Song Suggestion: Woodkid- "Iron"
Thank You: Guest, MaddieMoo, 3vlee, Mimi, Figsy, Cat Beats, Rachel (for two reviews!), jkteen22, and Mistress-Cinder
A/N: Only 5/6 chapters left to go after this! I'll be posting the first chapter to my Hermione/ Draco story in about three weeks.
Lamb to the Slaughter
Prim stood before a mirror, wearing a silk white dress, much grander than she pictured for her wedding with Gale, but much simpler than the one she thought she'd wear with Cato.
The dress she wore was a loaner from Katla, though Katla assured her she hated silk dresses in the first place, and she could keep it forever.
Maybe not forever. But a single night would do. Prim's breath caught at what she prepared for—her wedding day. In just a few hours, she'd walk down the aisle to meet Cato and become Mrs. Carthage.
Prim remembered the slow dread before marrying Gale, the butterflies that made her nauseas. In contrast, today she felt calm, serene. It solidified her decision.
Her mother placed a simple veil on her head, a scrap of lace someone conjured and sewed for the Lion's bride.
"You look beautiful," her mother said with a small, sad smile.
Prim reached out and grabbed her hand.
"I never got to ask you before," Prim said. "The day I came back to District 12 and Cato pulled you out of the room… What was it about?"
"Brutus told me many things about Cato Carthage," her mother said, pulling away her hand. "He told me he's impulsive and prone to anger, manipulative and cold. When Cato granted me leave to see you, he only had one rule—don't mention Gale Hawthorne." She sucked in a small breath. "It was such an odd request I knew he lied to you about him. You loved Gale, and if he wanted to manipulate you into his arms, he'd have to die. I'm sure he hunted Gale to do it for real, but by that point Gale had taken to the woods, alluding authorities. I didn't want to let him manipulate you anymore, but I wanted to be in your life more."
Prim flinched at that, understanding the truth behind the statement. She did not make excuses for Cato. He was everything she accused him to be.
"He does not deserve you," she reached out and cupped her cheek, and then her eyes drifted, lost in thought. "But then again… love is strange." Her eyes focused again, clear and brighter than she'd seen them in a long time. "He may just prove himself worthy yet."
Her mother leaned down and kissed her on the forehead, giving her blessing.
Several Hours Later
The metal double doors were all that separated her from Cato. Prim almost hyper-ventilated. Whatever calm she felt dissipated with the last barrier in sight.
"Hold up, little girl. Don't start without me."
Prim turned around in confusion to see Brutus dressed in a smart suit.
"You clean up well," Prim said.
"Ah," Brutus said, a little color to his scarred cheeks, "As well as an old man can. But you…" He whistled. "I predicted you'd turn into a rare blade someday, and I've been proven right again."
"What are you doing here?" Prim asked. "Shouldn't you be in the audience?"
"You didn't think I'd let you walk that long aisle alone, did you?"
An unexpected emotion rose up inside her. She never had a father figure. She barely remembered her real one. Brutus was the closest she got.
Prim gasped in a relieved sob and lunged for him, and he picked her up in a tight hug.
"There now." He patted her back. "Don't go and ruin your makeup for me."
He put her down, and she blinked back tears.
"Your music is starting." He folded her hand under his arm. She straightened the crinkles of her dress and then stood up tall. "Ready?"
"Ready," Prim said.
Brutus gave a little knock to the door, and the metal doors opened. Thousands of white flowers lined the aisle and around the room in intricate designs. Greenery interspersed white, giving the effect of walking through a meadow. Lights hung from above, mimicking sunlight and tea lights floated in fountains near the front, giving a soft hush of water running, reminding Prim of the dangerous peace she found on the mountainside.
The crowd, much larger than she expected, surged to their feet. The crush of people still made her nervous, her anxiety spiking. She didn't fear tripping over heels before, but now she did. Her panic almost consumed her until she remembered why she was here.
Cato.
He glowed golden at the end of the long hallway in a dark suit with his hair combed and a dimpled smile, looking at her as if she could make the world and end it. As if she was worth more than any treasure he could ever earn and better than any prize he could ever win.
Breath, he mouthed.
He must have sensed her panic, knowing she still hated being the center of attention. His gaze gave her the comfort and courage to walk forward. The aisle became a tunnel and she tuned out everything but him.
He grinned wider when she reached him.
The officiant said some words, almost making her lose focus, which would have made the panic return. But Cato smiled.
"Eyes on me," he whispered.
The officiant's words drifted away. Brutus unraveled their arms and handed her off to Cato with a hard, warning expression.
Cato reached out his hand, and Prim took a second to think. Still finding peace, she reached her own hand out and twisted theirs together. He assisted her on taking the few steps up, where he took her other hand and faced her.
"Do you have vows prepared?" The officiant asked.
Cato's hold tightened.
"We don't need a show… we don't need to prove our love."
Prim breathed a sigh of relief. A flowery speech would be too much for her anxious brain to handle. This wasn't the wedding she had always wanted. If it had been up to her, she'd have just close friends and family. But she was the Mockingjay and prying eyes and uninterested stares were required.
"Very well, friends and family, we are gathered here today—"
A gunshot interrupted him. Cato reacted, grabbing Prim by the arms and flattening her under him. The crowd screamed, people tripping over themselves, trying to hide under their seats. A woman in the back attempted to crawl out the double doors, but two men with guns walked up and stood in front of the shut door. The woman then tried to hide under the nearest chair but one of the men leveled his gun at her and shot her in the head. Prim jolted with the noise. Red blood puddled around her body.
Several more men stood up, each with their own guns. Prim had a moment of hope before she realized they had the same hard expressions as the others. They had been planted in the crowd at various points, and everyone was in the crosshairs. The room held its breath, momentarily silent, except for a loud gasp behind her.
Prim twisted her head to look at the noise, and to her horror saw the vest on the priest bloomed with blood. He looked down at it for a moment more, still in shock, before crumpling to the ground. He'd be dead soon, and there was nothing she could do to help.
How did they get the weapons past security? Unless… a terrible thought entered her mind as she remembered who oversaw it.
"What's going on here?" Cato said, pulling out a gun of his own, hidden under the folds of his suit. He crouched low, reducing the target of his body.
"You killed my happily ever after. I refuse to allow you to have one of your own." A voice called from the crowd. But didn't want to believe its owner, until she saw his sharp, pointed features walking down the aisle towards them, his slicked back blond hair, his blue eyes that looked so much like Cato, glinting behind glasses. He stopped several feet from them. "By the way, thank you for gathering everyone important here today. It makes everything so much more… convenient."
"Cassius?" Cato said in a strangled voice. "Brother? What are you doing?"
"Brother?" Cassius sneered and pointed his gun at Cato. "You're no longer my brother—a brother wouldn't have allowed his sister to drown. He would have protected her until the end—"
"Have you gone mad? I tried. You think her death didn't gut me too—"
"If you had been my true brother, she would have been at the cornucopia with you."
"The plan went to shit. We couldn't have predicted everything."
"Because you let the slum rat live!" Cassius roared, no longer in control of himself. "You let your manato control you and run away, distracting you and fucking up the plans we made."
"Her death wasn't my fault. And it wasn't Prim's fault. You know this. Please… don't do this," Cato pleaded. "Put the gun down. Don't make me—"
"Beg one more time and I'll have everyone in here slaughtered. Your little bird will be the first to go. And then the two brats will be next."
Everything in her went cold, and Cato's hold on her body tightened. He wouldn't… would he? She remembered his twisted, bitter expression while staring at the twins and decided that yes, he could. Cato came to the same conclusion.
The twins rested back in their room with a hired nanny to watch them during the ceremony. Prim mapped out the quickest route to their room in her head. She wondered how fast she could get there if she could get out of the room.
"Now before you get any stupid ideas, slide your gun to me. No sudden movements."
Cato inched his gun to the ground and slid it along the tile. It made the sound like a blade against a whetstone, ending its rotation at Cassius' feet.
"What do you want?" Cato asked.
"To end this pathetic rebellion. Snow offered me and the rest of our family amnesty if I give him one thing…" His face was devoid of emotion as he stared at his brother. "The lion of district 2… alive. I intend to uphold the deal I made with him, whether you walk beside me, or I drag you behind me, a trail of bodies in our wake."
"And I'm supposed to believe if I went without a fight, you'd leave all the rest of them alive and unharmed?"
"You can believe me." He pointed his gun at Prim. "Or you can watch her die in front of you right now."
Cato angled his body so that it covered most of Prim, but there was plenty of vulnerable spots to hit if he was a good shot. And something told Prim that Cassius Carthage was a very good shot.
"You're forgetting one thing," Cato said.
"And what's that?"
"There's always another weapon." His hand jumped to his vest, tugged out a knife, and flung it at Cassius. All she saw was a flash of silver before it buried in his leg. Prim understood Cato could have killed him, aimed at his heart, but his monstrosity ended when it came to family.
Cassius gasped and reached down to his leg, wasting precious moments staring at the metal jutting out of his thigh. Cato used the break in concentration and shoved Prim sideways, hard enough she skidded down the stairs landing at Hannibal's crouched body.
"Kill them all," Cato demanded. And like good little soldiers, the rest of the loyal warriors in the room stood up and obeyed, breaking the building tension like a snapped rubber band. Bodies slammed into each other in the crowd.
The room burst into chaos, guns exploding, just as Cato lunged towards Cassius. She heard a roar from Brutus in the crowd and another from Cato's father. A bullet hit the tile near her head, exploding shards and fragments into the air. A few pieces hit her cheek, lodging into her skin, bursting blood into the air. She twisted with a silent scream, and Hannibal tugged on her ankle until he hovered over her.
Cato shoved her to the only person he trusted to protect her besides himself.
Hannibal had his own knife out and an expression on his face she'd never seen him wear, reminding her of Cato at his bloodiest. Katla ducked towards his right, glancing around her body in concern, flinching with the gunshots and screams.
"I knew I should have brought a gun," Hannibal said.
"We need to get out of here." Katla trembled with a loud gun shot.
"The babies." Prim gave a small cry. "They'll kill them."
Hannibal's eyes went wide.
"Not if I get to them first," he said. "Follow me."
They crawled along the edge of the chairs. Hannibal stopped at a dead body, some District 13 general. A bullet shattered the right side of his face, and blood and teeth pooled around his body. Hannibal faltered a moment and then continued, ignoring the corpse. They crawled up and over him. It stained their hands and her white silk dress. She lost sight of Cato in the confusion, but she dared not peek over the chairs, afraid a stray bullet lodged its way into her skull. She lost her shoes in the melee, but found she didn't care.
Katla crawled in front of her. A flash of silver struck her, and she bowled over and clutched at her arm. Hannibal jumped into action, but Prim was faster and swatted him away, examining the wound.
"A bullet grazed you." Prim tried to talk over the noise, but it was deafening. "It's not lethal."
Hannibal deflated with her assessment. Once Katla got her bearings, calming down with deep breaths, they went back to the crawl, fighting against the crowd of people surging around them. The floor was slippery with blood, a collection from several people. Prim turned her eyes away from the dead as she passed them, but she saw flashes: a woman with a gold choker and red nails, an older gentleman with a flamboyant green suit. Death spared no one. Prim attempted to accept the monster into her mind to desensitized her, but she was too shocked by horror to do anything but continue the crawl.
Her eyes were unable to ignore a little body to her left. Prim held her hand to her mouth, smearing blood across her face. A pained gasp punched out of her. The little boy must have only been ten at the most, still hunched over when he tried to hide from the bullets but failed. Holes riddled his back, each of them leaking blood.
Anger came then. Pure, burning fury at Cassius. When she found him, she'd kill him. It was no longer an idle threat, and she did not make the promise easily. She'd let the blood stain her hands and would howl in the air with the victory, let herself smile ear to ear like Cato did.
For now, she had to escape, as much as the horror wanted to paralyze her. Only a few feet more and they could exit the room, through a side entrance towards the left.
"There you are," A man stood over Hannibal, with a gun pointed towards his head. "I've been wanting to kill you for a long time, little shit."
"Why wait?" Hannibal managed to snark without fear.
The man kicked him in the side hard, and Hannibal gave a forced grunt on impact and curled up.
"Shut the fuck up. I'm only giving you a few moments to see everything stolen from you, just like you did to me."
"Freddy," Katla gasped. "What are you doing here?"
"Cassius came to me, and I couldn't turn down the offer." He sneered. "After I kill mini Carthage here, you're going to come back with me. Unless you want to get slaughtered with the rest."
"Don't do this," Katla begged.
Prim hung back. The man didn't seem to see her, or if he did, he didn't seem to care if she was there. His eyes stayed glued to Katla. It took Prim a moment to realize he must have been her previous boyfriend, the one down in the mines that Hannibal held at sword point the night he stole Katla.
"Oh, I'm going to put a bullet in this fucker's brain, and there's not much you can do to stop me." He aimed his gun, fingers tightening on the trigger. Katla lunged at his legs, and Freddy tilted to the side with the impact, gun exploding to the right, missing Hannibal by inches. The gun left his hands, whirling in the air, and it landed with a spin near Prim's toe.
Hannibal didn't question the turn of events. He tackled into Freddy's gut and wrestled on the ground. Katla backed away, looking unsure what do to.
"Katla," Prim shouted, "Catch."
Prim kicked her foot, sliding the gun towards Katla. Auburn hair covered her features as she bent over and picked up the weapon, only glancing up at Prim once, still stunned.
Her face hardened with her decision. She crawled over to where her ex-boyfriend and Hannibal were locked in a wrestling match. Freddy almost gained advantage, but he was no match for a Carthage, trained and bred for war, and was slammed around until he ended up pinned under him, Hannibal's forearm pressed tight against his trachea.
"Give me the gun," Hannibal said. "Let me do it."
Katla shook her head.
"No, I have to do this myself."
Freddy's eyes widened with the betrayal. No doubt he thought Katla would jump at the chance of getting away from Hannibal. He couldn't speak because of the pressure, but he tried to squirm away as his own gun was pressed to his temple.
"Goodbye," she whispered. "I'm sorry, but… You shouldn't have done this."
She pulled the trigger with a bang. It rocked the three of them, but it only added to the cacophony around them, melding to the screams of the dying. No one noticed them as Hannibal dragged the body to the side. The man's brains leaked out of the side of his face.
"Shit, Kat," Hannibal grabbed her up in a fierce hug, kissing the top of her head.
She pushed away his comfort, brushing the underside of her red eyes with the sleeve her navy dress. Blood splattered across her skin and hair.
"We don't have time for that," Katla said, though she gasped in a sob. "We need to get to the twins."
Hannibal nodded, eyebrows furrowed, and they crawled out of the room. An urgency entered Prim, knowing her sons' lives were in danger with each second separated.
Five Minutes Later
They arrived at Cato's room and burst through. The lamb and cloud nightlight still flit around the darkened interior, and the babies wailed in their bassinets. Their little arms flung around in their instinctual fear, the only visible part of them.
The nanny sat in the rocking chair with her head tilted backwards and her throat slashed. Blood dripped down in tiny rivers along her wrinkled skin. It looked as if the old woman had been asleep before the murder. Prim hoped she hadn't felt pain or terror before the death.
Beside her, standing close to the bassinets in the shadows, were two elite soldiers in the white uniforms of the Capitol. Her whole body turned cold. Her breath threatened to turn the air to ice.
"Snow gave us a special mission to kill your children," one of them said. A cloud flitted across his helmet as the nightlight kept turning. "And he wanted you to see us do it."
Prim lunged forward, without a plan. Pure desperation. Someone stood between her and her cubs, and she wanted to rip them limp from limb. But Hannibal grabbed her around the waist before she could go far and flung her behind him.
The whistler lay in a drawer just to the right. If she could just—
"Get out of the room," Hannibal told Prim and Katla, low and cold. He had a knife in one hand, Freddy's gun in the other, and pulled a little button object out of his vest. "I'm about to show my nephews how a Carthage plays with toys."
He placed the button on his cufflink and before any of them could react, pressed it, vanishing his body.
Prim felt too stunned to do anything, but Katla understood and yanked on the back of Prim's dress, tugging her out of the room, stumbling and falling into the hallway. She slammed the door shut just in time. Bullets thudded against it as it closed.
Guns exploding, grunts, screams, thudding bodies, babies wailing—The sounds became too much. She wished to follow instinct and burst through the door. Prim reached up to the doorknob with a strangled sob. She couldn't stay put. Her babies were in there. They were her heartbeat that lived outside her body, a fragile, beating dream, easily crushed.
Katla wrapped a hand over hers.
"Not yet, Prim," Katla wrapped her in a hug, giving a small sob. She rocked them both. "We have to trust him. If we go in there, we'd just distract him."
Ten minutes Later
Several minutes later the screaming stopped along with the thudding bodies, the bullets, the grunts and groans. Several more minutes after that and the babies stopped crying as well.
Prim entered to find the room splattered in blood. Every surface glistened. The bodies of the capitol soldiers twisted and mutilated on the ground. Their torsos had so many stab wounds that it reminded her of a sewing cushion, blood still spurting from the wounds. Their organs hung from their bodies, and their heads dangled at odd angles.
Hannibal sat in the rocking chair, covered from head to toe in gore, the body of the nanny shoved to the ground. He held both boys in each of his arms, the pure white of their swaddle blankets smeared with dark crimson, and he slowly rocked back and forth.
"I remembered the pacifiers," Hannibal said, his curly blond hair now a dark color with the blood. "Cato will be proud."
The boys suckled on their pacifiers, both already back into a deep sleep.
"Today I taught the twins their first and most important lesson," Hannibal said. He glanced sharply up, staring at them both. "Don't attack a lion unless you're prepared for its teeth."
And then he smiled, though his eyes were red from unshed tears, his grin so much like Cato in victory. He leaned down and kissed their downy heads.
"Sleep peacefully, my lion cubs," Hannibal said. "Because today the boogeyman learned this lesson too late—No one fucks with a Carthage and lives."
Five Minutes Later
Hannibal laid the babies back down in the bassinets, backing gently away.
"Someone needs to find Cato." Hannibal said. "But we can't leave the twins unprotected, and I also don't think waking them up and running around with them would be smart either. They are safest in here."
"I'll go," Katla said, "I'm the smallest target. No one knows me enough to care."
Hannibal's face twisted, and it hurt Prim's heart.
"No, I'll go," Prim said. "Hannibal needs to stay with Max and Rory because I don't know if Snow sent more assasins. And I don't think Hanny would function as protector well if he's worried about you the whole time." She looked at Katla. The girl visibly deflated and so did Hannibal. Katla was made of iron, but one look at her, and Prim understood her mental status already fractured. And no wonder—she just put a gun to her ex-boyfriend's head, the man she once loved, and pulled the trigger.
"Here, use this," Hannibal handed her a tiny object, another invisibility button.
She took it and pressed it to her necklace.
"How many of these things do you have?"
"It's the last one, and this one only lasts for thirty minutes, so use it well." Hannibal gave a lopsided smile, slightly forced, showing off his dimple. "And don't worry about your nuggets." He hefted up one of the Capitol guns, looted from the mutilated soldier's body. "If anyone attempts to hurt them, I'll give a repeat performance."
Five Minutes Later
Prim weaved her way back to the Great Hall where her would-be wedding was held, dodging fleeing guests as she went. They were covered in blood and shell-shocked. The camouflage was unnecessary for them. Even if they saw her, they'd look through her, dumb with fear.
She walked towards the metal double doors for the second time today. This time with tear-stained cheeks instead of a smile, her once pristine dress bloodied and torn. She burst through, still invisible. The sight that met her would be something she'd never forget, not even if she lived to be one hundred years old. She'd forget the people she loved before she forgot the blood, so thick it made a river at her feet, dripping the flowers in sprays of crimson. Wedding guests, dressed in their finest, draped over chairs and crumpled at odd angles, some clutching each other, some with mouths still twisted in agony. The smell of death accompanied it, hot metal mingled with gun powder and vomit and shit. The screams of the dying slicked down her spine like slime.
Brutus stood tall in the corner, her mother trembling at his side, with a troop of Cato's guard next to him. He barked orders. Some of them were going body to body checking for life. Prim exhaled a breath at the sight of them alive but decided not to give up her cover. Not yet. Not until she found Cato. Brutus was liable to tie her down until the end, if he thought she was putting herself in danger.
Prim waded through the corpses and bodily fluids, not recognizing any of them until she saw President Coin's face, blank and devoid of life staring at the ceiling. Prim gasped. If such a high-profile figure managed to die, then anybody could have.
Even Cato.
A fear gripped her, urgent and beating like a heart. It drove her forward, pushing and shoving around bodies, looking for blond hair.
In the middle of her search a hand went out and wrapped around her ankle.
The hand's owner had a rose tattoo on his cheek. She did not recognize the leader of District 1 by anything else. He seeped in blood, disguising his features.
"Lux," Prim said, leaning down. "Are you hurt bad?"
"Not much," he said, "I managed to pop on my last invisibility button before it got dicey, otherwise I'd have been one of the first to go like that bitch, Coin. As it stands, I have a few bullets grazes and one lodged in my arm, but I think I'll be okay."
"How did you see me?"
"Something invisible was sloshing through this blood. I figured you'd be back for your lion."
Prim lifted his arm and touched the wound. It looked bad but not immediately life-threating. Still, he might lose some of its use. Lux sucked in a breath with pain.
"Your friend is here too. She slipped when it started and hit her head and hasn't woken since. Which is good I guess, since it got brutal, especially towards the end. I laid on top of her so no one could see her."
He shifted to show a body under him.
"Madge!" Prim exclaimed. He was right. She hit her head hard and seemed to be unconscious, though her pulse beat steady. She wished she had more time to help.
"You could have escaped, being invisible, but you stayed?" Prim asked.
"Everyone likes to be a hero once in their life, right? Thought I'd take a page out of Carthage's handbook, see where it got me." He gave a sideways smile, staring down at Madge with a little bit of affection and then he looked back at her, suddenly serious. "Cato and Cassius fought. Cato won, of course, but then… Cassius had some sort of smoke bomb and threw it. He ran out with his followers, the ones that survived the Circle and District 13's ass kicking. Cato ran after him when the smoke cleared."
Prim stood up. Her fear did not abate. If anything, it increased. Cassius wasn't so easily defeated. He said so himself.
I could have crushed her if I wanted to. I didn't need to be stronger than her to do it either.
He warned her about the betrayal long ago, and she did nothing but brush it off. She jumped towards the doors, almost in a sprint.
"Wait," Lux said on the ground. "Where are you going? We won…"
Prim ran away until his voice faded. Her bare feet slapped against tile as she traveled down the hallway, leaving bloody footprints behind her, knowing deep in her bones something was wrong.
Because they didn't win.
Not yet.
It was an illusion, just like he told her it would be. Things wouldn't be what they seem.
And this time she believed him.
Ten Minutes Later
Prim followed the blood, the marks of explosions. She didn't need to be a hound to scent it. A blind man could find it. It led down the main hallways and out the mountain. Prim didn't hesitate to exit the compound. Her invisibility still worked but would deactivate any second now.
The screams became louder outside as the soldiers aimed their weapons at innocent civilians. The screams helped her find them—the traitors. They held in close formation as five large Capitol hovercrafts lowered and landed close to them. The doors popped open and they streamed inside. They had a few hostages: top officials and turncoat peacekeepers from various districts. Prim did not envy them their fate.
No one else followed them outside. She was the only one foolish enough to do so.
"Cassius," she screamed. She didn't care to be invisible anymore. She lifted the gun and aimed it at a carrier. "Where the fuck is he?"
Nobody heard her, but they would.
She watched the carrier load, watched the soldiers dutifully marching in. She aimed The Whistler at it as the ramp closed and they readied for takeoff. She didn't even have to invite the monster this time; it took over with her anger. Cassius was responsible for the slaughter at her wedding and the near-murder of her babies. He deserved a cruel death, along with everyone that worked with him.
There was a moment where her old self wanted to stand in the way, but she stamped it down with an internal roar.
Her finger pressed the trigger. The kickback vaulted her backwards, and she slid against the rocks and brush, scratching up her arms and legs. The explosion of the carrier rocked her again, sending her body flipping and landing hard. Her ears rung, and her face burned from the heat.
When she righted herself, she viewed the carnage. A hunk of mangled metal resided where a plane once stood. Burning men fell out of the jumbled heap, twisting and turning with screams of agony that shot to her bones. Black, choking smoke darkened the sky. She waited for the blood to stain to soul, for her fractured mind to bend and break with guilt, but discovered she felt nothing and instead she spat on the ground as she pulled herself upright.
Prim brushed a trail of blood from a cut on her face she received from be thrown around. She startled when she noticed her hand was visible, meaning her disguise was over. Prim found she didn't care.
"Cassius," she screamed again, feeling crazed. "Show yourself, pathetic coward."
She trudged forward in her bloodied, dirty, and torn wedding dress, the whistler aimed at the nearest carrier.
"Enough," a voice bellowed back.
She glanced to her right. In a carrier that hadn't taken off yet, Cassius stood on the ramp. Blood dripped down his thigh, but other than that he looked remarkably well put together considering the acts of evil he just committed.
Prim sneered, tilting her head down and bringing both hands up, pointing the Whistler straight at him.
"You don't want to do that," Cassius said. He held both hands behind his back.
"I do," Prim answered back. "I'd like nothing more. I'd do it without remorse too. Watch your burning body convulse on the ground."
"Yes," Cassius drawled, glancing at the burning hunk of metal a hundred feet from him. "I believe you. But I think you need to look closer."
Prim looked again, at the details. Nestled towards his feet was a crumpled form. Cassius crouched down and gripped the blond head by his hair and tilted it up, proving that he held Cato in his grasp.
Prim walked forward but stopped herself before she could get too far.
Cato was groggy but still a little bit conscious. He coughed and slit his eyes open, meeting Prim's eyes. He looked sad, terrified, and defeated. A combination she never thought to see on his face.
"Shoot me," he ground out. "Give me… Mercy." The words took everything out of him, and his eyelids closed again.
Cassius dropped the head back down with a sickening snap against metal.
"Yes," Cassius taunted, mocking Cato. "Give mercy."
Prim put her finger on the trigger, and then put it down. Prim gave a low scream of frustration. She couldn't do what he asked, and Cassius knew it. It would be a mercy. Who knows what torture Snow would subject him to, but she just couldn't do it.
"How could you… your own brother! Theodora would hate you for this!" Prim screamed, wanting to hurt him as bad as he hurt her.
It worked. Cassius looked like she smacked him. He straightened, and his face tightened.
"But she's dead," he said. "And he's the one to blame. I warned you, and the warning still stands. Nothing is ever as it seems. The poison is the truth… Have you even solved the riddle?"
"Nothing," Prim shouted, as Cassius walked the few feet up the ramp, standing next to his brother's unconscious body. "You don't love anything."
He smiled, and the hydraulics began their popping, signaling the door would shut and she would lose any chance to save Cato.
"No, that would be too easy. Think harder," he said, eyes glinting. "In the meantime, focus on your own survival."
It wasn't meant as a warning. Two strong arms encircled her and pried the Whistler from her hands before she could react. Prim kicked her legs, but she was effectively trapped. She turned just enough to see a District 2 soldier in his black uniform. But this was a wolf in disguise; he worked for Cassius.
"Kill her out of sight," Cassius ordered, as the door inched close to closing "Quick and as painless as possible. It's the only mercy I'll give her."
The soldier nodded his head at her shoulder and began to drag her away as the boarding ramp closed. By the time the soldier made it to the mountain, her feet dragging against the dirt, the ship had climbed into the sky and took off into the clouds.