lost | the hunger games

• xvii •

"Ben was Rue's older brother."

I nodded.

"She told me that she'd lost her brother to the games before she died. He died in your games."

I confirmed was she said with another nod. "Ben told me he had a handful of siblings waiting for him before he died. Watching Rue . . ." I swallowed hard, "was difficult. I'm glad she had you when she died. Their family deserved that much."

"I couldn't give that to them. To Ben." Tears pooled in my eyes, and a lump had grown in my throat. It was here that I realized I had never talked to anyone about Ben. Not even Finnick. Finally being able to talk about him with someone, I could feel the hurt. And fuck, it hurt. For the past three years, all I had been doing is pushing the pain and the grief away. Never lessened, never really gone. Just tucked away to occasionally pop out of its cage when I couldn't control the lock. Nobody was around to really understand how I felt. Nobody knew the relationship I had with Ben. 

Katniss didn't either, but her connection to Rue made her different. The hatred I had felt when Rue was reaped can't be put into words. I wouldn't put it past Snow to reap another child from their family as punishment for our disobedience. Our friendship was illegal, and we paid the cost for it. It almost seems irrational, but part of me believed that Snow was still punishing me for talking to a member of their family. Punishing me for surviving his first attempt at punishing me. 

I had survived the games that were meant to kill me, and in return, Snow took another life from Ben's family instead. 

Her face was unreadable as she listened to me.

"You only knew Ben a couple days."

"I could say the same for you and Rue. Yet you mourned her the way you would your own sister."

"You're right. That wasn't fair," I shrugged in response. "You lost your brother to the games as well."

Oh, so we're bringing up everyone I've lost to the games now, huh? "Yes."

"You mourned Ben the way you mourned your brother, then?"

I held back a cynical breath of laughter. "Something like that."

It was nothing like that.

We were silent for a couple of minutes before Katniss spoke again. "Rue told me she'd received one parachute during the games. A slice of bread. She said it was tinted green for some reason. Do you know who that was from?"

"No."

"Okay."

Peeta waded back to shore a little while later, rubbing at his skin irritably like everyone else. The areas where our skin had bubbled from the poisonous fog had scabbed over, making the skin hideous and extremely itchy. I looked back at Finnick, who was picking at the scabs on his face and feeling the same itchiness. The sight of his marred face almost made me laugh if not for the unbearable itch everywhere on my body.

I reached up to scratch my own face when Katniss caught my wrist. "Don't scratch," she warned all of us. "You'll only bring infection. Think it's safe enough to try the water again?"

I didn't question her reasoning. She was probably right. I nodded and stood up carefully. "Yeah, let's go."

Peeta noticed my wounded side as I stood from the water. "You okay?"

"Just a scratch." I waved his concern off, grabbing my scythe.

"Looks a little more than a scratch, but alright."