FAILURE TO COMPLY ┃ f. odair

2.6 the ache

Nights in the arena had been cold. It had seeped through her jacket and into her bones, not letting her have a moment of peaceful sleep. It had frozen her tears before she'd even cried them, and left her throat too dry to scream to the empty skies in the hopes that someone beyond the Capitol might hear. The times when she was alone, there was almost no heat at all without other bodies or a fire to keep her company. Only the dry blood on her clothes was even a memory of something that had been warm and alive before she'd snuffed the life out of it. Out of them. But even so, those nights felt warmer than this.

Tonight, Calypso had discovered just how cold and lonely a night could be. The sheets of her bed were silky smooth and soft upon her freshly scrubbed skin, but she didn't have the nerve to crawl under them. Ahead of her, the Capitol skyline provided a beautiful view with the tall tribute centre taking centre stage amongst the twinkling lights. Even out of use, it glowed as if to not let people forget it. She never could.

Behind her, another body added to the swirling heat of the lavishly furnished room. The man, who she could only recall being named after some kind of fruit, was sleeping soundly with loud snores that grated against her ears the same way his grunts had. They'd been consistent, and methodical, and he'd done most of the work. Even so, under Snow's instruction, Calypso had given it her best lest she be forced into even worse activities. This, having sex with a man she'd only just met, was preferable to any other alternative she could imagine.

Besides, in the months since the games she'd grown so accustomed to numbness that she essentially had an on and off switch for it. At that moment, with her naked legs overhanging the bed and bare back hunched like she was ready to keel over and hurl, she felt nothing but a dull ache between her legs.

But such indifference could not last forever. It was not a memory that could be so easily erased. Fruit Man had growled her name in such a possessive way that she wasn't sure if she ever wanted to hear it again. Calypso had been many things in her life: a child, a daughter, a killer, a cannibal, a victor. Now, she was just an object of someone's lustful affections, her name fallen from his jewel-encrusted lips like a half-forgotten prayer.

On the bedside table sat a thick stack of money that he'd put down for her before they'd even begun, before he'd pushed her onto the bed and asked her all sorts of invasive questions between half-assed kisses and rough caresses. Distraction was the only way to keep her answers to herself: gentle praise and dirty talk for the unwanted lover. How it had come so naturally, she would never know. She didn't care to know.

Without bothering to even look at the money, Calypso reached for her clothes and pulled them on one by one. The fabric felt like sandpaper on her skin, making it itch and burn with a newfound fury. She did not spare a glance at the man either as she headed for the door, footsteps so impossibly quiet. In the midst of the Capitol, somewhere she once called half her home, now where she was safe nowhere and with no one, only a fellow outsider could even begin to understand where her heart was at that moment... somewhere even she could not find it.

From the letters they'd been exchanging, Calypso knew that Finnick had been in the Capitol long enough that he had his own apartment for whatever 'business' he always proclaimed to have going on. Now, she thought she knew exactly what it was, and she felt awful for ever having prodded him about such a thing.

He resided on the top floor of a collection of high-rise apartments, far out of reach of anyone who didn't have reason to be there. And yet, it was only half a surprise when she was greeted by an unfamiliar face at his door, leaving just as she was arriving. This one had jewels around his glinting eyes and bright robes that had probably been messed up in activities far more vigorous than anything she had committed to with her own partner.