The Hunger Games

5

Alec gritted his teeth as Abigail, a woman with aqua hair and gold tattoos above her eyebrows, yanked a strip of dried wax from his leg.

"Sorry!" She squeaked in her silly Clave accent, "You're just so hairy!"

Why did those people speak in such a high pitch? Why did their jaws barely open when they talked? Why do the ends of their sentences go up as if they're asking a question? Odd vowels, clipped words and always a hiss on the letter s... no wonder it was impossible not to mimic them.

"Good news, though, this is the last one!"

Alec had been in the Remake Center for over three hours and he still hadn't met his stylist. Apparently, he had no interest in seeing him until the three members of the prep team were done with him. They had scrubbed his skin with some kind of black loam that had removed dirt and probably some skin layers, cut his nails and gotten rid of most of his body hair.

His legs, torso, underarms, parts of his eyebrows and other facial hair had been stripped off. Alec felt like a bird about to be roasted. He hated it. His skin was on fire, mostly, and he felt sort of violated. He kept his side of the bargain with Magnus, though, and he stayed silent.

"You're doing very well," said some guy named Enoch. "If there's one thing we can't stand, it's a whiner!"

Abigail and Lora, the other member of Alec's prep team, rubbed him down with some lotion that stung at first but then soothed his skin. Then they took his robe off and made him sit up. They removed any last bit of visible hair and then stepped away from him to admire their work.

"Wonderful! You're almost like a decent human being now." Lora said, making the other two laugh.

Alec forced a smile, as if to show how grateful he was, but he was all red and uncomfortable, mainly because he was all nude in front of three unknown people from the Clave.

"By the time Lorenzo is done with you, you're going to be absolutely gorgeous." Enoch said.

"Now that we've gotten rid of all that hair and filth, you'll look better than ever!"

They left the room in silence, leaving Alec vulnerable in his nakedness and unprotected. He looked down at himself and didn't recognize his own body. He gazed around, trying to find something to cover himself with but they had taken the robe with them. Alec had left his father's clothes in the train, along with the mockingjay pin. He felt a rush of sadness, wishing he could have taken it with him to have a part of his district, his family, with him.

Ale ran a hand through his hair, the only part his prep team had left alone at the second attempt of taming it and failing. He missed smelling like he always did, like leaves and wilderness.

The door opened. A man, a bit older than him but still, young, walked in. He looked slightly different than the other people from the Clave, with their uptight looks and clothing. He had his long hair in a ponytail, a well-trimmed goatee and features that didn't match the Clave's typical ones.

He even seemed to glitter.

"Hello, Alec. I'm Lorenzo, your stylist." He said in a quiet voice, lacking the entirety of the Clave's accent.

"Hello." He muttered, wishing he could cover himself.

"Just give me a moment, all right?" He went around Alec's naked body, not touching him, just examining him. The blue-eyed man had to resist the impulse to cross his legs. "What happened to your hair?"

"It's always like this."

"I like it. It suits you. It gives you some kind of rebellious look."

Alec had expected someone older, someone desperate to look young, someone who viewed Alec as some piece of meat to be prepared for a platter. Lorenzo didn't seem to be like that. He looked like a nice person, even.