Chapter Four
Where Annie and Finnick wear themselves out.
Three days of training commence the next day. Annie convinces herself to eat dinner the night after the parade, to really eat so she wouldn't give up on her first day of training, and she does so to the point where she is almost sick. The fine food in the Capitol feels so out of place in her stomach, but Annie reminds herself how much she needs it if she is going to please Finnick by impressing the Gamemakers on the final day.
As she tucks herself into bed, she expects her sleep to be plagued with nightmares of the Games, or her family's faces as they watch her be plucked from the crowd by the Peacekeepers and brought up to the Reaping stage. Her subconscious mind brought her the images of one twelve year old girl being whipped by the Peacekeepers because she refused to be a tribute as she rested in the pile of expensive plush pillows. That was two years ago, if she recalled correctly, and the girl's sister volunteered for her when she was taken away kicking and screaming; they still punished her in the market square for what she did. But as Annie drifted off to sleep, she found that she was so exhausted that her slumber was free of nightmares.
Gossamer Swarm woke her up in the morning, clapping her hands as she paraded around Annie's quarters excitedly. The black haired woman threw open her curtains and allowed sunlight to pour in over the cocoon of blankets Annie had wrapped herself in. She helped drag the girl out of bed, dress her in a 'horrific' jumpsuit for training, and spruce up her hair and teeth, humming cheerfully all the while. She made Annie tag along with her to breakfast, to which they were early.
The places were set for thirteen of them, and it took Annie's groggy mind a moment to process that the extra places were for the prep teams and stylists. She sat beside Gossamer quietly as they waited for the others to arrive. In no time at all, Annie was wide awake and impatient. She normally woke up early back in District Four to see her brothers and father out the door as they head off to the marina.
A blonde boy and girl dressed in white tunics dished out eggs and bacon – a rare, insanely expensive meal back home – at every one of the places and disappeared silently. While Gossamer sat politely, leaving her food untouched, Annie's growling stomach persuaded her to eat immediately. She had finished her first helping of eggs before the doors to the dining room opened again. It was Rayne and Mags.
"Good morning, all!" greeted the elderly woman with a wide smile. Rayne stood beside his mentor, smiling as he rubbed sleep from his bright eyes. The monstrous Career yawned. "I'm glad to see that you're wide awake, Annie! At least one of you will be ready for training this morning." She reached up to pat Rayne's shoulder with her shriveled hand.
Annie smiled at the odd pair. She watched Rayne assist Mags in hobbling over to her place at the table; she seemed to have forgotten her cane that morning. "Good morning," she bid them quietly, placing her fork on her empty plate.
She was kept in her seat by Gossamer, who insisted that it was only polite that she wait for everyone else to be done before leaving the table. Annie wouldn't know a thing about this, for she and her mother ate alone and never nearly this much during the day, and with there always being more chores that needed doing, the faster they finished, the better. She tried to be patient as Rayne and Mags ate, and then as the prep teams arrived and they ate, and then Rea and Sinead. Everyone around the table was chirping to one another, mostly little insignificant comments, but it made for a light atmosphere. Annie sat back in her chair and smiled, waiting for her escort's permission to leave. Only it wouldn't come until Finnick had finished, and he wasn't even there yet.
"Where is Finnick?" she asked Gossamer quietly. The woman sat, smiling at nothing, not bothering to respond for quite some time. Annie repeated herself. "Where's Finnick?"
Gossamer stammered through incomplete sentences, glittery eyes darting around the room.
"He had a rough night sleeping," Mags answered, waving in Gossamer's direction to hush her. "He won't be down until it's time to see you off to the gym."
Gossamer snorted, throwing her head back. Her hair fell over her hitching shoulders, her mouth was open in laughter but no sound was coming out.
Annie apologized for asking under her breath. Gossamer's reaction was rather strange, and she felt like it was because of her, because she had asked a stupid question. She stared down into her lap for the remainder of the meal, hiding her face. Why was that such an awful question?
The next half hour or so was painfully slow, or so it felt to Annie. While the prep teams cleared out of the private dining room, Rea and Sinead took their sweet time to pick through their breakfasts, meaning that Gossamer and Annie remained seated to wait for them. Mags eventually decided that it was taking too long and left, where she was assisted to her room by Rayne. He returned, though, reassuring Annie that she had a friend in him, and sat with her so she wasn't left alone with Gossamer. She felt like she should talk to him since he stayed just to make her feel comfortable, but words failed her. Finally, she gave up on manners and left the dining room with Rayne.
They passed Finnick's room and Annie hesitated, staring distantly at her mentor's door. She had thought that she and Rayne were the only ones who had sleep-depriving stress to deal with, so she felt terribly guilty to hear that the Games were taking a toll on Finnick, too…
"Aren't you coming?" asked Rayne, looking back at her, bright eyes flashing. "We've got another half hour to spend before we need to report to the gym."
"Um, I think I should check on Finnick…" Annie trailed off, realizing how stupid that must sound to Rayne. A puzzled expression crosses his features and she can see the questions spinning through his mind: who does this girl think she is? Why does she think she needs to be the one to check on him? She's just a kid… She shook her head subtly and faced the door. "I'll be there in a minute, okay?"
"Alright," said Rayne, who had already begun off down the hallway towards their rooms. Gossamer had felt it so appropriate to place Annie and Rayne in rooms next door to each other, when really it made more sense to put Annie and Finnick together given the strategy they had formulated for her. However, Finnick's room was at the end of the hallway, and a bathroom separated him from the next closest bedroom.
Annie tapped the door lightly with her knuckles. "Finnick?" she asked through the heavy wood. "Are you awake?"
"Yes," he groaned throatily somewhere from within the chamber. His voiced was so harsh; it hurt her throat to listen to him talk like that.
"Can…can I come in?" she asked, stuttering nervously. The whole situation was just awkward, no matter how she looked at it, and she was sure her parents would disapprove of it – something that was eating at her. She hated knowing that they would be ashamed of this strategy. "I heard that you weren't feeling well so I came to check on you."
"Sure, lovely," Finnick sighed.
Annie pushed the door in and slowly stepped inside, watching the stream of light from the hallway flood the dark bedroom. Finnick was hidden on his bed, what with the pillows and sheets being strewn about. She had to move several pillows away from his face to get a decent look at him. He lie with his face pressed into the mattress, bare-chested, limbs splayed out across the bed. It was a way only men could sprawl, and Annie found it attractive.
One sea green eye opened and looked up at her. His lips spread into a faint smile. "Good morning, sweetheart," he whispered, raising his head ever so slightly off of the mattress.
She glanced around the room. "You must have had a really rough night sleeping…" she muttered, placing a hand over his cheek without thinking. It reminded her of Fletcher when his sweetheart was reaped, he didn't sleep for weeks and threw pillows around the room at night and ripped his comforter out of frustration. Annie looked at him with half-lidded eyes.
He sighed sadly and rested his face against the mattress again. "Yeah," Finnick murmured into the sheets. After a moment of perfect silence, of Annie just listening to her mentor breathe, Finnick rolled over onto his back and stared up at her. His bronze hair was disheveled and his eyes were bloodshot, something she only saw looking at him straight-on. "Ready for training today?" His fingers brushed the sleeve of her jacket.
"Sure," she lied. Annie couldn't bring herself away from the pain settled into Finnick's face; his eyes were hollow with misery in the way only people from the districts knew. She held his hand. "Are you sure you're okay?"
"I'm fine, lovely," he assured hoarsely. Annie noted that was the second time he called her that. "I just didn't get much sleep." Finnick's hand moved from hers to her wrist and yanked her forward. Startled, Annie toppled over and landed pressed against her mentor. She blushed madly. His hand held her head over his chest, and her ear was just in the right spot to listen to his heartbeat. She couldn't help but smile.
Annie didn't bother with telling herself how wrong the whole thing was. She just smiled and lay still, happily listening to his heartbeat. His strong hands rested on her lower back, just above her tailbone. That was the happiest that she had been in days, even since before the Reaping. If she wasn't being forced to, she would never move again.
Somehow, her subconscious mind brought her images of him poising the trident above his head in the Arena five years ago, and she didn't even care. Being wrapped in his arms was contradicting her silly fear.
They must have been pressed against each other, still, for quite some time. "I don't want to move," whispered Finnick, lips seductively pressed to her hair. "But you need to get down to the gym."
As much as she wanted to, Annie didn't groan or whine or complain. His arms slipped from her back and she sat upright, moving off of him. "I'm sorry," she said, "I didn't mean to…"
"Didn't mean to what?" he asked, sitting up. Finnick Odair was a broken man. Annie could see it in the way his empty hands twitched, restrained from reaching for hers, and the way his sea green eyes gaze longingly into what Annie feels is the depths of her soul. "Shouldn't we be getting to training?"
She nodded, a little too eagerly.
There were four of them that rode the elevator down to the gymnasium below the Training Center. Rayne and Annie stepped out to find that almost all of the other tributes were waiting there, standing in a tense circle. Finnick pins her district number on her and pats Annie's shoulders before seeing her off. She and Rayne step into the circle, given more than enough space by the other tributes because everyone apparently feared Careers. Rayne grinned. Annie ignored him and scanned the center, various stations spread out with weapons she didn't have names for and there were obstacle courses lining the walls. Her heart skipped a beat, it was intimidating beyond belief.
The other tributes were pathetically small, aside from the other Careers that stuck out like a sore thumb. Annie shrank behind Rayne as she looked over the barbaric-looking tributes; the two males from the other Career districts are even bigger than Rayne with at least one-hundred-fifty pounds on her, there was an athletic girl from District One no more than twelve despite being Annie's height, and the female from Two was twice her own size. Other than them, the rest of the tributes were ill-fed and puny. Bones could be seen jutting from their skin. Their eyes were bulging from their heads. Annie's heart twisted itself into knots as she examined them, sick with empathy. She had at least had a meal every day of her life; she doubted they ate decently more than once a week. Then there were the twins from Eleven. Even without seeing their numbers, they looked so much alike. Same dark hair, same sad eyes.
The only thing that kept Annie from puking was knowing that she would be loathed by her fellow tributes in the Arena for showing weakness and picked off at the Cornucopia, and that somewhere, Finnick is watching her.
Atala, a tall and clearly athletic woman, introduced them to the gymnasium once all of the tributes had arrived. She explained there were experts at each station to supervise and coach them when needed, that there was an unlimited amount of time to spend at each station, so on and so forth. About halfway through the woman's speech, Annie began to drone it out, morphing her voice into a buzzing in the back of her mind. She was watching the excited Careers already teaming up, Rayne included, and the other tributes shiver nervously. Her attention was then drawn out further to the actual gym. There was no swimming pool, but there was a knot-tying station. Her gaze lightened a little.
Atala dismisses the tributes and Annie isn't surprised to see five Careers dashing towards the stations with the deadliest-looking weapons. She may not fit in at all with them, but she is not a sniveling child like the rest of the tributes – despite feeling like one. Annie drowns herself in an aura of false confidence and struts over to the knot-tying station, where she cheerfully greets the coach there. It was just like Gossamer had instructed her, never show weakness, don't act like a little girl unless you're being wooed by Finnick for the cameras.
"Hi," said Annie, sitting down cross-legged on the mat. Cheerfulness still lingered within her from her time spent with Finnick that morning, the ghost of his touch was still faint on her skin. Her delight was sincere.
"You must already know what you're doing to come here first," says the coach at the station, a woman without a single touch of the Capitol about her. Her blue eyes are bright, excited that someone is at her station. Annie finds satisfaction knowing the woman is happy to see her.
Once she is handed a few lengthy strips of rope, she loses herself in something she has taken for granted for two long. Annie has spent her childhood swimming off of the docks with Vance, impatiently waiting for their father and brothers to return home, and twisting ropes into intricate knots which then somehow became fishing nets sturdier than anything bought in the market. Her quick fingers were pulling and tying and stringing together a miniature sized fishing net. Annie smiled down as she worked; it brought the scent of salt water to her nose. She was good at this, this made her happy, it was like home. Annie could also create a hook out of nearly anything, but they were never as good as Vance's and never lasted more than a few catches off the end of her family's dock.
Annie sat on the mat for so long without moving that she began squirming in the midst of the session, to loosen up her muscles. The instructor at the station watched her, impressed, until Annie ran out of things to show her. Then she begins to learn how to tie nooses, something that could come in handy in the Games she is told, and other sorts of traps. It took several attempts before anything Annie makes turned out right, but once her fingers learned the repetitious patterns to create the traps, she could create something as if she had spent years working towards it.
"You're District Four?" a man asked as he sat down beside her. His grey eyes flashed as he gazed at her. Annie is taken back when she sees the number 12 pinned to him, for he looked much older than eighteen and therefore not eligible as a tribute. She nodded and returned her attention to the half-finished noose in her hands. "You're not like them." He nodded towards the group of Careers swinging swords around at each other.
She shrugged. "Thank you?"
"That's what I'd say," he says, taking a few ropes into his hands. Annie stops what she is doing to watch his skills, to see if he knows what he is doing. When he forms a noose faster than she did on her first attempt, she looked away and desperately tried to finish her own. "I'm Hollis Catch." He strung the noose around his wrist and extended his hand to her.
Annie didn't look up at him and ignored his gesture. She, instead, watched her own slim fingers tie a noose together. "I'm Annie Cresta."
"I know who you are," admits Hollis. "We all do. You're the girl having a fling with her mentor."
Annie caught a glimpse of herself in one of the mirrors nailed to the gymnasium walls as he said that. She was not blushing as nearly as dark as she thought she was. Her reflection was merely a sixteen-year-old girl, tangled dark locks of hair falling to her shoulders and a pink dusting sprinkled onto her cheeks. "Yeah," she confirms, hearing Gossamer praise her in her head.
He is very forward, unlike most of the other tributes, which was surprising on its own account. The surprises didn't cease there; after spending nearly an hour creating traps and nets with him, he didn't mention any alliances once like Annie expected him to. Instead, they talked, like normal human beings without the weight of the Games crushing their shoulders. Exchanges like "I have five older brothers" and responses like "I would love to have siblings! I'm an only child" were the type of thing that were passed between them. Annie felt lucky for today; she didn't really feel like a tribute at all.
The first day of training whirled by, ending quicker than Annie imagined it would. She had spent the entire time at one station, just tying knots. What was she going to tell Gossamer and Finnick? That she spent the day practicing something she was already good at just because it reminded her of home? That she was talking with a boy the size of a Career from District Twelve and no, she didn't want him as an ally? She shook her head, disappointed in herself as she walked away from the station. Annie gave a little wave to the instructor as she left.
Annie stepped into the elevator with Rayne; they were the last to leave the gymnasium. "I was trying to keep tabs on you," informed Rayne. "Please don't tell me that you spent the entire day at one station."
"If you were keeping tabs on me, wouldn't you know?" she replied glibly. "But, yeah, I was tying knots all day."
"They think you're insane," he continued as he stared blankly ahead at the glossy elevator doors. She knew who he was talking about, the Careers. "Especially Mira. She called you mad on several occasions, not teaming up with us, tying-knots, that thousand-mile stare of yours, talking to the boy from Twelve…"
Annie tapped her foot impatiently. It wasn't that she cared what the Careers thought of her; it was that she cared because Rayne was spinning his story to make it sound like the end of the world. "Which one is she?" asked Annie, not willing to give him the satisfaction of succeeding in mind games since that sounded like what he was trying to do.
"Twelve-year-old from One."
Only twelve and she was probably already formulating a plan to kill her. Annie sighed, trying not to think about it. The elevator stopped at the fourth level and opened. Both mentors and Gossamer were standing there, waiting for them to return. Mags and Finnick were both leaning against the wall, making Annie think that they had been waiting around for a long time, whereas Gossamer gave them little room to even step out of the elevator. She was beaming.
"How did it go?" the escort demanded, smile unfazed on her lips. She grabbed their wrists and yanked them from the elevator. "I just know you both did so well. No competition at all, right? What did I tell you?"
While the group retreated to the private dining room, Rayne had no trouble telling about his day in training. He, apparently, exceled at hand-to-hand and could take the instructor down at the wrestling station. Annie gulped, after listening to him she had all the more reason to fear him. They were all comfortably settled into the dining room before anyone asked her how her day was, a question she had been dreading since the elevator.
"And, Annie?" asked Gossamer, turning towards her at the table. Under the warm light of the chandelier, the woman's hair looked blue rather than black. "How do you think you did?"
She was prepared to give as many one-word answers as necessary so she wouldn't have to go into detail. However, she was also searching for Finnick's approval and that made it more difficult to pull off. "Alright," Annie answered. She could at least say that she was good at what she did.
"What'd you do?" asked Finnick.
"Um…" Annie shook the notion of lying from her mind. "I tied knots."
"Knots?" echoed Gossamer, seemingly in disbelief.
Annie's eyes darted to Finnick, who was nodding his head in understanding, and then back to her lap. "Like traps and nets and nooses," she explained.
"Hm." Gossamer had probably never had a wimpy little girl like her for a tribute, Annie figured. But she couldn't tell her that she was family oriented, not now, not when she is practically sentenced to die. "I guess that could be useful."
"More so than you would think," said Finnick. He smiled at Annie – a genuine smile, not the flirtatious, made-her-want-to-melt sort of smile that he used on all of the girls in the Capitol – to let her know that he was on her side. He wrapped her under his arm, a space in which she fit like the last puzzle piece.
"Oh, look at you two, practicing for the cameras," cooed Gossamer under her breath, eyes gleaming. Annie's heart sank the mere moment that she dared to believe that. "So, then, I assume you weren't buddy-buddy with the rest of the Careers?"
The girl shook her head. "I hardly even looked at them."
The black haired woman sighed, eyes flashing with disappointment. "Did you meet anyone worth being allies with?" she asked, speaking to the floor.
"I talked with the boy from Twelve for a while, but he isn't worth being allies with," said Annie, lying through her teeth. She felt Hollis was more than worthy as an ally, worth more than her for a friend in the Arena, but she just didn't want to have to worry about it narrowing down. That's why she didn't want allies; the threat of having to kill another was too much. "I don't want allies, anyway."
"You'll never make it out alive," sighed Mags sadly. At least she was being honest.
Annie's breathing had quickened. She was biting her lip nervously, and there was warmth slicked across her skin that she couldn't tell whether it was blood or saliva. Finnick's fingers trailed down her arm, wrapping her closer to his body. Images of being pulled on top of him flashed through her mind. Annie sighed. She had never felt so strangely comforted in her life. It wasn't just a strategy to her anymore. Then she began to wonder if it ever had been…
Finnick hung his head. "Let's just get going," he whispered to her. "I think it'd be best if it were just the two of us to talk for a while. I think we've both got tough nights ahead of us."
Thank you for reading! I appreciate it. This wasn't my favorite chapter, but I am happier with it than I was with chapter 3. Let me know what you thought!