The Price of Champions and Crowns (Hunger Games)

9

Six Months Earlier - The Arena

"Big breath...now"

I don't know if she even heard me. Because one second I'm holding her and the next she's gone. The both of us separated somewhere in the biggest body of water I've ever been in. With every stroke I take it feels like it separates us even more. And I know her, know her ability. She's not a strong swimmer, what am I talking about?!?...a couple days ago she couldn't even swim!.

So now I'm panicking which I can tell is using up the the oxygen I don't have. How long has it been now seconds or a minute?...she won't last longer than two minutes. I can only last three or four on a good da-

BOOM.

It's deafening. Even under water it's loudest I've ever heard a canon during the games. And I can feel it, it's past the minute mark. She doesn't have long. And I need her to win, I won't live without her. And I do everything I can to ignore the voice that tells me she's already gone.

I wait, I tread and I swim. I swim up, and up until I break the surface with the world's biggest intake of air. Before... you guessed it, I'm dunked by wave, after wave, after wave. Not regular waves but manufactured waves that are targeting me specifically.

I struggle against them for about twenty minutes until I decide that it's okay. I haven't heard her cannon, maybe she's safe. Maybe, she's done what she does best and climbed a tree. Maybe she's safe and it's now me that's not. 

So Fuck it. 

I don't fight them this time. When my head pops up I do the opposite of what I've been taught since birth, I inhale the water and I sink. It's peaceful at first giving up. I think it's even noble, giving up my life for hers. It's something I don't have to think about. Until there's a growing pressure in my head that builds. Until I'm convulsing...I'm drowning. I'm drowning and it's painful until everything just stops.

It's blurry when I come to. My head hurts and I'm vomiting up sea water. Well that's gross.

I tusk in disgust and am met with a man dressed in white. It's loud, super loud. Maybe panicked too. The people around me are going in and out of two rooms in a hurry. The man snaps in my face and I blink in confusion while holding up my hand. "Dude, could you not?".

He writes something down before I look around me with dread. My memory catching up to me in a flurry of images. The savanna, killing Poppy, Victoria telling me she's loves me and the feeling of having her ripped from my arms.

And then I'm up, ripping off cords and god knows what else.  I push the doctor to the wall who hardly puts up a fight before something is stabbed into my neck. That hurts like bitch!.

Pretty sure I said that out loud before I was plunged into darkness. 

I slowly blink awake with a groan. My world is covered by the colour red and the scent of lilies. Mum...

She's gripping me tight and I'm met with her pretty if not bed ridden face and hair. Her eyes are brimmed with tears and my first instinct is : "Is dad gone again?".

She adamantly shakes her head and seems to sniff me like a dog. Look, it's weird but it's mum you don't really question that kind of stuff. I go to pat her back but frown when I'm met with resistance in my arm. 

I crane my neck only to see I'm got an IV stuck in it. Looking around I'm surprised it took me this long to realise I'm in a hospital room. In a gown of all things...

Which makes m- Victoria...

I jump a bit ignoring the questioning eyes of my mother. As much as I love her I know she's probably as clueless as me right now. But dad...he'll know. I bit my lip in worry and stare blankly into her face. "We're still in the Capitol aren't we?".

A simple if not shy nod. It's a good start. I need to know, but if she has a melt down I'm in no physical state to help her, my whole body aches. And dad...we'll let's just hope he isn't around to know I caused it.

"What happened?".

It's low and whispered...but she's instantly screaming. I should've known. I drowned in her arena. She watched me in there...watched someone die in there.

She's still screaming when I hear a rush of footsteps and there's dad, Finnick. He steps into the room eyes slightly wide as he takes in myself (pretending to be oblivious) and mum. He runs a hand through his hair and I avert my eyes as he consoles her.

They're always so...intimate when he does it. 

For about an hour. And I take in everything but them. The white room, the ugly mirror and the weird painting of a white rose. Until she's stopped weeping and someone rubbed my hair. I exhale and push them away. "Mum, quit it".

But when I look up it's identical eyes with a smirk that's staring back at me. "You did well".

I glare at him, my eyes turning hard. "If I'm here, sitting with the two of you then I didn't do well. I failed".

Finnick scoffed. "You didn't fail, son. You survived".

I swallow my eyes brimming with tears. I held them in, determined not to cry, not in-front of him. "But she didn't".

I waited. I stared him down but instead he tusked and looked away. 

He didn't have to say anything. 

The fact he didn't told me everything.

Told me that I've lost everything.