Thank you for your support and for reading this far! A short chapter, but in my opinion, very significant. Let me know what you think. 

Kindly asking you all to remember to vote and comment. Thank you!

Take care and stay safe! ~CANGEL

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Scarlet Wolfe

     The light above her burned into her eyes. Too bright. Everywhere she looked, white reflected that brightness right at her. She blinked, squinting against it, heart pounding in her chest. Her fingers twitched at her sides, searching for something—anything familiar. Where was the snow? She should be cold. Freezing. The Arena was a froz—

      The Arena—the fight—Crimson—she had to—Scarlet jerked upright, expecting to see blood-stained snow beneath her hands, but all she felt was the softness of fabric. Warmth. White walls. White sheets. No snow. No blood.

     She blinked again, hard, her breathing quickened. Her mind strained as she struggled to piece together the broken fragments of her last memories.

     Fleeting images of the fight flickered through her mind. Crimson's maniacal face as he attacked her. Crimson's Tide's vicious bite—she winced as an ache flared at her side, but it soon faded as more memories took precedence.

     Crimson.

     The razor wire.

     His death—the image of his headless body kneeling in the snow burned itself into her brain—an image that she would never forget. The wolves—her Scarlet's Wave and Cadmium's Crest...

     She was—she was a Victor now.

     She had won the Hunger Games. She was no longer in the Arena.

     The fear inside her eased at the single thought—the realization. She was done fighting. Or was she? Her fingers still itched for a blade and her body refused to relax. It still felt as though someone could attack her at any time. It still felt as if a thousand eyes were watching her, waiting for her to fail, or break, or die.

     Scarlet remembered everything.

     The hovercraft approaching in the sky. The snow beneath her, soaking up her blood as her body gave out. The feeling of warmth draining from her with every beat of her heart. And then—nothing. Just black, nothingness. Until now.

     Except...how did she get here? Where exactly was here?

     As if that thought sliced through the fog clouding her mind, a sharp, sterile scent hit her. Antiseptic. Everything was too bright. Too clean. The sheets under her fingertips felt unnervingly smooth, foreign against her skin. It wasn't right. None of this felt real.

     Maybe it wasn't.

     She stilled, her heart, which had been steadying a bit, skyrocketed. Maybe she had died in the Arena or maybe she was still there, bleeding out in the snow. Maybe she was still in that cave, dreaming—maybe Crimson wasn't dea—

     She turned her head, panic had her tensing—up—up—get up, Scarlet!—her eyes caught on the figure sitting stooped in a chair beside her. Recognition flickered—her spiraling thoughts slammed to a halt, and she nearly choked on her breath, her lungs freezing.

     He was here.

     Scarlet tried to take a full breath, to calm her racing heart, only managing a shuddered one.

     Finnick was here. And if he was here then it meant--

     Everything. Was. Real.

     Each word slammed into her like a thousand bricks.

     I killed Crimson.

     The thought blazed through her mind—searing, undeniable. The flood of memories rushed back at once: the fight, the blood, the wolves, the snow. Too much. It was too much.

     Her chest tightened again, her hands clutching at the sheets. She thought the panic would overwhelm her, that her body would crumble under the force of it. But then—

     Nothing.

     The fear, the grief, the confusion—it all drained away, slowly, like water seeping into the ground. Her mind was too full, too tired to keep fighting.

     Numbness settled in. Heavy. Inevitable.

     Scarlet stared at Finnick, her vision blurring slightly around the edges. Her body, once tensed and ready to fight, felt leaden now, sinking into the bed. The sheets under her fingers no longer felt so foreign, just... distant. Everything felt distant.

     Finnick was hunched over on the blue, over-stuffed cushioned chair. His head rested over his arm near the edge of her bed. Stubble coated his chin faintly. His sandy blonde hair that was on display seemed to stick up at odds. So very unlike him, she thought dumbly, as she realized that she could not recall a single time when he had appeared flawed or anything less than perfect.

     It was why the Capitol adored him.

     It was why the Capitol hated her.

     Scarlet Wolfe was so very flawed.

     His hand rested on the bed a short distance away from hers. Like he had wanted to touch her but had refrained himself. She lifted her hand and covered his—why?—stilling as she caught sight of her fingernails, her breath caught in her throat.

     Her fingers felt wrong, heavier than before and when she flexed them, her nails clicked against each other. Her nails were hard...they...

     They were...claws?

     Finnick forgotten, Scarlet couldn't look away from her hand. She raised her hand up above her face and stared at the sharpened black nails that were where her natural nails had been. Or still were? Had her prep team visited her while she slept? She'd yell at them if they had, but...

     What had they done to her?

     She pressed her pointer finger into the pad of her thumb and watched numbly as a line of red appeared. Sharp. Ow. The belated sting followed the wound like an echo, until it slowly faded. No, this wasn't a simple decoration adorned to her body. The black nails felt like metal sharpened to a point. Why? Was all she could think as she stared at her new hands.

     On some level, she knew that there should be panic or fear, or maybe anger, but at the moment, all she wanted to know was...why?

      Just then, a much larger hand wrapped around hers, pulling it back down to the bed. Scarlet stared at the hand covering hers for a moment. The hand was big—especially next to hers. Heat poured from the tanned skin causing hers to overheat. The fingers were lean and the skin smooth. There was no trace of callouses or any hint of roughness. She glanced over, remembering Finnick was there.

     He watched her intently and she stared back, waiting, wondering what he was doing here and what he was looking for. Was he looking for a reaction from her? Or checking to see if she was awake and lucid? She was. Kind of. She was there, awake and aware.

     She just...she just didn't care. Like a thick fog had settled after the initial fear had subsided, Scarlet knew...but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered.

     "You're in the Hospital. All Victors are brought here after coming from the arena. To be healed and to...recuperate. Normally, a mentor would be here. Since you don't have one...I volunteered."

     Scarlet nodded her head. Ah. Yes. That made sense.

     Wait, did it? Why would he—

     "Congratulations, Scarlet. On becoming one of us."

     She blinked at him, his words not matching the expression on his face and the stupor she found herself in left her with neither the ability to identify the expression, nor the will to care.

     "Now, it's my turn to offer you a piece of advice that might have come too late." He told her. She let out a breath that was half laugh and half bitter expectancy. Payback. It always came back for her. Always. "You may be a Victor of the games. You may have left the arena, but no one who wins, ever truly wins."

     Her lips curled upward on reflex. Scarlet didn't know why she was smiling at the other young Victor. There was nothing funny or amusing about the words coming from his mouth. Maybe because she already had accepted his words as fact?

     I killed Crimson.

     The moment she'd ripped through her brother's throat with that wire—that was the moment she would never come back from. She had made it out of the Arena. She was a Victor. But in doing so, she'd lost a piece of herself that she could never get back.

     How could that be winning?

     His hand squeezed hers, drawing her focus back to her hand.

     She knew that some of the Victors had modifications done to their body after the games. She'd just never imagined it done without the person's consent. She would never have chosen this.

     She looked over at Finnick, finally finding her voice. "Did they do anything else to me?"

     "You've gone through multiple surgeries. All of your major wounds have been sutured, cleaned, and properly bandaged. By now, they are likely very nearly healed."

     Her hand moved to her side once more, remembering touching here earlier. The infected knife wound and the place where Crimson's Tide had torn her to ribbons. Like before, only a slight ache could be felt.

     Scarlet stared at Finnick, waiting for him to keep talking, even though she could already feel that she would hate the words coming from his mouth.

     "Your body has been rid of any evidence of the Arena. Any scars, cuts, scrapes... that you had before, or gotten during the Games...they are now gone."

     Scarlet sucked in a sharp breath. Why? But Finnick continued before she could ask the question.

     "They do it to all of us." He said, swallowing hard, the movement of his throat was visible as he looked away for a moment, like he was weighing his next words carefully. "I think it helps them keep to us separate from the 'us' they see on the screen. It makes the Hunger Games aren't real—or aren't that bad—like we weren't in pain or hurt or hungry or—" his lips clamped closed as if he had to forcefully stop himself from continuing.

     She agreed with his words, but it didn't feel right seeing them come from him. A boy who fit right in with the Capitol crowd and seemed to encourage and adore the attention given to him. Didn't Finnick thrive here in the Capitol?

     When she didn't respond, he continued, "They are already calling you the Wicked Wolfe of 14. The girl with a kiss of death." He said. "That's who you were before the Games, during it, and now it's who you have to be after."

     Scarlet watched him through hooded, heavy eyes, trying to process his words in her fog-like state. After a moment of what seemed like an internal debate, Finnick held a small mirror up in front of her face, his lips pulled tight in a deep-seated frown. It looked wrong on his face. She wanted to tell him that—A golden boy like him should only smile—but then she caught a glimpse of her reflection.

     She stared without blinking into the mirror as a face that wasn't her own stare back at her. Her eyes—no longer hazel, but a vivid, unnatural gold—gleamed under the harsh light. They were too bright, too sharp, too focused. She wanted to look away, yet couldn't, as recognition slammed into her. It was wolf eyes that stared back at her.

     They were Scarlet's Waves' eyes.

     Her eyes stung, the tell-tale sign of tears ready to fall as horror pierced her dazed state. She blinked the tears away, refusing to let any fall.

     Scarlet forced herself to look away from eyes would haunt her forever, as she examined the rest of her face, finding that much else had remained the same, only her lips had changed, now fuller and tinted dark.

     The scariest part of seeing this face—her face—was that there was a part of Scarlet that recognized herself in the changes that the Capitol had made. As if the modifications were only amplifying who she always had been. If Scarlet's Wave had lived, she may have even liked the changes. But her wolf had died. Cadmium's Crest had died. Crimson's Tide had died. Crimson—she swallowed sharply at the heavy thump of her heart—had died.

     Punishment.

     The word sat heavy on her tongue, and she knew that it was the right one. This was a punishment for her, though she didn't know what for, she knew a punishment well enough to recognize one.

     The Capitol had turned her into a wolf, sharpened her claws and replaced her hazel eyes, until she was everything that they wanted Panem to see—a predator, a killer.

     Scarlet let her eyes close and turned her face away from Finnick. Wicked Wolfe of 14. That was her.

     If it was meant to be a punishment, then she would never let it show. It would be a punishment; she couldn't bury that or hide from it. This would hurt her, deeper than any lash she'd ever received, every time she looked in a mirror, she would be reminded of what she had done—and what she had lost.

     Show no weakness.

     The thought had been instilled in her for as long as she could remember. Living in District 14 had taught her that, and everything she had gone through since she'd left, had reinforced that. She could never let anyone else see her pain.

     In that moment, Scarlet decided that she would embrace the changes that the Capitol had forced on her. To all of Panem, she would let them think that she had chosen this.

     If they wanted a dark temptress, then they would get one.

     It was the only way they wouldn't win.

     And they didn't deserve to win.

     Scarlet looked back over at Finnick, her brain finally pinning the emotion lingering on his face. Weariness.

     "Are you scared of me now?" She found herself asking him. She glanced at the reflection in the mirror—her reflection, before returning her eyes to him. She was intimidating. Wolves were predators. And now, whenever she looked at anyone, they would see the eyes of a predator staring back at them.

     He met her gaze without flinching. "No, Scarlet. I'm not scared of you."

     Scarlet wasn't sure if she believed him. But she decided to let it go. It didn't really matter anyways.

     "I want to sleep, Finnick."

     "Do you want me to leave?"

     Her brows furrowed at the stupid question. "Of course."

     His expression didn't change as he stood up from his chair. He glanced down at her, an expected brow raised in return, his green eyes glimmered with...something. What, though? "If you want me to go, you have to let go of my hand, Little Wolfe."

     She flicked her gaze down, seeing her hand on his, her fingers clutched tight around his palm. She stared for a moment; at the tight, almost desperate way she held him. When had she grabbed his hand? It was like she really didn't want him to go. But she did want him to go. She wanted to be alone. She released his hand and twisted in the thin sheet, curling away from him.

     "I want to be alone." She repeated.

     Her back to him should end all conversation. But only a moment later, she felt his warm fingers pinch her chin and gently tip her head back toward him. He leaned down until their noses were just inches apart.

     Scarlet blinked up at him with wide eyes, shocked by the nearness between them. It took her a moment to realize that he was speaking, and she dropped her eyes to his mouth, reading the words that were perfectly enunciated—like he was used to speaking words for deaf ears.

     "...want to be alone, Little Wolfe, but you aren't alone. Remember that." His eyes flickered with something she couldn't name. "Victors only have each other." Finnick released her chin, and she raised her eyes to his. A flicker of something—hope, maybe—stirred in Scarlet's chest as his words sunk in. But it was quickly smothered by a familiar, crushing weight. Reality. As if he saw the shift inside her, he let out a small sigh as he stood. Finnick turned on his heel and walked out of the room without saying another word or glancing back.

     They were nice words. Scarlet thought, a tinge of bitterness sitting heavy on her tongue. Once, she might have believed them. I killed Crimson. The words rattled through her mind, a constant reminder. Finnick was wrong.

     Scarlet had only herself now.

     She would always be alone.

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So, let me know if you have any chapter title suggestions here. :) 

And what did you think about this interaction between Finnick and Scarlet? How did it go? What do you think about Scarlet? Is she numb? Is she processing what has happened in the Arena? Should Finnick have warned her about what life was like as a Victor before she went into the Arena? 

Stay safe and take care!~CANGEL

Remember to vote and comment if you enjoyed this chapter! Thanks for reading!