Strictly Prohibited ➳ THE HUNGER GAMES ✔️

|16| Forgive, But Never Forget

Chapter 16 x

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Storm's POV

Sometimes, the hardest thing to do is convince yourself that you're okay, even when you know you're falling to pieces. That's how it feels when I wake up every morning, that it's a struggle just to make it through another day. But every day is the same – at least, until about a week after my miscarriage, when Hyperion enters my room and I'm escorted out of the prison cell and up, away, into a room with plush pillows and feather-filled duvets. It scares me even more than the cell.

Every night I sit outside on the balcony in the rooms that has became mine. I don't know where I am, just that it's in the Capitol somewhere. I can only guess that these rooms belong to Hyperion – but why has he done this? It's almost like they were waiting for something, waiting for the moment where I shattered before they finally decided to disorientate me even more by giving me comfort rather than the bare minimum.

The only thing that doesn't change is my solitude. My only visitor is Hyperion, and that brings little joy. When the sun dips below the horizon and I sit out on the balcony with a glass of wine in my hand, I can almost pretend that none of it ever happened. That I never met Gloss and Cashmere, that I was never pregnant, that I never lost the child. But then I remember the lack of understanding, the notion that something had snapped inside Gloss when he robbed me of the child he didn't even know I carried.

Sometimes, I want nothing more than to throw myself off the balcony.

Three weeks pass since my miscarriage, two since I was relocated. Hyperion enters my room with a smile and a dress. It's my size, an 8, a slinky blue cocktail thing that I would normally wear to some kind of dinner party. Hyperion lays the dress across my bed and I cautiously move away from the sanctuary of the balcony, the bitter comfort of the glass of wine, and examine the dress. The fabric is soft to the touch – silk. I look at Hyperion, and that smile is still there.

"It's for you."

"Why?" I ask, frowning. I can't comprehend what would have suddenly possessed Hyperion to give me gifts. Since the miscarriage, he's been nothing but kind, almost as if he truly regrets my loss. But I know it's nothing but an act, that's what makes it all the more painful. I'm struggling to tell truth from lies, nightmares from reality.

"The President is having a dinner party tonight." Hyperion walks out onto the balcony and picks up the bottle of wine. "He has requested that I bring you."

That only makes me feel even worse. Anything that President Snow wants with me can't be good. Does he know about the miscarriage? Does he even know that I was pregnant in the first place? I watch Hyperion, searching for some kind of hint, but I find none. So I pick up the dress and hold it to the light.

"Nice, isn't it?" Hyperion places a hand on my arm and I flinch away from him. Physical contact still makes me scared, and the fear frustrates me. Am I to become some kind of little mouse, to run away and hide? I don't want to be afraid anymore. I was fearless once, but that was when I had Cashmere. Now I have only her memory to give me strength. So I take a deep breath, and I smile back.

Bring them down, Cashmere's voice whispers in my ear, Tear them apart from the inside out.

But I can't. Because I'm broken.

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The blue dress fits all too well. So do the heels that go with it – three-inch stilettos that I would have had no problem walking in usually, but somehow my knees are wobbly and I'm finding it hard not to trip and fall. Hyperion is dressed in a suit with a blue tie that matches the colour of my dress, of Gloss's eyes.