Blinding Shadows. The 78th Games.
VIII. A Prisoner's Dilemma.
All I needed was the last thing I wanted
To sit alone in a room and say it all out loud
Every moment, every second, every trespass
Every awful thing, every broken dream
A couple o' years back and forth with myself in a cage
Banging my head 'gainst the wall, trying to put words on a page
All I needed was the last thing I wanted
To be alone in a room, alone in a room
Scorpius Styx. 19.
Capitol Prisoner.
✦✦✦
Scorpius Styx has been in prison for eleven months, one week, three days,s four hours, seventeen minutes, and thirty-one seconds. Thirty-two. Thirty-three seconds. But who's counting?
He certainly is.
It's not like Scorpius can do much else. Unless he wants to lay on his back and stare up at the prison ceiling, wondering why the hell he was dragged out of the arena with half a heartbeat instead of being left to bleed out while the nation cheered Empira Montussy's name again and again.
He remembers what one of the doctors had told him when he woke up, "We're keeping you alive because soon you'll have a purpose for us." At the time, Scorpius was thrilled about the prospect, but now that he's spent almost a year of his life behind bars, he doesn't particularly want to have any sort of "purpose" for the abhorrent bastards that locked him up.
He's pretty sure that his "purpose" was served the moment his false cannon fired and he was declared dead to the world. Scorpius isn't particularly fond of the fact he's sooner or later doomed to be a weapon; he did enough of that back in Two.
But then again, it's not like he could kill himself. It's not like he has the privilege to die the same way Empira does whenever Scorpius hears murmurs from a radio in the other room, reporting that she's had yet another public breakdown. Instead, he's confined to a seven-foot by seven-foot cemented hell with a cot he can hardly sleep in pushed against the wall. There's no blanket, and when Scorpius asked for one, they told him he couldn't have one cause then he'd be able to use it as a noose to hang himself. It's the same reason his uniform is tight-fitting and without any strings because the Capitol doesn't want him dead.
Yet they don't want him alive enough that people know about him either, and Scorpius can't blame them much for that anyway. People much rather see interviews from the second victor from the same family in District One in a row than some urban street rat from Two who lost his mind in the arena and wound up with a human heart literally in the palm of his hands. They wanted him to go insane; Scorpius knows it. The Gamemakers wanted him for entertainment until they declared him irredeemable to the public, and now he sits in prison-like a loaded gun in a robber's pocket.
He sits and sits and sits 'till Gamemaker Shale's weekly visit, where she rattles her fingernails against the glass wall that shields him from the rest of the world. There's a hiss in her voice when she asks him, "How's my favorite prisoner doing?"
He thinks about telling her to shove it up her ass. She deserves that, honestly. She's the one who brought him here in the first place. But he knows better. Scorpius knows that he can't outright verbally slander her, so instead, he just raises a brow and says, "Could be better."
"Why do you say that?" Faustina Shale inquires with a smirk, or more of a grimace, really.
"Because you've got me locked up in this goddamn cell," Scorpius drawls back through gritted teeth. He leans forward against the glares at her across the width of their two feet. "I'm gonna fucking kill you. And I'd do it right now if I could. Because I'm going crazy."
"Oh?" Faustina questions mockingly, and then, with a wicked grin, she adds, "So are you mad because we did you the good deed of not letting you rot to death in that filthy arena?"
Scorpius snarls. "Yeah, bitch. Could you not tell that I literally wanted to die?" He lets that question sit for a few moments as she waits for an answer. When none comes, though, Scorpius continues on his own accord. "That's what I thought."
The next thing she says makes Scorpius' blood freeze in his veins, make his skin crawl and pinch itself from the inside out, "None of that's going to matter once you serve your purpose for us." She doesn't wait around for Scorpius to respond to that, continuing her tirade with, "Do you remember what I told you when you first came here?"
Yes, he does. Scorpius remembers every word she said to him.
"My purpose," Scorpius says softly, and he feels sick just thinking about it, "I'm just your puppet. The fuck kind of purpose is that?"
"Oh, a very valuable one," Faustina assures, or instead, she fails to do so. "The rebels' forces are growing stronger and stronger each day, you know?"
Scorpius snorts a laugh, a low, humorless sound, "And you think that I'd actually want to fight against them after you've treated me like this."
"Well, I assume you'd want to get back at your father, wouldn't you?" She inquires. "Don't you?"
"Don't fucking mention him," Scorpius hisses. His nails dig into his palms. He clenches both fists as he grits his teeth.
Saxon Styx doesn't deserve to rent space in his head. The words his father said to him growing up still ring through Scorpius' head like a broken record:
"You're a failure."
"You'll never be my real son."
"Your sister wouldn't have screwed up like this."
"It would all be easier if you were just gone..."
"Dead..."
Scorpius shuts his eyes tight, trying desperately not to picture the way Saxon would scowl at him before spitting at the ground and saying, "You're a traitor." Or worse, he thinks, the way he would have looked Scorpius in the eye when he was younger would call him a disappointment over and over with every word. "Fuck you, you're worthless."
And all because he liked the order of the Academy. All because Scorpius wanted to train for the Games. All because he wished to try to actually amount to something instead of just brooding in the corner of Two's underbelly, planning a revolution that's yet to happen.
The only rebellion Scorpius knows is the one his own father committed every night with a whip against his back and repeated insults, saying he's nothing but a bootlicker. And that's far from the truth. Scorpius Styx no longer cares for any movement or any cause besides himself.
His eyes flick back up to meet Faustina's, which is when she says, "I know you want your revenge against him."
Saxon fled to Thirteen before Scorpius could make a pulp out of him. He recognized that the Academy was making him more vital, and soon enough, he'd be able to win in a fight. A coward. Fucking afraid of his own son, the person he turned into a monster with his bare hands.
And still, as much as Scorpius yearns to see his father dead beneath his feet, he can't give Faustina the satisfaction of admitting it.
Instead, he shrugs and says, "Whatever."
Faustina laughs darkly before she shakes her head. "I suppose you won't even deny it?"
"Deny what?" Scorpius replies, a growl coming up from the base of his throat like he's choking back rage and fear and hatred.
"That you're looking forward to the day you're finally free to kill your father," she clarifies, her tone as cold and unsympathetic as steel, "That you're actually the monster everybody says you are whenever they discuss the 77th Games.
She laughs darkly like she enjoys the sight of Scorpius' face contorting from anger to pure anguish, "Because let me be honest, dear, you're not a man anymore. You're our soldier. And we'll let you stain your hands with your father's blood once you oblige by our rules."
"I refuse," Scorpius seethes lowly. His lips quiver as his knuckles turn white, "You can't make me do shit."
(If he could do anything, at this point, he would just choose to die. He's sick and tired of their bullshit and mind games and would much prefer to be free. He'd much like to be literally anywhere but here, even if that means being six feet under and covered in dirt.)
"We can let you stay in your cell until you go insane and listen to us," Faustina says, and there isn't even a hint of amusement left in her voice. Her tone is flat and devoid of all emotion.
"Fuck you," Scorpius grinds out.
He wishes so badly that there was a knife in his hand right now. He dreams that he could somehow reach through the glass and cut through her flesh, make her bleed until her eyes roll back into her skull and she dies right there on the ground. Oh, how Scorpius wishes he could slit her open, drag her bleeding body across the floor with him, watch her guts spill from the open wounds as he stands above her, and watches everything burn in his wake.
Scorpius whispers to himself, "This is why they think I'm a monster."
This is why they're keeping him locked up. Because as dangerous as he is, it's undeniable that Scorpius is helpful to the Capitol's cause. He's ruthless and bloodthirsty, despite every last effort to keep that side of himself contained.
"Say that a bit louder," Faustina beckons him.
Scorpius snarls. "Fuck you."
Faustina's laughter rings out clear through the walls and windows as the smile on her lips is twisted by the cruelty that radiates off of her so brightly that he can feel the sting of it like sunlight on his skin.
"What would your father say if he heard you talk like that? He'd try to kill you," she tells him mockingly, "And maybe you'd deserve it too."
Scorpius swallows thickly, feeling ill. He hates this. This fucking hell is what his father created. It has been. No doubt in his mind that it had always been and will forever be.
"You don't get to fucking talk like that to me."
"No?" Faustina asks, raising an eyebrow.
Scorpius grits his teeth hard and shakes his head vigorously as he speaks. He looks straight at her and growls through gritted teeth. "No," he repeats with conviction. "You don't, okay? You don't fucking own me."
"But can you really say you own yourself?"
"What he do you mean?"
"Just what I said." She says with feigned patience. "Can you honestly say you own your life, your freedom, your heart?"
He's a scrap of a human rotting in this cell. He's a piece of trash, a disgusting, filthy, worthless waste of breath that is supposed to help himself rise from the ashes of his family's terrible legacy. But no, apparently, he cannot be trusted, cannot be trusted to be himself. So here he sits, locked away, only in contact with a woman who he abhors. A woman with the freedom to turn around on her heel and say, "We'll try again next week," with a dainty wave before leaving him.
He wants to shout at her to leave him alone, tell her to just leave him alone, ask her to shut the fuck up and stop talking, but he doesn't. His vocal cords are exhausted and raw, so instead, he remains silent, glaring daggers at the window where he knows she's watching as her figure grows smaller and smaller.
The silence continues.
Eventually, he falls asleep, falling asleep with his thoughts racing and his heart hammering, and his hands trembling. His dreams are filled with black blood, red blood, grey blood; red blood dripping from a wound upon wound upon wound of a severed neck; crimson blood coating his hands like paint; crimson dripping down his fingers and dripping onto the wooden boards of the cell floor, staining it red as he watches the color drain from the man's face; crimson dripping in rivers from his wrists to ankles; crimson spilling from his mouth and nose as blood fills his eyes; crimson splattering across his shirt and clothes and hair; crimson oozing from his fingernails and running down the veins of his arms.
He's not sure who's blood it is. He's not sure whose death he craves more: his father's, Faustina's, or his own, but Scorpius Styx does know this.
As soon as he finds a way out of his cell, the Capitol better start praying.
Alone In A Room - Asking Alexandria
There you have it, our first of a few Capitol plot interludes. I'm aware that this may not make much sense now, but slowly all the pieces I've laid out both here and in the two Prologues will begin fitting together. I've got a few stories planned in this AU timeline, so hopefully you're willing to stick around and see what happens. I've always loved a good slow burn, so my Capitol plot will definitely be a long race before the final payoff. I do hope you're at least somewhat curious regarding what happens though!
Next up, we'll be hearing from our lovely cast of Tributes yet again as they begin their journey to the Capitol, which is just enthralling! I'm excited to begin the pre-Games portion of this story and write interactions between the Tributes! I'll see you soon with that chapter!