The Revenant | Finnick Odair

chapter six

▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

chapter six
LIKE FATHER LIKE DAUGHTER

▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄

Yelena feels like she's stumbling over open air, ankles wobbling and desperately attempting to build a foundation to steady herself on. Reality used to ground her. Except now, the reality that's made sense to her since she was a little girl has been ripped right from beneath her like a rug, leaving her dangling in time and space as the truth emerges from a series of mirages. Part of her is just waiting to plummet down into oblivion, like the story of a girl who fell down a rabbit hole.

She's sitting on the edge of her hotel bed now, breathing a bit too shallow for her comfort. She's trying to do too many things at once. Her sweaty palm picks at the comforter beneath her, one of the strings beginning to fray. This tells her she's here. She's here in this world that seems like it's spinning in all sorts of directions. Her dark gaze bores into the golden lamp across from her as she silently identifies different objects in the reflection. She can see the black shade of her dress. Her hair is in a ponytail. Somewhere, water is running loudly, and the T.V. appears to be on. Caspian Steele is sitting next to her.

Caspian is sitting next to her.

His voice blurs in and out. She feels him studying her anxiously, something in his large palm that glimmers. The ring.

"Yelena? Can I get you water?" He shakes his head. "Do you need to lie down? Maybe a damp towel? You're very pale."

The second to last question yanks her from limbo, shoving her right in this very moment. Finally, she dares to look at him, brows knit into a frown as she glares. "How..." Her voice drags along her throat dryly, and she swallows the bile that's been building. "How are you my father?"

Caspian blinks at her patiently as he shifts his weight along the mattress. He leaves his palms open and splayed out on his knees, facing the ceiling. "Well, I was hoping I might get to explain that to you one day." One of his fingers scratches at his temple as he grimaces. "Not like this, but..."

He licks his lips and inhales a sharp breath, reaching to a gold chain tucked beneath the collar of his dress shirt. When he pulls it over his head, Yelena can see a pendant glimmering in the middle. It's shaped like a heart, intricate designs etched into the metal. When he clicks it open, she realizes it's not just any pendant.

A locket.

"You know that you were at least adopted... right?" Caspian tries, peering over at her uneasily. Surely, he doesn't want to hit her with two bombshells in one evening.

Yelena nods. "Yes, I was adopted from the Orphanage in Eight. My parents couldn't have children of their own..." She shakes her head, dark brows pinching together. None of this makes sense. "But how would you be my father if I'm in an Orphanage in Eight? How do Capitol children ever end up in the Districts?"

"When their fathers enrage the President beyond reason."

That makes her spine grow tight and rigid. She pauses, blinking dumbly, the words struggling to sink in. Caspian never struck Yelena as the type to break the rules, nor the kind to end up on Snow's Not So Nice List. Aren't the poor souls who tend to find their names written in such a terrifying list usually dead by now? And usually, those people also tend to be from the Districts. Not well-known Capitol Aristocrats.