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KILL FOR YOUR LOVE.

act one.

(chapter eight, always)

training centre / the catacombs, 72 ADD.

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SOMEHOW, DURING THE NIGHT, Juniper managed to sneak into her bedroom after sitting by the window for hours. The party had stopped and as Juniper woke in her bed, makeup smudged on the covers and her dress crinkled, she felt dead inside. 

She would be dead along with Justice in just a few hours. She only had a few hours to live and even then, her will was slipping slightly. But she had enough common sense to swing her legs over the bed and onto the floor, heading towards the bathroom. 

But as Juniper did, she tried hard to not look into the mirror. She didn't want to look into her reflection, knowing an ugly creature would be looking back and so, Juniper stepped into the high-tech shower after slipping her dress off. 

She let the hot water run down her back and sighed at the feeling. Juniper let the liquid soak into her flesh, letting the steam taint her hair as it caused condensation to rise onto the glass panels that surrounded the shower. The only sounds in the bathroom was the hitting of water on Juniper's skin and her deep sighs. She knew she should savour the quietness as she figured that screams and cries would fill her ears soon. 

But like everything, it had to end as Juniper forced herself to switch the water off, standing onto the blow-drying mat as she let it get rid off the liquids that seeped into her skin. And once she was dried, she walked back into her room where she found a sleeveless, tight shirt and some pants laid out on her bed. Her attire for the arena. 

Juniper felt her stomach contract as she quietly slipped into the clothes, the thought that it would be the very last thing she would wear being haunting. And whilst she got dressed, there was a mere thought in her head. She didn't want to die. No, she didn't want to die, but she had accepted it and now, with her impending doom, it was time to stop thinking about it and just let it happen. It had to happen. Had to. That was what Juniper kept saying to herself as she left her bedroom. 

It was only Yara and Lucy that stood in the dining room, both speaking quietly with each other and it was only until Juniper walked up to the pair of them that they noticed her. 

"Juniper." Lucy sighed. The woman looked completely exhausted. "Justice is already gone."

"I figured." Juniper nodded as she sat down at the table, the Avoxes immediately putting a plate of a full breakfast in-front of her. "Was he okay?"

"He was okay."

"Good."

Juniper immediately tucked into her breakfast under the watchful eyes of Lucy and Yara and once she was finished, the Avoxes took away the plate just as quickly as they placed it down and at the nod of Lucy, they all left the room. 

The girl stood up from the table and looked at Lucy and Yara, a placid look on her face. So many emotions, so many thoughts, so much deniability had filled Juniper's head, but as she stood before the two women, all of them ceased. Finally, after a week, Juniper had accepted her death. She was all right with dying. 

But was she?

"Well, I will escort you to the roof," Lucy said softly. "And Yara will meet you in the catacombs."

"The what?"

"I'm meeting you under the arena," Yara told her. "It's where tributes get ready and get into their tubes."

"Right..."

And so, with a mere glance, Yara swiftly left as Lucy began to guide Juniper to the elevator. All of it seemed to happen fast, but the girl didn't mind. She would want it to be fast than slow. She didn't have the patience for that.

Juniper took deep breaths as she walked into the elevator with Lucy, turning around at the exact moment the door swivelled close. Before they started to go up, the girl looked at Yara and the entire floor. It would be the last time she saw the sight and in that second, the stylist looked completely helpless. Everyone was helpless because it was inevitable that Juniper and Justice were to die together. It was inevitable.

And as the elevator shot through all of the levels, the girl from District Ten took deep breaths, closing her eyes. Everything would be all right. Everything would stop in a few hours. She and Justice could both escape this world. They would be free. 

"I'm sorry..." a faint voice echoed around, causing Juniper to shoot open her eyes to see Lucy staring at her softly. "About this."

"It doesn't matter." Juniper shrugged. "It is inevitable."

"It shouldn't be like this."

"Well, it is."

"I'm just—"

"Can you not?" Juniper turned to the side to look right into Lucy's eyes. "Don't deny it. Don't try and save me in there. Don't do anything. It won't get you anywhere."

Lucy swallowed a lump in her throat as she said, "I... wasn't going to. I'm just saying no-one should be going through this."

"Well... we are." Juniper sighed. "No point in wondering about the what ifs and other realities."

The older woman furrowed her brows gently, staring right at Juniper until the elevator doors opened, letting a gust of wind charge through, nearly topping the girl over as she raised a hand to block the bright sun that threatened to blind her. A hovercraft was sitting on a landing pad a little way away. 

"This is it..." Lucy mumbled. "They'll give you your tracker on the craft and fly you over to the arena. Yara will be there to get you ready in the catacombs before... it begins."

Juniper merely nodded as she stared at the hovercraft, whose propellers looked so sharp and deadly that she feared if she got too close, it would whisk her head off within a second. But with a slight push from Lucy, who didn't seem to expect any type of gratitude, Juniper's legs moved without her consent towards the craft. 

But as she did, the girl's eyes were trained solely on the ground, a million thoughts running through her head. But only one stayed certain in her mind. She hoped that one day the Capitol could pay for what they had done. 

It was no use in thinking of the what ifs, that Juniper should not be going through this because it didn't matter. But it did for the future. Juniper was going to die. Her time was up. No-one could save her now. But someone could change the future, give the people a flicker of hope. Maybe it would be the Victor from this Games, or the next one, or the one after that, or one from a previous year. But those in the future, the children of the future, had no right to live like this. Juniper just hoped, as she neared the hovercraft, that someone in their right mind could break the Capitol, even if it wasn't her. 

And that thought increased widely as she began to climb the ladder that led to the hull of the craft. Seeing the Peacekeepers' immediately flanking her, the terrified faces of all the tributes in their seats, it made Juniper remorseful. Their time was gone. They were going to die except for one. There was no hope in the eyes of those unlucky ones. But there was a sense of nonchalance and acceptance radiating off of Justice Hale, who was wedged between District Nine and Eleven, an empty space next to him. 

"They're gonna give you a wicked injection." Justice smiled as Juniper was pushed into the seat next to him harshly. He was massaging his forearm and Juniper figured that their trackers would be injected into them. 

And she was right when a woman in a lab coat and gloves came wandering to her, a thick, giant needle in her hand as she splayed the other one out. Juniper didn't think twice before she gave her arm to the woman, watching as the syringe entered her skin, followed by a glowing flash from underneath her flesh. Her tracker. She was marked for death now. 

When the woman left, Juniper massaged her forearm gently as she eyed the other tributes, feeling the craft take off as the windows became blacked out.

In-front of her was the girl from Six, Wing. Her faint black hair was done in a simple braid, two plaits going down each shoulder, and her grey eyes stared at one of the blacked out windows. She was fidgety, the girl, with the way she picked at the skin around her fingernails, biting the skin off of her lip and sucking the blood clear to show no sign of nervousness or weakness. Juniper sighed as she caught eyes with the Careers'. 

The four were all smirking and laughing at whatever their counterparts said, nodding and pointing at some of the tributes who were crying. And Juniper furrowed her brows as she watched them. There was no way she was letting those burly freaks murder her. But then she caught eyes onto Cedar. 

Her brown hair was put up into a simple bun at the nape of her neck, a few strands loose as it framed her face. And as Juniper stared at her, she couldn't deny her beauty. Her hair the same colour of wood. Her honey eyes that were so gentle, it made Juniper's cold heart warmer. Her faint freckles that dotted across her nose as if a painter from heaven was sent specifically to doodle them onto her face. Juniper found it a pity that Cedar was to die. Maybe she wouldn't. Maybe she would win. But all Juniper knew was that if it were anyone to kill her, she would want it to be Cedar. She would do it in the gentlest way there was, if there even was a way to kill gently. 

And then, Juniper looked to Justice. He looked quite content as he sat there, fiddling his thumbs as he looked around absentmindedly. And one would think this was a sign of anxiousness, but the way Justice's eyes were. It looked like he was... hopeful in some way, that there was some good coming out of this. But the only thing coming out of this were their deaths. Maybe Brent had filled Justice up with false hope. But no, the agreement, the promise. District Ten tributes go down together. Always. 

When the hovercraft landed, all the tributes were escorted off by Peacekeepers', some going green in the face at the sudden realisation that the landing dock was directly underneath the arena. And out of curiosity, Juniper started to wonder what it would be as she felt her arms be grasped by two burly, fat guards. 

Would it be a hot, sunny climate? An arena so smoking hot, it would burn those alive? Or an arena so cold, so chilly that it could freeze people? Or perhaps the arena was just a plain old forest with no excitement. No, the Gamemakers would have to make the death field deathly, they had to top last years. And it was Seneca Crane's first year. He would have something totally ridiculous and inhumane thought up in that cruel yet sane head of his. 

Going through twists and turns, Juniper was finally shoved into a small room that was nearly empty except for a rack of clothing and the glass tube in the centre. Yara had her back turned and Juniper felt some relief at seeing her. Oddly enough. 

"Well, it ain't cold." Yara turned to face her, holding only a light, nylon jacket that held many pockets and zips and a pair of thick, hard boots. "And I wouldn't say hot because this jacket doesn't have thermal heating for cold nights, which is most common for desert arenas."

"So what is it?" Juniper asked as she stepped closer to her. She was already wearing the tightest, sleeveless shirt and black trousers and she prayed that her death would come quickly. The attire did not look comfortable. 

"I don't know." Yara shrugged. "The boots are too thick to be good for running... the shirt is too tight... the jacket is too light... and the trousers are as baggy as can be..."

"So you have no idea."

"So I have no idea," Yara repeated. "Hot and cold are the only common arenas. It might be woods, but you'll need more flexible soles for that if you're running... or maybe mountains since the boots have good grip—"

"Yara," Juniper interrupted her from her unusual rambling. "Just give me the jacket and boots."

And so she did and soon, Juniper had the lightest nylon jacket on, the heaviest boots, the baggiest trousers, and the tightest tank top. Thankfully, Juniper wouldn't have to be in it long enough for her to worry about it being too uncomfortable. 

Yara walked around the girl and towards her back as she gently took Juniper's hair, tying it into a simple ponytail that went down her back. It was plain. It didn't have any fancy, intricate details that most tributes did. It was something so easy that it didn't even mean anything. Juniper was simply getting ready to die. 

"Thirty-seconds." A female, robotic voice echoed around the room. 

Juniper jumped slightly at the sound of the speakers crackling, but she soon regained her posture as she took deep breaths, closing her eyes. This was it. It was finally going to happen because after a week of denial and half-acceptance, Juniper Hale was finally going to die. And she was all right with it. 

But was she? No. She was. She had to be. This was the way it had to go. 

"Twenty-seconds."

"Well, are you going to get into the tube?" Yara teased as she gestured to it.

To most tributes, it would have seemed daunting, the thing that was leading them to their deaths, raising them up into an arena of terror. But Juniper didn't feel that way, for she nodded and simply stood into the glass tube. She had no feelings for an inanimate object. 

"Ten-seconds."

The door suddenly swivelled shut, but Juniper didn't flinch. Instead, she took another deep breath and felt the plate that she was standing on begin to rise, Yara disappearing from sight and turning into concrete.

Juniper, as she felt herself rise, began to chuckle slightly because this was it. These were the final moments of her life. Would she run to the Cornucopia where the bloodbath would commence or stand on her pedestal, waiting for someone to get a lucky kill? She hadn't decided. But what she had decided on was that she was going to die. She was going to be dead and she was content with that. She was happy with that. 

And even if she wasn't, she had to be. 

Suddenly, the concrete disappeared and Juniper quickly closed her eyes. She expected a breeze, but there was none. There was no wind, no rustling, nothing except for the buzz of insects and the faint lapping of water. And the plate clicking as Juniper Hale entered her death.