Chapter 30: Cole
The big screen in front of me begins to blur as my eyes drop. I force them open, I have to stay focussed it's only 7pm, 5 more hours until the switch over.
Mentors watch the cameras covering their tributes in 12 hour shifts, I take 12am to 12pm and Torey takes 12am to 12pm. We can have to 6 15 minute breaks each, since arriving here I've had none, the terror of seeing Jed nearly have his life taken away and their narrow escape from the Careers have kept has kept me awake. I have to stay in this room, if anything were to happen while I'm gone...
Donk! My sleepy head hits the monitor, the sudden pain jolting me awake. I fell asleep? How could I let myself fall asleep? Actually no, how could I force my mind to work like this? I glance at my watch: 9pm, I been out for two hours. I look at the screen, the scene is pretty much the same: Jed is sleeping in the tree and Stella is sitting on a branch above him, sharpening a smaller branch into a point with knife. She looks around every couple of minutes, checking for anything unusual. Comforted that at least one us is alert I finally tear myself away from the little District 7 Control Room and head to the Break Spot where the mentors eat, drink and talk to each other and sponsors who want to speak to them personally.
The steam from the fresh coffee drifts into my nose, making my senses stir. I take one the cups from the marble counter and sink back into one of the throne like chairs that sit in small groups around the room. A man lays slumped in another one a few yards away. He snores loudly, clutching an empty shot glass in his left hand, which has become as much a part of his appearance as his olive skin and black hair, everyone knows of Haymitch Abernathy's drinking. It's drained him of any youth he has left, making it hard to believe he's six years younger than me and not six years older. I decide it'll be best to leave him, I've seen someone wake him before and he caused a massive scene, not that that'll be much of a problem now. A part from the odd Avox laying out food and drink on the tables the place is deserted, which isn't very surprising. Normally the place will be crawling with Capital people, talking to the escorts about sponsoring a tribute or just looking for some behind the scenes gossip. But tonight is the night of the second Sponsor Banquet where all the sponsors and escorts will gather as they did the night of the first day of training. Still, I just want to recharge and get back to the Control Room with no distractions.
Just as I'm draining the cup of its last drop when a young girl with golden blonde curls walks in. Not noticing me she collapses into one of the chairs on the other side of the room and buries her face in her hands. I recognise her but I can't remember from where, I search the gradually clearing fog of my mind to find an image of her with a crown of golden leaves on her head, smiling prettily, but her eyes hold a unique sadness that only a victor knows. Of course: she's Serenity Solomon, the victor of last year's Games! This must be her first year mentoring.
At 15 she's District 9's youngest victor so far, she mastered poisons in training and covered tributes food with them while they were asleep. It was a far from honourable tactic but it worked. She may have seemed sweet, looking younger than her years with her freckles and childish smile but underneath it all was someone who was ruthlessly resourceful and cunning.
Although she doesn't look it now, with her shoulders shaking as she cries quietly into her hands. I should be going, have to return to the Control Room but this picture of her holds me back. She's 16 now the same age as Jed, responsible for the life of another despite only just being to put the pieces of the life they once had back together. I feel a jab of concern for her, even though she's a complete stranger I find myself working over to her. It not until I'm standing over her when she notices me.
"Hello, you're Serenity, aren't you? I'm Cole." I say softly, still unsure as to why this is happening.
"Yes, that's me, and I know who are." She lifts her head up, revealing her misty green eyes which attempt to look at me defensively despite the tear rolling down her cheek.
"The first year is always the hardest. It's like you're there again and the images are still fresh from your mind from last year." I say taking the seat next to her, recalling my first time, the tributes that year both getting slaughtered in the blood bath. She stares at me, unsure of what to make of my revelation.
"Yeah…it's a lot harder than people think. They look to you like you're some sort of expert teacher. But I don't know anything! How am I supposed to know how to play this side of the game?" She says sadly to the far wall, as if she's talking to herself. She then she shakes her head, trying to clear it.
"Why are talking to me?" I ask myself the same question, why would I try to comfort a crying girl but leave a broken man in a drunken sleep? Maybe it's because this could be Jed or Stella next year.
"Because I feel the same, I feel useless but at the same time I know they're counting on me and I can help them. When they die you think you've let down." Serenity turns to me again but this time the defence in her eyes is gone.
"Seeing Lilly, the tribute I mentored, die, I thought I was back in the Arena again, but I've seen so much death; I could keep it together. But just now the Careers where talking about the blood bath and her killer was bragging about murdering her. Said the look on her face was priceless, they laughed, and I guess I just snapped" fresh tears well in her eyes.
"They're Careers, they have to appear tough and unfeeling, it's how they've been taught to act, and they would have said that about anyone." I say handing her a coffee from the table next me.
"Thank you." She manages a weak version of her signature smile as she takes it. "I should get back, bye." She goes as quickly as she came.
Suddenly there's the sound of a glass breaking on the other side of the room. The remains of Haymitch's shot glass lay strewn across the floor.
"W-what was that?" He slurs sleepily.
"You dropped your glass." I tell him.
"Oh, better get another then." He gets up swaying slightly before staggering to the drinks table a few feet to his right. Even in this state he pours the whiskey without spilling a single drop.
"I think you've had enough already." I say firmly as I walk over, afraid he'll hurt himself after seeing him stagger around broken glass.
"Who are you, my mother?" He slurs irritably, taking a big gulp.
"Shouldn't you be on the train back to District 12 by now?" I don't mean to sound so blunt but now I think about he should have left hours ago. When a Districts out of the Games their mentors go home since they're no longer needed. He laughs loudly.
"I can enjoy one last night of good drink, can't I? After all it's not like I need my wits anymore, but not even that could help them. They could barely hold a bottle, let alone an axe. They were dead the day they walked onto that stage. Just like the rest of them." He says it like it's obvious all tributes from 12 are destined to die.
"How can you say that? You were supposed to help them, support them no matter what!" I nearly yell shocked at his lack of caring, even if he is drunk. He just laughs again.
"Here's some advice: don't get attached. It'll only make losing them worse. After a while they'll just become a blur of faces and names. They're only special to those who know them, so they'll just be yet another poor soul you're stuck with for a while." His voice is edged with the bitterness and agony of seeing child after child die, each and every one once looking to him for help. I don't know who I feel more sorry for: the drunk forced to pull himself together every year with the promise of redemption by mentoring a victor, only to see it shatter and to find himself in only the company of a bottle one more. Or the poverty stricken tributes whose only chance of survival is too drunk to see straight.
"I can't do that." I murmur darkly.
"Oh yes. You're Cole Livingstone, the mentor of your son and the niece of the girl you let go. Do you feel guilty about that? Is that they're paired up in the Arena, you feel like you owe her father that promise and keeping his daughter alive will make it all better but you can't chose her over your own son?" He sees the utter shock on my face, it's like he's seen right through me. "They can't stay together forever. Sooner or later you'll have to decide which one matter more: your son or the ghost of the girl you were supposed to protect."
His words echo in my head as I walk back into the Monitor Room. I scroll through the "items" sponsors have "sent" us on a touch screen computer the desk. Cassia has really out done herself at the banquet, at least eight more items have appeared on the list since I last checked it this afternoon, including water, something they really need. I have to resist the urge to press "send", there only about half a kilometre away from the river, they'll find it by midday; the water can be saved for a more urgent time. With Jed keeping watch in the tree and with no mutant or career insight I'm left with the question of what I will do when their alliance is over. If I did have to choose between them I would pick my son in a heartbeat, so why do I feel so torn?
