𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐅𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐍 𝐏𝐄𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐒 | hunger games ✓

chapter 36

━━･❪ 🌸 ❫ ･━━

Daphne, blood-splattered and discombobulated, staggered down the path towards the house with the memories.

Caelum's cannon shot had been a dagger through the heart, solidifying that her boy was gone. He was never coming back. She would never see him break a beautiful smile again as he laughed at her joke, the excited spark in his voice at the mention of a book. How his left eye would squint whenever he was thinking hard. The small scrunch of his eyebrows as he took aim with a bow. The tiny freckles across his nose that nobody noticed but her.

She'd lost consciousness soon after, curled beside Caelum's still body, clinging onto him because she couldn't bear to let go. She'd let herself imagine that his chest was still rising and falling, that they were merely taking a nap in a peaceful meadow. When she'd woken, his body had been gone. The Capitol had finally stolen him from her, too.

A dangerous sense of hunger had washed over her then. Hunger for vengeance. Hunger for blood. She wasn't sure how, but she'd managed to track down Sylla several blocks away from the clearing, where she'd stopped to dress her wounds with the supplies from the bag she had run off with. The bag that could've saved Caelum's life, had it been there.

Daphne hadn't hesitated before gutting her alive.

After, Daphne had collapsed and screamed and wailed and sobbed until she tasted blood in her throat and a migraine had her in its claws. She'd cried out for Caelum over and over as her world buckled beneath her, needing to feel his arms around her, for him to tell her everything was okay and they were going to be fine. Instead, she found nothing. Nothing.

She'd dragged herself onto her feet after a while, shattered and numb like a wraith. She'd wandered down path after path, not knowing where she was going. She was alone. Utterly alone. There was nowhere to go. Not after her one home had died.

And somehow, Daphne now found herself staring at the house with the memories.

She hadn't purposely planned to return here. She'd just found herself drifting back like a moth to a flame.

Seeing it now sent a whole new wave of grief crashing over her. Was it really only less than twelve hours ago that she'd woken up in Caelum's arms, and he'd taken her out to dance beneath the sunrise? Only the night before when they'd kissed for the first time?

She climbed onto the porch and stood leaning against the railing, feeling heavy and hopeless. Like someone had reached into her soul and hollowed it out. This house wasn't the same without him. The heart was still there, but it wasn't beating.

Her gaze drifted to the hedge at the side of the porch. A single white rose grew from the tangle of leaves, now dead and wilted. She hadn't noticed it before. Now she wished she had, for it must've been beautiful when it was still alive.

A white rose.

Like the one she'd given him on the chariot ride.

Like the one that had adorned his suit during the interviews.

Daphne pulled a knife from her belt, her hand trembling. Tears once again pooled in her eyes.

I can't lose you when I've just found you.

She pointed the knife towards her own heart.

In the next life, the life after that, I will find you.

She took a deep breath, closed her eyes.

I love you, Caelum.

"Do it."