Mags finds me after we've exited the train.
As usual, I held the proper persona: waving and winking at screaming Capitol girls, kissing hands, and flashing a million dollar smile. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Annie and Drift exit the train while holding a quiet conversation, neither one looking at me as they pass into the hands of their new designers and flamboyant prep teams.
When Mags finds me, I'm inside the lobby of the training center sitting in a chair and fumbling with a colorful flower thrown to me from the crowd. She lends me a small smile, but it's obvious from the way her eyes turn downward that she senses something is wrong. A grandmother's concern. Her tilted head asks a question.
"I'm fine, Mags," I say, rubbing the back of my neck and looking downward with a short laugh. "I think I just really messed up on something, is all." Imagine that: the famous Finnick Odair messing up.
Her warm, aged hand lightly cups my cheek and pulls my head upward. I look into my previous mentor's wrinkled eyes, and as much as I hate the thought, I can't help but wonder how on Earth a woman like this could have ever killed a human being. She brings down her hand and raises a small finger to point toward a camera crew sitting in the distance. Don't let the cameras see, she's saying.
I sit up straighter and try to mirror her smile. Mags nods once with a firm look of approval and brushes my shoulder with her hand before turning and walking away. She is right, of course. Tonight is the tribute parade, and everyone will be expecting the famous Finnick Odair to be all smiles and seduction as he takes his seat alongside this year's mentors.
I try to remind myself that at least no one can buy me out during Hunger Games week; apparently my mentoring duties are the only thing in President Snow's mind to take priority over my being slaved. It's sickening to think the trade-off comes at the price of the probable death of Annie and Drift.
Annie. I'm thinking about her again, and about our conversation from earlier that morning. The exhausted look she gave me... it was like she felt I was making fun of her with my manner. She has to see that that wasn't at all my intention, that I was only wanting to find out more about the way her mind works. Instead of that, I've mocked her only chance at survival. And yet she wasn't angry, only tired, as if I were a little kid who couldn't help the way I was acting toward her. I'm about to stick my head in my hands when I catch the camera crew in my peripheral vision and sigh. It's going to be a long day.
...
"Places, everyone. Places!"
Eura and I walk into the underpass where the colorful array of this year's tributes are gathered near their horse-drawn chariots preparing for the Tribute Parade. The children and teens who flood the floor are adorned in outfits made of various sparkly fabrics and material including wires, metals, and jewels.
"I can only just remember what my Tribute Parade was like," Eura says with a dramatic shiver. "What awful, tacky outfits. Thank God neither of us ever have to do that again, right?"
I don't respond, though, because when I turn to my right I see Annie Cresta stroking the horse attached to her chariot, and she most definitely doesn't look tacky. The dress that flows down to her ankles is a shimmery blue like the ocean at noon with a translucent outer layer wrapping around her arms, giving the illusion of layered waves of water. Her dark brown hair hangs in shiny loose ringlets that are neither too messy to be natural nor too perfect to look strange. The designer must have been going for the effect of a beautiful sea goddess, and it worked.
I break off from Eura without a word of departure and walk closer to Annie, noticing that she's holding up one hand to the horses mouth. She turns as I approach and gives me a small smile.
"Want a sugar cube?" she says, pulling back her hand from the horse to reveal tiny white and grainy squares. "The horses love them."
"As do I," I say, snatching one of the cubes from her hand and plopping it into my mouth with a crunch.
She only gives a slight roll of the eyes. Up close, I can see she's wearing shimmery makeup, and her dark green irises illuminate despite all the blue.
"Annie?" I say, my tone deeper and more focused. "I just want you to know that I do take my mentoring seriously, and I never wanted you to think I don't. From now on, it will be full focus on prepping for the Games, I promise."
She wrinkles her nose, narrows her eyes and studies me. It's that same look, the look that strips away whatever bit of fake confidence I have left and leaves me naked in my own insecurities. But then it's gone and her smile grows bigger as she says, "Thank you. I'd really like that."
I watch as she mounts the chariot and adjusts the flowing fabric of her dress. She catches me staring and grins.
"Better go find your seat, Odair," she says. "All of Panem is waiting to see you, and I can't have a mentor slacking around on his duties."
I'm about to give a clever reply, but my voice is drowned out as music begins playing and Drift mounts the chariot. I decide to give a small wave, and then I turn to find the other victors.
...
Thousands upon thousands of people are staring at me and shouting my name during the Tribute Parade. Cameras focus on me from time to time and I think at one point they even introduce me.
Yet all of the Tribute Parade, I am only looking at her. It's at that moment that I come to the scary realization that I think she's beautiful.
What's scariest of all is that I'm not entirely sure what that means.