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KILL FOR YOUR LOVE.

act three.

(chapter seventy-seven, to give them a martyr to fight for)

hospital ward / juniper and johanna's compartment, 75 ADD.

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"WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY anything?" 

"You really think I was in the right state of mind to say anything about it?" 

Lucy Stevens and Juniper Hale sat in an empty hospital room, just down the corridor from the observatory area. The latter was sitting on the edge of the clean, neatly made bed, a pile of dead skin pooling on the floor as she picked at her thumbs. The silhouettes of tears were stained on her cheeks. And then the former was sitting in the plastic chair across from her, near the door, hunched over. 

"You could have told Aurelius about it," Lucy told her, voice slight and weak. "He could have helped you... or you could have told Finnick." 

"I didn't want to." 

"Why not?" Lucy asked. "You're going through grief, it's normal—" 

"I am not going through grief," Juniper was sure to snap at her. "I am not mourning. I just didn't want to tell anybody." 

"Fine," the redhead whispered. "But you should have told me... even if you aren't mourning, which you obviously are. I might not have liked those two loons, but..."

Lucy's voice drifted off as Juniper heard her sniffle. She was unsure if the woman was crying or not. She probably was. Juniper tried to not think of Lucy Stevens crying as she continued picking at her skin. A stinging pain surrounded her fingers as she did.

"Is that what all of this has been about?" Lucy questioned. 

"What do you mean?" Juniper breathed. "All of what?" 

"Everything," Lucy mumbled. "How everything has been since you were rescued... this undeniable sadness that has consumed you... is this because you watched Nadine and Yara die?" 

"There hasn't been an undeniable sadness consuming me—" 

"But you are different—" 

"You know, captivity can do that to you." Juniper quickly nodded. Spots of blood were beginning to seep through as she ripped a slice of her skin off. It fell to the floor with the other pieces. 

Lucy took a deep breath before leaning back in her chair, straightening her spine as she said, "You need help... you need Aurelius... you can't keep this all bottled in..." 

Juniper ignored her. 

"You know what's funny?" Lucy forced a laugh that was mixed with tears as she ran a hand through her hair. "Everyone else knows what happened to the others... everyone knows what happened to Peeta, and Annie, and Johanna... but nobody knows what happened to you... you haven't told anybody—" 

"Because I don't want to." Juniper gritted her teeth. "I don't need to say anything about what happened." 

"You have to tell someone," the older Victor said. "Juniper, I know it's instinct to bottle things up, to not trust... but you have to tell someone. It will kill you, this." 

"Why do you care so much?" 

"Because I—" 

The door to the room opened, causing Lucy to stop her sentence as someone crossed the threshold. Juniper didn't bother looking up as she continued to pick at her fingers, but the person was mumbling to Lucy. Whatever they said, it caused the woman to nod and get up from her chair, leaving the room. 

"Miss Hale," Dr. Aurelius greeted, sliding the plastic chair closer to her. It screeched along the tiles. 

Juniper looked up to see the exhausted face of the head doctor, who was running a hand down his wrinkled skin. He held no clipboard or pen and there was only sympathy in his eyes. 

"I am not going to talk to you, Aurelius," Juniper told him. "It'll just go back to Coin." 

"This won't." Aurelius shook his head. "Since this isn't a proper session... this is just me talking to you." 

"Still doesn't mean I want you here..." 

The doctor stayed still for a moment before sighing, saying, "Whatever happened in that room, it made President Coin pleased. She left with a smile after saying something to Mr. Heavensbee and your father." 

"What was it?" 

"I don't know." Aurelius shrugged. That seemed to be a common phrase with him. "But... I fear that whatever President Coin's true intentions are, they're going to be revealed soon." 

"What do you mean?"

Aurelius took a breath before saying, "She looked too happy. Too joyous." 

"I bet she loved watching me run out." 

"No-one blamed you," he told her. "When you left, it was like Mr. Mellark fell into a stupor. They had to sedate him."

"And Coin was pleased about that?" 

One look from Aurelius answered Juniper's question. 

And then there was silence. The head doctor was staring at the Victor whilst she began picking at her skin again. Blood was brimming up now, soaking through her flesh, bubbling up. Aurelius clenched his jaw as he watched. 

"You don't have to talk to me about it," he began to say. "And I assume you won't... but one thing I want you to know is that... you are not alone. You are not alone. You have people here—" 

Juniper scoffed as she asked, "Who?" 

"Me... Miss Stevens... Mr. Abernathy... Miss Mason... Mrs. Odair... even young Miss Everdeen," Aurelius began to say. "You have people here who will willingly listen to you, who will comfort you in the form that they do... and whatever happened to Mrs. Groves and Miss Give... it was not your fault—" 

"You weren't there." Juniper looked up at him. "You don't know what happened." 

"No... I wasn't there... but over the time we have spent together, I have gotten to understand you," Aurelius assured her. "I see the guilt that is trapped inside of you... the fear... the anger and sadness... I see the self-blaming... I see that you are lost..."

"You don't know what you're talking about," Juniper tried to say, but it was a waste of breath. She could have said it to Aurelius, but it wouldn't have been true and he would have known that. 

"I once told you... ages ago... that the first step to overcome that blame and guilt does not involve constantly brooding over it," the doctor began to say as Juniper looked into his eyes. "That you need to accept it without any rationalisation. What is done, is done. Mistakes are made to learn from them... and then you said—" 

"That they weren't just some mistakes." 

"Yes." Aurelius nodded. "You are a good person, Miss Juniper Hale. It's the natural way of the world to make mistakes, to do things you are not proud of... you have a natural goodness inside of you... you are a good person." 

"But I'm not." Juniper shook her head. Trails of wetness went down both her cheeks. "I'm not a good person...  I deserve all of this. All of the pain. All of the badness..." 

"Why do you think that?" Aurelius murmured. He scooted the plastic chair closer to her. 

"I.... I killed all of them," Juniper said as her eyes attached to a singular tile on the floor. "I killed Gloss... I caused Blight to die... I killed Wing and Hermes... I could have saved that little girl from Three... I killed Dallas and Rayon... I slit Leona's throat... it was my fault Peeta and Annie were in the Capitol... Nadine and Yara are dead because of me... all of my tributes were dead because of me... I slaughtered Cedar and Ash... I killed my brother. Aurelius, I killed my brother. I killed my brother—" 

The minute Juniper Hale started to weep, Aurelius lost all professionalism as he bundled the woman up, holding her in his arms as she cried horribly. The sound of her sobs echoed around the vacant hospital room, her sniffling bouncing off of the walls. And yet, despite the wet patch growing on the chest of Aurelius's lab coat, he did not push her away. He did not let her go. He held her as tightly as his frail frame could allow him. 

As he said, this was not a session. This was just him and Juniper.

"I think..." Aurelius began to say as the woman momentarily stopped crying, though still shaking. "That you should go to bed..." 

"I need to see Johanna—" 

"Forget about Miss Mason," he told her. "She will still be there in the morning... for now, go rest, Miss Hale. You need it. Come on..." 

Juniper allowed Aurelius to take her softly by the arm, leading her off of the bed and out of the hospital room. And she was glad it was evening because as they exited the dimly lit hospital reception and walked through the corridors of District Thirteen, no-one was around. Everyone was asleep and so, no-one saw Dr. Aurelius pulling a distraught Juniper Hale into her compartment. 

Once she was settled into her bed, tears drying with her heart still beating rapidly, Aurelius left and she was alone. And with her loneliness and the darkness that enveloped the compartment, Juniper soon started to think back to her conversation with Peeta. 

He was different, of course. Her previous sessions with him did not consist of such ferocity, such aggression. But now, when Juniper told him to stop saying the prayer in such a pathetic excuse because Coin wanted him not to, he responded tensely. And then he brought up Finnick and Annie. And then... and then. 

Juniper shook her head. She wiped the tears that were on her cheeks and buried herself deep into the thin, government-issued sheets. She needed to get some sleep. She needed to have a clear head for the morning. But, as it turned out, she would only get a few hours sleep until someone was aggressively shaking her awake. 

"Juniper! Juniper, wake up!" 

Her eyes snapping open, the woman bolted up, sheets pooling at the bottom of her waist as she felt her heart racing, going to her side to clutch something that should have been there, a sword that should have been lying beside her. But there was no sword, no cool of metal that met her palm. Instead, it was the roughness of the mattress as Juniper's eyes settled on the small, concerned face of Primrose Everdeen. 

"Prim?" Juniper questioned. "What are you doing here?" 

"You need to wake up!" Prim said desperately as she kept ahold of her shoulder. "Please, you need to get up." 

Utter confusion filled the Hale woman as she allowed to be tugged around by Prim, the girl quickly fixing the Victors' hair before pulling her out of the compartment. Juniper was still wearing the same grey overalls from last night and her cheeks stung from the crusty remains of tears, but yet, no-one batted an eye at her as Prim led her to the hospital ward. 

And whilst Juniper figured she was late for a session with Peeta, it was only when Prim pushed her into the observatory room to find no Peeta. The bed was empty. Vacant. Bare. Unoccupied.  

He was gone. 

Where had he gone? The notes that used to litter the area were completely gone with the coffee cups. No doctors or nurses inhabited the area. The only people in the room were Haymitch, Dr. Aurelius, and Lucy. Other than that, it looked near abandoned. 

"What's happened?" Juniper asked, eyes latching onto the empty bed. 

"Peeta's gone," Haymitch told her. His arms were folded and his head was shaking slightly, but his eyes remained calm. 

"Gone? How can he be gone?" Juniper raised a brow. But then, a sudden feeling of nausea washed over her. "He's not... dead, is he?" 

"Of course not." Lucy shook her head. Her eyes were bloodshot and her nose was slightly red. "But he's gone." 

"Where?" 

"To the Capitol," Dr. Aurelius spoke up, staring into Juniper. "A member from Squad Four-Five-One was killed, an accident. Mr. Heavensbee promised them a speedy replacement. Mr. Mellark was that replacement." 

Juniper stood there as she tried to take in what Aurelius had told her, tried to let it process in her mind. Someone from Finnick and Katniss's squad was dead. Her first thought was dread, her heart dropping into her stomach as she thought the worse, but then she soon shook it out of her head. If Finnick or Katniss were dead, someone would have told her softly, gently, cautiously. They wouldn't be careless with the accusation of death. And so, it was someone else. But then, the second part of Aurelius's words went into her brain. 

Peeta was in the Capitol. How was he in the Capitol? Why was he in the Capitol? He wasn't stable enough. He would get flashbacks. He would think back to the cells. Why was he in the Capitol and why, out of everyone, in Katniss's squad? 

"What?" Juniper asked. "What do you mean he's in the Capitol?" 

"Coin and Plutarch assigned him to Squad Four-Five-One, the squad Katniss and Finnick are part of," Lucy told her. Juniper tried to ignore the shaking in her voice. "They thought the propos they were doing weren't inspirational enough, that they needed heating up." 

"So they sent Peeta to the Capitol?" Juniper scoffed. "Do they want Katniss dead or something?"

"We don't know for certain, but it looks like it." Haymitch rolled her eyes. 

"It also explains why President Coin asked you to help Mr. Mellark," Aurelius told her. "She used you to see how he would react. To see if he was stable enough—" 

"To go into battle..." Juniper finished for him. "To go to the Capitol." 

"Yes." Aurelius nodded sadly. "That was her true intention. She had no care for his wellbeing." 

Suddenly, both Haymitch and Lucy decided to question Plutarch about the situation in Command and Prim had to, reluctantly, leave to go attend to her duties as healer, leaving it to be just Aurelius and Juniper. Silence enveloped them until the Hale woman broke it. 

"Does Coin deny that she's sent Peeta to kill Katniss?" Juniper asked. 

"Yes," Aurelius responded. "She does." 

"But why?" Juniper questioned. "Why would Coin want to kill Katniss? She's gone through all that trouble to get her here, to become The Mockingjay, and now she's just going to kill her?" 

"I have a theory..." Aurelius drawled. "And here's as much as I know. President Coin has never liked Miss Everdeen. She never did. It was Mr. Mellark she wanted rescued from the arena, but no-one else agreed. It made matters worse when Miss Everdeen demanded she give you and the other Victors' immunity. But even that could be overlooked in view of how well she'd performed." 

"Okay?" Juniper shrugged. "Then what is it?" 

"Eventually, this war will end. It will be resolved," Aurelius told her. "And in the hopes that the rebels come out winning, which is impossible because no-one wins in war, a new leader will be chosen—" 

"Okay, Aurelius." Juniper held up her hand to halt him. "Katniss Everdeen is not going to be leader. That idea is impossible." 

"No, she's not going to be leader," Aurelius said. "But she'll throw support to someone. Would it be President Coin or someone else? If Miss Everdeen's immediate answer isn't the former, then she's a threat." 

"Coin wants to kill Katniss to shut her up, to stop her from throwing support to someone else." 

"She doesn't need Miss Everdeen as a rallying point anymore, as someone to unite the districts," Aurelius muttered. "That has already been achieved. Anyone can do propos now whether it's Mr. Odair or even Mr. Mellark. There's only one thing that could add fire to the rebellion now—" 

"And that's for Katniss to die." 

"Exactly." Aurelius nodded. "To give them a martyr to fight for." 

Juniper grabbed a chair from a desk beside her and sat down in it, feeling lightheaded as she tried to wrap her mind around what the head doctor was saying. 

Coin wanted to kill Katniss. Katniss was potentially going to die. Coin was a power-hungry woman. Manipulative. Cunning. Sly. 

"So... in summary..." Juniper muttered. "Coin is a manipulative little bitch?" 

Aurelius looked slightly surprised, eyebrows jumping up as he stuttered, "W-Well that's the unprofessional way of putting it, b-but... yes?" 

("Which may help inspire people." Prim smiled lightly. "You don't trust anyone, do you, Juniper?")

("You seem to question everything," she said. "It's instinct, isn't it? I don't blame you. This is war, after all. It's all right to throw accusations in the air.")

Juniper could feel herself becoming sick as she thought to Squad Four-Five-One. If Peeta was there, in the state he was in, would he succeed in killing Katniss. And, to an extent, would he kill Finnick? He had displayed hatred for the man, a certain disliking. Would he take that to the next level? Juniper could feel her legs bouncing up and down as she tried to calm her racing thoughts. 

Coin was going to kill Katniss. 

"Coin intends to kill Katniss..." 

"Yes." 

In. Out. 

In. Out. 

In. Out. 

"I... need to go talk to Johanna." 

Getting up from her seat, in a slight state of shock, Juniper was quick to leave Aurelius in the observatory room. She was fast to walk down the hallway, going around the twists and turns until she was back in the circular reception, which was packed due to it being busy hours. 

And as she made her way through the crowd, Juniper could feel herself become nauseous. Why was Coin running the rebellion? Did she use it as an excuse to become leader of all Panem? Why was the woman running such an organisation manipulative, sly, and cunning? Why was Coin Coin? But then why was Snow Snow? 

Coin was going to kill Katniss. 

The sentence echoed around her mind like a mantra, tormenting her brain, making her ears bleed until she finally managed to open the door that led into the room where Johanna Mason's bed was. 

Juniper hadn't seen the woman in days and barely got updates on her, but when she came rushing in, cheeks flushed, she quickly saw that Johanna looked much better. The bundle Katniss had gotten her was on the bedside stand and there was more weight in her face and being. Hair was now on her head like little fluff and covered her entire skull instead of patchy spots.

"Ah, Hale!" Johanna cackled. "Haven't seen you in a minute, how are 'ya? You know, I'm getting discharged tomorrow—" 

"Yeah. Excellent. Great." Juniper nodded, interrupted her. "Listen, Coin is going to kill Katniss." 

The Hale woman had a chance to take deep breaths while Johanna stared at her, blinking as she tried to process what Juniper had just told her. And as she did, the Victor from Ten noticed the morphling drip in her arm was still there, but on a much lower dosage. Juniper could feel something in her twinge as she stared at the tube and bag. 

"Um... what?" Johanna questioned, causing Juniper to come back to reality. 

"Coin is going to kill Katniss," she repeated. 

"Yeah, I heard you the first time." Johanna sneered. "But what?" 

The Hale woman swiftly sat on the edge of the bed and told Johanna nearly everything that had happened in the prior days. She told her everything to do with Peeta. Every encounter and session. She told her about Coin. Prim. Mellark being sent into the Capitol. And then what Aurelius had told her moments ago. Once she was finished, Johanna's brows were furrowed with her lips pursed. 

"Well..." Johanna grumbled as Juniper waited for an answer. "That's... not surprising." 

"What do you mean that's not surprising?" 

"It's just not surprising." Johanna shrugged. "Coin seems like the type of woman to do that—" 

"Kill someone for power?" 

When Juniper replied, she immediately felt embarrassed at how stupid it sounded, even more so when Johanna told her, "It's not the first time someone has done it. And it won't be the last, Hale." 

"But you aren't concerned at the fact that Katniss might die?" 

"No." Johanna shook her head. Her tone was very simple. "I'm not. It's not the first time someone wants Everdeen to die... if my memory serves me correctly, you wanted her to be dead not so long ago. Weren't you planning to kill her during the Quell before that damn plan came along? I definitely was." 

"So?" Juniper scoffed. "That was during the Quell. This is different. At least have some reaction so I don't feel like an idiot." 

"Fine." Johnna rolled her eyes. "I am so bummed that Everdeen is going to die because then that plan was all for nothing. Those three days in hell were all for nothing." 

"At least try and put some sincerity in there..." Juniper groaned as she crossed her arms, facing away from the woman. 

"Oh, come on, Hale! Everdeen will be fine. Stop worrying." Johanna cackled, pinching the Victors' arm with her fingertips, but when she saw Juniper's face, all playfulness disappeared as she added, in a lower voice, "Hale... Everdeen will be fine. Finnick is there to protect her. He wouldn't let anything happen to her. And neither is her cousin who definitely isn't her cousin."

Juniper couldn't help but laugh slightly. But she didn't feel better. She didn't think a conversation with Johanna Mason could ever make her feel better, but, reluctant to say, she did always manage to cough a laugh out of Juniper, whether mocking or real. But at Johanna's words about Finnick protecting Katniss, the Hale woman supposed it was true. 

Finnick Odair was the type to save and defend anyone around him. If Peeta Mellark was attempting to kill Katniss Everdeen, the man from Four would do anything to cease such a thing. Finnick Odair was the heroic type. Whether that would make him end up dead or not, Juniper was unsure. 

But she tried to dispel any thoughts about Finnick Odair, Katniss Everdeen, Peeta Mellark, and everything as a whole as the day went on, as she reluctantly followed her schedule that was tattooed on her arm. But once she trudged through into her compartment that night, alone and enveloped with the darkness of the area, nothing could stop the thoughts leaking back into her mind. 

("Exactly." Aurelius nodded. "To give them a martyr to fight for.")

(Plutarch leaned forward as he smirked, saying, "And then the rebellion begins...")

⇢ ˗ˏˋ matz 🎧 !

— tehe 🤭🤭