Suffocate

His mood flares and drops as easily as a storm in summer, it grows and crashes like large waves on weathered rocks, bursting suddenly and dropping to an odd sense of calm just as swiftly.

They play the clips ever so often, louder, without securing us.

Of the Quell, of their games just a year ago, I barely remembered much of them, I’d tried not too.

Of Katniss kissing a boy I recognise from her family interviews.

They play them because they know we’ll watch, me desperate for any sighting of Finnick, and him, because they’ve made him hate her. They’ve confused him.

Because they know we’re so thirsty that we’ll drink the drug induced water in one gulp; that we’ll eat any scraps of food dropped in on weak plastic plates as the days pass. Again my only sense of time is how often the food comes, how hungry I am between the small meals, how much my hip bones stick out and how my cuts have healed.

Weeks, it has to have been weeks, a month since the games, something like that.

The damage on my back is still red, Peeta tells me in a rare moment of sanity, its completely stopped bleeding, starting to scab.

I try to ask Peeta but I’ve lost him again, he’s staring up at the screen. Half the time he’s in love with her, completely and utterly as I had always expected. Half of the time it’s like a monster takes over his body.

Crazy spreads easy.

I don’t know what drugs I consume, but it isn’t often the tracker venom. Sometimes I think its poison, my body hurts so bad and all I can do is gag on the air, curl into a ball and wish I was dead. When it’s like that the screams start again. But they’re not here. I know that.

Just like how in the arena Finnick knew I was alive, he knew I was okay and it was cruel trick.
It still makes me want to claw out my eardrums.

Ever so often Johanna’s join them.

If they’re trying to hurt us like this why isn’t she here?

I already know the answer, I thought it the first day I woke up here. Johanna won’t break. She won’t tell them anything, she won’t lose it.

Peeta had nothing to tell them, and neither did I anymore, they knew far more than I.

But we would break, Peeta had. I was always broken, cracked glass that could shatter with any change.

When we stop eating they change their tactics.

Whenever the peacekeepers enter one always holds me back, struggling but Peeta goes limp, he lets them inject him. I don’t know if he’s lost the fight or if he just hates reality. How can he hate his sanity when his madness is lies, hatred for someone who doesn’t deserve it?

Half the time they leave me, the track marks on my veins aren’t as inflamed as his. They leave me so I can see him lose himself, can feel his rage when it’s just too much and his sorrow when he comes to his senses and more often than not finds me bloody or bearing marks resembling his hands.

I’m not sure if I’m scared of him or not, it’s like two different people, trapped in one physical form.
One of them terrifies me and the other I want to protect, I want to fix.

We don’t sleep.

Whenever we try, pushed up against one corner as much as possible, always together, no matter how volatile he is, they stop us. Tiredness is making me hallucinate, it’s making everything worse. The ways they wake us are different, sometimes an alarm rings, so loud it leaves us bent over, crashing through my head and against my skull.

Sometimes they seem to go to Johanna and her screams leave me hunched, hands over my ears.

Those are the worst, that I know my actions are hurting her, killing her even. I find myself waiting for her next scream for fear that everyone one will be her last and it’s another body on my conscience.

Things happen both so fast and so slow. We take too long to realise there’s something in the air, that when we both refuse to eat it’s released. Sometimes everything feels like its moving too slow, the world has stopped rotating, it’s in slow motion and I’m the only thing that isn’t. Other times it’s the opposite.

They get bored.

When we don’t eat or put up a fight they come in, they hurt us or they hurt other people.
Within what I measure to be four days four people die because of us. Because of their ties to us.

The avox’s from the flat for District Twelve are first. I finally understand what they do to Johanna and the woman is electrocuted, her heart gives in and she dies quickly.
She’s lucky.

Peeta and I are beaten for screaming and my back and face is fresh with new cuts. He’s rewarded with more drugs, more time out of his mind and angry. The male avox doesn’t die quickly, and by the time he does, almost a day later all three of us are covered in blood, ours and his.

His body parts are spread across the stained floor.

They don’t clean the cell. They leave us with it all night, or all day, there is no night and day here. I don’t remember the last time I changed my clothes, not since I had come into Peeta’s cell, hours, a week, more?

I was losing track of time.
I was losing track of everything.

They drug us and I feel the clasp of the tracker venom again, I feel it crush my heart. The body parts try to reach me, his eyes, one gouged out follow me. Peeta starts his never-ending fight with the wall, with the images of Katniss on the screen and I fall into a corner, ants under my skin, biting, trying to journey to their queen sat deep in my brain.

The next day there is food neither of us touch, but they let us sleep. I think they let us sleep.

I feel like I’ve slept but that could just be the lack of it, my body reacting with energy, desperate nervous energy. I spit on my hands, but its barely anything, mouth so dry it feels like my tongue will crack on my hands to remove the blood.

I can’t, it’s deeper than skin now. I knew I would never get rid of it.

Later, after Johanna screams, after someone else that sounds far away wails so loud and so haggardly that I know it’s the last thing they’ll ever do the door opens again. They march in Blithe and Margy.

And they butcher them. Savagely and slowly. Blood covers the souls of my feet.

I scream so hard and so long the only way they silence me is to beat me until they can force the needle into my skin and the world is no more.

When I wake up I’m alone and clean, I try to move and I can’t. I look for Peeta and he isn’t there. I’m back in my cell, alone, completely and utterly alone. I do all I ever seem to now.

I cry.
I wish I was anywhere but here.

I wish I was home.

Instead I’m greeted with Peeta’s latest screams and my body itches to try and help him, to calm him down like I was sure I was learning to. I couldn’t. I

was more powerless than ever.

I wanted to go home. All I saw behind my eyelids now were bodies, torn apart carcasses. Peeta’s angry eyes, the bruises littering his arms and face.

Time passes, how much? Who cares but it passes, I can only move my hands slightly, the leather easily starts to rub away at the healing skin and it’s bloody and raw again. My hand is starting to set, the bone is starting to heal, but it’s not right. I try to hold my fingers straight but it hurts too much to be worth it.

They were going to kill me at some point, who the fuck cares if I had a lame hand or not?

I didn’t.

I’d just rather it was sooner than later.

Thom was sat back in Command, sat around the table tensely. The day before, Beetee had managed to break into the televised network and show what had happened in Eight, Thom hadn’t gone, he was strategy Plutarch claimed, not weapons.

So he had to be in the hovercraft, hiding with Haymitch, a surly man who couldn’t say anything without sarcasm. But he’d seen, mainly on feeds from the camera crew below the destruction and the death. He wanted to get better with weapons, he was not going to sit by anymore, not like he had done his whole adult life.

He wanted to help.

Beetee had succeeded and planned to do the same tonight, there was an announcement due by Snow, it would be aimed against them, the rebels, aimed against anyone with any free thought. He was sat on Finnick’s right side. He’d avoided him since, ‘the incident’ over a month ago and Finnick had healed, more or less.

According to Phillus he spent most of his time in the hospital. His wife didn’t need to tell him, irritatingly guilt had gotten the better of him a fortnight ago and he’d made sure he was aware of Finnick’s state, even asking Mrs. Everdeen, whatever her first name was, to keep an eye on him.

He knew Elenia would be furious. And he knew she was alive, they’d gotten word of that at least. Coin had told him with a sour look that just that information he’d begged persistently for had cost two lives. Was it wrong Thom barely cared?

She was alive. And Plutarch promised that at some point they would do something about that, it was the best Thom could get and he clung to it.

Finnick was explaining to Katniss what had been done, what Beetee was working so hard on.

Speaking normally like it was nothing.

Thom’s fingers twitched and he rang his hands together under the table to keep himself silent.

“Snow’s making an appearance or something. I think it’s starting.”

There had been food today, a decent amount, and two plastic cups of water. I didn’t trust it and ignored it for as long as I could, grabbing one cup to pour over the damaged skin of my wrists and ankles, it lifts the specks of dried blood slightly and it's soothing, even over the blisters.

After a while I can’t bare it and snatch up the plate, retreating to the opposite side of the room so I can see the door. I sniff it, but it all seems edible, there could be narcotics in it. I check lamely but devour the stew anyway. I’m too hungry too care. My whole body feels stiff and wrong and either side of my temple is sore.

They electrocuted me.

I knew why, the reaction I’d shown when they had done it to those axox’s had made it obvious it was an option I was scared of. They were right.

It was horrible, it hurt, it burnt like my body was going to explode, like my skin was the arena and it was cracking, soon to go black. But after, I think they’d had it too high, I knew electricity did something to the brain and I felt okay.

Not okay, more...floaty, slurry, my hand kept twitching, each time it hurt a little where the bone had still not repaired fully. It could have been permanent. Maybe permanent would be nice and I could stay in this odd little haze until they finally just killed me.

I wouldn’t die happy but it would be close.

The effect wore off slowly, the haze, the gentle fog over my emotions slipping until it was completely gone and I was empty again. Empty was the wrong word, I was so devoid of anything but fear that nothing mattered.

I missed Peeta in a weird way. I was alone now, completely alone in here, or at least it felt like it. I had no-one and nothing. They were somewhere safe, doing what needed to be done. Why did they get to be there and I was here? How in any fucking way was that fair?

I’d done everything I had to do, except the trackers. If I’d done that Peeta could at least be safe, he’d still be him and not some monster caught in his skin.

I fiercely wiped away tears, I was fucking sick of crying. I was fucking sick of everything.

I tried to sleep and for a change I wasn’t woken up, I did so naturally. That only worried me more.
The door opens and two peacekeepers whose faces have grown familiar walk in with a rail.

I push myself further up the bed, its the same as Luine used to push around with her, dresses hang from it delicately. I’m too confused to ask and they beat me to it, “Get Greta to bring her in.” He turns to me, “You,” I suck on the inside of my cheek, “You are to get ready. President Snow requires your company this evening.”

“No.” I blurt with a flicker of bravery that is vanquished instantly by the look on his face.

“What?” The other already has his baton raised but the first shouts at him to lower it, “No unnecessary bruising. They already went overboard yesterday and she has that shit on her forehead.”

He scolds the man who jaws tenses, for a minute he almost looks human. There’s a person under the costume but the others attention is back to me.

“There will be no arguing, he’s requested you but you are not necessary.” He smiles as if to drive in the point, the worthlessness of my existence.

He waits for me to nod, eyes scanning over me, “Help me get the equipment in.” That makes me sit up instantly, only furthering the questions in my head. Snow wanted me, Snow needed me in a dress.

That had to mean cameras, an audience. He’d left me for weeks in here to rot.

That familiar shiver trickled through me as they return, something that resembled a bathtub held between the two of them, another holding a large silver box I recognised.

A prep teams basic needs.

I swallowed hard, tongue darting over my lips. “Is he going to execute me on screen?” I was almost proud of the strength of my voice. The three exchanged looks.

“Just get ready, send them in.” The one in charge barked.

It was pretty much an agreement, a confirmation, and I slammed my hand over my mouth to mute the terrified whine that left me. If he was going to kill me on camera, it was to make a point. It was so they saw.

So my brother and Finnick saw.

They couldn’t see. It would be worse than if I had died in front of Finnick in the arena, at least them he would have been there. To see it on a screen, in a hologram would be unbearable, with no option, no prior warning.

I pressed my fingers into the knuckles on my broken hand, the pain distracting. I wasn’t crying, no more, he didn’t get that. I pushed myself off the bed, I was dirty, the rest of the cell was almost immaculate but it was human mess, sweat, tears, blood and more. The bath was full of water, I touched it gently, feeling the warmth soothe my skin.

I wasn’t going to cry, if Snow was going to kill me I was going to take it. I was finally going to be brave like everybody else was. I’d have to face it how I should have faced everything else. If I’d just removed the trackers, if I hadn’t attacked Brutus so fucking thoughtlessly...

Footsteps echoed, bodies approaching the open door.

They thought so little of me that they knew I wouldn’t try and escape. Not that I could, all I had seen apart from this room was the small stretch of hall. The place would be littered with guards and peacekeepers, and I was deep within the Capitol.

There was no way out, no escape.

For a few days I’d thought of it, if they were in Thirteen, whatever was there, whoever was there had to be prepared.

They would have come for us, maybe not for me in particular, I wasn’t necessary. But they would come.

I was disposable, not an important part of the overall plan, not an important part of everything.

But if they had the means to get out of the arena and there, surely they could come back, for Peeta, for whoever else was held here.

The guards were right to know I wouldn’t even try, there was murmuring and a guard came in, followed by two very familiar people. I broke my promise to myself instantly and burst into grateful shocked tears.

They looked bad, both of them, colours worn and faded, dressed in a similar gown to mine, prisoners, but alive.

Luine’s own tears are dripping slowly down her face, she didn’t look hurt, neither of them did, a little skinny, but not physically hurt. Luine had obviously expected the same of me, but I can see the disgust on her face lift.

I must look atrocious; I had no doubt of that.

“Elenia.” Trix whispers my name, her red hair longer than I’d ever known it, curling at the bottom, blonde roots emerging along her crown.

“You are to get her ready for camera in four hours.”

“Four..maybe...” The glare renders Luine silent and she wipes her small hand over her pale cheeks in protest. I flinch, half expecting the guard to shoot her straight in-between her eyes.

“That was not a request.” She doesn’t leave, the bulking mass of female peacekeeper but stands by the door, tutting loudly as Luine goes to hug me, causing both of us to shrink back a little.

“You’re okay?” She asks breathlessly, covering up with ordering Trix to add something to the water, both of their hands are shaking. I shrug, her eyes dart around and the foolish false smile spread over her pale lips, she looks so much younger with no makeup. “If I help you they said I can see Marck, he’s been busy.” She bumbles, lifting that smile back up every time it falters, which is a lot as I undress and climb into the water. Her eyes linger on every scar and bruise. “It will be fine, we can do it in time, we just have to...”

She doesn’t know about Marck, how can she not know? It’s been weeks easily, she had to have some idea, had she been locked away the whole time, as lost to the world as I was?

Stupid, sweet, thick Luine. She had no fucking clue, what did she think they were holding her for? What did she think any of this was. I sunk into the water, the lacerations across my back sang again and I dug my teeth firmly into my lower lip, waiting for my skin to get used to the temperature, the cream they were pouring in. They weren’t here to fix injuries, just to hide them for a while.

Why did it matter how I looked if Snow was going to kill me?

“I can see Marck and...” She glances behind us, “President Snow is going to let you go home. That’s what they said, if you promise you weren’t a part of what happened in that arena you can go home.”

I look at her properly, grabbing things from her case. I notice the marks not covered up on the inside of her elbows, her pupils which are no more than pinpricks. She’s high, on what exactly I have no idea but she’s acting how I felt the day before, when the electric shot seemed to throw my hormones off balance. She honestly believes Marck is alive, she honestly believes it will be okay.

I glance at Trix who dares a small nod in my direction; her hands are shaking the most, knuckles bruised and nails bitten down to the nub, the surrounding skin red with torn skin. They weren’t as undamaged as I had thought. I let them dab at me, pour in multiple liquids, some soothe me and others make every bit of damage in my skin feel ten times worse.

But I keep silent, Luine is the one talking, fanciful nonsense of a war that has barely started coming to a close, of how her and Marck wanted to move to the outskirts, paint a nursery. Not that she would carry the baby personally of course, far too damaging on a body she’d spent so much money on. The look on my face must express how uncomfortable she’s making me, how utterly deluded she is.

I don’t know what they’ve done to her. I can’t ask, I can’t say anything to Trix.
All I know is she will not be meeting Marck.

At least not alive. If Snow’s planning on killing me tonight he’ll have no need for them. The fact he kept them here at all is testament to his intention all along to make my death public. But they won’t last longer than that. I know Trix realises it, I know she’s aware that time for all of us is clearly running out. Luine has no idea, whether she’s built these illusions herself out of fear, the same way I think I have done on many long nights, or the drugs have created it around her.

I’m scared for both of them, but still, as always, more so for myself.
Rightfully I think after everything.

I’m removed from the bath, preened and plucked, my body plastered in make-up so thick it makes my face stiff. Luine keeps adding to it, I know it’s because marks show and ever so often she jerks, a ripple that starts as a twitch in one eyes and ends in her fingers which curls randomly, spasm flicker a little.

I want to say something, her face is too hopeful, so trapped in belief it makes me feel sicker.
But breaking it will hurt her more, make this all worse for her.

I have enough deaths on my conscience, ones that cling to me, emerging in a spiral of guilt when foreign substances infect my body. I bite down on the inside of my cheek.

I’m imagining it, that’s the problem, how it will happen, where I’ll be looking.

Will I have the chance to say anything? Give some signal to Thom, Finnick, anyone. Will I be staring straight down the lens of the camera? Most importantly, will it be quick? Knowing now what the plan is, perhaps I feel like I’ve been slowly dying for weeks.

Having it over quickly would be better, a bullet, even a guillotine. But that’s gorier.

I imagine my brother’s face and almost whimper, but Luine has covered up the noise, playing with dresses that won’t fit me as we discover, all needing a lot of pinning and pulling in so they don’t hang off of my frame.

I’ve always been skinny, but I was emancipated now, my body like those starving children I’d seen so long ago in District Twelve. It’s old dresses, the sleeves long and body tight, before I was a victor again, just that mentally unstable mentor she didn’t have to design such lavish outfits for.

After all, who looked at me beside Finnick Odair.
Most of the time at least.

I don’t know if I recognise the dress or if I’m wishing I did, for any tie back to then, back to anything outside of here.

When they’re done, “As much as we can do.” Luine breathes, they’re marched out. Trix shoots me on last look and a pitiful half smile. She knows what I know.

That this will be the last time we ever see each other, one way or another.

She’s right.