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GAME PIECE
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CASSIAN HAS LOCKED himself in his bedroom. When Ontari arrives in the Victor's Village, she heads straight toward the house they share, not the family one she had left him in the day before. She hears her mother's distant voice from the second floor as soon as she enters.

"Cassian? Cassian, honey, open the door."

She doesn't bother to pause to kick off her shoes or remove her coat before she's heading up the wooden stairs two at a time. Her mother waits at the end of the hallway where Cassian's room is, the closed oak door a firm message to keep out. The woman's face crumples even more at the sight of her younger daughter.

"Oh, Ontari." Her mother wraps her in a hug as soon as she's within reaching distance. Ontari returns the gesture, relishing in the familiar scent of lavender in her slightly graying hair. When she pulls back from the comforting embrace, her mother's eyes, as crystal blue as her own, are filling with tears.

"Don't cry, Mom," Ontari warns in a slightly wavering voice. She brushes her hand along the barely-visible wrinkles imprinted in her mother's cheek. "You'll make me cry."

Again. But Ontari doesn't say the last bit out loud, knowing it would wreck her mother even more.

The shorter woman sighs and directs her saddened gaze toward her son's door. "He's been in there for hours. When Snow announced it, I don't think he reacted. He just walked over here and hasn't come out."

Ontari's lips press into a thin line. Cassian used to do this when he was freshly out of the arena— lock himself up for days, not even coming down for meals. The episodes have since died down, but the news must have caused him to relapse into old habits.

Snow is already destroying them piece by piece and the Quarter Quell hasn't even started yet.

"You should go," she advises her mother. "I'll handle this."

The woman looks like she's about to object, but glances at the look on her daughter's face and hesitantly obliges. Her eyes are cast downward as she walks down the hallway, shoes thumping on the floor.

Ontari only appears so calm because every remaining tear inside of her was shed on the train back to Eight. She feels an overwhelming sense of emptiness now, no more sobs able to be mustered up. She'd experienced a whopping variance of emotions within the past seven hours: numbness, amusement, hysteria, despondency, and now nothing.

"Cass, it's O," she calls through her brother's door, not that it's necessary. He'd probably heard her voice when she was speaking to their mother. "I'm coming in."

Cassian never truly locks his door. After being sealed in the tube that lifted him into the arena, he never stays in any sort of room without an easy means of escape. He usually just sets the knob so it seems like it can't be turned. But Ontari has been dealing with this for six years— she knows his tricks.

The knob gives a heavy click and turns with some resistance. Ontari sets her feet before pushing it open, though the door seems to be caught on something inside that's preventing it from moving. It's only when she manages to wedge herself between it and the wall that she realizes what it had been.

Cassian's room is demolished. His bedsheets are tangled into a knot at the end of his king-sized mattress, the mirror above his dresser smashed to smithereens. Glass shards litter the piece of furniture as well as the floor. Clothes are strewn everywhere, either ripped or laying in heaps. His bedside table has been knocked over. A lamp is tipped over onto the ground. Picture frames hang crookedly on the navy-blue walls.

The boy himself sits against the far wall away from the door, knees to his chest and hazel eyes shining with tears. The areas beneath them are red and raw. It seems impossible for a tall, intimidating boy like himself, but in that moment, he appears small. Fragile. The brother she had to put back together after his Games.

"It's funny," he says, voice crackling and hoarse. It's so quiet that she almost can't hear him. "We thought we were safe, only to get looped back."

He knows it, too. President Snow will make sure that both of them go into that arena. Whether or not he knows about their secret aid to the rebels, he still views them as nothing more than an opportunity. Choosing the two youngest victors from their district — and siblings, at that — will send a message loud and clear to the rest of Panem.

"We'll figure it out," she promises him gently, closing the door with a soft click and starting to walk toward him.

"No." Cassian shakes his head as his lips picker into a frown. "Ontari, stop — stop playing games with me. I'm not fifteen anymore; I know what this means. There's no Katniss and Peeta this time, no way to — to maneuver and trick our way around the inevitable. This is the end. We're up against people like Enobaria, Cashmere, Gloss, Annie, Mags, Finnick, Haymitch—"

He buries his face in his hands and cuts himself off with a choked sob. Ontari's heartstrings pull with sorrow for her brother, who's spent so long building himself back up only for a single moment to break him down again. To bring him back right where he started.

She walks up to him and slides down the wall beside his defeated figure. Her hand rests on his knee, patting it gently. "We have to do something, little brother. Because we're not dying in that arena."

-:-

Ontari realizes something hours later, after she'd helped Cassian clean up his room and made him a cup of hot tea to drink as he calms down: she's selfish. In her hysteric mind, she hadn't thought about the reality of her situation. District Four only has one living male victor. That person is Finnick.

She sets her own mug of tea down and buries her face into her hands, leaning her elbows on the granite countertop. Her fingers slide up and knot into the hair that falls around them. She lets out a frustrated groan, regret building up inside of her.

"I'm such an idiot," she grumbles, voice slightly muffled by her hands.

"I can affirm to that."

Hestia hadn't made any noise when she entered their house. Either that, or Ontari was so caught up in her own thoughts that she didn't notice. But their sister is definitely present. Her hair is up in a crown braid, one of their mother's handmade, cream-colored shirts and a pair of denim trousers on. Even in casual wear, she's intimidating without trying.

"I didn't make enough tea," Ontari informs her blankly, not in the mood for her attitude at the moment.

"You're sweet, little sister, but that's not why I'm here." Hestia's hips sway as she saunters toward the liquor cabinet and takes out a bottle of scotch. She slams it onto the table in front of Cassian, nodding at Ontari to join them.

The raven-haired girl's fingers wrap around her warm mug of tea as she carries it to where her siblings are sitting. She carefully chooses a seat at the head of the table so she's between them. Hestia sends her a halfhearted smirk, but her eyes aren't holding any of their usual amusement.

"C'mon," she urges with a gesture toward the bottle. "You need it."

"I'm fine with my tea," Cassian mumbles, averting his eyes from the amber liquid inside of the bottle. He'd once drunk so much of it at a party in the Capitol that he'd gotten piss drunk and nearly had the entirety of Panem know about it. Ontari had... convinced the camera crew team to keep the incident unheard of.

Hestia sends him a disbelieving look and arches one perfect eyebrow. "Little brother—"

"Stop calling me that."

Cassian gets defensive and usually finds any way to argue when he's upset. The storm hasn't completely left him, and Hestia has been caught in the crossfire.

She seems to understand this. Her hazel eyes soften so much that Ontari's complete attention is on her. In a rare moment of genuine affection, her sister says, "Look, I may never say it, but you mean a lot to me." Her gaze shifts between her two siblings before she catches herself and returns back to her usual, emotionless self. She swiftly uncorks the bottle of scotch. "Tell anyone I said that and you're dead."

Hestia takes a long swig from the bottle. Cassian's eyes slowly shift back to her with a begrudging sense of acceptance of her company, less hard-assed now that she'd spoken to him in a civil manner. One second of affection from the eldest Nightfall sibling is something to be cherished.

"For what it's worth," Ontari says to her sister, who sets the bottle back onto the table with a cringe, "You mean a lot to me, too."

There isn't a snide comment that comes out as a response. Instead, Hestia merely gives her a nod. Ontari takes a gulp of the alcohol herself. She feels a smug satisfaction at the burn it leaves in her throat. A fire. Just like the one they're going to set on Snow.

Just as Cassian reaches for the bottle, the landline rings. Ontari sighs and pushes herself up from her chair. The phone is attached to the wall of the main hallway near the front door, but it's hardly used. The only people who call her are her stylists and...

"Ontari, dear! It's Eytelia. Do you have a moment?"

...Her agent.

"Eytelia, hi," she says into the receiver, noticing that her siblings' attention will now be focused on her. Calls from her agent either go two ways: something with Finnick or scheduling another trip to the Capitol to satisfy customers. "I wasn't expecting you to call."

"Yes, well, with this morning's announcement, there's been a heavy amount of hustle and bustle in the Capitol," Eytelia blabbers in her strong accent. "Anyways, I suppose you're wondering why I'm calling. I'll cut right to the chase. Chryss and I were talking today and we both agreed what yours and Finnick's next move should be."

The pit of anxiety begins to swarm in Ontari's stomach again. If she gives some ridiculous notion for them to pull a Katniss and Peeta and get engaged—

"We're having you announce your exclusivity! With the Quarter Quell approaching, now is the perfect time for it to happen. Oh, can't you see it? The tear-jerking realization that you could be sent to the arena together, the lovers that have finally devoted themselves to one another, only to be roughly broken apart! Isn't it wonderful?"

Her heart had already dropped with the first sentence. Eytelia sounds ecstatic, and Ontari should be, too. After all, her agent thinks they actually are together and now they won't have to hide it. But if she was to be with Finnick, she'd want it to be on their own terms, not for another publicity stunt. And certainly when she knows he'd be faking it for the cameras.

"Of course." She's extremely grateful for the fact that Eytelia can't see her face right now. "It is wonderful."

"I knew you'd say so! Chryss is contacting Finnick right now, and we'll have you both go public in a matter of days."

Ontari doesn't listen to the next bit of information that's rattled off to her. She can't help but feel the spike being hammered more firmly into her back: she's still a puppet and the Capitol is holding the strings.

____

pls protect cassian he's my son

expect fairly regular updates from now on since i finished my tmr story!!

-kristyn