"Thank you to the District 11 mentors, India and Croy!" Caesar said, holding his hand up in the direction of the District 11. "And now, for my favourite and most anticipated guests, Katniss and Peeta Mellark!" The audience errupted into cheers and claps. I ran up to the side entrance of the stage and grabbed Peeta's arm, stopping him midstep.
"Make me weak!" I whispered. He frowned. I hoped it was because he didn't know why I wanted to be painted weak, not because he didn't know what I meant, or didn't hear what I said. Peeta sat down on the loveseat next to Katniss.
"My dear Katniss, how have you been?" Caesar clasped Katniss' hand in his. Katniss smiled demurely, but her eyes looked a bit vicious. I wondered why- I mean, I'd heard rumours he had something to do with Peeta being tortured by President Snow when he was in the Capitol, but that couldn't be true, could it?
"I've been very well, thank you." Katniss's eyes glanced towards Peeta affectionately, just for a second, but Caesar caught it and smiled.
"That's great. I hear you got married again, with friends and family, and you now have a baby girl?"
"Yes, Prudence Rose- the Rue in Prudence is for Rue, and Rose is for Katniss's sister, Primrose." The audience aahed. " But we're not here to talk about us, Caesar." Peeta reminded Caesar.
"Prudence Rose..." Caesar echoed. "How lovely for you. Speaking of lovely, what do you think about your talented young tributes?" I flinched at the word talented. I could imagine Django Valentine in my mind, looking at the television with interest, soaking in every little detail about us. Django was third in line after Senecca Crane to become a head Gamemaker, once Senecca, and then Plutarch Havensbee retired. Django was a ruthless man, who was forever arguing with the head Gamemakers to make the arena even more deadly and dangerous.
Peeta looked briefly towards the edge of the stage where I stood. "No offence, Caesar, but they're Capitol. Most of them have never had any combat training, and they are hard to train." Peeta sighed, and then continued. "They have some potential, I just hope we can teach them enough in such little time."
Caesar looked a bit surprised, like he wasn't expecting that answer. "Really? No skill at all? With such amazing trainers like yourselves, I have to say, that wasn't the answer I was expecting." Caesar persisted.
"Well, we try, and I think Wren and Phox do have some skills, just not skills they can use to keep them alive unfortunately." Katniss said regretfully, shaking her head sadly.
"Well," Caesar took a deep breath, running a hand through his stiff overgelled green hair. "Let's hope that changes soon. What do you think the arena is going to be like?"
"A surrounding with trees and wildlife like muttations and strangling vines are always favourites, but maybe Django Valentine will be feeling nostalgic and go for something like an island in the middle of the ocean." Katniss said, quite coldly.
"Well, speaking of Django, my very good friend Liona is waiting in Veritas Square to interview Django right now." Caesar said, either not noticing or simply ignoring Katniss's coldness. "And that, unfortunately, is our time up. Ladies and gentlemen, Peeta and Katniss!"
The audience clapped but didn't cheer. They were stunned- not expecting the interview to go that way. Maybe they thought that Katniss and Peeta would go to the interview victorious and excited with their new tributes, who were so talented and powerful one of them was sure to win. They didn't get what they wanted. And while Katniss may loathe the Capitol for what they made her lose, she was still a person, who knew she was sending me and Phox to our deaths. While the audience was dissapointed, I was relieved. Now I had a chance to convince Django Valentine I wasn't worth keeping an eye on.
"That had better be worth it." Katniss snapped at me, yanking off her heavy dangly earrings and tossing them aside.
"Yeah, what was that all about?" Peeta asked.
"If I can convince Django Valentine that I'm no good at anything, he'll give me a bad mark and eliminate me from the immediate target list." I explained. "But Mollie says Django is a bloodthirsty-"
"Psychotic evil man." Katniss finished for me, considering what I said. "I see your point. Come on, let's watch the interview."
Katniss took us back to our penthouse room and sat us down on the sofa. Liona Whitehart was introducing Django and starting to ask him questions.
Beside me, Katniss stiffened and inhaled in shock. "Is it just me or does that..." Peeta said hoarsely. He had gone stiff and weird too.
"Yes. He looks exactly like Cinna." Katniss looked like she had just seen a ghost.
"They were cousins." Makenna filled in, looking at Katniss with sympathy. "Their mothers were twin sisters, and surprise, surprise they look the same, but they are two completely different people."
"Yeah, I can see." Katniss looked pale and sick.
"While I can't tell you what the arena is going to be like, I can give you hints. It's going to be familliar and different, new and old, and it's going to be challenging, and a total surprise to everyone." Django's eyes glinted with amusement. He was smiling at Liona, but as if he were tolerating her, tolerating everyone. Like he was better than everyone.
"Well, that is most intruiging, and I expected nothing less from such a mysterious man like you." Liona said flirtatiously. "Are there going to be any new muttations?"
"Again, you're going to have to wait and see, but I can guarantee some new faces, and some old ones too." Django winked at Liona and she blushed. I stopped listening around then. I was worried again.
Katniss's eyes looked bleary, and she excused herself. I did too, leaving Phox, Peeta, Makenna, Mollie and Elijah in the living room, watching the interview. I was going to show my skills to Django. All I had to do was pretend I was useless at everything- which I used to be, but now, not so much.
I suddenly felt really tired. I curled up under my covers, wrapping the light blue silk around my body. I shivered, cold even though the room temperature was normal. I fell asleep around midnight, and had nightmares about Cinna and Django, each one of them was giving me advice, but I didn't know who was who, who I should trust. I trusted Django. I was in an arena, starving, bleeding and so so thirsty. Eleven people stood in from of me. Not tributes though- people I knew. My mother, my father, my best friend, Katniss, Peeta, Makenna, Elijah, Mollie, my grandmother and strangely, Phox and Roman.
"Kill them." Django hissed in my ear.
"No." I took in a ragged, scared breath.
"Do it!" He yelled. I could feel the outline of a heavy, cold gun in my hand. I looked up at him. He looked like Cinna, but he wasn't kind. His eyes were blood red.
"I won't! You can't make me!" I screamed, regretting the words as soon as I said them. Django's eyes glinted barbarically.
"Oh, no?" He asked, lifting his hand up, holding an invisible gun. As he did so, my hand lifted up as well. He was controlling me. "Who shall be the first to go? How about your dear old father?" His finger tightened around the trigger, pulling it until a shot sounded and my father collapsed.
"DADDY!" I yelled, feeling like a small child. I hadn't called him 'daddy' in years, insisting I was too grown up for that. I didn't feel grown up any more. His body burst into flames, and was carried away by a hovercraft. I could barely see, my vision was blurry through the tears.
"Now kill them before I do it for you, and believe me, when I'm through with them you will be wishing you had done it yourself." Django snarled. My hand was shaking.
"You are one of the kindest people I know, Wren. This won't make you evil. Just pull the trigger." Phox spoke out, smiling at me gently.
"It's OK, Wren, I understand." My mom joined in, encouraging me.
"We still love you, honey." My grandmother told me. "Me first. It's going to be OK." I lifted the gun up, my hand shaking. I aimed it in the direction of my grandmother, closing my eyes. I heard her tiny, frail body crumple to the ground. Django laughed beside me.
"I love you, hon. Remember that." My mother told me. I pulled the trigger, aiming for her.
"It's our turn, Wren." Makenna told me firmly.
"You don't deserve to die." I sobbed, gasping for air.
"Neither do you. Just do it, Wren. We don't blame you." Elijah encouraged me. Two more shots sounded, two more people died.
"You have a daughter. I won't kill you. I refuse." I turned towards Katniss and Peeta. They were standing inside two fire circles, apart from each other.
"You have to do it. If you don't he'll hurt Prue." Peeta told me. "Do it for us, Wren."
"Don't let him hurt our daughter." Katniss told me. "Don't think about it. Just do it."
"I'm so sorry." I cried, shooting twice more. Katniss and Peeta's hands reached out towards eachother just before the bullet reached them. Their fingertips barely touched. And now their child was an orphan.
The gun clicked after I shot Peeta. There were no more bullets left, but Phox and Roman were still alive. "Oh, my God." I breathed. I didn't realise I had a limited number of bullets. I had to choose who I wanted to die a painful death- I thought I just had to kill them all.
"I'm feeling particularly... generous." Django stood beside me again, a small metal thing in his palm. "You get one extra bullet. But who you give a quick death is up to you..."
"Shoot him, Wren. I can take the pain." Roman told me.
"No, shoot him. We've known each other longer, you shouldn't have to kill me." Phox told me. I closed my eyes. I didn't see who I shot.
I woke up shivering and sobbing. A dark figure stood in my doorway. I turned on the light and picked up the closest thing I had to a weapon- a remote that controlled the viewscreen, the one I swore never to turn on again. I threw it towards the figure, hard.
"Ow! Goddamnit, Wren, you were screaming, I came to check up on you!" Phox hissed, clamping his teeth down on his lip against the pain of the reinforced glass hitting him.
"Phox?" I sobbed, relieved to be out of the nightmare. It wasn't real. It wasn't real, I told myself. My heart kept pounding faster than a freight train.
"What's wrong?" Phox came closer to me.
"I had a really, really bad nightmare." I whispered. Images of me shooting everyone I cared about flitted across my mind. "It was so real."
"Well, it's OK. It wasn't real, it was just imagination. I'm here now." Phox sat down beside me, and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. "It's five in the morning, go to sleep. I'll stay with you until you fall asleep again, if that's alright with you."
"Don't go." I clung to his shirt, terrified of falling asleep. "What if the nightmares come back?"
"I'll fight them off for you." I could feel him smiling.
"You can't fight off dreams." I mumbled, tired already, but feeling safer with Phox there. I knew I shouldn't, but I couldn't help it. I could forget my rules for a few hours.
"You never know..." Phox whispered. His voice was the last thing I heard before I fell asleep.
"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear." Mollie's voice woke me up. "If this is the way the Games are gonna go we're in big trouble."
"Whaddyou mean?" I muttered. Beside me Phox cleared his throat. I froze, suddenly remembering everything that happened last night. The nightmare, waking up so so scared, and then Phox coming in and comforting me.
I don't think any one of us knew what to say, so we stood in silence until Mollie said, "Well, this is... never mind about that now, it's nearly 1 in the afternoon." Mollie threw a bunch of clothes at me, and they landed on my face.
"We slept all day?" Phox asked. I took the clothes off my head to see Mollie raising an eyebrow. She nodded, making her curls, which were put up in pigtails, shimmer and shake in coppery brown waves.
"And you're needed in the training arena waiting room. They've already started, and District 3 are showing the gamemakers their skills." Mollie pulled Phox off the bed and ushered him down the hall into his room. I groaned and put my head in my hands. In a few hours I would have to convince Django I was a useless Capitol teenager, but how could I do that when my mind was preoccupied with Phox and what happened last night.
It didn't mean anything. I was scared and all he did was comfort me. But that was something... I wasn't supposed to let anyone see my weaknesses, I wasn't allowed to show emotion. But Phox wouldn't kill me, would he?
My mind kept going over these thoughts over and over again while I got ready. I didn't even notice what I was doing,until I was down in the waiting room, where most of the tributes there looked at me like I was a meal. Ottilie and Thistle were sat together in a corner, whispering and giggling like they had known each other their whole lives. Roman was sitting against a blue wall, ignoring Mallory who was constantly pestering him and trying to get his attention.
At the Reaping, Mallory was sobbing, but she seemed all too happy to be a tribute now. I sat down away from everyone, with my back against the wall so I could see where everybody was at the same time. Tributes weren't allowed to be violent with each other, but I didn't trust any one of them. I waited five hours and 22 minutes in silence until finally Mallory from District 11 was gone. Phox still wasn't here yet.
"Well, at least she's finally gone." Roman sighed.
"What, you don't like her?" I asked, figuring it was better to do something than sit silently contemplating my future death.
"Not at all." Roman told me, shuffling closer. "The problem is, she likes me too much. She thinks she's in love with me."
"She thinks she's in love with you?" I couldn't help laughing.
"Yeah, and it's not funny!" He said, giving me a goodnatured shove. I was still laughing.
"OK, you've got to explain this to me." I chuckled, trying to catch my breath.
"After we got to the suite, she turned off the waterworks and self-pity long enough to realise I was a guy, she was a girl, and we are soon to be dead, and some part of her brain thought, 'Hey, I'm going to fall for the closest guy within five metres of me'." Roman rolled his eyes. "And since I was the closest to her, she has now become obsessed with trying to show me how much she 'loves' me, and she's been trying to get me to love her back."
"Oh, what a shame. Somebody likes you, poor little Roman." I teased.
"Roman Galloway, District 11." An electronic women's voice.
"That was quick." I noted.
"Yeah, Mallory spends more time flirting than she does paying attention to what our mentors are teaching us." Roman sighed, standing up. "Good luck." He told me, just before he went through the doorway. I stood up to walk around the room, but stopped suddenly when I saw Phox.
"What were you doing?" He asked me. He looked... off.
"Nothing." I said, confused.
"Why were you being so... friendly with him? He's soon going to become a killer." Phox stepped closer to me.
"We all are, Phox." I said quietly. "I don't know what happened, we just started talking, OK? It meant nothing, I'm not friends with him, and we're not allied, nor will we ever be. Just leave me alone, got it?"
I went to sit in an opposite corner to Phox. I had to wait an hour until "Wren Fairbane, District 12." was called. I left Phox alone without a word.
Five metres above me in a viewing room protected by a force shield, most of the Gamemakers were tired, bored, drunk and completely ignorant I had just stepped into the room. All except one. The Head Gamemaker, Django Valentine, was leaning forwards intently. I was kind of relieved to see his eyes weren't actually blood red, but dark brown.
"Wren Fairbane, District 12." I presented myself. I looked nervously around the room. There were a few knives, a punching sack, paints, a bow and arrow a scathe, and two sharp disc-like things. A couple metres away from me, there were solid wood figures that looked like the outline of people. They had targets on their heads and stomachs. I picked up the bow and arrows, and readied myself to shoot. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Django watching my every move. The room smelled vaguely like shoe polish, I noted in the back of my mind. My shoes squeaked against the surface of the floor. The squeaking sound stood out like a sore thumb compared to the rest of the room, which was silent.
I pulled the bowstring back until it was taut, just like Katniss taught me. I aimed, and let go. The arrow hit exactly where I was aiming- it hit the wall beside the targets head. I sighed and pretended to be frustrated. I let the bow drop to the ground and picked up some knives. I threw them towards the target, as hard as I could. Two of them struck to the side of the painted targets, but stuck in the wood, one of them bounced off and fell to the ground, and one more struck a few centimetres away from the centre. This was good- it would make Django think I was trying to get in the middle, but I just couldn't do it.
I was going to turn around and pick up another weapon, but a hand like steel stopped me. I turned my head, to see Django standing beside me. My heart skipped a beat- I hadn't noticed him slip out of the viewing room and come in here. His index finger was moving ever so slightly- He was spinning something on his finger.
"This weapon is called a chakram. It was an old weapon, not used for centuries but I've been feeling... nostalgic." Django's eyes glittered dangerously. "You see, I must be very careful when I release this, because if I release it at the wrong moment and it spins out of control I might just cut your pretty little head off."
I couldn't breathe. "It would be a real shame, but so much fun. I really shouldn't, but my finger just... might... slip." I jumped a little bit when Django released the chakram. It flew neatly through the air, slicing one of the wood figures right in half. The wood had to have been an inch thick- the chakram was just a few millimetres thick. I shuddered at the thought of what it might have done to me.
"You're a monster." I told him through gritted teeth. Django tutted.
"Now, now. There's no need to be rude. Remember- I control what happens. And if you're not nice, I just might happen to press a button and something could happen to Phox..." Django trailed off dangerously.
No! Don't! I wanted to say. But that would be too dangerous. "Why should I care?" I forced myself to say. Django sighed.
"I know what you're trying to do. But if you stop fooling around and actually show me what you can do, I could play along and give you a bad mark just to take the heat off you." Django took me by the shoulders and turned me around so I was facing him. "All you had to do was show a little backbone and ask." He tilted my chin up so he was looking directly into my eyes. He then left suddenly to pick up the scythe, and then handed it to me. "Show me what you can do."
I took the scythe uncertainly in my hands, hating Django every second he stood next to me. He was pure evil. Django backed away to give me space. I put my second hand on the scythe, and tested out it's weight in my hand. I could manage it.
I mustered up all the strength I had left and spun the scythe around a bit, then threw it towards the figures. It sliced two of them in half. Django clapped slowly.
"Better." He said, pointing towards the weapons table. "Now do it again."