Chapter 73- Astrid Clearwater
"Now, we can't see the ocean just yet," Delia says, fluttering around the train car, from the window to the chairs to the doorway. She hasn't touched me, not for two days, and I don't care what she does as long as she keeps her hands off of me.
"They call this area Rolling Four," Beetee says, starting in with his lecture voice. "Largest sector of District 4."
"There're other sectors?" I ask, stepping around Delia to cross over to the window. I know almost nothing about District 4, or any of the other districts really, but I'm trying to prove to Beetee that I'm fine. That I'm in control, and that I just snapped at Delia out of annoyance. Not out of weakness. Because I'm fine. And asking questions will make him think that I'm not weak again.
I don't trust him, not for a moment anymore; not with those looks he's been studying me with over the past two days when he thinks I'm not looking. I am; I see every single one, and I don't know what he's thinking when he looks at me. He's not going to tell me the secret that everyone seems to know but me, and because of that, I know he's not my ally.
Even though I never fully trusted Elowyn, we trusted each other enough to stay alive, and trusted that we wouldn't kill the other in their sleep. Beetee, he watched us die, and saw us only as his experiments. Allies wouldn't do that, and Beetee isn't, and won't ever be my ally.
I'm burying that spark of pride, that spark that he gave me when I won, and I'm burying it deep under that brittle rock that's keeping me unbreakable. I won't let it crack again.
"Yes," Beetee says in answer to my question, and comes to stand at the window next to me. "It was explained to me the year of my victory. I believe Cannery Bay is in the north, with the sector Ebb Tide in the south. Mags named the sector by the river as River Shad, and Brittle Star is directly south of where we are standing."
"Fascinating," I say, but I don't really care what's in District 4. All that matters to me is getting through this district, and then preparing for District 2. I didn't care about District 5 yesterday either; the crowd hated me, and the victors there probably did too.
It doesn't matter. All that matters is proving to everyone that I'm just as strong as I was in the arena. I'm the victor that walked on a broken leg and killed the boy who murdered my ally. Nobody weak could have done that. I am unbreakable, and nobody in the arena, or after, has broken me.
"Your hair is so pretty!"
"Thank you," I said, pulling back slightly from the victor with red hair darker than mine, and distant eyes.
"We match," she said, and gently touched my hair. Somehow, her fingers brushing against me didn't hurt, maybe because she was very evidently not all there. Another victor broken by the arena, just like Tilling was in the end.
All the other victors are in some way damaged by the Games, except me. I'm fine. I have no weaknesses; I just had enough of Delia pushing me around. That's all it was. I'm fine.
"This is Kress Willowtree, victor of the Fifteenth Games," Delia said, gesturing to the woman in front of me, and Kress's face lit up in a shining smile. The victor from 8, Shuttle, told me I could trust Kress, and I know that she was lying to me too. She sent me to make allies with a broken victor; I knew that I couldn't trust her, but in July I'll trust her even less.
We'll both be mentors, and it doesn't matter what anyone says. Nobody has allies in the Games when you're not the one playing them.
Delia cleared her throat, and turned to a man with red-brown hair sticking straight up, who was leaning against the wall. "Jax," he said, and gave me a salute. I knew what he was thinking, and it was apparent that he would have rather been anywhere but in the Justice Building pretending to care about me.
Just like I respected Lexa for not smiling, I almost appreciated Jax for not lying to me. He didn't outwardly hate me. He just didn't care enough to show it.
"Porter Tripp," the last victor, a woman with an incredibly stiff back and an icy voice said. She didn't smile either, and she looked as thrilled as Jax did to be meeting me.
"Victor of the Thirty-eighth," Delia chimed in, then shut up.
"Yes, I remember you," I said. It was only a few years ago, and her finale ended with her breaking her back. When she came through District 3 for her Victory Tour, she wore a metal contraption around her head. She's a victor I wouldn't forget easily, and the rest of Panem hasn't either.
"I suppose I'm rather memorable," Porter said, giving me a tight but polite smile. She was another victor who didn't mince her words, but she was more detached than Lexa from 6 was. Lexa was straightforward; Porter was distant.
Nobody from 5 was likeable, or trustworthy; nobody cared that I was the victor, and even though I never saw their tributes in the arena, I knew that they blamed me for their deaths. Hazel, plain, nondescript Hazel, and Linwood who didn't clear five feet, should have been standing in my place, instead of buried in the ground.
I know where the cemetery is in District 3, but I'll never go to it. Saul and Circuit are both buried there, and I don't need their memories brought up any more than they already are.
Kress, Jax, and Porter. None of them allies, and I don't care. I don't need an ally; just like in the arena, my real ally is with myself, and that alliance was the only one that lasted in the end.
I won, didn't I?
"What do you think of District 4 so far?"
"I've only seen a little bit of it, so I'll have to tell you more when I've seen the whole thing!" I say brightly into the large black camera that's filming me for the whole country to see. I won't show Panem any weakness, because I'm the victor. I'm the Career victor in a Career district, and I'm stronger than any of the Careers. I killed one, and lived when the others didn't.
"Are you looking forward to seeing the ocean?"
"I spent a week on a seaside vacation, so I don't think it's going to be anything new to me," I say, even though my stomach clenches. I've seen enough water for a lifetime. That's one thing I'm happy District 3 doesn't have; my district doesn't have stars, but it also doesn't have water stretching out for miles. Only the rain that pours almost every day.
I can hear Marcus Fireglen laugh. "I speak for the whole country when I say we're eager to hear your thoughts, and we can hardly wait to get you back in the Capitol, Astrid."
"I was thinking the exact same thing, Marcus," I say, beaming at the cameras. A cold breeze blows my hair into my face and makes my cheek sting. The same cheek that the mutt kicked; I can still feel my blood snaking down my face and onto my shoulder-
The Capitol is waiting to see you. No weakness, Astrid. The mutts are a weakness, so let them go. They're dead too.
I hope they're dead. They were too despicable to keep alive, and the Gamemakers don't like to reuse their mutts anyway. I hope they killed them all as soon as those trumpets sounded for my victory.
"The cars are waiting," Delia says, almost timidly. I swear she hasn't spoken directly to me above a whisper since I threatened to kill her. I'm sorry I lost control, but I don't regret making her afraid of me. In the eyes of Panem, I'm a murderer, and she won't touch me if she thinks of me like that too.
If they all are scared of me, they'll leave me alone. Forever.
"Enjoy your time in District 4, Astrid! We're all looking forward to hearing from you again!"
"I won't be long, Marcus," I say, then the anthem does a short burst and the cameras turn off.
"The cars are waiting," Delia repeats, and I nod at her.
"Then let's go." I let Delia lead the way, and I don't look back to see if Beetee's following behind me. I'm not trying to think of him as my possible ally anymore, so I don't care where he is or where he's going. Or how indispensable he is to the Capitol.
I'll never stand outside the Technology Center waiting for him again.
"Your tributes fought valiantly, and the Capitol and myself thank you for your sacrifice. They entered the arena courageously, and died as heroes for Panem."
Career tributes, both of them. The girl, Kelpie, wasn't a volunteer, and was never a threat in the Games. I remember seeing during the recap that she drowned herself at the beginning; she broke faster than Tilling did, and died the same way. Her parents stand under her banner, her mother holding a baby.
She's dead, I never knew her, and I let her go just as quickly as she died.
The boy, Shore, was in the Career pack until the very end; he died the day before the finale. And I do have a connection to him, if only barely. Agrippina killed him, and she nearly killed me. Under his banner, his mother and father stand with stoic faces, as though their son's death hasn't affected them at all. Four younger girls, probably his sisters, crowd around their parents; the oldest looks old enough to be reaped, and the youngest is little more than a toddler. Standing off to the side, not quite with the family, but still under the banner, is a teary-eyed young woman with red hair; maybe another sister.
I don't care. Shore didn't kill me, and I didn't kill him, and I won't hang onto him longer than I have to. So, like Kelpie, I let him go.
"Thank you, District 4, for your tributes, and may the odds be ever in our favor," I finish, and let the mayor take over again. His voice is odd, as though his mouth is full of pebbles. A young girl with red hair hands up a bouquet of strange flowers that I've never seen before, but I don't really care. Nobody I knew gave them to me, and I'm not going to argue with Delia when she takes them away from me.
The only bouquet I care about is District 7's, and I still don't know exactly why. I've let Elowyn go, so why am I still holding onto the sticks and berries from her district?
I don't know.
"What a lovely speech!" Delia trills as soon as I get through the doors branded with the eagle and laurels, and an anchor and fish. While I was onstage, she seems to have regained her peppiness, and is taking charge again. "Let me take those from you."
"Thank you," I say, passing the flowers off to her without looking. Beetee's deep in conversation with a red-headed woman, leaving me to face the other two victors by myself. I don't care. I vaguely know the dark-haired woman with a sour face, but I can't place her name until she introduces herself.
"Glass O'Hare," she says, but doesn't make any movement to shake my hand. Good. "You were an unexpected victor, weren't you?"
"Not to me," I say. "I always knew I would win."
"District 3; you lot usually aren't much."
"Not this year. We got two in the finale."
No weakness. You killed Circuit, so be proud of it.
"Remarkable," Glass says, but the way she says it makes it clear that she doesn't think it's remarkable that I'm standing in front of her. Just like District 5, and all the other districts too, she's angry that I'm District 3 and standing alive in front of her, instead of Shore or Kelpie.
They tried, and they failed. But I didn't. They were weaker than me, and that's the problem. A District 3 girl beat all of the Careers, and none of them are happy about it.
I don't care. I was better than all of them.
"Come over and meet our new friend," Glass says sarcastically, and almost drags the boy forward towards me. "I'd be surprised if you didn't remember him," she says to me.
"I remember him," I say; he won last year, so how could I forget him? Riptide Morain, the victor of the Fortieth Games, doesn't look like a Career victor anymore. He looks like Circuit did before the Games, except Riptide isn't pretending.
He was so confident entering the arena, I remember that. A classic District 4 volunteer, proud to be representing his district. And even after he won, he still looked like a Career victor, but once we saw him on his Victory Tour, that had fallen apart. Now the boy in front of me is a nervous wreck, with terrified eyes.
The arena broke him too, just like the morphlings, like Fabian and Arla and Kress. They're all broken because of the arena, but I'm not. I'm stronger than all of them.
"Astrid," the woman who's been talking to Beetee says, and once I see her, I know who she is. She's not forgettable either, with her grey streaked red hair and sharp nose. Mags Flanagan, the first victor to have a Victory Tour around thirty years ago.
"Hello, Mags," I say, smiling at her.
"Welcome to District 4."
"Thank you; I haven't seen much of it yet." Just every person in your square loathing me for being alive.
"Then I must show you, if you'll walk with me," Mags says. If it was any other victor, I would go reluctantly, but the way Mags says it makes me almost trust her. Not quite. I can't trust anyone on this Tour, because whatever she says to me will be a lie, just like everyone else's words, but she might be more enjoyable company than Glass and Riptide.
"You and your victor tours," Glass says, rolling her eyes. "Making alliances before we even get into the next Games."
"We do have a schedule to attend to," Delia says with clipped words. "Sparkle will be expecting you, Astrid."
"Our walk wouldn't be long," Mags says, and smiles. I'd rather walk with her than listen to Spila and Lara talk about feathers for an hour, even though she'll take me by the ocean.
Shallow people or shallow water?
"I'll go. Sparkle can wait," I say as confidently as I can. There, I'm a Career victor taking control of what I want.
"Go make your allies," Glass says sarcastically.
"Mags will ensure her safety," Beetee says.
"Yes Mags, defend her from the fishermen with their nets and poles," Glass says, but Mags just shakes her head at her.
"Will you come, Astrid?"
"Yes."
Mags gives me another smile and, with Beetee and Glass O'Hare watching, I follow Mags out of their sight and through a door I didn't notice coming into the Justice Building.
I don't trust her; I can't. She'll tell me lie after lie, and I won't believe a word of it, but it takes me away from Beetee and Delia and my prep team, and I'd rather be with this victor than with them.
Mags can't lie anymore than Beetee already has to me.
"How long have you lived here?" I ask, standing next to Mags on the rough wooden dock, looking out at the rough, deep blue ocean. The wind is freezing, but I'm not going to show Mags that I'm cold. I'm stronger than that, and I won't let the cold hurt me.
One ocean was hot, this one is cold. I don't know which one I prefer. People hate me on the shores on either one, so it doesn't matter.
"Here? I was born here," Mags says.
"Beetee told me that it's called Rolling Four."
"Yes. I grew up here as a child. My sister used to live in that house," Mags says, turning and pointing to a weathered brown house, on the edge of the road dividing the beach and dock, and the houses beyond. "I'm old bones," she continues, and laughs.
I can read her, but not as easily as some of the other victors. She's smart, I can tell that, but she's keeping her thoughts hidden. Like me. She's been studying me back, and I've kept my face as blank as I can without stopping being a Career victor. She's smart, but I'm smarter, because I'm a District 3 girl who became a Career victor; she's a District 4 tribute who became a victor a long time ago.
"You won the Eleventh," I say, and it's not a question.
"I was sixteen," Mags agrees, and looks at me carefully again. "Just your age, but the Games were different back then. The arenas weren't as refined, if that's what you could call it."
"So you were born before the Dark Days." Those are few and far between these days, at least for me. Mags nods, but she doesn't smile.
"I was around five when they ended; a friend of my sister's went that year and didn't come back. Her family is still around; I often see her father here."
Mags glances over, and her face lights up and grows solemn at the same time. "Garret!"
I follow her towards a creaking fishing boat, with Jewel written on the front in worn out letters. A man is standing in the boat itself, holding a net, and my stomach clenches. I know him; I saw him less than an hour ago, standing under his son's banner.
"Maggie."
"You're going out already?"
"Keeps the mind off of it," Garret says, shrugging. "It's difficult without him, but Pearl will take his place." The eldest girl I saw standing with her parents peers around her father with wide eyes. Barely reaping age; her red-gold hair blows in the cold winter wind, but she doesn't take her eyes off of me.
I lived instead of her brother; she hates me too, but I don't care. One thought occurs to me, however, slipping up through the memories of everything that happened before the Games. He was engaged, wasn't he? Shore? The crying red-haired girl on the stage makes sense now; his fiancée.
He died, I lived, and it wasn't my fault that Agrippina killed him.
"He was a good man," Mags says, and Shore's father nods. "I am sorry, again."
"Not your fault. Not anyone's fault but that girl's, but it's over now. It's done, and just like every year we have to move on."
Just another District 4 tribute for the cemetery, destined to be forgotten by everyone but his family. The Capitol won't remember him; they only remember their victors, and even then they only remember the victors that shone above the others. Kress, Jass, Orna, Riptide- all dead to the Capitol.
"We'll see at the end of the week," Mags says, and it has more meaning to Garret than it does to me.
"Yes; another year, another choice. We've settled," he says, and Mags nods.
"Good fishing, Garret."
"Thank you, Maggie," Garret says, then turns to his daughter. "Pearl, check the anchor."
"Yes Da," is all I hear before Mags turns and starts to leave them behind.
"His son," she says quietly, and I nod.
"I recognized him from the speeches."
"Kai!" Mags calls again, raising her hand to an elderly man stepping onto a different boat, the Luna. His head whips over to look at us, then he raises a hand too.
"His daughter was my sister's friend," Mags says quietly. Another girl forgotten by the Capitol, and by every other district but District 4.
Forty-one years of tributes all forgotten.
"Come, we'll walk towards the beach. Take our feet off of this wood," Mags says, her voice brightening again, but keeping its seriousness at the same time.
I don't want to go onto the sand, but saying no to Mags would show weakness. "I've missed the beach since my Games," I say instead. "District 3 is very lacking in sand."
"Then I hope you'll return to District 4 again in the future," Mags says, and she smiles at me.
She's not sincere; she's saying things to make me trust her, and I won't trust her, ever. I know she's lying to me; no victor would say that she hoped another tribute would win over her own.
"I hope so too."
Our feet make a hollow thudding sound as we walk across the dark grey boards, avoiding the fishermen arriving to get onto their boats. I don't look them in the eyes; I don't want to know what they're thinking. I see my red hair everywhere; my father could have been from District 4. I hate him, I hate what he did to my mother. I hate what he did to me, because if he hadn't been a Peacekeeper, District 3 would have loved me for winning the Games.
It's his fault that everything in my life has happened, not mine. Not my mother's. His alone.
Abruptly, the drumming of our feet ends and the familiar sound of sand crunching under my boots starts. I hate it, I hate this sound; the last time I felt sand under my feet was when I fled the beach with Elowyn by my side. Now she's dead, and I'm back on a beach with a victor walking next to me.
I didn't trust Elowyn, and I don't trust Mags. The only difference is that Elowyn never lied to me, and I know that Mags has, and will again. No victor on this Tour is trustworthy, because they've all lied to me, time and time again.
I hate them too.
"Astrid, has Beetee told you what to expect in the Capitol?" Mags asks, looking out towards the white tipped waves, the wind blowing her hair back from her face. She has such a curious face, with her sharp nose and distinctly intelligent eyes. Someone who was born before the Dark Days, but it doesn't matter. All that matters is making sure that she thinks Beetee hasn't been lying to me. I have to show that I know his secret, even while he's guarding it against me.
"Of course. Beetee's explained it all to me." I know what to expect anyway; days filled with interviews, parties, and feathered people. She doesn't need to know that Beetee's explained nothing to me except what each district gives to the Capitol.
He's never been my ally.
"They'll be watching you," Mags says, and there's a meaning behind her words that I can't place.
"I know; of course they'll be watching me. I'm the victor, after all," I say, raising my chin up. The wind blows against my neck, but I don't care. Agrippina didn't hurt me that badly, and neither did Circuit's wire. I didn't die, so I was fine in the arena. Fine.
Mags looks at me and, just like her words, I can't place her expression. Pity maybe, or sorrow. I don't need either of them; I'm the victor who won on a broken leg, and stood waiting for the hovercraft while covered in blood. I killed, and I won.
I don't ever want to be pitied, by anyone. I killed my district partner and survived an attack in the street. I never even let my mother pity me, because I never told her anything. Because I'm unbreakable. I am.
Mags looks at me for a moment longer, then says, "Be careful, Astrid."
She's keeping the secret from me too, I know she is. Maybe because she thinks that Beetee's already told me, but she's wrong. I hate them all for the lies, and that includes Mags.
"They'll be waiting for you now," she says. "And we shouldn't keep your stylist waiting longer than we have to, now should we?"
"She can wait," I say. "I wouldn't hurry."
"Here," Mags says, bending down. "A gift from District 4." And this time, when she smiles at me, I almost like her. Suddenly I remember something from a few districts ago.
"Terra from District 8 said to say hello."
Mags brushes the sand off of the shell and hands it to me. "How did she look?"
"Happy."
"I'm happy to hear that then. She deserves to be happy," Mags says, and her smile deepens. "You're nearly done your tour now, Astrid."
"Yes, just two more districts and the Capitol to go," I say as cheerily as I can. That's what they all expect from me, and that's what I'm going to give them. Because I'm happy too; the happy and unbreakable victor.
"The Victory Tour food has gotten better over the years," Mags says, and she laughs. "The Capitol has certainly improved its standards. But you will find their coffee has not, as you will see next year."
"I wonder who I'll be mentoring," I say. I don't really care, honestly; District 3 will die in the arena as usual, because everyone else who has been reaped died within the first two days of the Games. Except me, and except Beetee. And Lights Carraway, but he's been dead for ten years, and nobody remembers him anyway.
"We are not on opposite sides when we're mentoring. Remember that." Her voice has turned back to serious, and so have her eyes. "We all want our tributes to come home, and sometimes we will be lucky. But you must prepare yourself for the worst, because you'll always lose one."
"I'm prepared," I say. "I won't let myself get attached to my tributes. Either they'll win or they won't." They and their parents will hate me whether they win or not, so I don't care. I won't let myself care.
Her eyes search my face again, but I keep my thoughts locked inside my head. I can't think my way out of this Tour if everyone else can see what I'm thinking. And Mags might be smart, but I'm going to be smarter. I don't have a choice.
"Come, they'll be looking for us soon," Mags says, and her grin comes back. Maybe I can see that sixteen-year-old tribute peering out behind her victor mask, but I don't care either. "I'd hate to see your escort's wig fly away in this wind."
"I'm dying to touch it," I admit. "I want to know what it's made of. She never takes it off."
"Then here's to hoping," Mags says, and starts walking off of the beach, towards the road. I almost drop the shell back into the sand; I don't need anything from District 4 coming with me, because I didn't know its tributes. But I keep it at the last second.
Another district I'll never see again, and a gift only for me. I'll hide it from Delia and the others; from the whole of Panem. A gift they don't know about, and a secret for me to hide from them.
I'll never tell, just like they'll never tell me what they aren't saying.
As soon as the Justice Building is in sight, Mags turns to me again. "They'll come looking for you, Astrid, and they won't mean well. Make the right decision," she says, and takes my face in her hands. I almost choke, but it dies in my throat almost as soon as it starts.
"Be careful. They will be watching you." With that, Mags lets my face go and tries to read me one last time. "Don't let your guard down."
"I won't," I say, but I don't know what she means. If I'm reading her correctly, she's come closer than any of the others to telling me their secret, but I still don't know what she means.
Make the right decision.
But I don't even know what the choices will be.