Our Punishment | The Hunger Games

I. better me than them

IT HAD BEEN A YEAR since that moment during Atticus' Victory Tour and the two Victors hadn't seen each other since.

Emerald continued attending Capitol parties and going to that room in the hope that a familiar pair of brown eyes would find her, but they never did. Every event she attended she always looked out for him, but it was almost as if the boy from District Two fell off the face of the earth and was lost in space.

Over time, Emerald became less hopeful she would run into him again. Maybe she was clinging to a memory that wasn't real. Perhaps, it was something conjured up by her imagination to help solve her problems and aid in her comfort.

The other thing she also remembers from that night is how Cashmere never returned with a glass of water. Instead, on the train ride home the next morning, she showed up with bruises littering her once untouchable body.

Emerald liked to think her imagination also made those up. At first, she thought she was seeing things. Maybe she had looked at the light for too long, the splotches of colors that sometimes filled her visions had crawled from her head and were finally making their mark on reality.

Though, it was something Emerald was familiar with. And there was no denying that the bruises Cashmere had gained were from the hands of a greedy Capitol elite who bought her company.

And now she was back in the Capitol to celebrate the Victory of the Sixty-ninth Hunger Games. The boy who won was from District Eight and Emerald was thankful for that. The careers had won too much recently, which was most likely a bore to the Capitol. Why have the games if you know the outcome of every single one? It's like playing a board game with a cheater, or someone too good, but that was exactly what it was.

Emerald slowly made her way through the mansion's garden, in hopes that maybe- just maybe- she would find who she was looking for.

Her luck had run dry and she headed back inside to find Satin. Satin Swift won the fifty-fifth games at the age of fifteen, which was six years after her father. While he might not be as tall, she couldn't deny the pure physicality of the man. Satin had mentored Emerald in her games and was someone she wholeheartedly trusted and looked up to.

When she finally locked eyes with the man, she found him nose-deep in a plate of desserts. Satin's dirty blond hair and piercing blue eyes met her as he coughed in embarrassment.

"Emerald," he attempted to say underneath the food in his mouth.

"Nice," she said, "very classy."

"Oh, would you shut up? Your teenage attitude has been quite horrible lately, and frankly, it's no way to talk to the man who kept you alive in that arena."

Satin's comment earned his a slap on the arm as Emerald rolled her eyes. "It's nice seeing you too, yeah?"

"I was doing just fine without you actually, but now that you're here..."

"You're such an ass, you know that?"

"I don't know, I only think you've told me once or twice?" Satin raised an eyebrow, playfully smirking at Emerald.

"This is exactly why I say that." Emerald quipped, reaching out to grab his plate of dessert. Before she could reach over and capture the plate from his hands, Satin stepped away, causing Emerald to narrowly miss.

"You are so dead," he snapped, slowly inching further and further, a lopsided grin taking over his face. Emerald could only roll her eyes, snatching a brownie off Satin's plate when he wasn't looking.

When he turned back to Emerald, he saw the chocolate square in her hands and placed his left hand to his heart.

"Ouch," he spoke. "That one hurts, Emmy."