Annie POV
When Hoodge jumped onto the table everyone was in shock, except for me. For some reason I didn't seem to know myself, I started laughing and clapping my hands together. "Bravo! Well done!" He looked over to me and smiled. "Told you I would get that bunny." I nodded grinning. Everyone else slowly joined in the laughter of us two but it seemed forced. Matthew left the dinning wagon, mumbling something about nutjobs. No one went back to eat something, but I hadn't had much appetite to start with, so that was okay with me, giving me an excuse to stand up from the table as well.
I sat down in the next wagon on a sofa near Hoodge. I wasn't sure why, but I was somehow fascinated by him. And it made me uneasy at the same time. He was crazy - there was no doubt in that - so why was he fascinating me? He could be dangerous. Actually everyone in this train was. Even May Jynn. I shouldn't trust them, but what other chance was there for me to make it out alive than trusting my Mentors?
"Do you like green?" I looked up to Hoodge who eyed me curious. "Yes… I guess… I don't know. It suits me, or so I've been told." "It's growing on you." I looked at him confused, but his eyes drifted of to the ceiling. "Look a ship." I looked up but I couldn't make out the form of a ship no matter how long I kept my eyes locked on the ceiling. Eventually I gave up and turned around to watch the world outside the windows rushing by. I couldn't see the ocean anymore so I figured we probably left District 4 behind by now. It was weird to realize that I even missed the last chance to see my home.
I was lost in my thoughts without being able to remember what the previous thought had been once it was gone. As the country of Panem flew by the window I tried to guess which District we were passing through, but I was hardly able to recall the image of Panem's map, for it was slipping my mind like all the other thoughts before.
At some point May Jynn came over to inform me that the recap of the Reapings was on. I never liked it much. Watching the actual Reaping in 4 usually was enough for me, so when my family watched them I would simply go to bed already. But until this day I had never cared for the games much, or for the kids. My status, the simple fact that I never had to sign up twice, made me forget about the terror they really held. So I didn't skip the recaps because I was sad for anyone. I was annoyed. I had to see these children die. I didn't want to see their parents cry on television. I would have had to get emotionally involved with the subject and I realized now that I had never been able to do so. But I forced myself up from the couch and into the big TV room where they all were waiting.
Know your enemy. I guessed that was where I should start my strategy. To see who I would have to face in the arena. Little did I know that their faces would haunt me for many nights.
Matthew only stayed around for the first five districts, said there was nothing more to see than the Careers and left. Finnick threw a glass after him but the door closed and the glass shattered at it. I noticed it all happening but it was like the land rushing by the train, I couldn't catch up with what I saw. I was still too occupied trying to get rid of the pictures of my own Reaping. The image of my seagreen eyes were burned into my head. There hadn't been any sign of fear or panic, like I had seen in the eyes of the boy and girl from 3. My gaze had been stripped from all emotions. It was like that one time, when we had found the corpse of a sailor on the beach. He must have drowned during the storm the night before. His lifeless eyes had looked exactly like mine in this recording. Shallow, empty and dead.
When I got my mind back to actually see what as happening on the screen the girl from 8 was just leaving the stage. Her name was still written under the picture. Capri Boston. She was thin, alarmingly thin, and even though textiles were 8's main production – my own dress had been made there and my Dad got it from a Capitol guy he was always selling stuff to – her own clothes could hardly be called that. She was dressed in what looked like an old sheet. There was no camera turn for her. No crying parents. Only another look at her in the old sheet with her filthy dark blonde hair blowing lightly in the wind. Before I realized what this picture meant to me, a tear slipped my eyes.
I missed the Reaping in 9, because I was too caught up in my thoughts on Capri. Girls like here ere my exact picture of a tribute. A name thrown in hundred times. No wonder they got picked. Only hours ago I had been wondering why it had to be me in this place and I pictured that someone like her should have been picked instead. But seeing her, I hated myself for ever having considered that. She was dirty and poor and without the Tessarae she probably would have been dead already, but she had a story that this short recap hadn't told, she had a life. She didn't deserve this any more than I did. Probably actually less.
A hand on my shoulder pulled me back when the boy in District 10 climbed the stage. I looked up into Finnick's face. He held out a white handkerchief his expression not readable for me. I took it and dried my eyes, trying to focus on the last six tributes. I had missed nine of them, leaving thirteen that I saw plus Matthew and me. My head was spinning. 24 kids all on a train like this on their way to Capitol. But only one of them would go back home.
And with a pang of panic and dread I realized that I wanted to be the one – no matter what. And if I had to kill all the other 23 I would do it. That realization hit me so hard it knocked the breath out of me. I jumped to my feet and ran from the room and into my own compartment. But I couldn't run from my thoughts.