I need to just give up trying to predict anything that will happen to me from now on. Sally's idea of "adorable" is considerably different from mine. I'd been scared she was going to put me in some sort of farmboy getup, or dress me like a baby cow. I'd seen worse before on the televised Games in previous years.
The end result is just about as far away from my original fear as it is possible to be. I can only assume Nora matches me, but it's a long time before I'll be able to see for myself. Sally finished the bulk of the work early, but pops into my curtained partition frequently to do touch-ups and make sure I haven't "ruined myself." Still, it's an hour before the opening ceremony is set to start and I'm experiencing something I hadn't thought I ever would again—boredom.
It's really, really difficult not to pick at Sally's work. It itches in some places and she did such a good job when I look down at myself it's hard not to believe what I see is real. It's a little unsettling, but I'm alright if I don't study it too hard.
When my prep team finally bustles back in to collect me for the chariot ride, I'm almost happy to go. Waiting for anything is usually worse than just getting the thing in question over with, and I'm hoping this will be one of those times.
It occurs to me as I'm lead through a hallway, the sound of a restless crowd getting louder and louder, that this will be the first time I'm seeing a lot of the competition up-close. That means two things; it's an opportunity for me to study them, and it's also an opportunity for them to study me. I try to straighten my back and lengthen my stride. Wishing sorely my face wasn't always such an open book, I clench and unclench my fists at my sides to try to work off some of the nervous energy, and reach up without thinking about it to scratch at my neck.
Sally materializes out of nowhere and waves her hands frantically around mine, managing to halt my progress without actually touching me. "Don't… scratch," she warns, sounding terrifying. I slide my hand back down to my side and try to will the itch on my neck to vanish, which just makes me focus on it more.
Then I see Nora and all thoughts of discomfort flee from my mind.
She does match me, but only in the sense that whoever her Stylist is took Sally's lead and used the same makeup and wardrobe techniques on her. That's where the similarities end. I think I look a little creepy and weird, but maybe that's because I always think I look that way. Nora looks a breathtaking combination of beautiful and absolutely horrifying.
Her blond hair is down around her shoulders in careful, understated waves, and the tips are smudged with red where they make contact with her skin. Like me, she's been spared of anything but slight makeup on her face, what looks like a bit of eyeliner and eyeshadow to make her features pop, but that all ends once her pale skin dips down to her collarbone. From there to the tips of her fingers and toes, across every inch of her body, are lashmarks, ligatures, huge swatches of skin missing, and bloody patches of flesh. She sees me staring and, instead of giving me a death glare, gives me a small smirk. She's examining my makeup too, and does a little spin for me so I can see her back. My jaw drops. Is that what I look like, too? For all appearances it looks as if the skin has been stripped away from Nora's back, shoulder to hip, in two huge swatches the way we might skin a cow for its leather. "Poking out" of her back on either side of her spine are three sets of hooks, some broken off jaggedly and some with fractured bits of chain still trailing off them. It looks exactly as if Nora had savagely pulled herself free of the meathooks and booked it to freedom outside the slaughterhouse using sheer muscle alone.
I had questioned Sally's idea in my mind, wondering why any Tributes would want to wear a costume that essentially announced, "we're already dead meat!" for the opening ceremony. Now I understand her reasoning. Nora and I aren't dead. We're survivors, bloodied and undefeatable against all odds.
Nora makes her way over to me and I have to will myself to look at her face, for once not because I've been caught giving someone a pervy once-over. She's still smiling, looking tired but also somehow excited, and a hell of a lot friendlier than I've ever seen her before.
"Do I look even half as scary and cool as you do?" I ask her, and she rolls her eyes and chuckles.
"You look terrifying. Let me see your back?" she asks, and I turn to oblige. I hear her gasp out a little sound. "Oh, wow. That's amazing. I can't really… you know, get an angle, to look at how mine is done. It looks so real."
"I know, right?" I say, turning back around. It's so unspeakably nice to be talking to someone who isn't from the Capitol, and the relief that floods through me, hot and bright, takes me a little off-guard. I hadn't even realized how isolated I'd been feeling until Nora came over here and broke the silence. "I mean, I look down and think, 'oh, jeez, isn't this supposed to hurt?'"
Nora chuckles again, lifting her hand to partially block her face while she does it. It's such a surprisingly demure gesture for a girl who looks like a warrior goddess fresh from a slaughter. "No kidding." Before I can say anything else, though, Sally is back, and is directing us over into a larger room where, I assume, the chariots are waiting to be boarded.
And there goes my warm little bubble of happiness from social interaction. Sally hands me something and I take it, not even paying attention to what it is at first. Only when I hear Nora go, "oh, huh," do I look at the object. It's a wickedly curved handheld scythe, the sort we would honestly probably never use in the slaughterhouse. Not that I expect the citizens of the Capitol will know this. It's also covered in "blood." I glance up at Nora and see she has a hacked-off piece of what looks like an upright saw, broken in a jagged, dangerous line. It looks painful to hold, but I guess it only looks sharp since she isn't wincing.
Sally nudges us with a carefully-placed prod to some of our only patches of untouched skin and directs us to the chariot. The chariot is dark metal, old and rusty, but it somehow doesn't look pathetic. Instead of giving the idea of a ride that's fallen into disrepair, it looks like it's built with the steady, rock-solid dependability of a machine that will never break down. It isn't flashy, so it doesn't draw any attention away from the bloody spectacle of its Tributes.
That's not the most striking thing about it, though.
"Oh," Nora says, making a face as she sees what will be pulling our chariot. "Is that—I mean, is that okay? Are those allowed?"
"Those" are two enormous steers, their horns polished to a high shine, their shiny black hides immaculately clean. Muscles ripple under their backs and I find it impossible to believe they are trained. No animals that huge and virile will trot nicely while pulling our chariot along, will they?
"I looked it up," Sally said, sounding so pleased with herself she's likely to burst. "There's no law, by-law, sub-section or amendment to the handbook that says it has to be a horse that pulls the chariot. And even if they don't like it, it's too late for them to complain now!"
It seems both suicidal and also slightly unfair. Surely the Gamemakers wouldn't want us to have an unfair advantage over the other contenders because they all have horses and we have decidedly non-horse transportation. We'll stand out, and not because of how we're dressed or made-up. I know that should make me happy—I need all the help I can get making a big splash—but it somehow feels like we'll get in trouble for this.
Assuming we survive being pulled around by these 3,000 pound beasts.
Either way, I don't have a lot of time to agonize about it. Sally corrals us up onto the chariot, I almost fall on my face, and almost before I've righted myself we're moving into position.
It's a short jaunt down a larger hallway and then we're in a staging area right in the thick of the excited babble from what sounds like every single citizen of the Capitol. We're still in shadow, but I can see the chariot holding the District 1 Tributes pulling out into the flashes of thousands of bulbs. I can only squint and see that their chariot is gold, matching their outfits, when Two goes next.
Instead of focusing on the Tributes farther up who I can't make out very well, I decide to take a look at Nine and Eight, the only ones who are in convenient eyeshot. It's still a little shady in here, and the flashing lights from outside are distracting, but I can make out the backs of the four Tributes' heads.
The boy is tall, but built enough that he doesn't look gangly. He's darkly tanned and has thick, black wavy hair. The girl beside him doesn't look as calm as he does, if her fidgeting posture is anything to go by. She has dark hair, maybe red, and it's done up in a bunch of braids that fall free around her shoulders. Both Tributes from Nine are wearing white linen wraps and are done up with stylized, golden grain designs.
Up ahead of them, the Tributes from Eight are holding onto each other with a sort of unabashed, terrified affection. I remember those two from the televised Reapings—I'd suspected they had some sort of connection before being Reaped. Now I'm almost sure they're dating. What horrendous luck. The girl is short, and I can see the curve of her rounded cheek as she looks up at the boy, who is tall and broad in the shoulder, classically good looking. Their costumes are patchworks of different sorts of material, and it takes me a second to remember why. Right, I think. Textiles. It's hard to remember what all the other Districts do since we get so little news about them, and zero contact with them. It's almost not worth it to remember.
Ahead of Eight I can only make out a few key features and people; I can see the frightening redhead girl from Four, mainly because her chariot has moved closer to the entrance and the light is hitting her. I can see that the Tributes from Five seem to be sparking with electricity. I'm tempted to cast a glance behind me to the Tributes from Eleven and Twelve, but something stops me. I don't want to be caught looking curious. I don't know how, exactly, but it feels like that would be seen as weakness. Hell, what won't be seen as weakness, here?
In no time it's our turn, and I turn to glance at Nora, painfully regretting that we hadn't done any planning before now. Should we wave? Smile? Growl? She gives me a look that, at first glance, seems angry, but is actually just a hard-edged look of nerves. We don't say anything to one another, but as our steers lumber their way forward, following the path of the chariot from Nine, an unspoken agreement seems to pass between us.
If we're covered in blood and meant to look scary, it'll just look dumb if we ham it up. I set my jaw and stare forward, realizing belatedly that my weapon is hidden by my thigh. It feels stupid to hold it up in the air, so I lift it instead to chest-height, looking down at it as if I'm studying it carefully. My other hand is grasping the front of the chariot so tight my knuckles would be bleached white if they weren't covered in red. I don't know what Nora's doing beside me, but I'm sure she's doing it better than I am.
The crowd, I realize belatedly, is gasping and muttering. It's tempting to take a look at them, but it's like I'm 'in character" now and I don't want to break it. I can hear the flashes and shouts, see the lights in the corners of my eyes, and I decide to stop looking at my blade like I'm not sure what it is and instead look forward.
It's so hard not to look around like an idiot. But I've committed to the "play it cool" routine and I'm going to do it, dammit. There are drums sounding on either side of us, the national anthem thundering out impossibly loud, and there are moving images and lights up at the sides of the walls that struggle to grab my attention every few feet. It feels like I've aged twenty years by the time our steers pull up to the designated spot in a semicircle before the podium at the front of the ceremony hall. I'm peripherally surprised that they haven't begun bucking and rampaging yet.
Hegeman, who has been silently watching us from the raised platform, puts a hand in the air and silences the entire crowd in that creepy way only political figures can. I don't know why we don't call him "President Hegeman"—for as long as I can remember he's been just Hegeman. It would almost give you the impression that he's one of those "call me Bob!" sort of leaders, striving to be more personable by dropping the title and honorific. The truth is the opposite. Hegeman seems more frightening for the fact that he only has the one known name.
"Ladies and Gentleman," Hegeman says in his quiet voice, amplified so it carries, "Tributes. Welcome to the opening ceremony of the 49th Annual Hunger Games." There's no flourish or oomph in his tone. There never is. He just says it like it is and the crowd goes wild anyway. Hegeman lets them, then silences them again with one hand.
I thought I'd pay more attention to his opening speech this year, since it's my opening speech, but it goes in one ear and out the other. Hegeman is a creature of habit, and he does the opening ceremony exactly the same way, every single year, without fail. It's even verbatim. Tradition is supremely important to him and I suddenly wonder if it irks him that we came in riding behind non-horses. I glance up at Hegeman's face, studying, trying to see behind the calm facade the way my dad would. It's no use, though. I can't tell.
He looks so normal, so average. He's gone almost completely bald over the years, though his neatly-trimmed salt-and-pepper goatee is still in place. He wears the same thing every time I see him televised—a white shirt buttoned strictly up to his neck under a V-neck black jacket. No Capitol bling, no colors. You'd think it would make him look awkward, but instead it just makes him look scary.
While Hegeman wraps up I sneak a look around to the other chariots, trying to be surreptitious just in case the cameras are on me right at that moment. I'm able to see District 11 better, and my eyes fall immediately on the intimidating, dark-skinned girl, tall, strong, fierce and stoic. Her district partner, by contrast, is very forgettable. He's shorter than she is by about half a head, and his dark hair and brown eyes, though done up with the golden grain head-dress and markings around his face, still make me feel like I'll have a hard time picking him out of a crowd later on.
The girl from Twelve looks like she's on the verge of tears. They're coal miners again this year, which is unfortunate… their outfits are drab and dull, two things the Capitol doesn't seem to have a lot of sympathy for. The boy, however, is staring right back at me, and I jerk slightly as I meet his eyes, not expecting it. He's giving me a curious, cold smile, and I decide at once I don't like him, and that I'm also done looking around the room. I turn to face forward again just as the ceremony wraps up and the steeds (and steers) begin to trot us back the way we came. Not a moment too soon, either; I can feel I'm starting to sweat, in spite of being shirtless and wearing only artfully tattered shorts.
Sally is waiting for us in the alcove with both hands clenched up below her chin and a huge, bright grin in place. Her whole frame is vibrating with energy and she almost doesn't wait until we're secure before jumping up onto the chariot with us and yanking both of us quite suddenly into a big hug. "Your clothes—" I protest, watching with dismay as her arms and top get smeared with red, but Sally apparently couldn't care less.
"That was great, that was phenomenal!" She pulls back, one of my latex gore wounds clinging to her left forearm and coming free from my skin with a small slap of snapping rubber. "I know you couldn't hear down there over the crowd, but you two were all the announcers could talk about!"
"Thanks," Nora says, sounding breathless and exhausted. "I don't… mean to be rude, or anything, but that's it for today? Right? We can…?"
I know what she means and I echo her sentiment, "Sleep? Maybe?"
Sally puts one hand each at the backs of our heads, still beaming at us, riding the high of her admittedly brilliant costuming success. "Absolutely! Go see the prep teams, they'll get the worst of it off and then you can take showers and crash out upstairs."
"Um—" I ask, just knowing I need to ask Sally something a second before my tired brain supplies the actual question. "Oh. Ah, do you know where Aidan is staying?"
"With you," Sally says simply. "If you need to talk to him he should be up there by now. If not he probably just got caught up in some Capitol networking bullshit."
I glance around the room. More than a few Tributes are giving us curious, or challenging looks, but I notice one thing they all have that we don't. A Mentor. Every single other District has their Mentor or Mentors leading the Tributes to the line of elevators, escorting them to wherever their quarters are. Nora and I stare at the crowd near the elevators, still perched atop our chariot, uncertain about when or where to go.
Sally seems to realize this. "Oh! You don't know where—sorry, of course you wouldn't know. I forgot they take you to me immediately from the train. Well!" She performs a little bow by the stairs leading down from the chariot, beckoning Nora and I to disembark like royalty. "Follow me."
It's hard, almost impossible to tell with Sally, but I wonder if maybe she's a little put off by the fact that she's taking on what is, evidently, supposed to be one of Aidan's responsibilities after a full day of dressing us up. I know I'd be upset.
Sally stands by while the prep teams scrub us down, and though my skin is still raw from the first washing and everything stings, I can't bring myself to care. Nora and I have matching thousand-yard stares and only respond to direct orders: lift your arms, turn around, close your eyes. When we're done Sally leads us to the elevators, all but cleared out of Tributes and Mentors heading up now, and we spend a quiet half a minute being delivered in silent, eerily motionless efficiency to the 10th floor.
"This whole floor is yours, and you can pick which of the bedrooms you like," Sally says, her exuberance fading now into a calmer, comforting tone. I guess she can tell how frazzled and worn down we are. "I wish I could say you guys get to sleep in tomorrow, but it'll be another full day."
"What is happening tomorrow, anyway?" I ask, curious though I can't bring myself to really care right now. I know it'll matter to me tomorrow and it's better to ask than to risk Aidan keeping up his streak of not informing us of anything.
"Training," Sally explains. "There'll be a week of it in the special area they set up for you downstairs."
"Already?" Nora asks, not sounding affronted or shocked, but more disappointed and weary.
"Fraid so. You'll have time to talk over some strategy with Aidan tonight or tomorrow morning, though, so try not to fret too much."
I snort. "Yeah, right. Aidan."
I don't know what possessed me to say it in front of Sally. Though she's been cool and helpful, there's no reason for me to trust anyone from this place, and yet I find it hard to believe she'd punish me or rat me out for speaking ill of my AWOL Mentor. Indeed, all she does is give me a sympathetic look, and after a faltering pause, she says, "I know he's not the easiest to work with, but trust me when I say there are others out there who are actually way, way worse. Just give it a little time. I know he seems distant and hands-off, but it's a front. He'll help you all he can."
I find that almost impossible to believe, but I give Sally a tired, grateful smile nonetheless. Nora seems to be asleep standing up, and we take that as our cue to head inside, shower and sleep. Sally bids us farewell at the elevators, waving as they slide shut and block her from view.
"You buy it?" Nora asks once we're in the living quarters, reorienting ourselves to the impressive, sprawling suite. It takes me a second to figure out what she must mean.
"About Aidan? Dunno. Sally probably knows better than we do, but…" I gesture to the opulent, expansive, and utterly uninhabited floor, "he's not here. Again."
Nora snorts. "Yeah. Worst case scenario, we better be prepared to go this alone."
I nod, weary, and we part ways in the hall, branching off in an unspoken agreement to what will now be our new rooms. I wish I could appreciate the understated elegance of the bedroom I've unwittingly chosen. I was worried it would be bright pink or something, but it's actually pretty nice. Unfortunately all that's on my mind is showering and sleeping.
I almost doze off in the shower, once finding the sweet spot of temperature that feels so divine I could conceivably stay in there forever. I scrub the rest of the paint from crevices and nooks the prep team hadn't paid especially close attention to, knowing someone else will come along tomorrow and nitpick at all the spots I miss anyway. My elbow jabs a button on the wall halfway through my shower and a thick spout of green foam covers me, shocking me out of my daze. When I finally figure out how to turn it off I reek of freshly-cut grass.
At least I don't smell like meat anymore, I guess.
I almost don't see the book when I head straight to the bed to flop on it. I manage to twist my body and land next to it, versus on it, and reach out at once to snatch it up. It's a leatherbound notebook, and a cursory flip through the pages reveals that they all appear to be blank. Grateful but puzzled, I flip back to the first page and a handwritten note slides out.
Josh—
Your parents told me before we left that you'd be wanting something like this. Not sure why, but here it is. Just realize you can't take a book into the Games as your token. Hardbacks can be considered weapons and even soft-covers, like these, could be seen as an unfair advantage if you use the paper as kindling for a fire.
—A
I stare at the note, perplexed and unable to pin down the other emotions. To say I'm surprised is an understatement. Just when I'd been ready to write Aidan off as a dead-end, he offers me a curveball. I turn the book over and over in my hands, frowning at the quality of the soft, smooth cover and the thick, creamy pages inside. Unsure what possesses me to do it, I lift the book to my face and inhale a deep lungful of the treated leather. Unbidden, a sharp prickling comes to my throat and my eyes. It smells like home.
Never thought I'd miss that scent.
I mean to go to sleep, but I can't. With the book and a pen soon in hand, I'm filling up the first quarter of the pages with notes, observations, questions, concerns—every single thing I can think of that I need to get out of my head and down onto paper to focus myself and keep sane. I leave pages blank for more info on the other Tributes, once I'm able to analyze them further, jot down ideas for what I might say in my interview, and question upon question for Aidan, in the hopes that he'll maybe be around to respond to them. My hand is aching by the time my body clocks out on me, overriding my desperate urge to record and scribble, and I fall asleep on top of the book, cheek pressed into the pages, breathing in the scent of District 10. It's the nicest night of sleep I've had in months.