VENUS《 FINNICK ODAIR

Chapter 18. A VICTOR'S MOVE.

T/W: Descriptions of death, violence, blood, suicide.

"IT'S YOUR CHOICE CADE, BE THE KILLER YOU WERE BORN TO BE, OR END UP AS DEAD AS YOUR FUCKING PEACEKEEPER PARENTS."

Cade flinched at the threat. At how he knew that these words would be some of the last he would ever hear.

Noble only released a darkened laugh, "Oh yeah? Don't think I didn't recognise your last name did you? They are legends back home in District 2, don't you want to forfill their legacy? Be the Coran you were born to be Cade. Stab her in the heart."

.○°●☆

Cade Coran was born into a family of Peacekeepers. The Corans were renown for their ruthlessness back in two, and that was proven further when Elodie and Koji Coran moved to Distrcit 8 upon their promotion.

The little blonde boy, covered in cuts and bruises came as a suprise to the young, ruthless couple; but he was appreciated at first. When he was born, it was disappointing to the parents that they couldn't enrol him into 2's Tribute Training Academy now they lived in 8, as it was the best of the best. But instead they taught him the basics on their own. They raised him by the Peacekeeper Rulebook; he was meant to be a marvel.

But once he was seven, that's when it was obvious Cade wasn't meant for the military life. He fell behind. He couldn't keep up with his parents regime, and the state of 8 did them no better.

It was always like that in 8, the smog clouded the mind, the hunger ached louder than hope. It was what the President designed: keep your people depressed and oppressed, and they will eventually lose the strength to fight back; like a bad evolutionary trait dissolved in selective breeding. The quiet, obedient and aggressive ones received the good jobs, the extra rations.

The rest were left to rot in the dirt.

And the day Cade learnt that fact was when the beatings began, then the sweet saccharine words fell after, caressing Cade in hope for a better throw or a faster time. But it was a cycle, if his parents weren't shot on accident, Cade would've been beaten for not being the perfect Peacekeeping prodigy to the day he was reaped.

It happened for 3 years, from seven to ten; somehow he was smart enough to abolish his reputation from his name at school, but not to realise why. The little boy would pick flowers from the Peacekeeper gardens for his teachers, give his friends help with homework, offer to take a sick child to sickbay. He was a perfect role model, what every teacher hoped for in a student; but that was because that's what he thought he needed to be, he thought if he slipped up they would bruise him blue just like his parents.

Once his parents died in a protest they were managing, Cade was sent into the farmlands to live with a step aunt. A privilege to not be left on the streets, all because of his parents high status. He left his life behind, but not his trauma. Those three years, had shaped him forever.

He always remembered what his mother said to him,

"Cade, in life people will always be out for you, in those times you stick by your greatest threat and not your friends, because then, you'll become the greatest threat. I'm telling you this because you are weak my little one, and when this day comes, you'll have to make a choice. And this choice, will decide who you truly are. I hope you pick the survivor's move."

A survivor's move.

Huh.

This was his day. He knew it from the moment he was first forced to use Tessarae. He would find himself in between his greatest enemy and his greatest friend, and he would need to pick the survivor's move. But it was a very fine line. And he had demolished it.