I might be in shock. Trident boy has shown himself to have emotion. A lot of emotion, but emotion nonetheless. He has shown me one of his two extremes. Either he is rude, tough, haughty, and popular or he is kind, empathetic, humble, and hopeless.
Finnick is still crying softly in my shoulder. This is kind of ridiculous as I'm the one being sent to my death in less than a week. Not to mention by less-then-able team. I can't understand Mags, my escort is insane, my stylist is drunk, and now Finnick is in tears!
I decide that I'm not going to waste my time feeling sorry for Finnick. I have to help him get his head on straight because anything I say right now isn't going to help him anyway. He's in such an emotional state that he'd probably start bawling if I told him a bunny died.
"Finnick," I say, keeping my voice neither stern nor very gentle. "I have to clean you up, and David is going to be wondering where we are. It's 6:00 o'clock. We've been gone a while. Let's go back."
"Don't you like it here?" he mumbles into my shoulder.
"Yeah, but we are bleeding, and you have to train us." I hope I'm not sounding selfish, but I don't know what to do for him. I put my sleeve into the fountain and attempt wiping off the blood from the burn on his cheek. He silently takes off his shirt while I dab at his chest wound. He notices my thigh, which is red and shiny and is bleeding some. I sprinkle some of the water from the fountain on my leg, but it hurts and I wince.
He cries harder now. "I'm the worst mentor ever!"
"Finnick Odair! You are not! Now get your butt off this fountain and come train!" I yell, possibly alerting the whole Capitol of our whereabouts.
"Shhhhh!" he shushes me, his eyes big and puffy.
"That's right, Finnick; the cameras are gonna see you crying and then you'll be on television without your make up!" I yell. It works. He stops crying.
"Okay, okay, lay off!" he says, starting to laugh. It's a sort of snot/tear-filled laugh, but I like it.
"Can we go back now?" I ask, innocently.
"We had better. You aren't supposed to be out of the Tribute Building," he just now tells me. We quickly walk out of the courtyard and out of the hotel. The manager gives us a look, possibly because we are very popular in the Capitol. Finnick attempts to shield me from his view, and, thankfully, he doesn't inquire.
"So what happens if they catch me out of the Tribute Building?" I ask him as we walk back.
"I don't really know. No one's mentor is as great as me, so no one gets taken out," he says, classic Trident boy answer. I roll my eyes. Sometimes he can be such a little boy, and sometimes it is like the weight of the world is on his shoulders. I wonder how he perceives me, as a girl or a young woman? Someone who will get out of the Hunger Games alive or someone that like he feels he has to make their last few days the best of their lives. I ask him the second one.
"Finnick?"
"Hmm?"
"Do you think I can win?" I ask, not fully wanting to hear the answer. He is silent for a while, and we walk inside the garage of the Tribute Building and half way up the flight of stairs. Just as I am wondering whether or not he even heard me, Finnick stops. We are standing in a deserted stairway now.
"Annie?"
"Hmm?"
"Have you always had so many questions?" he asks, serious now.
"I guess so. I have more now because I may not have the time to find out on my own later."
"What other questions do you have, Annie."
"Oh we don't have time for me to ask all of them," I say, "Besides I can't think of them all at once." He nods and we keep climbing stairs.
"What would you do when you grew up, if you weren't reaped?" he asks me.
"A fisherman's wife, what else could I be? Although, if you had asked what I would have liked to do, then I would have said that I would like to be a teacher."
"Excuse my mistake, Miss Queen of Questions!" he jokes, but without any fervor. "I can see you as a teacher, surrounded by children. They all smile at you as you teach them about numbers. There is one mischief maker; you make him sit in the front right next to your desk. He is pretty tall, but is well built for a boy of his age. He also has messy golden brown hair and is missing his front teeth. He keeps talking to you, he wants to know more about the time you were in the Hunger Games and won. You tell him to settle back down and do the arithmetic."
Finnick says this all very serious; he isn't joking at all. I don't speak for a while because I can also imagine this reality without the Hunger Games. I would like to live in that moment, not only because it means that I would survive the rest of this week. Finally, I note that he answered my question, the time you were in the Hunger Games and won.
We have reached the end of the stairs now. I go back towards the room with the window, but Finnick grabs my wrist.
"Remember, we went to the bathroom and washed our burns. Then we came back. I said something stupid and you are mad at me," he whispers, half smiling.
"It was so gross how could I forget?" I say.
David is waiting on us when we go into the room. He seems indifferent to our presence. Finnick makes us stretch and then lift some weights. He also demands one-hundred sit ups from us, along with fifty push-ups. David is able to do them without flinching, but my breathing acts up some. I use the inhaler without making a scene. After some drills with a trident, Finnick decides that it is not my forte. Of course I still hate tridents. He gives me a knife instead and tells me to stab a human dummy. I do it without even blinking. I know the difference between a person and a doll, but when I am in the Arena I know that I will never be able to stab someone. I can't. I won't. If I survive, it will be because I am the last one standing. I won't kill a child. I remember Finnick telling me about my life as a schoolteacher. For some strange reason, I imagine that the dummy is the mischief maker Finnick was telling me about, and I stab it again.
Almost instantly I feel the tears coming. I drop the knife. I can't even believe what I have done. Before I had stabbed the dummy and had felt nothing, then I sunk my knife into the body of a child, not even seven years old. I can't breathe because of what I have done. I see the boy bleeding. His eyes are getting bigger. He says, "I'm sorry Miss, I just wanted to hear about the games." What have I done?
David notices something is wrong. He alerts Finnick, who is by my side in a heart-beat. Before I know it, I'm crying in his shoulder. I am shaking all over the place where Finnick got burned. I hear him whispering in my ear.
"What happened, Annie?"
"I stabbed him," I say, vaguely. Finnick understands. He nods and squeezes me. "The boy."
I don't know how I got here, but I am somehow back in my room. Finnick is sitting on a chair and I'm in the bed. It can't be any later than 9:00.