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"I CAN'T DO IT." Araucaria paced back and forth in front of her father, dressed head to toe in her blood red uniform. She had her bag on one shoulder, filled with both her school books and food for Treech. "I can't do it." Her breakfast had gone untouched, though normally she would remember the starvation in the Districts and force it down.
"Honey, you have to." Her father held an arm out, attempting to stop her in her tracks.
"How am I supposed to help him win these games? I don't even know how? I'll just be giving him false hope and letting him down by acting otherwise." She stopped now, fiddling with the strap of her bag.
"Cari," her father grabbed her wrists, pulling him closer to her. He looked up at her from his seat at the table, a bowl of oatmeal abandoned. "You don't have a way out of this, not unless you want to forfeit your spot."
"Dad..." Araucaria's voice dropped to a faint whisper, eyes cast on the buckles of her shoes. "I am clueless about this stuff." And I'm just a kid. She wanted to add, her school assignments should be oral presentations that she would try to get out of by feigning an illness, not the responsibility of someone's life that left her actually sick in the bathroom.
Her father sighed, releasing her arms and thinking for a moment, "Don't worry about helping him get out just yet. When you see him, just focus on making him feel like he has someone rooting for him." He caught her incredulous look. "Don't give me that face. I thought of giving up so many times over the years, but I didn't because I saw this," He pinched her cheek, "hopeful face looking back at me. Someone else's support can be a great motivator."
Araucaria allowed her frown to slip and be replaced by a fond smile, swatting her father's wrinkled hand away. "I am rooting for him. But... does that mean I'm rooting for the other twenty three to die?"
Euterpe Finch had been stumped many times over the years. He had struggled during the war to pick a side, stuck between survival and his beliefs. He wrestled with himself over whether to give up and live a quiet life in Four, or put in the work to get out. None had silenced him such as the fear in his daughter's voice.
"You can wish him to survive without wanting the others to die, even if that is what him living means. Their death will not fall on you, even if you do everything in your power to help this boy win, understand?"
Araucaria mulled over his words. She would separate Treech's survival from the death of the others. Every tribute that died would be considered a step closer to getting the one she was responsible for out alive, not a direct fault of hers.
"I understand... I should get going." She turned quickly on her heel, stride long as she hurried out the door, not to the academy where she was expected, but the train station.
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"Great minds think alike." Araucaria stopped next to Coriloanus's stick straight frame. He too wore his uniform, calling off the commitment at the last moment. "A rose?"
