"Bailey."
"Hmm?" I'm not really paying attention, instead flipping through a photo album my mother gave me before she died. There's pictures of my younger sister and I splashing together in our old tin bath, and a pang of regret ripples through me as I remember how innocent we were back then. So happy, as happy as you could be in a world where people constantly keeled over from starvation and children were sent off to murder each other as punishment for something we had nothing to do with.
"I... I love you."
"What?" I snap the book closed, looking up to see Ember standing in the doorway.
His eyes are filled with pain, and I know he feels as though his words are a betrayal to his sister, my best friend.
After the rebellion ended we found each other curing our last tendrils of pain. Holding each other when the nightmares sucked away our happiness. We'd grown too close, since Melia's death, to let each other suffer.
While various members of our families found jobs in other districts, we stayed behind. Helped rebuild. Got back our homes in the Victor's Village. We're all victors a happy family. As happy as you can be in a world where you've been sent off to murder children as punishment for something you had nothing to do with.
"Oh, Ember. Oh, I..." I swallow, pressing the book to my stomach so the corners dig into my flesh. I find my gaze travelling to his arms, to the scars left behind by the Games. "I... love you, too."
And the words feel right.
He crosses the room, presses his lips to mine. My heart gives a flutter and I feel a stab of guilt twist in my chest, because Melia wouldn't want this. She would hate it, hate it, hate it... But I push it aside. She's gone. It's time to move on now.
And I do.
When I feel her, our daughter, stirring inside me, I know it will be okay. Everything will be all right.
When I get nightmares, he's always there. Always beside me. I wake, screaming for Melia to run, screaming for Rouge to get away. Eventually they do.
I stroke Melly's soft hair, hold Thorn in my arms. The boy who came two years after. The one who knows not of the horrors we have endured.
"My children," I whisper.
My children. We watch them grow, free from the Hunger Games. Wishing our childhood could have been like theirs.
Mel comes running home from school one day, asking about the girl who died in the Fiftieth Hunger Games. We have similar names, she laughs. We look the same! When they ask what happened in the Games, Ember goes quiet. I explain delicately why their aunt isn't here. Why her death, and many others', have shaped the world in which they live.
We could have lived in Two, I say. Or the Capitol. But we chose to stay.
Because there are much worse places to be.
THE END
YOU ARE READING
Snowdrop
Action"And now we honour our fiftieth anniversary. As a reminder that two rebels died for each Capitol citizen, every district will be required to send twice as many tributes." Melia Cressview. Ember Cressview. Bailey Birling. Haymitch Abernathy. All from...
