"I can't have you," Finnick whispered, pressing a soft, parting kiss to Rose's forehead, "because you'll always be Snows, not mine."
Rhoswen (Rose) Snow is the daughter of President Snow, who rescued her from a homeless, destitute life in District...
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The television brightness in Rose's room burned her eyes as it reflected an image of herself back at her. There she stood in all her glory, looking utterly beautiful as a cascade of dark red crimson fell down from the top of her dress in thin rivulets, covering every spare inch of white until she was coated in it, the dress nearly unrecognizable from the thing it was before. It was Ying's best work, truly.
She hadn't been lying when she said Rose would walk off that stage an entirely different woman than the one she had come on as. Well, to all of Panem that is. To Panem, she had been a doting daughter, Snow's pristine white Rose. Ying had merely stripped away that facade, showing the girl underneath.
The dress had been the final piece in Finnick's plan. It had cemented her as someone to fear, a force, not a cowering girl. It had also demonstrated that she would be reliable tribute to sponsor and root for to the rich folk of the capitol. And finally, probably the most important part, it showed to the districts, to the people that doubted her, that she was not some sniveling rich girl from the capitol but someone who fully understood the sacrifice of the games.
God, how could she not?
Rose scrubbed at her dry eyes that refused to close. Every time they did, they'd spring back open, imagining some way that she'd die tomorrow. Possibly mutilation. Someone taking pleasure in slicing her open piece by tiny piece. Maybe it'd be quick, a shot to the heart, a blow to the head. Maybe it'd be slow, death by drowning, by fire, or animal. She shuddered at the thought of some blood-thirsty beast eating her alive, the sound of her screaming followed by the shot of a cannon.
Rose had turned on the tv hoping the noise and flickering lights would distract her from these thoughts, but clearly they hadn't. If anything, they had just reinforced her state of anxiety. All that the networks were showing were recaps of the interviews. Different capitol hosts talking about the tributes, or well trying to, but inevitably they'd end up on Rose's dress.
"How does that even work? Where did the blood come from?" One of the late night tv hosts asked.
"Maybe it was stored in the dress?"
"Is it real? Or is it paint?"
A hundred people were asking a hundred different questions. What did Rhoswen mean? Our little Rosie couldn't be out for blood, could she? Is this a message to her father? Will she win the games herself or will it be rigged for her?
Rose groaned and grabbed the remote, turning off the television. She then turned towards the wall of glass to her left, showing off the streets of the capitol which were currently riddled with people in colorful outfits, dancing to music Rose could only faintly hear through the thick glass. Celebrating. They were celebrating the seventieth hunger games. Celebrating the night before twenty-four children were sent to their death.
Rose flicked the button that changed the glass to something else. A lush green forest dotted with birds, a doe hiding behind a thick branch, munching on some grass. Another tap and she was now in some kind of dessert, with cacti, a rattlesnake flickering through the sand, leaving a winding trail in its wake.
