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The beginning of the games were meant to be the bloodbath, but the end of hers mirrored the start. Five tributes. Two careers. And the girl who had, quite literally, stabbed her in the back.
The last day of her games was the epitome of a hunt.
There was a moment when Greer accepted her death, when her bow snapped in half and the end of his sword plunged straight into her stomach. It felt like she had been dumped into her grave, no heat from any more adrenaline but only cold. Cold acceptance, the bone chilling realization that there was no longer any chance she would be going home.
The boy from District Seven had laughed, abandoning her dying body and spinning around with his arms out as if to say 'see what I did?'. Almost like he was waiting for the cameras to descend from the blackened fog and give him his close up. He hadn't waited for her cannon to sound to declare his own victory because surely she was dead. He was sixteen and standing tall; she was fourteen and bleeding out.
There was an obvious winner between the two. The odds had never been so far out of her favor, but they had always been just that - odds.
Greer had nothing left but an arrowhead. Yet somehow when that twenty-third cannon finally sounded, it wasn't for her.
It was all supposed to be over then, she was meant to be done.
Unfortunately, they don't advertise victor life aside from the fancy house and the riches. They don't advertise the endless years of mentoring, the countless tributes you'll send off to watch die in their own arena. They don't advertise the never ending visits to The Capitol. They don't advertise President Snow's vile propositions.
Greer learned a hard truth after her name was pulled from the Reaping bowl - that even when the victor's crown was placed on her head, she hadn't won. In fact, the real game was only just beginning.
In the arena, Greer Cromwell had been fighting to survive. After the arena, Greer Cromwell was fighting to live.
Synonymous as the words may be, to her they had never felt so different.
