"elowen, if you say those three words again i swear i will put an axe through your skull."
"go to sleep, johanna."
╰┈➤ In which Elowen North of District Seven, dealing with fresh trauma from her Hunger Games, falls in love with Seven's other feisty...
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"Finnick got back to me last night. It's official. Rowan, Ripleigh and Sayge are allies," Johanna says at breakfast the next day, bounding into the room and loudly sitting down, which earned a couple of condescending looks from the Capitol locals. Johanna gave a satisfied smirk. Rowan and Jude are still in their rooms, which allows us to talk about them without having to be cautious about it.
I take a sip of unnaturally sweet tea. "That's all she needs. More allies means more people she'll have to kill. Ripleigh and Sayge won't be easy kills, as it is."
"Both of the little kids from District Six wanted to ally with Jude. I accepted because Jude seemed to like that Mikey kid well enough." Johanna is served a steaming cup of coffee, and is offered sugar and cream. She pushes the sweeteners away distastefully and starts drinking the stuff black.
I cringe. "Does drinking that stuff make your soul black?" I ask casually, trying out Johanna's signature snarky way of speech.
Johanna shoots me a glare. "I'll rip your throat out." As soon as the words leave her lips, her wide-set brown eyes soften in regret. She shakes her head and takes another sip of black coffee.
"Elowen, Johanna, let's focus," Aeneas says calmly. "So both of our tributes have two allies, yes? Rowan has Ripleigh and Sayge, and Jude has Mikey and Charlotte."
I slam my hands down on the table. Aeneas's neon corkscrew curls bounce as he jumps in surprise. "Don't refer to my sister as 'your tribute'. She doesn't belong to the Capitol and I won't allow you to reduce her to just a victim of the Games," I hiss.
"Elowen-" Johanna starts, but I'm already walking away.
"I don't care, Johanna."
-
Johanna finds me after breakfast on the balcony, ripping up a genetically enhanced, artificially coloured tulip.
"What the fuck was that, Elowen?" she insists.
I shrug carelessly. "I got mad, that's all." I throw the remaining stem of a once beautiful tulip to the side with disgust.
Johanna eyes me from the glass divider separating the balcony from the rest of the apartment. "Apologize to the Capitol guy, then we have to leave."
"Not that I really care either, but his name is Aeneas," I mutter as I walk back into the dining room.
My sister and Jude have joined Aeneas in the dining room, both young teens dressed in their training uniforms. Aeneas is the first to spot me, his cosmetically altered cyan eyes unreadable. I whisper Rowan a quick good morning, running my hand briefly over the bristly fabric of her training shirt's back.
I fold my hands together. "Aeneas, I'm sorry for snapping at you earlier. I should've told you in a nicer tone. I'm sorry," I say, the words sounding mechanical as I forced them from my throat.
