A/N- Thank you so much for the awesome reviews, I'm so glad that you liked the chapter. As always, I hope that you like this one too, and please review so that I know what you think. Thanks.
As soon as I manage to tear myself away from those eyes, I make my way over to the phone in some kind of stupor. First, I call Mags.
"Are you awake?" I ask, not even bothering with any kind of greeting. I mean, why would I? That'd just be an amazing conversation. "Oh, hello, it's nice to talk to you. And by the way, can you come over here? I need your help dealing with my mother's decapitated head."
"Finnick?" she asks groggily.
"Yeah, is there any chance you could come over? I need your help."
"I'll be over there as quickly as I can," she says, then hangs up the phone. That helps me wake up a little bit, knowing that she's here for me, that she doesn't even need to ask questions before she comes to help me. The only thing is that as soon as the fog evaporates from my brain, I realize what else I have to do. I pick up the phone again, and this time I dial the number that President Snow gave me if I ever wanted to contact him.
Some attendant answers, saying that the president is asleep. I tell her who I am, and she starts to say that she still won't wake him up, but her voice trails off at the end of the sentence. There's some mumbling in the background, and she says that he's right there. He was probably waiting to hear from me, waiting to revel in what he's done this time.
"What could possess you to call me at this hour?" he asks, his slimy voice loaded with false ignorance. I want to cuss him out, to scream death threats at him, to tell him that his precious Capitol isn't as safe as he thinks it is. But I can't. Not if I don't want another head to arrive in the mail.
"Well, I just received a package from you, a very generous present." Nothing in the world could keep the anger from reverberating through my voice, even if I'm worried that Snow will use that as an excuse to wipe out someone else. He has a convenient gift for ignoring things like that, however, and he carries on the conversation like he thought I really believed it was a generous present.
"Oh yes, that. I take it that you appreciate it very dearly and wish to thank me."
"I guess I could thank you, but I'm truly just wondering why a powerful man such as yourself would ever send someone like me such amazing gift. Really, that's all I want, is an explanation. I need to know what to do in the future to deserve your generosity." I hear Mags knock on the door.
"Well, you didn't use your head very well, and you made a move that I was all too thrilled to hear about. Maybe you would appreciate it if I would lay out a very clear set of circumstances that would require more gifts in the future."
"That would be nice."
"I'll send a train for you tomorrow at ten, and I will meet with you in my office." Then, before I can argue that I didn't mean that, he hangs up. I slam the phone down, then run to open the door for Mags.
"Are you okay?" she asks me. I shake my head, then look behind me, at the head that's still sitting on my table. The worry on her face turns to shock, then horror.
"I'm assuming that pile of fish shit has been spying on me. I know that she told Snow about Annie and me, and he did this," I say quietly, levelly, barely keeping my voice from falling apart.
She doesn't say anything, just pulls her arms around me and holds me close, silently telling me that she's here for me.
I still don't cry. I hadn't seen my mother in years, and even then, I didn't like her much anyway. It's horrible, but there are very few people left that can die and make me truly sad. My mother isn't one of them. Rafe, Annie, and Mags are the only people I care about. Snow knows that. He knows that this is just a show of his power, and I think that's what the biggest tragedy in all of this is, at least to me. He killed someone to show me he could. A total waste of life, just to prove a point. To me. Because of me. Daisy is eight now, and she won't have a mother, or really even a father. Because of me. My fault.
"How many is that now?" I whisper to Mags. "How many people have I killed?" She shakes her head softly and puts a hand on my shoulder.
"This isn't your fault. Remember what I told you after your first Games, who I told you to blame after you were upset?" she asks. Yeah, the Capitol. The thing is, though, that I knew that Snow would retaliate if he found out about the engagement, and I knew that I cannot keep anything from him. Yet, I still proposed.
"Whatever. What are we going to do with it?" I ask. I don't want to talk about who's fault it is, because I know that I'll blame myself, and Mags will feed me crap about how it wasn't me.
"I think that you should tell your father. I'll contact the Peacekeepers and they can figure out what to do with the head." That's when I get scared. The prospect of going to my father and basically admitting to killing my mother terrifies me. Not only am I scared of what he'll actually do to me, but I'm worried about the impact that it'll have on him and Daisy.
Telling him that I broke a vase? That's fine. I would've gotten slapped in the head and cussed out, but he wouldn't have really been too upset. This is going to kill him, though, and I don't know if I can stand that.
I wonder if he already knows she's dead. That head isn't old. Maybe he's sitting around, worrying about where she is right now, hoping she'll come home soon. Maybe he's thinking she ran away and left him with Daisy. I just know that he won't be expecting this.
"You want me to tell him?" I ask.
"It would only be right."
"I haven't spoken a word to them for years. I'm not supposed to get near Daisy. My father thinks I'm the devil incarnate."
"Finnick," she says. "This is going to be hard enough on him, don't make it harder by having a Peacekeeper give him the news."
"I'll go," I whisper. "But I don't like it."
I leave right away. Things like this can't wait. The rain has started again, drizzling on my head, making strands of hair stick to my face. I should drive. The house is two miles away, but I run instead. I don't want to rumble up in my shiny new car, one of the only ones in the district. It seems like it'd be rubbing my wealth and status in my father's face. I don't know why. It just feels wrong.
Running through the rain, saturating the bottoms of my pants with mud, and soaking myself with rain, seems so much more appropriate. Maybe, I hope, I won't seem so much like a Victor then. Maybe, they could see that I'm still Finnick. Like my father liked Finnick anyway.
I run as fast as I can, until my lungs struggle for breath and my legs start burning. Rain streams down my face like the tears that I probably should have. I crash through mud puddles in the dark, stumbling along, sending water spraying everywhere.
When I finally arrive at the doorstep of the house I grew up in, I pause, taking my time to walk up the porch steps, to catch my breath. Then. I knock on the door. I immediately curse myself for being stupid, because of course there's no way anyone would hear a knock at three in the morning. Only I hear someone shuffling around immediately, and my father comes to the door in just seconds.
The relief on his face, no doubt reserved for who he thought was his wife, turns into confusion when he sees me.
"Who the hell are you?" he asks softly. I'm sure he's joking at first, then I realize that he may not recognize me. Whenever I'm on tv, my face is covered in makeup, my wardrobe specifically designed for me, my hair perfectly cut. Not a single one of those things would apply to my appearance right now. My father has no idea who I am. I swallow hard.
"Finnick Odair," I tell him. My voice is husky and hollow, and the words barely make it out of my throat. I don't want to do this. Not at all.
My father's eyes grow wide, his jaw dropping just slightly. He starts to say something, stops. Then he just stares.
"Finnick," he finally says softly, then he blinks, and the surprise wears off, his natural look returning to his face. "What are you doing here?" he asks, now clearly pissed off, just the way I remember.
"I-" I start, then clear my throat. I can't get the words out. "Is it okay if I come inside? I need to talk to you."
"I don't know, Daisy is sleeping, and your mother wouldn't want-" I close my eyes, trying to detach myself from how horrible this is going to be.
"I need to talk to you about Mom," I tell him. The annoyance on his face immediately changes to extreme wariness.
"What did you do to her?" he snaps. I want to argue, but he's right. I did do something to her.
"Dad, I really think we should go inside." He grabs me by the front of my shirt, almost picking me up.
"Tell me what the fuck you did to her?" he snaps. I reach into my pocket and take out my knife, raising it so that he can see it. He immediately tries to knock it away, and I use the opportunity to wriggle out of his grasp, then get the knife out of his reach, and back him against the door, in an identical position to what I had Orica in just a night ago.
"I said that we should go inside," I spit. I feel bad, I really do, but that's how I know how to handle things. I'm not going to tell him that I got his wife's head in a cardboard box on the front porch, no matter how necessary he thinks it is. Negotiations take too much time, so this is the only way that I can see to get my father inside. If the only downside is that the fear on my dad's face stings a little, then holding a knife to his neck is an option I am willing to take.
"Yes, let's go inside," he chokes out. I lower my knife.
"Lead the way. It isn't my house anymore," I tell him. Then I swear, I swear to God, that there's a flash of regret in his eyes. It passes instantly, but seeing it there pisses me off. He has no right to be able to kick me out, sever all connections with me, and then get all guilty right before I'm going to tell him something that's going to make him hate me.
He leads me inside, not looking at me at all. I look around the house, breathing in the smell, finding little things that I remember from the last time I've been in there, right before the Games. Then, my father looks at me, and the nostalgia fades completely, turning into the worst kind of horror possible.
"What happened to my wife?" he asks me. I notice that since I pulled the knife, he doesn't ask me what I did to her. Talk about a chicken.
"About an hour ago, someone rang my doorbell. When I opened it, all that I found was a box." I pause, trying to collect my thoughts, trying to figure out how to say what I need to say.
"Who sent the box?"
"It was unmarked," I answer, knowing that it'd do no good to blame President Snow. Then, someone else would just die.
"And what does this box have to do with my wife?" I take a deep breath.
"I opened the box," I choke out. I pause for another second. It feels like the words I should be saying are getting stuck in my throat.
My father's eyes urge me on, even as his face clouds with worry. I take another deep breath.
"Mom's head was inside." The words rush out in a garble, almost like I threw them up. I have no idea how he understands them, but it's obvious that he gets the message. My father stares at me again, except this time it's in disbelief.
"Are you playing some kind of sick joke?" he asks, except by the look on his face, I know that he doesn't believe that for a second. I can't answer his question, though. I can't talk that well. I get up immediately, trying to get out of there before I can catch too much crap, or even worse, before he starts crying. Because if he starts crying, I'll probably start crying, too, just because my father doesn't cry.
"I should go," I mumble, even though I doubt he can understand me.
My dad says nothing, so I just leave. I've done everything that I have to, that I was supposed to. There's no reason for me to stay. So I walk away, after giving my father the worst news he's probably ever heard. I don't try to console him. I tell him that I find his wife's head in a box, and then I leave.
Maybe they're right, thinking that I'm not a good person.
My next stop is Annie's house. Not only do I have to tell her that our engagement is off, but I'm also giving her news that I'm taking an unexpected trip to the Capitol. Not suspicious at all right there, especially given my clean history during my trips to the Capitol.
Annie isn't sleeping when I get there, but that doesn't surprise me. She rarely sleeps through the whole night. When I sneak in the door, not wanting to knock for fear of waking her parents, she's pacing around, hugging herself tightly. As soon as she sees me, she runs over and throws her arms around me, not thinking that it's at all odd for me to come over at four in the morning.
"Are you okay?" I ask her, trying to get a good look at her eyes. I can usually tell if she's having a fit by the way her eyes start darting around. They focus on me right away, though.
"Yes, but you aren't," she answers, running her fingers through my wet hair. "You've been running."
"I was bored," I say simply. I don't like lying to her, but she doesn't need to know about the head. "And no, I'm really not okay."
"What's wrong?" she asks, clinging to me a little more tightly. Her beautiful eyes are darkened by worry.
"I got a call from the president," I tell her. I doubt that Snow would care that I lie about that, seeing as I'm calling off the engagement, which is all he wanted.
"About what?" she asks, now getting nervous.
"He wants me to go to the Capitol tomorrow."
"Why?" The word Capitol is like a trigger for one of her fits to start. I can feel her losing it a little bit. Her shoulders start shaking, her eyes starting to look around, like even just saying the word will send Peacekeepers swarming to her house.
"He wants to talk to me about our engagement," I tell her. She squeezes her eyes shut, like she's trying to will something good to come out of this.
"He doesn't like it, does he?" she asks with a forced composure.
"I don't think so," I say, burying my face in her hair. "I really don't think so."
"Why can't he leave you alone?" she breathes, the words so soft that there's no way any bugs could possibly pick them up. I hardly hear them myself.
"I wish I knew," I whisper. Then I kiss the top of her head before stepping back. "You know that I still love you, right?" She puts her hands on my shoulders, standing on her tiptoes.
"I'd never doubt it." She tilts her head up then, and her lips find mine. I feel myself relax, everything from this past night leaving my mind, even if it's just for a minute. No matter what happens, as long as I still have Annie, I'll be able to live through it, to deal with it.
I keep reminding myself of that the next day, sitting on the train, listening to some stupid attendant bitch to me about how uncomfortable her shoes are. I don't know why she thinks that I'd care, but she won't shut up. I want to cuss her out, ask her if she'd like me to cut off her mother's head and give it to her as a wedding gift, but I don't think that Snow would be happy with that. Still, it's pathetic how people from the Capitol won't shut up about things that no one gives a shit about, "tragedies" that don't affect their lives in even the slightest way, while some many people from the districts are forced to keep their mouths shut about things that cost people their lives.
"Why don't you just buy more comfortable shoes?" I finally snap at her. She jumps a little.
"But these are so much more fashionable," she says, then walks off in a huff, like she's mad at me for even suggesting comfortable shoes. I don't regret it too much, because it gives me a chance to sleep the rest of the way. I got absolutely none after that whole thing last night. By the time I got back from Annie's it was almost five, and then Mags and I had to make up a nice story to explain the head to the Peacekeepers. Their interrogations took another hour, and by then it was too late to even try to sleep.
I still can't get to sleep now, anyway. That stupid head only leaves my mind when Orica stomps in to take over, her satanic eyes gleaming at me.
Yeah, not very happy stuff to see once you close your eyes. I give up sleep pretty quick, settling for watching a rerun of the first quarter quell until the train pulls into the Capitol.