Hi guys! Sorry it has been a while but guess what! I'm uploading six thousand or so words today...sadly if you are waiting on more from my story Forever and Always...it's all for this story. Still i hope this make you happy.

FPOV-

My victory tour was hell, but what came after? Even worse. My first year of mentoring was the most difficult. The wounds of the arena were still fresh. I felt like a monster sending other kids to their deaths, and yet I did all that I could to prepare them. Maybe it makes me no better than the capitol, that I encouraged them to kill, but I wanted to see them come out alive…they didn't. Neither did the next year's pair. My third year, the male tribute from district four made it out. I felt relieved for the boy-I had left my own childhood far behind despite my age being less than adulthood-but not triumph. Watching his reunion with his family helped, but it was all undone watching the weaping of the family of the girl who had died. They didn't blame him. They knew that he had had nothing to do with her death, but it was still agony for them. That much was written clearly on their faces. The celebrations in the capitol were sickening when compared with the grief of most of the districts.

As though simply being around the citizens of the capitol wasn't bad enough snow approached me when I was sixteen about a new job. The people of the capitol, he told me, adored me. They all wanted a piece of me. I was young, strong, vital, and apparently, devilishly handsome. Now that I was sixteen it wasn't fair to keep me from them. At first I refused. There was no way that I was giving in to the sexual advances of those predators. When my dad and brother had their boating "accident" things became clearer to me. I didn't have a choice, not if I wanted to protect those I loved, next time who knew…it could be Mags. So I put on my game face and became the playboy of the capitol, loving them and leaving them. I had just enough time for everyone, but not enough for anyone. I used my sexuality to my advantage. I kept my district in good standing by charming the crowds and learned valuable intelligence through hushed talk over damp pillows.

When I wasn't mentoring or attending social events I spent almost all of my time on the beach behind the victors' houses. Only a handful of the buildings were occupied so I found relative peace there.

Today is the day of the reaping for the 70th hunger games (my fifth year as a mentor) coming up. I try to keep my cool. In the past four years I have had one tribute make it back to us. I have watched four young women and three young men from my district as they were brutally slaughtered…and I'm not looking forward to two more.

"Ladies first," Ceely reaches in and pulls out a crisp white slip. Delicately she flips it open and reads in a clear, if capitally accented voice, "Annie Cresta." No, no not her!

Annie…I was sitting on the beach, two weeks after returning from the games, when I first met her. Okay, so I had seen her before, was probably even introduced, but I had never spoken with Annie Cresta before that day. She was a slight, little thing, a girl of eleven years old with long curly brown hair and sea-foam green eyes.

I was sitting on the beach staring dejectedly at the waves the ebbed and flowed pushing the top layer of sand around and contemplating my own mortality. The ease with which the ocean can kill is rather astounding. She came over and began to collect seashells nearby.

"Hi," I said.

"Hello." Her small voice was soothing. "You're Finnick right?" She asked.

"Guilty as charged." She gave me a funny look that I couldn't quite decipher and went back to her shell gathering.

"You seem pretty normal to me," she said after a long silence.

"What?" The surf washed up over my feet and ankles. It fanned out the bottom of her sundress, but she didn't seem to notice the water weighing down the hem.

"Everyone talks like you're so special, but you don't seem like anything spectacular," she explained. I laughed the first full laugh I'd had since my time in the arena. "I'm Annie by the way."

"Thanks Annie."

I took more notice of Annie Cresta from that day forward. It seemed like she was everywhere: in the markets selling woven baskets, playing in the surf when I walked along the beach, passing by me in the cafeteria at school. I was intrigued by the bubbly, happy girl who was also cynical and clearly had a lot of darkness within her. One day I finally decided to ask Mags about her.

"Who, little Miss Cresta? Oh she lives with her grandfather, he's the only family she's got; she's an only child. Both of her parents died of a bad bout of pneumonia when she was barely a toddler." That was all the explanation that I received.

I talked to Annie sometimes, even sat with her at lunch occasionally, but we never really got to know each other. She was always so busy helping her grandfather and I was always so busy trying to keep myself from dwelling on the past.

For several years she was just an intriguing young girl, a curiosity, at most someone who I might like to be friends with, despite our three year age difference. She was about fourteen when I began to realize that she wasn't a little girl anymore. She was a young woman. She was still petite, but no longer with a childish shape. Her hair was not tangled and wild the way it once was. Her impish grin was more mischievous than ever. Other guys always seemed to be looking at her and I couldn't figure out why it bothered me so much. It's not like I had any claim on her, we barely knew each other. Still as I was drawn more and more into the repulsive life of the capitol I found myself thinking of her more than ever. Perhaps it was her innocent nature or maybe it was just how astoundingly different she was from my capitol "clients".

At eighteen I had been visiting the capitol as a mentor and for other required social events for four years, but two of them I had been expected to see clients. They paid handsomely for my time, but I couldn't care less. They all nauseated me.

Annie was the exact opposite of the capitol, naturally young and vibrant, completely unaltered. There was nothing unnatural about her shiny auburn hair and bright green eyes. I found myself escaping into a dream world where I was just a normal young man, free to court whomever I chose. I imagined walking along the beach, a first kiss in the moonlight with the waves crashing around us, holding her, making love for the first time…okay so maybe my mind ran away sometimes. The thoughts were almost gooey in their romanticism, very different from my natural personality, but they were things I could never have, the kind of innocent love the capitol had already stolen from me.

At sixteen Annie is prettier and more vivacious than ever. She manages to hold her head high as she walks on shaking legs up to where I stand. I don't smile at her or join in the congratulations, but nod a silent recognition. She moves her head the slightest degree to show that she understands that I'm here for her.

The boy tribute is called…he has no hope. I can see that Mags agrees by the look in her eyes.

"Mags," I say to her while we wait for the tributes to say their goodbyes, "I want to train the girl."

"That is most unusual Finnick. What makes you desire to do so?"

"Just a feeling I have about her. I know she doesn't look like much, but I think she's the fighter out of the two."

APOV-

Shock. That is what I feel. As I am pushed forward through the crowd of sixteen year old girls to the stage in front of the justice building all I feel is shock. I am not sad, or angry, or even numb really. I am shocked. Finnick Odair nods to me and I give a small one in return to show that I…what, understand? I don't understand anything right now. The boy tribute is drawn, a thirteen year old named Caleb, and we are ushered into the justice building.

I don't have many people to say good bye to. My first visitor is my grandfather who tries not to cry, but leaves with tears in his eyes. The second is our neighbor Everly. She is a widow about my grandfather's age, but in better health, and she promises to take care of him which makes me feel one hundred times better. The third is a bit of a surprise.

Finnick Odair himself has come to see me. I know him fairly well. We have talked over the years, traded in the market, and shared our secret spot on the beach, but it surprises me. We'll be seeing each other again in a few minutes.

"I'm going to train you," he says, "All you have to do is give it your all. I am going to get you out of there."

I like him alright and all, but this is just too much. He was a sure win. He has no idea what I'm going through right now.

"This, coming from the playboy who won the sixty-fifth hunger games because he was skilled and even more so because he was pretty. I'm neither of those things so it's your job to make me either really special or really beautiful in the next, oh, seven days or so. If you can't I'm dead. So considering I am currently marching to the tune of my own funeral song, excuse me if I don't really want anything to do with you Odair." I snap at him.

"Annie," he begins slowly, "you're already beautiful." Then he adds firmly, "As for being talented, well, you have many talents! Maybe they aren't the most suited for the arena, but we will figure this out."

A peacekeeper knocks on the door and Finnick guides me out of the room by the shoulder. The peacekeeper gives us an odd look but he doesn't question, for which I was grateful. Of course, I get the feeling that not many people question Finnick Odair.

Once safely aboard the train, we all sit around in the dining car, but none of us is eating. Ceely does her best to engage everyone in conversation, but I think that she knows the hopelessness of her cause. Finnick eventually asks her to stop yammering and her jaw snaps shut. He gestures to me to follow him and I hesitantly comply. I can't tell where he is taking me until we are standing inside of the well-lit room. It looks like his bedroom; I trip over myself trying to back away and fall face first onto the bed.

"This is one of the only rooms that isn't bugged," he explains. Oh. I feel really stupid now, as though he would ever waste his time seducing me. "No one dares listen in on the great Finnick Odair!" He puffs his chest out and places his fists on his trim hips. I can't help it…I giggle. Just a bit. Okay, a lot. "There now," he says, "that's better. That's what I was going for. Now we need to discuss strategies. We have allotted time for this later, but I fell like the earlier that we begin, the better." I nod in agreement. "So, what are your skills? I know that you can weave baskets even tighter than Mags. They've held my dinner quite a few times," he says. I smile shyly. "So during training you can skip the weaving station. How are your knots?"

"I can tie well. I can make a decent fishing hook too…Mags taught me."

"Good, so you can catch your food and put it in something too. You're not off to a bad start." He offers me a small smile, but I don't return it. I don't feel too optimistic about my prospects, not yet. "Do you know how to use a trident?" he asks. I shake my head. "Well, damn…"

We continue like this for a few hours before it's time to go to sleep. I sigh and make to leave. I stop short at the door and turn around. "Finnick," I begin.

"Yes Annie," he replies with an incandescent smile.

"Thank you."

We arrive at the capitol at ten o'clock the next morning. I am dressed in a simple pair of soft blue leggings and a white tunic. I feel too plain to make a good first impression, but Finnick assures me that I look great. The boy from my district looks even more scared than I feel. He is wearing a similar outfit, but Mags says that we won't be matching in future, which I'm thankful for. I can't let myself get attached to the boy or I'll feel obligated to protect him in the arena. He is only three years my junior, but in something like this, that makes him practically a baby. He doesn't stand a chance.

Upon disembarking the train our first stop is to 0the beauticians. My team is made up of three incredibly bouncy women. The squeal when the see me.

"Oh she is so beautiful," one of them moans, "finally something good to work with!"

"Look at that hair!" another exclaims.

The third actually approaches me and says "she will be an absolutely perfect mermaid."

It's several hours before I actually meet my stylist. I find out from the prep team that her name is Mariah and that she has something absolutely spectacular in store for me. Considering that over the past three hours I have been waxed, polished, exfoliated, moisturized, filed, trimmed, and in all other ways, both painful and not, beautified, this doesn't make me joyful. Their idea of spectacular is probably painting my body blue or dipping me entirely in wax.

The prep team steps out and finally I am face-to-face with my supposedly legendary stylist, Mariah Van Hoisin. The first word out of her mouth is, "Splendid!"

"Um…what is?" I ask stupidly.

"Oh, you, of course, dear. You're just lovely."

I feel a little awkward; I'm not used to having my appearance complimented, but I thank her anyways.

"Oh, no dear, not at all. Now, let me at that gorgeous hair."

I don't figure that I have much of a choice so I let her get her hands on my "gorgeous hair". Luckily it's been detangled because I would be screaming otherwise. She yanks through my hair and pulls some back into a twist at the back of my head.

"Simple," she says, "yet beautiful. Perfect." She sticks some blue and green sea-flowers into my hair and steps back once again to admire her handiwork. "Now for that face."

She spends at least an hour on my face, painting intricate little swirls around my eyes. At last she finishes with a light berry tint on my lips and tells me that it's time to get dressed for the tribute parade. The costume she produces is terrifying. The bottom is a mermaid tail encrusted with hundreds of gems in varying shades of green. It's beautiful, but… "How am I supposed to walk in this?"

"You won't be walking love. You'll be riding," she says as though that clears it all up. I allow myself to look at the top and cringe. It's less of a top and more of a…bra. It's a tiny, purple gemmed, sea-shell shaped bra. I slip it on without grumbling just like Finnick told me to. Be a good girl, he said. Do whatever they tell you, he said. At least he didn't have to be a freaking mermaid his year!

I find a feethole at the bottom of the fins which allows me to walk to the chariots, but when we arrive I see what Mariah was talking about. In the chariot for district four are two large coral rocks. She helps me up onto mine and covers up my feet with the flippers of my tail just as Finnick walks in. His jaw drops and he turns to Mariah, his eyes livid.

"You have got to be kidding me. You turned a little girl into a sex-icon!"

"I'm not a little girl! And I'm not a sex icon either!"

"Oh, yes you are and I'm not having it!"

"It worked with you didn't it? If it helps to keep me alive…"

"Chariots in ten…nine…eight…"

They load Caleb up onto the chariot. He is dressed in a fishtail…nothing else.

"Fine," he tells me. "But," he adds, turning to Mariah, "I'm not happy about it." He turns back to me. "If we're going for it, we have to go all the way. No half-assing this. Play the crowd. Blow kisses. Drop an unseemly amount of winks. Play with your hair. Smile alluringly. Flip your flippers. "And…here, what the hell," he says adjusting my back and shoulders so that my chest sticks out more, "might as well show off the assets." I swat him away, but I know that he really is just trying to help.

"Three…two…one!" The announcer yells and the crowd cheers and now we are moving.

I PROMISE that i will get the next chapter of Forever and Always up guys. I PROMISE! I miss you all,

XOXO,

Batty