I jolted awake when someone touched my arm.
In an instant I had him pinned to the floor underneath me, to see Zeke's darkly handsome face smirking up at me.
I said nothing for a moment, recalling the last time we were in this position, a couple weeks ago, in our hormonally-charged sparring session.
"You do like it rough, don't you Blaze?" His sarcastic, laughing words brought me back to reality. I slapped him, not very hard, and quickly got off of him, getting to my feet.
Then I realized the train had stopped.
"That automatic response system you've got there will help you in the arena," he mused as he stood up too, his eyes watching me.
"It's been useful to me in the past. Are we-" I dared to go over to glance out the window.
Hundreds and hundreds of people crowded the station platform outside, cheering and waving and smiling ecstatically. The sight made me sick. I stepped back and looked back at Zeke, saying nothing.
I wondered about him. Whether I should trust him. Whether he would turn on me or want to keep me around. Whether I actually wanted him on my side.
Well, yes, I did want him on my side. I had seen him in Academy. I had seen him nearly kill people. I had seen that smug smirk of satisfaction and deranged composure every time he got to inflict pain on someone. He may be more social, and flirtatious, than I was, but I had to wonder if he might be nearly as crazy as me. Those dark eyes, nearly black, but haunted by the ghost of blue when light hit them, hid who knew how many untold secrets.
After all I had been through, I was allowed to be a bit uncomfortable with people touching me.
But this was just getting ridiculous.
I was surrounded by three very strange, human-like things. Well, I supposed that they would call themselves normal human beings. But being realistic here?
One stood above my head, carefully tweezing my eyebrows. Her hair was cropped and styled in neon purple spikes, and her eyelashes of the same color had to be at least three inches long.
The guy on the other side of me, the one ruefully examining my scarred arm, his skin was dyed light blue. I didn't know where people got the idea that these things were the new… "fashion".
But the worst part of it all was… I wasn't wearing anything. Although I guess the fact that these colorful creeps barely seemed human made it not quite as mortifying.
"Hold still, would you?" The third one leaned over me, the one with a tongue that was literally the color of silver, "You're an absolute mess, I don't know how on earth we're going to get you cleaned up by this afternoon."
"Aurelia, just look at this," the man whined, "How in the world are we going to hide this? Just cut off the top layer of skin and try to heal it up? There's no way makeup will cover them all." He wrenched my arm upwards so the other two could see. They had been scrubbing the dirt out of my skin for the past twenty minutes, and now that my skin was clean, my scars stood out more than ever. The arm he held up was covered in a network of twisted, knotted scar tissue that ran up past my elbow.
"Sorry, they weren't exactly shallow wounds," I said tonelessly, "You can't cut them out without cutting my arm off, and then I won't look very good, will I?"
I was sick of them already and I hadn't even been here for an hour. But that hour had felt like an eternity, filled with scrubbing and tweezing and waxing and all sorts of horribly unnecessary things.
"Well, perhaps he can figure something out," the silver-tongued one, apparently called Aurelia, mused.
"Of course he can!" the purple one interjected brightly, "The man's brilliant. Can even make someone like this one look beautiful."
I ignored the insult and snapped, "Can we just get on with it? I'm sick of lying here like a bug under a microscope."
"Touchy, touchy," Aurelia tsked, as she worked a comb through my hair for the millionth time.
After what felt like a century, they finally decided they had done all they could.
"I have never, in all my life, seen someone's skin so… ruined." The irony of the blue man saying that almost killed me. But I didn't say anything.
"Hush hush, Lucius, the poor thing's been through a lot, just send her off to Ovid and she should be fine." Aurelia helped me get off the table when I had been lying, and pointed at a door.
Are we forgetting something?
"What, without clothes on?" I asked.
"Just go through there, he will meet you. Go on," she said kindly.
I could have almost developed respect for this one if she didn't have a bright silver tongue. And, you know, that she didn't seem to respect traditional privacy boundaries.
I turned and walked in the direction she pointed, and pushed open the door to go in. I had just closed the door and walked forward five steps when a voice spoke behind me to my left.
"So, Blaze."
I looked around, instinctively crossing my arms over my chest to cover myself. A man sat at a desk in the corner, and now he stood up, looking at my face.
"It is an honor to meet you. I didn't know I'd ever get a chance."
I took a step back as he came toward me, and he waved his hand airily. "Don't bother feeling all self-conscious, that will only make things take longer. I'm here only to help you, Blaze, only to make you stand out above all the other tributes."
He lightly caught my chin in his hand, his eyes studying mine. "You do have your father's eyes," he mused, before letting go and circling me.
I frowned. "You knew my father?"
"I've been the District 2 stylist for some time now, so yes, I met your father. And your mother. I was younger then, and could sympathize with them better than I might today. They were two very different, very interesting individuals. It wasn't hard to help hide the fact that they were in love, with the different styles for them both that I chose. Unlike that Cinna fellow that year… Outrageous. Anyway, yes, I met them both, and I never did think I'd be meeting you. Their precious little baby. Cato's scene after your mother's death was quite moving, have you seen it? The whole speech, the avenging of her death, very touching."
I stared blankly at the wall in front of me, resisting the urge to punch him.
"You look uncomfortable." I looked at him strangely.
"Well of course I am, I'm standing here with no clothes on in front of a man I just met who's going off about my parents who were brutally murdered. Can we not?"
He chuckled lightly. "You really are your parents' child. Yes, we can get on with things. I must say, I will have to make some design adjustments to hide the imperfections on your arms, back, and neck, but that shouldn't be too hard. Other than that, I think I have something to work with. Proportions not bad, nice lush long hair, startling eyes, exquisite face. I must decide about how I want to portray you. Clove went for the mysterious, calm side, Cato went for the aggressive. I'm sensing a bit of both in you, with something a bit more….edgy."
He scratched a few notes on the clipboard I hadn't even noticed in his hand.
"You can put on the robe over there," he pointed absently at a garment draped over the arm of a couch with his pencil. I eyed him warily, then went to it and quickly pulled it on, wrapping it tightly around myself. "Now. Blaze."
His airy tone became more serious, and I looked at him as I sat down on the couch.
"I want you to know something. I want you to know that you can trust me. Ah, you may snort with laughter now, but know that you can. Cato and Clove trusted me with many of their secrets. They even told me when Clove was pregnant. Anyone else would've had her get an abortion before going into the arena."
I stared at him. "You knew I existed."
"I didn't know you had made it this far, and I have no idea how you can possibly be standing here right now, but yes, I knew they were going to have a child. I also knew that if Clove died, so would the child. So now I'm wondering…"
"What happened," I finished for him, my tone flat, "I'm not telling you anything, "Ovid," you just focus on doing whatever it is you're supposed to be doing and leave my life alone for me to deal with."
"Understand, Blaze," he said after a moment, as he came over to sit beside me. I could see dozens of notes already scratched all over that clipboard of his. "That I do not ask you to tell me more than you feel comfortable revealing. But understand, Blaze—and I suppose this is more your mentor's job than mine—that during the interviews, there is no doubt, not the slightest doubt, that you will be asked about why you exist."
"And I'll give them a realistic answer," I said calmly, keeping level eye contact with him, "That I have no idea. How would I be able to remember? I'm not telling them anything."
He sighed lightly. "Well, know that you can trust me, Blaze. It is good to have a shoulder to lean on." He got up and looked at me. "Now, for the tribute parade," he said briskly, changing the subject to my great relief, "We need to make a statement. A statement that you two are the most powerful tributes from the most powerful district. We'll worry about beauty and all that when the interviews come around."
He tapped the end of his pencil against his pale lips, thinking. "Your district is actually quite difficult to style for. All I have to work with is masonry, and weaponry I suppose. I try to avoid doing the bricklayer thing, it's so bland. Blacksmith and stone miner uniforms are not very appealing either. I've done a few years of Peacekeeper outfits, as District 2 is where most are trained… But no, this year must be spectacular. It must be more interesting than any uniform or stereotype of the district. In fact, I might do a spinoff of my design I used for your parents. Golden Roman armor, pertaining to not just the weapons they produce, but the power and strength of their district."
He sat down at his desk and started sketching maniacally.
"I thought you'd already have something planned," I mused, bored.
"No, no, I had to see you first. Had to create something that would go perfectly with your appearance and air." He looked back up at me. "This is, after all, the 100th Hunger Games. Every stylist will be pulling together their best this year. Maybe District 7 won't even be trees."