❝ all that blood was
never once beautiful
it was always just red ❞
──⭒─⭑─⭒──
In which the sweetheart of the Capitol
has to navigate her way out of a
deadly game once more.
──⭒─⭑─⭒──
finnick odair x...
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𝕹othing terrified me more than the arena. Every single year, I had to drag myself out of my home, force a calm expression onto my face and take a trip to the Capitol with two children who would inevitably be brutally murdered. I had to look at their faces, see their mothers and fathers in the District, and answer to them why they had not won, why I had failed them.
Even if one of them had won, there was still another child dead, still twenty-two more children dead. Each year, like clockwork, and the bodies kept piling up at my feet.
But it was not the children that I had sent into the arena that haunted me most of all, it was the children that I had killed. The blood still coated my hands in the early morning, and the thoughts of killing adults in this arena, people I knew and worked with, made my stomach roll even further.
I thought that I had escaped the fear of my name being pulled from the bowls, our escort reading out Anika Dawsey, but now I woke up at night, terror filling me at the thought of someone else calling my name out.
I couldn't do it.
I couldn't live in fear. I couldn't go back.
"Anika." Footsteps padded down to join me on the beach, a familiar lanky body landing beside me as I stared at the sea. If I just walked into it and kept walking, they couldn't call my name. "Hey..."
Finnick nudged me gently, until I turned to face him. His cheeks were hollow, deep bags beneath his eyes and I knew my own looked the same.
"You haven't been sleeping."
"Neither have you." My voice was hoarse, not having been used in weeks unless to scream and cry at the unfairness of it all. I had been free. I had been out, and now, they were dragging me back?
He hummed in agreement to my statement.
"We're going to be alright, Anika."
"If you're going to lie to me, at least try and sound confident." I muttered, as I watched Finnick. His face was drawn, eyes sad and I shook my head. "I don't want to go back."
"There's a chance you won't."
"Who else? Mags shouldn't. Annie has worse PTSD than me, Jem is on death's door. I'm the only one who could do it." I pointed out, before sighing. If I died today, I'd condemn them to the arena. "Even if I don't volunteer or my name doesn't get called, I'll have to watch as Mags or Jem di-"
I couldn't bring myself to finish that sentence, my words choking up in my throat as I shook my head and turned away from him. Jem had been my mentor. I'd been her last tribute before she retired and Mags took over and I'd won for her, and for Finnick. If I had to see her go into that arena at ninety three years old, if I had to watch her die brutally at the hands of another, then I don't think I'd be able to continue.
