A View from the Lists [4/9] (The Hunger Games, Finnick, ensemble)
Title: A View from the Lists [4/9] (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: ~6300.
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 Four: The Gods On the Walls For the first time in the history of the Hunger Games, people are talking about bringing more than one tribute home -- and if Finnick plays his cards right, he just might be able to help make that happen.
I show up at Cinna’s apartment with more files tucked into my bag and a bottle of very good champagne.
Two hours later, we’re sprawled out on his bed, the files scattered around us, polishing off the last of the champagne. Cinna turns the television back on; the screen flashes through the tributes who died on the first day, including Andre. Cinna squeezes my hand, and I smile at him. The rest of the Careers are still alive, as are Chaff's two, as are Katniss and Peeta. "Think they'll make it through the night?" I ask.
"Depends on how much the Careers feel like hunting," Cinna says. "You'd know that better than I."
"They'll go after anyone who makes their location too obvious, but they need to rest, too," I say. "How much do you know about Twelve's strategy?" I figure it's a fair enough question to ask, since I'm off the hook to mentor.
He laughs. "Haymitch doesn't tell me anything. But if he's doing what I think he's doing, it's brilliant."
"I seem to remember you saying 'what if they cared about all the tributes?', actually."
"Well, Haymitch can't make them care about everyone." Cinna smiles, and reaches off the bed for a folder of photographs. "Come on. Let's get started."
I pull a pile of newspaper clippings closer and mull over them. The Games must have settled down for the night, because the station's switched to recapping the events of the first day: panning over the bodies, replaying the most dramatic moments, speculating about Peeta Mellark's alliance with the Careers, though they don't call them Careers. There are mentions of past Games in the clippings, too, but I don't pay them much mind until I run across a photo of a Gamemaker's retreat. The caption talks about how a number of the businesses and laboratories who sponsor the Games sent representatives, and I catch Snow's and Argentia's faces in the crowd, smiling at the camera.
"Interesting," I say, and read on, Cinna leaning over my shoulder.
TRAGEDY AT GAMEMAKER'S RETREAT, the next article in the stack reads. A number of attendees fell ill from a tainted shipment of crabmeat, and five died. I write down their names, but one sticks out.
"Cinna," I say, "can you look for Bellator Wheelwright? I think I saw his name in an article a few years before this one."
"Sure," Cinna says. He flips back through the files he's already scoured, skims them with an ease I wish I had. A lot of people in the Capitol read faster than I do, I've noticed, or at least the ones who seem to read at all. "Gamemaker, right?"
I glance at the article again and drop it on top of his stack of files. "Gamemaker. Might as well check for these other four names while you're at it, unless that's too much to do at once."
He laughs. "I can handle it, but I can't promise anything. The last time I did an investigation like this, I didn't even know who Gallus Heavensbee was."
"Lucky you," I mutter, but don't hold onto that thought for long. Instead, I dive back into the files-was all this really in that drawer? It didn't seem like this much when Cinna tucked it under his robes. I glance at the television, but the only new footage is statistics. There are columns of numbers in the next file I pick up, too. Argentia's stock portfolio? I groan and toss it aside, snatch up another article and nearly throw that away too before a name at the bottom catches my eye.
"Cinna, hand me that article again? The one about the food poisoning?"
He plucks it out from the bottom of the pile without looking up from the one he's skimming. "You found a match?"
"Not exactly." I run my finger down the column until I hit the sentence I'm looking for and read it aloud: "The Master of Ceremonies, Collatinus Sedgwick, assisted the Peacekeepers in their investigation and paid for and arranged the victims' funerals himself. It says the Peacekeepers ended up bringing charges against the distributor, but you'd think that would wreck Sedgwick's career, too, wouldn't it?"
"Only if he actually did anything-but it would have at least caused a scandal, even if he wasn't implicated."
I set out the next article and beckon him closer. "Well, he got promoted two months later. Cushy job in the private sector with Red Horse Limited."
"I have to wonder why Aurelia is keeping track of this."
"Her or Argentia. I don't know whose papers these are." An idea hits me, and I dive for the stock portfolio, ignore the numbers and pay attention to the names.
There. Red Horse Limited, at the bottom of the list. I might not be a financier, but those look like some pretty steady increases. "Look," I tell Cinna.
He does, then covers his mouth and laughs, just once. "Well, whichever sister it was, she wanted dirt."
“And she got it.” I flip the file closed. “I’ll look into this more. You want to keep these, or should I take them back with me?”
“If Aurelia was the one looking for dirt, I think she’ll be missing these. You should probably put them back. Are there any names you want me to look into?”
I think. “We might as well keep looking into the five who died at that retreat. Let’s sift through the rest of these and see if any more mysterious deaths pop out.”
We read in relative silence for a while. The Games go on, and the commentators are past statistics and into speculation. Mellark’s apparently moved up in the ranking since teaming up with the Careers, and I try not to think about whatever Andre’s odds were. The commentator’s voices fade out, and I’m not sure whether it’s intentional or whether it’s because I’ve stopped paying them mind until a spark flares to light onscreen. Katniss, I think at first, but it’s another female tribute, stretching her hands over the blooming fire.
“Not the best move,” I mutter, then glance at Cinna. “How are you holding up?”
Cinna laughs, just once, mostly breath. “I can keep reading, I don’t have anywhere to be until after noon tomorrow. You?”
“I meant about them,” I say. “I know it’s hell to wait.”
“It is. But...well. If I could bet, I’d bet on her, you know?”
I give his shoulder a squeeze. “I do.”
***
On the fifth day of the Games, I’m out of tributes, and Haymitch is crowing like a rooster.
It’s not the goriest way one of my tributes has gone out, but it’s definitely the most gruesome. The pack chased Katniss Everdeen up a tree, and instead of trying to hack it down (which is what I would have done, I like to think) or setting it on fire, they made the mistake of waiting her out and she dropped a nest of tracker jackers on their big heads. The cameras paid almost loving attention to Pierra and Glimmer’s faces the whole way through. If you go by the commentary, they haven’t had a death by tracker jackers since the Sixty-sixth Games, let alone two. Even Brutus is grudgingly impressed.
“You’ve got to hand it to her,” one of the commentators says, replaying the clip. Digitized red circles highlight the blisters on Katniss’s hands, just barely healed, as she saws back and forth through the branch. “Though I don’t know if they’re going to count these two as her kills.”
“Oh, why on earth wouldn’t they?”
“Deaths via muttation are sometimes tallied as deaths via a passive means...”
“Oh come on,” I groan, not that they can hear me from the victor’s lounge. “The branch wouldn’t’ve cracked and fallen on its own.”
Johanna chortles. “Hands up if you think that freckle-assed camera whore had money on the Girl on Fire going down without a fight.”
“This freckle-assed camera whore says yes,” I say.
“Ooh, there are freckles? Guess I never kissed close enough to tell.”
I roll my eyes. “Change that if you want.”
“Get a room,” Chaff says. “And it doesn’t matter anyway, they’re out and she’s in.”
“Hold that thought, ladies and gentlemen, because there’s new action on that front!” The commentators’ window at the bottom of the screen winks out, and Katniss shoves her hands under Glimmer’s body to wrench the quiver of arrows free. Green pus leaks from her stings, congeals on the sheath, and even Enobaria winces at the camera’s last loving sweep over the wreckage of her corpse. Katniss fumbles with an arrow but can’t bend her bow back enough--someone crashes through the foliage and she blinks, wavers on her feet, the sting on her hand swelling, throbbing. Peeta breaks through the trees first, and someone says, “Oh, this should be good.”
“What are you still doing here?” he hisses. Katniss stares at him mutely, and he prods her to her feet. “Are you mad? Get up! Get up! Run! Run!”
The camera isn’t sure who to follow, so the screen splits. One side shows Katniss stumbling into the woods, clawing at her arms and neck, flinching at things the rest of us can’t see. The other side shows Cato, his hand over his eye, his sword aimed at Peeta’s throat. Peeta blocks it with the shaft of his spear, but Cato wrenches his sword free and chops at him again, nicks Peeta’s outstretched arm. Peeta winces, falters just long enough for Cato to lunge at his leg and strike home.
Peeta crashes to his knees in the pool, and blood seeps into the water, staining it. Cato stands over him, and Cashmere says, “It’s over,” but the venom must be taking hold now; he howls and holds his face, slashing blindly at the air until Clove shrieks his name. He follows the sound of her voice, crashes back through the trees.
I swear, I can’t tell whether the commentator or Haymitch says, “Well don’t that beat all” first. Haymitch is definitely the one to laugh, though, and that rings out through the lounge loud and clear.
“What’s so funny?” Johanna asks, her eyes still fixed on the screen. “You have one tribute bleeding to death and one trying to rip her own face off. So much for star-crossed lovers.”
“Just something the kid said to me before he went in,” Haymitch says. He taps the bottle nearest him with his heel. I don’t know how long it’s been empty. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen him take a drink all afternoon. “Looks like he’s playing a more serious game than I thought.”
Seeder asks, “What did he say?”
The ringing phone interrupts Haymitch’s answer, whatever it would have been. Haymitch heads over to the 12 station at the console and picks it up, grinning all through, as if it couldn’t be a Gamemaker on the other end. “You got me,” he says, and I can’t help eavesdropping. “Yeah, I can accept that. You got anything in mind?--Nah, I can hold onto it. Is it for her or is it for him?”
Now, I wasn’t here when Haymitch got the money for Katniss’s burn medicine. But the way he’s handling himself on the phone right now makes me wonder just how many sponsorship calls he’s been taking this year.
“Well, if it doesn’t matter to you either way, I’m dropping it on her.--Well yeah, and she ain’t bleeding from the femoral. You want a return on your investment, yeah, I get you. I’ll be in touch.” He hangs up, and if it weren’t for the Games you could hear a pin drop.
Finally, Enobaria says, “I have never in my life heard you field a sponsorship call.”
“Yeah, you weren’t here last night.”
We all exchange looks: some of us of grudging respect, others of bewilderment. I keep my expression more guarded. So does Beetee, I notice, and so does Cecelia, and so does Mags.
“Who’d you have to blow to get sponsors this year?” Johanna asks. Leave it to Johanna, I think. At least she cuts right to the point.
“Ha. You think they want to take me for a whirl?” Haymitch makes one of the most obscene faces I’ve ever seen him make, and frankly he gives some of my clients a run for their money. “Honestly? I don’t know. Maybe it’s just my year. Every dog has his day after all.”
“You’re licking yourself like one,” Johanna mutters.
I step in before this degenerates further. “So who came up with the strategy, Haymitch? You?”
It should not be possible for Haymitch to look like an innocent child with his hand in the cookie jar. It isn’t. “What strategy?”
“The romance, shit-for-brains,” Johanna says.
I raise my voice. “If you don’t want to talk strategy around these clowns, I get it. Let’s take this somewhere else.”
“Can’t hurt,” he says, “seeing as you’re out and all.” He swings away from the console and sweeps up his bottle from the floor. “Your place or mine, kid?”
“Do you have a place?”
He doesn’t, so we catch a cab back to my apartment. “I think you know where the drinks are,” I say as I unlock the door, “considering.”
“Yeah, but I’ll hold off, if you don’t count it something against your hospitality.” He bypasses the kitchen completely and folds himself into one of my living room chairs, props his feet on the table.
“You holding off? I never thought I’d see the day,” I say dryly. “I can only imagine what Chaff would think. Or Beetee.”
The walls click and whirr.
Haymitch tilts his head to the side and grins at me like he’s got the whole crescent moon in his face. “Yeah, what they don’t know won’t hurt ‘em. Let’s just say I’m keeping a promise.”
I cross my arms and lean against the kitchen island, stare him down. “I’m out of tributes, so you might as well tell me what that is. What’s going on?”
“Well, District Twelve finally has a couple of fighters,” he says. “And it’s about time I banked something on ‘em.”
“And what’s that?”
“You’ve spent enough time with Cinna, you’ve heard his rigmarole.”
I don’t bother to deny it, but I don’t uncross my arms, either. “You can only bring one of them home, you know. What’s your plan? Persuade the boy to protect the girl so she can win?”
“I can tell you right now the boy didn’t need any persuading.”
“I can believe that.” And I can; I heard how he screamed himself hoarse telling her to run, saw how he stood his ground against Cato while she escaped. There are some things you can’t play up for the cameras. I wonder if he’s dragged himself out of the pool yet, if the Careers have returned to finish him off or chose to leave him for dead. I should turn on the television.
“And as for the rest? I’m winging it as much as they are.” He laughs, bitterly, and drums his fingertips on the arms of the chair. “You’ve been fishing, Finnick. You know you never get a say in what fish you reel in.”
“You have to be in the right place at the right time,” I say, mostly to myself. I move away from the kitchen island, sink into the couch. “Is it the right time?”
“Can’t say.” Haymitch shrugs. “But it’s the only time we’ve got.”
***
My clientele is skewing older this year. I can’t say I have any particular feelings on it; they’re more patient than the younger ones, as a rule, but more set in what they like and want. Different challenges, but they boil down to the same thing. I could ask Beetee to run numbers on it if I wanted to, average out the demands and the chatter and the petulance and the ignorance and come up with a baseline for Capitol insufferability. Or I could take something for the headache building behind my temples as I listen to Tacitus Jones prattle on about how his daughter wants a synthetic fire cape just like Katniss Everdeen’s.
“-- so I said, Clementia darling, you saw what the dear girl’s leg looked like after it was burned, do you want blisters on your skin like that?”
Some of his companions titter, and I smile, try not to grit my teeth too noticeably.
“Oh, but I can hardly blame the girl,” Lucilla says, lifting her head from her couch. Finally, something’s distracted her from the dancers and their trained hydras. “One must suffer for beauty, after all. And little Katniss is so lovely she’s captured Peeta’s heart. Of course your daughter’s falling all over it.”
“It’s not as if we’ve never had lovers in the Arena before,” Ludmilla groans. She’s been sullen ever since she came back from the restroom. Apparently nothing’s happened in the Games at all since the fallout at the tree. She summons an Avox to her side, says, “Bring me something stronger--and give a steak to the mutt in the leftmost holding pen, I think he’s a winner.”
As if on cue, the cage in the center of the room shudders and screeches--one mutt, some kind of cat with impossibly long claws and teeth, spears an overgrown frog-creature through its outstretched tongue and rips it loose. I look away, but not in time to miss the black blood burbling from the creature’s mouth, dripping to the floor.
“Look, Ludmilla!” Lucilla crows. “That creature’s better at making Avoxes than our entire Ministry of Justice.”
Everyone nearby bursts into laughter. I want a purgative.
“Now that’s entertainment,” Ludmilla agrees. “None of this teenaged romance.”
“I think it’s darling,” Lucilla says. “What about you, Finnick? You must have some insight into Peeta and Katniss!”
I shrug, pluck a grape from a nearby plate and roll it between my fingers. How do I want to play this? “He whispers her name when he sleeps,” I say, and give a sensual half-smile. “I wonder what he’s dreaming about.”
Everyone in earshot chortles--well, except Ludmilla--and Lucilla applauds. “Ooh, I do wish they’d come up with some way for us to see inside the tributes’ heads! There’s got to be some truth drug.”
“They could lace parts of the Arena with it,” Tacitus agrees. “Though it would have to be very well-timed.”
“Very.” I suppress a wince. I’m glad there aren’t any Gamemakers present at this party. I glance behind me as the cat-thing tackles the frog-creature and rends its throat open. The cat-thing lowers its muzzle to the wound and drinks, its chops wet and shining. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, eat a few more grapes to get the sour taste off my tongue. The Hunger Games aren’t spectacle enough, I guess, and fight the urge to spit. “But do you really want the truth out of him?”
“No, I want it out of her!” Lucilla says. “If she does love him back, wouldn’t it be so awful?”
“Perhaps that’s why she’s been avoiding him,” Tacitus says, and flips a coin to the winning beast’s owner, who catches it. “She can’t bear the thought of having to fight him.”
That’s a good angle. If Haymitch has any sense, he’ll play it. I make a mental note to tell him later, in case he’s not already pouring out sob stories to sponsors. (The idea of Haymitch talking to sponsors is still plain weird.)
“And it would be dreadful if it came down to just the two of them,” Lucilla goes on. “Can you imagine? After all the trouble he’s gone through to protect her already?”
“If that happened and he did really want to protect her, I suppose he’d best slit his own throat,” Ludmilla says tartly. “Only one of them can win, after all.”
I don’t stop toying with my grape--it would be a dead giveaway--but I do listen. Intently. There’s a right thing to say here, a way to plant a suggestion or encourage an idea, but I don’t know what it is yet, and if I screw it up it all comes crashing down. So I wait.
“Oh, but if she cared for him, she’d never let the knife touch his skin,” Lucilla says.
Tacitus shakes his head, and looks away from the nearest hydra-dancer. Not that I blame him for looking; the snakes twine up her arms and curl around her curves, fanning their heads across her ribcage. “It’s not as if it matters. The boy will be dead in a ditch if he doesn’t receive medical attention soon. She has to return the favor if she wants him to live.”
“And she’s got no reason to want him to live,” Ludmilla says. “So that’s that.”
I set the grape down and say, very carefully, “Maybe she’d go back for him if she thought she could keep him.”
I expect the silence. And I expect Lucilla to look at me with stars in her eyes.
But I don’t expect Tacitus to say, “Well, that is something new.”
Ludmilla sniffs. “It’s inconceivable. The Gamemakers would never allow it.”
“Oh, but they’d have to! Can you imagine the ratings?” Lucilla clasps her hands together so hard it startles the Avox behind her. “I can name fifteen people off the top of my head who would pay to see just that.”
“Start up a collection,” I suggest, smirk enough that it could look sarcastic or sincere depending on the angle. It’s a page out of Annie’s book. “That’s something the Gamemakers will listen to.”
“Oh, I think I will do just that,” she cheers, and reaches for her glass. “Here’s to the power of the people!”
If only you knew.
***
About half the times they tie me up, they tie too tight. I could probably make a chart of who does and who doesn’t, and bracket everyone up by age and gender and the phases of the moon, but there’s really no point. Tonight is one of those nights, and when Gemella finally undoes the knots the blood rushes back into my hands and sears every crease in my palms.
She pats me on the cheek and excuses herself to the bathroom, and I sink back onto the bed and rub out my wrists. At least she didn’t leave me tied up. I figure I can get away with poking at the things scattered on her nightstand, so I do. I pull out something tucked between the pages of a magazine: a heart with a flaming arrow, with the arrow positioned about where it is on Katniss’s mockingjay pin. It’s tacky as all hell, but then again, that’s about what I expect from the Capitol.
Gemella comes in towelling off her hands, and I don’t bother to hide the charm. “Oh, you found it,” she says, and sighs the way Lindsay does over whoever her crush is this week. “They’re so heartbreaking, aren’t they? I do wish they’d do something to get the two of them together -- have you heard him whispering stories about her when he’s about to go to sleep?” She dabs at her eyes with the towel. “I barely had the heart to watch Cato and his friends chase that little Ramsay after that.”
Heaven forbid. I keep from rolling my eyes. “You know Lucilla Braintree, don’t you? She and some of her friends started up a collection. I think they’re petitioning the Gamemakers to allow two winners this year, if they’re both from the same District.”
Gemella blinks; she must have had some kind of surgery on her eyes, they’re as wide and round as a doll’s. “Oh! Wouldn’t that be lovely?”
“It would,” I agree. “I’ll get you two in touch.”
People really have been doing my work for me lately. Maybe that means I’m getting good at my job. The thought makes me want to throw up, but I’m used to that.
“I didn’t know you were such a romantic, Finnick,” Gemella says, eases herself back onto the bed and runs her finger up my chest.
I avoid thinking of Annie. “I can be,” I say, and study the ceiling. “And it makes a good story.”
She laughs and slaps my arm. I pretend to wince. “Well, I’ll talk to Lucilla,” she says. “And I’ll bring it up at the Red Horse board meeting tomorrow--a number of Gamemakers work with us, you know--”
Sometimes I’m thankful for how much people in the Capitol love to namedrop. “Red Horse? The one President Snow--” I begin, and hope she’ll cut me off and tell me what the connection there actually is.
“Oh, that was years ago, but yes, he was on the board,” she says. “It was a few years before my time--my mother knew Bellator Wheelwright, and oh, the fights we had when she learned they’d offered me a position!” I wish she’d stop laughing in the middle of every sentence, but I’m not about to tell her that. “Don’t tell my mother this, but if you ask me, he did more with the company than Wheelwright ever did.”
“Was this before his election, or after?”
She frowns. It doesn’t create any lines on her face. “Before he became President, yes, but he held some office or other. He’s always held some office or other, but he’s been President for so long that you can barely remember what he was before.”
You can’t, I think. But there are people who can. “Well, you know politicians,” I say. “They never want anyone to know how long they’ve been around, until it’s time to run again.”
She titters. I want to stick my fingers in my ears, but then I’d miss the rest. “Oh, you don’t even know the half of it! And actors are even worse! About the only people who are allowed to be old are those dreary scientists.”
“Dreary scientists? I don’t know, I know plenty of scientists out to have a good time.”
“Well, they can’t all be Domus Arleigh or Andrea Lobotae.”
The sweat on my skin chills. Out to have a good time, I said? Well, that’s one way to describe Lobotae. I remember what she said to me during that auction at Tantalus, when they cuffed me to the Saint Andrew’s cross and let the winners take turns. “A good thing she never has to see you like this. You must feel so proud to protect her.”
She didn’t make me bleed. She didn’t have to. And I came for her like I do for all the rest of them.
I want to go home. I can’t. I have to find out more. “Sounds like you have personal experience,” I say, force my voice to lighten.
“With Lobotae?” She snickers, and if her laugh hasn’t made me sick even now, I just might get home without hurling. “Oh, I know her from the board. I swear she enjoys her job! Not that I can make head or tail of her fiddling around with genesets, give me marketing any day.”
“You and me both,” I say. “I don’t know how anyone can stand it.”
“Practice, no doubt, and a certain perverse interest.” She covers her mouth, but for once she doesn’t laugh. “Don’t tell my colleagues I said that.”
“I won’t,” I promise, and mean it.
***
“I swear they have to deal with this every year.” Chaff tilts his glass at the wall of screens. The commentators take up three quarters, with Katniss and the girl from 11, Rue, pushed to the bottom right. The way they’re huddled together by the fire reminds me of me and Cinna over his sketchbook, and the way Katniss keeps looking up like she could find the cameras doesn’t help. “Every time one of yours gets with one of mine, Haymitch. Every time.”
“If they last long enough to do that, you mean,” I say, and glance at the clock. Two hours before I’m due at Barbariccia’s apartment. Technically I’m supposed to be in prep now, but my prep team probably wants to catch up on the Games, too, so hopefully they won’t miss me much.
Haymitch laughs. “More like every five years, Chaff.”
“Three.”
“Sure, if you’re the one counting.”
I’ve done my homework: Chaff’s closer to right. Usually one of the tributes from 11 makes it past the Cornucopia at least, to the top eight more often than not. I can’t say 12 ever does well, but I know I’ve seen Elevens and Twelves whispering in the shadows of their Arenas before, and reports of them hooking up in the Training Center before the Games even start, so it can’t be that rare.
“How much of the conversation airs?” I ask.
By way of answering, Haymitch just waves his glass at the screens. (I haven’t seen him drink from it yet tonight, but I could’ve missed it.) The commentators fill in the gaps with a lot of chatter about odds and friendship and the pending Top Eight. For all we know, Rue and Katniss could be talking about the weather.
“They never show us the good parts,” I say in my best Capitol accent, and take a sip.
Haymitch tsks. “Aren’t you supposed to be hobnobbing?”
“Not for another couple of hours. Aren’t you two? You have two tributes headed for the Top Eight.” Cashmere and Gloss and Brutus and Enobaria must be cozying up to sponsors as we speak, and I’ve spotted Beetee and Gregory about town, too.
“I’ve got it taken care of,” Haymitch says. “Chaff, though? I don’t think he’s got an excuse.”
“I just got off the phone with the mayor.” Chaff puts his glass down, glances at the screens. “We’ve got something going. Out there, the fish don’t bite.”
“There aren’t any fish. We’re in the mountains.” I lace my fingers and lean my head back, think of the last time I took Annie fishing in the Branwen. She caught the biggest swordfish I’ve ever seen, and I almost wished I’d remembered my camera so I could’ve captured the moment. We managed to saw off its nose and mount that on the cabin wall, though.
I hope she’s doing all right this year, especially since Mags is in the Capitol, too. But she still has her mother and father and her sister and Mother and Dad and my aunts and uncles and all of my cousins. She probably wishes she had less people looking after her.
“Figure of speech, kid,” Haymitch says.
“How are your fish biting?” Chaff asks.
I’m glad he asked. “Not so well,” I say. “The catches have been shrinking, but the quotas haven’t been. A lot of people are losing boats.”
Chaff winces. “I hear you. But you can’t do much for that. Sometimes there’s a blight year, same with you as it is with us.”
And with 3 and 8 too, I wouldn’t wonder. I glance at where I know the cameras are and wish there was some way to turn them off. “Looks like a tough year all around.”
I haven’t seen Katniss Everdeen smile the way she’s smiling now. During the parade and the interview, she was delirious, awkward. But when Rue snuggles against her side after the anthem plays, it warms through all the grime on Katniss’s cheeks. She rests her chin on top of Rue’s head, closes her eyes, and for a moment I can picture how she might have looked in District 12 at the end of a long day, with her little sister falling asleep on her shoulder.
The screen splits and Peeta fills the other side. The cameras have trouble spotting him at first, and eventually they have to outline him in gold to show where he ends and the bushes begin. It’s good he’s got a knack for hiding, but the berry juice and mud can’t entirely hide the angry red lines threading up his leg. “Katniss,” he whispers. “Katniss--”
“You haven’t sent him anything, have you,” I say to Haymitch. It’s not a question.
Haymitch shakes his head, no. “Thin on the ground,” he says. “She’s got a chance and he doesn’t.”
“I know you can’t hear me,” Peeta says; they have to filter out the rest of the noise, because his voice isn’t strong enough to carry over it on his own. “But--maybe when you win, they’ll let you see this. So I’m going to tell you a story, okay? Have I already told you the one about singing in school? I think so. I might tell it again, but I’ll save it a little longer.” His cheeks flush under the berry juice. “It’s stupid, but I think I want to save that one for when--if--I see you.”
“He’s born for the cameras, Haymitch,” Chaff says.
“Yeah, I know. Pity he didn’t stay alive long enough to milk ‘em dry.”
He’s not pretending, I realize. Like I wasn’t.
“I’m going to tell you about the first cake I decorated,” Peeta continues. I have no idea how he’s smiling. “It was for Madge Undersee’s eighth birthday--you remember Madge, don’t you, Katniss? You ate lunch with her sometimes.” He looks down, laughs softly. “I always wanted to ask if I could sit next to you, but I never figured out how to say it.
“Dad and Leven did the baking, and usually Wash frosted, but he had a fever and Mom was upstairs looking after him. So Dad took me aside and said I could stop kneading, because he had something he wanted to show me. He boosted me onto his shoulders so I could open the top cabinet and take down the pastry bags and tips for frosting.” He laughs. “We had cheese and cream and honey. It wasn’t a good year, which must be why they let me do it. But Dad showed me how to mix everything together, and I asked him if I could draw the design, too, and he said yes.
“It was mostly just sheet frosting. Lumpy sheet frosting.” He smiles crookedly. “But I wrote Happy Birthday Madge on it in cursive--Leven made me add the t into birthday--and I drew mockingjays in the corners, like on her pin. Your pin,” he adds. “Like the ones your father used to sing to. Leven said they looked like balls with beaks, but Madge knew what they were. And that’s the first cake I frosted.
“This is going to sound stupid--stupider--but I always hoped you’d come in and ask me to design a cake for you. I don’t even know what flavors you like. Or I didn’t know until the reaping. You had hot chocolate. So I guess you like chocolate. It would have to be a good year, if you wanted chocolate, but I’d bake you something chocolate all over, the cake and the frosting and the filling and everything. Everything you wanted. And Wash taught me how to make designs out of chocolate, so I’d freeze them and pile them on top of the cake after everything was done. Chocolate everywhere. That’s what I’d do.” He sinks deeper into the bushes, sighs. “Good night. I know you’re still alive. I know...”
And like he’s planned it, he falls silent after that, presumably asleep.
We haven’t touched our glasses since Peeta started talking; now that he’s finished, none of us seem to want to pick them up again.
The District 12 phone rings.
Haymitch hauls himself to his feet and slogs over. “Sponsorship call,” he sing-songs, “you jokers better keep quiet.”
The commentators haven’t heard him, because Suetonius sniffs about how perfectly awful it is to see the poor dear languish like that, and if only there were some way to bring him and Katniss together, one last time. “Can you imagine?” he asks his co-anchor. “Our star-crossed lovers together again.”
“I think all of Panem’s waiting for that meeting,” she says. “Well, Suetonius, you never know what the Gamemakers have up their sleeves next, but for the sake of all of us watching, let’s hope they have something planned for our tributes from Twelve.”
Chaff turns the volume down. “Heard a few rumors,” he says. “People in the Capitol are pushing for a rules change. The guy who bought Thresh’s whetstone said they got a few corporations raising a fuss now.”
“For two victors instead of one?” I trace the rim of my glass. “It’s unprecedented.”
Chaff snorts. “No kidding.”
I lower my voice. Probably not enough to keep the bugs from picking me up, but the question’s not too damning, I hope. “Do you think they would?”
Haymitch laughs into the phone, says something about a couple of changes, but the timing’s too good for it to be for his sponsor’s ears only.
“Make it stick?” Chaff asks. “No. Not for the life of me. Make a change though? They’ve changed rules before. It’s their rules, they can do whatever they want.”
And if they dangled the possibility in front of Katniss and Peeta and snatched it away just when they got close enough to touch it--well, that’d put the Districts in their place, wouldn’t it? Business as usual. Nothing changes.
I stand. “Tell Haymitch I’ll grab him later. Me and Johanna both, probably.”
“Sure thing.”
“Don’t give up on your kids yet.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice.” Chaff grins. “I get a pair like this, I don’t let ‘em go easy.”
---
--
.
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: ~6300.
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 Four: The Gods On the Walls For the first time in the history of the Hunger Games, people are talking about bringing more than one tribute home -- and if Finnick plays his cards right, he just might be able to help make that happen.
I show up at Cinna’s apartment with more files tucked into my bag and a bottle of very good champagne.
Two hours later, we’re sprawled out on his bed, the files scattered around us, polishing off the last of the champagne. Cinna turns the television back on; the screen flashes through the tributes who died on the first day, including Andre. Cinna squeezes my hand, and I smile at him. The rest of the Careers are still alive, as are Chaff's two, as are Katniss and Peeta. "Think they'll make it through the night?" I ask.
"Depends on how much the Careers feel like hunting," Cinna says. "You'd know that better than I."
"They'll go after anyone who makes their location too obvious, but they need to rest, too," I say. "How much do you know about Twelve's strategy?" I figure it's a fair enough question to ask, since I'm off the hook to mentor.
He laughs. "Haymitch doesn't tell me anything. But if he's doing what I think he's doing, it's brilliant."
"I seem to remember you saying 'what if they cared about all the tributes?', actually."
"Well, Haymitch can't make them care about everyone." Cinna smiles, and reaches off the bed for a folder of photographs. "Come on. Let's get started."
I pull a pile of newspaper clippings closer and mull over them. The Games must have settled down for the night, because the station's switched to recapping the events of the first day: panning over the bodies, replaying the most dramatic moments, speculating about Peeta Mellark's alliance with the Careers, though they don't call them Careers. There are mentions of past Games in the clippings, too, but I don't pay them much mind until I run across a photo of a Gamemaker's retreat. The caption talks about how a number of the businesses and laboratories who sponsor the Games sent representatives, and I catch Snow's and Argentia's faces in the crowd, smiling at the camera.
"Interesting," I say, and read on, Cinna leaning over my shoulder.
TRAGEDY AT GAMEMAKER'S RETREAT, the next article in the stack reads. A number of attendees fell ill from a tainted shipment of crabmeat, and five died. I write down their names, but one sticks out.
"Cinna," I say, "can you look for Bellator Wheelwright? I think I saw his name in an article a few years before this one."
"Sure," Cinna says. He flips back through the files he's already scoured, skims them with an ease I wish I had. A lot of people in the Capitol read faster than I do, I've noticed, or at least the ones who seem to read at all. "Gamemaker, right?"
I glance at the article again and drop it on top of his stack of files. "Gamemaker. Might as well check for these other four names while you're at it, unless that's too much to do at once."
He laughs. "I can handle it, but I can't promise anything. The last time I did an investigation like this, I didn't even know who Gallus Heavensbee was."
"Lucky you," I mutter, but don't hold onto that thought for long. Instead, I dive back into the files-was all this really in that drawer? It didn't seem like this much when Cinna tucked it under his robes. I glance at the television, but the only new footage is statistics. There are columns of numbers in the next file I pick up, too. Argentia's stock portfolio? I groan and toss it aside, snatch up another article and nearly throw that away too before a name at the bottom catches my eye.
"Cinna, hand me that article again? The one about the food poisoning?"
He plucks it out from the bottom of the pile without looking up from the one he's skimming. "You found a match?"
"Not exactly." I run my finger down the column until I hit the sentence I'm looking for and read it aloud: "The Master of Ceremonies, Collatinus Sedgwick, assisted the Peacekeepers in their investigation and paid for and arranged the victims' funerals himself. It says the Peacekeepers ended up bringing charges against the distributor, but you'd think that would wreck Sedgwick's career, too, wouldn't it?"
"Only if he actually did anything-but it would have at least caused a scandal, even if he wasn't implicated."
I set out the next article and beckon him closer. "Well, he got promoted two months later. Cushy job in the private sector with Red Horse Limited."
"I have to wonder why Aurelia is keeping track of this."
"Her or Argentia. I don't know whose papers these are." An idea hits me, and I dive for the stock portfolio, ignore the numbers and pay attention to the names.
There. Red Horse Limited, at the bottom of the list. I might not be a financier, but those look like some pretty steady increases. "Look," I tell Cinna.
He does, then covers his mouth and laughs, just once. "Well, whichever sister it was, she wanted dirt."
“And she got it.” I flip the file closed. “I’ll look into this more. You want to keep these, or should I take them back with me?”
“If Aurelia was the one looking for dirt, I think she’ll be missing these. You should probably put them back. Are there any names you want me to look into?”
I think. “We might as well keep looking into the five who died at that retreat. Let’s sift through the rest of these and see if any more mysterious deaths pop out.”
We read in relative silence for a while. The Games go on, and the commentators are past statistics and into speculation. Mellark’s apparently moved up in the ranking since teaming up with the Careers, and I try not to think about whatever Andre’s odds were. The commentator’s voices fade out, and I’m not sure whether it’s intentional or whether it’s because I’ve stopped paying them mind until a spark flares to light onscreen. Katniss, I think at first, but it’s another female tribute, stretching her hands over the blooming fire.
“Not the best move,” I mutter, then glance at Cinna. “How are you holding up?”
Cinna laughs, just once, mostly breath. “I can keep reading, I don’t have anywhere to be until after noon tomorrow. You?”
“I meant about them,” I say. “I know it’s hell to wait.”
“It is. But...well. If I could bet, I’d bet on her, you know?”
I give his shoulder a squeeze. “I do.”
***
On the fifth day of the Games, I’m out of tributes, and Haymitch is crowing like a rooster.
It’s not the goriest way one of my tributes has gone out, but it’s definitely the most gruesome. The pack chased Katniss Everdeen up a tree, and instead of trying to hack it down (which is what I would have done, I like to think) or setting it on fire, they made the mistake of waiting her out and she dropped a nest of tracker jackers on their big heads. The cameras paid almost loving attention to Pierra and Glimmer’s faces the whole way through. If you go by the commentary, they haven’t had a death by tracker jackers since the Sixty-sixth Games, let alone two. Even Brutus is grudgingly impressed.
“You’ve got to hand it to her,” one of the commentators says, replaying the clip. Digitized red circles highlight the blisters on Katniss’s hands, just barely healed, as she saws back and forth through the branch. “Though I don’t know if they’re going to count these two as her kills.”
“Oh, why on earth wouldn’t they?”
“Deaths via muttation are sometimes tallied as deaths via a passive means...”
“Oh come on,” I groan, not that they can hear me from the victor’s lounge. “The branch wouldn’t’ve cracked and fallen on its own.”
Johanna chortles. “Hands up if you think that freckle-assed camera whore had money on the Girl on Fire going down without a fight.”
“This freckle-assed camera whore says yes,” I say.
“Ooh, there are freckles? Guess I never kissed close enough to tell.”
I roll my eyes. “Change that if you want.”
“Get a room,” Chaff says. “And it doesn’t matter anyway, they’re out and she’s in.”
“Hold that thought, ladies and gentlemen, because there’s new action on that front!” The commentators’ window at the bottom of the screen winks out, and Katniss shoves her hands under Glimmer’s body to wrench the quiver of arrows free. Green pus leaks from her stings, congeals on the sheath, and even Enobaria winces at the camera’s last loving sweep over the wreckage of her corpse. Katniss fumbles with an arrow but can’t bend her bow back enough--someone crashes through the foliage and she blinks, wavers on her feet, the sting on her hand swelling, throbbing. Peeta breaks through the trees first, and someone says, “Oh, this should be good.”
“What are you still doing here?” he hisses. Katniss stares at him mutely, and he prods her to her feet. “Are you mad? Get up! Get up! Run! Run!”
The camera isn’t sure who to follow, so the screen splits. One side shows Katniss stumbling into the woods, clawing at her arms and neck, flinching at things the rest of us can’t see. The other side shows Cato, his hand over his eye, his sword aimed at Peeta’s throat. Peeta blocks it with the shaft of his spear, but Cato wrenches his sword free and chops at him again, nicks Peeta’s outstretched arm. Peeta winces, falters just long enough for Cato to lunge at his leg and strike home.
Peeta crashes to his knees in the pool, and blood seeps into the water, staining it. Cato stands over him, and Cashmere says, “It’s over,” but the venom must be taking hold now; he howls and holds his face, slashing blindly at the air until Clove shrieks his name. He follows the sound of her voice, crashes back through the trees.
I swear, I can’t tell whether the commentator or Haymitch says, “Well don’t that beat all” first. Haymitch is definitely the one to laugh, though, and that rings out through the lounge loud and clear.
“What’s so funny?” Johanna asks, her eyes still fixed on the screen. “You have one tribute bleeding to death and one trying to rip her own face off. So much for star-crossed lovers.”
“Just something the kid said to me before he went in,” Haymitch says. He taps the bottle nearest him with his heel. I don’t know how long it’s been empty. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen him take a drink all afternoon. “Looks like he’s playing a more serious game than I thought.”
Seeder asks, “What did he say?”
The ringing phone interrupts Haymitch’s answer, whatever it would have been. Haymitch heads over to the 12 station at the console and picks it up, grinning all through, as if it couldn’t be a Gamemaker on the other end. “You got me,” he says, and I can’t help eavesdropping. “Yeah, I can accept that. You got anything in mind?--Nah, I can hold onto it. Is it for her or is it for him?”
Now, I wasn’t here when Haymitch got the money for Katniss’s burn medicine. But the way he’s handling himself on the phone right now makes me wonder just how many sponsorship calls he’s been taking this year.
“Well, if it doesn’t matter to you either way, I’m dropping it on her.--Well yeah, and she ain’t bleeding from the femoral. You want a return on your investment, yeah, I get you. I’ll be in touch.” He hangs up, and if it weren’t for the Games you could hear a pin drop.
Finally, Enobaria says, “I have never in my life heard you field a sponsorship call.”
“Yeah, you weren’t here last night.”
We all exchange looks: some of us of grudging respect, others of bewilderment. I keep my expression more guarded. So does Beetee, I notice, and so does Cecelia, and so does Mags.
“Who’d you have to blow to get sponsors this year?” Johanna asks. Leave it to Johanna, I think. At least she cuts right to the point.
“Ha. You think they want to take me for a whirl?” Haymitch makes one of the most obscene faces I’ve ever seen him make, and frankly he gives some of my clients a run for their money. “Honestly? I don’t know. Maybe it’s just my year. Every dog has his day after all.”
“You’re licking yourself like one,” Johanna mutters.
I step in before this degenerates further. “So who came up with the strategy, Haymitch? You?”
It should not be possible for Haymitch to look like an innocent child with his hand in the cookie jar. It isn’t. “What strategy?”
“The romance, shit-for-brains,” Johanna says.
I raise my voice. “If you don’t want to talk strategy around these clowns, I get it. Let’s take this somewhere else.”
“Can’t hurt,” he says, “seeing as you’re out and all.” He swings away from the console and sweeps up his bottle from the floor. “Your place or mine, kid?”
“Do you have a place?”
He doesn’t, so we catch a cab back to my apartment. “I think you know where the drinks are,” I say as I unlock the door, “considering.”
“Yeah, but I’ll hold off, if you don’t count it something against your hospitality.” He bypasses the kitchen completely and folds himself into one of my living room chairs, props his feet on the table.
“You holding off? I never thought I’d see the day,” I say dryly. “I can only imagine what Chaff would think. Or Beetee.”
The walls click and whirr.
Haymitch tilts his head to the side and grins at me like he’s got the whole crescent moon in his face. “Yeah, what they don’t know won’t hurt ‘em. Let’s just say I’m keeping a promise.”
I cross my arms and lean against the kitchen island, stare him down. “I’m out of tributes, so you might as well tell me what that is. What’s going on?”
“Well, District Twelve finally has a couple of fighters,” he says. “And it’s about time I banked something on ‘em.”
“And what’s that?”
“You’ve spent enough time with Cinna, you’ve heard his rigmarole.”
I don’t bother to deny it, but I don’t uncross my arms, either. “You can only bring one of them home, you know. What’s your plan? Persuade the boy to protect the girl so she can win?”
“I can tell you right now the boy didn’t need any persuading.”
“I can believe that.” And I can; I heard how he screamed himself hoarse telling her to run, saw how he stood his ground against Cato while she escaped. There are some things you can’t play up for the cameras. I wonder if he’s dragged himself out of the pool yet, if the Careers have returned to finish him off or chose to leave him for dead. I should turn on the television.
“And as for the rest? I’m winging it as much as they are.” He laughs, bitterly, and drums his fingertips on the arms of the chair. “You’ve been fishing, Finnick. You know you never get a say in what fish you reel in.”
“You have to be in the right place at the right time,” I say, mostly to myself. I move away from the kitchen island, sink into the couch. “Is it the right time?”
“Can’t say.” Haymitch shrugs. “But it’s the only time we’ve got.”
***
My clientele is skewing older this year. I can’t say I have any particular feelings on it; they’re more patient than the younger ones, as a rule, but more set in what they like and want. Different challenges, but they boil down to the same thing. I could ask Beetee to run numbers on it if I wanted to, average out the demands and the chatter and the petulance and the ignorance and come up with a baseline for Capitol insufferability. Or I could take something for the headache building behind my temples as I listen to Tacitus Jones prattle on about how his daughter wants a synthetic fire cape just like Katniss Everdeen’s.
“-- so I said, Clementia darling, you saw what the dear girl’s leg looked like after it was burned, do you want blisters on your skin like that?”
Some of his companions titter, and I smile, try not to grit my teeth too noticeably.
“Oh, but I can hardly blame the girl,” Lucilla says, lifting her head from her couch. Finally, something’s distracted her from the dancers and their trained hydras. “One must suffer for beauty, after all. And little Katniss is so lovely she’s captured Peeta’s heart. Of course your daughter’s falling all over it.”
“It’s not as if we’ve never had lovers in the Arena before,” Ludmilla groans. She’s been sullen ever since she came back from the restroom. Apparently nothing’s happened in the Games at all since the fallout at the tree. She summons an Avox to her side, says, “Bring me something stronger--and give a steak to the mutt in the leftmost holding pen, I think he’s a winner.”
As if on cue, the cage in the center of the room shudders and screeches--one mutt, some kind of cat with impossibly long claws and teeth, spears an overgrown frog-creature through its outstretched tongue and rips it loose. I look away, but not in time to miss the black blood burbling from the creature’s mouth, dripping to the floor.
“Look, Ludmilla!” Lucilla crows. “That creature’s better at making Avoxes than our entire Ministry of Justice.”
Everyone nearby bursts into laughter. I want a purgative.
“Now that’s entertainment,” Ludmilla agrees. “None of this teenaged romance.”
“I think it’s darling,” Lucilla says. “What about you, Finnick? You must have some insight into Peeta and Katniss!”
I shrug, pluck a grape from a nearby plate and roll it between my fingers. How do I want to play this? “He whispers her name when he sleeps,” I say, and give a sensual half-smile. “I wonder what he’s dreaming about.”
Everyone in earshot chortles--well, except Ludmilla--and Lucilla applauds. “Ooh, I do wish they’d come up with some way for us to see inside the tributes’ heads! There’s got to be some truth drug.”
“They could lace parts of the Arena with it,” Tacitus agrees. “Though it would have to be very well-timed.”
“Very.” I suppress a wince. I’m glad there aren’t any Gamemakers present at this party. I glance behind me as the cat-thing tackles the frog-creature and rends its throat open. The cat-thing lowers its muzzle to the wound and drinks, its chops wet and shining. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, eat a few more grapes to get the sour taste off my tongue. The Hunger Games aren’t spectacle enough, I guess, and fight the urge to spit. “But do you really want the truth out of him?”
“No, I want it out of her!” Lucilla says. “If she does love him back, wouldn’t it be so awful?”
“Perhaps that’s why she’s been avoiding him,” Tacitus says, and flips a coin to the winning beast’s owner, who catches it. “She can’t bear the thought of having to fight him.”
That’s a good angle. If Haymitch has any sense, he’ll play it. I make a mental note to tell him later, in case he’s not already pouring out sob stories to sponsors. (The idea of Haymitch talking to sponsors is still plain weird.)
“And it would be dreadful if it came down to just the two of them,” Lucilla goes on. “Can you imagine? After all the trouble he’s gone through to protect her already?”
“If that happened and he did really want to protect her, I suppose he’d best slit his own throat,” Ludmilla says tartly. “Only one of them can win, after all.”
I don’t stop toying with my grape--it would be a dead giveaway--but I do listen. Intently. There’s a right thing to say here, a way to plant a suggestion or encourage an idea, but I don’t know what it is yet, and if I screw it up it all comes crashing down. So I wait.
“Oh, but if she cared for him, she’d never let the knife touch his skin,” Lucilla says.
Tacitus shakes his head, and looks away from the nearest hydra-dancer. Not that I blame him for looking; the snakes twine up her arms and curl around her curves, fanning their heads across her ribcage. “It’s not as if it matters. The boy will be dead in a ditch if he doesn’t receive medical attention soon. She has to return the favor if she wants him to live.”
“And she’s got no reason to want him to live,” Ludmilla says. “So that’s that.”
I set the grape down and say, very carefully, “Maybe she’d go back for him if she thought she could keep him.”
I expect the silence. And I expect Lucilla to look at me with stars in her eyes.
But I don’t expect Tacitus to say, “Well, that is something new.”
Ludmilla sniffs. “It’s inconceivable. The Gamemakers would never allow it.”
“Oh, but they’d have to! Can you imagine the ratings?” Lucilla clasps her hands together so hard it startles the Avox behind her. “I can name fifteen people off the top of my head who would pay to see just that.”
“Start up a collection,” I suggest, smirk enough that it could look sarcastic or sincere depending on the angle. It’s a page out of Annie’s book. “That’s something the Gamemakers will listen to.”
“Oh, I think I will do just that,” she cheers, and reaches for her glass. “Here’s to the power of the people!”
If only you knew.
***
About half the times they tie me up, they tie too tight. I could probably make a chart of who does and who doesn’t, and bracket everyone up by age and gender and the phases of the moon, but there’s really no point. Tonight is one of those nights, and when Gemella finally undoes the knots the blood rushes back into my hands and sears every crease in my palms.
She pats me on the cheek and excuses herself to the bathroom, and I sink back onto the bed and rub out my wrists. At least she didn’t leave me tied up. I figure I can get away with poking at the things scattered on her nightstand, so I do. I pull out something tucked between the pages of a magazine: a heart with a flaming arrow, with the arrow positioned about where it is on Katniss’s mockingjay pin. It’s tacky as all hell, but then again, that’s about what I expect from the Capitol.
Gemella comes in towelling off her hands, and I don’t bother to hide the charm. “Oh, you found it,” she says, and sighs the way Lindsay does over whoever her crush is this week. “They’re so heartbreaking, aren’t they? I do wish they’d do something to get the two of them together -- have you heard him whispering stories about her when he’s about to go to sleep?” She dabs at her eyes with the towel. “I barely had the heart to watch Cato and his friends chase that little Ramsay after that.”
Heaven forbid. I keep from rolling my eyes. “You know Lucilla Braintree, don’t you? She and some of her friends started up a collection. I think they’re petitioning the Gamemakers to allow two winners this year, if they’re both from the same District.”
Gemella blinks; she must have had some kind of surgery on her eyes, they’re as wide and round as a doll’s. “Oh! Wouldn’t that be lovely?”
“It would,” I agree. “I’ll get you two in touch.”
People really have been doing my work for me lately. Maybe that means I’m getting good at my job. The thought makes me want to throw up, but I’m used to that.
“I didn’t know you were such a romantic, Finnick,” Gemella says, eases herself back onto the bed and runs her finger up my chest.
I avoid thinking of Annie. “I can be,” I say, and study the ceiling. “And it makes a good story.”
She laughs and slaps my arm. I pretend to wince. “Well, I’ll talk to Lucilla,” she says. “And I’ll bring it up at the Red Horse board meeting tomorrow--a number of Gamemakers work with us, you know--”
Sometimes I’m thankful for how much people in the Capitol love to namedrop. “Red Horse? The one President Snow--” I begin, and hope she’ll cut me off and tell me what the connection there actually is.
“Oh, that was years ago, but yes, he was on the board,” she says. “It was a few years before my time--my mother knew Bellator Wheelwright, and oh, the fights we had when she learned they’d offered me a position!” I wish she’d stop laughing in the middle of every sentence, but I’m not about to tell her that. “Don’t tell my mother this, but if you ask me, he did more with the company than Wheelwright ever did.”
“Was this before his election, or after?”
She frowns. It doesn’t create any lines on her face. “Before he became President, yes, but he held some office or other. He’s always held some office or other, but he’s been President for so long that you can barely remember what he was before.”
You can’t, I think. But there are people who can. “Well, you know politicians,” I say. “They never want anyone to know how long they’ve been around, until it’s time to run again.”
She titters. I want to stick my fingers in my ears, but then I’d miss the rest. “Oh, you don’t even know the half of it! And actors are even worse! About the only people who are allowed to be old are those dreary scientists.”
“Dreary scientists? I don’t know, I know plenty of scientists out to have a good time.”
“Well, they can’t all be Domus Arleigh or Andrea Lobotae.”
The sweat on my skin chills. Out to have a good time, I said? Well, that’s one way to describe Lobotae. I remember what she said to me during that auction at Tantalus, when they cuffed me to the Saint Andrew’s cross and let the winners take turns. “A good thing she never has to see you like this. You must feel so proud to protect her.”
She didn’t make me bleed. She didn’t have to. And I came for her like I do for all the rest of them.
I want to go home. I can’t. I have to find out more. “Sounds like you have personal experience,” I say, force my voice to lighten.
“With Lobotae?” She snickers, and if her laugh hasn’t made me sick even now, I just might get home without hurling. “Oh, I know her from the board. I swear she enjoys her job! Not that I can make head or tail of her fiddling around with genesets, give me marketing any day.”
“You and me both,” I say. “I don’t know how anyone can stand it.”
“Practice, no doubt, and a certain perverse interest.” She covers her mouth, but for once she doesn’t laugh. “Don’t tell my colleagues I said that.”
“I won’t,” I promise, and mean it.
***
“I swear they have to deal with this every year.” Chaff tilts his glass at the wall of screens. The commentators take up three quarters, with Katniss and the girl from 11, Rue, pushed to the bottom right. The way they’re huddled together by the fire reminds me of me and Cinna over his sketchbook, and the way Katniss keeps looking up like she could find the cameras doesn’t help. “Every time one of yours gets with one of mine, Haymitch. Every time.”
“If they last long enough to do that, you mean,” I say, and glance at the clock. Two hours before I’m due at Barbariccia’s apartment. Technically I’m supposed to be in prep now, but my prep team probably wants to catch up on the Games, too, so hopefully they won’t miss me much.
Haymitch laughs. “More like every five years, Chaff.”
“Three.”
“Sure, if you’re the one counting.”
I’ve done my homework: Chaff’s closer to right. Usually one of the tributes from 11 makes it past the Cornucopia at least, to the top eight more often than not. I can’t say 12 ever does well, but I know I’ve seen Elevens and Twelves whispering in the shadows of their Arenas before, and reports of them hooking up in the Training Center before the Games even start, so it can’t be that rare.
“How much of the conversation airs?” I ask.
By way of answering, Haymitch just waves his glass at the screens. (I haven’t seen him drink from it yet tonight, but I could’ve missed it.) The commentators fill in the gaps with a lot of chatter about odds and friendship and the pending Top Eight. For all we know, Rue and Katniss could be talking about the weather.
“They never show us the good parts,” I say in my best Capitol accent, and take a sip.
Haymitch tsks. “Aren’t you supposed to be hobnobbing?”
“Not for another couple of hours. Aren’t you two? You have two tributes headed for the Top Eight.” Cashmere and Gloss and Brutus and Enobaria must be cozying up to sponsors as we speak, and I’ve spotted Beetee and Gregory about town, too.
“I’ve got it taken care of,” Haymitch says. “Chaff, though? I don’t think he’s got an excuse.”
“I just got off the phone with the mayor.” Chaff puts his glass down, glances at the screens. “We’ve got something going. Out there, the fish don’t bite.”
“There aren’t any fish. We’re in the mountains.” I lace my fingers and lean my head back, think of the last time I took Annie fishing in the Branwen. She caught the biggest swordfish I’ve ever seen, and I almost wished I’d remembered my camera so I could’ve captured the moment. We managed to saw off its nose and mount that on the cabin wall, though.
I hope she’s doing all right this year, especially since Mags is in the Capitol, too. But she still has her mother and father and her sister and Mother and Dad and my aunts and uncles and all of my cousins. She probably wishes she had less people looking after her.
“Figure of speech, kid,” Haymitch says.
“How are your fish biting?” Chaff asks.
I’m glad he asked. “Not so well,” I say. “The catches have been shrinking, but the quotas haven’t been. A lot of people are losing boats.”
Chaff winces. “I hear you. But you can’t do much for that. Sometimes there’s a blight year, same with you as it is with us.”
And with 3 and 8 too, I wouldn’t wonder. I glance at where I know the cameras are and wish there was some way to turn them off. “Looks like a tough year all around.”
I haven’t seen Katniss Everdeen smile the way she’s smiling now. During the parade and the interview, she was delirious, awkward. But when Rue snuggles against her side after the anthem plays, it warms through all the grime on Katniss’s cheeks. She rests her chin on top of Rue’s head, closes her eyes, and for a moment I can picture how she might have looked in District 12 at the end of a long day, with her little sister falling asleep on her shoulder.
The screen splits and Peeta fills the other side. The cameras have trouble spotting him at first, and eventually they have to outline him in gold to show where he ends and the bushes begin. It’s good he’s got a knack for hiding, but the berry juice and mud can’t entirely hide the angry red lines threading up his leg. “Katniss,” he whispers. “Katniss--”
“You haven’t sent him anything, have you,” I say to Haymitch. It’s not a question.
Haymitch shakes his head, no. “Thin on the ground,” he says. “She’s got a chance and he doesn’t.”
“I know you can’t hear me,” Peeta says; they have to filter out the rest of the noise, because his voice isn’t strong enough to carry over it on his own. “But--maybe when you win, they’ll let you see this. So I’m going to tell you a story, okay? Have I already told you the one about singing in school? I think so. I might tell it again, but I’ll save it a little longer.” His cheeks flush under the berry juice. “It’s stupid, but I think I want to save that one for when--if--I see you.”
“He’s born for the cameras, Haymitch,” Chaff says.
“Yeah, I know. Pity he didn’t stay alive long enough to milk ‘em dry.”
He’s not pretending, I realize. Like I wasn’t.
“I’m going to tell you about the first cake I decorated,” Peeta continues. I have no idea how he’s smiling. “It was for Madge Undersee’s eighth birthday--you remember Madge, don’t you, Katniss? You ate lunch with her sometimes.” He looks down, laughs softly. “I always wanted to ask if I could sit next to you, but I never figured out how to say it.
“Dad and Leven did the baking, and usually Wash frosted, but he had a fever and Mom was upstairs looking after him. So Dad took me aside and said I could stop kneading, because he had something he wanted to show me. He boosted me onto his shoulders so I could open the top cabinet and take down the pastry bags and tips for frosting.” He laughs. “We had cheese and cream and honey. It wasn’t a good year, which must be why they let me do it. But Dad showed me how to mix everything together, and I asked him if I could draw the design, too, and he said yes.
“It was mostly just sheet frosting. Lumpy sheet frosting.” He smiles crookedly. “But I wrote Happy Birthday Madge on it in cursive--Leven made me add the t into birthday--and I drew mockingjays in the corners, like on her pin. Your pin,” he adds. “Like the ones your father used to sing to. Leven said they looked like balls with beaks, but Madge knew what they were. And that’s the first cake I frosted.
“This is going to sound stupid--stupider--but I always hoped you’d come in and ask me to design a cake for you. I don’t even know what flavors you like. Or I didn’t know until the reaping. You had hot chocolate. So I guess you like chocolate. It would have to be a good year, if you wanted chocolate, but I’d bake you something chocolate all over, the cake and the frosting and the filling and everything. Everything you wanted. And Wash taught me how to make designs out of chocolate, so I’d freeze them and pile them on top of the cake after everything was done. Chocolate everywhere. That’s what I’d do.” He sinks deeper into the bushes, sighs. “Good night. I know you’re still alive. I know...”
And like he’s planned it, he falls silent after that, presumably asleep.
We haven’t touched our glasses since Peeta started talking; now that he’s finished, none of us seem to want to pick them up again.
The District 12 phone rings.
Haymitch hauls himself to his feet and slogs over. “Sponsorship call,” he sing-songs, “you jokers better keep quiet.”
The commentators haven’t heard him, because Suetonius sniffs about how perfectly awful it is to see the poor dear languish like that, and if only there were some way to bring him and Katniss together, one last time. “Can you imagine?” he asks his co-anchor. “Our star-crossed lovers together again.”
“I think all of Panem’s waiting for that meeting,” she says. “Well, Suetonius, you never know what the Gamemakers have up their sleeves next, but for the sake of all of us watching, let’s hope they have something planned for our tributes from Twelve.”
Chaff turns the volume down. “Heard a few rumors,” he says. “People in the Capitol are pushing for a rules change. The guy who bought Thresh’s whetstone said they got a few corporations raising a fuss now.”
“For two victors instead of one?” I trace the rim of my glass. “It’s unprecedented.”
Chaff snorts. “No kidding.”
I lower my voice. Probably not enough to keep the bugs from picking me up, but the question’s not too damning, I hope. “Do you think they would?”
Haymitch laughs into the phone, says something about a couple of changes, but the timing’s too good for it to be for his sponsor’s ears only.
“Make it stick?” Chaff asks. “No. Not for the life of me. Make a change though? They’ve changed rules before. It’s their rules, they can do whatever they want.”
And if they dangled the possibility in front of Katniss and Peeta and snatched it away just when they got close enough to touch it--well, that’d put the Districts in their place, wouldn’t it? Business as usual. Nothing changes.
I stand. “Tell Haymitch I’ll grab him later. Me and Johanna both, probably.”
“Sure thing.”
“Don’t give up on your kids yet.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice.” Chaff grins. “I get a pair like this, I don’t let ‘em go easy.”
---
--
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