Chapter Thirteen

"Is it bad to call your tribute - well, just the one of them - a bitch?"

Haymitch snickers behind his flask. "Got a live one, do you, Blight?"

I'm overdressed for the dive bar I find myself in, tucked deep in a corner of the Capitol where only the utterly disgraced citizens and a few Avoxes who have risen out of their servitude live but I've just got back from a quick date after arriving in the Capitol and my attire can't be helped. I try to hide between Haymitch and Chaff as best I can as Blight downs another pint of ale.

"Hell yeah, I do," he groans. "And I'm telling you guys this because you're going to call me a lying fool when you see her. She's this little wisp of thing but the idiotic escort is terrified of her, which I'd normally like but I just can't keep up with it all."

"She going in guns blazing then?" Chaff asks.

He shakes his head. "Nope. I'm honor bound not to reveal her strategy but I'll tell you she's got one, she's not listening to any one I come up with, and you're going to call me a lying fool."

"So it'll be a good show then." Chaff raises his glass and nods. "She in the market for allies?"

"Truth be told, she won't tell me if she wants allies. No lie." He waves at the busty, tongue-less Avox waitress for another pint and sighs. "I'd say she'll approach your tributes if she wants them as allies. She could win this, though, she really could."

"Not your boy?" Haymitch asks.

Blight shakes his head. "Hell, no. The girl is sixteen and the boy is eighteen. Twice her size. I think he's kind of terrified of her. I'm not sure, seeing as I try to avoid possible future tributes in my district, but I feel like there's some history between them. Bad history. Honestly wouldn't be surprised if she kills him early on." He rolls his shoulders and fixes his eyes on me - maybe wondering why I'm here since we haven't spoken too many times. "Last year's victor here mentoring, Odair?"

I shake my head. "No, Librae came."

He accepts the answer without question. "How's Mags doing?"

"A lot better, actually." And it's true - she's still improving every day. But talking about her, and about Annie, is making me hate being in the Capitol even more than usual. I'm going to spend the Games talking about them, though, Caesar Flickerman already warned me about that. My next words are a variation of the truth, one I was given by President Snow. "Annie stayed home to continue caring for Mags. They formed a close bond and the doctors thought it best Annie stay with her."

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Haymitch nod once to tell me I delivered the lie well. "And with that, gentlemen," he says as he pushes his chair back and stands, "we've got a Tribute Parade to attend. Shall we?"

At the parade, I silently declare Blight a lying fool. His girl is small. She's pale with dark hair and wide brown eyes that stand out on the giant screens along the route. The thing about her eyes? They're red and puffy, wet with tears that never stop falling down her cheeks even as she struggles to hold her chin up. She looks terrified, not terrifying.

I hope, for her sake, it's all an act. I'm probably not the only one, since she looks worse than Haymitch's girl - who seems mostly irritated by her costume that consists merely of what I assume is coal dust and what seems to be strategically placed miniature hard hats.

When it's over, I fall in with the other victors as we go downstairs to meet our tributes. Blight's reminding Chaff just ahead of me that he told him so but not to be deceived just yet. I can't wait to see what this girl brings to the arena if he's selling her to mentors so hard.

Librae and I take our tributes, two seventeen years who will no doubt join the Career Pack and just might pull through to the final four or five, up to our floor and discuss the schedule for the next few days. She'll have to put them to bed, though, because I've got another date.

And the date doesn't start well. My mind drifts to Annie while the surgically enhanced wife of the Minister of Food Distribution sits above me and weaves some fanciful story about who we are, other than ourselves, as we meet for the best sex she's ever had. Thinking about Annie makes me want to strangle the woman I'm with and collapse into helpless sobs at the same time. I can't do either or Annie will suffer for it so I pull myself together and play along. Surely food distribution can offer me some secret that will be of use to Haymitch and the rebellion. Using her will make it all so much easier to be.

In the end, I'm successful - shipments of wheat are being cut to District 12 because they're still being punished for what was apparently a very small act of defiance from some miners last year. Haymitch isn't going to like it, but I imagine it's one of the things he wants to know. If not, at least maybe he can do something to warn people or assuage the shortages.

"Two men were killed - in an accident, of course," he tells me when I pass the message to him outside the same dive bar in the pre-dawn hours. "They were involved. They got sloppiy. One's got four kids and the other's got two. What do you think they chances are I'll be bring at least two of those kids here pretty soon?"

There's no good answer to that. "I wish I could do something to help with the food shortages," I say instead. It's empty and there's nothing behind it, other than a wish that I wasn't so helpless in the grand scheme of things.

He puts his hand on my shoulder, standing in front of me so I have to look him in the eye. "You are doing something, Pretty Boy. Maybe you can't fix this round of shortages but we're getting there, but no one person could. The things you find out are helping us move forward faster. You've got to remember that if we jump in too early and screw it up, we'll be worse off than we are now. Ask Mags about the first years after the Dark Days. If we can avoid that, we should."

"People are dying, Haymitch," I protest loudly, probably too loudly. "They're starving. That's not okay, is it?"

"No, it's not. Not by a long shot. It sounds shitty to say it, but it's the best we've got right now. That's not settling, though. Don't worry, though, my people are hearty. We'll pull through."

I have to accept his word and hope the people of District 12 won't suffer too much.

I accept his offer of a drink at the bar and then we walk back to the Training Center.

The rest of the Games pass much the same as they always do.

My tributes are the seventeenth and nineteenth to die. The boy, the nineteenth, dies when Blight's tribute - who stopped shedding tears long ago - cleaves him nearly in half with a single swing of her ax. Blight's no longer a lying fool in my book.

And his prediction that she just might make it to the end proves right when she's lifted out of the arena - her wide brown eyes the only part of her body that isn't soaked in blood and a little bit of dirt. Johanna Mason is the victor of the 71st Hunger Games.

Something about her attitude and road to victory make me think she'll be approached by Plutarch and Haymitch soon enough.

I congratulate Blight at the coronation of the new victor. He looks more resigned than victorious and I know it's probably because she might be hard to live with. At least he'll have company.

He snorts and takes me to the new victor, introducing us.

"You're sexier on television than you are in person," she says with no sense of remorse at all. "If that's rude... I really don't care."

Blight groans but I grin. "I'm glad you don't care," I tell her, "because I like honest people."

She winks, letting her fingers trail over my partially exposed chest and then pulling her hand away suddenly. "Then you and I, Finnick, are going to get along just fine, don't you think?"

I couldn't agree with her more. The idea that there might be a younger victor I could befriend makes me more happy than it really should. Especially since it's fairly clear she has no sexual interest in me at all.