First Class Treatment
Sang
I was surrounded by luxury and I couldn't focus long enough to enjoy any of it. It was all I could do not to replay the earlier conversation in my head, to not dwell on the fact that the woman who sort of raised me sold me into this thing, to not think about my impending dea-
Get a grip, Sang.
I shook myself out of it. I needed to push my self-pity to the back-burner for now, and really start to focus on what was going on around me. Since no one was going to help me, I needed to find a way to help myself. Somehow...
I pulled my head up from my knees and studied the people around me.
I had been sitting on a large, cushioned covered chair by a window in the corner, and nobody had tried to talk to me yet. All of the other tributes from my district were in the car as well, and no one looked very happy to be here either.
Khloe was also hanging around somewhere as well. If not in this car, then another. So at least I wasn't the only girl around. That was mildly comforting.
Some guys even appeared to know each other, a few of the men were people I had seen from around town once or twice. It looked like that those who were strangers were also being quick to make acquaintances of each other.
For example, there was a red-headed man covered in freckles who was hanging around a taller man with curly black hair. They seemed to be in deep discussion about something as they stood around the buffet table.
Derrick was sitting across the car, looking out of the windows on the other side. His back was to the rest of the group and he was the only person besides me not talking to anyone.
There were two other men who looked about my age going through the bar, neither one of them paying any attention to me. I noticed that one was incredibly good looking, though not my type, and the other was had a scary scar on his face and was bald.
A gathering of other guys who appeared to be a few years older were sitting around a large rectangular table in the middle of the room.
Good. It looked like I was going to be left alone for the time being.
"So..."
Or not.
A dark haired man with a goatee, who surprisingly didn't look as distraught as the others, squeezed into the chair next to me. "Sing! I don't remember ever seeing you around town. Did you live way out in the country?"
Considering that the chair was made for one person, he was most definitely way in my space.
I moved over as much as I could, but I could still feel him pressed against me. He swung his arm around my shoulders, and I leaned away from him as he tried to bring me in closer.
"My name is Sang." I told him.
"Sing, Sang, Song." He drawled. "Whatever. I'm Greg. You must be into same kinky shit if you got into the selection process, they never put women in. What did you do?"
He leaned his head next to mine and I could feel his breath on my cheek as he spoke directly into my ear. "Since we are gonna die anyway, we should go out on a date when we get to the Capital. Live it up a little, know what I mean?"
I looked at him in horror and he smirked at me.
I didn't know which was worse, the nonchalance he had towards our impending deaths or the thought being with him in any way, shape, or form.
I got out of the chair and backed away, making sure to keep him in front of me.
It didn't matter, he made no move to stand up from where he had made himself comfortable in my seat.
"No thanks." I replied as nicely as I could.
"Just think about it, princess." He smirked at me. "I know you don't have a boyfriend."
I blinked at him and put my finger to my lips. That was a strange conclusion to make. "...Why would you think that?"
"A hottie like you? Any dude worth his salt would have jumped to take your place, just to play hero. Yet no one did." Greg seemed to be smug about this. "So you should go out with me."
One of the older men called over from where he sat at the table, "Is this really the best time to pick up a girl, man?" Apparently we had an audience.
I backed up even further and looked at the ground, noticing that the rest of the room's occupants were now paying attention to us. The bald man and his friend were leaning across the bar, watching us with interest. The redhead, who I vaguely remembered being one of Maro's classmate, and his buddy were looking between me and Greg.
"Chill." Greg snapped at the man who interrupted him, "What Sing and I do is not your business. She's my girlfriend."
A large man, probably Greg's lackey, came and stood up behind the chair that Greg was sitting in. He crossed his arms and glowered at the men at the table.
"I'm not your girlfriend." I mumbled, trying to figure out how to dissuade him. This guy was really creeping me out.
Greg was still talking to the blonde man at the table, who was now frowning at him. He ignored my statement and waved his hand in a dismissive gesture towards the other man. "We are just gonna have some fun, there's nothing wrong with that."
The man across the bar raised his eyebrow as he continued to look back and forth between me and Greg, I could tell he was about to say something.
But Derrick's voice entered the conversation, "I know for a fact that you have never met her before today. She is no one's girlfriend."
Everyone turned towards him.
He had stood up from the chair he was sitting in previously and was leaning his hip against the back of it as he faced the room, his arms crossed. "In case you are all forgetting, she's competition. Boy, girl, it doesn't matter. We are all going to need to fight each other. To the death. There is no fun to be had."
"Kill-joy." Greg muttered under his breath, but I heard him.
Derrick's speech seemed to have the desired effect though, and everyone went back to their own business.
Since my seat was apparently now taken, I started wandering around, trying to make the best of the situation. Derrick had left his perch and went to the buffet table, and it seemed like an alright idea so I tagged along.
I didn't recognize most of the foods on display, and the majority looked too delicious to eat. I was just debating between what appeared to be a pastry of some kind or a cup of fruit when a plate was thrust into my vision.
I looked up and met the eyes of the freckled red-haired man. "Hey girl, you need some meat on your bones. Go with the baked goods." He put a few of the more sugary looking pastries on the plate. "What else do you like?" He started walking down the line and he gestured for me to follow.
"Thanks. I'm good." I want to make anyone feel like they were obligated to be nice to me.
"Aw. Don't worry babe." He plopped some mashed potatoes on my plate along with a slab of something that looked like beef. "You need some fuel."
"Um..." I was checking out my plate which seemed to have a combination of desserts and regular food. "Are you sure that those are a main course item?" I gestured at the sugary looking treats.
He ignored my question led me to a small round table that had three chairs that wasn't too far from where I had been sitting before Greg bothered me. The curly-haired man he was talking to earlier sat in the third chair with a plate of his own. "Who is going to stop us? All this spread is for us anyway."
"Right." I folded my hands on my lap as he put the plate in front of me. "Ok."
"Eat. Eat." He sat back with a flourish, the grin on his face never wavering. "Name's Mike."
"I'm Jer." The other man nodded towards me as he picked up a fork.
"Hello. I am Sang." I grabbed the cloth napkin in front of me, put it on my lap and started fiddling with it.
People were talking to me. Boys were talking to me. They seemed ok. I didn't get the same feeling of unease that I had gotten around Greg from these two.
"So that Greg guy brings up an interesting point." Jer was cutting into a piece of his own beef-looking meat. "We might not know each other personally, we have a large population, but all of us in this room have seen each other in passing at least. Celebrations, schools, siblings... I know girls are not super common, but ya'll are around enough. I do know about the sisters of my classmates and friends." He stabbed the meat with his fork. "But I don't recall ever seeing you before in my life. I've never heard of a Sang Sorenson and I do know of your brother."
"I know I haven't seen you around!" Mike chipped in. "If we met in any other situation I might have asked you to marry me. But I didn't even know that guy had a sister."
I blushed and looked down. "I'm...sorry?" What was I supposed to say in a situation like this? It's not like it's my fault no one paid attention. "Derrick knows me..."
"Who? The sulking one in the corner?" Jer pointed a fork towards Derrick, who was indeed back at his original chair and was ignoring everyone else in the room. "Is he your boyfriend or something?"
"No... he's just my brother's friend." I was twirling my thumbs now. "We really haven't talked before but he's said hello occasionally and stuff. I really didn't go out in public all that much though."
Jer looked thoughtful. "I wonder if -"
"Sang!" Khloe appeared at my side and put her hand on my shoulder.
I jumped and looked up at her. She was no longer in the green dress and was wearing a casual dress suit instead. She looked less grumpy now. "I have a room ready now if you want to go rest a bit."
"Why does she get a private room?" Greg whined.
He was sat in the chair and was so quiet I assumed he fell asleep, but apparently he was just eavesdropping. "That's not fair."
"No one cares what you think, you scumbag. So you can just shove off." Khloe snapped at him, and he leaned back in the chair, shocked into silence.
"Wo-ah!" Mike drew the word out in awe as conversation around the room silenced. Our group became the center of attention again. "That was awesome."
"Right." She drew herself up a bit higher and looked around the car slowly. "Let me just make this clear to you all right now. Just because there is a woman here does not give you all free reign to act like pigs. We are a civilized people. If I hear of one more lewd comment, or if there are even rumors of so much as a single finger placed on this woman in any kind of non-consensual manner, even after we get off this train, I will make you wish you were in the arena even sooner. Trust me, I will track you down and find you. I can make your life even more of a living hell than anything you can ever imagine. Is that clear?"
A chorus of "Yes", "Yes ma'ams" and even one "I think I'm in love" echoed around the room as Khloe put her arm over my shoulders and led me into her private rooms.
☜♡☞
I laid on my back on a plastic covered table with a towel draped over my front.
We had arrived to the Capital with much aplomb a while ago. Then the group of us were whisked away to a high security area filled with buildings of all types and sizes. Afterwards, we were led into one of the buildings and separated. A woman, who seemed thrilled to see me, grabbed my hand and took me to a smallish room by myself.
She then told me that I was going to get a makeover and to strip. So here I was, just chilling.
I just decided to go with it.
The room was a painted a soothing tan color and had abstract art decoratively placed around it. I was pretty certain I could hear some relaxing flute music in the background.
If it wasn't for the fact that I was naked under this towel and there were two strangers wearing medical garb in the room with me, I probably would have fallen asleep.
They stood on each side of me and constantly touched parts of my arms, legs and hair before consulting with each other in low voices. I was pretty sure that they were talking quietly in hopes that I would find this entire thing soothing and would forget they were there, but that was not going to happen.
More than anything, I was mostly bored. I thought I heard the words mud bath and full-body waxing but I couldn't be sure. The latter of which didn't sound very appealing, and I had no idea why anyone would want to bathe in mud.
The woman, who had shoulder length bright purple hair and red eyes, suddenly popped her face into my view close to mine.
If I remembered correctly, she had told me that she was an esthetician, but I had no idea what that meant. She didn't address me though, and instead pinched my face and poked my cheek with her finger. She seemed hyper focused on something.
I followed her finger with my eyes as I tried not to move the rest of my body. "Can I help you?" This was totally not relaxing.
"Sorry sweetie." She smiled at me but continued to poke and prod my face. "I'm just doing an initial skin assessment before Adam gets here. He'll be here in a moment."
"Who?"
She had said his name with such reverence that I almost felt guilty about asking, because it was obvious she assumed that I would know all about this Adam person.
Alarm crossed her face.
"Darling. It's Adam. Adam! He's famous." She glanced at the other person - a green haired male with a giant mohawk and cat eyes - in shock and her hand left my face to rest on her chest over her heart.
He didn't look like he was faring much better.
It was almost as if the news of me not knowing of this Adam person was too much to bear; and I was pretty sure one of them might faint.
"I'm really sorry." I tried to smile sympathetically up at them. "I have no idea who you are talking about."
They both looked like I had genuinely hurt their feelings and I was just about to apologize again when the double doors of the room opened dramatically.
A tall man with neatly styled blonde hair all but swooped into the room and came to a stop next to the foot of the table.
"Alright people," He called out to the others, who had snapped to attention at his entrance and were ogling him with different levels of admiration. "It is now our time to shine!"
A cheer went up from the two.
Ok, now this was getting to be really weird.
I raised myself up on my elbows a bit, making sure my towel did not fall. "Shine? Don't you work with all the tributes?" I asked the man, whom I assumed to be Adam.
He was standing with one hand on his hip and the other on his chin as he studied me. The purple haired girl had left my side at his arrival and the two had moved to different stations around the room and were now a flurry of activity - mixing things, mashing stuff and pulling out strips of paper and rags.
"Oh, sugar dumpling. Not quite. I'm assigned to district six as a whole, but these two are just yours." He smiled at me, and for some reason it put me at ease a bit. "We are just super thrilled and honored. When word reached us that there was a woman in the games this year, everyone wanted a chance to get at you. I may or may not have bullied the person originally assigned to you into switching places."
"What?" My finger pushed my bottom lip to my teeth. "Why?"
Adam twirled his hand in the air. "Every year it is always male tributes. Which certainly is exciting, yes. However, they come to us with the same hair cuts, similar body builds and so on. Mostly we just wash up the men, trim their hair, add a bit of styling and dress them up. Have you ever tried convincing a man who fights for a living that it is more fashionable to wax his chest? I don't think so.
There's only so much I can do and I never get to really have fun. I just cannot show off my creative genius when there is no real challenge and a ton of limitations. I almost had to kill someone to get my hands on you - the first female tribute in the games. You are going to stand out like a beacon."
I frowned. "But I don't want to stand out like a beacon."
"Oh shush." He seemed nonplussed by my lack of enthusiasm. "You are going to stand out no matter what you do anyway." He turned serious for a moment and kept his eyes on mine. "Most everyone is going to try to downplay or ignore the fact that you are girl, because in the end it doesn't matter what your gender is when you are playing this game."
At this, Adam started pacing while he continued. "Sure, people will go on about it during the initial process and think you are just darling but when the games begin the odds will be against you. Your best bet at surviving is to own that fact the you are different and use it to your advantage.
Make it impossible for everyone to ignore the fact that you are not a normal tribute. You have less than a month of training and assessments before the start of the games. You will need to look and act your best to gain an edge somehow. If you play it right, you'll have a chance at winning."
Were people here supposed to talk like this? It almost seemed...rebellious. Why was he so keen on helping me anyway?
I glanced at the three others in the room and noticed that they too were watching Adam and myself with serious eyes and nodding in agreement. There was a heavy atmosphere in the room now and I'm pretty certain that I was missing something big.
Adam clapped his hands and broke the mood. "Anyway. I am the best in the Capital at what I do, and my team is the best at what they do as well. You are going to be fabulous."
He walked around the table and picked up a lock of my hair. "This is remarkable. This is not dyed is it?"
"Um. No..."
He was examining the locks of hair he was holding.
"If I can make a request... Please don't cut my hair?" I knew it was kind of vain, and stupid considering everything else going on, but my hair was one of the last things I had left that defined my previous identity.
"Of course not, sweetness. We can use its' length to our advantage, I'll just give it a short trim and style. That's all." Adam dropped my hair and spun on his heel to the rest of the room.
He clapped his hands twice and snapped out a sharp, "Chop, chop. People. We've got a lot to do and a short amount of time in which to do it."
The room came back to life again, and I was being poked, washed and prodded in so many places that I couldn't keep up in what was happening. So I just trusted that Adam knew what he was doing.
☜♡☞
I tilted my head as I studied my reflection in the mirror, hardly able to recognize myself.
Every inch of me had been scrubbed, covered in mud, washed and plucked. I don't think I had ever been this clean before in my life.
The dress Adam had me wearing was a baby pink color with a flowing calf-length asymmetrical skirt. Since I was not used to high heels, Adam had me given me a pair of light tan flats that strapped around my ankle. The top of the dress was form fitting and sleeveless, and had lace and diamond detailing. One of the most unique factors of the dress, one that Adam was raving about to Green and Purple, was that the back of the dress became backless and formed a large heart.
He had said it was darling.
While Adam didn't do much to my hair outside of what he promised, he did spend some time styling it. In the end, my hair ended up pulled into a messy side braid and the back of hair was bunched together in elaborate curls.
He also went light on the makeup, saying that he wanted to focus on emphasizing my innocence, so I was wearing some light eye makeup and lipgloss.
"I love it." Despite everything that had happened, I felt tears welling up in my eyes as I turned away from the mirror and touched Adam's arm.
I had never felt more beautiful, and despite everything I was happy that I had the opportunity to dress up like this once in my life.
Adam was looking over me with a critical eye and circled around me. "The opening parade used to be a much more grand affair back in the old days of only having a few tributes from each district. Designers would be more focused on the tributes' hometown symbolism than actual fashion statements.
These days the ceremony is a more grand affair, like the Hollywood days of old and red carpet events. All everyone does now is introduce each tribute by district and name. The media takes care of the rest. So making an initial statement is important."
He spotted a section of my hair that he wasn't entirely pleased with and had me sit down so he could mess with it some more. "It was strongly suggested to me that I put you in a more feminine style of the traditional suit and tie."
The two assistants in the back burst out laughing, and Adam's lip lifted up wryly. "Yeah, like I would waste this opportunity."
I watched him in the mirror. "Won't you get in trouble?"
"Me?" Adam scoffed. "Only if they want a riot from the rich and famous on their hands. It'll just be a slap on the wrist at the worst. After you debut with this my stores will be fully booked and my clothing lines bought out for months, if not years."
There was a knock at the door, which interrupted our conversation, and Khloe walked into the room.
She looked me up and down and smiled, "Very nice Sang!"
Adam moved over to the side to stand with Green and Purple as I stood up and faced Khloe.
She had changed into a floor length black gown this time. Noticing me observing her, she lifted her skirt away from her body a bit and dropped it in distaste. "It's much better than it could be, believe me. I don't wear dresses in general, but nothing could ever compare to that monstrosity that I had on during the reaping."
My finger was on my mouth again. "Didn't you pick that out yourself?"
"Hell no." She had a look of disgust on her face at the thought. "My assistant picked it out and put it in my room the night before. I had nothing else to wear because he had taken the clothes I had out. By the time I realized what happened, it was too late."
"You have an assistant?" That was news to me, I hadn't seen anyone hanging around her.
"Of sorts." Khloe sighed and changed the subject.
"I take it Adam has given you a brief overview of what to expect? I know he likes to talk a lot." She glanced a him and Adam nodded.
"Alright." She clasped her hands together. "So here's what will happen, the tributes will enter the area by district order first, then by number based on the order in which you were selected. Therefore, you will be the very last person to go. Just follow the way that the people in front of you do things. After you are done, you'll exit the stage and go to the after party."
Oh no! "What party?"
She shrugged. "Well, it isn't really a party. They just call it that. Basically, it is just a room where all the tributes will gather to mingle for a few hours. The idea behind it is that there will be enough time to make introductions and begin to form relationships."
Khloe let out a breath and continued. "One thing that I need to talk to you about is rooming and sleeping arrangements."
Crap, I forgot about that.
"I have done all I can, but my hands are tied. Traditionally, a tributes' roommates are up to them and the connections that they make during this event. This whole process is supposed to be about forming relationships between districts, they say it is symbolic or some nonsense.
There are ten people to a room and if you do not find your own, you will be assigned roommates by the end of the night. Is there anyone you trust from your district? Such as that Derrick guy or the cute freckled dude? They didn't seem so bad."
What?
I stared at her. This fell into the category of nice-to-have-known ahead of time. Or maybe she had mentioned something about it on the train, but I was zoned out at the time.
In any case, what?
I never even slept in the same room as my brother, let alone strange men. This was a nightmare.
"I..." I pushed my lip again and I knew that I was shaking again. "...I don't know."
She studied me. "You'll be alright, I promise. You have good instincts, trust them. Here, wear this."
She pulled out something from a handbag she carried and pinned it to my dress near my left shoulder.
I looked down. It was a cute pin - it had a tiny golden letter 'A' on it, with wings growing from the sides. It was subtle enough to look like part of the outfit.
She nodded happily at it and looked pleased. "Perfect. Time to go."
She grabbed my arm and wound it through her own as she walked us out of the room.
She led me down a few hallways and into the back of a crowded room and stopped at the entrance, which appeared to be the end of a long winding line.
No one noticed our arrival since they were watching a screen on the other side of the room that took up the entire wall. Next to the screen there was a doorway that led out into some sort of stage area.
"Ok, I need to leave now. Only tributes can be in here and go to the party afterwards."
"Alright..." I sadly looked after her retreating back.
She was the first semi-real life friend I had, I didn't want to lose sight of her. Which was kind of pathetic, but I couldn't help myself.
After she was gone I turned my attention back to the room. Everyone was standing in chronological order behind a winding rope that led towards the door. So I was directly behind Derrick, who gave me no more than a cursory glance and nod.
I was hiding as much as possible, but I knew it was only a matter of time before my presence became known.
A loud fanfare started blaring from outside the door, and I knew that once this started I wouldn't be able to be invisible anymore.