A View from the Lists [2/9] (The Hunger Games, Finnick, ensemble)
Title: A View from the Lists [2/9] (or read the whole thing at AO3)
Authors: mithrigil and puella_nerdii
Fandom: The Hunger Games
Characters Finnick; Annie, Cinna, Mags, Haymitch, Johanna, the cast of victors, President Snow, and the tributes of the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games.
Pairings: Finnick/Annie primarily, with some Finnick/Cinna on the side.
Words: ~56k overall. This chapter: ~5900.
Rating: R (forced prostitution, expected THG violence, nudity and sexuality, language)
Spoilers: Backstory revealed in Mockingjay, events through the end of The Hunger Games.
Summary: The seventy-fourth Hunger Games are about to begin, and Finnick Odair is called back to mentor for the first time in years. Between that, his obligations in the Capitol, and the growing political unrest back home in District Four, he’s got more than enough to manage-and that’s not even counting this year’s fire-starting tributes from District Twelve.
Notes: Serves as a sequel or at least continuation of Scylla and Charybdis (and Wisely, I Say, I Am A Bachelor), though you can certainly read this story without that context.
Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven
Chapter Two: Seven and Seven Sent to Crete No matter how clear President Snow makes it that the victors are supposed to stay out of trouble, Finnick and several others can't help but wonder if they should take advantage of the opportunity this year's tributes might give them.
Reaping Day dawns clear and bright, with a hint of a breeze rolling off the sea to keep us from sticking to our seats. I can’t hold Annie’s hand on the podium, but Mags can, and I mouth a silent thank you to her before the cameras click on, their lenses glaring white in the sun. Mags is mentoring again, too. “We were a winning team last time, we might be one again,” she told me, and I must have spent two hours trying to convince her not to go, but Mags is even more stubborn than I am. And I’m an Odair, so that’s saying something. Then again, Mags is practically an Odair, too.
With the rest of the ceremony taken care of, the district representative reaches into the bowl with all the girls’ names, and holds the slip of paper up toward the light. “Pierra Garland.”
A girl steps forward out of the seventeens, trained and doomed but lackluster. She comes up to the podium as naturally as if she were walking between stands at the market. Annie flinches, and I think I know why.
The representative draws “Andre Ruiz” next. The boy that walks out of the fourteens is smaller than I was at that age, and shyer, has to be shoved out past the rope to get a start up to the Justice Building. Someone should volunteer for him, I think.
No one does.
The representative blinks, squints out over the crowd. The sun is in her eyes, so I don’t blame her for thinking she sees something, but the way she reaches out with her hand cupped when she calls for volunteers a second and then a third time is strangely horrifying, like watching someone drown. Silence. It’s a different kind of silence than the one at my reaping, thick and dark enough that the sun’s glare seems to falter. Even the eighteens won’t meet the representative’s eyes. The cameras click and falter, sweeping this way and that, not sure where to point.
I look at Mags, catch the slightest movement of her head from side to side. Not now.
***
I remember how nervous I was before I knocked on my first tribute’s door on the train. It was raining, and I never liked being on the train in the rain anyway, and I figured neither would he. His name was Howe, he was sixteen, and he’d been trained, and I thought it would be easy. So I knocked on the door, and heard a horrible denting sound, and I thought either the train had skipped on the rails or something was wrong with him. It turned out that he’d brought a knife and had just jammed it into the compartment’s window, to pry it open and get out.
First lesson of mentoring: it’s never easy.
Andre doesn’t try to attack me. I almost wish he would, wish he’d show me he had some fight in him. Even Annie did, when she balanced that knife on the tip of her finger. Now all they see when they look at her is you, Haymitch told me four years ago. Well, there’s no danger of that this time.
That thought sounds like Haymitch, not like me.
“You’re Finnick Odair,” he says. He speaks like Aunt Coral when she’s tired and her south-district accent slips out.
“And you’re Andre Ruiz.” I will remember his name. I can do that much for him, more than some mentors ever bother with. “I wanted to give you a chance to rest, but we’re about to watch the rebroadcast of the other Districts’ reaping ceremonies. Do you want to join us? See who else is going in with you?”
“I probably should,” he says sullenly. He turns to straighten up the covers on the bed before we leave.
“You know you don’t have to make your bed if you don’t want to,” I say, and try for a smile. “You can even jump on it, if you’d like.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” My smile comes easier this time. “And the beds at the training center are even bouncier, wait and see.”
He smiles back, but he doesn’t take my hand. He probably knows what’s wrong as much as I do, but if he doesn’t say anything, neither will I.
Mags and Pierra are already perched in front of the screen. Our representative, whose name I really should double-check, nods curtly to us when we enter and hits play.
1’s tributes are professional, polished, poised, ready with styled hair and gleaming teeth when they step forward to volunteer. The pair from District 2 looks dangerous this year, the boy built thicker than Brutus was at his age, the girl with a smile sharp enough to cut. I take notice of the girl from 5 first because of her shock of red hair, then because of the way she walks up the steps to the podium: light and quick, testing. Calculating. The boy from 11 is almost as big as 2’s candidate, which should already start a flurry of betting in the Capitol. And the girl is small, so small, fine-boned and dark-skinned. When she crosses the podium, it’s as though the wind could blow her off it at any second, bear her straight up to the skies.
12’s called last, and I’m almost ready to turn off the television when another little girl gets called, but before I can get up, someone shouts, “I volunteer!”
“A volunteer in Twelve?” Our representative frowns. “That’s unusual.”
“Unprecedented,” Mags corrects. I translate, and lean forward. There’s no missing the volunteer--she runs for the stage, her blue dress streaming behind her like water, and shoves the little girl behind her, away from the crowd and the cameras and the train waiting just beyond. Like her arms can hold all of Panem at bay. District 12’s silent after the volunteer’s name is announced, but it’s not our silence, the stony refusal I just left behind. It’s stretched tighter than a bowstring, and I don’t know what’ll make it snap.
I don’t see the first person who touches their fingers to their lips and holds them out to the girl, but I see the rest of them follow. I look at Mags again. She’s not smiling. She’s waiting.
Haymitch lurches across the stage--how much has he had? I haven’t seen him this badly off at a reaping in years--and throws his arm around her. “Look at her. Look at this one!”
“Well, we’re looking,” Pierra mutters. I don’t laugh.
“I like her. Lots of...spunk! More than you!” He staggers away from her, to the front of the stage, to the eye of a nearby camera, and points straight at it. No. At all of us watching. “More than you!”
Mags takes my hand, still silent. I squeeze hers. I don’t know what to say, either. Fortunately, Haymitch takes this moment to plummet from the stage and the commentators, as hesitant as we were, make a joke or two at Haymitch’s expense and steer the program back on track for the announcement of the boy from 12.
“Well, that was something,” I say; Pierra and Andre look at me strangely, and I shrug it off as best I can. It might not be anything, I remind myself. A girl runs forward to save her sister’s life. Haymitch tumbles off the stage and passes out. Nothing that remarkable, when you break it down like that.
But we have a saying in District 4. Drop a stone on one shore, and the ripple becomes a tidal wave by the time it hits the next. Not always. But sometimes.
I won’t get my hopes up, but I will watch Katniss Everdeen. Whatever she is, she’s something the Capitol hasn’t seen in a while.
***
“So when did Snow start calling the mentors in for --” I stifle my yawn, stretch my arms over my head. “Actually, I still don’t know what he’s calling us in for, the message was vague as anything. ‘A conference about responsibilities’ or something like that?”
“He means our responsibilities for the Quell, I think,” Cashmere says, twisting one of her curls around her fingers to add more spring to it. “I think he wants to make sure we all know what’s expected of us next year.”
“He could’ve set it after noon,” Gloss groans, wiping crust out of the corner of his eye.
Johanna rolls hers. “I don’t see what the big difference is. We’re still trying to convince dumb rich idiots to throw their money at our dumb tributes, right?”
“Yeah, well, last time it was a pretty big deal if you were one mentor trying to juggle four kids,” Haymitch says.
“Not that he had many sponsors to deal with,” Chaff says, elbowing Haymitch in the side.
“And I bet you were just rolling in them, weren’t you, Chaff.”
I look at Haymitch more closely, without making it too obvious. His stubble’s as thick on his cheeks as it can grow, his skin swells under his eyes, and he smells as awful as ever. Same old Haymitch so far, but whether it’s because the lights are making his hangover worse or because of something else, his eyes are shining a little. Now’s not the time to ask, though, not when we’re assembled before the door of Snow’s conference room.
“It seems like a waste to give us this talk before we know what the next Quell is,” Meadow says.
“Yeah, and the Capitol never wastes anything,” Johanna shoots back. I put my hand on her arm and squeeze as a friendly reminder, though I’ll let the cameras decide of what. She tells me to fuck off, but her eyes are darting around the corners of the room, and I know she’s remembered who’s watching.
The double doors to Snow’s office open, and one nearly clocks Haymitch in the side of the head. “Careful, you don’t want to re-injure that,” Chaff says.
“The damage has already been done,” Snow says, without missing a beat. “Everyone, come in and take a seat.”
We shuffle in, some of us more quickly than others. I take Mags’s arm and steer her to a seat next to mine, one far enough away from Snow that he’d have to turn his head to look at us. I’m glad I did, because as soon as Mags settles in, her eyes drift closed and her head droops to her chest. She has the right idea, I think, and pick up one of the pens on the table, twiddle it between my fingers while I wait for this to start. And end.
“Chairs,” Haymitch says, taking a seat in the other far corner. “That’s a change.”
“It wouldn’t do to have you falling over,” Snow says, and even Chaff laughs. “With that out of the way, I’d like to make a few things clear about next year’s Games. Now, most of you haven’t been mentors in a Quarter Quell before, even if you were victors at the time. There are of course exceptions,” he adds, nodding to Beetee and Chaff and Seeder, then turning to glance at Mags, who I nudge awake in time. “And I’m sure they will have advice of their own. But even their experience will not prepare you for some of the technical considerations, the publicity, or even the nature of the tributes themselves. You’ll recall that, last time, for the fiftieth Games, there were twice as many tributes, and therefore each mentor had at least two to guide...”
Mags snorts a little, sinking into the back of her chair, and I don’t slump as much as she does but I do drift, dance my pen across the backs of my fingers, weaving in and out. I’m not the only one, I realize after I’ve run out of pen tricks. Chaff is running his thumbnails under each other, scraping them clean. Wiress is idly braiding a lock of her hair in a strange four-strand style that I’ve never seen before. Seeder is staring out the window at a bird that’s perched on the far side, tilting her head to imitate it. Enobaria’s listening, but snapping her gum loudly enough that Mags grunts in her sleep. And Beetee’s managed to smuggle a laser pointer in here, which he’s bouncing on the wall above Snow’s head.
“...in addition to your capacities as mentors, and as the public faces of your districts, you’ll also be contributing to the history of the Games themselves...”
I’d groan, but I don’t want to draw his attention. Across the table, Johanna catches my eye and makes a hand-and-cheek gesture that implies just how much this sucks.
I shake my head and reduce the size of the appendage in question.
Johanna snorts into her fist.
Snow coughs.
She gives him her best simpering smile and nearly sends a number of us into hysterics, including Gloss. I can’t see what Cashmere does, but from the way Gloss flinches I assume she kicked him under the table. What? he mouths at her; she gestures to Snow and crosses her arms, her lips pursed, and that sets off what I can only describe as the loudest nonverbal argument I’ve seen in a while.
Snow continues, “And as to the matter of your spending in the Quarter Quell season, in the event that you see an increase or decrease in the quantity or implied quality of tributes--that is, if the age range changes--your District budget will be adjusted accordingly. There’s also a chance that certain sponsor gifts may be prohibited. In the last Quarter Quell, food items--”
“Hey, I can’t get the doors open,” Haymitch says.
“And why would you need to?”
“Because I’m sure you don’t want me to piss in your vase.”
Snow sighs and hits a button on the side of his desk. The doors swing open, as before. “Knock if you bother coming back. As I was saying, in the last Quarter Quell...”
Beetee shines the laser pointer on the tip of Snow’s nose. If Snow notices, he doesn’t show it. Brutus glowers at Beetee, and Beetee clicks it off. Shame.
Johanna picks an imaginary hair out of her teeth. I do the same, but pretend it’s long enough to be obscene.
Which is, of course, the exact moment Snow decides to look my way. I wipe my nail on my pants, elbow Mags awake, and give Snow my toothiest, cheeriest smile.
“I don’t suppose I should ask if you have any questions, Finnick.”
“No, sir,” I say, my eyes wide. “You explained everything so clearly.”
Johanna’s nearly convulsing in her seat.
“It’s only that it’s been several years since you’ve mentored at all. Are you sure there’s not something you’ve forgotten?”
“I think I’ll figure it out,” I say. My teeth hurt. “It’s like swimming. Once you learn, you don’t forget.”
He taps his fingers on the edge of his desk, and the door opens for Haymitch again. “Sit down,” he says, and then, back to me, “Nevertheless, I think a remedial lesson might be in order. I don’t believe you have anywhere else to be at this hour, Finnick.”
Drusus is still working over my tribute, and my next job doesn’t start until an hour before the Opening Ceremonies. “I don’t.”
“Haven’t gotten called in for detention for at least twenty years,” Haymitch says, sitting back down and crossing his ankles.
“You I want out of my sight again as soon as possible,” Snow says. “Finnick, Mags, Cecelia, Baste, and Beetee, if you wouldn’t mind?”
3, 8, and us. All right, now I almost want to stay behind. What’s going on? I exchange looks with Cecelia, who appears to be as in the dark as I am, and Beetee, who I can never read anyway.
As soon as the others are gone, and Snow shuts us in again--Wiress stayed as well, Snow never addresses her directly, so I’m sure she and Beetee just assumed--then asks us to stand up. I help Mags, let her take my arm.
“This is personal reminder to you six,” he begins. “The Quarter Quells were laid down to make the message of the Games clear beyond any doubt. It seems they always come around in time to send that message home, to the Districts, where it belongs. Mags, I’m sure, remembers just how important it was to have elected tributes for the twenty-fifth Games,” he says, nodding at her, and then Cecelia, “and I’m sure Woof would have a thing or two to say about it. I encourage you to ask him, when you return home. And the importance of Haymitch’s Games can’t possibly be lost on you all. Every twenty-five years or so, the districts start forgetting just why things are the way they are.”
It’s colder than it was, in here. I wonder if there’s another button for that on his desk.
“It is your job, as victors, to be a living reminder of just that. So if I hear that you have been working counter to your duties, the repercussions will be felt not only by you and your families, but by your communities. After all, if you forget yourselves--you, the Capitol’s chosen--then they must be beyond help.”
I don’t speak. Don’t breathe, for a second. So it isn’t just 4. I need to talk to Beetee and Cecelia as soon as I can--not right after this meeting, obviously, because what better way to confirm Snow’s suspicions, but soon. Is that why Haymitch was smiling? Does he know what’s spreading under the surface in 4 and 3 and 8? I need to talk to him, too. Preferably after he’s showered.
“Any questions?” he asks again.
No one has any. Not that they want to ask him, anyway.
“Excellent. Finnick, please stay behind for now. I’ll call in the rest of you later.”
Me first. Wonderful. I should thank Snow for being so considerate of my schedule.
Mags squeezes my hand a little before she leaves. “Hang in there,” she says. I don’t translate that for Snow. I watch her leave, and Snow has to remind me to turn around an look at him, so I brace myself for a lecture.
“You know,” he says, “of all of them, I think it’s most crucial that you know your place.”
I stand straighter, brace myself, fight the urge to flinch. Not here. Not in front of him. It’s more of a victory if he gets nothing out of me at all. “Really.”
“Really.” He smiles. The tip of his front tooth is stained slightly brown, like it would be on a woman with lipstick. He licks it away with the pad of his tongue, and goes on. “You’ve enjoyed so much in these last few years, some freedoms that even the other victors aren’t party to. You’re part of Capitol society to an extent that no other victor still living has achieved. You’re here more often than any of the others, now that Cashmere’s starting to concentrate on her business back in District One--which of course I know about, don’t look surprised. I wish her and Gloss all the best. It’s good of them to concentrate on each other.”
Because you stopped selling her and Gloss when they found out about each other, I want to say, but keep my silence. Or maybe they’re just getting too old, is that it? It’s not like you’ve ever cared about sentiment.
“But you, Finnick; everything in your life seems to be leisure, pleasure even. When you’re here, you’re the talk of the town, so to speak. And when you’re home, why, you have every comfort, lazing around on a boat all day, enjoying your family. And you don’t have to mentor, or you didn’t until now, and that’s only in the interest of fairness. All in all, it’s a luxurious life, especially compared to the one you came from--unless, of course, I believe what you always say, that you came from the sea!”
Luxurious? Luxurious? I clench my fists at my side hard enough to scrape crescents into my palms, force my jaw shut. You sell me, I want to scream, but will myself not to, swallow it down until the words seethe in my gut. You whore me out to the Capitol’s finest--oh, if I could only tell you, Mister President. The things they’ve done. The things I’ve heard. I think they’ve managed to keep some of it from your ears. Or do you know what they say about you when they’re through with me, when they want to give something back because of how much I’ve given them?
“Why on earth would you want to throw that away on something that could only hurt your family, Finnick?”
I loosen my jaw enough to grit out, “I’m not throwing anything away.” That much is true, at least.
“That’s good to hear,” he says, smiling brightly now that that front tooth is clean. “It would be a shame. But I am concerned for your family. Your Head Peacekeeper has been informing me of some of the troubles you’ve come into in recent months, and I can’t help but hear a few other things.”
My fists lock even tighter, which is wrong. I can’t look like I’m holding anything in. But I can’t relax, convince my stomach to unknot and my jaw to unstiffen. “It’s been a slow season,” I say as neutrally as possible. “They happen.”
“They do. I certainly understand that, even if it seems that the rest of the Capitol does not. These things come in cycles,” he says, rounding his desk to get a look out the window. The bird Seeder was looking at before is still there, sitting on the same branch. Snow gives it a friendlier smile than I’ve ever seen him give anyone else. “Even unhappiness is a phase.”
Images of Annie come to me unbidden: the sunlight threaded in her hair, the shell-and-rope anklet I wove for her, the smile she wears just before I wake her up in the morning if it’s been a restful night. “It is,” I say. But not for the reasons he thinks.
“Why, your uncle’s property might even be restored to him in time, if he works diligently through this rough patch. What is he doing with his time, these days? Has he found work elsewhere?”
“He’s helping my uncle Jonas,” I say, and I’d guess Snow already knows that, too.
“Good for them. And your other uncle, the one that doesn’t sail? How is his family?”
His family. Aunt Coral. Or Aunt Coral’s brothers, at least, though if one of Coral’s siblings is neck-deep in something, they usually all are. “He’s doing well enough,” I say, keep my tone even blander. “I don’t know a lot about carpentry, so I can’t say for sure.”
“Little Crescent is his, isn’t she. How old is she now?”
“Almost five,” I say quietly, barely over the sick swell of my pulse. He expects me to buckle, beg, get on my knees and plead for his forgiveness. I don’t. I haven’t done anything I need his forgiveness for.
“And how many other children do they have?”
“Three.” And like hell I’m letting Snow touch any of them.
“And your aunt has an extended family of her own, doesn’t she. Do they all also work at the docks?”
I hate it when he draws this out. “Yes.”
“Some of the most virulent things happen at the docks, you know, and in the factories. Hateful people who don’t understand just how much security they have. I’m asking you to remind them of that security, Finnick. Be an example of what they can attain.”
Yeah, I’m sure they’d just love to have my job instead. “I’ll do my best.”
He smiles, like he wants me to think he believes me. “Good. And I do understand that luxury brings with it is own misery, Finnick.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
“Well, so much the better for you. You have an example to set, Finnick. Do that, and I promise your life will be even easier.”
Oh, if only he knew how I really want to respond to that offer. Spit on his shoes. Throw up in his potted plants. Say that I’d tell him to shove it up his ass but I have no interest picturing that and I doubt it would fit, anyway.
“Do you have anything you’d like me to clarify, Finnick?”
“No. You’ve been clear.”
“Have I? Then please, tell me what you’re supposed to be doing.”
A muscle in my jaw twitches before I can stop it. “This year? Mentoring my tribute.”
“And?”
My smile hurts. It doesn’t even feel like mine. “Make sure everyone in the Capitol loves me.”
“Good. And when you go home?”
“Keep out of trouble,” I say, fix my smile in place. It doesn’t mean I won’t be causing any.
“And keep your family out of trouble,” he prods.
“Of course.”
Snow waits.
I’m twenty-three years old, and he always manages to make me feel like I’m five. “And keep my family out of trouble,” I repeat.
“Good. I’ll hold you to that.”
Hold yourself to that, I think, I’m not the one who’s threatening them. He waits again. I know exactly what he’s waiting for. Do I want to test his patience or get out of here more? Get out of here, I decide. “Thank you, Mister President.”
“You’re welcome, Finnick. Please send Mags in. If you’d like to wait for her outside, you’re more than welcome.”
I nod once, sharply, turn on my heel, and leave. I’m impressed with myself in a distant sort of way, since I manage not to try and slam doors that he controls with the push of a button. Mags and the others are sitting in chairs lined up against the wall, and if they had a few fewer wrinkles they really would look like schoolkids waiting to get called into the principal’s office. “Mags, you’re next,” I say.
She leans on her cane to get up, and touches my cheek fondly before she takes her turn. I’ll wait for her, I decide, and wish Snow’s assistants had left magazines or something for us. Maybe Wiress will teach me that braid she was doing earlier.
When I look to Wiress, I spot someone at the end of the hall. I’ve seen Snow’s granddaughter on television before, and at some of the less ostentatious parties I’ve been to. She must be nine years old now, though she looks smaller, with thin tight features that don’t look much like Snow at all.
“Hey,” I say, jogging closer to her. “You’re Diana, right?”
She retreats around the corner a little more, but doesn’t stop looking at me. “And you’re Finnick Odair.”
I kneel so my head isn’t quite so far above hers. “Yeah. I guess I’m pretty recognizable, aren’t I?”
“We don’t use your coffeemaker,” she says. “But that’s not you either. The actor has a bigger nose. And less muscle.”
I laugh. Sharp kid. I think I like her. “Want to know a secret? I don’t use that coffeemaker, either.”
She smiles, but doesn’t laugh, and the smile’s a little heavy. “That’s not much of a secret.”
“I don’t know if your grandfather wants me to share some of the other ones,” I say, try to crack a grin for her but stop when her smile droops at the corners. “Hey. Everything okay?”
“Yes?”
I lean in a little closer--not enough to spook her, but enough to signal I’m interested. “Is that a yes?”
“Yes,” she says with a little more certainty, and nods. Her hair is very light blonde, tipped in green. Trying to look older makes her look younger. I wonder if that’s what her parents want her to look like.
“Is it just you visiting this time?” I ask. “Or did your mom let you off the hook for the day?”
“My mommy’s not here,” she says.
“Sometimes that’s better,” I say, and smile at her like a fellow conspirator. “You get to take home a lot more sweets when your mom’s not around, usually.”
“Mommy’s sick. She gets a lot of candy but I get to eat it. It’s not as nice as that.”
Great, now I feel like an asshole. “I’m sorry,” I say; it’s the most honest thing I’ve said since I arrived in the Capitol. “I hope she gets better soon.”
“So do I. I miss her. So does Daddy.”
“My mother got sick, too, when I was a little younger than you,” I tell her, and offer her my hand. She walks closer, and I tuck my arm around her shoulder, bring our foreheads together. “But she got better, and she’s doing fine now. And that was in District 4. The doctors here are even better.”
The doors to Snow’s office open, and Mags takes time walking through. I can’t help looking, and there’s Snow, with nothing to do but watch me. He’s far enough away that I can’t tell if it’s disapproval or just amusement. Well, if nobody else seems interested in spending time with his granddaughter, including him, I don’t see why I shouldn’t. There are worse influences than me out there, believe it or not. I straighten, ruffle Diana’s hair. “I have to take Mags home now. It’s time for her nap. I’ll look for you at the Opening Ceremonies, okay?”
“Okay,” she says, stepping back around the corner. “Thank you for trying to be nice.”
“Least I could do,” I say, and mean it.
***
“-- and I told him, Sallustius darling, what do you mean you feel as though your heart’s about to burst, you haven’t lifted a finger all day. Of course his face was dreadfully red, and that should have been a sign, I suppose, but I thought he’d just been overindulging again. He certainly smelled like it.”
I make some kind of noncommittal noise, which Venefica takes as a sign to continue prattling on about her late husband. With all the clamor in the crowd in front of Snow’s mansion, I only catch every other word. All around me, people elbow each other for better vantage points, angle themselves for the benefits of the cameras sweeping over the throngs, whisper predictions about what the stylists have in store. I pay attention to those last, because I still haven’t heard from Cinna about where he’s been placed, though I do know he got in. I know head stylist positions opened up in 3, 8, 11, and 12 this year, which almost amounts to a regime change in the fashion world. They’d usually stick Cinna with 12 and let him prove himself from there, but with that many openings and with his level of skill, he’s good enough to get something more prestigious if he wants it. And I’m not just talking him up because of what he pulled off when he served a stint as my stylist last year, though that was a revelatory experience. For both of us, I think.
It’s interesting that two of the three of the troublemaker Districts are getting new stylists this year. Has Cinna made that connection, too? Maybe not, but the last I spoke to him, he wasn’t against stirring up a little trouble himself.
“But it was like that all night, and most of the next day, and even after we called in Doctor Halloway--Junia Halloway, you’ve met her of course, Finnick--she insisted it was just a worse case of heartburn than usual. Damn her, if she wasn’t a friend of ours I’d have her sued. But that was my Sallustius, no wonder she kept giving up, I swear the poor interns at her office must have taken to calling him the man who cried wolf. But the for once, the tests turned something up, and so I told President Snow, oh, take away my husband and give me Finnick Odair, I don’t know whether I should call that sporting or not.”
--Now I’m listening. “What?”
She laughs, a merry little trill that matches the opening notes of the processional music. “Oh, you mustn’t take me seriously, Finnick! Coriolanus and I are old friends, and we have our little jokes. You should have heard how we laughed when I pointed out that after all, he was the last person to have dinner with Sallustius, and wouldn’t that look suspicious if this were a novel?”
“Very,” I say, and pretend to be absorbed in the flashpots and fireworks that signal District One’s arrival in the chariots. They’re painted silver this year, from head to toe, and glittering with jewels. The screaming in the crowd swells, and I tune it out as best I can. “So what was the diagnosis? Heartburn?”
“No, apparently he had a weak heart all along! Well, in the aorta, whatever that is, it’s part of the heart, I think.”
“Close enough,” I tell her, and turn my attention back to the parade. Sort of. The setup’s nothing I haven’t read in the kinds of novels I usually don’t admit to reading, but even the killers in those had motives. I sigh. I’ve been jumping at shadows all day. I’ll think about it more when we get back to her place, when thousands of people aren’t shouting in my ear and thousands of lights aren’t flaring up all at once. Here’s District Two, and I swear that boy is larger than the chariot horses. Three puts on a good face, but it’s not something Cinna designed. I make sure to wave at Andre and Pierra when they come by. At least Drusus didn’t turn them into fish this year. But honestly, between Venefica’s yammering and the lack of anything new to look at, I’m starting to get bored.
Bored in a crowd of the Capitol’s best and brightest. That must be what Snow means by luxury. I almost feel sixteen again, and not in the way anyone here would like.
“Do you smell something burning?” Venefica asks me.
“No,” I say.
But then I see it.
The tributes from District Twelve are on fire.
Now, I’ve seen those sketches, I was there when Cinna made them. You could even say I inspired them, in a way. I think that’s the first time someone’s stopped having sex with me to draw. But those helmets and capes light up the entire parade row and the tributes’ faces, bright enough that I recognize Katniss Everdeen, the girl who volunteered, before I even wonder how they’re keeping her hair out of the flames. They’re magnificent, and they’re memorable, and they’re holding hands and waving, working the crowd.
Cinna said he had to go last. He was right.
“Oh my goodness!” Venefica applauds, hands high so that the sound is right in my ear. “I’ve never seen something like that before! Is that really District Twelve?”
“Looks like,” I say. It looks like a lot of things. Like Cinna’s said, it’s now. Like Haymitch meant more than just falling off his stage. Like the meeting in Snow’s office had nothing to do with the Quarter Quell from the start.
Maybe I’m jumping at shadows because the flames are getting brighter.
---
--
.
Authors: mithrigil and puella_nerdii
Fandom: The Hunger Games
Characters Finnick; Annie, Cinna, Mags, Haymitch, Johanna, the cast of victors, President Snow, and the tributes of the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games.
Pairings: Finnick/Annie primarily, with some Finnick/Cinna on the side.
Words: ~56k overall. This chapter: ~5900.
Rating: R (forced prostitution, expected THG violence, nudity and sexuality, language)
Spoilers: Backstory revealed in Mockingjay, events through the end of The Hunger Games.
Summary: The seventy-fourth Hunger Games are about to begin, and Finnick Odair is called back to mentor for the first time in years. Between that, his obligations in the Capitol, and the growing political unrest back home in District Four, he’s got more than enough to manage-and that’s not even counting this year’s fire-starting tributes from District Twelve.
Notes: Serves as a sequel or at least continuation of Scylla and Charybdis (and Wisely, I Say, I Am A Bachelor), though you can certainly read this story without that context.
Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven
Chapter Two: Seven and Seven Sent to Crete No matter how clear President Snow makes it that the victors are supposed to stay out of trouble, Finnick and several others can't help but wonder if they should take advantage of the opportunity this year's tributes might give them.
Reaping Day dawns clear and bright, with a hint of a breeze rolling off the sea to keep us from sticking to our seats. I can’t hold Annie’s hand on the podium, but Mags can, and I mouth a silent thank you to her before the cameras click on, their lenses glaring white in the sun. Mags is mentoring again, too. “We were a winning team last time, we might be one again,” she told me, and I must have spent two hours trying to convince her not to go, but Mags is even more stubborn than I am. And I’m an Odair, so that’s saying something. Then again, Mags is practically an Odair, too.
With the rest of the ceremony taken care of, the district representative reaches into the bowl with all the girls’ names, and holds the slip of paper up toward the light. “Pierra Garland.”
A girl steps forward out of the seventeens, trained and doomed but lackluster. She comes up to the podium as naturally as if she were walking between stands at the market. Annie flinches, and I think I know why.
The representative draws “Andre Ruiz” next. The boy that walks out of the fourteens is smaller than I was at that age, and shyer, has to be shoved out past the rope to get a start up to the Justice Building. Someone should volunteer for him, I think.
No one does.
The representative blinks, squints out over the crowd. The sun is in her eyes, so I don’t blame her for thinking she sees something, but the way she reaches out with her hand cupped when she calls for volunteers a second and then a third time is strangely horrifying, like watching someone drown. Silence. It’s a different kind of silence than the one at my reaping, thick and dark enough that the sun’s glare seems to falter. Even the eighteens won’t meet the representative’s eyes. The cameras click and falter, sweeping this way and that, not sure where to point.
I look at Mags, catch the slightest movement of her head from side to side. Not now.
***
I remember how nervous I was before I knocked on my first tribute’s door on the train. It was raining, and I never liked being on the train in the rain anyway, and I figured neither would he. His name was Howe, he was sixteen, and he’d been trained, and I thought it would be easy. So I knocked on the door, and heard a horrible denting sound, and I thought either the train had skipped on the rails or something was wrong with him. It turned out that he’d brought a knife and had just jammed it into the compartment’s window, to pry it open and get out.
First lesson of mentoring: it’s never easy.
Andre doesn’t try to attack me. I almost wish he would, wish he’d show me he had some fight in him. Even Annie did, when she balanced that knife on the tip of her finger. Now all they see when they look at her is you, Haymitch told me four years ago. Well, there’s no danger of that this time.
That thought sounds like Haymitch, not like me.
“You’re Finnick Odair,” he says. He speaks like Aunt Coral when she’s tired and her south-district accent slips out.
“And you’re Andre Ruiz.” I will remember his name. I can do that much for him, more than some mentors ever bother with. “I wanted to give you a chance to rest, but we’re about to watch the rebroadcast of the other Districts’ reaping ceremonies. Do you want to join us? See who else is going in with you?”
“I probably should,” he says sullenly. He turns to straighten up the covers on the bed before we leave.
“You know you don’t have to make your bed if you don’t want to,” I say, and try for a smile. “You can even jump on it, if you’d like.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” My smile comes easier this time. “And the beds at the training center are even bouncier, wait and see.”
He smiles back, but he doesn’t take my hand. He probably knows what’s wrong as much as I do, but if he doesn’t say anything, neither will I.
Mags and Pierra are already perched in front of the screen. Our representative, whose name I really should double-check, nods curtly to us when we enter and hits play.
1’s tributes are professional, polished, poised, ready with styled hair and gleaming teeth when they step forward to volunteer. The pair from District 2 looks dangerous this year, the boy built thicker than Brutus was at his age, the girl with a smile sharp enough to cut. I take notice of the girl from 5 first because of her shock of red hair, then because of the way she walks up the steps to the podium: light and quick, testing. Calculating. The boy from 11 is almost as big as 2’s candidate, which should already start a flurry of betting in the Capitol. And the girl is small, so small, fine-boned and dark-skinned. When she crosses the podium, it’s as though the wind could blow her off it at any second, bear her straight up to the skies.
12’s called last, and I’m almost ready to turn off the television when another little girl gets called, but before I can get up, someone shouts, “I volunteer!”
“A volunteer in Twelve?” Our representative frowns. “That’s unusual.”
“Unprecedented,” Mags corrects. I translate, and lean forward. There’s no missing the volunteer--she runs for the stage, her blue dress streaming behind her like water, and shoves the little girl behind her, away from the crowd and the cameras and the train waiting just beyond. Like her arms can hold all of Panem at bay. District 12’s silent after the volunteer’s name is announced, but it’s not our silence, the stony refusal I just left behind. It’s stretched tighter than a bowstring, and I don’t know what’ll make it snap.
I don’t see the first person who touches their fingers to their lips and holds them out to the girl, but I see the rest of them follow. I look at Mags again. She’s not smiling. She’s waiting.
Haymitch lurches across the stage--how much has he had? I haven’t seen him this badly off at a reaping in years--and throws his arm around her. “Look at her. Look at this one!”
“Well, we’re looking,” Pierra mutters. I don’t laugh.
“I like her. Lots of...spunk! More than you!” He staggers away from her, to the front of the stage, to the eye of a nearby camera, and points straight at it. No. At all of us watching. “More than you!”
Mags takes my hand, still silent. I squeeze hers. I don’t know what to say, either. Fortunately, Haymitch takes this moment to plummet from the stage and the commentators, as hesitant as we were, make a joke or two at Haymitch’s expense and steer the program back on track for the announcement of the boy from 12.
“Well, that was something,” I say; Pierra and Andre look at me strangely, and I shrug it off as best I can. It might not be anything, I remind myself. A girl runs forward to save her sister’s life. Haymitch tumbles off the stage and passes out. Nothing that remarkable, when you break it down like that.
But we have a saying in District 4. Drop a stone on one shore, and the ripple becomes a tidal wave by the time it hits the next. Not always. But sometimes.
I won’t get my hopes up, but I will watch Katniss Everdeen. Whatever she is, she’s something the Capitol hasn’t seen in a while.
***
“So when did Snow start calling the mentors in for --” I stifle my yawn, stretch my arms over my head. “Actually, I still don’t know what he’s calling us in for, the message was vague as anything. ‘A conference about responsibilities’ or something like that?”
“He means our responsibilities for the Quell, I think,” Cashmere says, twisting one of her curls around her fingers to add more spring to it. “I think he wants to make sure we all know what’s expected of us next year.”
“He could’ve set it after noon,” Gloss groans, wiping crust out of the corner of his eye.
Johanna rolls hers. “I don’t see what the big difference is. We’re still trying to convince dumb rich idiots to throw their money at our dumb tributes, right?”
“Yeah, well, last time it was a pretty big deal if you were one mentor trying to juggle four kids,” Haymitch says.
“Not that he had many sponsors to deal with,” Chaff says, elbowing Haymitch in the side.
“And I bet you were just rolling in them, weren’t you, Chaff.”
I look at Haymitch more closely, without making it too obvious. His stubble’s as thick on his cheeks as it can grow, his skin swells under his eyes, and he smells as awful as ever. Same old Haymitch so far, but whether it’s because the lights are making his hangover worse or because of something else, his eyes are shining a little. Now’s not the time to ask, though, not when we’re assembled before the door of Snow’s conference room.
“It seems like a waste to give us this talk before we know what the next Quell is,” Meadow says.
“Yeah, and the Capitol never wastes anything,” Johanna shoots back. I put my hand on her arm and squeeze as a friendly reminder, though I’ll let the cameras decide of what. She tells me to fuck off, but her eyes are darting around the corners of the room, and I know she’s remembered who’s watching.
The double doors to Snow’s office open, and one nearly clocks Haymitch in the side of the head. “Careful, you don’t want to re-injure that,” Chaff says.
“The damage has already been done,” Snow says, without missing a beat. “Everyone, come in and take a seat.”
We shuffle in, some of us more quickly than others. I take Mags’s arm and steer her to a seat next to mine, one far enough away from Snow that he’d have to turn his head to look at us. I’m glad I did, because as soon as Mags settles in, her eyes drift closed and her head droops to her chest. She has the right idea, I think, and pick up one of the pens on the table, twiddle it between my fingers while I wait for this to start. And end.
“Chairs,” Haymitch says, taking a seat in the other far corner. “That’s a change.”
“It wouldn’t do to have you falling over,” Snow says, and even Chaff laughs. “With that out of the way, I’d like to make a few things clear about next year’s Games. Now, most of you haven’t been mentors in a Quarter Quell before, even if you were victors at the time. There are of course exceptions,” he adds, nodding to Beetee and Chaff and Seeder, then turning to glance at Mags, who I nudge awake in time. “And I’m sure they will have advice of their own. But even their experience will not prepare you for some of the technical considerations, the publicity, or even the nature of the tributes themselves. You’ll recall that, last time, for the fiftieth Games, there were twice as many tributes, and therefore each mentor had at least two to guide...”
Mags snorts a little, sinking into the back of her chair, and I don’t slump as much as she does but I do drift, dance my pen across the backs of my fingers, weaving in and out. I’m not the only one, I realize after I’ve run out of pen tricks. Chaff is running his thumbnails under each other, scraping them clean. Wiress is idly braiding a lock of her hair in a strange four-strand style that I’ve never seen before. Seeder is staring out the window at a bird that’s perched on the far side, tilting her head to imitate it. Enobaria’s listening, but snapping her gum loudly enough that Mags grunts in her sleep. And Beetee’s managed to smuggle a laser pointer in here, which he’s bouncing on the wall above Snow’s head.
“...in addition to your capacities as mentors, and as the public faces of your districts, you’ll also be contributing to the history of the Games themselves...”
I’d groan, but I don’t want to draw his attention. Across the table, Johanna catches my eye and makes a hand-and-cheek gesture that implies just how much this sucks.
I shake my head and reduce the size of the appendage in question.
Johanna snorts into her fist.
Snow coughs.
She gives him her best simpering smile and nearly sends a number of us into hysterics, including Gloss. I can’t see what Cashmere does, but from the way Gloss flinches I assume she kicked him under the table. What? he mouths at her; she gestures to Snow and crosses her arms, her lips pursed, and that sets off what I can only describe as the loudest nonverbal argument I’ve seen in a while.
Snow continues, “And as to the matter of your spending in the Quarter Quell season, in the event that you see an increase or decrease in the quantity or implied quality of tributes--that is, if the age range changes--your District budget will be adjusted accordingly. There’s also a chance that certain sponsor gifts may be prohibited. In the last Quarter Quell, food items--”
“Hey, I can’t get the doors open,” Haymitch says.
“And why would you need to?”
“Because I’m sure you don’t want me to piss in your vase.”
Snow sighs and hits a button on the side of his desk. The doors swing open, as before. “Knock if you bother coming back. As I was saying, in the last Quarter Quell...”
Beetee shines the laser pointer on the tip of Snow’s nose. If Snow notices, he doesn’t show it. Brutus glowers at Beetee, and Beetee clicks it off. Shame.
Johanna picks an imaginary hair out of her teeth. I do the same, but pretend it’s long enough to be obscene.
Which is, of course, the exact moment Snow decides to look my way. I wipe my nail on my pants, elbow Mags awake, and give Snow my toothiest, cheeriest smile.
“I don’t suppose I should ask if you have any questions, Finnick.”
“No, sir,” I say, my eyes wide. “You explained everything so clearly.”
Johanna’s nearly convulsing in her seat.
“It’s only that it’s been several years since you’ve mentored at all. Are you sure there’s not something you’ve forgotten?”
“I think I’ll figure it out,” I say. My teeth hurt. “It’s like swimming. Once you learn, you don’t forget.”
He taps his fingers on the edge of his desk, and the door opens for Haymitch again. “Sit down,” he says, and then, back to me, “Nevertheless, I think a remedial lesson might be in order. I don’t believe you have anywhere else to be at this hour, Finnick.”
Drusus is still working over my tribute, and my next job doesn’t start until an hour before the Opening Ceremonies. “I don’t.”
“Haven’t gotten called in for detention for at least twenty years,” Haymitch says, sitting back down and crossing his ankles.
“You I want out of my sight again as soon as possible,” Snow says. “Finnick, Mags, Cecelia, Baste, and Beetee, if you wouldn’t mind?”
3, 8, and us. All right, now I almost want to stay behind. What’s going on? I exchange looks with Cecelia, who appears to be as in the dark as I am, and Beetee, who I can never read anyway.
As soon as the others are gone, and Snow shuts us in again--Wiress stayed as well, Snow never addresses her directly, so I’m sure she and Beetee just assumed--then asks us to stand up. I help Mags, let her take my arm.
“This is personal reminder to you six,” he begins. “The Quarter Quells were laid down to make the message of the Games clear beyond any doubt. It seems they always come around in time to send that message home, to the Districts, where it belongs. Mags, I’m sure, remembers just how important it was to have elected tributes for the twenty-fifth Games,” he says, nodding at her, and then Cecelia, “and I’m sure Woof would have a thing or two to say about it. I encourage you to ask him, when you return home. And the importance of Haymitch’s Games can’t possibly be lost on you all. Every twenty-five years or so, the districts start forgetting just why things are the way they are.”
It’s colder than it was, in here. I wonder if there’s another button for that on his desk.
“It is your job, as victors, to be a living reminder of just that. So if I hear that you have been working counter to your duties, the repercussions will be felt not only by you and your families, but by your communities. After all, if you forget yourselves--you, the Capitol’s chosen--then they must be beyond help.”
I don’t speak. Don’t breathe, for a second. So it isn’t just 4. I need to talk to Beetee and Cecelia as soon as I can--not right after this meeting, obviously, because what better way to confirm Snow’s suspicions, but soon. Is that why Haymitch was smiling? Does he know what’s spreading under the surface in 4 and 3 and 8? I need to talk to him, too. Preferably after he’s showered.
“Any questions?” he asks again.
No one has any. Not that they want to ask him, anyway.
“Excellent. Finnick, please stay behind for now. I’ll call in the rest of you later.”
Me first. Wonderful. I should thank Snow for being so considerate of my schedule.
Mags squeezes my hand a little before she leaves. “Hang in there,” she says. I don’t translate that for Snow. I watch her leave, and Snow has to remind me to turn around an look at him, so I brace myself for a lecture.
“You know,” he says, “of all of them, I think it’s most crucial that you know your place.”
I stand straighter, brace myself, fight the urge to flinch. Not here. Not in front of him. It’s more of a victory if he gets nothing out of me at all. “Really.”
“Really.” He smiles. The tip of his front tooth is stained slightly brown, like it would be on a woman with lipstick. He licks it away with the pad of his tongue, and goes on. “You’ve enjoyed so much in these last few years, some freedoms that even the other victors aren’t party to. You’re part of Capitol society to an extent that no other victor still living has achieved. You’re here more often than any of the others, now that Cashmere’s starting to concentrate on her business back in District One--which of course I know about, don’t look surprised. I wish her and Gloss all the best. It’s good of them to concentrate on each other.”
Because you stopped selling her and Gloss when they found out about each other, I want to say, but keep my silence. Or maybe they’re just getting too old, is that it? It’s not like you’ve ever cared about sentiment.
“But you, Finnick; everything in your life seems to be leisure, pleasure even. When you’re here, you’re the talk of the town, so to speak. And when you’re home, why, you have every comfort, lazing around on a boat all day, enjoying your family. And you don’t have to mentor, or you didn’t until now, and that’s only in the interest of fairness. All in all, it’s a luxurious life, especially compared to the one you came from--unless, of course, I believe what you always say, that you came from the sea!”
Luxurious? Luxurious? I clench my fists at my side hard enough to scrape crescents into my palms, force my jaw shut. You sell me, I want to scream, but will myself not to, swallow it down until the words seethe in my gut. You whore me out to the Capitol’s finest--oh, if I could only tell you, Mister President. The things they’ve done. The things I’ve heard. I think they’ve managed to keep some of it from your ears. Or do you know what they say about you when they’re through with me, when they want to give something back because of how much I’ve given them?
“Why on earth would you want to throw that away on something that could only hurt your family, Finnick?”
I loosen my jaw enough to grit out, “I’m not throwing anything away.” That much is true, at least.
“That’s good to hear,” he says, smiling brightly now that that front tooth is clean. “It would be a shame. But I am concerned for your family. Your Head Peacekeeper has been informing me of some of the troubles you’ve come into in recent months, and I can’t help but hear a few other things.”
My fists lock even tighter, which is wrong. I can’t look like I’m holding anything in. But I can’t relax, convince my stomach to unknot and my jaw to unstiffen. “It’s been a slow season,” I say as neutrally as possible. “They happen.”
“They do. I certainly understand that, even if it seems that the rest of the Capitol does not. These things come in cycles,” he says, rounding his desk to get a look out the window. The bird Seeder was looking at before is still there, sitting on the same branch. Snow gives it a friendlier smile than I’ve ever seen him give anyone else. “Even unhappiness is a phase.”
Images of Annie come to me unbidden: the sunlight threaded in her hair, the shell-and-rope anklet I wove for her, the smile she wears just before I wake her up in the morning if it’s been a restful night. “It is,” I say. But not for the reasons he thinks.
“Why, your uncle’s property might even be restored to him in time, if he works diligently through this rough patch. What is he doing with his time, these days? Has he found work elsewhere?”
“He’s helping my uncle Jonas,” I say, and I’d guess Snow already knows that, too.
“Good for them. And your other uncle, the one that doesn’t sail? How is his family?”
His family. Aunt Coral. Or Aunt Coral’s brothers, at least, though if one of Coral’s siblings is neck-deep in something, they usually all are. “He’s doing well enough,” I say, keep my tone even blander. “I don’t know a lot about carpentry, so I can’t say for sure.”
“Little Crescent is his, isn’t she. How old is she now?”
“Almost five,” I say quietly, barely over the sick swell of my pulse. He expects me to buckle, beg, get on my knees and plead for his forgiveness. I don’t. I haven’t done anything I need his forgiveness for.
“And how many other children do they have?”
“Three.” And like hell I’m letting Snow touch any of them.
“And your aunt has an extended family of her own, doesn’t she. Do they all also work at the docks?”
I hate it when he draws this out. “Yes.”
“Some of the most virulent things happen at the docks, you know, and in the factories. Hateful people who don’t understand just how much security they have. I’m asking you to remind them of that security, Finnick. Be an example of what they can attain.”
Yeah, I’m sure they’d just love to have my job instead. “I’ll do my best.”
He smiles, like he wants me to think he believes me. “Good. And I do understand that luxury brings with it is own misery, Finnick.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
“Well, so much the better for you. You have an example to set, Finnick. Do that, and I promise your life will be even easier.”
Oh, if only he knew how I really want to respond to that offer. Spit on his shoes. Throw up in his potted plants. Say that I’d tell him to shove it up his ass but I have no interest picturing that and I doubt it would fit, anyway.
“Do you have anything you’d like me to clarify, Finnick?”
“No. You’ve been clear.”
“Have I? Then please, tell me what you’re supposed to be doing.”
A muscle in my jaw twitches before I can stop it. “This year? Mentoring my tribute.”
“And?”
My smile hurts. It doesn’t even feel like mine. “Make sure everyone in the Capitol loves me.”
“Good. And when you go home?”
“Keep out of trouble,” I say, fix my smile in place. It doesn’t mean I won’t be causing any.
“And keep your family out of trouble,” he prods.
“Of course.”
Snow waits.
I’m twenty-three years old, and he always manages to make me feel like I’m five. “And keep my family out of trouble,” I repeat.
“Good. I’ll hold you to that.”
Hold yourself to that, I think, I’m not the one who’s threatening them. He waits again. I know exactly what he’s waiting for. Do I want to test his patience or get out of here more? Get out of here, I decide. “Thank you, Mister President.”
“You’re welcome, Finnick. Please send Mags in. If you’d like to wait for her outside, you’re more than welcome.”
I nod once, sharply, turn on my heel, and leave. I’m impressed with myself in a distant sort of way, since I manage not to try and slam doors that he controls with the push of a button. Mags and the others are sitting in chairs lined up against the wall, and if they had a few fewer wrinkles they really would look like schoolkids waiting to get called into the principal’s office. “Mags, you’re next,” I say.
She leans on her cane to get up, and touches my cheek fondly before she takes her turn. I’ll wait for her, I decide, and wish Snow’s assistants had left magazines or something for us. Maybe Wiress will teach me that braid she was doing earlier.
When I look to Wiress, I spot someone at the end of the hall. I’ve seen Snow’s granddaughter on television before, and at some of the less ostentatious parties I’ve been to. She must be nine years old now, though she looks smaller, with thin tight features that don’t look much like Snow at all.
“Hey,” I say, jogging closer to her. “You’re Diana, right?”
She retreats around the corner a little more, but doesn’t stop looking at me. “And you’re Finnick Odair.”
I kneel so my head isn’t quite so far above hers. “Yeah. I guess I’m pretty recognizable, aren’t I?”
“We don’t use your coffeemaker,” she says. “But that’s not you either. The actor has a bigger nose. And less muscle.”
I laugh. Sharp kid. I think I like her. “Want to know a secret? I don’t use that coffeemaker, either.”
She smiles, but doesn’t laugh, and the smile’s a little heavy. “That’s not much of a secret.”
“I don’t know if your grandfather wants me to share some of the other ones,” I say, try to crack a grin for her but stop when her smile droops at the corners. “Hey. Everything okay?”
“Yes?”
I lean in a little closer--not enough to spook her, but enough to signal I’m interested. “Is that a yes?”
“Yes,” she says with a little more certainty, and nods. Her hair is very light blonde, tipped in green. Trying to look older makes her look younger. I wonder if that’s what her parents want her to look like.
“Is it just you visiting this time?” I ask. “Or did your mom let you off the hook for the day?”
“My mommy’s not here,” she says.
“Sometimes that’s better,” I say, and smile at her like a fellow conspirator. “You get to take home a lot more sweets when your mom’s not around, usually.”
“Mommy’s sick. She gets a lot of candy but I get to eat it. It’s not as nice as that.”
Great, now I feel like an asshole. “I’m sorry,” I say; it’s the most honest thing I’ve said since I arrived in the Capitol. “I hope she gets better soon.”
“So do I. I miss her. So does Daddy.”
“My mother got sick, too, when I was a little younger than you,” I tell her, and offer her my hand. She walks closer, and I tuck my arm around her shoulder, bring our foreheads together. “But she got better, and she’s doing fine now. And that was in District 4. The doctors here are even better.”
The doors to Snow’s office open, and Mags takes time walking through. I can’t help looking, and there’s Snow, with nothing to do but watch me. He’s far enough away that I can’t tell if it’s disapproval or just amusement. Well, if nobody else seems interested in spending time with his granddaughter, including him, I don’t see why I shouldn’t. There are worse influences than me out there, believe it or not. I straighten, ruffle Diana’s hair. “I have to take Mags home now. It’s time for her nap. I’ll look for you at the Opening Ceremonies, okay?”
“Okay,” she says, stepping back around the corner. “Thank you for trying to be nice.”
“Least I could do,” I say, and mean it.
***
“-- and I told him, Sallustius darling, what do you mean you feel as though your heart’s about to burst, you haven’t lifted a finger all day. Of course his face was dreadfully red, and that should have been a sign, I suppose, but I thought he’d just been overindulging again. He certainly smelled like it.”
I make some kind of noncommittal noise, which Venefica takes as a sign to continue prattling on about her late husband. With all the clamor in the crowd in front of Snow’s mansion, I only catch every other word. All around me, people elbow each other for better vantage points, angle themselves for the benefits of the cameras sweeping over the throngs, whisper predictions about what the stylists have in store. I pay attention to those last, because I still haven’t heard from Cinna about where he’s been placed, though I do know he got in. I know head stylist positions opened up in 3, 8, 11, and 12 this year, which almost amounts to a regime change in the fashion world. They’d usually stick Cinna with 12 and let him prove himself from there, but with that many openings and with his level of skill, he’s good enough to get something more prestigious if he wants it. And I’m not just talking him up because of what he pulled off when he served a stint as my stylist last year, though that was a revelatory experience. For both of us, I think.
It’s interesting that two of the three of the troublemaker Districts are getting new stylists this year. Has Cinna made that connection, too? Maybe not, but the last I spoke to him, he wasn’t against stirring up a little trouble himself.
“But it was like that all night, and most of the next day, and even after we called in Doctor Halloway--Junia Halloway, you’ve met her of course, Finnick--she insisted it was just a worse case of heartburn than usual. Damn her, if she wasn’t a friend of ours I’d have her sued. But that was my Sallustius, no wonder she kept giving up, I swear the poor interns at her office must have taken to calling him the man who cried wolf. But the for once, the tests turned something up, and so I told President Snow, oh, take away my husband and give me Finnick Odair, I don’t know whether I should call that sporting or not.”
--Now I’m listening. “What?”
She laughs, a merry little trill that matches the opening notes of the processional music. “Oh, you mustn’t take me seriously, Finnick! Coriolanus and I are old friends, and we have our little jokes. You should have heard how we laughed when I pointed out that after all, he was the last person to have dinner with Sallustius, and wouldn’t that look suspicious if this were a novel?”
“Very,” I say, and pretend to be absorbed in the flashpots and fireworks that signal District One’s arrival in the chariots. They’re painted silver this year, from head to toe, and glittering with jewels. The screaming in the crowd swells, and I tune it out as best I can. “So what was the diagnosis? Heartburn?”
“No, apparently he had a weak heart all along! Well, in the aorta, whatever that is, it’s part of the heart, I think.”
“Close enough,” I tell her, and turn my attention back to the parade. Sort of. The setup’s nothing I haven’t read in the kinds of novels I usually don’t admit to reading, but even the killers in those had motives. I sigh. I’ve been jumping at shadows all day. I’ll think about it more when we get back to her place, when thousands of people aren’t shouting in my ear and thousands of lights aren’t flaring up all at once. Here’s District Two, and I swear that boy is larger than the chariot horses. Three puts on a good face, but it’s not something Cinna designed. I make sure to wave at Andre and Pierra when they come by. At least Drusus didn’t turn them into fish this year. But honestly, between Venefica’s yammering and the lack of anything new to look at, I’m starting to get bored.
Bored in a crowd of the Capitol’s best and brightest. That must be what Snow means by luxury. I almost feel sixteen again, and not in the way anyone here would like.
“Do you smell something burning?” Venefica asks me.
“No,” I say.
But then I see it.
The tributes from District Twelve are on fire.
Now, I’ve seen those sketches, I was there when Cinna made them. You could even say I inspired them, in a way. I think that’s the first time someone’s stopped having sex with me to draw. But those helmets and capes light up the entire parade row and the tributes’ faces, bright enough that I recognize Katniss Everdeen, the girl who volunteered, before I even wonder how they’re keeping her hair out of the flames. They’re magnificent, and they’re memorable, and they’re holding hands and waving, working the crowd.
Cinna said he had to go last. He was right.
“Oh my goodness!” Venefica applauds, hands high so that the sound is right in my ear. “I’ve never seen something like that before! Is that really District Twelve?”
“Looks like,” I say. It looks like a lot of things. Like Cinna’s said, it’s now. Like Haymitch meant more than just falling off his stage. Like the meeting in Snow’s office had nothing to do with the Quarter Quell from the start.
Maybe I’m jumping at shadows because the flames are getting brighter.
---
--
.