The night of the interviews she confirmed my suspicions. She cried and told Cesar how her mother had been killed when she was a baby and that she wished she could have known her. Then she held up her arm and showed the audience the bracelet she was wearing. "This was my mother's token during her games, it has my name carved on the back of it and now it's my token too." Then she looked right at me and I swear that I was again looking into the eyes of the girl who made me doubt myself and all that I had been taught to believe in.
I watched the bloodbath holding my breath, hoping that this weakling child of a girl I had killed would not run into the fight. She didn't; she ran away. Three days later she watched as another tribute was cut down by the boy I was mentoring. She had lured the dead boy to his death by acting as live bait. She attracted his attention from her hiding place high in the trees and then pretended to be running away from him. He fell for her trick and ran through the forest following her as she flew through the trees. Being a District 7 tribute she was familiar with climbing and moving through trees. The children there worked with the lumber jacks, scaling the trees and tossing down any debris or loose branches that could fall on the tree cutters as their axes struck the tree trunks. Johanna led the boy straight toward the Careers who were hunting not too far away. From her vantage point she could see them, the unlucky boy could not.
When the boy was dead the Career pack left him where he lay, not even bothering to take the axe he carried with them as they had a whole pile of weapons back at the Cornucopia. Johanna had been counting on this and as soon as they were a safe distance away she scampered down the tree she was in and snatched up the axe. That was the moment she changed. Suddenly the sniveling, terrified little girl that I had seen so far disappeared and a stone cold killer was suddenly looking out at me through the monitor screens in the mentor booth. She pulled her long brown ponytail over her shoulder and cut through her hair with the axe blade. Her remaining hair hung in ragged disarray around her face. I didn't understand for a moment but then I realized that she didn't want anyone to be able to grab her hair and use it as a means of holding onto her. It was a deliberate, calculated move and so everything else had been as well. She let the competition think she was weak so that they wouldn't bother with her until the end. Smart girl.
I watched over the next few days as she rampaged through the arena, splitting open the heads and abdomens of her opponents. The last tribute was the boy I mentored. Of course it was. They fought for almost an hour and when she struck the final blow she screamed "Just die you District 2 Fucker!" But she wasn't really talking to him, she was looking straight at a camera and she knew I would be watching my tribute being hacked to pieces. She stood there, covered in my tribute's blood and smiled an evil smile. "You don't win this time Two," she hissed. Killing the male District 2 tribute had been her revenge for taking her mother. She didn't yet realize that it would never be good enough; that she had killed someone from Two but it wasn't me. Revenge is only satisfying when it's directed at the right target.
