Chapter 17
My wrist hurts.
After a long, overly dramatic almost suicide, there are in fact two victors of the Seventy-Fourth Hunger Games. I won two hundred dollars. Life is good for me.
"We're meeting Cal and Priam at the Social Tower. Congratulations, Hera," Apollo says to me after the hovercraft takes my tribute and Bread Boy out of the arena. He smiles wickedly, "Which means we're going out. Which means..." my eyes widen in horror.
"No!" I take off running out of the room, with Apollo close behind me. I run upstairs, and before I can get to any of the rooms and lock myself in, Apollo grabs me around the waist and carries me to my bedroom while I thrash in a vain attempt to get free. Seriously, why did I even try?
"Did you forget that I'm taller and stronger than you?" he asks me. I shake my head and sit down on my bed while he digs through my closet, muttering about color choices. Red, blue, or shimmery. After a few more minutes, he decides on a feathery red dress. It's nice, actually. I kind of remember Aemelia wearing this dress, which is weird because she never lets me wear her clothing... or touch it.
"That one's nice," I say, standing up to examine the dress more closely. It's nicer than I remember, kind of glittery, soft, comfortable feeling. I actually like this one. Apollo leaves the room while I dress. I assume that Aemelia is going to torture me by straightening, recurling, and pinning my hair back at strange angles, which will take forever. I walk down the stairs to the dining area to eat, and then are dragged into Aemelia's bathroom to have my hair done.
I have to say, I look good. My hair is done up neatly, which took at least and hour, and my dress is nicely pressed and clean. I feel happy. And feminine. I say good bye to Aemelia and Prince and Apollo pulls me out of the house like a hyper maniac. We have to walk, again, to the Social Tower, which does not take that long, but it difficult because there are so many people there to collect the money from the bets. Apollo, being the massive person he is, is able to push us through to where Priam and Caliban were waiting, like they were two weeks ago, except Priam has a kind of defeated, almost vengeful look on his face.
"Congrats Hera," he says as we sit down. Caliban sits down quietly, because he is an overall quiet person. Unlike his kind brother, Priam is rebellious, vain, and cynical. He and Caliban kind of cancel each other out, like those good-cop / bad-cop situations you used to find on the television a long time ago. And since they're brothers, they never leave each other's sides. We sit in silence while Priam angrily drinks something, presumably alcoholic, and wait for the attendant to give me my prize. Priam has only won once out of the six years we've been doing this, so I'm not quite sure why he's always so moody about losing. After a few minutes of watching Priam become intoxicated, the attendant finally arrives with my money, making Priam grumble a little bit. The two other boys congratulate me like normal people. We walk out of the noisy, crowded building.
I use the three lag days to catch up on studying for my medical exams. Apollo uses this time to visit his siblings, who live on the other side of the Capitol. I'm actually quite glad that period is over. I want to know if Peeta made it back in one piece. My dad is one of the surgeons who takes care of the tributes after the games, but he never lets me or anyone else know what happens to the tributes and their body parts. That's how my parents met. During a Hunger Games. I decide to get dressed on my own again, except for the henna. I'm not in the mood to spend two hours drawing on myself. Besides, you can still kind of see the marks it left from the last time I did it. Since I haven't really left my bedroom in three days, so there are clothes that I have taken out of my closet to play with when my brain was short circuiting from studying so long. I still like what I picked out a few days ago, so that's what I wear today. Noting overly strange, but still classy. It's the dress I wore to my senior formal. Long dress, high neckline, and according to Cassandra, it's the color of Finnick Odair's eyes. She can be kind of creepy sometimes. I get dressed, and as I start to walk to my bathroom to do my hair, Aemelia grabs me by the arm and tells me the be quiet. I nod, confused, but I follow her down stairs to the kitchen where my mother is talking in a hushed voice to one of her friends from her mobile phone.
"I'm serious, Hermia! You should have seen President Snow. He and Crane were just fuming at the staff meeting. You could just see the hatred flowing off them," my mother says to someone over the phone. Hermia? The only Hermia I know has been missing for a few years now. My mother laughs. "Tell me about it. I don't know what those tributes were thinking! I'm not so sure that I like the idea, either." Aemelia leans in closer to the wall. "Oh god. Well, yeah, I have to go now, I'm going to meet Rowan at the hospital and go to the ceremony. Say hi to the family for me. Okay now, bye-bye." My mother hangs up her mobile phone. I decide to walk into the kitchen after, even though Aemelia tries to claw me back into the hall way.
"Who're you talking to?" I say casually to my mother.
"Oh just another woman from work," she says.
"Do I know her?"
"No."
"You weren't talking to Hermia Gaumond, were you?"
"Oh no, no," she says without changing her tone, "Hermia Gaumond and her family have been gone for a while. Five years, I think. You were in the eighth grade." Hn. Seems legit.
Quintus and Hermia Gaumond were some of my parents' closest friends. Quintus and my father used to work in the same practice, and Hermia graduated in the same class as my mom. They had two sons, Ross and Gray. Ross would have been in his mid twenties by now, and Gray would have been seventeen. Gray used to be in my class. He was never into acting like the rest of us, though. He always preferred setting things on fire and doing sports like his brother. I never knew Ross that well. None of the girls did, actually. The guys did, though. Mostly because Ross was always assistant coach of the boys teams. The one time I did meet him he seemed really nice. Anyway, the Gaumond family was always stayed out of trouble, so I'm not sure why the four of them disappeared all of a sudden. My parents told me it was none of my business, but sometimes you can't help but wonder.
Aemelia finishes my hair about half an hour before Apollo comes home. My mother left an hour before that, and after she left Aemelia started whining about this guy named Troy she met at the celebration before the Games and how she wondered if she'd see him again. Boys, shoes, and the Hunger Games are basically all she ever talks about. That's why I'm so glad when Apollo stays with us, because he can stand listening to her while she talks.
"Hera," Apollo whines as he walks through the kitchen from the garage, "There's something wrong with my car. Go fix it."
"I'm kind of dressed and ready to go," I say. He's dressed to go, I think. He looks me over and nods.
"That color's nice on you."
"Thanks."
"Let's go," he turns on his heels and walks toward the front door. Apollo and I walk everywhere, if you haven't noticed already. Not that big of a deal. It's not like there are a lot of hills on this side of town. Walking never takes too long, and I've been doing it so long my feet are calloused. Walking a few miles doesn't take any more than an hour and a half by now. So, we go back to the already kind of crowded City Circle. I brace myself for another Cassandra attack. We walk no more than ten feet into the area when Cassandra takes me down from my port flank.
"Ohmigodhera! Ohmigod you look so pretty!" she grabs my arm and takes off, and I hurriedly grab Apollo's. Knowing the rate Cass walks at, he'd be lost within the first few seconds of our departure. Cassandra stops dragging me along when we reach our class. Everyone is here this time. Ceres, Caius, Priam, Imogen, Cassandra, Caliban, and Diana. It's good to be like this again. This time there are chairs set out, and I sit down next to Caliban. We exchange smiles and wait for the ceremony to begin. He takes an antique pocket watch out of his pocket and shows me the time. Six forty-four. Six forty-five. Ceremony begins in fifteen minutes. I look up. Priam and Apollo are arguing about something while Caius and Ceres listen. Diana is telling Imogen and Cassandra about how cute Caius looks in his strange little emerald green suit.
"Soo... read any good books lately?" Cal asks me. I shrug.
"I read President Snow's book,and I read this book I found in a box of my grandmother's old things, I think it's called A Discovery of Witches," I say nonchalantly. Cal chuckles. "What?"
"You're still convinced that you've descended from witches?" he asks, amused. I lean back in my chair.
"Why shouldn't I be? I have a really strange connection with animals and small children, and how else do you explain all of the books and amulets in my grandmother's chest?"
"Hera you are completely insane."
"Yep." We both laugh. Suddenly, the anthem plays. I jump and Caliban's brow furrows. He picks up his watch and shakes it. "Your watch is slow," I say over the crowd. He nods and tries to listen to see if his watch is ticking, which is no use now. Caesar Flickerman is already talking away about the two tributes and their chances and shit. He introduces the prep teams, the crowd applauds, the oh so very pink Effie Trinket is introduced with another deafening applause, and then the two stylists, who receive the most applause. No wonder. Next comes Haymitch Abernathy. I swear he scares me a little bit. He kind of reminds me of a child molester. Now it's time for the tributes. This should be interesting. It's more than two weeks since they've been clean and civilized. Deafening roar that hurts my ears and my whole body. My tribute and Bread Boy. Of course, they kiss for an insane amount of time, which just makes the crowd cheer more. I clench my teeth and cover my ears with my hands. Caliban chuckles and pats me on the shoulder. Loud noises aggravate me.
Bread Boy really is something. When Caesar comes to break them up, he good naturedly pushes him away, earning him another round of cheers, mostly from the females in the audience. Haymitch finally breaks up the couple, and they sit on the love seat that replaces the ornate chair that the tribute usually sits on. Sorry, on which the tribute usually sits. Now it's time for the highlights of the Games. This is my favorite part of the final ceremony, because I get to let my mind wander. Y'all ready for this? Here we go.
I hope Adriana is the choreographer for the dance number I was forced into. She can dance really well. Oh crap, I forgot to feed Prince before we left. I guess Aemelia will have to do that. No, Aemelia's here. I need to start leaving sticky notes on the doors. I need to finish that gaming console. I wonder what would happen if we set off a rocket and then shot it with something. That would be really cool to try with cola and Mentos. Yeah, Mentos are pretty old fashioned, aren't they? I think so. I don't really like them that much. They make my teeth hurt. So does caramel. But I like caramel. I need to stop by Cassandra's parents' store. They sell really good candy. I totally forgot what Cassandra's hair looks like today. Is that Flavius guy Imogen's cousin? No, that's not right. Then he'd be related to Seneca Crane, too. No, not necessarily. Seneca could be on the other parent's side. Yeah. I wonder what my tribute did in the training area that made the gamekeepers like her so much. Probably shot one of them or something. My mom says that gamekeepers are real assholes. I wonder when I'll get my call for my job. I think it's supposed to be some time next week. Oh yeah, she has her birdcage wig on today. Good thing she didn't put birds in it this time. Cassandra's not the smartest crayon in the box. I need to get more crayons. They're fun to melt with blow dryers.
Caliban taps my shoulder softly. I jolt out of my think space. "What happened? I completely zoned out."
"Nothing much. Snow's bringing out the crown now."
"Ah." The ever-whitening President Snow rises from the platform, followed by a cute little girl carrying a crown. I think she's a relative of a Gamekeeper. I remember seeing her somewhere... Wait. A crown? A as in singular? There is a sound of confusion from the crowd. Snow gives the crown a sharp twist and it separates into two. Well played, Snow. Well played.
The first crown goes on Bread Boy's head, the other goes on my tribute. My tribute looks kind of shocked, but in a good way. The two bow, and it seems like all of the crowd stands up to cheer them. Caliban gives me an awkward side hug, and the other classmates congratulate me for winning the bet.
Lots of words. Almost done with part 1. Rate and review so I know people are actually reading this!
~Johanna