FAILURE TO COMPLY ┃ f. odair

5.5 monstrous things

Calypso was not allowed out on mission. Not when Monica was sent to District Two and certainly not when the Mockinjay was sent soon after. Instead, she was instructed to attend regular therapy sessions and medical evaluations that left her feeling more and more prone to violent tendencies that she simply refused to tell anyone about, though she was sure they knew. At the very least, Finnick, Johanna and Annie were privy to it. She was almost fully convinced they were gathering behind her back to discuss her still fragile mental state, but she decided to stay out of it.

The day she was told she could finally visit Peeta felt like a very good day indeed. Finnick walked with her to the infirmary until the moment they reached the primary door to his secure room. There, they'd met with Boggs who gave her the low-down of Peeta's situation. It was for certain tracker-jacker venom he'd been subjected to, as well as all those mental torture sessions she'd been forced to watch. She was not to say anything about Katniss, not even think about her, while in the vicinity of the blonde boy she'd come to consider a friend if not just a fellow tortured victor.

The room was awful to be in, all bright light and white walls that reminded her of the very room she'd spent so long in. At least then she'd been free to move. Peeta was strapped to a bed, however calm he appeared in that moment, dressed in all white and wearing a blank expression. It took everything in her not to run out of there right away.

"Peeta," she called out more timidly than she'd intended. The boy's head turned on his pillow. "I'd heard about you being here."

"I'd heard about you being here too," he replied, little to no emotion in his voice. At the very least, he sounded relieved to see her. "You disappeared in the Capitol. We thought you were dead."

"I was in a room," she told him, tone of voice near enough matching his. "Away from everything. But I saw you."

"You saw me?"

"On a screen. With the doctors."

"They did something to me," he acknowledged, closing his eyes to try and recall the happenings of the Capitol. "It was after you left. After the interview. They told me you hurt someone."

"Caesar," she confirmed. "I cut him a little bit. It wasn't bad."

"Why?"

"Because he's the enemy," Calypso scoffed, unable to help herself. Of course, she knew Peeta was not in his right mind, but neither was she. They were two broken people speaking in half-riddles and half-truths, unwilling to speak about the true horrors they'd endured. "I should have killed him."

"That's what you do, isn't it?" he questioned, squinting his eyes a little. The woman stood before him was hardly visible with all the light invading from behind her figure. He hated it, and he could see she hated it too. Calypso closed her eyes, but he didn't know if it was to escape the light or his glare. "We're all killers, but you enjoy it."

"Did they tell you that?" she asked. Calypso was quietly seething beneath her false composure. She was ready to hurt someone or something, to just cause damage, but it was not going to be Peeta. "I kill. I don't enjoy it."

"But you think Caesar deserved it?" he guessed. She nodded. "Vega too? Cashmere? Harrison? Lola? Payton?"

Calypso did not comment. She let the names fester in her mind amongst several others that had haunted her for so long now. Cinna. Porter. Roman. Mags. Priya. Grove. Poet. Maisie. The innocents. The ones who shouldn't have died.

"Yes," she hissed. "They deserved it. I killed them. I'll kill again. I won't enjoy it, but I'll do it."

"You want revenge."