Chapter Text
I trace the tips of my fingers along the hard wooden armrest, hoping for an anchor. It isn't there, and I float along untethered. The train ride to the Capitol through the mountains is as smooth as summer rain. The anticipation and fear building in my stomach crashes together in my midsection as the crests of the mountains break over the sunrise, now clearly visible through the crystal windows. Hints of fog creep on the edges of the glass, mimicking the traces of blurriness in my vision that has persisted since the moment they called my name.
There’s an agenda today, I remember with the cadence of someone used to routine and normal and constant. The train ride is slow enough to allow for contemplation, but never long enough for the full process of emotion that should accompany an event such as this. The numbness in my limbs prevents anything more than a weak scrabbling at the glossy wooden chair, clinging to something too shiny and pristine to notice me.
I remember the livestock my neighbors keep in small, dirty pens, shuffling in the mud and blearily stumbling through life until they were unexpectedly, to none but themselves, led into a shed where one sudden movement, ended everything. The hands that once provided food and comfort hastened a brutal end. The journey too long to process the short-term, too short to contemplate anything in the future. I glance out the window again, letting my vision drag across the speeding countryside and feel my pulse in my ears intensify with each painful heartbeat.
“Hey...Johanna? Blight says we need to get ready, the train’s almost there.”
I stiffen at the sound of his voice, and my name. Alder was on the wrong side of puberty for his voice to deepen with any consistency, especially not under these circumstances. I can tell that he's trying to muster the strength to deepen it, fight for some control, but it isn’t working.
“I am ready, the stupid stylists are going to flail me alive regardless of what I do.” I clench the armrest harder, feeling the slick wood heat up as my hands start to sweat. I look up at him, his face apologetic.
“Don’t look at me like that.” He forced his eyes away and stared down at the floor, and I immediately feel a little bad. “Sorry.” I take a deep breath. “Where’s Lacy? She’s supposed to get these things organized.”
As Alder takes a hitched breath to answer, the compartment to the train door slides open and the esteemed Lacy herself steps through. The escort had taken on the appearance of a crepe myrtle tree in full spring bloom in anticipation of our arrival, her floaty pink train hugging a tight magenta corset etched with brown lacing reminiscent of the tree’s thin branches. White flowers pepper her light brown hair, which is twisted up in an elaborate bun. She is accompanied by a cloud of perfume that perfectly mimics the scent of the blossoms. I have to respect her commitment to the costumes if nothing else.
“Good morning, lovely tributes!” she chirps in her accented Capitol voice, as light and clipped as the perfume. Alder looks like a half-drowned, muddy kitten standing next to her, still wearing that sickly apologetic frown. Lacy bustles around the compartment, pouring drinks for the two tributes, her flowery train whipping about behind her. I resume staring out of the window at the sunrise breaking over the mountaintops. The Capitol is approaching at over 200 miles an hour, and I have a dark and impossible wish that the breathtaking speed would cause the train to derail and end this entire spectacle before it could make it to the big screen.
“Big day ahead - the Tribute Parade is this evening, and there’s no time to waste to get you two ready to absolutely dazzle!” I look at Alder, who had probably never looked dazzling in his entire life, and then down at my own hands, caked in grime with black fingernails tapping against the armchair.
“It’s probably too late for dazzling. Maybe sparkling, if they scrub hard enough to get all the dirt off.” Lacy tsks, thrusting a glass of juice at me, and I smirk at Alder, who continues to look lost. Whatever. I throw the juice to the back of my throat as if it contains something stronger and stride back to my compartment on the train.
The hallway sways softly with the rhythm of the train, and I catch a glimpse of a tablet attached to the wall displaying the time left before our imminent and unceremonious debut in the Capitol. 02:46. My compartment door slides open with a soft hum, the dark interior greeting me. I had been given a “choice” of a few different types of compartments - as if any illusion of choice after the Reaping was somehow logical - and I had selected one with blackout curtains and dark comforters that had the allure of a cave, complete with dark glowing lamps that cast long shadows on the walls. My stomach churns as I wonder how many other tributes had selected this same compartment, hoping the darkness would provide some solace.
I pull off my wool sweater and stand in front of the mirror, eyeing my appearance. Not for vanity, not for some self-examination in preparation for these stylists to violate my personal space, but an evaluation.
My thin, dark hair falls in thin wisps around my furrowed brow as I pinch my biceps, test the tension in my abs underneath my tank top, and arch my back, rolling my spine and hearing the satisfying pops of my spine as it stretches and cracks. I check over my shoulder that the compartment door was rolled shut and begin my routine.
Sit-ups, rapid and constant until my stomach aches and my breath quickens. Pushups, too many to count. I need the sheer muscle strain over some number. The curtain rod had been tested to hold my weight - bolted into the wall to prevent a wayward tribute from using it for a more nefarious purpose than to hold curtains - and I go into my chin-ups, ten, twenty, thirty. I am just taking a breather and stretching my arms out when the door slides open with another small click. I whip around, grabbing for my sweater.
“Johanna. Can I have a word?”
“Ever heard of knocking?” I spit, pulling on the woolen garment and crossing my arms. Blight. Our unfortunate mentor is thin and wan, the bags under his eyes making him appear a decade older than his real age. A black sports coat hangs off his frame, and I slide my eyes over a figure that was once strong and impressive, but now wastes away, fading into the endless parade of teenagers he has the privilege of ferrying over to the Capitol. My mother admires his strength and tenacity through his Games. I see a has-been killer instead. He ignores my query, coming to recline in the desk chair and give me a once-over.
“Are you sweating?”
“No,” I retort, becoming immediately aware of how much I am. Blight leans over his knees, crossing his hands in a thoughtful pose. I didn’t want him to see me training, I didn’t want anyone to see. His eyes dart to the corners of the room, where I’m sure there’s cameras and monitors to prevent any aforementioned nefarious activities.
“There aren’t microphones, only cameras.”
My stomach clenches. Confirmation that they know what I’m doing, even in this dark room.
“Johanna, do you actually want to make it home to your family?”
Fuck. I didn’t think my stomach could clench any harder. “Who wouldn’t?”
Blight sighs, deep and slow. “Listen. You know what it’s going to take to get home alive. I need to know right now if you intend on fighting or if I should just drink my way through this and try to keep Alder from becoming hysterical before the gong goes off.”
I instinctively grab my right arm, a red heat working its way up into the nape of my neck. “You can see the...the camera footage, I presume.”
He nods.
“Thanks for invading the last shreds of my dying privacy, you absolute perv,” I snap back, but his expression doesn’t immediately react, just morphs into something more contemplative, and then vaguely uncomfortable.
“They… I’ve seen you, training. A high score in the Training Center would give you more sponsors, give you more of a chance in-”
“I know,” I interrupt.
He waits for more that isn’t forthcoming, raises an eyebrow. “You do know that’s your best chance, right?”
I glare at him and toss myself on the bed without breaking eye contact. “So what? Even if I’m a fucking star in training, no one’s gonna put money on a Seven. Not with this batch of Careers coming up the pipeline. I saw them and Five before we had our Reaping. I know exactly what’s coming.”
Blight breaks my gaze and stares down at his clenched hands. He also knew what was coming; he’d lived it, he’d coached doomed kids through it for nearly ten years. Either we would be taken out during the Bloodbath or struggle along until some hotshot Career notices us and turns up the brutality dial for the cameras. I know exactly what’s coming. The knot in my stomach tightens and sinks even further into my insides.
“Get out, Blight. I need...to get ready.” The whisper choked out of me, hoarser than I’d planned. He doesn’t move. “Get. the. fuck. out.” He finally does, throwing one more asinine comment over his shoulder as he slides the compartment door shut.
“Think about your family, Johanna.”
“Call me Mason, that’s the least you can do.” The thrown boot just misses his exit, smacking the closed door and leaving a footprint of dust from my last steps in the streets of Seven in its wake.
---
The swarm of stylists descends like so many locusts on a dusty summer field to harvest, coming at me with tweezers and combs and scrubs in a nauseating cloud of high-pitched quips and shrill laughter mixing with the cleansers and the perfumes. Lacy had warned me to comply, as a dilapidated appearance in the Parade was “unacceptable” and I would “have it coming” if I gave these stupid Capitol idiots any trouble before or during the spectacle. I compromised on the condition I could sneak in a few shots of liquor before the ordeal. Lacy had sighed and actually surprised me by pulling a small flask out of her moss-colored boot and handing it over. Not quite the useless porcelain doll after all. I had winked at her as I drained the bottle.
I knew Alder was in the adjacent room being prepped and preened, and at the same moment I remember the look on his face as we stepped off the train. The larger districts with cult followings and brand new fans were greeted at the station with posters and photographs like the shiny new Capitol celebrities they were, but Alder and I had stepped off the platform to see a Games camera drone and a single bored-looking reporter accompanied by a half dozen Seven fans wearing flower crowns and dressed in a gaudy green color. Alder’s face was a similar shade of green as he took in the first real sight of the Capitol skyscrapers across the waterway, the breathtaking mountains stretching towards the sky behind the gleaming buildings. He was a stupid, scared child. That image of him absolutely smacked over the head by the sight of a city filled with passive murderers would definitely grace the tribute profiles ahead of the Parade.
The stylist to my right yanks on my hair, causing me to hiss in pain. I had streaked my eyes with dark makeup on the train and stolen a final swig of white liquor as I stepped off, knowing that the sudden jolt to my system would bring tears to my eyes and redden my cheeks. The image of the scared child standing next to an evidently distraught teenager with dark streaks already staining her cheeks would be a right pair for the profiles.
“She looked positively gauche in those train photos,” a high-pitched Capitol voice chirps along as another stylist scrubs my legs raw.
“Oh, absolutely! I couldn’t believe it! Poor thing,” another sighs, looking straight through me, lying prostrate on the cold table.
“Oh no, you poor thing, I can’t believe you had to see all of that.” I twist away from the stylist working on my eyebrows and spit on the floor in disgust.
The stylists gasp, pause, and resume chittering to each other about the Reapings all over the country, who they like and what the other stylists had planned for the Parade. I don’t know any of their names and I don’t care to know. My skin is rubbed raw and my nails feel as though they were yanked from the tips of my fingers. One stylist scrapes my scalp and bemoans the lack of time to effectively moisturize and relax the dry strands. My legs are waxed, the dark hair ripped away, my skin becoming redder than my cheeks on the Capitol platform.
They comment on my body, a shock even though I tried to prepare myself. I am thin but lean, my secret, self-regimented training alongside my normal work toughening my muscles. My fists clench as a creepy older stylist silently ogles my bare chest entirely too long for comfort, and another prattles on about the abs etched into my stomach, emerging from hours of labor and additional workouts. The desire to twist away and throw punches flares like a hot wave behind my eyes, but they hush and step away in the next second as another stylist enters the room. I know her name, at least.
“Lenora, you’re here!” The one with the tweezers bobs her bright pink hair in dumb excitement, and I take advantage of their lapse in attention on me to sit up and grab my tank top. I pull it over my head as Lenora looks me up and down, hands on her hips. She’s older, with a smooth plastic face and characteristic gills etched into her temples, giving her the eerie appearance of a fish out of water. Her cropped hair was black and spiked up behind her, with the blue and green gills snaking up into her hairdo.
“Johanna...Mason, is it? You look like you haven’t had a proper bath in your life.” The swarm giggles, but her tone is ice cold. I frown, crossing my arms over my chest and grabbing my right arm out of habit. At least they hadn’t had time to interrogate me about the scars.
“Just Mason, thanks. That’s why I came all the way out here, for a decent fucking bath. Thanks for obliging.”
She blinks slowly and Pink Hair gasps at the insolence. “The train was late, so we’re running out of time for the fitting. Finish up in here and get to the next room.” I smirk and extend a hand, gesturing back to the door.
“I wouldn’t, Mason. Snark won’t get you in the ground any faster.”
Oh, fuck. Ice Queen Lenora wasn’t taking any shit. She turns and sweeps out of the room, long velvet cape whisking behind her as the automatic door slides shut. The older male stylist takes entirely too long to rub some lotion on my extremities and I’m finally finished.