Writer Games | Masquerade of Martyrs & Family Ties

Task Five: The Exile - Females

District One - Jace Argentaria

"What are you doing here?"

"How are you going to get back?"

"Why isn't Orion here?"

Jace didn't move. She  was finally awake but she couldn't make herself rise from the fetal  position that she'd awoken in. The fury that she'd held towards Rosie's  murderers was gone and a tired weight had settled in its place. She  could feel it clinging to her and pulling her down to the roses that  were crushed beneath her body. Jace couldn't move. The gravity of what  had occurred in the last few hours was keeping her down, resting on her  like the weight of the world. It was too heavy for her.

"Jace, you can't go."

"I have to do this, let me go."

"I won't let you go."

She had messed  everything up. Her foolishness had ruined Rosie's chances of survival.  Her selfishness had killed the only person that Orion loved  unconditionally. It had been a sacrifice that she chose to make but  something in her whispered that her intentions hadn't been as honorable  as she'd initially thought. That unbidden little voice always spoke the  harshest of words. It had been there since her victory, constantly  undermining her and making her question every action. She supposed that  it was right in this case. It was her fault that Rosie was dead.

"Miss Argentaria, this is against the rules."

"This is highly inappropriate."

"It's going to cost you your life."

How had she let this  happen? She was supposed to save Rosie, she was supposed to protect  Orion, and she was supposed to sacrifice herself. Jace was supposed to  be dead. Instead, she was curled up in the middle of a dead garden and  wishing that she could wilt and die too. The other mentors had warned  her that the first year was always the hardest. That those tributes  would haunt her the most. The first two would always be the hardest to  watch die. She felt nothing for Howl; all of her grief was spent on  Rosie.

Jace paced in front  of the phone, waiting for the call that Vienna's note had told her to  expect. Howl's body had already been sent back home and though she was  ashamed to admit it, she was glad that another tough competitor was  gone. It was just one less person that could harm her almost-sister.  There were whispers going through the other mentors that this next trial  would be excruciatingly difficult. It was hard to be professional, hard  to hide her concern. Rosie wasn't strong enough to be confronted with  such a task. Jace prayed that the hushed talk would prove to be just  rumors.

She had never known the  grief that came with losing somebody she loved. Those from lower  Districts made friends with the Grim Reaper but she had never seen its  shadow fall over her own home. Jace had seen her fair share of death but  it had never mattered this much. The tributes that fell in her Games,  the peers she had seen return home wearing white lilies instead of  winner's laurels, the empty beds that belonged to boys whose nights she  shared and who didn't live to see this day. None of them mattered as  much as the little girl who had looked up to her as a hero. She had let  Rosie down.

The phone's  deafening silence should've been reassuring. After all, no news is good  news. That sentiment didn't apply when somebody's life was on. Her  knowledge of the task ahead could've been the only thing between seeing  Rosie as a Victor or a tiny corpse. Though Jace had no power amongst  those who ran the Games, she had been willing to do anything to delay  the inevitable. She'd heard the stories of the prices some Victors paid  for the choices they made but Jace was prepared to pay anything to keep  Orion's sister safe from whatever the Gamemakers had planned.