Vicious. Cunning and vicious. That's what the cameras show of the red-haired girl from District 5 during the 74th Hunger Games.
She rushes away from the Cornucopia bloodbath, slithers around the trees like a silent shadow at night, only her slightly misaligned blue eyes standing out in the dark. The Careers have unknowingly approached her once; their footsteps echoed around the woods as they loudly discussed who they should kill first -the Girl on Fire, the huge,dark skinned guy from 11, maybe the girl from District 8?- and prevented them from hearing her walk away once again. This clearly seems to be her preferred method for the arena and it pays off; no one discovers her whereabouts, and as the nights go by, her image never gets projected on the sky.
Foxface, as Katniss Everdeen has nicknamed her, can run like a wild rabbit, jump around with no difficulty, managing to trick her rivals. Whenever the cameras get to catch a shot of her face as she flees, she's always smiling with wild thriump, eyebrows raised arrogantly as if she's daring the enemy ''try and catch me now''. She isn't even fooled by the booby-trapped pyramid and she manages to get a seemingly insignificant amount of food that however gets her by, a knife and a pot without getting blown into bits. Her malicious laugh as she sprints is broadcasted through all of Panem and you can pinpoint the exact moment when the realization there are chances she'll go back home dawns over her pasty face. It takes until the Feast, when her clever technique beats the other tributes', for the watchers to get it too. She starts getting more sponsors and fans that aren't absolutely absorbed by the Star Crossed Lovers, the anual main attraction, and state that her clever, elusive tactic will win her the Hunger Games. Her degrading, negligible training score has obviously been part of her plan and it's a matter of time until she outsmarts the others and then murders them brutally.
The night the canon fires, signalling the loss of Thresh from 11, she counts the Tributes with her fingers and in awe she comes to understand there are only three more left. She forgets the painful hanger that pangs through her undernourished body and falls asleep with a formidable grin on her face that fuels the reactions of the viewers. The bets start being placed, the money gathered and word goes around that there might be a new victor. People, especially the ones of District 5, sit around their screens in eager anticipation, convinced that the girl who had managed to get to this point without getting injured or confronted or making a single kill will come back, flooding her region with honour, money and presents. A small madness in ensuing for a couple of days between the veterans and the old insiders of the Hunger Games and everyone is awaiting her next move, maybe something risky and sly again.
But Foxface won't last so long. All it takes is the agony of the starvation to drive her close to the pair from District 12 and the odds seem to be in her favour because they are too looking for food. She doesn't need more than a couple fast, silent movements to steal a small cheese and some berries they intend to eat themselves from their gatherings. She devours the first in seconds and moves onto the latter, pushing the whole handful into her mouth with greed. The fatal action kills her fast, as soon as the poisonous Nightlock berries reach her stomach. And only on that last moment her eyes widen at the realization that it's too late; she, Foxface, the cleverest competitor in the 74th Hunger Games has fallen in her own ingenious trap.