Annie felt as though she'd only just closed her eyes when Mags shook her awake. The City Circle burned golden in the thick afternoon sun, an ideal landscape for the presentation of Panem's mightiest warriors. Clad in disheveled robes and loose curlers, Finnick and Annie pulled themselves from bed and shuffled into the elevator with Mags, where their escort awaited them on the ground floor.
"You won't believe the press you're getting!" he gushed at Finnick. "Everyone wants to snag an interview with you, we're just waiting to see if you're allowed. But if we can, you're already booked!" He didn't once look at Annie as he whisked them onto the shuttle that took them back to the Prep Center.
When they arrived, her styling team led her back down the hallway to the room where they'd groomed her before. They pulled the curlers from her hair and shaped them into perfect ringlets. They painted starfish into the corners of her eyes and stained her lips coral. Finally, her head stylist arrived, one of the District 4 regulars, looking less than pleased to see her.
"Put this on," he grumbled as he tossed a flimsy, sea green gown her way. Annie quietly slipped her robe from her shoulders and wrapped the dress around herself, tying it closed with a length of golden rope. She glanced at her costume in the mirror while her stylist stared her up and down. She was identical to practically every other District 4 tribute there'd been since she could remember.
Her stylist didn't seem satisfied either. "Darken the eyes, put on another layer of lips, and get rid of these cheap extensions." He jerked a handful of her hair, and Annie's head followed after with a yelp of pain.
"They're not extensions!" she told him as her hand flew to her scalp.
His eyes widened as he ran his fingers through the curls, "All this is real?"
She nodded, "I've never cut it."
"Well you will now," he informed her before looking to his assistants. "Take it up to the ears."
"N-no!" Annie clutched at her curls.
"You're too small," her stylist explained impatiently. "It overwhelms you. Besides, the mermaid look is so passé."
"I'm not cutting it," she insisted.
He looked her in the eye,"That's not up to you."
Annie started backwards, prepared to put up a fight. What did she have to lose?
One of the assistants stepped forward, "I can pin it up above her ears without cutting it."
Annie's stylist looked between her and Annie for a moment. "Show me," he finally said.
With dozens upon dozens of pins, the assistant secured each curl to Annie's scalp, and by the time she was finished, her hair was a crown of bubbling rings strung with pearls and bits of shell.
Her stylist looked her over once more and sighed, "Well it's too late to change it now. Polish her off and send her out."
Annie looked to the assistant. "Thank you," she murmured, but the assistant payed her no mind. She was more focused on her boss's reaction to her quick-thinking fix. Annie dropped her gaze and allowed them to dust a pearly glow onto her skin before they sent her to the chariots.
Tributes, Mentors, stylists, Avoxes, crew members, horses—all milled about the stuffy, underground space in a tangle. Ordinarily, the District zones were sectioned off, and the young Tributes were too scared to venture from their assigned posts. But these Victors all knew the routine, and they all knew each other. The District 8 Mentor let out a laugh at something spoken by the Tributes from 10. A Tribute from 1 flirted in vain with the Tributes from 2. The District 12 Mentor slipped a flask of alcohol to the Tributes from 6. Annie wove between them all as discreetly as possible, and finally she found Mags waiting alone by the District 4 chariot.
"Where's Finnick?" she asked as she approached.
Mags gestured to some far corner of the room, and Annie nodded. She took a deep breath as her heart began to race. The costumes, the horses, the camera crew, it was all too familiar. Shadows flitted through the crowd, faces long since gone except from Annie's mind. She stared them down, willed them to leave her, but they stared right back at her, waiting.
With a touch to her arm, Mags pulled her back to reality. The shadows began to fade from the corners of her vision, and she blinked the last of them away as she looked to her Mentor.
"Thank you," she breathed, and Mags gave her hand a squeeze as she smiled.
It was then that Finnick strolled towards them, naked save for a gold knot that hung between his legs.
Annie gaped at him, "They're not going to send you out in that?"
He only shrugged, "It's fine."
"No, it's not!" she protested. "That's barely even costume. They can't treat you like this, you're not-"
Finnick held up a hand to her, "Annie, Annie, please. Trust me, I've dealt with worse."
Annie crossed her arms she placed herself protectively in front of him. "They won't even let us die with dignity," she muttered through her teeth.
"Can we change the subject?" he sighed.
Reluctantly, Annie loosened her shoulders. She glanced back in the direction he'd come, "Who were you talking to?"
"Katniss Everdeen," his nose wrinkled in disgust.
Annie looked at him, "And?"
"She's so arrogant," he scowled. "I don't know why anyone likes her." The handful of sugar cubes he'd carried with him crumbled in his fist as he spoke.
"We don't have to like her," Annie reminded him. "We just have to be her ally."
Finnick rolled his eyes, and Mags tapped him on the arm. She shot him a warning look, then ushered him toward their chariot. The Tributes were being instructed to mount up. They could hear the music reverberate through the walls around them, and the crowd outside began to cheer in anticipation. Annie took her place alongside Finnick. Only the gold cord around her waist connected her costume to his. She gathered up the train of her flowing skirt and flung it towards him. The material was so light that as soon as the wind picked up, the fabric would blanket him, at least from the waist down.
Finnick smiled despite himself. "Don't be a party pooper," he told her in his slippery Capitol voice as he stepped around the fabric.
"You shouldn't have to do this," she muttered. "It's public humiliation." Perhaps the Capitols would see his costume as nothing more than a teasing ensemble, but Annie could only imagine what kind of satisfaction it would bring President Snow to see his defiant Victor reduced to such a state before the entire country.
Finnick gazed at the wheels of a distant chariot in an odd calm. It was a long moment before he murmured back, "…We need sponsors."
Annie looked at him in alarm. "Finnick-" she started. But the doors to the City Circle began to open, flooding them with sun and sound. Trumpets blared, and the crowd screamed as the first chariots trotted towards them. Annie gripped the handles just beneath the lip of their chariot, and with a jerk they started forward.
The roar of the crowd swelled as they emerged into the sunlight. Men howled and women squealed as Finnick began to wave at them, a brilliant grin plastered across his face. Annie could see themselves in the screens that lined the Circle—from a distance, Finnick looked completely naked, and the crowd was loving every inch of it.
Annie felt sick. The noise was overwhelming. More than anything, she wanted to curl up at the bottom of the chariot and cover her ears. But she couldn't look away, couldn't do anything but watch the hundreds of leering, distorted faces that screamed, pushed, craned their necks for a glimpse of Finnick's exposed skin. They devoured him with their eyes, and she knew all too well what they'd do if they managed to get their hands on him before the Games.
Finnick leaned behind her and waved to the opposite side of the crowd, and she felt her back press against his shoulder. She hadn't realized her hands slipping from the handles until that moment.
"Are you okay?" he asked her through his teeth as he continued to smile and wave.
No, Annie could hardly breathe. She couldn't remember the last time anger had burned so deeply in the pit of her stomach. Her skull throbbed against the pins pressed into her hair as the heat boiled up her neck. She turned her head towards the crowd, towards his ear, and she hissed the words through stiffened lips, "I hate them."
Finnick couldn't answer her then, nor during the President's speech, nor as they ascended the Training Center's elevator with a handful of other Victors. When they arrived on their floor, he disappeared into the shower, and Annie sat at the vanity ripping the pins one by one from her hair. No matter how gently she tried to remove them, they each snagged against her scalp, left her curls in frayed tangles. Some of them clung relentlessly to tender strands, unwilling to yield. She hadn't removed even half of them before her frustration consumed her, and she sat with her palms pressed into her eyes, shoulders trembling.
She heard the bathroom door open, and Finnick's quiet footfall against the plush carpet as he approached. He slipped his hands into her hair and closed his fingers around a pin. With a gentle twist, the pin plied open. He plucked it from her head and set it down on the vanity alongside the others.
"Why did they pin it like this?" he asked quietly as he continued to unwind them from her hair.
"It was the only way they wouldn't cut it," she told him. "My stylist thinks it's ugly."
Finnick snorted, "Capitols don't know the first thing about hair. Most of them wear wigs, and what they've got underneath is nasty."
Annie looked up at his reflection in the mirror, "Is that how you got so good at taking out these pins? You take off their hair while they take off your clothes?"
He kept his gaze fixed on her hair as he worked, "Is this about the sponsor thing I said? I didn't mean to upset you…" Finnick pulled the last pin from her hair and placed it on the vanity.
Annie turned from the mirror so she could look him in the eye, "Whatever happens, I don't ever want you to have to sell yourself again."
Finnick sighed, and without all the makeup and lights and toothy grins, he looked worn beyond his years. "I don't think that's an option anymore." As their secret mission unfolded, they would either end up dead or in District 13, together. Whichever it was, there was no going back to the quiet, complacent struggle that their lives had been before. It was all or nothing now.
Annie stood and held him against herself, and he rested his chin against her shoulder for a long while. The lurid faces of the crowd danced around their heads with echoes of laughter and lust, and finally Finnick could no longer bear it. Annie followed as he wandered into the living room, and the two of them shared a bottle of wine as they watched the city lights twinkle out the windows. When the bottle was dry, they searched for another and were dismayed to find that Mags had locked the rest of the alcohol away before she retired to bed. They key was nowhere to be found, and Finnick relented with a sigh.
"We should go to bed," he told Annie as he spun the empty bottle aimlessly about his knee. She glanced at him cautiously, and he added the words she'd been dreading to hear since their arrival in the Capitol: "Training starts tomorrow."