Every tribute was allowed an hour to say goodbye to their loved ones before jetting off on the sleek Capitol train so they could train in preparation for the Games. Although this was supposed to be the best part, where they got to see their family and friends and admirers before they left, it was always the most heart-wrenching, because what exactly do you say to someone you love who is about to be slaughtered by your government? You just don't mention it; you cry, you hug, you kiss your lovers, and then you just leave, and see them next on television, made up so they don't even look like them anymore.
Trey Brunwin was a familiar face in the Seam, having been the only boy under the age of eighteen to enter the coal mines after accessing special permission from the Peacekeepers. He looked like the sort of kid you would expect to volunteer from District One, Two or Four – the Capitol's posse. As soon as he sat down in his chair in the Justice Building, around twenty people came bursting through the doors and ran towards him, all sobbing into handkerchiefs, bringing him food and accessories and things that they begged him to wear as his token from his District. About five of these people were all girls, who all seemed to be utterly in love with him and kept kissing his face and his hands like he was some sort of Messiah. Trey caught Haymitch's eye, and then looked over at Albany, and smirked in his direction.
Nobody in the Square had cried out when Albany had been chosen as tribute, but he had expected at least one person to come and say goodbye to her. Come off it; she couldn't have absolutely no one, could she? Her eyes were bright red, contrasting against the paleness of her skin, and her bottom lip was still trembling. Her hands were fidgeting in her lap and she looked nervously at the door where the people usually came through, and then down at her lap again. She caught Haymitch's eye as well, for only the briefest of seconds, and she then wiped away a tear with her palm and sniffed loudly.
Haymitch was leaned coolly against the wall of the Justice Building, still trying to make up his mind about these two tributes. Sure, the boy was more cocky, but stronger than the usual skinny as a twig model he was given, but that girl; she was just a complete mess. He didn't know what he was going to do with her. She looked like the sort of person who honestly wouldn't hurt a fly, let alone another human being. But on closer analysis, he saw scars on her forearms and a small one just below her chin - another imperfection alongside her obvious fear. He wondered where she had gotten the scars from.
Deciding to go and speak to her, Haymitch rolled onto the front of his feet and then carefully walked over to her, trying not to seem sarcastic and vicious as he usually did with most of his tributes when they were in the Capitol. As useless as he was with crying girls, he had some experience with Noe, and he didn't like to see anyone in pain; especially when they were going to get even worse and probably unhinge even more.
'So where is everyone who knows Albany Vogel?' he asked, sitting down on the chair next to her and leaning back, putting one leg over the other and crossing his arms, raising his eyebrows at her. She almost glared at him, but it was so pathetic that he let a small smile cross his lips which she generally reciprocated. She took another look at the door, decorated with gold stitching and fabric padding. This one room was probably worth more than every house in the Seam put together, alongside possessions.
'They said they would bring Annie,' she sniffed, before bursting into tears, prompting the five girls next door to point and giggle at her. Haymitch pulled a tissue from his pocket and handed it to her, and gave her time to finish, before she brought her head back up, her ferociously red hair hanging messily in her eyes. He resisted the urge to tuck it behind her ears. 'She's being moved to a hospital in District Four tomorrow. She's not very well – something's wrong with her head, but she's the only person I care about, and they promised,' she wailed loudly.
Haymitch's face contorted into one of pity, and gently took her small hand inside his own and asked, 'Who's "they" Albany?' The sound of him using her name seemed to weirdly calm her down and she did not resist his hand-holding which was beginning to stop her trembling. 'The Community Centre. Annie, she's only six and I've looked after her ever since she was a baby. She's like a sister to me.'
He immediately understood the scars. Those people who ran the Community Centre, they called themselves caring and a big happy family, but the way they treated those children was an absolute nightmare. No wonder the poor girl reacted like this, all through her life there had been nothing but pain. 'How did you end up in the Centre?' Haymitch asked quietly, trying to subliminally alert Albany that they were having this conversation a little too loudly in the presence of everyone else here.
She looked ready to cry, but, remembering his advice, she restrained the tears from cascading down her and cheeks and steadily breathed in and out before saying, 'My mum died when I was five, and my dad was never around.' The latter was more shocking than the first. District Twelve was very family orientated, and it was something of a rarity to find a single parent, because everyone was bonded so tightly together. The only reason that families would normally have only one parent was in the case of the other one dying.
'I'm sorry,' he said courteously, and to his surprise, she showed a glimmer of a smile and then turned to him and said, 'I'm sorry too for what happened to you.' Of course, it was common knowledge that he had lost those people all those years ago. Was it really only four years ago that his mother, his brother and Noe died? Hang on, when did they "die"? They had been murdered. The one thing he hated about the relationship with his tributes was that, apart from the fact there normally wasn't one, they seemed to know everything about him before he even introduced himself. He hated gossip and journalists and reports telling Panem about him.
'Well, it happens. You've just got to deal with it,' he said, a little harsher and more coldly than was probably necessary. She grimaced.
Trey's admirers were ushered out when the time was almost over, with only around one minute remaining. He smirked at Haymitch and Albany, almost grieving together and began swaggering off to the train station by himself where he was greeted by many reporters who were bound to love his confidence and arrogance. Albany soon stood up, and breathed out heavily, taking one glance towards the door when someone suddenly came bursting through the door and leapt into her arms. Another person, around the age of forty, entered as well, with steel-grey iron hair that fell to her shoulders. She had a look of disapproval on her face, and Haymitch soon put the pieces together.
There was the little girl, Annie, in Albany's arms, who was squealing as Albany hugged her tightly and spun around in circles, patting the little girl's blonde curls and whispering songs in her ears. The woman was obviously the matron of the Community Centre, and Haymitch had half a mind to go and talk to her about how she ran her establishment, but decided against it. It was none of his business really. Instead he watched as Albany hugged the little girl, Annie, who had a slightly dreamy and blank look on her face, and shed tears as the Peacekeepers appeared in the doorway, hesitating, to remove the visitors.
'So, why is the little girl being moved to District Four?' Haymitch asked the woman, who had a name tag on saying Matron Lucinda. She did not change her expression, but the harsh lines around her eyes and lips softened a little and she whispered, 'Annie Cresta's always been ill inside her head. It's not safe for her here, and there's a good hospital in District Four where they can help her. Albany was devastated when she found out. We tried to tell Annie about the reaping, but she didn't understand.'
They both turned their gaze to the two children, the little girl crying just because the older one was. Albany choked and sniffed loudly when the two Peacekeepers insisted that Annie and Lucinda left the Justice Building. 'Just remember Annie, be good for the people in the District Four. They'll look after you,' she whispered in her ear, and the little girl's hands clenched around the material of her dress.
'Ally, where you going?' she asked, her voice slightly high-pitched and very soft, but when Albany tried to answer, her head tilted to the side and Annie Cresta stared at the ceiling, like she had drifted off into her own special world. After a few careful words from Albany, Annie finally drifted back into the normal world. Matron Lucinda said goodbye, and offered nothing but a small handshake, but the little girl refused to let go of Albany's dress. In the end, one of the emotionless Peacekeepers had to pull Annie off and drag her away, whilst she screamed and Albany cried.
'Come on Vogel. Clean yourself up and let's go,' Haymitch called, noticing that the train was beginning to steam, and someone was pulling the horn, alerting the two that they needed to hurry up. Mara didn't hate anything apart from someone being late. She immediately understood "clean yourself up" to mean "dry your eyes" and pull herself together for the cameras. They had already seen her cry; she didn't want the satisfaction of letting them see how weak she was feeling again.
Haymitch groaned as the little girl was taken from the room, knowing it was going to dent what little confidence Albany had built up from their conversation. He gently pulled her to her feet, and together, they slowly made their way to the train, Haymitch taking the time to brush away the news reporters, shoving their cameras in the two faces, and they stepped onto the train, shutting out the rest of the world.
-HungerGames-
Because of the fact they were so late onto the train, the moment the door was shut behind Haymitch and Albany, they were both thrown onto the floor with the speed that it shot down the tracks with. Mara, who had removed her long white wig to reveal a small amount of brown curls, which gave her a much more human look, walked back into the main room on the carriage, bringing Trey alongside her. Haymitch pulled himself off the floor, not bothering to help Albany up, who crawled to her feet, looking a bit offended, and her eyes still blood red.
'Your room is down there,' Mara said curtly, dismissing Albany down to her room with nothing but a little smile, the woman having evidently forgotten her sympathy for the girl who had been reaped. Albany gave a small shrug of the shoulders and disappeared down the corridor, and Haymitch turned to Trey and said, 'Go to your room. Dinner's at eight.' Trey smirked and then sauntered down the corridor on the opposite side of the carriage, his expression still one of supreme confidence and removed his overbearing presence from the room.
Haymitch turned to Mara and rolled his eyes. 'What a nightmare. These two are even worse than last year and you know how awful they were. One's in the private training sessions – give me strength,' he gushed, staring in disdain after the two who had previously disappeared into their rooms. He began walking off to find his chambers, which was always the same every year, but Mara pulled him back by the sleeve and frowned down at him, and, for the first time, Haymitch had respect for the fact that she was older than him, and he was only twenty years old.
'You have to try this year Haymitch. You can't let them die anymore just because the Capitol hurt you. You're not making a difference; you're just making people hate you. Stop drinking, and do your job,' Mara hissed, and this should've affected him, had she not made the same speech for the past two years. He shrugged his shoulders complacently and continued to his room, making a mental note to avoid Mara tomorrow morning when he was sure to be absolutely out of it. He didn't care anymore. No one could make him either.
The moment Haymitch entered his room, where the place already smelt of alcohol, he walked straight over to the metal hatch and ordered a bottle of whiskey. Whiskey had always been his distinct favourite seeing as it had been his first taste of being drunk, right after the three funerals of his mother, brother and girlfriend. The first bottle, the scotch, had been left with a dying Bay, the bottle of brandy had shattered by the fence, but the whiskey had remained hidden in the mud, and right after saying goodbye, he went and found it, and at sixteen, he drank himself to sleep that night, preferring the wooziness and dizziness and distraction it preferred, rather than the pain that everyone he loved had died because of him.
The whiskey arrived in less than twenty seconds, the dispenser having been improved for him – the Gamemakers knew how angry he got when he wasn't allowed his alcohol. Haymitch quickly unstopped the bottle, not bothering to take the glass it came alongside, and he downed half the bottle in one go, letting out a satisfied sigh. He sat down on his bed, allowing the horrors that had fallen upon him, Albany, Trey, Mara and District Twelve to disappear from his mind and the liquor to just pour down his throat.
A few minutes later, or was it hours, someone was banging on the door of his room, but he drunkenly called out for them to go away, and then pressed his face into the pillow, moaning obscenities of being disturbed. After falling asleep for about half an hour, Haymitch was awoken when he fell off his bed and smacked his head on the corner of his bedside cabinet. He groaned loudly, and quickly looked up on his wall to see the time. But his vision was so blurred from the whole seven hundred and fifty millilitres of brandy he had consumed that he couldn't even see the difference from the hands and the background of the clock.
Slowly gathering himself onto his knees, Haymitch collapsed his body onto the bed and just laid there, his whole head spinning wildly like he had been on a merry-go-round for a solid six hours. He was lucky; he had a very high alcohol tolerance and so whilst he was completely hammered, he still had the faintest bit of common sense.
Better fix that.
When the chimes of the small clock began going off, telling him through his ringing ears that it was ten o'clock, Haymitch stumbled across the room, and started yelling his order at the metal hatch before realizing that he had to press the order in through the computer. It took him five attempts, ending up with a chicken korma, a tub of ice cream, a slab of cheese, a bottle of fresh water and roasted mockingjay before he finally managed to get another bottle of lovely whiskey. He made delighted noises in the back of his throat as he tossed the liquid down his oesophagus and the delicious taste lingered in his mouth. But his thirst was still not quenched.
In thirty minutes, the third bottle of whiskey was almost finished. He fell backwards onto his bed, the bottle spilling its insides over the white sheets, and he immediately ran to the bathroom, smacking into the loo doorframe in the process, and threw up all over the floor before he could reach the toilet. He retched and retched until there was nothing left in his stomach, and all reason had left him completely.
In that moment, Haymitch realized that he should probably go and apologize to Mara for not turning up at dinner (although it was hardly surprising seeing as he hadn't ever done so on the first night – always choosing to drink instead). In his opinion, alcohol was better than any food he could possibly imagine. Haymitch staggered to the door of his room, and wrenched it open before banging into the door opposite, accidentally awakening Trey who took one look outside his room, saw his mentor in the state he was, and slammed the door shut again. Haymitch blew a raspberry at him and continued down the corridor.
It was then that he realized that he had not one clue where any of his associates actually were. Trey was obviously opposite him, but he had no idea where either Mara or Albany was. He tried to guess, but the movement of the train was rocking his stomach side to side, and tangling his weary sinuses before he vomited again, getting the wretched stuff all over the nice carpet of the train that Mara was sure to yell at him for tomorrow morning. Too tired to continue, Haymitch just collapsed on the floor next to his vomit and snored loudly the whole night through.