Cage me like an animal • F Odair¹ •

XXII

"Whatever you thought, you were wrong."

•∘♛∘•

Athena knew it was time to face the inevitable. Nearly two months had passed since her return to District Four, and yet Kai Emerson's pin, given to him by his lover, was still there where she had placed it when she arrived - in one of the drawers of her bedside table. From there, she could never see it unless she took it out of the drawer (which she never did), but the mere knowledge that it was there burned at her at all times, especially when she was in her bedroom. Still, she kept it where it was, instead of returning it to the person who had given it to him, the way she had vowed to do. At first, she had the excuse that she was still adjusting to the giant shift in her way of life as a victor, that she was too distracted by the planning of her father's funeral to focus on the pin. But at this point, she had had a sufficient amount of time to adjust to her new life, and her father's funeral had come and gone long ago, and still the pin remained where it was, instead of in the possession of its rightful owner.

She didn't quite know why she had kept the thing as long as she had. There was the fact that she didn't actually know who the pin belonged to, she supposed; perhaps she had been holding out on some sudden revelation that would come to her, revealing who Kai's lover had been. Still, she knew it was ridiculous to do, and that she would have to go out and figure it out sooner or later, and the sooner the better. It might have been - and probably was, she knew, though she didn't like admitting it - the fact that the pin was the only thing she had left of Kai, the only thing she had that proved he had been real, that anything in her Games had been real, and not some terrible, vivid hallucination that haunted her at all times. But that would not do either, she knew. That golden pin was not hers. It belonged to this person that Kai had loved so much; they deserved this last piece of him, far more than she did. It was selfish of her to hold so tightly onto something that was not hers, that she did not deserve.

As she thought about all of this one evening, she vowed to deliver the pin to the person it belonged to the very next day, a plan already forming in her mind. When she went to sleep that night, nightmares came to her the way they did every time she managed to get any amount of sleep. That night, she dreamt that she was back on that rooftop with Kai, moments before his death. This time, instead of her spear and shield, Athena was holding that golden pin, and Kai, instead of trying to kill her, was desperately trying to snatch it back from her. The roof collapsed and he sank into the darkness of that black wave before she could do anything about it, and she was still holding that golden pin that was not hers. The sound of the canon sounding above confirmed his death. She felt excruciating pain in her stomach and looked down to see that she had been stabbed through with her spear. The sound of the canon signalling her own death woke her up.

It took several moments to orient herself when she woke up. She was not in the arena. She was in her bedroom in her new house in Victor's Village. She still had the pin, though. The canon wasn't actually a canon, but the sound of someone knocking on her bedroom door.

"What is it?" she snapped, burying her head in her hands as she felt her heart rate begin to slow down gradually.

"Someone's at the door," came Calypso's voice from the other side of her door. "It's Murphy again. I tried to tell him that now wasn't a good time, and then Mom did, too, but he wouldn't leave. We didn't want to wake you up, but people really only listen to you know?"

Athena let out a deep sigh, rubbing her face blearily. The last thing she wanted to do was deal with Murphy Arno, a fellow victor who was also an instructor at the academy who had been insisting that she teach a lesson with him on how to wield a spear. She did like Murphy, but it was getting tiring to have to tell him no over and over again. Knowing she had no other choice, though, she threw back the covers and hastily pulled on a sweater over her pyjamas. She opened her door abruptly but stopped dead when Calypso was right in front of her.