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XLIII. Shattered
"About time," Oliver greets us when we return home. "I was starting to think you two had gotten lost at sea or something."
"A man from District Four lost at sea?" I reply, rolling my eyes. "That's something that never happens."
He gestures to our linked hands, and unfortunately for me, Annie pulls her hand out of my hold. "It's also about time that you guys got togeth-"
"You sound like a teenage girl," Annie chirps in.
"Because everyone was starting to think that the two of you were becoming blind."
"Blind?" I raise a dubious eyebrow. "Really?"
Olive nods, smirking. "Yeah. The sexual tension between you guys is ju- oomph!" Now, that was my girlfriend shoving half a muesli bar into his mouth. The sounds of frantic chewing, crunching and teeth grinding quickly follows in suit, as Oliver shoots a joking glare at Annie.
My girlfriend, I think to myself and fight a smile that threatens to grace my lips. She's my fucking girlfriend.
"Thanks a lot, Cresta. I was pretty hungry," he says with a grin. "Congratulations with Marlene, Odair. How is she?"
He's genuinely worried for our classmate. My eyes narrow at the sight of two intact slips of paper in his hand. Both sheets are white, stained with calligraphy and traditional District Four designs. "I've only spent my time with Annie, talki-"
"Just talking?" Oliver interrupts with a suggestive eye wriggle.
"Just talking," Annie insists, raising the other half of the muesli bar as if she's threatening to pound him down with it.
"She's next door," I say. "Go talk to her yourself, whenever you feel like it."
"I'll do that later. Now, I didn't come here just to see you two because I missed you." Of course, he missed us – he just wouldn't admit it. "I have invitations for you guys."
September third was Oliver and Arden's wedding date.
"I thought your parents didn't want you marrying her," Annie says.
That's news to me. "Wait, what?"
Oliver laughs, sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck with a grimace. "Uh… we haven't told them yet."
The last time Oliver defied his parents, they'd completely flipped out. He'd arrived at school with a bruised cheek. He could barely walk on his own without wincing, his back red and raw from belts whippings. He doesn't just take his punishment - he takes both his younger siblings' punishments too. I have never admitted this out loud, but his parents are crazy. They're too caught up in their own business in the District, and the fame and fortune they have. If I were to be brutally honest, I'd think that the only reason they have kids is to have heirs for their business. I've never told Oliver, Brody or Syndi, though, and I don't plan to either. If the word was spread out, their family's reputation would go down the drain.
I'd found this all out the not-so-pleasant way. I greeted Oliver with a hard slap on the back - it's normal for us - and he'd unleashed a scream so loud and so full of agony that it'd give Annie a run for her money if she were to ever encounter a shark again.
"They love Arden, though."
"That's what we thought but apparently, they didn't think we were that serious. They think Arden's in it for the money because, you know… she's from the poorer part of the District."
"Romeo and Juliet," Annie comments with a small smile, her eyes twinkling.
"Urgh," Oliver groans, melodramatically. "We are nothing like that atrocity of a play. If anything, you guys are. Besides, who cares if my parents don't like her anymore? They ca-"
Smash.
Through the window, we watch as Marlene slams her door behind her with a furious expression. She sprints off outside the Victor's Village. "Uh… I'll go check on her," I say, kissing Annie's cheek before running after the girl.
"Marlene!"
She doesn't stop, nor does she pay me any attention. The crowd in the centre of District Four seems to notice my frantic movements and desperate measures to reach the girl, and they thankfully form a pathway between them, allowing me to push past.
I'm vaguely aware of Oliver and Annie running behind me, shouting my name as we sprint towards the poorer section of the district. It's a slightly modified version of District Twelve, where it's only slightly better. It stinks of raw fish and garbage, and the people here wear measly scraps of clothing and have dirt splattered all over them. They send us odd looks, wispy strands of her framing their faces like a curtain would to a window.
I spur my legs on faster, each heavy thud of my footsteps pounding onto the dirt gravel and kicking up small pebbles. The distance between Marlene and I has lessened, but not by much, so I force myself to push myself forward faster in an attempt to catch up to her.
"Marlene, what's going on?"
Either, she's blocked everything out and can't hear me, or she chooses to ignore me.
We're closing in on the northern-most border of District Four, where there's nothing but field, trees and land that's forbidden to pass through. Barbed wire surrounds the area and I can see the electricity around it, actively buzzing, as if tempting one to go forth and pass the thin barriers that block us from the outside world.
This place is unfamiliar to me. I'd always grown up in the middle class section of District Four, where we didn't necessarily have everything we wanted, but we had everything we needed. I'd heard things, though, about the poorer citizens and I've always refused to believe how true they were. Only now, I realise that I'd been fooling myself because people really do live in such crap conditions – torn down houses, which provide no protection to hurricanes, scraps of food, rags for clothes and scrawny people with bones sticking out.
Marlene and Maxwell had grown up in the section halfway between poor and average. They had enough just to get by, but not enough to stay as healthy as they should've been. At least, this was until Joseph had seen the potential in Marlene when he'd come across her fighting off a bunch of kids from school. He'd taken her in; he'd never trained Marlene but he offered her a spot in the Training Centre for free, which was more often than not, extremely weird and uncommon among the Victors of District Four.
Marlene barges into the house furthest down the pavement, slamming the door wide open. From outside, I can even hear her heavy panting and ragged breathing.
When I finally see her, she clutches onto the ring around her necklace tightly and stares at one spot, shaking her head frantically. "No," she murmurs, softly. "No, no, no."
A man, possibly around eighteen or nineteen, with blonde hair hangs from the ceiling with a noose around his neck. Blood foams around his neck and mouth, dripping down onto the ground in occasional droplets and his arms have fallen limp to his sides. The man still sways a little; evidently, the suicide had only just happened.
A strangled sob manages to make its way out of Marlene's throat. Tentatively, I take a step forward and watch as she reaches up for the man's face. She cups his cheek, rubbing her thumb across the splash of freckles beside his nose. "Ethan," she whispers.
Marlene turns around, as if only just realizing I've been here the entire time, and she furiously wipes at her eyes. Her blue eyes often malicious and threatening are now empty, like a void – like a vacuum has just sucked all the emotions inside of her out.
"Don't bottle it all up, Marlene," I say, as my only words of advice because honestly? There's nothing else to say to her. I can't say 'I'm sorry for your loss' or 'I know how you feel'. As true as those two statements are, there's no valid reason for me to tell Marlene, out of all people, that I'm sorry and that I pity her, because pity and empathy are two things we all hate – especially people like us.
Two pairs of footsteps come to a stop behind us – Annie and Oliver. I catch Oliver's eye, nodding my head back slightly as a subtle gesture for him to take Annie back home. She's already so caught up in this mess, and there's no way I'm letting anything else get in her life's way again.
They don't do anything. Annie pants slightly from the long run here and the pair of them stare at the lifeless body of the man before us in shock. Deciding to give Marlene a little bit of alone time – but not for too long – I drag Annie and Oliver out of the house. Marlene's cries are heard almost instantly and she screams her lover's name. I've never heard a scream so pained and anguished.
Screams from physical pain have nothing on those that escape from people suffering from emotional and mental pain.
"Get the medics here," I tell both of them. "One gurney."
"Marlene's going to lose it, isn't she?" Annie responds with a contrite smile. "I've seen them around quite a bit…"
"Come on, Annie," Oliver says, pulling her by the arm. "You're coming with me."
"Bu-"
"No. Finnick can deal with Marlene. He's her mentor."
Annie frowns and purses her lips, clearly unhappy with the situation at hand. She's always had a queasy stomach – I know that, and one glimpse of a dead body is more than enough for her.
I take her hand and brush a few loose strands of her brown hair behind her hair. Kissing her forehead, I say, "I love you."
"I love you too," she says with a smile. Oliver pulls a ridiculously disgusted face over her shoulder – he's joking, I hope. "But I want to stay here."
"No," I reply with a shake of my head. "Go with Oliver, and then, I want you to bring Mags, Joseph and Audrye to her house."
"Shouldn't she be taken to the hospital, too?"
"Marlene? No, she's fine. She spent over two weeks in the hospital recently; she wouldn't want to go again."
A loud smash interrupts us, and the sounds of clattering and shards breaking seem to echo around the area. "Come on," Oliver says, tugging on Annie's arm and dragging her away.
Entering the house once again, I find Marlene curled up in the corner with her head between her knees. Her right hand clutches a dagger tightly and she carves meaningless lines into the floor, her knuckles white from the tight grip. Her other hand remains tight around her necklace.
"It hurts, Finnick," she whimpers.
"Where?"
"Everywhere. I can't feel anything."
Panic attack, my mind tells me almost automatically. Swearing mentally, I struggle to remember how everyone else had dealt with my issues in the past.
Marlene's skin is cold. Her shaking seems almost uncontrollable, as does her hyperventilating and as I reach out for her, I realise how tense her muscles have become. "Calm down," I tell her, helping her stretch her legs out. She digs the dagger into the floorboards deeper, causing them to creak.
"Marlene, I need you to calm down," I say, thinking back to when Audrye had decided to give me those 'life-lessons' in the hospital – turns out, they really do help. "Count down from one hundred slowly."
She shakes her head, clawing at her hair and struggling to unclench her fists. When she looks back up, she stares right at the deceased body. Her eyes are blank and empty, and haunted, as if the scene before her is worse than the girl she'd messed with during the Games. Cold sweat drips down her forehead and her usually tanned skin is pale – too pale. Her sobs have become silent and she trembles, hysterically, never tearing her empty eyes away from the man hanging from the ceiling with a noose around his neck.
Marlene's soul didn't break during the Hunger Games.
Unlike others, her soul was almost intact for the duration. She broke after the Games, when everything caught up to her.
Her soul was shattered.
A/N: Sorry this is a bit more than a few days for a usual update, but I have a fractured wrist right now so it's a bit hard to type with one hand, haha. Sorry if there are more typos than usual!