Finnick glanced over at the young girl, his youngest customer yet she had to be his age at most. She sat across from him in the train car looking out the window not even glancing at him. He was somewhat surprised most capital girls couldn't keep their eyes off of him. She sat reclined in her seat, her legs crossed in her long crimson red dress, her white shimmering heels just peeking out from under her skirt. The front of her dress hung low revealing a great amount of her chest with a large gold pendant resting around her neck.
Her golden hair, her natural hair that is was beautifully braided around her head. Surprisingly for a Capital girl she wore little makeup. Finnick wasn't sure what to make of her, she looked and yet didn't look the part and was relatively quiet. He was thankful for the silence, none of the other girls could ever keep their insufferable mouths shut, and when they were open nothing of any value was said-at least not without his coaxing.
He smiled and leaned across the train car, getting into character to start his job. Just as he got into her face she smacked his head with the rolled up papers in her hand. It wasn't a hard strike just enough to stun him and more playful then anything, "Off." She stated gently pushing him back.
He recovered from his shock to lean back into her face, "Oh c'mon." he responded smirking to himself in anticipation of making her squeal capital secrets.
She batted him again with the paper in his hand, "I said off, now sit down boy." She ordered him again, surprised he sat down and blinked confused. "Let's talk business." She stated looking at his face, examining it. She leaned forwards her elbow resting on her knee and carefully balancing her chin in her hand.
It served to extenuate the amount of cleavage she was showing and Finnick felt certain she was trying to be seductive. He smiled smugly, "Ah." He responded, she was the kind of customer who liked to get the most for their money.
"So how do you charge, by the hour? By the day? I know Haymitch charges me by the minute. And I suppose Haymitch didn't tell you about me." She stated in a playful manner.
"I don't ask for money or jewels… I'll charge you in secrets." He responded trying to keep up with her playfulness.
A smile curled across her lips and her eyes sparkled, "Is that so Mister Odair? Quite a steep charge we have here, I'm not sure I'm willing to make this contract." She stated drumming her fingers on her cheek, a ring on her left hand glittering in the sunlight filtering through the window. She was one of the few girls who had actually left the Capital to meet him.
"Oh does the lady not have any secrets?" He decided to taunt her, he felt there was a possibility that someone from the Capital was actually tolerable-though he supposed not for long once she got talking she was going to torment him.
"I have many secrets, but they're secrets for a reason." She responded that smile still stretched across her face, it was the kind of smile a child wore when they'd done something bad. She leaned back in her chair flipping her hair over her shoulder, "And again I suppose Haymitch didn't speak with you." She mentioned.
Finnick however, was too distracted with her comment on secrets. Perhaps this girl knew more important information then his other clientele, he was going to need to get it out of her, "Secrets aren't really secrets. They're meant to be shared." He stated.
The girl sighed rolling her eyes, "If you were paying attention Mister Odair you would've realised I've been sharing a secret with you the entire time we've been on this train and I have mentioned it twice now." She informed him sounding rather impatient
Finnick blinked surprised at her impatience and what she said, none of the other girls spoke to him in that manner. The girl shook her head and rolled her eyes releasing a long dramatic sigh, "Haymitch really didn't tell you did he?" she remarked sounding annoyed, her eyes narrowing as a pout formed on her face "And I gave the finest wine too." She muttered, "Told him he was a good for nothing drunk."
"What was Haymitch supposed to tell me?" he wondered.
"I'm not your usual sort of customer. In fact, I'm the customer all the tributes want." The smile, the one that looked like a naughty child stretched across her face again her eyes shining with youthful danger, "But you have to keep it a secret." She whispered putting a finger to her lips.
Finnick blinked still confused, he leaned back from her in his own seat now trying to puzzle out what she was saying, "I don't understand." He admitted to her.
"I'm not hiring you for any of Snow's offered services. Consider the time spent with me as a vacation from the other Capital girls… or boys. I have no interest in any of you… well at least not in that way." She replied.
Finnick stared at her, he didn't trust her now, "Then why exactly am I here right now, I doubt it's out of the kindness of your heart. What is that you want?" he asked her.
The girl sighed looking out the window, "I wasn't born in the Capital, though I admit I am one of their lap dogs." She responded to him cryptically.
"What do you mean by that?" Finnick interrupted.
"I was getting to that. I was born in district twelve, I was adopted by my oh so kind Capital family." She started.
"Adopted? From district twelve?" Finnick repeated after her to make sure he heard her right. He was confused, how was someone born in the districts but raised in the Capital?
She nodded slowly, he noticed that her eyes had lost their shine. They looked sad and distant now, and he could see from the reflection of her face in the window of the train she was frowning, "You know the people of the Capital-they're not exactly the kind to have children needlessly. The only ones having children are the ones serious about raising them. The couple that adopted me could not have children."
"Instead of hiring a surrogate from the Capital-my adopted father, a politician decided he'd use the situation to his advantage and adopted me. I was a once in a lifetime special charity case… my older sister had actually died in the Hunger Games." She explained to him, "I was ripped away from my family by Peacekeepers who told me I was going someplace better."
"I believed them at first. I was given my own room, I could go to school, I had clean, new clothes that fit. I had three meals a day, I had toys. I was ecstatic at first… until I met my adopted parents. I realised quickly that my father treated me like a pedigree pet and my mother treated me like an accessory." She continued to narrate, "I learned that it doesn't matter how nice your things are, or what kind of food you have. I'd trade it all away just to have my birth mother back…"
She sniffled a bit and a tear ran down her face, "I can't remember her name, or her face. I can't even remember what she named me. But I remember how she spoke to me, and held me and loved me." She swiped the tear away from her face and turned to face Finnick, her face determined and serious.
"Forgive me if I sound naïve or ignorant, but I think of all the tributes as family and go out of my way to treat them thusly. I think of myself as a member of the districts, all twelve of them. My house might be in the capital but my heart is and always will be from the districts." She stated powerfully.
"I'm sorry to hear that… I didn't even know that they did that." He admitted now he was curious about her, "I didn't catch your name… what was it again?" he asked her feeling horrible that he had forgotten it when they had been introduced.
She laughed then in the most unladylike fashion Finnick had ever seen and doubted he'd ever see another capital girl laugh like, "I knew you weren't listening when I introduced myself. I knew it! You thought I was like all the other girls." He began to laugh with her, it was hard not to, her laugh was contagious. After a long moment they collected themselves, "My names Anabella Brevis." She introduced herself extending her hand to Finnick, "And I hope we can get along." He took her hand and shook it.
Finnick was now extremely fascinated with the girl sitting across from him. He wanted to examine her-he now felt like one of his fans trying to dissect him. "Can you tell me what it was like being raised in the Capital?" he asked Anabella.
"Very uncomfortable." She started rolling her hand to emphasis her point, "Sure there are luxurious parties, delicious food and nice clothes-but you constantly have to worry about everyone else's thoughts and opinions. You can never have your own opinion on anything, it has to be what the Capital's opinion is" she explained, "You have to be good at making alliances with people, keeping them and knowing who to trust. Words, secrets, relationships they are your tools, your weapons and your downfalls."
"I must sound obnoxious with this rant, but you have to understand that in the Capital you can get killed for what you say." Finnick gave her an odd look, "Have you ever wondered why no one's challenged Snow?" she asked him suddenly.
There was a long moment of silence as Finnick filtered through his memories trying to determine if anyone had ever challenged Snow-but nothing could come to mind. He settled for shrugging "He poisons the competition, he has other means but I know about that one." Annabella was quick to reply.
"Why do you know this?" He asked her.
A sad look stretched across her face then "Because he asked me to poison someone for him once."
"Did you do it?" he asked her.
"If I didn't do it… he was going to do something very horrible to me, worse than death." She responded to him, Finnick nodded his head that was an affirmative, she had killed someone. He didn't think of her as a horrible person, Snow had several means of keeping someone alive yet doing the most horrendous things to them.
"I understand." Finnick answered empathetically they fell into silence then. The only sound was from the shifting of the train both of them stared out the window and fiddled idly. That was until Finnick noticed a particular habit of Annabelle's and couldn't stay silent any longer on it.
Finnick watched her nervously play with the ring on her finger, "What's the ring for?" he asked he nodding to it. She jumped at the word ring and glanced down at her hands quickly before wringing on the ring again, twisting it sharply around her finger.
"I'm married." She answered her eyes still fixated on her lap, hiding her face away from him. Her shoulders slumped and he could tell she was ashamed of the fact.
"How old are you? You can't be much older than me, how are you married?" Finnick asked her shocked.
"You're right, I'm a year older than you. Sixteen, I got married last year." She answered him in a monotonous tone.
Finnick spurted, "The hell is wrong with the Capital. You're still just a kid."
"It's not a social norm, it's acceptable to get married at my age just not common. My father made me do it, it was advantageous for his political career." She stated in a polite tone her voice sounding strained underneath it.
"Where's your father now?" Finnick asked her.
Annabella paused a moment before responding to Finnick, "Dead. Snow saw him as competition. He poisoned him at my birthday party this year." He heard her voice falter at the word he, and knew by that Snow had forced her into poisoning her adopted father.
"I'm so sorry." Finnick stated, not so much over the fact her father had died but rather over the fact she had to be the one to do it, at her birthday, right before getting married.
"It's alright, my husband is nice enough."
"How is he?"
"Senator Langston Brevis, in case you didn't know he's twenty three."
"That's sick."
"No… in the Capital, it's considered fashionable. It's considered normal."
"If you're married… doesn't your husband know about you and the tributes?"
"I was careful at first… now I don't care. I only invite them over when he's off on business… which is always. And I play my cards right. Remember I grew up with a Capital politician I know all tricks, I make all my relationships public."
"It's accepted scandal. Why? Because it creates gossip. It creates drama, everyone gets too caught up in the excitement to point fingers and call me a bad traitorous woman or investigate any farther."
"They think it's a hoot that I parade about with a new tribute wrapped around my finger every other week and my husband doesn't know. I sort of like toying with them like this, taking advantage of their stupidity, it makes me think that given the chance the districts will kill them all."
"Aren't you afraid then of being killed with them?" Finnick asked.
"If I have to I'll jump onto the funeral pyre and light it on fire myself if that's what it takes."
He was going to laugh and then realised she was deadly serious, he smiled instead he'd get along just swimmingly with Annabella Brevis. He asked her more questions about her childhood and upbringing. Surprisingly she remembered much about district twelve in stunning detail, he'd been through it, so he knew she remembered the lay out of the land accurately. And despite not remembering how her mother looked or her name, she recalled a lot about her siblings and how they got on. She talked fondly of her sister who died in the games, avoiding her death and the games in general.
She talked about being ripped away from her family by the peacekeepers who almost shot her father. How they didn't explain why she was going to the Capital and she thought she was going to die, and she spent the train ride alone-her parents were too busy to see her.
The second she arrived in Capital she was whisked away to be cleaned and dressed-she described it as the most painful experience of her life-Finnick knew enough to agree with her on that point. She'd met her mother first, a woman who was everything the capital wanted to be-how at first she ignorantly thought all the fawning over her and attention was love but when it quickly began to disappear she realised she was more of a thing to show off. Another jewel or purse or token for her mother to bring around to parties and present.
At school she was either ignored or else bullied for being from the districts. None of the children wanted anything to do with her, and were quick to mock her for mistakes or tear down her accomplishments. Her new father was stern with her, she even admitted to being stricken by him on several occasions.
He used her at her mother's parties in order to further his career and got her involved in politics at a young age as well. Overall, her life in Capital was hell; he had to agree with her that being in the districts would've been better.
Once she had begun to talk with him the train ride seemed to whisk by and they found themselves in the Capital. Her car was waiting for her when they got off the train and they climbed in, "Sebastian my good man. Meet Finnick Odair of district four." Annabella stated playfully and cheerfully to her driver as he came around to his seat.
The driver, Sebastian, turned smiling to face Finnick, "What a pleasure mister Odair. I trust you understand my lady's intentions." The driver stated playfully and Finnick stared at the driver confused, he thought none of the servants in Capital could speak. The driver's eye twinkled as he stared at Finnick's slack jawed expression, "Milady likes servants who can talk back. Though Mister Brevis doesn't know and we'd like to keep it that way." The driver cheerfully explained before turning back to the front of the vehicle, "Where to my lady?" he asked as he adjusted his grip on the wheel.
"Just home Sebastian." Annabella responded and with that the car took off down the road. Finnick simply stared at Annabella confused.