Careers Don't Love

Chapter Nine

Katniss POV

I can tell by the way my day starts that I am in deep trouble.

Effie doesn't even bother to knock but simply barges in and yanks my covers off, telling me that it's another "big, big day!" and I need to be up and ready in time for my interview this evening.

I yawn blearily as I stumble my way into the shower. I wash and dress in a slumbered haze, only perking up at the sight of the breakfast table laden with food.

Picking the most fattening, calorie filled foods I can find - including a stack of pancakes, a luxury in district 12 - I sit down at the table where Haymitch and Peeta greet me with terse nods.

Then Haymitch decides to drop the bombshell that Peeta wishes to train alone.

For some inexplicable reason, I can't help but feel betrayed at what Peeta has done. Instantly, I feel angry at myself for even thinking that, for ever believing that Peeta had anything but his own survival on his mind. All the time he was shouting at me for joining the Careers, this was what he had been planning. To drop the act of us being a team.

I don't have the time to dwell on it more before I'm rushed off to Effie in hair and makeup.

You would think that putting on a dress and wearing some heels would take approximately five minutes, but apparently there's a whole load more to it than that.

Effie criticizes me for five minutes straight about my posture, and then makes me walk around the room five times wearing a pair of shoes with the highest heels known to mankind. My toes feel like they're being crushed, and I'm pretty sure I'll probably break an ankle if I fall, but Effie refuses to let me rest. 

I almost want to snap back at her that my childhood was spent trying to make sure my family and I survived, not perfecting the "arch of my back" - whatever that means - but I'm sure Effie would be horrified by my rudeness, so I keep my mouth shut.

I'm already treading on thin ice with the arrow thing - even if it did get me an eleven.

Finally, finally, Effie lets me go and I nearly collapse into my bed with relief. Instead, I'm pushed out the door and told to work with Haymitch on my interview techniques.

Scowling, I yank the full skirt of my dress up to my knees and pull off the diamond-encrusted heels I've been wobbling in the whole morning, making sure that Effie can't see me.

The diamonds sparkle, reflecting the sunlight in an iridescent gleam. I'm momentarily mesmerized, my fingers running lightly over the smooth stones. I can't even imagine how much a single shoe like this costs.

It would probably be enough to feed all of District 12 for a year.

As I walk to Haymitch's room, my bitterness for the Capitol swells to a crescendo. They have so much money that they can afford to have shoes inlaid with diamonds, when there are toddlers starving to death in the districts because they don't even have enough money to buy a piece of bread.

The Capitol will waste their resources on useless things like this, but won't raise a finger to help those who desperately need it.

My fingers clench around the shoe so hard that my knuckles turn white and the diamonds dig into my skin. Stopping before Haymitch's door, I let the shoes drop from my hand, taking a savage pleasure in seeing a diamond drop off from the heel and roll across the marble floor.

Then I lift up my skirt again and go inside.

Cato POV

One more day and I'll be in the arena.