Chapter Five
Where too much happens.
The two tributes kept the door connecting their rooms open, just in case they needed one another during the night. Alone, Rayne was much more like an actual human being rather than Career and Annie wished he would stay that way. The pair had pulled chairs over from across the room to sit at Annie's window, watching the glowing skyline of the towering Capitol – the initial amazement that illuminated their eyes when they first saw the city had been reawakened. For a long time, they sat in silence, but Rayne broke that sense of comfort.
"How do you think they're doing?" he asked, eyes stretching across the horizon. Annie had to wonder if he were staring beyond the mountains, as if he knew that was the direction in which District Four lie. It brought images of a makeshift family consisting of hers and his sister, tortured as they watched the ones they loved fight to the death, out of their reach of protection to Annie's weak mind. She cringed. "I hope everything is alright…"
"I am sure they're fine." Annie, in a sense had become her mother, a woman who was always optimistic and could be counted on to lift other's spirits even if she felt like crumbling into the dust. It was just easier that way, it was better than drowning in an ocean of worry and panic and anxiety. She was lying to herself, but she didn't think that Rayne picked up on that.
"What do you think that the Arena is going to be like?" Rayne mused, mostly to himself, lost in the streets of the Capitol. Annie could watch the street below now that the photographers and reporters had packed up and left. She drowned out his question with her own curiosity, knowing that fear would take the best of her. "I think the Gamemakers are planning something good, especially after the let down last year."
Last year the tributes were sent to a mountain in the north where they were expected to fend for themselves without any means of warmth aside the clothes they were sent into the Arena wearing. Most of them suffered through uneventful, bloodless deaths; the Capitol found no amusement in watching tributes freeze to death in their sleep. Annie was lucky that last year's summer was unbearably hot, because she nearly froze to death in her nightmares every night as well and the heat was the perfect way to bring her back to reality. It was then that she caught herself thinking about the Games and quickly shook her head, as if clearing her mind.
"Annie, you know...if you don't treat it like a death sentence, it won't be like one," he muttered, leaning forward to rest his head on the glass.
She couldn't believe that was his choice of words. It made it sound as if she had a measly chance at returning home. However, she saw no point in arguing with him. "I know I can't keep dwelling on District Four," Annie whispered, eyes catching on a purple light that blinked on a distant rooftop.
"How do you feel about training with me tomorrow?" he asked, eyes brightening. Rayne wore an expression that eerily reminded Annie of her brothers, whenever they were trying to bring her around to something new, and it comforted her strangely. While Annie had to admit to warming up to her fellow district tribute, she was still frightened by the other Careers. His eyes smiled while his lips did not.
Annie shook her head. A moment later she found herself wondering if she had seemed too childish by doing so and felt the need to redeem herself by saying something. "No, thank you." It didn't help much, but her mother would be proud of her manners.
This seemed to disappoint him for his eyes dulled. "Don't you think it would benefit you to do something besides show off to the instructor how you've grown up tying knots more complicated than she planned to teach you?" asked Rayne. "I don't want you to go into the Arena unprepared."
Annie blinked. "I'll work on something else, I promise," she said, keeping to herself the part about refusing to train with the Careers. Watching the purple light flash, so easily amused, it began to dawn on Annie that she wasn't the only one making connections between her brothers and her partner. Rayne may be planning to win the Games, but he saw some of his sister in her. That's why he was so reassuring. "Did you ever tell me your sister's name?"
"Calypso," he said. She recognized the name. Her family kept an old, tattered story book on the shelf above their hearth, beside wedding photos and birth certificates. Annie's mother always told her that it was from a hundred years before the Dark Days, but she never believed her, though the pages did seem to crumble when they were touched. When she was a girl, she used to curl up beside her mother in bed as the woman read her stories from that book – she was drawn to the mythical creatures and alluring characters. There was a story, not her favorite though she did remember it in great detail, of a woman named Calypso who detained sailors on her island for one reason or another. Whenever the story was read to her, Annie had always imagined bright blues and neon greens that gleamed as they were reflected in the woman's eyes. It seemed unfitting for a little girl, but Annie hoped she would grow into it. "Her name is Calypso."
A moment of silence passed between them. Annie was content with her thoughts, now that she was gaining some control over them; she had managed to stay calm now at the mere remembrance of Finnick's touch. The purple light that had captured her attention had stopped.
"You're going to train with me tomorrow," Rayne decided. To be entirely honest, Annie was scared to argue with him, he was so forceful… "And you are going to act like a Career. I don't want them to kill you off right away because they think you've ditched them."
After a sleep sprinkled with nightmares and an awkward breakfast to which she was forced to smile and look pretty at – Gossamer had fetched a camera from a photography studio and insisted on taking as many pictures as she could, to the point where it was almost as bad as the reporters – Rayne kept true to his word and Annie was stuck at his side through training. She followed him and the other Careers around the stations quietly, attempting to improve her skills after they had worn themselves out. She didn't want to have to fight any of them; even the twelve-year-old was bigger than she was. It was sickening to listen to the five of them talk about strategizing for the Arena, as if they could all return home, and that not a single one seemed to be weighed down by the sorrow of being ripped from their families. Pascal and Mira were from One, both having trained illegally for the Games their entire lives, and made a point of trying to welcome Annie into the Career pack, though it wasn't very effective and they gave up. Iem and Maroon from Two took a different approach towards Annie, they were hostile and standoffish. Rayne tried to keep Annie away from them and speak over their nasty comments about her through training, but it wasn't always easy to mask.
At one point during the day in the gym, when Annie was standing awkwardly at the instructor's side on the wrestling mat, she caught Hollis' eye. He stood across the large hall at the edible plants station, clearly unimpressed with her choice of company for the day. She tried to shrug, eyes flashing as they tried to express that it wasn't her fault, but he returned to his training with two other girls that kneeled beside him.
"What'd you think of that?" asked Rayne as they stepped into the elevator. The doors closed and they began shooting up towards the fourth floor. He was grinning excitedly, as if she was supposed to be impressed with the Careers.
"It was terrifying," whispered the fragile girl, staring blankly at the glossy elevator doors. Honesty is the best policy, right?
"Why would you say that?" He wasn't looking her down anymore, which took some of the weight off of her shoulders. Annie felt that she could breathe now. "You were working harder today than you were yesterday."
"With the group of people I know will be responsible for my death." Along with that, it went without saying that it was also the group of people that would further break her parents' hearts and tear her brothers apart. The frazzled girl shivered.
The doors glided open. Annie and Rayne were not greeted by a welcoming party today, which was a relief since she had been expecting the blinding flash of the camera Gossamer had been carrying around. The pair cleared half of the floor before finding anyone – they seemed to have called a meeting in the dining room and not noticed the floor-wide bell that alerted them of the elevator. Annie could hear her prep team's squeals from halfway down the hall.
"This is going to be so much fun!" exclaimed Faye in a childishly shrill voice. She was clapping her hands together happily.
"I haven't worked on a nude-shoot since we partnered with Finnick's team!" chipped Charmant, tapping his false nails on the glass table excitedly.
Confusion swept through Annie's mind. Rayne entered the room first, and she struggled to stand on her tiptoes to see over his broad shoulder. Everyone's eyes seemed to look past the monstrous Career and stare at her. Annie shrunk back. She hated that they were talking about her.
"Nude?" she echoed, the word rolling around in her mouth before it slipped from her tongue.
"Annie, come sit!" said Gossamer, snapping a photograph of her reaction. The woman patted the chair between her and Finnick.
As her vision returned to her, Annie carefully slipped by Rayne and into the chair between the two. Her heart was pattering lightly in her ears, growing stronger with every beat. "What is going on?" she asked Finnick.
"Gossamer thinks she has the perfect idea to win over the audience in the Capitol," answered her mentor, entwining their hands on the table. His warmth enveloped her and she had to hide a smile. "A photo shoot to play up our romance and leak it to the tabloids. Also helps practice being in love before video cameras are following you everywhere."
"A…nude photo shoot?" clarified Annie with raised eyebrows. Her green eyes flashed. Wheels in her head were cranking as she tried to force herself to think through the scenario. She was suddenly nauseous.
"Isn't it brilliant?" Gossamer beamed, glittery eyes sparkling. "I thought of it all myself. It's even clear to slip under the noses' of those pesky Gamemakers!"
"As in…Finnick…naked?" She was hoping this was the case, since it was safe to bet every coin she had to her name – which wasn't many, but that's beside the point – that Finnick had done it before. The Capitol loved him in all the wrong ways.
Gossamer rolled her eyes. There were stifled chuckles masked behind hands that rippled around the end of the table where the prep teams sat. Rea was shaking her head sadly. Annie's heart bolted into her throat when she felt Finnick's fingers stroke her stringy hair. It was not what Gossamer meant at all. She glanced around the room, eyes flickering unsteadily. Her gaze finally rested on Finnick, who was the most embarrassed she had ever seen him.
"As in both of you," Rea corrected finally, when Gossamer's mouth hung open and her words failed her. "We've been preparing for it since you left this morning."
Finnick squeezed her hand. "It'll be easy," he whispers. "I promise. I've done dozens."
Annie shook her head. "No," she said. "No, no, no, no, no, no."
It took several minutes of calming and shushing her before the meeting could continue. Annie finally relaxed under Finnick's fingertips; he knew just how to run them across the skin of her forearm and up an invisible trail to her jawline. It was just unbelievable, he was too perfect.
Despite her further protests, Annie was yanked down the corridors to the exquisite bathroom tucked within her bedroom by her prep team. Once the shoot was firmly set in stone and there was no use in arguing with insane Gossamer, all Annie could do was hope that the pictures were never aired on television or even mentioned outside of the Capitol. She wanted District Four to be spared. Her family would hate her if they knew this was going on. The prep team stripped her down and threw her into a washtub filled with vile goo that smelled of faux salt water, as if the Capitol was trying to bring tints of home back into her life in the cruelest possibly way. She was suffering through a very trying day, and Annie had no will to fight when the team began to scrub and wax her down. Soon, she was almost an entirely new person, life had been brought back to her hair and her dingy skin revived. Ophelia dusted her skin with golden powder that gave the illusion of spending the summer at the docks – she even gave Annie's cheeks the perfect tinge of sunburn – while Faye and Charmant styled her hair and highlighted her best facial features with touches of make-up. An hour later, she was tossed out of the room wearing nothing but a plush robe.
It was against the Gamemakers' rules to bring in outsiders to the Training Center, so Gossamer the amateur and Rea with little experience but proper photography training were left to take the pictures. Annie was still uncomfortable with her prep team seeing her nude, let alone Gossamer and Rea, and the fact that it would forever be on a photograph was haunting. Finnick was a factor she refused to think about.
"The lights are going to make it seem more realistic!" Rea shouted, losing her composure for the first time in front of Annie. She stomped her foot for emphasis. "It can't seem totally staged! Even the Capitol would pick up on it."
"Maybe there's some way we could bring in professional lighting, though," Gossamer pondered, ignoring her partner's outburst. The tiny woman gazed out the bedroom window, tapping her pointy-toed shoes in thought. "I think making the pictures look better is worth it looking a little staged. Oh! Annie, dear!"
Annie peered into the room around the doorframe. The bed sheets were tousled and there were clothes, supposedly hers and supposedly Finnick's, piled on the floor at the foot of the bed. She shook her head at the ridiculousness of it all. Annie adjusted her robe, wrapping it tighter around her slim frame, as she stepped into the room. Words couldn't convey the intensity of her embarrassment, but her blush was hidden by her make-up.
"You should be so excited!" gushed the woman in her derisory Capitol accent. It stung Annie's ears. "This is going to get you so many sponsors it isn't even funny!" She forced herself to laugh.
"Finnick is on his way," Rea informed her, setting and resetting the twisted comforter on the bed as if it mattered how untidy the room looked. Annie didn't understand their motives, but she didn't bother with asking. She just stood and watched as the woman arranged everything in the room just so before Finnick arrived.
"Hello, lovely," he said as he dipped into her neck, placing a string of kisses along her skin. It was astounding how quickly he could transform into this entirely different person that the Capitol molded and shaped him to be. Finnick stepped around her and immediately Annie hid her eyes in the collar of her robe. He was wearing nothing but the smile on his face.
"Oi," remarked Gossamer, displeased with Annie's embarrassment. As the girl gathered her courage to glance up, she saw the black haired woman's eyes darting up and down Finnick.
Finnick turned to Annie, slightly wetting his lips with his tongue. She had a heart wrenching feeling that he used that on girls in the Capitol clinging to the desperate idea that they will stay in his favor. District Four, she reminded herself, District Four.
The first thing she was instructed to do was disrobe. Annie's heart skipped a beat as she dared to look Gossamer in the eye and defy her. It was eventually Finnick whispering in her ear seductively that coaxed her into dropping the robe – well, he really distracted her by whispering and then slipped his fingers into her sleeves before pushing it off of her shoulders. The push fabric drooped, but Annie thankfully remained concealed, and Gossamer screamed for Rea to begin snapping photos. Apparently, Finnick's arms were wrapped around her in just the right position.
"This is for your sponsors," promised Finnick under his breath as he gripped her waist. Annie was shocked as he hoisted her above his head; their foreheads pressed together, lips curled into smiles. Several blinding flashes went off and then she was placed on the bed. "This is for getting you out of the Arena alive." He crawled on top of her, keeping a good distance above her. Finnick was amused by her heightened breathing and smirked. Annie desperately closed her eyes, uncomfortable and nervous. The camera flashed. "This is for you seeing your brothers again." His head ducked and his lips were shamelessly placed on her breast. Flash.
Annie couldn't have been happier when it was over. She felt like crying, but knew that if she did, Gossamer would only turn it into another photo shoot and didn't want to even think what the twisted theme would be this time. Instead of breaking down, she draped her robe loosely over her shoulder and retreated to her own bedroom down the hallway. Dirtiness and disgust with herself had seeped through to her bones and even settled like a greasy layer on her skin. She turned on the shower before locking herself in the bathroom. Once the rushing water was pouring like rain over her, Annie allowed herself to cry.
"The Games are going to drive me mad," she proclaimed, hanging her head. Dripping wet hair fell around her face, creating a watery curtain. There was more that was put into being a tribute than she had ever expected. Honestly, little Annie from District Four who had been kept naïve by her protective brothers had thought that she would arrive in the Capitol, train, appear on mandatory televised interviews like all of the tributes did every year and then die in the Arena. She could clear her mind enough to think even those simple things through.
She had to arrive in the city that organized her death just because they needed entertainment. She spent her days training with other teenagers that would either be planning to kill her or that expected her to kill them. She appeared on mandatory televised interviews to remind her family that she was suffering and there was nothing they could do to help her. And among all of that, she had to go around and pretend to be in love with the Capitol's resident whore.
Annie screamed in both frustration and in anger at herself. Water flooded her mouth and she quickly spit it at the drain. The shriek echoed off of the tiled walls and shocked her ears as it was thrown back at her. The word had not just crossed her mind. She liked Finnick, she trusted him, she didn't fear his hands for holding the trident. The hands that had been all over her… She owed him more than she could ever repay, she couldn't just think he was a whore!
Her mind raced and heart thundered in her chest. Annie began off simply as she tried to keep from getting herself too worked up. Salt water. Knots. Docks. Houses at the bay. Brothers. Boats. Fish. Market square. Fish hooks. Parents. Sand. Happy things. Annie needed to focus on happy things.
When the door creaked on its hinges and Annie jumped, her heart expected it to be Finnick walking into the bathroom. Instead, it was Ophelia, coming to collect bottles of soaps and hair brushes that she had left on the counter. Her eyes were glued to her things, giving Annie as much privacy as the situation would allow. The girl turned away from the woman, towards the rushing water, and closed her eyes.
"Can't seem to get it off, huh?" asked Ophelia, hidden behind the bathroom door. She had gathered her numerous belongings and was just about to steal away from the room, leaving Annie alone again.
"No," she answered quietly, voice drowned out by the beating rain. She was losing her voice, it hardly escaped her throat, and she couldn't figure out why. Annie glanced over her shoulder, just checking to see that the woman wasn't looking at her.
Ophelia was gone from the washroom without another word. Annie thought the exchange was odd and unnecessary, though she didn't call after her. She ran her fingers through her hair several times, slicking it back away from her face, and rinsing the Capitol soaps from it before turning the water off. She stood in the wide shower stall for a moment, breathing in the last of the humid air as it faded away through vents in the ceiling. Exhaustion in her muscles from training became evident the longer she was still. The day had left her weary and on-edge.
Annie cloaked herself with all of the towels in the bathroom before daring to step out – one wrapped around her head to wring out her hair, one around her torso that overlapped the one draped around her waist, and even a towel that sat on her shoulders and hid her neck like an oversized scarf. She did her best to manage putting on all of her nightclothes before removing any of the towels, but she only got as far as her undergarments. Beyond that point, she darted around the room, searching through drawers for something small enough to fit her frame. It was a tad bit insulting that the room had been filled with oversized clothes, probably because a Career girl twice her size was expected to be staying there. Once Annie was warmly dressed in saggy pajama pants and two sweaters, she crawled under the sheets of her bed and tucked herself in.
It was an unreal thought that she stashed at the very back of her mind that people were actually going to see the pictures of her taken earlier. Annie was able to drift in and out of sleep comfortably without intense nightmares for several hours before Gossamer burst into her room, nearly breaking down the door in the process.
"They're all over the Capitol papers!" she shrieked in delight, jumping up and down excitedly. Her hair was an unmoved sheet that hung from her head. Annie didn't think that it was possible to strike the smile from Gossamer's lips.
Tired, it took her a few thoughts to process through what was going on. The pictures. Annie gasped, bolting upright in bed, throwing the comforter off of her. The outer sweater she had dressed herself in before settling in for the night was twisted around her and needed tending to since it pulled in all of the wrong ways, but Annie was in too much shock to care. Someone, some perverted Capitol freak was looking at those pictures right now, somewhere, somewhere out of her reach and there was no way to snatch them back. She could feel her heartbeat speeding up. Annie drummed her hands against her lap in panic, fingers searching for Finnick's grasp. They were all going to hate her and there was no way the Gamemakers would allow her any sponsors.
Annie leapt from her bed and ducked out of the room past Gossamer, acting without thinking. Her legs kicked into a sprint as she dashed down the hallway, spinning around the corner as she glanced through open doors looking for Finnick. She had never run to fast in her life, never felt so threatened. Her mentor sat in the dining room under a dimmed chandelier, the pages of a glossy Capitol magazine open across the table before him. Annie crashed into him, burying her face against his chest.
"Gossamer's phone has been ringing off of the hook all night," he whispered calmly, stroking her hair. It was knotted and frizzy from being slept upon while still wet, but Finnick didn't snag his fingers in it once. His heartbeat relaxed her enough to hear him out. "So far, this has gotten you three official sponsors for the Games, along with numerous other donations."
"You're kidding me!" she spat. "This is what they're all looking for from me? I can't do this! I can't! I can't! I can't!"
"It's honestly not as bad as you are imagining it," Finnick assured her, dropping his hand from her hair to the arch in her lower back. His fingers traced her spine lightly. "There were only two photos printed and a small caption. That's all."
Annie looked up at him; his gentle sea green gaze flooded her mind and helped her believe he was telling the truth. She shifted, crawling off of him, to lean over the table. She examined the pictures in the tabloid, which brought light to her eyes and were something entirely different from what she imagined was happening yesterday. The first, much larger picture printed at the top of the page, was of her and Finnick with their foreheads pressed together, eyes closed, smiling, a blush dusting her cheeks. Light had flooded from the windows behind them and illuminated them, reflecting off of their skin like the sun off of the waves in District Four. Happy. She looked positively happy. The second was smaller, but just as powerful as the first, and was of the pair at the dining room table from the morning before the shoot. Finnick held Annie's hand on the table, as he did every morning, as she leaned over to talk to someone out of the frame. It was when Gossamer was sneaking pictures with her camera for no good reason, but Annie liked it better than the first. The whole thing seemed silly now, that she had worried over nothing because of all of the things they photographed, these were the ones they chose. She didn't have to worry at all.
Looking over the magazine page again, Annie noticed the strip separating the photographs that held the caption. It read: "'The Hunger Games are taking what's mine. She's the thing that makes me happy.' –Finnick Odair."
Annie masked her smile as she looked back to her mentor. It was a giddy schoolgirl sort of blitheness that filled her, even though she suspected Gossamer had probably fed the line to him.
"That's a direct quote." He smiled at her. "And District Four completely approves."
Good lord, that was a lot for one chapter. I struggled with it through the beginning - and even rewrote it several times, which is why it took so long to update - but I feel that I redeemed myself with the end bit.
I hope that I am doing well with Annie's and Finnick's characters, feedback would be lovely! And on that note, PLEASE REVIEW! When you fabulous readers don't review, I feel like I have let you down. I don't want to disappoint anyone. Thank you for reading!