Caesar looks taken aback by her answer. Nobody in the 66 years of Hunger Games has anyone flat-out said that they don't think they'll win, even if the odds aren't in their favor. The audience is stunned into silence. I look at Blight and raise my eyebrow at him. He just shakes his head at me. He didn't tell her to do that. Now even sponsors will think she's a weakling. Johanna Mason must really thinks this will work. I guess only time will tell. All Caesar manages to say is, "Well, I'm sure that's not true. Anyways, lets give a hand to Johanna Mason!" The crowd manages to clap politely. But holy shit. What the hell is this girl doing? I space out for the rest of the interviews, and it's Grant yelling at me that snaps me out of my trance.
"Finnick! You have a phone call. It's somebody named Annie," Grant tells me. My stomach drops, why would she be calling me? I think of all the terrible things that could be happening. The voice on the phone is weak and fragile, not the funny, thoughtful, outspoken Annie I know.
"F-Finn?" She chokes out a sob.
"Annie? Are you okay?" I ask, the panic in my voice obvious.
"I'm okay. But my mom... S-She's..." She trails off, and I can hear the quiet sobs from the other side of the phone.
"Finnick," Adrienne must have taken over the phone. "Annie's okay. It's her mom. She's... well we don't know. We had them over for dinner like we've done every Thursday since as long as we can remember, and Juliette and I were cooking. She was drinking wine, and not a lot too. This was her first glass, and she just choked on something and passed out. We're at the hospital and we don't know..."
"Oh my god... Did anyone else drink that wine?" I ask, worried. If it was the wine, my dad or Juliette or Adrienne could have gotten sick with something too.
"No, just her. It was some new white wine Juliette imported from District 1."
Juliette. Juliette. I feel like she has something to do with this. "I have to go," I tell Adrienne, "keep me updated as soon as you find anything out?" Ugh, this is really screwed up. I'm almost positive that Juliette has tried to kill Alana Cresta. But why? What could have Alana done? She's she sweetest person I know, and is like a mother to Adrienne and I... That's it. Juliette feels threatened by her. I've thought nothing of my dad and Alana's daily phone calls and close relationship. They're great friends, but that's it. Juliette must not understand that. Did she try to kill Alana? I don't know. I don't think I want to know either. I turn to Grant, "Her mother's sick. It's probably just food poisoning, she should be fine". I don't believe the words as I say them, and I'm sure Grant doesn't either. Whatever. I thought I only had to worry about President Snow trying to kill my loved ones. I've never considered Juliette family, but now she's not even a step-relative. She's a threat.
I try not to think of anything back home. I won't be able to go there for a while, and I don't want to preoccupy myself with things I can't control. I'll deal with this once I'm back in District 4. I shake these thoughts out of my head, and go up in the elevator with Grant, Natalie, Nick and Stephanie. Ariel has left. Natalie and I will accompany the tributes to the hovercraft that'll bring them to the arena, and then they're gone. I'll only see them from a television in the Capitol. And I'll never see one or both of them ever again. I guess getting close to them wasn't the greatest idea.
Nick and Stephanie stop by later to hand me their letters. I give them some final advice,"Try to get a good night's sleep you two, you're gonna need it." I tell them. Of course, I can't take my own advice. I think I'm just as scared as Nick and Stephanie are. I end up ordering a mint tea, and watch the Capitol late-night television. Some reporter is talking about the odds being in some of the tributes' favor. They speculate the alliances formed: The tributes from 1 and 2 with Stephanie and the boy from District 6. That show ends, and there's an hour long commercial for some white pill that will make you lose weight. It's probably a scam, but I'm sure the gullible Capitol believe it. They'll believe anything. It's pathetic.
I guess I fall asleep on the couch, and wake up to the sounds of Stephanie and Nick eating and talking over breakfast. Their conversations always manage to trail off after a few sentences. They're nervous. I can practically feel it in the air. I throw on some clean clothes and splash water on my face to wake myself up. Then, we walk them down a tunnel to the hovercraft that will take them to the arena. I squeeze Stephanie's hand, trying to be supportive. "You can do this, okay. The odds are in your favor. Seriously. The Capitol thinks you have a good shot, and so do I. Be careful."
"Thank you, Finnick. For everything." She says, and then walks away. Gone. Steph stops after a few steps, and runs back, confusing the peacekeepers. She jumps on me and kisses me. I'm so stunned I don't know how to react. "Sorry. I've really wanted to do that." She says, before walking to her probable death. One of the peacekeepers shoots me a look. I shrug. What the hell was that? And why did I like that? Get a grip, Odair, I tell myself. Why does every girl feel the need to kiss me now? I really don't mind, but why? It's weird.
Natalie meets up with me, and we go in a car to a tall building in the Capitol. It might be one of the tallest, but I'm not sure. We take an elevator to the top floor, and there's a huge room. There's windows on the ceilings, called skylights. Three of the walls are covered with televisions, and the other has 12 computers. Phones and buffets line the walls, and there's tables and couches everywhere. A name comes to mind. This is the Mentor's Lounge. "Let me show you around?" Natalie asks. She introduces me to all of the other mentors, but only a few are memorable. The two mentors from District 2 are very memorable – Enobaria, who won the year before me by ripping her opponent's throat and Brutus, the classic Career. Beetee and Wiress, who are nicknames Nuts and Volts, seem way too kind to have won the brutal ways everyone claims they did. I know Blight, and Haymitch is with his friend and drinking buddy Chaff.
There's polite conversation and hugs. I'm the awkward one here. Everyone knows each other, and I don't. That's just great. I guess I'll have to meet people. "One, Two, Five, Six and Eight. Don't trust them," Natalie tells me quietly, "One can be okay, I'll tell you when." It's etched into the back of my head. Don't trust them. But why? Most people never meet anyone from another district in their lives. Districts have no alliances, they haven't in sixty-six years. Maybe it's for a good reason, I don't really know.
Everyone quiets down and takes a seat as the anthem and seal of Panem show up on the previously black screens, and Caesar Flickerman and Claudius Templesmith come on the screen. I sit at a table with Blight, Natalie, Haymitch and Chaff. I've talked to them and they seem cool. Chaff is loud and funny and even though his jokes usually suck, he balances out Haymitch's negative, sarcastic personality. They're good for each other. Caesar and Claudius go over the tributes, their training scores, their odds, and a short exchange from each of their interviews. Of course, they show that one clip with Johanna saying how she has no chance of winning. Ugh. I can't wait for the Games to start. I'm not excited for them like most people in the Capitol are, and I don't dread them like I did when I was in the arena or watching at home. I just want them to happen already, I want to know who wins, and just get them over with so we can all go home. With or without Stephanie or Nick or Johanna or anyone else that could win. I think seeing these Games is even worse as a mentor, because I'll have to go home and see the heartbroken families. That, for me is the worst part.
They chatter from a few minutes, a countdown on the clock in the bottom right corner of the screen counting down the minutes and seconds left. 5:50, 5:49, 5:48. It's too suspenseful. I hear the cheers of Capitol citizens from the streets below. They're excited. They enjoy these Games, this torture, and I hear it first hand. My stomach hurts. I go to the bathroom. I use seven different hand lotions and put a creme in my hair. Three minutes. I take a large gulp of Stephanie's rum and coke. She shoots me a dirty look. Two minutes. Haymitch finishes off his bottle, and drops it on the ground. An attendant has to come and clean it up. This must be terrible if he has to get drunk before the Games even start. Thirty seconds. By now, the tributes have risen up in their plates. We get a full look at the arena. It looks like barren flatlands. I can tell it's fairly hot, and there seems to be no edible food or protection in the green-brown grass. It looks dead. I notice the cornucopia - it's an ugly shade of brown, and I think it's made out of wood. There's a small stream behind it, and a hill that could lead to protection. I'm not worried about Stephanie. Ten seconds. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
The gong goes off, and the Games have officially begun. I hear a cheer erupt from in the streets below, but I don't respond. I'm focused on the screen in front of me. I keep my eyes on Stephanie. The blonde girl from District 1 calls her over as she impales the girl from 8 with a sword. The boy from 2 snaps the neck of the boy from 12. Stephanie grabs a long spear, and throws it for distance. She gets the boy from nine in between the back of his neck and his shoulder blades, killing him instantly. I see Johanna sneak past everyone, unseen. She grabs a small backpack and an axe and heads for the hill. She adjusts it in her hands so she's holding it wrong. and it makes it look like she has no idea what she's doing. It's pretty impressive, really. I see Blight nod in approval out of the corner of my eye.
The camera pans back to the cornucopia. I see that the girls from 11 and 12 are laying face down, blood pooling around them. They're presumably dead too. The boy from 11 tries shooting an arrow at the girl from 5. He misses by a little and it hits her in the back of her thigh and she falls to the ground. The Career girl from 2 finishes off the girl on the ground while the boy from 1 stabs the boy from 11 from behind. Haymitch's voice pulls me out of the action. "Well, we're out. Another two dead. Let's get out of here?" he says to Chaff. They both stand up and leave. Their tributes have died in the first five minutes of the Games. I refocus my attention on the Games. Most of the tributes have scattered, except for the twelve-year-old girl from 3. She's hidden in the back of the cornucopia. She's quick to die when Stephanie sees her, showing no compassion for the small child.
The career pack has collected the majority of things from the cornucopia, stocked up on supplies, food and weapons, and left. "If they were smart, they would've burned up the rest of the stash so nobody else could get it." Blight says. I nod in agreement. That would be the smart thing to do. But I'm thankful they didn't. The camera shows a flash of all the tributes. Johanna's climbed a tree and is hanging out on a high branch, concealed by the trees. While it would be a huge inconvenience for her to get down, she's safe. Nick is terrified, trembling in a bush. The mass-murder must have scared him into a mental breakdown of some sort. I can tell he's not going to last long. No sponsor would want to help him right now, and he has no food, water or weapons.
Not much happens the rest of the day, no more deaths. At night, the boy from 10 is dumb enough to light a fire, and the Careers come over and kill him. The sun sets in the arena, and the faces of the fallen are projected into the night sky: The girl from 3, the girl from 5, the girl from 8, the boy from 9, the boy from 10 and all four tributes from 11 and 12. That makes nine dead in the first day. The arena's night is only four o'clock here, their time is three hours later than the Capitol's time.
Still, Natalie calls me over. She whispers in my ear so I can only hear her, "Your car is downstairs. Apparently you have two clients today. We're – that meaning most of the mentors – are all going out to dinner at seven, so you have enough time to clean up and go out with us if you want." She raises her voice to a normal tone, and tells me. "You go back to the apartments and take a nap or something. I'll be here. You look exhausted."
"Sounds good," I tell Natalie, even faking a yawn. "See you later. Bye Blight!" I walk downstairs, and into the discreet black car, that looks just like every other car in the Capitol. The driver hums along to song on the radio I've never heard. Capitol music is weird, and I'm not sure why anyone likes it. He drops me off at my first client/appointment/date/whatever the hell it's called. Luckily, she's a girl.
"Hey, can I ask you something?" I ask the hot pink colored naked woman in the bed. The blanket rises and falls on her bare chest. She nods a little, and I ask her, "is it possible to poison someone with wine?"
She laughs, and even for such a strange looking person, it's a nice sounding laugh. It's very pretty. She bites her lip in thought and then answers in her strange Capitol accent, "Yeah, people do it all the time. It's in all those mystery movies on channel thirty-six that they show on Tuesday nights. But I've only heard one case of it happening in real life. It's a secret though, so you're going to need to keep it quiet. Apparently when President Snow was rising to power – bless his heart that poor sick man. Well, he used it to take out his enemies. I don't know. Ask around if you want the full story."
I shrug, and move on to my next person. If it's so popular in the Capitol as a way to kill, no wonder Juliette used it on Alana. I wonder how she is, and how Annie is doing. But I can't stop thinking about what she said. I wonder how President Snow came to power. Maybe, I'll ask around. I sleep with some of the most rich and powerful people in Panem. Surely, they'll have to know something about it. I want to know every dirty detail about that terrible man.
My second person is a man. Great. Apparently men are rarer to have than women, which is good. But I don't like it, at all. I like girls and boobs and smooth skin, not guys and dicks and muscles. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you so so so so much. I chant in my head. I'm not sure who I'm chanting that to. It doesn't really matter though.
I'm too worn out after my day (both mentally and physically) to go out, so I just stay in the apartments. I clean up a bit, and chill out on the couch, and watch some of Caesar Flickerman and Claudius Templesmith's commentary. When that ends at six, I go to channel thirty-six and watch the Saturday night shows. There's a crappy movie about a high school girl who gets pregnant, another about this girl who falls in love but looses her memory. They're both really bad. After that, Natalie comes home and sits with me. She pushes a button on the remote control, and changes it to some television show.
"This is my favorite." She tells me, sounding excited. It's a parody show with short skits making fun of celebrities and other things. It seems funny, but I don't get most of the jokes Natalie is laughing about. Mostly because I don't know about the things that they reference. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to read those Capitol magazines every once in a while. I just try to sit back and relax, and watch the show. It's not that bad. They have a singer who plays a guitar sing a few songs too. I decide I like this show.
"What's it called?" I ask Natalie. She doesn't at answer at first, she's cracking up at one of the actors doing some game-show type thing. I don't see whats so funny, but she clearly does. Natalie finally answers me when the show goes to a commercial break.
"Saturday Night Live. It's been going in since Pre-Panem. A lot of things from now come from before Panem, before the dark days. It's weird to think about, but before sixty-six years ago, people lived here without these Games. I wonder why they rebelled in the first time. Maybe I'll ask Mags. But maybe three or four hundred years before that, people lived in America. And they went to school and watched television just like we do. I wish I knew what they did wrong."
I shrug. I've never really thought about that. But Mags was a toddler before the rebellion, so she might remember something. In school, we only learned about the last sixty-six years. The three presidents we've had, the Games, what all the districts do, and of course, the Dark Days. But it's probably biased. We never learned what was so bad that made the people rebel, or what screwed-up person would create a competition where teenagers kill each other. They would tell us if the districts were in the wrong. They haven't, so that must mean that the Capitol has done some terrible things before the Dark Days. They're hiding the truth. But why?
The show ends, and I go to my room so I can go to bed. I hear Grant come in a little later, but I don't say hi. I lay in bed, feeling like I've heard too much. I shouldn't be thinking like this – or maybe I should, and the Capitol doesn't want me to. There I go again. I lay in bed, trying to get my head to shut up. It's difficult. There's a thousand different thoughts racing through my mind. With everything I have to deal with, and all my problems, it's a miracle I get even an hour of sleep. The only good thing is that by the time I actually manage to fall asleep, I'm so exhausted I don't have nightmares at all. If I do, I don't remember them which is just as good in my opinion.
Natalie wakes me up around nine thirty by throwing a pillow in my face. I groan, and turn over. I hate the terrible, warped memories I see at night, but I'm too tired to get up. She doesn't really care though. "Get up. Get up, get up get up." She nags me. I groan and sit up, yawning. Natalie crosses her arms over her chest and nods thoughtfully in approval. "Good. Now get some clothes on, we're leaving in fifteen minutes. There will be food in the lounge, if you decide you want." She closes the door behind her as she walks out, and I contemplate turning off the lights and going back to bed. But Natalie won the Hunger Games once, and I'm pretty sure she'd kill me if I went back to bed.
Nothing new happened over night in the arena. Caesar Flickerman replays the deaths of everybody that died, and Claudius Templesmith goes over the odds of each remaining tributes. Out of the sixteen remaining tributes, Stephanie has the third highest odds, which is really good. Johanna has the tenth highest odds. I look over at Blight, who seems to be pleased with these results. I guess this is a part of his and Johanna's weakling strategy. Personally, I'm starting to wonder if in reality she's not acting.
The rest of the day goes by with no new deaths until three o' clock in the afternoon, or six by arena time. The Career pack runs into the male tribute from 5, and they make quick work of him. Maybe an hour later, the girl from 9 dies from some plant she decides to eat. Those are the only two deaths of the day. The Capitol isn't going to be that impressed - there was no drama or suspense. This is a television show, and they demand to be entertained.
After that, I have two more appointments. They're girls too, thankfully. As much as I dislike this (no, I hate it), it's becoming much more tolerable. Most of the women here like the same things, and practice makes perfect. I return to the apartment at eight or eight thirty in the evening. Natalie and Grant are really drunk and laughing. They don't hear me come in, so I pick at the untouched appetizers on the dining room table. I hear a scream and I jump to my feet. I look around, it was Natalie being tickled. Grant is lying on top of her on the couch, and they're making out. Oh. Well then. I've been suspecting that they have had a thing for a while. I quietly go into my room, not wanting to be near that. There's already way too much sex in my life. I think I'm probably the only teenage boy in the whole world who doesn't want sex. Then again, most fifteen year olds are too busy trying to stay alive and not get reaped, and don't have time for that. I have too much time on my hands.
I change into a tee-shirt and sweatpants, and before I can stop myself, I'm tiptoeing to the elevator and pushing 7. I really just need to hang out with a friend, someone close to my age who won't judge my body count or be scared of me. I think Blight's the person for that. Maybe I'll see Johanna too, which would be nice. Even though she'd probably chuck a plate at my head. I don't know what her problem is, but it doesn't, matter. I'm not here for Johanna, I'm not here for Johanna. Maybe if I keep telling myself that, I'll believe it.
A/N: Did you like that? I really appreciate all the fantastic feedback. Keep it coming!