Home Becomes A Hell / Introductions
"Kicking at a dead horse pleases you, no way of showing your gratitude—
So many things you don't want to do! What is it? What have you got to lose?"
It's such a shame that Riah Archer's family was against her keeping the baby.
She supposes it's hard to fault her parents for their reaction. Ever since she was a little girl, Riah remembers scraping for things to eat, living paycheck-to-paycheck in the most densely populated neighborhood in the Capitol. Another mouth to feed complicates things, especially when her parents have preached caution to her for as long as she can remember.
Right on the border between Venturas and Dumptown, there was never a time that wasn't tough. She can almost imagine the hardships the districts had suffered, with how much struggle and hardship she has endured at only eighteen years of age. The Capitol seems to preach the ideals of the Panemian Dream, near-endless riches, never-ending parties and the highs of high society, without ever showing that it is a lie, false as the mouth that spews it.
Her parents have chased that dream their entire lives. They might have succeeded, too, if Riah hadn't gone and messed the entire thing up. Upward mobility from one of the outlying sectors to the Inner Ring is rare, and the Archer family was never going to be an exception to that rule, no matter how much her parents have blamed her for being careless.
She will forever be the reason her parents believe they have been cheated of their dreams—born to two young adults, and a teen mother herself. Sometimes, she suspects it was easier for them to scapegoat her instead of admitting that their lives had been laid out from the very beginning, cyclical in the nature of its poverty.
Maybe I should call them, Riah thinks to herself. Maybe I should apologize. Leave a voicemail. It has been two weeks since I last tried—maybe this time someone will answer?
(She's tried a hundred times to no avail, but the need to mend the bridges she's burnt lingers inside of her like an itch she can't scratch.)
Riah wraps her fingers around the house phone, the receiver sleek beneath her fingertips. She hesitates, knowing what a call is likely to entail. Punching in the numbers with shaky fingers, she glances through the serving-hatch in the kitchen to the living room where Charlie is sitting in her baby walker, moving brightly colored beads. Riah smiles at her baby, feeling a brightness in her chest when Charlie smiles back, a wide grin with just two little teeth and a whole lot of gums.
The dial tone rings, one time. Twice. Three times, and the line is filled with the empty static she has grown so used to. In the past, Riah used to leave her parents messages in the hopes they'd eventually pick up. She desperately wanted for them to forgive her for what she had done—after all, how could she be blamed for falling in love? For choosing to change her life, in motherhood?
Maybe everything that's happened was deserved, Riah thinks reservedly, wiping tears from her eyes. With her back against the kitchen counter, she hopes that Charlie cannot see her crying. As much as she loves her child, Riah doesn't know if she can deal with a second crying fit today. Now that she's teething, there seems to be an issue every day.
Riah is exhausted. Is it really any wonder why?
At eighteen, she should have her entire life before her, ready to be explored. And yet… and yet. Riah is grateful that Charlie is a part of her life. She cannot imagine what she would do without her daughter, and she's grateful that Jaxon stayed with her, taking up a blue-collar job in Sector 08 to help provide a shaky source of income for his girls back home. But sometimes it's hard not to think about what could have been, had everything been different.
Sometimes it's hard to wonder where she would be, if not for the baby.
Maybe she'd still be on speaking terms with her parents, for starters—at this point, she might be happy to hear them yell at her, if just to hear their voices again.
Riah hangs up the phone, twisting the cord anxiously as she does. They've never picked up a call, not since they had broken the news. It had ended with a fight—her parents screaming, and Jaxon arguing with them, loud enough that the neighbors in their apartment complex had needed to interfere. The soldiers of the New Order couldn't be bothered to police Venturas, not the same way that their warriors in white had. Gone are the days of patrols, and investigations. The days have grown darker and more desperate in their absence, and Riah wonders if perhaps the Capitol is changing too, in ways that they have yet to see unfold.
Their argument had gotten ugly, and fast. Ugly enough that Riah hadn't been able to see through her tears, her parents' sharp words and hot anger burning at her skin.
You're selfish for wanting us to support your mistakes.
You're delusional to think we'll let you live with us, and ruin our lives too.
Selfish. Selfish. Selfish! Leave!
GET OUT OF OUR HOUSE!
Another mouth to feed on top of the Archer family's ever-growing financial strain would have been enough to bring them to ruin. She knows that now, with how close her parents had been to destitution just raising her alone. Riah never had any siblings. Always questioned why, wanting a younger sister or brother since she was old enough to walk. How could they afford a second child, when she had been the reason they scraped by for the past eighteen years? How could they deal with the disappointment her naivety had created?
Jaxon shouldn't have attacked her father. It was wrong of him—no matter what names he had been called, or how much they had laid into Riah for her actions. Yet, part of her is secretly glad that he did, because Jaxon is her rock, a pillar of strength for her to cling to when everything about their burgeoning adulthood seems to be so unstable.
At least Jaxon's parents had helped them pay the security deposit and the first two months of rent for their apartment while her boyfriend found a job. They had never been fond of Riah, especially now, knowing that their son is their sole source of income. But they are fond of their son, in the way her parents had never seemed to be of her. It doesn't translate the same, but she sees more of them than her own mother and father. Enough to grow comfortable enough in their presence, despite the constant judgment she feels.
Guess I should be grateful Charlie will have one set of grandparents, at the least, Riah thinks bitterly, trying to stop the flow of tears that spring to her eyes. They're doing everything they can for this little child, born in the flames of war and growing up amongst its ruins.
I'm a good mother, Riah reminds herself. I'm a good mother.
They can't afford much. But they provide what they can. Jaxon makes ends meet, and Riah keeps the ends from fraying apart. Their apartment is small, a one-bed one-bath with a tight layout. Just enough space for their daughter to learn to crawl, walk and talk. On the corner of Third and Sixth above the old abandoned marketplace, it isn't the safest—the streets are emptied out at night, and the shadows grow ominous without street-lamps to light the shapes outside, but they have a deadbolt lock and a chain on the door.
Riah has learnt to make do, in the only way she knows how.
It works for the two of them, and for the time being, that is all that matters to her. They can worry about moving when Charlie is old enough for school, when Riah can get a job in the absence of watching her child all day and they have enough money to support themselves. The future may be uncertain. But they will land on their feet—they have to.
For now, it works. Her life is fine, even despite all of its insecurities, and her own.
So why is it oftentimes… unsatisfying? Why does she feel so alone?
Riah crosses the foyer to open the narrow pantry-closet, taking a jar of greenish baby food off the shelf. She searches for a spoon that will fit through the opening of the jar in the kitchen before making her way to the living room, sitting on the armchair that her boyfriends' parents lent them.
"It's lunchtime!" she says in a sing-song voice, always pitched high so Charlie cannot sense when something is wrong. Her daughter stops playing with the beads, looking up at her with too-big eyes and an excited smile. She hasn't learned intuition yet. Doesn't know when her parents are struggling to hold it together, or when times are tough.
Charlie exists inside this apartment—she isn't old enough to see past its walls.
Sometimes, Riah is jealous of that innocence. There is a certain kind of weariness that comes with knowing the world. A certain kind of hurt that mirrors her own empathy, a heart so full of love that it's destined to shatter again, and again, and again.
"Here comes the airplane," Riah says softly, making sputtering noises with her lips as she flies the spoon toward her daughter's mouth. Charlie tries to imitate the sounds, but once the spoon makes it past her lips, she stops to eat. "Mmm, yummy!" Riah coos, wiping her baby's mouth when the food dribbles down her chin, making sure that she's clean.
I'd do anything to protect her, Riah realizes as she watches her baby reach for the spoon and the jar with chubby little fingers, eyes entirely innocent to the world. I'd do anything to make sure she grows up in a world full of love and laughter, with parents that love her unconditionally.
She's seen the ring Jaxon has been saving up for on the side. He doesn't know that she's seen it, but Riah spends all day at home. It was only a matter of boredom and too much time spent keeping things organized. If he proposes, she's going to say yes, and the thought fills her with immense warmth. Since sixteen, it has been the two of them in this world. It will always be that way, the two of them and Charlie, forever and without conditions.
She will make anything work for that to happen.
It's the life I want, she decides, spooning another mouthful of mush into Charlie's mouth, a smile tugging at her lips as her baby babbles for more. No matter how fast I have to grow up.
Jaxon and Charlie are her life—Riah never did well in school, unbothered to try when she had spent so much focus on making friends, and making people feel seen. Wanted. Nobody ever had anything bad to say about Riah Archer, nor did she have anything bad to say about them. That had been enough, for a time. But it wasn't much of a life. Wasn't much of anything.
Charlie gives her a purpose—motherhood gives her a reason to feel special, when her parents decided she was no longer welcome at home.
And now, she has created a family of her own choosing—parents be damned. Riah knows she will still continue to call, hoping that one day they'll pick up. She's far too timid to seek them out in the flesh, after how badly things ended the last time she saw them. But here, in this apartment, is her world. That is all that matters, right?
Riah is good at making people feel loved. Cared for. Perhaps when Charlie is grown enough for school, she will look to fill a role as a physician's assistant, or a counselor. There's plenty of time to figure out her future. Plenty of time for her and Jaxon to figure it all out together, one baby step at a time.
"All done!" Riah cheers softly, shaking the jar and spoon in front of Charlie to show her they're empty. In response, Charlie gurgles, reaching toward Riah with a sense of wonder in her eyes. She leans forward and kisses her daughter on the nose. "Love you, babes," she murmurs, uncrossing her legs to get up from the floor. Charlie watches her return to the kitchen to dispose of the jar, but once Riah reaches the trash can, she can hear the beads moving again.
She smiles to herself, drying her hands after cleaning off the spoon. Prepares to open the kitchen window for some air when she hears a key turning in the lock, and rushes to unlatch the deadbolt and chain.
"I'm home!" a voice shouts from behind the door, and Riah can hear her daughter's little hands tapping at the walker, its wheels squeaking over the carpet as she moves.
"Jaxon!" Riah shouts, not caring that the neighbors they share a wall with might hear. She launches herself at her boyfriend, smiling like crazy.
"Mr. Hedland said I could turn in early today, honey," Jaxson tells her, pulling her closer to him. His arms wrap around her back and he rests his chin on the top of her dark brown curls, and for a moment the world goes still. "Thought I'd spend the rest of the day with you and Charlie," he says, matching her the speed of her breaths.
"Good," Riah murmurs against his chest, hands holding the back of his shirt tightly. She almost doesn't let go as he ventures further into the apartment, dropping his work bag just inside their bedroom door. Jaxon wanders over to their daughter, looking down at her with an enormous smile.
"Did you miss me?" he asks Charlie, voice a few octaves higher than normal as he lifts her out of the walker, holding her against his chest. Jaxon kisses the top of their daughter's head, bouncing her a little bit as he rejoins Riah by the door, drawing her in with his other arm. She breathes in deeply, closing her eyes as she rests her head against his side.
This is home. They are home.
No matter what the future holds, she knows that they will be together.
From the day he was born, Lukas Hedland was practically forced to raise himself.
He never met his mother. She died giving birth to him, a fact that has plagued his life since the moment his father took him home from the hospital. He's been told she was a soft soul, full of love and a zest for life. Lukas thinks they sound like words straight from an obituary, so flat and reciprocable that they could be in reference to anyone.
There is nothing left in the Hedland house to suggest she had ever existed. No clothes, hanging in a dark closet. No pictures on the wall, with the radiant smile his father often slurred about when he was in a drunken stupor. No signs that Lilac Hedland had ever been anything but a memory, a cause for division and hatred between the family she had left behind in death.
He never really met his father, either. The man's friends have told him that James used to be much different, before Lilac passed and he took up the bottle to cope. He isn't sure he believes that, either—it's hard to imagine his father as anything different from the man he has known.
It's a shame that Lukas never had the chance to find out. That he won't, because being apologetic isn't a trait his father possesses. When had he ever apologized for screaming at his son? For making him feel worthless?
Lukas has grown so accustomed to being berated and insulted by his father that he isn't sure if they're capable of communicating differently. Whether in sobriety or inebriation, the words still hurt. His father cannot take them back—even though he has grown to ignore Lukas' presence, the words still haunt his son on a daily basis.
You're such an idiot. No wonder you're doing so poorly in school. Fucking useless.
I can always count on you to ruin my day. Taking up space in my home, damn you.
It'll be quieter around here without listening to your mouth all day. Don't talk to me.
Why are you so damn sensitive? Man up. Man up. You're the reason I drink.
Worthless. Scum. Run away, why don't you? I'd be happier without you here.
THIS IS YOUR FAULT! LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME SAY!
FUCK YOU! GET OUT OF MY FACE!
(I wish you were never born. Then at least she'd still be with me—instead of you.)
Lukas wipes away the tears that spring to his eyes, feeling a strange mix of anger and shame stirring in his stomach. It isn't even worth crying over—no matter how much his father has forsaken him. He has more important things to focus on, like his schoolwork. Dwelling on things that will never change isn't going to do him any favors, no matter how deeply his father's words have scarred him.
He will be better than his father, someday. Move out from the Hedland family home in Sector Eight and start a different life. One of his own, where he will learn to undo the damage that has been done by living in the shadow of his father's hate.
Lukas looks at the digital clock sitting at the edge of his nightstand, watching the neon numbers change to an even 18:00. A sense of dread settles in his stomach all the same—his father will be home soon from working on his team's latest construction project.
Mr. Hedland is their lead manager—something the inner cynic in Lukas finds amusing. His father can't even take care of a child; why does he manage people?
Lukas is lucky that the thought of construction work has never entertained him, anyway. He's far too intelligent to be doing repairs, anyway—if given the choice, Lukas might become a doctor. He's already thinking about enrolling in college for it once his final semester of high school is over. He's practically itching to move to Sector 05 for residency, across the Inner Ring where the ghosts of his past can no longer haunt him.
He taps the pencil against his notebook, the graphite leaving wispy trails of lead across the crisp white sheet. Then, exhausted with his schoolwork, Lukas stands and crosses his bedroom to open the window, fumbling with the latch for a moment. As he lifts it and secures it above his head, a cool breeze rolls in from the water. In the distance he can see the water of the bay glimmering far-away in the light of the descending sun.
He wonders, for a moment, what it would be like to live a different life. To be a different person—to have a chance to start fresh, without the weight of his father's abuse hanging like a heavy storm-cloud above his head.
"Pipe dream," he reminds himself, the words sounding overly hollow as he speaks them. There's no escaping this—not until he can find a job of his own. "You know it's not going to happen."
The logic in his situation trumps whatever emotions he's learnt to suppress. Most suffering a fate the same as his would cry, but his tears have long since dried. Trying to feel anything, trying to love his father, is like loving a brick wall. There isn't a point in it. Not anymore, at least.
He'll never see you as a son—just a parasite. A mouth to feed. That's not love, part of him says.
Another part of him that feels as if he owes his father—despite the man's refusal of him, he has provided Lukas with a home. Food. Clean water. Clothes on his back. To others, it might be taken for granted, but Mr. Hedland could have left him at the hospital.
He may not be cared for, but Lukas had been taken home.
There isn't much more he could ask from the man.
Asking his father to show any interest is a dead horse he's kicked at for years. Nothing is likely to change unless Lukas leaves, or his father finally kicks it. He isn't sure which is worse.
Guilt at the thought of leaving his father churns in his gut. Mr. Hedland needs him. Whether or not the man will admit it, an addiction to alcohol would certainly be the death of him without Lukas intervening over the years. Maybe it's what the man wants, though. His wife—Lukas' mother—has been in the grave for a good eighteen years.
There becomes a point when it seems less of an addiction and more of a death-wish.
He's spent years taking his father's bottles and putting them back on the top shelf. Hiding them when he's had too much, became too sour on the verge of a blackout. Lukas has wiped the vomit from his lips, turning him on his side in bed so that he wouldn't choke on the foulness his father coughed back up, the house smelling more of stomach acid and liquor than it ever would of cleanliness and safety and warmth.
That's not to say Mr. Hedland isn't trying—after a stint in the intensive care unit for a cirrhosis scare, he's begun to attend meetings with other chronic substance abusers. Lukas can't say for sure if it's helping, though. More often than not, he will come downstairs to find a bottle opened on the counter, a glass held in his unconscious father's hand.
(It seems hopeless, really, to ask for anything from the world when it has only shown him this.)
(Lukas would do anything to mend their relationship, but it feels like he's running out of time.)
He doesn't do well with people. Doesn't take their kindness at face value—how could he, after the one person he's supposed to trust in the world stripped that from him? His father was supposed to protect him. All he ever did was tear Lukas down; make him feel uncomfortable and unwanted in the confines of his home.
It's damaged him more than he cares to admit. While Lukas may do well in school, he's always alone. Unable to look others in the eye. Staring blankly at the walls. Unable to find the words to say to others, especially when their interest in him seemed to fake.
Sometimes, he worries about what being alone so often has done to his mind. But it's hard to feel responsible for his own faults when his father's transgressions against him outweigh his own failures ten to one. He made me this way. It isn't my fault, just my responsibility.
Lukas laughs. Textbook. His school had a seminar once on parental abuse. Gave them pamphlets. Full of shitty little affirmations just like that one. They help, more than he cares to admit. The phone numbers on the back would have helped more, provided for kids to have the chance to call social services if they needed external intervention.
When his father found it in his backpack, he tore it to shreds, voicing his anger at his son for what he perceived as ungratefulness. It didn't matter that Lukas protested they were required to go, and given pamphlets—it was as if his father thought he sought out school services himself. That was enough to earn him more of his father's ire.
Somewhere downstairs, in the dead-silent house, Lukas hears the front door open. He stiffens in his seat, listening keenly to the noises Mr. Hedland makes downstairs as he returns from work. He can hear a bag dropped into a chair. The shuffling of his father's footsteps, whose weight and sound he would recognize anywhere. The sound of a cabinet opening. The clink of glass against the counter-top, repeated twice. Lukas doesn't hear the sound of liquid, but he doesn't need to.
Home for less than a minute, and he's already pouring a drink.
Lukas sighs, holding his head in his hands as he tries to concentrate on his work. Not sure why I expected anything different. The days his father doesn't immediately pour a drink are the ones when he comes home late, after the meetings. He usually waits for an hour, before his vices win him over. At this rate, he's going to go to the hospital again any day now, Lukas ponders. The thought is worrying—but strangely hollow.
It's hard to feel anything but apathy anymore, especially for his father. Eighteen years of severe alcoholism isn't any easy fix. Even if he really wanted to, Lukas knows his father is already too far gone to save.
Listening to the clinking of the bottle against glass for the third time in minutes, Lukas closes his notebook for good, deciding he's had enough. It's a short walk from his bedroom to the stairs.
"Put down the bottle, Dad."
Surprised, his father looks up like a deer caught in headlights. Then he scowls.
"Fuck you," Mr. Hedland retorts, glaring at his son. "I do what I want."
"I think you've already had plenty ton—"
"I haven't!" his father yells, slamming his glass down hard enough on the kitchen counter that it should have shattered. Lukas takes a shallow breath, eyes darting between his father and his hand. They're both lucky it hadn't—Lukas has picked shards out of his father's hands enough times to lose any sensitivity he might have to blood, anyway. Reason number two it'd be easy to be a doctor, he thinks offhandedly, staring blankly at his father.
"Why do you always have to run your mouth around me? No respect. None! And after all I do to provide for you," he says darkly, shaking his head. He doesn't look at Lukas—given the chance, his father will always ignore him.
For him, Lukas will always be a living reminder of his late wife, and the sole cause of her death.
"We haven't spoken in three days, sir," Lukas reminds him. "Or don't you remember?"
"You're really asking for it this time. Fuck you, you son of a bitch," his father snarls. "Every time. I can't come home once without you nagging at me, is that it?"
His father braces against the counter, one hand curling into a fist.
"I—"
"Are you going to hit me, Dad?" Lukas asks, trembling with fear. With one hand wrapped around the bannister of the stairway, he braces for impact.
"No," his father slurs, pouring himself another drink. "You aren't even worth the effort."
A pause, as he downs it in one go, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. His visage darkens, glowering at his son. Lukas can feel his heartbeat quicken, fear and shame and sadness filling the cavernous hole in his chest.
"I should have done it, you know," his father begins, looking at Lukas for the first time in months. They lock eyes, and Lukas looks away. "I looked down in your crib the day after I brought you home. I thought about it. I was so angry… I wanted her back," his father sobs.
He knew his father would bring her up. At first, the blame game hurt him. But he expects it now—it has consumed his father's life, and the way he views his only son. He didn't expect this.
"It's moments like these," his father continues, pouring so much into his glass that the amber liquid begins to spill past the rim and onto the counter, "that I wish I hadn't gone weak."
Lukas begins to cry, tears dripping freely down his face and wetting his shirt. He can't find the words to fight his father's admission. Doesn't know how to handle the pain of knowing it.
Instead, he turns and sprints up the stairs, slamming the door shut as he goes. He knows his father won't follow him. He isn't worth the effort to harass. Isn't worth the effort to raise. To love. Angry tears burn his eyes as he launches himself at his bed, gripping his pillow tightly.
The house is silent. Lukas whispers words into his pillow that his father will never hear.
When war descended upon the Capitol, Taraji Copeland's life became utter hell.
She's been at the end of her limit for days now, stretched too-thin with hunger and restlessness. Devastated by grief, the kind that makes it hard to breathe through the tears, the sobs that hurt. She's more lost than she's ever been, at sixteen. She's lost more than she's ever had, too.
Taraji knows she has to push onward. She has to keep living. Has to keep the hope alive. That is the thought that drives her from the emptied-out Copeland apartment, a shell of its former self, just as she has become. She needs food. Water. Anything the relief effort can distribute to her.
When the Peacekeepers pull her arms behind her back, all Taraji can do is laugh.
Even that sounds hollow, now.
The march toward the City Center feels like an eternity. Her wrists feel sore from the vice-like grip the soldier has on her arms. Her feet hurt from stumbling on debris more than once, only to be shouted at by the squadron. Thunder rumbles somewhere in the distance, but Taraji knows better than to think it a storm. She's heard the noises enough in Bridgewater to be able to identify a projectile making contact with its target. Occasionally, the bullets will snap somewhere in the distance, close enough to incite fear.
Upon arrival, she lifts her head to see the wrought-iron gates in front of the President's Mansion being opened. She doesn't feel awestruck, despite never being this close to anything at the center of the city. All she feels is dread, dragging its way slowly through her stomach.
In front of the mansion, there must be hundreds of others, all ragged and underfed. All children.
It's complete chaos. Pandemonium unlike anything she's ever seen.
The soldiers that brought her here are joined with five other units, each dragging one or two captives along with them. There is a lot of shouting, before they're all pushed behind the gate to join the rest of the children. Ahead, on the steps of the mansion, is a line of heavily armed soldiers, all clad in white. On the other side of the gate is another.
The gates swing closed behind her, and a cacophony of wailing and screeching greets her ears. Everyone is packed together. Everyone is panicking—why are they here? Why are there so many of them? Why am I here? What is going on?
A million questions race through her mind, keeping pace with her quickening heartbeat. All of them are silenced when shots erupt from beyond the gate. The line of soldiers in front of the gate begin to fire back. Taraji has seen guns before, but theirs are the biggest she's ever seen.
A cacophony of wailing and screeching greets her ears. Everyone looks panicked; scared witless by the encroaching firefight. The symphony of bullets ceases as a hovercraft streaks above them in the sky, dropping a projectile straight at the gate.
The ground rocks beneath her feet, seismic against the soles of her shoes. Ash clouds the sky, and Taraji coughs, making out flashes of light as the bullets resume fiercer in the aftermath of destruction. Rubble covers the ground around her. The screaming is deafening, and Taraji clamps her hands over her ears only to realize she's sprawled across the ground.
There is no right side up, no right or left as Taraji shakily makes her way to her feet. Disoriented, the crowd of children seems to surge toward the Peacekeepers holding a line at the front of the mansion. Bullets crack on all sides now, fanning out to meet them head-on.
—
The kid three inches to her left has been shot.
He's filthy, covered head-to-toe in dust and grime. His hair is matted, and his clothes have seen better days—by all accounts, he looks like the homeless that often lined the streets a block south of Dolcetto's. The blood soaking through his clothes almost looks fake. Too red to be real.
Taraji will never forget the boy's screams. They are unlike anything else she has heard in her life. Deep, harsh, and full of anguish. She wants to move. Wants to help, but stays frozen in fear, watching him thrash on the ground while his screams assault her ears.
People in strange uniforms seem to materialize out of the chaos, wearing graphite gray clothes with white accents. Taraji thinks they might be medics. One fights her way through the throng of people. She's short in stature, with blond hair and fair skin. Her expression upon seeing the boy's condition is one Taraji will never forget, just as his screams still send shivers down her spine.
"I'm here to help you!" the medic cries, hands splayed to show trust before she approaches him. She rummages through her bag for the necessary supplies to tourniquet the leg and stabilize his bleeding, fingers shaking the entire time. "What's your name?"
"Riv," the kid croaks, barely audible as he groans, the noise morphing into another scream.
"Okay, Riv. Don't give up on me, okay?"
Taraji doesn't bother waiting for his response. Her throat constricts dryly, like she wants to scream with him. Panic rises in her chest, like a nervous sledgehammer to her ribcage. Blood roars in her ears, rushing to her head. She hunches over. Covers her ears with her hands. The screams become muffled. The bullets become faint—they almost sound like balloons popping.
When she next opens her eyes, Riv and the medic are both gone.
She doesn't question where they might have gone. All she wants is out.
(All she needs is for this to end. She didn't ask for another tragedy.)
Taraji squeezes her eyes shut, and doesn't open them for a long while. The air smells so acrid. She can barely breathe, taking shallow breaths that make her feel lightheaded. When she opens her eyes again, a different hovercraft is looming above them. She flinches as its doors open, dropping dozens of parachutes into the sky. They look unnervingly familiar.
They look like sponsor gifts. From the Games.
They're sending aid. Help. She feels hope, delicate as it unfurls in her chest.
Taraji releases her right hand from her ear. Reaches for a parachute. Her fingers brush against the silk, gray and as delicate as any fabric she has ever touched. For a moment, things seem to still.
(The parachutes aren't gifts.)
It settles in her open hand with a weight she doesn't expect. It feels hot against her palm, itching her skin. A heartbeat passes before it explodes.
The agony is immediate. The screams follow, tearing at her throat. Guttural. Harsh. They mingle with Riv's, somewhere in the blinded depths of her consciousness. There is a ringing in her ears, sharp and persistent. The back of her head aches from where it hit the pavement—her body feels sore. And her arm… her arm burns, a pain far more excruciating than anything she's ever known. It feels like white-hot needles sinking into her flesh.
Taraji doesn't remember much after that.
(War cares for no man. It doesn't care for her, either.)
—
It takes a week for Taraji to finally open her eyes.
Her memory feels fragmented, like tough shards of shattered glass. The first thing that her body responds to is pain, shooting up-and-down her nerves like frying circuits. She jolts. Stills. Takes a breath, and tries to collect herself.
The walls around her are plain cinder-block, unadorned save for a coat of fresh white paint. The lights are harsh, fluorescent bulbs. Thankfully, they are on the other half of the room, leaving her ensconced in gloom. The bed is stiff. All of the tubes snaking in and out of her body ache; she's conscious enough to know that they're keeping her alive.
But it hurts to be alive. It hurts to be alone.
The loneliness might be more excruciating than the phantom pain where her right arm used to be. When she sees the thick white bandages wrapping the stump of her limb, a slow horror creeps into her brain. Taraji can feel it, as if it is still there, but it's gone. Life seems to have taken everything from her, and yet it continues to take.
(It's impossible to escape the fact that she's a walking tragedy.)
You could have always done more, a voice at the back of her head nags. It sounds oddly enough like her own. Could have always loved less.
Taraji took care of her mother when she was sick. She was there to help distract Solene from the pain with stories, games, and affection in her most fragile hour. She helped to feed her when she was no longer capable of doing it herself. Watching her mother fade away like a flower after frost remains one of the worst experiences of Taraji's life.
I could have done something. Could have done something more. I did something, I tried. We tried. I hoped. I wanted her to come back so desperately. Why did she have to leave so soon?
Why did she have to die?
(I miss her so much.)
(I wish she was here. I want to be held again.)
When her father had lost everything, Taraji had done her best to keep him alive. Even in the catatonic state of his devastation, she labored to save him. When all of his passion was gone, and he could no longer do right by his family, Taraji tried, inconsolable in her grief when Zade had shut down on her, going numb when the world crashed down around him.
I'm just unlucky. Doomed, she reminds herself. Staring up at the half-lit ceiling, Taraji cannot help but feel sorry for herself. Dad tried too. It wasn't his fault, what happened.
He should have never taken that job. Getting terminated from his position as the head chef at Dolcetto's might not have entirely been her father's fault, but it was certainly his responsibility to pick up the pieces. To help them both move on, especially as her mother's condition declined. When the Panemian Army needed frontline chefs to keep their soldiers fed, Zade enlisted.
No one else would hire a disgraced chef anyway.
No one else would care if he died, because death does not discriminate between soldiers and civilians, especially in times of war. Her father was never a strong man. She should have known. It's a small mercy that the landlord never put an eviction notice on the door.
As soon as he stepped out the door, Zade Copeland was never going to make it home.
(Where is home?)
Should I be rotting inside the earth with everyone else? Why am I still here?
There must still be a purpose for her. There must still be hope, even though it has never been more than a fucking lie.
It may have gotten her father his job working at Dolcetto's after two years of culinary training on dreams and dollars stretched thin. It might have given her parents a reason to raise her, to stay, to claw their way through life looking for the best they could give her.
She misses her mother. Hope couldn't save her—the sickness had festered for too long.
She misses her father. Hope couldn't save him, either—his fall from grace was too loud.
Hope didn't do this. But it sure as hell didn't help.
Taraji helped. She put so much time into the people she cared about. She had been there for her parents. Been there for Kassiani, too, once upon a time. Despite the forced nature of their initial friendship, there had always been a familiarity within her friend that Taraji has never quite been able to replicate elsewhere.
The girls grew up together, in and out of the restaurant. Played together, studied together, spent hours and hours in each-other's company. Kassiani Dolcetto remained a constant in Taraji's life for years, while everything else had always seemed to be in an equally constant sense of disarray. Taraji used to envy her friend, sometimes, for the way her life always seemed so perfect.
And now things were never going to be okay again. Least of all between the two of them.
Desperation wells up in her throat. It almost feels like choking. The doctors may have healed her body, even though she didn't make it out in one piece. But they cannot heal her heart, which has become so fractured that Taraji knows it's a lost cause.
There is no one left. No one is coming to heal her.
(She doesn't even know if Kassiani is alive. She doubts that Milo Dolcetto would allow her to see his daughter. He has turned her away twice in her greatest hours of need, when all Taraji had needed to give her the hope to continue was a friendly face.)
Nobody can save me now.
The realization makes her bones feel heavy. Taraji becomes acutely aware of all the medical equipment surrounding her. The still silence that permeates the air. The smell of antiseptic—of death. She's dying, isn't she? After all this time?
"I'm sorry," she whispers aloud, unsure who the words are meant for.
(Hope can't save her, either.)
—
It takes months before the doctors deem her healthy enough to leave the hospital.
Months, of heartache and distracting herself from reality. Months of hard work, physical therapy and learning to use her left hand in place of her right. Months of not knowing what happened to them all. Not knowing who won the war, or where she was being held for treatment. She spends her seventeenth birthday in the ward, but feels no cause for celebration.
There was a part of her that didn't know if she could move on from this place. This self.
In the end, it wasn't her decision. The doctor that had been in charge of monitoring her had decided she was no longer broken enough to keep. There were tests. Long nights spent watching the shadows grow longer. Days spent watching the sun clear them away.
There were nightmares. Pain, physical and phantom—enough to last Taraji a lifetime.
And still, it was an easier thing to stay, trapped inside these walls, than it was to move on and face the world outside with no one to anchor her.
Though the doctor—Dr. Neratius, she recalls—has never been unkind to her, Taraji still hesitates to speak aloud. She's grown disused to the sound of her own voice, and hesitant to trust. She has a track record of being burned without rhyme or reason.
The extrovert inside of her aches. She hasn't had a good conversation in so long. Almost can't remember how it feels to speak a mile-a-minute like she used to, or to laugh with abandon, free from the burdens of this life. The one that decided she could make do with changing schools, and moving to Bridgewater when there was no other choice. The one that decided she could make more friends, and convinced her life would be fine without Kassiani.
(That same extrovert used to be so full of adventure and an unmatchable zest for life. The one who talked before she walked, and asked the little girl sitting alone in the back office if she could join in and play with her toys.)
Quiet settles over the room as Dr. Neratius shuffles around paperwork in a manila folder. Taraji supposes they're records of all the medical treatment she has received. She's nearly thankful the aftermath has been such a whirlwind of chaos. Payment for the hospital's services hasn't even been an afterthought. The doctor stopped greeting her after her second week in the ward. Had been persistent, once, but understood that Taraji was too lost to ask for assistance herself.
It almost surprises them when she speaks.
"How many of the others survived?" Taraji asks, her throat feeling like sandpaper.
Dr. Neratius turns with a smile, though there is a deep sadness etched into their face. "Just three of you. We managed to stabilize a dozen in critical condition, but many weren't so lucky."
"The war?" she croaks, her voice sounding raspier than ever. She hates the way it sounds.
"Over," they murmur, the words a relief. "The Capitol lost, Miss Copeland."
"Are you…?"
Dr. Neratius shakes their head. "No. Coin was responsible for bombing the mansion; why would she exhaust her resources to save it? I used to work for the Post-Victory Unit. For the Hunger Games. Now I work in critical care," they say. "But you don't need my life story, right?"
Taraji nods, trying to be agreeable more than anything else. The motion makes her skull ache.
"Your psychological examination gave us a lot of insight to work with moving forward," Dr. Neratius says. "I am, however, going to refer you to one of my colleagues for a psychiatric examination. She may have something to help you combat the post-traumatic stress that you're dealing with."
"I think it might be a good idea to continue your stay here, Miss Copeland. Just for a while, until you're ready to leave up here," they say, gently tapping their forehead. "The other two are both planning to stay as well, semi-permanently at least. You'll be free to come and go, but we would like to monitor your progress for a while. It will be good for you to meet them."
Taraji raises an eyebrow, saying nothing else. Smart of Dr. Neratius to play this game—if left to her own devices, it's unlikely that Taraji would seek more help. She's curious about the other two, but neither of them can compare to the version of Kassiani she's built up inside of her head.
"Dr. Lepidus is a fine woman," Dr. Neratius says, waving their hand. "She might be able to prescribe you something to make it easier to sleep, as well."
"I don't want pills," Taraji mutters. "I'll be fine.
The nightmares are awful, full of ragged screams, bright red blood and endless decay. Her dreams are worse, because they give her a false hope that there might be something left.
The only dream her hope can keep alive is finding Kassiani. She needs her more than ever.
(She needs the comfort of her best friend's presence—needs to know that things are okay.)
(She has to find her. She needs to find her, eventually.)
Without her, Taraji has nothing left. No one left.
She has to keep that hope alive.
(Without it, she is nothing too.)
Song lyrics are from The Struggle Within by Metallica.