By the time Hebe walked into the betting room, she had regained her composure entirely, striding in confidently, and making a beeline straight for the 'career table'.
"Oh, if it isn't the Capitol's current favourite victor! Come to drop another bombshell, or have you run out?" Enobaria teased as the younger girl sat down.
"Sorry, I'm all out for the day." She smirked, then proceeded to greet the mentors she'd be working with this year.
Also from two was a dark-skinned man who was, in looks, painfully reminiscent of Icarus. He greeted Hebe with no more than a soft grunt and a whisper of his name, which was Cain.
She then turned to the pair of district 1 victors, and tried not to wince as she remembered the less than warm reception she had received while on her victory tour.
"Nice to meet you. My name's Cashmere." The woman said, holding out a hand to shake, and Hebe was happy to realise that she hadn't mentored Verity or Augustus.
"Likewise. I'm Hebe."
"This is my brother, Gloss." She then nudged the man beside her to shake Hebe's still outstretched hand, and he complied, but still maintained the air of supremacy that was typical to district one.
Once the introductions were complete, the table descended into mindless chatter, mostly between Enobaria, Gloss, and Cashmere. Finnick chipped in occasionally to scathingly insult Enobaria, but Cain mostly stayed out of it, as did Hebe who kept her gaze fixed on the clock counting down the time until the first cannon went off.
She felt something squeeze her hand, quickly looking down to see what it was, and realising Finnick was the one causing it. She turned her gaze up to his face, which held a soft, worried expression. She nodded at him, trying to be as firm as she could.
So much for composure.
When there was only 3 minutes left on the clock, an automatic hush fell over the room, and Hebe could see on the screen that some of the tributes were emerging from the launch tubes.
She leaned forwards slightly, taking in the arena they would be fighting in this year.
As usual, the starting setup was the 24 tributes on their launch pads, with the cornucopia in the centre, gleaming in the bright, artificial sun.
The terrain seemed to be some kind of grassy prairie, the kind that Hebe had seen plenty of in district 10. The grass surrounding the tributes was burnt yellow from the heat of the sun, and she could immediately tell that finding water would be a big problem in this arena.
The only shelter appeared to be several shacks scattered across the prairie, and some far off mountains and dense woodland, that may just be projections around the edge of the arena.
There didn't seem to be anything else particularly interesting about it, not until the camera panned out, and she was able to see the enormous dam that towered over the prairie. She only knew what it was because of her visit to district 5, otherwise she would have no idea what it was for. Hebe couldn't help but wonder if that was the kind of thing they taught you in the older years of school.
Then the camera focused back onto the tributes and Hebe craned her neck to see better. It seemed like they were coming up thick and fast now, and finally, a flash of red hair emerged from the tubes.
Now that she knew the girl had actually gotten up there alright, Hebe turned her attention to strategizing.
The rest of the careers were decently spread out across the arena, so at least she wasn't isolated from her allies. As for the cornucopia, Hebe knew Annie would be one of the first there, so she would be able to stock up on weapons and maybe even pick off a few tributes straight off the bat.
The victor was shocked at the violence of her own thoughts. She had never been this bloodthirsty before, not even in her own games. It was strange how her survival instinct was focused much more on other people than herself. Hebe despised herself for killing just a few people in the games, yet she would gladly have Annie massacre the entire arena if it meant she came back home safe.
She then snapped herself out of her self-deprecation to watch the countdown continue. Only 20 seconds now. And then it would all begin. Hebe prayed to some higher power to look after her sister, at least for now. She wouldn't be able to handle her dying in the bloodbath, and listen to the way the Capitol talked so casually about her. They always dismissed the first ones so quickly, categorising them as cannon fodder and moving swiftly onwards.
10 seconds now. She squinted to look at her sister, judge her reactions. She was looking straight ahead, determined and focused at the task at hand, starkly contrasting the other tributes who were whipping their heads around wildly, as if confused by this turn of events.
But not Annie. She had been training for this her whole life, and every waking moment of those 18 years were spent imagining how this would go. She had probably run that stretch to the cornucopia 1000 times before in her mind. For her, it was as easy as breathing.
And it was. That cannon went off, and immediately she leaped off her pedestal, sprinting towards the centre, to the cornucopia.
The camera panned to a birds-eye view of the arena, and Hebe could see that streak of red hair flying straight for the cornucopia in the centre, the only people ahead of her presumably being the careers.
And then they cut away again, and it was straight into the action.
The boy from 1 was the first to get there, and also the one to get the first kill. He sent his spear flying towards the young girl from 6, practically splitting her body in two with the force of it.
Then it was the girl from 2 who made a beeline for the swords, grabbing one that was almost the size of her arm and brandishing it at anyone who came close.
And, the first person who came close, happened to be Annie. Hebe's breath stilted quickly, but she quickly reassured herself that her sister had a solid alliance with 2.
"Allies?" Annie asked, holding her hands up, and cautiously eyeing up the other career.
It was then that the other girl seemed to recognise her, nodding and moving out of the way for the red-head to grab her weapons. Unsurprisingly, she went for the belt of lethal looking knives.
By the time the other careers had gotten there, it was truly a bloodbath.
They each guarded a separate part of the cornucopia, brandishing their weapons at anyone who tried to come too close. Victor and Annie stood around the sides, the girl throwing a knife at anyone who got within 100 yards, when the boy would then advance on them, chasing them away, or, if they were too slow, gutting them before they could run.
She noticed the stony look on the red-headed girl's face as he did it, and to someone who knew her so well, it did nothing to hide the discomfort she was obviously feeling. Hebe could tell that she was ok with injuring someone, but didn't want to kill them outright.
Each of her throws missed vital organs or arteries, and the victor knew damn well that if she really wanted to, she wouldn't miss. They had always been similar in that way.
In some ways her reluctance to kill made Hebe proud. She always had been the more moral of the two. But in other ways it made her nervous, nervous about how she would handle having to kill if necessary. She hoped it would be ok.
Eventually, there was no one left to target, effectively signalling the end of the bloodbath. It was then that Caesar and Claudius began their commentary.
"And there we have it! The 70th hunger games have begun! I think this was a great bloodbath, don't you Claudius?"
"Indeed. And I believe we are just about to receive confirmation of the number of kills."
The cannons rang out one after the other, and the camera's cut to multiple different parts of the arena to film different tributes' reactions to the number.
The careers were, of course, counting in anticipation, eager to know how many they'd knocked off and how many steps closer they were to eternal glory.
The rest of the tributes were a strange mix of emotions, their faces muddled with different expressions. They were grateful, not only to be alive, but also that there were less people left to outlast. They were also scared as the number kept mounting, fear that they'd be the next on the list.
But what Hebe could most clearly observe was the specific brand of fear on their faces. Every one of them looked borderline hysterical, like they could crack any minute. It was clear that these games would be a battle between the careers, and looking at this year's roster, Hebe was nervous about that.
Not much else happened after the bloodbath. The careers elected to stay at the cornucopia that night, and go out searching for other tributes the next day.
They had plenty to eat, thanks to them having a monopoly on all the resources in the arena, so they weren't forced to scrounge for a meal like Hebe had.
They discussed their lives, but mostly, they grilled each other about their kills.
Hebe could see the way Annie's face twitched slightly each time someone (normally the girl from two, Clarisse) would steer the conversation back to the earlier bloodbath.
"So, you got what, 2 assists?" The boy from 1, Marcus, asked Annie.
"Well, yeah."
"So no kills?"
"Not that I'm aware of. But some of the ones that got away might not make it. Besides, I thought I'd give Victor at least a bit of glory before I win."
She shot her district partner a grin, while he just deadpanned. The red headed girl looked down awkwardly at that, clearly feeling a bit embarrassed.
Luckily she was saved from further humiliation by a shout from Marcus.
"Holy shit!"
The group paused in their individual conversations to look at him curiously, watching as he raised a hand to point right at Annie.
"You're Hebe Cross' sister! I totally forgot!"
"Oh, yeah." Annie laughed softly, taking another bite of her granola bar.
The rest of the group then also seemed to remember Annie's reveal at the end of her interview, leaping in with various questions.
"What's she like?" Bella, from 1, asked her voice filled with… awe?
"Uh, I don't really know. Kinda hard to describe someone you've always known. Funny. Smart."
"Pretty." Marcus cut in, resting a hand under his chin, his voice dazed like he had just arisen from a daydream.
"Seriously?" Clarisse scoffed, glaring at the boy from 1, "Get a grip. Besides, how do we know she's even telling the truth?"
Annie malfunctioned slightly at that, and Hebe wanted to slam her head onto the table. She wasn't making it very convincing.
"Trust me, it's true." Victor piped up, swooping in to save his district partner, although he didn't look too happy about it. "They've been friends since they were kids." He rolled his eyes. And Hebe really thought she had been getting through to him.
"Hmph. Whatever." Clarisse stood up, grabbing her sword and walking to the mouth of the cornucopia. "I'll take first watch. Get some sleep."
The rest of them watched her go, their gazes wary, but strangely accepting. The girl seemed to have been chosen as the de facto leader, so they all did as they said, rummaging through backpacks to find their sleeping bags.
When it was clear that there wouldn't be much more action this evening, the bettors began to file out of the room, closely followed by many of the mentors, Hebe and Finnick being among them.
"Are you happy with how it went?" He asked, as they climbed the stairs, purposefully avoiding the crowded elevator.
"Yeah. I'm a little worried about that Clarisse girl, but so far so good."
"Hm, I think so too."
They climbed the rest of the stairs up to the apartment in silence, the pair greeting Ambrosia as they walked in.
"They're both doing well, don't you two think?"
"Yes. Any sponsors coming forward?" Hebe asked, knowing that the escort was responsible for most of the liaising done with potential sponsors.
"A few. We won't know anything for certain until a few days into the games when they're actually necessary."
Hebe nodded, and Ambrosia patted her on the shoulder kindly before exiting the apartment, claiming that she was staying the night with a friend and she'd be back in the morning.
The two victors slumped down on the sofa, purposefully leaving the TV turned off.
"You got any tonight?" Finnick whispered.
Hebe nodded, "A new one. I'm meeting her in a bar in an hour. You?"
"Not today. I've got two tomorrow though."
"No rest for the wicked I guess."
An hour later, Hebe was descending in the elevator, all alone in her long black dress and small heels.
Snow had so graciously gifted her a private chauffeur for these kinds of engagements, so when she stepped out of the building, a black car was already waiting for her, the back door open.
The driver never spoke to her. She sometimes wondered if he was an avox, or just didn't want to associate with her kind. She didn't know what she would prefer.
The bar he drove her to was a new one for Hebe, with tinted, dusty windows and two muscular bouncers guarding the doors. As she walked past them, she wondered off hand whether she could beat them if it came down to it. She was pretty certain that she could, given the amount of emotions swirling through her at that moment.
She was angry. Mostly at Snow. For what he had done to her sister, for what he was continuing to do to her and Finnick. But it was also accompanied by a strange sort of detachment, almost like her emotions and her mind were the bonfire, and she were the onlooker, watching it in fascination.
Hebe often felt like this when she met with clients. Sometimes it was because of the copious amounts of alcohol she consumed over the course of the night, but mostly her mind did it all on its own. She felt those eyes watching her, raking over every inch of her body, and she detached, almost automatically.
And that was exactly what happened as soon as she spotted the woman at the bar. Like most people in the Capitol, Hebe couldn't tell how old she was, so she could have been anywhere between 30 and 50. She wore a haughty expression on her face, and was dressed from head to toe in snakeskin.
As soon as Hebe walked in she turned her head, smiling wolfishly at the girl and beckoning her over.
"So nice to meet you at last." The woman hissed. Like a snake. Subtle.
"Thank you. It's a pleasure to meet you." Hebe smiled, sickened by the woman.
Her client quickly ordered her a drink, and she was pleasantly surprised when a glass of whisky was handed to her. She'd need hard liquor to get through the rest of the night.
The rest of the time at the bar was spent engaging in pointless small talk, most of which revolved around the games. Each and every time Hebe tried to steer the conversation away from them, the snake-skinned woman brought the conversation right back around.
It was only about halfway through that Hebe realised why. She had probably picked Hebe because of what she was like in the games. She too wanted a piece of the 'career killer'. She didn't quite know how that was the image that had been carved out for her. Did they not remember all the time she spent doing nothing in the games, crying herself to sleep in a bush for three nights straight?
Apparently not. The Capitol had rather a selective memory. Besides, that kind of raw violence was much more alluring to a sheltered elite than the reality of the games. Yes, getting to meet a killer, finding out what makes them tick, that's what the clients wanted, just as much as the physical aspect.
Hebe couldn't help but find that amusing to think about. It was fairly obvious what drove people to volunteer for the games. Desperation. A chance to live a life free from poverty and beatings.
As for what drove them to kill, that was even more simple. Fear of being killed themselves, and, of course, that same desperation to return home.
The Capitol elites wanted it to be so much more complicated than that. They wanted to believe that the people of the district were inherently different, savage in a way. They wanted a mystery to solve, they wanted to know what the psychological reasonings behind everything was.
Little did they know, the answer was staring them right in the face. You only had to look into one of those tributes' eyes and you'd find it. The desperation that knitted the districts together.
In the early hours of the morning, Hebe awoke in a strange bed, in a strange room. She quickly grabbed her dress off of the floor and her bag from a nearby chair and slipped out of the apartment. She took the cell phone from her bag and called her chauffeur's number, walking slowly down the stairs so by the time she got out front he'd already be there waiting for her.
Thankfully she was right, and before she knew it she was entering the familiar living room once again, slipping onto the sofa in exhaustion.
She didn't quite know when or how she fell asleep, but what she did know is that when she awoke once again, she wasn't in her clients apartment, nor was she on the sofa in the living room.
She was in her own room, tucked under the covers, her shoes and bag placed neatly beside her bed.
There was a terrible pounding in her skull, a painful reminder of the copious amounts of alcohol she had consumed the night before. But what was more baffling was how she had ended up here.
Hebe tried to think back, peering through the alcohol induced daze from the night before, but there was practically nothing. Nothing except the vague sensation of being held, carried?
She shook her head, dispelling the fragmented memories, climbing out of bed and pulling the satin dress off her body. But, as she got up she noticed a crumpled sheet of paper on one of the pillows, and quickly lunged over to grab it.
Got a client pretty much all day so you're gonna have to handle this one on your own. I'll try and escape early if I can.
Sorry,
Finnick
Hebe sighed as she read through the note, running a hand through her hair. She was a little apprehensive about having to deal with everything on her own today, but she didn't begrudge him for it. She knew what it was like. She just hoped he wasn't beating himself up over it. He was definitely more protective of her than he used to be, committing all of his energy to caring for her.
He was probably the one who tucked her into bed last night.
Her cheeks heated up at the thought, before she slapped herself for even considering it. She couldn't think about something like that, not when Annie was in the games and Finnick was with a client. She couldn't be so selfish.
Soon Hebe managed to recover and descend the stairs to the betting room. When she got there it was still quite early, so only a few of the mentors were there, including Cashmere and Gloss.
"Good morning." The blonde woman said, her voice clipped but not unkind. Hebe was sort of getting used to her manner, but it was still quite foreign to her. She hadn't been raised to be a socialite, not like Cashmere had.
"Morning."
"No Finnick today?"
"Oh, uh, he's busy." Hebe said quickly, and the two siblings shared a knowing look, the pair nodding in sorrowful understanding.
It was then that a sort of realisation struck her. The two siblings were renowned for their good looks, just like Finnick was. There was every chance they were also part of 'The Trade', or at the very least knew about it.
She suddenly felt guilty for thinking of them as so privileged, just like she had Ambrosia. They were suffering just like all the other victors, no matter where they were born.
It was still the early hours of the morning in the arena, so most of the tributes were only just waking up, but within a few minutes of waiting a few of the careers were up, most of them looking eager to hunt down some more of the tributes.
Clarisse was the last one up, mostly because everyone else seemed too scared to wake her up themselves, so eventually her district partner took one for the team and shook her awake.
As soon as she was, they all began to strategize what they would be up to, and unsurprisingly the girl from 2 took the lead.
"We should scout out the shacks for today, that's the place they'll all want to hide."
The rest nodded in agreement; it was a fairly logical line of questioning.
"Someone should stay here to guard our shit." Marcus said.
"I don't mind doing it." Annie piped up.
"No way, you're with me." Clarisse snapped. The rest of the group looked at her cautiously, but Annie just nodded, not wanting to cause an issue too early on. A smart move, because Clarisse seemed like she was out for blood, no matter if that was from her allies or the other tributes.
She also chose Marcus to come along with the two girls, leaving Bella, Victor and Ixion (from district 2).
They set out pretty much straight away after that, picking their way over the terrain in focused silence. It would take them a little over an hour to get to the group of buildings, so in the meantime Claudius and Caesar began their commentary, flitting between different sections of the arena.
Most of the tributes were still on the prairie, hiding amongst dead bushes and trees. Some were also in the buildings, but a few of them had actually managed to make it up to the mountain and forests. Hebe was pretty shocked by that, as she had thought they were out of reach, but maybe she had overestimated their distance from the cornucopia.
Then, the camera returned to the careers as they neared their target. Clarisse seemed to be making straight towards the largest of the shacks that had a few smaller buildings clustered around it. Hebe just had to hope that this wasn't some kind of trap.
For once, she seemed to be wrong, and they crossed the threshold into the house without incident.
The cameras then cut to a small group of children huddled right inside the building the group were headed for, and the girl felt her breath hitch slightly in fear.
It appeared that her reaction was the same as theirs, as when they heard the footsteps of people entering the house, they let out small whimpers of fear.
An older girl - well, older compared to the rest of them, she was probably around 14 - quickly shushed them, and carefully stood up, walking slowly over the window and motioning for them to jump out of it. They all shook their heads incredulously, and Hebe couldn't blame them. It looked to be at least a one story drop with nothing to break their fall.
But, when the footsteps grew closer, the girl grew more desperate, frantically whispering for them to hurry up and get out.
The footage then became a split screen, one side being the careers creeping through the house, and the other side the children frantically trying to make their escape.
And then, one of the children stepped on a particularly creaky floorboard, and Hebe knew it was all over.
Clarisse immediately darted up the rest of the stairs, Marcus and Annie hot on her heels. She threw open the door to the room, and the oldest girl whipped her head around to see what was going on, and as soon as she caught sight of the careers, she pushed the kid she was helping straight out of the window with the others.
The girl from 2 then surged forwards, and ran her through with her sword. The cannon went off immediately, and her body was tossed to the side. She quickly motioned for the other two to follow her out of the window, before jumping out to pursue the children trying to make their escape.
They did as she instructed, and all three practically landed on the poor defenceless tribute down below as Clarisse quickly dispatched him as well.
They looked around them, trying to see if there was anymore when they spotted a girl about 100 yards away, running as fast as she could away from the shacks and towards the mountains.
"Get her!"
They all began to run recklessly, and Hebe could have sworn she could've heard the odd taunt from Clarisse and Marcus.
It was then that Annie seemed to realise she had her knives with her, and as they all bore down on the young girl, she threw one right at her, which landed with a sickening thud in the back of her skull.
They all stopped running, and Marcus let out a quick cheer as two more cannons sounded.
"Nice job 4! First kill, eh, how'd you feel?" He asked, slinging an arm around the girl and laughing.
"Hah, great." She said, breathless from running. It clearly sounded convincing enough to the other two, but Hebe could tell she was lying through her teeth.