CHAPTER fifty-seven|A TRAITOR OR INSANE

Jonas Brothers~ sucker
❝You're the medicine and the pain, the tattoo inside your brain.❞

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IT WAS TRUE, that I had never had a Doctor look at me the way that Dr. Granger insisted that she looked at me before. I have never had someone look so closely that I felt like I was being shunned away from movement itself, and I had never seen someone look so confused and yet completely in control when they were trying to do their job. On some days, it was like she wasn't even sure what she was supposed to do, and on others she seemed to scrape by without so much as a wrongly placed word. Either way, as my sessions went on I began to grow suspicious of her.

To begin with, it was when she had dropped her notebook on the floor half way through a meeting; there was nothing on the page but scribbles and music notes that she had been pretending were notes on my behaviour. Then, it was when she tried to understand what it was that gave me such a bad seizure, and she looked so out of her depth that I feared she couldn't even swim. The third, and only other time when I felt like she was dropping her guard was when she found out that I was getting married- I told her when Finnick was sure that he could help plan it in a couple of days.

It wasn't that she wasn't pleased, it was that she had been too happy to help.

I left her office with her happiness bubbling in my brain, her jubilant voice was so excited as she told me she could play her own instrument at the wedding that it almost bounced around my head.

I play the clarinet! I used to play it in the Capitol Orchestra when I was still there. They loved it- until I had to leave.

There was a reason why I didn't want to know where she was from, but once I knew that she was from the Capitol it seemed to make my head start spinning impossibly fast. It was like there was no way to stop the doubt, and I couldn't even ask her what was wrong before I was taken somewhere else completely.
Of course, that was exactly when I was forced out of her room and towards one that I had been dreading so much more. It seemed like in the many weeks that I had been in her care, Coin had managed to keep her distance from me and whatever it was that she wanted to do, but that could never last forever. I had reached the end of my time away, and she finally felt like it was time to bring me back to the real world.

Her office was filled with her, Plutarch and Gale when I was brought to her by armed guards like some prisoner, but she was the only one that didn't send a smile my way when I entered. The other two did, Gale even placed his large hand on my shoulder when I passed him as a way to greet me; right before he left the room with a promise that he would see me soon. That left me with two, both of which I had not been friendly with.

"Miss Titan, please take a seat" Coin acknowledged as she brushed a strand of her hair away from her eyes. I complied with little effort as I glanced between the two- I didn't feel right anymore. None of it did.

Still, I could be silent as she gripped her table like it was spinning, which it seemed to be doing for me as I pursed my lips and rose my chin to meet her challenging stare. We were caught in a test, and I was determined not to blink first or look away to show the new leader that I was complacent like she wanted me to be- I would not be first. She would.

"I'm sorry to take you out of your meeting with Dr. Granger, but we feel that it's time for you to jump back into the fight, especially after what you did to save Katniss. If I am being honest we needed something like that, I think we needed you." Coin began to speak as she took a seat in her own chair that was slightly higher than everyone elses.

"You need more than a single Victor to bring down a murderer." I deadpanned, only just loud enough for Coin to hear on the other side of the long wooden block between us.

Plutarch only looked at his hands, but that didnt mean that I missed the slight smile that tugged at the corners of his lips as he watched us talk. I must of looked funny, two women that were so stubborn that they wouldn't even let the other one see them blink.

"Of course, but I only need a single Victor to stop the whispering. You know what they say about you; half of them doubt that you work for us, and the other half think that you're not even real. That, I think I can solve with only you."

There were thousands of rumours about me, each more stupid than the last and twice as dangerous as I walked through corridors and tried to eat. Some were about my sister- and every now and then I heard one about my brother that made me want to throw something against the wall. It was funny how I had seemed to forget how to ignore what people thought of me now, all it does is bring me more and more inescapable rage.

"So what do you want me to do?" I asked Coin. It was really all that I needed to know, but I didn't like the smile that the woman sent me when I asked.

"We've written you a little speech. All you have to do is read it to them, and then we can have your Wedding."

"And if I don't want to read what you've written?" I asked.

The president didn't falter, and Plutarch finally cleared his throat so that he could answer that question for me. It was an important one, the kind of question that separated these people from the Capitol- the kind that made Coin different from Snow and Thirteen better than the people that held me before.

"Then say something better. We aren't here to control you Lorna, we know better than anyone that nobody can really do that. Not completely."

I nodded towards the man, and then turned so I could blink at the President; slowly enough for her to realise that I was relinquishing the little power that I might of had over her in any other situation. That was what I wanted, and that was why I would agree to do what they said, whether I was ready to or not.

➳➳

There was a strange feeling in my gut as I watched the whole of Thirteen come together under one roof, in one square that seemed to be too small to fit half of the population inside that it needed to. I was surprised when they all fit, and I was even more surprised when I caught a glimpse of Remy in the crowd standing beside Gale as if they had been friends for years. He said something to him, and Gale smiled just for a second before they both became like statues again, but it was long enough for me to notice.

I also noticed that Remy watched as Finnick walked beside me; he only looked away when he kissed me beside the pedestal that was set up for me to speak on. It wasn't a long kiss, it was sweet and comforting as he left me to stand alone beside the one woman that I didn't want to be alone with. Her, and Katniss when she finally managed to find her seat beside Coin.

She looked better, like herself again as Coin introduced me to the people that hadn't actually seen me in the flash before. Not with a black armoured suit and beautifully done hair, not like I was finally ready to have a fight that would surely last a lifetime in the memory of those that survived. Still, Katniss looked at me like I was better too.

"Ladies and gentlemen, your Spark." Coin introduced me, right before I replaced her on the stage where a handwritten sheet of paper was waiting for me. I looked at it briefly before I looked at the people around me and the ash that covered their faces, the pain that had stuck them on the right side of history. When I looked at them, I didn't see the words that had been laid out for me, I saw something more than that.

"Some of you know me a Lorna Titan." I began, completely ignoring the script as my voice rung out in the two speakers that surrounded me. I was surprised with how strong I sounded as I looked at them all, but not at how much it reminded me of my mother.

"Some of you know me as a Victor too, but I know more than anyone that most of you call me a traitor, or crazy, or both. Some of you would be right. I'm a lot of things; a sister, a fiance, a friend, a survivor, a patient, a spark, even an orphan, but I am not a traitor, and I am not insane."

I paused to look at all of the people that I knew, even the ones that I had only ever seen once in my life, and then the people that I had never seen before. They all watched me, and as some of them whispered to each other with actual smiles apon their face, it gave me enough confidence to keep going.

"What I am, is someone that has lost almost everything to the Capitol. Everyone has, I am not the only one that has had my family split in two, I am not the only one who has had their little sister taken from them. I am not special because of it, and I am not special because I killed other children that couldn't learn as quickly as I did. If anything, it makes me part of the majority, and that is the problem. Isn't it?"

Some people muttered an agreement, and I saw that Remy was looking at me again now, but this time without the anger that clouded him before.

"Mourning death isn't rare for us, and losing people we love isn't uncommon either- so much so that I have seen death everyday of my life since I was old enough to walk. That isn't because of bad luck, or because I was reaped for a Hunger Games, it's because Snow rules with death. It is the only thing that keeps him in control, but that has made him weak."

"If you kill and you kill, death doesn't become meaningful anymore. To us, death isn't a maybe, it's a guarantee that Snow is sure to give us whether we can run from it or not. So, I ask you all, why shouldn't we fight, when I know he is going to kill us all anyway even if we sit around and let him win? Why shouldn't we take back the power to die? Why shouldn't we make it so that my situation is a tragedy, not an average family?"

People were shouting louder now, some even cheering as I paused again to look at the man that I loved the most in the world. He was smiling like he was proud of me, and that was all that I wanted.

"I am going to get married, and then I want to have a child that can grow up in a world that isn't plagued by disease and death and fear. That is why I am not a traitor, and that is my insurance to all of you that I will fight until that man is dead, because I'm fighting for my child's future."

More and more people cheered, even Finnick joined in as tears began to fill his blue eyes as he stood beside Prim and Johanna.

"I hope you'll all fight too." I finished my speech so quietly that I didnt think anyone could hear it over the sound of applause, but it didn't matter. Finally, the spark had returned.

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2104 words.

I'm sorry that this is going to be the last chapter for a little while, if you haven't yet please read a note on my message board to explain why I will be taking a short hiatus from writing until June. I promise that I will finish Lorna's story, and I promise that it will be good enough for everyone that had read it so far.