So someone from Katniss' prep team makes an appearance in this chapter. I hope it works! Please, please, please (with cherries on top!) leave a review if you read this and like it, won't you?
Nine
Before someone sent me a trident in the arena, I fought with a tribute from District 10. He'd herded cattle all his life and was three years old than me and twice my weight. He'd have killed me if he hadn't been distracted by the giant squirrel mutt in the bush. The squirrel mutt tore him to pieces while I scaled a tree like it was the mast of ship but I was in serious pain after the fistfight.
That pain is nothing compared to the pain I feel as Annie fights against me on the train going to District Twelve for the start of her Victory Tour - something Mags and I failed to get her out of and something we regret very much now.
When her nails dig into my neck, and no doubt draw blood, I cup my hands around the back of her head and use my leg to kick her legs out from under her. My hands pillow her head so it doesn't smack against the floor of the dining car and I brace myself above her on my elbows and try to make her lie still. It doesn't work. She comes far too close to kneeing me in the balls for comfort.
"Annie! Annie!" I shout her name as she scrabbles against me, trying to push me off. "Listen to me! What are you going to do? Jump off a moving train? The attendants will get you before you get the door and they'll give a shot. They'll pump you so full of drugs that you'll be a zombie on every stage in every District. Do you want that?"
"I want to go home," she shrieks, clawing at my face for just a second before I get her wrists pinned above her head and let my body drop onto hers. "I just want to go home."
"I know, Annie, I know," I say a little more quietly as she stops fighting a little. I let my face drop so my lips are beside her ear. "I know. But you can't go home. I know you care about your cousin and her children. If you misbehave on this Tour, if you don't do what Mags and I tell you, your cousin and her children will die. I know this, Annie, and I know you don't want it."
She blinks her green eyes at me and goes still. "The kids would die?" she whispers in a hoarse, shaking voice against my ear.
I nod, knowing I am scaring her with the truth.
"What do I do?"
I can feel the tension leave my body as it leaves hers. All I can feel know is pain from where she scratched, hit, and kicked me. "Stop fighting me," I say wearily. "I'm going to help you, Annie. I promised you before that I wouldn't leave you alone and I won't. Trust me, okay?"
She nods once, blinking tears away. "Okay. Don't leave me alone?"
"Never." I start to get up and stop. "If I move, you aren't going to try and jump off the train?"
She shakes her head, murmuring an apology before she rolls out from under me and curls herself into a tiny ball in the corner of the car.
I sit up and take stock of myself. There's blood on my neck, I can feel my nose and eye swelling, I taste blood so I've at least got a split lip, and she did kick me at least once in the part of my anatomy so loved by the women of the Capitol. I glance at Mags, sitting in a chair in the corner opposite Annie. "I wish you were younger."
She clucks her tongue and points toward the door. "Get fixed. I'll watch her."
Of course. The only thing worse than a deranged victor on a Victory Tour would be Finnick Odair looking like he got beat up by the victor. I get to my feet and head to the car used by Annie's prep team. I avoid her stylist, ducking into the bathroom when she walks by, and go in search of Venia. She was on my prep team and she's the only person who lives in the Capitol that I actually, genuinely like. She's different. Better. I asked for and was granted permission to have her take care of my wardrobe and body when I have to be in the Capitol.
And I plan to do whatever I can to have her take care of Annie alone as much as possible on this tour.
"She's not enjoying the train yet?" she asks with a worried look as she ushers me into her room. "Sit down. Do you think you have any broken bones? Were there weapons involved?"
She knows what questions to ask. She asks them after half my dates.
I sit on her bed and strip off my shirt. "No, she's not. Nothing's broken - just bruised. No weapons. Just fingers, fists, knees, and feet. She finally got good at hand-to-hand combat."
Venia sighs and reaches into a compartment in the wall for a handful of icepacks. "Since you said she used knees, I'll let you put these where they need to be. I'll use cold healing cream for anything more visible."
I put the icepacks in my pants while she gets to work on the things that are bleeding. We've done this before and I don't want to think of how many times we'll do it again.
"I've been meaning to talk to you," she says as she works. "Well, I was going to talk to you alone at some point on the Tour. I've been assigned to a different District for the Games. I'm still allowed to be your aide on your trips to the Capitol so long but I have to work with a different team during the Games."
I flex my aching jaw, trying not to show how much this bothers me. "What District?"
"Twelve," she says, not seeming as disappointed as everyone else in the Capitol would be.
"You'll do good for them," I tell her. "And as long as he's got enough to drink, Haymitch is a really good guy."
She smiles and dabs something on my lip. "That's what I've heard. Do you think Annie will be okay?"
"Will be? Is? Was?" It's dangerous, what I'm saying, but I doubt they've got Venia's room bugged and I know she'd never tell. "I have no idea. I guess we'll see."
She nods in agreement. "Is there anything I could do to make it easier for her?"
I wrack my brain and try to think of something. "Animals," I say finally, remember Annie's sweet fascination last week over a newly hatched bale of turtles on the beach. "Baby animals and fluffy animals. If you've got any stories about them, tell the stories while you work on her."
"Done and done," she says, stepping back from me and declaring the stories and my reconstruction done. "I've got plenty of stories about that. Trixus and Cat are a little afraid of her so I'll do most of the work myself."
I kiss her cheek and let her hug me. "Thanks, Venia. I was going to ask you that."
She taps her tattooed temple and then taps mine. "Great minds think alike. Now you'd better get back before she notices you're gone."
I take the advice and head back to the dining car. To my surprise, Mags has coaxed Annie out of her ball and she's sitting at the table eating tiny pieces of District Four bread. Her eyes go wide when she sees me. "Did I do that?"
I wave it off and sink down on a chair across from her. I consider myself lucky she doesn't seem to have noticed the icepacks that are still in my pants. Mags tells me she did with a pointed nod that I try to ignore. "I've been worse," I tell Annie. "Feeling better?"
She sniffs and nods. "I talked to Mags."
Wishing I had Haymitch's flask handy, I settle for a class of tea instead and swallow half of it. "Talking to Mags always makes me feel better too."
Mags fans herself with her spoon, acting like we're fawning over her. It makes Annie giggle. Annie's giggle makes me smile.
Mags doesn't even have to talk to make me feel better.
Two hours later Annie has been remarkably willing to let Venia and I dress her in warm gray clothes appropriate for the District Twelve Harvest Festival that is always incorporated into the Victory Tour. She's shaking too much to hold the notecards Calpurnia wrote the speech on, but no one will mind if I stand beside her and hold them - I hope.
Haymitch is there to greet us when we get off the train. He warns us that the celebration will not be raucous but I didn't expect it would be.
The citizens stood patient and quiet, though, while Annie struggles to read the cards I hold for her.
The idle thought that passes through my mind as I look out at the crowd was that gathered is that there must've been an accident in the coal mines recently. There are too many women with sunken eyes and skinny, starving children staring blankly at us. Not enough men in the crowd at all.