The knock on the door seems very polite- two neat little raps. I tip the remains of my glass of water into the sink. My head throbs as I go to the door and groggily try to unhook the latch, my fingers feeling large and uncoordinated. I should not have drunk those cocktails last night. I should have just gone home and got some sleep.
As I open the door Hydra pushes past me so quickly you would have thought mutts were on her tail. She darts around my apartment moving from room to room like a tornado. "Are you alone?" she asks me, her voice barely a whisper.
"No, you're here."
She rolls her eyes then rushes into my bedroom. She pulls the sheets on the bed back, spoiling my undisturbed bed. She starts unbuttoning her dress then she turns to me. "Take off your clothes and climb into bed."
"Nice to see you too…"
"There isn't time," she barks.
I know better than to wait for an explanation so I begin taking off my clothes as instructed, throwing them haphazardly onto the floor just as she is doing with her own. What is going on? First the phone call and now this? What if she actually wants us to have sex? I can't do that, my mind screams. I can't do that. No, that can't be it. This is to do with the rebellion.
"Where did you go last night?" she asks. "I was looking for you."
"I went back to that guy's place." And spent the night with Johanna Mason. I had sex with Johanna Mason. I cringe, it sounds so sleazy.
"I'd made an arrangement with Snow last week that I would spend the night with you after the victory dinner. Drusus was just starters. I outbid him." What is she talking about? Is this all part of some bigger plan? It is clear I am her alibi but her alibi for what? She rubs her hair so it looks big and matted then smears her lipstick across her face.
"No one told me."
She clambers into bed, pulling the sheets up as if she had been sleeping. Part of me wonders if the bluish tint to her skin will stain. I crawl in after her and allow her to attack my hair in the same way she attacked her own. Bed hair. It is meant to look as though we have been asleep. I hope they don't look too closely at the dark circles under my eyes.
"I met up with you at 1am, understand? That's when my car drove us here. When did you leave Drusus' place?"
"About half four."
"Did anyone see you leave?"
"Drusus was out of it." I don't mention Johanna. I don't want her involved in this too.
"What about outside?" She sounds so urgent. This must be important. Maybe even life or death. I desperately try to remember. I try to picture what it was like outside the building but all I can remember is the smile on my face and the warm glow of the streetlamps.
"I don't know. What's going on?"
"It's better if you don't know."
As if on cue, someone thumps at the door. She pushes me towards the edge of the bed. "Answer it," she hisses. She lays down on the bed, pretending to be asleep, her arms stretched above her head.
I grab my dressing gown from the hook on the wall. I have no idea what I am going to find at the door but I try to act casual. I need to slow down my pace, let the weariness I felt before Hydra arrived take over me. As I open the door my mouth stretches into a yawn. I try to train my thoughts- I know nothing, I have just woken up and I know nothing.
A man and a woman stand in my doorway, both dressed in black.
"Do you know where Hydra is?" The woman asks. I can sense her looking me up and down, taking in every inch of my exposed body. I have to resist the urge to pull my dressing gown closed but I don't want to appear uncomfortable. I don't want them to think I have something to hide.
"Too easy- sleeping in my bed. Next question?"
"I think you have better let us in," the man says, resting his hand on the door so I can't close it while his colleague steps by me into my apartment.
"Sure, make yourselves at home," I say as the man pushes past me as well. I yawn again, this time I don't even have to pretend.
They sniff around the apartment like a pair of bloodhounds until they close in on the bedroom. "Here she is," the woman says. The pair of them stand in the doorway, blocking me from getting by. "I think the two of you had better come with us."
They don't even give us a chance to get dressed. Hydra slips on her coat as we leave and I tie my dressing gown up but even these small things have to be done on the move. The man powerfully stands at my side, watching me closely all the way down in the elevator.
"Where do we have to go?"
"I am not at liberty to tell you that."
"How long will it take? I have to catch a train in a couple of hours."
He doesn't answer me. The pair of us are herded into the back of a car with darkened windows and taken to an unspecified location.
I don't dare to catch Hydra's eye in case it gives something away. My mind is racing with the things I should say and the things I shouldn't say. Is this what it feels like to be a spy, caught in a web of secrets? If this is about the rebellion it is important. If they find Hydra guilty of treason will they kill me too? Do they think I am part of the rebellion?
For the third time in my life I am faced with a life or death situation but this is not like the arena. Give me a knife and I know what to do with it, give me a trident and I will show you exactly how good I can be, give me words to fight with and I will stumble. Every, single time. My father never trained me for this.
They half drag me into a large grey skyscraper and leave me to sit in a waiting room while Hydra is led to another part of the building. The chairs are hard and uncomfortable. There are no pictures on the walls, no magazines to read, no television to watch. There is nothing but a receptionist sat behind an eerily empty desk. This is not what I expected. Where are the closed cells, the torture chamber, the thuggish guards?
As I wait I try to piece together my story. I left the party with Johanna Mason and Drusus- plenty of people saw me do that. Then I met Hydra around one. But where- she never specified. Was it planned? What is it that she needs to hide? There are too many unanswered questions and loop-holes and gaps. They are never going to believe me. Not in a million years. I should have taken this a bit more seriously. I should have asked Hydra more questions, except there wasn't time.
The receptionist approaches me coyly, her handbag clasped in her hands, "Excuse me," she says.
"Yes?"
"Would you sign this for me?" She holds the handbag out in front of my nose and a pen in her other hand. "The girls simply won't believe I've met you."
Personally I wouldn't call staring at someone from across the room meeting them but never mind. I scribble a vague F onto the bag. I've never stopped to figure out a signature. It never really seemed important.
"Thanks!" she squeaks and shuffles back to her place.
A few minutes later the man approaches me. "Follow me," he says gruffly. He takes me into a small stuffy office that is decorated in peach. Where are the black walls? The white noise? The light shining in my face? Even the interrogation rooms in the Capitol have been disguised in a strange powdery haze of soft materials and pastel colours. I sit in another uncomfortable chair while he sits on the edge of the desk, leaning over me.
"We just have a few questions for you."
"Actually I have a question for you. Is it usual for people to be only partially dressed in your office or is that just me?"
His thin lips curl, "That pleasure is all yours. Now, Mr Odair, Could you give your account of the events of last night?"
So I tell him everything I figured out in the waiting room, adding a few embellishments here and there. I try to gloss over some of the things I don't know by simply moving on to the things I do but I don't think it is working. He can probably see right through me.
As I speak he writes notes on a tiny notepad. I can see some of the words as he writes them but I try to pretend I'm not looking. He pointedly circles the times I indicated- I suppose because they need to be compared with whatever information Hydra has already given them.
"And could anyone else confirm these details?" he asks me when I have finished.
"A whole hall full of people saw me and Johanna leave the party."
"And was anyone else there when you met Hydra at… two in the morning was it?"
"One," I tell him pointedly. I am not going to let him catch me out that easily. "And no, no one else saw us."
"Not Johanna or Drusus Blume?"
"No. This was after I left his apartment."
He sighs somewhat wearily and gets to his feet so he can pace up and down around the office, his shoes leaving a trail of mud on the fluffy peach carpet. He turns onto a new page in his notebook.
"How would you describe your relationship with Hydra?"
"I have known her for about three years. She bought me my trident in the Games and now I occasionally see her for… in my work for President Snow." I can feel my cheeks begin to burn.
"So, would you call her your friend?"
Yes? … No? If I say she is my friend then he'll think I am lying for her but if I say she isn't then it could bring up all sorts of questions about why we've spent so much time together. I doubt he will believe it all was on President Snow's bidding.
"Not friends," I say, "But not exactly enemies. We like to go to parties together."
"I see," he says. But I know he doesn't see at all because not even I fully understand what is happening between Hydra and me. We are not friends but we seem to be on the same side.
I glance at the clock on the wall. The train should be leaving now. Mags will be all alone. She must be so worried. I bet no one has told her about this. I wonder if they will hold the train for me or if I am stuck here.
The door to the office opens and the woman shuffles in. She nods to the man and the pair of them swap places. Unlike the man the woman pulls up another chair next to mine, obviously attempting a softer approach.
"Would you like something to drink?"
I shake my head, "No thanks."
She begins by going over the same questions the man asked me. Her notebook sits in her lap but she doesn't make any notes. I try to get a look at what is written on the top page whilst trying to keep my answers straight in my mind but she asks questions so quickly that I find it hard to keep up. When I have finished she turns to me.
"We know you are lying," she says.
"What?"
"You're not that good an actor." Her tone is still soft, conversational, as though we are two friends chatting in a coffee house. I suppose it is meant to put me at ease, to loosen my tongue just enough for me to slip up.
"I don't know what you are talking about."
"You are involved in all this, aren't you?"
"I don't even know what this is."
Her hand rests on my forearm, gently stroking it. "Tell me, what do you think of President Snow?"
I shrug, "I've never really met the guy." I am about to pull my arm away but then I have another idea.
I turn my body towards her and lean in slightly, close enough for my breath to fall on her cheek. She falters mid-question, struggling to keep track of her thoughts. I loosen my robe slightly, letting it fall open across my chest. Capitol women love this sort of thing. When you are bought up to believe everything relies upon appearances you are easily distracted by beautiful things. Back home they would probably just laugh at me.
"But what do you think of…"
"You have really beautiful eyes," I purr into her ear.
I can visibly see shivers running down her spine. She tries to regain her composure but she makes the mistake of looking up, straight into my eyes. I wink at her. Her hands shuffle frantically through her papers but she doesn't turn away from me. I've just got to keep it up a little longer- just until I can get out of here.
"Look," I tell her, still keeping my voice soft and seductive the way some of the women try to simper at me on the nights we spend together, "I'm finding it really difficult concentrate with you here. Why don't we call it a day?"
The redness of her cheeks spreads right round to her ears, "I have a few more things I have to ask…" She shuffles through some pages but seems to lose her train of thought again.
I sweep the notebook from off her lap and put it onto the desk out of reach. This is it, the final test. Hydra once told me I had a power to lead people because of the way I look, if that is true then I should be able to negotiate my way out of here.
I take hold of both her hands and pull her to her feet. "I would love to stay here with you but I'm meant to be heading home today. I don't know any more than what I have already told you. I don't know what this is about but know I am not your man. There is nothing to gain by keeping me here." I lean in towards her again, "not if you want to keep it professional, anyway."
"All right." There is a sense of resolution to her voice, "You are free to go."
It works. She was right. Maybe looking like this does have its uses.