"Now, this is where you'll be staying for the next three months," Trini said as they entered the front door of the apartment assigned to the District 7 female. Like the train, it was plush and sleek, with marble floors and velvety furnishings, but it felt a little cold to her. She squealed with delight, however, when she peeked into her bedroom and realized that she had her own bathroom, with a shower, a real shower. There was a bedroom for Trini, who always stayed with the female tribute, and one for her mentor.
"Will Johanna stay here?" Hera asked hopefully, wanting to meet the only living District 7 Victor, although she already knew the answer.
"No, the mentors have been told they must stay with their assigned tributes."
"You don't think Cato will actually stay here, do you, since he's not going to train me?" Trini looked horrified at her question. "I heard you and Gianni talking about it," Hera said gently. "You don't have to pretend."
Trini sighed. "No, he'll stay here for the sake of appearance. Anyway, his usual room is currently occupied by the District 9 mentor. Come, on, let me show you your training complex. It's just across the hall. Everything is state-of-the-art, and you don't have to share it with anyone."
Hera couldn't believe how big it was. The facility consisted of a handful of rooms surrounded by a track an eighth of a mile around. There was a sparring room with padded walls and mats on the floor for practicing hand-to-hand combat. There was a huge room with walls lined with weapons—machetes, bows and arrows, swords, spears, and terrifying-looking instruments she'd never seen before. It also had what looked like a small tv screen embedded in the wall, but no targets anywhere, which Hera found strange. There was a weight room, as well. Hera's favorite aspect of the training facility was the climbing wall at one end of the track.
"Does Julian have one like this?" she asked.
"Mm-hm. Each tribute has their own."
By the time they walked back across the hall to the apartment, it was getting late, so Hera headed to her room. But she couldn't quiet her mind enough to fall asleep. She wondered what Uma was doing, wondered what the Callahan family-which had almost become her family-was doing. When her thoughts turned to speculating on how she would be killed in the arena, she decided she couldn't lay there anymore; she slipped back into the training facility. She glanced at the climbing wall longingly, but she thought she should explore something new. She wandered into the weapons room and surveyed her options. Probably best to start small, she decided, choosing a set of ten delicate but wicked-looking knives. Maybe throwing knives wouldn't be all that different from throwing darts. But where was she supposed to throw it? There weren't any targets.
The only other thing in the room was the screen in the wall. There were no power buttons like her tv at home had, so she touched the screen lightly with the tip of her finger. It immediately fired itself up and asked her to choose a weapon. At first Hera just stood there, awed by the technology in front of her, and then she tentatively touched the icon that matched the knives in her hand. Then it asked her if she wanted to watch a training video or select a target. Select a target. Did she want a fixed or moving target? Fixed, let's not get ahead of ourselves. And what size target? Medium-sized human. The screen didn't ask her any more questions. Instead, the word "Processing" flashed across the screen. What did that mean? What would happen now?
She caught a flash of light in her peripheral vision, and turned to see a glowing green holograph of a featureless human being at the far end of the training room. Hera's mouth fell open with amazement, and she walked towards the target until she was about an arm's length away from it. Then she took one of the knives, reached out, and stabbed it where she thought its heart should be.
"Fatal strike," said a robotic voice.
Huh. Hera returned to the screen, wondering how to get back to the place that offered up the training video. There was an icon in the bottom left-hand corner that said "Back." She tapped it until it took her to the screen she wanted, and then she selected the training video. First it showed her the proper stance, and then it taught her how to hold the knife and balance its weight in her hand, and she practiced both of these concepts. Then it moved on to proper throwing technique, which Hera tried out without a knife in her hand. Then it was onto aiming.
When she'd gotten through the section on aim, Hera picked up all ten knives and walked back over to the holograph, positioning herself about eight feet away from it. Her first throw caught it in the shoulder, and the mysterious voice informed her that while she'd managed to injure it, she needed to throw with more force. Hera considered this for a bit, and then decided that she'd worry about force later. For now, she would focus on one microskill at a time. She concentrated on perfecting the flick of her wrist, ignoring the voice's repeated assertions that more force was needed for her to be lethal, and was pleased with herself when she was able to strike the holograph about 90% of the time, although her aim wasn't perfect, and most of them weren't fatal. Hera continued to practice until the repetitive motion soothed her mind enough that she began to grow tired.
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The next morning, Hera thought to herself that she had never had such a delicious breakfast. She was used to toast or oatmeal back in District 7, but here she had food she'd only read about in books: pancakes with maple syrup, smoky bacon, and freshly squeezed orange juice. She closed her eyes as she bit into a piece of cantaloupe and thought that maybe, just maybe, it was worth dying in the arena if she got to have food like this for the next couple of months. Trini smiled at her and refilled her plate.
Cato was nowhere to be found but considering the discussion she'd overhead between Gianni and Trini, it didn't shock her. She poured herself a second cup of coffee and flipped through the channels of the Capitol tv. Trini, however, clenched her teeth and glanced repeatedly at Cato's bedroom door.
He appeared around 11am, fixed himself a plate, and sat down to tuck into it without acknowledging Hera's presence. Trini glared at him murderously, but Hera had determined that if he was going to ignore her, she'd ignore him too, so she continued to watch tv, conquering the urge to sneak a peek at him. She was relieved that he had decided not to train her, but she did hope he'd at least give her a few pieces of advice to keep her from suffering too much. When he was finished he left the table and returned to his room, ignoring Trini's exasperated sigh. Hera heard the shower running, and nonchalantly flipped through a fashion magazine on the coffee table, marveling at the garish outfits on the pages.
He emerged from his room fifteen minutes later. Hera thought maybe he would at least say something to her now, but he walked past her as she sat on the couch and headed towards the door. This was too much for Trini, who marched up to him, hands on her hips, and said "So tell me, are you planning to ignore your tribute for the entire three months?"
Cato paused with his hand on the doorknob and turned towards Trini slowly. He raked his eyes up and down her tacky outfit and overly made-up face with derision before turning to face Hera. She let herself look at him for the first time, and considered it a miracle that she managed to keep her expression neutral, because jesus christ he was beautiful. He was at least as tall as Dean, maybe even an inch or so taller, and bigger in real life than he appeared on tv, all of it pure muscle. He wore a t shirt, and although she was too proud to to look away from his face to check out his body, she could see from the corners of her eyes that his biceps were solid and sculpted. His gray-blue eyes were sharp and glacial, his features somehow fine and masculine at the same time. He had smooth skin except for his light-colored scruff and the scar that ran through his eyebrow and up his forehead, which he'd earned during his time in the arena. He kept his dark blond hair cropped close to his head on the sides and in the back, but the front and top of it were longer, and rose up in unruly tufts.
"You know you're gonna die right? Probably in the bloodbath," he said to her with jaded insouciance.
"I know," she said, quietly and without emotion. "I knew I was dead the moment I volunteered." Her dark eyes were steady as they met his cynical gaze, and he was taken aback by their color-a deep blue-green like the sea, which he found strange considering she hailed from woodlands. He studied her for a moment. Her light brown hair was fine, straight and silky in texture. She had a delicate bone structure with high cheekbones and her skin had the clear, luminescent quality of child's. She was small, at least a foot shorter than him, and slender.
Her calm acceptance of her situation unnerved him. He had expected her to burst into tears or start shaking with fear like most people would have. He wouldn't even have been surprised if she had reacted with anger. But it had never occurred to him that someone could be so serene at the prospect of certain death in the games. Cato stared at her as if she wasn't quite right in the head. She shrugged. "It is what it is, " she said. "What good will it do me to get all worked up?"
"Well good. Then we can agree it's a waste of both my time and yours for me to train you," he said.
"Maybe," she said. "But wouldn't you be embarrassed if I was the first to be killed? Maybe we could just aim for me to make it past the bloodbath."
"If you want to do that you should probably just avoid the cornucopia altogether and focus on surviving in the wild."
She looked at him expectantly. He looked back. "So?" she finally said. "How do I survive in the wild?"
He sighed and stalked over to the dining room table, looking at his watch impatiently. "Bring me a piece of paper and a pen," he said with some annoyance. Hera complied and Cato spent the next few minutes making a list of survival topics for her to research. Trini, appeased for the time being, left to go socialize with some of the other escorts. When Cato was finished he stood up and started towards the door, leaving the list on the table. "Look that shit up in the database," he said over his shoulder. Hera scanned the list, and turned to ask him what a database was, but he had already left.
"What the fuck is a database?" she said, turning to the Avox who was clearing the breakfast dishes from the table. She had meant it rhetorically, but the girl smiled at her sympathetically and abandoned her task, beckoning her to the desk in the corner of the living room, which held a small screen like the one from the weapons room.
The Avox silently showed her how to search the database for different articles and tutorials, and it proved to be as intuitive as the screen in the weapons room, so after a few minutes, Hera thanked her and settled down to research water purification.
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"You're not gonna train her at all?" Lyme asked him when he joined his fellow victors in Clay's training facility. Her voice was thick with disapproval.
"I gave her some shit to research. You know, survival skills."
"You need to do more than that."
"There's no point. She doesn't stand a chance."
"So you're just gonna let your mentoring stats plummet?"
"They're not gonna count them this year."
"Yes they are," Lyme said."Why do you think Brutus dumped it on you?"
"Because he doesn't want to waste his time."
"Exactly. He doesn't want to waste his time since it'll bring down his status."
"But that doesn't make any sense. Giving one district mentoring points for the place a tribute from another district comes in in the games?"
Lyme shrugged. "But they're doing it. Heard it straight from Seneca Crane. So if you don't train her, not only will your individual stats plummet, but you'll hurt our overall record. We've been in first place for eight years now. And 1 isn't too far behind us so…"
"Fuuuuuuck," Cato said with exasperation as he threw his head back.
"District first," Lyme said.
"District first," he echoed bitterly.
"It won't be that bad. Just spend a few hours a day on her. That should get her into the top ten. You can spend the rest of your time down here with us."
"Fine," he sighed and rolled his eyes.
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"What can you do?" he asked Hera the next morning.
"What can I do?" she repeated.
"Yeah. I'm gonna make the educated guess that you have no experience whatsoever with weapons, but can you do anything else? Like are you a fast runner?"
"I can climb."
"Show me."
He led her over to the climbing wall and leaned against it to wait for her to strap herself into her harness, but to his amazement she took a running leap and skittered up to the top of the wall thirty feet above him in about seven seconds, her feet and hands barely touching each grip before launching off and up to the next one.
Cato stared at her in shock while she slipped back down. When she was still six feet off the ground, she let go and twisted in mid-air, landing gracefully on her feet with hardly a sound.
He recovered his composure just before she turned to face him. "Well maybe you're not a complete waste of my time," he said.
"I practiced throwing knives the last two nights too," she said.
"You use the training tutorial?"
"Yeah."
"You hit anything?"
"Sometimes."
He laughed skeptically. "Well keep practicing that, I guess. I'm decent at it but it's not really my specialty, and I probably won't be of any more help to you in that area than the tutorial."
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He had decided she should practice archery and throwing light spears to make her more versatile with long-range weapons. And she needed to learn some hand-to-hand combat for defensive purposes, although ideally she shouldn't get close enough to anyone to have to engage in it. Swords were no good, he told her. Most would be too heavy for her and her reach was too short. Weight training wasn't worth it at all. She already had enough strength to climb with ease, and even if she lifted weights every day up until the games, she'd never be able to overpower most of the male tributes, so it would be a "poor return on her investment." Whatever that means, she thought. He said she needed to continue climbing every day. And to spend sprinting and running long distances and learning survival skills.
He told Hera all this as he mapped out a training schedule for the next week for her that morning. He handed it to her and she scanned it.
"How will I learn the hand-to-hand combat?" she asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Are there holographs I can practice on in that room? I didn't see a training video or a screen like the one in the weapons room in there."
"No, you'll practice with me," he said matter-of-factly.
"Oh." She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, wondering what it would feel like to touch him. To have his hands on her body. I'll find out soon enough she said to herself, as butterflies gathered in her stomach.
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Cato was eating breakfast the next morning when Hera ambled out around 8am, still half-asleep it seemed. She took a seat across from him and slathered a croissant with butter.
He was reading an article that gave a brief overview on each tribute for this year's games, and he was paying special attention to the profile of the District 1 female, Glimmer. She'd caught his eye at the parade the other night, and he was wondering how he could finagle his way into getting inside of her when he was distracted by the noise issuing from Hera's throat.
"Mmmm. Sooooo goooood," she mumbled. She was chewing her croissant and her eyes were closed.
He side-eyed her.
When she opened her eyes he was still looking at her. "I'm a simple girl," she said, and shrugged. "It's the little things."
"The little things?"
"Yeah, the little things that get me going." He didn't say anything and continued to stare at her caustically. "The little things. Like this," she said looking at the croissant she was holding. "And the first sip of coffee of the day," she said as she added milk to her steaming mug. "And the sunlight in the morning." She gestured towards the window on the eastern wall.
"The little things?" he asked again.
"Yeah. You know what I mean."
"No. I don't."
"You don't have little things that just, like, make your day?"
He studied her. Her hair was pulled into a disheveled knot on top of her head. A few pieces had fallen out and brushed against her collarbone, which peeked out from a white v-neck undershirt. Her lids were heavy over her still-sleepy eyes, and the sunlight that spilled into the room illuminated her cheekbones. The way you look right now, he thought, and then quashed the sentiment immediately. "No," he said flatly.
"Ok then," she said, raising her eyebrows and going back to her croissant. "Sorry I asked."
He went back to his article, but she interrupted him again, this time with a question.
"Am I gonna train with Julian at all?"
"With who?"
"My district partner."
"No. No working with anyone else. You get attached. It brings you down in the arena."
"But don't the Careers all work together every year?"
"That's different. You are not a Career. You're just a dead girl walking."