#mocking jay

Katniss, practical and weary of the Capitol’s lingering shadows, had chosen to retire to the familiar shores of District 12, to the woods and the quiet life she had always longed for. Finnick, however, had decided to stay. It wasn’t only duty that kept him here, though that was part of it. There were other reasons—more personal, more complicated—that anchored him to this glittering, haunted city. But in the end, it was his choice. He had volunteered for this life. And he would see it through.

“That’s all for today, Susan,” he said, leaning back in his chair and rubbing the bridge of his nose. His voice was calm but there was a thread of weariness beneath it. His secretary looked up from her notes and gave him a small, knowing nod before gathering her things and slipping out of the room. Unlike most days, work had ended early. Not that it made the day any less tiring; the fatigue clung to his bones like salt spray to skin. But at least the evening stretched before him now, dark and open.

His car was already waiting outside the government building, engine humming softly in the cool Capitol air. He slid into the back seat and let his head rest against the window as the city blurred past in streaks of neon and shadow. He watched the lights flicker—advertisements, streetlamps, the glowing spires of buildings that had once belonged to the decadent and the cruel. He hated the Capitol. He had always hated it, even as a boy, even when he had been paraded through its streets as a victor, smiling for cameras that devoured his pain like candy. Back then, he used to return to District 4 whenever he could—to the salt breeze, the wooden piers, the honest, unpolished lives of the fishermen and their families. But as the years passed, those visits grew fewer, then rarer still. The sea began to feel distant, like something from a half-remembered dream. Now, the Capitol was all that remained of his waking life.

The car pulled up outside his building—a towering structure of glass and polished stone, elegant in the way old money often is. He stepped out into the cool night air and walked into the lobby, where the staff greeted him with practiced smiles and murmured welcomes. He returned them with a small, polite smile of his own—a reflex, nothing more—before stepping into the lift. The doors slid shut and he watched the numbers climb in silence. When the lift dinged open, he stepped into a long, narrow hallway, its floor covered in dark marble that reflected the soft glow of wall sconces. At the far end stood the only door: a grand, imposing thing of rich mahogany, polished to a mirror-like shine. The apartment had once belonged to a Capitol noble—a wealthy sympathizer of the old regime, someone who had turned a blind eye to the Games while hosting lavish parties on the upper levels of the city. Now, it belonged to Finnick. A trophy of a different kind. Not the first one he had been given anyway.

The lock clicked open with a soft electronic chime as Finnick pressed his thumb to the sensor. For a moment, he hesitated, his palm still resting against the cool metal of the doorframe. Then he pushed the door inward and stepped across the threshold into the quiet darkness of his home. The silence wrapped around him like a second skin—thick, immediate and deeply unusual. No soft steps padding toward him. No gentle murmur of greeting. Just the low hum of the city filtering through the reinforced windows and the distant whisper of the ventilation system. Without a word, he dropped his bag by the coat stand and kicked off his shoes, sighing audibly as his bare feet met the smooth, cool floor.

He stood still for a long moment, letting his eyes adjust to the dimness. The apartment stretched out before him in shades of grey and shadow. The quiet was almost oppressive—heavy in a way that felt wrong, like a room holding its breath. He could hear his own heartbeat settling into a slower rhythm, could feel the tension in his shoulders beginning to unspool. But still, something was off. Something was missing.

He walked toward the living room, his footsteps muffled by the plush carpet. The only sources of light were a single distant hallway lamp, its glow weak and amber and the cold flickering of the Capitol’s night skyline pressing against the floor-to-ceiling windows. The city sprawled endlessly beyond the glass—a constellation of ambition and excess, beautiful and rotten all at once. Finnick paid it no mind. His attention was drawn instead to the far corner of the room, where a familiar shape waited in the half-darkness.

A cage.

It was a large one, ornate and unsettling in its beauty. The bars were gilded in gold that caught the faint light and threw it back in soft, fractured gleams. Inside, a thick mattress lay on the floor, a little over half the length of a standard human bed. Along the inner walls, were arranged a small collection of plushies: soft, childish things with button eyes and stitched smiles, their cheerful faces at odds with the cold metal surrounding them. And there, curled in the centre of it all, was her.

She was asleep. Or had been. Her breathing was slow and even, her body tucked into a loose curl on the mattress, one hand resting beneath her cheek. The soft glow from the city outside caught the curve of her shoulder, the pale line of her neck, the delicate braid of her light blonde hair swept to one side—exactly the way he preferred it. Even in sleep, she wore what he had chosen for her that morning: a sheer baby doll slip, translucent as morning frost, layered over black lingerie that left little to the imagination. Around her throat sat a matching collar, sleek and dark, with a silver tag that caught the light as she breathed. He didn’t need to read it to know what it said. Property of F. Odair. Attached to the collar was a silver leash, its end coiled loosely on the mattress beside her.

Finnick took a slow step closer, then another. He reached out and tapped his knuckles against one of the golden bars. The metallic rattle cut through the stillness like a bell. She stirred almost immediately—a soft, sleepy sound escaping her lips as consciousness pulled her back to the surface. Her eyes fluttered open, unfocused at first, then found his face in the dim light. Recognition struck her like a physical blow. She shot upright in a frantic scramble, her head connecting hard with the top of the cage with a sharp thunk that made her wince.

“Master, I—” Her voice was small, breathless, laced with panic. “You’re back? I didn’t hear—I mean, I thought—” She was already crawling out of the cage on her hands and knees, her movements hurried and ungraceful, the leash dragging behind her like a silver serpent. She knelt on the carpet before him, her eyes wide. There was little light in the room, but Finnick could see everything he needed to see: the fear pooling in her gaze, the trembling of her lower lip, the way her fingers twisted anxiously in the thin fabric of her slip. She was terrified. And she should be.

Finnick regarded her in silence for a long moment, letting the weight of his presence settle over her. His expression was unreadable—not angry, not cold, simply patient. As if he had all the time in the world. As if her fear was a slow wine he intended to savour.

“Why weren’t you at the door to greet me?” he asked at last. His voice was calm, almost gentle, but there was no mistaking the expectation beneath it. It wasn’t that he was offended or even particularly angered. It was simply a matter of duty. She had a role to play, a set of responsibilities she had accepted the moment she entered this arrangement. And tonight, she had failed in one of the most basic ones.

“I’m sorry, Master.” The words tumbled out of her in a frantic rush, her voice cracking at the edges. “I thought you’d be back later. You’re usually—I mean, work ended early today, right? I didn’t mean to fall asleep, I was waiting, I swear I was, but it got so quiet and I just—” She was trying to talk her way out of it, weaving excuses like thread through a loom, hoping to stitch together some version of events that would soften his response. Her hands were shaking now, clutching the fabric of her slip until the delicate material creased under her fingers. “I didn’t mean to, I—please, Master, I—”

Finnick bent down slowly, deliberately and took the end of the silver leash in his hand. The metal links chinked softly as he wrapped the length around his palm once, twice, until there was no slack left between them. Then he tugged. It wasn’t a hard pull—not yet—but it was sharp, sudden, enough to make her body lurch forward with a startled squeak. Her knees scraped against the carpet and she caught herself on her hands, her breathing gone shallow and rapid. A soft whimper escaped her throat as more excuses began to form on her tongue, her lips parting to let them spill out once more.

But Finnick was too tired for any of it. The day had been long, the meetings endless, the weight of the Republic pressing down on his shoulders like a stone mantle. He did not have the patience for a litany of pleas and justifications. He silenced her with a single look, a flicker of something cold and unyielding in his sea-green eyes and she closed her mouth immediately, her whole body going still except for the fine trembling he could feel traveling up the leash and into his hand.

“What’s my number one rule?” he asked. His tone carried a note of finality, the quiet authority of someone who expected an answer and would not ask twice.

“Always greet Master when he comes back,” she whispered, her voice barely audible. Her gaze had dropped to the floor, her lashes casting small shadows on her cheeks.

“And number two?”

“No excuses.” The words came out as a whimper, small and broken.

“And what happens to bad puppies who break rules?” Finnick tilted his head slightly, watching her. The city lights painted silver lines along the edge of his jaw, catching the gold of the cage behind her. He looked almost serene, almost pitying. But there was little softness in him tonight.

She was quiet for a moment, her hands bunching so tightly in the fabric of her slip that her knuckles went white. When she finally spoke, her voice was scarcely more than a breath, fragile as spun glass.

“They get punished.”

The silence that followed her words was heavier than any punishment Finnick could have spoken aloud. It stretched between them like a held breath, thick with anticipation and the faint, electric taste of fear. Y/n remained motionless on her knees, her head bowed, her blonde braid slipping over one shoulder to hang like a pale rope against the dark lace of her lingerie. She didn’t dare look up. She didn’t dare move. The only sign of life was the rapid rise and fall of her chest beneath the translucent slip, and the occasional tremble that coursed through her slim frame.

Finnick watched her for a long, deliberate moment. His thumb traced the cool links of the silver leash idly, back and forth, back and forth—a small, almost unconscious gesture that seemed to calm him while it wound her tighter. The golden bars of the cage gleamed softly behind her, their open door a silent reminder of where she belonged. The plushies inside stared out with their blank, stitched eyes, witnesses to whatever came next.

“Look at me,” he said finally. His voice was quiet, but it cut through the stillness like a blade through silk.

Y/n hesitated for only a fraction of a second before lifting her gaze. Her eyes were glassy, caught somewhere between terror and desperate hope. Tears had not yet fallen but they clung to her lower lashes like morning dew, threatening. She searched his face for mercy, for leniency, for anything that might soften what was to come. Finnick’s expression, however, gave nothing away. His features were carved in shadow and moonlight, beautiful and unreadable. He had learned long ago how to hide everything behind a pleasant smile. Tonight, he wasn’t smiling.

“You know I don’t enjoy this,” he said, and there was something almost tender beneath the words, almost gentle. “But you also know that rules exist for a reason. Structure. Order. Without it, there’s only chaos. And chaos—” He tugged the leash again, just a fraction, just enough to remind her of its presence. “Chaos is dangerous for little things like you. Isn’t it?”

“Yes, Master,” she whispered. A single tear slipped free and traced a slow path down her cheek. She didn’t wipe it away.

“Do you remember the last time you broke a rule?” Finnick asked, tilting his head. The question was soft, almost conversational, but his eyes held her captive. “Do you remember what happened?”

Y/n swallowed hard. Her throat bobbed visibly above the collar. “Yes, Master,” she said again, her voice even smaller now.

“And did it help you remember?”

“Yes, Master.” A second tear joined the first. “I’ve never forgotten.”

“But you forgot tonight.” Finnick sighed, a long, slow exhale that seemed to drain some of the tension from his shoulders. He looked tired suddenly—not just physically, but something deeper, something bone-weary. The weight of the Capitol, of the Republic, of all the ghosts that followed him like shadows—it pressed down on him even here, in the sanctuary of his own home. He ran his free hand through his hair, the bronze waves falling back into place almost immediately.

“I don’t want to punish you tonight,” he admitted and the honesty in his voice was startling. “I’m exhausted, Y/n. I’ve spent the entire day listening to people argue about grain quotas and district tariffs and whether the train lines to Seven should be repaired before the winter. I’ve smiled at people I despise. I’ve shaken hands with men who would have watched me die in that arena and called it entertainment.” He paused, his jaw tightening. “I came home because I wanted peace. I wanted you. At the door. Where you were supposed to be.”

Y/n’s lower lip trembled violently now and more tears followed the first two, streaming freely down her cheeks. She didn’t make a sound but her shoulders shook with the effort of containing her sobs. Her hands had released her slip and now lay flat against her thighs, palms down, fingers spread—a posture of utter submission.

“I’m sorry,” she breathed, the words barely audible. “I’m so sorry, Master. I’ll do better. I promise. I’ll—I’ll never fall asleep again. I’ll wait by the door every single night, no matter how late, no matter how tired. I swear it. Please—”

“Shh.” He released his grip on the silver leash, letting it fall to the carpet with a soft clink. His movements were careful, measured—like someone approaching a skittish, frightened animal that might bolt at any sudden motion. Then, instead, he reached out and cupped her chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilting her face upward so that she had no choice but to meet his eyes. His thumb brushed slowly across her cheek, wiping away the wet tracks of her tears with a tenderness that felt almost cruel in its gentleness. His touch was warm, almost tender, a stark contrast to the sharp authority in his voice. “Don’t make it any harder for me, hmm?”

Y/n choked on a sob, her throat tightening around the sound until it came out as a strangled, broken thing. She tried desperately to blink back the tears that kept welling up despite her best efforts, her vision blurring and clearing in uneven waves. But she nodded—a small, jerky motion of her head, submission bleeding into every line of her body. She took a deep, shuddering breath, filling her lungs with the cool air of the apartment and forced herself to steady. Her hands unclenched from the fabric of her slip, then clenched again. She knew what was coming. She had known the moment she woke up to find him standing over her cage. And some part of her, the part that had been trained and conditioned and slowly reshaped, had already accepted it.

Finnick raised his hand. There was no hesitation in the movement, no second-guessing. It was clean, precise, almost clinical. His palm landed against her cheek with a sharp, ringing crack that echoed off the walls of the silent living room. The sound was startlingly loud—a single, perfect note of punishment that seemed to hang in the air long after the impact had faded. Y/n tried her best to stay upright, to hold herself straight and still the way she had been taught, but the force of the blow was a bit more than she expected. Her body twisted sideways, her shoulder hitting the carpet as she caught herself on one trembling arm. A soft gasp escaped her lips, more surprise than pain at first, before the sting bloomed across her cheek like fire spreading through dry grass.

Before she could recover, Finnick’s other hand found its way into her hair. His fingers tangled in the light golden blonde strands, fisting firmly but not cruelly and he pulled her back upright. The motion was neither gentle nor brutal—simply efficient, like a fisherman hauling in a line. She winced as the tension pulled at her scalp, but she made no sound of protest. Her eyes were wide and wet, fixed on his face with an expression that hovered somewhere between fear, pain and desperate, aching devotion.

“What do you say after this?” His voice was calm, almost conversational. As if he had asked her about the weather, or what she wanted for dinner. But his eyes held hers with an intensity that allowed no evasion.

“I’m sorry, Master.” Her voice came out raw and wavering, but she forced the words out one by one, shaping them carefully. “I failed my duty and deserve to be punished.”

It was the right answer. The only answer. She had repeated it so many times now that it had become a kind of prayer—a litany of guilt and atonement that she whispered to herself in the dark hours of the night. The words settled into the space between them, heavy and fragile all at once.

Another slap landed on the same spot. This one was softer, restrained, almost perfunctory. A reminder rather than a punishment. But still, Y/n whimpered—a small, wounded sound that escaped despite her best efforts to stay silent. The lingering tenderness from the first blow made the second one feel sharper than it actually was and her cheek throbbed in dull, rhythmic pulses. A tear slipped free despite her attempts to hold it back, tracing a hot line down her flushed skin.

“This is the last time that I’m letting you off this easy.” Finnick’s voice hardened slightly, the gentleness of before giving way to something sterner. He released her hair and instead raised his hand, tapping her forehead with the middle of his index finger—once, twice, three times, each tap landing with a light but insistent pressure against her brow. “You need to get it through that dumb little head of yours, hmm?” There was no cruelty in his tone, precisely. But there was no softness either. Only the flat, matter-of-fact authority of someone who had repeated this lesson many times before and was growing weary of the repetition.

Y/n nodded solemnly, her chin dipping toward her chest. She swallowed hard, her throat bobbing beneath the dark collar and murmured, “Thank you, Master.” The words came automatically now, ingrained so deeply that she no longer had to think about them. Gratitude for the correction. Gratitude for the punishment. Gratitude for the fact that he still cared enough to discipline her, to shape her, to mould her into something better than what she had been before.

Finnick studied her for a moment longer, his sea-green eyes roving slowly over her body with an intensity that made her feel like she was being taken apart and examined piece by piece. He looked at the reddening mark on her cheek, at the tears still clinging to her lashes, at the way her chest rose and fell with shallow, uneven breaths beneath the translucent babydoll. Then his gaze drifted downward, catching on the silver tag that hung from her collar. The dim light from the city outside caught the engraved letters, illuminating them in soft, ghostly white: Property of F. Odair. He stared at the words for a long moment, his expression shifting through something unreadable—a flicker of possessiveness, perhaps, or satisfaction, or something darker and more complicated that he would never put into words.

Then, slowly, he exhaled. The breath seemed to carry something out of him—tension, maybe, or the last remnants of the day’s exhaustion. He cupped her face again, this time with both hands, his palms warm and dry against her tear-stained cheeks. He tilted her head up gently, forcing her to meet his gaze one more time. Her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen, but she didn’t look away. She never looked away when he asked her to.

Without another word, Finnick’s arm wrapped around her waist, his hand splaying across the small of her back. He pulled her closer, guiding her body between his legs as he shifted and sat down fully onto the floor, his back resting against the cold bars of the cage behind him. The metal pressed into his spine through his shirt, but he didn’t seem to notice—or if he did, he didn’t care. He drew her into the vee of his thighs, her knees bracketing his hips, her body flush against his chest.

He didn’t waste any time. One moment he was looking at her, studying her and the next his lips were on hers. The kiss was not gentle, but it was not harsh either. It was hungry, demanding, a claiming as much as a caress. His mouth moved against hers with a confidence born of familiarity and she responded instinctively, her lips parting beneath his, her body melting into his hold. His hands slipped under the hem of her babydoll, finding the warmth of her bare skin beneath. His palms were rough and calloused in places—remnants of a life lived before the Capitol, before all of this—but his touch was sure, almost reverent. He caressed her waist, his thumbs tracing slow circles against her ribs, then slid his hands higher, then lower, traveling up and down her midriff in a lazy, possessive rhythm. She shivered against him, caught between the chill of the room and the heat radiating from his body.

His hand moved up with deliberate slowness, fingers ghosting over her ribs before coming to rest against the soft curve of her breast. She let out a small, needy whine that seemed to travel straight through him and Finnick smiled against her lips—a slow, satisfied curl of his mouth that held no warmth, only possession. He could feel the rapid flutter of her heartbeat beneath his palm, the way her breath hitched and stuttered as he applied the slightest pressure. His fingers found her nipple through the delicate layer the lingerie bra, rolling it gently at first, then with a little more intent, just to watch her react. She never disappointed. Her responsiveness had always been one of her most endearing qualities—every touch, every whisper of sensation seemed to light her up from the inside, her body answering his before her mind could even catch up. Her hips twitched involuntarily and a deeper, more breathy sound escaped her throat, swallowed by his mouth.

Finnick exhaled slowly, feeling something shift within him. The tension of the day—the endless meetings, the sterile conference rooms, the weight of a nation pressing down on his shoulders—began to unspool, thread by thread, as her lips left his and began to trail down the sharp line of his jaw. She kissed her way lower, her mouth soft and warm and impossibly eager, pressing small, open-mouthed kisses to the column of his throat. She nipped at the skin just above his pulse point, exactly where he liked it, with exactly the right amount of pressure. Then she soothed the spot with her tongue, a practiced rhythm that spoke of long nights and careful instruction. She knew precisely where to kiss, where to bite, where to linger until his breath caught in his chest. She moved like a creature trained to perfection or perhaps one that had simply learned that her survival depended on knowing every inch of him.

His free hand drifted lower, brushing against the damp heat at her core through the thin lace of her panties. Even through the fabric, he could feel the growing wetness, the unmistakable evidence of her arousal soaking through. His fingertips pressed more firmly, circling lazily, and he felt her shudder against him.

“You’re so wet, puppy,” he murmured, his voice a low, velvet rumble against her hair. “Were you good while I was gone?”

“Yes, Master.” The words came quickly, breathlessly, pressed against the hollow of his throat between kisses. She sounded sincere. Earnest. Desperate to please.

Finnick hummed thoughtfully, his fingers continuing their lazy exploration, teasing at the damp fabric. “Then how are you so wet so quickly, hmm?” His tone shifted into something lighter, almost playful—a sing-song lilt that danced on the edge of mockery. There was amusement threaded through every syllable, the quiet confidence of someone who already knew the answers to the questions he was asking. “Are you sure you didn’t touch yourself while I was away? I know how desperate you get when you’re left alone too long.”

At that, Y/n straightened abruptly, pulling back just enough to look him in the eye. Her gaze was wide and imploring, the raw intensity of her need to be believed. Her lips parted as she shook her head with such fervour that a few strands of her braid came loose.

“Master, I would never,” she said, her voice steady despite the quiver in her chin. “No matter how desperate I get—no matter how much I ache, or how long the day feels—I always wait. I always wait for Master to come back so he can touch me. I would never break that rule. I promise. Please, you have to believe me.”

Finnick studied her for a long moment, his sea-green eyes unreadable. Then something in his expression softened—not with mercy, exactly, but with something that looked almost like approval. He tilted his head, his lips curving into a faint smile.

“My, my,” he said softly, almost affectionately. “You really are such a good puppy, aren’t you?”

She nodded eagerly, a small, hopeful sound escaping her throat. And that was all the confirmation he needed.

His hand moved with sudden, deliberate purpose. He shifted the damp lace of her panties to the side—just enough—and shoved two fingers inside her without any warning, without any preamble, without even the pretence of gentleness. Y/n let out a sharp, startled squeak, her entire body jolting as her hands flew to his shoulders for purchase. Her nails dug into the fabric of his shirt as her thighs began to tremble violently. She gasped, her mouth falling open in a silent O and Finnick watched her with hooded eyes as he began to move.

He pumped his fingers in and out of her heat with a steady, unforgiving rhythm—deep, deliberate strokes that left no room for doubt about who was in control. The sounds that spilled from her lips were obscene filling the quiet apartment like a confession. She was no longer trying to hide her reactions; there was no point. Her head fell back, exposing the pale column of her throat and the dark collar wrapped around it, her silver tag catching the distant city lights and throwing them back in fractured gleams.

“That’s what I like about you,” Finnick said, his voice low and nonchalant, as if he were commenting on something casual rather than the way she was falling apart around his fingers. He curled them suddenly, mercilessly, against a particular spot deep inside her—one that made her entire body arch like a bow and her head snap back even farther, a broken cry tearing from her lips. He smiled then, slow and satisfied. “You’re a dumb, dirty little pup. But you’re willing to learn. And you’re,” he curled his fingers again, harder this time, pressing and rubbing in tight circles against that devastating spot, watching her eyes roll back, watching her mouth hang open on a soundless scream, “so responsive.”

Her nails raked down his shoulders—sharp, desperate crescents of sensation that left pale trails blooming into red. Her thighs clenched tight around his hand, a reflexive, involuntary grip, as though she could anchor herself to him and keep from being swept away entirely. Her whole body bowed to the rhythm he set, arching and trembling and yielding all at once, a creature of instinct now rather than thought. Every breath she drew came in ragged gasps. Every muscle in her frame quivered with the effort of holding on. And Finnick simply watched. Patient. Unhurried. His sea-green eyes never left her face—the flush spreading across her cheeks, the way her lips parted around sounds she couldn’t suppress, the flutter of her lashes as she fought to keep her gaze on his. He controlled everything: the pace, the pressure, the very air between them. And she surrendered to it because surrender was all she had left.

Outside, the Capitol glittered on, indifferent and eternal. A thousand lights flickered across the night skyline—buildings that had once belonged to Snow’s allies, streets that had once run red with the blood of tributes, now polished and pristine and pretending at innocence. The city never slept. It simply reinvented itself, shedding old skins like a snake, forgetting as easily as it breathed. But Finnick did not forget. Even now, with her soft sounds filling the quiet apartment and the weight of the leash still coiled loosely in his free hand, his mind drifted backward. Not to the arena. Not to the ocean. Further than that. To the chaos that had followed the fall.

The old regime had crumbled like a rotten pillar, finally unable to support the weight of its own cruelty. Coriolanus Snow was dead. The rebellion had swept through Panem like wildfire and from its ashes, the New Republic had risen, still unsteady on its feet, still learning how to breathe without tyranny strangling it. The parliament had set to work immediately on two fronts: reform and the punishment of those who had committed crimes against the people. Tribunal after tribunal was convened. Names were dragged into the light. And among the accused, one name stood out not for what she had done, but for who she was.

Y/n Snow.

The prized granddaughter of the late President. Something of an “it-girl” in the Capitol’s glittering, poisonous social scene—though that phrase hardly captured the truth of her existence. She had worn the finest dresses, yes, silks and velvets that cost more than a District 12 family earned in a year. She had eaten the finest foods, had been photographed at every pompous event with her grandfather’s cold hand resting on her arm like a brand. She had smiled for the cameras, had recited the gracious, empty pleasantries expected of a Snow. But had she ever been free? Had she ever been anything more than a decoration, a prop, a pretty thing to be displayed and discarded at the former president’s whim?

“She should be executed!” The memory of that voice still echoed in Finnick’s mind—sharp, furious, a District 7 representative whose family had lost someone to Snow’s machinations. “Are we forgetting all that she did? She stood beside him. She smiled for him. She wore his jewels and ate his food and never once lifted a finger to stop any of it!”

The chamber had erupted into chaos, voices overlapping in a storm of anger and grief. Finnick had sat in his seat, silent, watching. He had seen the girl in question seated in the defendant’s alcove, her hands folded in her lap, her face pale as marble. She had not spoken. She had not defended herself. She had simply sat there, waiting, as though she had already been sentenced a thousand times in her own mind.

“I must remind you,” another voice cut through the noise—softer, but no less firm. Tigris. The former president’s own cousin, her face altered by years of self-inflicted surgeries, her loyalty to the rebellion unquestioned. She had harboured fugitives. She had fed the resistance. She had risked everything to help bring down her own family’s terrible legacy. “That my grandniece was used by that man to better his reputation. The girl had no part in the atrocities that he committed. She was a child—a pawn—no different from any other tribute paraded in front of cameras to make Snow look magnanimous.”

A murmur rippled through the parliament. Some nodded. Others scowled, unconvinced.

“And what of her brother?” A District 1 representative rose to his feet, jabbing a finger toward the defendant’s alcove. “Cornelius Snow knew. His list of crimes wasn’t short either—in fact, it was longer and more grotesque than most. Shall we pretend she knew nothing of that as well?”

Cornelius Snow. The name alone was enough to darken the room. Unlike his sister, Cornelius had been no decoration. He had been an active participant in the regime’s ugliest excesses—a notorious rapist and abuser, known for assaulting female tributes and district women alike with impunity. Rumour had it that he would take women from the districts in small groups, keep them in his private wing of the Snow mansion and use them for his pleasure until he grew bored. After that, they were either killed—silently, without record—or tossed out into the streets with nothing but the clothes on their backs and scars that would never fully heal. He had also served as a Game Master, designing tasks and arenas for the Hunger Games with particular sadism. The traps he created were not designed simply to kill, but to prolong suffering, to turn death into performance art. Few tributes who entered one of Cornelius Snow’s arenas died quickly. And none died kindly.

“He is dead,” Tigris replied, her voice cool but strained. “Cornelius is dead. His crimes died with him. Why do you want to punish a girl for her brother’s sins? For her grandfather’s sins? Y/n Snow was kept in that mansion like a caged bird. She was rarely let out unless Snow needed her for his schemes—a smile here, a wave there, proof that the Snow family was civilized, cultured, worthy of power. She was not given a voice. She was not given a choice. She was as much a prisoner as any tribute.”

The chamber fell silent. Finnick remembered the weight of that silence—how it pressed against his ears, how he had shifted in his seat, how his gaze had drifted back to the pale girl in the defendant’s alcove. She had finally looked up, just once, and her eyes had met his across the room. There was no defiance in them. No pride. Just exhaustion and something else—something that looked almost like relief. As though she had been waiting, for years, for someone to finally see her for what she was.

Not a predator. Prey.

“Then what do you propose?” another voice asked. “We cannot simply let her walk free. A Snow is a Snow. Her name alone is a weapon.”

The chamber erupted again before Tigris could form a reply. Another man shot to his feet—a broad-shouldered counsellor from District 6, his face flushed with the particular righteousness of someone who had waited a long time for vengeance and could taste it now on the back of his tongue. His voice boomed across the hall, carrying a rawness that silenced the murmurs around him.

“I suggest we make a whore of her. The way her brother and grandfather did to so many of our sisters and daughters.”

A ripple went through the room—shock, yes, but also something uglier. Approval. Men began thrumming their hands against the heavy wooden tables, a low, rhythmic drumming that built like thunder before a storm. The counsellor, emboldened by the response, pressed on, his words growing sharper, more vicious with each syllable.

“Put her in a brothel. For any man to fuck as they please. She wants to atone for her family’s crimes? Fine. Let her do it in the only fucking way she knows how. The Snows took our bodies for generations. Let theirs be taken in return. That’s justice.”

“Mind your words, counsellor.” Tigris’s voice cut through the din like a blade—low, dangerous, barely contained. Her features twisted into something almost feral, her golden eyes glinting with a cold fury that reminded everyone present that she, too, had once been a Snow. That she had turned against her own blood at great personal cost. That she had earned the right to speak. But her voice was drowned almost instantly beneath the rising tide of agreement—the thrumming of hands, the shouted approvals, the ravenous sound of a crowd that had found its scapegoat.

Y/n did not look up. She couldn’t. Her eyes remained fixed on the polished floor, tracing the patterns as though it might open up and swallow her whole. How could she lift her gaze? How could she meet the eyes of people who had already decided she was a demon to be exorcised, a stain to be scrubbed away? They did not see a girl, raised in gilded captivity, fed poison disguised as privilege. They saw a surname. They saw a symbol. They saw all the pain the Snow family had inflicted and they wanted to return it tenfold. There was nothing she could say. Nothing she could do. Her words would be ash in their mouths before she even spoke them.

Beside Finnick, a familiar figure shifted in her seat with an exaggerated groan. Johanna Mason—former victor, former tribute, former prisoner of the Capitol’s darkest chambers—rolled her eyes so hard it was almost audible. She had suffered more at Snow’s hands than most people in this room could imagine. Her family had been slaughtered. Her sanity had been stripped and rebuilt into something jagged and sharp. And yet, even she seemed weary of the bloodthirst filling the chamber.

“Ugh. I can’t believe this,” she muttered, loud enough for half the row to hear. Then, without waiting for a response, she leaned forward, tapped her microphone with a fingernail and began to speak.

The parliament fell silent the moment her voice cut through the noise. Johanna Mason had that effect on people. She was not beloved—she was too raw, too honest, too sharp-edged for that but she was respected. Feared, even. Because she had survived things that would have broken anyone else and she had emerged not softer, but harder. An axe honed by fire.

“Why can’t we just kill her and put the other one in the Capitol Hunger Games?”

A murmur rippled through the chamber. The “other one.” Lucia Snow. Y/n’s younger sister, barely fourteen years old, still a child by any measure. She had been found hiding in a servant’s quarters during the fall of the mansion, trembling beneath a bed, clutching a tattered stuffed fox to her chest. Unlike her older sister, Lucia had never attended the galas. Never posed for photographs. Never been paraded on her grandfather’s arm. She had been kept hidden—some said because she was shy, others because she was illegitimate, others still because even Snow recognized that one innocent granddaughter was useful, but two was a liability. Now, she sat in a separate holding cell, her fate tied inexorably to Y/n’s.

Johanna, of course, had her own reasons for suggesting the Capitol Hunger Games. She had been one of the loudest voices advocating for a reversal—Capitol children in the arena, district children as spectators. An eye for an eye. A taste of their own medicine. But Katniss had refused to endorse it and without the Mockingjay’s blessing, the proposal had died stillborn.

Y/n looked up.

For the first time since the proceedings began, she raised her head and let her gaze sweep across the room—the rows of representatives, the judges, the spectators, the victors, the rebels. Her face was ashen, her eyes red-rimmed, but there was something else there now. Not defiance. Not pride. Something fragile. Something more desperate.

“Please,” she said, and her voice cracked on the word. “Please, no. I—I’ll do it. Anything. Whatever you want. Just don’t—”

“Silence, girl.” Tigris’s voice was sharp, but there was something beneath it—fear, perhaps. Or pity. She knew what her grandniece was about to do and she knew it would not help.

But Y/n shook her head, a small, frantic motion. Her hair came loose, strands of pale blonde hair falling across her flushed cheeks. She was trembling visibly now, her whole body vibrating with the effort of staying upright.

“No. I know I am at fault. I know that my ignorance came from a position of privilege that most people my age were never granted. I know that I ate while others starved. I know that I smiled while others screamed. I know all of it.” Her voice grew stronger as she spoke, though it never lost its tremor. “And I will pay for my family’s crimes. For all of them. For my grandfather’s. For my brother’s. Even Lucia’s share. Please. I accept whatever punishment you see fit. Just don’t harm her. She is a child. She didn’t know anything. She never even left the west wing. Please. Please grant her mercy.”

The chamber fell silent. Not the angry silence of before, but something deeper—a held breath, a collective pause. People had expected arrogance. They had expected a Snow to scream, to curse, to demand better treatment. They had expected pride, defiance, a refusal to bend. They had not expected this. A broken girl, offering herself up like a sacrifice, asking only that her sister be spared.

Johanna rolled her eyes again, though there was less venom in it this time. More exasperation. She didn’t like being made to feel things. She leaned back into her microphone, her voice flat and tired.

“Okay, so what will it be? Whore or death? Cast your vote.”

The chamber moved to vote before Tigris could refute, before anyone could call for a recess, before cooler heads could prevail. Paddles rose. Counts were taken. Voices called out yea or nay. And through it all, Y/n Snow stayed in her alcove, hands clasped in front of her, eyes fixed on the floor once more. Waiting.

In the back of the room, Katniss watched it unfold. Her hand found Peeta’s under the table—his warm, solid, scarred fingers interlacing with her own. She didn’t like this. None of it. Her jaw was set, her grey eyes stormy. She had not fought a war, had not killed Coin, had not sacrificed so much, only to watch the new government turn into the old one by another name. But she was one voice among many and the people wanted vengeance. They would accept payment only in blood.

She had suggested house arrest with monitoring. Life imprisonment. Even exile. Each proposal had been voted down with increasing hostility. The parliament had decided that mercy was an insult to the dead. And that was the horror—and the boon—of democracy. Once the mob decided on something, innocence became subjective. Truth became flexible. Justice became a word you used to dress up revenge in nice clothes.

Finnick sat beside Johanna, his expression unreadable. He had not voted yet. His hand hovered over his paddle, his gaze fixed on the her. She looked so small from here. So fragile. Like a bird that had flown into a window and was still trying to understand how the sky had betrayed it.

The vote was cast. The numbers flickered across the large screen at the front of the chamber—a cold, digital verdict that carried the weight of a life. Death had been swift and brutal, a simple matter of a firing squad or a hanging, a clean end to a dirty legacy. But the other option had won. Not by a landslide, but by enough votes to matter. Enough to seal her fate. Enough to condemn her to something far worse than death in the eyes of those who had cast their ballots.

“Whore” had beaten “death” by a margin of seventeen votes.

“I knew it.” Johanna shook her head slowly, a bitter, knowing smile twisting her lips. She didn’t bother to hide her disgust—not at the decision itself, but at the predictable hypocrisy of it. She turned to Finnick, her voice low enough that only he could hear over the murmurs rippling through the chamber. “Of course they’d pick that option. Have you seen her? Looks like a fucking angel, that one. Golden hair, doe eyes, that whole innocent, untouchable thing she’s got going on.” She gestured vaguely toward the defendant’s alcove, her hand slicing through the air with dismissive disdain. “Who wouldn’t want to put their hands on her? They’ve been thinking about it for years. Now they’ve got permission.”

Finnick said nothing. He simply looked back at Y/n Snow, still in her alcove with her hands clasped in front of her. And Johanna wasn’t wrong. The girl was extraordinarily beautiful—the kind of beauty that stopped conversations, that made people forget what they were saying mid-sentence, that lingered in the mind long after she had left a room. She had what the Capitol commentators used to call “Snow features”: high cheekbones, a delicate jaw, skin that seemed to hold light rather than reflect it. Her hair was the colour of spun gold, so pale it was almost white in certain lights, falling in soft waves around her shoulders. Her eyes were pale blue—the colour of ice melting in spring or of a sky just before dawn. And her proportions were the stuff of classical sculpture: slender but not fragile, curved but not overstated, every line of her body suggesting grace and carefully cultivated perfection.

It was no accident. President Snow had ensured that whenever his granddaughter appeared in public, she was dressed in the most flattering garments imaginable—custom pieces designed to appeal to both men and women alike, to make her seem desirable and untouchable in equal measure. She was a tool of propaganda, a living symbol of the Snow family’s refinement and benevolence. Look, the Capitol could say. We have such beautiful things. Such civilized people. We are not monsters. We are patrons of beauty. We are worthy of power.

The thought made Finnick’s stomach turn. He had seen that same machinery at work in his own life—the way the Capitol had dressed him up, preened him, sold him to the highest bidder. The way they had made him into something desirable and then punished him for it. He looked at Y/n now, truly looked at her and saw that she was not staring at the floor anymore. She was staring at Katniss.

Tigris stood beside the Mockingjay, her spotted, weathered face close to Katniss’s ear, whispering urgently. Whatever she was saying, it seemed to be having an effect. Katniss’s expression shifted from grim resignation to something harder—something more determined. She straightened her shoulders, pulled her hand free from Peeta’s grip, and rose to her feet. The chamber quieted almost immediately. Even Johanna leaned back in her seat, arms crossed, watching with narrowed eyes.

“I acknowledge the decision of this parliament,” Katniss began, her voice steady and clear, carrying to every corner of the room. “On humanitarian grounds, however, I do not approve of it. What will make us any different from Snow if we do this? What separates justice from revenge if we stoop to the same tactics he used?”

“So what? We let her go?” Johanna interrupted, her voice sharp as shattered glass. She didn’t bother to wait for an acknowledgment before pressing on. “Just because she begged for her sister’s life doesn’t make her innocent. She’s still a Snow. Tears don’t wash that away.”

A chorus of voices rose in agreement—some from District 2, where families had lost daughters to Cornelius’s appetites; others from District 11, where Snow’s agricultural policies had starved entire communities; still others from the Capitol’s own reformists, who wanted every trace of the old regime scrubbed clean, no matter the cost. The chamber buzzed with anger, with grief, with the particular ugliness of people who had been hurt and were now lashing out at the nearest available target.

Finnick understood Johanna’s ferocity better than most. He knew what Cornelius Snow had done to her—not just the public humiliations, but the private ones. The ones that left scars on the inside. Cornelius had developed a “special liking” for Johanna during her years as a victor and whatever that had entailed, it had left her with a hatred so deep it could never be fully excavated. Unfortunately, in the absence of Cornelius—dead by his own hand during the fall of the mansion—that hatred had found a new home. Y/n was close enough. Y/n shared his blood, his features, his last name. And for Johanna and many more, that was enough.

This was a dangerous moment for Katniss and she knew it. The Mockingjay’s power had always been symbolic, not political. She could inspire but she could not command. If she appeared to sympathize too openly with Y/n Snow—a woman the people had already convicted in their hearts—she risked losing the fragile authority she still held. And yet, Katniss had never been one to back down from an impossible position.

“No,” she said, raising her voice over the noise. “I know that I alone cannot single-handedly overturn a decision taken by this body. I am one voice among many and I respect the will of the parliament even when I disagree with it.” She paused, drawing a breath, steadying herself. “So, I propose a condition. An amendment, if you will.”

The chamber settled into wary silence. Even Johanna stopped fidgeting.

“She will still be punished. The parliament’s decision will be carried out. But not in a brothel.” Katniss’s eyes swept the room, daring anyone to interrupt her. “She will be bound to the service of a single individual. One keeper. One master. Someone appointed by this body, subject to our oversight and approval. She will still serve her sentence. She will still atone for her family’s crimes. But she will not be passed from hand to hand like—like meat.”

She stumbled over the last word, her voice catching slightly. But she recovered quickly, her jaw setting in that familiar, stubborn line that had carried her through an arena, a war and the murder of a president.

Behind her, Tigris bowed her head in a small, grateful nod. The Republic had wanted her grandniece punished. The districts had wanted Snow blood. Tigris had wanted the girl saved. This was not salvation—not really—but it was something. A reprieve. A crack in the wall. She would take it.

“And who exactly will take her?” Johanna asked, her tone dripping with skepticism. She leaned forward, elbows on the table, chin propped on her hands, playing along for now. “Who gets the honour of owning a Snow? Drawing straws? Auction? Or should we let her choose her own master like some kind of twisted dating game?”

A few people laughed—nervous, uncomfortable laughs. Katniss’s expression did not change.

Before she could answer, the counsellor from District 6 rose to his feet. He was a broad, thick-necked man with calloused hands and a florid face, the same man who had first proposed the brothel solution. His eyes were fixed on Y/n with an intensity that made Finnick’s skin crawl—a possessive, hungry look that had nothing to do with justice and everything to do with lust and appetite.

“I’ll put my name forward,” he said, his voice thick with barely concealed eagerness. “I proposed the punishment. It’s only fitting that I should be the one to—to administer it.”

He smiled. It was not a kind smile. His gaze roamed over Y/n’s figure—the curve of her hip, the slender line of her neck, the way her hands trembled at her sides and Finnick felt something cold settle in his chest. That man would not keep her as a servant. That man would not treat her with even the barest shred of dignity. That man looked at her the way a predator looks at prey it intends to eat alive, slowly, savouring every moment.

Finnick wanted to believe the counsellor wasn’t a bad person. Perhaps, in another life, he had been a decent man—a father, a husband, a worker who simply wanted justice for wrongs committed against his district. But the glint in his eyes told a different story. It was the same glint Finnick had seen in the eyes of Capitol patrons who had purchased him for the night. The same glint he had seen in Cornelius Snows eyes when the man had looked at Johanna. It was the glint of someone who wanted to tear another person apart and call it punishment.

Finnick looked back at Y/n.

She was staring at him.

Not at the counsellor. Not at Katniss. Not at the floor. Directly at him. Her pale blue eyes—those strange, light eyes that seemed to hold whole worlds of sorrow—were fixed on his face with an expression he couldn’t quite name. It was haunted, yes. Sad, certainly. But there was something else beneath it, something that looked almost like recognition. As though she was trying to reach out to the version of him that existed in a dream long ago. As though she was asking him, silently, without words: Will you let them take me?

His breath hitched. His chest tightened. And suddenly, without fully understanding why, he was standing.

The chair scraped back behind him with a sound that echoed through the suddenly silent chamber. Every head turned. Every eye fixed on him—Finnick Odair, the victor, the senator, the man who had been sold more times than he could count, who had worn the Capitols chains and learned to smile through them. He stood tall, his sea-green eyes clear, his voice steady despite the hammering of his heart.

“I’ll take her.”

╰ ┈➤ A/n 2.0: I took a bunch of references from real life events and people for this fic and do let me know if you wanna know about it. And this Finnick is very ooc ik but it'll be explained better in the coming parts, trust.

╰ ┈➤ Masterlist

╰ ┈➤ Tags: @avantlilies @joekitsu @sarabelllah @lil-mex-child @themischievousher @iloveyou3000morgan @saoriixbjh @fnimln @gmiasa03 @foulkingtree-101 @doll-parts111

© cheriecelestial - arabelle | 2026