"Dahlia Blossom. Don't let the name fool you. She's better known as the Black Dahlia. And she didn't earn that nickname by smiling and looking pretty."
"She sure knows how to perform for the camera."
"Because she knows how to play the game. She alwa...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
As a young child growing up in the Capitol, Juno Moneta had always felt like she had the world at her fingertips. The sky was the limit for a girl like her, nothing was out of reach. Anything she wanted, she got. But the one thing she yearned for more than anything had evaded her all her life. She longed for a purpose in life. Something to feel truly passionate about.
Fashion quelled this desire for a time. The freedom of creating and designing her own outfits brought her a sense of satisfaction that she hadn't felt before. Yet she never truly believed that what she was doing made much of an impact. She wanted to make something that would last, something to inspire. The gods listened to her prayers and took pity on her naive plight. They sent her Dahlia.
Although watching the girl go from hopeful Tribute to traumatised Victor broke the stylist's heart, it made Juno wake up from the oblivious dream she had been trapped in for years. The Capitol was not the perfect paradise she'd been told it was and the Hunger Games was not the way to keep the peace. When Alaric approached her the night before the Quarter Quell and welcomed her into the Alliance, she knew it was her chance to finally make a difference. This was what she'd been waiting for.
Juno became a secret benefactor of the revolution. By slowly selling items from the stash Dahlia had stolen, she could raise money to support the rebellion in its fight against Snow. She built a network of support from the ground up and funded the Mockingjay cause with the fortune of the Capitol's richest. Finally, she found something worth dying for...
Sadly, it was something she would end up dying for.
Wrenching her blade out of Juno's body, the Black Dahlia delicately plucked the flower pin from the stylist's hand with wide eyes. Its wrinkled petals had wilted even more over the years and the colour had faded from its once striking black. But it was the same flower that landed at Finnick's feet. The same flower she'd left on his doorstep. The same flower he'd treasured for years as a memory of her.
She could almost feel Finnick's love and adoration for her seeping through her fingertips. Like his soul was embedded in its petals to remind her of who she was. My little flower, his voice seemed to whisper in her ear. Don't forget who you really are. Suddenly it all came flooding back. She wasn't the Black Dahlia. She was Dahlia Blossom.
As Juno collapsed to the ground, Dahlia could only stare at what she'd done in horror. It was as though the flower had awakened her from the hazy spell of the Black Dahlia. Like the fog had finally lifted and her memories had broken through. She remembered it all. The good moments and the bad, the happiness and the heartbreak, the betrayal she experienced... and the betrayal she had just committed.
"Oh, Juno." Dahlia gasped out, dropping down next to her old friend with her wide eyes fixated on the blood pouring out of her stomach. Hands shaking in fear and regret, Dahlia tore the mask from her face and put pressure on the wound to stem the blood flow. Her chest heaved with panicked breaths as she whimpered in disbelief, "What have I done? What have I done?"
