FAILURE TO COMPLY ┃ f. odair

4.6 moves and countermoves

"Do you know where you are, Peeta?"

This was how the sessions always started. Calypso hadn't been privy to all of them, but she'd watched quite a few times whenever they took her friend into that small room, strapped him in a chair, injected him with tracker jacker venom and messed with his mind. He was in the middle phase now, she called it. At first, he resisted their attempts, but now he was answering questions willingly and starting to doubt his own memories. It wouldn't be too long until he lost his mind.

Like her.

"In the Capitol," Calypso answered at the same time Peeta did. Was he even aware that she was watching? Did he and Johanna even know she was still alive?

"Why are you here?"

"Because we're prisoners," she scoffed. Peeta took a moment to think.

"Because we were brought here after the games," he said. Calypso drew her knees to her chest and pulled at her hair frustratedly. Five days ago - or maybe six, she'd lost count - he'd said because they were taken, not brought.

Through her own screen, she could see the doctor turn on a screen in front of Peeta. It was a clip from the Quarter Quell when the cornucopia had spun. Except... no. That wasn't right.

"Do you remember this, Peeta?"

"I think so," he acknowledged, watching as they all clung on for dear life. Katniss' grip slipped and slipped, and then she reached for Calypso, forcing her into the water with her. That was not how it had happened. She remembered jumping in, not being pulled. "Calypso and Katniss were fine."

"For the most part," the doctor replied. "Your friend Calypso sustained serious back injuries. When we got her safely back to the Capitol, we stitched her worst cuts. There were small stones in some of the gashes."

"Fuck you," Calypso growled. It wasn't that bad. At least, she didn't remember it being that bad. But she'd been awake for an indeterminate number of days and could no longer tell how sane she was.

"Where is she?" Peeta asked, perking up at the mention of Calypso. His wrists pulled at the restraints. "Is she ok? Why haven't we seen her?"

"It's like I said, she was hurt," the doctor lied. No. No, no, no.

"No, I'm right here!" she screamed. Calypso bashed fists against the floor once, twice, three times. "Peeta, just fucking listen to me, they're lying!"

He did not hear her, sitting back in his chair and watching his screen as a wounded Calypso was pulled from the water while Katniss came out unscathed. In the present, she wiped her eyes to try and remove the lies from them. It wasn't real. She was not the one having her mind twisted. She was perfectly capable of recognising what was truth and what was fiction.

Letting herself fall onto her side, Calypso closed her eyes and tried to drown out the voices of Peeta and his doctor. There was no way she could help him with how stuck she was. They were as bad off as each other. And poor Johanna, who lost her mind only through the physical torture she was receiving every single day. That was what Calypso saw most, the only torture that could hurt someone who proclaimed not to love anyone. When a heart was already broken, why not break the body too?

Another long beep. The sound dug into her mind like a festering parasite that refused to disappear. It scraped at her skull and threatened to fry her brain. She whimpered loudly like it physically pained her, covering her head with her arms. She kept her eyes closed.

"STOP!!!"

The scream erupted from her throat before she could stop it. In her breathless rage, she'd failed to notice the click of the door opening, the stomping of boots and the rustling of peacekeeper uniforms until they were already hauling her to her feet. She didn't have the energy to fight, as much as she wanted to. Calypso let them force a straitjacket over her head and loop her arms around her body. She let them put that stupid bag over her head again.