Sylvia lets Lamina sleep more, the girl's head resting in her lap as she cards her fingers through the copper strands. The sky outside lightens over the course of a few minutes, and once the sun starts streaming through the holes in the ceiling, her eyes land on Bobbin's body again.
She doesn't know why Coriolanus Snow came in last night to get Sejanus out. She knows damn well it wasn't out of the goodness of his heart. At this point, she's not even sure if he has one. Or maybe he did, and he just doesn't any more. Either way, she knows the capitol won't be showing the footage of him killing Bobbin. They probably cut the cameras or moved them so that Bobbin's murder was 'coincidentally' unseen.
And no one will ever know that it was a capitol boy who killed him. Bobbin's body is so bloody that she's sure the capitol citizens will be astonished- reinstating their claim that those from the districts are violent and animalistic. They'll never know it was one of their own that did it.
The thought makes her angry, but her focus is quickly pulled away from Bobbin when the sound of yelling reaches her ears. Rushed footsteps accompany it, and she recognizes the voice of Lucy Gray.
Sylvia cranes her neck to find where her voice is coming from, and she catches sight of the district 12 girl scrambling out of one of the tunnel entrances, tripping over her own feet and stumbling all the way up. Her frightened yells and the continuous glances she throws behind her lead Sylvia to believe that one of the other tributes is chasing her- Coral, probably.
Deciding it's better for Lamina to be alert in case something happens, she gently shakes the girl awake, keeping her eyes on Lucy Gray as she runs to a mound of rubble near one of the arena walls. Just as Lamina sits up, Sylvia sees another figure emerge from the tunnels.
Only it's not Coral. It's Jessup- Lucy Gray's district partner.
As soon as she sees him, she knows something's wrong. Her eyes narrow slightly as she watches him scramble after Lucy Gray. Next to her, Lamina mutters quietly, "What's wrong with him? Why's he going after her?"
And after a few moments of observation, she has an answer. "Rabies." She mutters, the single word almost lost between the two of them, nearly drowned out by Lucy Gray's screams and Jessup's delirious rambling.
Everyone in ten knows the signs of rabies. It had run rampant during the war in the districts and in the capitol- animals becoming infected and going feral, running into the abandoned streets. But people in ten have been accustomed to it for years and years. They know the early signs of the disease so that once it makes itself known in an animal, it can be put down before it turns into something worse and more painful- and so it doesn't affect the rest of the herd.
She doesn't know how Jessup got rabies. Probably in the zoo, or maybe even in the cattle car on the way to the capitol. She's not sure. But she recognizes the signs, clear as day- foaming at the mouth, delirium, agitation, anxiety...
"What did you do to me?" Jessup yells, scrambling up the rocks after her. His words are slurred, muffled by the foam that she knows must be filling his mouth by now.
Lucy Gray yells something back, but Sylvia doesn't hear it.
"Rabies?" Lamina repeats incredulously. Sylvia turns away from the scene and back to Lamina, who looks confused as ever. Her eyes flicker between Sylvia, and then past her to the mound of rubble. "How could he-?"
"I don't know." Sylvia shakes her head, looking back to the scene not even halfway across the arena, eyebrows furrowed. "Maybe somethin' bit him? In the zoo, or the cattle car? I don't know."
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canyon wind- lamina x fem!oc
Fanfictionthe only thing she can think of as the games start is the canyon wind
