Chapter Four

"Up, up, up! The sun is shining, the day is bright, the Capitol is awaiting, and we've got lots to do today!" Eudora's voice wakes me up far too early in the morning. I toss a pillow at what I can only assume is her head, as to knock over her hair. I snigger when I hear her cry, "Oh, my hair!" She follows with a short scold to me about remembering my manners.

We sit together and eat breakfast. I sit in silence, reviewing my dream from last night. I was sitting on the sand in District 4. The sun was setting, leaving a magnificent display of colors in the sky. Henry and a small girl were splashing in the water not too far from shore. She giggled as he threw her over his shoulder. Once back on the sand, she stood between Henry and I, reaching up to take our hand. We laugh and smile, swinging her between us. We walk to a quaint house not too far up the shore.

There was no Victor's Village. There were no Hunger Games. Everyone was happy.

"Capri, dear, are you alright?" Mags hand is on mine. Finnick is talking with Mason about his skills, and how to find shelter in the arena.

I nod, but ask, "Is there a place I can go for some fresh air?"

Mags nods at me, leaning in to talk. She had a stroke last year, so she can't talk as well as she'd like. If you want to understand her, you have to all but have her whisper directly in your ear so you can understand. "There's a roof you can go to. It's the blank button above twelve."

I give her a parting kiss and a thank you. Before I leave, she whispers again to me, "I'll tell Finn, but you can't stay too long. You have to meet your stylists and prep teams soon." Nodding, giving her another kiss, I head to the elevator and take it all the way up to the roof in seconds.

When I step out, I am in a beautiful garden. All the flowers smell beautiful. They all are gorgeous. There's a patch of lilac across from the elevator. They instantly draw me in. There's not many of these in Four, but my mother had always loved gardening and researching different types of plants.

It is such a beautiful plant. And it smells positively lovely. It's nice to escape the horrors that lie only a few floors below. I hear the elevator doors open. I presume that it's Finnick coming to fetch me for the Remake Center, so I stay playing in the flowers like the five year old I wish that I was right about now.

However, in the silence that follows the elevator door closing, I know it's not him. In the time I've known Finnick, he's done nothing but talk like he's going to run out of oxygen in the near future. When I turn, I see Gloss, District 1 victor of the 63rd Hunger Games. He's classically beautiful, much like Finnick, but he's had a few more years to mature than Finnick has. His hair is a caramel color similar to Finnick, but more blonde. His arms are large and intimidating. He looks much like Ceaser, and -if he'd been a tribute this year- he would have received a star next to his name.

I'm not quite sure what to do, so I quickly stand and turn back to face the Capitol. I see another Tribute train arriving, and I wonder what district it is from. An outlying one surely. Maybe it's the intimidating boy from District 9 and his tiny district partner. I rest my hands on ledge. There's something strange around the edge of the ledge.

"It's a force field." It's Gloss. His voice is frighteningly close, so I continue looking straight forward. If I let him intimidate me, he'll tell Ceaser I'm not a threat and to just go ahead and off me in the bloodbath. That can't happen.

"What for?" I twist around to face him. I raise an eyebrow and trying my best to ooze confidence.

"For the tributes who think ending their lives this way would be easier than going through the arena." His words shock me. Do people really think that? It must show on my face, because Gloss has his hand under my chin in an instant. He forces me to look him in the eyes.

"Gloss! Get the fuck away from my tribute!"

Gloss smirks at me before turning to face an angry Finnick with his hands up. "Wasn't doing a thing, Odair. Take her away before you pop that vein on your forehead."

I'm glad Finnick doesn't have a trident, or he surely would have thrown it at Gloss by now. "Finnick, let's just go." He grabs my arm roughly and drags me into the elevator with the same scowl he had on last night when I forgot my necklace. He looks like a child who just got his candy taken from his mother.

His hand leaves my arm. "Did he touch you?"

"No, Finnick. God, you're acting like a child."

"I'm acting like a child? I'm acting like a child?!" He laughs in disbelief. The elevator doors open to our floor. I hate that Mags, Eudora, and Mason will have to see this. "You're the one," he pokes my sternum with his index finger, "running away from the open doors on trains, and throwing pillows at Eudora's head, and sitting on a roof in a garden talking with one of the people training someone to kill you. Please, Starfish, please tell me how I'm acting like a child!"

"You're making a scene when there doesn't need to be one. Just because you're the golden boy here in the Capitol doesn't mean that you're suddenly King of Panem!"

His face softens and he's suddenly not looking like he's going to burn down the Training Center anymore. "Come with me." I'm more frightened now than I was when he looked like he was thinking of murdering Gloss. For a moment, I think about not following him because I'm sure whatever he's going to tell me, I won't like. But my curiosity gets the best of me. Damn curiosity.

Finn is sitting on his bed, wringing his hands together. As soon as I'm in the room I'm apologizing. "Finnick, I'm sorry for what I said back there. I'm just nervous as hell about going into that damned arena, and I don't know how the fuck to deal with it."

It's a moment before he responds. He has a small smile on his face. "You were raised a sailor's daughter. Weren't you?" I nod. "Thought so." He sits on the edge of the bed, and I'm now sitting on the ground with my back to the wall, for a moment in silence. "Tell me about your family."

This isn't why he brought me in here. He brought me in here to spare the others of the gruesome details of whatever it was he was originally going to tell me. But something changed. Maybe he figured I didn't need to know after all. Or maybe he figured it was best left until later, if I won the Games.

I'm voting in favor of the latter, but I appease him.

I tell him that the first memory I could remember was when I was four. I was stumbling along the beach, holding my father's hand. Mom was behind a camera. Of course, she couldn't remember how to work it, so they switched places. It's one of the only things I have let to remind me of her. I don't tell Finnick she's dead yet because in the story I'm telling him, she's still in the prime of life.

Then I tell him how I cried when I was five and had to go to school for the first time. It wasn't really that I was going to school. It was that I knew my mom wouldn't be there to pick me up because she had gotten a job as a deckhand on a fishing boat. There would be this lady that only lived a few houses down from ours. It was the Ekkos.

My father is a ship captain. I remember the first time he took me out to sea with him. I couldn't have been older than seven. It had been on his fishing boat, Aecor. It was some language that was prevalent long before even the rise of Panem, but many people in Four know bits and pieces. Aecor means the ocean. Other than me and my mother, that will always be his one love.

Next is the story of my mother's death. I try and keep it short, not to pretend as if she didn't exist, but to spare myself the tears that would come if I went too in depth and began rambling. Then I told him how we moved because my father couldn't stand our house anymore. It was only a mile or two from our old one, but closer to the beach.

After we moved due to my mother's death, I went haywire for about a year and a half. At least one or twice every two weeks during summer holiday -and even during the school year-, I would be escorted home by Peacekeepers. It wasn't that I was doing anything utterly terrible. I was cutting curfew with friends from school. We would go out on the beach at night and be escorted home for "disturbing the peace" along with a slap on the wrist. Nothing more.

Then I tell him that Henry and I started dating about a year and a half ago. He broke me out of my haywire state that I had acquired, and I'll always be thankful for that. I think that's why my father's so fond of him.

While I'm telling him the story involving Sara's attack, the same avox from the train –with her beautiful brown hair and mysterious gray eyes- comes in with a note for me from Eudora telling to "get myself to my the Remake Center pronto to prepare for the opening ceremonies tonight."

Grudgingly, I stand from my position on the floor and follow the young female avox to the Remake Center.