Culling

Part I • Chapter X

"I didn't save you..."

He ignored my statement. "You stood up to him, not wanting a fight between the two of us. You did so with no weapons or thought of defense for yourself, it was very brave. You really are like an avenging angel."

"Who can even hunt and track." Victor added. "That's a skill right there."

"That too." Kota redirected my attention to him. "You already have a lot of talents that half the people here don't, and I told you last night that I don't think you are passive either."

"You are soft spoken, kind, and shy. People are going to make a lot of assumptions about you because of that. Our best bet is to let people think whatever they want, you just need to continue being yourself." Mr Blackbourne mused out loud. "As for the rest of us-"

Before he could finish that thought, Thomas' voice broke through the chatter.

"Alright folks, here is how this is going to go. Each group is assigned to a representative who will oversee your requests and schedule. Once you decide how you want to train, you need to see your representative to get started. They will redirect you to your next steps. You do not need to stay within your group during training, but you do need to check in with your representative if you move to a new subject.

Your training preferences will be notated and added to your overall board. This information will be released to the general public. So be sure to make good decisions, because this is how you are going to gain followers and sponsors. After the evaluations, the top three tributes from each district, as determined from popularity polls, will be interviewed. That interview is extremely important, and it all begins here.

Now to get started, we are going to do this in an orderly fashion. Men, your activities will take place over to the right side of the gym. Women to the left side. The women's trainer has yet to arrive."

The following stillness that took over the room was deafening. Thomas had said the last part with such a deadpanned expression and without pause that it took a moment to register his instructions.

After a moment, Gabriel eloquently broke the silence. "Are you fucking shitting me?"

☜♡☞

Apparently Thomas was in fact serious, much to the displeasure of the rest of my group.

They had planned on Gabriel and Luke training with me, so this ruined that idea. In the end the threat of peacekeepers being brought in all made them temporarily relent. North reluctantly let me go as I trudged over to the girl's side of the room.

I felt like an idiot sitting on the floor by myself. 

People kept looking over at me as they tried to figure out what Thomas was plotting, and it was so embarrassing to be singled out like this. Thomas ended up nowhere near me though, he was across the hall talking to some other group of tributes.

It did help settle my nerves that my boys had taken to hovering right alongside of the imaginary line separating men versus women. Or rather, they had been until about three minutes ago when Thomas forced them to choose a training group and disperse.

I sat around for awhile, bored, as I watched everyone else start to work on skills. I wondered where my trainer could be.

Then suddenly, they arrived.

Most of the men in the room stopped what they were doing at the interruption.

A gorgeous blonde woman confidently strolled in from the front doors. She looked like she could have been a princess straight out of a fairytale.