The Taste of Death ~ Hunger Games Fanfiction- Finnick/OC

Chapter 1

***

65th Hunger Games

The Victory Tour

District 14

Scarlet Wolfe

Six months after the end of the 65th Hunger Games, all of District 14 gathered in front of the large warped wooden stage, where they would soon welcome the newest Victor. The stage was situated nearest the train station in the center of their Districts little town square. The run-down shops that comprised of the town square were hidden behind the mass crowd and strategically out of the cameras view.

The pudgy, pale-faced Mayor stood in front of a newly furbished golden microphone, brought from the Capitol, making a long-winded welcoming speech, trying his best to rally the expected welcome cheers with little success.

District 14 was always the first stop in the Victory Tour, with the Victor visiting each district in descending order and ending in their home District. They were told that the Victory Tour was a way for all of Panem to celebrate the single tribute who had managed to make it out alive. That this was a victory that should be shared with all of the Districts. A reminder that they could also have another Victor, if the odds were in their favor, but more importantly, it was a reminder of why the Hunger Games were created.

"We gather today to celebrate the Great Nation of Panem, to honor the strength of our beloved President Snow, and to remind each District of the sacrifices that keep our Nation strong," the Mayor droned on. No one needed reminding. They were the sacrifices. Panem might be united, but District 14 had never felt a heavier burden.

Standing in the bitter cold of District 14 under grey clouds that threatened snowfall or sleet, there was not one face that was joyous. Like all the years prior, the Victor of this years Hunger Games was not a child of District 14 and on this year in particular, both children had been killed by the newest Victor.

In a sea of solemn faces, raised on two small wooden platforms, stood the families of the fallen male and female tributes, held apart from the rest of their District. They were a warning to the rest gathered below. They were a foreboding omen of what could happen to any family with children between the ages of twelve and eighteen at the next Reaping in only six months' time.

On the small platform to the right, where the large family of the fallen female tribute gathered, was where Scarlet Wolfe and her family stood, silently mourning the loss of their eldest child. Aureolin Wolfe.

On the other platform that held the family of the male tribute, Scarlet could see each of the dead boy's remaining family members' faces etched in real pain as they grieved their son and fallen brother. Tears streaked down their unwashed faces, colored red from the chill of the wind.

Unlike their family, who leaned into one another in their time of mourning, the Wolfe family stood separate and as divided as one large family could on such a small platform. The slaughter-children of the Wolfe family stood near the front of the small stage, while the tesserae-children stood huddled together with their parents.

To Scarlet's immediate left, stood Crimson, whose face seemed to be made of stone today, contrasting with his normal charismatic grin, hiding his thoughts and feelings from anyone watching. As they had approached the stage earlier, Scarlet had caught his eye for just a moment, it wasn't sadness he was hiding, but his anger.

Their defiance.

Their new will for more than the death that was expected of them and their newly lit determination to fight for it.

Cadmium stood to her right, sullen and silent, a near carbon copy of Crimson and Scarlet's black curls, pale skin, and hazel eyes. His hand was held in hers, nearly the same size despite his being two whole years younger. He would become much taller than her as he got older. And curled into Cadmium's side, stood the youngest of the slaughter-children, Honey.

"Today, we honor all who gave their lives during this years Hunger Games. From our own District, Aureolin Wolfe and Aster White. Through their sacrifice, Panem stays united. Through them, Panem stays strong," the Mayor continued, his face tightening as the crowd continued to give little reaction.

The images of the fallen tributes appeared in the air, displayed on special viewing screens brought to District 14 for this special occasion. The three elder slaughter-children shed no tears as they faced their sister's death. After six months, it was simply a fact for them, the pain long buried beneath the weight of their reality. Though Honey tried to follow her older siblings' lead, tears still streaked down her cheeks at the sight of her deceased older sister.

Their gazes never wavered as their sister's image flickered in the air. Everyone had known that she wouldn't make it. Aureolin had barely made it through the Reaping Ceremony, her legs shaking so badly that she had almost tripped on the steps leading up to the stage.

Embarrassment and anger warred inside of her, the longer she looked at her sisters image.

Tributes from past games were rarely remembered, but whenever Aureolin was honored by her District, her family, or even by the Capitol, this was how she would be seen.

A delicate face frozen in fear, etched forever in Capitol glory.

I will never be like that.

If I am reaped, I will not look afraid. No matter how afraid I am, I will not tremble, shake or cry. If I die, my face will not be frozen in fear. I will smile. I will laugh. I will be strong. Scarlet vowed silently to herself.

Scarlet and Crimson were already ten and a half years old. In a year and a half, it would be their responsibility to volunteer for any of their tesserae-siblings that were reaped, and it would remain their responsibility until they were no longer eligible--or until they were dead. Cadmium and Honey would both follow, replacing Scarlet or Crimson if they either had to volunteer at a Reaping, or aged out of eligibility.

She felt her parents' presence, standing far behind her. Bitterness welled inside her at the thought of the two of them. They had accepted this outcome long ago--children bred for sacrifice, raised for slaughter. She briefly wondered about her own future. If she did manage to survive until adulthood, would she also learn to accept it like they had? It didn’t seem likely. The idea that this was her future was hard enough to accept, let alone accepting it on behalf of any future child she might have.

Of course, the likelihood of any of them making it to adulthood was so low it was nearly negligible. More than likely Scarlet would be dead long before she had to decide if she even wanted to have children.

Either District 14 would take their lives, or one of the upcoming Hunger Games would.

She refused to look at the family stood behind her though she could picture their grief clearly in her mind.

Violet, now the eldest Wolfe child, favorite to their mother, was freshly washed from a lukewarm bath and wearing her very best. she would be huddled against their mother, feigning tears and sobbing. Though Scarlet doubted Violet was even capable of shedding an actual tear, let alone feeling sympathy for a spare sibling that had died six months earlier, she was never one to miss an opportunity to bask in the attention of those around her.

Auburn, their oldest brother, would be trying to comfort Sienna, who would be wracked with grief for the sister who had died in order for her live. The guilt that Sienna felt was only natural though, given the fact that she hadn't taken even a single step forward when her own name was called, waiting in her place with her head bowed until Aureolin had stepped forward in her place.

Silver would be doing what she did best; pleasing their parents by taking care of Aqua and Sapphire. While Aqua was old enough to know that their sister was gone forever, Sapphire would be looking at the picture hanging over the crowd and half expect Aureolin to come walking out from behind the curtains despite the fact that Silver had spent the whole walk over here trying to explain what dead meant.

Their families’ two youngest children, Ash and Ebony, were held by their parents. Though both were crying, neither were crying out of any sort of longing or understanding, but simply because they were stuck out in the bitter cold or getting tired and hungry.

Bash and Harmony were sullen and silent, as they stood huddled with the children they'd chosen to love. Tears would be streaming down their mother's face, as if she felt any regret for the loss of her oldest daughter, and perhaps Scarlet could believe that, if she thought that Aureolin's loss had changed their mother's views on slaughter-children.

It hadn't.

Harmony fully expected Scarlet, Crimson, Cadmium, and Honey to make that same sacrifice, should it be necessary and for that, Scarlet hated her just a bit more than she had six months ago, before Aureolin had died. Bash wasn't much better, but at least he didn't try to hide it--his apathy towards the death of his child. No, Scarlet thought that his only concern was when he could put the damned baby in his arms down and get back home to his half rotted out chair.

Neither of them deserved to mourn Aureolin, and neither of them deserved to have a daughter like her. A daughter who had done everything asked of her from the moment she'd been born to the moment she had died.

And yet, here they all were, their mourning on display for all of Panem to see. It made Scarlet near sick to be standing here beside them, and only the treat of a lashing kept her from jumping down and disappearing into the crowd.

A small squeeze of her left hand and a quick nod from Cadmium brought her attention back to the stage. Scarlet stopped thinking about everything else, as the Mayor finally stepped back from the microphone, and the boy walked out from behind the curtains, onto the rickety old stage of District 14. Even wrapped in a thick fur coat with solid dark boots, she could see instantly that he wasn't from here and that he didn't belong in this frozen hell.

Finnick Odair was fourteen years old from District 4. He lived in the sun and by the sea and he looked every bit like it with a tall, lean body and golden skin unlike anything she'd ever seen here in District 14. His bright green eyes matched the green of the sea she'd seen in her text book photographs, and perfectly white teeth that gleamed when he smiled--and he always smiled.

The snow that hand been flurrying down since early this morning, seemed to melt before it ever reached him. From when she had seen him last in the broadcasted Games to now, his hair had been washed and cut, but it was still a golden blonde and fell a bit down his forehead.

This was the boy that everyone in the Capitol had seemed to love and adore from the moment he had been reaped, yet not one of the tributes had taken him as a serious threat before or during the games, despite his individual training score of eight and even after he had killed several tributes during the bloodbath, including Scarlet's sister, Aureolin.

Over the course of the next several days, the boy had fought and killed and managed to stay alive with little more than dehydration and a few scratches.

Throughout the games, when everyone else had seemed dirty and beaten down, he seemed to somehow never lose the sunshine aura that had hung around him. His eyes had been sharp, but the smile had never been far from his face, just like now.

It wasn't until he received a trident as a sponsor gift and used it to turn on his own alliance members that they realized what a threat he was--it was too late at that point. The sponsors had come rolling in, one after another and no one else had stood even the smallest chance. Finnick had ended the games in eight days, gaining his title of Victor, and the sole-survivor of the 65th Hunger Games.

After Aureolin's death, it had been hard to watch the games. Every new death was like reliving Aureolins' and her own death by default. But after a while, watching the games had started to reinforce that newly lit fire inside her. One that had sparked with the death of their eldest sister and hadn't dimmed or died in the slightest in the past six months.

Watching Finnick, who the Capitol had adored and fawned over, but no one had thought could win--actually win--had fanned the flames inside her even more. Everyone thought he was too young, or too good looking to be anything other than a pretty face.

But he won.

No one thought that someone from District 14 could ever win. In sixty-five years, they were the only District to never have a Victor.

But they could.

If Scarlet or Crimson or Cadmium or even Honey--if any of them were ever Reaped or forced to volunteer for a sibling, they could actually win. At least, that's what she told herself.

Crimson, Cadmium, and her had already found an abandoned basement where they had begun to practice fighting. They practiced using their homemade weapons, which they had made from scraps that they'd dug up in junk piles and garbage. It wasn't much, and compared to the other Districts, some of which spent years preparing and being taught how to kill--like the Careers--it was probably little better than doing nothing--but their only other was to do nothing.

She couldn't do nothing. Scarlet wouldn't voice any of er doubts out loud. As far as her brothers were concerned, they all were training for nothing short of Victory in the ever-growing chance that they would be Reaped.

As she watched him from her spot on the family’s platform, she didn't feel sad at her sister's death, or angry at the boy who had taken her life. The weight of a singular coin in her front pocket was reminder enough to keep her grounded. There were two sides to a coin. Heads and tails. Strength and weakness. Two paths that lay ahead of her.

Her sister had been weak. Finnick had been strong.

Scarlet felt weak now. But she was working on getting stronger. Her and Crimson and Cadmium were all getting a little bit stronger every day. She wanted to be strong. Strong enough that entering the Arena didn't scare her and that thoughts of her dying didn’t haunt her in her sleep.

She wanted to be the boy on the stage. The boy who had smiled in the Capitol, in the Arena, and here in District 14, in the face of the death he had caused. Not once did he crack or break apart in the Arena or it's aftermath.

And that was the reason that Scarlet Wolfe clapped for Finnick Odair, Victor of the 65th Hunger Games.

The boys' eyes landed on her the moment she started clapping, his smile seemed to shake for a moment, his knuckles turning white around the cards in his hand as he stood in front of the golden microphone.

Crimson pulled her arms down, stopping her from clapping, a moment before she felt a pinch on her ear, yanking her head around and her feet several steps back as she stood face to face with her mother. "He killed your sister!" Scarlet read from her mother's pursed lips and pinched face. Angry. Harmony was very angry with her. "How dare you clap for him! Do you really love your sister so little?"

Scarlet couldn't hide the frown on her face, nor could she stop the disgust and confusion from swirling about inside her. Did clapping now mean she hadn't cared for Aureolin? Did it even matter if Scarlet had loved or even liked her or not? She had, but Aureolin was dead.

Because of Harmony. Because of Bash. Because they had picked her to be a slaughter-child and Sienna to be a tesserae-child. Anger bubbled up at the hypocrisy of her mother's harsh words and actions and she couldn't still her tongue even though she knew once they got home, she would regret it just a little.

"He fought and he won...Why wouldn't I clap for him?"

Her mother slapped her across the face. Hard. Scarlet's face stung, the cold air biting into the heated flesh of her cheek like a thousand pins and needles.

"How could I have such a heartless child like you?" Harmony pointed out to the crowd, drawing Scarlet's own attention there. Thousands of eyes seemed to be on them, witness to their heated exchange. Only now that her attention was on them and not on the boy on the stage, did she see that no one else was clapping for the new Victor.

Her face heated even more, and not from her mother's slap this time. Embarrassment flooded her as her own flaws were highlighted for everyone to see, even if it was only in her head. No one knows. But even still, she could feel their judgement weighing down on her for being different. For acting and thinking differently than them.

Rather than let her embarrassment get the better of her, Scarlet shoved it down, deep inside of her and yanked out of her mother's angry hold, turning back to the stage where the boy was now speaking. She couldn't make out what the boy was saying from his downcast head but knew he had ended it when his head raised back up, his mouth closed, his eyes searching the silent crowd.

She began to clap once more and even forced a smile on her face though she felt like smiling about as much as she wanted to stand outside in the cold even a moment longer, just to cement the fact that her mother's words and the judgmental looks from the closest of the District 14 citizens didn't bother her at all. Crimson tried to stop her, but she pulled away from him too, shooting him a glare that dared him to try again.

As she continued to clap, she noted that the rest of the crowd slowly began to follow her lead, reluctantly clapping along with her for the golden boy that had won the 65th Hunger Games.

***

Finnick Odair

Finnick Odair of District 4, waved to the crowd, bringing his best smile out, doing his best to hide the lingering unease that the less than warm welcome District 14 had given him had stirred.

Thankfully, this was what Finnick was good at though, hiding everything that he was feeling and thinking behind a carefree mask and a bright smile. This is what everyone expected from him and what he would have to do, at least until he was back home in District 4.

The snow began falling harder around him, the flurries bigger and the cold wind picked up speed as Finnick finished up his pre-written speech. Afterwards, he was quickly rushed from the stage by his attendant, back towards the warmth that the train offered.

Just before Finnick left the stage of District 14 completely, he glanced back at the stage where the family of the female tribute stood. He couldn't even recall the girls name, but he remembered the moment in the Games in which he had taken her life.

As he looked towards the young girl who had singularly clapped for him, despite the role that he had played in her sister's death, he knew he would never forget it.

Finnick hadn't expected the families of the fallen tributes to clap or applaud him in any way. But he hadn't expected this type of reaction from the rest of the District.

After thinking about it though, Finnick had personally killed both the female and male tribute from District 14 early in the bloodbath. If there was a District to have hard feelings, it would be sure to be them.

But then again, Finnick had killed many in the Arena.

He wasn't proud of killing. But he was proud of winning. He'd brought honor to his District and to his family, not only by becoming a Victor, but by becoming one of the youngest Victor's to ever to win the games.

He looked at the girl who was now being dragged off the stage by a tall, burly looking man. Finnick's eyes caught on the tattered clothes and the scraps of fabric on her feet, as she trekked through the still falling snow, the biting wind seemed to bite his skin even through his thick fur jacket.

The girl glanced back at him and for a moment their eyes met. The snowfall blocked his vision from seeing anything more than her long black hair and pale skin and delicate features. He swore he could make out a red mark on her cheek from where her mother had slapped her earlier.

It was then that Finnick would swear that the girl smiled at him, though between one blink and the next, the girl was turned away from him and Finnick was left to wonder if the smile had been a figment of his imagination, or if it had been real.

As he boarded the train that would take him to District 12, Finnick wondered why that girl, of all people, would clap for him. Why would she clap for him after he had killed her sister in the Hunger Games, bringing others to clap for him as well?

Perhaps she'd felt obligated to by District 14.

But that didn't make sense. Because if she had, then surely others would have clapped right away as well.

And had she smiled? Even if she clapped for him, how could she bring herself to smile at him? He could accept anything else, but he couldn't accept that. He couldn't understand that.

Finnick wouldn't get the answer to his question until several years later when Finnick had all but forgotten about the young girl with long black hair and pale skin.