The Hunger Games: Annie Cresta

Chapter 8

Nice and tight. These knots are going on very well. My fingers hurt, but they keep going. They recognize their usual routine, before my life turned upside-down because of being a tribute. Nice and tight. Keep going. Nice and tight. I can’t slack off now. There’s a whole rope still unused. The bigger the net the better it is. The fish won’t be able to escape so easily.

There are other noises, but I pay no attention. I can only see rope and knots. Nice and tight. I flex my fingers for a moment. There we go.

I am nudged and I blink a few times.

It takes me a few moments to focus on Danny, who is looking at me in concern. I look at the clock on the wall of the training room. It’s ten already. I’ve been sitting here for three hours without noticing.

“Is this where you’ve been the whole time?” Danny says, sitting down next to me. “We didn’t know where you disappeared to. Finnick was the only one calm enough to say that maybe you had gone ahead without me.”

“I…I just needed some time to think,” I finally say, blinking a few more times. My hands are shaking. I’ve never gone this long making a net without any breaks. My fingers feel numb. If I keep going, the callouses, that the prep team has taken care to remove, may come back.

“What happened?” Danny asks, making no move. The other tributes nearby start to glance at us, but their attention doesn’t hold for very long.

I don’t want to give Danny a bad impression of Finnick, so I just say that my nerves are catching up to me. The Games are only a few days away. He understands this even if it isn’t the truth.

Maybe it is the truth, and Finnick’s act is what opened my eyes to one possibility after being a victor. It isn’t happiness. It’s constant fear, constant madness.

Danny looks around and stands up. He offers his hand to me and I take it. He examines the nearly finished net in my hands. He holds it in his fingers and stretches it out. He smiles and holds it out to its fullest extent. “The finest work in District 4,” he says, handing it back to me. “Everyone knows how to do that at home, but not everyone can create them so neatly and tightly like your family does. There’s such care and precision, that’s why people still buy instead of make one themselves.”

I look at him and then at the net. “Why are you going on about this?”

“Because there will be some things that you will always be better at than me. You’ll survive because you know how to feed yourself. I was always just the fisherman who was handy with weapons.”

He’s trying to make me feel better, just because I said that I was getting nervous. Danny’s always concerned about me. I need the formidable Danny who will be able to kill me in the arena. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to just stand still and kill me, if the time comes. I have become too many paradoxes since entering into this.

I am a weak girl, but also strong in some ways. I do not fear death, but I cannot just die without any defense. I’m tempted to die easily, but only on my own terms. I have no one to live for, but enjoy too many beautiful things that cruel life has to offer.

We go through a few more stations, but I can tell that even Danny’s head isn’t in training. His eyes aren’t focused, and his brows are constantly furrowed. We go to lunch early and eat lightly.

“What does Mags tell you to do?” I ask him. Finnick has been helpful, with his own goals for me as his mentor. I don’t know if I’ll be able to listen to him now though. I haven’t heard about Danny though.

“She teaches me how to survive,” Danny says. “She tells me never to underestimate any tribute in the arena. They can hide their skills just as well as we have been for the past few days. She says that learning more than just how to handle a weapon is the key to come out alive. I’m not very good at knowing the difference of edible plant life though. I’ll mostly have to rely on my combat skills in the arena, much as I try to do what Mags says.”

He chews slowly and takes a drink. “Why, what does Finnick tell you?”

“He’s just working on helping me grow some backbone,” I shrug. “It’s more internal that he has to work with. He thinks that I don’t have a strong will to live, that I’m too compassionate.”

Danny doesn’t say his thoughts about it. He only looks at me and finishes his meal.