In Our Favor

Ch.4

📍Train
9:00am

I enter the train behind Finnick to see Zero sitting down along side Nikolaí, across from Effie and Portia. She hops up when she sees me and gives me air kisses on each cheek before doing the same to Finnick.

"Hi sunshine!" She greets me.

"Hey Zero." I smile at her. "I love your look today." I say, examining the pastel pink and purple fuzzy dress she has on, paired with matching makeup.

I swear, in some other perfect reality, Effie and Zero are in love.

I sit down with her, Finnick and I sandwiched between Nikolaí and Zero.

"Now, Effie's getting her tributes in style first. But in the meantime, I can show yours to you." She says cheerfully.

She pulls out a fashion book and flips a few pages before landing on the one with our outfits. They're skin tight black pants paired with a matching turtle neck. The outfit is accented with white highlights and a metallic 'Odair' on the sleeve.

"The material inside is thin enough to keep you cool, while the outside is thick enough to save you from any stray weapons." Nikolaí explains.

"Stray weapons?" Finnick quirks his brow.

"Zero had the idea." Nikolaí jokingly blames her.

"Well I don't know. I've never been in a training facility before, there could be flying knives for all I know." She defends.

"Thank you, Zero. They're lovely." I chuckle.

Zero grabs the hangers with our training outfits on them just as Peeta and Katniss come out. They're wearing the standard black and red training outfits. But we, of course, had to go all out. Finnick and I go to seperate bathrooms to change.

A few minutes later, we emerge from the dressing rooms and sit back where we were; the other tributes and their stylists sitting opposite of us.

Haymitch starts sarcastically clapping when he sees us.

"Wow." He says.

I roll my eyes as Finnick slightly smiles at the joke.

"What is this, a sports game?" Peeta remarks.

"I don't know, I think it looks pretty cool." Katniss says with a smirk, obviously trying to make Peeta upset.

"Why thank you, Katniss. It's a fashion statement. I'm sure Effie would agree." Zero bragged.

"Of course I do." Effie smiles. "I'm not sure why my victor here would make such a comment." She grits through her teeth, elbowing Peeta.

He winced, almost making Haymitch choke on his drink from laughing so hard .

I look out of the window to see a large, pentagon shaped building.

"There's the center." I point out.

Everyone starts to get themselves together and pack their stuff, when I notice that I look sort of unready still. I look at everyone else to see what's off about me. That's when I realize my hair is the only one in a bun. I straightened my hair this morning, but sort of assumed that Zero would handle it for me. I snap to get Katniss' attention and lean over to her.

"Hey." I whisper. "Do you think you could teach me to braid my hair like that?"

"Oh. Yea sure." She whispers back, standing up. "We'll be right back" She says to the table.

We both slide out of the booth and walk into the bathroom. We stand in front if the mirror as she takes her braid down so that she can restart it and show me.