Chapter Two
Where Annie makes a promise.
Alone in the bedroom Gossamer had showed to her, Annie was distant and unreachable. She had wrapped herself in a plush comforter and curled up on the foot of the bed, staring blankly out the window at the passing horizons. Despite it being one of the most expensive blankets she had ever seen, Annie was longing for the tattered thing she kept on her bed back home, thin and frayed and doused in salt water many times over. It seemed to be growing sunnier outside with every mile the train travels away from District Four, ironically, and that bothered her. When Gossamer appeared in her doorway to beckon her to dinner, she couldn't even look at the woman.
"Annie," Gossamer snapped at her, voice laced with concern. She waved her hand in front of the girl's face, trying desperately to get her attention. When Annie finally looked away from the window, she was panged with guilt for the worry in Gossamer's glittering eyes. "Oh, good," sighed the woman, "I thought something was seriously wrong with you for a second! Don't scare me like that!"
Sadly, it reminded Annie of something her mother might have said. She dragged her fingers across the inside of her blanket-cocoon, paying attention to each individual thread, itching to be home. "Alright," she agreed. Her voice sounded awkward, even to herself.
"Time for dinner!" repeated Gossamer, pulling the comforter away from Annie's shoulders. Pure shock crossed her plastic features when she glanced her over. Annie assumed that it was because she had stayed in her clothes from the Reaping, her mother's blue dress that buttoned up the front and was now covered in dirt and drenched in sweat from her dramatic reaction in the square, despite Gossamer showing her the bathroom and the drawers of fine clothes when she first entered the room. "This will not do," she scolded, tugging at the Annie's sleeve.
Annie drew in a sharp breath. She hadn't done what she was told the first time around, so the least she could do was obey Gossamer now – even if she wanted nothing more to cling to her mother's dress. She nodded, letting the comforter drop to a pile around her on the mattress.
The black haired woman was already rummaging through dresser drawers, looking for something appropriate for a tribute to wear. Annie knows that was one of Gossamer's biggest issues to take care of every year for the Games, the woman has always made a public point through televised interviews that the way a tribute presents themselves is one of the most important things before they enter the arena. In her head, she hears Vance saying how ridiculous the whole thing is, like he did every year, how they just want the children slaughtered and it never matters if they look good or not. Vance had said a lot of things to Annie that would normally be frowned upon in the district, negative things about the Games and the Capitol itself, knowing that his words would be safe because his sister knew how to keep her mouth shut. Annie watched the woman hold up a shapeless piece of red fabric.
"It compliments your dark hair!" squealed the woman happily. Annie hoped that not everyone in the Capitol was this shallow. Gossamer threw the crimson thing into Annie's lap, where she held it up to herself in confusion. What was it? A shirt? A dress? It could pass as either…
"What is it?" asked Annie timidly. She balled the fabric up in her hands, trying to hide it from herself. Whatever it was, she knew she wouldn't be comfortable in it, despite it being insanely soft.
"It's a dress!" Gossamer was astounded that Annie couldn't tell, she could hear it in her voice. The woman handed her a thick chestnut belt, and Annie noticed that it was the same color as the buttons on the dress's sleeves and collar. It was beautiful, she had to admit, but it was nothing like she had ever seen in District Four, the place she was clinging to at the moment. Gossamer took Annie's bony wrists and yanked her off the bed.
The brunette stumbled to her feet, head reeling. She was compliant as Gossamer peeled her mother's dress off of her, standing absolutely still without saying a word. Her heart jolted painfully as she watched the blue fabric be thrown across the room carelessly, landing on the floor on the other side of the bed where she couldn't see it. Gossamer pulled the red dress over her head, and it fit to Annie's body about as well as a pillow case would. She strapped the belt under her bust and fastened it tightly there. Annie felt as if she couldn't breathe.
Annie fell back onto the mattress in disappointment when she learned that Gossamer wasn't done with tidying her up. Her stomach growled loudly, hungrily, as the black haired woman scrubbed the dirt off of her knees and her face from the Reaping with a damp cloth. She nearly cried when Gossamer brushed through her hair, not only ripping through knots, but taking apart the lovely up do her mother had styled. Annie allowed her mind to drift, hoping to distract herself, and wondered if Finnick would be at dinner too.
However, distractions took a cruel turn for the worst. In thinking of happier things, cheerful times, it brought her to an afternoon on the beach as an eleven-year-old, naïve and safe from the Reaping. Annie was sitting cross-legged in the damp sand, melting in the fresh breeze that rolled in off of the waves. She had passed out in the square when she was watching the Games, sick from seeing Finnick Odair spearing people with his trident, and was carried off to the beach by Fletcher and Vance. There, Fletcher spent the rest of the day teaching little Annie to tie knots, while Vance was beside them, picking sand out from between his toes. An exchange of words passed between the siblings that day, but Annie couldn't remember the words of it now, just calm tone of voices they used with her and how she was soothed by them. Now, she was haunted by her childish fear of Finnick Odair.
"There," smiled Gossamer encouragingly, running her fingers through Annie's dark hair. She quickly pulled her hand away and wiped the grease and grime off on her sleeve discreetly. "Much better. Now let's get to dinner!"
Annie followed the short, prissy woman to the narrow hallway, where she was lead to the dining car. Since she had been in her room for so long, she had spent no time growing accustomed to walking on the moving train – and it was much more disorienting than walking on a boat. They have taught in school that the Capitol trains are some of the fastest in the world, and always have been, traveling at over 250 miles per hour, but that still doesn't give Annie any idea how long it will take them to arrive in the Capitol. She cuts her thoughts short and slips into the dining car behind Gossamer.
It is almost a relief to see that they are the last two to arrive, just as it is to see that the room reflects so much of District Four that it's a tad scary. The polished wood panels on the wall have designs carved into them that resemble fishing nets, just as all of the doors in the market do. Annie sat in between Finnick and Rayne, shifting uncomfortably in her itchy dress every few seconds. She tried to keep her thoughts revolving around the warmth of the room or the carvings in the walls to distract herself, but she kept glancing down at Finnick's hand resting on the table, and she couldn't decide if she would have liked to be holding it or fearing it because it was too easy to picture him holding the trident with it.
"I see that Gossamer has gotten her hands on you," purrs Finnick in his usual seductive tone. His sea green eyes were smiling while his lips were hidden behind his hand, casually hovering over his mouth. "You look very pretty, little plaything."
Annie's cheeks were dusted pink with blush. "Thank you," she whispered, hardly audible, though she didn't really know if she should accept it as a compliment. The reporter from the train station's voice was ringing in her ears. "Finnick Odair has a new plaything!" She was the tribute, shipped off to be murdered, and he was her mentor, anything else was wildly inappropriate. Annie turned away from him.
"I heard what you said to your mother," Rayne says, entirely out of the blue. Annie looks to him, a bit startled. His soft tone of voice didn't match his harsh facial features and his ruthless demeanor. "About my sister. I wanted to say thanks."
The brunette nodded. It made her sad to think of the little girl, left alone as her brother is sent to the Arena. Such things were just what she needed to haunt her mind to keep her from sleeping for several nights. She shrank into her chair, though most of her petite body was already hidden under the table. "I wasn't just going to let her be alone," Annie assured him. "It would be more trouble for them not to take care of her, anyway."
"I just felt so awful, standing on stage, watching her scream," he muttered. This is slightly surprising, since when Rayne was on stage, he was excited and bouncing around and encouraging cheers from the Careers in the crowd – because he was one of them. Annie had assumed he had been happy about being selected, could it have been an act? "She had to be carried out of the square by Peacekeepers."
"I didn't realize," she gasped. Annie found talking to Rayne was easier than she expected, he was the only other person who understood the pain of the Reaping and the longing for District for. Or, at least, she assumed that he understood those things. He reminded her a tad of Fletcher, trying to be tough on the outside when things are taking a severe toll on the inside. "So, you're not the typical Career then, are you?"
He shrugs his broad shoulders. "I don't know," Rayne admits. "I trained like hell until my parents died. I was a year away from being out of the Reaping, guess I wasn't so lucky. I might as well fight it out now that I'm committed to the Games. What about you? You've never trained at all, have you?"
Annie shakes her head. The way he speaks is so judgmental that it's painful for her to listen to. However, it was not enough to guilt her into feeling like she should have spent years training for the Games. She is still perfectly content knowing that her years were well spent, happy, tying knots, sailing with her brothers, helping her mother look after their little cottage on the bay. "Never," she confirms.
"Well, I'm going to take care of that," murmured Finnick alluringly in Annie's ear, having leaned over so his head rested comfortably in the arch of the girl's shoulder. Not only was she flinching away from being startled and his sharp chin digging into sensitive skin, but his hot breath in her ear. She felt dirty from the way he acted around her; what would her family say about this?
"No," she told him. Annie didn't want to train, she had no urge to train, and she had no will to survive the Arena. She didn't want to know what it is like to survive the Games, with the faults of the Games ever on her shoulders. She desperately wished to disappear from the table altogether, but instead sat fidgeting more than ever. Annie even thought it might be a good idea to throw herself at the initial bloodbath that goes down at the Cornucopia as soon as the starting horn sounds, thinking that she wouldn't even try to survive to the end. "I can't do this."
"Of course you can," he reassures her, stroking her back lightly. For a moment, Annie doesn't think that he is putting forth the flirtatious act and that maybe he is serious about keeping her alive in the arena. He must be daft for thinking she'd make it through the first night. "I'm going to make sure of it." Finnick rises from his chair, leaving a cold spot on Annie's shoulder. "I'll be right back."
As soon as he had stepped out of the dining car, Mags spoke up for the first time. "Don't worry about him, Annie," says the elderly woman with a smile. "He knows what he's doing. You've got a good mentor."
Annie hadn't doubted that, but his attitude was something of question. "Does he always seem this attached to his tributes?" she asked.
"No, of course not. And that's why you're lucky." Mags winks.
Lucky is not the word she would use to describe herself, especially not today. Each of Annie's thoughts was still laced with depression, each bringing a small piece of her family to the front of her mind. She wanted nothing more than to forget all about the Reaping and return to her family's cottage in the poorest area of District Four. They were probably all tucked into bed by now, none of them able to sleep after watching her hauled off today. The Games would be particularly cruel to them this year; they wouldn't get any sleep in weeks. Vance was probably still up, watching the sun sink into the watery horizon. That was something the pair did every night before turning in to bed, they sat out on the rickety old porch and watched the sunset; Vance would do most of the talking, that was the time when he would rant about the Capitol or the Games or his irritating fishing crew. Annie always kept her mouth shut.
"I'll say," sighed Gossamer with a glint in her glittery eyes. "Training with dreamy Finnick Odair! Do you know how many girls in the Capitol would give anything to be in your place?"
Annie hardly thought that the girls in the Capitol would trade places with her, how many of the pampered brats – as Vance often called anyone in the Capitol, Gossamer included – would actually sign up for a fight to the death? Finnick was going to train her to stay alive, not seduce her like he would most of them. Of course, he already was trying to seduce her. She didn't think she could contain her anger when she spoke to Gossamer, so she hesitated before replying. Thankfully, Rayne spoke up for her.
"For a fight to the death on live television?" he demanded, slamming a muscular fist down onto the table. Silverware clattered. "I don't think so."
Annie whimpered at the sound of his frustration, his rage. She hated hearing someone so downright furious, even if she did half-expect it from a Career. The literal equilibrium in the dining car shifted as the train sped down a turn in the track. Her stomach did summersaults in her gut and she hung her head, closing out the rest of the world in hopes to keep whatever contents her stomach held down. She looked around the dining car when she gathered the strength, only to see that everyone else in the room appeared perfectly fine. She hid her face again.
There was only one other time that Annie could think of that she had felt so miserable before in her life. Of course, it was when Fletcher had been depressed over his sweetheart, when she felt that she couldn't talk to a single one of her family members. Annie had always been quiet, there were teachers at her school that have never heard her speak before in her life, but she appreciated knowing that she could talk to her parents if she ever needed anything. She felt that she had been shut out by her brothers, and that they were shutting each other out as well; her mother was always trying to console Fletcher and her father was taking extra shifts sailing just to get out of the house. Annie hadn't gone down to the docks once during that time in the Games, she had stayed home curled in the corner of her bedroom, crying.
"Annie?" asked Mags sweetly. "Are you alright?"
The girl could feel her throat closing up and the tears swelling in her eyes. Would her family fall apart like that again now that she was off to the Games? She hated to think about it, but it was a distant reality that she was still linked to. Annie began helplessly bawling. She wiped her eyes, but tears continued to wash down her cheeks, now drained of color. Unable to speak, because she knew her words would fail her, she shook her head.
Finnick's hand rested on her shoulder. She looked at it, sniffling, scolding herself for crying so loudly that she couldn't hear him come back into the room. "Come with me," he insists, extending his other hand to her.
Annie gripped his hand like a buoy thrown out to safe her from in a drowning in an ocean of tears. The pair pushed past two girls standing in the slim doorway, each carrying trays of food, and nearly knocked both of them off of their feet. The brunette felt her arm was going to be ripped off because she couldn't keep up with her mentor. Finnick brought her into a room, with the lights turned up so brightly it was difficult for Annie to see through her tears. From what she could gather, it was another bedroom.
Finnick placed his strong hands on either of her shoulders and dared to look her in the eye, even as a sniveling mess. "I am not going to baby you, Annie," he promised. The power in his voice was surprising enough to make her eyes widen to the size of saucers, it was so different from his seductive purr. "I am not going to take you saying that you can't train or that you don't want to compete in the Games. No one does. Not even the Careers. They want to win; they don't want to go through the stage where it's possible they could lose. I want you to be strong enough to try."
"Why?" she gasped through her tears. The faint taste of saltwater danced across her tongue. Annie could break her gaze away from Finnick's eyes, the ones that captivated her every time they caught her. "Why do I matter? Why is it so important? Why can't I just get myself killed and be done with it?"
"Because then my efforts to get you through hell will be worthless!" Finnick snaps at her. "I am going to do everything I can to get you to come back alive and not in a body bag! A girl like you has done nothing to deserve the Games."
Annie was wrapped up in the moment, though her mind spinning around a thousand different things. She stared up at Finnick, cheeks darkening bright red. "What?" her lips hardly formed the word. "What do you mean?"
He shook his head sadly. "I just want to be sure that you're going to work with me, I want you to come home." There was this awful nagging in the back of Annie's mind that Finnick was only saying that because it was his nature to please his lovers in the Capitol, and now her as well. "Got it?"
She doesn't want to believe that is how he is treating her, so she nods in response, though secretly doubting her mentor.
"All right, let's head back," he said, "because I can hear your stomach growling."
What did he expect? The girl has only ever eaten one decent sized meal every day, and it was well past the time supper was served at home. She supposed that she should readjust her internal clock soon, because things were not going to be the same in the Arena – or even the Capitol – and she had new motivation to succeed. Annie felt that Finnick was counting on her and she hoped to please him, to make him proud as mentors should be of their tributes.
Annie slinked down the hall behind him, dragging her tired feet. The delicious scents of the dining car wafted through the halls long before they arrived back, making her mouth water like mad. It was something stronger than all of the salt water in District Four, and just as homely and familiar. She recognized her family's favorite dish, which was so typically District Four it was a tad irritating, of clam and mussels stew from the moment she stepped inside the dinette, excitement in her eyes. Annie's heart sank in disappointment when she saw the empty bowls sitting before Gossamer and Mags, and the two hefty sized dishes cleared before Rayne. The two girls they had passed on the way out were clearing everyone's spaces, even the untouched bowls of stew at hers and Finnick's places. She sat down silently, without a complaint.
Her mind was wandering as the dining car remained silent. What made Finnick so determined to push her to do well? What on earth was he thinking? She felt awful that he was trying so hard, or planning to anyway, just for her. Or maybe it wasn't for her. Maybe she was thinking too selfishly. Annie's heart began to slowly shatter as she realized that maybe Finnick, the Capitol's favorite Victor ever, was simply trying to work her so hard that she was confident enough to go into the Arena and then get herself stupidly killed off, leaving him to his parade of lovers in the Capitol.
She glanced to Finnick, her green eyes not quick enough and soon captured by his. Annie tore herself away, blushing. She hated herself for being so enthralled with him, so desperate to figure him out. What did it matter? She would be dead in a handful of days anyway. Annie nearly passed out when his fingers grazed over her open palm, lying on the table. She gasped when he took her hand.
"You're more relaxed when I do this," he purred, nearly inaudible so only she could hear.
A plate of a spongy pink cake was placed before her, the 'waitress' gone before Annie could even look up at her. She ran her finger over the yellow frosting and dabbed it on her tongue, nervously tasting the icing. It was lemony, something she should have expected when she saw the colors. Her mother and father scraped together every spare coin they could one year to buy their children a cake, for a combined birthday party thrown for the six of them. It was a long time ago, back when Annie used to beg Nero to take her to the market square just to pass the bakery window and see the beautiful cakes sitting in the window – that was their special thing, the equivalent of watching the sunset with Vance. The taste vaguely lingered on her tongue, their cake had had yellow lemon frosting, too. It was the year that each one of them was eligible for the Reaping, aside from Annie. She scraped off a bite of pink cake with her fork and slid it past her lips. It was too sugary, too sweet. She liked the District Four cake much better.
"You've had the baker's cake before, haven't you?" asked Finnick, with a knowing gleam illuminating his eyes. It was hard to remember that he was from District Four as well, sometimes; Annie had forgotten it altogether until now. "You can always tell who has and who hasn't, at least when you're me. The baker's cake is better."
Annie stole a look over her shoulder at Rayne, who was happily enjoying his slice of cake. He had never had a cake from the bakery at home. She found herself happy to have more of a connection with Finnick than her partner now.
"This is just great!" exclaimed Gossamer, drawn-on eyebrows furrowed. Her index finger was awkwardly pressed into her ear, and she was leaning to that side as if she was trying to listen in on a conversation. "I have no idea how we are supposed to compete with that! Finnick, Mags, you better have some damn good ideas on how to play up these two for the cameras or we're simply screwed over."
Annie was shocked at her angry tone, she had never seen Gossamer fall apart like that on television before. The woman held a calm and collected composure like Finnick held Annie's gaze, insanely well. She cocked her head to the side, grimy hair piling onto her shoulder.
"There was a pair of twins Reaped from District Eleven!" she wailed, hiding her face in her hand. Annie's immediate reaction was a torrent of sorrow and sympathy for the pair, even if she hadn't even heard their names yet, that entirely overtook her mind. "Do you know how much attention they are going to get! It won't even matter how good the other tributes are! They're going to be the stars of the show!"
Finnick's grip around Annie's hand tightened, crunching her fingers together so they overlapped awkwardly. She grits her teeth and kept her lips pressed together.
"District Eleven never sends off any tributes that return home safe and sound," her mentor reminds Gossamer, soothingly. "That's District Four."
Rayne chuckled, thinking that Finnick had been talking about him.
A quick author's note: please, please, pretty please don't expect that update every few days will be habit. I love writing this story whenever I can, but I have exams coming up in a few weeks and that means lots of time spent studying.
Thank you for reading! Let me know if you enjoyed it or if there is anything I can improve on by reviewing!