Chapter 10: Strengths and Weaknesses

It is strange how different things are this year compared to last year. That's both good and bad. On the positive side, I know how everything works now. I know what's expected of me as a mentor, what I have to do, and I know the other Victors.

On the other hand – I know how everything works. I know what's expected of me as a mentor, what I have to do. And just thinking about it makes me feel sick.

And I thought I knew the other Victors, but that was before I read Haymitch's note. When I look at them now, all I can think about is: What do you know?

I realize that my initial doubts about our tributes were unfortunately not unfounded. Realistically, I have to admit to myself that we have a huge problem. Den is strong, but sometimes it feels like he's not interested in even trying, it's almost like he's given up already. He reminds me of myself in some ways – I might've felt the same way about the 74th Hunger Games too, if it hadn't been for Prim and my promise to return to her. Den doesn't have anyone to return to.

He has nothing.

And other times, I see another side of him that I'm not sure if I like - he makes hasty decisions. In the Hunger Games, you do have to make decisions very quickly to survive, but if those decisions are also rash, too risky and too daring, you are likely to end up dead sooner rather than later. Will he follow our instructions? I'm not so sure. I know I didn't.

And Emilia, well… she's cute in that starved Seam girl way of hers, and she does have a sense of humor on the rare occasion when she opens up somewhat. She's also tiny and shy, and I don't think she'd be capable of hurting a fly. The one person she reminds me of is, unfortunately, Annie Cresta. Annie, who is the most unlikely Victor of them all. She only survived because the entire arena was flooded, and the rest of the tributes drowned. She's from District 4, so she's a good swimmer, having been around water all her life. She became a Victor because of her swimming skills only – which turned out to be a huge disaster, as TV entertainment goes, and apparently the Head Gamemaker that year was executed. Who wants to see all the tributes drown, turning the Hunger Games into a teenage swimming contest? Only without the sexy swimsuits? Watching someone drown isn't fun or entertaining or exciting. There is very little screaming or anything interesting (for a viewer of the Hunger Games, at least) involved – in the end, it's even very hard to see that they're about to die if you don't know which signs to look for. They just go under, very quietly, and that's the end of it. Annie went mad afterwards, they weren't even able to do a Victor interview. She's mentoring, though, every year, but I don't know if she does any real work.

But as the Gamemakers are very unlikely to make Emilia into a repeat Annie Cresta, because I'm guessing they are probably quite attached to their heads, we have a problem. I just can't see how she could possibly survive this. Even Peeta agrees – he's gone over the files on the other tributes, watching the videos from the reapings in the various districts, over and over.

We just don't have a lot to work with.

Haymitch knows too, of course. These are the kind of tributes he's had for the last 26 or so years, excluding me and a few others in the past, none of whom were lucky enough to get out of the arena with a pulse, aside from Peeta and myself.

As much as I hate the Hunger Games, it is actually nice to meet the other Victors again. I wouldn't call any of them friends, but we do have something in common that no one else will ever understand. There is a bond there which is hard to explain. Even many of the Career Victors, who were trained to kill from a very young age, can be quite entertaining – when they are not talking about murder, that is. Some of the Victors I even like, like Mags. She's very old, and I think she might have had a stroke, because it's very difficult to understand what she's saying, but she is… nice. Kind. She is like a grandmother to many of the Victors, and Finnick adores her. Johanna isn't naked quite as often this year as she was last year. There's always something happening around Johanna – Peeta really likes her, and even if I accuse him of only liking her because he hopes she'll take her clothes off, I know it's not true. She's just so sure of who she is, she doesn't give a damn.

Haymitch says it's because she has no one left to lose.

Then there is Finnick, of course. I'd usually try to keep him at an arm's length, because he's just a bit too much - he just radiates too much sensuality, it's like he's constantly enveloping me in it, it's unnerving. I strongly suspect he's doing it on purpose in my case, and I never know where I have him. I feel like he's playing with me, teasing me, even though it's not as bad now as it was before, given that my "pure" status has obviously changed. But now, knowing he probably knows something about the rebellion, I try to spend time with him whenever I can. Finnick, on the other hand, is spending a lot of time with Annie Cresta. Frail, beautiful, pale Annie Cresta. Which means I'm also spending time with Annie.

"Our tributes this year suck," Finnick complains one night at the bar. I'd have gone to bed a long time ago if it hadn't been for that note, I'm not really into socializing. But perhaps if I hang around Finnick, I'll get any clues as to what's going on.

"They do suck ass," Johanna agrees. I'm very surprised that the District 4 tributes are this bad, considering it's a Career district, although not to the same extent as Districts 1 and 2. Both the tributes that were reaped this year are very young - the girl is 12, the boy 13. I remember watching a rerun of the reaping - there are usually volunteers in District 4, as quite a few teenagers go to the district's special training academy to prepare for the Hunger Games. But this year, no one volunteered. Why? District 4 having two tributes with terrible odds is almost unheard of.

Johanna studies the tequila in her glass intently, then gulps it down like a man. "Mine are worse, though."

"Well, they are at about the same level as ours," I sigh. Peeta gives me a quick kick in my shin. "Sorry, Peeta, but it's true," I tell him. "Have you seen the tributes from District 1 this year? Knife-girl and what's-his-name?"

"Kora and Twitch," Peeta says. He's looking over at Haymitch, who has passed out on the floor. He motions to two Avoxes, and they immediately come and carry Haymitch off to bed.

"Yeah, Kora and Twitch. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Kora gets a 12, I mean, I've never seen anyone throw knives the way she does. She's a killing machine."

"If she gets a 12, she'll be an instant target," Johanna objects.

"It doesn't matter if she's a Career," Finnick says.

"And Twitch is so big I'm sure they've given him something to build muscle mass, you know, drugs," I continue.

"Which would explain that vicous temper of his," Peeta remarks.

There is an uncomfortable silence around the table. Annie is looking even paler than usual. Peeta's looking down into his glass, and I just want to scream, thinking about how my tributes are going to be butchered in that arena, just a few days from now.

"So I tried to order fish for dinner last night, and I was told the weather in District 4 was so bad, there wasn't any fish to be had," Peeta says, and I don't know what that's all about, but at least talking about fish is better than talking about children being murdered. "The waiter said they hadn't had any fish for two weeks? The weather must be really bad out there by the coast."

There is something in his voice, just a subtle undertone.

"Yeah, uh… it was really terrible. I mean, except on Reaping Day, obviously, you saw it on TV. It was a freak sunny day, but the rest of the time the weather has been so stormy, the fishing boats haven't been able to go out," Annie says.

"That's odd, at this time of the year, isn't it?" Peeta remarks.

"Oh well... freaky weather, you know how it goes," Finnick says, but I notice that he carefully avoids looking at me.

Open your eyes, Katniss. Peeta is learning to play the game, but you...

Something is happening in District 4. Something huge, something Snow doesn't want anyone to know about - not the Capitol citizens, and not the other districts, either. A rebellion? If there's a rebellion in District 4, surely Finnick and Annie must know about it. It would be kind of hard to miss if they are living in the district. Finnick usually spends quite a large portion of the year in the Capitol, but I heard someone mentioning earlier today that he's spent a lot more time at home this year than he usually does.

I decide that it's time to open my eyes - and in the following days, I do. There is no open talk of a rebellion in the district, but now that I know what to look out for, there certainly are clues. Such as Cinna complaining that he can't get the fabric of his choice for the dress he's making for Emilia's interview. So something is happening in District 8, shutting the fabric factories down. Or perhaps District 11, as the fabric in question was a cotton blend? There is a short power cut at one point, which brings on panic in the Capitol residents, and it makes me wonder if something is happening in District 5 as well.

What is the best way of assuring that the districts don't rebel? Cut them off from each other. No one is allowed to travel except on official business. There are no real lines of communication between workers in different districts. Aside from high-ranking district officials, the only forum where people from the various districts regularly meet, is the Hunger Games, where the Victors meet at least once a year. During the Victory Tour following the Hunger Games there is also often widespread travelling and socializing.

Who would be better suited to spread information and build inter-district networks than Victors?

It turns out Peeta and I aren't the couple getting the most attention - or who at least are the subject of the most gossip - in the Victor group this year.

It's Finnick and Annie.

It takes me a while to figure it out, as I'm so preoccupied with rebellions and mockingjays and wondering which Victors might possibly be involved to see it. One night, after we've gone to bed, I say to Peeta that I don't get why Annie is always hanging around Finnick. He just laughs at me.

"You mean you haven't noticed? Seriously, Katniss."

"Noticed what?"

"How they are looking at each other? I mean, are you blind?"

And I guess I have been, because the next day, I see what he means. I was too preoccupied with my own problems to notice what was going on right in front of my eyes - and it certainly explains why Finnick has spent more time in District four this year than usual.

I never thought I'd see Finnick in love. I've seen him open more envelopes than I care to remember, and he's usually so slick and full of suggestive comments and remarks. I never thought he'd be close to anyone, that he'd never allow himself to be, or that he even wanted to be.

But he's in love with Annie. Broken, frail, mad Annie. Annie with the gentle voice and the nervous hands. The most unlikely Victor of them all.

And she loves him back.

They sneak behind plants to kiss. Mags murmurs something about them sleeping in the same room together. There's a light in Finnick's seagreen eyes that I just haven't seen before. And when he looks at her, it's with so much adoration that it nearly brings tears to my eyes.

And through it all, he keeps getting envelopes.

I don't know how Annie survives it, knowing what he has to do with all those disgusting Capitol women and men in the dark, even though he's clearly together with her. Is he given even more envelopes this year just to spite her? Or am I just imagining how he seems to be kept incredibly busy? I think they try to stay low profile, but they must both know that there is no way they can hide their relationship, as we are all surely being watched.

On a rare occurrence that Finnick and I are alone together, when he's showing me how to make some new knots, I finally dare to talk to him about it. "You realize you're making her into a target, don't you?"

His able hands stop their work on the rope for just a split second, then they continue. "Katniss... She's been a target for years. I've loved her ever since I was mentoring her. Everyone knows."

Everyone. But me. And I know now what Snow has had on Finnick all these years. Annie is Finnick's Prim.

"So what's different now?"

He laughs. "Perhaps we're finally tired of waiting? Perhaps we saw you two. We saw that it was possible for two Victors to be together. Even though you didn't really want to - but that's changed now, hasn't it?" I don't answer. "Perhaps it was just... time. To come out of the closet, so to speak. It seemed a useless and lonely place to be when everyone knew, anyway."

Everyone but me - but then again, I'm not very good at noticing people around me. I usually have more than enough with my own problems. Finnick throws away the rope he was working on, and gets another, longer one. "Here, I'll show you how to make a noose."

I wrinkle my nose. "I don't want to learn how to make a noose, I don't want to hang anyone."

His green eyes twinkle at me. "You never know, Girl on Fire, you never know."

And then he teaches me, or tries to, as it's surprisingly difficult and I'm not a natural with ropes like he is. Peeta comes by briefly to see what we're doing, and he just rolls his eyes and leaves when he sees what I'm working on.

A question is burning on my tongue, and I hate myself for asking it, but I have to. "Was Annie sold, too?"

His jaws are clenched, he doesn't meet my eyes above our nooses. "Yes," he finally says. "Even in the mental state she was in after her Hunger Games... With the flood and all... She was. And I knew it was because of me, because I loved her."

Tears are burning in my eyes.

When are we ever going to be safe? It is just a question of time until Snow gets tired of Peeta and me playing happy married couple and decides to cash in on us? Prim is in constant danger. And I am, apparently, the symbol for a rebellion I know next to nothing about. The ground is burning underneath my feet, and I'm left in the dark. Where do I run?

"Now that's much better, sweetie," Finnick says, and he is, along with Haymitch, the only person who gets away with calling me stupid nicknames. He looks at my noose appreciatively.

"It's not as pretty as mine, but it will do the job. You're ready to start executing bad guys now, little Mockingjay."

He gives me a lingering kiss on the cheek, then leaves me, with the noose still in my hands.

Then follow the three days of training. We're not actually allowed access to the training grounds, but we follow our tributes from the Victor Control Room, where we'll spend far too much time less than a week from now. It's a slight adjustment from last year, when all we Victors could do was wait in our quarters until our proteges return. All the same, I hate the room, and I think I'm not alone - everyone has seen far too many tributes die in here. I've only had to witness 23 deaths - there are tributes who have had to watch several hundreds of children die. How do they do it? I look at Mags, and wonder how she has been able to live with it for so long. Even though she's so old now that no one is really expecting her to do anything, I'm pretty sure she has a thing or two to say behind closed doors to the District four tributes. Her speech may not be that clear, and she may seem confused at first glance, but I've seen the look in her eyes. She doesn't miss a thing, and she has more experience than any of us here.

I have a distinct feeling that she's a very important part of the District 4 team.

Too bad their tributes suck as much as ours do, though.

Den isn't all that bad during training, but he's mainly been doing chores and looking after children all his life. How he's going to all of a sudden turn into a vicious killer is beyond me. He has no survival skills, at least not any skills that you would need in the average arena. They vary wildly, but there are often natural habitats that require you to have certain survival skills, such as gathering, hunting or fishing. I don't think he's ever been in a forest before. He's strong, and he can throw things pretty far, including axes. But does he have what it takes to smash in someone's head with a rock? I don't think so. Which is a good thing, really - if only he hadn't been reaped. Behind his stoic, closed exterior, he's a good boy, but being a good boy rarely gets you anywhere in the Hunger Games. In 75 years, I think Peeta must be the only victor who actually survived as a result of being a good person.

And Emilia? She's a disaster. She completely fails at most of the tasks during training, and I've seen from the looks the careers send her that she's only meat for them. They don't take her seriously at all. She doesn't impress the Gamemakers, either. She ends up with a two, which is one of the worst grades a tribute has ever received. Den gets a 6, which Effie says she can work with, but no one really knows what to do with Emilia. Kora gets an 11, but I hear rumors that she almost got a 12, which has never happened before in the history of the Hunger Games.

I try to talk to Emilia, one night up on the roof. We're there all alone, looking out over the vast Capitol. There light is pretty overwhelming for a seam girl who's used to oil lamps being the main source of light, and no street lights whatsoever. I should know, because I'm a seam girl, too. And this talk, seam girl to seam girl, is something I'm dreading, but it needs to be done.

"Emilia, I need to ask you some really tough questions. I don't want to hurt you, okay? But I need to know. If I'm going to do everything I can to save your life in the arena, you need to open up to me. Do you understand?"

She nods, looking down at her shoes. She's still stick thin, I try to get her to eat as much as possible, but even when placed in front of massive amounts of food, she'll only eat half a plate. I've tried telling her she needs to put on as much weight as she can, she's likely to starve out there in the arena, but it doesn't help.

"I need to know what you think about being in the Games. Surely you've watched it on TV many times - there are certain roles that people often take. Have you thought about what you're going to do?"

"I guess I'm the stupid, weak girl who gets killed by the Cornucopia."

I have to give it to her, she does have a certain sense of humor. And, unfortunately, from what I've seen so far, I think she may be right.

Except one thing: She's not stupid. I know she isn't.

"See, the thing is... You're from the Seam, like me. I happen to know about your family, because you live just a few houses down the street from where I used to live, and I asked my mother about you on the phone the other day. She said that your family is dirt poor, about as poor as my family was, and we were among the worst off in the seam. But I could hunt, and no one in your family did. So you must've had one of the most difficult childhoods I can possibly imagine - and still you survived. And you don't survive until the age of 13 in the Seam unless you're pretty tough. So what I'm thinking is that there is more to you than meets the eye."

She doesn't answer.

"Did your father beat you?"

She flinches. "Why do you ask that?"

"I've seen the look in your eyes before. All in Seam kids who were beaten at home. Or was it your mother?"

She looks down at her shoes again. "My father."

I nod. "I thought so. Your mother seemed genuinely devastated when you were reaped. For how long has it been going on?"

She shrugs. "Since forever." Child abuse isn't very rare in the Seam, unfortunately. It's a hard life, and some parents take it out on their children. "My father works in the mines, but he can't really handle it very well. He has claustrophobia. He deals with it there and then, because he has no choice if he wants to eat, but... He takes it out when he gets home. All his anger and frustration."

"On you or the whole family?"

"On all of us. But mostly me, I'm the oldest."

I nod. I'm the oldest, too. I've never had to deal with domestic violence, but I do know a thing or two about what you're willing to do for your younger siblings. The food I was willing to give to Prim, even if it meant that my own stomach was empty. "So I have a theory. I think that you're a survivor. You've made it this far, haven't you? You're small, because you've been hungry all your life, but you're stronger than you look. And you're smart. You don't want to show them the things you can do, the talents that you have. And I'm not talking about writing poetry here. Am I right?"

There's a shadow of a smile playing on her lips now. "Perhaps."

"You know Johanna Mason?" She nods. "She played that angle a few years ago. She did it very successfully, and she's still alive. The problem is, now that someone has won the Hunger Games with that strategy once, everyone's looking out for it more. So you need to play your part even more convincingly - if that's the strategy you're planning on following, that is. Although I have to confess that you've done the job pretty well so far. Perhaps too well"

She just shrugs again, but there's something in her eyes...

Perhaps we shouldn't give up on Emilia just quite yet after all.

"Emilia, if you're going to win this thing, you have to go into the arena thinking about only one thing, and that's your own survival. Nothing else. There is no time for anger, or crying, or being homesick or feeling that life is unfair. Because guess what: Life is unfair. It's unfair that you had to grow up being hungry every day, it's unfair that your father beat you, it's unfair that your name was drawn from a glass bowl and you have to face 23 other children who are all intent on murdering you to save their own skins. What I need from you is devotion, because if I'm going to spend hard-earned sponsor money on items that will keep you alive, you need to make the most of them. Frankly, we're not getting in much money this year because neither Den nor you are sellable to the sponsors. That two in training certainly didn't help, either. Our resources will be very limited, and I'll have to fight with Haymitch over who is to benefit from what little we have - you or Den. We will have to make some hard decisions about who to choose, and Haymitch will root for the tribute he deems more likely to win. And at the moment, that's not you. Am I making myself clear?"

She nods.

"So I need you to promise me to do everything you can to stay alive. Your best chance is to run away from the Cornucopia as soon as the 60 seconds are over. Don't grab anything, you're likely to end up with an arrow in your back or a stone in your skull. Run for your life. Get out of there, place as much distance between you and the Cornucopia as you possibly can." Okay, so that's what Haymitch told me - and I didn't do as he told me, so I'm hardly a good role model, and it nearly cost me my life."Promise me you will fight?" She nods. "You know, Seam brats have won the Hunger Games before. Twice. We're used to being hungry, and we're resourceful because of it. Okay?"

Emilia nods again, and this time she meets my eyes.

I smile.

Perhaps our tributes aren't quite as bad as I thought.