Hey everyone, I'm sorry it's taken this long to get this chapter out; it's been a difficult one to figure out. Just one more chapter after this one! Take care, and stay healthy -CM
Chapter 82- Astrid Clearwater
"I said, don't talk to me."
"Peacekeeper bitch."
I shove my hair out of my face and glare at the man in front of me, cigarette between his teeth. "Say that again, and I'll kill you where you stand."
They saw my Games; they should know. I can add him to the list of who's dead because of me.
My fault, all my fault.
"And then what? Your daddy'll save you from getting shot?"
"He's not here, and if he was, I wouldn't care. I've got nothing to lose, so shut up before I kill you."
He laughs, and drops the cigarette before grinding it under his heel. "Big talk for you."
Don't touch.
My knife is out of my bag and touching his throat before he can close his hand around my arm.
"Get your hand off of me, or I'll put my knife through your neck. I've got nothing to lose," I snap. His eyes look like Circuit's, when I had my knife in his stomach. I killed Circuit.
Instead of a scream, I can feel laughter trying to come out. It's not funny, but I can't stop it, and the man looks more stunned than he probably would have if I had screamed.
I have nothing to lose.
"Just get away," I finally choke.
The moment he backs up I shove my knife back into my bag and walk off, the people around me clearing a path. I know what they're thinking; I can still read them, every single one of them.
They're scared of me. They should be. I've got nothing to lose, and the Capitol won't kill me.
Either they think they already have or they're leaving it up to me.
They're all dead, and it's my fault.
My fault.
Panem hates me, but I don't care. President Snow, he doesn't hate me. He's watching me, I know he's watching me, and I can't get his eyes off. He's always there, just like they're all there, watching me all the time.
The fire's out, and I'm just walking on coals.
Elowyn, she was my ally, and she's dead because of me too. I used her, and left her lying there while I killed Circuit. My fault. Both of them are my fault.
Everything that's ever happened is my fault. And that's why I can't go home. I haven't been in my house in months, and Beetee doesn't care. He doesn't look for me, but I see him everywhere. Nobody cares that I don't live in my house anymore.
Maybe President Snow cares, and he thinks it's funny that I'm the one that doesn't care.
I see them all on the street, all of them avoiding looking at me straight on. They know I can kill them. Instead, they half look at me out of the corner of their eyes. Nobody cares about a bone thin victor with tangled hair. I don't care about her either anymore.
Maybe I will go back to Victor's Village tonight. Never to my house; I'll never go in there again. Not where I found them, not where the white rose is rotting on the table. I have blue silk, and I don't need anything else. Next month is the last of the Capitol deliveries from my victory, and then the whole of Panem and District 3 can forget about me completely, and I can disappear until the Games start again.
Almost a year. Almost a year since they chose me and killed me.
They should have killed me.
Tilling's still drowning me with her black and rotting hands, dragging me down under the water in the Cornucopia.
I should have gone back for her, and she's my fault too.
They're all my fault. I killed them all; I killed everyone I've ever met.
Except Beetee. I almost killed him. I don't know why I didn't.
Why couldn't I kill him?
My head doesn't hurt anymore; it just pounds with a thousand other things than a concussion. Dehydration. Hunger. Withdrawal. I'm worse off than I was in the arena, but I don't care. I'm not going home tonight. The rest of the houses in Victor's Village are easy to break into, and none of them will ever be used. Twelve houses in District 3's Victor's Village; we will never have more than three victors, and one is dead.
Sometimes I envy him, but I'm choosing a slow death instead.
Around me, the buildings are growing rougher and shabbier. My old home. I should have stayed; I should still be living here, waiting to enter the factories and leave school. Still in that old leaky apartment that somebody else has now.
I have the deed to my house in Victor's Village, and now they're dead and gone nobody has the lease to the old apartment. The last time I saw it was Reaping day.
I killed them too.
The people in the streets here are looking at me, but I don't look as out of place. Except for my hair. If I cared enough, I'd dye it or cut it off, but I can't bother myself to care any more than I do. Which is not at all. They know who I am; they know I'm their victor. Or was.
I didn't win anything.
Nobody tries anything with me here either. I could kill them without thinking, and they should know that. They should also know that I have a purse full of money that I'm willing to spend.
Under a cracked awning of an abandoned shop, a thin faced girl with overlarge dark eyes stares at me from the shadows. The Capitol doesn't care about her either; if the Games don't get her, then the pneumonia or fever or something will. Or she'll get carried off by someone; the community home doesn't exist here. And if she lives, the factories get her.
I don't care about her. I can't.
I can't care about anyone.
She could be my tribute one day.
I don't care.
She'd die anyway.
"Coin? Got a coin?" Her voice is thin with a slight lisp; as she moves out of the shadows her face is hollower than before. There were children like her in the arena too. They're dead, they're all dead, and I didn't kill them. I didn't, but they're still my fault, because I won and they didn't and they're all rotting in some grave while I stumble through the streets in blue silk.
Silently, I pull a coin out of my purse and toss it at her; it clatters on the cracked street before she grabs it and holds it tight in her palm. She looks up at me, hollow dark eyes, and grins, revealing a gap-toothed smile.
The broken glass in my head cracks.
"Go away! Get away from me!" I'm screaming, and I can't stop, I can't stop.
Gap-toothed smile.
She runs, but I can't see her. Just the street as I crouch down, head locked in a vicelike grip again.
My brother; my brother with his gap-toothed smile at the last supper. Before they killed him. Before I killed him.
I said no, I said no, and they killed them. The Capitol killed my family but it's my fault. It has to be my fault.
Wire around their throats.
She's gone. The girl is gone with her coin, my coin, and she's gone. I didn't kill her.
I don't know what's real and what isn't anymore. The arena made more sense, because nothing was real there. I knew that; the trees and the horizon and the sky, none of that was real. We were the only real things in there.
Everyone that was real in that arena is dead, and it's my fault.
The guilt is going to kill me, so I have to outrun it first.
I can feel their eyes as I straighten up, brushing dirt off of my dress. It's still blue silk, no matter how much dust is on it. I need it. Just like I need my bouquet and my shell, stowed in a corner of one of the houses in Victor's Village.
They avoid my eyes as I start down the street again, keeping my coin purse locked in my palm. I used to live here. This was my home. They hated me, but I lived here. Before.
There's no before. I don't know where I am now, but before doesn't exist anymore.
It's all gone. They're gone.
They hate me. They always have.
I hate them.
I hate them all.
The wood frame of the door's warped after the last rainstorm, so I have to kick it in; I barely feel the pain in my toes.
"What the hell are you doing breaking down my door?"
"Fix it and I won't have to," I snap back.
"You're a hellion," Cache says, stepping back around the counter. The whole store is littered with pawned electrical parts, and the place is dingy at best. Cache doesn't clean.
"I've been called worse," I say, stepping up to the counter.
"The boy brought in new cords," Cache says, pointing to the wall where a spool of electrical wire is leaning against some sort of computer part.
"Why should I care?"
"Pointing it out," Cache shrugs. He doesn't get many customers for parts.
"You know what I'm here for," I say.
"You flaunt it, you get me shot," Cache says.
"You're still alive after last time."
Cache looks me up and down. "You're trying hard not to be."
"Why do you care?"
His mouth opens like he's about to say something, but he stops. Then, as though he's making up his mind, he says, "Just watch the girl in July. Got it?"
"What?"
"You're still our victor."
He might be the only person I've ever met who cares. But I pay his bills, so he's lying.
"Fine. Put them in one of your electrical boxes. They won't stop me," I say.
All Cache does is tap the counter.
"Here." Pulling out my purse I drop a hundred pecuniae onto the counter.
"That's four then," Cache says.
"It was five last week."
"Price's gone up. They raise it, I raise it."
In response I slam another stack on top of the other coins. "Five."
Cache swiftly sweeps the coins off of the counter into a box and turns to the wall behind him, covered in wire and gears and computer parts. I know where the hidden latch is, under the fourth gear to the right. It's stiff, so Cache has to shove it hard to get to his back room.
My head pounds and my fingers tap a rhythm on the wooden counter that I can't control.
"Five. Don't use it all at once," Cache says, pushing the small box with electrical tape on it towards me. He's not stupid. He knows that I'll be back within the week.
"I can't promise anything," I say, then grab the box off the counter. The small vials inside clink together, and for a moment a wave of guilt washes over me.
Then I leave the shop and slam the warped door behind me.
My head slams back harder than I thought it would as I drop the vial next to me. I won't be able to feel my hands soon, but I don't care. The District 6s had the right idea, killing themselves slowly and painlessly.
Absentmindedly I touch the sticks and wilted berries of my District 7 bouquet, the sharp points giving me something to feel; pain that doesn't hurt. This house has the same furniture as home, but slightly different as well. I don't go into the living room. When I do come to one of these houses, I end up in the basement, like right now.
Sometimes I can see the mutts in the dark, but the vials take them away.
I wonder what Beetee thinks of me.
I don't care.
Nothing matters anymore.
The whole world melts away around me as the morphling takes hold, putting out the last of the coals under me and leaving me numb.
Numb.