It took all of little Nadia's powers of persuasion to get me to stand up and put a t-shirt on. It was white with an anchor made out of silver sequins decorating the front. After this effort though, I was ready to give in. "I don't want to go out there," I mumbled to her whilst chewing on my bread roll. "They'll all laugh at me for getting stabbed." You know that's not exactly true Delphi. My saner side whispered to me. What you really meant to say was "I don't want to go out there and see 13 or Nolan." I mentally shook myself and glanced over at the small girl. "How old are you?" I asked suddenly. She beamed at me
"I'm 8; a big girl." I chuckled softly and ruffled her hair.
"Yes, being 8 makes you a big girl…" I stared blankly out of the window, noticing we still weren't moving. "Old enough to be taken to the Capitol for who knows what…" She looked up at me from the chest of drawers she was rifling through, holding a white and grey camisole.
"Mommy." She said quietly, hoping I would understand. I did. Her mom had brought this upon her.
My hands and feet were pressed against the doorframe. "No, you can't make me go out there."
"Yes I can." I heard running footsteps and a second later I felt Nadia slam into my back. It winded me for a second.
"You're going to have to try harder than that." I gasped. Suddenly, I felt her tiny fingers tickling the back of my knees. I squirmed and fell through the doorway. "Not fair! I'm ticklish!" I cried out as she stood triumphantly above me. She smiled wickedly and pounced onto my chest skimming her fingers quickly over my sides. I tried to move but I couldn't from laughing too much. "Stop…Please!" I managed to get out. I wriggled away from her and sat against the wall, shaking with laughter. The sound of our laughter drowned out the footsteps coming down from the hall. I wiped my eyes which had tears in them and blinked in surprise when I saw who was stood there.
Mina's face was bruised all the way down one side, there was swelling near her temple and a clump of dry blood stood out in the lime green of her hair. I gulped and pushed myself up to a standing position. "Hi…" I whispered meekly. She didn't respond to me; instead her eyes flickered to my arm.
"Where is your armband?" She snapped. I glanced at down at my bare arm, then at Nadia who was staying away from the older woman.
"It must have…Fallen off…" I mumbled, looking at my hands.
"Fallen off? Or did you take it off?" She came closer to me, grasped my chin and pulled it up so I was looking at her. "You do realise," she continued in the same patronising tone. "That after it's been taken off for 30 minutes, it sends a signal out to the nearest person with a handheld device." I shook my head quickly. Why would I know that? It's not like I'm clued up about these things. A sharp pain exploded through my left cheek and I gasped, realising I'd been slapped. "Mina Roxmen!" A harsh male cry came down from the corridor. Tears rolled down onto my face as I clutched my cheek. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" I closed my eyes and buried myself into the wall. "She took her tracker off, I had to do something!"
"Yes, you had to but there was no need to slap her!"
"You can't talk to me like that!" A thud landed beside my head and I as I opened my eyes, I saw 2 things. A knife stained with dry blood and Mina down on the ground, breathing heavily. My immediate thought was that she had been stabbed but I didn't see any fresh blood stains on her skin or clothing. It was only then when I remembered the other person stood there.
My gaze slid over to my left and I wished I hadn't looked. I had been expecting Clovis, maybe even Gideon as anyone would have been but…I swallowed and yanked my eyes away. I sidled down the corridor, away from the knife; away from them. As I went down the corridor, I could hear whimpers coming from Mina. Something along the lines of "Please…I'm sorry…Don't hurt me…" I looked at the small scene, hoping not to be noticed. I was a few feet away from them when the knife-wielder looked up. "How's the shoulder Delphi?" His silky voice called to me.