Taking a little detour in this chapter. We all know about Finnick's abuse at the hands of the Capitol. I of course don't own anything Hunger Games, or else the story would not have been suitable for younger readers lol. That being said, Collins tried to leave Finnick's adult situations up to the reader's imagination. I can only imagine that being prostituted out by Snow for so many years had to have had its fair share of horror stories. A good chunk of this chapter is his tale. Proceed at your own risk…
Peeta was now an orphan, shaken by the Capitol to his very core. The wicked tyrants had almost succeeded in breaking the boy, but they didn't account for the love and support he had thriving for him in district 13. It was a safehouse for Peeta in every sense of the word. He had shelter and protection, and he also had loyal support. Peeta still had his team, he had his mentor, he had the other tributes who became his best friends… he had Cato. In his darkest hour of need, the devotion of these people, as well as all of 13, had fueled his resolve more than ever. The Capitol had to fall. It had to fall now.
Peeta and Katniss returned to the ruins of 12 to film propos showing their unwavering resolve despite the devastation. Peeta held it together with tremendous strength for the cameras. As the propo aired, the debonair Finnick Odair sat with the other rescued mentors and watched with anger. He took pity on the orphaned boy. Snow deliberately threw a low blow by killing all of Peeta's loved ones. It resonated deeply with Finnick's own problems with Snow, so the next day, he courageously stepped in front of the camera and did a sensational propo of his own. When it aired later that night, all the mentors and tributes had gathered to watch it together in support of Finnick. The propo showed the director, Cressida, giving the signal and the handsome victor from 4 revealed the ghosts he had struggled for so long to hide.
"Good evening, Panem. District 12 is no longer with us, and for that, I am deeply disgusted. Disgusted, but not surprised. For this is the tactic Snow is infamous for. He is too coward to go after his enemy head-on, so instead he targets the innocent. I know this from years of personal experience. When I won the 65th Hunger Games, I was only 14. Despite my age, my popularity and appeal to the Capitol people were undeniable. They treated me like more than just a celebrity, but more like this idealistic prize. I was allowed to return home to my family until the very day I turned 16. It wasn't even 3 in the morning on my birthday when I awoke to the sensation of being carried. It was a peacekeeper taking me out of my room in the middle of the night, kidnapping me, and putting me on a train straight for the Capitol. My old Hunger Games escort was there and informed me that the Capitol citizens wanted to celebrate my birthday and had made it into some sort of holiday. At first, I was kind of flattered, although I wished my family and friends were allowed to join. But then when I arrived, I could feel in the pit of my stomach something wasn't right. They had thrown this huge ball in my honor, but I had never seen a single one of those people before in my entire life. They were introduced to me as wealthy dignitaries and the most prestigious and influential people of the Capitol. I couldn't figure out why they thought my birthday was important enough to celebrate and it made me incredibly uncomfortable the way they all looked at me. They were eyeing me, sizing me up… checking me out. I kept telling my escort I didn't like it and I just wanted to go back home and spend my birthday with friends and family."
"My escort finally took me away and I thought it meant I could leave soon. Two guards showed me a door I presumed to be the exit, but when I went in, it was a bedroom. There was Snow with a middle-aged woman in head-to-toe jewels. He told me this woman was the wife of one of his highly trusted officials and she had paid to 'spend the evening' with me. I didn't understand, until she came forward and touched me. I recoiled from her and that's when the guards behind me hit me and ordered me to cooperate. I was disgusted so I got defiant. I told them, 'You'll have to do more than smack me around to get me to be your little whore. My pride is worth more than that.'"
"That's when Snow said, 'Your pride may be worth more than that, but is your mother?' and he got up from the bed and told the guards to make the call to the sniper trained on my mother back home. I remember all that defiance I had just a second ago being obliterated by that order. I actually fell onto my knees before Snow's feet and begged him to take it back. He just smiled that sickly sweet smile and nodded. He told me, 'you spend the evening with this lovely woman and do as you're told, and I'll call off the hit. I hear of any resistance from you, and your mother will be dead and buried before you make it back home.' So that night, my 16th birthday, I became a teenage prostitute. The woman's husband even came in during the middle of it to watch. I took 3 showers right after and I still didn't feel clean enough. I felt completely worthless, like no one would ever want me again. But I was sadly mistaken. There were citizens lined up for their turn with me, and Snow made it perfectly clear that the moment I refused any one of his 'customers,' one of my loved ones would pay the price for my insolence. So I did what I was told. Young, old… ancient, man, woman, orgies, whatever freaky fetish these people had; if they paid Snow enough, I was theirs."
Cressida interrupted then to prompt Finnick further. "I know this is difficult for you, and you're being very brave, but can you tell us what it has been like for you to be sexually exploited by Snow all these years?"
"You leave your dignity at the door. You don't even feel human when you're doing it. I'll never forget the night about a month after it all started. The client for the evening was a retired trustee closely tied to Snow for years. Being older, he had trouble… how should I put this? He had trouble 'getting it up'? But that didn't mean his desire had waned at all. He was a total freak. He made me strip for him while he sat back and smoked his cigar. He touched me and made me touch myself in front of him. He made me give him oral. When he still couldn't get hard enough, he got frustrated so he started hitting me. I just had to take it cuz I knew the consequences if I fought back. But I told myself not to give in. I refused to scream no matter how hard he hit. That's when he got even angrier and barked at me to get on all fours on the bed. I did as I was told and that's when I saw it: his wooden cane. He… he…" Finnick started to falter. He had never anticipated on revealing such abuse to anyone, especially to all of Panem on national television.
"Did he use it on you, Finnick?" Cressida gently nudged him along.
"Yes," he whispered, his eyes now shamefully fixated on the ground. "I couldn't stop from screaming then. I tried so hard to keep it together, but it felt like my insides were being torn apart. I think my screams finally did it for him because he pulled it out and finished himself. I couldn't even walk out of that room. I had to crawl."
"Do you remember what was going through your mind at that point?" Cressida asked with a furrowed brow.
"I remember exactly what was going through my mind. I'll never forget it. As I lay on that bed, my mind took me back to my games. How terrified I was to die, how I fought with everything I had to make it back home. I was so young. I wanted to live. I murdered other children so that I could live. But for what? To be a prisoner in the Capitol? To be forced into a sex trade at the risk of everyone I ever loved being executed if I didn't submit? I was always so afraid to slip up, that one day I'd do the wrong thing and my family would pay the price. It was in that moment, on that freak's bed, I cursed the day I had won the games. On that bed I wished that I had died in the arena. All my loved ones would have been better off if I never made it out. Sure, they would have mourned for me but eventually they would have moved on. But now, with me alive, they were in constant danger; far greater than they had ever been before I was reaped. It wasn't supposed to be that way. I was supposed to win so I could come home and take care of them. The Capitol makes becoming a victor sound so desirable. 'A life of riches and prestige for you and your family; guaranteed immunity from ever having to be reaped again.' Who wouldn't want to win? I had won not only for myself, but for my family; to give them a better life. Well, let me tell you, even the 'winners' lose. It's all a lie. Everything that the Capitol has ever told the districts has been a lie. 23 other kids died so that I could live this sham of a life in which every breath I took in a stranger's bed put my loved ones at risk. Death would have been better. Getting fucked like that, that's what I remember thinking."
Cressida then asked, "Snow will see this propo, Finnick. Is there anything you'd like to say to him?"
"Yes. Snow, it was a mistake to let such closely-associated colleagues of yours become so intimate with me. They paid you for my services, so they still felt inclined to personally offer me some sort of reimbursement. What was my personal fee, you ask? Well, let me tell you. I was paid... in secrets. And believe me, the secrets whispered between the sheets are worth their weight in gold, but only when you get to share them with others. I think having the entire nation's attention is a good time for me to finally share all these wonderful secrets. You brought this upon yourself, Snow."
Finnick began to regale all of Panem of the horrible underhand dealings of the Capitol's elite. He opened the proverbial door and released the skeletons in their closets, until he singled out Snow's violent and devious rise to power. The murders, the poisonings, the reason behind his rose. Such juicy gossip for the Capitol citizens to sink their teeth into. And in so many ways, gossip was a deadlier weapon in the Capitol than a nuclear warhead.
Cressida yelled "Cut!" and the screen went black. The propo had aired throughout the entire nation and it was sure to leave countless citizens of both the Capitol and the districts reeling. Everyone watching in 13 just sat in appreciative silence.
"Shit, Finnick. I had no idea," Peeta finally blurted.
"That was another condition of Snow's," Finnick answered. "Not only did I have to whore myself out, I also had to keep my mouth shut about it. But not anymore. The winds are changing, my friend."
Cashmere, another mentor rescued from the training center, offered the man gratitude. "Thanks for not mentioning the rest of us, Finnick. Knowing my mother, she'd lose her mind if she ever found out what I've been through to keep her alive."
"Don't mention it," Finnick shrugged. "I wanted to hang the Capitol high and dry with that propo, not my fellow victors."
"Wait, so Snow didn't just force you into prostitution?" Cato asked. "There were other victors?"
"Of course. Any desirable victor spends the rest of his or her life being pulled by Snow's puppet strings under the threat of their loved ones' executions."
All the tributes swallowed hard at the realization that any one of them could have ended up in Finnick's shoes.
"There's been a few like me who've refused to play Snow's game," Johanna added to the conversation, coldly. "Now there's no one left for him to use against me."
Peeta stared off into the distance, realizing that he was close to being in the same boat as Johanna. Snow had taken his friends and family from 12, but that meant the President had very little leverage over him now. But Peeta still had those in 13 he cared for and he knew with the upcoming plans to infiltrate the Capitol, he couldn't guarantee that Snow wouldn't one day get a hold of them too.
As the mentors and tributes departed for bed, Peeta walked alongside Cato as usual, but he also reached over to hold the Career's hand. He interlaced their fingers and squeezed them tight. Cato squeezed back.
"According to Finnick, our lives were close to telling a very different story," Peeta whispered.
"Yes," Cato agreed. "If I had known what happens to a victor, I wouldn't have tried so hard to win. Hell, if I knew, I wouldn't have even volunteered in the first place. And if by some fate I ended up still getting chosen, I probably would have tried to kill you the moment you stepped off that platform and then just kill myself. I wouldn't want that life for either one of us, as morbid as the alternative sounds."
"I understand," Peeta spoke softly as he pulled on Cato's hand to bring the Career closer. He glided his hand across Cato's cheek to the back of his neck and pulled the taller blonde down to his lips. The Roman god's lips were so supple, Peeta would have drank them if he could. The young baker swirled his tongue to lick the older boy's lips, tasting the sweetness and feeling the heat that warmed him to his very core.
Peeta broke the kiss to catch his breath and stared up at the Career, still holding the back of his neck and admitted, "I guess it's selfish of me to be grateful you didn't know what Snow does to his victors. If you knew and then didn't volunteer, I would have been in the games without you. We never would have met."
"Fate's a funny thing," Cato smiled. "You know, no victor from 2 has ever spoken of such atrocities happening to them, but looking back, I can recall families of victors suffering strange misfortunes after they won. It made it seem like some victors were cursed. Now I know it wasn't a curse; it was just Snow."
"Snow is a curse," Peeta retorted.
Cato locked his eyes on the young baker and growled low with resolve, "Well I think it's about damn time the curse gets broken."
abugsaunt- I'm glad you liked it! Gale should be training for sure, but I don't know if it will necessarily be with the other tributes. I think now that Prim and Mrs. Everdeen are in 13, Katniss will be too preoccupied to still keep an eye out for Peeta. As for Cato being a future part of Peeta's team, the odds may be in his favor ;)
Pale Is The New Tan- I think Peeta and Cato are the hottest couple. Reading and writing about them instantly energizes me too. I often sacrifice sleep for a good book.
Abysslullaby- The Capitol here is just like the Capitol in Collins' novel; evil and willing to stoop as low as necessary to come out on top. Katniss and Gale's families are okay. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for Peeta's :(
MangoMagic- Good to hear the time skip didn't detract from the story. Your comments on it had me second guessing myself about doing that because you made good points. Anyway, I think even the strongest people are still people. Like you said, they have their breaking points. But it's what you do with those broken pieces that really defines your strength.
Guest- I will most certainly keep the adorable moments coming because I love them too!