"Enough."
Finnick's voice cracks through the air like a whip, making Wren jump. She's been sitting cross-legged on her kitchen counter for the past hour, methodically shredding the stack of interview prep cards he'd brought over. Tiny pieces of Capitol-approved answers drift around her feet like snow.
"This isn't a game, Wren." He snatches the next card from her hands before she can start on it. "The Victory Tour starts in three days. Three days. And you're acting like this is all some elaborate joke."
She reaches for another card, but he moves them out of reach. Her eyes narrow dangerously.
"No." His carefully maintained mask is slipping, revealing something harder underneath. "You don't get to sit there and tear everything apart just because you're angry. Do you have any idea what's at stake here? What happens to victors who can't play their part?"
Wren knows. Of course she knows. She's seen the footage of past victors who stepped out of line, who couldn't keep up the Capitol's fairy tale of glory and gratitude. But knowing doesn't make the words come any easier.
"Just say something." Finnick runs a hand through his bronze hair, messing up its perfect arrangement. "Anything. Curse at me. Tell me you hate me. I don't care. But this silence?" He gestures at the destroyed cards. "This isn't protecting anyone. It's just making things worse."
She turns away, jaw clenched so tight it hurts. Her hands find the hem of her shirt, twisting the fabric until her knuckles turn white.
"Look at me." When she doesn't, Finnick moves to stand directly in front of her, forcing her to meet his eyes. "You think I don't know what you're doing? Using this silence to make my job harder? To punish me for whatever you think I did wrong as your mentor?"
Wren's chest feels tight. She wants to jump down, to run, but he's too close. The counter at her back suddenly feels like a trap.
"Well, congratulations." His voice is bitter now, tired in a way she's never heard before. "You've succeeded. My life is officially a nightmare. Snow's breathing down my neck, the sponsors are asking questions, and you—" He breaks off, laughing without humor. "You're sitting here destroying our prep work like a child throwing a tantrum."
Child. The word hits her like a physical blow. She is a child. A child who killed three people. A child who bashed her district partner's head in with a brick. A child who—
The scream builds in her throat, pressing against her teeth, choking her. She tries to swallow it back like always, but it's too big this time. Too much. Her lungs won't expand properly.
This time when she pushes at his chest, he's caught off guard enough to step back. She slides off the counter, legs shaky but moving. Has to move. Has to get away before—
"Where are you—" Finnick starts, but she's already running.
She makes it to the bathroom just as her legs give out. The door slams behind her, lock clicking into place as she collapses against it. The tile is cold against her back but she barely feels it over the roaring in her ears.
Breathebreathebreathebreathe
But she can't. Her chest is too tight, her throat closing up. The bathroom is too small, the walls pressing in. Or maybe that's just the weight of everything else—the brick in her hands, Brent's blood on her face, the sound of the cannon that won't stop echoing in her head.
"Wren?" Finnick's voice comes through the door, annoyed and something else. "Come on, we're not done here."
She tries to gasp in air but it comes out as a horrible choking sound. Black spots dance at the edges of her vision. Her hands scrabble against the tile floor, seeking purchase, finding nothing.
A sharp knock on the door. "This is ridiculous. Open the door."
She shakes her head even though he can't see her. Her whole body is trembling now, teeth chattering like she's back in the cold part of the arena. The part where Marina from One tried to drown her in the glacier pool. Where she had to—where she—
Another choking sound tears from her throat.
"Wren?" Finnick's voice changes slightly. "What's going on in there?"
She wants to scream at him to go away. Wants to curl up small enough to disappear. Wants to stop hearing the cannon, stop feeling the brick, stop remembering how Marina's eyes looked when—
"If you don't open this door, I'm breaking it down." There's an edge to his voice now. "And trust me, that's the last thing either of us needs right now. The Capitol's construction crew just left."
The mention of the Capitol sends another wave of panic through her. She can't breathe. Can't think. Can't—
"Damn it." The doorknob rattles. "Wren, open the door."
Her vision is starting to gray out at the edges. Good. Maybe if she passes out, everything will stop. The memories. The panic. Finnick's voice getting sharper with each word.
"This isn't funny anymore." A thud against the door that might be his fist. "I can hear you hyperventilating in there. Just—" He breaks off, and she hears him curse under his breath. "Okay. Okay, listen to me. You need to breathe."
She would laugh if she could get enough air. As if she hasn't been trying to do exactly that.
"In through your nose," he continues, voice clipped but steady. "Out through your mouth. Come on, Wren. You're not dying in there. I refuse to explain that to Snow."
It should be funny, how bad he is at this. How even now, he can't quite manage genuine concern without wrapping it in sarcasm. But nothing's funny when you can't breathe.
"You're having a panic attack," he says after another moment of listening to her gasp. "It feels like dying but it's not. Trust me, I—" He stops abruptly. "Just breathe. Focus on my voice if you have to. Think about how irritating it is. How much you hate my Capitol accent."
She tries. Tries to focus on his voice instead of the cannon in her head. Tries to match her breathing to his exaggerated counts. Tries not to think about why Finnick Odair knows so much about panic attacks.
"That's it." His voice is still sharp but there's something else there too. "Keep breathing. In and out. Unless you want me to start singing. I know all the Capitol drinking songs. They're terrible."
Slowly, painfully, her breathing starts to even out. The spots clear from her vision. The walls stop pressing in quite so hard.
"You back with me, little fish?"
She manages to tap once on the door. A weak sound, but he seems to hear it.
"Good." He's quiet for a moment. "Want to open the door?"
She taps twice. No.
"Right." She hears him slide down to sit against the other side of the door. "Well, this is cozy."
They sit there in silence for a long time, breathing in sync through the wood between them. Finally, Finnick speaks again.
"I still need you to figure out how to handle these interviews." His voice is carefully neutral now. "But… we can work on that tomorrow. When you're less…" He trails off. "Just don't destroy any more of my cards."
Wren lets her head fall back against the door with a soft thud. She's exhausted suddenly, wrung out and hollow. But her breathing is steady now, even if nothing else is.
"I'll be back in the morning," Finnick says, and she hears him stand. "Try not to barricade yourself in any other rooms before then."
His footsteps fade down the hall. Wren stays where she is, counting breaths, waiting for her legs to feel solid enough to move.
Above her head, the small bathroom window shows a slice of sky. It's too early for stars, but she finds herself looking for them anyway. The Wren Belt. The Maren Cluster. The Fisherman's Hook.
None of them are real. But sometimes the things that aren't real are the only ones that make sense anymore.
If Wren could stay in the bathroom forever, she would. Partly because this is the only place in Victor's Village where Finnick Odair and his ridiculous interview prep cards can't reach her. But mostly because her hands are shaking too much to unlock the door.
She curls them into fists, grounding herself in the familiar feeling of nails biting into flesh. Fear isn't new territory for Wren Medler. How could it be? At five, she learned that the world has teeth and it'll swallow you whole the second you're not looking. By the time she turned nine, she knew how to anticipate a blow—the trick was to watch the hips, not the hands. And now, aged fourteen, she knows that sometimes silence is the only play you've got. So why does it feel so much like drowning?
She curls in on herself, feeling the cold from the door seep into her spine, and casts her mind forward. The tour, the disappointment on Finnick's face, President Snow's beady eyes crawling over her face at the crowning, the whispers that follow her around the market—the whispers.
Her head snaps up so fast it smacks against the bathroom door with a dull thud. Good, pain always did help her think and for the first time in weeks, she has an idea. The kind that requires no words at all.
The memory comes unbidden, soft and sharp all at once. Her father in the market, his weathered hand wrapped firmly around her small one as they weaved through the morning crowd. She was four, maybe five, the age when everything seemed too big and too exciting to stay still for long.
"Hold on tight, Wrennie," he'd say, lifting their joined hands to point at something overhead. "Those seagulls have been eyeing you since we got here. Nasty creatures when they're hungry, and you're just the right size for a snack."
"Papa!" She remembers the way she'd squealed, half-delighted, half-terrified as one of the birds swooped particularly low. "They wouldn't really eat me, would they?"
"Well now," he'd say, pretending to consider it seriously even as his eyes crinkled at the corners, "I suppose they might think twice if you had a name for each of them. Seagulls are particular about eating children who've named them, you see."
She'd spent the next hour pointing at every bird in sight, christening them with increasingly ridiculous names. Captain Fisheater. Princess Wingflap. Sir Squawksalot. Her father had nodded along solemnly to each one, though she'd caught him hiding his smile behind his free hand more than once.
"There," he'd said finally, swinging their joined hands between them. "Now you're safe as houses. Though best keep hold of my hand anyway, just in case we missed one."
It wasn't until years later that she realized what he'd really been protecting her from. The way his grip would tighten ever so slightly when they passed the Community Home kids lurking between the stalls. How he'd position himself between her and their hungry stares.
She remembers asking Maren about it once, after their father was gone. "Did Papa really think the seagulls would carry me away?"
Her sister had smiled, but it wasn't the same smile their father used to wear. This one had edges to it. "Papa knew there were worse things than seagulls to worry about. He just didn't want to scare you with the truth."
But her father is dead now. Just like her mother, just like Maren. And the truth has done more than just scare her – it's remade her entirely. Still, as she sits on the cold bathroom floor, she finds herself wondering what her father would think of her now. What story he would tell to make sense of what his little Wrennie has become.
She pushes herself up, legs steadier than before. Through the small window, she can see the market starting to wind down for the day. The Community Home kids will be making their rounds soon, looking for anything the vendors might be willing to part with before closing. Her father had always hurried her past them, keeping her safe with his stories and his grip.
But she's not that little girl anymore. And maybe it's time to write a different kind of story. One with more broken bones and the sort of medical note that postpones the Victory Tour. The details sharpen in her mind as she creeps out of her house, careful to avoid the path that crosses by Finnick's place. Let him keep thinking she's huddled on her bathroom floor or shredding another carefully printed speech. Let him think she's just a fourteen-year-old with poor coping mechanisms and an attitude. Let him think she's not thinking clearly enough to do something this drastic without telling him first.
Let him be wrong.
The whispers follow her between the stalls, but she's used to that. Head high, back straight, exactly like Finnick taught her for the cameras. Don't let them see you flinch.
Then she hears a familiar voice: "Well, if it isn't Medler the monster."
Her shoulders tense before she can stop them. Tanner Reed leans against a wall ahead of her, all gangly teenage limbs and hard eyes. They used to share a bunk at the Community Home, back before everything. Back when Wren was just another nameless kid instead of a victor who killed her district partner with a brick.
She tries to step around him, but he pushes off the wall to block her path. "What's wrong, Medler? Too good to talk to us home kids now?"
More shapes detach from the shadows. Bryony. Jenna. Luca. All Community Home kids she used to know. All watching her with those same hard eyes.
"Heard you went mute after bashing Brent's head in," Tanner continues, voice carrying just enough for nearby shoppers to hear. To whisper. To turn away. "Guess killing someone you grew up with finally made you crack, huh?"
Wren's hands clench at her sides, but she doesn't move a muscle. Not when she's this close. Not when they're about to give her exactly what she needs.
"Remember when she used to share her tesserae bread with the little ones?" Jenna's voice is poison-sweet. "Acting all noble. All kind. Bet those kids feel real special now, knowing they ate bread from a killer."
Something hot and angry burns in Wren's chest. Before she can think better of it, she shoves past Tanner, shoulder checking him hard enough to make him stumble.
Perfect.
His hand catches her arm, yanking her sideways into the narrow alley between stalls. "Still think you're tough, Medler?" he hisses. "Still think you're better than us just because you won their stupid Games?"
She twists in his grip, breaks free with a move Finnick taught her in training. But there are four of them and one of her, and the alley is very narrow and very dark.
"Bet you think you're real special now," Bryony says, moving to block her exit. "Living in Victor's Village. Hanging out with Finnick Odair. But we remember what you really are."
Wren's back hits the wall. In the arena, she'd have a weapon by now. Would have found something - anything - to use. But this isn't the arena and these aren't tributes and she won't... she can't... not if she wants to delay the Victory Tour...
The first punch catches her in the ribs, driving the air from her lungs. The second splits her lip. She manages to land one solid hit of her own, feels Tanner's nose crunch under her knuckles, but then someone kicks her legs out from under her and everything becomes a blur of pain and fury and bitter, choking silence.
They're careful, she realizes distantly. No hits to the face except that first split lip. Nothing that will show too obviously. Nothing that will get back to anyone important.
When they finally step back, she stays on the ground for a moment, tasting blood and shame and rage. Her ribs scream as she pushes herself up, using the wall for support.
"Better get back to your new best friend," Tanner says, wiping blood from his nose. "Wouldn't want to keep the great Finnick Odair waiting."
Wren straightens her spine through sheer force of will. Lifts her chin. Walks out of that alley like her chest isn't on fire, like her hands aren't shaking, like she isn't leaving pieces of herself scattered in the shadows with the rats.
It takes her three tries to pick up a head of cabbage without dropping it. Four to add carrots to her basket. By the time she makes it to the bread stall, her hands have almost stopped trembling.
Almost.
