The Reaper | F. Odair

Twenty-four

Warning for this chapter: Mentions of sexual assault / rape

"What did she actually  do to you, Aaron?"

"She was kind to me."

"You're lying."

"...she helped me."

"Aaron."

"She saved me."

"She didn't save you, she kidnapped you."

"Seems like you kidnapped me since you've locked me up like an animal!" the girl snaps, jerking forward just to be jerked back from the leather bindings on her wrists and neck. Dr Aurelius frowns as his head slowly falls. It's been two weeks, how has she not given up yet?

"Will you ever open up to me?" the man asks, taking off his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"Will you ever let me out?"

"Once you let us help you."

"I don't need help." Aaron spits, "I'm perfectly fine." she says, looking back towards the mirror. Whenever the doctors and nurses weren't with her, she'd stare at her reflection, wondering what the mirror was for and what was on the other side. "Gonna knock me out again since I won't talk to you?"

Dr Aurelius shakes his head, wiping the lenses of his glasses with his white coat, "no, someone would like to see you."

"I don't want to see anybody." Aaron spits again, "I want to go home."

"District 10 isn't safe, Aaron." Dr Aurelius quietly grumbles, the man becoming fed up with the girl. He'd chosen not to use the same methods with Peeta, fearing that it'd all somehow go wrong -- it had already been going somewhat downhill since Katniss's first safe encounter with Peeta days ago.

Aaron looks at him with a forced smile. "Fuck off."

Dr Aurelius sighs, pushing his glasses back onto his face and standing up. How had this girl gone from being terrified and not wanting to be touched to aggressive and terrifying herself. Nurses disliked the girl, but they now disliked her even more as she wouldn't even let them inside the room just to check on her -- half of the time she's put into a medically-induced coma just so they can do work on her. Aaron watches with a glare as the man turns towards the window, nodding and turning back to her. Her glare remains, even as the door opens and a new person steps inside.
She doesn't look away until the person kicks the end of her bed, her eyes are forced over and she freezes. Her breathing began to speed up, a sense of rage slowly clawing its way into her chest. Gray hoodie, gray beanie, crunched sweats. The man's beard was beginning to go more white than gray from the blonde it once was. A smile pulls onto his chapped lips as her lips break apart.

"Morning."

"Get out."

"I rather not."

"You--...You fucking lied to me!" Aaron spits, the man frowns.

"I never lied to you."

"You wanted me to trust you, Haymitch! That... thing told me to trust you!"

Haymitch's frown deepens. "I never lied, Aaron..."

The girl blinks, looking the man up and down. "Are you..?"

"Sober?" He answers her question almost immediately with a weak sluggish grin, "yeah, I don't like it."

She blinks again, her jaw slowly dropping, "you... how the hell are you sober?"

"Torture."

"Being locked in a room is not torture." Dr Aurelius butts in, the two look at the man who was now writing on a clipboard. "He hates me too, now you got something to get along about."