when the tide rolls {rade}

The meat makes my mouth water as I tear into the delicate thing wondering what it is. My eyes roll into the back of my head. It's so amazing. Taking another bite, I find myself looking around at what's going on. Staying by myself has been my game plan because getting people together can only cause fights, and that is against the rules. Sliding under the radar may work now, but once I'm in the arena, things are different. People will want to kill me, and I will want to kill them. I'm about to take another bite, when someone decides to interrupt me.

"Rolf." Her voice is quiet, and I need nothing to tell me who's standing near me. Her voice is enough. I've heard it on the television as the stupid whore pranced through the Capitol for some stupid show. A darling in the eyes. A darling for winning a stupid game my brother didn't survive. Katelyn killed him, and now she has the audacity to stand in front of me like nothing is wrong.

But everything is wrong.

"What do you want?"

Sliding my tongue across my teeth, I set the fork down beside my plate contemplating my next move. Fighting is against the rules, but she didn't care about anything when she took my worthless brother away from me. All she cared about was surviving. And now she's here. Alive while he's dead.

But she's right. The Capitol isn't merciful. They hate every last one of us, and while Katelyn may have never wanted to see me again, I've been longing for this moment. And it's not to tell her I forgive her. Over the years the hate has built up. Every night when I'm sleeping, I see her slaughtering him. I see him crying out. I see her standing in victory. And I hate her for it.

"I haven't forgotten." My eyes turn towards her for only a moment as she points to her neck. His name is etched into her skin, and I want to slap the piss out of her.

"How can you not forget about a person you killed?" I ask louder than I meant to. Heat radiates from my cheeks, my hands ball into fists, and I slam them against the table knocking my plate of food into the floor. "You get to walk around like some stupid doll while I sit at home seeing you kill him over and over and over." My voice grows louder as each word falls past my lips, and I'm standing on my feet looking at her through narrow, beady eyes. "I once asked how I'm supposed to forgive you. How I'm supposed to be happy you're alive and he isn't. I've spent the years trying. I've tried to put the memories to rest of you slaughtering my brother. I've tried, but I can't." My voice grows quieter, and I stop for a moment.

("I'm...sorry for what I had to do.")

She said she was sorry. She said she had to do it, but sorry will never cover it. Sorry will never repay the debt that's owed. Sorry is just a hollow word when nothing else is said. His blood was spilled by her, and I won't stop until her's is saturating the ground.

"I'll never forgive you, Katelyn Persimmon, for as long as I live."

A small grin twists across my face as I watch the way she's bothered by what has happened. Maybe it was my words, but it doesn't matter because I've done exactly what I came to do. Forgiving her was impossible. She did the unthinkable, and I wish he was alive in her place. Kate doesn't deserve to be alive. But what would've made my brother different? What if he would've succeeded in killing Katelyn in the hunger games? Would he have changed? Would he be like her? Winning game after game until the Capitol tosses it all away? No, he'd be better. The crown was better fitted for his head, and she took it away from him. She killed him in cold blood, and one day I will do the same to her.

"I don't expect forgiveness. I don't deserve it."

You're right, I want to say, but she's adding more words in before I can speak. She's sorry she killed him, but not sorry that she lived. I try to stifle a laugh, but I can't hold it back any longer, and I'm cackling at her false remarks. Sorry won't cover it. She can't be sorry for doing something if she wanted to live. She killed him to survive. She killed him on purpose. She wanted to do it.

The laughing doesn't stop as she leans forward. Her arms resting on the table. Silence surrounds me, and my jaw locks in place, and my teeth are grinding together. All she wanted was to give me closure, but that isn't found anymore. The only closure I'll ever receive is her head on a silver platter. For her family to feel the pain that I've felt. And oh how I'd love to hand deliver the head myself.

And then to top it off, it's like she's telling me I'm as good as dead. Only a foolish man wouldn't realize that. Only a foolish man wouldn't know when death was coming, but I hope to defeat it. No, I don't hope to defeat it. I will come out of the arena alive. My hands ball tightly into fists, and I find myself staring at her wishing she would go away. Red spots flash before my eyes. Heat flows from my bright red cheeks. My eyes narrow, and within a moment, I'm lunging forward swinging as hard as I possibly can aiming towards her ribs. The final blow was a broken rib, and I'll give her the same feeling.

"Colgate doesn't matter to me!" I'm shouting at the top of my lungs not caring if anyone is around to hear me. People can stare if they want, but they should know it's rude to stare, and one day the favor will return upon them ten times as worse as it is now. "You wanted to give me closure for someone you murdered, well let me tell you the only way to get it." My words flow steadily as the flame growing inside of me grows larger. "I'm going to kill your tributes, and it won't be a fast death. No, it's going to be slow. I'll make sure they know that you are the reason that I'm destroying them. It'll be worse than the death that one tiny girl received in the seventy-second hunger games"

My heart leaps inside my chest as a dark grin twists across my face.

"And it'll be all. your. fault."