Finnick Odair, aged 18. The Capitol
When it happens it's an accident. An accident that was waiting to happen, really.
"My dear friend, Catullus Nightflake, says you refused him," President Snow is saying, his voice sounding and though he is scolding a naughty pet for a slight imposition, although Finnick is not deceived and can still feel the pure terror curling in his belly. It wasn't as though he had meant to refuse the man, the word 'no' has just slipped out without consulting Finnick's brain. It wasn't meant to happen.
(Finnick can't help wondering what the President's reaction would have been if he had been in Finnick's position when Catullus Nightflake was threatening to shove that thing us inside him.)
"My dear boy," Snow continues, opening up his hands in a questioning expression. "I thought we had discussed this. I thought I had made it very clear what would happen if you left one of my friends… unsatisfied with their experience."
Finnick wonders if he should apologise, or just stay quiet. What does come out is worse still.
"Please," Finnick says, and he realises he's begging. "Please. I'll make it up to Mr Nightflake."
"You will," President Snow agrees. "My Victors have a reputation that you need to help upkeep. I don't want to hear about this happening again."
"It won't, I promise." Finnick says, and he hates how pathetic he sounds in that moment, begging the man he hates to let him try again to please the man who wants to use his body solely for his own sexual pleasure. But if it will keep his family safe he doesn't care. If it will keep his family safe it's worth it. Anything is worth it.
And as the car takes him back to Catullus Nightflake's fancy penthouse apartment in the city centre, Finnick thinks he's got away with it. He said 'no' and got away with it.
However, a week later when he returns to District Four and sees the tear stained cheeks of his little sister, and the cold eyes of his elder brother he realises what a fool he could have been to ever think that he had won. The story is that his father's boat was lost at sea whilst fishing. His father and uncle are gone, and for some reason his mother too even though the motion of the boat made her seasick so she always stayed home. That confuses his sister Sammy.
"I don't understand why Mum went out on the boat with them," she keeps saying, to anyone who will listen. "I don't understand."
Hayden understands though.
There are no bodies, so they bury empty caskets. Finnick feels his brother's cold, hard stare on the back of his neck throughout the funeral. When it's finished, Hayden doesn't say anything to Finnick, he just stalks off somewhere by himself.
The next day he packs his bags and leaves Victor's village, taking Sammy with him.
Finnick is left alone.