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Cressida led them through the Capitol, each surviving member of the squad trying their best to fight through their emotional and physical exhaustion to keep up. Dahlia and Finnick gripped desperately to each other for support, their heads darting around madly as they anticipated more pods or Peacekeepers to follow. Their own wanted posters taunted them all the way, beaming blindingly bright as they sprinted past. But they were all too fatigued to care.
The relief when they finally slowed down was almost enough to make Dahlia's legs give out, though she resisted the urge to drop her guard as they arrived outside an unfamiliar building. Cressida pounded on the door relentlessly while the others remained alert behind her. Peering through the misty glass windows, the Capitol director continued her desperate knocking until a mysterious shadow began advancing towards them.
"Someone's coming." Peeta announced, his voice full of panic as his body tensed. Though Dahlia just wanted to collapse, she tightened her hold on the stolen gun and prepared to fight whatever possible threat came their way.
As soon as the door was opened, the squad flooded in and Cressida swiftly snapped out orders, "Shut the door, shut the door!" Once inside, Katniss and Dahlia aimed their weapons at the stranger suspiciously, though Cressida was quick to soothe their paranoia with a hushed mumble, "No, Katniss, Dahlia. It's okay, it's okay. It's okay." Finnick shut the door behind them as Gale sprinted past to survey the foreign area. "Tigris, do you remember me? I'm with Plutarch's underground. We need your help."
The strange woman slowly swept her feline eyes along the group as Gale loudly shouted through, "Clear!"
Tigris' features were heavily altered to mimic the animal referenced in her name, with black stripes marring her skin and whiskers protruding from her cheeks. The sight of her was initially disturbing to Dahlia, especially after their earlier encounter with the reptilian mutts which were given distinctly human-like characteristics. So shaken from that experience, she found it difficult to look the woman in the eye as Tigris glanced over at her. She leaned into Finnick instead and Tigris' attention turned to Katniss who seemed equally agitated by her appearance.
Bowing her head in compliance, Tigris clutched her fur coat closer to her body and glided past the squad without uttering a word. They all silently followed behind as Tigris guided them towards the back of what they could only assume was a fashion boutique. The woman brushed a rug aside to reveal a hatch cut into the floor with a handle which she tugged open.
Tigris had barely straightened up when Katniss' eyebrows furrowed in recognition and she announced, "I know you. You were a stylist in the Games."
At first, the woman seemed surprised by the identification but then her expression hardened in bitterness. Pushing the hood off her shoulders exposed the dark thinning hair covering her head and the markings swirling across her pronounced collarbone. Her voice was soft despite the hostility laced through each word as she muttered a reply, "Until Snow decided I wasn't pretty enough anymore."
"I'm here to kill him." Katniss declared firmly, which made a subtle smile of satisfaction tug at the corners of Tigris' dark lips. The former stylist seemed to harbour an underlying resentment towards Snow which caused a wave of delight to wash over her at the mention of his downfall. Dahlia had always thought that no one could possibly despise Snow more than her, but the raging fire in Tigris' eyes told her that those two had history that no one would understand. Secrets buried deep underground a long time ago, memories flown away with the songbirds.
As the squad prepared to descend into the basement, Tigris shifted her focus from Katniss to Dahlia. Her amber gaze analysed everything, from the lone sword still sheathed in her holster to the hand that gripped onto Finnick's to the darkness of her eyes. Then finally, she spoke up, "You were styled by Juno, weren't you?" The question seemed like more of a statement, but Dahlia nodded her silent answer anyway. Tigris hummed in recollection, "I remember your Games. She came to me in the middle of the night claiming she'd had a stroke of inspiration after the Reaping. I'd never seen her so excited."
Dahlia's bottom lip quivered with emotion at the revelation, gripping tighter to Finnick's hand for solace. Plagued by guilt and grief for her old friend, Dahlia shakily murmured, "You knew Juno?"
"I mentored her when she was just starting out in fashion. We were good friends." Tigris confirmed with a gentle dip of her head. "Then we became colleagues and confidants in Plutarch's underground. She was the reason I even became involved with the cause. We protected each other, worked together to operate right under the Capitol's nose... Until her abrupt end."
The reminder had Dahlia hanging her head in remorse and slinking away into Finnick's comforting hold. Her husband could sense the distress that Juno's death had caused her, making his wrap a protective arm around her waist as though to shield her from any resentment. He eyed Tigris with a scrutinising glare, sharply warning the woman against any further provocation as Dahlia solemnly whispered, "I'm sorry."
But Tigris wasn't angry with Dahlia. "She wasn't." She explained calmly, making Dahlia lift her gaze in surprise. "Juno was proud to be part of a cause she believed in. She was proud to be able to fight back. And you gave her that chance. She would never be sorry for what has happened, so neither should you."
Dahlia vowed never to judge someone for their appearance ever again. Though Tigris may have looked more like an animal, her strong moral nature made her more human than any person Dahlia had met in the Capitol.
The depleted squad traipsed down the stairs to the basement one by one, their postures slumped and moods at an all time low. Katniss watched each of them wander into the room like ghosts, Dahlia and Finnick practically holding each other up, Cressida and Pollux grieving for their family, Peeta haunted by demons in his head. The longer she stared at them, the worse she felt. They had all suffered because of a mission she had made up. They had lost members of their team because she had led them into danger. She'd nearly killed her friends because they believed in her.
As Dahlia and Finnick slid to the ground, relieved to finally let their bodies rest for a moment, the rest of the squad spread out around them. Cressida moved from comforting a heartbroken Pollux to checking up on Gale who had sustained injuries during the attack. Turning to Katniss, she proclaimed, "Gale's gonna need stitches."
"We'll need to check over Lia and I, too." Finnick mumbled tiredly, wincing as his back made contact with the wall. The mutt's claws had sunk deeply into his skin and he dreaded to see the damage they had done. Meanwhile, Dahlia's left side was already beginning to form bruises after her heavy impact landing. He knew they both needed to be examined before they went anywhere else. "We took a bit of a battering."
But Katniss didn't reply. She was mortified about what she had done, all the pain she had caused. Pollux was sobbing over the death of his brother, Cressida trying to distract herself from the agony of her losses, Dahlia and Finnick curled up into each other out of fear they might disappear at any moment. There was nothing she could do to atone for her wrongs, except to accept responsibility for her failures.
"I made it up." She announced hoarsely into the silence, making everyone turn to the distraught girl. "All of it. There is no special mission from Coin. There's only my plan. Everyone that's dead is dead because of me. I... I lied."
Dahlia could barely keep her eyes open at this point, letting her head flop onto Finnick's shoulder as Cressida replied, "We know. We all knew."
"The soldiers from Thirteen?" Katniss started to protest, her face scrunched in both confusion and shame.
"They did, too." Cressida interrupted gently, explaining the situation on behalf of everyone in the squad, those who were with them and those who were not. "Do you really believe that Jackson thought you had orders from Coin? She trusted Boggs and he clearly wanted you to go on."
This seemed to horrify Katniss even more as she came to the conclusion that they had all died for a mission they knew was a lie. "I never meant for this to happen." She gasped out, eyes pricking with tears as her emotions overwhelmed her. "I failed. I... I killed them. I almost killed Finnick... and Dahls." She almost sobbed as she said their names, avoiding glancing over at the couple for fear that she would see hatred towards her in their eyes. "I'm sorry, Pollux. I'm so sorry."
"Glimmer, Marvel, Mags, Clove, Wiress, Alaric, Rue. What do all those deaths mean?" Peeta listed off, making Dahlia's head lift up in shock that the boy had remembered those names. He had now captured the attention of all those in the room, who had never heard him speak with such certainty and belief. "They mean that our lives were never ours. There was no real life because we didn't have any choice. Our lives belong to Snow and our deaths do, too. But if you kill him, Katniss... If you end all of this, all those deaths, they mean something. Cinna, Boggs, Castor, Jackson, Homes. They chose this. They chose you."
Dahlia beamed in pride at Peeta and how much he'd grown from the lost timid boy he had been when he was first stationed with the squad to the more confident man speaking with such clarity. They'd all been on a journey with this mission, learned a lot about themselves along the way but Peeta was the one who'd come the furthest.
"He's right." Dahlia piped in softly from her position nestled into Finnick's side. Katniss finally turned to the pair only to find that they weren't glaring at her as she had expected. Instead, they gazed at her with admiration and respect, like soldiers appreciating their general. "We have had the honour of knowing you, Katniss. Truly knowing you. And I would never have followed the Mockingjay into battle... But I gladly followed Katniss Everdeen."
As Katniss' eyes fill with tears at the sheer surprise of being praised so highly by Dahlia, Finnick nodded in agreement and added his own words of encouragement, "The only way you could fail us and them, Katniss... is by giving up now when we're so close to freedom."
Katniss regarded the Odairs, arguably her strongest supporters, as her confidence and faith in herself began to be restored. If those two believed in her and stood by her after all they had been through with her, she felt like she had the power to win this war.
Sensing the shift in the young girl, Dahlia grinned in triumph and passionately declared, "History is written by the Victors. We will be victorious and we will ensure that history remembers the heroes we lost along the way."
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