V ── GAME OF SURVIVAL,
69TH HUNGER GAMES
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[ CHAPTER FIVE  ]

Her private compartment aboard the Capitol train was more magnificent than District 9's Justice Building after a refurbishment — with its glittering chandelier that looked as if it was shedding tears of diamonds and the four-poster bed that had been painted in such a manner as to appear gilded.

Vesta told her she was permitted just under an hour to freshen up, before meeting her mentors over a brief supper and then a recap of the Reaping. Lenora couldn't stomach the idea of food, or the thought of seeing who she was due to face in the arena and what sort of vicious threats they posed. Her nausea spiked. She spent the next thirty minutes hunched over the toilet bowl, clasping the cold ceramic with white-knuckles as she willed her bile to rise and give her some relief. But nothing. Her stomach continued to churn, almost painfully.

Still, she decided to make an effort to entertain Vesta's request, even if she was not intending to eat anything. She could not pull the "unwell" card so early on in the games. Burying her head in the sand would not undo the consequences of her actions, nor would it magically return her home. It would only heighten her ignorance.

She stood under the shower-head, pellets of hot water riposting against her skin, until the steam clogged her airways and she could no longer stand the heat. Once dried and draped in a robe, Lenora rifled through the drawers in her new, temporary compartment. She was not one for fashion — unlike Vesta, of course — and decided to choose one of the very first dresses she happened upon.

It was navy blue, cut just below her knees. The neckline was high, itchy around her throat, and embroidered with gold filigree that looked almost reminiscent to the fields of wheat crops from her District, when they shivered in the wind and draped languidly to one side, mingling with the other shoots in a solid swirl of muted gold. She ran her fingers over the filigree. Home. Oh, how she missed it already, despite its many flaws.

Her throat constricted. She sniffed harshly, not permitting her tears exit. It wouldn't do to depend solely on her sorrow in the face of imminent danger. She needed to toughen up, lest she want to run headlong into the arms of Death's cold embrace.

To finish the outfit, she clasped the necklace Sunny gave her around her neck. The wooden fox pendant rested just between her collarbones. It was surprisingly warm against her bare flesh. It reminded her of home, of Sunny and her boundless optimism.

She wondered if they'd been reprimanded by the Peacekeepers, on Snow's orders, for being complicit in something beyond their control once again. They did not force Lenora onto that stage, to volunteer in Penny's stead, but surely they would be blamed regardless. What would the offence result in? More confinement? More restrictions?

Lenora grasped the fox pendant at her throat. The sculpted ears dug into her palm — an uncomfortable sensation though not bordering pain. Her blood felt hot, pumping under her skin. She itched to throw something, to curse Snow as she did. Why did he love to hurt people so much? He was as icy as his name, a cold, unfeeling entity coming to rip the warmth from everything with a beating heart. She hated him.

"Lenora!" a shrill voice exclaimed. Vesta. Lenora flinched. How long had the insufferable escort been calling out for her?

She rapped on the door. Begrudgingly, Lenora waded to the other side of her opulent compartment. The slab of metal separating herself and Vesta slid open at the faintest touch of her hand.

"Ah, there you are!" Vesta said, her tinny voice like nails down a chalkboard. "Goodness, I was starting to worry you'd tossed yourself from the window!"

Lenora plastered a smile to her lips, hoping it looked convincing enough to keep Vesta entertained, "Unfortunately not."

Vesta's steel-blue eyes — shadowed by fake fans of sweeping gold lashes and heavy-set shadows of pale-white and ruby smeared over her eyelids — narrowed at that, just so, "Come now, don't be so miserable! You almost missed supper. I'm sure you're ravenous!"

She was, indeed, ravenous.

Vesta escorted her to the main compartment, where a long, wooden table had been set out beneath a hanging chandelier. The fluted glasses in the midst of the table rattled rather precariously at the sheer speed of the Capitol train, and there were Avoxes bringing out platters of steaming food, slotting them onto the gold-trimmed placemats at every seat.

Before the food, however, Lenora noticed the people. Three imposing figures.

"How nice of you to join us," the man said, ripping into a half-decimated turkey tender with his front teeth. He grinned, and the dark, stubbled skin around his mouth shone with a smeared layer of turkey-fat and grease. Emmet.

The woman beside him, with a posture straight as an arrow, had not so much as touched the food on the plate in front of her, never mind tore viciously into it with her teeth. She smiled meekly at Lenora, as false as the one Lenora herself currently donned. Grania.

"Hello," she murmured. Her cheek was scarred heavily, and the mutilated flesh bunched up beneath her left eye when her smile stretched into a deep grin, "You must be Lenora. The volunteer."

"This is Grania," Vesta said, her arm tightening like a vice around Lenora's shoulders as she guided her to the table. "And this is Emmet."

The escort's face soured when her gaze passed over Emmet Lunar. Her father mentioned him; he was desperately devoid of feeling and lacked an emotional cage to keep his feelings restricted, to keep them woven tightly into his flesh. Instead, he felt nothing at all. Who needed an emotional cage with no emotions to barricade?

Emmet wiped his greasy mouth and outstretched his hand toward her, flashing a toothy grin, "How'd you do?"

Lenora neglected to shake his dirtied hand. "Fine."

He laughed, a bitter sound, and tucked back into his turkey, which was dripping in some sort of garlic butter, "If my lack of decorum scares you, then you're in for a treat this next week."

Seemingly embarrassed by her fellow mentor's words, Grania lowered her gaze to the plate in front of her, "A little decorum wouldn't hurt, would it?"

"Would it not?" Emmet said, pausing mid-chew. He had a rough voice, like wood before being sanded down, "Vesta, what do you think?"

"I think you should chew with your mouth closed and show your tributes some hospitality." She cleared her throat vehemently, adjusting the ruby-red wig atop her head. She'd changed into a new outfit since the Reaping. That was fast.

At the plural reference to tributes, Lenora's gaze shifted to the bespectacled boy at the opposite end of the table, panic-stricken like a deer in headlights, his hands wound tightly around a fluted glass of orange juice. He met her gaze, and this time, unlike everyone else, he didn't bother to flash a fake smile for the sake of it. His expression didn't waver. He looked just as afraid as he had when his name was drawn from the glass bowl. Ryeda, if she recalled correctly.

At least he was comfortable in his trepidation. Lenora's was like a second skin, a woollen one that weighed heavily on her flesh and made her itch. Like a fox in sheepskin clothing, only she had no idea how to shed the layers and embrace her innate nature. She lacked the willpower.

Emmet laughed again, "Always one for etiquette, Vesta."

"Of course," Vesta said with thinly-veiled impatience. She placed both hands on Lenora's shoulders and guided her to the seat directly opposite Ryeda Crynn's. "Sit. Eat, dear girl. You're pale as snow!"

There was a collective recoil; a domino piece tumbling down and colliding with another, igniting a chain reaction. A pause. A beat. An intake of breath. Snow. The one wielding the title was colder than his namesake.

Snow was the sole reason this supper was being indulged in the first place — the reason as to why their lives were balanced on a knife's edge, to be parried about and displayed as Snow pleased. His name was a reminder, a heavy cloud that settled over them. He was responsible for so much, and carried so little burden for it. So little remorse.  

At least they all had one thing in common: their blatant hatred for Panem's president.

Vesta did not seem to notice the uncomfortable shift in the air. She sat in the vacant chair on the other side of the table, alone. Grania watched her through dark lashes. Lenora's female mentor had an unsettling air about her, empty slates in place of her eyes, a thin, severe gash where her mouth should be. Lenora suppressed a shiver.

As the silence wore on, she turned to the food, hoping to quell the low rumble in her belly. She buttered a piece of wholemeal bread and chewed it slowly, all while desperately pleading she would not hurl it back up onto the very expensive looking table-cloth. Her appetite had all but vanished, replaced by a hunger for home, for familiarity.

Ryeda had also eaten some, she noticed, though still very little. There was a thick carrot soup, steaming in the midst of the table. Surrounding it were many little delicacies — spinach tarts, stuffed olives and peppers, pastries topped with glacé cherries, sour cream chicken, turkey tenders smothered in a pungent garlic sauce, and rolls of seeded bread. He had indulged in all but a few spinach pastries and a large bite of a turkey tender. Lenora tried a tart. The sweetness of it was sickening.

After eating in silence for several minutes, Lenora built up enough confidence to ask her mentors a question — directed at neither specifically, "Are you going to train us? Teach us how to win?"

"That is our intention," Grania muttered, prodding at her soup with the edge of a spoon. She looked haunted. Gaunt, to say the least. The dark circles under her grey eyes were severe, poignant in a pallid canvas of alabaster flesh. "But taking in our teachings, using them to your advantage, is another matter altogether."

"Have tributes over the years done that? Ignored your advice?" Lenora pried.

"Unfortunately," said Grania. She took a large swig from a glass of dark-red liquid, shimmering in the luminescence of the overhead lights. "By no fault of their own, of course. The Games often make people forget everything they have learned the moment they step foot into the arena."

Lenora swallowed hard, toying with the spines of a fork, "Why?"

"Lack of preparation, a loose understanding of the Gamemaker's unpredictability, an arrogant outlook on their odds of winning," Grania listed off. She added the next one in a low, ominous tone, the circles around her eyes seeming to darken, "Fear."

"Fear is a plague, one that wrecks devastation on the mind," Emmet chimed in almost robotically, tipping a decanter of wine up to fill his glass, "You have to overcome it, or it'll overcome you."

Lenora tilted her head to the side, regarding him, "That's easier said than done. Were you not afraid when you went into the arena?"

"Yes, and I'd have been a fool not to be," Emmet said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, and she was the most stupid girl in the world. His tone certainly made her feel as if she was. "Children cling to fear more devotedly than adults. That's why you wouldn't shake my hand. Scared I'll dirty yours with my greasy fingers."

He guffawed loudly, leaning back in his chair, clinging to the spindly armrests to steady himself. Nobody joined his laughter. Not even Grania, who was rumoured to take sympathy on him as his only friend. She looked the least bit amused.

"Trust me," he continued once his laughter had ebbed away, "turkey grease is the least of your worries. Your hands will be covered in much worse during the Games, I can assure you that."

"Blood doesn't scare me," Lenora told him firmly, able to read between the lines and discern his words for what they truly insinuated. She hoped her voice sounded as strong as she wanted it to be. She hoped it didn't shake.

He raised the glass to his lips, and before taking a swig, he spoke from the corner of his mouth, "It should."

Vesta cleared her throat again, loud enough to slice cleanly through the mounting tension in the compartment. She averted her attention from Emmet to Ryeda, "You're almost as quiet as last year's male tribute!"

Ryeda jolted in his seat, realising he was being addressed. He adjusted the circular glasses on the crook of his nose, "Uh — sorry."

"No need to apologise, dear boy!" Vesta waved off, a grin splitting her makeup-swathed complexion, "Have you any siblings back in the district? Anyone to cheer you on?"

Ryeda shifted uncomfortably. He didn't like this topic, it appeared, "No. I live with my grandparents."

"Ah! I see. Did they come to bid you goodbye before the train departed?" Vesta pried.

His unease was magnified beneath everyone's scrutinising gaze, "My grandmother is bed-bound. Can't really walk much these days. And my grandfather doesn't leave her side."

Vesta's hand went still, fork pausing its route halfway to her mouth. "Oh dear. That is truly — well, that's a pity."

"Lung disease," Ryeda clarified. He adjusted his glasses again, pushing them to the very top of his nose. "She has lung disease."

Vesta's head shot up, having clearly not expected him to further elaborate on the subject. If not for the delicate nature of the conversation, Lenora would have laughed aloud at the expression on the escort's face — a mix between shame and sorrow. She'd never seen someone from the Capitol look so ensnared by human emotion. They often functioned more like robots than humans.

"Corn Moon dweller, are you?" Emmet inquired, amber-flecked eyes narrowing.

"Yes," Ryeda said. The flesh between his brows pinched in confusion. "How—"

"Corn Moon is infamous for its fumes," said Emmet. "I'm assuming your grandmother works in the factories? Or did, rather. Lung disease and failure is common in long-term factory labourers."

He was smart, Lenora realised; he picked things up quicker than most. No wonder he won his Games several years ago, outwitting his fellow tributes and then proceeding to cut through them like a knife to cheese.

She suspected he harvested information — as a Great Plains worker would harvest their crops — and kept it to himself until deemed necessary to unveil. Perhaps in terms of mentorship, Emmet would be advantageous to learn from.

"She did," Ryeda clarified, adjusting his spectacles once again. A thin strap of tape was holding the lenses together. "We owned a Mill, but it burnt down last summer. She had to go back to working in factories again, like she did when she was younger, so we had some form of income."

Emmet nodded, listening intently. The gold hoop in his left ear glinted, and he lifted a hand to it, fidgeting absently.

"What does your family do?" came Grania's melodic voice. She was looking right at Lenora, slate-grey eyes lacking the same warmth that her voice unexpectedly did. Paired with hollow cheeks and cracked lips, Grania was the picture of despondency. 

Lenora realised she was staring, neglecting to reply, the question hovering unanswered in the air. She coughed awkwardly, "My father oversees health and safety executives within the Great Plains. And my mother is a. . ."

Rebel. A nurse of her own volition.

". . . a labourer in the Great Plains. She harvests crops."

"How wonderful," Vesta mused, peeling an orange with those ridiculously long acrylics of hers. How on earth did she function with them? "Hard workers, this district has. Truly. In the Capitol, we admire you. Your strength."

"I imagine we'd be a lot stronger if everything was handed to us on a silver platter as well," Lenora snapped, the words flying from her mouth without prior consideration. Blood rushed to her ears. She was such a fool.

Amusement drawn from him unexpectedly, Emmet let out a sharp laugh, "Finally, a tribute with some grit."

Lenora clenched her jaw. She looked down at her hands, which were twitching as they rushed to intertwine in an effort to quench her indignation and shame. She was angry, too. Not angry enough to smash a plate over her knee, but angry enough to realise that she should keep quiet, lest she want to say anything else untoward.

Emmet was annoying, almost as much as Vesta. Some grit? Did that mean every tribute before her sat in Vesta's insufferable presence and remained indomitably quiet — as quiet as Ryeda? Lenora wanted to say a lot more, enraged by the escort's pompous outlook on the districts' plight and her mentor's insufferable nature, but had successfully managed to keep it under wraps. She was unsure how much longer she could refrain.

"I think it's past time we watch the Reaping recap," Grania interjected briskly. She stood to her feet, pushing away from the table, leaving them little choice to refuse.

A beat. Nobody moved. Emmet's gaze lingered on Lenora. She felt too exposed, like an open wound left to fester. She felt as if he were picking her apart — tugging at a loose, hanging thread until the intricate needlework was sure to slowly unravel.

Then everyone lurched into movement, and Emmet's eyes slid elsewhere. Lenora quickly turned and bolted from the room, joining Grania in the viewing compartment. The others arrived quickly, and with Vesta's prodding and poking, the screen splayed across the wall flashed blue, red, green before warping into a crystalline image of District One's pristine-looking courtyard, bordered by thick white pillars.

"Here we go!" Vesta exclaimed excitedly.

Emmet shot her a reproachful look.

As the Reaping recap programme rolled, Grania gulped some of the shimmering red-liquid in her glass. Her rings clinked loudly against the side of it, and it was enough to set Lenora's teeth on edge. She was apprehensive enough as is, and she desired silence, if only momentarily, to gather herself. But the sound was quickly drowned out by the amplified voice of District One's vivid-green escort as he plucked a name from the bowl.

He scarcely read out the name before a girl in the crowd shouted the forfeit words, her extended arm shooting over the heads of a dozen females. Only the strongest volunteered, those who believed they had what it took to win. The Career tributes were formidable.

This one certainly looked intimidating. The crowd parted for her, and she glided — well and truly glided, with as much grace as a pampered peacock — to the stage. Her hair fell in dark coils down to her waist, and she was quite pretty, a complexion swathed in freckles, and with honed features chiselled at a knife's edge that made the wicked grin at her lips look all the more menacing. Her eyes, like honeycombs brimming with ripe honey, swept across the sea of onlookers before zoning in on the camera. She was proud. Prideful as a lion. 

The male tribute was a volunteer also, with muscular arms and a thick neck, tall in stature and arrogant in demeanour. He jumped onto the stage, throwing his arms out either side of him as if he were not a teenager but a godsend, come to restore his District to its reoccurring glory. He wouldn't struggle — District One's male tribute won last year, as had many more over the last sixty-eight years. This one looked strong, and Lenora doubted he'd face much resistance in securing a win.

Emmet, however, was of a different opinion. He pointed at the screen, kicking one leg over the other as he lounged back in the velvet-sofa, "All bark, no bite."

"What?" Ryeda muttered. His fear had multiplied since the recap started playing, as the reality of their situation dawned on him. It was written plainly across his face. He reminded Lenora of a timid dog, always jumping and trembling.

"Look at him," Emmet said, jabbing his finger at the screen, "Any tribute who puts on a show like that thinks more about the fame and glory of being a tribute than what it truly entails. He'll puff out his chest and tell himself he's a Victor — but he's not."

Lenora frowned, but the longer she watched the camera pan over District One's male tribute — Luxe, his name was, if she caught it right — the more she pondered the truth in Emmet's words. He was the peacock, not his female counterpart. He may not move with the same grace as one, like she did, but he certainly acted the part. Extending his feathers, relishing in the attention they drew, but not truly understanding the consequences of his actions. Feathers could be plucked. Without those, a peacock lost its meaning. Bare, they were no longer worth looking at.

District Two's tributes were much the same, as expected from the districts that churned out the formidable Careers. The male was stocky and sickeningly charming, whereas the female was exceedingly tall and oozed a masculine energy. Both would prove difficult to overpower. Paired with One's tributes, this year's Career Pack looked to be a challenge for the other tributes indeed.

Of these aforementioned other tributes, only a select few remained rooted in Lenora's conscience.

A twelve-year-old boy from Six who cried so hard upon hearing his name plucked from the bowl, collapsed on his way to the stage. The male from Four, his face donning the first springs of stubble, and a toothy grin as if the Reaping was not a death sentence, but a valuable prize he had won. The girl from Seven, with an extensive halo of ebony curls and a placid smile, as if convincing herself she wasn't terrified. The female from Ten, with prominent brows cinched into an indignant frown that spoke more than words ever could. And the male from Twelve, who was more muscular than all of the Careers combined, from working in the mines no doubt.

The others were just ordinary children, much like her. Children with a target stamped between their brows — an X marked by the Gamemakers for the other tributes to pierce. Cattle being herded to the slaughterhouse.

She thought immediately about who had the highest likelihood of winning, just from appearance alone. Her own name was not on the ballot. She thought herself dead already, before the Games had even officially begun. Dead and gone.

Lay me in the dirt, if you must. I will embrace the earth's cold touch like an old friend.