Well hello there. I'm back! Told you I would have the sequel up in no time! Thank you to those who read May the Odds be Ever in Your Favor who are back to read this one. It means a lot to me that you like this story so much:) Well without further ado, here's the first chapter of Eyes Open.
Disclaimer: MissTomlinson143 does not own the Hunger Games
"We don't have that much longer Lily; they're changing the place in three days. You need to start attending your training sessions." Mom had been in my room pacing back and forth for the last twenty minutes. Every morning since the incident she's been lecturing me on why I need to go and train for the Capitals plan of attack. Every morning I've just been lying in bed, going over the blueprints Caesar gave me. I've been going over them again and again and again, memorizing every little detail of their strategy.
"Mom I am training… In my own way trust me. Can you please go yell at someone else to train though?" I asked as politely as I possibly could. She huffed in frustration.
"You are so stubborn Lilia." She mumbled while she walked out of the door.
"Haymitch says that you were stubborn too!" I yelled after her. Once she had gone I pulled out the blueprints and laid it out on my floor. The arena was obviously going to be huge, seeing as to how it would be virtually the whole country. Each District had its own little… thing going on. I had taken it upon myself to memorize all of it. Everything had to be right there, etched into my brain.
"Lily?" I looked up at my door and saw Finnick sticking his head in with Marshall, silently asking if they could come in. The two of them had been coming to my room every day now, skipping their training to go over this with me. I hadn't really known Marshall until after the incident when he kept apologizing to my family for what had happened. He had stumbled upon Finnick coming into my room to look at the blueprints with me and ever since then he's been joining us. Finnick and I rather enjoyed his company. He wasn't that much older than us, just two years. When he went into the Games he was only 16. Marshall was from Seven, like Johanna, and had spent his whole life helping his father chop down trees and carry the wood back to their family owned business. To say he was strong was an understatement. When you looked at him you saw a very attractive man with nice biceps. But when he was punching someone, or lifting something, you would see just how prominent and huge his muscles really were.
"Just come in! I don't understand why you need to ask my permission." I muttered. The two walked into the room quickly closing the door behind them.
"How long have you been staring at this today?" Marshall asked. I rolled my eyes at him.
"Just a few minutes, you came in right after I got it all set up." I said with a slight laugh. The three of us sat down around it and started to look at it, taking everything in.
"You have the paper Marsh?" Finnick asked. We both watched Marshall take out three large pieces of blank blueprint paper. Today was the last day that we were going to go over this. The next few days we would actually train, like everyone wanted us to. So today, we were going to quiz ourselves. We had to draw an exact replica of the real blueprints, to see if we had it all memorized.
"There are pencils in the top drawer. Everyone go to a separate corner of the room and draw it alright?" I said while I folded the blueprints back up and put it under my pillow. We each walked over to my desk and grabbed a pencil, then went to our corners and got to work.
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX
"How has the little spitfire been?" Gale asked me when I sat down at the table for a meeting. I looked over to him with a scowl.
"I would rather prefer you called me Flower right now." I mumbled. Marshall took a seat on my left while Finnick sat on my right. From my left Marshall snickered.
"You really are a spitfire…" He said with a slight chuckle. Finnick and I had learned that when out in front of other people that he wasn't necessarily comfortable with Marshall didn't talk as much, or when he did it was maybe a sentence and nothing more. We were lucky that he had warmed up to us, and he would actually speak in our presence. I had a good comeback in my head for the two idiots when Haymitch walked in, signaling the start of the meeting. Due to my father's constant begging, and the threat of a huge arena looming over his head, Haymitch had agreed to not drink as much as he usually did. Now he had a glass of wine with dinner, or some liquor, but otherwise he was sober all the time.
To say it was a change would be an understatement. I had never really realized how truly brilliant Haymitch was until I saw all his ideas that he came up with when he was sober. Sure, when he was drunk Haymitch was incredibly bright; but when sober and he could actually use all of his brain without the alcohol swishing around in him he was a genius. He and Beetee together were unstoppable. Haymitch would lay out the plan; Beetee would make the necessary weapons and boom! You had a very sufficient plan.
"I heard that someone has been neglecting their training again." Haymitch looked right at me with a frown. I only shrugged not meeting his gaze.
"I'll go tomorrow. I promise." Haymitch rolled his eyes.
"You need to start attending the training Lily. Otherwise we don't stand a chance against the Capital. They know the arena, they have everything that it's going to have, all the twists and turns, glued into their head. We're at a disadvantage here. Sure we're all victors- except Finnick- but they have the controls. They can mess with the arena just how they want. Marshall, Finnick, and I looked at each other out of the corner of our eyes. Marshall stood first, followed by Finnick and I.
"We have something to show you Haymitch. We haven't been wasting our time believe it or not. Thanks to Lily, we've been studying those blueprints that we have. You're in luck too. The three of us have it memorized. We know exactly what's going to happen in there, where it's going to happen, and where. Marshall even took it upon himself to memorize their game plan. We know just what they're going to pull when they've changed this place to an arena. So I wouldn't complain." Finnick said causing everyone's jaws to drop. Marshall smirked when he unfolded the blueprints.
"We have a plan. All of Panem's going to be turned into an arena in three days." Marshall started. Johanna rolled her eyes.
"Well duh. If you're just going to tell us stuff we already know-"
"What if we had a station outside of Panem? There used to be civilization all over the world. So we should be able to find a reasonable spot to put a base out there. If we do that then we need Beetee to do a little bit of his magic and find a way to breach the force field. Do you think you could do that?" All eyes turned to Beetee. His eyebrows were furrowed in concentration while he stared down at the blueprints, studying them as hard as he could. After a few moments he leaned back nodding with a smile on his face.
"I can do that. It might take a bit though. I won't be able to make any more weapons for a while. But I can definitely find a way to breach their security." Marshall smiled; his excitement that our plan was working was starting to get quite contagious. Finnick and I started smiling too, looking around the room at the others. Everyone else was looking from one to another with ghosts of a smile on their face. We all knew the wonderful fate; we would make it out of there alive.
"Great! We'll need a few people out there, at the base; while they are there then they can control the arena, and the force field tampering with it to their biding. You can virtually take out a whole section of the enemy with just one little switch. Or you can change it so it doesn't affect us. We memorized the whole thing, so we can teach you everything. After our training is over that is… Lily, Finnick, and I can train all day and teach you all night if we have to. But layout needs to be in everyone's head or else we are going to have no chance against them. Do you understand?" There was a moment of silence when no one said anything.
"I'm in. It's going to be fun taking them down once and for all." Gale proclaimed proudly standing up. Mom and Dad glanced at each other then joined Gale standing.
"We've already been in an arena twice. Why not a third time?" There were a few uneasy glances sent around the table, but one by one people started to stand until the whole room was out of their seats. My smile grew. They were all in. This would work. We would get Teddy and Derek back in no time.
"Who's going to stay back though? Beetee can't be the only one outside of Panem's perimeter." Flora, another past victor, said from her spot near the back.
"I'll stay with him. It wouldn't be a good idea to have me go into another arena after what happened last time…" Everyone turned their heads to see Annie standing there with her hand raised volunteering to go outside of our country to an unknown area. Everyone looked around the room, nobody protested. Annie was right after all, it would be better for her to go out there after what had happened the last time she was in an arena and snapped. Things would definitely go downhill if she had a meltdown in the arena. Flora also raised her hand.
"I'll stay with them too then." I looked around the room waiting to see if there were any other volunteers to stay out of the arena.
"I'll stay out there. Pultarch will probably want too… So just count him in." Delia exclaimed since she was all the way in the back. Everyone turned their heads back to the three of us.
"Wonderful! Tomorrow everyone bring a pencil. We're going to go over the blue prints and talk strategy alright? See you then. Have a nice night everyone." Marshall folded the blueprints back up and handed it to me. On their way out, people would pat us on the back or congratulate us for coming up with a brilliant plan.
"Good job Lily, we'll see you in the morning darling." Mom kissed my head after she finished congratulating me. Dad gave me a quick hug.
"We'll have your brother back in no time." I watched them walk down the hall to their room hand in hand with a smile on my face.
"Looks like we actually did it… Everyone's in… I don't know how we did it though." Finnick said with a small smile. I linked my arms through theirs while we started to walk down the hall together.
"It doesn't matter how we did it as long as it's a good idea and it will take the Capital down. As long as there won't be any Hunger Games next year, everything is going to be alright." Marshall's room was the first one we came across.
"Well… See you guys tomorrow for training… Sweet dreams." He gave us a small wave then disappeared into his room. Finnick and I walked silently to our rooms. We hadn't gotten back together after I had won the Games. I didn't know if I even wanted to… If Finnick did then he never mentioned it. Sure there were some hints here and there, but he didn't ever act on them. We made it to my room next.
"Well… Goodnight Lily." He said softly. I had my hand on the handle of my door when he suddenly grabbed my face in his hands quickly pressing his lips to mine. In a split second they were gone. When I opened my eyes he was no longer standing in front of me, but halfway down the hall. I stood there staring after him until I could no longer see him anymore. I walked into my room and flopped down on my bed going over what had just happened in my head. I turned onto my side and saw a glint on my desk. I stood up and trudged over to the desk. It was only the crown I had received from winning the Games. I picked it up and twirled it around in my hands. I stopped moving it when I saw something etched into the gold on the inside of the crown.
They're in 13.
And the first chapter is done! The next chapter should be up soon, I've already started on it but I'm going to my brothers house for the Fourth and I have no idea if he has wifi... So it will either be up before or after the Fourth of July... That's a big holiday for us Americans... If there are any of you reading this that aren't American... I'll just go now.
Please leave a review, no flames though.
Keep Your Eyes Open,
MissTomlinson143
