prompt: Hey, it's me again. Thank you for your reply. Do you think you could write anything where she decides to follow Plutarch because of the secret code from Haymitch you mentioned? And that they later talk about this code again? I'm sure your fantastic imagination could come up with something. (: Thaaanks!

All She Had Left

Go to your apartment… Someone will come… Wait for the signal…

Effie fixed a framed picture of herself that was leaning a bit to the right. She liked that picture. It was from her early years as a model and it was one of her best works. Stelan had taken it. Their relationship might have ended on a sour note but she could never deny his talent. It was a shame he had never managed to get the career he deserved.

Go to your apartment… Someone will come… Wait for the signal…

She brushed her hand against the curtain, chasing imaginary dust if only to give her shaky hands something to do. She loved her apartment. She loved the haven she had created for herself. It was all colors and happiness in there, everything she liked, everything that made her feel good, everything that cheered her up…

Go to your apartment… Someone will come… Wait for the signal…

The words Haymitch had whispered in her neck that morning, under the streaming water of her shower, while he lazily thrust inside her, kept swirling into her head.

She didn't know what it meant, really.

She didn't know…

She was afraid. She had been afraid since the Tour. Men and cars shadowed her. She knew she had made things worse for herself with the matching tokens. She knew that whatever Haymitch had planned, she would share the blame. She knew that….

The knocking made her jump with a gasp.

No doorbell chime.

She frightfully made her way to the front door, took a deep breath and opened it…

...only to take a step back when she spotted Head Gamemaker Heavensbee and two severe looking Peacekeepers.

Definitely not what she had been expecting.

More like everything she had dreaded.

For a mad second, she thought about fleeing.

As if there ever was any hope of outrunning the Capitol.

Eyes bright, chin up, smile on…

"Head Gamemaker Heavensbee." she greeted with a pleasant smile, as if it was a common occurrence for the Head Gamemaker to stand at her door – and it had been once upon a time. Simply not this Head Gamemaker.

She would not think about Seneca though. She would not think about the friend she had sentenced to death. She would not think how easily she might come to share his fate.

"Miss Trinket." he answered. "I'm afraid I must ask you to come with us."

She swallowed. Her eyes darted left and right.

There were two ways to do this. Run and get arrested anyway, probably harmed for her troubles… Or go with them quietly, in a dignified manner, and deny everything until her dying breath.

Play dumb.

Play the innocent card.

Play the woman stupid enough to get seduced by a victor and abandoned because she was not worth anything else than a hasty fuck.

"I see." Her mouth ached from the strength it took her to keep her unworried smile in place.

She had no reason to be worried. Not if she wanted to play it that way. She was innocent. She knew nothing, she suspected nothing… She had done nothing. She had no reason to fear the Head Gamemaker or to the Capitol, no reason to feel guilty, no reason to be apprehensive…

"Do you?" Plutarch Heavensbee challenged, pulling something out of his pocket. She was so nervous she expected anything - a proof of her betrayal to the Capitol perhaps - but a battered packet of cigarettes. A packet of cigarettes that had been in her room at the penthouse that morning and that Haymitch had snatched away with a muttered comment about how she was smoking too much. "I was told you quitted. But then again that's what you always say, isn't it?"

The words were familiar enough that relief flooded her. She was unsteady on her legs but she didn't hesitate in following them.

She left everything behind.

Everything but the packet of cigarettes clutched in her hand, the purse that contained far too little, and the clothes on her back.

And the hopes that she was right to trust Haymitch...

Because, in the end… That was all she had left.