It was still dark as I stumbled outside onto the balcony. I let out a sigh. I didn’t sleep at all last night. I use to think I could easily sleep anywhere at any time but I guess had been wrong. I tossed and turned all night and my eyes were still red from crying. I shouldn’t have cried but I couldn’t help myself. I never even got to say goodbye to my family.
“Can’t sleep?” Avery appeared.
I looked at her dryly. She laughed.
“I didn’t sleep on my first night either.”
We stood in silence for a long time watching the sun rise slowly from the west.
“Avery?” I asked softly.
“Did you ever think you were going to die in the games?”
“Every single hour” she replied instantly.
I was a little surprised. I remember watching the 85th games a couple of years ago. It was one of my favourites. The very first day of the games Avery started to build a secret tree house. It kept her away from the tributes and the roaming jungle animals. The sponsors immediately loved her idea and sent her all kinds of tools to build it. I remember watching her in awe. She never rested, never slept and never even wiped the sweat from her brow. In the games, she was set in her ways and rarely seemed fazed. Part of me was glad to know she was just as scared as I am now.
“You ready for the training?”
I smiled weakly, shrugging my shoulders. Three gruelling days of superior people telling me I have no skills. “I suppose”.
She had spent a good part of the evening trying to teach me how to sit ‘like a lady’. Magnus refused to help and seemed to hate me meanwhile Arrow would just sit there snickering at my desperate attempts. It took every effort not to attack the ignorant boy, though I did land a few good punches before Avery would pull me off him.
Even though the interviews were three days away she stressed their importance. She waited patiently for me to understand each instruction and then coached us on how to talk to Caesar, how to engage the crowd and how to keep the air of mystery around my connection to Arrow.
I noticed the sun had almost completely risen. I knew I should begin preparing for the long day ahead. I turned to leave.
“I’m sorry about last night” Avery burst out. I was a little mad at her for springing the horse riding idea on us JUST before the ceremony had begun, but she was my coach and she volunteered to help us for a reason.
“Is President Snow mad?” it was barely a whisper. I already knew the answer and it scared the hell out of me.
“Yes and no” she admitted awkwardly. “He’s mad that every stylist since Katniss and Peeta’s year has been trying to top ‘the girl on fire’”.
It made sense. And I suppose we did top them, but who was now destined to die because of us? The last time Panem rebelled against the capitol - the hunger games were invented. Was Phoenix going to die because of me? My entire prep team? Avery? I shook my head, not wanting to think about it. Avery had never coached tributes before but she at least has to keep us in the loop. Maybe then I wouldn’t feel so miserable.
“Next time” I walked over to the door and slid it open.
“Tell me when you change the game plans.” I grumbled.
~
“Ah this is stupid” I snapped, tossing a tangled knot onto the ground.
This was my first day in the training centre and I couldn’t even tie a simple knot. I suppose I can’t expect to make any traps or snares if I couldn’t tie a rope.
“Want help?” I spun around to see a male tribute leaning smugly against the wall.
I looked at his shirt. It had ‘1’ written on it. No way was I going to talk to a killing machine from district one. He was a career which meant he automatically couldn’t be trusted. I immediately averted my gaze from him, planning to pretend I didn’t hear him.
He chuckled and walked over to me. He picked up the rope and untangled it.
“So this is what you do” he gestured for me to grab another piece of rope from the table. I scoffed at him but reluctantly obliged. I needed to learn at this ONE thing in my three days here.
“Tie a loose knot at the end of the rope”
I watched intently the actions from the knot-boy and then copied him.
“Now, tie a tight knot at the other end of the rope and bring the loose end through it” he tied his rope as he explained it to me. “Like so” he said simply.
I was struggling. I eyed him pointedly. “Do it again, knot-boy” I ordered, trying to understand his instructions. He snickered quietly, placing his hands on top of mine then proceeding to tie and wind my rope as per his confusing instructions.
“Now just tighten the loose knot and pull the tight knot through”
“Ta-da, you did it” he chuckled again. “I dub you ‘knot-girl’” he beamed at me.
“Oh” I looked at my rope which looked nothing like his. After inspecting the knot a little more I finally realised he had taught me how to tie a lasso.
“Oh!” I exclaimed excitedly. “Why’d you teach me that?”
“I liked your horse stunt in the ceremony” he shrugged. “You have some serious guts”.
Maybe not all careers were terrible and untrustworthy. He had a good nature about him and seemed pretty genuine. Still, I had no idea why he was wasting his time helping me. But then again, being a career he must already know how to tie every knot, throw knives and understand which insects are edible. Only people from the poor districts like me didn’t.
“It’s a pretty good life skill to learn, especially if you live around horses”
I turned sour. Like hell I was going to survive the games. I huffed away from him. He just wanted to have a laugh at the poor district 10 tribute that had no hunting skills. I moved to the edible plant station only to be interrupted again.
“Can’t even tie a knot” a girl sneered at me. Her shirt had ‘1’ written on it too. She must have been watching my exchange with that knot-boy. Damn careers, they needed stay away from me.
“I’m sorry” I said slowly “but which district collected the most hype during the ceremony?” I asked dryly.
She didn’t answer. Gaining popularity with the capitol people was very important to careers; she should definitely know who the boss was.
“That’s right. District 10” I smiled widely and turned to walk away.
She grabbed my arm and yanked me back.
“Stay away from Zane” she warned and tightened her grip around my arm.
~
“She’s a crazy bitc-”
“Arrow” Magnus chastised him.
“I know” I agreed as I reached across the dining table for a piece of garlic bread. In the back of my head I was a little surprised me and Arrow had actually agreed on something.
Avery said the district 1 girl was most likely trying to form an alliance with Zane the knot-boy and was just warning me off. Didn’t mean she wasn’t a crazy bitch though. Besides, it was extremely unlikely a career would want to form an alliance with me, or anyone for that matter. But I was okay with that. That meant I would only have to worry about myself.
We all sat at the dining table eating dinner. Avery was constantly shooting questions at us, about what we learned during the day and who we talked to etc. She wasn’t happy that I spent the whole day at the non-combative stations learning how to tie knots, camouflage and learn about insects.
I didn’t like interacting with other tributes in the centre but I noticed there were more than a few deadly careers roaming around in packs. The Tributes had already begun forming alliances.
Not that I would admit it, but throughout the day I had been keeping tabs on Arrow too. I made sure I was at least a few stations away from him at all times, but from what I could see, he was doing alright. He could also fish really well, so apparently his father taught him something useful after all.
The table had been cleared finally and a group of Avoxes served us desert. I had only heard about Avoxes but never actually seen one. My dad used to tell me bedtime stories about them, telling me that they were unknown creatures who rebelled against the capitol but got caught. I looked at them wearily. They just looked like normal people… That didn’t have tongues.
“So let me put it simply” Arrow continued, addressing Avery from across the table.
“Scar is as useless in the training centre as an Avox would be in a choir”. Arrow giggled meanwhile Magnus, who had been quietly inhaling the food suddenly began to choke. He gagged and then let out a long laugh that made his stomach heave.
“Oh come on. She can’t be that useless” Avery countered
“No seriously, preparing Scarlett for the games is like a preparing animal to the slaughter”.
By now, Magnus was giggling uncontrollably. I eyed him for encouraging Arrow’s antics. I quickly picked up my desert spoon and pegged it smashing him in the other eye. Hopefully his other eye would bruise as well. A girl could only dream.