She just wants to be beautiful.
She stands before the mirror and smiles, first a crooked smile, then a smirk, then a scowl, and then a wide grin. Her light brown eyes shine under the lights suspended above the granite vanity, and she hears the director clapping his hands incessantly and calling for the models to come, come, come! She wrings her hands and all signs of confidence are sapped away from her young preteen face for a moment. She hasn't grown into her lips yet according to her mother, and her younger sister Iridia, prodding her striped black and white top this morning, told her it was too flashy. They love her, but they don't know when to stop with their constructive criticism. She's only eleven years old and she can't calm down. It is her first modeling gig after all. Her face looks watery and fake and she's so worried she might start crying at any moment. She swears her face is the ugliest thing she's ever seen. Her breath is shaky and uneven, and she crouches on the cold tile of the bathroom, trying not to throw up. Suddenly she feels a hand on her shoulder, and she looks up to see a Capitol boy about her age gripping her shoulder.
"Hey! My name's Adonis Gethsemane! My dad's the director here. He told me to go find the stragglers hiding in the bathroom!" he giggles. She staggers to her feet, and brushes the tears from her eyes. The moment she's standing and staring Adonis in his tinted purple eyes, he pauses. "Wow, you're really pretty."
"Thanks," she whispers, her voice catching in her voice. She clears her throat and straightens, sounding confident all of the sudden. "Let's go."
"Fiesty. Me likey!" Adonis jokes, and she follows him out, smiling. Her parents were right when they said Capitol people were kind and gracious.
Rhoda pulls back the hammer, and looks into those purple eyes. Adonis doesn't even react; he thinks she's joking, his signature, carefree smirk consuming his face with its jovial quality, brightening his features and making him look handsome. He was always so carefree on the set, making funny faces behind the camera while she posed, trying to distract her. She never liked him, not in a romantic way, and they didn't know each other too well. That's a lie. Adonis is probably one of the closest things she has for a friend. But will she really kill him? She died second place on a freezing mountain to a deviant Career via a rock to the head. She's fought in a white padded room with thirteen others, she's killed prisoners, she's felt electricity surge through her veins until there's nothing but pain, she's relied on her new friend Steel Keshmin to keep her alive, and now here she is. All she has to do to go home is kill Adonis, and she goes home. All she has to do to get what they've taught her to want, what she honestly does want, is fire the gun. She expects her hands to tremble like they did that one day in the bathroom on the set, but they don't. She expects her breath to catch in her throat, but it doesn't. She's not that girl any more.
She doesn't look away. She squeezes the trigger, and accepts their different fates. She hopes he accepts them, too.
A/N: I hope this was a good read. Rhoda Hamilton is my first ever Victor from an SYOT, and I'm excited to explore her through a lengthy series of drabbles based each on a lyric from Alessia Cara's "Scars to Your Beautiful". If I ever get any more Victors, I'll do a similar story about a song for them. Please review if you can, it's really helpful to hear your comments :)
This will be updated about daily; I have two more drabbles already pre-made and so I'll probably stay ahead of it for a majority of the time before the story is completed. This won't really effect my other updating (hopefully).
Until Next Time,
Tracee