The Tribute From the Ocean (A Hunger Games Fan Fiction)

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Gabrielle and Brandon are eating but Brandon is talking to Finnick. Annie walks ahead of me and starts to sit in one of the empty chairs beside of Finnick. I stay back and she must recognize the look in my eyes so she sits between Finnick and Brandon so I didn't have to.

Who was there to hide my pain from here. I walk slowly across the floor with a blurry vision. My eyes focus on the food in the middle of the table.

"Tonight." Says Finnick before he takes a bite of the bread. It wasn't green tinted like the loaves in District 4. "We will be working on strategies."

"I've got one. I don't know about Kya." Brandon says.

"Career?" Finnick asks Brandon. He nods.

"So is she." He nods to me. Finnick looks me over.

"And your trainer was okay with you volunteering at fifteen?" He asks me.

I look at the table and stand up.

"She wasn't right in the head." I say about the girl I volunteered for. "Nobody else was going to."

I walk back to my room and sit on the bed. A soft knock comes at the door. I don't reply just hug my pillow on my bed.

"Have you ever tried fried peaches?" The voice comes from the victor of the 65th hunger games. I shake my head. "You should try them."

I feel the weight of someone on the side of my bed. I don't talk I just stare at the window.

"I'm your mentor. I'm here for you to talk to." He tells me.

"I'm good as dead in that arena." I whisper and close my eyes. "My trainers mad that I volunteered. He told me I better die here."

Finnick is quiet for a minute.

"If I go back he'd get all my money. I'd be an orphan for good." I mutter.

"I don't have a family either, if it helps." He tells me and touches my arm. "Annie's all I've got left."

I've never heard Finnick without the seductive tone in his voice. He sounded grounded like he was connected to who he was and it wasn't the same guy you see on TV.

I sit up and look at the bowl of peaches he brought me.

"My mom sold me to Keyon, because she couldn't afford me. Well, that's what she said anyway. We had enough food, but it was too much. I wad the youngest of nine so I was the first to go. I haven't seen any of my siblings since."

"I'm sorry." He tells me, but an apology can only reach so far. "Why did Brandon volunteer?" he asks after a few minutes of silence.

"I'm not sure." I mutter, but I was almost completely positive it was because of me.

"I'll leave you be then. Shower up and we will be watching the reruns of the reapings in the main room beside the dining room. In an hour." Finnick says. He points to the bowl of peaches he left. "Eat the peaches. They're great." He gives me a small smile that I return with a half-hearted laugh.

I leave to the shower and can't make sense of the buttons. I push warm water and a few types of fruits I have no idea the point of. I click a button saying Foam but I didn't know what it was for until from some place foamy shampoo shot out at me.

After half an hour I finally figure out how to turn off the water and step out of the shower. I change into silky baggy pants that were more than anything that was ever sold in District 4 I put on a black tank top and put my dirty blond hair into a ponytail. I couldn't braid, and my hair was too thin to be put into a bun without having it professionally done.

I go into the room lined with couches and where Finnick and Annie sit. I smile politely at the both of them and sit on one of the couches beside them.

Mistake.

When Brandon comes in he sits beside of me and I don't have enough guts to move. I watch District 1 with both of their tributes volunteers along with two. No one else volunteered. In District 10 a little small twelve year boy was reaped and there was no one to volunteer.

I watch with pity for the boy in my eyes. I look away from what looks like his twin sister maybe run from the girls twelve section and cling to him. Peacekeepers had to pull her off. One women shrieked in the crowd and nobody spoke after that.

The girl from eleven was stocky but didn't have any hope in her eyes. She looked as though she was already dead.

After the reruns of the reapings Annie and Finnick leave and not long after Gabrielle is gone too.

"Why'd you have to volunteer?" I beg Brandon for an answer I wasn't sure he'd give.

"I made a promise, Kya. I don't break my promises." He tells me and stands up to leave.

"You never promised me anything."

"You weren't the one I made the promise to." He tells me. Brandon looks at me for a moment. "You weren't supposed to volunteer this year, Kya."

"Neither were you." I mutter.

He sighs and leans down and kisses my forehead.

"Go to sleep. We'll be at the capital before lunch."