Effie Trinket looked as if she might be made out of frosting. Perhaps that was the baker's son in him, seizing upon the association closest to home at a time like this – but the more Peeta looked at her, the more plausible it seemed. Puffy lavender dress like a meringue; powdery-pink blusher, as if someone had gotten too enthusiastic with icing sugar; hair painted this year the same unnatural plum as her sculpted lips, as precisely arranged as decoration on a wedding cake. Pure bakery-window material in a pair of purple stilettos. The image was so ludicrous that he half-smirked – but then –
"Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favour!"
His heart skipped as her violet-taloned fingers slipped into the girls' glass ball – as it always did. The Trinket woman's nails seized around a slip, and Peeta could almost feel the entire district brace itself along with him.
"Kataleena Fray!"
He could breathe out now, then. Not her. Not this year. Just his own fate left to be decided.
Trinket's winning smile said it all, didn't it? "Where are you, Miss Fray? Yes – that's – that's it – let her through, please – "
The name wasn't at all familiar, and still Peeta's breathing snagged as Peacekeepers half-ushered, half-dragged her limp, petrified form up onto the platform before the Justice Building. It was how she looked that did it, he supposed – that Seam look: olive skin; heavy grey eyes; dark hair wound into a single plait down her bony back. Seam kid – seventeen, maybe eighteen. Almost safe, in terms of eligibility for the reaping – but almost was never enough. Standing up on the stage, she looked as unsteady as Haymitch Abernathy beside her, and as terrified as anyone Peeta had ever seen.
"Wonderful! All right: ladies and gentlemen of District 12, Kataleena Fray!"
Six, maybe seven mandatory entries – plus tesserae, most likely, knowing the Seam. Odds most definitely not in her favour. Then again – and Peeta's attention shifted across the square automatically, searching out the fifteen-year-old girls, even as the Trinket woman turned her tawdry attention to the boys' glass bowl – the odds weren't in her favour, either, and –
"Tristan Mox!"
Along with several hundred eligible males, Peeta allowed himself a sigh of relief – and the Peacekeepers really were dragging the tribute onstage this time, from only a few places along from Peeta himself. Tristan Mox – the name was unfamiliar, but they were clawing him up from the pen of fifteen-year-old males. He and Mox had to have been in school together, it occurred to him – for most of their lives so far, knowing District Twelve. It was funny, wasn't it; how someone could seem so insignificant, blend in so thoroughly, right up until the point of their death.
It's not me it's not me it's not me.
"Now – ah – yes, that's it; stand up here next to – ah – "
It wasn't him. It wasn't her.
"Lovely! Now, are there any volunteers for the position of tribute this year – male or female?"
That was pure protocol, obviously; even someone as out of the loop as Trinket had to know that the kids of District Twelve weren't exactly queuing up to ship themselves off to die.
"No!"
At the sudden interruption Peeta blinked, stupidly, unable to place the voice –
"No! Luka, no!" Kataleena Fray was screeching, Peacekeepers clinging to her arms to hold her in place onstage. "No, Luka – you can't – I won't let you!"
Peeta saw him, then: lurching forward from the section where they'd corralled the eighteen-year-old males, desperately reaching for her. All Seam similarities aside, he didn't resemble her enough to be a sibling. The agony on his face was enough, though, to tell the whole of Panem that he loved her, loved her enough to even consider the idea of volunteering to die with her. Were the cameras capturing this – Luka's hysterical torment; Kataleena's torturous screams? They would love that in the Capitol, undoubtedly: a bit of extra tragedy for their great Games. See how the people of District Twelve love Kataleena Fray! They're ready to risk their lives for her!
"Right!" – and that was the Trinket woman again, straightening her beehive with an anxious chuckle. "If that will be all for today…"
Luka had fallen back, given up his fight: subdued by Peacekeepers; supported by several of his friends, as if they might be trying to physically hold him together.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the tributes of District Twelve for the Seventy-Third Hunger Games – Kataleena Fray and Tristan Mox!"
They weren't applauding over in Luka's pen. Almost automatically, Peeta's hands stopped their mechanical clapping; uncontrollably, his gaze searched from the ashen face of this year's female tribute down to the pen of fifteen-year-old girls. Seeking her out.
He would have done it, if it had been her name they had called. He would always do it – and no Peacekeeper in Panem would be able to stop him.