Torn: Sequel to Ruthless

Chapter 21

The days after my return blur together, an endless stretch of time that feels both too fast and agonizingly slow. I'm back in District 2, back in my own house, my own bed. But nothing feels familiar. I walk through the rooms like a ghost, disconnected from everything around me.

Rowan tries to help. My big brother, always the protector, always strong for me. He comes into my room every day, checking in like clockwork. He doesn't push me to talk, doesn't ask me for details about the Games. Every day, he asks me if I want to have dinner with the rest of the family. 

I always say no. The thought of sitting at the table, eating like everything's normal... it makes me sick. How can I eat when all I can think about is how Kai and Apollo—my Apollo—went without food for days in the arena? How can I sit there and laugh when I still hear the screams of the tributes in my head?

Rowan doesn't push. He just nods and tells me he'll be here if I need him. I know he's worried. I know my mom is too. She's always hovering just outside my door, not quite coming in but close enough that I can feel her presence. She wants to say something, I can tell. But every time she opens her mouth, she stops. I think she's afraid. Afraid of saying the wrong thing. Afraid of pushing me too far. Maybe she's right. I don't even know what the right thing would be.

The twins, Vulcan and Lilith, don't understand at all. They're too young to really grasp what I've been through, too innocent. They treat it all like it's some kind of adventure, like the Hunger Games are something to aspire to. I catch them running around the house, pretending to be tributes, reenacting the Games like it's a game. They don't get that it's not fun. It's not heroic. It's brutal, and it breaks you. It kills you, even if you survive.

It takes everything in me not to snap at them. I bite my tongue, forcing myself to turn away, but the frustration and anger bubble up inside me. I don't want to be the reason they lose that innocence. They'll learn soon enough. Just not from me. Not now.

Missy's the only one who doesn't tiptoe around me. She comes to visit almost every day, plopping herself down on my bed like nothing's changed. Like I'm still the same Octavia I was before the Games. I know she's trying to help, trying to bring some sense of normalcy back into my life, but her energy is overwhelming. She talks and talks about everything—what's happening in school, the latest drama with her friends, the things she hears around town. But I barely listen. The words wash over me, meaningless and distant.

I nod along, forcing a smile when she tells me some ridiculous story about her boyfriend or something, but it's all mechanical. The real me is somewhere far away, lost in the memories I can't shake. She doesn't notice, or maybe she does but doesn't know how to reach me. I don't blame her. I don't know how to reach myself either.

I can't escape the memories. The Games follow me everywhere I go, seeping into every moment of quiet. I see Kai's face when I blink, hear the screams of the tributes as they died, feel the weight of the sword in my hand when I took lives. It's always there, just under the surface, waiting to pull me back under.

But the worst is the nights. The quiet, suffocating nights where everything catches up to me. When the house is still and the memories come flooding back with nothing to distract me. I wake up from nightmares almost every night, drenched in sweat, my heart pounding as though I'm still fighting for my life in the arena. In those moments, it's hard to remember that it's over. That I'm safe. My hand reaches out instinctively for a weapon that's no longer there, and my throat burns with screams I can't release.

The first time I break a glass, it's an accident. I wake up gasping, and I reach for the water on my nightstand, my hands shaking too much to hold onto it. The glass slips, shattering against the floor with a sound that's too loud, too violent in the stillness of the night. I freeze, staring at the shards, at the water pooling around them, and suddenly I'm back in the arena. I'm not seeing glass. I'm seeing blood. I'm seeing the lifeless bodies of the tributes I killed, the ones I couldn't save. Kai. Seena. Apollo.

The pressure builds in my chest, and before I know it, I'm out of bed, stumbling toward the door. I need air. I need space. I can't breathe in here, can't breathe in this house, with all its memories and expectations pressing down on me. I grab the first jacket I can find and slip out the back door, into the cool night.

The air hits me like a slap, cold and sharp against my skin, but it's a relief. It grounds me, pulls me back from the edge of panic. I don't know where I'm going; I just start walking. The streets of District 2 are quiet, empty at this hour, and I wander aimlessly through them, my feet carrying me to the outskirts of town.

I can't do this.

I end up in a grassy field, one of our old practice arenas. My friends and I to trained here. Missy came here to watch me swing my sword, fight against teenagers twice my size. She came here to encouraged me, shouting my name at the top of her lungs, helping me up when I fell. 

And then I think of Kai. How his life would've been different from mine, what he'd be doing now if he were still alive. 

"I'm sorry," I whisper, my voice cracking. "I'm so sorry, Kai."

But there's no answer. There never will be.

My knees give out, and I sink to the ground, wrapping my arms around myself as the grief I've been holding back crashes over me. The sobs come fast and hard, shaking my whole body as I let myself mourn. Not just for Kai, but for Seena, for Apollo, for every tribute who died in that arena. For the girl I used to be before the Games stole her from me.

I don't know how long I sit there, crying into the dirt. But when the tears finally stop, I'm left feeling empty. Hollow. I wipe my face with the back of my hand, staring up at the sky, searching the stars for some kind of answer. For some reason why I'm still here when so many others aren't. Why me? Why did I survive when they didn't?

There's no answer. There never is.

But as I sit there, in the silence of the night, something shifts. It's small, barely noticeable, but it's there. A flicker of resolve deep inside me. The Capitol wants me to be their perfect Victor, to play the part they've cast me in. But I won't let them control me. I won't let them take everything from me.

I'm still here. I survived. And I have to figure out what that means, how to live with it. How to keep going when everything inside me feels broken.

I stand up slowly, brushing the dirt from my nightdress. My legs are shaky, but I force myself to take a deep breath, to steady myself. I survived the Games. I'll survive this too. But there's no reason. No answer. I'm just here. Alive. And somehow, I have to live with that.

As I sit there in the deafening silence, a realization slowly settles over me. The Capitol wants me to be their Victor, to play their part in their twisted game. But I'm not just that. I'm more than what they want me to be. I'm more than what they took from me.

I survived. I have to find a way to keep surviving. And maybe... just maybe, I'll find a way to live again.