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

Chapter 2

***

1 Year Later

District 14

Scarlet Wolfe

Storm pushed her against the brick wall and squeezed her throat with one of his big, beefy hands. Even though she couldn't hear his words, she could smell his unclean breath, gross enough to make her gag.

Scarlet felt blood trickle down from her nose and the vision in her right eye blurred, as it swelled from her earlier fight with him and his friends. They had been tangled up with Crimson and Cadmium when Storm had dragged her into the alleyway alone. They would come and help her when they could, or she would go and help them. She planned to find a way to take care of Storm herself.

The boy pulled back just a touch.

"Good for nothing but..." She read his lips as he mocked her, his hand reached between her legs.

Scarlet reached up and clawed his face. Storm cursed her as he stepped backwards. She sucked in air and turned to run despite her wanting nothing more than to teach the fifteen-year-old boy not to mess with her or her brothers ever again.

She knew when to pick her battles, unlike her twin brother who had started this whole mess.

Her entire body stopped as her head was jerked to a halt by her hair. Her feet slip in the snow, sliding out in front of her as she fell to the ground. Pain exploded through her skull as Storm pulled her up to her feet with a fist full of hair and slammed her face-first against the brick wall. Blood exploded from her nose, and she tasted iron in her mouth.

Stunned, but unwilling to stop fighting, Scarlet shoved her elbow back, clocking the older boy in the face. Bolts of lightning streaked up and down her arm, but it was worth every bit of pain when his grip of her hair loosened, his hold on her faltering.

She turned around, ready to make her escape, but her freedom was short-lived as he shoved her back, capturing her wrists and holding them tight against her chest. She struggled against him.

"...Wild…Animal…Stupid...dumb...whore..."

Scarlet caught bits and pieces of his angry words, as he let go of one of her hands and grabbed her head, slamming his disgusting mouth down on hers. With her one free hand she clawed his face to no avail. His hand shoved down her pants, his fingers groping her body, pulling at her underwear.

She twisted her head toward the alley entrance, hoping that her brothers were on their way to help her out of this f*****g mess.

Her brothers weren't there at the alley entrance, but Violet, her oldest sister, was.

For a moment, time stilled, and they stared at one another, and even though the two of them have never gotten along, she thought that Violet might help her. Just this once.

But through blurry eyes, Scarlet watched helplessly as Violet rolled her eyes, a smile on her smug, selfish face, as she turned and walked away.

Storm grabbed her hair and forced her head back to his. His tongue shoved back into her mouth.

Anger and desperation clawed at Scarlet’s insides. She could not let this happen to her. She would not. Left with no other choice, Scarlet acted on instinct and impulse, using the only defense that she had left.

Her teeth.

Scarlet bit down hard on his tongue. Copper floods her mouth and trickles down her chin. Storm rears back, his face contorting in an open-mouthed scream as he fell into the snow, blood covering the entire lower half of his face.

She stood tall in the alleyway for just a moment as she spat the piece of his now missing tongue out onto the ground next to him.

"Don't ever touch me again!" She shouted at him as she bolted toward the alley entrance, leaving the screaming, bloodied boy behind her.

As Scarlet left the alleyway that Storm had dragged her into, she slipped on a patch of ice, catching sight of Crimson punching another kid in the face. Cadmium was lying on the ground, with a guy twice as big as him on top of him, throwing fists.

She ran toward her youngest brother and barreled into the bigger boy, wrapping her arms around his waist and shoving him off Cadmium. Too late she realized that Cadmium's arm was caught twisted up between the boys. When she looked back to her younger brother, she saw Cadmium on his butt, holding his left arm, his shoulder misshaped.

Hopefully, it was just dislocated and not broken. Scarlet turned back to the boy and slammed her fist into his nose. She jumped off him and grabbed Cadmium’s shirt, pulling him onto his feet.

Scarlet looked around the mess of boys and blood, looking for her twin. She finally found Crimson halfway down the street. "Peacekeepers!" He shouted at them both.

"Come on, Cad." She said as they rushed to clear the streets.

Crimson, of course, didn’t wait for them, more worried about his own neck as he took off down an alley way in the direction of their little abandoned basement. A place that would be safe from the peacekeeper’s punishments.

Fighting was strictly prohibited in District 14 and was punishable by ten lashes or more depending on the severity of the fight.

The peacekeepers were notoriously strict and petty and there were even some of them that seemed downright sadistic and enjoyed leaving the offender tied to the whipping block for hours after the punishment had been given, no matter the weather.

Normally, being left out like that only happened to adults though. Even the peacekeepers seemed to realize—or the governor had stepped in—that if the children continued to die off from abuse and from the environment, then District 14 would no longer be a sustainable population. That was also the reason that peacekeepers allowed slaughter-children to take punishments for their other siblings.

Unfortunately, Scarlet and Cadmium didn't get far before she was knocked to the ground, unintentionally pulling Cadmium down next to her. His face contorted in pain as his hurt shoulder slammed into the ground.

Scarlet twisted around to her back and watched as the peacekeeper’s baton swung down.

Oh, Hell. This is really going to f*****g hurt.

Her face exploded in pain and her head slammed back against the ground, unconscious.

***

Scarlet sat at the workbench in the abandoned basement that Crimson and Scarlet had found years ago. Now, Scarlet, Crimson and Cadmium used the unoccupied space to secretly train for the Hunger Games, but also, to work.

Crimson sat quietly on the seat next to her, working on his sketch design that either Cadmium would attempt to turn into reality from a block of ice, or Scarlet would attempt to form out of a piece of crystal.

Her back ached from being hunched over the table for hours, with the angle of her body pulling her wounded back taut and stretching her sore skin, as she worked on the small crystal carving that would hopefully sell to a shopkeeper when it was finished.

She wanted to stop and call it a day, but if she stopped then she’d be stuck thinking about the twenty lashes she had received for protecting herself in a fight that she hadn’t even started.

Cadmium sat on the other side of her carving, into a block of ice. She could already see it was going to be a little lopsided and misshaped, but she didn't mention anything to him.

He was only nine years old. At his age, she hadn't had much patience for the craft, let alone any actual skill at carving. Cadmium was far more patient than she had been and as he got older, his skill would only grow. It wouldn't be long before his skill surpassed hers. Of that, she had no doubt.

Like her, he was also nursing the lashes they’d received after the fight two days ago. Though Cadmium had only received ten for participating in the fight, he also was recovering from his dislocated shoulder, which had been popped into place by a peacekeeper just before the lashes had been delivered.

She could tell that his shoulder was still bothering him by the way he was holding his tools. His normally steady hands were strained and shaking, yet he refused to give up until Scarlet said it was time to stop.

The only soothing thought that was that Storm and his two lackeys were also somewhere in the cold of District 14 nursing their ten lashes as well. Though even that thought was bitter-sweet.

Scarlet could understand having uniformed law to govern the population of District 14, however, there were not any exceptions made or true investigations done.

If the peacekeepers caught a person involved in a fight, they would get ten lashes, even if they were only defending themselves or simply trying to stop the fight. Because of the harsh punishments, fights were few and far between, and mostly between the children who were too impulsive to stop themselves. But that’s also why hardly anyone dared to break up any fights that occurred.

It wasn't the fact that they had each received lashes for participating in the fight that Scarlet found so frustrating, it was the fact that Storm had only received ten lashes like the rest of them. He had attacked her. She had only defended herself, but because the injury that she caused had resulted in permanent disfigurement, she had received twice as many.

Then there was Crimson who, of course, had gotten away with no lashes and no reprisal. He had escaped the fight without any because he had left the moment he'd spotted peacekeepers, and before they had spotted him, leaving Scarlet and Cadmium behind.

Crimson tapped her shoulder. She glares over at her twin brother. She’d been ignoring him soundly ever since the fight and he had allowed her that space.

Or he had, after she’d punched him in the face when he’d tried to talk to her right after her and Cadmium had been delivered to their home, bloodied and injured.

"Are you really not going to talk to me today as well?"

"Why did you even start the stupid fight?" She asked exasperated and thoroughly fed up with his antics.

Crimson had a real knack for starting fights he couldn't finish, but somehow always coming out smelling like roses. Everyone thought he was the perfect child. So well-mannered and well-behaved. It was all such a well-crafted lie.

"No one asked you to get involved." Crimson said, his mouth curling up in a smug little smirk. She wanted to clap him alongside the head just for that alone. "And just so we're clear, I didn't start the fight. Cadmium did."

She shot a glance over at their little brother. Cadmium's hard stare at his ice block was all she needed for confirmation. If Crimson had been lying, Cadmium would've called him out on it, or at the very least, expressed anger toward their brother.

"Why'd you start it?"

Cadmium tilted his head towards her so that she could read his lips, but his eyes stayed locked on the ice block in front of him. Scarlet didn’t often lie—she found little point in it and found much more satisfaction in seeing the shock others felt when she told the truth as it was—but she could spot a lie pretty well. Cadmium never made eye contact when he lied. "He was just saying crap. Stuff I didn’t want to listen to.”

"If you picked a fight with everyone who said awful things, then you'd never stop fighting, and we won’t have any more skin left on our backs, Cad."

His eyes found hers, narrowed and as angry as his words. "I know, Scarlet. They deserved it, though."

Considering what Storm had done and tried to do in the alley way, Scarlet felt the truth of those words down to her bones. She still wasn’t willing to get any more lashes for the likes of Storm.

"I know they did, Cad. But you have to get control of yourself. Let them do stupid stuff on their own and get into trouble. Don't make trouble for yourself."

"I said, I know."

His words were emphasized by an irritated eyeroll before he looked away from her, indicating that he was done talking about it. Apparently this nine-year old was too old to be lectured anymore.

Scarlet could have forced the issue, but honestly, there was nothing else she had to say to him, so she turned back to her work, choosing to focus on the project at hand.

Only time would tell if he would take her advice or not.

Crimson tapped her shoulder again. She sighed and looked over at him, annoyed at the constant interruptions. "How did you get away from Storm anyways?"

She gave him her flattest stare. "I bit off his tongue."

Crimson stared back at her, meeting her hazel eyes with his. Satisfaction lit his eyes. And it was because of that, that she would never ever believe the sweet and caring façade he fooled nearly everyone else with. Because she saw who he truly was. She knew his bloodlust and cruel nature. She had felt the backlash of his selfishness and self-preservation instincts on more than one occasion.

She had done it. Bit off a piece of Storm’s tongue. She didn't feel remorse or regret at her actions. Though she slightly regretted getting caught. The wounds on her back hurt like hell and she knew that as they healed, they'd start to itch and pull against her shirt. But she didn't regret hurting the boy who tried to hurt her.

Even though she didn't regret it, she didn't take pleasure in hurting him. Well…Scarlet reconsidered…Normally, she didn’t take pleasure in hurting people. Only in the feeling of justice being served.

Hurt her, get hurt.

Attack her, and she would attack back, twice as hard.

But in Storm’s case, well, the disgusting words that she had read off his lips and the memory of his terrible breath in her face or the feeling of his hands on her body would never leave her. It was a hard thing to not also recall and revel in the moment she had given him a memory that he would never forget as well.

She felt Cadmium's light tap on her hand, drawing her attention towards him, his eyes wide and his hand at his mouth. "You really bit it off?"

"I did."

“Did it hurt him?"

She nodded. "It hurt him a lot. He screamed like a baby."

"Good." Cadmium said with a firm nod of his head. She didn’t need his approval, but if he approved of her actions, then maybe, if he ever found himself in the same type of situation, he would do the same. If he was willing to defend himself, then maybe she wouldn’t have to watch him die. A moment later, his expression turns thoughtful as his eyes met hers. "I want to hurt a lot."

And that was the difference between the three of them.

Crimson seemed to enjoy anyone's pain, other than his own. Scarlet could be ruthless and was often called emotionless or asocial—but she didn't go out looking to hurt others. And Cadmium…well, Cadmium liked to be hurt.

"You mean you want to hurt someone else a lot?" She read Crimson's lips as he clarified to their younger brother.

She nearly rolled her eyes. Of course, Crimson would ask that. Because he couldn't imagine someone so opposite of himself in that aspect.

"No. Just me."

"Well, you can't ever talk if you cut out your tongue, so hurt a different way, okay?" Scarlet said before Crimson could say something else or offer to hurt Cadmium himself.

Cadmium thought about her words for a moment and then looked between his older siblings. "I don't think I'd mind not talking though."

"You'd regret." Scarlet said.

Cadmium shrugged, accepting his sister’s answer without further comment. Normally when Scarlet gave advice, he chose to listen to her. Or he ended up doing what she said he would.

He regretted.

"Does it hurt to die?"

"Sometimes." Scarlet answered. "But I think it hurts more to live."

"I don't think I'd mind dying."

"Yeah, well you're a slaughter-child. Your life expectancy isn't long anyways."

Scarlet didn't think it needed to be pointed out, but she didn't contradict Crimson. He was right after all.

Cadmium was two years younger than her and Crimson, but he was the sibling she felt most protective of. Perhaps it was because of how messed up his brain was, or the fact that ever since he was little, he was her little shadow, soaking up whatever she told him and looking up at her like she was the best person in the world.

Either way, when he died, Scarlet knew there would be a hole inside of her that would never heal.

Like Crimson said, the life expectancy of any slaughter-child wasn't very long. Some made it without getting reaped, but even then, their lives were nothing grand or fancy. They got married, had children of their own, and followed the example set before them by their parents. Utilizing the tesserae-slaughter-child principle to try to save some of their children by sacrificing the rest of them.

Scarlet would always fight to live. Crimson too. While she was willing to be punished for those she deemed of worth—namely Cadmium, Honey, and Crimson—ultimately, she wanted to live.

If she entered the games, which were more than likely given how many siblings she had, she would fight to the bitter end to win. Not for glory or for the riches or for fame. She would fight to win because she wanted to live.

She knew Crimson was the same.

But Cad?

She thought he might fight. But if he did die, she thought he'd welcome death. She just didn't know what drove him down that path. Sure, their lives weren't great. In fact, to most, she knew, they were downright terrible. But they were theirs. For Scarlet, Crimson and Cadmium, the only thing they owned was their lives.

"You only have two options, Cadmium. Fight to live. Or give up and die. The only person who gets to decide that is you." She said with a finality that hopefully would end the discussion of death.

Scarlet didn't want Cadmium to die. She hated the thought that he could give up on himself and stop fighting for life.

But she believed with everything that she was that if you didn't fight for your own life then other people shouldn't fight for it either.

And only Cadmium could decide to fight for life or accept death. And only time would tell what his decision would be.

Scarlet turned back to the workbench and picked up the crystal scrap she'd been working on for the past week. She grabbed her small carving tool and picked up where she left off, carving the small details into the flat surface. It would be a white wolf when she was finished. She was hoping figure out a way to turn it into a necklace.

If she were lucky, she could sell the piece to the shops in town. They had bought a few of her pieces before, just not at any substantial rate. There was no one wealthy enough to spare money on jewelry here in District 14 except the mayor and some of the other important people that helped run District 14. And also, maybe some of the peacekeepers.

The mayor would buy the best pieces in town and send them to the Capitol; even he didn't dare spend that much money on such trivial things. But how much he bought fluctuated with the current fads of the Capitol citizens. Like with the jewelry, the fur coats that District 14 provided to the Capitol weren't essential items that the Capitol needed.

That was part of the reason why District 14 was so poor. The sources of money and income that everyone in District 14 was so dependent on, were dependent on the ever-changing whims of the Capitol.

Regardless of the fads though, the stores would never give Scarlet even a fraction of what the mayor bought the pieces for from their store. Cadmium, Crimson and Scarlet worked together to hone their skills and make a little extra income to help them survive in the harsh and bitter winters.

Cadmium's ice carvings were good, but not great enough to give to the Capitol. Stores only gave him a single coin per sculpture anyways. Really, his sculptures were just a way for him to hone his skills until he was ready to start carving crystal pieces like Scarlet.

Crimson didn't carve, but he designed the pieces and Scarlet's crystals contributed to most of their income, but only a few were deemed good enough to be sent to the Capitol.

Mostly, what they earned each month between the three of them, was enough to buy candles, wood scraps for a small, occasional fire and cloth strips for Scarlet's feet—since she didn't have shoes of her own. They would buy a few pieces of ice for Cadmium to carve. Any crystals Scarlet wanted to carve were found in the scrap piles that other carvers dismissed as waste.

The truth was that there were not many people left in District 14 who had the ability to carve the small pieces that Scarlet could, with her small fingers, which is why they were willing to pay at all for her carvings. Some carvers didn't even have all their fingers left due to the bitter cold weather that they lived in and the poor compensation that they received.

Carvers didn't make a lot of money here in District 14, only enough to survive on, but most of the other options were even bleaker. Even though Scarlet and her siblings didn't make hardly anything for all their efforts, Scarlet liked carving the crystals. She liked giving the so-called scrap pieces of crystal life and shape and form.

Scarlet's parents were not carvers. Her father, Bash Wolfe, was a trapper. Half the year he was away from their home, out in the wilderness, beyond the first perimeter, but well within the secondary perimeter of District 14.

Her mother, Harmony Wolfe, was the caretaker of their home. As far as Scarlet could tell, her main job was to have as many children as possible. Pregnant women get extra rations in District 14 and households with children under eight years old get more rations as well.

Scarlet could barely recall a time in her life when her mother wasn't pregnant with another little sibling.

Even with the money that Bash received, and the extra rations that their mother received, it still wasn't enough to keep the entire family well-fed. That was why Scarlet, Crimson, and Cadmium worked and sold carvings in their free time.

And if they were lucky and had a few extra coins at the end of the month, they gave it to their parents.

For their family.