GONE...

That was the word they used.

'I'm sorry but she's gone.'

Gone. What did that mean? Gone as in dead. Gone as in missing? Disappeared?

'It happened quickly.'

What exactly happened? He certainly couldn't make heads nor tails of it. It didn't actually make sense. She was supposed to be protected. Watched at all times, that's what he was told when he originally voiced his concern. How was she gone if she was watched at all times?

'There was a bombing.'

How? District Eight was supposed to be a safe space. The Capitol had practically decimated them in the previous days. They visited a hospital. How...why did Capitol airships come back to bomb a hospital filled innocent children, women and men? Did that mean she was gone as in dead? Was that what they were saying to him. I'm sorry but we think she died in the attack? No. That can't of been right.

'We were separated.'

She was supposed to be protected at all times. Why was she separated from them? They were supposed to watch over her.

'A building collapsed.'

Was she in the building when it collapsed? Was that how she had gone? It didn't make sense. The broken jigsaw pieces did not fit into place in his fractured mind. He barely retained what was being said. The loud ringing that sounded in his ears distracted him. It pulled him away from reality and locked him inside his head. It suffocated him, made him a prisoner and he couldn't escape.

Trapped, trapped, trapped.

Gone, gone, gone.

Gone. She was gone. Aella was gone. He was trapped. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't hear. Trapped...

"Finnick!"

He snapped back into reality with a start. His body jumped in shock, a delayed reaction to the hand that rested gently on his shoulder. His hazy eyes focused on the woman in front of him and he stared into her glossy gaze.

"You have to breathe, Finnick." Sal instructed him firmly though her eyes screamed in anguish. She was hurting just as much as he was. Her walls were crumbling on the inside too. She was confused.

The board room they'd all been ushered into was bright. Brighter than usual. It felt cramped. Claustrophobic. There was plenty of space but the vast number of people inside made it hard to breathe.

Confusion grappled him. His thick brows furrowed together deeply as he looked around the room again. His gaze sharpened. Haymitch stood against the far wall seemingly deep in thought, staring silently at the ground.
In the seat directly across from himself was Coin and her eyes hadn't once left his person. Heavensbee sat to her right, a tight expression on his face while he massaged his temple. Boggs flanked her left, stoic as usual. Gale sat next to Boggs, elbows resting against the table and head bowed.

The hand on his forearm tightened and Finnick looked to see Clio sitting next to him. Unshed tears glossed over her eyes as she stared ahead at Coin. Daniel paced behind them, chair upturned on the floor, while he locked his hands behind his head. Sal sat on his left and a quick glance towards her saw her still searching his gaze. His breathing was shallow. He was breathing, wasn't he? Hadn't he been before? He recognised Natalia—Aella's old best friend and Sal's daughter—sat next to her mother. A quick glance over Natalia's shoulder saw Sam with his back to the room and body tense.

Everyone seemed to be taking it in. They all understood what was happening except him. The words came in drips and drabs. He didn't understand, no matter how hard he wanted to.

"What—" He swallowed thickly, jaw clenching and unclenching before he said, "What do you mean she's gone?"

Clio dropped her head in despair, unable to hear it again.

"I'm so sorry," Coin spoke, "but Aella knew the risks—"

"Like hell she did!" Daniel snapped angrily. He paused in his path, loud voice booming through the room. He walked back to the table next to Clio and slapped one hand on the desk while pointing his finger at Coin accusingly, "She said you couldn't guarantee her safety but you assured her she'd be protected at all costs and she accepted that. Never once did anyone ever mention that District Eight was at risk!"

"We can't predict what the Capitol do." Coin responded calmly. Her unphased demeanour angered Daniel even more.

"I don't understand." Finnick spoke again. He searched Coin's gaze deeply for any kind of explanation but he found nothing, "Gone... what do you mean by gone. She's dead?"

"She's as good as it now, no thanks to them." Daniel snarled, his hateful glare aimed at both Coin and Heavensbee.

"Daniel!" Sal gasped.

"It's true, mom." Natalia released a sob.

Finnick watched the exchange, head shifting back and forth with no explanation at all. Confusion began to morph into anger. He didn't take well to being kept in the dark.

"What are you talking about?" He snapped hastily, "Where is she!"

A thick silence followed. Finnick could hear his heart beating ferociously in his chest as he waited for a response but it never came. Coin and Heavensbee merely glanced at one another. Before he had the chance to snap, however, Boggs broke his silence.

"The Capitol bombed the hospital. We were outside when it happened and Aella she..." He swallowed, seemingly struggling for words. He stared at his hands, so unusual for a man of his ranking, "She was already rattled after the tower collapsed into the building we were in but when she saw them bomb the hospital.... She just lost it. She took off before any one of us could stop her. We ran after her but by the time we got across the District to the hospital the second explosion happened..."

A deep crack formed in his heart. It hurt to breathe. The pain was so intense he stopped for some few seconds. Boggs' words circulated through his head as he registered them and the meaning of them. The insinuation was clear but he didn't have the heart to ask it aloud. He didn't want to hear the answer.

"So...what?" He asked instead, "She-she's... dead? What you're trying to tell me-tell us is that she's... she's dead?" He whispered.

The grimace that crossed Boggs' face did not aid him. It didn't soothe his feelings or comfort him. Instead, it drilled fear into him further.

"When we were sure the District was clear we went back to search for her." Boggs informed him. His voice was eerie calm. His face revealed nothing. Finnick couldn't even see a twitch, "We searched the surrounding area, moved what rubble we could. She wasn't there."

"So she got up and tried to find help." Finnick suggested. He leaned back in his chair slightly, at a loss for words.

But Boggs shook his head, "Commander Paylor had her rebels search the path she would've taken to the hospital. There were ground Peacekeepers that had invaded that we didn't know about. They found both her gun and the weapons Beetee made specially for her on the ground a few blocks from the hospital.... A set of heavy duty tyre marks were nearby. Footsteps... drag marks."

It was slowly starting to click. She wasn't dead—not yet. The more he heard the more he began to understand what was being hinted. Aella wasn't dead but she was missing. Her weapons, hand crafted daggers, a machete blade and her gun had been left behind. She knew not to ever take them off. He'd been there only that morning when he heard Boggs tell her. He remembered the way she grinned in mischief. He knew she wouldn't have taken them off. It left only one option.

"She disappeared?" Daniel said, "So you check her tracker."

A small item was tossed on to the table by Boggs and it rolled until it stopped in front of Finnick. Everyone leaned in closer to see what it was. When Finnick recognised it his heart began to sink, slipping slowly into the depths. Dread crept up his spine.

"Found it on the ground next to her gun."

Gale swallowed harshly and glanced to Boggs fleetingly. He looked like he wanted to say something else but he didn't. He kept quiet. Guilt clouded his face like he blamed himself for it happening. It wasn't technically his job to keep her safe but he still felt responsible. He had made that unspoken promise to Finnick that morning, he promised Aella herself, that he would watch out for her. She had spent her whole life protecting people, Gale felt like she deserved to be protected for once and he had failed.

"So..." Clio breathed deeply and her face twisted in pain. Like taking that breath caused her physical pain. Her eyes screwed shut to force away the tears that had gathered before she found her voice again, "So what you're trying to tell us is that she's... she—the Capitol has her. Snow has her?"

It was Heavensbee who nodded solemnly in response, his face drawn in. A thick silence lapsed following his confirmation until Beetee broke it, "Until the Capitol make some kind of contact to confirm, which we think they will, we can only presume. Either that or she died in the second bombing."

With unshed tears in his eyes, Daniel looked at the table and nodded while saying defeatedly, "But that wouldn't explain her tracker and weapons on the ground."

"They have her." Heavensbee spoke quietly. Deep regret carved his features. He didn't dare meet the eye of any of her family sitting opposite him. He couldn't. Not when he knew things they did not. Everything she had pulled in the run up to the Games had cost her. She hadn't paid for any of her sins. President Snow had given him one order as Head Gamemaker and that had been to make sure Katniss Everdeen and Aella Barnes died a slow, painful, death. Snow had wanted to make examples of them both. He wanted to use them to show Panem what would happen if they ever dared to cross him.

Heavensbee had only ever confined in one person and he stood against the wall in the farthest corner. Haymitch would say the words Heavensbee could not and he did. He cleared his throat and they all looked to him. Some had forgotten the blonde man had even been there until they saw him tucked away, hands deep in his pockets.

"I'm not sure we'll get her back." Were his words, "Peeta, Johanna and Annie? Maybe. If we're lucky. Aella?" Silence... His words left it all to the imagination but it wasn't hard to figure out what he was insinuating.

"What are you trying to say Abernathy?" Daniel said harshly.

"Aella made an enemy out of Snow." He replied, "We all know it."

The memories of seeing her stumble through the apartment door following her individual assessment hit him like a truck. The way she had looked at him after Caesar Flickerman had revealed her perfect score of twelve haunted him. Not to mention her last interview with Cesear where she'd all but revealed to the world that Snow had her family murdered.

He exhaled deeply and dropped his head into his hand, "Her individual assessment."

"We never found out what she did." Clio said then, looking over her shoulder to Daniel. Her eyes scanned his face fleetingly before flickering back to Haymitch and Heavensbee, "She never told us."

"She wouldn't have." Heavensbee said with a shake of his head, "No one ever reveals when they threaten to assassinate the President."

Clio gasped deeply. Her sharp breath ruled over confused murmurs but the shocked expressions were all the same. Finnick's heart stopped beating for some few seconds before it proceeded to slam against his chest painfully.

He shook his head, "What... what are you talking about?"

"Aella used a training dummy and painted it to look like Snow," Heavensbee said, "She strung it up by the throat with rope and painted the body red with blood... got two knives and plucked a white rose from the vase sitting by the doors. She stabbed the rose into the chest with one knife before throwing the other from a distance. It stuck between the eyes."

"She...she—" Clio stumbled while Daniel cursed under his breath behind him. They had no words for her actions. It clicked into place in Finnick's mind. The missing piece of the jigsaw fit... and perfectly at that. The white roses had driven Aella into a fit of blind rage like he'd predicted and she'd fallen off the edge in the wrong company. And now? It had probably cost her her life.

•    •    •

A deep pounding sensation reverberated through her skull. It was the first thing she felt. The pain was seering, blinding. It left her sick to her stomach, similar to how she felt when she woke up in the hospital after the Games had come to an end. It was all the same—the blinding headache, numb body, deafening silence...

Fear crept up her spine. Was she deaf again? She couldn't hear a single thing, not even the ringing of her ears. It was all deathly silent. She was literally stuck, helpless.. immobile. All she could do was stare up at the white ceiling that strangely enough did not look familiar to her. It wasn't the same ceiling of the hospital in District Thirteen. The patterns were different there.

Her head lulled to the side tiredly and she closed her eyes, feeling the thudding of her brain against her skull. She attempted to lift her hand to rest it against her forehead but she found she couldn't move. For whatever reason her arm was stuck. It wasn't numb anymore. No, she had full sensation now. She just couldn't physically move it...

Her eyes widened massively as she looked to her hand by her side. She couldn't miss the brown leather strap fastened around her wrist, restraining her in place. A quick glance showed her that her other wrist was also locked in, as were her ankles, knees and chest. Fear crippled her and her heart began to pound twice as fast. She had absolutely no recollection of what had happened and that was what made it so terrifying. The last she could ever remember was waking up in bed that morning with Finnick by her side. Where was he now? Where was she?

Shuffling in the room alerted her of someone's presence. Her head darted to the direction to see a man dressed in white with his back to her. He stood by a large table but she couldn't see any of what lined it. He didn't try to be quiet, he just did what he had planned and she remained silent.

Her tongue had stuck to the roof of her mouth. It felt like sandpaper and she couldn't moisten it for the life of her. It was almost like she was choking. All she could do was watch the unfamiliar man with wide eyes while she panicked on the inside.

Eventually he turned around, unsurprised to see her awake but he didn't regard her. He was an aging man. A white stubble covered his chin, messily trimmed. His hair hadn't quite reached that white stage, some of it was still grey but not much. His face was wrinkled and his eyes were so brown they border-lined on black. There was no kindness behind his irises, instead he wore a blank facial expression that unnerved her even more.

She didn't know that his face would be one that would become permanently engraved in her mind. That he would make up her darkest and most painful nightmares.

"Miss. Barnes." He spoke in an eerie tone. His thin lips curled into a disgusting smile as he regarded her.

Aella tried to wet her lips with what little salvia she could manage, "What—what the hell is going on?" She managed to ask. Her voice was rough, sore and croaky. She sounded like she'd been screaming continuously for days, "Where am I?"

The man's smile only grew, "All in due time."

A shudder ripped through her body at that. He approached the table she was restrained to and she tried to move away but she couldn't. She was strapped in tight so instead she did the next best thing. She fought.

The leather bit into her skin as she tried to pull herself free but it felt as if every tug only tightened the restraints. She was tiring quickly and when she relaxed against the hard surface again she felt the man's presence closer than ever before.

He loomed over her with a sickening grin and mused, "This will only hurt a little."

And that was the last thing she remembered before a blinding white hot pain erupted through her body and her screams bounced off the walls.

•   •   •

Aella wasn't told in words but she had figured it out for herself. The white Peacekeeper uniforms told her enough. Somehow she had wound up in the Capitol, right under the nose of President Snow. She still couldn't work out how it had happened. She couldn't tell if it was a blessing or a curse that her memory ended after getting out of bed in District Thirteen however many days ago... or hours. She truly didn't know.

She felt like an eternity had passed since she'd awoken on that cold table in that cold room. She had been through—seen—some horrors in the years she'd been alive but what they had done to her in that short time was enough to send her driving over the edge. The fingers of her right hand were sore—black, blue and purple in colour. The bruising tracked down her hand and into her wrist. She had held onto her screams for so long, bit into her lip so deeply she cut it but the doctor had made it his mission to hear her scream. At least he had binded her fingers after he had broken them one by one.

The second she felt the leather loosen on her legs she played the innocent victim. She allowed her body to fall limp, for her eyes to hollow out. She bought her time until she was upright and free and when she was she pounced. She'd managed to cut down, viciously maim and ultimately kill six Peacekeepers in total before the doctor had gotten her sedated and strapped back to the table while she fought like a rabid dog.

Another prolonged period of staring at that white ceiling had followed before they came once more. They shackled her hands and ankles in chains before releasing the leather and they pulled her off the table while her body screamed. She collapsed to her knees, her bones smashing into the ceramic floor before the Peacekeeper grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled her to her feet and dragged her out the room.

They dragged her down corridors upon corridors. Twisting and turning so many times she truly had no idea where she was going or how she would ever get back. She did know one thing though and that was that she recognised the walls around her and if her memory served her correctly she was somewhere within the Tribute Centre that had been built purely for the Quarter Quell.

It wasn't until they stopped before a closed door did her mind sharpen again. The door opened and she was pushed in, dragged over to an arm chair and forced down into it with her two armed escorts positioned right behind her. A drawing room of some sorts? An office? Bookcases lined the shelves, tables, and a desk she was seated before—the man she was sat before.

The pungent stench of white roses made her empty stomach churn. Bile rose to the back of her throat as she eyed the flowers that haunted her every nightmare. The vase that sat on the desk made her insides boil and the man sat opposite her? He sent her spiralling.

Aella lunged for the glass vase, her chained hands mere inches away from the glass before she was grabbed by her two escorts. Their hands gripped tightly, enough to leave bruises, as they forced her back into the chair and grabbed her hands. In one swift motion the chain connecting the cuffs disappeared and instead her hands were thrust behind her, locking in place there. Now she was truly stuck. Now she couldn't fight back.

President Snow's lips curved in amusement as she struggled in the chair opposite him. A perfect representation of a wild beast. The Huntress had certainly come out to play today. The feral gleam in her eyes would've been enough to send any sane person running for the hills but not him. No, he enjoyed seeing the murderous gleam to her eyes. Enjoyed being the one who triggered it, too.

"Miss. Barnes," Snow mused, "We meet again."

Aella snarled—literally—like an untamed animal, "What the fuck is this?"

Snow's grin broadened, "Welcome back to the Capitol. I trust you enjoyed your stay in District Thirteen with the rest of the rebel forces."

The hidden meaning behind his words did not go unnoticed. Her eyes narrowed into thin slits, "You already know the answer to that."

"I always had my suspicions about you and Mr. Odair." Snow mused, "Why else do you think I had him servicing some of the finest in the Capitol all the time?"

Aella's one remaining nerve struck and she tried to lunge for him again, "You bastard. You fucking bastard! Keep Finnick's name out our filthy mouth."

Amusement rattled Snow's core as he beheld his Peacekeepers struggling to contain her. It seemed her fiery spirits remained intact even after three days in the underground laboratories.

"It seems, Miss. Barnes, it's you who has the filthy mouth."

"I'll kill you." She growled deeply.

Snow only smiled in response, "I don't think you will. Not if you don't want to see your loved ones hurt."

At that Aella stilled. Her heart lurched so deeply in her chest she thought it had stopped.

"What—who are you talking about?"

He decided to play further. His finest doctor had informed him Aella was playing the amnesia card. He was going to exploit her for everything she had, "You truly have no idea do you?"

Her lip trembled as hot tears of anger rose to her eyes. Her body shook. Why couldn't she remember anything after waking up beside Finnick. What the hell had happened for her to end up in the Capitol. What was to say Finnick wasn't here with her? Clio, Daniel, Sal... the sheer thought of it rattled her.

A tear rolled down her cheek as her jaw clenched, "What have you done to them?"

A sinister smile spread across his lips, "Nothing... yet." He said, "How you comply depends on their fate. You want to keep them alive, you will do as I say."

She hated it. She hated him. These games were never ending. Once again she was unwillingly yielding to the same wicked tyrant who had single handedly destroyed her life. He had complete control and there was nothing she could do about it.

"You will go before Panem and refute your role as rebel leader. Turn yourself over to the Capitol."

A scowl of disgust rose to her features, "You want me to lie?"

"You've been doing it all your life, Miss. Barnes. I know you're more than capable of it." He replied.

"It doesn't matter how good I am at it." She scowled, "They won't believe it."

Snow shrugged, "Your comrades might not but the Districts will."

She didn't want to know the answer but she still asked, "And if I refuse?"

"They die."

She didn't even know who they were. He could've just been holding her loved ones over her like a carrot dangling on a stick. It was all a game. It always had been and it always would be. All she was destined to be since the day she was born was a pawn. It was all everyone in Panem was. A pawn in Snow's game. She was tired of playing his game... so sick and tired.

"You'll have to do better than that." She snarled eventually, "I'm not going to fall for it."

Snow's head tilted, "Why would I play my cards just to get you to take my threats seriously?" He asked her, "You'd be foolish not to. We both remember how your family died."

Her body trembled as she sat in that chair. Under the force of the hands pinning her down she seethed at the man opposite her. She tried to think of what her family would have to say about her predicament now. What would her mother and her father say, her brother? Even if they were stood with a gun to their heads they'd tell her not to do it. Her brother especially. He had lived in hope that one day a rebellion would rise. A small part of Aella broke that he didn't make it to see the beginnings of it. She knew he would've been one of the first out on those front lines.

"No." She snarled and she swore she heard her brother's voice praising her for her choice.

Snow held her gaze for some fleeting seconds. The tension in the room had become so thick it could be cut with a knife. His lack of response unnerved her but when he hummed and nodded his head her heart stilled in her chest.

"It seems you need convincing," Were his words before he pressed a button somewhere and said aloud, "Bring them in."

Them...

Her spine straightened. The sound of a door opening behind her echoed but even as she turned her head to look the two Peacekeepers blocked her view of whoever was brought into the room. All she could hear was the mumbling sounds of pain paired with the clang of heavy chains.

Then they came into view.

Cayenne and Flax were barely recognisable. Aella hadn't ever seen them without their extravagant Capitol outfits, their wigs and their makeup. At first glance she was truly lost but it didn't take long for the two faces in front of her to trigger in her memory. They had both been stripped of their riches and finery. Both wore their own skin aside from the modifications they'd had whilst living in the Capitol.

Cayenne's hair was a dirty brown colour. Awfully plain to say she wore such vibrantly coloured wigs. Her natural brown eyes were wide and filled with tears as she looked—no, pleaded, Aella. Her skin was dealthy white. She had always been pasty but it looked as though she hadn't seen the sun in months. Bruises of all shapes and sizes, varying of colours blended into her skin. Grazes ran down her arms and knees. Cuts marred her face. The woman—who couldn't have ever been older than her late twenties—sobbed hysterically.

Flax looked even worse than her. His right eye lid had completely swollen shut. The bruising around his skin was practically black. The beating looked fresh. As did the large cuts to both his cheek and lips. His hair had been shaved off but Aella could make out a dark colour—perhaps black—through the buzz that had remained. His usually tan skin appeared pale.

They were both bound in chains like hers. Shackled at the wrists and ankles and connected. Both gagged with white cloth. Incomprehensible words tumbled from their lips but both of them looked at her with pleading expressions. Almost as if to say, don't do it.

Aella had not realised she was crying until she blinked and her vision cleared. She sobbed from anger.

"So I'll tell you again," Snow said as the two Peacekeepers behind Cayenne and Flax pulled out guns and aimed them at their heads, "You will appear in interview and refute your role as leader of the rebellion."

But it was Cayenne's discrete nod of her head that made Aella pause. She had been more than ready to reluctantly agree, to forfeit, had she not seen the woman nod. Like she was giving her permission to refuse. She knew that her life sat in Aella's tied hands and yet she gave her permission to say no. She saw her pain. Saw her exhaustion. She saw that her fight had died.

And so Aella looked back to Snow again and said, "No."

Snow inclined his head fractionally and a gun shot rang through the small room. The loud noise pounded through Aella's skull and she winced as her ears rang. A combination of horror-filled and mourning muffled screaming followed and she turned her head to see Cayenne laid face down on the ground, blood pooled around her.

Flax thrashed and screamed and hyperventilated as he beheld his friend on the ground but Aella couldn't take her eyes off Cayenne's dead form on the ground. A single tear rolled down her cheek followed by a delicate wind of a caress. She closed her eyes softly and lowered her head. She could almost feel Cayenne's presence, hear her thanking words for fulfilling what she had silently pleaded of her. Thanking her for having her misery and suffering ended.

For a minute, Aella envied her. For she knew her suffering was only just beginning.

She opened her mouth, ready to agree when Flax's hoarse voice echoed through the room, "Palex! He has Palex, Aella, he's—"

A second gun shot bounced off the walls of the small room followed by a thud. Flax laid on the ground beside Cayenne and Aella loosed a shuddered breath. She had seen so much death, delivered so much death, but seeing the people she cared about lying before her... it felt different. It made her skin crawl, made her feel sick to her stomach.

She had been so close to agreeing, to possibly sparing Flax's life but his warning words had gotten himself killed instead. He had sacrificed himself to tell her Palex was here but nothing of Finnick, or Clio or Daniel.

Still, Aella beheld the two dead bodies on the floor before her. Beheld their blood mingling together and she loosed a heavy breath, "Yo-you killed them."

"You killed my Peacekeepers." He counteracted with a mere shrug.

Aella turned her head to meet his gaze again and looked at him through her lashes, "That was deserved." She growled.

"So was their deaths." He said, "They aided a rebel."

Aella glared at President Snow, hoped that he saw everything she was trying to convey through her tear-filled eyes. She hated that she was crying in front of him. She hated that he'd once again killed people so close to her. She hated that this was what had become of her, that this would be her life until he decided to put her out of her misery.

She bowed her head and closed her eyes. Her whole body was trembling but she refused to allow him to push her off the edge. She would never give him that satisfaction of breaking her.

So she looked back up at him and righted herself before saying, "You're a fucking monster."

President Snow smiled—actually smiled and Aella thought right then and there she was going to lose it all.

"So it may be, Miss. Barnes, and you'll find this is only the beginning," he threatened her, "this is nothing compared to the lengths I am willing to go to... so you will appear in interview tonight and you will refute your role as a rebel in this war or you'll learn just how far I am willing to go."

Her throat bobbed and she knew no matter how hard she would fight it would be completely futile. President Snow—as always—had won and there was nothing she could do about it.

•    •    •

A/N; Guys just a warning it does get darker from here.
Next update will be Wednesday!