XXXVII: The Capitol - Training Center.
Pandora Quinn, 31
President of Panem
The room was far too dark for her liking.
This is the room they had always done it in, as far as she knew. It was in all the record books. They used to have a note-taker of sorts, somehow who would write down the President's remarks, comments and critiques on the rudimentary first draft of the cut that they received.
This, she knew, was the final product. Pandora was not going to send it away to be re-done time and time again; even at its worst, the cut would still be at full effectiveness, serving its purpose in showing the audience the worst of what had just transpired. In past years she knows they had shown some of the good, too—the most heartfelt of moments, the warm embraces and hands reaching for each other in the throes of death.
It was different, now. None of them were to be afforded the nice things after what they had allowed to happen.
Pandora refuses to sit; her skin is crawling as she watches it all over again, listening to the screams and the wet splatter of blood, dripping from fingertips and down temples. From her position she has a clear view of the dozens of delegates seated around the main table, eyes riveted to the too-large screen at the head of the room. In her half-focus she had allowed herself to lose track of what it was showing now, what placements they had passed. It all blended into one after a while.
This was the cut at its most gruesome. Unpolished it may be, but that was precisely the point.
Having so many of the delegates in one room, their eyes all reflecting back the same horror, was proving, if nothing else, that the Games had done their job. So many of them had expressed interest in enacting the Games on their own people, ridding the earth entirely of its less wanted members, but now Pandora wasn't so sure. Talking about the Games was one thing, but watching them, well… that tended to do a fair job in opening people's eyes—literally.
She realizes she's also lost track of the time, unable to place where the video could even be. Across the room, standing in the opposite corner is Khia, whose eyes are glued to the screen, enraptured. Or, Pandora can't help but think, it's different for children of the Districts to watch this again when they could have so easily been subjected to it. Khia wanted to be in here—her own words—but that doesn't mean Pandora likes it any more than she has to.
She catches her Vice President's eye at long last, offering a reassuring smile. Awake? she mouths, trying not to deflate when Khia shakes her head. Surely it can't take that much for their victor to open their eyes.
Regardless, she'll be waiting. Pandora doesn't have much of a choice. She wants to see the aftermath and be through with it once and for all—she wants the delegates to see what has been left behind in the wake of so much death and destruction. For however long it takes, she will be here waiting. That's the choice she committed herself to when she allowed this to happen.
Pandora closes her eyes as the screen, so deeply fixated on three bloody children lying along their own avenue, finally fades. Hiding behind her own eyelids is no different than refusing to face the darkness that has fallen like a shroud over the entire room. She waits only until the silence passes, many of the delegates shifting uncomfortably around the table.
Otherwise, she hears hardly more than an exhaled breath. Relief.
It's over.
Even through her eyelids Pandora recognizes the signs of the lights being turned back on, and opens them to find many of the members around the table watching her. On-screen the cut has restarted but Khia puts a halt to it quick enough, ending the video before the beginning title screen even has a chance to appear.
"And that's what's going to be shown at the final interview?" questions one of the delegates. Pandora flips through the dozens of names and faces she's committed to memory—from Germany, she's certain. Amory, if her mind serves her right. To his right, the woman from Romania looks vaguely nauseated as if this is her first time seeing such things. Slowly, with increasing clarity, Pandora begins to realize that many of them look exactly the same. Certainly no one looks pleased about what they've just sat down to watch.
"It is," she agrees. "There is a final cut made of every Games to be displayed at the victor's final interview, later memorialized in tape-form to be made available to the Capitolian public—the entire public, this time, if they so wish to acquire one."
"As if anyone would want one," the Indian delegate scoffs, brows pinched together. She looks downright offended by the idea.
Pandora thinks back to the triad of boxes her father kept in his office, each one filled with fifty-odd tapes. One for every Games. Her own stomach rolls, but it's brief. She's long since accepted the sins of their past—her attempt to atone for them now must make that clear. This is the end; Pandora is making sure of it this time.
"You'd be surprised," Pandora says. "It was common for many high-standing members of society to have entire collections devoted to the Games' tapes."
"But it's only the worst of them," Amory says slowly. "Why would anyone…"
She owes the Gamemakers the largest thanks she may have ever handed out—not only did they put the final cut together in record time, but they made it one of the most brutal that Pandora's ever seen. A few particular camera angles, highlighting the most gruesome of scenes, lingering on things just a heartbeat too long for anyone to forget them… well, it would be enough to turn even the most bloodthirsty people away from the idea of holding their own Games.
So she hopes, anyway.
"That was the way," Pandora says. "Was."
It rings like a chant around the room despite the lack of an echo. She has made herself very clear—Panem is moving on. Though she wants to vocalize that they must do the same, such insistence has never worked, at least not from experience. The people that came before her resorted to such measures, using their prowess and status to get what they wanted. It worked for some time, too—almost too long, but that wasn't for Pandora to say back then.
She still can't help but wonder if her father would have been the same way had he lasted more than a few scant days with the title.
"Can I still expect all of you at the final interview?" she questions, looking around the room. It's far too easy to notice how unnerved they all look, uncomfortably so. No one has any desire to watch the cut again, let alone see the victor right before their eyes and come face-to-face with the trauma that they've brought out with them. Pandora was merely a teenager when her mother brought her to the final interview of Emori Arker, whose spirit and snark remained unbroken despite the invisible blood that still tainted her hands.
This will not be anywhere close to the same, she knows already.
"As long as it's soon," one of the other men says. "Many of us have business to return to back home."
"Of course. We'll try our best to expedite the process."
Although she doesn't have the desire to, Pandora must admit that it's for the best. The quicker they get this over with, the faster they move on. It will take some time—more than people think.
She can't help but be relieved that so many of them are practically chomping at the bit to leave this place and return to their own homes. Hopefully that can only mean good things for the future. Prosperous things, peaceful things. They can leave this violence and bloodshed where it belongs—in the past.
Naive it may be, but Pandora will gladly take naivety over what's been displayed on that screen.
The Victor of the Last Hunger Games
The cold drifting across their skin is alarming.
After so long spent so warm, sweltering, sweating, it almost hurts. The cold is not their friend anymore; all they know is that heat. It became their home.
Worst of all, more than the heat or the cold or anything else, is the blistering pain they can recall igniting in their body, like dozens of matches lit from within, scalding them from the inside out. It hadn't been long after that when they had gone numb all over, unfeeling and almost calm, like they were resigned to their fate.
It's that same calmness that spreads over them now. Everything is fuzzy around them, a gentle off-white that hurts their eyes but is so welcoming after all of the red—red from the fire and the sky and the blood, so much blood. The white of their arena outfit had been unpleasant at first, and they thought surely they would hate the color afterward, but they can't bring themselves to now.
It can only mean one thing, though, and that one thing doesn't make an ounce of sense. They remember being on the ground, the heat and the blood the only things they could presently feel. The mannequins lurked around them, getting ever so closer, curiosity in their glassy, dead eyes. They remember thinking they were going to die—worst, they remember closing their eyes long before a cannon had ever sounded.
Ilaria… well, she doesn't remember winning.
She won?
It doesn't seem plausible, but as she blinks away some of the sleep from her eyes she realizes her body feels light as a cloud, drifting through a clear sky with nothing around to float through it and ruin the image. Ilaria has never felt that way before, so at peace and so calm. Her eyes fall on the tape and needle and tube leading away from her arm, clear liquid as it drips from the bag suspended by her head. Her arm is scarred, marred by numerous white lines that cut through her bronzed skin all the way to her fingers, which are miraculously there again. She remembers in stark contrast the white of bone against her own blood as they were severed, as the axe came down time and time again. Ilaria had been so certain…
"Oh," a voice says. "Miss Landucci! You're awake."
She blinks. A white-clad nurse has peeled back the curtain in front of her to peer in, arched eyebrows nearly disappearing into her hairline.
"Hello?" she croaks, wincing at the pain in her throat. The nurse flutters about for a moment before she disappears back beyond the curtain.
"I'll be back in just a moment!" she calls. "Stay put!"
Ilaria doesn't think she has much of a choice in that—though she stretches out both legs and arms and they work, the tingling that overcomes them all is a brand new situation. She curls her fingers into her palms, frowning at the weakness as she digs her nails into her palms. That's to be expected, of course, but it still stings.
A moment turns into several long minutes, and Ilaria turns to watch whatever medicine's in the bag by her head drip drip away. Nothing at all hurts, not even what must be her recently re-attached fingers. By some miracle everything has been brought back to some uncompromising state of normalcy even despite the scars that line her body.
When the curtain is drawn open once again Ilaria suspects nothing more than the nurse—who is there indeed, but lingering behind another figure of nearly the same size. Emmi, her brain registers, a glass of water held tightly in her hand. Ilaria tries her best to smile, aware that it comes out more like a grimace, but manages something more real when Emmi gives the nurse a look with narrowed eyes and yanks the curtain shut between them.
The two of them are cocooned in here, the light fainter. Emmi uses a remote by the bedside to raise her a few inches before she passes over the glass of water.
The silence isn't even awkward. There are enough machines beeping to break it occasionally; it's almost nice not to worry about something, if only for a moment. Ilaria has been worrying for so long, in one way or another.
"I don't have any experience with this," Emmi finally says, elbow braced on Ilaria's bedside. "I'm not sure what to do."
"Me neither," she says quietly, earning a snort from Emmi.
"Guess we'll be learning together, then."
Ilaria nods. Emmi being at a loss for what to do in this situation is comforting in its own right. Being lost is no fun if there isn't someone lost with you.
"I won," she says at long last, though it doesn't quite seem real. "How did I win?"
"You were both unconscious. They reckon you had another minute in you when Two died, if that. You just happened to outlast him."
There was no blaze of glory, no moment where Ilaria stood on her own two feet, reclaiming once and for all her freedom. Instead she was nothing more than a broken girl laid out on the ground, dying and sobbing and giving in just like a child would. Of course she lived after that—they need their explanations, their final words. They'll want to know why the girl they fawned over was almost reduced to nothing.
"Thanks for the help," Ilaria says, trying not to think too deeply about it.
"It was mostly you."
"Well thanks for the nice dinner, then."
"I guess I could take credit for the fork," Emmi says slowly. "Nice one, by the way."
The image is still fresh in her sluggish mind, Milo's cheek tearing away and opening up beneath such a silly little weapon, stabbing in deeper until it scraped against his teeth and tongue, made him bleed from the inside out. She was lucky she had it, of course, though she would have preferred anything else.
"I'm sure they'll give you a few hours, but they really want to hurry along this whole interview thing," Emmi tells her. "Just to warn you."
Of course they do. Her respite will be brief. Ilaria finds herself nodding along anyway—she can do nothing more than accept it. Besides, the quicker she does her interview the quicker she can get back to Six, to Ceto. Maybe she'll pack them both up and find a nicer place, somewhere on the outskirts of Four along the ocean where no one can ever hurt either of them.
First she has to get through it, though. Her enamored prep-team and her stylist with his wandering hands. She'll be dressed up like a provocative doll much like she was the first time—anything to save her image, even if that's the last thing Ilaria truly wants.
Just a little bit longer of playing along. That's all she has to do. She'll let them dress her up and make her pretty and do anything to erase what the arena did to her.
"The scars," she says suddenly. "Why did they…"
Emmi shrugs. "Guess they wanted to give you some agency for once. If you want them gone—"
"No, no," Ilaria interrupts. "I don't… I don't mind them."
They make her look dangerous. Unsettling, in a way. Of course everyone will know where they came from, but still no one will want to know the intimate details. Ilaria never thought she would welcome something that many would say ruin her.
She's more herself ruined than she ever was before.
Ilaria leans back into the pillow and closes her eyes, taking in those last few tranquil moments. There's no use wasting time in laying here; if she had it her way, she would remain here forever and let the drugs take away the worst of the memories, the bloody ruin of an open throat, a sword buried deep in someone's chest, her own stomach torn open and seeping.
If only that was how the world worked.
"Hey," Emmi says quietly. "You did good, you know that?"
She wills her eyes not to water. It's genuine in that Emmi-deadpan sort of way, the one that she was beginning to grow accustomed to before. Ilaria thought for a moment that she was becoming the villain, someone so unredeemable that the world wouldn't take her back.
But she did do good, didn't she? Ilaria hopes so.
"Thanks," she murmurs, finally deciding to stretch her hand out after a moment. She senses hesitation before Emmi takes it, something still so unsure in the way they have to navigate this. She's not even that much older than Ilaria, really—they've both faced so much trauma in such a short amount of time, and now they're due to get through the last of it together.
She would have it no other way, really.
"You ready to get up?" Emmi asks, still holding onto her hand. Ilaria gives it one last squeeze before she pulls away, opening her eyes.
She takes a deep breath. "I'm ready."
Emmi Langlois, 20
District Six Mentor
To think she liked the Capitol in her childhood.
It's an absolute cesspool now.
It may have always been for all she knows. Emmi has never been in the Training Center before, after all, or the prep rooms. Not the gymnasium or the amphitheater where the final interview will be held. She never got such luxury, no—she was simply tossed out into the desert by people who never should have had the right and left to rot.
She liked fashion once upon a time, too. Maybe her new home, far out in the middle of nowhere, has removed some of that from Emmi's life. She can't be picky about it out there, but here she at least finds some minor appreciation for the many gowns that flash past her, the elegant suits of every color.
But that is where her appreciation ends.
Ilaria is a piece of meat to them. They look at her like she belongs in the window of a store, all prettied-up, never to be touched. She's only there to be admired. It's as if they've forgotten what she did in that arena, the carnage she left in her wake.
Emmi doesn't think that she could have done this had their positions been reversed. She would have been spitting obscenities by now, uncooperative as she could possibly be. They had no right to do any of this—just because Ilaria had volunteered didn't mean she was property. Their ownership was not a right, not a guarantee. What they thought they had over her would end after tonight.
It was going to be ugly, though. Brutally ugly. Emmi still couldn't believe they were doing this to her.
She couldn't believe she was allowing it.
What choice did Emmi have in the grand scheme of things, though? She was measly compared to the people making all of the decisions. The little bit of a relationship that she had with Pandora was damned at this point. She thought she had grown used to people making decisions far above her head, where they flew so high that Emmi couldn't touch them no matter how high she stretched, but this was different. She had the urge to intervene, to shatter their decisions with one closed fist.
But she couldn't. All she could do was stand here back-stage and wait; even that was pushing it. They wanted her sitting out in the audience with the rest of them to watch the meltdown in real-time.
They could force everything else to happen around her, but not that. She would stay back here for as long as she damn well liked. What would they do about it? The Peacekeepers could ask ever so nicely, but she wasn't going to listen. Judging by their ramrod postures and averted eyes whenever they tucked their helmets under their arms they were unnerved by her mere presence. Apparently a Capitol child with a few kills under her belt scares them more than a kid with training who crawled out from the railyards in Six. They never did make any sense, did they?
Two of them flank her the whole while until Ilaria shows up as if they're somehow convinced Emmi is going to agree to be escorted out into the audience. Another handful are at her back as if Ilaria is going to run away.
She would, if she knew what was coming. Emmi thinks they all would if they were given a choice.
Though she would like to, Emmi can't discredit the work they've put into making Ilaria truly beautiful, a far cry from the girl that had been wandering the arena alone, spattered with her own blood, her only friend the sword she kept close-by. Predictably she's dressed all in white, hair pulled up with a few stray curls framing her face to draw attention to her bare shoulders, bronzed arms on full display. The scars do something to accentuate all of the skin they've left unclothed—in the very least it mars some of the obvious beauty they were certainly going for, and she knows Ilaria must admire that.
Hell, Emmi does too. She knows all about collecting scars like they're trophies and having to wear them for everyone to see. She didn't get such a choice in removing them.
"It'll be over before you know it," Emmi says, though the lie tastes better on her tongue. This is just the beginning, really. Still, it's better than commenting on her looks—that would be undoubtedly worse.
"Sure will," Ilaria agrees, though her voice is strained. Her eyes flicker uneasily to where Edolie has taken the stage, already revving up the crowd.
"Remember, they already love you," Emmi adds. "You don't have to do anything else but be the same as you were."
Easier said than done, she knows, but she has no advice other than that to give. She's never done this before. Once upon a time Emmi thinks she would have thrived under the circumstance of an interview, but she's not so sure anymore. Still, it's quite nice to pretend that she'd be all easy smiles, able to produce a conversation full of intrigue and comfort all at the same time.
Ilaria runs her hands over her bare arms, poised just where the back of the stage ends, and Emmi steps forward. "This is stupid," she decides, quickly shrugging out of her jacket. She knows precisely why they've put her in it—the Capitol hates anything different than what it normally sees. It hated her when it was young and it still does now. Her missing forearm is ugly, to them, and never to be anything more. Even though one of the Peacekeepers is eyeing her when she removes it, she wastes no time in draping it over Ilaria's shoulders, and Ilaria wastes none either in clutching at the edges of it, bringing it further around her front.
"What about—"
"Fuck them," Emmi decides. "You don't need the angle anymore."
They won't like this, but open rebellion isn't so much criminal anymore as it is commonplace. If they don't like it, they'll manage to survive.
Ilaria reaches forward to squeeze her hand just like she did in the hospital bed, only for a moment. "Thanks," she murmurs, before her heels are doing that traditional click-clack along the slick floor, all the way until she emerges from the back-stage to a roar of thunderous applause, the lights above turning her into a golden mirage.
She can do this; Emmi believes that. She just wishes it was going to be different. She wishes she could have said something.
The Peacekeepers are here for a reason, after all.
Emmi stays as close as she can to the edge of the stage while the interview kicks off. For the most part it seems like they're just going through the motions—Edolie comments on the jacket while Ilaria excuses it as a last minute addition and the two of them go back and forth for only a few minutes. It's only a matter of time until the lights dim, though, and she straightens almost at the same time Ilaria does as the screen flickers to life.
She remembers watching these when she was young, never quite taking in the most gruesome details the way you were meant to. Now that she's experienced them, though, it hits her in a way she doesn't expect. Watching Ilaria, too, only confirms the fact that she's not alone in this—none of them ever are. They've all been traumatized in a way they truly never asked for, volunteer or not. No one would want this for themselves if they had a real choice in the matter.
Ilaria does not falter, though, at least not outwardly. She sits just as straight as before, the perfect image of posture and grace, something refined in her that she just knows is being faked. The video ends faster than she could have expected, almost as if moved along by hyper-speed. Perhaps someone is just looking down on them all, willing them to get through this.
Even they can't stop the worst of it, though. Edolie reaches over to pat Ilaria's knee, unwanted and unwarranted. She can't help but tune out whatever Edolie says next, taking a deep breath in preparation for the rest of it. In theory, it should be almost over with. They should let her get off this stage so that she can get a good night's rest and then take off in the morning for Six, or wherever the hell she wants to go.
The worst part is, Emmi's just as much at fault as the rest of them. She let this happen. She agreed to participate in it.
She didn't expect to feel so bad about it.
"That was nice of you," someone says behind her—someone, but she knows exactly who it is. "Giving her your jacket."
"Someone had to," she murmurs, hardly focused on it. The numerous presences suddenly appearing behind her are overwhelming, but to be expected. They're right on time. She remains fixated as Edolie keeps talking, droning on and on and on until she can no longer resist what are sure to be the last words she gets out for a good, long while.
"Now, we do have a bit of a surprise, not just for our newest victor, but for all of you as well! If you all would so kindly turn your head towards stage left…"
Right where she's standing. Before Emmi steps back, she watches Ilaria's eyebrows furrow, eyes narrowing to mere slits as she turns her head. They're really doing this to her. They had no right, not any of them.
Emmi should have apologized before she sent her out there, but it's too late now. It's too late to do much of anything, really.
She's not a pleader. Emmi would never get down on her knees and beg, not for anything. But if someone told her right here, right now, that she could look up and pray with guaranteed results, she'd do it. You wouldn't even have to tell her twice. To make sure that all of this somehow turned out alright, she'd do anything.
But there's not anything out there—she's looked.
It's just them that's left.
?
Something has gone wrong.
He's lost. Disoriented. Without an identity, it feels.
The only thing that makes even an ounce of sense is the pressure at both of his arms; he's not restrained, no, but they're impossibly heavy. All of him is, really, but his eyes open the same as they always do. He could be anywhere for all he knows, but it's the faintly beeping monitor to his right that offers the real clue—a line bobs up and down with the rhythm of his heart, so steady it's almost unnerving. It feels like it ought to be off-kilter.
He doesn't waste any time. His body protests each movement but he forces himself up into a sitting position, eyeing the needles that stick out of both arms, scratching his fingers under the left until both the bandage and the IV rip free, tearing through layers of skin until a thin trail of blood snakes down his arm and onto the sheets below him.
Hospital. That's where he is.
Why? He doesn't know.
When he swings his legs over the edge of the bed everything spins violently, the fog in his head refusing to dissipate no matter how many good, firm shakes he gives it. Doesn't matter, does it? He doesn't hurt, not the way he should… he should hurt, right? It would only make sense.
He pulls the other IV out and lets the tube hang loose to the floor, watching blood soak into the loose, white cotton of his pants. Just like the arena. Blood on white. The plastic entrapment around his finger follows, and the machine lets out a deafening, unending wail—he stretches out a foot to yank the plug out of the wall, heart hammering in his chest as it falls silent.
No one comes running. Any second now he expects to hear footsteps, for the curtain to be ripped aside. Someone is going to come get him.
When he stands, though, legs quaking beneath the rest of his weight, nothing happens at all. The only noise is the steady patter of his blood as it drips along the floor, over his bare feet. The tiles are cold—too cold, and they refuse to warm even when he pulls the curtain back with unsteady fingers to peer outside, more nothingness spread out before him. An entire row of drawn curtains on either side, the glaring white of the hall and the buzzing overhead lights like gnats in the shell of his ear.
There's something else there, too, the tinny sound of a too-old television, voices and applause drifting down the hall. He has no idea where he is other than hospital but he knows it's out of place, knows it shouldn't be here.
His fingers itch to pull back the curtains that he drifts past. Hardly audible breathing reaches his ears—not his own. There are others here. He's not the only one. He forces himself further, towards the source of the noise, a box of a television hidden behind a glass-walled office at the very end of the hall. A bright red exit sign flashes further and he feels the desire to run, to make his feet cooperate. He needs to get away.
The door is slightly ajar and hardly makes a sound when he pushes it open, the television flickering just in front of him. The chair poised in front of it is still warm to the touch; whoever was just here left not long ago. Perhaps that's why he's gone unnoticed for so long.
He knows he shouldn't be here, and not just for any old reason. A trail of blood winds all the way behind him as his fingers gently touch the television, static bursting beneath his fingers. He knows that place, knows that stage. He sat in one of those chairs not long ago.
And there she is. The girl that put a sword through his chest.
The girl… the girl that killed him.
It's exactly what he thinks again, but still so wrong. A moment later, it's not just her. There are more faces, more figures emerging from the darkness towards the left of the stage. The answering gasps from the crowd echo around the office, so loud. Too loud. As the numerous spotlights find each and every one of them he feels his blood run cold, each one only serving to make him even more unsteady than he was before.
"Pretty sure you're not supposed to be up and about, man," a voice says behind him, followed by a little tut. "Your arms aren't looking so good."
Blood seeps into the cracks of his palms, drips off his fingertips onto the ground below. The figure behind him continues to loom, the voice vaguely recognizable but oh so different at the same time, an unfamiliar lilt to it. Not a single part of him wants to turn around; his eyes can hardly leave the faces he's found on the television screen, the shock and awe on the girl's face as she gets up from her chair, shaking vaguely. Just like he is.
Milo forces himself to turn around, and in the doorway Varrik Varnett grins. "Surprise."
His knees quake. He very nearly crumples to the floor. Varrik braces an arm against the doorframe and reaches out with his other, fingers pressing in a bright red button alongside the door. A moment later an alarm of some sort blares throughout the hall, some sort of code… an announcement, and whatever it is can't be good.
"I wouldn't panic if I were you," Varrik says, sounding almost as if he's about to laugh. "They're only trying to help. They clearly don't want us dead…"
And he doesn't think. Milo only takes off, slamming Varrik aside to make room, and then there's nothing but the wide, open hall in front of him, his blood leading him away from what's coming.
Whatever it is.
His desire to tear the curtains open as he bolts past grows tenfold. They weren't all out there, and that can only mean that some of them are still down here with him, down here like Varrik is, like him. If she's out there on that stage, that can only mean one thing: Milo isn't meant to be alive. He was second, he… he didn't win at all. Fuck, he didn't win and now he's here and he shouldn't be, there's no way, they can't do this—
He rounds a corner, finally, just in time for the set of doors at the very end to burst open. Two Peacekeepers appear, uniforms so eerily white it feels like he's back in the arena again, surrounded by it. There weren't any guns back there, though, but there's certainly one in each of their hands, both pointed right at him. They won't shoot him, right? Milo almost wishes they would.
They're both shouting at him, but he can't even make out any of their words. His feet slip-slide in the blood he leaves behind, soaking into the very ends of his pants as he skids to a halt. If he keeps moving they'll shoot him.
Isn't that what he wants?
Milo can't even consider taking a step forward before someone is on him, up against his back, arms wrapping around him like a vice. His own are crushed to his sides, body lighting up with fresh pain as they yank him back, flush together. No matter how much he squirms he can feel his body weakening, the fragility behind it all. It's like he's fading no matter how much he strives to keep his eyes open and he hates it, this weakness, but isn't that exactly what's deserved of a second placer? Of someone who should be dead?
"Take it easy, take it easy," someone tries, and it's Blair that's behind him, who's holding onto him. Despite knowing immediately that it's futile he keeps kicking, elbows digging back, struggling to find purchase to get himself away. If Blair's here, seemingly so unsurprised, then he knew. He knew Milo was here, that this was going to happen.
"Would someone fucking get something?"
He can hardly move. The guns are still trained on him. There are a number of answering shouts but he isn't able to make sense of them before there's one, louder than the others.
"Hold him still," a voice requests. "His head, please."
Before he can react one of Blair's arms comes up, his hand jammed beneath Milo's chin as he wrenches his head back. There's no moving anymore, his legs hardly able to find purchase as someone's hand descends towards his neck. "You're okay," Blair forces out through gritted teeth, still with that iron grip. Funny, because he doesn't feel okay.
He doesn't feel much of anything when the needle pierces his neck, a sharp pinch before a grand field of nothingness overtakes him, weightlessness as whatever drug they've forced into his system takes over within seconds. He goes slack in Blair's grip, legs like gelatin, the tile like ice as they go down, the cold leaching through his clothes and digging deep into his bones.
"It's okay," he hears again, but he's not sure if it's Blair or someone else as he's lowered to the floor, hands cradled beneath his head before his skull slips against the tile. Everything is foggy, now, gentle as it drifts around him. Suddenly it doesn't matter that there are hands prodding at him, so many voices floating around him…
"Check on the others—"
"Bring me some gauze, please—"
A huff, a brief chortle, and then: "Get him out of here."
Overhead he thinks he sees a flash of Varrik's face through flickering eyes before he's tugged away, looking particularly curious about the sudden change of events. A hand flits over his arm, fingers pressing into one of the holes he's ripped through his skin.
He feels paralyzed all over again like when she put that sword in him in the first place. Something like darkness passes over him even though his eyes are open, a silhouette that descends closer and closer, about to collapse into him…
For a moment, he wonders if whatever they've given him was supposed to kill him. Death would be an easier explanation than this.
Besides, his heart stops anyway.
She leans over him, a picturesque shadow. If he could move, he'd want to get away. Milo is left to lie there, a puppet with its strings cut, all sewn-together arms and legs and moving parts that don't work anymore.
Donatella leans over him. Smiles, but it's almost sad.
She's real.
"Close your eyes, Milo," she requests and stupidly, he listens.
He goes under.
Hahaha.
Until next time.