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counting stars.
volume two; murder
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Elora finds her eyes trailing the freckles that dot across the expanse of Finnick's neck, counting stars as a way to pass the time. Her eyes scrunch up as the scratchy material of her dress grazes her back once more. The longer the games last the harder Elora finds it to grit her teeth and smile through the pain. Capitol women flock Finnick as always and Elora knows that she will be alone in their apartment tonight. With Finnick's tribute no longer playing the game, he must take care of business.
Streamers of gold glimmer above her, the moonlight trickles in from the glass ceiling that displays the never ending expanse of darkness. The one thing Elora enjoys about these events is the scenery. The glasshouse provides her with a unique opportunity to admire the stars above, the same stars that shine above her home, above Mags and Annie. She wonders if they are the same stars that shine above Cato and Coral.
The youngest ever victor sits by her side sipping on a purple liquid that Elora really hopes is non-alcoholic. Dawn may be a sweet girl but she is just as haunted as the rest of them, and she really does not need to pick up the addictions of her peers. The silence that accompanies them is peaceful in a way, knowing that she doesn't have to speak and Dawn will know exactly how she feels. The young girl tugs at the right neckline of her dress, a grimace adorning her features as she feels the fabric dig into her jugular.
Elora averts her eyes to once again search for Finnick, finding him halfway across the room with his gaze on her. They exchange a lazy smile, a gentle promise that they will see each other in the morning. She tries not to frown as he exits the room with a capitol woman trailing behind him.
She can feel Dawn watching her. Sometimes she hates how observant the child can really be. Dawn doesn't relent in her unwavering stare and with the moonlight shimmering on her porcelain skin, she has never looked as pure then in that moment. Elora wonders what she would look like in her home. She can imagine the girl perched in the branches of the tallest trees, scaling them with ease, the sun that filters through the foliage casting a glow on her face. It is hard to imagine the girl with an axe in her hand as she slaves away for the capitol, yet she knows that is what her life was once like.
Dawn only allows her eyes to fade from Elora when someone else catches her eye, someone who worries her far more. He stands across the room with his beady eyes boring right into her soul. He brings the glass to his lips, a pale blue liquid entering yet exiting polluted with blood. The red trickles through the blue at an alarming rate, turning everything it touches to red. His gaze flickers to Elora and with the gentlest nod of his head, Snow makes his intention very clear.
"I'm going to find Johanna, I'll see you later El".
Elora nods vacantly, her mind occupied with thoughts of Finnick and the trauma that rests heavy on his shoulders. She notices the president once it is too late to escape, when he stands before her with a glass of blood in his hands, and red in his eyes.
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Cato cannot decide if the games get easier or harder with each passing day. The finish line is within reach, with many of the tributes who may have been a challenge already gone. He knows he will be able to fight the rest with ease, even Clove, who he considers a friend. If he had never met Elora, if he was the same man that left district two that day, this would be easy.
He cannot shake the faces of the dead as easily as he wishes. He had imagined it to be simple, slashing a throat was the same as slicing through a mannequin. He hadn't imagined how slick the blood would be, how warm, how thick, how red. The idea that his victims souls would haunt him had barely crossed his mind.
He knew stories of victors driven insane by the mere thought of what they had done. Ghosts swim in their eyes and they are never quite there, never really present, too lost in memories. He had been raised to think that these people were weak. People who could not kill without remorse were less than worthy. Victors who were ashamed of their actions should never have won the games. Brutus had drilled into his mind that people who wanted to die deserved to die.
He had heard stories of Elora too. A girl too gentle to enter the games, too young and naive for anyone to believe she truly had a chance. A woman scarred by what she had seen, what she had done. A woman who could not live with who she was. He had been told stories of mirrors covered up so her reflection was hidden, of skin tainted pink from never ended attempts to scrub the blood away, to wash her soul clean. According to his district, this made her weak. She was strong physically, she had won her games after all, but winning does not make a victor, brutality does.
The second her name marked his skin, he knew that his games would not be all that he had dreamed. No longer would the slaughter of children bring him pride and eternal glory, but merely a life full of nightmares and paranoia. It is hard for Cato to believe that he had volunteered to be here, to take the lives of innocents, when now all he wanted was to be home. He wants to regret it, to wish that he had never called out that day, but he knows that a future with Elora would not be possible without these games. Even if they had met some other way, he would never be able to understand her sorrow. She would never be able to understand his mindset.
Clove rolls over in her sleep, her arm brushing against his side. Her skin is cold as the temperature in the arena plummets, and he can see the blue tinge on her lips. He wants to be out of the games so badly, wants the only skin touching his to be Elora's, wants to bask in her warmth.
He clutches his knife a little tighter, his knuckles turning white around the blade. He could kill her where she lays, Coral too. It doesn't matter if either of them struggle or Marvel wakes up, Cato is confident he would win that fight. He could seek Thresh and spill his blood across the meadow, water the wildflowers with the red from his veins. He could hunt down each tribute and slaughter them one by one, if only it means he can escape this hellscape.
He burrows his knife into the earth and forces that thoughts from his mind. There is no honour in killing a sleeping lamb. Katniss comes to the front of his mind, a face so peaceful as she slumbers in the forrest, eyes that don't open even as he snaps her neck. He pulls the blade from it's home in the soil and turns his attention to his hands, beginning the long process of cleaning the blood from under his fingernails.
He glances up at the darkness extending above him and the glimmering stars the stretch beyond. His head lulls back to lean against the cornucopia wall, his soul aching from the distance, and begins counting stars.
YOU ARE READING
Scars of Kings • Cato Hadley
Fanfiction"if you were born with weakness to fall you were born with the strength to rise" cato hadley x oc soulmate au
