I stand on two shaking legs, naked in front of a full-length mirror. The dressing room is plush- dark wood walls and a deep carpet. Walls stacked high with clothes and shoes, a dressing table pushed against one wall littered with scents and hairspray and makeups.
Looking in the mirror, my hands, arms and torso are wrapped tightly in bandages, holding me together. Some of the white cloth strips cover deep cuts, like the welts on my wrists from the handcuffs. The rest cover the angry red burns across my skin that get aggravated when things brush against them.
My head is practically bald, almost all of my hair having been burnt off by the fire and the rest, unsalvageable, shaved. I run my hands over my skull, my bare fingers tracing the bumps usually hidden by hair. The stubble tickles the tips of my fingers, makes my hands sting beneath the bandages.
I fight the constriction of the bandages again, straightening out my arms and letting them drop to my sides. My eyes are surrounded by the dark circles of tiredness, my lips encircled by thick stubble. They won't let me near razors. They used to shave for me while I was in the hospital, but I don't know what I'm going to do now.
My whole body shaking with fatigue, I pull some underwear from the stack on the shelves and step into them, pulling them up to my waist. A pair of navy blue tracksuit bottoms next, and a white t-shirt that's thin enough to let me see the outlines of the bandages beneath. Finally, I pull on a pair of fresh white sports socks, before sitting down at the dressing table and turning to stare at my face in the other mirror.
I don't remember much from the last few weeks, really. Haymitch visited a few times- it was him I heard while I was asleep, talking to Johanna and Annie and Gale, all of whom cared enough to come visit me while I was out but none of them brave enough to come see me now that I'm 'mentally disorientated' and awake.
Nobody has been to see me now that I'm not strapped down, restricted by leather bands for my own safety just as much as for anybody else's. Nobody's bothered to make the trip down here now that I'm out of that grim white place, living in one of the many bedrooms in Snow's mansion.
I wonder where Katniss is. In an attempt to answer this question, I spend days upon days roaming the rooms, thrusting open the doors of the empty mansion and hunting for a room with any evidence that Katniss Everdeen may have been here. I avoid the west wing, reserved for homeless Capitol Citizens and families of some of the people who were hurt in the fire bombings, seeing as they're being treated in the specialist hospital now set up in the dungeons beneath the mansion.
On these travels I manage to find Haymitch's room- he was slumped over a table in the corner with a bottle of Snow's fine vintage in one hand and his knife in the other. I wander around the pungent rose garden, find hauntingly empty rooms thick with dust and cobwebs and shockingly modern rooms bustling with people. I avoid the latter. Where there's people, there's pain, and I can't be trusted around them.
Instead, I explore the empty rooms and chambers of the Mansion's east wing. This is where Snow lived, where I now reside. Where Coin, leader of 13 and now of Panem, now lives- in the Presidential suite, of course. And maybe, where Katniss might be hiding.
Before I manage to find her, though, and perhaps a week after my arrival in the mansion, Haymitch tracks me down. As we walk through the corridors to my room and onwards to the meeting about Snow's execution, we cross paths with Effie. She totters towards me high heels, but she no longer wears her extravagant outfits or brightly coloured wigs. Her natural hair is blonde, lying in soft waves around her shoulder. Instead of her usual bold makeup, her face is decorated with a light hand. And, instead of some silly dress, she's in black trousers and a suit jacket.
Her face crumples when she sees me, my hair now close to its usual length but my skin still covered in layers of white cloth. In an action shockingly out of character, she rests her hand on Haymitch's shoulder and gives him a sympathetic look. "It's so nice that this will all be over soon." She smiles, before shuffling across and wrapping her arms tightly around my shoulders.
I almost shout out in pain as she presses on the burns on my back, on my arms, but I bite my lips and gingerly return the embrace. With a gentle pat between my shoulder blades, she reminds us that we have only half an hour to get to Coin's office for the pre-execution meeting.
Haymitch leaves me at my room and head back to his own for a mug of coffee and to change his clothes. When I open the door, I find a young girl- about my age- standing inside my bedroom. I raise my eyebrow- singed- in question, and she leads me off into my dressing room. A whole prep team have crowded into the tiny space, the dressing table even more littered with sprays and lotions and creams and makeup.
A boy- again not much older than myself- introduces himself as Horne. "We're your new prep team- this is Leona," he indicates the girl that greeted me, "and this is Magnus." He points to the other boy and puts his hand out for me to shake. "We're students at the college, prep-team in training, so to speak.
As Magnus guides me into the bathroom, I notice how unmarked, how normal they look. Sure, they have their fair share of piercings and the unusual haircuts I've seen on pretty much every other Capitol teenager I've encountered- but they seem… normal. In the bathroom, Magnus removes my shirt, sweatpants and socks- my usual daily wear- and rubs down my skin with a cool, damp cloth. He washes my hair, then extracts a razor from his pocket and tries to shave my facial hair. I dodge him, holding my hands out in surrender.
"Please, let me. I want to do it myself." He looks at me with his head leaning to one side, as though he is considering it, then thinks better of it and shakes his head.
"They'll get mad if you cut yourself. There'll be cameras- you need to be looking on top form, not like you've just come out of a fight with Edward Scissorhands."
"Who?"
"Never mind, it's an old world thing. My dad owns this shop that sells loads of vintage films on things they call DVDs- you put them in your TV and you watch whatever is on them. Scissorhands was this character in one of these films- he had scissors for hands and had to overcome this… er… problem."
"Oh."
"So can I get rid of your beard? You look kind of homeless."
"Oh, yeah." I let him rub foam onto my face and scrape away at my skin, sitting as still as I possibly can do. When he's done, he smiles at me and pockets the razor again, inviting me back to the dressing room with a wave of his hand.
The students rub a soothing cream onto my raw skin, then slather makeup onto my cheeks and under my eyes to disguise the dark circles. They help me into a pressed suit from the wardrobe, sliding both of my feet into a pair of highly polished black shoes. When they're done, they step back to admire their work.
"Looking great." Leona smiles, leaning forward to dust an invisible speck off my collar.
"Thanks." My voice shakes with nerves. I'm finally going to see Katniss again. I look down at my shaking hands, remembering how my skin burned as I cradled her head in my hands, how they'd probably have fused together if I clutched her hand any tighter in the fire storm. A knock at the door sends my prep team hurrying to answer, as I push myself to my feet and follow in their wake.
Horne and Leona answer the door to Haymitch, and while Magnus hovers behind them like an eager puppy, I slip the razor from the back pocket of his overalls, tucking it quickly up my sleeve. My fake leg makes a clunk as I follow Haymitch down the corridor and struggle up the stairs after him, heading down the familiar corridor to the huge room where I filmed my last propo for Snow.
My heart beats harder the closer we get. It knows, I know, that we're getting closer to Katniss. As we walk, I allow Haymitch to walk one step ahead and slip the razor into the inside pocket of my jacket.