FAILURE TO COMPLY ┃ f. odair

3.10 voices of the damned

Calypso was glad to be away from Katniss' questioning. Instead, as the ground gathered under the shade of a tree, she found comfort in Finnick's closeness once more as he rested one arm against a thick tree branch and one on her waist.

"So besides Brutus and Enobaria, who's left?" the Twelve girl asked.

"Maybe Chaff," Peeta said. "Just those three."

"They know they're outnumbered," Finnick pointed out. "I doubt they'll attack again. We're safe here on the beach"

Not entirely true. Calypso had an idea brewing in her mind that Beetee seemed to be thinking of two by the way he stared. It would mean leaving the beach and splitting the group and if they lacked safety in numbers, there was every chance that the remaining careers would attack. She chose not to comment.

"So what do we do, we hunt 'em down?" Johanna suggested.

"No," Calypso disagreed. "There's another way to-"

A scream echoed through the jungle behind them, youthful and scared. It sounded far too much like Maisie, and she and Finnick tensed in each other's arms. But it was Katniss who rose to her feet in response to hearing her name being called.

"Prim!" she cried desperately. All sense of sanity was gone in that moment, and Calypso understood it wholly. Still, she reached out to try and stop her ally from breaking into a run, and when she couldn't, she followed her into the trees. "Prim! Prim!"

"Katniss, wait!" she yelled, jumping over roots and ducking under branches to stay as close as she could. The further they went, the louder the pleading screams became. She reached Katniss just as she loosed an arrow and a jabberjay fell from the air, twitching as the noise died with it. "Are you ok?"

"Calypso!" came a familiar voice. It was such a rare sound to hear her Aunt Millie screaming like that. The last time, she'd been sixteen and only just figuring out the severity of trauma after losing her mother. Porter had been there to take on that role, in a way, and it was not unheard of on the nights that she stayed in the Silva house for her to scream from similar night terrors that her father and, eventually, she had.

It was a horrific sound, to hear the woman she loved like a mother and who loved her like a daughter in such pain. At least seeing her mother hanging had been a silent experience until her father had cried. But now, he could not cry. He could not do anything because he was dead and Porter was all she had left.

How could she not lose her senses at the sound of that scream?

"Calypso!" Katniss spoke, trying to break the young woman from her daze, but her feet were already moving. "No, it's not her!"

"Millie!" she called out as if she'd get any response besides falsified shouts. "Aunt Millie!"

She was crying to the wind and a bunch of birds that were beginning to circle. All the while, Katniss chased her the same way she'd done mere seconds ago when the roles were reversed. It was not above the Capitol to torture their loved ones just to record their screams, but why would they make such efforts when they most certainly had the technology to fake it? As far as Snow was concerned, all his problems were going to die in this arena anyway. Why would he bother? She was more than ready to let it go, to kill the offending bird and be done with it, but then a different voice came to her.

"Calypso!" Maisie screamed, and it was her scream for sure this time. The voice changed again, from her friend begging for help to her enemy begging for mercy. Payton. "Please!"

"No," she mumbled, covering her ears with her hands, but the birds were flying lower now and it was not good enough to block out the sound. "Oh no."

With every fibre of her being fighting the oncoming panic, Calypso took hold of Katniss' arm and pulled her back the way they came. There was no communication needed as the pair ran side by side back to their friends, back to the comfort of their lovers. Finnick and Peeta were so close, but their voices were drowned out by the endless cries that soared above their heads in a flurry. She did not have the time to try and pull them apart, figure out whose voice was whose.