Masked Enemies

Chapter 24

Finnick

I wake up to the sound of the train pulling into the Capitol station. As I rub my eyes, Cascade opens the door, peeking in coyly. She smiles when she sees me up, and tells me that we were pulling into the Capitol station,

"Uh, you may just want to come outside and wave. You know, for sponsors." Cascade tells me, and leaves. I get out of bed, still wearing the clothes I had on last night. I must've been either really tired or really lazy last night.

I walk out the door, still tired, and join Cascade at the window. She turns to acknowledge me, and then points at my shirt.

"Your clothes are all rumpled." She says distastefully. "You're not going to get sponsors by looking like that."

"Yes, I am. I'm Finnick Odair. This is how I kill people with my charm." I tell her, still waving absentmindedly to the crowd.

Cascade rolls her eyes, and smiles. The crowd is now cheering like crazy for us. I expect we will get a lot of sponsors, me being a rebel, and one of the more prominent members of the rebellion and stuff. If that was true, Katniss would probably get more.

The train stops, and I go to grab my stuff but Cascade stops me.

"I got it out for you. Didn't seem like you were going to wake up." Cascade tells me. That's what I both loved and hated about her. Always ready to help, but sometimes she helps even when she doesn't have to. I guess that was nice, but she still felt a little bit too nice. Obviously she was a nice person. I'd known her even before she'd won the games.

I hop off the train and go to join Corden, and from there, some sort of car takes us to the Tribute Center. It was the same type as last year, except the only thing that had changed was the Avenue of the Tributes. The bloodstains from the shooting here had been cleansed, and the whole avenue was completely different. What took place there, however, would probably stay the same. What took place there could never be erased.

The inside of the Tribute Center looks the same as last time. Our floor, the fourth floor, is a little bit different. Only the color of the furniture had changed, The rooms stayed the same.

How I hated this place. The place where twenty-three people just waited to die, even though they didn't know. I hated this place because it brought back memories of my first games, when I had been so afraid, knowing that I was destined to die. Fate had been altered, I guess, so that instead of dying in that arena, I could die in this one, right as I was thinking that I was safe from the rebellion and the Hunger Games.

"Wow." Cascade breathes. She had never been inside this building, since it had been built for the Quell.

"Yeah. Wow." I mutter, and walk away from the victor.

I wander the hallways of my floor, exploring every single nook and cranny of the place. Perhaps I was just trying to soak in my last couple days in the normal world, and maybe I was just trying to make myself throw up. I wasn't really all that sure,

Then I reach the room that had belonged to Mags about what seemed like a century ago. I can feel my head pounding, my temples throbbing. I can see the world starting to spin. I take a deep breath and force the door open.

Inside, it smells just like it usually did. No memories whatsoever associated with the place.

That was good. I couldn't be distracted from the main purpose of me allying with Cascade and Katniss in the games. It was to make sure one of them, or maybe, just maybe, both of them, if they appealed to Offen's mercy. It was my job, as the one that wanted to die in that arena, to protect them, to die for them, to take the arrow that was meant for them.