Author's Note: Okay, so I know that originally I said that I was going to make each Part a separate story, but I've decided against that. I'm just going to write them all into one fic. It makes it easier, all up. At least that's how I feel.
It still might be awhile for Part Two to be completed. I've only written five or so chapters for it. I'm writing some today - hence my posting this chapter - as this weekend I don't have any major work that I need to have done for next week, but it'll still be awhile before Part Two is done. But it is being written, so don't worry this fanfic will be done... eventually. Hopefully if I can keep writing as I am this weekend, I'll get another three or so chapters down.
Anyway, please enjoy the first chapter of Part Two, chapter thirteen. And as always, reviews are much loved!
Part Two
THE GAMES
Part Two's Summary: Annie Crestar is seventeen years old and had no wish to be District Four's next girl tribute. Two more years and then she would have been saved from the Games; only fate has other plans for her.
Now she is the District Four's female tribute for the 70th Hunger Games and she fears that her days are numbered. Winning will make you famous. Losing means certain Death. But Annie Cresta has more to lose than most other tributes in these terrible games. It is not only her life that is being threaten by these games but also the life of her unborn child. Annie must win these games for her child to be born, but at what cost to herself?
The Games are about to begin and Annie isn't even sure she'll live past the Bloodbath. And with allies Merle and the tributes from District One and Two, who needs enemies?
Chapter Thirteen
I wake up the next morning feeling terrified. Even though I'm in the warmth and safety of Finnick's arms, I'm scared.
I know what today is.
I know what will happen today and I am so, so scared.
A tiny sob erupts from behind my pressed lips and I can feel tears starting to burn behind my eyes.
Stop it! Stop being stupid! Tears won't save you! Tears will do you nothing, so stop!
"Annie?" I try and brush the few stray tears that have rolled down my cheeks, but it is no use for when Finnick takes hold of my chin and pulls it towards his face, he runs his thumb down my tear stained cheek.
"I'm so weak." I whisper, rubbing my face with both my hands.
"No, Annie, you're not. You're not weak. There is nothing weak about crying." I snort behind my hands.
"Annie." He says trying to pull my hands away from my face, "you have nothing to be ashamed of. You're allowed to be scared. I was." he kissed my cheek, "and I am. I'm terrified right at this moment."
I let out a small frustrated growl.
"I should never have told you about…"
"The baby? Are you kidding me? I'm still mad at you for taking so long to tell me!" He grumbled back at me.
"I only found out about the baby a couple of days ago." I reminded him and he let out a few more grumbles, as well as few colour curses directed towards the Capital and it's President.
"And I didn't want to tell you because I didn't want to hurt you any more than I know you already are. I was just trying to protect you, like you're always protecting me." I add quickly and a little loudly because even though I've been reassured by Finnick over and over again that my bedroom isn't bugged, I still feared that the Capital might somehow hear Finnick's curses and punish him for saying them.
"And Snow scared you too." He added and I squirmed against him before sighing.
"What can he possibly do to you that won't damage some part of his master plan?" It's sort of ironic how Finnick "job" is the main thing that is keeping him safe from Snow.
"He can take you and the baby away from me." He says in a sombre voice and I feel immediately deflated once more, regretting over and over again for adding the baby on to his already huge list of things to worry and be scared about.
We don't talk much after that.
We simply lie in the bed together, holding each other, dreading the moment that we are separated. Possibly forever.
We get up just before dawn.
I am trembling and not from the pre-dawn chill because the air conditioning in the apartment is blasting warm air into the room.
Finnick holds me close to him, trying to calm me and himself – he is trembling as badly as I am – and whispers some final words of advice into my ear, though I don't really hear what he is saying.
I do hear him telling me that he loves me and the baby more than anything else in the world and that he would get us out, he would get us home again.
"I love you too." I mumble softly back to him, hugging myself close to him.
He kissed my mouth, almost chastely because he has to leave my room before Eyria arrives to get me ready for the games.
He leans down and kisses my belly, his hands resting on either side of my waist. I can hear the mumble of his voice as he talks to the baby, before he once more stands to his full height and kisses me again.
"Find water. Survive the bloodbath and then find water."
Then he leaves and I am alone and my trembling is so bad that I have to sit down upon the bed to keep myself from falling down.
Eyria comes for just at dawn, her eyes solemn and her voice doesn't have its usual husky, sexy sound to it.
Eyria dresses me in a simple shift before guiding me to the roof of the Tributes apartment building, a place I had never been before, though now I wish that I had because the view of the Capital from the roof top is spectacular, even in dawn light.
A hovercraft suddenly appears above our heads and ladder is dropped for us to climb up. Or so I thought. The moment I placed my hands and feet on to the ladder, they are immediately stuck there by some kind of current that glues me to the ladder while I'm lifted inside the hovercraft.
Once I'm inside, I thought the current would stop and I would be release, only it doesn't and I am still stuck to the ladder as a woman in a white lab coat walks over to me with a syringe. My eyes widen at the length of it.
"Now, Annie, this is your tracker for the Games. The stiller you are while I do this, the more efficient I can be while placing it into your arm.
I try not to cringe away from the needle and I force myself to look away during the sharp pain of the needle inserting the metal tracking device into my arm, deep enough under the skin that you can't use a sharp object to dig it out.
Well, I guess you still could but not without causing serious damage to your arm. And I guess the Gamemarkers are hoping that you'll be more preoccupied with trying to stay alive/kill other tributes than try and run the risk of removing to your tracker.
Wouldn't want to lose a tribute now, would they?
As soon as the tracker is in place, the ladder releases me. It happens so suddenly that I actually stumble, causing woman to grab my arm to keep me balanced, none to gently I might add. She sniffed at me as the ladder is once more lowered and Eyria is brought up from where she was still standing on the roof.
She looks at me sympathetically when she sees me rubbing the arm that had been injected with the tracker, also the arm that the woman in the white coat had grabbed to keep me from falling.
An Avox man, maybe in his late fifties with palest blue eyes I had ever seen gestured for us to follow him as soon as the woman in the white coat leaves. He directs us to a room where breakfast has been laid out for us.
I look at the delicious food before me thinking that there is no way that I can stomach even a mouthful of the stuff, but Eyria tells me to eat in the same commanding tone that my grandmother at times uses when I'm not doing something that I am not suppose to be doing.
So with a sigh, I load up my plate and start to eat. Half way through breakfast though, I have to get up and throw up in the toilet in the next room with Eyria holding back my hair as I do so. Then she forces me to eat more food, selecting some of the blander foods for me to eat in hopes that my belly – and the baby – won't reject it and make me sick again.
I can't afford to be feeling nauseous today, or any day really during the games, but today is the bloodbath and I need to be feeling close to hundred percent or I'll be as good as dead.
"I hate this." I mumbled, rubbing my belly in a soothing manner.
"It gets better I hear." Eyria reassured me gently. "The first couple of months are rough because you're body is trying to adjust to all the changes that it has to make to accommodate your growing baby's needs."
I nod but sigh all the same and stare out at the view of the city and then wilderness, leaning against one of the hovercrafts windows. The view from so high up is amazing.
To think, this is what a bird sees all the time, flying up so high, flying free. What I wouldn't give to be a bird right now.
The ride in the hovercraft last around half an hour before the view from the windows is suddenly blackened out. I gap in horror for a moment, before understanding that we must be nearing the arena.
I swallow thickly as I walk with Eyria back to where we entered the hovercraft via the ladder. The ladder falls down into a tube underground, into the catacombs that lie beneath the arena.
"Deep breaths, Annie." Eyria whispers as we listen to the instructions of where I need to go to get prepared for my game. The Capital calls it the Launch Room. More like Death's Door.
I look cautiously around the room. Everything in it is brand-new; never to be used again after my game, along with the arena, that will be preserved once the Games are finished. To be visited by the Capital residents in years to come.
I was told by Trout that Capital residents get these's great deals; one for example is to visit an arena for a month, and while there you can re-watch the Games that took place within it, go on tours all around the arena, catacombs and to all the popular death sites. And for a bit extra you can re-enact your favourite battles to the deaths.
I hadn't really believed him until I saw that very offer being advised on the Television in the living room of District Four's apartment during one of the rare moments I actually spent in front of that huge screen.
Trout had laughed loudly when he saw just how green I turned. That is until Finnick flick some mashed potatoes into his face. For an awful moment I had thought that two of them were going to fight. It looked like it might have come to that, only at the final moment Trout backed down and cursing went and washed his face while Finnick tucked back into his food, acting as if nothing had happen. It was in moments like those when I realise just how much respect and fear Finnick has directed at him, even by those who are older than him.
I wondered how he, as a fourteen year old boy, had felt being inside his own Launch Room. On camera he had always appeared very confident and cheerful; showing no fear at all, but in here, away from the cameras had he been panicky and fearing for his life like I was now.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath before going and having a shower, cleaning my teeth as I showered.
After my shower, Eyria sat me down in front of a mirror and ran a brush through my hair.
"You usually wear it in a high ponytail, don't you?"
"A ponytail?" I asked before understanding what she means and I feel my cheeks redden in embarrassment so I simply nod.
"Well, I think we'll go for something a little different today." She says and she starts to braid my hair from the very crown of my head all the way down to past my shoulders. "Keep it out of your face. Can't have something as troublesome as hair falling or flying into your face in the most inopportune moment."
I nod again and look at myself in the mirror. I actually look a little fearsome with my hair in such a strict, formal hairstyle.
Soon after Eyria has finished with my hair, the clothes that I am to wear during my time in the arena arrive. The same for every tribute.
We both look down at the clothes, not saying anything before Eyria helps me dress in the simple underclothes, simple brown work trousers, similar to kind that are worn on long fishing trips, with a sturdy brown belt that has tiny pouches attached to it – all empty of course, but I know that if I survive the blood bath, they'll be useful for later – a dark brown shirt and a dark green jacket that falls to my thigh and has a hood.
I touch the material of it lightly. It reminds me of the jackets that are worn by select few – usually by the captain of a ship and his first mate – when they know that rough weather is coming while their far out in the ocean.
My feet are uncomfortable in the boots, but only, as I explained to Eyria when she saw my discomfort as I walked around in them to see how they fit, because I spend most of my time barefooted. A stupid thing really, when one spends a great deal of her time climbing rocks and searching for oysters and other creatures in the rock pools. But I have yet to cut my foot while climbing; I just hope this record holds true during the games.
"They'll be good when you need to run." Eyria soothed me.
I smiled back at her somewhat ruefully.
"I run best barefooted." I replied as I do another lap of the room in the boots. If they helped me live out these weeks, then I would wear them without complaint.
"Here." Eyria says as I walk past her as I continue to break in my boots – as well as my still protesting feet.
"Hmm?" I looked down at what she was holding out towards me and blink in surprise. I had completely forgotten about the medal that I had been given before I left District Four by my swimming coach.
"Your grandmother asked me to give this to you."
"Grandma?" I suddenly felt ill again.
I hadn't said goodbye to her. I said goodbye to Finnick, over and over again, but Grandma…
"Calm down. She told me to tell you that she loves you and that she knows that you can win, that you will win, you just have to play smart and be careful."
"But I still didn't say goodbye."
"I can tell her if you like." she offers as I take the medal from her and pull it over my head so that it now rested on top of my shirt. My seashell necklace was tucked under my shirt. I know a tribute can only have one district token, but since no one said anything about my medal and my necklace, I wasn't about to take either off.
"Thank you." I whisper.
"You could write her a letter…"but I shake my head.
"No, that really does sound like I'm not coming back. No, please just tell her that I love her too and thank her for all that she has done for me over the years and that I'll try my very best and – and remind her and Finnick that she must take her medication." Eyria looked a little amused when I finished but she nodded her head in understanding and promised to tell her all that I said.
The waiting was the worse part about this, waiting for the call that it was time to go, that the games were about to begin.
After awhile, I'm almost desperate for the games to begin, just to stop the agony of waiting. I know, I understand that I could be dead as soon as the Games begin, but the waiting would be over. I knew I was going to regret this type of thinking the moment I stepped onto the metal plate that would leave me up into the arena. But at this moment in time, I just wanted to get out of this blasted room.
"Don't wish the minutes away, you'll regret it." Eyria says as she stops me from pacing a path into the cerement of the floor.
"What?"
"I know that you're wishing right now for the waiting to stop, for you to be called and for the games to begin, but don't. Don't wish even these agonising minutes away, because every minute is precious. We live such a short time without wishing time away. So even though this is agonising, the waiting, the terror of what is to come, embrace these minutes, because you never know they…"
"They might be my last?" I whispered.
She cupped my face and forced me to meet her violet eyes.
"I don't want them to be, but…"
"They could be."
"A wise man said, oh so very long ago, before the world was like how it now is, that we should all live each day as if it were our last."
I frown at her.
"What? That's stupid."
"No, it isn't. Because what he's saying is to embrace the time that you are alive because tomorrow you might not be."
"So, you're saying I should embrace my time in the Arena?"
Eyria looked at me sadly.
"I'm saying that every minute that you are alive, make it count. You only live once, so make the most of it, even while you are in that-that place."
I stare at her, trying to understand what she is saying and what she isn't saying.
We sit down on one of the couches in the room, Eyria telling me about her life growing up in the Capital to pass the time. While it sounds like Eyria and her sister never had to want for anything, neither of them had grown up particularly happy.
She was just telling me how she got into designing costumes when a pleasant voice announces that it is time to prepare for launch.
My heart clenches and I can feel my breath starting to catch in my throat as I walk over to stand on the circular metal plate.
"You'll be fine." Eyria whispers, as she straightens my jacket. "Just run. Don't stay around, just run. Find water and stay hidden for as long as you possibly can."
"Are stylist allowed to give advice?" I ask weakly.
She smiles a sly little smile at me.
"Only to the tributes we like and think will win." I give her a dry look but when she hugs me I feel like crying.
"Win Annie Cresta. Win and come back to Finnick. Win for yours and his baby." I blink at her in surprise.
How had she known? How did she find out?
But before I can ask her a glass cylinder is lowered around me. I can see through the class that she is crying and I try to smile reassuringly back at her.
She puts her finger to her chin and tilts her head up and she smiles through her tears. Head held high, smile, show them you have no fear, that you are above them, the untouchable, all powerful ocean goddess.
I nod and straighten my shoulders, throw my head up high and smile. I have no fear, I will win! You just sit back and watch me!
The cylinder begins to rise.
For about fifteen or so seconds I am in complete darkness and then I am pushed into almost blinding light, into the open air.
For a moment I can't open my eyes because of the bright light. There is a slight wind blowing around me and I can hear what sounds like lots of water hitting more water.
Just as I'm regaining my sight, I hear the legendary commentator, Claudius Templesmith, his voice booming all around me, from all direction.
"Ladies and Gentleman, let the Seventieth Hunger Games begin!"