We all stare at Awren. He clears his throat, but in doing so, loses the edge of surprise he had on us, and already Effie is rolling her eyes and opening her mouth-"No." I say, shocking everyone except perhaps my mother. "Let him talk. He deserves a chance to speak, and we have to be able to communicate if there will be any chance of either of us even surviving past the first night."
Gratitude shines from his eyes, and a little bit of anxiousness eases from his face. He could have been a leader, I think sadly. There's no chance for either of us to reach our full potential now. Even if by some miracle I did get Awren out of the Games alive, he would be scarred by the brutal deaths of the other tributes.
"I am twelve," Awren says, "and Primrose is only fifteen. We are young for tributes, but I don't, no. I can't go in there knowing we're already dead. I want to at least feel like I have a chance of coming back home, because if I go in there defeated then the Games win. We all know a career tribute will win, but I need us to try as hard as we can before we go down. Otherwise..."
He gulps, and trails off. It has taken a lot for him to say what he has, but the twelve-year-old cannot force himself to continue in his speech.
"I agree." I am startled to find myself saying. "Even though we are small, surely we have some useful skills? I know almost every medicinal plant we could possibly come across, and I am fast."
My mother is staring at me with so much sadness in her eyes, and I know that to her I am already lost. All those promises she made earlier are gone, and now I am a helpless child without a chance. Her baby thrown to the wolves, and she can only watch from a distance as I am torn apart. Both of us know I'm as good as dead, but I'm not ready to know that she knows that yet. I need her to believe in me, even if I can only let her down in the end.
Luckily, Awren is again encouraged by my speech, and chirps up again. "I'm pretty fast too!" Only because you're so small. "And I'm a good hider! I can walk quietly..." He rattles off a list of "survival skills" and I realize just how lost our cause is. The only skills he can think of are defensive-neither one of us can do anything offensive, and most of our abilities come from schoolyard games.
Still, I look up, and tears are streaming down Effie's face. She clasps her hands together, and sobs, "Of course! It's not fair that the two of you are so much younger than the rest, and sometimes I myself have questioned the inclusion of such a wide spectrum of ages... But of course! Of course we will prepare you as best we can, and by the glorious Capitol, I bet the two of you will be able to hold your own just fine!"
"No."
This time, it is not I who has spoken up, but my previously mute mother. She stands and looks Effie directly in the eye. "You will not make my daughter into a killer."
"Would you rather she just died?" Awren's soft spoken father comes to my rescue.
Fury blossoms behind my mother's eyes, and she slaps him across his gray cheek. "Don't you dare talk to me about my own daughter like that. You of all people should understand what it's like right now. You should understand that my child is being taken from me. I won't let you make her a killer too. I won't!" She glares around the room fiercely, daring someone to challenge her.
Then she is crying. Dissolving into horrible, body-wracking sobs in front of three complete strangers. She's breaking again, and this time I won't stand by and let it happen. She can't check out and leave me now.
"Stop it Mom, just stop it. You can't do this again. When," I correct myself for her sake, "If I die, you can't just leave again because there will be no one left to take care of you. And if both of us died, that would be letting the Hunger Games beat our family. You. Can't. Let. It. Do. That."
The look my mother gives me has five years of pain etched across her face. I can see the grief from my father's and Katniss's accident there, and I feel awful for what I have said. She has gone through so much... But so have I. Even though I long to run and comfort her, I can't.
This is just the way things are.
