Pushing the door closed, I leaned back against it and exhaled slowly. My room was dimly lit, empty except for the bed and the table beside it. There had to be a camera somewhere in here. The Capitol would never stop watching me, not when they knew how unstable and rebellious I was. They watched me while I trained, while I talked, while I slept. There was undoubtedly surveillance in here. Reading the note in my sleeve was going to be tricky.
I sat on the edge of my bed, staring out the large window at the lights of the Capitol. The noise could faintly be heard even from here. They were all partying. Laughing. Socializing. Excited for the 100th Games and what they might bring. They would be safe, on the other side of the television screen. The arena couldn't hurt them. They were not afraid, like the tributes were.
This made me furious. I turned away from the window and lay down on my bed, turning my thoughts back on how to read the note, when there was a knock on my door. "It's open," I said tonelessly, not wanting to talk to anyone. The door cracked open, and Zeke poked his head around it.
"Hey, Blaze, District One's invited us to their floor for a couple of drinks, if you want to come." I waved him off, and he closed the door. I exhaled in relief that he hadn't forced the issue. I avoided drinking like the plague. I'd seen what the stuff did to other people, and out of everything I'd been addicted to in my lifetime, alcohol didn't need to be one of them. It would only addle my brain even more, and my screwed-up mind didn't need any more reasons to go haywire.
I got up again and paced around the room, restless but tired at the same time. Finally I got back in bed, but underneath the covers. Perhaps I could read the note under the blankets, if it wasn't too dark to see. As I was shifting around to get comfortable, I subtly slipped the piece of paper out of my sleeve, clutching it between my fingers as I burrowed myself under the blankets and lay still. When I dared to look at it, I had to squint very hard, because there was barely any light to see by. But when I could make out the words, they sent chills running through me.
Blaze
Medical room 147. Behind the table. 2-2-8-6. Need for last day.
Mockingjay is not your enemy.
I rolled over and subtly stuck the piece of paper into my pillowcase, absorbing this new development in confusion. A code for something in a medical room. Could this be something from Dr. Gaius? And what last day? The last day of the arena, perhaps? Or the last day before the arena?
And what was this about the Mockingjay not being my enemy? I had just told him about Lily Mellark and the threat she posed to us. I had only briefly mentioned Spark, but he had seemed to get the idea. Now he was telling me that Mellark wasn't my enemy, when she so clearly was. It didn't make any sense. It all had to be important, somehow, though. Why else would he have gone through the trouble of giving me a secret note?
I woke up in the middle of the night, hearing voices. Sleepily running my fingers through my hair, I rolled over, and half-fell half-stumbled out of bed. The clock read 2:43am. What were people doing up at this hour? Was Marcus dragging us out for a surprise late-night training session?
When I opened my door, I heard another door slam shut, the one down the hall to Zeke's room. Oh boy. Who knew what he was up to? I hesitantly walked closer, getting a bad feeling about the situation, but vaguely curious at the same time. Zeke hadn't come back since he left for "a couple of drinks" on the District One floor. There was no telling what he'd been doing this whole time.
When I pushed open the door, I immediately wished I hadn't. The room was dark, but I could see well enough to get a full view of Zeke and Lacey, up against the wall, heavily making out without a care who saw or heard them. I involuntarily made a little strangled, disgusted noise in my throat, and I quickly closed the door. I shouldn't have looked. I should have stayed in my room, and ignored them.
Because this made things more complicated. Now I felt awkward. Now I felt betrayed. Zeke and I had been something of a team over the last year, and we had been getting along well enough with the District One tributes yesterday. But now, this was taking it a little farther than I liked. Axel was right. I did feel jealous. I didn't know why. Zeke had never been particularly nice to me, but… He had made me feel like I was special. He had made me feel like I mattered to him more than everyone else. But now that he had won, now that he'd kissed me and learned everything he could about me, he had moved on. He'd stopped trying to learn my secrets and stopped trying to get me to get more physical with him.
He had given up on me.
The muffled words "Lacey, love, I'll be right back, I'll only be a minute, okay?" caught my attention. I backed away from the door, and returned quickly, all but running, to my room, as I heard the door open. "Blaze…" His voice was taunting, lazy, and so obviously drunken. I quickly slammed my door shut, but Zeke caught it before it could close. "Blaze…" I pushed furiously on the door, desperately trying to shut him out, but with one big shove he threw it open, making me fall to the floor. "What do you think you're doing?" His words were slurred, as I rolled underneath my bed.
He closed the door behind him, and I heard the lock click. "Go away Zeke, I didn't ask you to come in here." "Yes you did," he laughed, and I yelped in surprise when a hand grabbed me firmly by the hair and yanked me out from under the bed. He wrenched me to my feet, and grabbed me by the neck. "What do you think you're doing?" he said again, his clouded eyes staring suspiciously at me. He was incredibly drunk. I could smell it on his breath, see it in his face. He wasn't coherent. The simple act of walking in on him was apparently a huge offense in his dulled, idiotic mind.
"I heard voices outside. I just wondered who was up so late," I said as calmly as I could. "What, you don't know how to knock?" he asked me, irritated. "I'm sorry, I wasn't expecting you and the blonde skank to be sucking faces so early in the relationship."
Bad move, Blaze.
He threw me down onto the floor in anger, and I barely caught myself, twisting my wrist funny. The next thing I knew, he was on top of me, on all fours, pinning down my shoulders with his hands. I closed my eyes, shutting out his insults and berating words, and bracing myself for pain.
It started with a slap across the face. And it went from there, escalating to heavy punches and more verbal abuse. If I made a single attempt to defend myself, whether a punch thrown back or simply raising my arms to shield my head, he got incredibly angrier and hit me much harder.
My refusal to cry out, my refusal to show that I was in pain, made him even more furious. He wanted to assert his power over me. He wanted to assert that he was stronger. In control. But I was well-trained at not giving people that satisfaction.
It seemed like hours before he finally stopped. He shoved me down, got to his feet, and kicked me in the stomach before staggering out of the room.
I lay still for a long time, measuring the damage done. Capitol medicine could probably fix most of it. But I wasn't going to lie to myself: the pain was excruciating. My right eye burned angrily, and I had a terrible feeling that it'd be black in the morning.
When I finally gathered enough strength to move, I dragged myself up onto my bed and collapsed, shaking and fighting off tears. A glance at the clock told me that it was 2:53am, as I slipped into unconsciousness.
My cheek was blue now. A large bruise had developed on my cheekbone after last night, and it had gone from pink to purple and now to blue. Not to mention the other side of my face, where my eye was so black it was swollen shut.
I stared at my face in the bathroom mirror, carefully pressing a hot washcloth against my eye. I wanted to kill Zeke for being such an abusive hothead. But I couldn't think about that now. I had to focus on training for the highest score possible. I'd worry about getting back at Zeke in the arena.
While my eye hurt like hell as I gently dabbed medicine on it, I was more concerned, frankly, about what Axel might say or do when he saw me. The Careers were supposed to be a team, but already Zeke and Axel didn't seem to like each other very much. Honestly, for me, Axel was becoming more of an ally than Zeke was, and I'd only known Axel for a day. Zeke… Yes, we trained together for a year in District Two, he kept me a secret, and we had some relatively good times. But he had always been aggressive and competitive, sadistic even, and now the excitement of the Games was turning on the blood-lusting monster in him.
After applying the cream, my eye could already open, and you could only see the bruise on my cheek if you got really close to my face. I got out some makeup and found a purplish color that matched the current color of my right eyelid, and with that and some concealer I managed to make both sides of my face match pretty well. Sighing lightly, I edged my pale, harsh blue eyes with an angry black eyeliner, then pulled my hair back the way my mother had worn it in the arena.
After studying my face, I decided I looked good enough. Makeup could actually be quite a useful thing. I had never worn it to look pretty. With a past like I had, there were a lot more things to worry about than looking pretty. And now that I was covered in scars, I didn't bother even thinking about looking pretty.
No, makeup was more of a useful tool, something to hide imperfections and flaws with, like I was doing now. It was also something to make you look fiercer, more dangerous. My blue-eyed, freckled face looked a lot more threatening with thick black eyeliner and foundation, if I did say so myself. Without makeup, honestly, I looked like a young, vulnerable, blue-eyed and freckled child, instead of a deranged killer. Makeup helped me… look the part, of what I had become.
Returning to my room, I ripped off the torn nightshirt I was wearing and pulled on the sleek, tight-fitting training uniform, feeling incredibly sore. I'd just have to ignore it and suck it up, because I couldn't look weak for an instant in front of anyone else.
I heard a knock on my door, and I opened it to find him dressed and ready to go. "Blaze?" "What." I didn't make it a question—the word was more of a snap, implying the sentence I have no desire to speak to you right now, go away. "I'm sorry I hit you, earlier, okay? I didn't mean to hurt you so bad," he said in a drawling, hungover voice, leaning one arm against the doorframe. "I know," I said tonelessly, not wanting to start a fight right now, "You were drunk. You have a temper. I get it."
I tried to walk past him, but he stopped me, grabbing my shoulder with his other hand. "Blaze, I don't want to alienate you. I'm sorry if the whole thing with Lacey pissed you off, but I had to do it, you know? I want us to get far in these games. We need strong allies." Right. A moron's logic. I stared up at his dark, smirking eyes, my own eyes full of distrust and dislike.
When he kissed me, part of me wanted to shove him away and yell in his face, or better, punch him. Part of me liked it, it stirred that strange feeling in my chest I got whenever he was this close to me. But most of me was just shocked, that he would dare do this after everything he had done last night. When I was able to pull away, I glanced up at him, then walked toward the door and went out, heading for training, hearing him follow.
In the training room, I avoided talking to anyone and instead sat by the plant identification system, figuring I could brush up on that, just in case. It was only about twenty minutes before Axel found me and sat next to me.
"Hey there Freckles," he sighed lightly, plucking a leaf off of one of the plants next to me. "You're lucky that isn't poison oak, District One." "Good to see you too," he chuckled, "Missed you at the party last night." I gritted my teeth before answering. "I'm not really the party type." "So I've gathered," he mused, "Don't worry, you didn't miss much. I just wished you were there to help keep me sane, with those other two around."
Me, help keep someone else sane. Funny.
His behavior baffled me, really. He wasn't grouchy or hungover or anything, like Zeke was. And all I ever did was insult him a lot, only half-jokingly, yet now he was acting like we were best friends. Well, I guess I wasn't complaining. He had helped me improve my spear-throwing, he was the one person here who was actually pleasant to be around, and it was looking like he was my only possible ally.
And I couldn't say I had ever had a real friend before.
"Well, what'll it be today, Golden Boy?" I asked him, without looking at him, "Shall we learn how to fight with katanas like our new redheaded best friend?" He laughed out loud, casting a sideways glance in Spark's direction. "I think I'll pass on that one. Though I could use some work on-"
He broke off, his intense blue eyes staring at my face, his forehead creasing into a disapproving frown. "What happened to your face?" "Maybe your ugliness is rubbing off on me." "I'm actually serious, Blaze, even though I happen to be the most attractive person I know," he murmured, the corner of his mouth twitching as though he wanted to smile, but the rest of his face was fixed in a more concerned expression.
Oh boy. He could see. He could see the bruises. He reached up and brushed his thumb against my cheek, and it was all I could do to not flinch. He must have felt me tense, because he stared directly at me and asked, "Blaze, what happened to you?" "I… Well…" My eyes involuntarily glanced in Zeke's direction, where he was blatantly messing around with Lacey.
And I realized too late that Axel followed my gaze. "Did he do this?" I stared at my lap now, not wanting to meet his gaze. I didn't want to say yes, because that would affirm the fact that I let someone beat me up, and that would make me look and feel weak. But Axel's hands were suddenly on either side of my head, and he made me look up at him. His thumb brushed against the concealed, swollen part of my black eye, and I visibly winced.
"Blaze. Look at me." My eyes reluctantly met his again. "Zeke hit you?" he asked in a soft whisper, gently closing my eye with his thumb, as if realizing that there wasn't any makeup on that eyelid, and it really was purple.
"He was drunk," I mumbled.
"Oh, god… This is my fault, I should never have let him and Lacey go back to your floor so hammered—" "It's fine. Whatever. You must've been just as bad, you might've done the same thing."
He let go of my head and stared at me, as if I had just uttered the most offensive words known to man. "Blaze." "What," I snapped, not liking this situation at all. "Blaze, I want you to get one thing straight. I, Axel Carter, would never hit a girl for no reason like that. Not even Lacey. Not even Spark, or anyone else. If we're fighting with weapons, that's a different story. But harming a defenseless, guiltless girl? I would never do such a horrible thing."
"That's great, Mr. Knight-In-Shining-Armor. We can talk about something else now." He looked at me incredulously. "You don't even seem angry! What happened to the defensive, touchy Blaze I know? Is this…is this a common thing? Has he done this before?" I stared at him, my throat closing up as I thought about the answer, my eyes unable to pull away from Axel's steady ocean blue ones. "All the time," I said weakly.
He said nothing for a minute, his expression changing into something unreadable. Pity? Anger? Worry? Grief? Amusement? I couldn't tell. But then he let go, and stood up. And as he started striding in Zeke's direction, his intentions became perfectly clear. "Axel-" I heard my hoarse voice say, but not nearly loud enough for him to really hear.
He went right up to Zeke, who was putting his sword back on the rack, and decked him with a brutal, solid punch to the jaw. "You think you're a god, don't you?" I heard him yell, "You think you can just do whatever and get away with it?" Suddenly he was on Zeke, pinning him to the floor and punching him repeatedly in the face. "How does that feel, huh? How does it feel to a big tough guy like you?" He got up, grabbed Zeke's arm, and wrenched him up and threw him so he smashed into the corner post of the sparring station. "Because an innocent girl smaller than you, like Blaze, should never, I repeat, never, be treated like you treat her! You think you can just beat her and get away with it? She's not your ****ing punching bag, she's a human being and you should try to have a little respect-" He didn't even finish talking as he grabbed Zeke's head, and became too engrossed in smashing it repeatedly against the ground.
Security guards finally got to him, but he smacked them away and got up, taking a moment to stare at the bruised and even bloody Zeke lying on the floor. Then he turned, and marched right out of the training center without a glance behind him.