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Valentina
IF I DIVE BACK into the world that I've been avoiding, am I any better off than being in the games themselves? Tribute, victor, mentor, it's all the same. I'm a piece in the Capitol's games regardless of the role I hold and the title I supposedly yield. I am nothing without my victory, yet I am trapped with my victory.
The day the 74th Hunger Games occur, I am sat in a chair on stage, half out of my mind. I'm dressed in a playsuit with a low V-neck collar, Venus and Gold had tried to make me look sexy with smokey eyeshadow and heavy lashes, but nothing changes the way I look. Tired.
I am slumped in my chair, half-sober, when Finnick takes his seat next to me. "Punctual as ever." I comment.
"Sober as ever." He responds, and I am quiet once more. He takes a hard look at me before rolling his eyes and putting his hand on my head, moving my head so that I was resting on his shoulders, seeming to disregard the cameras around us.
Finnick and I had bonded when he was my mentor, but I had grown distant from him since I returned from my games. His sponsorship kept me alive, mentally at least, and I cannot repay him if not with my life. I feel like I owe him.
Octavia steps onto stage and shortly after a video from the Capitol plays, the same one I've seen year after year. I feel my eyes beginning to droop and close before Finnick shuffles and my head bounces on his shoulder. It causes me to scowl and keeps me awake, ignoring the hint of a smile on his face.
I am left thinking of my own games when the parallel before me reflects my own experience. A hand in a glass bowl, reaching, reading, the crowd parting, a girl crying, there is no volunteer this year.
Octavia's hand reaches into the glass ball which holds hundreds of papers worth of names. She pulls one out and walks towards the microphone in the centre of the stage.
"Alexander Davis." She calls out, and my best friend is making his way up to the stage.
I blink and he's gone, replaced by a particularly scrawny kid no older than 14. I immediately feel my head drop into my hands and sigh, realising this year was destined to be a great failure. I wonder if that's how it looked to Finnick when I volunteered for my games.
There is a bead of sweat rolling down my forehead and I am unable to contain it, it's like this every year, but my prep team always powder me up and we move on.
Adjusting to the heat was one of the hardest things after leaving the snowy mountains of the 73rd Hunger Games. Every day I would grab my coat only to be scolded, and I would sweat in a bath of cold water.
"Ladies and gentlemen, Elena and Carter!" Octavia concludes, and we are all rushed off stage.
I'm half stumbling when I come backstage, and I watch as Finnick gently hugs a few friends and family before leaving. I sit on a bench nearby and wait for anyone to visit me, half-expecting Alexander to walk around the corner.
The spitting image of Alex peers at me from the side wing of the stage and walks towards me, "Bye Val!" Allison's cheery voice would be recognised anywhere, and she doesn't comment that I smell of booze or that I'm half asleep, she just sits next to me and puts her head on my shoulder.
"I'll see you in about a month or two, it won't be too long." I hesitate. "You can always stay in my house, not like I lock my doors."
She smiles and nods, and we fall back into silence. I wonder if the reason she is still attached to me is because I'm the last reminder of her older brother. Often, if I'm wearing his old clothes, I can almost smell him, and she is nicer than ever to me.
Of course, his parents barely talked to me anymore, and I couldn't blame them, perhaps they hate me yet they know deep down, they don't blame me, it's just the way it worked out. I hope so, at least.
"Haste, haste! Valentina, are you ever on time nowadays?" Octavia sighs as she walks past me, and I pat Allison on the arm as I stand up.
"See you around, kid." I smile at her.
If Allison were to be reaped again, nobody would volunteer for her without me there. It's a miracle she was even spared this year when Elena was reaped.
"No volunteers this year." I comment after jogging to catch up beside Octavia, who scowls at me for my ever-casual manner, not that it mattered anymore. My image to the public had long changed since my debut, and there was no reason for it to change now.
"Yes." She purses her lips together. "Not a bother, Valentina, after our success last year."
"I guess." I furrow my eyebrows. Success?
The train is beautiful and exquisite, just as it was last year. This time I am able to experience it for the first time all over again and look at it as a figure of beauty, not a figure of death. "It's different, isn't it?" A voice calls out, and before I can react, Finnick's arm is slung around my shoulders and I feel his breath just past my cheek.
A foreign feeling of resistance takes over me but I don't move, taking it all in as we find somewhere to sit. "Is there a liquor cart somewhere?" I mumble, and Finnick sighs to himself.
"Maybe take it easy today, you don't know how these kids will react."
"Aren't we supposed to be a career district, Fin?" I lean my head back against the edge of the chair, letting my neck click twice and closing my eyes briefly to relax.
He doesn't reply but instead takes a glass of water and puts it in my hand. "Sober up, for Christs sake."
I give him a hard stare before drinking from the cup. I had felt so dehydrated the last few days, my own fault or not, and it made me sigh upon the feeling of water down my throat.
"Hello?" A voice calls out, and two children are in front of us.
Finnick and I look at one another, and then at the children, and we know the 74th Hunger Games have begun.
