They were all gathered in a conference room. Buck and Tyler either side of her for support. Haymitch stood against the wall nervously. Plutarch, Boggs and Coin sat opposite.

Peeta had reacted incredibly violently to seeing Katniss. He very nearly killed her. Wrapped his hands around her throat and tried to squeeze the life out of her. She was currently being kept unconscious so she wasn't overcome with pain.

So it was decided that all rescued victors would need to be assessed to determine their mental state. Peeta was being kept locked away, tied down, and not able to have any visitors.

Mags and Annie had been released with no conditions into the general population.

Johanna was still in the hospital being treated.

Gloss, GLOSS, somehow had been allowed out with only minor restrictions, which irritated Taiya to no end.

She was the last one left.

After Peeta's reaction to Katniss, Tyler and Buck made the hard decision to keep Finnick out of her sight, which was hard news to break to the boy. Sure, Taiya hadn't attacked him when she saw him, but she did have a breakdown.

So they needed to assess her first.

"I promise, her attacking the doctors was just a minor mishap," Tyler tried to explain. "It would have reminded her of coming out of her Games."

"When she killed two doctors," Plutarch twirled his pen around, he was trying to mediate between the two parties.

"Exactly. She didn't know where she was so she was just defending herself. If you let her leave the hospital in our care we'll keep an eye on her. I promise you if you starts acting up, Buck and I will march her straight back to the hospital. Isn't that right Taiya?" Tyler kicked her lightly under the table.

"Um yep," Taiya nodded. "I'll be good."

"She wouldn't hurt a fly," Buck added.

"She injected one nurse with a sedative and concussed another doctor," Boggs frowned, not exactly vibing with the District 4 team's casual attitude.

"I can't believe you guys gave Gloss free roam of the place and not me," Taiya crossed her arms in frustration as she swung back on her chair.

"Don't swing on your chair," Haymitch warned. "I knew a kid who did that once and he fell, broke his neck and died."

Taiya's eyes widened and she immediately lowered her chair back to its normal position. She had no desire to get injured and sent back to the hospital.

"How do I know I can trust you?" Taiya asked people opposite her. "You were in the hovercraft," she pointed at Boggs. "Gloss told me not to trust anyone."

"I understand your confusion," Plutarch smiled gently. "You were disoriented, and because of that, we're willing to look past your outburst. Boggs here is a squad leader, he was in charge of the rescue mission that freed you from the Capitol."

"I still don't know if I trust any of you," Taiya grumbled bitterly.

"Oh come on kid," Buck slapped her shoulder. "Do you trust me?"

Taiya let out a chuckle. "No."

Buck just rolled his eyes. Honestly, he should never have expected a reasonable answer from her.

"Do you trust me?" Tyler asked.

"Yeah, of course," Taiya immediately nodded.

"Seriously!" Buck threw his hands in the air.

"Gloss wasn't originally on our list to rescue," Plutarch tried to steer the conversation back on track. "I wasn't even aware he was alive. The only reason he was brought here was because he was locked in the same room as you. He's been thoroughly assessed and the outcome was that he is not an active threat, which is why he's been allowed some privileges. But he doesn't have 'free roam' of the place. He went through the exact same process you're going through now."

"Why was Gloss in your room?" Tyler asked with a frown. He'd been wanting to ask that since he first heard that. No other victor had a cellmate in the Capitol.

"Because Gloss is my bestie," Taiya shrugged, refusing to give a straight answer.

"I'm only slightly offended," Tyler straightened up in his chair.

"You're offended?" Buck retorted. "How about me? I'm way above you in the friendship hierarchy."

"Children please," Haymitch interrupted them.

"Thank you Haymitch," Plutarch nodded appreciatively. He'd never had an opportunity to interact with victors in a big group, it'd been only one-on-one when their Capitol personas were on full display. Their real personalities were becoming more and more zany by the day.

"She obviously likes me the best," Haymitch added and Plutarch, Boggs and Coin just dropped their heads in frustration.

Taiya looked around the room. One, two, three, four, five men. Two women.

"You know, I'm very offended by the lack of female representation in this room," Taiya smirked as she studied her cuticles. "Who are you anyway?" she asked Coin.

"Taiya, this is President Coin," Haymitch explained. "President of District 13."

Taiya nodded her head slowly. "Wow. A real hard job you've got I bet," she mocked.

Coin shot her a smile, not picking up on the sarcasm. "Yes, it does come with its chall…"

She was cut off by Plutarch clearing his throat. He'd understood that Taiya was mocking the woman immediately. And with one look from Plutarch, she understood also and her face hardened as she pursed her lips in frustration.

"We need to discuss your relationship with Finnick Odair," Coin opened her notebook.

The energy in the room changed immediately. The fun atmosphere Taiya had been basking in went cold as if a bucket of water had been thrown over it.

"What of it?" she asked tensely.

"We need to be sure Finnick isn't in danger," Boggs said. "The reaction Peeta had to Katniss… we can't have another incident like that."

Taiya could hear her eyes sting at the implication and she clenched her jaw. "You think I'd try and hurt Finnick?" she leant forward in anger. "Are you insane?"

"We didn't expect that reaction from Peeta toward Katniss, and yet…" Plutarch trailed off.

"That's because Peeta's been hijacked!" Taiya crossed her arms again as she slammed back into her chair with a huff. "I could have told you that. I could hear it all you know. They shot him up with tracker jacker venom every day. You can't blame him!"

"We're not blaming him," Haymitch moved forward to stand closer to the table. "We just need to make sure you're not hijacked as well."

"Well, I'm not," Taiya snapped. "I wasn't given tracker jacker venom."

"What did happen?" Coin asked and Taiya's head snapped to look at her.

"You don't have to…" Tyler laid a hand on her back.

"Yes she does," Coin overruled. "We need to know exactly what happened in order to assess what kind of risk to the population she will be."

Taiya shrunk into herself slightly. She knew she had to tell, but she did not want to.

"It wasn't nearly as bad as Peeta or Johanna," she mumbled. "I had help."

"Who helped you?" Plutarch asked.

"Romulus," she whispered. The guilt she felt at leaving, leaving both him and Kenna was eating her up. What if they were punished in her absence? She just had to pray Romulus was savvy enough to disown her and Kenna was smart enough to play along. "He bought me. Like…" Taiya went to explain what happened to the victors in the Capitol but Coin raised a hand.

"You don't need to explain. We are well aware of what Snow put the victors through," she smiled in an attempt to appear comforting.

"How?"

"Finnick did a propo for us to broadcast while we conducted the rescue mission. He detailed everything for all of Panem," Plutarch explained.

For a moment it felt like Taiya lost the ability to breathe.

"What?" escaped her chest.

"He agreed of his own volition to tell his story."

"Tyler?" Taiya looked up at her friend who could only nod. He was still furious Finnick was asked without some support from home around him, but they did not need Taiya kicking off about it as well. "How could you let him do that?" a tear fell from her eye. "Did you make him do it?" she turned to Plutarch.

"He chose to do it."

"He wouldn't have chosen to do that unless he felt cornered," she snapped.

"Tay," Buck interrupted quietly. "We'll talk about it after."

Taiya just clenched her jaw. Yes, they absolutely would be talking about this later.

"Romulus bought me. The condition was that I had to be kept in good condition. It was smart. It meant I had to be fed, I couldn't be bruised up too bad."

"Did he…" Tyler asked.

"No," she shook her head immediately. "It was just a ruse to help me. He also bought Kenna, but more permanently. She's living with him. Snow took her to use against me. So Rommy bought her. He's keeping her safe. I hope," she swallowed. "He couldn't really hurt me or Rommy wouldn't pay him. So he played voices as my torture."

"Voices?" Haymitch asked with a frown.

"Like the jabber jays?" Plutarch asked, understanding perfectly. He was the one who constructed this torture for the Games.

Taiya just nodded as she wrapped her arms around her waist.

"Whose voices?" Tyler asked quietly.

"Everyone's," she stuttered. "Dead or alive. My mom, dad, Theo," she sucked in a breath to try to stop the tears she knew would soon fall. "They told me things. It was hard to separate what they told from what I knew was true," Taiya admitted. "It seemed so real. They told Finnick was dead. That the rebellion had killed him. But then I heard his voice on the TV, and I just, I'm struggling to sort out things in my head," she rubbed her temple.

"Finnick is alive," Plutarch nodded.

"Mm," she nodded with a frown. "Maybe."

"He is," Tyler assured. "You trust me, you just said that."

"I trust you, but you would lie to me if you had to. How do I know he's not a mutt? A fake?"

"You can ask him questions?" Tyler suggested. "Things only he would know."

Taiya just hummed as she tapped her foot on the ground.

"You broke down when you saw him. Why?" Tyler asked gently. "Because you knew it was him. You know him better than anyone Tay, you know that was him. The real him."

"Look if you're worried about me attacking him like Peeta did, don't. I wouldn't hurt him. Mutt or not. I could never."

Coin nodded before she turned and whispered to Plutarch. He gave her a nod and she proceeded. "We will allow you out on the same conditions as your friend from District 1. But I don't think it'd be wise for you to stay in a compartment with Finnick, which was the original plan following your return. You will stay with Gloss. Compartment C, which is next to where Tyler and Buck are. You'll be closely supervised by all members of our squad, and one step out of line and you'll be back in the ward."

"Deal," Taiya nodded eagerly.

"Do you think I'm allowed to be here?" Finnick asked nervously as he carried his rucksack to Buck and Tyler's room.

"They didn't explicitly say you weren't. So why not," Tyler shrugged.

"But word of warning right now kid," Buck spoke up. "One scream from you in the night and you're going back to your own room."

"Agreed," Finnick nodded. "I should be fine. She's just next door, it'll be fine. Why's she rooming with Gloss though?"

"She's probably got stockholm syndrome," Buck suggested.

"Unfortunately she genuinely likes the guy," Finnick sighed. "I can't believe they let him out. Gloss is half crazy."

"Ever heard about people in glass houses?" Buck winked as they entered the compartment.

"How was she in the interview?"

"Confused," Tyler explained. "She doesn't have a full understanding of what's real and what the Capitol wanted her to believe. But she's fully aware that they've tried to alter her memory. She just has to sort through what's in her head and filter out truth from fiction."

"What'd she say about me?"

"They told her you were dead. She was convinced the rebels had killed you, then she saw you and she just got overwhelmed and confused. It didn't have anything to do with her hating you kid. Romulus Crane kept her safe in the Capitol it seems. She's mostly unscathed. Romulus Crane has Kenna though," Tyler swallowed. "He took her as an incentive for Taiya to do as she was told."

"How about Todd?" Finnick asked after the missing District 4 victor. He wasn't rescued with the others.

"Mags said he sold out as soon as they were captured. They figured anyone who was going to give us up so easily wasn't worth keeping around as a weapon, so they killed him during the victor purge."

"But they saved Mags and Annie?" Finnick asked.

"They wouldn't renounce us, it's obvious Taiya loves them. Helped keep her in line. Snow had Kenna, Mags, Annie and Gloss to use against her. She wasn't going to step out of line."

"Do you think I could go see her?" Finnick asked.

"Let her make the first move I think," Tyler suggested as he tossed Finnick a spare pillow. "She's cool with you kid, but we don't want to overwhelm her and make her regress. Give it 24 hours and then you could go check on her."

"Yeah okay," Finnick nodded as he stared at the wall that separated him from Taiya's compartment. "I wonder what they're talking about in there."

"Not good enough," Taiya shook her head.

"It's not bad," Gloss defended.

"It's not bad, but it's not good. Come on. We can do better than putting cellophane in front of the canteen door. It's so juvenile. We could do way better. We need something that would make us a thing of legend. Something they'll write about in the history books one day."

"You know I read somewhere that micro-aggressions can be the best form of punishment."

"I could go for microaggressions," Taiya nodded. "But we need a target."

"Haymitch?"

"Hey, back off Haymitch bro. Haymitch's cool."

"Tyler?"

"Buck!" Taiya's eyes lit up in excitement.

"Nah, that dude is way too grumpy. I don't want to piss him off. He might scowl me to death."

"True. He doesn't like you."

"Hey!" Gloss complained.

"How about that hovercraft guy? The one you said seems like he has a stick up his ass?"

"Gale?"

"Yes!" Taiya snapped her fingers in excitement. "That guy!"

"Done," Gloss nodded as he wrote his name down on their list. "Start small and build it up?"

"Well you can't start big Gloss, that defeats the micro in micro aggression."

"Point well made," he nodded as he ran a line through the suggestion he'd put at the top.

"Geez Gloss!" Taiya gasped as she leaned over and read what he'd crossed out. "You'd blow up the whole of District 13 with that!"

"I thought it'd be funny," he shrugged.

"Give me the paper," she jumped off her bunk and snatched it out of his hands. "You've lost your paper privileges."

"So," Gloss kicked back, resting the back of his head on his hands. "How do you feel being separated from Odair? We're compartment C and he's all the way down in O."

"Oh please," Taiya snorted. "He's not in O."

"Yeah, he is. I checked the list."

"Well, yeah, he might be sorted into O, but he will have moved in next door with the other guys."

"How do you know that?"

"Well," Taiya sighed. "If it's really Finnick and not a mutt, he 100% would have done that. I just… I just know."

"Want a bet?" Gloss smirked.

"Yeah. I do," her eyes lit up. This would be an easy win.

"Oh you're so on," he held his hand out.

"Wait, we need to work out what the prize is first," she pulled her hand away.

"Good point. Winner gets to strike first against Gale?"

"You've got yourself a deal shiny boy!" Taiya clasped his hand and shook.

"Can we not start with shiny boy again?" he groaned.

"I like it. It stays," she wiggled her eyebrows. "Now get up, go check. See if Finnick's in there."

"Prepare to lose fish girl," he leapt up and ran out of the room.

Taiya only had to wait a couple of seconds to hear who won.

"Shit!" Gloss cursed before storming back in. "I hate you."

"No you don't," she laughed.

"Oi," Tyler came into their room, looking between the two of them suspiciously. "What was that about?"

"Nothing," they both answered in sync.

His eyes darted between the two of them suspiciously. "Be careful you two. One step out of line and Coin will have you both sent back to the hospital."

"Have a little faith in us Tyler," Taiya smiled at him. "We're being perfectly well-behaved."

Tyler just let out a groan. "I already have a headache," he moaned before retreating back to his room.

"He could be a problem," Gloss assessed.

"I can handle Tyler," Taiya waved her hand in dismissal.

"Taiya," Tyler reappeared, sticking his head inside the door before fully stepping in.

Taiya sat up and smiled widely at him, not sure what the last thing he heard was. "What's up, Ty?"

He frowned as he studied her suspiciously. She was definitely up to something.

"I need you to promise me you'll be on your best behaviour. Promise me."

"Oh yeah," she gave him a thumbs up. "I promise. Best behaviour. You got it."

"Good," Tyler nodded with a smile. He could trust her, right?

But Gloss was smirking, He could see his fingers crossed together on her other hand, out of Tyler's sight.

"You just… call out if you need anything, okay? I'm just right next door."

"I think I've got it," Taiya nodded at him, trying not to laugh.

"Ok, ok," Tyler shut his eyes and took a breath before leaving again.

"Yeah he might be a problem," Taiya relented as soon as he left the room.

"Are you sure we shouldn't have him on our list?" Gloss queried.

"Not yet. We can always add him though. We made an agreement right? We're here to cause trouble."