Chapter One-Hundred-and-Seventy-Three; Emotional Hurricane
Stephanie sighed as she settled herself on the bed beside Frenkin's slumbering form. Her fingers were already immersed in the boy's sun-golden locks before she could even think. Stephanie smiled as she smoothed her fingers gently through Frenkin's tousled hair, taking care not to wake him.
In the quiet of Frenkin's room with the steady, rhythmic drone of rain against the windows Stephanie found her thoughts drifting. There was no Electra's breezy tone to drag her from her brooding, no Haymitch here to keep her focus. Only little Frenkin, sleeping soundly and obliviously.
Stephanie had done a fantastic job since waking that morning with her blinding hangover, to keep her thoughts focused on other mundane things. Safe things. Like, exactly how many times she dragged the brush through her hair and most certainly not on who's fingers had entangled possessively in it last night, resulting in the mess her hair was in. Electra's buoyant hurrying had helped keep brooding thoughts at bay, and kept her distracted as she immersed herself in action.
Acting on instinct! – Wasn't that what Electra had told her to do. Not to overthink, analyse and torture herself with things she couldn't change.
But here in the quiet and still of Frenkin's darkened room, trying to shout out the thoughts that were crowding in were impossible.
She imagined Electra would be tempted to whack her upside the head at that moment. Her mother would have just tutted smilingly and shook her head fondly, knowing only too well her youngest daughter's tendency to overthink and justify perhaps every feeling her emotive heart would feel in one minute.
I'm falling in love with Seneca…
Stephanie's fingers stilled in Frenkin's honey hair for a moment, before she resumed the soothing action, trying to slow her suddenly accelerated breathing.
The familiar stubborn, prideful voice in her head piped up indignantly with protests. But even in her head the protests sounded weak and petulant. Stephanie realised that bitter denial was not going to help her any now. It was far too late to be denying what was obvious.
The same hurricane of confusing, conflicting and crippling thoughts and feelings swept her up again mercilessly, as they had last night when she had argued with Electra about her feelings for Seneca.
Stephanie closed her eyes; the drumbeat of the raindrops against the windows providing a cruelly apt backdrop to the raging storm of her thoughts.
Her whole entire emotional crisis could be hinged on one point.
She was falling in love with Seneca Crane; the President's son and Head Gamemaker. And she hated herself for it.
Growing up it had been the universally feared 'Gamemakers' the older boys would scare the younger kids with. The 'Gamemakers' were the monsters your parents warned you about. Your hate of the 'Gamemakers' was cemented when you watched your first Games in all their gruesome glory and realised; the horrifying spectacle you just witnessed was all the fantastically vivid imaginings of those individual minds; the Gamemakers. They had drawn up the plans, designed the machines, orchestrated the deaths, and all for the purpose of entertainment.
Stephanie was utterly mentally exhausted, forcing herself to constantly remind herself what Seneca was. Her brain felt like it was stuck on a never-ending, revolving wheel of repeating horrors. And still…she was falling in love with him.
Gamemakers weren't meant to be like Seneca Crane; so damnably, attractively confident and fiercely passionate! They were meant to be inhuman monsters like King with heinous desires lurking behind greedy, pig-like eyes. They were meant to be like the sunny-haired Gamemaker at the party, who's expression darkened murderously each time a tribute strayed across his vision, or he was forced to give an interview with one. They were meant to be incapable of normal, human feelings; not able to feel love, or be so gentle one moment and fiery the next, or smile so fantastically brilliantly.
Stephanie focused intently on Frenkin's calming inhales and exhales, instead of the frantic tempo of the raindrops against the windows. She forced her thoughts to slow. Her thumping heart to resume a normal rhythm. Working herself up into a state before training would not help her try to avoid fainting spells.
But falling in love with the blue-eyed Gamemaker, falling in love with Seneca Crane was like…it was like – Stephanie smirked ruefully as her thoughts slowed to the only conclusion.
Falling in love with Seneca was like drowning.
And I never could swim well…
It was being helplessly drawn to something so attractive, powerful and dangerous like the water, like Seneca Crane. Knowing full well she should step away before she fell in. Unable to help herself anyway, to pull herself away from the edge. Falling in; the utter loss of control. Of futile fighting against invisible currents or falling in love with the Gamemaker, yet knowing on both occasions innately, that no matter how hard she fought she was going under, falling fast in love with him.
Seneca Crane had tried to kill her once, just like she had nearly drowned in the water. He had been planning her death with the cruel intention of seeing Haymitch suffer. She knew that, as surely as she knew she had nearly drowned when she fell into the water before.
Yet Seneca's words were hauntingly true. Utterly dangerous…and yet she was hopelessly attracted to him, liked him, was hurtling fast into falling in love with him.
And just like the water, Seneca offered Stephanie something she never considered possible or even imaginable. Freedom…He had told her by the lake that day she was free. The words had made Stephanie breathless; feeling like a giddy field of butterflies had taken up residence in her stomach.
When she realised she had somehow unwittingly fallen in love with Haymitch; her sarcastic, alcoholic mentor, it had been different. There had been no 'drowning'. The falling in love part hadn't been so violent, so destructive, so heart-breaking. Electra had been right – again; falling in love with Haymitch had been easy.
He was a good, decent man. He perhaps carried more emotional turmoil than most any other man in District 3. But then Haymitch was a Victor, and he had endured a lot over the years, including the loss of everyone he had ever loved and his harrowing Games.
But Stephanie hadn't fought against falling in love with him. She had fought to hide it from Seneca and the Capitol, wanting desperately to protect Haymitch. But she hadn't fought against her very feelings, mind and heart to stop falling in love with Haymitch.
If Seneca had been water, then Haymitch was fire.
It was how she always felt safe in the warm circle of Haymitch's arms, how his touch could feel like fire licking across her skin and the flame of hope he inspired in her heart, knowing that she had his love and it made her feel stronger. It was the warmth of his chest pressed against her back every time she stumbled. The heat of his hands grasping the angle of her hips as his hot breaths quickened against her throat. It was the flickering flame of hope that had emerged from the scattered embers of her despair when she had thought the icy wall between them had extinguished that fire.
Falling in love with Haymitch had been different for a whole multitude of reasons. There had been none of the scathing self-reproach or absolute horror at her own actions. She had never tried to hide her feelings from Haymitch; in fact it was the opposite. She would spend every second trying to show him how much she loved him with a brush of their hands if that was all the situation allowed, or loving him with every single thing she had when the dire facts of their situation came crashing down on top of them.
Haymitch was the flickering flame of hope that promised a life beyond the Capitol. Seneca was the powerful, undaunted and indestructible wave that would sweep her away, and be her freedom from the Capitol itself.
"Stephanie?"
Stephanie whipped around to see Haymitch shadowing the threshold of the door.
She had no idea how long he had been standing there, perhaps calling her name while she was lost amongst her whirlwind thoughts. Pasting on as convincing a smile as she could, Stephanie dropped one last customary kiss on Frenkin's head before getting up to cross over to Haymitch. She had no doubt he could effortlessly see through her horrible, tremulous smile. She only hoped he wouldn't be able to distinguish the cause of her troubled thoughts, just as easily.
"Ready?" he asked.
Stephanie nodded jerkily, feeling her smile beginning to look more forced with each passing second.
"You alright, sweetheart?" Haymitch prompted her.
"I'm…" – the absolutely furthest thing from okay you can imagine right now – "fine." Stephanie managed a smaller, more genuine smile.
She looked into the familiar storm-grey eyes that with the merest of looks, were still able to ignite a flare of warmth inside her until it felt her heart was blazing.
Haymitch looked back at her, with eyes still shadowed with wary concern. He didn't believe her. She was a terrible liar afterall and he knew her too well.
The care in his eyes was almost unbearable. Because Haymitch knew exactly who she had been with last night. And for her sake alone, he had chosen not to mention the fact that he knew. He was acting as though he were none the wiser about Electra's falsified cover story.
And Stephanie loved him and hated herself all the more for it.
She almost wished he would accuse her, shout at her or demand an explanation. It was the most conflicting thing she had ever felt; knowing she couldn't bear it if Haymitch hated her, and yet unable to help feeling like she deserved it and would almost prefer it.
She had felt the conflicting feeling before, though not to such an acute degree as now.
When she had broken that boy's nose when she was 8 because he had teased her mercilessly for her neon green hair; it was her father who had come to collect her and her sister Weisna from school that day, as he always did during his break at the factory. Fen her brother, had just turned 16 and had started working in the factory that year. Fen had come happily trotting along after their father into the school building, to discover why Weisna and Stephanie weren't waiting on the school steps like they usually were. The Headmaster, Mr Dermott had explained it in hushed, stern tones to her father. Stephanie had broken Gerald Ressing's nose when she hit him. And his parents were demanding that Stephanie's family cough up the money for the medical bills.
Fen had been smugly proud of his little sister, Weisna had been fiercely and vocally disapproving, but her father…Stephanie had never once heard her father's voice raised. And he didn't that day either. He didn't shout, scream or punish her, even as he wordlessly handed over the required money, direct out of his wages. He had simply sat her down afterwards at home, after her mother had given her a stern telling off and Fen had asked her to re-enact the look on Gerald Ressing's face a hundred times over. Her father had explained to her quietly why what she had done was wrong and how violence was never the answer. The calm, patient understanding in his face and his soft words made Stephanie feel ten times worse than if he had actually shouted at her.
The next day the factory had exploded. And they had no money to go to the better, more expensive doctor for her father's injuries, because all her father's wages had been given to fix little, freckled-face Gerald Ressing's broken nose.
She was never once blamed, never once was even a whisper of an accusation thrown at her from anyone of her family. But at 8 years old it was her first real experience of that conflicting emotion she could barely name. That conflicting emotion that made her wish her father would shout at her and be angry at her. He had lost his arm, and maybe if they had of had the money to go to the more expensive, experienced doctor that wouldn't have been the case. Yet she knew that if her father had of shouted at her and blamed her, she would have felt utterly wretched.
It was guilt. Guilt that she had felt then and that she felt now with Haymitch.
Knowing and believing she was in the wrong, that through her own foolishness she had done something truly stupid, something she couldn't take back. And the person she had wronged and hurt was being perfectly…perfect.
No bitter accusations, no suspicious, steel-edged looks…just perfectness.
Stephanie didn't feel she deserved Haymitch's mercy like this, in not mentioning the fact that he had known she had been with Seneca last night. He mightn't have been given the particulars of their meeting; exactly what Stephanie and Seneca had been up to for all that time. But, like Electra had said; Haymitch was smart. He wouldn't need a transcript or a word-by-word account from Stephanie to be able to guess what had happened. To use his own imagination to torture himself with images and thoughts in his room as he drank heavily from the bottle of vodka in his hand, and the minutes dragged by and Stephanie still hadn't returned. Stephanie realised then belatedly, that she hadn't seen Haymitch directly before she had gone down to Seneca, nor at all after she had returned. It had only been Electra waiting for her. And Stephanie knew innately then, that Haymitch could no more bear to have seen her after she had returned from her midnight meeting with Seneca, than she could have borne to see him.
Because the accusations, the bitterness, the lancing suspicion, the heartbreak would have all came exploding out…the moment Haymitch would have seen Stephanie step out of that lift with Seneca Crane's blazer draped possessively around her shoulders, as though the Gamemaker had already won his prize. Finally taken from Haymitch his one perfect thing. And Haymitch had already resolved not to do that with Stephanie; not to devolve to the petulant, childish jealousy he knew Seneca was so fond of.
Stephanie knew that Haymitch was better than that, and she felt shame and guilt twist like a hot knife embedded in her.
I don't deserve you Haymitch…
Stephanie had always prided herself on striving to do what was right. She had been called idiotic, foolish and naïve by everyone from Haymitch himself to Seneca Crane - for trying and upholding such moral values here in the Capitol; and especially in something so morally bereft as the Hunger Games. And yet so soon after promising that things between her and Haymitch were healing, that they had dealt with the issue of Seneca – Stephanie had gone and re-erected the wall rising between them. She had placed each dividing brick between them, as surely as she had kissed Seneca Crane back.
Because Seneca Crane was there once more between them. Haymitch wouldn't mention the fact that he knew she had been with Seneca. And Stephanie didn't know if she had the courage to do so. But more than that, she wanted to make sure she was telling him for the right reasons. She didn't want to hurt Haymitch more just to absolve herself of her own crippling guilt.
Stephanie refocused on Haymitch's piercing grey gaze. If she was trying to convince him she was the aforementioned 'fine' – she was doing a terrible job at it.
"It's this hangover," Stephanie blurted out into the pregnant silence. And somehow the three words cut through the tension effectively, as Haymitch dropped his head, smirking ruefully.
"Honestly sweetheart, I can't believe you drank that much," he muttered, still smirking. Stephanie didn't feel in the slightest bit annoyed that he clearly still found the idea amusing, of her being idiotic enough to try and drink with Electra – a self-proclaimed 'seasoned alcoholic'. That teasing smirk on his lips was the best thing Stephanie had seen since she knocked back that first burning glass of whiskey at some forsaken hour last night with Electra.
"I don't know if this makes it worse or not, considering the state I was in when I woke," Stephanie said in a chagrined voice, "But I actually didn't drink that much. Ellen drank most of it – the woman is like a sponge! She just seemed to inhale three drinks for every glass of mine."
Haymitch chuckled understandingly. "Ellen gives me a run for my money sometimes even," he admitted.
Stephanie scoffed. "I find that hard to believe," she teased lightly. "How come you two never get hangovers?!" she exclaimed emphatically in the next moment; very nearly, completely serious. Capitolites seemed to have inexhaustible stamina and her mentors seemed to have immunity against the effects of alcohol – all the while Stephanie had neither.
"I do sweetheart. I'm just a lot better and have had a lot more practice at dealing with them than you," Haymitch replied sardonically, with a roguish smirk that still made Stephanie's stomach flip.
"And what about Ellen? Is she just invincible – I've never seen that woman with even a slight hangover?" Stephanie grinned, raising her brows.
"That's because Ellen adheres to an age old philosophy," Haymitch said enigmatically, smirking.
Stephanie arched a brow suspiciously. "And what would that be?"
"If you're always drinking then you can never have a hangover."
Stephanie sniggered. "That is so bad!" She tried to sound fiercely disapproving but failed.
Haymitch shrugged. "I don't think the woman has been stone cold, real sober in over three years."
It was obvious they were both trying to put things behind them and push on. To regain some semblance of that warm lightness to their relationship that they had achieved last night before Stephanie's midnight rendezvous with Seneca. Her instincts wanted her to go crawling and apologising to Haymitch, but she pushed back the selfish impulse. Haymitch had been entirely selfless in not mentioning that he knew she had been with Seneca last night. So Stephanie resolved to be just as selfless and try her best to tear down the wall between them again and bring back that comfortableness they had enjoyed for a short while last night.
"All the same sweetheart, you should probably grab something from the kitchen to eat on the way," Haymitch advised knowingly. Stephanie grimaced at the mere mention of food. Her stomach still felt a little queasy despite Haymitch's miracle cure.
"If you've had nothing to eat, you know you'll faint," Haymitch coaxed.
The mere mention of fainting smoothed Stephanie's features though. She looked at Haymitch, teeth tugging uncertainly at her bottom lip. Haymitch's gaze immediately zeroed in on her expectantly.
"I er…I know about my fainting now; the reason and the cure," Stephanie elaborated haltingly. It was like bringing up Seneca, without ever having to mention him aloud.
Despite it though, Haymitch didn't flinch.
"And what does that mean exactly?" he prompted her. Stephanie felt her heart give a painful thump. It was almost like old times; when she would tell Haymitch everything, because he wanted to protect her.
"Er – remember when I fell in the river back home? Neon green hair and all?"
Haymitch's brows rose slightly. "That's the reason?" he asked disbelieving. She didn't think he thought she was lying, rather she suspected Haymitch thought Seneca was either lying or had messed up.
"It was the chemicals in the water pumped out of the factory. I swallowed a lot. They damaged my nervous system or something, meaning I faint more often because it's like a switch in me keeps going off too early."
The look of blatant scepticism on Haymitch's face lessened, though he still didn't look thoroughly convinced.
"What's the cure then?" he asked.
"Pills – one a day, to reverse the damage done."
"And in the meantime? What about your fainting now?"
Stephanie grimaced, shrugging uncomfortably. "There's nothing that can be done about it. I have to stop fainting myself."
Haymitch scoffed. "Some 'cure'," he muttered sardonically under her breath. She knew intrinsically though that his contempt wasn't directed at her, but rather at a blue-eyed Gamemaker who had promised to cure Stephanie of her fainting abnormality.
"And that's it?" Haymitch asked, looking to Stephanie.
That wasn't it...entirely.
She hadn't told him she was actually dying and with every fainting spell there was a chance she wouldn't wake up. Nor had she told him that Seneca's uncle was going to be operating on her after the Games. She considered they were two pieces of information that would serve no other purpose than to hurt Haymitch.
"That's it," Stephanie confirmed. She knew of course Haymitch would be able to tell she was omitting things by her voice alone, so she pushed on hurriedly. Her diversionary tactic was obvious she knew, but she couldn't help it now.
"Frenkin's not going to be here all alone, is he?" she asked suddenly.
"It won't be for long. We'll be back before he wakes," Haymitch assured her, carrying on the conversation easily as though never noticing her attempts.
Stephanie glanced over her shoulder at Frenkin's silently slumbering form, frowning unhappily. She hated the thought of leaving Frenkin alone in this darkened, rain-beaten penthouse.
Haymitch's hand brushed her elbow as she stood dithering at Frenkin's bedroom door, in a silent gesture urging her to move.
Stephanie sighed lightly, relenting as she closed Frenkin's bedroom door gently.
What was her alternative? Drag Frenkin along to training with them where he could be reminded constantly of his own ineptitude. Inform him of all the numerous, intricate Capitol plots Stephanie was involved in, just so whatever little time he had left could be made even more miserable being frightened?
"Sweetheart, don't worry about Frenkin. The kid'll be alright," Haymitch's gruff whisper pulled Stephanie from her bitter musings as they stepped into the lift.
Stephanie managed a wan smile in agreement, that she knew didn't convince Haymitch at all. She also winced slightly as the sudden bright white lights in the lift seemed intent on boring through her eye sockets. She ruefully fished out Electra's earlier gift of sunglasses; slipping the ridiculously huge, black shades on. She imagined she must look like a fly, but didn't care as the piercing light immediately relented.
Haymitch gave her a fond smirk. "Nice look, sweetheart," he teased lightly.
Stephanie snorted ruefully. "I believe it's called the 'Morning after, regretting deadly hangover' look," she replied with a reciprocating smirk.
Stephanie jolted, feeling her heart leap into her throat as she felt the phone in her back pocket vibrate insistently. Her stomach retched unpleasantly also, trying to catch on to the mild lurching seizure her body had suddenly been grabbed with.
Haymitch's head immediately snapped back to see why she had uttered such a strange choking yelp from her mouth. And in the silence of the lift the demanding buzzing was only too obvious.
Stephanie swallowed, as her eyes connected with Haymitch's for what felt like an impossibly long moment. He evidently knew she was carrying a phone on her that was now ringing. A thousand thoughts threatened to cram into Stephanie's head but she banished them all away. She gave herself a mental slap as she fished the phone from her back pocket. Trying to pretend she had suddenly gone deaf was downright insulting to both their intelligences.
Glancing at the caller ID Stephanie felt her throbbing pulse slow as her brow furrowed with confusion. When Seneca phoned her, the caller ID was always absent or withheld, but…
'Charming, Blue-haired Genius'…?
Stephanie answered the phone warily.
"Are you two on your way down yet or do I have to come up and kick you both down myself?"
"Ellen!" Stephanie cursed the woman colourfully for a few moments while Haymitch grinned as he realised what had happened. The slightly tense air dissipated immediately as the lift doors pinged open.
"Do you like my caller ID?" Electra asked casually; the waves of amusement palpable over the phone.
"No, I don't," Stephanie snapped irritably, marching moodily out of the lift.
"Maybe you'll like the one I've saved for when a withheld number calls?" Electra mused. A burning retort was resting on the tip of Stephanie's tongue before she stopped in her tracks, baffled. This wasn't the ground floor of the penthouse buildings with the double-door exit leading to the pavement outside.
She vaguely recognised the room as the one the Chariots had rolled into after the Procession was over; vast, scrupulously clean and brilliantly lit up. It had evidently been changed into some sort of garage now as rows upon rows of identical low, long black cars waited to be used. Stephanie realised this was where the cars that were used to transport the tributes to and from the events were kept.
"This way, sweetheart," Haymitch said, catching her elbow and directing her along the rows of gleaming vehicles.
"You didn't sound very excited when I answered the phone, you know," Electra said conversationally, that glimmer of usual grim humour in her voice.
Stephanie glanced around to see if she could spot the blue-haired woman, and possibly lob the phone at her. But she couldn't.
"But then maybe you were expecting someone else? Maybe, –"
Stephanie hung up before Electra could finish, shoving the phone irascibly back into her pocket.
"And I thought Ellen was bad when she was trying to 'help'. She's ten times worse when she's actually cheerful," Stephanie grumbled as Haymitch directed her in between two identical cars.
"Ellen is never at her happiest sweetheart, than when she's annoying everyone else around her," Haymitch remarked as he opened the car door nearest.
"Well, hello! Fancy meeting you two here bright and early this morning?"
Electra was lounging languidly already against the leather seats.
Stephanie scowled at her as she got into the car, and then belatedly remembered she was wearing the huge sunglasses meaning Electra wouldn't have been able to appreciate the burning, scathing intensity of the scowl directed at her.
Stephanie slipped the sunglasses from her face in the dimmed interior of the car as Haymitch climbed in and closed the car door shut after him.
"Go!" Electra leaned forth to rap the screen that separated them from the driver smartly, almost crawling onto Stephanie's lap to do so.
"Haymitch – again, I'm going to kill her," Stephanie grumbled as Electra elbowed her in the ribs as she sat back in her seat.
"That's more the spirit for training!" Electra grinned.
Stephanie stared completely perplexed at the blue-haired woman. She was convinced that either Electra was most definitely drunk or had lost her tentative hold on sanity overnight unbeknownst to Stephanie until now.
"Ellen, apart from the four bottles of whiskey you had last night, did you take anything else?" Haymitch asked, half-joking.
"Or forget to take something," Stephanie added in a mumble under her breath.
Electra rolled her eyes, before turning to Haymitch who she was sitting beside.
"She's just annoyed because I saved myself as 'Charming, Blue-haired Genius' on her phone, and she's saved as 'Overthinking, Emotional Wreck' on mine," Electra explained easily, jerking her thumb in Stephanie's direction.
Stephanie scrubbed an exasperated hand over her face, looking balefully at Electra.
"Haymitch, please tell me it's not just me and that Ellen is behaving really strangely?" Stephanie asked drily.
A grin was shadowing Haymitch's lips, deepening and waning in prominence. He looked like he was torn between wanting to tell them to shut up and stop bickering before he got a headache, and laughing at their sheer antics. Stephanie considered it was the second most worthwhile thing to see since she had got up that morning.
"Training's going to be fun," Electra remarked cheerfully, grinning downright disconcertingly at Stephanie. And that was the most frightening thing she had perhaps witnessed since coming to the Capitol.
Stephanie gulped. She wasn't sure she was going to survive training.