kill for your love - the hunger games

(063) and, oh, did it work

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KILL FOR YOUR LOVE.

act three. 

(chapter sixty-three, and, oh, did it work)

the cells / seclusion, 75 ADD.

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JUNIPER WENT OVER EVERY single detail of her life before and after the Games. She recalled every conversation she had with her father. She tried to remember every little action he had done. Every look. Every word. Everything. Because it couldn't be true. It wasn't true. She had to find something that showed it wasn't true. 

(But the sigh of relief turned into one of confusion as she walked further into the makeshift house, seeing her father sat in a small chair next to a boarded window, peering through the cracks gently as a piece of paper was crumpled up in his grasp)

(His grip on the paper became tighter, but the girl didn't question it)

("June, no," her father told her harshly, lifting up her head and grasping her cheeks with his big hands. "Don't you dare apologise... this is Snow's fault. This is my fault.")

(But he was riddled with guilt and regret)

(He couldn't look at Juniper without wincing. Every time he looked at her, he felt nauseous. He had to look away whenever he glanced at her eyes)

("Can we agree to not lie to each other, Miss Hale? If I do not lie, you do not lie. It will make things much simpler and much more understandable.")  

But nothing worked.

Orion Hale was holding a piece of paper tightly the morning of the Reaping. He was always so worried when the twins did something reckless, something that could have gotten them in trouble with the officials. He had said it was Snow's fault that they were chosen, that it was his fault. He never spoke about their mother. He couldn't even look at her because of the guilt and regret that so obviously filled him. And there had to be a reason that the man was filled with sorrow and pain, even before the Seventy-Second Reaping. 

But it wasn't true. It couldn't be. 

This was just Snow trying to get into her head, to turn against her own family. But why would Snow do that? Why would he tell her that? He must have known that Juniper blamed herself for Justice's death, so why shift it to someone else? Wouldn't he still want Juniper to blame herself? Instead, he was telling her to take that weight off of her shoulders, to place it on Orion Hale's.

Why would he do that? 

Juniper was curled in the corner of her cell, brows furrowed together tightly as she felt a war rage inside her head. She was going through every single detail of her life, every bit of everything she had ever known. She shouldn't have let Snow's word affect her, but it had caused a whirlpool in her mind. That security footage seemed so real and all of the other factors seemed to indicate that Snow was telling the truth. But it just couldn't be.

The woman from Seven was pacing around her cell with an obvious limp. She was eyeing the metal door and Juniper with her jaw clenched. Johanna had tried to speak to the Victor from Ten to no success and deathly silence washed over them. Something in the air was different. Whether it was because of Snow's visit or because of something else, they had no idea.