Song Suggestion: Flume and Chet Faker—"Drop the Game"
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A/N: This chapter is very vital to the story. It's a turning point of some sorts. There will be one or two more chapters before things start to get crazy.
The Things We've Done
Prim was done with locked doors. She grasped a hairpin in her hand, aiming for the doorknob of Cato's study. It inserted perfectly, and she wiggled it, sighing in frustration when it didn't work for a whole ten minutes. Unlocking doors had been Gale's specialty. Towards the end, he made brave treks inside the peacekeepers storehouse, knowing they kept their food and supplies stacked high without much guarding.
They didn't need guards. Besides Gale, who would be stupid enough to risk getting caught?
She had raged at him when she discovered it, one of the few times her anger outweighed her love for him. He had put everyone at risk for his stupid stunts.
She shook her head to dislodge the memory. It didn't matter anymore. Gale was dead, and she was here. And for the first time ever, she was grateful he taught her the skill to unlock a door, even though she had never imagined using it.
Right before she gave up, the pin hit the right spot, and it clicked. She wiggled the door, and it creaked open. Walking into the room absent of Cato felt strange, like walking into a cave where a bear once resided. She tiptoed, as if sound would bring back the animal, avoiding the urge to touch his treasures, just in case he noticed her scent upon return.
Books lined the shelves. Prim ran a finger across the colorful, worn spines. A brief, longing touch. How much knowledge must be stored in them, secrets to unlock the mysteries of the universe, solutions to impossible problems? It could all be right there.
She denied her impulse to pick up a book and bury her nose in its information. Instead, she focused on her true target:
The pictographs.
He had to have them here. The videos—of them. The proof.
She would find them.
And she would destroy them.
It took a moment for her to work the television and set up the video. The device was more advanced than anything she had used before, but the components were similar, and it only took a moment before she navigated her way through it.
The first video projected on the screen. It showed a strange scene.
It was war. She knew that immediately. Except it was different than the type of war she knew. Less staged, more frantic. Strange aircrafts flew in the sky, resembling locusts, thrumming along. They flew over a sprawling countryside, and then over something dotted with things she recognized as a city. And then it released something.
The footage backpedaled, allowing the camera only to see the devastation in the form of a cloud shaped like a mushroom.
Prim understood the catastrophe. Whatever bomb had been dropped had been far more advanced than anything in Panem. A world destroyer, one flick and total destruction. She imagined the millions of dying screams. And suddenly she understood how the Ancients ended in such fire.
It was their legacy. The melted buildings, hulking twists of metal.
The ancients. She realized it with a weird flutter in her stomach. The video footage belonged to a time long past. A time recorded only to show the Ancient's power of complete and utter destruction.
She watched the mushroomed cloud for little bit longer
That was all Prim could stomach before she lurched for the TV and scrambled to turn it off. Prim was just grateful that such weapons no longer existed.
Several Hours Later
Prim flicked through several movies. She tried to keep focused, but it became harder as time went on and her curiosity increased.
Prim could barely make sense of what she was seeing. For the most part they were exactly the same... except wrong. Everything was all wrong, from the way they talked feely, to the way they dressed.
It struck her halfway through the night what was bothering her.
Despite the differences, they were exactly like them. She had always thought there would be a distinct difference to set them apart, a tell-tale sign to keep the times separate. But the longer Prim watched, the more the cultures mingled, like paint smeared together, until they became one.
And it was a few more hours until she understood the horrifying truth.
If the ancients could end in a fiery death, so could she. So could they all.
Destruction sought humanity, and humanity screamed on mountaintops to be found.
All that was needed was a finger to pull a trigger.
Several More Hours Later
The sky darkened, the night calling out to its denizens. She heard the howl of an animal not far from the house. It pulled Prim from the trance of the screen long enough to remind her of her purpose.
So far she had been unable to find the videos, and she was nearing the end of the selections of pictographs. There were just a handful more, and as it dwindled she became more desperate.
Despite her desire to watch the movie to the end, she forced her body to get up and press the eject button. The screen beeped and produced the video from its mechanical bowels. Prim grabbed another silver pictograph, another nondescript one just like the others. How Cato told them apart was a mystery to her.
She traveled back to the couch and sunk into its embrace.
Images popped up on the screen, and her breath left her body. It was so sudden, so shocking there was nothing to do but watch.
When she was ten, Prim saw a boy die. He was running, not watching where he was going. A hovercraft zoomed around the corner. There was no time to move or react. However, there was just enough time to understand the horror, before splat. The car smashed him, bursting the blood from the body. It came down like raindrops. Prim had watched open-mouthed and slow.
The feeling was familiar. Even if she wanted to, she could not turn away from the screen.
For Katniss Everdeen stared back at her.
"I volunteer," her sister screamed from the crowd.
Minutes Later
Her sister. Her beautiful sister. She was on the screen, and it meant only one thing—her games. This was a video of her sacrifice, of her trials, and of her slaughter.
Her neurons and synapses screamed at her, begged her, her heart thumped, knowing it would be wounded shortly if Prim continued. Yet still... she couldn't press eject, she couldn't do anything but sink further into the cushions on the couch, as if that would protect her from evil.
In the end, turning off the movie would be a second death for her sister. The forever silence of obscurity. It made Prim sick to think that she had forgotten the little things: the curves of her cheeks, the freckles on her neck, the wisps of hair at the back of her neck that refused to be pulled into the braid.
But it made her want to claw at her skin to know she had forgotten the big things as well: the determination in her eyes, the sound of her voice, the gait in her walk. They used to comprise her as a person, and a mere six years after death they had all been forgotten, even by the person who had loved her most.
She deserved more than that. Katniss deserved to have statues in her honor, giant marble monoliths overlooking cities. Her words should have been etched in stone, her bravery turned into a legend. Instead she grew cold in the ground, her skin eaten, her bones melting back into the earth. And she was no more, a distant memory.
With sick fascination, Prim continued watching. Her hysteria gave her tunnel vision and a pounding in her fingertips, in her throat, in her ears. It came all at once, but stuck to her in bits and pieces, colors and sounds; as if at once her brain embraced and rejected the pain it was fed.
And it here it was:
Brillant, sparkling fire trailed behind a chariot. Two hands joined, raised high in the air. Golden gladiators glared at their future prey. The number 12 flashed on the screen. The girl on fire twisted and sent her dress in flames. After sitting back down, Caesar grabbed her hand. "I will try to win for her," Katniss said.
A mocking jay pinned. The forever minute countdown to death. Then blood, so much blood, most of it spilled by familiar hands. Hands that had touched her most vulnerable places. Hands that made her tremble with need.
Before she knew it, Katniss was safe up in the tree, and then she wasn't. Cato walked below her. He wanted to kill her himself. Fire zoomed from the trees, attempting, in bitter irony, to set the girl on fire on fire. But it failed. Danger didn't leave her for long because the pack of lions spotted her, and they were chasing her, until like an animal cornered, she climbed a tree. Like a fox she outwitted them and found a friend at the same time.
Prim paused at the sight of little Rue, a little taken aback at how tiny the girl was. Baby fat still puffed out her cheeks and clung to delicate hands.
It was odd how as you grow you view the same scene with different eyes. At the time, she didn't see the tragedy in Rue, since she had been the same age, but now she did. It would be like sticking a sword through the gut of a toddler.
With Rue came a brief respite, a futile happiness, an alliance came next. Prim cursed her sister under her breath for forming attachments in a game of death, though she understood enough about herself to realize if she was in the same situation she would do the same.
And this was how it went for the majority of the games, a terrible swing of ups and downs as she games clicked along. The version on the pictographs must have been copies they sold in the capitol to watch over and over again. All of the boring parts and inflammatory parts (like Rue's burial) were taken out. It left little snippets of the highlights, and when it got to the part of the cave, the producers indulged the crowds love for the star-crossed lovers and left large segments untampered with. The kiss, when it happened, burned her brain. Many times Prim wondered whether it had been real, she had almost agonized over it, wondering if that made it okay for her to love Gale. If Katniss had loved Peeta, then it might make Prim's feelings alright.
Around the time Katniss had retrieved the life-saving antibiotics to kill Peeta's infection, the door to the study creaked open and then clicked shut. Footsteps made a familiar clack towards her. She ignored it, straining to put his existence out of her mind. A few hours before, she wanted those footsteps, now she wished they would disappear and never return.
"What are you watching?" His words were a sword to her throat.
She refused to answer.
"Turn it off." The footsteps rounded the couch and stood to face her. He wore demons on his face, like he usually did after returning from his "business trips". Bloodshot eyes and his wild hair said he was drunk before she even noticed a drink in his hand. The tie around his neck hung loose and his shirt unbuttoned part way, revealing several long scratches down his throat, clearly made by fingernails. He stopped in front of her face, his breath strong of alcohol.
She must look a mess as well. Tears and puffy eyes, fluid dripping from her chin. Prim had never been a pretty crier. She tended to blubber and wail, tear at clumps of hair and scratch at her skin.
"I said turn it off."
"Where were you?" She shot back.
He hesitated, and as usual, didn't answer.
"Why are you doing this to yourself?" His voice sounded neither angry nor hurt, but desperate. "It's like your begging to be hurt again." He kneeled down and front of her, momentarily blocking her view of the screen. "Please… just… God, it was going good for a moment. Don't do this."
"I need answers, Cato" And then after a moment, "And I'll never be able to forgive you without them. So make a choice. You can either force me to turn it off, which will make me hate you. Or you can back away. "
He stilled at the answer, as if expecting something different, and Prim knew she got him. She manipulated him, and he must understand that as well too, for the wild look in his eyes came back, a mixture between distrust and yearning. He must have believed her, or wanted to, for he backed up with a curse, the glass of bourbon clutched between his fingers as if it could save him from the situation. He walked behind the desk and dropped his head in his hands.
When her eyes landed back on the screen, Katniss was pulling Peeta on to the top of the Cornucopia, the mutations yapping at his heels, tearing at the boots to get to flesh. They breathed deeply. Then chaos, as Cato made his threat known. Struggle. It was the ultimate scrambled for life. Rats chew through each other for survival and so do humans.
Could she blame Cato for adhering to instincts? She wasn't sure.
The first time Gale had already covered her eyes, digging fingers into her eyelids. This time she saw everything with unfiltered lenses. The grunts, the blood soaking Cato's face, the impacting bodies. Thud, thud, thud. Peeta and Cato threw each other against metal.
Before she knew it, Cato grabbed up Peeta, choking his arm around his neck so he couldn't move.
"One more kill," she heard him say. And it made her heart break. The moments before death revealed truth, and she could see everything on his face: his disbelief, his grief, his self-loathing. All this before the smile.
He had lost his swagger from the interviews. He had been a boy who didn't realize violence changed the perpetrator just as much as it damaged the victim. That boy had died in the games to be replaced by a man who understood war was less than glory. It was mud and blood and smelly guts. It was understanding survival rested on luck and not talent.
Death came for everyone in the end. Even to the ones who were meant to win.
But then her pity ended.
Katniss shot her arrow.
And it missed its intended target: his hand.
Cato jerked down at the last moment, and the arrow lodged its way into Peeta's throat, sticking out like a needle in a pincushion.
Cato wasted no time and threw Peeta's body down into the mutt pile, and it was only then the cannon sounded for the baker's son.
Katniss dropped to her knees at the sight, all the fight gone from her. The bow clattered against metal.
Stand up, Katniss. For yourself… For me. "You said you'd try to win for me." Though she knew the ending, when Cato stalked toward her, she still chanted at Prim to get back up.
Cato retrieved the sword he lost in the earlier scuffle and walked methodically towards the girl, on her knees rigid with grief. He raised it high in the air. Katniss snapped her eyes up and met Cato's. Water lined the rims. And they pleaded.
She wanted to die. Prim thought in horror. She didn't want to live with the guilt.
Can you? Katniss' look asked Cato, Can you live with the guilt?
He wasn't swinging yet. They just stood there in a standstill.
"What are you waiting for?"
"For forgivness." Cato answered behind her.
It seemed after a moment he got what he was after. The sword came up, and the sword came down.
"Prim," The word echoed around the room and around her mind.
And then nothing.
Just as simple as that, her sister was dead. And Prim's life was forever altered. Cato threw the body off the ledge to join Peeta's like it was garbage.
And then the smile, the awful, stretching smile.
The film continued until it clicked off by itself, and neither of the occupants in the room moved, frozen in a past. Until a great anger began to build, at first a slow simmer, and then stronger and stronger until she stood.
She pivoted to face the monster.
Forgiveness? No, she wanted punishment. She wanted someone to hurt, to bleed, to suffer. It was the antithesis to who she thought she was, and the sensations rocked her being.
She sat in silence, burning with hatred. It was a better sting than grief; it felt more like action.
"Prim…" Cato said, hesitant. She turned to face him, sobbing and gasping for breath without noise. He stood, clutching the fireplace, his eyes still drunk and glassy. "I had to… she didn't get up… she didn't fight." He tried to take a step forward, but wobbled. "Fuck," he said and grabbed his head, clenching his eyes shut. "Fuck!" He said louder. In frustration, at her or at his drunkenness, he flung the glass in his hand against the stone fireplace. It shattered. The scent of alcohol floated in the room.
She was a volcano, building and building, and he sensed it.
"Prim, just…ah, fuck me sideways, my head hurts like a bitch. Why did you have to do this today? The day I fucking need you to just be sweet like you are to every other goddamn street rat… just God—"
"Just what? Forgive you? Forget it? Get over it?" Her words dripped into the room like acid, "Go on… which one?" She waited. He waited. "Nothing you can say can take away what you did. You're just a stain, Cato. An ugly stain on my life."
His mouth gaped at her, but she wasn't done. Not even quite. He had broken her at the age of twelve, and then ground her into the dust ever since. Whatever she thought she was, whatever people believed her to be, kind, generous, caring, she was no longer that anymore. She gathered the shards to her chest, but they did not fit back into place.
This new Prim wanted to thunder with the rain.
Now recovered from his shock, Cato stepped forward, stumbling as he went with a new sneer on his face.
"And this is the moment you'll start to cry, right?" He stepped even closer, until he stood on the opposite side of the chair. "Oh, poor fucking me. Brutal Cato is such a monster, and I'm such a martyr. My life is horrible, boo hoo, even though I have every fucking thing that I want. Even my dumb, ugly cat. But I can't just be happy. Nooo, I just have to cry every fucking day to feel better about-"
Prim lunged at him. Hands going for his throat. She jumped over the couch, and the force punched him to the ground, already unstable from alcohol. The back of his head hit the floor with a clunk, but she was in too much of a fit to care. It did not matter anymore. She straddled him and forgot herself in her haze and let the violence overcome her, wash over her like a red wave. It brought her to the surface to breath only to be sucked back under.
She slapped his face, scratched his cheeks. But it wasn't enough.
"Katniss." She said with each swing.
Then her slaps turned into punches, straight up and down, exactly like Gale taught her, over and over again. He just laid there and took it, weak and comatose. Blood dripped out of his nose. Then spewed out of his skin, until it coated most of his face.
"Fight me," she screamed. She hit him again, barely registering the jolting pain going up her arm, through her elbow, ending at the base of her skull. "Fight me, you coward. Fight me like you did those defenseless children. Those little lambs. Take your fucking sword and stick it through my gut like a coward!"
The words kept coming, and Prim let them, unable to stop herself.
"You're nothing. Worthless. A sorry excuse from a man, who can't even love his own daughter. Who has to steal a girl who hates him because no one else loves him. A fucking coward who shouldn't be allowed to breath! Fight me!"
But he didn't. He just laid there, taking it, until she couldn't move anymore. His inaction zapped her of her fury. Her head dropped, lying against his heaving chest. She heard the crackle of his breath under her ear.
His arms came up and encircled her, not to stop her, just to steady her. She did not cry, the adrenaline racing through her did not allow it, yet, though she felt like a dam with water trying to press its way through any holes to escape.
"Why won't you fight me?"
She wanted him to show her who he was.
It came out in a whisper.
Silence.
"I deserve it."
That broke the dam.
"Katniss." It came out ugly, "Oh, Katniss."
The tears came. They did not come easy. They ripped from her throat with a painful force.
"I'm sorry," he mumbled into her hair, "I'm sorry," He clenched Prim tighter to himself, half sitting up. She clutched at his chest for comfort, open-mouthed silent screams against the cloth of his shirt. "She didn't fight back… I didn't want to. I had to… I was just a pawn. I was supposed to die. The gamemakers wanted the lovebirds. I didn't realize it until the end, until it was my turn to die. I just thought of living. Of my heartbeat. Of my brothers. And I just couldn't die… it was her or me."
"Katniss." Prim managed to get out. It was the only way to vocalize the grief.
"She wanted to die. Don't you understand? She wanted to," he stopped as if searching for a way to say what he wanted. "And I didn't. I didn't realize I would regret it. I'm so sorry that it hurt you, Prim. I would do anything if I knew it could make it right. Just tell me how to make it right. I just wanted to live."
It was simple, but it was real.
Her cries were dying out. The grief was still there, like Prim always suspected it would be, but the energy for keeping it held close to herself, so close no one else would be able to help bear the burden, dissipated.
In that moment, Prim realized something vital, something she did not see before with all her hatred and anger and pain.
Cato grieved her sister too.
Maybe not in the same close, aching way, but in abstraction. The blood on his hands would never wash out, the stains in his souls too dark to clean. Did he feel less of a person? Did he fear and hate the monster he became?
If it had been reversed, if her sister had been the one with a sword in her hand glancing into eyes pleading for death, how would Prim have felt? Would she have blamed her sister? Called her a murderer?
No.
Because one wanted to die. The other didn't. And they both paid a price for the things they desired.
In that moment, something momentous happened.
In that moment, her entire being shifted.
In that moment, Prim forgave Cato Carthage.
And her shattered heart began mending. Maybe not into what it had been before, but into something new and different.
"I forgive you," she whispered to him over and over.