Dancing with our hands tied || Snowbaird

Chapter Four

-Lucy Gray-

Before
"Miss Baird?" A loud knock sounded on the door of the Coveys home. It was an unstable, poor place that tilted slightly to the left side no matter how hard they had tried to repair it. The floorboards were falling apart in some places and the walls had noticeable gaps where the sun shone through from the east, the planks of wood not completely bound together. "Lucy Gray," Maude Ivory jumped onto the girls bed, which in reality was just a very long mattress that they both shared,"someone's knocking, Lucy Gray, don't make me open the door please."

Tiredly, the brunette stretched on the bed and rubbed her eyes with bottom of her palm until she could see shapes and colours behind her eyelids. "Just a second!" she shouted before coughing. Every night without fail, sleep brought on the weirdest rasp that clouded her accent. "Hi, how can I help y'all?" she smiled sweetly at the two peacekeepers at the front door. Up until then she didn't even know that their residence had been registered. She should've known that Capitol had eyes on everyone, though.

"Are you Miss Lucy Baird?" one of them asked. He was tall and quite scrawny for his position, she guessed he must've been also relatively young and probably had been employed not long ago. "It's Lucy Gray Baird," she tiled her head," but it's okay, and yes, it is she."  The other one looked at her like she was a barn animal for a split second before pulling out a long scroll on parchment, that looked like it had been written hundreds of years ago. Capitol people had a weird way of showing their wealth.

He began to read," The Capitol wants to express its sincere apology at the circumstances you had been put through last year regarding the 10th Annual Hunger Games, and would like to invite you to sing at the Capitols first ever Winter Masquerade Ball." Lucy Gray laughed out loud and pressed a hand to the doorframe to stop herself from swaying. "That's hilarious," she replied, "you tried to kill me, and now you want me to what- sing, dance, perform for you?"
"You really don't have a choice Miss Baird," the scrawny one stated firmly and straightened up, now towering over the girl.

Lucy Gray shifted. "What do you mean I don't have a choice, of course I have a choice, it doesn't say anywhere that I have to go with y'all?" The two peacekeepers stepped closer to her and alarm bells sounded in her mind all at once. She in fact did not have a choice. They were going to drag her back to that place, back to hell on earth and make her look like a complete and utter idiot. Like some sort of follower or empathiser of their sick inhumane torture, which they called a television gameshow.

"No no no, you said once I win the games I'm free to do whatever I want to do," her face burned but her nose stung from the biting cold they were standing in, "you said I would never have to go back there." Again they stepped closer and from behind a small shelf Maude Ivory peered at the two men cornering her older cousin. "Please don't make me go back there," she whispered, still keeping her composure. She was too tired to fight these people right now. She was too tired to make them feel pity for her mere and tragic existence. "Please," she pleaded once more before they both grabbed hold of each arm, the delicate material crumpling under their strong grip.

"No," she grasped at the air, "Maude Ivory,  help me." Her little cousin stood with her hands cupped behind her back in fright, as the rest of the Covey slowly rose from their beds to see what the whole commotion was about. Tam Amber jumped to his feet, trying to pull Lucy Gray from the Peackeepers arms but it was like trying to hold onto running water; you couldn't. "Stop that," a third Peacekeeper walked out from behind a van, gun in hand and already poised at Tam Amber. "Don't," Lucy Gray cried out, "I'll be okay. Y'all just take care of yourselves."

With that she was hoisted into the back of the huge van, which normally transported weapons. She watched through the small iron grate at the back as the Covey waved her goodbye and Maude Ivory cried into Barb Azure's dress, using the soft cotton to wipe her tears. They would be okay. She knew that they would be. Everything would be fine, she'd be there for what...a couple of days? Then they'd bring her back and she'd never have to do this ever again, right?

"Hey you," she alerted the guard that had been put into the back of the vehicle with her. Unlike her, he was actually strapped in on a seat so that when they went over any bumps he wouldn't go flying. His eyes darted from side to side and he gave her a questionable look. "Yes, Miss Baird?" She sighed. "I'm not a prisoner or a criminal so don't treat me like one," she replied to his attitude, completing forgetting why she needed to talk to him in the first place. Oh yeah, how long she would be there. "How long are your men gonna keep me hostage there in the Capitol?" She moved her head to the side trying to sound as nice as possible. Her skin was bubbling hot with annoyance.

"I wouldn't say keep you hostage,"he stated stiffly, "and I have no idea, it might be a day or two, maybe forever. You're real pretty you know?" The Peacekeeper grinned and it exposed all his crooked teeth disgustingly. Lucy Gray suppressed shouting a line of names at him but instead stood up from her spot in the corner and walked towards him. "Yeah you do know, they tell y'all everything there in the Capitol so don't try and make me look like a fool." With that the man also stood and looked Lucy Gray straight in the face, reflexively clutching his rifle.

"Be careful with your words, not the first time I would've had to kill one of you."  'One of you'. He said it like they were a specie. Like animals living in the wild and feasting savagely on other animals, also doing the same. "And it wouldn't be the first time I woulda had to get away from one of you for lying straight through your teeth." She knitted her brows together and clenched her firsts at her side. She must've looked like an easy target for him, as he quickly lifted his rifle and spun it around, hitting the light out of her eyes. The entire world went pitch black just after she heard him mutter 'sweet dreams'.

-

A pulsing headache woke her up. That and the fact that she was shivering cold, her arms folded into her sides to keep in the warmth. Where was she? Lucy Gray stood up and looked around to see that she wasn't in a van anymore, no there were windows, but barely as the glass was practically all cracked and they were so dusty you couldn't see squat. The whole entire carriage shook from side to side and every now and again jumped up roughly. It was a train. An old, dusty train taking her back to the Capitol.

Suddenly she got déjà vu from last years games, when they had stuffed her and Jessup into a small compartment that reeked of animals, dead or alive. How she missed Jessup, she hoped that he was at peace now though. The train carried on loudly and the scenery was just starting to brighten up slightly. How long had she been knocked out for? When they left it was morning and now it looked the same, had it been a whole day or was it the same day?

Through the night -or day, she still couldn't figure out the time- she had dreamt about Snow again. About his arms wrapping around her and restricting her like a snake would do to its prey. She cried in the dream over something that she couldn't remember, and he wiped her tears away with a soft piece of cloth, one of his beautiful embroidered handkerchiefs. Their hands entwined together and then she was taken from him, pulling them apart until she could only see him from a a far distance, when the guards pointed a gun at him and killed him right in front of her. She screamed and kicked and scratched. How could they? Take her one true love away from her.

With a jolt that threw her across the carriage, the train came to a stop and the screeching of the tracks pierced her ears. "A little heads up would've been nice ya' know!" She pounded her fists against the wooden structure of the enclosure until the doors loudly opened and she almost fell out. This was the Capitol as she had remembered it, but not the same station as last year. It was older, more dusty and seemed like it hadn't been used in forever.

"Where-,"she began to say until the same scrawny guard grabbed her by her arm. "Oh here we go again,"she mumbled under breath and began to writhe around like a snake in their tight grips, "y'all can never treat me like I'm a human, huh?" One of them laughed at her remark and that fuelled her even further to continue trying to get out. She didn't want to run away, they'd treat her like royalty. She just didn't want her dress to be touched by such imbeciles.

There were two people on the station. From where she was being held she could see them hiding behind a pillar. Could they see her? If they could they didn't make any effort to communicate. A girl and boy in what seemed like formal clothes, maybe a couple heading off for a date? No, it was morning and even she knew you didn't really have dates then.

Whoever they were she was going to find out, and soon.

-

A/N

i feel like i wrote this quite fast and it's the longest chapter i've written in the story so far so yay
hope y'all annoyed as always and thank you so much 💕💕