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Coriolanus stood on the empty train platform, awaiting his tribute's arrival, a long-stemmed white rose balanced carefully between his thumb and index finger. It had been Tigris's idea to bring her a gift. She had arrived home very late on the night of the reaping, but he had waited up to consult with her, to tell her of his humiliations and fears. She refused to let the conversation spin into despair. He would get a prize; he would have to! And have a brilliant university career. What bothered him was the tax reclaim soon to be placed over the Snows' apartment, how they would be homeless if unable to scrape together enough pennies to pay off the debt. But he was to think of none of that. Only of the Hunger Games, and how he might make a success of it.
At Fabricia's reaping party, Tigris said, everyone was nuts about Calpurnia Flint, so much as crying over her. His tribute was a plain "scarred angel," her friends had declared as they drunkenly slurped their posca. The cousins agreed that he needed to make a good first impression on the girl so that she would be willing to work with him. He should treat her not as a condemned prisoner, but as a guest. Coriolanus had decided to greet her early at the train station. It would give him a jump on the assignment, as well as an opportunity to win her trust.
"Imagine how terrified she must be, Coryo," Tigris had said. "How alone she must feel. If it was me, anything you could do to make me feel like you cared about me would go a long way. No, more than that. Like I was of value. Take her something, even a token, that lets her know you value her."
Two days had passed since the reaping. The city had held on to the oppressive heat, and even though it was just past dawn, the train station was beginning to bake. Coriolanus felt conspicuous on the wide, deserted platform, but he couldn't risk missing her train. The only information he could get out of his downstairs neighbor, Gamemaker-in-Training Remus Dolittle, was that it was supposed to arrive Wednesday. Coriolanus could have inquired through the Academy, but he didn't know if greeting the train would be frowned upon. No rules had been laid out, per se, but he thought most of his classmates would wait to meet their tributes at a session overseen by the Academy the following day.
An hour passed, then two, and still no train of any kind appeared. The sun beat down through the glass panes of the station ceiling.
Perspiration trickled down his back, and the rose, so majestic that morning, began to bend in resignation. He wondered if the whole idea was ill-conceived and if he would get no thanks for greeting her in this way. Another girl, a typical girl, would be impressed, but there was nothing typical about Calpurnia Flint. In fact, there was something questionable about a girl with such a large, intimidating gash running half a foot down her face. She was terrifying, really. And here he was in his uniform, clutching a rose like some lovestruck schoolboy, hoping she would—what? Like him? Trust him? Not kill him on sight?
Her cooperation was imperative. Yesterday, Satyria had led a mentor meeting in which their first assignment had been detailed. In the past, the tributes had gone directly into the arena the morning after they'd all arrived in the Capitol, but the time line had been extended now that the Academy students were involved. It had been decided that each mentor was to interview their tribute and would be given five minutes to present them to Panem on a live television program.
