Cage me like an animal • F Odair¹ •

XVIII

"I don't want to get away from you,"

•∘♛∘•

Athena woke up slowly, gaining movement in her body by sections. First, it was her feet, wriggling her toes experimentally. Then it was her legs, lifting each one in the air by an inch before bringing them back down. It was her torso next, shifting slightly where she lay to get more comfortable. Then her arms, stretching them out, wriggling her fingers. Then it was her neck and face, rolling her neck to get rid of the cramping, groaning slightly. She tried to open her eyes but had to close them quickly, blinded by the bright light of the sun.

The sun. It was day How long had she been asleep? The sun was about to disappear last she remembered the sky a mixture of the oranges and reds and pinks and purples of sunset. How could she have slept so long? She tried to sit up, but something around her waist kept her from rising more than a few inches. That was when panic settled into her body. Did someone find her? Tie her up? Why hadn't they killed her already then? What was the point of keeping her alive? She strained her ears for some sort of noise, but all she heard was a very faint buzzing noise, probably from some insect in the distance. Whoever had tied her up was gone. Maybe they had heard a noise and went to investigate. Maybe they had been killed before they could kill her. But why wouldn't she be dead, too? It was possible her captor's killer had assumed she was dead, but it felt awfully foolish to not at least check.

Regardless, whoever and wherever her captor was, they weren't very careful. They hadn't tied up her arms. She reached out for her spear - or anything at all - to cut herself loose and found - nothing. At all. Not even the ground. Now fully panicked, she opened her eyes, squinting against the light. She struggled blindly against her restraints, feeling that tightness in her chest again and struggling to breathe, trying to wriggle herself out and escape.

"Hey! Hey - calm down, it's okay, it's okay, you're safe. Athena, you're safe, I promise, okay? Relax. Please slow down, you're safe."

It was that voice only that made her stop. She tilted her head to look at Finnick Odair, who was standing over her, wrenching her fingers free and taking them in his own warmer hands. It was only then that she took in her surroundings. She wasn't lying on the ground, but in a bed, much softer than anywhere else she had been lying on since entering the arena. She wasn't even in the arena at all, but in a square room which was bare save the bed she was lying on; no windows or doors or anything. The light from above was not from the sun, but from the artificial light of the room, as was the source of the buzzing, instead of some distant insect. Several tubes were hooked into her arm, leading into the wall behind her. The thing that was holding her down was a wide, restraining belt attached to the bed.

"Why am I being strapped down?" she demanded, shifting, trying to wriggle her way out of it. "Why am I being held down?"

"Don't worry," he said, his voice soothing. "You're fine. It's just protocol. Sometimes victors go... rogue right after coming back from the arena. They think they're still in the Games. They freak out, they hurt the people around them, and they hurt themselves. This is to prevent that."

The Hunger Games doesn't sound so fun when it can hurt the Capitol, I guess, she thought bitterly, but very slowly, sat back, relaxing her muscles.

"Are we in the Training Center?" she asked after a long pause as she tried with difficulty to adjust to these new conditions, utterly different from the condition she had been in the past few weeks, looking around the room. Finnick, to his credit, had allowed her to take her time.

He nodded. Athena realized then that she wasn't wearing her clothes from the arena - in fact, she wasn't wearing anything at all. Startled and embarrassed in spite of herself, she yanked the sheets covering her further up her body, though they already covered up most of everything. She expected Finnick to make some sort of smart remark at that, but it never came. If anything, he seemed rather sheepish.