It was a nightmare she wished to awake from.
Back.
She was going back.
She didn't want to see anyone- she didn't want to talk. She just wanted to spend the few brief moments she had left to wallow before the cameras returned.
She gripped the toilet seat, staring into the moving water.
She blinked.
The water was now a deep red- blood red.
Her hands peeled from the seat, covered in thick blood.
She had so much blood on her hands- not her blood, the blood of those she killed.
It was Marvel and Kirin's.
Thresh's, Rue's, Cato's.
Peeta's.
She scrubbed and wiped and scraped and prodded but the blood remained dyed on her skin.
She choked out a sob, crawling into a fetal position before squeezing her eyes shut.
When she opened them again- after her thoughts had settled- her hands were still covered in blood.
Only this time it'd been her own blood- she'd managed to scratch her hands raw.
Livia laid there motionless, bleeding all over the white tiles.
Somehow she convinced herself
she deserved it.
That she deserved to feel the pain- to feel anything.
It was a joke to think she'd ever be happy, she spent her entire life working for the idea she'd get out at eighteen and then she was thrown into the arena to die.
She'd finally been happy- far from her fathers control, safe among Peeta and- on occasion- Haymitch.
And now she was back.
Only this time she wouldn't be so lucky.
This time her opponents had experience- had won their own games.
And to think, she'd actually thought she'd been lucky.
It wasn't luck, it was the game.
And President Snow had made the first move.
***
The train came to a stop in the Capitol station by late evening.
When Pluto charged into the bathroom to retrieve her, he gasped and went on about appearances.
Livia only shrugged him off and stuffed her hands into the pockets of her dress.
When they stepped off the train Brutus and Enobaria played the crowd, they smiled and waved.
Livia was indifferent towards the crowd of people and cameras, she didn't smile- much less look their way.
