Reprisal

Prologue

The air void of noise, feeling as though the squared, metal doors suffocate any sound...other than that of a tear hitting against the cement floor as it falls from a brown eye.

Her brown knuckles appear nearly white, tense and shaking as she's reaching her hand out to brush against the battered forehead of her daughter where she lays cold, skin empty of color or life.

A sheet's pulled up to her chin, ringlets of her dark hair falling off the metal slab that holds her.

Even with no pulse, her mother still wills for her to open her eyes and grin, showing her dimples and assure her it's a game she was playing.

"...Tawny," Her aunt's calm voice is far off, at least it sounds so.

"I did everything right." A mumble falls from dry lips, a pathetic murmur from someone usually confident.

"Tawny."

"I did everything right." She repeats it. "People raise children every day that they don't want – that they don't deserve. And they live. I was a good mother, I loved her, I adored her, I did everything I could for her...I did everything right. And she's dead."

"These people know no bounds. No reason. No sense." Volumnia reminds her, solemnly.

"These people?" Tawny asks it, in the midst of the chaos that had ensued whilst she was at work, after her husband had taken their precious girl to peek at the arena ahead of the annual Hunger Games.

All she can recall is hearing that there was an explosion, where it was, what time, and panicking the entire way to the hospital.

She hadn't absorbed who did it, why it happened...

"Rebels." Dr. Gaul grits it out flatly, the word a disgusting thing on her lips as Tawny mouths it herself, her tears a consecutive stream, now, beading down her face. "They planted bombs in the arena, Tawny. They harmed countless other Capitol children, and killed your little girl."

They killed your little girl.

Her fingertips gently run along her girl's cheek, blue in hue, nearly starchy pale in comparison to Tawny's skin town despite their tone once being nearly the same.

It was the same only that morning while Tawny ate breakfast with her before heading to the lab.

"I've been trying to tell you...I've been pleading with you to understand how crucial all of this is."

All of this.

Volumnia's legacy for Gamemaking that she'd been attempting to groom her niece to take over whenever she inevitably is unable to be Head Gamemaker.

For years Tawny brushed her off, secretly thinking of her as crazy and bitter, sadistic and unreasonable.

But now she realizes that perhaps she had every right to be those things.

She had more to lose in the war than Tawny had – and perhaps she did lose more, but never let it show to outsiders...not even her own family.

The war is over, however, another one being held at bay by the reaping and slaughter of district children.

Or so Tawny thought.

"She was four, Tawny."

She had hoped Tawny's anger would be prevalent and unwavering, as rabid and fervent as her own could become...but sorrow is all her niece can feel for now, continuing to look down at her girl. Her baby.

"We at least give them the courtesy of twelve years with their children before they're reaped...but not even the looming threat of their own children dying will keep them from killing ours." It's added angrily, shakily, her aunt's voice faltering slightly as she speaks nearly through her teeth.

We're gracious, they're greedy.

Tawny thinks it to herself.

Starving most of the children out during the war wasn't enough. Now they want more innocent blood on their calloused hands just to hear the wails of the Capitol. They starved you, killed countless of your friends, disparaged families all over the Capitol...and yet, to the last breath of your child, they feel entitled.

Belligerent. Cruel. Entitled.

The three words repeat in her mind, a small quiver in her lips when she finally allows herself to see the exact extent of her daughter's injuries.

Her face is bruised and cut up nearly beyond recognition, her hands have had to be sewn back to her wrists, her legs and feet had been shredded by shrapnel.

Tawny presses her lips one last time to Tullia's forehead, gasping out a breath as she pulls from her, covering her up once more with the sheet, hiding her away so no one can see her like this, hiding her away so no one can hurt her again.

Volumnia waits patiently, allowing her niece to have her last moment with her daughter...her sanity...her heart.

She waits for her to wipe her tears, dwell on what has happened, shove her sorrow away – decide the only way to keep from becoming incapacitated is to turn that sorrow into rage.

A consuming inferno that will not dwindle, no matter how long it burns.

Volumnia waits, eyeing Tawny's back, not daring to move or make another sound until she's on the same page as her aunt, and she sees her getting there with each moment.

Each second that passes is another turned page.

She won't see her child off to her first day of school at the Academy. She won't see her accomplishments, her triumphs, she won't get to see her graduate, nor start at the University...no possible wedding, no possible grandchildren.

No Tullia.

They've taken her. And couldn't give her back even if they wanted to.

Dr. Gaul delights in the way her niece's entire body is riddled with a slight tremor, nails digging into the metal of the table, and how her kind, once inconsolable eyes that had always mimicked a puppy, now echo that empty void of some of those lab mutts.