Chapter 22: Dignitas

June, 151 ADD; approx. one week before Reaping Day

TW: Systemic psychological abuse; brainwashing; graphic depictions of violence

Come on, how can I not remember this? Venatrix chewed at the edge of her pen, frowning. Four straight days of written and physical exams (mostly physical in her case), and the words were beginning to blur in front of her eyes.

Usually, Venatrix claimed a decent enough memory for history, but Callithyia's exams — and the class itself — were notoriously nitpicky. How was she supposed to remember who ran against President Valorius in the Election of 134? Why should it matter if they didn't win?

Exhaling quietly, Venatrix traced her fingers absently along the scar on her palm; she'd lost track of how often she'd caught Percy doing the same over the past month and a half. Now, the sting of their promise had faded into an odd sensation that she has yet to get used to, the scar pulling at the creases of her skin every time she gripped her sword. Rather fitting, she supposed.

Begrudgingly turning back to the paper in front of her, Venatrix let out another huff of frustration. The sound unintentionally drew the old Victor's gaze. Shit. It mattered now, if only for this exam. Come on.

Trying not to look at the clock above the door, Venatrix racked her brain for the name of the idiot who thought they could win against Valorius. It wasn't Karkarros, that was 146. Also an idiot and grade-A slimeball, according to her father; he always had something to say every time the current Minister of Finance appeared on the television. Oh, shit it was the previous one, wasn't it? Brunhilde? Hastily scribbling the name Alabastra Brunhilde under the question, Venatrix scanned the exam once more before turning it in with a sigh of relief. It was up to the 'Makers now.

One more left, Venatrix thought, waving at Callithyia over her shoulder as she skipped out of the tiny classroom tucked into the basement of Fairfax Arena, leaving the rest of her peers to their struggles. The Academy generally conducted all the exams and trials at Fairfax to allow an audience for the physical ones, though Venatrix's anatomy practical would be held in the auxiliary gym; it would hardly be as interesting to watch as the melee and ranged weapons exams had been. Unlike the younger kids, the majority of the trainees in her year — mostly those on the Volunteer track — were finishing up their schooling now, as opposed to after the Games. For Venatrix and Percy, at least, the necessity was obvious.

Oberon and Cadmus waited for her in the auxiliary gym when she arrived, dropping her bag off at the side of the room. Some of her peers who she'd seen leave their history exam early were already conducting a warm up routine, or, in Percy's case, starting the exam itself.

With a bow already strung, he stood at the other end of the gym, his focus solely trained on the human-shaped dummy a few meters away as his mentor conducted his examination. His arm had healed well over the past month and a half; a huge relief. As soon as the doctors had cleared him to start shooting again, he'd thrown himself into it, refusing to let the setback affect his accuracy — he released, and the arrow flew straight into the dummy's eye.

Catching his eye, Venatrix flashed him a quick congratulatory smile; his nod was subdued, but she'd take it.

At Cadmus's instruction, Venatrix took a couple minutes to warm up her body and her aim; the exam would consist of three sections, part physical and part oral, similar to the one for Games Strategies, though with less rapid-fire, on-her-feet questions and answers. Hopefully.

However, when she went to grab a bow and arrows to warm up for the accuracy test, her father cut her off, passing her a set of throwing knives instead. "We already tested you with a bow for your ranged exam," he explained, ignoring her protest that nobody was making Percy throw knives. "Keep complaining, and I'll get your brother in here to come watch."

Scowling at his almost-cheeky grin, Venatrix snatched the set of knives, positioning herself to throw. Sure, she'd grown decent at it over the years, but she was no Iago or Antigona.

Seizing her attention with an expectant cough, Cadmus started the exam, directing her first to throw immobilizing shots and then fatal ones. Before each throw, she stated her aim and reasoning for each specific anatomical target on the corpse-like dummy. Following the release of her knife, she analyzed the result of her throw — how far off it had landed from the intended target and the outcome of the injury had the dummy been living, reciting detailed information about which muscle groups or arteries she'd hit. Cadmus's encouraging nods of approval boosted her confidence despite her average-at-best throws, rendering her optimistic that her analysis would prove enough to pass this part of the examination.

The second section combined her knowledge of the body's weak pressure points with her hand-to-hand combat abilities; Cadmus summoned a trainer — covered in adequate protective gear — for her to spar with, running her through the list. Almost naturally, the information flowed from his mouth to her fists-elbows-knees-feet, having been drilled into her head since day one all those years ago.

After felling the poor trainer for the — sixth? Seventh? She'd lost count — time, the Victors sent her over to the blood dummies, where Percy was finishing up his exam with Antigona and Morwenna hovering over his shoulders. "Nice and clean, Silverhorn, that's it," Morwenna said appreciatively, nodding at her charge as he drove a knife into the dummy's throat and twisting, drawing a small but lethal trickle of fake blood.

"And the Capitol is already bored," Antigona muttered, earning a glare from the red-haired woman. "Don't be afraid to have a little fun with it."

Percy removed the knife, causing more fake blood to spill. "You said carotid. They'd already be dead the way I cut them."

"He's already hit the other arteries; he knows what he's doing," Morwenna snapped, coming to his defense. She was right; while Percy's last cut had been clean, the dummy was covered in the evidence, leaking red liquid onto the boy straddling it and the conveniently-placed tarp beneath them.

Shrugging, Antigona relented, allowing Percy to stand and wipe the fake blood off with a towel. "Shit's gross," he said aside to Venatrix, who chuffed.

"I don't know, looks like fun to me." They'd played with the blood dummies a handful of times throughout the year, the life-sized rubber-like mannequins designed to simulate the main veins and arteries of the human body — and what happened when they were punctured. Wisely, they'd developed the faux blood to be easily cleanable.

Her father announced his presence by clapping her on the shoulder. "You're up, Trixie," he said, and she took the handle of the knife he offered, kneeling down to pin her own dummy. "Easy-peasy after these last two, hm?"

"Alright, hit me," she said confidently, pressing the knife lightly against the dummy's throat as if threatening a struggling victim.

Again, Cadmus rattled off a list of areas for her to target, this time drawn from the major and minor blood vessels of the body. "Like Ante said, we don't want the Capitol getting bored here. Keep them alive until the end of the exam — and you should be able to tell."

"Right." Too much blood, and boom. Imaginary cannon.

Deliberately, Venatrix let her knife hover over the target areas, tracing out her pattern before making the incisions. As she carved the dummy, she angled the blade to avoid splattering the fake blood all over herself; it may be washable, but Venatrix didn't fancy scrubbing it from her hair.

Beneath her, the dummy lay as motionless as if it were already dead, though in practice, Venatrix knew the victim would be screaming and writhing in her grip each time her knife bit into skin. She didn't particularly enjoy the thought, but neither the arena nor her examination was the place for semantics. At least with the dummy, she found it easy to slice without second thought, mindful only of the size of the glistening red puddle spreading out onto the tarp. When Cadmus called time, she drew a quick line at the base of the dummy's throat for good measure, effectively killing her mark.

"Impressive," Oberon said when she stood, taking the towel to clean the fake blood from her clothes and exposed skin; it slid easily from the fabric of her athletic wear.

Venatrix huffed a breath of relief, basking in the realization of her completed exams. "Did I pass?"

"With flying colors," Cadmus said, returning her smile. "Both of you."

Exchanging a grin with Percy, she raised her hand and he slapped a high-five. Around the gym, the rest of the kids in their year were still running their exams, with priority given to Lancelot and Coquina as backup volunteers. "Just graduation, and then the Games." He huffed. "Wow."

Then the Games. The thought sent a chill of fear and excitement down her spine. So close.

So close to the end of the line for the two of them, but Venatrix couldn't think about that right now. She'd accepted this. She had.

The sound of her father clearing his throat brought her focus back to their mentors; Morwenna and Oberon exchanged a brief glance, an odd gesture of fellowship between them. Venatrix frowned. "The other kids may be finished here," Oberon said, his tone businesslike, "but not you two. Come with us." Without waiting for their response, the pair of Victors started briskly towards the exit, Venatrix and Percy left to trail in their wake. Their peers glanced up from their exam stations as they went, their attention captured by the chosen Volunteers.

Said Volunteers passed confused glances at each other as they followed their mentors down the hall and then a staircase leading to a lower level that Venatrix hadn't known existed.

"I thought we were done," Percy mouthed. Venatrix only shrugged, just as clueless.

Their footsteps echoed eerily off the cement walls, the sound — the lack of conversation between their mentors, the odd feeling that speaking out loud would intrude upon something — beginning to unnerve her. At the end of the corridor, two doors lay embedded at opposite walls, and Oberon and Morwenna stopped, turning around to face their tributes. "Venatrix. Perseus." Her father's voice cast a layer of severity over the air. "You have completed your training, but there is still one final test before either of you may enter the arena."

Whatever comment she'd been about to make died on her lips, the heaviness of the atmosphere crushing her flippancy.

"The four of us will remain here for however long it takes for you to complete the task," Morwenna said, and Venatrix didn't think she'd ever seen the woman look so sober.

Almost in unison, the two mentors unlocked the parallel rooms, Oberon holding the door open and gesturing for her to enter. I don't like this, Venatrix thought as she hesitantly stepped into the room, afraid of what she might find.

There was nothing.

White tiles covered the floor of the empty room, fairly small in size, though two other doors were inlaid in the matching bleached walls. Her father closed the door behind them, and Venatrix heard the click of a lock. "What is this?"

He didn't respond, striding over to knock sharply on one of the steel doors.

It opened, and she almost flinched at the noise; she did flinch as a person stumbled into the room as if pushed from behind. A man; eyes wide and hands bound behind his back, his appearance disheveled in every sense of the word — hair, clothes, ragged breath.

"What is this?" she repeated, more sternly.

"Help me." The man's voice was barely a whisper, his tone shaking as much as his body.

"Dad?" Her own had risen in pitch.

Oberon's footsteps echoed slowly through the chamber as he circled around to Venatrix's side. "This is your final test," he repeated, offering her again the handle of a knife; she had no idea from where he'd gotten it. "Kill him."

Venatrix felt her breath catch in her throat.

"No…" The man in front of her let out a groan. "No, no, no, no please."

"I…" Venatrix struggled for words. "Dad—"

Her father's voice — his face, his eyes, boring into hers — was utterly devoid of emotion, as if he'd flipped a switch. "Kill him."

This is a test. For the arena. Something compelled her to reach for the knife, the cold handle slipping into her suddenly-trembling fingers. To see if I can— to see if I can kill.

The bedraggled man's eyes widened at the action, but still she made no move.

'Makers, is this even legal? Where the fuck did they get this man? He looked as if he'd been plucked from the streets of the poorer part of the district, some sort of beggar or the like. That's not fair. He doesn't— what did he do to deserve this? I can't—

"Please, miss," he implored. "Please, I— I don't want to die." His eyes latched onto hers, drowning her in their blue-grey begging. "Wait, I know you, you're—" he glanced between Venatrix and her father— "I-I have a family. A daughter; she's-she's small. Just like your sister."

Venatrix's head whipped towards her father, her breath shaking. "Dad—!"

"Kill him."

"Please, I haven't seen her in-in months." A sob trickled into the man's voice. "She's been alone, I can't leave her like that, please!"

Bile rose in the back of her throat, her heart pounding in her ears. "Why him." Her father's face— impassable, unmoved by the man's (the sacrifice, she understood that now) pleas. Merciless. "Why?!"

Again, he repeated his mantra. "Kill him."

"What if I don't?"

"You will."

Venatrix shuddered at his tone, the certainty. She couldn't argue with a wall of stone.

The man began to beg again, and Venatrix dug her teeth into her lip, closing her eyes to tune it out. Is Percy feeling this too? she thought, her mind briefly dissociating from the situation at hand. Did he do it already?

"Please-p-please," he blubbered, incessant, backing away from her. "I don't… I don't deserve this, my daughter—"

He's— pathetic, oh my god, I can't breathe.

"Kill him, Trixie."

Her fingers tightened around the handle of the knife, its grip now warm in hers, and oh, she'd almost forgotten about the skin of her promise, winding around the knife, so familiar when she'd been carving up the dummy like a hunk of meat, and that's all this man is, isn't he—?

"Kill. Him."

"You have to understand; I c-can't leave her alone! What kind of father would I be if-if I abandoned her? I— Please, I just want to see my daughter before I die—!"

Shut up shut up—

"Kill him."

Kill him kill him kill him—

"—twelve now, I missed her birthday party, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so—"

Shut up shut up shut up—

"—can't abandon her, please—!"

Kill him—

"SHUT UP!"

Her hand shot out, grabbing the man — dirty, pathetic, incessant — by the jaw, and she slashed her knife across his throat, quick and fucking violent, violent, oh my god there's blood in my fucking mouth holy shit—

The corpse dropped from her grip, still writhing, twitching, convulsing, but a corpse all the same. Oh god, I did that, I did that.

Oberon stepped around the growing pool of blood, the red liquid just missing his shoes as it crawled towards a drain in the tiled floor; Venatrix hadn't noticed it when she'd first walked in. "That could've been a little cleaner; your cut from the Anatomy exam was perfect, but—"

He cut himself off when he saw her face. "Oh, honey, come here."

Wordlessly, she let herself practically collapse into her father's embrace, burying her head in his chest as she attempted to fucking breathe—

"Shh, shh, it's okay." His hands rubbed soothing circles on her back like she was still a little girl and not a— murderer. I murdered him. "Let it out, shh. That's why we do this now, hm? You hesitate, and cry, and fall apart now, so it doesn't happen in the arena, okay?"

Unable to speak, she merely nodded, closing her eyes so she didn't have to see the shameful tear stains she'd left on his shirt. Tears, and-and blood; it was all over her face—

Breathe. God, breathe.

"You can handle this, honey." Gently, he smoothed back the hair from her face, every inch her father and not the ruthless Victor ordering her to kill a man. With his thumb, he wiped something from her cheek, and it came away red red red. "Everyone before you did and everyone after you will too. All of the Victors — myself, your mother — we had to go through this."

A horrible thought sprouted in her mind. "You—" She paused to suck in a breath, forcing her tear-laden voice steady enough to talk. "You didn't make Bell do this, did you?"

Oberon shook his head. "How could we?" he said, and Venatrix exhaled in premature relief. "We didn't know she was planning to Volunteer."

Oh, god. Her body went rigid at the implication; she couldn't look him in the eye anymore.

Of course, when she broke her gaze, it landed on the corpse still leaking blood onto her shoes. The dead man's eyes seemed to follow her, glassy and accusing. "This is why we don't encourage rogues," her father was still saying, when she tore her eyes away. "It's not fair to the Selected Volunteer."

Venatrix felt her mouth go dry, acrid with the leftover tang of blood. "The-the other girl. The one who was supposed to go in Bell's place..." She trailed off as she realized she hadn't seen last year's chosen Volunteer since the previous Reaping Day.

"Don't worry about it."

"What happened to her? You guys didn't make her—"

"I said don't worry about it," he said more firmly. "She's fine."

The screech of the metal door opening startled Venatrix out of her horror; for an instant, panic rushed into her chest as a pair of Peacekeepers entered the room. But instead of seizing the murderer in front of them, they merely grabbed the body and left as quickly as they came, barely reacting to Oberon's wave of acknowledgement.

"That man…" Venatrix trailed off, her eyes still locked on the closed door. "His-his daughter…"

A look of disgust curled her father's features. "Trust me, she's better off without scum like that in her life," he practically spat, and Venatrix's eyes widened. Noticing her expression, he laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Honey, that man was going to die no matter what you did. He's been in custody for the past few months on charges of murdering his own wife."

His words hit Venatrix like a punch in the gut. "I… Why? Why didn't you say that?"

Oberon sighed reluctantly, but obliged her. "In the arena, you won't be pitted against the criminals sitting on death row, or people that would otherwise deserve what they're getting. For the most part, they're just kids who drew the short straw on Reaping Day." His face hardened, steel leaking into his tone. "But that doesn't matter; you still have to kill them. They can't be kids, do you understand? They're obstacles."

Sucking in a breath, Venatrix did the only thing she could. She nodded. I killed a man I thought was innocent. What the fuck does that say about me?

Her father planted a kiss on her forehead. "I'm proud of you, honey."

What? No. "That's… Not right." That's not right. "You can't be proud of me, I just-I just—"

Oberon cupped her cheeks like she was something precious, looking her in the eye. "You did what you had to do, Trixie, of course I'm proud of that." Unwilling to accept her protests, he folded her into another hug, and god, I feel five years old and fifty at the same time. "Come on, let's get you cleaned up. We have to get you your graduation uniform too."

The other door, it turned out, concealed a shower room, for the express purpose of washing the blood from her body, her clothes, her hair, and if a tear or two rolled down her cheek while she stood under the hot water, no one would ever be the wiser. 'Makers, we've really got this down to a system, don't we? she thought absently as she redressed in the uniform provided for her: a crisp, almost military-esque ensemble emblazoned with District Two's insignia on the left shoulder and the Capitol's on the right, her volunteer status and year denoted by a badge over her heart. In an attempt not to ruin the uniform with her wet hair, Venatrix towel-dried it as best she could before braiding it down her back, a difficult task with no comb or brush.

As she inspected her job in the mirror, Venatrix bit back a mirthless laugh. Is that what I'm worried about? I killed a man just now, and here I am, fussing over my fucking hair.

Before the laugh could crawl out of her throat in the form of a sob, she turned away, exiting the washroom, following her father out of the— whatever this hell of a dungeon that lay beneath Fairfax was called.

Percy and Morwenna hadn't finished yet, it seemed. Venatrix chose to ignore the disparaging chuff that came from her father as he locked the door behind them. No clocks rested above the doors to show the time, though Oberon checked the watch on his wrist often enough to make a point. No chairs had been provided for them to sit either, which, judging by the apparent seamlessness of the rest of the process, Venatrix assumed was deliberate.

The wait wasn't as long as her father's wordless impatience made it out to be. The door opened, and, like her, Percy had made himself presentable in his uniform, but Venatrix didn't need to know him well to recognize the poorly-disguised horror simmering beneath his ashen features.

Took you long enough, she would've said under any other circumstance.

But, as she met his eyes and he met hers, both knowing what the other had done to walk out of that room, not a word passed between their lips.

true vengeance 151 . weebly . com
Filler submission form: bit . ly / 3ljFrOB

A/N: ...So I've dubbed this one the Trauma Chapter for. Obvious reasons.

Should also note that this took so long because there was actually supposed to be another part following this, which I've just split into another chapter ! Classic me lmao. Luckily, I have already written it and I just need to edit it, giving me a grand total of a singular chapter's stockpile! Woo. Deals with the fallout of This Shit. Still tying to keep a vague weekly schedule here ;-;

Also, last chapter, I asked you guys for your thoughts on the characters so far... I am Once Again raising this question LMAO I'm curious hjfdh. Anyways, see y'all next week !

- Nell c: