"So, Finnick." She had spent much of dinner trying to come up with a better way to broach this subject, but Annie hadn't found any. "What's the story there?
"What about him?" Did Alyssa really think Annie was that blind? That first night, she and Finnick had at least tried to hide it, but nobody could have missed those dances during dinner or how close to one another they stood as they waited for the elevator.
Annie shook her head and sunk further back into her room's couch. "Just don't do anything stupid because of him, all right?"
"Of course I won't."
That remained to be seen, but for the moment, Annie let it slide. "How was training today? They had already gone over this at dinner, but some things were better kept between mentor and mentee. Annie suspected that she would spend the last days of the Games scurrying around the Capitol, doing everything she could to ensure Finnick's victory, but for now, he was the competition. They would both do well to remember it.
Alyssa shrugged. "Not too much beyond what we already talked about."
Annie could tell the other woman wanted to say something more. "But?" she prompted.
A frown creased her forehead. "I can't get a good read on the One girl. She's… off."
"How?"
"She's not enough. The abilities – at least the ones she sows during training – just aren't there. She's not that good-looking, not even on a regular year and definitely not compared to Finnick, so she's not trying to play that angle. But she volunteered, and it scares me that I can't figure out why."
"It wouldn't be the first time someone's tried to pass herself off as a weakling." The strategy had worked rather nicely for last year's Victor. It only made sense that there would be a few Johanna copy-cats this time around.
"No." Alyssa sounded so certain. "There's no way that would work for a Career. It makes sense for the outer districts – everyone assumes they don't have a shot anyway – but you can't come in with five, ten years of training and expect people to forget about you." She had a point there. "I really don't think Gossamer's faking it either, because she's not that bad. Not good enough to be here, but she's not totally incompetent."
The more she heard, the tighter the knot in her stomach grew. "Have you talked to Finnick about her? What does he think?"
"I haven't asked him." A hint of a blush crept onto Alyssa's cheeks. "We don't talk a lot."
Annie added that to the category of things she really didn't want to know more about. "Keep an eye on her."
"What did you think I was going to do, close my eyes and whistle until she put a knife through my chest?"
"Hey, it never hurts to check." Another thought came to mind. "Alyssa?"
"Yes, An –" The first blow knocked the air out of her. With Annie's second kick, Alyssa was sprawled out on the floor of her own bedroom. But the Academy was doing its job, and before Annie's third strike could hit home, Alyssa had kicked out at Annie's legs. She rolled to her feet as Annie screamed and fell next to her, and the instant she hit the floor, strong hands had her pinned down, and a thigh anchored both of her legs in place.
"Stop." It came out as a hiss of pain. She must've hit the ground harder than she'd thought. "I'm done now."
Alyssa didn't move, her narrowed eyes never leaving Annie's face. "Why should I?"
Fair question, really. Annie certainly wouldn't be in any rush to release a person who had kicked her without warning or provocation. "I was just trying to make a point, and now I've made it. I don't have a reason to attack you again."
"I'll kill you if you do," Alyssa promised, her voice dark, and Annie wondered for a moment if she really did have a future Victor on her hands.
"We won't be testing that. Come on, let me up."
"What was the point?"
"That you need to watch out. I had you distracted, and I'm not even cute."
He had missed the first target. Finnick had bad shots, everyone did, but it had been years since he completely missed the target. And yet, when it mattered most, he fucked up. It wouldn't matter to the gamemakers that he had hit the rest of them dead center, or that he could tie some incredible knots or that he alone of the careers had made an effort at the plants station.
The scary part, the one he'd rather not think about, was that his training score wasn't what really mattered. There were no second chances in the Arena, and he had shown that he couldn't perform under pressure. At age seven, he had decided he would win. Finnick hadn't looked back since, had never been forced to question whether he could really do it. Sparring required physical strength, speed, and a bit of cleverness. He could handle that. But the Arena?
"This coverage is awful. You're sure they don't have another broadcast?"
"Yes, I'm sure," Octavius snapped. "Not everything has to be all facts and figures, Mags. Some of us can appreciate entertainment for its own sake."
Finnick swallowed down the bile rising at the back of his throat and laughed. "Yeah, you gotta admit I look pretty great in that costume." All three of the room's female occupants turned to stare at him, their expressions ranging from amused to downright violent. He scooted away from Mags, whom he deemed his most likely attacker, and raised his hands in surrender. "Hey, it's not my fault that it's true. They noticed too." A good third of the footage so far had been of the District Four chariot a few nights prior, when he and Alyssa had been all decked out in their mermaid gear. Now, even if one ignored the fact that merpeople didn't exist, Finnick wasn't quite sure how they were supposed to win in a fight that took place on land. He still had to admit the aesthetics of it – golden nets, pearlescent seashells, scales of the softest greens and blues – made for pretty great television.
"Do you know when the real broadcast is supposed to start?" Annie asked. She and Alyssa had claimed the couch on the far wall, a giant, overstuffed thing that looked like it could to eat the two women whole.
"It said seven o'clock. Be patient, you two."
Annie pointed at the clock. "So it was supposed to start five minutes ago is what you're saying."
"It'll start when it starts, and there's nothing I can do to make it go any faster," Octavius responded. Listening to him, you'd think he'd been assigned the awful task of babysitting naughty children – and in some ways, perhaps he had. As much as it seemed to bother the mentors, Finnick didn't mind the delay. Until the screen showed the five or the six, he could pretend that he'd had a decent score, that he still had a chance.
That he hadn't been stupid enough to volunteer to die.
"And now, ladies and gentlemen, the moment we've all been waiting for!" His stomach sank as the camera panned towards Caesar Flickerman and Claudius Templesmith. He heard only the pounding of his heart in his ears as the first scores were read, and if Mags hadn't poked him in the ribs with her cane, he doubted he would have caught it when Kassine from Two received a ten, probably the highest score they'd hear tonight. He wasn't surprised. Kassine stood six foot two and had some of the broadest shoulders he'd ever seen on a woman.
"So, which one of you is gonna knock her off?" Liam asked from the opposite couch.
Alyssa jumped on it. "Me."
"Me." Finnick's heart wasn't in it, but he knew the right answer.
"I think they'll double-team it," Annie butted in. She turned to them, her eyes serious. "You know that a lot of the big-time gamblers put money on whoever has the most kills early on, right?"
"So?" Alyssa asked.
"Something like half the sponsorship money comes from about twenty of the really big gamblers. They see it as an investment and will do whatever they can to make sure you win," Annie explained, and Mags and Liam nodded. "If you get rid of a strong competitor like Two early, you become the favorite."
He had eaten lunch with Kassine. That wasn't some great bond, but they'd laughed together, and talked, and she'd shared that she had two sisters at home just like he did. And now, Finnick was thinking about the possibility of holding her down while Alyssa finished her off. He shuddered and used every scrap of willpower he had to push his attention back towards the television. Average score for the Three girl, and then…
"Finnick Odair, District Four. He's one to watch, isn't he?" The screen shifted away from the announcers to show his statistics overlayed on footage of his arrival at the train station. They'd listed him as six foot two. Cool. Finnick doubted he'd really passed that mark yet, but if Dad's six four frame was any indication, he still had a few inches left in him - assuming he survived the next couple weeks.
"He certainly is. And don't worry, Claudius, I'm sure the young ladies out there have been doing plenty of watching." Annie snorted at Caesar's joke, and heat rushed to Finnick's cheeks.
10
"And with a score like that, I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot more from Finnick!"
Liam's cheer seemed faded, as though he was hearing it from miles away. Finnick frowned at the screen, waiting for them to notice their mistake, but Caesar and Claudius had already moved on to Alyssa. He sagged back into the couch. "Hey!" he yelped when Mags' cane caught him in the ribs.
"Good job, boy." She wore a smile, the first one he'd managed to get out of her.
"Thanks," he said, rubbing the sore spot on his side. "Did you really have to do that?"
She winked at him. "Character building. Can't let it get to your head."
"She seems very smart."
"She is," Annie responded. In the darkness of the theater, she could hardly make out her companion's features. She preferred it that way. "She's good with a knife, too."
"Does she have what it takes to win the whole thing?" the man pressed, the urgency of a fortune behind his words.
"Absolutely." She sounded more confident than she felt. "Alyssa's one of the most promising tributes Four has had in years. I know her training score didn't quite meet up to Two's –" or Finnick's, she added mentally " – but I think she has grit. That's the hard part, you know." Maybe he wouldn't realize that this was a script Mags had taught her during her first year of mentoring, the script they used when everything but hope and a hint of a gut feeling said their tribute would die. "Kids in Four join their parents on the boats when they're five, and pretty much any weapon that you could use to kill a fish can be used just as easily on a person. We've got tons of kids who are capable enough with a trident to go into the Arena."
"And not as many who have enough stamina to swim for seventeen hours?"
Those words twisted in her gut like a knife, but she smiled anyway. Annie hoped he could see it, that the effort was worth it. "There's a point where physical stamina stops mattering and the emotional part kicks in."
She wanted to add more, but was nearly deafened by the crowd's roar as Finnick stepped onto the stage for his interview. Bare-chested and with his skin polished until it gleamed, he looked more like a living, breathing statue than an actual human being, and the way he smiled at the crowd, blowing kisses, waving, eating up their attention, was more than any mentor could have asked for. The boy had stage presence. She had to give him that.
A hand tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, and Annie jumped. "It's just me, love." The words gave her no comfort, but fingers lingered behind to brush her cheek. "So, Annie, what do you think of our friend here?"
She chose her words carefully. "I don't think there's a bad bet in Four this year," she managed, her fingernails digging into her armrest, grounding herself in case her body tried to bolt.
"No, but a part of me thinks one bet is better than the other." The purple light from the stage reflected off his wine glass. "To our next Victor?"
She gripped her own glass so tightly that she worried it would crack. "To Four."
His eyes were laughing as he shook his head in false disappointment, and Annie pretended to take a sip, hoping no one would notice how her hands shook.
A/N: I thought it might take a fortnight. Apparently, this story wanted to take four months. I apologize for that - I realized I didn't like the plot as I'd outlined it and decided to try something different. I hope you're enjoying the story! Feedback, as always, is much appreciated.