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I had no idea what to say. Mom had told me about someone named Cinna before, of course. I knew all about Cinna, her awesome stylist, her rebellious Capitol friend, her dead rebellious Capitol friend. I looked at the man again and realized just how similar he looked to how Mom had described Cinna to me; darker skin, short cropped brown hair, very simple and ordinary with the exception of his gold eyeliner which brought out the gold flecks in his green eyes. However, Mom had been very clear that he was taken by the Capitol and never found, presumed dead after an interrogation on him.
Presumed...
"I'm guessing from that look that Katniss mentioned the name before?" he said, looking at me in an amused way. He leaned against the metal cart and crossed his arms, his eyes half closed. "Did she say anything terribly interesting?"
"Well... she mentioned that you were dead," I said slowly, unsure how to proceed. Was it actually Cinna? The one Mom had told me about? Or was it Cinna's son? Or someone completely unrelated, with just the same name by coincidence...?
"Mmm," he said, his brow knitting slightly in confusion. "Well... why would she say that?"
"She said they never found you, and everyone thought you... he... something... died in interrogation," I said.
Now he looked even more confused. "I would have... if not for Portia," he replied slowly, squinting at me now. "Didn't she tell you when the war was over?"
"Got back from what?" I said, now equally confused. "I never knew her, she died before I was born. I know practically nothing about her. What are you talking about?"
Cinna paled and started slumping down. "She died?"
Oh crap. That is not how you tell someone their friend died. What the hell is wrong with me?!
"I am so sorry, I thought you knew," I said quickly. "She died in the middle of the rebellion."
"Oh," he said, looking at nothing in particular. "Well, I believe I know what happened. Allow me to explain, so that once you are out of the arena you can let your mother know.
"After she was inside the tube under the arena, I was mugged by Peacekeepers and knocked unconscious. When I woke up, I was interrogated for weeks on end, especially after they managed to break out of the arena. I was very close to death, so I suppose they weren't too far off. One night after the interrogator left, I was on a cold cement floor, coughing blood. I had lost a tooth, which they hadn't dared to do before. Five of my fingers were broken and one was missing..." he trailed off and held up his hands for me to see the missing pinkie on his left hand.
"The door opened and I didn't dare to look up. I assumed it was the interrogator back to finish me off, but a female voice greeted me instead. A kind female voice, a familiar female voice. I didn't have the strength to sit up or lift my head to see, but I would recognize that voice on any day. It belonged to Portia. She helped me up and led me out of the room and outside of the building. I'm still not sure how she managed it, but I assume that they just never thought someone would break in just to break me out.
"We were out of the building and two blocks away before the alarms in the building finally went off. At that moment, it was either both of us would be caught or she would escape and leave me to my own devices. I told her to run and join the rebellion; they knew what she had done and she would never be welcome in the Capitol again. I made sure she knew I was proud of her. I told her to not tell anyone about what had happened until the rebellion was over, because I feared Katniss would try to find me and that simply wouldn't do.
"She cried but she did as she was told. I limped into an alley, finding energy in the hope that fresh air gave me. I wiped the blood off my face and slunk into the nearest building, which happened to be a dimly lit bar. To anyone who asked, I told them I got in a fight with my brother. I stayed there for three hours and not a single peacekeeper entered that bar. I left when a TV on the wall of the bar broadcast my face across it, just because of paranoia... I was too swollen for anyone to recognize me anyway.
"I collected food and left the Capitol that night. I stayed in the woods for months until I had fully recovered, but when I started to make my way back the Capitol was in full out war. Refugees stumbled into the woods each day and I helped them, giving them water and what food I could manage, medicine if I had any. Even though they were Capitol citizens and I knew I was supposed to fight for the other side, I was from the Capitol too and I couldn't let them die. With each day that passed I hoped your mother would come find me, or Portia, and that she would find the refugees too and bring them back to the Capitol and restore them into society after whatever punishment was fit. But she never did.
"Years passed and no one recognized me, but that was alright. I disappeared into the background of the refugee camp, and I did as many small things as I could to keep the camp crippled and to remove any threat it could possibly pose to the new nation but I failed.
"When the games finally came around, I made a single request... that I be a stylist. Still no one recognized me; my face was broad from scar-tissue and my hands misshapen, and my posture is very different after damage to my spine and broken ribs. But a few remembered me when I had helped them in the woods that day and so they allowed me to be a stylist again, for District 12.
"So here I am. I suppose Portia never relayed the news that I lived, considering she died before she was supposed to say anything..."
Cinna looked heavy and tired, so heavy that even his eyelids were dropping down over his eyes.
I had no idea what to say for the third time in as many minutes. Something about what he said and how he reacted didn't ring quite right, almost false, but I couldn't see why someone would possibly lie to me about being my mother's dead stylist whom I had never met. I also couldn't come up with a way it would pose a threat to me, so I did not argue or raise a query. It seemed foolish to pick a fight with the man who would basically decide how many sponsors I got, anyway.
He didn't speak any more after that, and I didn't offer up conversation either. He moved around me with boxes, buckets, brushes, and sprays and started messing with my hair. Strong smells that I didn't recognize were coming from atop my head but from my angle I couldn't see the reflection of my hair in the mirror.
"We don't want them to think you look like Katniss the Mockingjay, the one who brought their world crumbling down," Cinna said after about thirty minutes. "But those who remember her as the Girl on Fire are the ones who still would route for you." The metal chair started rising upright and my hair spilled down over my shoulders in waves. To my surprise my black hair was bleached and died in an array of reds, oranges and yellows done just so that it looked like my hair could have been burning.
"They are going to parade you in front of the Capitol just like they used to," Tatiana said helpfully. I frowned at her; she didn't look much older than me, so there wasn't much chance she was alive when the Capitol still reigned, much less old enough to remember it.
"This is my daughter, by the way," Cinna said quietly, pointing to Tatiana. My face cleared, realizing that he must have told her about it in the same way Mom had told me. Looking at the two I saw the similarity now; she had lighter skin and pale brown hair that corkscrewed out from her head in all directions, and sparkling green eyes with the same flecks of gold in them that Cinna had. She had more delicate bones than Cinna, and a smooth face that either came from her mother or it was how Cinna had looked before years of pain and torture had aged him so. "Finish the make up, Tia, I'm going to go finish putting the final touches on her dress."
"Dad wanted you to look different than the other tributes in District Twelve. When Katniss and Peeta had been together he wanted to make them look together, but in a setting with fifty two tributes he wanted to make you stand out. And if you looked like the other tributes it would make everyone think of Katniss and... well... that wouldn't work in your favor," she said. She didn't talk much after that except for a few comments about how my nails were surprisingly well kept for a rugged twelvian and how even having that said, they were truly awful. An assortment of flowers, powders, smells, and liquids went dancing across my face, hands and feet in a blur and I just sat there, trying to breathe and not get the worst headache of my life from those smells.
After what seemed like ages, she moved and I could see my reflection again. It was completely appalling to see myself in that mirror because I did not look like myself at all. She had done make up around my eyes to give a dark, smokey look that somehow made my eyes glow blue, a very bright blue that was very different from my mother's grey. Shadows had been added to my face that hadn't been there before, giving me a more defined jaw and a slimmer nose to down-play my facial relation to my mother. A deep red lipstick fit into my face in a way that looked more natural than it should, and when I finally dragged my attention down to my hands I saw swirls of red and yellow on my nails that looked like marbled fire.
For a minute, I felt a swirl of girlish pride. I felt so pretty. It was one of those things that Mom and Dad never really encouraged... being girly, loving dresses, make up, colors... but I reminded myself that I wasn't going to see them anymore anyway, so I could be as girly as I wanted. And for that second, I absolutely loved being girly. I loved feeling like I was actually really pretty.
That was when Cinna came in with the dress. Not a dress, but the dress.
The most amazing dress I had ever seen.