.: inner fire - {patricia} oneshot - part i: sentencing :.

[rook]

tw: sex trafficking

the year of the 80th annual hunger games

two months after the tributes came home

Time stands still in District Five. People don't talk in the street anymore. Sometimes you can hear shouting over the rooftops, drunken men who've been pushed too far deciding they can't hold their tongues any longer. Everyone's got an opinion these days. Opinions, for the most part, are pretty illegal. Make it vocal and it’ll be beaten out of you, and you’ll dragged off never to be seen again. It's happening more and more lately.

I look outside the stone-wall perimeter of the Victor's Village, beyond my privilege and I see a District divided. Ripped open by a Quell that divided loyalties, families, and tradition. Denali playing a part in Minx's murder felt symbolic. Given her family sold out their activist partners for riches in the oil industry, doing nothing whilst her district partner was cut down enraged a lot of the working class here in Five - people even celebrated when Denali was killed later on.

And then when it was revealed that none of the poor bastards had actually been killed, it was like lighting a match in a tinderbox.

I know of people who have sent the Lyons girl death threats, some have done worse than that. Peacekeeper presence increased, to crack down on any violence brewing in the poorer quarters - Snow clearly wanted to stamp out any potential flames of rebellion - and this is the result. A ghost town.

I think Denali was just trying to survive, like any of us. Did I try and help Blaire Sycamore? Fuck no, all I cared about was staying alive. But I can see why people are angry, it's a class thing. I think I'd probably have thrown a brick at her fancy mansion window if I was young, dumb, and stupid again.

Standing in the shadow of my ridiculous granite statue, I light my breakfast cigarette and take in the morning air. It's that weird time of year just before Autumn where the leaves all turn a sickly yellow and drop onto the dirt pathways that carve through town. I always hated seeing the trees without leaves, it was a harsh reminder that winter was just around the corner.

My chest aches, as it usually does after a difficult night of broken sleep. Painkillers help some. I take a small plastic bottle from my tattered dressing gown pocket and pop one into my mouth, swallowing it dry. Ripred, getting old sucks - doubly so when you had a sword go through your chest and out your back at the age of seventeen.

Two shapes move on the other side of the low stone wall. I squint between puffs of my cigarette as they approach. Am I shortsighted now too? Ripred. They get closer, one is a Peacekeeper in blindingly white uniform, and the other is a broad man I've never seen before. Who in the hell is coming into the Victor's Village at this time of day?

"Patricia Valfierno?" The man addresses me. He is obviously from the Capitol - his hair is a ridiculous green quiff and his moustache is drawn on with some kind of magenta eyeliner. His skin is saggy and old, but his mouth is artificially pulled back across his neck, giving him a bizarre resting smile that only surgery could buy.

What do they want this time? I've not done anything wrong for fuck's sake. Maybe it's to do with the Denali/Minx situation. They probably want Lethe and I to mediate peace or make some kind of public speech to cool the oppressed masses.

"Yes." I confirm after a long awkward silence. I notice the Peacekeeper is armed with an automatic rifle, which is fun.

"Aren't you going to invite us in?" He grins at me and nods to the house - one of only two occupied in this isolated village.

A public speech wouldn't be the worst thing. I'm all for discourse, but the Capitol would butcher and quash any rebellion in Five, and I don't want to see people dead over some pointless class dispute where no one even died.

"Do I have a choice?" I smile falsely at the Peacekeeper, who shuffles on the spot.

I turn and gesture for them to follow me into the house, dropping my cigarette at the doorstep and stamping it out with my slipper. Rose has kept the house pretty tidy, which is a shame as I quite enjoy guests thinking I'm a complete mess - it helps me maintain the illusion that I don't know what I'm doing.

My pot of coffee has finished boiling, so I pour myself one and offer both guests a mug. The Peacekeeper refuses, but the Capitol official accepts and begins sipping loudly as he sits down in the middle of my leather sofa. I lean against the wooden beam in my kitchen and stare at the Peacekeeper playfully.

The Capitolite finishes his hot drink quickly, and sets it down on the wooden table, before leaning back and weaving his fingers together.

"Miss Valfierno, my name is Ettienne Nabi. I am here on behalf of President Snow." He smiles like that's a good thing. My heart beats in my throat at the mention of his name, but I keep my gaze and sip my coffee.

"The Capitol is unhappy with how you have been behaving," He continues. Well, that's nothing new, I've been upsetting them since I climbed out of that cave and started talking shit. Empty warning after empty warning.

"In particular your criticism of Cricket Antoinette becoming a Gamemaker." His smile seems to drop, and I sense a seriousness in his tone that tells me this isn't an empty warning.

I lower my coffee cup and frown. I had been pretty vocal in my outrage at Cricket going from puppet to puppetmaster, turning her back on the other Victors in my eyes. I liked Cricket, she had shown me around District Two on my Victory Tour. She took me to the circus and told me to trust her. I did. She was a Career, I understand that, but to take it a step further and orchestrate the deaths of 23 children, after everything she had been through herself? I didn't agree with it, and I had said as much to the other Victor's on many an occasion.

One of the bastards ratted me out, then?

"Cricket-"

"No, enough. You've done enough talking, Miss Valfierno - in fact, far too much talking." He interrupts me with a tone so aggressive that my mouth stays agape, "You were warned, back when you were a teenager. You were warned again when you were meeting with the Millison girl. Do you think that because you are a Victor, you can say and do what you please?" He is practically spitting. My heart thunders in my chest, I'm so angry I could scream and shout him out of my house, but the Peacekeeper has taken his rifle in both hands and for a horrible second I think they're going to shoot me.

"There must be consequences for your actions. You have a younger sister, yes?" He asks, already knowing the answer. The blood drains from my face.

"No, you leave her out of this." I take a step forward, and the Peacekeeper raises his gun. I flinch.

"Unfortunately you've left us no choice, Patricia. Maybe losing your sister will give you some perspective." He laughs to himself as I stare horrified at his grotesque clown face. I want to kill him. I want to kill both of them, but I am powerless. Of course I'm powerless. I was never anything else.

"Please, take me instead. I'll do anything just-" I would die for my sister, "Just don't kill her." I killed for my sister.

"We can't kill you, Miss Valfierno! We need you very much alive." Ettienne says in a patronising tone, and of course he knows that killing me would likely end any chance of keeping peace in Five. He leans back against the sofa and sighs, and in a horrible silence I contemplate all the disturbing thoughts going through his sick little Capitolite head.

"We can of course, not kill her. If you'll agree to help us."

"Yes, anything." My response is instant, and he smiles, happy that I'm an obedient little Victor.

"The way you have acted for a great many years has been abhorrent, and it's high-time you learned that you belong to the Capitol," He leans forward and looks me unblinking in the eye, "You are our property, Patricia Valfierno."

My breathing slows, and time really does feel like it's standing still. Because I know what he's going to say, and what he's going to ask of me, and it makes me wish I'd died in that cave.

"When you next visit the Capitol, you will report to someone by the name of Gale Westwyck, they will take you to a private quarter of the Capitol where you will meet with select clients..." He smiles as he vividly lays out all the haunting details, of all the things I'll have to do.

His words become foggy, and I feel like my shortsightedness is closing in around me. I reach to my pocket and take out the tube, placing another painkiller on my tongue and ingesting it with a hesitant swallow. My body is going to be violated, because I couldn't keep my stupid mouth shut.

How could I not see this coming?

Was I so stupid to think I was invincible?

No, I'm just a street rat girl from Five who got lucky. Who ran her mouth, played with fire, and now is going to be... to be used like some object. Some object of man's sick desire.

I feel numb. No one deserves this. No one. This is a fate worse than death, worse than anything - and the worst part I was too fucking blind to see it coming. This, or lose my sister. This, or lose my sister.

"You're very in demand, Miss Valfierno!" He continues.

"Stop it." I mutter.

"You've brought this on yourself. You were warned."

I want to scream. I want to grab a kitchen knife and slit both their throats. I want to say something, anything, but I'm paralysed. There's nothing I can do.

Nothing, but bite my tongue, and nod.

part ii