Chapter 4
Do you know the enemy? Do you know your enemy?
Know Your Enemy, Green Day
Posy opens her sleep-blurred eyes to see someone with green skin and blue nails standing over her. She rolls over onto her side, ignoring the whoever it is for a moment before doing a double-take and screaming, suddenly wide awake.
"Oh, sorry to startle you, dear," Serina says, her outstretched hand retreating. "I wanted to let you know that breakfast is already on the table."
Posy jolts up in bed, blinking a few times to clear her vision. Her thudding heart slows when she realizes Serina just has some sort of mint-colored cream on her face. There's no strange creature waiting to eat her. Although, maybe Serina does classify as a strange creature, but probably not one that'll gobble her up.
"I'll be there in a few minutes," she tells Serina, sliding off the bed.
"I'll go wake up your brother then."
"I wonder how he'll react," Posy mumbles.
"Me too," Serina replies, hearing Posy's words, and winking at her before exiting. That gets a smile out of Posy. Maybe Serina isn't a total airhead; though there's still much emphasis on the total.
Posy just splashes her face with water and cleans her teeth, since her clothes are clean enough, although wrinkled. She slips on her shoes and heads towards the dining car, bumping into Vick halfway there.
"Crazy woman," he mutters after saying good morning. "Scared me half to death."
Posy can't help but grin.
They arrive at the dining car to see Serina already seated at the table, delicately eating some sort of pastry with berries, the green cream washed off her skin. Posy turns to the side to see a long table set up with at least twenty different options for breakfast.
"Help yourself," Serina says with a wave of her arm. Vick takes a plate from the end of the table and starts to load it up, with Posy right behind him.
"We'll be in the Capitol in about an hour," Serina tells them as soon as they're seated. Vick ignores her, taking a tentative sip from a mug set in front of him. He makes a face once the liquid goes down his throat, handing the mug to Posy.
"Hot chocolate," Serina pipes up. "It might taste a bit too sweet if you're not used to it." Posy tries a bit and brightens up instantly, downing the whole thing in a couple of gulps.
"So where's Haymitch?" Vick asks, pushing away his now-empty plate.
"Probably sleeping," Serina replies. "They told him not to have breakfast today. The surgery requires an empty stomach."
Posy thinks of how much alcohol Haunitch probably consumes in a day, given his condition at most of the reapings, and wonders how powerful the Capitol's technology must be to heal someone like him's liver. Why waste the effort on old drunks like him? She knows so many children who have died from different strains of the flu or a bad cough. Don't they deserve to be healed? Then again, what does the Capitol care? Here she is, in their hands, her death only a week or so away. It's all so unbelievably unfair.
"Hurry up, now. You two still have the reaping recaps to watch," Serina trills. Posy looks down at her half-empty plate, appetite gone.
"I'm done."
Serina leads them to yet another car on the train, this one with plush sofas and a TV screen that takes up a full wall. She dims the lights and tells Vick and Posy to make themselves comfortable before sitting down herself.
"Play reaping recaps," she says aloud. The TV turns on without a noise, and automatically starts playing the video.
Posy doesn't pay much attention to the tributes, while Vick is observing them raptly. The most notable tributes are the vicious-looking pair from District 1, another twelve year old from District 5, and a volunteer from District 10, which is almost as uncommon as volunteers are in District 12. The rest aren't particularly well-built, except for the other Careers besides District 1. Posy looks over to Vick and thinks that he stands a good chance physically, with his over-six-foot frame and lean muscle gained from hunting.
Then the District 12 recap comes on, and Posy watches as her name is called, she relives those few moments before she climbed the stage, she hears Gale shout and sees the Peacekeepers hold him back. She's relieved, though, to see that she looks steely on the stage, and not all quivery and shaky like she thought she was.
Posy hears Vick inhale as his name is called, and she glances at him before turning her attention to the screen. There's determination in his every step to the stage, and a fierce look in his eyes when the cameras pan to his face. On the stage, Posy watches Vick sweep her into his arms, and the broadcast is cut off there. District 12's departing gesture is not shown, and by the way Vick huffs Posy knows this was expected. Signs of rebellion, no matter how small, are not tolerated.
Gale and Rory have two days off in honor of the reaping, and being the ever-practical people, they sling their gamebags over their shoulders and head out to the woods early in the morning, before Katniss can wake up and insist she come along. The whole district seems to be in a state of temporary peace as Gale and Vick walk through it, and they blend into the scene with their silent footsteps.
Once they're on the other side of the fence, they tread quietly to 'the meeting place', as everyone refers to it now, since it doesn't really belong to only Gale and Katniss anymore. Rory goes straight for the hollow log where the bows and arrows are kept, and slings his usual bow over his shoulder before joining Gale. They start on the snare line, that's been altered too many times to count over the years, and now stretches deep into the woods, much farther than Gale and Katniss ever went when they were teens.
Rory treads ahead of Gale, eyes and ears open for any signs of movement. They'll have to stock up in these precious two days, since Vick won't be around to hold everything together. Something flickers in his periphery, and he automatically notches an arrow and shoots. He walks over to inspect his kill, and sees that he got the squirrel right in its chest. A clean shot. Although he'll never be as good at shooting as Katniss, or even Vick, Rory's always been better at it than Gale.
A half hour has passed when they make it halfway through the snare line, and Rory only has one additional squirrel in his gamebag, and Gale's bag contains two rabbits. Not bad by any means- there have been worse days- but it's still disappointing. And the forest is too quiet.
"There's something wrong, isn't there?"
Gale glances up at his brother. "Don't be stupid. It's just a lazy day."
But he sounds as if he doesn't believe his own words.
Darkness envelopes the train as it enters a tunnel, that cuts through the natural mountain barrier surrounding the Capitol. All of the districts' children have been told time and time again that these mountains are one of the main reasons the rebels lost the war during the Dark Days, because many of them were killed trying to breech them.
"We're nearly there," Serina says excitedly.
Posy expects the tunnel to end after a few minutes, but it stretches on and on and she can't help but think of all that rock over their heads. But she's not as bothered by it as Vick, who actually has memories of their father, who died in total darkness and surrounded by coal. When light finally floods the train, he exhales loudly, and Posy is immediately drawn to the windows. Vick follows after her, somewhat reluctantly.
"Look at it," she breathes against the glass. The Capitol is shining, gleaming, with metallic buildings rising high into clean, dust-free air. Eccentrically dressed people are standing in giant hordes of color, pointing excitedly at Posy and Vick, their mouths moving and hands waving. Posy tentatively raises a hand and waves back, her eyes wide as they continue to take in the scene in front of her.
"Well, District 12's arrival usually doesn't have much of a crowd." Haymitch's voice comes from behind them. "You two have caused quite the stir."
"Finally woke up?" Vick asks, not looking back.
"Couldn't even sleep," Haymitch replies breezily. The train comes to a gentle stop and Haymitch exits through a back door without another word, outside of which a sleek car is already waiting for him, probably to transport him to his surgery.
Serina nudges Posy and Vick. "Our ride's waiting out that door. Go on. And try to smile, Vick, won't you?"
Vick holds Posy's hand and they walk quickly down a sectioned-off path, Serina struggling to keep up in her heels. Posy waves shyly a few times to the crowd, dizzied by the sudden attention. Vick doesn't bother with trying to muster up a smile and keeps his expression neutral.
Vick opens the vehicle's door for Posy and slides in after, keeping the door propped open for Serina. Once she's seated, she tells them, "They're going to drop me off at the Training Center and you two at the Remake Center. Like Haymitch said, just don't resist anything they do to you."
This second ride is short, and in no time Vick and Posy are being ushered into the Remake Center, Serina waving good-bye to them. Vick and Posy are hustled off into their own little rooms with their trios of Capitol people.
"I'm Laena," a woman with lavender hair says. Posy can barely understand her through her accent. Laena gestures to the other woman standing by, who's dressed in orange from head to toe. "She's Seph," she acknowledges the man with powder blue skin with a nod in his direction, "and he's Ransel". They're all fairly young from the sound of their voices, since their appearances obviously can't be trusted to tell their ages, what with the obsession with looking young in the Capitol.
Seph comes over to Posy, helping her out of her clothes and into a thin robe. She stands in the center of her prep team self-consciously while they circle her, taking in her appearance.
"Such a beautiful little girl. Must run in the family," Laena says lightly, but the way the others nod in agreement make Posy think she's at least half serious. Laena turns to the rest of the team. "Let's get started, then."
The next two hours may be some of the worst in Posy's life. They scrub down Posy's body using a soap with little beads in it that sting her skin, rinse her off with warm water, and repeat the process until she's pink. Seph then gets to work in her bitten-down nails, snipping and filing until they're perfectly shaped and healthy-looking. Ransel, armed with a pair of tweezers, plucks at her eyebrows, making Posy wince every few seconds. They then put some sort of cream on Posy's arms and legs that takes off all of the hair on them. At the very end, they brush out her hair and cut the split ends off, pulling it up into a tight ponytail that makes Posy's head throb.
"Can I do my own hair?" she asks, and they hesitantly let her, watching as she stands in front of the mirror clumsily imitating the braid that Prim did for her at the reaping.
"Let's call in Cinna now," Seph says excitedly.
The trio hurries out of the room, and a few minutes later, a middle-aged man enters the room. Posy recognizes him immediately. He's been the stylist for District 12 for around seven years, and everything he's done has always been a bit out of the ordinary, but still keeping in theme with the whole coal miners' get up. Posy notices that he hasn't made any drastic changes to his features, nor is he wearing obnoxiously bright clothes. Everything about him is completely normal, except that he's wearing gold eyeliner, which actually looks good.
"Hello, Posy," he says warmly, his voice quiet. His accent is slight, and she has no problem understanding him. "Just give me a moment."
He circles Posy and takes in her body, his gaze practical and not lingering anywhere. When he's done, he hands her her robe, and she slips it on.
"You did your hair yourself, did you?" he asks kindly. Posy smiles sheepishly.
"Yeah."
"I think it's beautiful, actually, if you just center it the right way and neaten it up. Who taught you?"
"My sister," Posy says automatically, and corrects herself quickly. "Er, my sister-in-law." The title feels strange in connection with Prim. It's much too formal when Prim's like her actual sibling and not just someone bound to her by papers.
"Your brother's married?" Cinna asks, trying not to sound surprised. Posy laughes.
"No, Vick's definitely not married. My oldest brother is," she replies. Cinna smiles back at her, and Posy decides she likes him.
"Isn't your haul a bit small for this season?" Katniss asks, staring at the four rabbits and three squirrels laying on the countertop. It's still early in the morning, and everyone is fast asleep.
"It was just a slow day," Gale says easily, moving past her and taking out a knife to skin the animals.
"Oh, sure," Katniss huffs. "Haven't you seen Vick's haul the past few weeks?"
"Maybe it's just a slow month."
Katniss grabs Gale's arm, making him to come face-to-face with her. "Tell me that there's nothing going on with the woods."
Gale looks her in the eye and says, "There's nothing wrong, Katniss."
But they never could lie to each other, and Katniss turns away, quietly selecting the squirrel they'll be cooking for lunch. She hands it to Gale and he starts skinning it.
"What do you think's the matter?" she asks, trying not to look at the squirrel.
Gale sighes. "I honestly don't know." He finishes up and washes his hands and the knife. Katniss stares at him, her arms crossed. Gale leans in and kisses her briefly, and Katniss's face still flushes with color, even after all these years.
"I'll find out what's going on somehow, alright? Don't worry yourself."
"Cinna has something marvelous planned for you two."
Vick looks across the table at his stylist, Maeda, a young, slender woman with tightly curled magenta hair. She's probably only been around for a few years, stuck with District 12. Vick shifts in his seat, wearing nothing but a robe. His skin is still tingling from all of the scrubbing his prep team did.
"Marvelous?" Vick asks, taking a bite of the orange chicken on his plate. It's amazingly good, and he downs his portion quickly.
"He said he's been saving this design for two tributes who would be worth using it on. I guess he's decided you and your sister are special," Maeda says. "Not that I'd disagree."
"Oh. Uh, thanks," Vick says, not sure what else to say.
Maeda goes right on, barely hearing him. "The coal miners' thing is obviously completely overdone now." Vick wants to interject with a loud well, no shit, but keeps quiet. "So you're going to be the coal itself."
"What?" Vick asks. He automatically thinks naked and covered in coal dust and desperately hopes that is not the plan.
"Don't worry, it won't be like that year when the stylists went for the nude look," Maeda says, reading his thoughts. She leans in closer. "How do you feel about fire?"