Defying the Odds (The 4th Quarter Quell) [The Hunger Games Fanfiction]

Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Layla

Johanna finds me on the roof the next morning, still in my same spot with the blanket wrapped around my body and the red wine pooled on the ground. I don’t notice her right away, and it isn’t until she moves into my view that her eyes look up to meet mine. She is being cautious, but for what reason I do not know.

“I spoke with Asher earlier,” she says, and my breath catches in my throat. He’s alive. He’s alive. “He woke up a little over an hour ago.”

“Where is he?” I ask, my voice raw and numb. She smiles.

“He’s getting his beauty sleep.” My worried expression doesn’t fall, though, and she continues. “They’re still keeping him in the hospital.”

My lips close together tightly and my fingers claw at the edges of the blanket. I pull it around me securely and breathe in the faint scent of Asher. Anything to get me away from here.

“Is that wine?” Johanna asks, and my eyes turn to the liquid settled on the ground. I don’t answer her, but I don’t need to. She already knows.

“He asked me to tell you something.”

My heart thumps at a million miles a second. What is it?

She lets out a short laugh, and I frown.

“I- I don’t know what the hell it’s supposed to mean, but it meant a lot to him for me to tell you this,” she takes a breath in. “He says he loves you.”

My body shivers all the way down to my feet. As she says the words, it’s almost as if I can feel him on the roof.

Johanna’s eyebrows are furrowed and I take a second to watch her. Her brown hair is so faded and dull and I remember that she’s just barely younger than my parents. She won the 71st games, and she was seventeen when she did. She’s already 46. How has she been mentoring for this long?

She shakes her head a bit, and says, “I just don’t get it.”

“Get what?” I ask softly, my voice barely coming out. She looks at me again, and I feel small in her eyes.

“Love.” Her eyes narrow and her brows furrow again. “It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

I don’t reply to her, but continue to watch as her eyes don’t fall from mine. It is unsettling, and I feel as if I’m being judged.

“Everyone I ever had is dead, Layla,” she tells me, and I go cold. What is she trying to say? “And if you’re smart, you’ll make the right decisions instead of the ones I made.”

With that, she walks out.

My body erupts in goose bumps, and I nearly choke myself with the blanket. I bury myself in his scent.

I imagine him next to me, his jaw set in a strong lock, his eyes watching me, and his hair tousled on his head. Instead of the dull color they once were, his eyes are a bright, healthy hazel. His lips are pulled into a small smirk, and his eyes twinkle with delight.

My eyes fall to the ground and suddenly the wine isn’t wine anymore; it’s blood. His blood is on the ground, and soaked into the blanket, and pouring out of his body. His eyes follow mine and he frowns.

I jump up off of the ground and throw the blood soaked blanket away from my body with a faint cry.

“Layla,” I hear him say. My hand covers my mouth as I try to muffle my shrieks.

“Layla,” he says again, and reaches out to me. My feet move backward as my heart thumps louder in my chest. Don’t look at him, don’t look.