Hello! Welcome back! Thank you for taking the time to read and join me on this journey!

As always, I look forward to hearing from you all. 

Your comments, thoughts, opinions, mean the world to me. Bad or good, they will encourage me to post more, or make corrects to post even better chapters :) 

I hope you enjoy Scarlet's story as it progresses!

As always! Take care and stay safe! ~ CANGEL

***

Scarlet Wolfe

     "Ouch!" Scarlet bit out through clenched teeth as she jumped. "That hurts!"

     "Almost done." One of her prep team members said, forcing a hopeful smile that didn't quite meet their eyes.

     She'd been here an hour, and they were still on step one. Which apparently involved scrubbing her body with a gritty sudsy soap that removed several layers of her skin. The brush they used scratched her skin raw and they had been scrubbing her back for so long that Scarlet thought they might be trying to scrub away the scars on her back.

     She wanted to tell them that the scars were not going to go anywhere—no matter how much they wished otherwise—but decided that it likely wouldn't make a difference. The dirt had to be gone from her skin and several layers of skin along with it. Scarlet was amazed she had any left.

     After another minute, she had had enough. Scarlet wiggled free the hold of one of the other female prep members—Tori or something like that—and stood up, jumping out of the tub. "Enough!" She shouts, holding her hands out in front of her.

     "Torus, what do we do?!" The other one cried, clearly distraught over Scarlet's lack of cooperation and willingness to be subjected to their torture.

     "Easy..." the man—or Scarlet thought that he was a man—said to her, taking a small step forward, like she was an animal. Scarlet bared her teeth at him. Satisfaction flickered inside of her as she watched him jump back about a foot, panicking. "I don't know, Sotor! What do we do?!"

     "Get the peacekeepers!" The third one cries out.

      At the mention of peacekeepers, satisfaction left Scarlet as cold realization washed over her. Shit. She had to get control of herself, or she was going to get herself killed before she even made it into the Arena.

     "Wait." She called out as she stood up straight. "I'll listen to you. Don't get the peacekeepers." Scarlet took a deep breath and started walking forward, her hands down at her sides. All three of her prep team members took a big step back, still afraid of her after her small outburst. Scarlet swallowed the bitter taste in her mouth as she muttered, "I'm sorry."

    The man placed a hesitant hand on her shoulder. "It—it's okay. We just want you to look your best. You'd be so pretty if you weren't so...dirty."

     She swallowed the instinct to smack the man and his backhanded complements away from her. As much as she hated them, she knew he wasn't entirely wrong.

     She felt like a spoiled brat. Throwing a fit because she wasn't getting what she wanted. She felt like Violet. 

     Scarlet was better than that.

     She knew better.

     The Hunger Games wasn't a beauty contest. It was a fight to the death. But Scarlet knew that in years prior, the best-looking tributes almost always got the most sponsors.

     Scarlet had so much counting against her. She needed all the help that she could get. While getting sponsors wasn't likely, being beautiful would definitely help keep the Capitol focused on her.

     It was just so hard to accept that these three people could make her beautiful when it was clear as day that they had no idea what beauty was.

     Scarlet eyed the top of his head that was covered in green swirled ink lines instead of hair. His skin was either painted or dyed or colored bronze. His eyelashes and eyebrows were green tattoos, and his earlobes were filled with cylindrical metal pieces. 

     One of the girls, either Sotor or Torus, was purple from head to toe and the other had changed her face to be some kind of animal. Her ears were clearly altered to a point at the top and she had whiskers coming out of her face. Her lips were puffy and enlarged. Her skin was golden and spotted.

     Could they really help her?

     Did she even have a choice?

     The answer was obvious to both questions was a big resounding, NO.

     She had seen tributes come out of here looking so far from normal in an attempt to make them memorable, that all they succeeded in was making them look ridiculous. Shaved heads or painted on eyebrows or some hideous outfit that was supposedly a reflection of their district.

     This prep team was new, and the stylist was looking to make a name for themselves. They likely could not help her.

     But even more obvious was the fact that she did not have a choice. "Okay. I won't fight you anymore. I want to look my best, too."

     The man smiled. Clio, she thought his name was. His eyes were a bright green color that could not have been natural. She swallowed, knowing the horror that awaited her as she took his offered hand.

     He walked her back to the tub where the three of them continued to scrub away layers and layers of her skin.

     Scarlet bit her tongue so hard she tasted blood in her mouth, but she didn't voice another protest. Not when they brushed through her tangled mass of hair, tugging through her knots and tangles mercilessly. Not even as she lay on a metal table completely naked while they plucked the hair they didn't like from her face—shaping her eyebrows—or whatever. Or when they slathered a sticky substance across her thigh and covered it.

     "Wha-wha—" She tried to ask but then they ripped it from her leg. She jerked but managed to bite back a wicked curse that would have sent these three running for the hills. She stared at the place on her leg where they had ripped the sticky stuff off of, half expecting to see bare bone staring back at her.

     Instead, there was a patch of pale skin with no hair. It was slightly red and left her now bare skin tingling. She felt her eyes widen. She looks at Clio. "You're not going to leave my leg like that, are you?"

     The three of them laugh. "Of course not!"

     "You're so funny, when you aren't acting so scary!" Another one of them laughed.

     "Your entire body will need to get prepped before Cassandra comes in here."

     Just fantastic. Scarlet let her head fall back in defeat, closing her eyes. They were going to do that to her entire body. She felt them slather more of that sticky stuff on her leg. She tensed, knowing what to expect. R-i-i-i-p! She clamps her mouth shut tightly but doesn't open her eyes.

     One of them grabbed her hands, forcing them from the hold she had on the side of the table. She felt cool metal touch her hands and brush the tips of her fingers. Metal scraped under her fingernails, and she felt cool wetness coating her nails. She doesn't look.

     It's better if she doesn't look.

     Scarlet let them continue with their work without protest. She didn't know how much time had passed, only that there was not a single piece of her skin that had been left untouched. There was not a part of her body that had been left unexamined or uninspected.

     She'd feel embarrassed, but any sense of modesty had left her after years of sharing a small room with all her siblings.

     And honestly, apart from their never-ending commentary—which she could ignore with her eyes closed—they maintained a professional attitude towards her body—probably because to them, she was nothing more than an animal that they were prepping to go into the slaughter...

     When she noticed they'd stopped poking and prodding at her, she hesitantly peeled her eyes open.

     The three of them stared down at her. She blinks up at them, forcing her body to remain completely still.

     Waiting.

     One of the females—the one with spots covering every inch of skin—raised her hands to her face, doing a little dance. "Ooooohh. She's so beautiful now! Look at how flawless her skin is now! Smooth and white as a pearl!"

    "No, that's District 4." The other woman said, batting her hand playfully toward the one who had just spoken. "This is District 14, she's as white as snow!"

    "Because she's from District 14!"

     "So," Scarlet interrupted, "am I done?"

     The man's head cocked to the side, his eyes appraising her from head to toe.

     Suddenly, the three of them step back and look across the room. Quiet.

     Her eyes followed in the direction of theirs. A woman stood in the doorway. A frown marred her otherwise flawless face as she eyed Scarlet. Scarlet sat up on the metal table and took in the woman in front of her.

     Her skin was a flawless dark brown, her hair was sleek and coiled tightly all the way down to the small of her waist. Her eyes were golden-ringed and highlighted by gold metallic makeup under her eyes, giving her an imposing presence. One that Scarlet could not look away from.

     "My name is Cassandra. I'm your stylist."

     Scarlet hopped down from the table. Better if they got on the same page right away. "If your plan is to make me cute and cuddly, you're going to fail miserably."

     "Yes, I heard that about you."

     Scarlet frowned unsure if she was more curious or irritated that this woman seemed unaffected by her statement. When the woman made no move to clarify, curiosity won out and Scarlet asked, "heard what?"

     "That you are rather rude and loose tongued." The woman moved closer to her, before turning to the other three, still standing quietly in the room. "You may leave now."

     The other three scampered away without looking back.

     Then the stylist looked back to Scarlet. Her cold eyes scan Scarlet from head to toe taking in the finished work of her prep team.

     "Here's something to consider, Scarlet Wolfe." She says, without looking up at Scarlet. It was hard to read her lips, with the way the Capitol Citizen's talked, but something told Scarlet, she shouldn't ignore what this woman had to say. "It's my job to make you appear your best in preparation for the games. I can make you beautiful. I can make you sexy. I can make you fierce. But I don't have too. I'm a very petty person—just ask my brother—I don't care if you like me or hate me, but if you continue to insult me, then I will ruin every chance you have to get people to notice you."

     Scarlet clamped her mouth shut, feeling her spine straighten. Suddenly the woman seemed like more than the typical Capitol idiot. What had Penelope called her? A real up-and-comer? Scarlet had thought Penelope had just been dressing up the words—new and clueless—but maybe she could actually help Scarlet.

     "I want to be remembered. Can you make that happen?"

     "That's what I want, too. I want to be remembered, and to make my brother proud." The stylist—Cassandra—smiled, her eyes still cold. But Scarlet had never been afraid of the cold. Nor did she think that a person had to be warm and bubbly to be good. "Now, let's get you ready to shine. The better you look, the better I look."

     For the first time since becoming a tribute of the Hunger Games, Scarlet felt a sort of comradery with another person. Even if she didn't have a mentor to help her, maybe that didn't mean that she had to do this all on her own.

***

     Only once Scarlet was dressed and her make up given the final approval by Cassandra, is Scarlet allowed to look in the mirror. What she saw staring back at her left her breathless. She raised her hand up in the air, half surprised to see the hand in the mirror rise with her.

     Scarlet was...stunning. Scarlet's thick black hair is left down and meticulously curled, framing her face, drawing a sharp contrast to her pale skin. Her face was clean and fresh, her eyebrows shaped, her jaw looked sharp and strong.

     But Scarlet can't look away from her eyes. They were beautiful. Silver eyeliner outlines her eyes, hooking out to her temples in swirls. Her eyelids were painted over in shades of white and black, full of sleek and sharp lines. It reminds Scarlet of her ice carving. Placing the lines in just the right place to make something mesmerizing.

     Her lush black eyelashes were lengthened and frosted over with a white dusting that resulted in a frosted look.

     Her lips were a deep blue, coated in the same white dusting. Scarlet saw that as she shifted her head, the light reflected against certain parts of her skin, snowflakes appeared and then disappeared. The result was hypnotic.

    Then she takes in her costume. The white fabric is soft and flows loosely to the floor. The metal corset they strapped her into before putting the dress on, wasn't visible underneath the dress. It pinched her sides and made it hard for her to breathe, but she saw why they did it. 

     Scarlet was twelve years old. She was a little girl going into the Arena with a lot of seventeen and eighteen-year-olds. The corset added curves and breasts to her straight and slim figure, making her appear older than she really was.

     As she looked closer at the dress, she saw that even though it felt soft to her skin, it looked like rough leather. It looked like dyed animal hide. The front of her dress was braided up across her chest and her sleeves were inch thick straps that covered the tops of her shoulders. A puffy material attached there, and she turned her body slightly, trying to get a better look. The dress covered her scars, nearly coming up to the back of her neck. The fluffy material was a cape like thing. It hung from her shoulders and seemed to trail on forever on the floor behind her. 

     Scarlet pictured herself on the chariot, with her cape fanning out behind her. She smiled.

     Cassandra had left her white wolf pendant hanging from her neck when Scarlet had stated that it was her token and silver bracelets were attached to both of her wrists. Her nails had been painted black.

     Scarlet lifted her dress and saw small silver heels containing her feet. They pinched them and made her wobble as she walked, but she thought they looked stunning. She let the dress fall back to the floor and met Cassandra's eyes in the mirror.

     "I look..."

     "Memorable."

     Scarlet nodded, giving herself another once over. Her lips curled. "It's perfect."

     Cassandra smiled at her through the mirror, their eyes meeting. "Let's go then. It's almost time."

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Hey! Do you have any predictions about her Stylist?? 

Did you see the way she talked back to Scarlet? Gained a little bit of her respect and a lot of her cooperation... Gained a little bit of my respect too... Let me tell you, it took me by surprise too. 

I kind of felt like Penelope Bright is hateful enough and maybe Scarlet needs at least one person by her side. 

Kindly remember to VOTE if you are enjoying this story!