The decent into hell is easy( Finnick Odair)

Cruel Game

For the longest time control had been the only thing that had ever interested me. Control your emotions and they couldn't own you, control your actions and they could never beat you. But now I had lost interest in what I had once thought was control. Now I was convinced that the word meant something completely different. If I couldn't control myself then I could at least try to control the people around me and how they effected me. If I held them all at arms length then I could never get hurt, I could slip away before anything went wrong but life didn't work that way anymore, I was starting to wonder if it really ever had.

Knocking on Cato's door his room was no different to anyone else's, cold and bare just like the people here in 13. "It feels like a prison" Not looking up from his bed he rolled a piece of chalk in between his fingers

"Prisons have windows" Which was something this District severely lacked. Getting up he huffed, keeping his back to me the entire time.

"I can't do this Chloe"

"Look I know it's a far cry from 2 but-"

"No. I can't do this" Turning around he motioned his hand between us both. "Us. It's too much, it hurts too much"

"What hurts?"

"Loving you and knowing that you love him"

"I don't"

"Don't lie to me!" Snapping it had been a while since I had seen the anger rise to the surface. When it had come down to me he had usually kept it pretty well hidden but I guess it had gotten too much. "Please. Just don't lie to me. You owe me that much" Averting my eyes from his I sat down on his bed, my hands clasped together wanting nothing more than to leave this place behind and go back to a time when the world made a little more sense then it did now.

"I don't know what I feel. I care for him, I care for you too but I can't have you both"

"And because you can't have him you're willing to settle for me?"

"I'm not settling!" How could he think that? He was better suited for my world, he knew what it was like to be in my head. It was something that Finnick could never know.

"Alright. Look me in the eyes and tell me that if you could marry either of us, with no stipulations, no blocks, no underlying scheme that you'd choose to marry me. Tell me that if it came down to me and him that you'd pick me" Standing up it was an impossible question but it was one he needed the answer to if we were ever going to get anywhere. Taking a step closer to him he never broke the gaze, not even to blink. His hitch in breathing didn't go unnoticed as I took his hand in my own. Eyes gliding over the faint scars that were scattered across his knuckles.

"I've always picked you, can't you see that?" Looking up at him his breath was moving the stray hairs on my forehead. " When I saw your body on the table my heart broke thinking I'd never hear you laugh again, that I'd never get to see your eyes again, that'd I'd never get to feel whole again." Cupping the of his face his hand came over mine and pressed it down harder. "But then you weren't dead and suddenly my life seemed a little bit brighter, I didn't feel so alone anymore because for once someone else knew what was like to be me trapped in a world that you didn't belong in"

"You made my life brighter too" Leaning down his lips were on mine and for the first time in a very long time I didn't feel so alone. He was the only person I didn't have to run from, I could be completely myself. I could be the monster that the Capitol had created because he was one too. There was no fake reality to be created. Just truth and honesty.

Waking up the next morning Cato's arm was draped heavily over my side, it was comforting in a way but hell in another. The feeling of being restrained was something most, if not all, victors feared when they came out of that arena until their dying day. Slipping out from his grasp he just mumbled before rolling over to face the wall. Boys and their sleep. Leaving his room it was earlier than most people tended to be up and about, probably my favourite time of the day. That and the dead of night, because no one expected you to be something then. It was just you as yourself, no mask, no facade, no fake reality. Turning a corner the sound of raised voices echoed throughout the empty hallway, voices I knew all too well.

"You're honestly going to let her go through with this?"

"If it's what she wants then yes"

"She doesn't know what she wants!"

"Oh, and I suppose you do?" Glimpsing around the corner Finnick and Haymitch were having a heated argument in the middle of the hall, clearly not bothered about who could possibly hear them

"Yeah, actually I do. I've known her since she was 4 years old"

"And where were you when she needed you? Where were you Finnick when she woke up screaming? Where were you when everything got too much for her and she couldn't take it anymore? Where were you when she wanted to end it all because she couldn't live with what she'd done? You were nowhere to be found!" Shouting at him Haymitch was seething, it was clear all over his face but what was worse was the fact he was about to admit it into the open one of the darkest times of my life

"I have no idea what you're talking about?"

"Of course you don't. Because she didn't want you to know, even in her worst moments she was still protecting you! And what have you ever done for her? Huh?" Huffing he looked at the floor before returning his glare back to Finnick. "Nothing but make her feel like she doesn't matter, that maybe she is the monster they all think she is. Well you know what? She isn't! She's broken and more fragile then anyone will ever know and you've helped make her that way and I'll never forgive you for that"

"Back in the games, when the women from 6 died she said she saved her life. That sometimes she let the demons back in. What did she do?" Biting his lip Haymitch was still haunted by the memories of that day. "Haymitch please" He begged.

"At the Winter Solstice ball, she was distant. She had been for a while, I thought she just needed some time, I had no idea the actual places were travelling to. She got drunk, very drunk. She was acting strange, had no fear of anything. It was, scary. Cato was there because everyone knew he was going to volunteer for two when he was 18, he was 17 at the time. He saw her leave, came to tell me but I couldn't find her anywhere"

"I remember that night, she was acting odd. I remember looking in her eyes and seeing nothing, it was like she wasn't there"

"Well she wasn't, not really. We spent ages looking for her until suddenly the tribute from 6, the other morphling that went back in appeared next to us, told us that his district partner had found her with a gun pointed to her head. Turns out she'd planned to kill herself that night, get so drunk that she wouldn't feel it" Hearing the crack in Haymitch's voice my heart broke knowing all the pain I had caused him, he didn't deserve that. "And she would have if she hadn't of been found but that's not the only time she's done something like that. But seeing as you know her so well I'll assume you know that" Slumping against the wall this was painful to listen to but hearing Haymitch say it, hearing the pain in his voice made it worse. I'd made mistakes, done some awful, selfish things but those moments were the ones that had caused the most pain to those I loved and I could never forgive myself for that.

"I just thought that she-"

"That she what? Was just a cold-hearted bitch? It's a role she's very good at playing, I'll give her that but Chloe went through things, did things that none of us can ever begin to imagine what it felt like to do. She killed her brother, she killed the girl she was in order to survive in a world that wanted her dead. She's not weak, she never has been. So you can sit there and think you what's best for her but just take this into consideration before you pass your judgement. That girl has walked through hell with a smile on her face because she had to. She didn't survive because of anything you did, or anything I did but because of what she did. What she had to become, what she had to do is the reason she is still here. So if this is what she thinks is best for her then I will damn well agree with her!"

"Even if it's all just a cruel game?"

"Even if its just a cruel game"