hope in our eyes || 37th hunger games ✔️

Holding Me Back

Hazel

I bite my lip and focus on the soft green carpet below my feet, lightly covered in the golden auroras of the setting sun. My grip on the armrest of the sofa I'm sharing with Diamond and my prep team tightens even more, making my hand turn white.

Right now, Liam Malice, the announcer with that crazy spiky pink hair and cosmetically altered huge eyes, which makes him look like a stupid anime cartoon, is-Duh!-announcing the scores we tributes have received during our private training sessions with the gamemakers. When it was my turn, I chucked some knives and ran around the whole area, hiding and hitting dummies every once in a while. Hopefully, the people were impressed enough to give me at least a five. I totally can't look vulnerable, or the Careers will get me for sure.

All the Career tributes have gotten scores ranging from an 8 to a 10, and although the highest rating you can get is 12, practically no one has beaten a 10 before.

Liam just revealed Alex's score, a 6, when he clears his throat. "And finally, we have Hazel Slivers," An image of my face shows up on the screen in front of us. "Who has received..." At this, Lavender and Lark both lean in hungrily. "A seven!"

A 7? Well, that's not too bad. In fact, not bad at all, considering that the girl from 5 only managed a 4, while the boy from 7 got a 3. Now I, the tiny, thin girl from District 12, won't be on the top of the Careers' kill list! At least for the first couple days.

Everyone else must be thinking the same thing, for Diamond nods at me in approval, while Zap and Lark smother me in huge hugs. Lavender, however, is frowning nervously, a bead of sweat dripping down her pale forehead. I wonder why?

-

Now it's time to practice for the interviews. Great. I'm first assigned for Lavender to help me walk around in heels, dresses, and all the horrid fancy attire that I'm supposed to wear at my interviews. I still don't understand why the tributes are dolled up so prettily, when their death can be less than twenty-four hours away.

Lavender has me shove on a heavy, ridiculously neon pink gown that drags around on the floor as I stumble around in horrid six-inch heels, which I constantly trip over with grunts of annoyance.

"Hold still," She snaps. "Raise your chin up and smile." I snort and do what she says in a mockingly exaggerating way, then actually try to do it the correct way since I need some sponsors, and maybe I can get them with a little elegancy. My escort must be thinking the same thing, for she grins and chirps, "That's more like it!"

Unfortunately, that's when I trip over my heels, my face smacking onto the cold wooden floor. I groan and scramble up.

After a few more minutes, Lavender sighs and says, "Very well, dearie." She tucks a strand of her wig behind one ear, beckoning for me to follow her into a closet in the room. She lowers her voice to a whisper that I think is the quietest a loud, bustling Capitol person can get. "Hazel, you don't remember having parents, do you?"

I shake my head in response, frowning. "Why are you asking me this? Is it like you're related to me, or what?"

As soon as I say that, Lavender's face turns even paler than it actually is, then her cheeks heat up. That is when I realize that she actually is my kin.

"Listen, Hazel," She whisper-shouts in her bizarre accent. "When I was auditioning for the job of a Hunger Games escort, I needed to come to District Twelve with the former escort to see what it's like. There, I fell in love with you father, Thomas Slivers, who soon died in a mining accident. Unfortunately, I was pregnant with you, and I soon had you. However, the rules for being an escort is that you can never fall in love or marry, and if you become the victor of these Games, they will do a blood scan and all that on you, which will show that I am your mother. But then they will fire me for not following the law, so please Hazel. You. Can't. Win."