BLOOD ON MY HANDS || Finnick Odair

twenty-one; a forced conversation.

Then he was on his back and she was lowering a jacket onto his face, those words rattling emptily through his ears.

Murderer.

Blood on your hands.

You killed me.

He had woken up screaming and nearly beat one of his guards to death in that state of panic. They told him later on that the Peace Keeper had been in a medically-induced coma for a week while they healed the parts of his body that they could. He would permanently lose the function of his left arm.

After being subdued by the rest of the team watching him, Moira had art supplies sent to his space so he had something he could do instead of repeatedly trashing the place.

That drawing had been a close up of Lara's face, those haunting eyes staring up at him with all the betrayal and blame he'd felt in the moment he killed her.

The second was of Rin clinging to Volt's back at the first sound of the arenas ocean. Then Flora, those beautiful little flowers woven into her hair; that image had water-stained places where his tears had landed. Beau, lying there in the mud the day he'd died. Flora's bloody body and then lower on the page was the first time he had seen Narcissa's face.

The images were endless, all flooding back to him in the night when he was at his most vulnerable.

Dragging the colours across paper was cathartic, calming in some way. The shortest pencil — the one he used and sharpened the most — was red.

Red blood staining Beau's skin. Red blood Lara coughed up in those final moments. Red blood soaking into Flora's clothes as she laid in the grass, her heart no longer beating.

He hated the colour, but Eden saw it the most in his dreams and so it was on every page.

Today was no different.

The previous night he had spent hours sketching the shape of hands, one with the palm facing upwards and the other with the fingers dangling toward the ground. Now, he drew droplets falling from the digits or pooling in the palm, ignoring the aching it brought to his chest.

He heard his front door open and immediately rose to his feet, wanting to see Cissy as soon as she came in. They always brought her back to him in the evenings, never the morning.

Understandably he was excited, but that was muffled as a dozen more peacekeepers poured in through his front door and stood on either side like statues; six on the right side, six on the left. A moment later, two well dressed assistants came in and were followed by an older man dressed in a white suit. His cloudy hair was combed neatly away from his face and beard trimmed down to perfection. A single white rose was pinned to the lapel of his suit jacket.

Eden, for a moment, couldn't breathe.

He remembered the sickeningly sweet smell of roses that surrounded President Snow from the day he crowned him on Cesar Flickermans show during the viewing of the games. During that, he hadn't been entirely present. His mind had been elsewhere.

"Hello, Eden Koyle," President Snow said calmly, softly.

The sound of his voice was enough to send rattling shudders through his body. "President Snow," he responded emptily. It took everything in him to keep the revulsion out of his voice. "What can I do for you?"

President Snow sat down in the one-seater chair across the coffee table from him. An ankle crossed over his knee, elbows rested on the armrests. "I've come to make you a proposition."

When Eden sat down again and didn't answer, didn't voice any kind of protest, the old man continued. "You have become incredibly popular with your victory, Mr Koyle. Citizens of Panem's Capitol, many being good friends of mine, have become quite...infatuated with you."

He waved a hand and one of the assistants rushed off to the kitchen and came back moments later with a tray of tea, cups, silver spoons and an array of small biscuits. "It has been asked of me to personally invite to several dinner parties that are coming up."

Eden nodded slowly. "Okay..."

"It won't be too far out of the ordinary for what you've experienced here so far; dressing nice, making conversation, enjoying a meal...the likes. The only difference would be afterwards."

A pause. "I don't follow, sir," Eden stated after that long moment.

That earned him a smile. "No, you wouldn't." President snow took a long sip from his cup of tea, looking idly around the living room. "Once the evenings ends for the public, you will continue to entertain afterwards. In private."

For a moment Eden stared at him because there was no way the President of Panem was suggesting what Eden thought he was. "Excuse me?"

"Members of the dinner parties will be providing you with essentially whatever you'd like, in exchange for your services."

Eden swallowed the horror that was building in his throat. "And by services you mean..." the president only stared at him "...you mean my body."

"Yes, Mr Koyle, I do."

Oh my god.

"Sir," Eden spoke up quietly, "respectfully, I'm not interested in—"

"—this is not an offer. I have three offers already; two of which are hoping to see you within the next week. I'll have the details passed on to you by the end of the day."

"I'm not interested in this, sir," Eden stated again, forcing himself to look President Snow in the eye. "I understand that you think there are benefits in this for me but I'm saying no, and you can't do anything to make me change my mind."

President Snow took a long sip from his cup again and stared him directly in the eye. "Oh, but I can."

"...excuse me?"

"You said I'm unable to make you change your mind," President Snow shrugged, "but I can." He adjusted the way he was sitting. "See, I am in charge of who is allowed to live, work, and enjoy their free time in places all around Panem. This means I am in complete control of peoples lives, which also means I am in charge of siblings. Grandparents. Aunts. Uncles. Most importantly, I'm in charge of Panem's children."

No.

Please no.

Oh my god, no.

"I'm not following," Eden said quietly.

But his heart was lowered into his stomach because he knew full well what was being insinuated.

President Snow hardly adjusted his body language at all, just set his teacup back down on the tray. "I am fully capable of making the executive decision that you are unfit to parent your child."

All semblance of hope for his free future fizzled out completely.

There was no sign of false-promise in President Snow's eyes. No hint of any remorse over the unbelievably blatant threat.

"Sir," Eden breathed out quietly, a new kind of panic tearing through his chest.

He had done the impossible and saved his daughter from an arena full of killers, from the dead body of her mother. He had kept her alive off of crushed nuts and berries, had lost someone who had become a dear friend in order to get her formula. Kept her warm and healthy in a foggy rain forest full of mud. And now, the man who had sanctioned all of it was threatening to take her away.

Everything he had done to keep her alive would be demolished if she wasn't with him because if he didn't have Cissy in his life, Eden wasn't going to make it. His baby girl was the only thing that kept him from ending his life every night; the only thing that kept him from digging his own grave so Eve and Gramps wouldn't have to do it.

His baby girl was his one last connection to Flora, and President Snow was threatening to take her away.

Eden couldn't let him do that.

Eden wouldn't let him do that.

So he swallowed his pride. His dignity. His faith, his hope and all of the gratefulness he had forced himself to feel towards his survival. All of the fight he'd managed to muster in the last five months fizzled out into an emptiness that was so suffocating it threatened to swallow him whole. "Who will I be seeing first?"

With a slight tilt of his head, President Snow smiled.