❝you drew up some good faith treaties❞

LEXA DUCKED AS JOHANNA'S AXE WAS SWUNG AT HER. It was training time, and they were sparring because they needed as much practice as they could get. The Mason woman was a very loud fighter, screaming as she swung while the Armada woman just let out hushed grunts.

She paused for a second, wiping some sweat off her brow as she looked over at Isla, who was sitting with Peeta. That was good because they needed him and Katniss on their side. She went back to her fighting and tried to play it cool as she questioned, "What's the deal with tha Isla girl?"

"I don't know," Johanna answered with a small shrug. She had only spoken to the girl a handful of times. When Isla and Finnick mentored, she was the one that talked to her tributes while the man went out and tried to find allies. "She's Finnick's little friend."

"He seems to trust her," the brunette pointed out because she had spoken to the Odair man, and he seemed completely confident in Isla as an ally. He had no doubts in his mind that she was trustworthy, but he had always been a little too trusting.

"He was her mentor," Johanna reminded her. When you were a child in the Hunger Games, unless you had a mentor like Colin, your mentor was your lifeline. You told them everything because they were the ones that would help you stay alive. "He probably knows her better than anyone."

Lexa raised her eyebrows at her friend as she swung her sword which was blocked by the hilt of Johanna's axe. She glanced back over at the Angler girl who was laughing with Peeta, and she felt something weird in her stomach at the sight of her smile. "Do you trust her?"

"I trust Finnick," Johanna answered, and she had a point there. Lexa would trust that man with her life. She knew him, and she trusted his instinct and his knowledge.

The blonde girl seemed so sweet, but Lexa knew that you could not be sweet to win the games. She must have some dark side that no one knew about. Either that, or she was just really lucky. "How did she win her games?"

"You were there to see it," Johanna reminded her. She was not a mentor yet at the time of Isla's games, but Lexa was. She should have been there to watch it on TV in the Capitol. "Don't you remember?"

She shook her head, thinking that it must have been the year she got sick because she would never forget that face. She could also remember the names of every single victor since her games. She never payed attention to the games until she was chosen, but afterwards, you could not tear her away from that screen. She did not enjoy it, but she made a commitment to those kids to help them win. "I don't think I mentored that year. I got sick, so I got Cassius to do it."

"Well, she hid out until there were only a couple of people left. Then, she took them out one by one," Johanna explained. She remembered watching the blonde girl hide and jump out at the most unexpected times. She wasn't cold about it, and she seemed to have been really remorseful about it. But that was the Hunger Games. You did what you had to do to survive. It was weird now because both of those women fighting there had accepted the fact that they were going to die in these Games. "She's smart, I'll give her that. Might be a good person to have on the team."

"Yeah," Lexa responded, her eyes trained on Isla. Johanna took that chance to knock her friend off her feet. Lexa groaned on the ground, and she rolled her eyes as her friend leaned over her and smirked before helping her up.

Isla had been throwing knives when she noticed the Mellark boy sitting in one of the rooms. She was curious, and he did not seem particularly violent. So, she headed over and peered over his shoulder, careful not to mess him up. Her eyes widened when she saw that he was painting his arm, and it looked exactly like tree bark.

"That's really good," she commented, and he whipped around so that he was looking up at her. She offered a smile, letting him know that she was not about to slit his throat or anything. It was seriously something to worry about because sometimes, tributes decide to start the games before the cannon goes off. They start taking people out in the training room.

He smiled back and nodded at her. "Thanks."

"Where did you learn how to do that?" she questioned because he was from District 12. They were coal miners not artists, but she had never seen anything as realistic as that. It wasn't even good paint. It was things that could be found in nature like rocks and mud and plants.

"I used to work in a bakery, spent most of my day decorating cakes," he explained to her, and he gestured for her to sit down. She took a seat next to him, and he slid the tools he was using over to her with raised eyebrows. "Wanna try?"

She shook her head because she was awful with paint. She could draw a little bit, but it was just a little something that she did in her free time back home. She was definitely not a professional or anything. "No, I'm more of a drawer myself."

"It's not that different. Come here. I'll teach you," he told her.

She sighed. It seemed like a fun thing to learn, but she was not sure how helpful it would be in the arena. She was honestly kind of sick of preparing for the arena, and she thought that she might as well have some fun before she goes in. However, she did not want Peeta to take time out of his preparations to teach her. "You don't have to."

"How about we trade?" he questioned, and she furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. He certainly did not want money because they already had everything that they could ever want in the Capitol, and even if he won, he would have plenty of winnings. "I give you painting lessons, and you teach me how to throw knives."

"Deal," she confirmed with a smile. He grabbed her arm and place it on the table, and he began painting mud and berries on her, teaching her the technique as he did so and having her try every once in a while. It was not as difficult as she thought it was going to be, but she was not the best of it. After about half an hour of that, they moved on.

They were perfecting Peeta's knife-throwing stance when they heard a bunch of weapons dropping. They turned and saw pretty much every single tribute rushing over to the window where one of the new technological training rooms was. Isla furrowed her eyebrows, but Peeta was quick to explain, That's Katniss. She's been shooting since she was a kid, and it's pretty impressive."

"Aren't you two engaged?" she questioned. They had been the talk of the country for the past year ever since they became the first two people to win the same Hunger Games. They were legends, and everything about their relationship had been broadcasted across the entire country.

Finnick did not believe that the engagement was real, that they just had to keep up the act so that everyone was convinced that they won the games because they were actually in love. However, Isla had seen the way that the Mellark boy looked at Katniss, and if they were not actually in love, they were damn good at acting. "Yeah."

"Congratulations," she told him, even though she felt bad since they were probably never going to get their wedding.

"Thanks," he responded, and he looked over to where Katniss was staring back at everyone staring at her. She seemed a little scared and confused. He sighed, and Isla could tell that he a least really cared about her, even if he was not in love with her. "I'm trying to make some good allies to help us out."

She finally exhaled and offered her hand out for him to shake. Normally, shwe would do the exact opposite of anything Colin said, but he seemed to be right when he said that Peeta and Katniss would make good allies. "Well, you've got one, and I come with a pretty good pack, if I do say so myself."

"Really?" he asked, accepting the handshake. He seemed a bit shocked, and he was happy since she was already allies with Finnick, Johanna, and Lexa, some of the most threatening tributes.Having them on their side would help a hell of a lot.

She nodded in confirmation. "Sure."