Chapter Three – Ready or Not

Johanna

I wake long before the sun has even begun to make its ascent across the horizon. The train is still moving, and will continue to for the next few hours, so I take a moment to relax under the mountain of pillows and blankets I've piled myself under. I've lowered the temperature in my room so that it's almost freezing, just like the crisp autumn mornings in Seven that I'm used to. From second-hand knowledge, summers in the Capitol are sweltering, what with the tall buildings and cement streets trapping the heat, and July is just creeping in. I let out a muffled groan. I hope the arena is somewhere cold.

Eventually I manage to pull my aching body out of my comfortable nest and towards the bathroom. I spent the whole night tossing and turning, the faces of the tributes on screen yesterday blending into a mesh of blurry tormentors that chased me through the woods of Seven. Ainsley, stumbling after me past the logging tents, coughing up black liquid, until it covers his whole face and he is replaced by Twine from Eight, who brandishes an axe in her shaking hands. She has me pinned to the ground and is starting to hack my limbs off one by one when I catch a flash of red hair, and see Hazel, leaning against a tree in the far clearing, looking at me with emotionless, dead eyes.

I physically twitch, as if to brush the memory away. There's no need to think of any of them like that; none of them are a threat to me. It will be me, brandishing the axe in the arena, and nobody else. As I pull off the silken pyjamas, I examine my toned, bronze arms in the mirror. It will be hard to hide them from the prep team. I'll be lucky to come up with a good excuse, if I can.

My prep team! My stylist! I suddenly remember that today, I will be handed over to them for the tribute parade. This will be the first time I will be seen in-person by the Capitol and my fellow tributes. I take a deep breath and rush to the wardrobe, hoping to find the stupidest, most frivolous outfit I can. Eventually I decide upon a light blue dress with flowing sleeves. It's nothing compared to the yellow one I had on yesterday, but I can't bring myself to put it back on. I wonder now, seeing it on a heap on the floor, if I can ask Cosima to send it back to my father. If I don't win to give it to him – and I will win– he'd want it back.

I sit in my room for a while, rocking backwards and forwards on the edge of the bed, until I hear the knocking at my door and know that it's time for breakfast. I didn't make it to dinner last night and while my stomach still twists at the thought of them all sat there, Ainsley and Blight and Hazel, I know I can't avoid meals forever. Still, I have to fight down a scowl that threatens to naturally cross my face as I realise, I'm the last one to arrive. Blight seems to have foregone food and is kicking back a cup of brown liquid I don't recognise. I do, however, recognise the metal flask next to him. If Ainsley has any sort of emotion about his mentor drinking at such an early hour, however, he doesn't show it. Instead, he sits, nearly catatonic, staring at the empty plate in front of him.

Hazel, thankfully, doesn't have anything next to her but a tall glass of orange juice and a crescent-shaped pastry. She eyes me warily as I enter the room, like I'm about to have another outburst, and I can't help but think of our conversation last night. It was pretty typical, as far as mentor-tribute conversation go, but I think of her tone as she had walked away. It had seemed casual, jesting, the way someone would talk to a friend. A friend, I think. I've not really had any friends, really. I've always done better on my own, and even if I'd ever made attempts, my tendency to insult would have driven anyone that remained away from me. But I suppose, out of everyone on this train, Hazel is perhaps the safest bet for a friend I could ever ask for.

I look at Blight. He's been mentoring for, what, over fifteen years? Since he's started, he's only had one success – and that's assuming he'd been mentor four years ago. The odds are likely, however, considering our other victors are old Cove, who can barely move from the arthritis plaguing his bones, and Lupus, who's drowning so deep in alcohol I'm surprised his lungs aren't full of the stuff yet. I'm not surprised Blight's following in his footsteps, with so many failures under his belt. We've come close a few times in his years-long career, even the final two once or twice, but Seven hasn't had much luck when it comes to Victors.

Much luck until Hazel. I look at her again, trying to remember anything about her Games, but I come up with a blank. She's only been mentoring for a few years, and she's had losses, but not nearly as many as Blight. I won't get her any sponsors from the time in the Capitol, but would she fight for it when I prove my skill in the arena? She's very pretty, with naturally smiling eyes and striking hair, and still young – she's in the Capitol's favour, as far as looks go. And she's the most recent female victor, after the girl from Four last year, but nobody's got their eyes on a nutcase. I hate to think it, but Hazel's appeal in the Capitol might be in my favour.

The question is, will she be willing to exploit it for me?

I don't have much time to contemplate the answer, because as soon as I've sat down, Cosima already begins to fuss.

"Oh Johanna, look how pretty you are in that dress, your prep team is just going to eat you up!"

"Thank you," I try to sound as humbled as I can, but I know she's only being nice. I'm no looker. My nose is too pointy and my brows too thick. Instead of focusing on her, I look towards the wide array of food in front of me and point to some kind of flat, sugar-coated thing. "What's that?"

"Oh, we call it 'Lost Bread' in the Capitol. You take bread and cook it in eggs…" Once Cosima starts talking and I'm satisfied that I won't be obligated to reply for a while, I tune her out and start to eat. The food is good, too good. The tastes tingle my palate and I have to restrain myself from eating too much, or I won't end up fitting into my outfit for the parade tonight. And I won't have food like this in the arena, I think. Not unless I have sponsors. My eyes flicker back to Hazel at that thought, but she's busy talking under her breath to a train attendant. She gives a quick look to Ainsley and I realise she must be talking about the possibility of a Capitol doctor showing up once we arrive. I still grit my teeth at the thought.

Why are you so angry, Johanna, I think. It just means he'll be easier to kill.

I hope someone else kills him, though. Killing your district partner is taboo, not unless it's in self-defence, a mercy killing, or you're in the top two. And as much as I'd like to go home, I'd rather not be a pariah.

Eventually the train goes dark, and I know we're nearing the Capitol. I have sudden tight feeling in my chest, like claustrophobia, but it has nothing to do with the fact that we're surrounded in stone. No, it's like it's finally hit me that this is real. That I, Johanna Mason, am about to enter the Capitol as a tribute in the 71st Hunger Games.

And tribute I am. They don't let me forget that realisation, not once we rush past the crowds and crowds of citizens flocking to see a glimpse of this year's sacrificial lambs. They hold out signs, and there's a certain satisfaction in seeing that I feature in exactly none of them. In fact, I make it a point to cower away the second I'm featured, just to hammer in the point that I'm not worth considering. Johanna Mason is to be ignored.

When we arrive, everything happens in a blur of voices and people. Ainsley is taken away almost immediately by a series of people in white-and-blue uniforms, Blight in tow, and I'm ushered down a long corridor that leads somewhere deep into the tribute centre. Hazel matches pace with me for a while, her strides matching mine, and as we walk, she speaks in a low voice.

"Do whatever you can to convince them." I give a sharp, tight nod. "And don't let Foglia press you. She's infuriating, but whatever you do, do not let her see you fight back."

I make a quick noise of confusion, but she's already disappeared, headed down the other side of the corridor towards a lift, and I'm hoisted away to my prep team.

Foglia is, apparently, my stylist. I meet her after I've been scrubbed raw by my prep team. It took everything I had not to scream obscenities at them as they commented on my body like it was a slab of meat on the kitchen counter. Thankfully if they took notice of my muscled arms and calves, they said nothing, instead ranting on about the unevenness of my haircut and my slightly crooked teeth. Once they decided to release me, Foglia greets me. She's decked out in all green, from the top of her poofed-up emerald head to her gem-encrusted toes, and she gives me a quick, almost disgusted, once-over.

"How old are you?" Foglia asks, her voice dripping with the haughty Capitol accent.

"Seventeen."

"You look younger," she comments, and I have to scoff. I look exactly my age, but compared to the look of the Capitol teenagers, I'm not surprised that she'd think so. "I could have had time to add a few more curves to the outfit, but no matter."

Curves? I nearly want to reach over and slash open her green skin with my newly sharpened nails at the thought of such a disgusting addition, but I don't. Instead I cough into my hand and think of Hazel's words. Come on Johanna, you can't lose this quickly. If you give in to this woman, you'll never be able to handle the rest.

But I do handle it. I handle the rest of her comments, awful as they are, as she slips me into a dark green jumpsuit covered in leaves and vines and pops a twirling tangle of branches on my head as a headdress. I have to bite the inside of my cheek to stop from laughing. Whoever heard of leaves being beneath the branches? I handle the fussing of the prep team, and I handle each sweet, shy word that comes out of my mouth. It's only when I'm ushered to the chariots, where all the other tributes line up, that I'm faced with another challenge.

Ainsley is there, and he looks remarkably better. I'm not sure if it's the power of makeup, or because he's finally been given another dose of Flinch to get him through the day, but as I get closer the answer is clear. He gives me a look as if he's actually seen me for the first time and speaks the first words I've heard him utter to me since the reaping.

"They got it wrong. It's branches and then leaves, not the other way around."

"I'm not surprised," I say, trying to keep my voice quiet and still on the shy side. "I doubt anyone in the Capitol has actually seen a real tree before."

"I wish we were dressed like One," he says, enviously. I follow his gaze to the pair – Paris and Love – who wear crowns of precious gems. My instinctive reaction is to answer with something sharp and biting; "well, I think they look like little kids at a dress-up party" or "imagine the look on the girl's face if I walked up and yanked that crown off her pretty red hair". But I don't, because Ainsley also has to believe I'm as weak as he is.

"Yes," I lie, instead. "Me too."

"Are you scared?" He asks.

"Of the tributes from One?"

"Yeah," he shrugs, and looks behind him. Even with the new dosage in his system, his movements are still slow and swaying. "All of them, really. The Capitol, too."

I look around, making sure nobody has heard him. It's natural for the tributes to be scared of the Capitol, yes, but admitting it is another thing.

"It's normal to be afraid," I say, not wanting to admit it in case someone is listening.

"But are you?"

I can't help but frown at him. That isn't good. If he's asking, it means he may not believe it. And it's not just him that I need to convince.

This one wasn't my favourite, but it's necessary. Next chapter is where things really start perking up though, I'm very excited to write it! It's a perspective on the Games I don't think many fics have done before. See you all soon, please let me know how you've been finding the story so far!