Die for You | Catching Fire

chapter five

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chapter five
ALLIES

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tw: mention of forced prostitution, family abuse
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Ptolemus doesn't sleep much, and when he does, it isn't well. Most of the time, he spends the hours of the night staring at the ceiling, too scared to close his eyes and too scared to think about much of anything. The clock beside him reads three-thirty. He focuses on the sensation of twisting one of his rings along his finger, the metal growing warm with his touch and the friction.

Nightmares have plagued him long before his Games. They started off as the typical terrors of a young child, whether it be dinosaurs running through the streets to devour him or growling monsters with fangs creeping out of his closet. Slowly, as he got older, his recurring dreams slightly shifted. Monsters climbing out of his closet resembled his mother and her cold disapproving looks, while dinosaurs morphed into a father with a poor temper that almost always seemed to be angry. He remembers climbing into his older sister's bed when the nightmares struck. One night, when he was eight years old, his father caught him crying and clinging to Alessandra in the night, and ripped him out of bed back into his own, screaming and yelling like he always did. The nightmare was more than just that, it was his reality.

Nero Pierce couldn't have a son who scared easy, nor one that sought sanction with his older sister. What would the country think?

Now he has no one to seek sanction with. His older sister is gone, dead, killed by the Games seven years ago. Her death plagues his nightmares too. As the years have passed, he's the only one of his family who truly ever mourns her. Ptolemus thinks their lack of care is from more than embarrassment and shame of her failure tainting the Pierce name.

It's because they know they killed her. Finnick Odair may have speared her heart with his trident, but it's the family legacy that was truly her demise.

Ptolemus glances back to the clock. Five minutes have passed, and even though his body aches for rest, he pushes himself up from the mattress, ripping away his sheets. The floorboards creak beneath each of his strides as he exits his bedroom and heads down the hall. His feet pound against the stairs loudly and carelessly. He reaches for his front door.

As he emerges onto his porch, the night air envelopes him in a soothing manner, the slight chill softening the heat that consumes him. He leans against the railing with his forearms propped against the cool marble. Summer is approaching swiftly. That means, so are the Games. This year is his year to mentor alongside Enobaria.

When he glances to his parents' home across from him, all the lights are expectedly out, windows dark and silence deafening. He remembers standing opposite from where he is now, peering at the empty house from their porch and wondering if it would be his or his sister's one day. Honestly, he really had no choice but to make it his own. This is all he was ever allowed to want for himself.

I'm sorry.

Her voice echoes softly in his mind like a sweet lullaby, and he almost feels his rigid bones relax. He remembers the way Sage looked at him. Something about it was validating and healing. She didn't look at him like he was a murderous monster, or a ruthless god born to slaughter for the glory and fame. She looked at him like he was human.

Ptolemus has never had someone say they were sorry to him before. He thought an absence of apologies meant everything that ever happened to him was well-deserved. That this pain was what he was meant for.