Chapter Text
Her eyes opened slowly, painfully. The air smelled sterile—metal, bleach, something burnt lingering beneath the clinical sharpness. Her throat was dry. Her head pounded. When she tried to move, she couldn’t.
Her wrists and ankles were strapped to a padded bed.
A thick white band held her forehead in place. She wore soft white clothes, shapeless and thin. A single monitor blinked softly beside her.
There were no windows. No clock.
Just a steel door. Just the endless hum of electricity.
She didn’t know how long she had been unconscious.
Seconds? Hours? Days?
Then—
The door clicked.
Footsteps echoed across the white floor like the ticking of a clock.
President Snow stepped into the room, his posture immaculate, hands clasped behind his back. The red rose on his lapel looked freshly plucked, its petals too perfect to be real.
Cassia’s heart seized.
He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“Miss Vale,” he said softly. “You gave us quite a performance.”
Her mouth was too dry to speak at first. She swallowed. “Where am I?”
“Somewhere safe,” Snow replied. “Safer than most places these days.”
She blinked against the harsh overhead light.
“The Games,” she rasped. “What happened?”
He tilted his head slightly, as if appraising her.
“Ah. You missed the grand finale.”
He circled the bed slowly, letting his words hang.
“Our precious arena exploded, Cassia. Or didn’t they tell you? Right through the force field. Poof.” He smiled, amused. “A rebel stunt. Crude, but effective.”
Her blood turned to ice.
“What?”
“Oh yes,” he said, voice light as ever. “Quite the mess. The rebels infiltrated everything—sponsors, transports, even the Game Room itself. Heavensbee was the key, of course. The rat always smiled the widest.”
Cassia’s heart slammed in her chest.
“Gloss,” she breathed, panic rising. “Is he alive?”
Snow paused at the end of her bed. His smile faded.
“No.”
The word shattered her.
She stopped breathing for a moment, her vision spinning, her body straining uselessly against the restraints.
“You’re lying,” she croaked. “You’re lying...”
Snow knelt beside her, his voice going soft and cold.
“You think I need to lie to you?”
His breath smelled of blood and roses.
“Your Gloss was killed by Katniss Everdeen. That’s what the record will say. That’s what the world will believe. And that is what you will accept.”
Cassia shook her head furiously. “No. No, he was supposed to be saved. Plutarch promised—”
Snow’s smile returned.
“Ah. So you do know things.”
He stood up again, smoothing his cuffs.
“Then we’re done being gentle.”
Cassia struggled harder. “What do you want from me?”
“Names,” he said. “Details. Anything you overheard. Conversations. Plans. You were close with Heavensbee, weren’t you? And Abernathy? Tell me what you know, and this doesn’t have to be painful.”
She glared up at him, her voice shaking with rage. “You already made it painful.”
Snow nodded once at the guard who stepped in behind him.
“So be it.”
A sharp sting in her arm.
Cassia’s body began to go slack.
The room blurred at the edges. Her limbs went heavy.
The last thing she saw was Snow adjusting his rose in the mirror, before his voice echoed faintly through her slowing mind:
“You’ll talk, Cassia. Everyone talks eventually.”
Darkness took her, and this time, it was merciless.
Cassia woke slowly this time. No blinding lights. No antiseptic sting in her nostrils.
Just cold.
Concrete under her spine. Metal at her back.
And silence.
Her eyes blinked open to dim gray surroundings. The walls were bare, smooth stone. A small barred window high above leaked faint light from a source she couldn’t see. The door was thick steel, sealed from the outside. A drain in the center of the floor. No bed. Just a folded blanket in the corner.
She tried to sit up, but her muscles screamed in protest. Her limbs felt like they’d been soaked in ice. Her head throbbed, a slow, dull ache like a bruise behind her eyes.
Where am I now?
Her mind spun with flashes of memory—Snow, the restraints, the needle.
Gloss.
Her throat clenched.
She dragged herself up with effort, leaning against the wall for balance. Her white clothes were wrinkled and torn at the sleeve, smeared with something faintly red—rust or blood, she didn’t want to know.
Then—
A voice.
Low. Dry. Familiar.
“You look like shit.”
Cassia’s head snapped toward the sound.
Across the narrow corridor, behind another set of metal bars, sat Enobaria.
She was crouched in the corner of her cell, legs folded beneath her like a panther at rest. Her hair was tangled. Her face bore a healing gash along her jaw. But her eyes—sharp and alive—were fixed directly on Cassia.
Cassia blinked, stunned. “You—you're alive?”
Enobaria gave a bitter smile, her sharp teeth glinting faintly. “Unfortunately.”
Cassia pushed herself to her knees, trembling. Her heart kicked hard in her chest.
If Enobaria had survived…
Then maybe…
“Gloss?” she croaked. “Was he—did you see him?”
Enobaria’s face shifted. A shadow passed behind her eyes.
She didn’t answer.
“Please,” Cassia begged, her voice cracking. “Tell me if its true.”
Enobaria exhaled through her nose, leaned back against the stone. “I'm sorry Cassia.”
Cassia’s breath trembled in her throat before the tears were flowing.
He was gone. The world hadn’t ended, but it dared to keep turning without him. What use was a sky that still held stars when he would never see them again?
She would never feel his arms again. Never hear him say her name like it meant something. The Capitol took him, like it took everything—like it always did.
This wasn’t grief. Grief was human. This was rot.
She tried to picture his face, but it blurred around the edges. Every time she reached for him in memory, it slipped further, like water through cupped hands.
Her fingers pressed into her ribs, trying to hold herself together, to feel anything besides the cold ache where he used to be.
He had promised they'd survive this. Not win, not escape clean—but survive. Together.
She wanted to scream, to rip the walls apart, to bleed until the Capitol had to look at what they’d done.
Instead, she whispered his name.
"Come back."
And when no one came, she lay there on the floor, eyes open, heart breaking slowly.
Because he was gone.
And she was still here.