104: The Games (A Hunger Games Story)

Chapter Six

On the third day of training, I focus a lot on combat. I manage to perfect my knife throwing skills, killing with one knife every time. I probably seem like a career to the other tributes, which might make me a target. In the next hour before lunch, I teach myself basic sword fighting, and I learn how to start a fire in under a minute. After lunch, I have another go at the gauntlets, and complete it for the first time in under two minutes, after splitting my lip when I fell on one of my first two attempts of the day. After I finish it for the second time, this time in a minute and 22 seconds, the timid girl from district 8 walks up to me and asks for an alliance. I deny her without thinking, mainly without thinking, because she would only be an extra mouth to feed, and would bring no skill to me and Clo. My suspicions are confirmed I try to show her how to do the gauntlets for the fifth time, and she gets whopped in the back of the head and is out cold for three minutes. Soon, she manages to stagger through it in four minutes. I have enough time for one more thing, so I jump onto the ropes course, and I chuck a knife from there into another dummy. The Gamemakers look slightly impressed, so I know I should do that during my individual assessment.

But then the individual assessments come.

We are all taken under the Training Center, and first the boy from 1 goes, who's name I find out is Apollo. What a stupid District 1 name. About 15 minutes later a few more people have gone, and before I know it, it's my turn. I smile at Clo, and walk into the gym.

The gamemakers are sitting above the gym where they can watch us, despite what I've heard, the gamemakers aren't completely ignoring me. I do the gauntlets first, the quickest I've done so far, and I get their attention after that. Then, I get 3 bull's eyes throwing knives and the gamemakers seem impressed. I chop some heads off of cardboard people, and then demonstrate hand-to-hand combat skills by throwing a wrestling dummy off of the ropes, and the gamemakers talk for a couple of minutes, then dismiss me. I feel pretty confident as I go to my floor and wait for Clo.

About 10 minutes later, I hear the elevator open and I jump up and run to Clo, Johanna walks in and says, "Okay you too, tell me what you did." Me and Clo sit down and I tell them what I did, and how the gamemakers acted. Johanna smiles and says, "Good job kid, what did you do Clo?"

Clo blushes a little and says, "well, Rowan, you know how I used to disappear for a little while at home? Well, I had been practicing gymnastic with them, and I showed the gamemakers hand-to-hand combat with gymnastics. I did that with knives and they looked impressed." I hug her and say, "I'm proud of you Clo."

We go back to the suite, and eat dinner at the high table that was set up for us by the Avoxes who came in here before us. We never had slaves at home. I wonder what it would be like to like at the Capitol with a wounded animal at your beck and call. Probably awful. I never want to have to go into the Capitol again. With any luck, I wo'nt. Talon joins us a bit later, and then Diamond and Candy arrive with the food. I have a piece of steak and a carrot salad that fills me right up.

Later, we sit around the fireplace and talk and listen to Letos Moon, the interviewer, and Jake Torbjornsen, the announcer, talking about the tributes this year. At 8:00, we all stop and listen, because on right now is the program "Training, Training, Training!" What silly names these Capitol People have for everything. "A lot of fighting words flying around right now, eh, Jake?" says Letos. "Yeah, we're not exactly having a traditional Career Pack this year." You're telling me. "The sun" and "the flood," which are the stupid nicknames the capitol people have for Apollo and that boy from District 4, each have their own half of the Career pack. District 4 has both their tributes, and the girl from two who hates me, and District 1 has both their tributes and the boy from two who hates Clo. Yay. "And now, the training scores!" says Jake. My head snaps to the television on the wall, and we see the shots they took of us come up, along with our names, districts, and genders. I take notice of the first two, from District 1, where the boy gets a nine and the girl gets and eight. Not surprising, as the Career Districts never get below an eight. I faze out for a little while, but when I hear "Tami Spence, District 6 Female Tribute, 3!" That's a relatively low score for someone with relatively high odds, but I'm not complaining. "Rowan Flake, District 7 Male Tribute, 8!" I am shocked. An eight? That's a Career score. I was expecting a six, maybe a seven. But not an eight. I am really happy with myself. Clo gets a six, and then Johanna turns the TV off. "Bad." she says. "Bad. No. No. Not high," she says, shuddering to herself. Then she goes to her room, and Talon congratulates us while Diamond goes to talk to Johanna.

I'm not much one for talking right now, so I go to my bedroom. Clo comes in, and wishes me good night before going across the hall to her own bedroom.

I quickly fall asleep, snuggled into my bed, happy. I didn't expect to be woken up in the middle of the night by my crush.

I wake up, and after checking my watch and affirming that it is three in the morning, I look over and looking at me is Ivy. "Hi, Sleepyface" she says softly. "Ummm...hi?" I say, slightly unsettled to know that she's been watching me while I sleep. Yeah... that's creepy. "You woke me up... in the middle of the night... for no reason" I say. "I wouldn't say no reason" She says with a smirk.

She drags me out of bed, tells me to get into "real clothes," and then I follow her around the hotel.

"How do you find this stuff?" I ask as we play a game of pool behind locked doors. "Oh, you know. Nice janitors, sleepless nights, maybe a little breaking and entering" she replies. I wonder what else she does. "Go swimming" she says, in response to my unspoken question. "Where?" I ask. She feigns confusion "Oh, you don't know?" I smile sheepishly. "This'll be fun. Real fun." she says, and practically skips out the door of the pool hall. 

I follow her for about a minute until she opens the door to the biggest indoor pool I have ever seen. "This is where I go swimming." she says. I go sit down on one of the chairs, and she sits next to me. "Why?" I ask. "Why what?" I stare at the ceiling and ask her "On the first day of training, you acted like you hated me. Why?" I say. "Oh, that." She says, giggling. "Didn't think you would hold a grudge against me for that." "I don't", I say, "I just want to know why." She says, "Hector," her playful gaze hardening. "That son of a bitch told me if I made any alliances I would go out into the Games on my own. So naturally, I had to act like I hated everybody." "Naturally," I repeat, laughing. "And naturally, he practically disowned me as soon as I got a half decent score." "What?" I say. "Yeah," she says. "I got a nine and Hector told me I had failed him and stalked off to his room. I left." I think about that. Johanna got pissed, but she wouldn't send me into the arena by myself. She wouldn't be that mean. "Do you want to survive?" she asks me. "Not really." I say. She doesn't push me, but she does get up and walk over to a closet. 

"Where are you going?" I ask her. She replies while shaking the flimsy lock open, "We're going swimming." And I smile. This is going to be interesting. She throws me a white plain swimsuit with just a capitol seal on it, and I find a corner to change in. She goes into the locker and comes out in a one piece swimsuit similarly designed to mine, and she immediately dives in. When I say dive, I mean, dives. As in, perfectly. Of course. She's always perfect. I jump in as well, not nearly as well, but still pretty well. We learned to swim in a lake in District 7, so I'm not used to this water. I just tread water for a while, watching Ivy swim around in the water. She really is an amazing swimmer. I wonder how she can be so hot. She surfaces and says "Hey! No staring," wrapping her arms around her body and smiling. I smile back, and start swimming across the pool towards her. When I surface, she grabs my arms and pulls her face towards mine, and our lips touch and she doesn't let go, and something in my stomach flies away, and when she lets go, she says "And genius, when you said I hated you, you were so wrong." Somehow I know what's coming. "I love you, so lets have fun this one night. One night where we can be in love." And so, we do.