She stands after a few moments of propping her boots on our furniture and examines my living room.
I would have been offended had it been my own and also had it been someone far less intimidating.
The girl from 10 stood 5'9 yet her arms were muscular and defined and her collar bone was flared as if she were holding back something, perhaps tense as well.
Perhaps she truly did come over here to attack me but something is keeping her from doing so, to say something but what?
I prepare coffee with ease as it was similar to my coffee maker back home, making quick use of it to break away from her and potentially hide behind the island in the kitchen if she were to come at me with a knife.
I get lost in these thoughts and remember what she told me in the training grounds, that I am far too gone in my head until I look up and see her hulking physique standing opposite the island and it startles me.
"My name's Tealie." she says to me as I spill the coffee on my hand on accident. Her distinct tan is far more noticeable, as well as her acne scarring and sun damaged skin.
"I'm Rose, and you don't have to scare people like that. You already made an impression." I say sampling the coffee. Warm, black and bitter, just as I like it and the only way it is brewed in 11…at least to the others.
"As did you apparently, now that I'm kicked out of the Career pack." Tealie says, having me spit out my coffee in surprise.
I think for a moment, turning away from her and wiping my chin with my fingers.
"Your little stunt with the keypad made sure I was nixed from their little clique, the boy from 1 made sure of it." she said with her face scrunching as she sits at the barstool adjacent to the island, folding her hands together.
"1, 2 & 3 are in an alliance. I was asked by the Career pack victors after the Chariot rides to join their alliance for obvious reasons." she says flexing her arm muscle, curling it in a way that explains why.
"What does that have to do with me? Seems like your position was shaky from the start and with the way you picked the fight to begin with, seems like you're wanting me to fix it for you? Did you come here to attack me to make it up to the boy from 1?" I say clenching my mug, annoyed with her reasoning.
"It won't work." she says flatly. "The boy from 1 already told me when I pleaded to join up with them again that it was pointless, to be caught off guard by a weakling like you." she says twiddling her thumbs and focusing intently on them.
"So why are you here then?" I say pointedly.
"9, 10, & 11. If we band together, we can kill the Careers and maybe have a shot in the arena. They already have an edge I'm only willing to share with my alliance." she says as I look to her as if she were insane.
"You sit here and tell me the only reason you haven't bashed my head in is because it would not have impressed the boy from–"
"His name is Saph." she says interrupting me and finally giving me a stare.
"He's not as strong as the boy from 2, but he is clever. Smarter than the boy from 3 even." she says with a hushed sigh, looking around and getting up from the barstool quick with the approach, and before I can pull away, she grasps my arm.
"After the incident in todays arena, the boy from 3 used the keypad to hack into the Gamemaker console but we were locked out before we could find the Pods." she says looking directly into me and forcing me to listen, I was startled and stunned as a deer in the tracks of an industrial seeder.
This person could easily break my neck and push my body off of the railings just outside of my luxe room.
Everyone would believe the frail girl from 11 couldn't take the pressure and leapt from her bedroom.
"Will you join us? If you don't, I promise you the first thing they as well as your District partner would do is to hunt you down as easy prey. He's already replaced me in the alliance." she says softening her clasp on my arm.
I look to her in horror, how could I have not noticed Hawthorn's disappearing in the training hub? He was talking to Saph and that sniveling girl from 1 that laughed at my stylist berating me knowing that I am the weakest link, that I am not dependable.
He abandoned me the moment the train arrived and after Marlow went to sleep for the final time, he abandoned me in the training grounds, and he abandoned me when I was bleeding from the bow's drawstring.
I lean on to the counter, dropping the coffee mug on to the floor before she grabs my chin, looking me in the eyes with a frenzied look.
"We need you, girl from 11." she says quietly and calmly.
"We can't have you in your head, but we do need that fury you had shown us today."