Chapter 12:
Kisses and Scores
I stomp out of the Private Session. I'm hungry and frustrated. Not a good combination for me. I wait for the elevator to reach me, and when it does I hop right on. The elevator zooms up to the seventh level extremely fast. The doors slide open, and I step out, opening the door and walking into the living room of our apartment. Wade is sitting at the gold table in the middle of the room, eating something. I smile at the sight at him and come over to where he sits. I sit down next to him, and he looks up at me smiling. He's eating cherry pie again.
"I see you fell in love with the pie I have shown you!" I accuse. He grins sweetly, filling his fork with cherry pie and offering it to me. I roll my eyes, but take the bite. As always, it's amazing.
"I see you love it more than you love me!" he accuses right back. I smirk, and try to get up to sit on one of the purple couches, but his strong hands immediately find my waist. "Ah, ah, ah. Not so fast!" He quickly pulls me down onto his lap. "Thought you could get away so easily?" he whispers into my ear. I squirm to get away, but he holds on to me tighter than before. I flail my legs out, kicking the table and wincing.
"Damn," I mutter. He starts to kiss my neck softly, and it feels so good. I bring my arms up, and wrap them around his neck, so that my arms are above me, and he's looking down at me. He scoots me up, closer to his face, then kisses me on the lips. I kiss him back, turning myself around so that our bodies are facing each other. His hands travel up my back, ending up curled around my shoulder blades. I keep my hands on his neck, feeling comfortable there.
"Oh, goodness!" Volumnia squeals, and I hear the heavy door slam shut behind her. "We don't mean to interrupt your…fun, but the scores are going to come on any second here!" She opens the door wider, and I see Dill and Basil come one behind her. Dill has a dirty smirk on his lips, and Basil looks disgusted to be with him. She should.
"Are the Prep Teams coming, too?" I ask. I want to see Magnus, Luna, and Fauna again.
"Of course, silly!" Volumina says, opening the door even wider so that all of the Prep Team members can come in. I immediately recognize my people, and Wade's all flock to him. Fauna is the first to hug me.
"Oh, I heard Volumnia say you and Wade were having some 'fun'. What kind of fun would that be?" Fauna blurts out. I roll my eyes at her. Ever the gossiper is she, I suppose.
Luna comes up behind Fauna, gently shoving her to the side. Luna softly hugs me, pulling back to look at me. "I feel so about the Dill thing, Briar. I'm so sorry," she says, then pulls away. Magnus silently nods his head at and I nod back. He takes Luna's hand and guides her over to a gold love-seat.
"Okay, that was a sweet little meeting moment, but it's nearly time for the Score watching!" Volumnia squeaks. Today she is wearing a tight brown dress with swirly patterns all over it, a forest green feather scarf and a matching wig, sticking out all over the place. She looks like a tree. I can't believe that I didn't notice that earlier.
The rest of the Prep Teams are dressed up in white dresses or suits with black spirals all over them. The hems of their dresses or jackets are tipped with a crimson red. Their apparel is in honor of the tribute of the Twelfth Hunger Games named Valerina. She was the closest District Seven ever got to having a Victor. The Victor that year ended up being from District Eleven, though.
"You guys all look great," I hear Wade say to the Prep Teams. They all smile and nod politely. Wade finds me, and takes my hand. "Shall we?" he asks, motioning towards the couches. I nod, and kindly let him take me to the sofas.
Volumnia claps three times, and the gigantic television immediately lights up. The Capital symbol is filling the screen up, and the Capital theme song is playing proudly. The symbol fades from the screen, and we see Panem's most infamous television hosts sitting at a sparkling desk. The man that is more recognizable than the other is Cronin Flickerman. The man next to him at the desk is Griffin Rollo. Every year, Cronin dresses himself in a different color. This year he is in all black. Black hair, black lips, black suit, black everything. Even his irises are purely black, making him look like a creature from hell.
"He looks scary!" I say. Wade nods, agreeing with me.
"Hello, hello to everyone! Today we have your tributes scores from the private sessions! I hear that this year we have some very talented tributes, am I right, Griffin?" says Cronin, smiling a mouth full of strikingly bright white teeth.
"Very right indeed, Cronin! Now, without further adieu, the scores for the tributes of the Sixteenth Annual Hunger Games!" Griffin announces, bright purple wig bouncing up.
"Alright, as always, we will start off with District One and work our way up to District Twelve! Okay, we'll start with the ladies! From District One, we have Silver Edenthaw, with an impressive score of ten!" The screen flashes a picture of Silver in her training uniform and her score is featured under her picture. "And then we have Titus Keene with the same score as his partner: a ten! Okay, now we have Killani Darius with a score of… Well, look at this ladies and gentlemen, Killani Darius is the first ever tribute to score this high with a massive score of twelve! That is the absolute highest score one can receive! Congratulations, Killani!" Cronin says excitedly.
"Oh my! That's amazing!" Volumnia squeaks. Basil slaps her on the arm and motions to Wade and me. So much for team spirit with Volumnia. "Of course, you guys will do amazing too, I'm sure!"
"Nice save," I mutter. I see Wade smirk as Volumnia turns a bright color of red.
"And we have her district partner Crucis Herriot with a score of nine. Pretty good score, if you ask me!" Cronin says to Griffin. "Better than I could do! I'm sure I would get a three!" Griffin and Cronin chuckle with each other, and I'm becoming more anxious about my score. If I didn't do well, I won't get sponsors. And if I don't get sponsors, what will happen? I'll die of infection, or starvation, or dehydration.
"Now we have District Three! We start with Katri Aldjoy with a score of an eight! Wonderful job, Katri! And here is Whytt Overwhill with a score of five!" I sink down at the news of Whytt's score. Poor guy will be so humiliated. At least Katri got a great score, I remind myself. She did amazing.
Cronin says the District Four tributes have twin scores of ten like the District One duo. Which reminds me of Killani's score. A twelve? How in the hell did she score so high? What would you do to get a score so high? I sigh and shake my head. It isn't really important. It's just a number.
"I bet Sagitarria's going to score highly," Wade says. I nod. I hope she does so that the Career members won't get suspicious of her strength.
"And the District Five team with the highest ever summed up score! We have first Sagitarria Elphinstone with a score of eleven! Well done! And then there is Beck Atoms with a score of seven! Wonderful job, District Five!" Cronin says happily. Wade and I clap proudly for Sagitarria and Wade. They broke a record for their district: that's pretty good.
"Told you so," Wade says, a big smile on his face.
"When did I say she wouldn't?" I ask, punching him lightly on the shoulder. He smiles even wider, then outs his arm around my shoulder, pulling me closer to him. "You don't smell very good. Just sharing."
He looks down at me, closes his eyes and shakes his head. I smirk at him, but he just buries my face in his side. "Probably from all the working out I've been doing," he says, flexing his other arm. The arm that isn't trapping me into a sweaty teenage boy's armpit.
"Sure," I say sarcastically. "And I assume that you were working out to impress me, too? Right?"
"So smart you are, Briar!" he exclaims, lifting his arm from my face and letting me escape. I breathe in the fresh air dramatically. Wade grabs my shoulder and brings me to him. He plants a short kiss on my lips then shushes me.
"Shh, here are your scores!" the Prep Team members say from around the room. Volumnia walks up to the screen and taps it twice. Then she drags a tiny icon to the right, increasing the sound by quite a lot.
"And the District Seven tributes! First we have Briar Wellwood with a score of six, and Wade Roxen with a score of nine!" Cronin exclaims. My heart sinks. A six? I got a six? Damn, I shouldn't have used that sword. It screwed everything up.
"I'm sorry," Wade says kindly into my ear. I smile at his sweetness. Even when he knows I'm unhappy he tries to cheer me up. "They don't know how talented you are."
"Thanks, Wade. You did great," I reply. "I guess they know how talented you are." He smiles, then leans in to me a kisses me. I kiss back, not caring about being in public, only happy to be with Wade.
"Alright!" Volumnia claps, breaking us apart soon after we started. "You two do that too much!"
"Chill out, woman," Dill steps in. "They're just horny teenagers. Let them kiss. You're just lucky they haven't gone further than this."
"Dill!" Basil says, utterly embarrassed by his words. Just as embarrassed as Wade and I are.
"Why don't we just return to watching the scores?" Fauna politely suggests.
"Thank you!" Wade and I exclaim in unison.
Cronin and Griffin continue to say the scores, the scores decreasing as the District number increased. Willow receives a four. I make a mental note to comfort her tomorrow.
"Okay, time for a big District Seven dinner!" Volumnia says, gesturing for us to sit at the gigantic dining dinner table. We all stumble over there and begin to eat dinner. It's full of the usual rich foods: vegetables and meats and desserts, fizzy drinks and wines and juices. It's all delicious.
We all make small talk. The Prep Team people and Volumnia all dance around the subject of our scores. They know that if it is something I am sore about, I will attack them with my words. I'm sure they'll be talking about our scores when Wade and I wander off to our beds.
When I'm full, I push back from the table, grab my plate, and stand to put it into the dish-disposal system that I've seen the Avoxes use so many times before.
"Briar, sweet, you don't have to out that away: we have Avoxes to do that for you!" Volumnia says, pointing to the young girl standing in the corner, hands clasping one another. She sees she's being spoken about, then rushes to where I am to take me plate.
"It's fine. I think they should have a break every now and then," I say kindly, walking over to the disposal. I set the plate down in it, then return to the table. I see the girl return to her corner, a look of thanks in her sad eyes. I feel so bad for her. I wish I could set her free. I wish I could return her tongue to her. I wish these things so deeply that it hurts.
Wade gets up too, and walks over to the disposal like I did. "I agree with Briar," he says, returning to the table and taking hold of my hand.
"Well," I say, "I think Wade and I are going to go to my room and 'be horny teenagers'. Goodnight."
I hear some snickers and some sounds of disgust. I smirk, and follow Wade down the hall to my room.
A/N: Hello! I updated! Woohoo. This chapter wasn't that boring to write because it wasn't massively long. Like some chapters previous *cough* Chapter six *cough*. Anyway, expect another chapter tomorrow afternoon/evening, very, very late tonight, or on Tuesday. Next chapter is the interviews! Can't wait to start writing that!
Once again, sorry for the absence. I promise I'm trying to update more consistently. And I kind of have, right? This one came a bit less than a month after the last!
Oh, and did anyone else buy The Hunger Games DVD yesterday? Since yesterday, I have watched it three times! Yay! It's even better the fifth time watching it! (I saw it twice in theaters!)
Okay, I'm getting weird, so I think I'm going to sign off now. Don't forget to read and review! Thanks, I love you all!