Day Sixteen: The Heroes that we thought we were

"Selene?" Her voice, the voice of the girl lying in bed, is hoarse. It's been a week since Lyme has gotten home, two since she came out of the arena with red fingerprints against her throat and still her throat refused to heal. It was a far cry from the excited, deadly swordswoman who'd volunteered but two months ago, tall and brunette and enough to even take some of One's traditional sponsors. Not many, but a few.

And now this is what she's been brought down to. Lying in bed, staring up at her mentor with big brown eyes. Eyes that speak of things she's seen that no teenage girl should ever see. Eyes that plead for something to escape, something to do other than lie in bed.

Selene can't promise that. She wants to, knows Lyme deserves to be told that she's a hero. But she'd also promised, not to the girl lying in bed but to herself, that no lie would ever be given because lying was bad. Everyone who passed through knew that, knew lying was a tool only cowards used. Cowards and Ones, but that was besides the point, because now Lyme was looking to her. "Yes, dear?"

"Why?" Words are left unspoken, the cracked voice unable to pass anything more than short questions. It would heal in time, the doctors said, but for now she was injured, injured and unable to do more. But Selene's known the girl long enough she can guess. "Why are you back?"

Nod.

"Because you won, Lyme. Because you won, and you're Two's champion now. Two's hero." There's a tone of bitterness, strong enough Selene isn't surprised that it's audible. Lyme can only nod.

"Not." A pause, a few seconds and then more. "Not hero." It's a simple statement, but Selene can see the true understanding in Lyme's eyes.

"You wanted to be a hero, Lyme." Selene's trying to offer some kind of solace, some refuge from the truth, and yet Lyme's again shaking her head.

"Saved one. Killed seven." This is true. And Selene can't even challenge Lyme on this, can't say she's wrong because there's no lie in that statement. Instead she can nod, take hold of the hands criss-crossed with scars, and speak the only truth she knows.

"None of us are the heroes that we thought we were." A squeeze of the hand, a sad smile is the most Selene can offer before continuing. "Opal, Lianne, Brutus. Me. Do you really think any of us who came in for the heroics, for sheltering a threatened child expected this. We all thought we'd be the change, be the real heroes. Instead, we're all killers. Opal cut three kids up for hours, drew at least some enjoyment from it and has spent the last six months filled to the gills with pills in every colour while she tries to get over it. Lianne was less. One, but she was still a problem, and with her score and her record? Wakes up every night. Brutus may act all macho, you know that from school." A light laugh, cut off before it can end. "But he's still a scared little boy inside, really."

"Not. Helping." Lyme's voice is fraught, filled with the weariness a thousand years of normal Two life couldn't bring.

"It's not meant to help. But we all try so hard to prove that we were different, but now they all see us as the villains. Eight, Nine, Eleven? They don't know that we didn't intend to cause so much pain. They don't know that we would, in a heartbeat, throw it all up if there was even the faintest chance we could claw back our old lives. No, they think that even after we win, we're proud. And I want you to understand that it's ok not to be proud."

Lyme tries to speak, to get words out, and is in that heartbeat shushed with a finger to her lips. "But we have to be. In public? We need to play the part of the proud Victor, the girl who is so glad for the opportunity to kill her district partners. To kill the children from other Districts. Because the Capitol is glad. They think we think we're the heroes. They think they're the winners, that they came out with the Victory against us."

Then, only then, does Selene give a wolfish grin, and retaking Lyme's hand give it a gently encouraging squeeze. "I'll repeat myself. So we pretend the part of a Victor. Not a Victim of the Games, a Victor who is so proud to have won, to have taken what is rightfully ours."

"And then?"

"And then, when they've bared their throat to us? When they make ready and clasp the viper to their bosom? We bite. We be the real heroes."

Author's Note: We're shifting off Squad Victors soon, but Lyme is someone I haven't touched on yet, so she deserved this.