𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐅𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐍 𝐏𝐄𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐒 | hunger games ✓

chapter 37

━━･❪ 🌸 ❫ ･━━

Glory had been right about another thing. Daphne should've shut up.

She'd expected to return home with wealth and prosperity for her family, to give them the slight push they needed to reach financial and food security. They would move into a grand house in the Victors Village, never needing to worry if the pantry was fully stocked or if their wool was selling as fast. Esther and Rourke would no longer need to work three jobs each to ensure Daphne was just healthy and strong enough to herd and manage the sheep back home.

Turns out, President Frose hadn't been too pleased with the rant Daphne had spewed before Glory. Looking back now, Daphne realized that Glory had been trying to warn her, but she'd been too messed up to see it.

That and, as Frose had put it, "several accounts of publicly insulting and/or disrespecting authority figures," which Daphne could not deny. Not to mention "deliberate conspiracy to disobey the Game rules," to which Daphne had replied, "well, sorry, I wasn't aware that wanting a happy life for myself and the boy I love was illegal."

Instead of rewarding them with riches and a fine home, President Frose had stripped the Feng family of their property and belongings and cast them to the outskirts of District Ten, miles away from any sign of civilization. Their sheep and their chickens had been seized as well, leaving them with little more than the clothes on their backs and a small shack near the electric fence that bordered the edge of the district. There was no electricity. No running water. No food.

The first months had been tough. Every day, Daphne, Esther, Rourke and Barley would make the eight mile trek to the nearest market, which was really a black market for desperate traders.

Desperate traders, that's what the Fengs had been reduced to. And all because Daphne had been a little too hopeful.

Esther had discovered a patch of edible reeds by the small pond that now served as their bathing pool, which they traded away half of in exchange for meager slabs of meat. Most of Daphne's days were now spent wandering around the empty land with Barley, foraging for things they could possibly eat or trade.

She supposed she could've hunted, carved a stick into a knife and chased down some rodent. The truth was, she couldn't bring herself to touch anything remotely sharp without completely breaking down, assaulted with memories she worked hard to bury. She trained Barley to bring down prey instead.

Perhaps the worst part of it all was watching herself and her family wither away, knowing that this was all her doing. If she'd just cooperated, stayed silent and in her place, none of this would've happened. She wouldn't be here right now, seeing the clothes hang looser and looser on her parents' bodies, feeling herself grow weaker as her muscle mass rapidly deteriorated. Barley's fur coat was dull and limp, his ribs poking out starkly.

For the first time, Daphne was grateful Aedon was no longer with them. Her sweet, music-loving brother would not have deserved to suffer like this.

Seven months had passed. There was no Victory Tour, no nation-wide parade of the winner of the sixth Quarter Quell. Daphne's name would not make it into the history books, and if it did, it would be in dishonor. President Frose had made sure of that.

It was as if everything she'd suffered, everyone she'd lost... it all amounted to nothing.

It was now February, and the Fengs somehow had made it through the worst of the winter. Daphne was now eighteen. She was used to this new, harsh life at rock bottom, never knowing if she was still going to be around by the next week. But as long as she and her family were alive and together, she refused to let her flame of hope flicker out. Despite the fact that it had been what got them in this mess in the first place.