Hi! Thank you so much for every person reading my story! This is kind of turning into my baby. I have so much planned and no idea how I'm going to get there. 

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Take care and stay safe!~ CANGEL

***

Scarlet Wolfe

     Scarlet woke up from her place on the floor, the morning sun streaming through the window, warming her skin. For a fleeting moment, she forgot where she was, lost in a dream of home.

     Cadmium's angular face, framed by thick tangled curls, flickered in her mind, his hazel eyes, always bleak and disheartened, lighting with pride as he managed to knock her over in their practice fights.

     She knew that it had just been a dream, but as she turned her head to the side, she expected Cadmium to be curled up next to her as they struggled to stay warm on the cold floor of their rickety old home. Instead of her younger brother being there, the space beside her was filled with nothing but a thick white pillow.

     The blanket that covered her was heavy and cooling to her skin. It was nothing like the thin, itchy blanket that was shared between the four of them back home.

     Scarlet turned away from the pillow that mocked her for her brother's absence and pulled the blanket over her face, determined to get just a bit more sleep that wasn't filled with thoughts of home or the day ahead of her. Memories of Cadmium and the cold of District 14 faded as she tried to cling to the fleeting warmth and comfort that she had just moments before.

***

    Scarlet, still half asleep and just pulled from her cocoon of blankets, winced as the brush ripped through the night's tangles hidden in her curly hair. The force of the brush's movements pulled her entire body several inches off the chair, before finally pulling free.

      "Oww!" She grumbled, reaching up to ensure that her hair was still attached to her tingling scalp. Thwack! Scarlet brings her stinging hand back down to her lump, glaring at the redness already forming. "You don't have to pull so hard." She grumbled to herself while glaring into the mirror at Cassandra.

      "Do you want your hair falling out halfway through the day?" Cassandra asked, her words clipped.

     "No, I do not. I wanted to just leave it down." she replied, frustration and sarcasm edging her voice.

     Cassandra's lips tightened in annoyance and Scarlet exhaled slowly, willing her body to relax. Nothing good would come from either of them being this frustrated and annoyed—let alone both of them.

     "Just think about something else, Scarlet. I will be done in twenty minutes if you would just stop moving."

     She glared at Cassandra through the mirror saying nothing and thinking about nothing but the excruciating pain her entire head was experiencing.

     "Tell me about your plans today," her stylist said after a tense pause.

     She rolled her eyes. "You know as much as I doo—ahh!" Scarlet screeched as yet another tangle was found and this time, she was sure that she now had a bald spot at the base of her neck. "Hey!"

     "Sorry, sorry," Cassandra apologizes, but the amusement in her eyes undermined the sincerity of her words. "For real, Scarlet, what goals do you have for today? Have you thought about what things you want to learn while in the Training Center?"

     "Do you know what things are offered in the Training Center?" Scarlet asked, hope tinged her voice. Everything in regards to the Training Center were kept so secretive. It would be nice to get some insight into today before arriving.

     Instead of offering insight though, Cassandra laughed, "I'm just a stylist. I have no idea of the specifics that occur in the Training Center." Disappointment replaced the small buds of hope as Cassandra's face scrunched up in the mirror. "And quite frankly, I was only asking to be polite and to distract you from what I'm trying to accomplish with your beautiful, yet infuriatingly uncooperative hair. The Training Center is important to the Tributes—eh, you, but I, as well-established stylist, prefer cleanliness and order compared to the sweat and odors produced there."

     It was probably the most 'Capitol' thing that Scarlet had ever heard her stylist say and it was strange to hear them, yet she could not deny them as she watched Cassandra's lips forming each word. It was a stark reminder that even as much as Scarlet liked her stylist or how down to Earth and pragmatic she could be, Cassandra had been born and raised in the Capitol. Though they were a part of the same Nation, they lived in completely different worlds.

     "I'm going to familiarize myself with some of the weapons there and go around from station to station, based on what they have there." Scarlet answered, her teeth toying with her lower lip. "But really, I just want to observe the other tributes today."

     "Are you planning to make alliances?" she asked, while her hands continued to brush Scarlet's hair and pull it up on top of her head, only slightly interested. Scarlet didn't really mind though. Like Cassandra had said, talking and thinking about today was keeping her somewhat distracted from the awful experience of having her hair pulled up.

     "No." Scarlet answered, her lips curling up as amusement filled her. Allies? No. Enemies? Most certainly. The better she studied her opponents today, the better she could antagonize them come tomorrow.

     Cassandra's brow furrowed in the mirror's reflection; her hands stilled against her scalp. "Scarlet..."

     "Yeah...?" Scarlet said, more than a little curious about what had made her normally straight forward stylist hesitate.

     "Do you really not plan to ally with Crimson in the Arena?"

      "Where did you get that impression?" Scarlet asked. In front of the cameras, they were the twins. She certainly had not gone about announcing that fact to anyone. Had Crimson? Or was it just so obvious that perhaps they need not bother putting on such an act anymore?

      "It's been mentioned by the District 4 stylists, is all."

     Images of Crimson discussing unknown topics with the District 4 tributes in the elevator crossed her mind. The betrayal stung, but it was expected. Even before it was life and death, Crimson would do or say anything to get what he wanted.

     Scarlet held her stylist's gaze, steeling herself against the wave of sorrow threatening to overwhelm her. "One of us has to die, neither of us is volunteering for that. Crimson knows me better than anyone else in the world. And I know him. In that Arena, he's the one I trust the least."

     The unfiltered truth sat heavy between them. Cassandra finished Scarlet's hair without asking any more questions. That was what Scarlet preferred.

     There was no time for her to fall apart or focus on everything that was wrong with this situation. She could not look back, nor could she look too far forward. Scarlet could only focus on her task now.

     She needed to know her opponents' weaknesses and she needed to know how best to kill them.

***

    Scarlet ate her first meal of the day alone in a quiet dining room. Crimson and Penelope had already eaten and long since left the dining room by the time she arrived, and Verra and Cassandra had departed as soon as their tasks for the day were completed.

     As Scarlet stuffed a soft, buttery bun into her mouth, she glanced over at the clock on the wall. Ten minutes remained until she and Crimson would descend on the elevator to the Training Center.

     With escorts and mentors barred from the Training Center, only the twenty-six tributes, experts, and assistants would be there today. Penelope was not even allowed to escort them down to the Training Center, though Scarlet couldn't imagine a reason why—unless it had something to do with the secrecy of the Training Center.

     Every year, from the moment the tributes were reaped to the moment they died, their lives was broadcasted to all of Panem—except for the three days spent in the Training Center.

     During this time, Caesar filled the void with speculations and probabilities, but nothing was ever confirmed. The only thing that Scarlet knew for certain was that inside that Training Center, tributes were given the opportunity to gain survival skills and practice with weapons and then on the third day, each tribute was individually brought into the Training Center where they would be given the opportunity to show their skills and knowledge to the Gamemaker's.

     Once the Gamemaker's had assessed each of the tributes, they gave them each a number, one through twelve that determined the tributes likely odds to do well once in the Arena. A high number meant that they expected the tribute to do well in the Games while a low score indicated that the tributes had poor skills and weren't likely to survive long.

     Being given a high or low score could be the difference between life and death in the Arena.

     This year, Scarlet expected the four Careers to get 9's or 10's. They always did. And she expected District 4 to get a score of anywhere from 7 to 9, though she'd see their actual skills today or tomorrow.

     For herself, Scarlet wanted to receive as high of a score as she could get. It would be hard to get above 7. In recent years, no one under the age of fourteen had ever been given a score higher than 7. Finnick Odair, at age fourteen, had gotten a score of 8 and that was nearly unheard of. In a Hunger Games like hers, with so many older, stronger, and bigger tributes, it would be hard for anyone to think of her as much of a threat. But if she could score at least an 8—or higher, then everyone would be wondering what the Gamemaker's had seen to give the twelve-year-old such a high score.

     At least, that was what Scarlet hoped would happen.

     Movement to her right caught her attention and Scarlet watched as her brother moved further into the dining room, sitting in the chair across from her.

     "Five minutes until it's time to go."

     She continued to eat as she waited for him to say something else. He hadn't come back into the dining room to eat or just to tell her it was nearly time to go.

     Crimson's fingers tapped rhythmically against the hardwood table—pinky, ring, middle, pointer—his eyes unwaveringly locked on hers. A game of chicken played between the two siblings, waiting to see who would break first.

     A minute had passed in the room full of thick silence before he placed his hands beneath the table. Crimson rolled his head around on his shoulders before looking back at her. "I don't think we should train together once we get in there."

     Her lips curled around a mouth full of meat stuffed bread as her brother folded first. "Mmm." She swallowed her food and took a generous drink of her water before continuing. "Okay."

     "Yeah?" Her brother asked, seeming a little taken aback by her easy acquiesce.

     Scarlet shrugged her shoulder. "I'm not planning on causing trouble today, but no need to make my enemies your enemies."

     His lip tipped up in a half grin. One she hadn't seen on his face since they left District 14. "You never start it, but you always have to finish it."

     "Half the time, it's you who starts it." She grumbled, her own small smile lighting her face as she recalled the number of fights she'd been drawn into simply because her brother liked to rile people up.

     Crimson's head turned to the door, and the smile on Scarlet's face disappeared as Penelope's filled the doorway. Since Penelope wouldn't be escorting them down to the Training Center, Scarlet had hoped to avoid their escorts sour presence, if only to spare her eyes.

     Today, Penelope wore a voluminous and gaudy floor-length blue dress that seemed to be made from layer upon layer of shiny, ruffled fabric. The dress featured a high-backed collar that extended nearly to the top of her head, adding to its extravagant flair. And her entire ensemble was topped with a greenish-blue wig, meticulously styled into one large, rounded bowl shape atop her head and two small symmetrical swirls of hair near her ears.

     Her face was powdered white accentuating her dramatically painted dark blue lips and the matching powder around her eyes. Her elongated eyelashes reached where her missing eyebrows should have been, fluttering against her brow with every blink, which seemed to occur twice as fast as yesterday.

     Though her outfit was something hideous and unnecessarily extravagant in Scarlet's opinion, she would admit that her makeup was much better looking than it had been on the train. Maybe Penelope really did have her own stylist here in the Capitol.

     "If you want to be on time, it's time to leave."

     "We still have two minutes." Scarlet said while stuffing another bun into her mouth.

     Penelope's sharp nose pointed high in the air as she scoffed. "Well, I don't suppose that you've ever heard the saying the early bird gets the worm, living in that dreadful wasteland you hail from, but here in the Capitol, it is always best to be early."

      Scarlet swallowed the food in her mouth and stood from her chair, her hands landing hard on the table causing the dishes and silverware to rattle. She headed toward the door with clipped steps, keeping her eyes on Penelope as she did so.

     As she slipped through the doorway—a tight squeeze pressed between all of Penelope's deep blue ruffles and puffs and the doorframe—Scarlet finally bites out her response, "not if you're the worm."

-----------------

Hi! I hope that you enjoyed this chapter! 

Tell me what you thought of this chapter? 

How about her interactions with Cassandra and Crimson?

Stay safe and take care!~ CANGEL

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