Six months later:
Enobaria says that Cato and I are codependent.
I don't exactly know what that means (or why she says it like it's such a bad thing), but when I ask, she claims that we are "too intertwined" and "enabling each other's bad behavior".
My brown eyes can't stop themselves from rolling to the back of my head. How can we be too intertwined? Isn't that the whole point of being in a relationship? Cato is going to get a kick out of it when I relay this conversation to him later.
"Clove, you're losing yourself in him, and he's doing the same with you. You've been spending every minute of every day together for nearly six months, and it's not healthy."
"I'm sorry that we like spending time together," I say haughtily. "Maybe you would understand if you-"
"Watch it," she cuts me off with a threatening glare. "Do you actually like spending that much time together, or are you just scared to be alone?"
I narrow my eyes at her, getting more and more defensive as the conversation goes on. "I couldn't be alone even if I wanted to, remember?" I say, gesturing dramatically to the bulge in my stomach that has recently become too large to hide even in Cato's big fat t-shirts.
She isn't entirely wrong, but I'm way too stubborn to admit it out loud. I am scared to be alone. When Cato's not around, my mind starts wandering to really dark places. Sometimes it takes me back to the Games, to those never-ending days of agony after nearly having my skull bashed in. Other times I am standing right back in my childhood home staring at the lifeless bodies of the two people who gave me life. So I have been avoiding being alone, and so has Cato, and I don't really give a fuck what anyone else has to say about it.
"You need to pull yourself together for the Tour," Enobaria says sternly.
I almost groan. In a couple of hours, the train will arrive to whisk us away to District 12 to start the Victory Tour. Usually the winning district is the last stop on the Tour, but since there are two winning districts this year, we are going in chronological order from Twelve to One, with the festivities concluding on the thirteenth night in the Capitol.
I had hoped that I would be more excited to go on the Tour than I am. Growing up, the Victory Tour was one of my favorite events to attend. I looked forward to it every year, imagining what it would be like when one day I was the star of the whole spectacle. Now that it's here, like everything else that has transpired since the Games, it is overwhelmingly anticlimactic.
"I'll be fine on the Tour," I respond with conviction. "If anything, you should be worrying about how Peeta and Katpiss will handle everything."
Enobaria's upper lip twitches in amusement at the nickname Cato and I have come up with for our co-victor. "Worrying about the Twelves is not my job, thankfully. As long as you and Cato show up and put on a good show, I'll stop bugging you about spending so much time together."
That should be easy enough, I think. Although I would much prefer to spend the final months of my pregnancy in bed, the gourmet meals that will be served throughout the Victory Tour more than make up for the all the entertaining I'll have to do.
I do wonder how much they'll expect us to interact with the Twelves beyond the obligatory scripted speeches we'll deliver in each district. Will we have to pretend to be civil for the cameras, or am I allowed to roll my eyes openly when they inevitably do something that pisses me off?
As if she can read my mind, Enobaria adds, "You won't have to bother playing nice with the Twelves for the cameras. Snow doesn't want any further displays of unity between the districts than there already have been."
The immediate sense of relief I feel that I won't have to fake smiles and laughs with Katniss and Peeta for two weeks is short-lived. "How do you know that?" I ask with a sinking feeling.
She pauses for a moment, giving me a look that confirms my suspicions before she even opens her mouth. "Snow came to visit me and Brutus this morning."
I roll my eyes in frustration. The President has yet to christen my house in Victor's Village with his presence, instead opting to deliver all correspondence through my former mentor. I think he's afraid I'll kill him if we're ever in a room just the two of us.
"Whose lives did he threaten this time?" I ask, my sarcastic tone disguising just how serious the question truly is. He may have killed off my only living blood relatives, but there are still people I love who I need to look out for. Cato's entire family, for example. It's clear to both me and him that if we do anything to dissatisfy the President, we are putting their lives at stake, so we will of course be on our best behavior - for the Tour, and for the rest of our lives.
Enobaria ignores my question entirely. "He wants you and Cato to take this tour as an opportunity to promote Panem and the Capitol. You know, talk about what a privilege it is to be a victor, praise the generosity of the Capitol, et cetera et cetera. He wants you to remind them that the sacrifices made every year in the Hunger Games are a small price to pay for peace."
I swallow the lump in my throat. So he wants me to put a stop to the tension brewing in the districts over my entirely accidental act of rebellion. He wants me to stop a war. No pressure.
The Twelves look horrible when we meet them in their Justice Building for the first stop of the Victory Tour. Katniss' team has tried desperately to conceal the bags under her eyes, to no avail, and Peeta is wearing the fakest smile I've ever seen on a Victor. I can't believe we are stuck on a train with them for the next two weeks.
My judgment of their appearance is hypocritical at best, considering I don't even fit into a single item of clothing I owned before the Games, but I don't withhold it from Cato, who agrees that the Twelves do in fact look horrible. If he and I have struggled to adjust to our new lives after the Games, the Twelves look like they've been to hell and back.
My stylists have forced me into a knit sweater dress that, much to my dismay, further accentuates my growing abdomen. When they showed up in Two with nothing but tight clothes that were purposely designed to throw my pregnancy in people's faces, I almost refused to get on the train. For the past six months I've been doing everything in my power to hide the physical signs of my pregnancy from the rest of the world, from everybody except Cato, so it's jarring to look in the mirror now and see myself looking so...pregnant.
Gone are any traces of the sixteen year old girl that volunteered with such a fervent glimmer of hope in her eyes. The Games and the pregnancy and the loss of my parents have aged me, both physically and mentally, leaving behind a seventeen year old woman. Truthfully, there are deep bags under my own eyes as well; my team has simply done a better job at hiding them.
The sound of Effie Trinket's voice echoes through the otherwise silent Justice Building. "Clove and Cato! You two look absolutely ravishing!"
I nudge Cato playfully. "Hear that?" I tease him. "Clove and Cato has a nice ring to it. Rolls off the tongue so much more smoothly than Cato and Clove."
He rolls his eyes, but I know he secretly loves the constant competition between us. Much of our relationship before the Games could be summed up by a series of sparring matches that were as equally thrilling as they were frustrating. His strengths were my weaknesses, and vice versa, but as maddening as it could be to train together, we both knew that we made each other better. Since we both won the Games and further solidified just how equal we actually are, we compete over everything, always trying to get one up on each other. The stakes are no longer life and death, but it is just as fun getting under Cato's skin now as it was when we were younger.
"Oh please, the Capitol people always pull that ladies first bullshit," he dismisses me with a wave of his hand, and I groan internally because he's got me there.
Rhiannon and Effie greet each other with more familiarity than before, as do Haymitch and Enobaria and Brutus, but I fold my toned arms across my chest and give a blank stare to Peeta and Katniss. Cato stands a little taller next to me, puffing out his chest so subtly that is has to be subconscious. I notice Katniss' eyes lingering for a second too long on my stomach, and because I'm already pissed off about the stupid sweater dress, I snap, "Do you believe that I'm actually pregnant now, or would you like me to take off the dress and prove that it's not a bionic belly?"
She is noticeably taken aback by the attitude in my tone, and if I'm being honest, so am I.
"Hello to you too, Clove," she retorts, sarcasm dripping from the words, and I narrow my eyes at her.
Our little exchange elicits the attention of our stylists, escorts, and mentors. Judging by the subtle glances they share, they are annoyingly entertained by our animosity. I imagine how this would look from an outsider's perspective. The two high-strung female victors in a power struggle as their blonde male counterparts watch from the sidelines with bemused expressions. Perhaps we should tone down the hostility before they try to turn our lives into yet another reality TV show for the Capitol's entertainment.
Effie starts handing out packets of paper with what appears to be our schedules for the next two weeks. Naturally, she has had them spiral bound with gold coil and color-coded based on the role we each play on the tour: victor, mentor, escort, or stylist.
"Okay people! Can everyone please divert their attention to page two of your packets? Tonight, we kick off the very first Victory Tour of Four! Because we are starting in District Twelve, where half of our winners come from, this is going to be an easy and hopefully fun night for us all. There are no fallen tributes to pay homage to here, so all we have to do is celebrate! Sound easy enough?"
Cato and I exchange an amused look. Kicking off the Victory Tour with a celebration in Twelve was not on either of our bucket lists, but we will do what we need to do here in order to placate the districts and, hopefully, the President. Maybe if the residents of District 12 see how rewarding it is to actually be a victor, they'll start producing some more worthwhile tributes over the coming years. Personally, if I had to choose between a one in twenty-four shot at glory and honor versus a minimum of twelve hours a day spent mining coal for the rest of my life, I would be taking my chances in the Games every fucking time.
Katniss and Peeta aren't making the life of a victor look all that appealing to their district, however. It's painfully obvious now more than ever how complete and utter bullshit their little star-crossed-lovers act really was. When they hold hands during their speeches that night, her face contorts into a weird, almost constipated expression that I think is her piss-poor attempt at looking like she loves him.
I haven't spoken to her all day since I snapped at her earlier, but I grab her by the wrist later that night and drag her into the party bathroom which is thankfully unoccupied at the moment. She is resistant to be in a room alone with me (understandable, I suppose, since I did try to kill her like four different times), but this is important and I think she can sense that.
"Do you fucking hate him or something?" I ask bluntly. From what I've gathered, Katniss is not one for small talk, and neither am I, so I shoot straight to the point with her. "The Capitol, not to mention all of Panem, is supposed to think you two are star-crossed lovers, remember?"
She takes a deep breath in and exhales slowly, clearly thinking hard about how to respond. She doesn't trust me - that much is obvious - but she no longer looks afraid of me, so I guess that's something.
"Listen, Katniss, I didn't pull you in here because I give a shit about you or Peeta or whatever is or isn't going on between you both," I start, because it dawns on me how weird this might seem to her if President Snow hasn't been visiting District Twelve the way he has with Two. "But you better figure out a way to make people believe you love that boy so much that you were willing to die for him, or I can personally guarantee we'll all pay the consequences for it."
There is a flash of something in her eyes - fear, maybe? - as she leans in closer to me. "Has Snow been to visit you, too?" she whispers.
"Of fucking course he has," I reply. "Well, technically not me directly, but yes. Did Haymitch not tell you about my parents?"
Her expression is blank, like she has not even a single iota of an idea of what I'm talking about, so I sigh deeply and give her the cliffnotes of the worst thing that's ever happened to me. "The Capitol killed them. Right when I got back from the Games. As punishment, I guess. Or a warning."
I watch as all the blood drains from Katniss' face, her olive skin transitioning to more of a gray hue. "He threatened my family this morning," she tells me. By the way her shoulders relax as soon as the words leave her mouth, I guess that I'm the first person she's told about this. "Basically said that I need to convince him that I'm in love with Peeta on this tour, or else..."
As soon as the words leave her mouth, I can't believe I didn't see it before. She's in love with someone else. "Who's the other guy?"
Her eyebrows furrow in response as paranoia floods her features. "How did you...?"
"It's all over your face, Katniss," I explain. "You want my advice? Whoever he is, forget about him. No one will ever be able to understand what you've been through like Peeta can. The sooner you fall in love with him, the happier Snow will be, and the more alive that little sister of yours that you fought so hard to save will stay."
She nods her head fervently, soaking in every word of advice, and for the first time, I don't see her as competition or the enemy or someone I wish I had been able to kill. She's scared, and she didn't ask for any of this. At least, not in the way that Cato and I did when we spent our entire lives training to volunteer. I almost pity her.
Almost. Until twelve hours later, when she and Peeta go entirely off script in District 11 and promise to donate a month of their winnings to their fallen tributes' families every year. I don't even think they can do that.
My immediate reaction is anger. No, anger isn't a strong enough word for the feelings flying around in my chest right now. I am infuriated, exasperated, enraged.
The only reason Snow kept us all alive was to calm things down in the districts after our Games. We are here on this tour with the sole purpose of promoting the Capitol, not showing them up. I can't believe they would be so careless.
My breath hitches when, all in unison, the residents of District 11 press three fingers to their lips and then lift them to the sky. I recognize the gesture from watching the recap of our Games - it is the same motion Katniss Everdeen performed for the cameras after Rue died.
Oh, someone is definitely going to die for this.
Before they can even get us all back through the doors of the Justice Building, I hear a single gunshot echo through the Square. When I glance back over my shoulder, the man from the crowd who started the gesture is lying on the steps in a pool of his own blood, and my blood runs cold. Because the people of Eleven aren't crouching down or backing away like you would expect after such a public execution. No, my blood runs cold because they are fighting back.
Everdeen is freaking the fuck out as soon as the doors to the Justice Building in District 11 slam shut behind us.
"I never meant for that to happen! I never meant for anyone to get killed," she is hyperventilating. "Their families were just standing there looking so disappointed, and I couldn't-"
"Of course they're disappointed!" Cato interjects in a rage. "Their fucking kids are dead. I killed one of them. That's the whole entire point of the Victory Tour!"
"I hope you're fucking happy," I start ranting alongside Cato, pointing my finger in the direction of the Square, "Because that right there might just be enough to get yourself orphaned."
"What the hell is everyone talking about?" Peeta asks, looking more confused than I've ever seen him.
"Does he not know?" asks a dumbfounded Cato as he motions to a very obviously out-of-the-loop Peeta.
"Know what?!" Peeta responds, his voice louder and more demanding this time.
Haymitch steps in now, appearing more sober than I've ever seen him before, although that's not saying much. Is he about to do some actual mentoring? I can hardly believe it.
"Both of you. With me," Haymitch says before ushering Katniss and Peeta up the grand marble staircase of the Justice Building.
Oh, to be a fly on the wall for that conversation.
Haymitch is smart not to talk to them out here in the open. Both teams of escorts and stylists have come wandering out of a side room since hearing the commotion, and the last thing any of us needs is rumors flying around the Capitol about uprisings in the districts. I imagine that the televised portion of the District 11 stop on our tour will be cut very short.
"This is not fucking good," Cato whispers to me worriedly. Enobaria and Brutus are standing next to us looking absolutely dumbfounded at the sudden turn of events. I gather that their Victory Tours went off much smoother than this.
"Do you think we're going to have to answer for this?" I ask our mentors. "We had nothing to do with any of it."
Enobaria is shaking her head nervously. "I don't know," she answers truthfully.
It's not what we want to hear. We want her and Brutus to tell us that we did great, that no one we love will end up dead over the Twelves' utter stupidity and lack of political awareness. But they can't promise us that. Back in Two, we are nothing if not painstakingly honest with each other.
I can't help thinking that if Snow could do it all over, he would probably have simply let all four of us die. Surely having no victor at all would be better than this. We are clearly doing an awful job so far at subduing any kind of uprisings anyway.
When the Twelves meet us back on the train that evening, Peeta gives us a knowing look, informing us that he has apparently been caught up to speed, finally. Something has shifted in his demeanor, and I know that he is ready to bullshit his way through the rest of this tour with us.
And that's exactly what we do.
The four of us put on the show of a lifetime for the remaining ten districts on the tour. We stay up late learning our lines and practicing the most authentic deliveries of them. It's easier for Cato and I because the scripts are full of stuff we heard all the time growing up, but Katniss and Peeta get better and better at each stop with our help.
In the districts where tension is noticeably brewing, we play it up even harder.
"Winning the Hunger Games has been a dream come true for me, my family, and my district," Katniss says so earnestly at one point (I think in District 3) that if I didn't unequivocally know better, I would have believed her.
Cato, who is not usually overtly physically affectionate, has one hand on my belly and the other on my ass every time a camera is around. He knows that the Capitol people will eat it up, and I think a small part of him gets off on marking me as his territory so publicly.
It is Peeta who impresses me the most by his performance for the cameras. Truth be told, before the tour, we all kind of thought that Peeta just got really lucky surviving the Games, but I realize now how much of a role he played in his and Katniss' survival. He has a certain ingenuity that is hardly ever seen in a tribute, or even a victor. He knows exactly what to say and how to say it to have the most impact at any given moment. What Katniss lacks in charisma and social etiquette, Peeta more than makes up for. I hate to admit it, but they make a really great team (even if Katniss is hung up on some other dude).
Our performance for the remainder of the Victory Tour is stellar, by all accounts. Rhiannon and Effie guess that it will be the most popular tour they've had in at least a decade, and maybe ever. But whether or not it was enough to placate the districts, we won't know for sure until we arrive in the Capitol and meet with Snow.
"Let's play a game."
It's Peeta who decides to try to break the ice over breakfast on the way from District 1 to the Capitol. I want to roll my eyes, or groan, or do pretty much anything other than play a game with the Twelves this early in the morning, but when I glance up at him with indifference, he accepts it as his queue to keep talking.
"Now that we've visited all twelve districts," he starts, "which one would you most like to live in if you had a choice?"
What a stupid game. Obviously I would stay in District 2. I look over at Cato, ready to laugh at the ridiculousness of the question with him, only to find his eyebrows furrowed in thought.
"I think I'd like District Four," I am shocked (and a little betrayed) to hear the words coming out of Cato's mouth. "The sun and the beach and the waves there just felt so familiar to me, even though I've never been anywhere like that in my life."
"I would stay in District Twelve," Katniss says with certainty, as if any other answer is unthinkable, and she earns back all the respect that Cato just lost from me. If there's only one thing we have in common, it's loyalty to our district.
"Same, I would stay in Two. It's home," I add with a pointed glance at Cato. Traitor, my eyes say to him, but he simply shakes his head in amusement.
"Oh come on, you girls need to loosen up. You can't even imagine living anywhere else?" Peeta jokes with us.
"No, I can't," I respond curtly, a little annoyed that Cato isn't backing me up.
"Well I'm with Cato," Peeta says. "District Four was unreal. Waking up everyday with the ocean as a backyard? Sign me up."
"Why don't you two just ride off into the District Four sunset together then?" Katniss laughs.
"Maybe we would. In a world without the Hunger Games," Peeta answers jokingly, but that is where I know for a fact he loses Cato.
A world without the Hunger Games is unimaginable to us. It's what we spent our whole lives training for, and what we plan to spend the rest of our lives teaching kids in our district how to win. All of our skills involve physical strength or weapons or fighting. We would be absolutely useless in a world without the Hunger Games.
"Do you really think the world would be better off without the Games?" Cato asks him incredulously.
I want to reach my hand across the table and slap him for starting this conversation. He knows that people from Two and Twelve share vastly different political views, so it's almost like he's looking for a fight to bring this up with them. They will never see the Games the way we do, so I don't know why he would even bother.
"Is that even a real question?" Katniss interjects. "Obviously the world would be better off if the mandatory annual fight-to-the-death competition didn't exist."
I can't stop myself from rolling my eyes at her. What a typical weakling District 12 way of looking at things.
"How can you just completely overlook all the good that comes from the Games? All the food and money and glory a district receives when its tribute wins?" I say to Katniss.
I shouldn't even be engaging in this conversation with them, but I can't help myself. Maybe we can help them see the Games in a different light, the way we do back in Two.
It is her turn now to roll her eyes back at me. "You know, I had almost started thinking that maybe I'd judged you two a little too harshly, but boy was I wrong. You're just as brainwashed as I thought."
"We're brainwashed?!" Cato says, exasperated. "Your pathetic district sends off two of its children to die, hopeless, every year. You don't even try to win because you're so blinded by how 'horrible' you think the Games are, but we're brainwashed? You two are fucking delusional."
"Maybe we should just drop this conversation," Peeta suggests, ever the mediator.
He is absolutely correct - we should drop the conversation - but Cato and Katniss are too worked up by now for that.
"I've lost my appetite," Katniss says as she stands up furiously from the table. She shoots a disappointed look in Peeta's direction before storming off, leaving the three of us sitting in a very awkward silence.
Honestly, the whole conversation serves as a great reminder to me that Peeta and Katniss are not our friends and certainly not people we can trust. We have coexisted well over the past two weeks because we shared a common goal of keeping our loved ones safe. Now that the tour is almost over, we have nothing left in common.
Peeta eventually sulks off in the same direction as Katniss, presumably to go check on her, leaving Cato and I to talk shit about them in peace.
We both have to resist the urge to groan when Rhiannon joins us at the table shortly after. We have nothing against her personally; it's just exhausting having to filter what we say when we're around other people.
"Oh, I'm so glad to catch you both at the same time!" she greets us enthusiastically, still in her pajamas, a matching black silk set with silver stars. "As you might know, I have always been big into astrology - it's one of my biggest moneymakers in the Capitol - and as a gift, I've been working on putting together and cross-referencing your birth charts!"
We stare at her blankly. Are we supposed to know what astrology is?
She pauses with an expectant look on her face, so I respond how I know she wants me to. "Oh wow," I say with as much fake enthusiasm as I can muster, "thank you so much!"
"I'm sorry," Cato interrupts. "What is astrology? And a birth chart?"
Rhiannon laughs, like it's the most obvious thing in the world, and launches into a long-winded explanation about the stars and planets and something called a zodiac sign. "So Cato, you are a Taurus, and Clove is a Virgo, which means you're both earth signs and very compatible."
There's no way she just said all of those words only to tell us how compatible we are, something we all already know.
"There's more to it, though," she continues excitedly. "I wasn't sure at first, but I've been consulting with some of my astrological mentors, and-"
She is interrupted by the sound of Cato's laugh, and I know what he's thinking without him even having to say anything. In Two, we have mentors who train us how to survive the Hunger Games. In the Capitol, they have mentors who train them how to...study the stars?
"Rhiannon, thank you," I say politely, trying my best to cover for Cato. "That is all absolutely fascinating, truly. I see why you're so successful in the Capitol."
I don't know when I became the one with manners, but we excuse ourselves from the table before we say or do anything to hurt her feelings. I do have a soft spot for Rhiannon, despite how ridiculous she can be sometimes, because I know she means well. She was one of the only people from the Capitol who attended my parents' funeral, and one of the only people period who really seemed to mourn their deaths at all.
"I need another pill, please," I say to Cato, still groggy from the night before.
He has been sharing his stash of Capitol drugs with me since we found my parents dead almost a week ago. He tosses the little orange bottle of pills to me from across the bedroom after swallowing one himself. Klonopin, reads the label. We figured out pretty quickly that the antihistamines they gave me to sleep weren't worth a damn when I still woke up shaking every 20 minutes the night after my parents died.
I open the bottle and dump out one, two, three little blue pills into my hand. I am shaky, already dreading the events of the day, so I decide to take all three, hoping to calm my nerves.
"After the funeral today, maybe we should try sleeping without them again," Cato suggests.
It's an innocent enough suggestion, but it pisses me off nevertheless. " You can try sleeping without them. I'm not ready to stop yet," I snap.
"They're my pills," he says, reciprocating my attitude. "You'll stop whenever I stop giving them to you."
I can't believe he would threaten me like that. He knows the doctors in the Capitol won't prescribe them to me, and I need them to sleep. "Fuck you for that," I say, venom lacing my words, before pushing past him into the bathroom to clean myself up.
They are going to be here any minute now from the Capitol to interview me about my parents deaths before the funeral this afternoon, and I am nowhere near ready. I forbid them from sending my stylist team here, insisting that I could dress myself, but I was obviously wrong.
It isn't long before the chime of a doorbell is echoing through the house. I glance in the mirror and know that there's no way they'll let me on camera looking like this. My hair is a frizzy mess, old makeup is smudged under my eyes, and my pupils are huge. Fuck. They're going to know I've been taking Cato's pills.
"She's upstairs," I hear Cato say to whoever is at the door, followed by two sets of footsteps stomping up the stairs.
Rhiannon gasps when she sees me, a perfectly manicured hand flying to cover her mouth.
"Are you fucking high right now?" Enobaria says from behind her, her voice dripping with disappointment, and my heart sinks with embarrassment.
"Oh sweetie," Rhiannon chimes in with pity. "We should have come sooner. I had no idea it was so bad."
"I'm fine," I snap, but my eyes fill with tears against my will. "Leave me alone."
I try to shut the bathroom door on them, but Enobaria wedges her foot in the way before I can close it all the way. She is much stronger than me, so she's able to push the door open with ease before grabbing my chin in her hand aggressively. It makes me feel smaller than I ever have before.
"I'm only going to say this once, so listen closely," Enobaria starts. "You are not going to turn into one of those victors that throws their life away after the Games. I have worked too hard with you, invested too much time in you, for you to throw all that away for some fucking pills. Get your shit together, Clove."
She drops her hand and turns to walk out the bedroom, taking the orange bottle of pills with her. She is going to flush them - I've never been more sure of anything in my life. I want to fight her for them, but I already feel too pathetic. It took one week for me to turn into my parents. One week.
Rhiannon stays with me in the bathroom and tries her best to make me look presentable for the funeral. She cleans my face then applies a fresh coat of makeup. She pulls my hair up into the signature ponytail I wore during the Games. She dresses me in a sleeveless black jumpsuit, and I want to kiss her for not making me wear a fucking dress for once.
"Thank you," I say to her as she forces me to admire myself in the mirror.
"Of course," she says sadly. "I'm really sorry about your parents."
In the Capitol, news spread quickly about my parents' death, and everybody pretty much assumed it was suicide when none of the news reports mentioned a cause of death. The only people who know it was the Capitol behind their deaths are the other victors, most of whom are numb to such atrocities at this point anyway. Rhiannon is the first person who seems to be genuinely grieving my parents. She knew them personally, watched them (and me) grow up over the years really, so it means something to me to see her standing here with tears in her eyes. She'll never know it, but seeing her mourn them that day heals a piece of me.
Right before we can walk out the breakfast car, Rhiannon calls out to us. "Wait! What I was trying to tell you...my team and I...we think the two of you are twin flames."
She is met with more blank stares from us, so she elaborates. "Two halves of the same soul, fated to find each other in every lifetime. You'll drive each other crazy because you see so much of yourselves in the other. But no matter what, you always find yourselves inevitably drawn back together, like how water always finds its way back to the shore - it's the most irresistible bond that exists."