Disclaimer: I don't own The Hunger Games. Suzanne Collins owns them, I only own the plot of this story and the characters I create.
Every night, he relived the nightmare. Finnick Odair could never escape Selina in his dreams. She always caught up to him. Her last words repeated themselves in his head, twenty four hours a day.
"Congratulations, the odds were in your favor, pretty boy."
Then again, Finnick was never able to escape her. Every time he went to town, he passed by the school, passed by the docks, there were dirty glares sent in his direction. Selina had been with this class of new workers in school-she knew them. But Finnick, barely a 9th grader, had beat the odds and had beat their friend. He was despised by many, but he was mostly welcomed back with open arms.
People were just glad that Parcel Day came every month because of him .
It had been a year since the Games. Finnick had turned fifteen a little over a month before the 66th Hunger Games. Fifteen, and he was already a mentor to new tributes. He wished it weren't like that. He wished he'd never been in the Games at all.
The Victors Island was much like Finnick expected. Most of the homes were filled by previous victors and their families-a lot of them ripe into their old age, like Mags, and a few closer to Finnick's age. The last time there had been a winner for District 4 was for the 59th Hunger Games, a 16 year-old girl who trapped her victims in nets before slicing their necks with a knife. By the end of the games, she had trapped her fellow Careers and bashed their heads in with their own weapons.
Ruthless.
They were all ruthless. She had tried to instill that tactic into Selina and Finnick's Games, but it was obvious that only one of them listened. While Finnick preferred to train with Mags, Selina went with the other mentors. Finnick thought that if he was gonna die, he would spend his last days pleasantly with the old lady.
Boy, was he wrong. If anything, Mags pushed him harder than any of the others could have. She apparently saw potential in him, something that a lot of them couldn't see. She saw his good looks, his charm. "You'll drive the women crazy," she'd said reassuringly. 'You best not give up if you're ahead of the game!"
Good looks did save him. When he went for the interview after the Games, Ceasar wouldn't stop gushing. Every time he smiled, the women swooned. The Capitol was disgusting.
When he came back to District 4 for the feast, everything had gone well. As far as he knew, he was fine. Having been mostly sedated while he was in the Hospital healing, and when he slept on the train, he didn't know what would happen once he laid in his new bed in his new home.
The first night was the worst.
"Finnick, sweetie, wake up!" his mother said as her son thrashed in his bed. He was shaking, soaking in sweat and fear. He'd been screaming. Finnick, as soon as he heard her voice, realized it was a dream.
He opened his eyes, and his ears pounded. He was breathing heavily. It was as if it had all been real, except the wounds that had killed him in his dream weren't bleeding-as in, they didn't exist.
"They came to get me mom, they-they," Finnick began to say rather rapidly. The darkly lit room had only a little bit of light from the hallway. The window had been open, so by no doubt did other people hear his screams. The four poster bed's sheets were all messed up and out of place. He guessed he'd been moving around a lot. He was still half-asleep, and half-awake. In limbo.
He put his hands to his face, and a dry sob escaped his throat. They were soon followed by tears.
"Who came to get you, Finn?" she asked and rubbed his back. His father stood at the doorway, watching, too afraid to see or hear what Finnick was about to say.
"S-Selina, and Lex a-and Polly a-and-;" Finnick began to choke out the names of all the tributes he'd killed. Her arms wrapped around him and caressed his back. She rested her cheek on the side of his copper hair. She had to understand his pain. And she did. At the tender age of fifteen, he had known things only her nightmares could show her. He was an adult now, stuck in the mind of a child. Still a child.
"Odin," she turned to his father the slightest bit. "Go back to bed. I'm going to stay with Finn tonight."
She stayed with him several nights afterward.
His mother, Lucia, stood in front of Finnick and fixed his dress shirt and suit jacket. It had been sent in from the Capitol for him to wear, by his stylist. Finnick could only look down at the floor in shame. He closed his eyes. He was going back to hell. The Capitol. He was going back for the third time in less than a year. Lucia noticed his expression.
In stature, she was a small woman. In strength and endurance, she stood high. She had been too kind-and still was too kind- to have been given what she had. She smiled tightly and tilted his chin up with her index finger. Even as Finnick towered over her, he felt like a child in her presence.
"Stand tall, Finn. Show them that you're your own person,"she advised him in her strong, nurturing voice.
Finnick could only nod. He pulled on a smile and replaced his mom's hand on his tie, which was an aquamarine blue. For this Reaping, they were all to wear blue-and show District pride.
"I've got it, Mom, thank you. You should go get ready," he kissed her cheek. She smiled, wearily, but nodded and went on to primp herself up. She was a Victor's mother now, and the Capitol expected much more from her.
Reaping Day still brought a somber mood upon their family.
Finnick went to the mirror and fixed his tie quickly, and tussled his hair. At this point, he was tired of being a Victor. He wanted to go back and live a normal life. He missed going fishing, going to school...the Victor's Village was isolated. It was a boat ride away from his old house. Stuck on the island for most of the time, He mostly talked to Mags.
When he finished, he went out the door and to Mags' house. It was still early in the morning, about eight o'clock. He had questions for her that he knew only she could answer. He was unsure about how to save the life of a child, when he was a child himself.
When she opened the door, she smiled. As frail as she looked, she still hugged Finnick strongly. She was a force to be reckoned with, that woman.
"Sit down, Finn," she said gently and kindly as she gestured to an arm chair. Her husband had passed on only a few years earlier, and now she lived in the big house by herself. She had never felt that experience before.
It was sometimes hard to believe that she had been the first District 4 victor. She had killed people, like he had, almost six decades before. She wasn't the only from District Four, but she was the only one he trusted. The others were ruthless.
Proud of the trophy they received.
Mags had been given a fairly normal life. She married young with the District 4 ceremony, at the age of twenty. At thirty, her and her husband legally married. It was very hard for her to hide it, but she was able to. She had three daughters and two sons. They had all survived being reaped in the Games. And so far, so had her grandchildren.
"Why are we forced to go back every year, Mags? Can't mentors volunteer?" Finnick asked as he sat down. The reaping was at noon, but it was pretty early in the morning. Finnick hadn't slept, anyway.
"We're the people's hope, Finnick. They need to show that even their hope is in the Capitol's hands," she served him some herbal tea.
It made more sense than any of the conclusions he'd come to, anyway.
Finnick sat next to Mags on the stage with the mentors. Katerina, the tributes' escort, spoke about the Dark Days. About the horrors that we had forced upon the Capitol. Obviously, it was completely and absolutely our fault that we were forced into the Hunger Games.
"We must, therefore, select two tributes; one young man and woman from each district, as a sacrificed for every Capitol citizen that died during the rebellion that sparked the creation of the Annual Hunger Games," she said from her memory. Her clothes were different shades of blue and green, and she wore a long-haired wig with a large bow on top. Her skin was an unnatural shade of green-almost as if she was going to be sick-and her lips were a silver color.
Finnick, in all honesty, could care less for her. He looked out to the crowd of kids, who did not know what to expect. They didn't know what laid ahead of them or what their story would be in a matter of minutes. A year ago, he had been there. He had held the same fearful looks they now held. He felt sympathy for them. Sympathy that many others would categorize as dishonorable, because it was 'an honor to be a part of the Hunger Games'.
Finnick showed no emotion on the outside, throughout her whole speech.
"Ladies first!" she said excitedly in her odd Capitol accent. She smacked her silver lips together and took off her green glove, exposing even more of that strange shade of green. This time, she had elongated her nails; a new addition to her monstrous appearance.
She reached into the bowl, took out the slip, and slowly opened it. She cleared her throat.
"Lily Lewisson," she grossly mispronounced the name.A group of girls in the crowd quickly moved away from the new tribute- a girl, about fifteen years old, took a deep breath.
"Come now, girl, come on up," Katerina ushered her with her clawed finger. Lily closed her eyes and began moving forward, knowing that she couldn't get away from her fate. Nobody could.
No one bothered to volunteer for her.
Tears were running down the girl's face, and she shook as she took her place next to Katerina. She didn't have the capability to be strong at that point. She was now a tribute in the Hunger Games, and she could only hope for the best. She was small in stature, with rough hands and light hair. She was also terrified.
"Look at her; tears of joy! Oh, you must be so honored!" Katerina said before giving the girl a small squeeze. When Lily could only wipe her eyes, Katerina knew the girl wasn't crying for that reason. "And now for the boys," She said, disgruntled by Lily's reaction to her.
She picked a slip from the boy's bowl.
"And our boy tribute is James Larkin!" She said more enthusiastically, and just as the boy of thirteen was about to come up, an older boy-about eighteen-stepped out of the crowd.
"I volunteer as tribute," he said calmly as Peacekeepers moved forward to get him back in the crowd.
"Oh! It seems we have a volunteer! Come up, come up!" she ushered him up. At this point, Lily's eyes widened. She could only look up and look at the boy with wide eyes. That's when Finnick noticed that they shared the same features.
"What's your name?" Katerina asked him once she pushed him to the stage.
"Ronan Lewisson," he said into the microphone. Katerina suddenly, looked between the both of them.
"It seems we have a set! I guess you couldn't let your sister bring your family all the honor, could you Ronan?" Katerina patted his shoulder and Ronan looked down.
One family, in District 4, wouldn't be celebrating tonight.
