Dangerous Affection- The Hunger Games- A Cato Love Story

Chapter 7: A Memory

Chapter 7- A Memory

There are thirteen floors in the building, and a lower level underground where Training will take place. When we get on the elevator, we just push the number of our district and up we would go. It goes from the ground floor-which we were just on- to the twelfth. Darien pushes eleven and we start to soar upward.

I'd never ridden an elevator before- our district only has one old, dark and creaky one in the Justice Building, and only important people are allowed to ride it. The walls of this elevator are made of crystal, so we can watch people on the ground floor shrink to ants as we shoot up in the air. If my mind wasn't otherwise preoccupied, it would have been exhilarating, but instead I barely notice.

Apparently, Felicia Partita's duties did not end back at the station. She, Garrett and Harry will be seeing us right into the arena. I can't find any positive sides to Felicia sticking around, especially because she isn't the type to forgive and forget.

Garrett and Harry are practically beaming, on the other hand. Well, Garrett isn't exactly jumping up and down, but for a man that never smiles, a small one crept across his face more than ever now-a-days. They'd been extremely impressed by our little entrance, and told us they had been talking up everyone who's anyone in the Capitol to try and get us sponsors; apparently it was looking good.

After we step off the elevator and onto our floor, I walk through a massive kitchen turn down a hallway that appears before I reach the living room My quarters are an easy three times larger than my entire house back home. It is fancy and plush like the train car, but has so many more buttons and levers, I'm sure I won't have time to see what they all do. The shower alone has a panel with more than a hundred buttons to push that regulate water temperature, pressure, soaps, shampoos and conditioners, scents, oils, and massaging sponges. After struggling through one, I step out to find that towels aren't needed, as stepping out onto a mat activates heaters to blow dry my body. Forget tangles, all I have to do it push a button and a current runs through my scalp, drying and de-tangling it in almost no time at all. It floats down a good few inches past my shoulders in glossy waves.

I program the closet for an outfit to my taste, mess with the windows so they zoom around the city and even show pictures that remind me of ho I settle on the forest of what I believe was District Twelve, liking how it was thick and green, wishing I could have grown up hunting there, instead of our sparse woods back home.

I whisper into a mouth piece and choose from an enormous menu of food, and it is there in less than a minute, hot and steamy. I find myself walking around the room, eating rabbit legs and puffy whole grain bread like we have back home, until I hear a knock on the door. Felicia-which surprises me- is calling me to dinner.

Good. I'm starving.

Ryder, Darien, and Cass- Ryder's stylist- are standing out on a balcony that overlooks the Capitol when we enter the dining room. Harry and Garrett are already seated, waiting for us to join them. Tonight's dinner isn't about the food; it is about planning out our strategies to help us in the Games.

A silent young man in a white tunic offers us all stemmed glasses of wine. I hesitate before taking it, but I've never had wine and I figured, when would I get the chance to have some again? I accept, and take a sip from the tart liquid. I think of something my father had brought home once before, but I can't remember the name. I think really hard, and remember he had called it honey. I think the wine would taste much better with a spoonful of it. I don't say so, though, thinking I would sound childish.

Darien and Cass seem to have a civilizing effect on everyone, including Felicia. At least she is speaking to us again. All three of them have nothing but praise for our stylists' opening performance. While they make small talk before the real stuff begins, I focus on my meal. Potato soup, bitter greens with tomatoes the size of peas, rare steak, noodles in a thick green sauce, and cheese that melts on your tongue served with sweet red grapes. The servants, all kids between the ages of about ten and eighteen, are dressed alike in white tunics, and all keep busy by making sure our plates and glasses are full.