like son, right?"
She shakes her head, keeping the frown on. "That's... that's not how that works."
"Do you want one?" her district partner asks. He then gestures around to the empty couches, cheeks shining underneath the faint lights of the living room, basking his acne war zoned forehead in a shimmering cerulean light. "Come on, join me; I'm lonely."
Although any normal or sane person would accept the drink, Satin has a confession to make. She's never had a sip of alcohol in her life, not even champagne at a wedding, which are very common in District 1. She shakes her head. "No, I'm okay," but she does step out into the living room, her skin bristling at the cold contact of the wooden floor. Her nightgown traces behind her, making a light hiss at it scratches against the shine. However, as she reaches the couch, resting a hand on the back of the third out of five pillows, Satin freezes. Why would she sit with him? Why the hell would she want to sit with him?
"There's plenty of it going to waste y'know," he gaffs, looking back at the stocked cabinet, but then his gaze passes over towards Satin, and the suppleness on his face falls back to a grim flat line. "What's the matter, Satin?"
Satin's surprised her voice even works as she speaks. "You didn't stick up for me," her voice cracks, Cyril lowering his head in shame, setting the drink down on the coffee table. If he feels shamed, good, that's what she wants him to feel. The shame, the humiliation, and the anger that he's missing out on. "You let Jules kick me out of the alliance and you didn't even lift a finger." It brings her great joy, what Satin says next, "You're a coward, Cyril."
"I thought you were going to fight it," he says, after a pause, as she makes her way around to the couch, wrapping to the front, but she sitting as far away from his as she can. She looks at him, tears starting to well in her eyes, but this time she lets them stay there. She thought Cyril had been different. He may have looked like the odd mix of a werewolf and a Greco-Roman statue, but she found him approachable, likeable, easy to get along with. Instead, she drums him up on the list of failures that have turned their backs on her.
"I tried," she says, a lump forming in her throat. Had Satin had a weapon on her, looking down at Jules and his smug face, with that smug smile, trying to seem all sweet and coddled as he paints himself to be, she'd have cut the hand off, and for good measure, stabbed him in the throat. "It still doesn't explain why you didn't though."
"He's the leader, Satin. I- I just can't-" Cyril sits up, starting to protest, a bit of the brandy sloshing out of the glass and onto the rug. The Avox in the corner notices it, going to grab a wad of napkins, but somehow the Avox stills themselves by the counter as Satin's voice explodes into a squeak, vermillion filling her ledger.
"Can't fight his decisions?" her voice rebounds off of the walls, probably being able to be heard on the eleventh or twelfth floor. She has not gone through hell and back to allow someone in the position to do something in her case just sit by. She's already seen inaction waste away every member of her family... why does it have to happen to her too? "Just because he got the highest score doesn't mean that-"
That sends him off to the races, Cyril sitting up, one of his eyebrows raising upwards too, he pointing accusingly with his pointer finger, rubbing off of the glass. The two of them have probably awoken the entire Capitol by this point. "Wait a minute, you wanted to be the leader because you were aiming for the highest score. How come all of a sudden-"
"It's different," Satin cuts him off, her hair dancing against her back.
"Why's it different?"
"It just is!" she blurts out. The concept of the Careers ever being led by the male from Four first off is already insane, and then to add to the poison, every other alliance member minus the one causing all the ruckus is taller than them! How would anyone take them seriously? How would anyone find them to be a threat? "I've known you for five years Cyril. Five years. District partners are supposed to stick up for one another, and you just let him do it."
"I don't get to make those decisions, Satin! I'm not the leader, and I'm not about to start questioning him!" he motions exasperatedly, the Avox having left the paper towels where they were sitting, returning to his post, still silent, forever dormant, forever unneeded.
"That's what you always do," Satin shakes her head, falling back against the couch, the fight slinking out of her voice. She isn't surprised, not much truly surprises her these days, at least not until this very moment. "It's what you've always done. You always relegate control, you never stick up for yourself," he scoffs at the accusation, but she's pinned him to the wall with one of her knives, and the next one is aimed directly at his heart. She throws to kill; she aims to kill, and she'll continue on doing so until it means she's won. "Well, Cyril, this would've been the time to do it."
He looks away from her, unable to keep up the eye contact, the fight dropping out of his tone too, all that is left being the hanging empty air between them. "I'm sorry, Satin, but he's made his mind up. Me doing saying something now won't help anything." There's another pause, Satin going to wipe a tear away, Cyril taking a heavy swig of his drink, before bringing his attention back to her, fingers drumming against the glass, it being the only sound occupying the room besides their breathing. "What are you going to do now?"
It is what has her the most worried. Satin Spinel has always had a game plan, a map marked with a gigantic X to signify victory, yet she no longer finds the map to be in her possession. There is no game plan any longer, the rug having been ripped out underneath her feet. "I don't know. I don't know if me not knowing scares me or not, or if it should." The first concept that comes to mind nearly brings bile out of her throat, for Cyril is most likely to suggest it too, since it sounds like the most realistic option. "I don't want to ally with Aris, but even if I wanted to, it might be too late." The idea of allying with Aris... Satin would rather go bald, and she's not parting with her hair.
"You have to have a plan, Satin," she can't tell if his tone is sorrowing or meant to be taken in a teaching manner.
She bites on the inside of her cheek, spilling copper into the basin, it flushing over her teeth, garnering one of her possible routes. It sounds like suicide, maybe, but she has to vocalize or otherwise she'll never know, and she can't live her life without getting an answer for it. "Would you be against it? Would you try and stop me if I tried attacking him, Jules? If I went after him during the Bloodbath? I don't think Maren would mind it, and I know I could beat Anahita if she tried to stop me."
Cyril pauses in taking another swig, he looking at her with a manic vibe in his eyes, scoffing slightly, before tilting his head to the side. "You'd risk it? He got an eleven, Satin. He got a score higher than both of us," he finishes the sip, setting the glass down on the table, plucking the cherry off of the rim, which somehow had managed to stay there the entire time, shining like a precious ruby under the lights above. Satin looks at the cherry and sees vermillion spilling down her hands, vermillion of every single tribute who dares to get in her way. "Chances are, that means he's a better fighter than both of us."
"The kid from Eight got a twelve. Does he strike you as a fighter?" Satin asks. That'll be another question she needs an answer to before the kid ultimately dies. What the hell did Cambric Vogel, apparent medical extraordinaire do to score a perfect number? However, as expected, Cyril looks away, confirming her suspicions. "That's what I thought."
"Satin, I understand you have the right to be-" he starts again, but she's not letting him off the hook that easy.
Satin gets to her feet, going to one of the windows, she seeing him in the reflection, his cheeks shining even brighter in the mirror, she looking out over at the lit city, as if someone had thrown different kinds of confetti into the air, letting a tornado take it wherever. "You know, Cyril, it hurts me to admit it, but you're the only friend I have." She has no idea why she's telling him this, even moreso after Cyril scoffs at the pure absurdity of the idea. Satin Spinel? With no friends? "I'm serious! You're all I've got." Her voice falters, she biting on her lower lip. "I had plenty of people who I thought were friends awhile ago, but I got to learn that it wasn't the case. They all liked Satin Spinel, or the idea of her anyways. They didn't like me," the tears resume again, and Satin knows if any member of her family could see her now... there'd be no point in going into the arena... they'd kill her. "And the moment they all had no need of me, I was tossed out where I wasn't wanted." She looks back at him, Cyril having set his drink down, still unable to keep eye contact with her. "So, to have the one person I thought would stick by me just leave me dry... yeah, it hurts. It hurts a lot." She leeches herself off of the window, but she doesn't return to the couch. "It happened the moment I became the chosen volunteer, and everyone else became jealous." Satin goes to walk back to her bedroom, pausing with one foot resting on the lower level of the living room, the other balanced on the ridged step. "So no, if I want to attack other members of the alliance that isn't you, don't get mad at me."
"I'm sorry," Cyril says, after a pause, and the two lock eyes. Satin sees every single human emotion one could ever experience in his returning gaze, but she has no idea how to feel about that in the slightest.
Satin scoffs to herself. What a bunch of bullshit. "If you were sorry, you would've stuck up for me." He looks away at her again. Cyril Barther, always confirming the worst. "No, you wanted this to happen, and you got what you wanted." Her district partner looks back up at that, mouth parted open, and there's the bringing of crystalline tears in his eyes too. Satin rubs her arms again, squeezing her eyes shut and inhaling, before reopening them again. She doesn't have the courage to give her own answer for it. "Cyril, be honest with me here. Do you think we have a chance?" her voice is impossibly soft. "Do we have a chance at winning, either one of us? The chance of us taking home another victory to District 1?"
"Do you want the honest truth?" he has yet to return the eye contact, she looking at his side face dead-on.
"I want the honest truth."
Cyril picks up his drink of brandy, taking a heavy, long swig, finishing what is left off in the glass, down to the last drop. The very last of the murky brown liquid vanishes behind his set of porcelain lips, before clunking the glass back on the table with the finality of a nail hitting a hammer. "No. We don't," and her district partner finally stares at her in the eyes, a chill racing through her body, and a lump swelling in her throat. "Not a chance in hell."
Aris Lindel: District 2 Male P.O.V (17)
She hasn't said anything, but Aris knows that Maren's gloating to herself, filled with the emotion of glee at his misfortunes. She's probably in her room right now throwing her pillows in the air, cheering and having a ball while he's out in the living room, forehead pressed up against the glass, staring at the idyllic city down below. All sorts of feelings flow through his veins at the moment, but the one he is hit with in a stunning moment of clarity is anger, a ferocious anger that builds and builds like a fire down in his stomach, sizzling his innards apart until he retches, but he is not going to retch on himself. He tightens his hands into fists, sneering at his reflection. All the years of training, all the time he has spent in becoming someone bigger than himself, a Lindel dammit, and some upstart brat rips him out of the alliance for he's too much of an 'asshole' and a 'prick' and 'unlikable.'
Aris will show Jules what's unlikable, what an asshole does when there's a sword shoved ten inches into someone's gut, twisting the blade, spilling their own offal onto the grainy beach. No one knows how hard it is to be him - it sounds pompous, Aris knows, but he deserves the bit of pomposity in his life after all - living in the shadow of parents who just get it. He has no idea how his parents are as successful as they are, but they've been handled handsomely by the Capitol's gracious hand, and they've done enough on the part of the gilded empire... yet he still feels like he's all alone. It is what he's told to do, his father resting a hand on his shoulder, grip firm and digging into the other side of his clavicle, the pressure causing his knees to buckle, his dad's voice low enough on the air, "Don't mess this up for us. We're counting you."
"We're counting on you..." Aris repeats to himself, forehead still pressed against the glass, his speech causing the mirror to fog up some. He wipes it away with his left arm, still dressed in the outfit he wore for the Interviews. He enjoys the spotlight being on him for those three minutes, when the entire conversation is on him. No one is asking him about the Lindel architects who helped redesign the Nut, no one is asking how Aris Lindel rose to be the top of the 101st Hunger Games Career graduating class a year younger than the normal age. No one is interested in that, his last name drawing all the attention and it being as if he is not even in the room, pushed out of the way for what he considers the old news. The sneer drags itself out even further, he leeching himself off of the window, a slight sweat outline from where he had been standing left behind in the residue.
He begins to pace back and forth, having taken off his dress shoes, still in his dress socks, leaving tracts of cotton and fur and dust in his path as he begins circling the couch. It is eerily quiet on the floor, Ellison having gone to sleep before the Interviews were even over, so Aris has no idea if he did a good job or not with mastering an audience. Personally, he feels he did amazing since he didn't go to his mentor for advice - what advice could a greying eighty year-old give him on pleasing a crowd? Not falling over with his cane? - but after all, a Lindel never needs advice on what to do, they master the situation alone with what speaks to them, and the stars have spoken to him that it looks like he must go through the 101st Hunger Games alone, without relying on an alliance that seems to not even want him. He finds it hilarious, actually, ditching aside two nines for a seven. However, Jules's word is the law apparently.
Aris has a few ways of dealing with the law, and setting the Holy Book ablaze in the other Career's hands seems to be the most viable option.
"He wants to throw me to the dirt after all I did for him..." Aris mutters to himself, shaking his head, taking off of his suit jacket, throwing it into a heap of other sorts of clothing articles in the corner of the couch, it landing softly. "He just thinks he can toss me aside and there not be consequences?" the Career curls his fingers in on each other, closing his eyes as he walks in a shaky square around the living room furniture. He can imagine the hilt of the sword he will grab tomorrow during the bloodbath in his hands, the cold metal causing his synapses to rock off the charts, and then the way he'll slam the sword into that male from Four's body, watching it break like a fissured piece of Earth during an earthquake, a copious river of blood pouring out of him, and he'll dance in the puddle while Jules cries himself to death, slowing ebbing away. "No one crosses a Lindel and gets away with it. No one gets to just walk away from that!" he raises his voice some, probably waking up Maren, but that's right... she's celebrating her victory. "And Maren thinks she can just ditch me like that, you hateful bitch!" he spits out, swiveling on his heel and turning his head in the direction of the bedrooms.
He knew he isn't going to get along with her from the moment he lays eyes on her. He's the most disappointed in Cyril though, being one to hold him by the hand and rip away from causing trouble - "I'm not causing trouble," he tells the male from One later in the day, focusing on that chiseled jaw, those electric blue eyes, and a shiver runs through him; he's one hot dude. "I'm doing the world a service. No one needs to here her drivel." Aris runs over the list of tributes he currently wishes to strangle, trying his hardest to keep Cyril off of the list. Maren is a given, the two have not been standing on the right foot at all and he is not crawling back to her, a Johnson on his hands and knees and begging for her forgiveness when she's the one who has committed the transgression, as if Aris can do anything wrong. Bloom Estrada, that District 12 nut-job spouting something about rebellions or protest and stoking the fire of some bullshit imaginary club against the winners... hearing people be ungrateful with the society they're in, to see the opportunity handed to them in being in the Games... nothing gets him angrier.
It isn't Anahita's fault that she's on the list, for clearly she must be skilled to score a seven at such an age, and he's seen the way she rips a dummy to shreds with one of her kunai's, but her age is the firewall that stops him from embracing her with open arms. It is her fault, however, with wanting to be in the alliance so damn badly, that her district partner who must be cousins with the rat family thinks it to be a good idea to get rid of the best Career tribute in the history of the Games. For that, he has a slit throat for her as well, while she pleads and begs for life, and Aris already knows what he's going to say, head titled to the side while his wonderful Cyril betrays the alliance, slicing Jules open just to make sure he's dead... "Maybe you should've thought about sucking, instead."
"I have done everything right!" Aris tells himself, stomping his foot, but his socks catch on the slickness of the floor, he falling back onto himself, landing hard with a groan. It feels like all of the vertebrae in his spine shattered all at once, Aris curling in on himself, a cheek pressed into the wood, eyes burning with a black blaze for retribution. "I have done everything asked of me, I have done everything my parents asked, everything the Capitol needed me to, and then they give a nine. A nine!" he sits up alarmingly, his hair now thrown into a whirlwind mess of brown and sock fuzz. "They aren't going to accept a D2 victor into the Peacekeepers if he scored a nine..." and that has him bring his knees to his chest. He's always wanted to join the Peacekeepers, it having been a huge goal of his. He's heard the speeches and the lectures, having seen one from Head Peacekeeper Lazarus Pietro before, when the man had been the Head Peacekeeper for Two. Aris knows that is what he wants to do, but only after winning the Games. A Hunger Games victor who is a brute running the Peacekeepers? Is there any better future? "And Jules, Anahita, Bloom, and Maren have all stolen it for me..." he sneers to himself. "They stole it from me!" he roars, slamming his fists into the wood.
They're all dead. They all deserve to die. He is an angel, a paragon of Panem, and yet they're the ones succeeding, the ones who cheat the system - he knows about Jules's little identity secret, it is not impossible to tell, yet somehow the kid bypasses every system in place to keep them out - or the ones wishing to destroy the system. Anahita, thinking she's entitled to having a spot in the Careers, as if that sounds sane in any world. Satin, he's not upset at, but he does laugh when she mentions, before the Private Sessions, the idea of being the leader. Not that he's against a woman leading the Careers, quite far the opposite, but has she looked at who her biggest competitor is? Aris knows he cannot be mad at Cyril, but he's wondering in the moment why the other guy does not stick up for him.
"I'm going to kill every single last one of them!" he says to himself, with a strong finality to his words. He knew what being a Career would mean, what it would culminate to, but he does not expect it to happen so early. Aris gets to his feet, resuming his pacing, body still sore from the fall. "They'll ask, and they'll beg, and they'll plead for me to spare them," he shakes his head back and forth, grinning to himself, "But I won't spare them any mercy, for they didn't spare me either! Soon, soon, soon I'll be the victor, and you're going to want to forget the day you crossed Aris fucking Lindel!" Aris shouts triumphantly, pointing out at the ceiling, and then turning back to the windows, he breathing heavily, eyes wild with excitement, electricity flowing through his veins. However, something else catches his eye, they both widening when he turns around to look at the person who must've been watching him from the hallway.
Maren looks at him, wide eyed, jaw locked, a look of disbelief on her face. She closes her mouth after a moment of stunned silence shared between the two of them, Aris swallowing heavily. His district partner bites down on her lower lip, exhaling. "Alrighty then... so glad I saw that." Without another word, she turns around, a blanket draped around her shoulders, Maren disappearing back into the bedrooms.
Aris has never wanted the Earth to swallow him whole any more than right now in this instance.
How much of that did she hear?
Seth Cables: District 5 Male P.O.V (17)
He has yet to open the envelope; all he's done is sit in silence at the kitchen counter with it laying unopened, the letter opener out of his mentor's room lying next to it. The moment the Interviews are all over Sophiana rushes away from him, sobbing her eyes out - how is the girl not all over the dramatics yet? How is she not out of tears yet? She seems to cry every single damn day. - and leaving him to take the elevator back up to their floor alone. Seth has a few tears running down his cheeks too after talking about his sister, someone he thinks he'll never tell another soul, yet he spills his entire being out onto the audience. He hates himself for it, that showing of emotion, but he hears the way the crowd sucks in the sadness, they opening their own hearts, and maybe even their wallets...
Seth doesn't like Pollux having a hand on his shoulder. He hates him, he hates a huge chunk of the establishment after all, but it is the establishment back home that are the ones who bring him the money. It is those with the dollars signs in their eyes, smelling of a higher financial status - the breath reeks of onions and bell peppers for some reason - and vengeance hiding behind those dollar signs that fund his pockets, offers he cannot refuse. He looks back towards the direction of the bedrooms, Sophiana's door closed, and the burning rage ignites even further. He shouldn't hate her, he shouldn't, but Seth is unable to run away from it. Yes, her father is in prison, and now, with the revealing of her scars, he's truly not a good person, but where's the justice? Where's the revenge? His sister is gone and no one has filled her place! If her father could be in the Games instead, he'd gladly snap his neck in two.
The unopened letter speaks to him, a heavy whispering voice riding along the air waves, Seth looking at it with a wide-eyed curiosity. When he steps back onto his own elevator, a few of the tributes offering their condolences - Bloom and Zola, if he remembers their names right, but Seth is unable to even look them in the eyes or utter any sort of gratitude... he does not accept gratitude in the form of apologies. He accepts gratitude in the form of payment. - and the tears freshly drying, he takes the elevator back up to their floor in silence. Upon arrival, their escort sitting there with a loaded wine glass in her hands, looking over at Seth with a frown of the ages - he'd kill her too, he'd kill the whole lot of them - before handing him the envelope, saying an Avox flanked by two Peacekeepers had given it to her before the processions down in the Interview hall. Seth accepts it gingerly, frowning to himself. What sort of Avox needs to deliver a letter to a tribute with a Peacekeeper escort? On second thought, why is he receiving any mail at all?
His arms are outstretched towards the piece of paper, he lifting his head, swallowing heavily, before sharply inhaling. His arms are all of a sudden covered in scarlet, as if he had sliced open the veins from wrist to elbow, and an insurmountable bough of stinging causes him to clench his teeth together. A woman's voice, pleading, begging rises in his ears, Seth shaking his head. No, none of this can be real. It's all fake, there's no one screaming, no woman begging for her husband's death. No account smuggling money from the Mayor's office, none of it. He lets out a shaky gasp, wrenching his arms back, but the vermillion streams then coat his hands, droplets of blood splattering onto the wooden floor. Seth's breathing increases to a more rapid fire pace, he pushing himself away from the counter, squeezing his eyes shut.
He can picture the day perfectly, the very same day the knife in his hand is aimed for Sophiana's neck, for that Sophia whose father caused the end of all things in the Cables family. This woman practically falls prostrate in front of him in a back alley, he thinking it is for some sort of sexual favor, which he says he is disinterested in, a sneer on his face, but the woman's hands leech onto his own, dragging him down towards her, where he can smell her overriding perfume, the stench like lilac flowers and the overcompensating musk of blood, causing him to gag. She has nowhere else to turn, as she knows her husband is stealing from her, but also cheating on the housemaid, allowing the housemaid to dip into the matriarch's personal fund for her kids, some spoiled brats that Seth knows at a distance at school, and she has a single request.
She wants him, Seth Cables, to kill her husband, and if he has to - the woman is willing after all - to kill the housemaid, to stage it like a robbery.
"Why me?" Seth asks her, in stunned shock at the idea, although he looks down at his pocket where he has the knife sheathed against the pant leg. Pot calling the kettle black?
"It's the look in your eyes. I know you've been thinking about killing that Sophiana Delarosa because of what her father has done to you. I know what's in you," the woman says, hands dragging against the fabric of his pants, and there are tears in her eyes.
He has no idea why he accepts the proposal. Seth still has no idea why, but he blames it on the fact he needs to stab something, to make something bleed... and maybe he needs to actually end the life of a wicked person. It is rather easy, he staging it as being the housemaid coming by for a visit, when in reality it is to see the husband, he lying in his bedroom, eyes closed, talking about someone named Francene, and when it is Seth's voice that speaks, the man opens his eyes, but it's too late, the knife plunged into the man's chest, and just for a good ole' measure, he makes sure to steal the rest of the stash from what the woman told him about, and when the maid does arrive, Peacekeepers are swarming over the house like ants on a discarded apple in the dirt, she and the wife who hired him taken into custody, Seth reaping the benefits, laughing to himself against the side of a wall, some abandoned factory, he doesn't exactly remember the specifics.
The other four names on his list he's forgotten. One of them is a teenager his age, he remembers that, hired by the kid's father, the kid threatening to take the father's illegal activities to President Calhoun, and Seth goes to refuse until he sees the amount of money the man offers him. The kid isn't technically even his son, and it is why the father has no qualms about what he asks, and Seth does it, although he certainly hates it, pressing the chloroformed rag against his fellow classmate's mouth and watching him struggle, eyes closing for the last time, and then a quick slice across the neck. Seth vomits into a trash can shortly thereafter, before going in and turning the father in for murder, but since he's recently suffering from trauma, the father's screams and angry cries for Seth Cables being the one he hired for the kid's death signaling his death sentence, and Seth is there for the public hanging, smiling to himself. He has a code, sure. He'll do the job, keep the pay, but the truly wicked will be punished for their deeds.
Seth opens his eyes again, sighing heavily, looking down at his arms and hands. The blood is gone, the blood that he feels in the back of his throat, the blood coating one of his knives back home that he has pressed up against the wall and the left headboard post of his bed, whenever he getting in bed the knife making a squeaked scratch alongside the wood paneling, he freezing every time he hears the sound, before falling back into a laxed state. His fingers go for the letter, a build of bile rising in his throat. As he touches the seal, it emblazoned with the official logo of Panem, some sort of fancy writing underneath it, the initials L.P. meaning nothing to him except confusion, the other three come to him, their voices rising on the wind, echoing inside his head.
He'll hear their voices forever and ever, until the end of time, and Seth knows he cannot go back and change the past, what's done is done and he's spilled a lot of blood onto District 5's tainted soil, but if he were to go back and change it all, he'd keep himself rooted there, in that moment of asking the woman why she chooses him, and the action of stabbing her in the heart after accepting the money, for she's the one who needs to be genuinely punished, but he'd also go and finish the husband too for he's truly wicked as well.
No going back.
He doesn't use the letter opener, the assassin prying off the envelope's lip with his bare hands, wrenching the folded up letter free, and it only takes about forty or so seconds for him to read it before gasping, actually shrieking and throwing the letter back onto the counter as if it is radioactive. No. No. There's no way!
Seth swallows heavily, fear creeping into his soles, as if his legs are made of cinderblocks, before picking the letter up again, scanning its contents once more.
To whom it may concern, Seth Cables, seventeen year-old male from District 5 for the 101st Hunger Games,
Greetings, Seth. This is Head Peacekeeper Lazarus Pietro writing to you. I imagine you've been waiting for something like this for a long time.
I won't beat around the bush. Beating around the bush is annoying, and I understand that you'd much rather have me just say it.
I know what you are. I know what you've done the last few years in District 5, Mr. Cables. An assassin in the dark, killing a bank teller, an account, a little classmate of yours, and some dog breeder. You've killed them all, and somehow, somehow you've gotten away with all of them. But I am here to disprove you of that notion; we've known all along, we wanted you to feel safe in your cocoon of villainy and killing and all of that money you've collected to then strike you down in a glorious fashion.
None of this has been an accident, your being reaped into the Games; it was planned, on purpose, and I think you've been thinking about it too. However, there's a loophole for you. If you die in the arena, your crimes die with you, and the guilty parties that had you commit these heinous deeds of murder will still remain locked up. If you are to somehow prevail and be our victor, it does not erase the crimes you have committed. Upon your release from the hospital and your interview with Pollux Aetos, you've be immediately taken into custody and executed for your crimes, of which I and the president know you are guilty of committing.
However, yes, I am extending some graces to you, Mr. Cables. Madam President Rodney will exonerate you and pardon you from any crimes if you do a favor for her and I, a single simple favor before the Games begin tomorrow morning, which means it must be done within the next hour before anyone notices you're gone. We need you to...
Seth stops reading, the lump in his throat solidifying to that of a rock, before reading over the sentence one last time, the order given to him by Head Peacekeeper Lazarus Pietro, and no, his eyes do not deceive him. He's given one last target, one final person to assassinate. He looks up from the letter, his throat having gone dry.
"To find and execute victor Valencia Shale of District 1..." he says aloud.
Jason Lacey: District 9 Male P.O.V (16)
He braces the rolling pin underneath his arm as if it is the hilt of a sword, narrowing his eyes to look down the living room floor, picturing a tribute on their knees before him, crying their eyes out, hoping for mercy. They'll receive none, for the son of the mayor from District 9 has none to offer, or so he thinks. Seeing the four flash under his name is a humiliating experience, shame flooding his ankles and rising up to his stomach, bubbling anticipation at Audhild's score going next, and she's scored higher than he has, he looking over at her, trying to mask the look of disappointment that flashes across his face. Her smile connects to his, but he knows that even if there is a grin on his face, the expression highlighted in his eyes tells something different, and Audhild's smile vanishes.
It sits with him the rest of the evening, the low score, that people expect something out of a Lacey, out of a tribute hailing from a royal family in an outer district, but it seems to be that those with money backing their names are falling up short. That is not the only thing Jason has resting on his mind, keeping his eyes shut while waiting for his interview, as Pollux booms and preaches to the whole crowd about honor and duty... if he is to die tomorrow, Jason would have gone his entire life without his father or his mother ever saying they loved him. He knows, he knows they do, but not hearing it is what has stuck with him all these years, he expecting it as he hugs his father goodbye, but business is calling the Lacey patriarch back to the office, and his mother doesn't even look at him, eyes turned up in disdain at the dismal failure of a son they've produced... a reaped Hunger Games tribute with no shot at winning. A lone tear slides down his face, and then Jason, with his rolling pin, charges at the imaginary tribute, slashing the rolling pin downwards with a yell at the top of his lungs.
Audhild is asleep, so it doesn't matter how loud he goes for the attack, and the rolling pin connects with a pillow, he seeing the explosion of blood and flesh in his eyes, and it is a glorious sensation that runs through his arms, the taking of a life, but it is all trounced up and bundled together when he hears, faintly, coming from the corner of the room, a soft and sweet voice like a faint strawberry wind blowing through the marigold fields, "Jason...? What- what are you doing?" Promptly, Jason loses his footing, falling face first onto the pillow, the rolling pin falling out of his hands with a loud crash, he groaning for emphasis on impact, rubbing his forehead.
"Nothing!" he exclaims, a tinge of red rushing straight to his cheeks. "Just... just testing the durability of our kitchen appliances!"
He's still dressed in his interview outfit, something sent by his father with a calling card still attached to the hanger - Keep believing in the ashy wings of the fire bird - and Jason believes the statement on it to be some sort of bad poetry, but in his head he knows what it means. The note he gave to Criston Pellock, whatever that Phoenix had been is what his father writes on the card, his throat going parch the moment he crumples it up and throws it into the trash. Audhild's dark hair is a bundled up mess, she must having just gotten out of bed, she in a little nightgown, periwinkle in color, looking adorable as all get out. She raises an eyebrow at his definitely clear cover up, not believing it for a second, Jason getting to his feet clumsily, brushing dirt off of his knees, and the smile recedes immediately when he gets a glimpse at her.
"Audhild? What's wrong? You look terrible..." and it is the truth, no matter how harsh the statement might be. His district partner, although nice and sweet looking in the nightgown, does have her hair everywhere, her breathing rapid yet shallow, eyes wide and riddled with fear, and she's covered in a sheen layer of sweat, it practically dripping off of her forehead. He reaches her, sitting her down on the couch. Both of their mentors have gone to bed, it being extremely late, but Jason can't sleep, and the escort advises some sort of sleeping pill, but he refuses the notion. The moment the two sit down on the couch, she buries her head into his stomach, shuddering heavily. "Audi..." he says weakly, in surprise, lifting his hands up out of shock before slowly resting them on her trembling form.
She looks up at him, the evident glimpse of fear bright, a chill running through him. "I had a nightmare..."
He nods sympathetically. His younger sister gets them all the time, and whenever she receives one she goes running down to his room, where he hears her feet bouncing on the padded carpet, bursting in to his room, always out of breath. His sister's dreams always encompass something about a foreign family reaching out to her beyond a pale mist, eyes glowing a cardinal color through the mist, but he simply talks her through the terror and returns her to bed. "Yeah, I figured that might happen. Don't worry, Audi, I won't let anything happen to you and-"
"No," she insists, and Jason looks down at his right arm in surprise, his district partner having clamped onto it ferociously, her fingers digging into the underside quite painfully. Audhild shakes her head back and forth, the rapid rate of breathing accelerating. "You don't understand, Jason. I had the worst nightmare I've ever had."
Although it must bring her great pain, Jason unlatches her arms off of him; having her in such a frantic state is not going to calm her down. He leaves her on the couch, going to make a glass of water for her. Jason returns, handing her the glass, which she accepts, but she doesn't take a sip from it. "Start from the beginning," he instructs her, picking the pillow up off the floor, setting the rolling pin on the coffee table, shame still stinging in his cheeks. At his order, Audhild sucks in a great breath, swallowing half of the glass of water without stopping, Jason swallowing heavily. He's never seen anyone do that before, he's never seen someone react like that out of a nightmare.
She sets the glass down, and it is as if the temperature in the apartment went down another ten degrees, Jason hugging his sides, her voice impossibly soft. "I saw us all die..." Audhild looks at him, a pang running through him, and she shook her head, buckling her lower lip into her mouth. "I saw everyone dead. Ciphra, Vivian, Jules, Tach, Cyril, Magdalena, Amaris, Ponty, Zola, Roanoke, you, myself..." she squeezes her eyes shut, curling her head to her knees, a few tears sliding down her cheeks. "I don't know what killed us, but all I know is none of us were alive, like I was experiencing an out of body moment," Jason shifts closer to her, putting an arm around her. "All around us the area was on fire and it smelled like sulfur..." he swallows heavily at the description. He knew sulfur only came from one thing, and what that meant. "The flames stretched out for miles, and at a certain point it overtook me." She looks at him with that, Jason righting himself away from her out of disturbance. He's never seen anyone so shaken up before.
"What overtook you?" he asks, fearing the answer. This doesn't sound like a typical nightmare about dying in a Hunger Games Bloodbath, but he's always figured her to have such a dramatic imagination, a pandering to the theatrical side of the dark throes of sleep.
"Death, Jason," another tear slides down her face. "A rolling black wave consuming everything in its path, and I felt it..." she shakes her head back and forth, lower lip quivering. "I felt pure evil radiate out of it, and the wave swallowed all of our bodies whole, and when it overtook my spirit, I felt a stabbing pain shoot straight through my jaw." Audhild's hands go straight to her jaw, pressing up against her pulse. Jason likewise mirrors her actions, feeling the warm hum that is there. The tracker that had been put there after the private sessions. His district partner continues telling her dream, "And the moment I felt that pain I woke up, the tracker deathly hot, and I was drenched in sweat..." Audhild's breathing slows down, she finishing the rest of the water. "I have no idea what I dreamed. I have no idea. Do you?" she looks at him, eyes wide, fear still running through the veins.
He wishes he could take her up in his arms and say everything will be alright, but Jason's never backed down from the truth, he's only backed down from playing his part in it. He cannot offer such consolidation tonight, not after hearing what she's just said. Jason has no idea what any of that could possibly mean. "I have no idea, Audi."
"Jason, I'm scared," she admits, voice breathless, chest rising and falling underneath the nightgown.
"I'm afraid too."
"Are we going to die?"
"I don't know," he reaches over and grips her free hand, but she goes ahead and places the other on top of them. "But I do know that you're not leaving my side, and I'm not leaving yours." Jason plants his feet on the ground, standing up, but still holding onto her. "C'mon, you're gonna sleep in my room, just so you have someone protecting you. I don't want you having any other nightmares alone, okay?" Audhild nods numbly, accepting his hand.
He pulls her up, she surprisingly light, smiling sweetly, heart still drumming underneath his skin. His sister and Audi, he thinks they'd get along perfectly, well... maybe not, given she punched him in the stomach on their first meeting. As the two wander back to his room, she going ahead of him, Jason pauses, turning back around and looking out the windows, the Capitol splayed out in front of him.
Although he is never going to tell her the truth, or say anything else to frighten her, she's not alone, Audhild is not alone in her own sort of nightmare.
He's seen it too, that black wave, and he's seen it consume everyone and everything except him. Hers, she said killed everyone and all in its path.
His blood chills in his veins, ice seizing his heart, breathing shaky.
Jason is going to need more than a damn rolling pin to beat the darkness he's seen.
Vivian Whiplash: District 10 Female P.O.V (16)
She knows he's trying hard not to insult her, the way he's looking at her from across the couch, he sitting on one, she sitting on the other, the two just looking at each other without speaking, without uttering a word to one another. They have yet to change out of their interview outfits, hers starting to stick to her, the worry of tomorrow morning and the foreseeable future being trapped in a dome creeping up the back of her neck, a hissing spider whispering Satan's promises to Adam and Eve in her ear. A seed of guilt churns in her stomach, Vivian closing her eyes.
Their fallout earlier is the worst thing she's ever said to anyone. She has never felt herself get that cold before, never. Perhaps she is the evil that she's heard the Peacekeepers back home talk about, for surely everyone else close to her has expressed that sentiment, it is impossible to go about hearing it.
Rodric drums his fingers on the arm of the couch, he having been doing this for the last fifteen minutes or so. Every so often his eyes will flit up to hers, they locking gazes for a second, before he'll dance them away to something else. However, this time, the two lock eyes and neither one breaks their hold. "Vivian?" he asks, and hearing his voice is somewhat jarring to her, a discordant cricket grinding their legs and wings against a violin string, a harsh cacophony of syllables rutting past her ears.
"Yeah?" Vivian sits up some, trying to keep her face as impasse as possible.
"Can I ask you something?" Always the man of the hour with the questions, the needless, incessant asking of the questions.
"Sure." It is not like someone asking into her past has haunted her before. Vivian took out the tie holding her hair up, running it through her fingers every so often. "The Tigress," she thinks to herself, "The Tigress who bleeds just the same as everyone else..." and it is Rodric's question that jars her back to the present, before anaphylactic shock seizes her by the reins, pinning her to the seat.
His dark eyes are wide and curious, but his lips are twitching, fingers drumming at a more rapid speed than what he had been doing recently, before blurting out, "Have you ever killed anything or someone?"
The record that is not playing inside her head comes to a complete stop, Vivian thinking about the first horse she had ever tamed with her brother cheering her on, Tamerin and Maira cheering too, and then all of a sudden it is wiped away in a sea of cascading confusion, carnation pink and riddler green for effect. She scoffs to herself, not quite sure if she heard him correctly. What did he just ask her? "What?"
"I'm serious," Rodric's face is as stone cold as the gargoyle statues above the Justice Center, their devilish eyes staring down at all the lambs lining up on Reaping Day. Her district partner sits forward some, and the scars that blanket his hands popping out in the light, pale rivers of snow twisted and deep fried in a tar ocean. "I haven't. I don't think I ever could." He contemplates that decision for a second, as there's no way Vivian believes in that sort of statement. To survive, in the Games, you kill, it is as simple as that. The girl from Nine, sweet Audhild Olthono, Vivian sees the murderer in her, the darkness that lingers in the generally nice smile, but she senses it all the same. "But have you?"
"Why are you asking me that? Why do you think I've ever even-" the girl starts to protest, going to get out of her seat. This is not the type of conversation she wishes to have with him. She knows why, though, why she allows him to even breach the subject. The eyes. The hair. Tamerin's ghost staring back at her, even though Tamerin is very much alive and- "You'll just make things worse," she tells herself, collapsing back down into the chair, the red ribbon falling from her hands.
"You got a ten, and that's a pretty high score for not being a Career whose trained. You've admitted to me about being 'The Tigress', who the Peacekeepers are hunting," Rodric explains, she incapable of reading the expression on his face. "Peacekeepers don't just hunt anyone in Ten, y'know," her district partner scratches the back of his neck sheepishly, teeth exposed in a 'I'm sorry, but not really' sort of manner. "And besides, yeah, you strike me as someone who might've done it before."
If he thinks there's a chance in hell... "I don't have to tell you anything, Rodric. I... it's not for you to-"
"You don't have to tell me, if you have or not." he eases up on the gas some, holding out his hands in a defenseless position, but she sees the glint in his eyes, that need for self-discovery, the need for her to bleed the same pain and anguish she's ripped out of him by taking hold of everything he holds dear. Perhaps she deserves it, perhaps she needs to go through with it. "But we've been sitting here looking at one another for the last hour not even saying anything, and I can read it on your face. I can see the guilt," he licks his lips, sighing. "So I'm asking you, have you?"
Clearly there is no point in lying. Vivian pinches the bridge of her nose, the other hand tightening its grip around the arm of the couch, fingernails ripping up the leather just in case she needs something physical to throw. "Yeah, Rodric. I have." She looks up at Rodric, his face warping into one of shock, her voice impossibly soft. "Twice."
"Twice?" the look on his face is almost comical, but, given the circumstances, Vivian knows the expression means something else entirely. "I- I didn't actually expect you to give me an answer but..."
"One of them was the old Head Peacekeeper Conan," she admits, and both hands are starting to sweat, she running them down alongside her pant legs. Conan McIntosh, the Head Peacekeeper of District 10 for fifteen years, razor sharp nose, solid gray eyes always judging and calculating, dark brown hair the color of an ox's coat, and a cigar or beer bottle always between his teeth. "I mean, it wasn't exactly a secret that he liked people my age or a bit older, y'know Both guys and girls, right? Everyone knew about it, but no one wanted to do anything." A shudder ripples through her, the concept of Conan's exploits, something everyone knew, something no one ever did anything about, for if someone were to speak up, it meant the firing squad at dawn the next available weekday. "I had a girlfriend and a boyfriend for awhile, their names were Maira and Tamerin..." Maira, with her sweet eyes, and Tamerin with his mahogany colored hair, his melodic voice. "Conan had them both over at his place sometimes, he would... he would..." Vivian shakes her head, gasping for a breath, her entire body feeling as if she's been submerged underwater.
"You- you don't have to continue Vivian, I get the picture," Rodric tries overtaking her in the conversation, but he's got her started, and there's no way to make her stop.
"One day I found out about it, what Conan had been doing to them..." Vivian swallows heavily, eyes locked onto a white world no one can see. "Maira had bruises on her arms, and Tamerin had a black eye. At first, they wouldn't tell me who did it, but I wasn't letting them off the hook." She remembers raising her voice, Maira slinking up against the wall, Tamerin unable to maintain eye contact as the name of the Head Peacekeeper slipped free, and the Vesuvian rage that courses through Vivian's veins. "The anger I felt in me at the idea of my loved ones being abused by that sick bastard... I couldn't just let that happen to them." she looks up at Rodric, and even if he were to lie, he'd admit the same thing about those he loves. "They both begged me not to do anything, but I wasn't going to let it continue." Vivian drums her fingers against her pants. "He liked to leave his door open to his house, he never wanted one of the finer homes the Capitol offered, and that was just common knowledge."
Rodric shifts uncomfortably in his seat, but he's unlocked the gates of Tartarus, and she is not going to just let Kronos escape into Hades without there being consequences. "Vivian..."
It had been a year and a half since then, but Vivian recalls the memory like it had been just yesterday, it sinking into her skin with the cool autumn breeze, the leaves on the trees starting to change from that emerald green to the succulent cherry and sunburst orange. "I snuck in, well, by going through the front door. I was just gonna rough house him, if I could, that's all, I swear," Vivian picks the red ribbon back up, wrapping it around her knuckles. Conan's house was tinier than her own, the TV left on, static bursting across the living room, fridge open, with six beer bottles strewn about. "He was beyond drunk, and saw me looking for him in his bathroom, beer bottle dropped to the floor and everything." His wide eyes, darkening with lust. "He thought I was Maira and automatically rushed at me."
She breaks the story for a second, stopping the sob that rises from her throat.
"Vivian, please don't-"
"I panicked and freaked out, but I still wasn't prepared for him to actually rush at me, y'know?" Vivian shakes her head fiercely, blizzard bands knocking back and forth against her neck. "He pinned me to the floor and tried to get my pants off, while trying to get his off too, but his drunkenness slowed him down," another shudder rippling through her. "Conan was screaming at me, calling me a whore and- I was too scared." Vivian has never felt her voice crack before. "He had left his gun out of the holster on his nightstand, and all I needed to do was grab it." Her mouth wide open in a scream, Conan's drunkard voice yelling belligerently, her hands around the butt of the gun, and her shooting him dead. "I've never used a gun before, but I was not going to let him do what I knew he would do, and so I shot him." The gunshot echoes in her head. "I've never freaked out more in my life, Rodric. He had a nice watch, and I knew Tamerin's family was in some dire straits, so they needed the money." Somehow, through all of it, this is what affects her the most, robbing a dead man. "I sold the watch, gave them the money, but he and Maira were terrified at what I had done and refused to see me."
She never even got to say goodbye.
"You can stop, Vivian, please, just stop, I-" Rodric pleads with her, getting to her feet.
"The Peacekeepers in the district would've ruled Conan's death as a suicide, but they noticed the stolen watch." Vivian's voice has gone soft again, as if her diaphragm had been stolen right out of her chest. "That was my second kill, a Peacekeeper who put some two and twos together, and I couldn't let anyone in my family by him or his reaches again." It had been much easier, without the panic and the cursing and the heartbeat, a simple shot to the head. "Because of me doing what I did, I lost both of my lovers, and now I'm a vigilante to the district, for terrorizing the homes of Peacekeepers and stealing their valuables."
That's it. That's the story, all of it, right there, and he, that fucking Oxford just had to go digging.
"Vivian, I would never have known... I would've never guessed, I-"
"It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter Rodric. I can't get close to anyone, I can't let anyone get close to me, because who knows what else I might have to do," Vivian shakes her head. Pushing him away, pushing Maira and Tamerin away... The Tigress keeps no friends, has no family, simply on principle.
"I'm sorry," Rodric apologizes, his voice entirely genuine, and there are the fledglings of tears prickling at the corners of his eyes.
Her voice is ice cold, the harshest winter she could ever summon spilling out of her mouth, Vivian getting to her feet, one fist curled about the ribbon. The damned ribbon, marking her entire being, her entire monstrous being. "You happy? You happy you know? I'm just a monster, aren't I?"
"No, you aren't, Vivian-" he starts, but she has had it. She's gotten close; Vivian Whiplash never gets close.
"I told you to drink yourself to death. I hate the idea of a rich person exploiting others." Speaking it out loud, it makes it sound even worse. "I'm- I'm a murderer, a thief, and I deserve a lot worse than what I've gotten, but I'm not going to let the arena kill me either; I'll do whatever it is I need to do to survive, and that means despite me telling you all this, Rodric, it means I'm gonna have to get through you too."
Leaving him in the thaw of his own silence, surprise, stupefaction and more, Vivian hastens to her bedroom, tears flowing free, and the gunshot that brought her world to heel still echoing in her ears.
Amaris O'Hara: District 6 Female P.O.V (18)
This is it, the deep breath before the plunge. She feels it creeping up on her like a phantom, Amaris having seen enough death to know the difference between a ghoul and an actual devil, such as the one resting up against one of the pillars in the living room. Wearing the Peacekeeper uniform is the dumbest idea she's conjured up in a long time, she ripping it off of her the moment she returns to her floor, she and Ponty riding in silence. Criston congratulates the two of them on their hard work, retiring for the night, but just a little while later, somewhere around midnight, the elevator doors close and Amaris awakes from her light sleep, shrugging on a light jacket and stepping out into the living room.
Ponty is by the window, staring out across the Capitol, but she keeps her distance, back where she knows she isn't wanted. He's made that quite clear over the last couple of days.
"Where'd Criston go?" she asks.
"Out," her district partner says immediately after, still keeping his gaze out on the city, the dancing lights of the partying Capitolites bright on the night sky. Ponty takes a deep breath, she seeing his sturdy frame rise and fall under the shroud of darkness in the corner. He's unbelievably handsome, but the idea of being with someone who wishes to puke in her very presence - something she's never quite experienced before, Amaris might add - has done wonders on her confidence, and it repulses her too, the concept of being with someone who hates her.
"Did he say when he'd come back?" Amaris shrugs her hands further into the pockets of the jacket, it being freezing on the floor. She steps down the elevated pathway that keeps the living room lower than the rest of the apartment, but she does not move any closer. She knows that she's often put on the perspective of not giving a crap about anyone or anything, which is partially true, but Criston did win the Games at one point, and she'll still need his advice now more than ever with the eve of the Games, and he's disappeared.
"No, and I don't care." That doesn't sound like Ponty, the dismissiveness, but she senses his disquiet ever since Pollux humiliates him on the stage, dealing with fellatio and all of that, but it has her cracking up in her spot in line, to follow directly after him in that dumb uniform.
Amaris moves closer, still on the other side of the couch, reading his body language. His arms are crossed over the other, pressed against his chest, neck tight, distended, tense.
He has something he wants to say, she can tell.
"What is it, Ponty?" Amaris asks, genuinely curious. She has no idea in what universe, on what stance of the law it says that two district partners who cannot physically stand each other have to be unable to hold a conversation with the other. So far their track record is 0-2, which has her wince, pressing a hand back to her face, the spots where he's struck her as she tries to hit him... perhaps the laws of the universe ordained something correctly for once.
Her district partner shifts his head over in her direction, a pang of emotion running through her. Shock, crippling shock, at the dead look in Ponty's eyes, the general vibrant tenacity that has his eyes glow lustrously emerald green are tempered dry, like a cut glade of grass lying on the sidewalk. "You did a good job tonight," he says. "Better than me at least."
Does he strike her for a fool? Amaris bulks the left side of her mouth with her tongue. "You're lying. You're just blowing smoke up my ass." The two of them have become attached to their tango of lies it seems, but he's keeping one foot stuck out so she can trip over it, collapsing into a heap on the floor, scraping both of her knees. She's worked with some deplorable Peacekeepers in her heyday, but she's seem to have gone on her last excursion the moment the escort draws her name out of the Reaping bowl.
"No, I'm not." Ponty's jaw locks, and his eyes blaze a soulful wildfire over in the corner.
"Ponty, I physically can't stand you," Amaris slinks closer over to him, still shivering. Perhaps she's asking to be slaughtered right here in this jacket, feet frozen solid by the wooden floor, but she'd be welcoming it, the change of pace, the feeling of blood pumping through her body to try and keep her alive. It wouldn't work. "And you physically can't stand me, so it's best we don't lie to each other about how we feel."
"I don't see why I can't tell you that the Capitol loves you." he looks at her, moving his hands up with a frown. She can only see his eyes clearly in the shadows, but she can tell he has tensed up. One hand absentmindedly goes back to her belt where she'd keep her gun, coming up empty, fingers grasping for nothingness. Of course. Why would she still have her gun? They stole that from her too, along with her freedom. The they? Amaris isn't sure. "You scored unbelievably high, the audience ate your interview up, you're a Peacekeeper who is strong and can clearly fight... you don't have to be such a bitch." Ponty shakes his head in disdain.
She absorbs what he's said, but she doesn't listen to it. "Well, if the entire world could stop thinking you and I would be some sort of power couple, I'd appreciate it."
Why is that the case? She does not like him and he doesn't like her! She tries to choke him out in their first encounter, and on their second, he slams a staff against her face. It doesn't exactly speak a match made in heaven, does it? Ponty's tone i sarcastic, telling, dripping with liquidous venom, the same tint as his eyes, she physically seeing it ebb off of him. "If you could stop pretending to be something you're not, I'd appreciate it too."
Amaris barks a harsh laugh. Pretending? Pretending about what? "What are you talking about?" He removes himself from his spot on the wall, walking back into the light, she taken a bit aback by his appearance, dark sunken in lines pulling his face towards the floor, and her next reply is a bit softer than what she wishes for. She is a strong person, an O'Hara who does not balk in the face of danger or opposition; Amaris certainly does not pretend. "I'm not pretending anything."
"Just because you're a Peacekeeper doesn't make automatically an evil unlikeable person," Ponty says. It is clear he must be high on something. "It's what you do with the position, and you've already told me you take pleasure in killing people, and-"
"Guilty ones, Ponty! I only kill evil people! Guilty ones!" Amaris shouts at him, interrupting Ponty, and probably waking the entire damn floor, but who cares. She has to get this off of her chest, she has to tell him, tell the world, but it doesn't come out on stage, with Pollux bearing down on her. "I don't just go and kill innocents!" The idea of actually pulling a trigger and shooting of a mother of five, pregnant with a sixth on the way, it nearly has her throw up all over Ponty's dress shoes. It is why she refuses the offer the Careers give her, as she can see the dimming light in Aris's eyes. He takes a joy in the death of someone like Audhild, and she's already shed enough blood back in Six and Eleven. "Ever since I was a little girl, I knew something was off about me."
"Yeah, psychosis, Amaris," Ponty says.
"Shut up, Ponty, I'm serious!" her face burns in frustration. He just doesn't listen! "You know they always say someone has to experience trauma at home to feel like they've got a vendetta to pay, but I have a good home life. Why did I feel angry? Why did I want to hurt people?" That feeling has lingered in her system ever since she had been about six or seven, seeing the violence of the Games on the screen for the first time, it being actually Kevia Janelle's victory, the throat of some outer district tribute being sliced open that sends a rivet of excitement to her arms. "It's why I joined the Peacekeepers, getting to express that hurt onto those that actually deserved it, on those who've stolen or killed or murdered, and I've been a good soldier about it too."
Ponty's eyebrows rise up in disbelief, he leaning physically towards her. "Do you hear yourself, Amaris? Do you have any idea how psychotic that sounds?!"
"I'm just doing my job!" Amaris shakes her head. She's asked by the Head Peacekeeper of Six to hunt down criminals and freedom fighters, but she takes no pleasure in it as some of her comrades, quelling the desire for a mass murder spree, but Ponty'll never get it, he'll never understand, being stuck in his precious bubble of blowing stained glass and money. "I know you can't possibly understand that or where I'm coming from."
He sneers at her, such a hateful look, it rippling through her. "You hate me because I don't fear you, that I'm not one of those people you hunt down and interrogate and torture."
"I don't hate you-" she tries correcting him.
"You're lying to me! Face the fucking facts, Amaris!" he roars at her, getting directly in her face. She takes a step back in shock, startled by the outburst. He is genuinely a big guy, seeing his anger full front a jolt of electricity to the system, the hair on her arms standing up on end. It has always been in controlled, quelled bursts, like her own, not expanded freely. "No one here likes you because you're evil! No one here likes you because of what you've said and what you've done!"
"It's who I am!" Amaris shouts back at him, but deep down, the O'Hara secrecy unlocks itself, and she feels the tears starting to spring forth. Is that what she is? Evil? A monster?
She has no idea what is running through Ponty's head, the way all of a sudden his brow falls back down, hands laxing to his sides, and he falling back onto the wooden pillar, staying in the light, and the next time he speaks, his voice is quieter than she's ever heard it. "You can change. You don't have to be like this, Amaris."
"No I can't. I can't change who I am, Ponty." She is a girl with the desire to bring harm to those around her, and the Peacekeepers have given her an outlet. No one else suffers, she takes her paycheck, fires the clips in the round offered to her, and she goes home for the day. There's nothing else on top of that, the added necessity of identity or the possibility of her faking it. He's on some sort of drug, Amaris backing away a few steps. She should have never gotten up and out of bed. She should've stayed asleep, with the vision of her last charge peppered with bullet holes, lying on the floor of the interrogation room, the pistol she holding onto still smoking forever tattooed to her eyelids, as she's seen that for the last three weeks straight, unable to dream about anything else.
"Why do you still do it? You served the Capitol faithfully for years, yet they still kept you in the reaping bowl," Ponty's hands rise and fall against his legs. "You weren't even in District 6 for half the time, and yet they still made you come back every year." He rubs at his brow, his breathing calm and collected, his chest slowly rising and falling. "I heard you, when you were reaped. You were pissed, you couldn't believe it." Ponty leeches himself away again, walking directly over to her, no longer keeping the inherent knowledge in effect. "All you've done, and Bonnie has spit in your face. They didn't even try to disguise it."
"You have no idea what you're talking about," Amaris rasps, but she's too late to stop the tears that trickle down her face.
"You can drop it, Amaris. You don't have to pretend to be someone you're not," he says calmly, keeping his eyes on her. "You don't have to be their slave any longer, cause clearly they won't fight for you when you are fighting for them." Ponty picks her hands up in his, his hands surprisingly warm, hers ice cold. "Amaris, they're going to kill you."
"You... you're just messing with my head-" she shakes her head back and forth. This is him trying to get to her drop her guard before he stabs her, or something. This is a ruse. A magical conjurers trick. Not- not the truth.
"I can help, Amaris. I can help you."
"No," she drops his hands. "No, you can't." Her voice cracks once more, Amaris inhaling sharply. "You can't help me."
"I can. I know who and what you are," he insists, but she's backing away from him, nearly falling over herself.
"That's impossible, Ponty." Amaris turns away from him without a second thought, one of his hands gently touching her shoulder, but she doesn't stop to let him try and convince her of even more lies. She steps back onto the elevated spot, pausing before she rounds the corner, and there's the inevitable look of heartbreak on his face, and there are tears streaming down both of their faces. Amaris chokes on an anguished sob. "No one knows who I am."
The divide between the two of them deepens, and her heart slams shut, never allowing another soul in, her dreams of survival buried underneath her booted heel.
Well everyone... *shaky breath* that was Chapter #21: Dreams of Survival, and I can't tell you how many times I cried while writing that, I lost track. I fucking love these tributes, I swear it, holy hell. So a lot just went down, more than anything I think in a tribute chapter, and it is still not as long as the Interviews, but pretty darn close haha, and there's less P.O.V's too! Satin, Aris, Seth, Jason, Vivian, and Amaris have had their second point of view, and so much has become unearthed out of their backgrounds, their storylines, and I am making sure the aftershock effects of each earthquake rumble underneath your feet, because God, the canvases I was given to work with are incredible.
Next chapter, which actually I don't think will be 14k, probably somewhere between 9-11k is the last six tributes we haven't gotten to hear from yet for their second go around, and it is really just a process of elimination: Magdalena, Roanoke, Bloom, Jules, Ciphra, and Vanya is the order I'll be going in and that means we're so close, we're so close I can taste it. Please, oh please review, I think this might be the best chapter I've ever written in my life - I say it too often - and I also know I bet opinions on tributes are switching everywhere. I cannot wait to see you all again for Chapter #22: Partisan in Death, and things will explode even more, and I promise, the dramatics and the crying won't be as heavy next time. I love you all so much! Bye!
~ Paradigm