awake /mourn

We were made to be strong.

Because my grandfather's father had willed it. He couldn't bear to lose anyone else but it kept happening, all through his life. "Not to mine," he'd said finally, "Not to mine, not ever again." He'd taken an Adroxis 44 and aimed it at his own sons rather than let them be taken by anyone else.

We adapt.

My grandfather had lived that day and then again later in the third hunger games. The Adroxis family always gets back up, it's what we do.

When Fleur volunteered, I couldn't help but be confident.

I watched her grow, you know? Held her in my arms just hours after she was born. My brother and his wife were asleep. Just me and her, and those eyes gazing up at me. So much trust, such curiosity.

The day Eve and Night were born, I understood how a man could love his family enough to take them to hell with him rather than lose them. I understood how my grandfather could continue the rebellion long after it's end. I held my children in my arms and knew I'd do anything to keep them safe.

Yet I smiled when Fleur got on the train and left us.

She came back a few weeks later in a body bag and my brother hasn't been the same since. We smile all the same but it never quite reaches out eyes anymore. The plan of our continued survival begins to crumble. We are no longer invincible.

When Nowles was called I went to the justice building. I wanted to gather her up in my arms the same way I could when she was six and take her home. I smiled instead, I ruffled her hair, I told her to come home soon.

Didn't say how.

Esther's hands are cold at night on my back. She spreads her fingers apart wide, then slowly curls them back in. It's how she finds my heart each night, I know that this is what she's doing but this time I lay in silence, I don't help her with it.

"What is the point," I ask her eventually, "Of the hunger Games?"

She shifts on the bed beside me. I feel her movement, the mattress dips, rises back again. She's thinking. Esther always does this carefully and it's something about her that's always touched me. The way she holds my questions gentle like they're worth something.

"To remind us, to punish us for the dark days," she says finally, "An excuse to keep us meek." Her hand runs over top of my shoulder and over the centre of my chest.

She's right, of course. To pay for the sins of our ancestors who had killed Capitolite children. Blood for blood has always been the way in Panem, just another belief that had come from the top. We've fallen in line, kept our heads down and still they take. My hand falls on her thigh, I cup her closer to me.

"I will not be meek anymore," I tell her.

She's quiet for a long moment, words held gentle.

"I know," she says and her hand curls into a fist against my chest.