Octavia didn't stop screaming or fighting Tam the entire way back to her cell and didn't calm down until she noticed her vision starting to dim in her left eye. She had to force herself to calm down despite her increasing panic for her friend and for herself. The games are ending. She can't afford to lose any of her sight now. She needs both eyes open. Sprawled on the cell's dusty floor, Octavia takes long, deep breaths and tries to focus on something else other than what is happening and going to happen.

"Wore yourself out?" Tam says a little breathily.

Octavia ignores Tam. Her thoughts drift to her burning, aching body suffering from her strenuous run and struggle. Through the aching, she feels her stinging feet - scratched up from her running - and ankle. There is a warmth accompanying the stinging in her ankle. Slowly, Octavia rises to check her bleeding ankle. Thankfully, Tam did not put the chain on this one.

There was a gash in the sock where debris had struck it, and there was a little blood as well as some pulls, fuzzies, and holes in the bottom from the pavement tearing at it. Removing the sock reveals there is more bruising than blood. Worries of infection from the small cut begin to rise in Octavia's chest, but she exhales them out as she focuses on getting to the sink and hoping, by chance, there would be water.

Octavia shakily gets up.

"Where do you think you're going?" Tam says.

"Bathroom," Octavia says. Her voice reflects her exhaustion.

She hobbles over to the sink and grabs onto it as she balances on her good foot. With the sink knob turned as far as it can go, a series of fast drips plops out. She sucks in a sharp breath as the icy drips come in contact with the wound. Blood washes down the drain painstakingly slow.

She also collects water in the sock she wore and wrings water out when it has collected enough. After doing this several times in attempt to wash it, she ties the sock around her ankle in a makeshift bandage.

She then sticks her head under the faucet to catch some drops of water. The drops provide tiny spots of comfort in her sandpapered mouth until the water stops on its own. She turns the faucet off, as if it made a difference, and hobbles to her bunk.

Hugging her knees to her chest, Octavia buries her face in her knees and transports her mind to empty thoughts. She struggles to think of nothing and doesn't realize she had fallen asleep until the lock to the cell door rattles. Lifting her head from her knees, Octavia sees Shard staring at her as Tam unlocks the door. She rubs the sleep out of her eyes.

Don't show him weakness. Don't show him fear, Octavia thinks. Don't allow him the pleasure. Be strong like Mindy said.

Octavia tries to imitate Mindy's strength with a confident stare back and straightening her posture. But her mimicry of Mindy makes her think of Mindy. She wonders how long she has been asleep. Octavia's heart quakes.

"What did you do to her?" Octavia asks in a heavy voice not displaying the strength she tries to show.

"Now is that really a smart question?" Shard says as he enters the cell.

Octavia presses her back against the wall and hugs her knees tighter as Shard gets closer. His footsteps echo with each step. They had never echoed before.

"I didn't appreciate your little act-up in the Courtyard," Shard says. "It hurt my feelings you trying to run away. I thought we had something special." He puts his fingertips to his heart and overdramatically whips his head to the side. "But your little friend, Winters, has some jealousy problems and threw a wrench into our friendship. And now I have to reset the parameters of our relationship."

Shard yanks Octavia by the wrist off the bunk and throws her into the chair. He forces her to sit and slams her back into the back of the chair with his hand by pushing her in the chest. Octavia's breath is knocked out her and head slightly whips back, causing her momentary dizziness. Maintaining an almost crushing pressure on her chest to keep her in place, Shard gets in her face.

"I get you're anxious about getting out of here, and your time will come to get out. Whether or not it's with life's light still in your eyes is up to how good you behave and listen to me," Shard says.

Shard leans in closer to Octavia. Her quickened breaths bounce off his mask back into her face. She feels no breath from Shard as his cold eyes burrow into hers. A lump Octavia can't swallow forms.

"Or if you act up again, you may not make it all back home." His finger pets the corner of her left eye. "Those pretty eyes look prettier in your head, but if you become troublesome, I'd like some sort of reward for having to deal with you." His finger moves under her eye.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

The overly gentle strokes cause her to shudder. She tries to pull her face away but his finger follows. The thought of smacking his hand off repeats. She’s done it before, but Shard was joking around those times. Increasing pressure applied on her chest tells this is not the case here. The pressure increases as the hand on her chest slides up to her throat. Slowly, Shard starts cutting off her air.

Octavia latches onto Shard’s wrist and tries pulling off his hand. Doing so is like trying to rip off a constrictor slowly crushing its prey. Her attempts to free herself do nothing.

The next and only other thing she can think to do while trying to pry his hand off her throat is kick. One foot brushes against his side. The other misses as he dodges it. Every other kick misses as he dodges them and gets to standing behind her with both hands around her throat. Holding her like this, he keeps Octavia in the chair. She claws at his leather-gloved hands. The gloves are fingerless so she can feel his own nails dig into her skin.

“See how easy I can pop those eyes out, Sweet-hart?” Shard says smoothly. “And go ahead and keep kicking and scratching at me. All I’ll do is squeeze a little tighter every time.” His hands tighten at these words. “Quite literally your life is in my hands right now. So if you want to live and survive here, you will listen to me. Now stop fighting against me.”

Octavia continues her desperate fight to free herself. She tries to scratch Shard’s face but can’t find it with her hands. When she pulls herself forward, more of her air is cut off. Leaning back, she regains some more air, but Shard’s grip tightens. Octavia wheezes.

“Go ahead and keep struggling then,” Shard tells her. “You’ll use up all your oxygen and suffocate yourself because I’m keeping my promise to not let up until you listen. You’ll know your dangerously close to suffocating to death when you start seeing those dark, sparkly stars. The kind that aren’t real pretty.”

Shard’s words are timed perfectly. How many times has he done this to be so precise? The stars start growing in the corner of her vision.

“Remember what I said earlier, Sweet-hart,” Shard says. “Be a good girl, and fate might grant you an easy death at a grey age. Or at least your death won’t be my fault. Or don’t listen to me. It’s up to you. You have the freedom to choose that much. But you die now, you won’t see Winters, again. Nor that friend Xander she told me you two have in common. Nor your parents you care so much about impressing. Can’t really impress them if you’re dead. Your choice, Sweet-hart. Not mine because I’ve already made mine.”

The stars grow brighter or dimmer. Octavia can’t tell. Her head pounds. She drops her hands and stops kicking. She can’t fight him. After a second, Shard lets her go.

Octavia gasps. Air fills her lungs and she doesn’t want to let it go but she has to to take another breath. She begins to fall out of her chair but Shard catches her.

“That’s a good girl,” he says to her.

He drags her over to and puts her on top of her bunk. Octavia doesn’t fight him as he pushes her knees up and pushes her head down between her knees.

When her breathing returns to normal, she doesn’t change her position. She can’t bear to look up. She heeded to Shard and couldn’t free herself of him. She couldn’t die with honor.

Octavia doesn’t move until Shard sits next to her. She goes to flee from him elsewhere in the cell, but he catches her wrist.

“The only way you will get out of here alive is if you listen to me,” Shard tells her. “Do you understand me?”

Octavia says nothing.

Shard pulls her in closer. “I said: Do you understand me?” His expression turns venomous.

Don’t say a word, Octavia thinks. You already lost your dignity once.

She can’t let him continue to strip it from her.

“What’s the matter? Sore throat?” Shard chuckles and points a finger on her throat.

Octavia snaps away without freeing her wrist.

“C’mon,” Shard says. “I didn’t choke you hard enough to crush your trachea.”

In the blink of an eye, his other hand is around her throat. Octavia’s free hand clamps onto it. He doesn’t choke her but holds her throat to where she can’t rip herself free.

“But I can crush it in an instant if you don’t answer me. Then I’ll understand why you’re not answering me.”

“I understand,” Octavia peeps.

“Understand what?” Shard asks.

“You,” Octavia says.

“Not “who”. “What”,” Shard says. “What do you understand?”

“I understand what you said,” she says quickly.

Why is she talking? Can’t she let herself die honorably?

“What specifically did you understand? I talk a lot, ya know.” Shard’s fingers readjust on her throat. “Just like ya know how right now would be a really bad time for me to have a hand spasm happen. I honestly don’t really get those, but I know you get my gist. So…What part do you understand?”

“I understand…” Octavia grits her teeth. “I won’t make it out alive without you.”

“Good girl,” Shard says.

He tosses her out of his hold. Her landing on the bunk is not hard but it sends a message. Shard stares at her with a tightened jaw.

Shard claps his hands. Octavia jumps.

"Yay! Punishment time over. Food time start!" Shard pumps a happy fist towards the sky as he leaps to the cell door. He waves his hand at the guards and jogs in place for a moment while waiting for the door to open. He slips out it when there's a sliver big enough for him to fit through. Skipping away and dancing his hands at his sides with each skip, he cheerily sings, "Lunch buddy time! No better time than lunch buddy time! Tee hee!"

Octavia slowly puts a hand to her bruising throat. She blinks with mouth agape and facing the direction Shard skipped off to. Tam rolls her eyes and sighs as she relocks the door. The other guard rubs his face and shakes his head. A sigh slips from his lips, too.

What do they see in that lunatic? Octavia thinks as she tries to process what happened.