Suffocate

The residents of District Twelve seemed to fit in quite quickly. They adorned the dull grey clothing, the only option. They stuck to the schedule imprinted on their forearm every morning, they mourned for their friends, blown to ashes and their homes crumbled into dust. Thom found as days past it was harder to realise who they were anymore, the majority of the bodies in Thirteen were strangers. Only the other rebels or the still decorated Capital betrayers stuck in his mind.

They did what they had to do and stuck to themselves, there were no parties like at home, even the suggestion of one by Plutarch, to celebrate a birthday had been scolded instantly and never mentioned again.

Not that Thom would go, he had very little to celebrate. He’d been demoted; he supposed that was the word for it. After his little ‘incident’ with Finnick, that was Coin’s term for it, her face tighter than usual, thin lips an almost invisible line, he wasn’t allowed in any more high priority meetings. He waited for scraps of information from others. His communicuff had been taken, and his timetable had changed, he wasn’t allowed to attend anything anywhere near important.

The only reason he felt sane was Phillus, his children, his brothers children They were all too young for school, entertained in other ways by Rita as Phillus had been shoved down in the kitchen, making the mistake of mentioning her love of cooking. The food she cooked her wasn’t what she liked, but that because they were frugal. Thom had never grown up poor, never lived through that but he longed for more, anything but the stodgy stews and mashed turnips. But it was just food, it wasn’t pleasure here, it was to sustain them.

Everything was to sustain them.

“You’re supposed to be in training Thom.” He barely glanced at her, shrugging, his baby son dozing in his arms, even the children’s’ clothes were grey and simple. “Thom.” He sighed, meeting his sister in laws tired eyes, looking after four children under the age of six all day had to be difficult, he knew that, he just couldn’t find it in himself to care, not on the grander scale.

“Phillus told me that that Greasy Sue woman in the kitchen said Gale...”

“Phillus told you that who said what?” he asked sarcastically, almost enjoying her frown.

“That Gale boy from Twelve.” She waited for a sign of realisation and huffed, continuing to brush Annie’s long brown hair, exactly the same colour Lukas' had been. Thom swallowed hard, shifting slightly and carefully so he was straighter, his son babbling, tiny eyelids fluttering open. “Soldier Hawthorne, stop being an arse.”

“Fine, and what did Soldier Hawthorn say?” He started bouncing his leg very slightly, up and down on the ball of his foot until Samos, Sam for short, named after their father relaxed again. Phillus placed the brush down, her compartment was small, two beds, one for her and one for her daughters.

As Thom had known, or suspected months ago, Luka’s little group of idiot rebels had nothing to do with the conspiracy Plutarch had devised, that Thom had been hearing whispers about for over a year. If he had known that Luka was doing, if at any stage he’d just looked and paid attention he could have stopped him.

Rita had to have known something, or she’d been too obtuse, too un-wanting to see straight. And now her children were fatherless, and he was brother less.

All too soon he’d likely be an only child.

The thought was one that plagued him every night, unable to see anything but what they could be doing to Elenia, unable to think of anything but everything going so terribly wrong. In his dreams, his nightmares the Capitol had them all, all that was left of his family.

His father would despair at how they had ended up. He would have been sickened that Thom had left his wife, Thom’s own mother behind in Four. She didn’t want to come; she didn’t want to be involved.
Sometimes Thom had thought he hated his mother. Seeing her late that evening on the day of the reaping, watching her seem almost unbothered, the bottle of clear spirit by her feet more important, he knew for sure that he did.

“Gale said,” He’d almost forgotten Rita, his free hand in a fist, the knuckles had a thicker layer of scarring now. After the ‘incident’ they’d refused him medical care, and Phillus had been so angry she’d ignored him for three days. So, he’d left his knuckles, although they clearly needed stitches and now the skin was rippled with dips and pink lines. “He said they’d let you back in if you just made any effort or showed you wanted too, rather than...” She paused, looking guilty, “moping about all day.”

“Moping?” Sam whimpered again and scared of somehow hurting his son, he stood to place him on the bed, pillows creating a border so he couldn’t roll off. “Not my words.” Rita defended instantly, “We are all worried.” He scoffed, “Thom, stop it. If you want to help you need to be involved!”

He recognised the phrase quickly, “So you and Phillus have been talking then?” She shrunk back a little, guilt spread all over her features.

“Yes.” Her voice was strong, “We have and you need to go and make sure you know what’s happening, you need to be involved with the military side of this.”

“Why?” He asked dismissively.

“Because you do Thom. Because if you want to find out what’s happening, if you want to help her you need to be involved!”

“How can I be involved if they’re not doing anything!” He half yelled, starting Sam into crying and Luisa to look much the same way. He sighed, lifting her up, muttering apologies in her small ear and forcing his voice into a calmer tone. “They’re not doing anything Rita, they’re more concerned with the bigger picture aren’t they? And even then, they haven’t gotten Katniss to do anything, still, after everything that happened to get her here. They didn’t even start the rebellion, Coin can’t take credit for people finally seeing sense, all that’s happened is the Capitol bombing districts and killing thousands of others.”

“No,” Rita stood, placing Sam on her own hip, “But you can make sure they do. You have influence with Plutarch, you can do something. Say something to make them act.” Her voice softened, “Luka always said you were the smarter one, you know you’re wasting your time ignoring the schedule, you need to be with the leaders of this, you want them to change something make them.”

“Mummy?” Annie was talking, peeking round from the bed, she hated any conflict, she was meek, quiet but far cleverer than her six years on Earth should have made her. “Aunty Phillus said I could use the coloured pencils but I can’t find them...”

Rita was distracted instantly and the conversation was over, Thom let Luisa run over there, as clumsy a child as he had been. His heart swelled watching them and sank thinking of his siblings.

“Nobody here gives a fuck what I think.” She caught him before he left, her reddish hair pulled up in a tight ponytail, she looked older since Luka had died, but so did he. They’d all seemed to age years in months. “But a lot of them do with you. Talk to Gale and go suck up to whoever can get you back in with them.”

“Boggs.” He said simply.

She nodded, “Good, go do that. Go do something that doesn’t involve beating that poor man’s face in.”


There were snakes on my wrists, fangs snapping, sinking them deep into my skin, venom pumping through me. My body was cramping, there were more snakes on my feet, crushing bones, clinging to my ankles, keeping me in place against the flat surface that seemed to bulge randomly, sending me into spasms.

Closing my eyes didn’t help, I was underground, I was trapped in a container that vibrated with the roar, the volume of the screams which burst around me endlessly. I was trapped with them, they radiated through me, no, they soaked into me, boiling my insides, leaking from my ears and eyes. I couldn’t stop them, I couldn’t move, the snakes had me, growing tighter, the weight on my chest only got heavier, the screams only got louder.

I was trapped with the agonising yells of him, of them.

It was easy to tell myself it wasn’t real at first, it couldn’t be real. It made no sense, I knew, they couldn’t be here. Snow would have said, wouldn’t have used it against me, I knew that. I thought I knew that. I knew the needle, slid under the weak skin of the crease in my elbow was to blame. I knew the headphones, metal tight around my forehead, keeping them so no moving could shake them off were the cause of the noise.

It wasn’t real, it wasn’t real.

It wasn’t snake venom running through my veins, it wasn’t real. It was tracker jackers. I knew the effect, I’d watched it torment Katniss in her first games. It was pretend. I was still in the cell, I was just strapped to the table, the peacekeepers had strapped me to the bed.

It wasn’t real. My tears were real, the blood coming from my wrists, injuries caused by the struggling were. But there were no snakes, no insects that crept over my body, no crushing weight over my ribs. It was all caused by the venom, it was imaginary, not real, not real.

Whenever clarity peaked through and the same chant ran through my head someone returned. I opened my eyes and they were a black mass, gaping, splitting at the seams, melting under the light over head.

It wasn’t real, my lips formed the words but there was no sound. Maybe there wasn’t, all I could hear was the screams, the yelps of pain and the begging for help. That wasn’t real, none of it was. They were safe, they weren’t here, it was the jabber jays, a trick like that.

They were not torturing my nieces, they were not electrocuting Phillus or Rita, they were not tormenting my brother or Mags.

And they were certainly not beating Finnick to death, he was not screaming for me.

It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real.

When the venom escaped the needle it became real all over all again.

And there was nothing I could do but scream, to pray the shadowy figures creeping across the room would kill me before Snow killed any of them. That my hands, slippery with a sticky substance that coated my body, blood pouring from the open wound across my gut, the dagger that had nearly taken my life five years ago.

I’d let it take me now, if it would stop the sounds, the pain in my head, if there was a way, my head shaking violently side to side, to release myself from it. There wasn’t, my neck hurt, jarred and aching.

I wanted the screaming to stop, I wanted the screaming to stop.

Eventually, my ears ringing so loudly all other sound was smeared for days it did.

“Please,” Another lash, blood was pooling in my mouth, teeth cut deep into my tongue, “I don’t know anything, I don’t-“ I screamed, feeling the skin split, the blood escape and trickle down my ever more prominent spine.

I heaved, I’d had bread, pale tasteless stuff from no district I could think of, water. It lay in a pool in front of me, blood mixing with it, from my mouth and hand. Both hands were either side of it, rags of the hospital gown soaking in the vile mixture. My left was red, swollen and steadily going black.

I knew fingers were broken, I knew I shouldn’t have fought against them as they grabbed me but I had, so fucking stupidly. The stick struck skin again, I didn’t scream, I whined, hating them, hating myself.

Tears did nothing, I’d learnt that, I knew that well and yet I could never stop them, I was so weak, so stupid and pathetic and weak.

“Enough.” The metal pole let out a loud clang as it hit the tiles, blood coating the silver. I was gasping, pain with every stabbing breath, fire dancing; smouldering where each cut and bruise lay.

I had a lot.
I deserved them.

“Okay, let’s give this another go shall we?”

Twin screams, almost in sync pierced the air, I knew them too well by now. Johanna and Peeta. Truly innocent Peeta who had no idea of what had been done, of the plan that had evolved and manipulated around him.

“I don’t know.” The hands pulled me back further, so my torso curved slightly, every rib visible. He crouched onto one knee, as if proposing and his hand grabbed roughly around my chin.

“Your eldest brother was put to death for conspiring against the Capitol and your other mysteriously went missing during your time in the arena, with no trace left whatsoever.”

He flung my face to one side, releasing me and leaning back, adjusting himself so he was on both knees. The same hand moved down, trailing over the most recent bruises on my ribs before grabbing my nipple hard and twisting, barely looking affected at my hiss of pain or grimace before I recovered and was met with another threat.

“You expect me to believe you have no idea of his involvement? Of either of your sibling’s involvement?” He groped at me again and I shook my head, the tears restarting. I was so dehydrated, but all I could seem to do was cry. “You see, nobody quite buys that.”

He runs his tongue over his lower lip, a gesture on Finnick I found endearing but on him it made me feel sicker, the little in my stomach churning, “I didn’t know anything.”

His head tilts like a predator observing prey before it pounces but then it falls back, observes around me. “It’s due a clean in here.” He smirks, stands and retreats to close by the door, I try to watch, to see where controls are but one of the others forcefully turns my head, leathered fingers over my eyes.

My own are twitching, crackled like a pane of glass. I don’t care try and straighten them, at least not with them here. But it’s easily been an hour, lately they seem to like visiting us all in sync.

They seemed to be pushed further by the screams of others. These are Snow’s sickest men I know, the ones that enjoy torture and no better than filth.

There’s a gesture I miss and my arms are dropped, shoved so my front lands awkwardly on the floor and the pain I’d been careful to avoid crashing over my palm. I bite my lip so hard I lose more blood, the vomit soaking into my greasy tangled hair, sticking to my face.

I hear the door close. I think through his words but not quick enough and there’s a hissing sound before the chemical coated water spurts at me from all directions, every injury on my body is smarting, the skin and exposed underneath shrieking as I do. I feel my eyes roll back in my head, my desperate attempt to turn onto my back to save it does nothing, all of the liquid is running towards the drain, whatever I do I lay in a stream of it.

Black tinges my vision, my hair sticks to my face, the smell strong, clinical. It stops, but I’m shivering, prods of pain over my whole body, my back weeping, fizzling like meat cooking. The door opens again after a few minutes, once my skin is drying, pink again. There are clipped footsteps and the drain closes up somewhere behind me. I don’t try to move, I know that much.

You make any sign to move, any gesture you’re able to after they leave and they just do more.

Because they enjoy it and because they’re sick.

What were they even trying to get out of me? I didn’t know anymore, all I knew was that the time I’d spent trapped; listening to those screams was all false. To try and get any other information from me they’d had to admit that my brother was not here, my family was not here. Finnick was not here.

That had to mean they had all gotten to Thirteen. I was sure they knew that, that they just wanted an excuse to hurt me. I know more now I’m here than I had before. I know Plutarch Heavensbee, the head gamemaker was behind the whole thing, that he was the friend on Finnick’s phone that he had set it all up and been in the hovercraft that saved the others from the arena. They were all safe, as safe as they could be now. The wardens, the peace keepers, even Snow had no reason to keep me alive.

Sometimes I wanted to beg them to end it, to kill Johanna and me, to just stop.

They wouldn’t. There was a reason I didn’t see. Couldn’t grasp.

What I could see was the baton, the long stick shimmering under the light. That one peacekeeper had left it. My good hand reaches for it, almost subconsciously but it’s slapped away and another scoops it up. His knees click as he crouches beside me, I wait for the strike.

“What the fuck did you think you were going to do with this in your state? Beat your way out of here?”

I opened and close my mouth pathetically and he scoffs. I pull my arms up to protect my face, already bearing two long scratches down one cheek. My back stretches painfully, I can feel the blood seeping out of the wounds, the skin begging to heal cracking at the movement and a sob catches in my throat.

I wait for the strike, it doesn’t come.

“There’s a gown on your bed. Get it on.” I don’t risk moving until I hear that whoosh of the door again, murmuring, my hearing is still odd, everything still has a hint of an echo but there’s orders, rapidly decided and barked.

The footsteps return and I’m wrenched to my feet.

“Get the gown on, you’re paying Mellark a visit.”

I’m too hopeful and that crumbles instantly. I try to absorb every detail of the hall outside of the cell, but it’s grey rather than white, marble rather than tiles. Peeta’s cell is to the left of mine, Johanna’s to the right. I hear far off screams and swallow hard.

The gown is sticking to the again bloody skin on my back, reaching just above my knees. It’s a light grey, something like a hospital. I can’t stop my broken hand was shaking, it’s bigger now, more swollen, red and white in odd patches, it trembles and pain is an earthquake that rumbles inside my fragmented bones.

But I will see Peeta, why? They had to have a reason. Surely us being together, seeing each other would only create that hope that’s already a nervous ball in my stomach. Surely us being together is a good sign, a good thing.

Nothing here was good.

The door opened and I was shoved in, the brightness making me squint, raise my undamaged hand to block out the strong light until my eyes adjusted and I could see. The cell was like mine, a little smaller, the bed was the same, the same leather straps that also seemed stained red. But it looked broken in half, the top pushed up to form a seat.

The same metal bands that had held my head still for the headphones were connected. I take a couple of cautious steps. I could see him, he wasn’t secured, he was sat on the ground, his shirt slightly damp but clean. He looked small, like a child sitting cross legged, the shirt that must have fit when he had gotten here was baggy, and he was staring up at a screen.

I didn’t have that. I let my eyes linger on it, it was the arena, the flash of pink sky, orange as the sun sets. It flickers to another camera, Peeta’s entranced, his eyes, sunken into his thinner face, those high cheekbones threatening to cut through his skin, he’s perfectly still.

Why are they showing him the arena? I can’t work it out until there’s talking and I hunt for the source like an idiot before I realise, it’s not just random footage, it’s selected, on a low volume so only he heard it.

It’s Finnick and Katniss.

My chest aches but in that instant my hand and back don’t bother me. It’s the first evening, before me. Peeta’s asleep, leaning against a tree and the two are talking, so quiet I take a few steps closer to hear, my feet padding on the cool floor. They look around, I can see the determination on Finnick’s face. He’s sweating but its more like a glisten, suiting him like everything does. He leans over and brushes a loose strand of her, fallen from her braid off of her face.

The jealously I feel is unnecessary, but it lands heavily on my heart. The screen flickers and Peeta growls. I jump at the sound, and finally he realises I’m there. His eyes look wrong as he clambers to his feet, they tear over me, confused.

“Peeta...” I stutter, trying to be careful.

“Where is she?”

“I...I don’t know, they said she’s in Thirteen, I don’t...” I shriek as he spins suddenly, and the bed is lifted, crashing against the wall as it flips.

“Where is she?!” He roars, each step he takes towards me I do one backwards until I run out of space, shoulder blades pressing against the door.

He’s deranged. He’s muttering, shouting random words, mutt, bitch, whore, liar. His arms are tense, veins bulging.

I understand instantly why they put me in here.
They want him to hurt me, kill me.

“Peeta...” I’m desperate, so scared it’s hard to breath, my lungs are shrinking as he gets closer. “Peeta she’s not here. She isn’t...”

“A liar?!” He laughs over-dramatically, bitterly, his smile sadistic. Just like Snow. They’ve warped him.
I’m crying, I feel it, my throat clogs and I flatten my body as much as possible.

“What have you done to him?!” I yell, hitting against the door.

“She did it!” He catches me, larger hands grip around my wrists, squeezing tight and making me half howl as he slams me against the metal. He’s sweating and his eyes are bloodshot. He’s high on something, drugged out of his mind.

He is just out of his mind.

“She lied, she’s a mutt, created to hurt us all. She lies, she takes what she wants and she doesn’t care! She wants us all to die, it’s all she wants, to feed us all berries in our sleep.”

“Peeta you’re scaring me.” I squeak and one of my hands is free, covering my face as his fists slams against the surface, as skin slices over his knuckles and I cower like the coward I am. “Peeta please, stop it, she didn’t do anything.” I'm sobbing, each breath a desperate gulp through bruised ribs.

“She went with Finnick, with him. Left everyone else to die.” He barks, the blood a tiny stream flowing in-between the mountains and valleys of veins and muscle. “They created her to use as a weapon, you know what they told me?” I shake my head mutely, his face is close to mine, “My whole family is dead.”

“W..what?”

“All dead and all gone because of her.”

“Peeta...”

“I trusted her and she tried to kill me, she tried and she failed so she killed my family, that fucking mutt and a whore, with Finnick, with him! Haymitch!” His hands slide away and I try to grasp at them, more scared for him than scared of him. He isn’t angry at me, he doesn’t understand.

I say his name again and again, trying to get him to click into the present, to see what he’s saying is all lies, the drugs. He looks how I felt with the tracker venom. I can remember the disorientation, the creeping feeling of darkness.

“Peeta...”

“Stop!” His hand flings out and meets my jaw, the sound echos loudly and I gasp, searing irons in the shape of his fingers against my already sore skin. “STOP LYING TO ME!” I duck to avoid another hit, sinking against the wall until I reach the ground. He continues to rant, to rave, to fling himself about like a madman, all I can do is sit and stare. I’m scared to close my eyes in case he comes at me again, not that I can do anything.

The starvation here had weakened me, but the venom in him seems to have made him super human, completely shattered yet unbreakable. Blood is coating both of his hands. He curses, he swears and he screams his hate.

I barely knew Peeta Mellark, I knew him for nine days, in person at least. This was not him, this was not that kind hearted, brave boy who’d risked his life for Katniss. Who’d been prepared to die with her, for her. That lied to keep her safe, that had saved me from drowning out by the Cornucopia.
Peeta was the mutt.

They’d snapped his sanity in half, he was insane.

Slowly he stops, and his hands fall to his side. I see the drug fading rapidly, I’d felt the effects, felt my hands go limp as his do. He blinks several times, the blood dripping onto the tiles. I don’t dare move, I wait for the door to open, for someone to either drag me out or barge past to put more of the substance into his bloodstream.

There’s a crack across the screen, the picture is still on Katniss’s face. She looks beautiful and I recognise the moment, when we had been gathering oysters, the brief moment we’d been speaking, the rays catching her hair and bringing out a mass of rich colours, her grey eyes almost illuminated.

I clear my throat tentavively, spitting out yet more blood and he twists, looking at me, through me. He doesn’t recognise me, either they’ve done more to his psyche than seems possible in the time that had passed or he’s just coming down harshly, trying to make sense of the world.

“Peeta.” I push myself up carefully with one hand, the gown is so stuck on my back it feels like a second, heavier skin. I say his name again and he tilts his head a little, looking far more like himself with the anger subsiding and his face smoother, although red from the extortion.

He says my name slowly, like it’s a foreign word he’d never heard before, was struggling to pronounce. I nod, and feel myself flinch and clamp my eyes shut as he takes a step, blooded hand risen.

The sob makes me reopen them, his hands are over his mouth, smearing blood in a smile up his cheeks. “Elenia? Oh no... I don’t...” I walk to him, arms flinging around my neck as his head falls into my shoulder, wetting it instantly as his whole body shakes. His sobs are muffled screams.

My thoughts are all wrong. What I assumed was their reason. They didn’t want him to kill me. They wanted me to see, they wanted me to see and understand what they could do.

They could destroy the soul of the one of the most open, good, people I had ever met in a few weeks. They wanted me to know, to know what was coming? Or to try and scare me into doing whatever it was they wanted?

They wanted me to understand that nothing spreads easier than insanity and despair.

I don’t know how long it is until we sink to the ground but Katniss is still staring in our direction.

I decided I knew something they didn’t seem too.

Katniss Everdeen was not worth any of this.