𝕾𝖔 𝕴𝖙 𝕲𝖔𝖊𝖘..

34 - 𝚁𝚞𝚗

Aria remained pretty silent on the walk down the hallway. She knew she was walking to her death and that nothing could've been done about it. They had taken away anything on her that could've been used as a weapon the second she had gotten back on the hovercraft. Including the knives that had been given to her. Now she was being escorted down an unfamiliar building by a fleet of peacekeepers.

Her head raced with unwanted thoughts as the footsteps echoed down the hallway. She wondered what was going to become of her after her next torture session that she was sure she was being led to. She wondered if her refusal to kill Katniss would result in her own death. Most of all, she couldn't help but worry about the others in the cell. She couldn't shake the feeling that the last time she had seen them would be the last time she would ever see them. She worried that they would be punished for her faults.

She knew Peeta had gotten severely hurt trying to keep the guards from taking her before they led her to the hovercraft, and she couldn't help but feel guilty about the whole thing. Annie had been taken shortly before she had, and she knew it couldn't have been for anything good. She wondered where Johanna had been, as she hadn't seen her since she had been taken away for attacking the guard in the hallway. Aria thought she was kidding when she said that Snow didn't want any of them dead, but the way the guards reacted showed some kind of truth to that statement. It gave her hope that Johanna was alive somewhere, but she knew that being alive in the Capitol was hell on earth.

Aria knew she recognized the familiar path down the hall from somewhere, but she couldn't quite place it. She couldn't remember which torture chamber it was the path to, or if she even was in the right building where those had been. Perhaps she was being led to towards the room with the chair and the electric shocks, if there had even been more than one of those, or one of the empty rooms to beat her up in. She knew she had to be in for another round of the drugs they kept relentlessly injecting into her veins to keep her questioning her reality. They had stuck her with that dreaded  needle the second she was back on the hovercraft.

What she had imagined would've been better compared to what she walked into. The singular white rose on the desk of the lavishly adorned room made her stomach drop to her feet and she swore her heart had nearly stopped.

"No," she said, trying to escape the familiar place.

"That's not a very nice way to welcome someone, is it, Miss Lancaster?"

"For the love of god, would you stop calling me that?" she asked.

Snow only smiled at her. "Have a seat."

She begrudgingly sat down, pushing the chair as far away from the desk as she could without seeming too rude. Two peacekeepers stood on either side of her behind the chair, likely to make sure she wouldn't try to attack Snow like she had the last time she had met with him.

"Now, I suppose you can guess as to why I have called you here," he prefaced.

"No," she scoffed. It was a lie. She knew exactly why she was there.

"I see, once again," he said, "that despite your... best efforts, that Miss Everdeen is still running around with her little band of rebels."

"She tried to kill me, you know," she said, pointing at her leg that had been poorly bandaged on the hovercraft. "And there was only one of me, she had an entire squad with her to hunt me down with."

"Was the training you were graciously provided with in the tribute center insufficient? Even I thought it was generous given your supposed skills with a blade."

"No," she stammered.

"Then why did you fail in eliminating her a second time, Miss Lancaster?" Snow pressed. "From my understandings, you had her right under your nose and you just let her get away."