TIME'S ARROW. [FINNICK ODAIR]

PROLOGUE.

PROLOGUE.
PRESENT DAY.

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MUCH LIKE ELAINA VELOUR HERSELF, District Eight was a wasteland.

The wreckage that remained from the riots of the previous night stood only as a reminder of the losses that had occurred. Not just the loss to the peacekeepers and the Capitol and Snow, but the loss of her people. Of her childhood friends, her newfound allies, and her rebellion partners.

Elaina wasn't naive. She knew that spearheading a revolution would come with its losses. Those who joined her knew what they were signing up for. But it didn't become real until last night.

Every single piece of rubble she passed had a face attached to it. Faces of kids she went to school with, those she'd worked in the factories with, who had come to meetings with hope in their eyes, searching for meaning in a girl who was making it up as she went along. Merchants and vendors she once bought and bartered with, who saw the spirit of Elaina's mother in her. Neighbors who'd been kind to her and her family (and those who hadn't) who'd heard whispers of rebellion and wished to make a change.

She'd let them down. She'd let them all down.

She could hear Calloway's voice in the back of her mind, hard yet sweet, telling her the opposite. Revolution doesn't happen overnight, El. It's a ladder. And it's a long way to the top.

If revolution was a ladder, then Elaina was the idiot who'd decided to climb it. And she was responsible for those that fell.

Her palms were bleeding from how forcefully she'd dug her nails into them, spending her walk back from the town square reliving the floggings and the executions she'd just witnessed. Those that had participated in the riots were stationed before the entire District who'd been forced out of their homes to watch.

This is what happens to those who rebel. You cannot win. Play your part or you will be punished.

Elaina was uncertain if the Capitol knew about her role in all of this. She figured they did. Snow had eyes everywhere, as she'd learned from mistakes of the past, but she wasn't sure how much he had. While she assumed he had his suspicions, whatever he did know wasn't good enough to use against her, seeing as she was still breathing.

She wasn't untouchable, but she was damn well near it. And while Snow couldn't hurt her, he could make her hurt. He could force her to watch everything. That was her consequence. She supposed she deserved it.

The cold air nipped at her cheeks as she entered Victor's Village, thankful she wasn't with Calloway who she knew would try to console her. She didn't want to be consoled. If this guilt were to eat her alive, then so be it.

The mirror above the bench in her home's foyer stared at her as she entered, taunting her to look at herself as she took her shoes off. She caught her own gaze as she took off her scarf, struck by how much she currently looked like her mother. While she knew that that's why the people of her District were drawn to her and her cause, right now, she wanted to look like anybody else.

Elaina swallowed harshly as she noticed just how red her eyes were. She was drained of tears, gone from her just like the cuts and burns and bruises she'd received last night.

Zola had smuggled her Capitol medicine and ointment to rid herself of any evidence that could link her to the riots, just in case any of her government friends came to visit. Elaina had refused it at first. She didn't want to get rid of them. Let them see. But the look in her friend and stylist's eye told her everything she needed to hear.