The young victor collapsed on the stone ground, bloody axe still in hand, as it always was. Her last victim lay gasping next to her, not quite dead yet. After two weeks of barely scraping up what little food she could find in this barren landscape and battling it out with the final six tributes—the remaining members of the career pack plus two others who'd made it that far—she was weak. Johanna had never felt weak in her entire life. Strength was her entire being, even when she was unarmed. Now, as she waited for this final enemy to putter out, she couldn't find the will to lift her weapon one more time and end it.
With a punctured and collapsed lung, the boy next to her struggled to breathe for a long time before the wheezing stopped, and Johanna was met by the ladder of a hovercraft. Making herself stand, she grabbed a rung and let herself be carried up.
The next thing she knew, she was standing in front of an audience next to Caesar Flickermen, who was decked out in forest green hair and makeup. "To honor the victory she brought to her district, the district of trees," he'd said.
If he really wanted to honor my victory, she thought, he'd make it silver for my blade. Growing up, the people in Johanna's life had looked at the victors judgingly. If they showed distain for their own actions in the three-hour replay of the Games or were indifferent, they were not worthy of their victory. But worse, if they cheered for themselves, proud of the deaths they served, they were despicable. Johanna, she was not reluctant to admit, was despicable. She tried not to show it, for the sake of those she cared about who would be watching her, but on the inside she laughed at the hardships of the other tributes in the first part of the Games, when she was still making herself out as a weakling. Once she saw herself get her hands on an axe and catch the surviving others unawares, she couldn't suppress the grin.
After the interview, she had a chance to speak with a certain past Victor, Finnick Odair. "Mason," he said. He was one year older than her, having won three years previously. "You'd be Laramie's older sister, then?"
"That's right." Laramie had been Johanna's brother by a year, reaped for the Games at only twelve. "I don't blame you. Only one of you was making it out alive anyway."
"You don't?" Finnick wondered. "But I betrayed him so quickly. He was the first I killed after I received that trident, my own ally." When Johanna didn't respond—she hated repeating herself—he leaned in to whisper something into her ear. "Beware the roses. They signal his presence." And before she could ask, her escort and mentor came up from behind her and whisked her off to the train station.
Upon her return home to District 7, she was welcomed warmly at the train station by her people, but while she was happy to see her parents, her elder brother, and her few friends, more than anything, she wanted to run into the arms of that one person. And that is what she did.
She was more darkly complected than was usual for District 7, her skin slightly olive with long, dark hair. She almost looked like Katniss, in fact, Johanna would recall in later years, but for her caramel, District 7 brown eyes like tree bark and not being quite so dark as the Seam girl. This girl's name was Park, and she was the love of Johanna's young life.
Every day for the first five months she was back home, Johanna, though she didn't need to work anymore herself, visited the group of lumberjacks Park worked with. She distributed meals her mom had prepared and helped cut and move lumber without asking any pay, but most of her time there was spent watching Park work. She loved the way her muscular arms and torso looked as she swung her axe into the bark of a tree. She loved the way her face looked dewy with the sweat of working. She loved the blush that crossed Park's cheeks when she got caught staring.
"Johanna, you know I can't work with you distracting me like this," Park told her one day in late November.
"And yet you do nothing to stop me," Johanna said, moving close to Park. "You could tell me to leave. You know I wouldn't, but you could try."
"Who says I want to take that risk?" she answered, planting a kiss on Johanna's lips. "Am I still coming over after work tonight?"
Johanna smiled, "Of course, if you want to."
The two girls ran giddily into Johanna's Victor's mansion. She had the place to herself since her parents and brother were staying at their old home in the town. They didn't want the luxury and Capitol vapidity it would bring.
But as they opened the front door, she knew they were not alone. A dozen white roses sat in a vase in the middle of the front room floor.
Johanna's gasp was more like a hiss.
"What is it?" Park asked.
"Nothing, it's just. Park, we can't be together tonight. You should go home."
"Ok…" Park hesitantly walked back, keeping her eyes on Johanna, who was frozen, staring at the roses. She didn't think further questions would be appreciated, not with the look she'd only seen cross her face in the arena on the TV. So, she left, the door shutting silently behind her.
"Ms. Mason," a man's voice called from the living room. Johanna followed it to find President Snow sitting at the small table, two peacekeepers by his side. He had already helped himself to tea. "Take a seat. I have a very appealing proposition for you."
Johanna ran a nervous hand through her pixie-cut brown hair and guardedly sat in the seat opposite the president. "Would this be the type of proposition a past Victor may caution a fresh one against?"
"Are you referring to the conversation you had with Mr. Odair when he thought no one could hear?"
Johanna chuckled, "Oh, I'm sure he knew you could hear. Idiots don't become Victors. He just didn't care."
Snow took a sip of tea and said, "Well, I can tell you that while I may not care about something like that, he cares enough about his friends in District 4 to accept this offer."
"And what would that offer be, exactly?"
"Finnick won when he was only fourteen, so we waited two years for decency's sake to begin anything. But you are certainly of age, actually, I believe you will be turning seventeen over the course of this tour you're about to embark on tomorrow."
"Of age for what? Stop beating around the bush!" Johanna snapped. The peacekeepers' hands sprang to their weapons, but Snow held out a hand to stay them.
"Ms. Mason, do you have any idea how popular you are in the Capitol? How much so many people are willing to pay for a night—an hour—of your company?"
"You'd better not be implying what I think you're implying-"
"A very small percentage of your earnings will go into your Victor's winnings. The rest is used to fund the Games, pay gamemakers, build and run arenas, pay stylists and the like, etc. Those things are very expensive and you, like most other victors, are a hot commodity," Snow told her sternly.
"Ew, God!" Johanna gasped. "Don't you say that. That's disgusting. How old are you, like, seventy? Besides, I have no interest in selling my body in such a way to support the finances of these Games that ruin lives."
"Please, it's not I that has interest, just so many of my rich citizens. And I assure you, very very few Victors do this to support the Games." He took another sip of tea and looked into the cup disdainfully. "They do it to protect their families, friends… the people they love. Have you ever heard of Haymitch Abernathy? The second Victor from District 12, the only one alive. His actions were not the sort of thing we in the Capitol smile upon, and do you know what happened to him?"
"He's a drunk," Johanna sneered.
"Yes, he is. Because he has lost everything to his foolishness." Then, the president stood, handed the teacup to one of his peacekeepers, and picked up his cloak from the back of the chair. He spoke as he draped it over his shoulders and clasped in at his throat. "You will have until the conclusion of the Victory Tour to think about it, but I know you will choose wisely, to accept this role. I would hate to see your friend there—Park, was it?—end up like Haymitch's mother, brother, and girlfriend. Your family and friends as well. Good day."
Johanna sat, speechless, as Snow and his men left her house. She didn't even mind or question that they took her teacup.
