unforgivable ➸ finnick odair

T W E N T Y F O U R

THIS IS PROBABLY REALLY BAD IM SORRY ;-;

You never really know how much you love something until you have to leave it. 

I'd heard this quote when I was younger, passed around by the elderly men and women with wrinkles lining their skin and memories of a past not yet forgotten swimming in their eyes. Whispered by a girl just 13 years old as blood leaked from the lacerations on her soft skin and her parents clutched her cooling hands and wept fresh, salty tears over her body. Written in the novels that lined a lady's house, neatly inked words on faded parchment pages, bound together by a leathery red spine. I'd heard it, but I had never really let the meaning sink in, not even when the 65th Hunger Games aired on TV, because I had loved Breeze from the moment she was born, and her death only brought sorrow and misery. But as the train arrived at the boundaries of District Five, thin wispy trees and old, worn stone towers blurring past the windows, I finally realized what it meant.

After what felt like years trapped inside the arena, paranoia seeping into my skin and the constant, insatiable fear that someone or something was behind me lingering in my brain, I was finally free. Finally safe.

Finally home. 

(I tried not to think about the 23 other kids who never made it out, the arena forever their resting place, the fake sky and fake trees and fake everything making up the last things they ever saw. I tried not to think about their families, their friends, everyone who had ever loved them. I tried not to, but I never succeed)

---

As soon as I stepped out of the train, hair pulled into a bun and loose white dress fluttering lightly in the breeze, cheers and applause arose from the crowd that stood in front of the raised platform. Fixing a Capitol smile onto my face, I waved and smiled and blew fake kisses to the crowd as I walked off to the side, eyes intently scanning the crowd for my mother in the sea of people. Desiree and Sean garnered similar enthusiastic reactions as they stepped out, but I payed them no attention, brow furrowing in confusion as I failed to spot the only close family I had left.

We lingered at the platform for a while, three victors with forced grins and fake happiness, laughing and waving at the crowd. Three people who had killed other human beings to survive, had watched the life leave someone's eyes as blood pooled around a wound in their chest, had avoided the gaze of their image in the night sky as they appeared to stare into their very soul. Not much to celebrate.

"I'll see you at the Victor's Village, Electra," Desiree said quietly as the crowd began to disperse, an oddly sorrowful expression on her pale face. Sean nodded at her words, placing a comforting hand on my shoulder, and then the two swiftly departed the station. I made to follow them, confusion clear on my face, but was quickly stopped by the Mayor of District Five, Thomas Clarkson, who's lips were twisted into a frown.

"Mayor," I inclined my head respectfully.

"Miss Reine." He replied, shifting his foot slightly as he continued to stare at the ground. "I'm sorry to have to say this, but..." he trailed off as he finally lifted his head to meet my questioning eyes, sadness clearly conveyed in the cool grey-blue irises. There was an odd sinking feeling in my stomach as I finally realized what Desiree and Sean had already known, what Thomas Clarkson was trying to tell me.

"Mr Clarkson, where's my mother?" I interrupted as the air thickened around me and it suddenly grew just a bit harder to breath. Even before he opened his mouth and began to answer, I already knew what he was going to say. 

"Miss Reine, your mother... is dead."

---

A fire. 

That's how she died. 

A fire, in the middle of the night, in her sleep. 

She might not have felt a thing.

Or she might've woken up to flames licking at her skin and tendrils of smoke twirling in circles in her room, the flickering orange-red-yellow hue of the fire the last thing she would ever see.

Someone else had started it.

Someone had deliberately set her-my-our house on fire and let her to burn, flames engulfing the wooden exterior and burning everything to a crisp.

Everything I had every owned, ever cherished, ever loved. All the photos, all the memories. 

Everything. Gone, just like that.

A fire.

---

He took me to see the remains of the house after that. Her body, or what was left of it, was encased in a coffin, buried deep underneath the ground at the District Cemetery. Next to Breeze. She would've liked that.

Surprisingly, the tears hadn't come yet. Only numbness, gripping at my heart, trying to soften the blow. Soon, the dam would give way. But for now, I shoved the emotions aside. I owed her that much. 

My mother, who's youngest daughter at died on live television at the age of 12. My mother, who's only remaining child had shut herself away, refused to reconnect with her, with anyone. My mother, who had somehow remained strong even after everything in her world had fallen apart. My mother, who I hadn't even said goodbye to. My mother, who I would never see again.

All that was left of the house is ashes. Ashes and charred wooden planks and tiny bits of things too melted and blackened by the fire to be recognizable. There was nothing left.

All I had wanted to do was go to my new 'home' in the Victor's Village and sob pathetically into my pillow, but it wasn't over yet.

"You have a letter," Thomas Clarkson said quietly, pristine white envelope clutched in his hand. "From President Snow."

---

Miss Electra Reine,

Your first client lives here: 17 Augustus Road, Floor 7, Room Number 73. Arrive at 9:30 on the 7th of October. We have an apartment block for victors on 1 Coriolanus Road - your room number is 68. Only victors are allowed in, so there is no need for a key. If you are late for this appointment, further consequences may need to be executed.

Regards,

President Coriolanus Snow

---

Further consequences. It clicked instantly in my head what he meant by client and appointment, but I ignored that in favour of the last line. Further consequences.

Further consequences.

My mother's death had just been the consequence of me rejecting his offer. All she had ever accomplished, all she had ever done - gone, just like that. At the hands of the snakelike president who held the safety of everyone I cared about in his hands. 

I would never be safe. I would remain trapped in the 68th arena until I died, forever trying to escape, forever failing.  

These games would never end.