i'll sell you a dream. cecily & sasha.

Time is not her friend.

It holds her hand like an old lover — forever sheltered by a cage of fingertips, so softly cruel. There's a moment where everything is possible. There always is. Freedom is still a terribly small, but terribly real possibility; her, and her own, together in the unknown for however long they might have left. She told Aneesa only hours ago that she would break them out.

She'd tear it all down. The sun hadn't risen yet, and she was still sure of that.

Now she's pulling a javelin out of her friend's stomach, quickly pressing the palm of her hand against the bleeding wound. Her vision swims with shades of red, staining her skin and her fingers until her identity fades into Aneesa's own suffering. She's screaming, Cecily can only imagine how awful the pain is, and all she can do to shush her gently.

Whispers quelling grief. The cycle never ends.

"I'm so sorry. I couldn't leave it there. You don't have time to gamble." It's a horrible thing for her to say, so unforgivably true in the way that she can't stop her tears from falling. "But I'm here. I'm right here, and I can do this." I can do this. She moves her hands as gracefully as she can, applying crushed herbs with trembling fingers and tightly bandaging the wound. One roll after the over, endlessly, white bleeding into red.

It's a thing that can't be fixed — something that seems impossible to run from. Her friend is dying, a lifetime severed into maybe hours, maybe minutes, all forced to listen to the lullaby of Cecily's sobs. "Please, hold on for me. I am begging you." She wipes her hands against her shirt, wills herself to be clean and whole and at peace. She cups Aneesa's cheeks, holds her gaze like she might never remember that same shade of blue.

"You aren't dying. You will not die."

Then she nods to Gavin, allows him to step in to apply pressure to the injury. To be stained, and to feel loss beneath his own embrace. It's unfair. All of it is terribly unfair. "Pull her over." She leans into the front seat, only minutes after shouting at Sasha to floor it, to get them to safety, now begging her to pull to the side. There's nothing safe here.

"Pull over. Pull over. Pull fucking over!"

The tires screech, and it sounds like innocence breaking. She opens the door, and starts running. Just a few feet, just enough to send adrenaline coursing through her veins, falling to her knees in a misty clearing and screaming at the top of her lungs. It all comes crashing in, like a tidal wave she would stare at for a long time. Always waiting. And now it's taken her. Pushing her in and out of time.

She lost her freedom, and she lost Beau, and now Aneesa's bleeding out and all she can do for anyone is cry. The trees do not judge her for this. They bow their heads peacefully, indifferently. She presses her face against the earth, wills the moss to cover her like the blankets in the Capitol. Like a dark room, and a locked door, and silence so loud it never goes away. Like a static charge.

Let it burn everything.

Let the loss be worth more than ash.

---

Sometime later, she stumbles across Sasha at their makeshift camp. Gavin is still by Aneesa's side, still applying fresh bandages to a cut they can't close. She doesn't address her breakdown, and offers no apology. Instead, she checks through her bag one final time, like some antidote she had forgotten about will make itself known to her. But the quiet only lingers, crackling at the edges with intensity, until it's impossible to stop herself from meeting the other girl's gaze. It's like there's a tether between them. She can't tell if it's wonderful, or frightening. But she follows.

"Come with me." For what she knows about Sasha, beating around the bush will get her nowhere. She takes the direct path, nodding to the vehicle parked a short distance away and starting to walk in its direction. She inhales a deep breath, like she's trying to calm herself down, or like she's trying to convince herself that there's still a reason to keep going. Like there's a loophole that she can figure out, and exploit; like she could win.

Like they could all run.

Like there are ever victors in this game.

She opens the passenger door, pulling herself inside with a low sigh. A short moment passes, and she turns to face the sound of Sasha entering the space beside her. The silence that follows the slam is eerily beautiful, in the way that the static almost seems to stop around them. For a time, it scares her to disturb it. She stares at Sasha in the way she often does, a staring contest without end. An uncertainty, but a bond.

The trick is that, with Sasha, seeing her as family feels more real than with anyone else. It feels like distrust as much as it feels like hope. Cecily wants so terribly to make her proud, and so selfishly wants to prove that she can do all of these things on her own. She doesn't want to be an inconvenience. But she's played all of her cards, and there are too many debts to pay. This is her last hand, and it's a losing one.

She leans her head against the dashboard, and with no alternative, she chooses to confront the inevitable. "Aneesa is going to die." She owes it to her friend, and to herself, to not start crying. She clenches her jaw, swallowing down her fear and hopelessness and turning it all into embers. Burning inside of her, reflecting in her eyes like campfire light. It's cruel how fast it can go out. "There's nothing we can do. I know you already know."

Glancing up at the window behind Sasha, she stares out into the darkness and the terrors waiting there. "But, I know where the edge of the arena is. That day we were attacked at the outpost, I climbed the roof the night before and I searched for a sign of the forcefield. And I know it's there." It all sounds impossible, as much as it sounds foolish, and she allows the quietness to regard them. Them, and all of their faults.

One last glimpse before the end.

"And I need to ask something of you that is incredibly unfair. But not for me." The moon is already high enough in the sky to bleed through the branches hanging over their shelter, bathing Sasha's face in the pale glow. She stares at her friend with a calm expression, and a soft voice, and she makes her peace with staring into the girl's eyes right as she damns her. "For Aneesa."

For hope.