adrenaline on film // caleb&andy

They come one after another. One and one and Marsh and Amelia and Rene's on the ground -- bang, bang, they fall, again and again and it shutters in steps as she runs.

Like it's all she's good for.

Stupid Caleb- stupid, stupid fucking Caleb. Delroy fucked with her head, made her believe that this was different, they were different. Handsome smile and words of peace and they just keep dying; it's in the air. Her head is squeezing itself out with the pressure of the fight; Jacynth is trying to kill Marsh, and Caleb is hitting Amelia like it means anything. Because she has to-- she's supposed to, right? Swing and kill somebody with an unlucky or lucky hit, she doesn't know what the fucking difference is.

Until Marsh falls.

Finally, after the grit and blood and Jacynth's hair is damp in the blood of home. Because she isn't Caleb's protector -- she never was. "Andy- Andy, please!" There isn't a second thought in her head, Jacynth was never anything but a career. Built to kill twenty three, no matter who they were; what family they had, who watched. And Caleb watched it all, painfully, pitifully.

She watched with wide eyes and a migraine and dry, dry panicked breaths as Marsh was killed. From a clown to a boy to a carcass, mutilated like another boy and it's cracking the cold of reality. It's warm breaths on the back of her neck and the way her baby hairs curl in the fear. Jacynth is a cold fucking killer, and she's on Caleb's side until the numbers dwindle.

And by god did the avalanche start. Caleb grabs Andy's hand frantically, and they run together as Rene is killed with mercy. Whether it was done for that or not, he's a wounded dog too sick to stand on two feet anymore. The blood is caught in fur and washed down with Caleb's sobs, nerves in her throat rubbing together like the kindlings Andy would set at night. Jacynth would watch Caleb at night, and she would convince herself that if she blinked for too long, district four would kill its neighbor quick.

Before the foam could settle or whatever the hell left, Caleb was right. She was always fucking right about her, and she killed Marsh, and she'd kill Caleb next if they didn't leave her behind. "Caleb, we fuckin' left Jacynth!"

"I KNOW," she yells over her shoulder, repeatedly, as reality sinks in. "I know, I KNOW- I," she heaves and screams into the air, and the cold steals her breaths. It isn't until Andy tells her to stop that she can; she's bent over in on herself and screaming into her knees. Gripping the sweat stained kneecaps as she exhales what she's been holding in for two weeks. All the families she knows, every member listed in her binder for the people that will be in mourning; that already are. The cannons keep rolling in, and it's overwhelming for a fifteen year old girl.

Call it survivor's guilt. Delroy promised nobody would die and she just needs to find him again; from the bloodbath, to the races, and she left him again and people continue to die. Not just in the arena, but right in front of her fucking face and there's nothing she can do to save them; she's not good enough. Not strong enough to kill, or weak enough, or whatever the hell the difference is. "You're going to dehydrate, Caleb, come on," he says, as she coughs into her hands.

Oddly enough, the heat feels nice at least.

Andy helps her to her feet, and she hugs onto his ribs and stuffs her face into Joan's coat. Hugs her brother like she hasn't in weeks, and breathes in the smell of home and it's just blood. In her braids, on Andy's shirt, on their knives. Rene- "oh god,"

"We left her, Caleb," Andy says, after some time.

"That's the point." Caleb replies, immediately.

Her hands still shake as she pulls away from her ally, and she looks at his face and he's not Joan. He's not her brother or body guard, Rene's dead and Jacynth's dead to her; and Andy is just another tribute. "She killed Marsh, and she couldn't even save Rene," it's so hard for her not to be mad about it. Barely old enough to figure out life, to figure out boys like Delroy -- she just wants to scream. To sit down and cry until somebody can make sense of it all for her.

Why do good people die? "Jacynth was dead weight, your district partner will kill her and- and, she won't be our fucking problem! Not anymore, Andy!" The yeti's will get her, or something more beastly will. Hopefully. Caleb can barely hold her knife straight, like how Jacynth had taught her, and she stares at it like it'll protect her. If she sees Jacynth again, would she be able to kill her? Would she be proving anything if she did?

"Oh, and also, I fucking HATE it here! Sick of it, dude."