HAND AND FINGERS BROKEN
in five places, two fingers and her wrist dislocated... Peeta Mellark had almost completely shattered Aella's entire hand. It had been that bad bone had pierced her skin and she had needed surgery to repair it.

Surgery.

Even in the Capitol they hadn't broken her that bad. They'd broken her bones but they had never pierced the skin. Peeta... Peeta Mellark who had a heart of gold had done this to her. Had done that to his best friend in a blinding fit of rage. First Katniss and now Aella. The one person they thought he would never hurt—who she herself thought he would never hurt but there she was, so highly drugged up on morphling she could hardly keep her eyes open hour to hour.

Finnick hadn't once left her side. He didn't dare. Not after he'd let her walk into that room without him and he could only pound his fist against the glass as he watched Peeta shatter her bones. Her shrill scream had haunted his nightmares ever since. Her limp body they had dragged out, hand bloody and bone... he had seen her bone.

Dr. Vann had uttered something about surgery and he followed them blindly as they slung her body on to a bed and wheeled her back through the hospital and to the theatres. He would've walked through those doors they wheeled her through, too, if it hadn't of been for Sal stopping him. He couldn't go any further, she had told him. Her hands gripped his face and forced him to look at her through his tears but she had promised she'd take care of her while they operated.

He fell to his knees before those closed doors when she scurried through them after her and he hadn't able to move. Not until Katniss and Haymitch had found him—coming from watching the whole ordeal themselves—and had all but carried him back into Aella's room to wait.

The hours she had been in surgery had been hell. From start to finish. He'd gone into overdrive until he saw the nurses bring her back, until he was sitting by her side and holding her uninjured hand and running his hand through her hair. The one Peeta had shattered was casted and elevated.

He had held her and comforted her when she woke up in a blind panic with no idea where she was. He had sat and explained to her that it was morphling they were giving her when she saw the IV in the back of her hand. She had held his gaze with eyes so wide he could see the white edges and when he had told her everything that had happened she had only asked if Peeta was okay.

Even after he had shattered her hand so bad all she cared about was if he was okay. She took the fall for us, had been Johanna's words after they rescued them. Aella took every beating of theirs on her shoulders whenever she could. She had been so selfless, had not once thought about herself or keeping herself sane and her words when she woke up proved it. She cared more about her friends than she did herself and Finnick couldn't decide whether he hated or admired her for it.

Because he knew deep down that she would go back into Peeta's room in a heartbeat and do the same again just to see him. She'd take the pain, the risk to her life, just to help him.

But the damage sent her back right to the beginning. She had almost been ready for discharge from the hospital. Only a few more days and she would've been able to return to her living quarters with Finnick. It would be two weeks—at least—before she would be fit now and that would be a month since her rescue.

She had lost three days to the morphling. Her dose had been that strong it practically knocked her out but it was a kind of numbing she could settle with. It didn't completely paralyse her, or keep her awake for days on end. It numbed the unbearable pain in her arm and allowed her to sleep without nightmares. She didn't mind losing a few days to it.

It was six days before she could manage without the morphling at all. The fog around her mind started to lessen. She was coping well—or as well as could be expected—but she had surpassed Dr. Vann's expectations. She proved once again she was a warrior and on the seventh day she was fully back on her feet, only relying on Finnick to help her dress or wash her hair.

But the sitting and the doing nothing was just as exhausting as the morphling and the nightmares were beginning to creep back up on her again.

The night before, too scared to fall asleep, she had started to open up. Her voice had been nothing but a broken whisper when she told Finnick about the tracker jacker venom but nothing of the memories they liked to torture her with and the simulations they dropped her in. She told him about how they forced her to stay awake for three days and how that was maddening in itself.

She told him about the doctor and the two Peacekeepers, of how she had killed them the second she had gotten the chance.

He merely held her the whole time she spoke and when she had finished he pressed a kiss to her forehead and reminded her that he was there, that she would never have to face anything like that ever again.

It had taken a while but eventually she had fallen asleep in his arms and they had woken up in that same position and not moved. She was still lying with her head against his chest when Clio and Daniel arrived to visit her. She didn't move when they came, she merely offered them an exhausted and brief smile while Finnick gently combed his fingers through her hair.

"How are you holding up?" Clio asked, sitting down in the chair beside her bed.

Daniel occupied the chair next to her, too close to be friends and Aella noticed. Her brows furrowed slightly as she nodded and said, "Tired."

"Any pain?" Clio asked.

"No," She shook her head and looked between Daniel and Clio again as if she was missing something. As if she hadn't seen the bigger picture, "Are you two... is there something going on between you both?" She asked with a frown, "I thought I noticed something before I—" She paused. Before she was captured. She swallowed thickly, "before District Eight."

They fell silent and looked to one another fleetingly. Aella saw Clio's natural lips curve upward into a small smile. She watched them look down, to their adjoined hands and she smiled herself before whispering, "I knew it."

Finnick chuckled lightly, his chest rumbling against her ear as he continued to run his hand through her hair soothingly.

"How long?" Aella asked, the smile on her face still lingering.

"I don't know." Clio shrugged bashfully, a pink blush staining her cheeks. She stole a fleeting glance at Daniel who was merely grinning at her in total love and awe, "The Games maybe," she said before leaning close to Aella and whispering, "but you've always known my thoughts."

Indeed she had. Aella hummed in response. Clio had been one of the thousands of woman in Panem who found Daniel Amor handsome but she had always remained strictly professional. Daniel had gotten engaged to his childhood sweetheart and Clio hadn't been able to do any of that sort with her job and commitment to Snow and the Capitol. They had formed a solid friendship after two or three years of not being able to stand one another when Clio had taken over as escort.

"I guess you two finally coming clean after those two painful years inspired Clio and I to do the same." Daniel said smugly, looking between Aella and Finnick as they laid together.

"Ah, you're welcome then, I guess." Aella responded. Her voice was quiet—the same way it had been since the accident—but her tone was happy, Daniel even detected sarcasm which he hadn't heard from her in a very long time.

Hands still intwined Clio placed them against her thigh and said, "We actually came to talk to you about it."

Aella nodded before she shifted her head to look at Finnick's face. Her chin rested atop his chest and she arched a brow and said, "How long have you known?"

His mouth fell agape as if he might try to plead the innocent card but Aella could read him like a book and he knew she could. The amusement that sparkled in her eyes made him close his mouth and smile, "After." Was all he chose to say but his words were enough, she understood his meaning.

After she had been captured.

She didn't say anything else about it, instead she merely rested her head against his chest again, looked at Daniel and Clio and said, "Talk about what?"

Aella glanced at their hands still entwined on Clio's thigh, saw a simple band—no, a ring—on Clio's third finger. Her ring finger... and that..that was Clio's left hand. Her jaw dropped and she used her good hand to push herself up into a sitting position in between Finnick's legs, "Oh, my, god." She breathed, eyes wide.

"What?" Finnick mumbled, brows furrowed in confusion as he slowly sat up.

Aella didn't enlighten him. Instead, she grabbed their hands, pulled them apart, and looked at Clio's hand. At the ring on her finger. "Oh, my, god." She repeated.

"We're getting married." Clio said softly, a bright smile on her face as she looked back at Daniel who was also grinning like an idiot.

Finnick saw the ring then and his brows rose in surprise. He looked at the man and woman who had gotten him through the worst five weeks of his life and released a breathy chuckle. A smile broke out on his face and he said, "Congratulations."

Daniel and Clio nodded but both of them returned their eyes to Aella who was still staring at the ring and mumbling 'oh, my, god' over and over again. There was nothing on her face to read her thoughts, just the tight grip she had on Clio's hand.

Clio grimaced as the seconds rolled into minutes, "Aella, please say something."

She merely glanced up at them, eyes blank and said, "When?"

Daniels arm wrapped tighter around Clio but he kept his face steady as he replied, "An hour ago. We came straight here. You're the first person we wanted to tell."

Her eyes flickered back to the ring before to them again, "Holy shit." She mumbled this time and after a few more seconds silver lined her eyes and she squealed—squealed—in happiness and yelled, "Oh, my, god!"

Finnick would remember that moment forever, the pure and undiluted joy on her face. The squeal that left her lips.

Clio laughed and said loudly in happiness, "I'm getting married!"

Aella nodded as Clio rose to her feet and said with equal loudness, "You're getting married!"

Tears were shed—by both women—and Aella wrapped Clio into a tight embrace, carefully minding her arm that was still in a heavy plaster cast. Her chin settled on Clio's shoulder as she released a sigh of happiness and she spied Daniel still in his chair watching them with love in his eyes. It melted Aella's heart and she reached out with her good arm and grabbed the collar of his shirt, pulling him over. He had no choice but to join their embrace and she laughed heartily as two became three and three became four when Clio pulled Finnick in.

And while they celebrated the happy occasion they decided not to mention the bittersweet feeling that swept around them. Didn't talk about how some of the tears were ones of relief also. They all knew it had been five weeks of pure hell without one another but this... being together and Clio telling Aella she was getting married and watching her beam with happiness for her, it was a huge relief. That, finally, after a difficult few weeks Aella was starting to slowly stitch herself back together again with their help.

She was healing and that was all they could've ever asked for.

• • •

Aella hadn't been able to decide whether Katniss Everdeen was stupid or suicidal for wanting to walk into the middle of the conflict raging on in District Two between the Rebels and the Loyalists. Plutarch Heavensbee had told her she was going to rally support—to try and convert the Loyalists hiding out in the Nut to turn their weapons to Snow. He spoke about it to her in a way that gave Aella the impression he was trying to convince her to decide to go but she wasn't stupid and she wasn't suicidal.

She had absolutely no intention whatsoever of leaving District Thirteen again for the war. She'd done her part, played it well, if what they had told her was true—that the footage of her in District Eight and her Capitol interview had rallied three Districts and the Northern borders of District Seven. That the people of District Five had blown up the dam to send a message to Snow depicting what they thought of him holding their most loved Victor hostage. She had gained them plenty of support—her role was done.

She said as much to Heavensbee in very few words and made sure he knew she was finished. The rebels would understand, she had said, if they knew exactly what she had suffered by supporting them and the rebellion that had become a war. The Second War, as people were now calling it.

But when commotion woke her and Finnick up the following night Aella knew Katniss Everdeen was both stupid and suicidal when she was rushed into the hospital having being shot in the field. She and Johanna had watched the speech she had given the Loyalists when they'd been forced to surrender before being forced off into their respective therapy sessions.

A few hours later—Finnick busy wherever he'd been called off to by President Coin—Johanna had walked into Aella's room, grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her out of bed wordlessly. She had no idea where her best friend was taking her until she walked to a different part of the hospital and tore back a drawn curtain. Aella merely scowled at Johanna when Katniss Everdeen herself shot awake in bed.

Aella crossed her arms over her chest and said with an arched brow, "Really Jo?"

But Johanna merely smirked before saying, "Well, there she is. The Mockingjay."

Aella hung back and watched her best friend sigh in pure disdain while she walked forward and perched on the edge of Katniss's bed, "Oh, that speech you gave. Oh, man. I mean, I still have goose bumps." She said before unscrewing the IV in Katniss's arm and hooking it up to her own. She turned to Aella and shook the line in offering, her eyes dancing across her arms for an access point, "Want some?"

"No, thank you." Aella responded quietly but her voice was still as stoic as Katniss remembered it to be.

Johanna nodded in understanding knowing just how much her friend had freaked out after waking up from her surgery. She turned back to Katniss, however, and kept up her hard walled exterior when she said, "Suit yourself." And then she looked at the Mockingjay and said, "You don't mind, do you? They cut off my supply of morphling. There's this head doctor that comes in and sees me every day, trying to help me adjust to reality. Like—" She leaned forward and flicked the bag, "Like some guy from this rabbit's warren actually knows anything about my reality."

Aella chose not to say anything about why Johanna had dragged her here. Instead, she watched her best friend carefully knowing exactly where she was coming from. She had already been accustomed to reality before it had been snatched away and twisted so viciously but even still... re-adjusting? That was just as hard.

So when Johanna released another deep sigh and closed her eyes Aella walked over to the foot of Katniss' bed slowly and stood there, "At least twenty times in a session he tells me that I'm totally safe. Safe from the Capitol. Safe from Snow..." And Johanna opened her eyes again, "What about you, Mockingjay? You feeling totally safe?"

Aella scoffed and merely rolled her eyes. She hadn't seen Katniss in a very long time—since District Eight—but nothing had ever changed. The younger woman glanced at her fleetingly but Aella kept quiet.

"Till I got shot." Was her reply.

"Oh, please. The bullet didn't even touch you." Johanna said to her, "Cinna saw to that. Of course, your costume would be bulletproof. So what are your injuries?"

Aella moved faster than Johanna or Katniss had realised and she looked at the white hospital band around Katniss's arm—her own around her right wrist. Her eyes danced over the list and she shook her head to herself, "This is it?" She asked, meeting Katniss's gaze fleetingly before looking to the morphling and then to Johanna before back to the Mockingjay, "They've got you on morphling for bruised ribs and a bruised lung? Not even broken? Wow, the treatment for the Mockingjay really is top notch."

"Beats seven broken ribs and open wounds to the back, right?" Johanna asked Aella rhetorically.

Her silence was answer enough.

Johanna focused her attention back on Katniss—the woman now stuck between two of the coldest, most intimidating women she'd ever met and known. If Aella didn't know any better, she'd say her best friend was enjoying the encounter far too much when she said, "I'm surprised they haven't found you a new lung. I mean, I've got two. Do you want one of mine? I mean, it's everybody's job to keep you alive."

Katniss looked between them both and said, "Is that why you both hate me?"

Aella scoffed again and it was enough for Katniss to know that whatever had happened to her in the Capitol was enough for the Aella to not like her anymore. Or perhaps, she realised, Aella had merely tolerated her the whole time they'd been in District Thirteen together and seeing her laid in bed with only bruises while they were both on their feet after everything they had suffered, had been enough for her opinion to change again. Maybe she thought she was pathetic...

"Partly." Johanna responded dryly, "You're also a little hard to swallow. The whole tacky romance drama and the "defender of the hopeless" act. Even though it's not an act which makes it even more unbearable.... Feel free to take any of this personally."

"Or all of it." Aella quipped, folding her arms over her chest.

Katniss jerked her chin to Johanna, "You should have been the mockingjay. Nobody else would tell you what to say."

"But nobody likes me." She shook her head, plucking up an old photo frame from the top of the bedside cabinet.

"They're afraid of you." Katniss said and it was true. Aella had watched on several occasions as the doctors and nurses scurried away from Johanna and her bite.

"Maybe here... but in the capitol, you're the only thing that they're scared of."

Aella shuddered. It didn't go unnoticed.

"It's just stuff my family brought." Katniss said to divert quickly.

And Aella watched Johanna pick up a small pearl from the table, "It's from Peeta." A statement, not a question. She remembered Peeta giving it to Katniss in the Games, on that beach, on that last night. She knew it was the last moment they'd had alone with one another when he was still himself. She swallowed thickly and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Yeah." Katniss said flatly, turning her head away from Johanna and looking instead at Aella. Her eyes lingered on the plaster cast on her arm and she was silent for a heartbeat before she said, "He did that to you... because of me."

"Hardly." Was Aella's response and when Katniss's brows furrowed she sat down at the foot of the bed and sighed.

"I-I watched it." Katniss said in confusion, "He said the bombing was my fault. You were holding his hand for comfort. He only squeezed because he remembered me. He probably doesn't even remember hurting you."

"He doesn't." Aella nodded and then said, "But I don't think you wanted to hear that, because that makes it more real. What they did to him.... You've been holding out hoping it was an easy fix, right? But now you're realising just how badly they've managed to fuck him up and you're terrified. Am I right?" She asked rhetorically knowing she had hit the nail on the head, "Because you know it's going to be months... maybe even years before we can figure out a way to condition that response out of him."

"You did it." Katniss shrugged, "They said you killed loads of Peacekeepers just for putting their hands on you but you haven't killed anyone here."

Aella scoffed and shook her head, "That was a trauma response, Katniss. Trust me, whenever I see someone in a white coat or if I were to see someone with a helmet on and they put their hands on me I'd strike without asking questions. What they did to me and what they did to him are two completely different things."

"They used tracker jacker on you." Katniss said and again it was a statement. Aella didn't know or particularly care how she'd found out the very basics of what they'd done to her in the Capitol.

She looked up to the ceiling and sighed before back to Katniss again, "They used tracker jacker to take his memories of you and turn you into someone who wants to kill him. To make it seem to him that you had turned against him. He thinks you're a mutt, plain and simple."

"What did they do to you?" Katniss asked her curiously.

Johanna tensed but Aella didn't break Katniss's stare, "Too much." Was her whispered reply, "They did try to make me see Finnick as a threat. I lost count of how many different ways he killed me but ultimately I had Peeta there in that cell next to mine reminding me time and time again that everything they showed me wasn't real and somehow I didn't break...."

She released a deep breath before admitting for the first time what she'd never dare say aloud since that first time she saw Peeta so broken, "It could  very easily of been me in that padded room and him sitting here with a broken hand. It could've been both of us. It could've been neither of us.. but it was him and somehow I was the one who managed to stay sane."

Katniss saw it then, the self-loathing. For whatever reason Aella hated herself in that moment and Katniss had no idea why, no idea until Johanna spoke up.

"Aella took the fall whenever she could. She committed treason against Snow during the Games and again in that interview so her punishment was always going to be worse than ours but in the times the Peacekeepers went for one of us she was there... especially when they came for Peeta."

Katniss didn't know what to say, especially when she looked back at Aella for confirmation and saw silver lining her eyes. She watched her clench her jaw before rubbing her eyes.

"W-why?" Katniss asked.

Aella shrugged and picked her nails, "Because he didn't deserve it. He was innocent in it all and all he wanted was for you to be safe and President Snow knew it.." She shook her head, "I couldn't let him take that love from him and twist it into something vicious like they were trying to do with me. He doesn't deserve it."

Silence seeped between them all. Katniss found she had nothing to say, entirely speechless, and Johanna watched her best friend with careful eyes before she shook her head and said, "They messed us up pretty good, didn't they?"

• • •

Aella had been quiet since they'd left Katniss to her morphling. Johanna knew her confession weighed heavy on her chest. The words she'd spoken about how it could've been her instead of him wasn't something Johanna had ever stopped to think about but after hearing them realised it was true. They had pushed and pushed relentlessly until one of them cracked and ultimately it had been Peeta to shatter first.

Aella still couldn't fathom how it had been Peeta who had caved. After everything she had suffered, all her demons and mental blocks she had no idea how the Capitol hadn't managed to shatter her brain into tiny fragments. She had been theirs for the taking but somehow through sheer grit and determination her will had kept her strong enough to hold on. It played on her mind every night when she laid awake in bed.

She had thought of just about every answer as to why it had been Peeta and not her.

She couldn't remember them all but the one she seemed to circulate back to every night was that perhaps her trauma had seen that her mental walls were far thicker than Peeta's—that all her scars had saved her rather than condemned her. With her they had too much trauma to manipulate and they had tried every scenario—tried every which way—and she had begun to figure out that it wasn't real during the scenarios themselves.

Peeta on the other hand had nothing. He had his Games and Katniss, that was it. He had one focal point for them to use and abuse. She had too many. Or at least too many for them to turn Finnick into someone who wanted to kill her. If they had picked one scenario and forced her to live through it again and again they might've succeeded but they didn't and that had been their pitfall. They'd gone from forcing her to endure him murdering her family to then forcing her into spotting him on that beach in the Games—thinking he was an ally—and running to him in an embrace only for him to stab her in the back.

It didn't mean to say they hadn't twisted her mind in other ways. No, they'd definitely succeeded in breaking her. They just hadn't shattered her. The worst of it still loomed, raw and fresh in the very forefront of her mind for her to think about over and over again. The reason why she sometimes couldn't stand to be touched, why Finnick now had to ask her if it was okay to touch her or hold her or kiss her. Those memories lingered and she couldn't shake them no matter how hard she tried.

"Hey, Johanna." She whispered into the air quietly.

The main lights in her room were out and the warm side lamps were on, enough light for her to feel safe enough to fall asleep in. Finnick was still god knows where and everyone Aella had asked didn't know where that was but she didn't want to be alone. None of the doctors or nurses could argue with Aella and Johanna as they walked into Aella's room, closed the door and turned the main lights down. Johanna laid with her head at the foot of the bed and Aella laid with her head at the top. The silence was comforting with Johanna next to her.

Her best friend hummed in response.

Aella's eyes were glued to the ceiling as she sifted through those twisted thoughts and memories—as she tried to decipher what had been real and what had been not real. Some of it was hazed—like a glaze on a photograph repelling against a light but some of it was clear... too clear than she wished it to be.

In her silence Johanna lifted her head and looked at her best friend. She watched her chest fall in a shallow breath and then watched her fingers twist together as her hands laid on her stomach. She slowly sat up, "Aella?"

Eyes still on the ceiling, Johanna saw the glossy silver through the soft light, as Aella said hoarsely, "Drew is dead, right?"

"Yes." Johanna nodded immediately, "Yes, Aella, he's dead."

She squeezed her eyes shut and a tear escaped, "I killed him?" More of a question than a statement.

Johanna loosed a breath and again said, "Yes."

"I—I stabbed him in the heart with a kitchen knife in my house in self defence.... After I... escaped him?"

Johanna felt her heart sliding into her chest and she shook her head knowing Aella couldn't see her, "No." She said, "You didn't. I can tell you how if you like?"

But Aella shook her head once, eyes still on the ceiling. She narrowed them as if in thought, "I didn't think so..." She murmered, "There's a haze over the memory. I think they're over the ones that aren't real." She was silent again in thought before she asked, "I killed him in the Games, didn't I? There was no definitive killing blow. He bled to death from various wounds."

"He did." She confirmed, "You took your time and we let you. You deserved it after what he did to you."

"He never... hurt me again did he? Other than those times in my Games?"

Johanna frowned deeply and she sat up fully, pulling her legs into a criss-cross position, "Not that you ever told us, Aella. No. Why? What do you remember?"

She watched her close her eyes and shudder, some kind of twisted and warped memory taunting her. She didn't open her eyes as she said, "He broke into my house in the middle of the night. I—I was on the phone with Finnick when I heard him."

"It's not real." Johanna told her, "Finnick would remember something like that."

"I thought so." She said and sighed heavily, "It was different."

Johanna pursed her lips in thought before saying, "Why don't you tell me everything you remember... everything you think is real. Compare the memories to each other. If they have this haze you describe over them we know it's not real. If they do.." she shrugged, "and I remember it happening, or if you've ever told me about it, we know it's real."

She opened her eyes, another tear sliding down her face and into her hair, "That's the problem." She whispered. Her voice was hoarse—broken. Finally her eyes slid to Johanna and she held her gaze, "Some memories that I want to have that haze over don't... some memories from the Capitol... or if they do they're unnoticeable."

Johanna didn't have the heart to suggest they would be in fact real. Especially if Aella wanted them to be fake. She didn't even want to know what they were.

In her silence, Aella looked back at the ceiling and continued, "I wake up—or think I was waking up, I'm not sure—from a memory about Drew, about him being in that room while I was strapped to that table. Those memories have the haze over them, I-I know they're not real because Drew is dead but..."

"But what, Aella?" Johanna probed quietly. Her heart was seconds away from shattering. She felt as if she knew the words that were about to roll off her best friends tongue. She had a very sickening feeling that it would be true and she remembered the point in which it happened but at the time...at the time she had no idea.

"That Peacekeeper..." She whispered, "The one who hated me, who promised to break me... I woke up and he was..." She swallowed deeply, "there. I only ever remember it happening once. It was just me and him in the room, that doctor was gone but... there's no haze on the memory a-and it makes sense because when he had me chained opposite Palex he made me a promise," She shuddered again, recalling the words and said, "He said about breaking me to the point of insanity, about what he'd do with me after. He debated whether he'd kill me or if he'd...if he'd keep me for himself."

Johanna hung her head and swore under her breath, "Fucking bastard."

How had it happened? How had she let her best friend go through that again? She was supposed to protect her, to watch out for her and she had failed. She couldn't believe she hadn't realised it the night it had happened. It hadn't been that long ago either. It was close to their rescue, perhaps five or so days before they started forcing her to stay awake. She hadn't spoken to anyone that night they'd brought her back—not even Peeta. She hadn't even blinked to indicate she was okay. She'd merely curled herself up into a ball on the ground and wept.

She couldn't believe it.

But Aella continued diving into her memories and said, "He said 'you can't exactly fight back when you're broken' a-and I think that one time I did and that's why he didn't do it again."

Johanna didn't even know what to say as Aella stared at the ceiling. There wasn't anything she could really say. Nothing would make it better. Nothing would reverse what had happened. She couldn't go back in time no matter how much she wished she could. She wondered how long it had been on her mind, in her memories, or if she had just remembered it.

"It truly is a shame you had to kill him when you did," She found herself saying—the hard, violent, gleam of her eyes had returned and Aella looked at her friend as she continued, "I'd of very much liked to help you take your time skinning him alive. Maybe even castrating him."

Aella's lip curved faintly at the notion and she nodded her head, "Yes," she uttered so quietly, "I'd of enjoyed that...the roles reversed."

"Karma is a bitch." Johanna responded.

And Aella nodded her head, "She certainly is."

Silence echoed through the room again until Johanna broke it, "You know you can tell me anything... right, Aella?"

The woman looked at her best friend again and nodded, complete understanding in her eyes, "And so can you."

The door slid open slowly after Aella had spoken, not giving Johanna time to respond. They both turned to see Finnick walking in slowly. His hair was dishevelled and the top button of his shirt was undone and Aella would've assumed the worst had she not seen his pale face and haunted eyes under the dim light. He leaned against the wall, his eyes down on the floor.

Her heart spiked in fear and she sat up quickly and hopped from the bed. Johanna watched as she walked over to him, eyes narrowed in confusion and fear. She placed her hand against his cheek, guiding his face up and took his hand, "Fin?" She said worrisomely, "Fin, what's wrong?"

When his eyes slid to hers—bleak and hollow—Aella felt as if someone had punched her in the gut when she saw the silver lining them. He shook his head wordlessly until he found his words, "I-I... I'm so sorry, Ella."

She dropped his hand and stepped away from him while shaking her head. Dread coursed through her as a million thoughts and scenarios raced through her mind, "W-what are you talking about?"

He heaved a heavy breath—filled with sorrow and guilt—and he said, "President Snow, he—the West of District Five was bombed last night... the Victors Village, your house.... It's gone."

• • •

A/N; this was a very heavy chapter, a lot going on & a lot to take in.

Perhaps the happiest part is that Clio and Daniel are one, together and two, engaged! Maybe you've already figured out whose wedding it will be? Maybe not...maybe I'll always keep you guessing. Who knows?

Find out on Monday, I guess...