Chapter 21

"What?" I shout, my face viciously contorted into rabid snarl.

"Volume, Johanna," Volts reminds me, calmly.

"What?" I snarl quieter, staring Haymitch down intently. "Say it again, I dare you."

"You heard me Johanna." Haymitch says gruffly. "You won't be alone. Finnick does the same thing."

"I don't give a fuck what Finnick does! What part of 'no' don't you understand?" I snap.

"Would you prefer to wait hundreds more years while children die year after year because we don't have the right information?" He growls back staring at me with that witty expression that grates on everyone's nerves.

I press my lips into a thin line as Finnick tries desperately to ignore the conversation going on. Volts is watching very carefully and Nuts is staring at the electrical device in her hand.

"Listen Johanna," Seeder comforts, wrapping an arm around my shoulders as I maliciously glare at Haymitch. "It's important, and none of us want to ask this of you or Finnick, but you two are really the best we've got. Don't think we didn't notice how good you are at manipulating people for money. Imagine how it would be for information! You'd be really good at it, and we need that. Please Johanna, for the Rebellion."

I glare at her. "Fine," I spit at Haymitch. He smiles drunkenly. It just pisses me off more. "Don't push it." I snarl as I stalk over to the corner of the meeting room. I cross my arms and lean against my official spot with attitude. I have to, to help close off as many video cameras as possible.

Finnick smiles at me sadly. "Just wait till you have to start off."

"Yeah I'm quivering with joy." I retort.

Volts tilts his head in confusion, then he starts to chuckle to himself. He's slow to understand I was using sarcasm. District Three, they may be geniuses but they sure don't have much humor.

"Okay, so Wiress and I have some huge news." Volts eagerly announces.

"Alright what is it?" I ask after a moment or two of silence from the rest of the group.

"Well, Wiress and I have been working overtime adjusting the radio waves to try to pick a signal that bounces off of a new satellite District Three launched last year, and we hacked the system to point it towards the east coast of the continent to try to pick up other signals and listen to them,"

"English please Volts." I interrupt as we all stare dumbly at him.

He sends me a glare and sighs as he notices everyone else is looking at him with the same dumb look. "Right, okay, so we used this piece of junk in space, to pick up a signal from District Thirteen, and we established contact. Unfortunately we had to point the junk back to its original position, luckily we can get a connection again because the vital information we needed was sent over, now I'm working on an invention that isn't bugged by the Capitol so that we can talk to the President of District Thirteen."

We understand this time, there are a few cheers and several high fives to the pale man. "Nice," I applaud, slapping his face affectionately.

"We have to find ourselves a good face for the rebellion." Haymitch glances at his clipboard.

I run my hand through my hair. "Who knows when that'll come along? Could be hundreds of years, right Mitch?" I mock him, using his own words against him. He ignores me. But I do get a few smirks, and even a chuckle from Finnick.

"So if that's it then?" Haymitch turns to Volts.

"Yeah, Wiress go ahead and turn the sound back on once everyone leaves." She nods her assent as we file out. I lead the procession towards the Training Center. My tributes this year are pathetic, but I still have quite a few sponsors from the last couple of years.

Finnick grabs a hold of me. He hands me a piece of paper with a bunch of names and addresses.

"Don't make them angry." He says smiling at me. "This is a list of the people, actually husbands of people I've been trying to get sponsors from. They won't give to me, but they really like you. You should try them."

"Alright, thanks Finnick." I give him a frustrated look; I didn't want to have to do this.

"Good luck Jo." He pats my back and takes his leave. I look back at him like a kicked puppy and continue out the door and down the street.

I come to the first address and stand up tall. I have no idea how I'm going to do this. I'll just wing it. I ring the doorbell and scowl. I look back at the paper to get his name. An Avox answers and her eyes widen up at me. I look down at her. She has to be at least thirteen.

"I need to see eh, Kevin Hills." I check the paper to make sure I have the name right. She beckons me inside and to his office.

He looks up from his paper and his eyes widen slightly in shock. "Miss. Mason! Please, sit down."

I ignore him and walk around the room touching all of the knick knacks and books on his shelves. "I have been told that you have taken certain eh, interest, in me."

He looks at me with raised eyebrows and a hint of a smirk. "Yes I have."

I look at him with a hand raised at one of his little placards. "I need something from you, and I'll do anything to get it."

This time he smirks. "Anything eh?"

I approach him and lean down so that I'm inches from his face. "Anything," I stroke his lapel as his sick smile widens.

"The idiot spilled everything." I roll my eyes as the rebels gather back in the meeting room three days later. "First of all, Plutarch Heavensbee is rumored to not like the Hunger Games much, yet he is a Gamemaker. Even more importantly, once Seneca leaves, he'll be Head Gamemaker, so we get Heavensbee in there, and Seneca out of there, and we've got an insider that assures us that the right person wins the right Games." I shrug, inspecting my nails. Everyone drops their jaws as I continue on and on completely uninterested in what I'm saying.

"They've got tabs on a couple of us by the way." I say. "Seeder, Nuts, Haymitch, you keep yourselves in check. But I did kinda plant a false lead."

"Who was it?" Haymitch says eagerly.

"Well, I almost feel bad for Enobaria and Brutus, but not quite." I smile impishly at the room.

A couple of chuckles are heard around the room. "That's good." Haymitch smiles gleefully at me.

I continue rattling off my information. "Finnick was right though about Snow being a frightening character." I lean back and cross my arms, my eyebrows furrow. "His lips are thought to be a Capitol enhancement, and started a whole fashion trend for awhile, but they're just from drinking poison and whatnot. You know, if you told him a fantastic joke, he might laugh so hard that he'll choke to death on his blood. I'll try that out next time I see him."

"I knew she would be a good addition to the team." Haymitch applauds.

"Hey, she was my idea!" Finnick argues.

"And if I had said no, neither of you would be here right now with such a leg up, so if you please; I have a bit more information." I interrupt their bickering.

"Okay," Volts says paying very close attention. "Go on."

"Well, it turns out, the past few Games, other than mine, have been relatively boring and gotten really low viewings for the Capitol. Seneca's on the edge of losing his job. Give him two more boring years, and he's out of a job. So he's real rash right now. One false move and we've got blackmail leverage." I inform deviously.

"So a lot more Capitol interference," Volts nods, running a hand through his thin hair.

"Yeah," I ignore him. "And the blackmail will be golden."

"Maybe even a smaller Arena." Seeder adds.

"Just think of what we can blackmail him with."

"Who knows what'll happen the next couple of years?" Haymitch murmurs.

"I can't wait to get a hold of the blackmail material." I obsess.

"Jeez Johanna, I knew you were evil but not this crazy." Finnick notices, looking at me with wide eyes.

I laugh. "I can't help it."

Finnick doesn't have any new information, so we close up the meeting. "You," Haymitch says pointing at me. "Keep it up."

I give him a highly offensive hand gesture and walk off to District Seven's floor. I watch the interview recaps. I barely remember my own tribute. "Jeez could you be anymore forgettable?" I ask rolling my eyes at her.

"I tried!"

"Trying isn't enough." I snap at her. "You think I won because it was natural? You can't just try. You have to shine or you won't survive!"

She looks at me with big watery eyes. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize to me, apologize to yourself." I say looking back at the screen. "Look at District Two. They captivated who knows what'll happen once you get in the Arena?"

Well what happens is she gets immediately shot down. That girl was duller than a knife that had the blade broken off. I meander away towards Seeder, who also lost her tributes immediately. We strike up a conversation annoying Chaff, who walks off to drink with Haymitch. "My work here is done." I smirk at Chaff's retreating back. Seeder high fives me as I walk away towards Finnick's station.

"How's it going?" I ask the two concentrated Victors.

"Well," Finnick says looking at his tribute. "I seriously doubt a District Four win this year."

"That dumb huh?"

"Dimmer than a smashed light bulb," Shelby says shaking her head at the screen.

"Lemme guess they actually believe that they can beat District Two?"

"Yep," They chorus.

I laugh. "They're fucked."

"What about your tributes?"

"Died about an hour ago," I shrug one shoulder.

"Smooth."

"They were dumber than your tributes."

"How is that even possible?" Finnick says looking at me.

"More like how is it possible that someone from District Seven is smart? We don't get much education you know." I cock an eyebrow.

"Really?" Shelby asks. "We go to school from the time we're five till we're seventeen."

"We go to school from the age of thirteen to seventeen, and we only go for three hours a day." I say scratching the back of my head.

"Wow, what a disadvantage." Shelby says shaking her head.

"Yeah, it gets kind of annoying. It's a miracle I won cause' I got kicked out nearly every day." I mumble inspecting my nails. "I should have been one of the dumb ones."

Finnick gives me a look and I glance back at him but continue to inspect my nails.

District Two wins this year and I'm back in District Seven way too soon. We have some sort of verbal code that we use to give and get information, and Volts promised to keep in close contact with District Thirteen's president once he got the machine up and running. I got him to explain to me what he was doing to make it, although I didn't absorb it at all.

I get back into my usual routine and my abs start to get more defined and my muscles are toned. I need to be ready for our big break out.