if she lives.

Nobody in their right mind thought that she'd get this far but here she is, on the screen above me, alive. Just her and some girl from One, still alive. I didn't know Lysander could fight, didn't know she still knew how to stand after watching her drown for the past year. It's cruel.

I don't know why she's doing this, why she's dragging it out. Part of me thinks she lasted this long just fuck around with our parents because only a girl who wants to die volunteers. We all know Lys wanted to die and maybe that's why we didn't do more to fix things when she came home reeking of ethanol and unable to stand straight.

Maybe I was just hoping that she'd get over it all, that she'd stop killing herself because she'd recognize that Hazel was gone but she still had us at least. Had me. We used to be friends. Cae always hated me, Sutton ignored me but Lys was my friend. When I messed up, she was always there to fix things until she wasn't. When I was sad, I'd go to her but then she stopped listening.

I hated her for it.

Maybe I still hate her. I can't tell anymore. All week, I've just been waiting all week for her to finally kick it so I can let out this breath that I've been holding for so long but she keeps living no matter how hard it is. I want to grab her, yell at her. I want to know why she didn't fight like this before.

I want to know what made life not worth living and I want to know why she chose to leave.

But I also don't care. I don't care about her, she left us, she left the family by choice and she's a traitor or at least that's what I think dad would say about it. I have to be more like dad, more unfeeling, numb. Maybe I want people to fear me. The other day in the fountain when Caelum nearly killed me, for just a brief moment there was fear on his face. I put it there. It felt good.

Lysander spurned us, turned her back on us but dad never has. Even when I mess up, he's patient, he wants me to learn and I'd take his knife. I'd take it and carve things into whatever he told me to if he could promise that no one will ever leave me again.

Because I miss Hazel. I miss Lysander.

They're just two names of people I've loved and lost tallied up all nice.

And if she lives will it matter? I don't think that my sister loves me. I look like dad and I'm going to be him one day too and maybe Lysander will stare at me with that same hatred and my daughters will die and I won't bat an eye.

Because it's Five, people die here all the time.

"Please," I mumble at the screen anyway. Kids sit around all over the square, everyone all tense, waiting to see if we'll have a victor. For me, the stakes are a little higher.

I don't need a victor, I just want my goddamned sister.

"Lys, if you love me, you'll come home for once."