A/N: Thank you to all of you who reviewed: kb5000, Caitie Manda, Fleur24, Anonymous, and Bob. I honestly wouldn't have continued the story without your support, and I appreciate it very much.

PART 1: THE TRIBUTE

CHAPTER 2: Mockery

Blue jeans, white shirt

Walked into the room you know you made my eyes burn

It was like, James Dean, for sure

You're so fresh to death & sick as cancer

You were sorta punk rock, I grew up on hip hop

But you fit me better than my favourite sweater

"You're late, Chickenfeet," Carrow sneers when Cara enters the Training Room. He begins to hop around, mimicking the frantic, crazed movements of some type of creature. The Careers laugh, and even Finnick Odair can't stop a corner of his mouth from twitching.

Cara watches with impassive, dark eyes, keeping her composure. Inside, she is burning, folding within herself into a tiny scrap of nothing. She is nothing here, useless to everyone. She hears it in their jeers, and despite her brave front, feels the injustice of the situation pounding against her chest. When she notices the Gamemakers pointing down at her and snickering in the balcony above, her stomach only wrenches further.

But she smiles tightly. It's already disappointing that she's half an hour late- seeing as her district partner, Sergei, did not have the audacity to wake her up on time- but to be ridiculed the moment she enters the room is too much. And Chickenfeet of all names...Sergei must have told the Careers about her previous job in District 10 tending the chickens.

And chickens didn't even move like that.

"If only you know how unintelligent you come off as," she snaps at Carrow before she realizes what she's done.

Then, as the words sink in and Carrow's mouth opens furiously, Cara's eyes widen and she quickly walks to the rope course, where there are training instructors to protect her if the Careers come after her. There is a small line, and luck be it, her District partner is ahead of her in line.

"Hello Sergei," she says curtly, smiling in the same tight way. The boy turns and sighs.

"Go away, Chickenfeet," he declares loudly.

He watches with satisfaction as Cara blinks and her eyebrows draw towards each other. She lowers her head as another wave of humiliation washes over her. Sergei grins and turns back around as the Careers give him approving looks from the other side of the room. He feels bad about embarrassing Cara, but it serves her right. They used to date, and watching her grow from a gangly-limbed girl to a beautiful young woman was a bitter experience. He was angry at her as well, for putting him in association with her. Who knew that she was so clumsy? Now he would have to try even harder to secure a spot in the Career alliance.

Another tight smile, this time at the back of Sergei's head, as she mutters, "I don't know why I ever liked you." Cara crosses her thin arms across her chest and stares down at her feet. Who knew they could cause so much trouble for her. These limbs that used to be so trustworthy are despised now.

So she was late. What about it? Would every entrance she made turn into an opportunity for the Careers to ridicule her even further? It was bad enough that she'd destroyed any chance of alliance... and therefore, survival. Now everyone will see her as the clumsy girl. The girl with nothing to lose.

Cara looks up suddenly at the nets hanging above head. That's it. That would be her strategy.

...

Finnick watches the girl from District 10 carefully as she looks at her feet. He hides his interest on the pretense of studying the rope course on the ceiling above, but every few seconds his gaze drifts back to Cara. He doesn't know what he's looking for, if there's anything to look for at all, but he can't stop studying her. She's so strange and so...interesting. Yesterday she was a bumbling fool, red-faced and stuttering, but today she is different. Composed, sharp-witted. Beautiful.

Perhaps her appearance is why he's so drawn to her, he muses, playing with a knife. No, that's not right. Selene from District 1 is a classic beauty, and he feels little to no attraction to her. It's deeper than the skin this time, he assures himself. Hopefully it is.

A bell is rung.

"Tributes, gather round!"

The head training instructor waits as the tributes come together in the center of the room. Finnick notices Cara walk through the side doors that lead to the dining room. He sighs. God knows where she'll go. Perhaps for a walk, although he doesn't remember the dining room leading out to the hallways. The only set of doors that will do that are in the Training Room itself.

Finnick tenses as a hand squeezes his shoulder. Selene grins at him, her cheek pressing against his neck as she massages his neck. Carrow joins them moments later, clearly unhappy with the interaction. Finnick turns away, ignoring Selene, but the other female tributes have noticed, and they stare at the two, jealous.

"For your first mandatory group activity, you will be wrestling with a partner. Close combat is crucial in the arena, and can draw the line between life or death. I advise you to challenge yourselves with your choice of opponent, in the arena there is no fair match of skill. Line up behind either mat and await further instruction."

"Finnick..." Selene purrs. But Carrow pulls her away and demands that she be his partner. Finnick quickly slips away and has to reject several more requests before he can push through the gilded doors that Cara had left from.

The dining room is empty, seeing as it is only ten o'clock and lunch is yet to be served. No one is at any of the tables, but the sound of plates clinking sounds faintly and grows louder. An Avox enters the room with a cart, and stares with wide eyes at the bronze haired boy standing at the opposite entrance.

"Have you seen a girl pass through here?" he asks the Avox. She has a simple purple garment, and lifts a pale hand to point at the entrance from whence she came, a small, inconspicuous wooden door made especially for servants.

"Oh, you can talk!" a voice exclaims from the dimly lit recesses, and Cara emerges with her own cart in tow, smiling at the Avox. The Avox violently shakes her head no. Cara genuinely smiles for a moment longer but sees a certain boy at the door, and her eyes suddenly lose their interest and darken with uncertainty.

Finnick cocks his head, slightly annoyed. "What are you doing? You're a tribute, not a servant. Give that cart to the Avox and come back to training."

She raises her chin stubbornly, wheeling the cart forwards. "I'd rather serve you than be mocked by you. At least I have a friend here," she replies bitterly.

"That Avox isn't your friend. She's just letting you play along because she's afraid," Finnick counters quickly, and as the Avox meekly raises her eyes, he knows that he is right.

Cara's eyes flick to the ground, and her cheeks color red when she realizes that Finnick might be right. At first she had thought that she would just help until she calmed down, but perhaps she wasn't being helpful, but was actually a burden. It wasn't as if the Avox could tell her.

"Cara, you're my assigned partner for wrestling. Please, come with me," Finnick says. He feels strange lying to her, but it's not entirely untrue. He has chosen her as his partner, and if she accepts, then the lie will become a truth.

For the first time in his fourteen years, he does not feel like the world is at his command. Cara gives him a look.

"Whoever paired us up clearly doesn't know a damn thing, then."

She gives him a bitter, self-deprecating smile and sweeps past him into the Training Room, unaware that she is the first female to ever refuse Finnick Odair's company.

...

"I hate this," Cara mutters furiously as she examines the bruises running along her arms. They are lightly purple and she can identify the places where rough fingers had twisted the skin. Carrow had decided to stand in for Finnick with wrestling. She hadn't stood a chance. If the training attendant hadn't intervened, the monster would have broken her wrist.

The Training Center is empty. All the other tributes are having dinner, and to actually use the facilities provided instead of watching the Careers hog them, Cara had eaten as quickly as possible and dashed down.

The shooting range is dimly lit and inviting. For the first time, Cara doesn't feel like she is being weighed down by judgemental glances or the biased opinions of the other tributes and Gamemakers. Finally, she can practice.

"You have nothing to lose." she reminds herself, sweeping her hair up into a bun. She carefully picks up a knife and stares at it. The feeling of danger is imminent, but even though she is afraid, it's a welcome thrill.

She lifts her arm to throw it at one of the many targets, but decides against it. Without the training attendants here, if she hurt herself no one would help her. So instead, she stabs it into one of the gel dummies. An uncharacteristic shiver of glee passes through her body at the squelching sound.

There is an abrupt crashing sound as the heavy doors slam open. Carrow strides in the room, immediately noticing the tall figure standing besides the mannikins. He grins, as he swaggers towards Cara Edenthaw, he brings the bottle of champagne in his hand to his lips and drinks.

"I told Selene to meet me here. But you'll do," he sneers at her. Her mouth is open in disbelief, and Carrow drunkenly notes the color of her eyes as Cara stares at the golden bottle of alcohol at his side.

"No, I'll go!" she exclaims frantically, suddenly terrified of the monstrous boy before her. The bruises on her arms seem to burn with renewed pain. She tries to step past him, but Carrow takes hold of her wrist tightly. He dully marvels at how delicate she is. He could snap all the bones in her arm with blow.

Then, as she opens her mouth to scream, he forces her to look at him by twisting her wrist. Cara cries out in pain and Carrow grins as the champagne bottle shatters on the floor.

"Let me go, please, please," she pleads, tears filling her eyes. Oh my god he's going to sexually assault me, is all she can think of through the pain from her wrist. "Let me go!"

"I don't want to!" he roars back, and his face is distorted into a crazed, uncontrollable expression of rage. Selene doesn't want him, she's always so preoccupied with that pretty boy Finnick Odair. He needs something, someone, to kiss, to touch.

"You're so pretty," he says stupidly all of a sudden as he stares at Cara's tear streaked face intently with his soulless, dull eyes. "I never realized..."

He ignores her renewed struggling and twists her wrist further as he forces her lips to smash against his own brutish ones.

...

Finnick broods in silence as he walks down the marble hallway towards the Training Center. The glass windows remind him that he's in another world. The bright, synchronized lights of a million galas and nightly gatherings blink in the city below. It's a breathtaking scene, but he would give the world to exchange this view with the rough, endless darkness of the ocean as bioluminescent sealife lit it up from deep below.

He smooths his ever-messy copper hair with one hand as he opens the doors with his other. He can't stop thinking about what happened this afternoon. When he had finished helping the Avox put the cart in the right place-very hypocritical of him, he knows- he had returned to training in time to see Carrow gripping Cara's arm hard enough to leave bruises. He had probably taken advantage of her absence and convinced the training attendants that she chose him as partner. Cara had retreated into a corner of the room afterwards, nursing her sore limbs.

Finnick's mind wanders back to the present as a scream shatters the calm.

"Let me go!"

At first Finnick doesn't make sense of the situation, but his eyes swoop down to the blood coming from Cara's wrist as Carrow crushes it, and he understands. His eyes harden and he steps forward to stop the shameless idiot, but he's too late and he watches as Carrow forces himself upon her.

"Carrow!" Finnick snarls. His chest tightens as he sees that Cara is crying. "Get your damn-filthy hands off of her." As Carrow slowly grasps the situation, Finnick rushes forwards.

In the brief moment that Carrow is distracted with Finnick Odair's entrance, Cara takes advantage of the looseness of the hand upon her wrist. She jerks out of the monster's grip and with complete, angry conviction, knees him as hard as she can in the groin.

As her offender collapses inwards, grasping at his stomach, she slams her shoulder into Finnick's as she runs out of the room, sobbing.

Finnick follows her progress with worry burning in his eyes, but then turns coldly to the muscular boy rolling around on the floor. He steps closer, and brings back his foot to kick the body, but stops himself at the last moment.

"I won't ever stoop to your level, Carrow. But if you touch her again, I'll kill you," Finnick lets the words roll off his tongue like honey, although he is only trying to calm himself down. The venom is evident beneath the smoothness of the threats.

He casts another look of disgust at Carrow, whose hands are still stained with Cara's blood, before storming out of the room, full of indescribable fury.

The next day in training, Cara doesn't show up at all. Carrow is just as stupid as before, not entirely sure of what had happened the night before. Selene is herself, collected and mature, but Finnick ignores her and isolates himself at the stations.

"I don't want to associate with you. Any of you," he had replied flatly when Selene had asked.

The Gamemakers are all-seeing and take note of this. There is a new type of hostility between Finnick Odair and the District 1 male tribute. They are fascinated, curious as to what had happened. Could this possibly result in the breaking of the classic Career alliance?

In fact, Velorum Helistin had received a report of violence between tributes in the Training Room the previous night. Did the two boys have a brawl of sorts? Either way, he would have the head training instructor review the rules again during the next mandatory activity.

"Is the arena ready? Every detail?" He asks his fellow Gamemakers. They eagerly nod. After hours of hard work, the arena is perfect. This year the show will be unmatched. The Capitol would have the finest, most entertaining display of the decade. In the matter of a few days, the name of each and every one of the tributes would be known across Panem.