kill for your love - the hunger games

(061) inevitable hatred that's not so inevitable

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KILL FOR YOUR LOVE.

act three.

(chapter sixty-one, inevitable hatred that's not so inevitable)

the cells, 75 ADD.

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JOHANNA MASON HELD JUNIPER Hale's hand throughout the night, mainly because the latter would not let go. However, the woman from Seven didn't mind and neither did the one from Ten. She was too plagued with grief and despair to realise she was clutching Johanna Mason's hand like it was an anchor. But the twenty-one-year-old, who had a clearer head than her, allowed it. 

The tears had ceased, the sobbing had stopped, and the hiccups were disappearing, but the image was still clear. The handguns. The blood. The bodies dropping. The sound of the duo explosions. Nadine and Yara were dead. And they were shot right in-front of Juniper.

(Juniper furrowed her brows as she looked up to the stage, narrowing her eyes when she saw the escort, Nadine Groves)

(Some pictures were rather bizarre and so, Juniper wasn't surprised when she actually saw Yara)

And despite what Johanna had said, Juniper did blame herself. She should have warned the escort and stylist about the possibility of something going wrong. Or she should have begged Lucy to pick them up. Or she should have fought the Peacekeeper off and saved the two. But then, as Juniper thought this with tear stains on her cheeks, she wondered why she actually cared about Nadine Groves and Yara Give.

She had every reason to want them dead, to enjoy seeing them punished. Nadine Groves had picked her name during the Seventy-Second Reaping as well as Justice's. She then proceeded to choose Raymond Carmine, Jeremy Marinas, and Dakota Hood. And then she grabbed Juniper's name for the Quarter Quell. Juniper should have despised Nadine Groves for that and whilst she was sure she had, there was no spite or hatred coursing through her veins anymore.

And then Yara. The woman had been dressing up District Ten tributes for as long as Juniper could remember and had always embarrassed them with her atrocious outfits. It was only when Nadine told her to change her point of view that her costumes changed design. But Yara Give was styling them all up just to die. She prepped them for the Tribute Parade, for the interviews, and in the catacombs just for them to die. Juniper should have hated her too. 

("Take care of yourself in there.")

(Yara nodded her head as she looked towards Juniper, tears running down her face, "You're an idiot, I hope you know that. You should have stayed with Odair, then you wouldn't be here.")

("Don't," Yara warned. She was trying to take deep breaths. "Don't say anything, you'll make it more worse than it is.")

But despite all of the factors that pointed to inevitable hatred, it wasn't that inevitable because Juniper Hale did not despise Nadine Groves and Yara Give. She realised that now as she clung onto Johanna's hand tightly. She did not hate them. 

(Clampitt furrowed her brows at the bickering of the stylist and escort before focusing back on Juniper, saying, "I know why... you think they're some dumb, brainwashed animals. They didn't know what they were doing, right? They've grown up with this. They wouldn't know what's right and wrong.")