Chapter One-Hundred-and-Thirty-Eight; Debt, Loyalty and Love
"Are you a magnet for trouble or something?" Electra's incredulous words cut through the silence.
Stephanie smirked grimly at her as Electra tried to reel in her shock, but really it was impossible!
Electra slid her gaze over to the girl slumped morosely on the sofa next to her, just as Stephanie began to answer her question in a grimly amused voice.
"For eighteen years in District 3, the most trouble I got in was for hitting a boy at school and breaking his nose when I was eight. Now…" Stephanie snorted derisively, "it seems everywhere I go there is some new trouble."
Electra puffed out a long breath as she poured them both another drink. Boy did she need it!
When Haymitch had asked her to do this, while Electra had thought it a strange request she didn't think it would be this complicated!
Electra had known Haymitch for ten years now, since he had returned a victor from the 90th Hunger Games, everyone he ever cared about gone. Electra had also returned, her glamorous lifestyle in the Capitol over, trying to come to terms with her ghastly injuries. It was only natural that they had gravitated towards one another; each the only other person it seemed in the whole world who could possibly understand what the other was going through.
Electra liked to think she had become some sort of surrogate older sister to Haymitch, being six years older than him. Though she hadn't been the best role model, Electra thought ruefully. She hadn't tried to stop Haymitch as he spiralled deeper into drink, but – she had made sure that he hadn't drunk alone at any rate!
Electra had only one possible thing that could be considered a rather personal motto in her life.
She always repaid people with the same treatment they afforded her.
It was why she had killed that boy who was sweet on her in the arena last.
For above that life motto was something even more important to Electra. It was so engrained in her it could hardly be considered a personal motto though, more an integral part of her being, a natural instinct and way of life Electra heralded to.
In life there is only one person you should look out for; yourself.
So because the boy in the arena had fancied her she allowed him to die last as repayment for his sweetness, but he inevitably died because in the end…Electra always came first.
Electra had been born Ellen Hocol to a mother that died shortly after giving birth and a father that never stuck around long enough for her to know. She was raised by the neighbours' two doors down who took pity on the poor orphan. Her childhood had been nothing spectacular and she was far better off than she would have been in the care of the district. But living as the outsider in her neighbours' large family Electra – or Ellen as she had been called then – began to realise that if she didn't want to end up like her mother she had better start looking out for herself.
Mrs Ling; the matriarch of the neighbour's family that raised her often remarked how alike Electra looked to her mother and after inquiries Electra found out as much as she could about her mother.
Her mother had only been sixteen when she fell pregnant; not even safe from the Games and yet she was bringing another life into this world. Her mother had been beautiful, as beautiful as Electra had been before the accident. But her mother had been naïve and gullible Electra realised. She had fallen for the first boy that had grinned at her and told her he would give her a home.
After acquiring this knowledge it was then that Electra had resolved never to be like her mother. She was beautiful, even more so than her mother had been, but she would not be such a fool like her mother. She would be smart, shrewd. And when Electra had been reaped on her 18th birthday she clung to that belief even more. She wouldn't be fooled like her mother had been; she would be the one that fooled them!
Her mother's beauty had been her downfall but Electra was sure hers would be her rise.
She won her Games; miraculously and with a great deal of help from sponsor gifts. Electra that year won the title of the tribute who had received the most sponsor gifts in one day. Electra smirked to herself as she considered it; all she had done was bat her eyes and moan about how thirsty she was. Enough bottles of water arrived in that next hour that she could've bathed herself twice over.
And when Electra had got out of the arena it was when her second life motto, just below looking after herself only, came into force. To repay other's with the treatment they had afforded her.
Her every sponsor received her utmost gratitude and her reputation in the Districts and the Capitol were cemented forever. Electra didn't mind; she wasn't foolish like her mother was – giving out and then being left behind when they had gotten what they wanted from her. Electra made sure she was awarded generously for her gratitude. She allowed herself to enjoy life in the Capitol, to look out for herself only. Years passed and tributes died because she couldn't be bothered to deal with them, she couldn't even bear to look at them.
It was fate's cruel irony that the morning of her accident she had returned to her District. Electra hadn't really been sure why she had done it at the time. She had no real sentimental attachment to the place. She had visited her mother's grave but felt odd, as though she were visiting the grave of a stranger. The people whispered wide-eyed as she passed but despite the unsavoury rumours that flitted about everywhere concerning the manipulative backstabber that she had become – they still revered her almost.
She had visited the spoils of her victory; the lonely mansion she had been awarded up in the empty Victor's village. District 3's last victor Sam Trindlesworth had died over twenty years ago. 'How very kind of him to have left the whole place to me' Electra had thought smirking as she climbed the steps to what would become her home.
She was tiring of the Capitol, having opted to spend most of her time there after her Victory in the Games. Eighteen years spent in the monotony of District life hadn't prepared her for four years of incessant partying it seemed in the Capitol. One of her Capitol lovers would be particularly annoyed at her decision she knew, which was why Electra had arranged to meet him later that day to deliver the news personally herself.
Her thoughts had been occupied with how she would get her things from her Capitol penthouse back to her District mansion as she opened the door. It was then that she was almost tackled to the ground by the two boys that raced past her.
Electra had screamed after them, threatening them with the Peacekeepers as they vaulted over the gates that barred the Victor Village. She had complained about them to the Peacekeepers before she left for the Capitol again.
The Head Peacekeeper of District 3 had assured her they would catch the culprits, citing that thievery was probably the motive. Electra hadn't really been listening to his babblings but one name had jumped out at her as he spoke. "It's probably that Abernathy boy; I saw him sniffing around up near that Victor Village earlier on today. Only 16 and he's already been in trouble more than enough!"
Electra hadn't given it any more thought though as she gratefully hopped on her train that would take her back the Capitol for her upcoming date.
Needless to say the date where she expected to smooth things over with her volatile Capitol lover didn't go well. He was younger than her but not by much. Electra had been twenty-two at the time and he had been nineteen though he liked to behave as though he were much older. He accused her of leaving him for some District lover, which of course she refuted. After living in the Capitol for four years Electra had come to appreciate the 'dinginess' of the Districts. She had tried to laugh away his suspicions which didn't go down too well. He accused her of making fun of him, muttering under his breath how he was never good enough for anyone.
She remembered with perfectly acute agony every cut of the knife on her skin. He had said things while he done it; hateful words that Electra couldn't even distinguish through the haze of pain. When the nightmares of that afternoon came back to her over the years, it was her own screams that tormented her in the dark.
Then after that it was only pain. She had dragged herself with what little strength left she possessed out of the room. And the next thing she knew two bright blue eyes were looking down at her. Seneca had looked even younger than his fifteen years, yet he never even blinked at the gruesome, pulsing mass of red the left side of her face had been cut into.
He was under no obligation to save her though. This was the Capitol and in the Capitol Electra had learnt that her motto about looking out for oneself was practiced widely.
For some reason though Seneca had saved her and as she always did Electra resolved to repay the favour.
Seneca also had similar ideas it seemed as he had turned up at her hospital bed four weeks later. She had peered at him with her one blue eye peeking out of a mass of reddening bandages as he essentially told her, he owned her until she repaid her debt.
Electra had hated the little brat then, readying for him to demand something utterly outrageous of her. But he hadn't.
She had gotten better and gone home, back to her District, resolving never to go return to the Capitol again.
She leant as she hobbled about her lonely home that Haymitch Abernathy, the boy that had broken into her mansion had won the Games.
But for months they lived in complete ignorance of one another until the day Electra ventured outside.
She came across an almost comatose 16 year old Haymitch Abernathy slumped over the family headstone of some fairly recent graves. The grass had barely begun to grow over them, only the cold frost of winter that was slowly turning Haymitch's lips blue.
She was going to leave him there to catch his death of cold, but she found herself nudging him awake instead.
At first Electra had regretted her decision for they hated one another instantaneously. Haymitch was dealing with his grief and was on his way to becoming one of the youngest alcoholics. While Electra learnt that the people of her district had only been willing to forgive her, her indiscretions and rumours when she had been the beautiful, District 3 celebrated Victor. Now that she was a hideous monster it seemed, they sneered at her or would stare at her face with morbid curiousity. It was about that time Electra had started wearing veils to cover her face and, following Haymitch's example, adopting a diet of strong liquor.
It was how she and Haymitch's paths crossed again after months of ignoring one another. They both needed a drink and there was only one bottle left of whiskey in the entire district it seemed.
They ended up sharing it.
Somehow it became a habit. They shared drink. Electra allowed Haymitch to stew in his grief and Haymitch didn't care, or barely seemed to notice if Electra wore a veil or not. Sometimes they talked as well. And amazingly through simply sitting with one another through their darkest nights, knocking back glasses of whiskey side by side Electra grew to care about Haymitch. When she realised, the first thing she did was apologise, for not mentoring him right. Haymitch had shrugged at her, stating it hardly mattered now. And then suddenly he told her about the four graves he always visited and why his family had had to suffer such a fate.
Electra had inhaled sharply when the name Seneca Crane had been mentioned, and swallowing nervously Electra told Haymitch how she owed Seneca her life.
For four years then she and Haymitch had mentored tributes together, sharing the burden and pain of it. Electra had never cared for her tributes before but she discovered it made a huge difference when the tributes became more than just a training score and a calculated odd. They had faces and names; one liked painting flowers, another smelled like flowers and another was named after a flower; little inconsequential facts that haunted Electra's thoughts eternally.
But neither she nor Haymitch heard of fifteen-year old Seneca Crane again until he had grown into an icy blue-eyed Head Gamemaker.
On the eve of the 95th Hunger Games Reapings when they had found out who would be taking over the Head Gamemaker post, Haymitch had flat-out refused to let Electra mentor the tributes that year.
Haymitch suspected revenge was in store and he had been right. Electra watched horrified as their twelve year old female tribute was burned alive. Her male counterpart, a sixteen year old boy with a lame leg was the only one in the entire arena to become infected with a deadly noxious poison that took excruciating days to kill him. Despite the amount of deadly animals in the forest arena that year though, not one of them ever made it to the boy, even when he screamed out in agony, begging for death.
Electra's only guilty thought had been, she was glad she hadn't got the opportunity to get to them know them, for then it would be much worse. The evidence of how much worse it would be she found in the form of an unconscious Haymitch lying on his porch the next morning, having not even made it through his front door.
For five brutal years Haymitch endured the horror of Seneca's cruelty. Everyone always said Haymitch was too drunk to go to the Reapings but Electra knew the real reason. Haymitch couldn't bear to go to the Reapings because he knew whatever tribute was chosen they were already dead. He couldn't force himself to see that, for the guilt already tore him apart.
Electra could remember clearly the morning of the 100th Hunger Games Reapings. Haymitch was already drunk before dawn as she dragged him down to the waiting train, heaving him onto one of the beds. He had blinked blood-shot eyes at her before speaking in a hoarse voice. "It's going to be ten times worse this year," he had said in a hollow dead tone, "I just know it." Electra had pressed another bottle of drink in his hand before telling him if he needed more to check the mini-bars in the rooms. Electra didn't go to the Reaping and so she didn't see Stephanie and Frenkin being reaped. Electra hadn't been to the Reapings or mentored tributes in five years; there was no point getting to know dead kids.
A considerable part of her pained for the agony and torture she knew Haymitch must be enduring but when it came down to it; Electra looked out for one person – Electra. It was how she survived.
She was loyal to Haymitch, pitied him and what he had been through. She despised Seneca for the leverage he still had over her even after ten years resulting in the debt she owed him.
But now Electra found herself thrust into a chaotic mess that involved Stephanie Trindlesworth.
Electra was astounded by Stephanie's incredible odds to attract the two men in the whole of Panem who despised each other. Cruel irony didn't even begin to cover that.
When Haymitch had rang her, asking her to mentor Stephanie Trindlesworth she had agreed because Electra cared for Haymitch and wanted to help. After five years Electra had assumed that Haymitch was starting to crack and Electra was willing to step up, after all the help Haymitch had afforded her over the years. She had had no idea that Haymitch was in love with the girl and vice versa.
And when Seneca Crane had rang Electra's phone late last night calling in a debt from nearly ten years ago Electra had been shocked beyond measure. Of course Seneca had been quick to remind her that a phone call would not erase the debt she owed him completely. But Electra's shock only continued to grow as Stephanie had told her of all her dealings with the blue-eyed Gamemaker.
Trouble that Electra was reluctant to become a part of.
She wanted to help Haymitch.
She was obligated to help Seneca.
And as such Electra was one of perhaps the only people that could appreciate Stephanie's position sympathetically.
Electra was, like Stephanie, trapped in a limbo between Haymitch Abernathy and Seneca Crane.
Thanks to girlworthfightingfor for the review; haha well Seneca didn't just save her out of the good of his heart though :P and you asked for Electra's past so…voila! But! – Things aren't always as they appear! :P awk shucks *blushes* I'm always glad to hear you're still enjoying this monster of a story :P