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JULY 5TH, THE CAPITOL
"That was, well... unforgettable, you could say."
Colt rolled his eyes at Moxie, their districts mentor. The boy already knew they would still be at the bottom of the sponsor leaderboard, and they most likely wouldn't be moving up anytime soon. He had tried to get his sister to stop crying during the parade, but the poor girl was scared of practically anything, and this was the worst possible place she could be. Loud noises, crowds, heights, hell, even horses scared Finch, and he was at the point of not knowing what to do. He wanted to protect her, but his sister was putting a red target on not only her back, but his as well, and he was worried that he wouldn't be alive past the bloodbath at this rate.
Colt sighed, and bent down to Finch, who had curled into a ball in the chariot and refused to move at all. The little girls hands covered her ears to try and block out all the screaming, and her head was between her knees so she wouldn't see any of the people in the audience.
"Finch, hey," Colt began. "You're okay, we're back in the chariot room now."
The girl just let out another sob, refusing to look at her brother. He had been trying to get her up the entire time, but she knew if she opened her eyes she would be right back in the nightmare she had no chance of escaping. She didn't want to be here, it was the worst way to go in her mind. Finch knew she was ruining their chances for the both of them, but no matter how hard she tried she couldn't stop her tears from falling, or her body from trembling.
"No!" Finch cried out. "I want to go hone."
Colt flinched at her words, knowing he was entirely powerless to get her what she wanted. The only way they were going home was either to be buried in the cold ground six feet under, or by becoming a child murderer. And Colt knew there was no way Finch could ever hurt anyone or anything, not even any of the cattle back home.
"I want to go home too, okay?" Colt whispered. "But we can't. I'm sosorry."
Finch continued to cry, but her head lifted at the tone in her brothers voice. He sounded so guilty, and she hated that he felt that way. No matter how terrified the girl was, it was never because of anything her older brother did. He had never let her put in her name more times for tesserae as he knew how much the Games scared her, and put his life at risk to do it on his own. But Finch knew there was no stopping what happened at the reaping, and there was nothing else Colt could have done to prevent her from being in the exact place she never wanted to be.
