Trust Me

None of the dresses that had bee prepared for me earned Finnick's approval, so by the time we pulled up at the Capitol, I was back in the outfit I’d work to the Reaping. He called an impromptu meeting half an hour before we arrived so he could inspect me and make sure I looked right for whatever plan he was thinking up.

“Now, when we pull up at the Capitol, it’s important that you give the audience some encouragement on your behalf. Smile and wave, but you want to come off as still being detached. Think of how President Snow waves to a crowd; that’s what you want to mimic. Like you exude power, but you still really connect with everyone.” He pulled a footstool over to one of the windows. “Stand on that, it'll make you look taller.”

I glared at him suspiciously, unsure if he was mocking my height or if he was just trying to be helpful. “Okay. You’re the boss.”

“The first thing we do when we get there is get you ready. I want to talk to your stylists and make sure they understand the angle we're going for.”

“What is my angle?” I asked, flopping down in the chair opposite him.

“You’ll have a different angle every time the audience sees you," he said, a slight grin spreading across his face. “The audience won't be able to figure you out, and you’ll be listed as an underdog, a wild card. The Capitol will become especially fascinated with you. They won't know what you’ll do, what you're capable of in the arena, what you’ll look like the next time they see you. The very first time you’re in the same room as the other tributes, you’ll have to be intimidating. We can’t play the ‘cute’ card until you go in for your TV interview. And even then, I’m hesitant about letting you be 'cute' at all.”

I sighed and picked at a loose thread on my clothes absently. “This is all so complicated,” I murmured quietly. I paused for a moment before asking, “Does this mean you’re done trying to immunize me against mind games?” he had been remarkably well-behaved since that first afternoon of the train ride, and I was starting to like this new normal Finnick.

Finnick smirked. “No, it just means that I’ve been too preoccupied with trying to come up with an angle for you to have any time to get in your head. Why, do you miss all the flirting?”

“Of course I do, love.” I drawled out in my best impersonation of Finnick’s ‘sexy’ voice. Granted, my best impersonation was still pretty bad, but it managed to make him laugh.

“You're so entertaining,” Finnick said, a sly grin on his face. I could tell he was planning something, and I guessed he was planning on pulling out more psychological warfare, though I couldn’t be sure. “Now tell me, do you have any skills that might come in handy? Surely you’re good with a trident.”

I paused before shaking my head. “I was never taught how to use a trident. We could never afford one, so I never had one to practice with. I can use a spear, though -- I’d make my own all the time if I couldn’t borrow a neighbor’s. And I’m really good with knives. I can hit a fish jumping out of the water from twenty feet away -- easily.”

Finnick nodded. “That’s good. Trident skills probably wouldn’t help you anyway – they don't always put tridents in the Games. I don’t even think they have them in the training rooms. Can you start fires and fish?”

I nodded. “I can’t make fires quickly, but I can make them. They’re not good ones, either; I usually get more smoke than flame, so I don’t think it’d be a good idea for me to make a fire unless I really want to be found and killed. As for fishing, I can fish with knives and spears, but I’m not too good at fishing without a weapon.”

“When you get to the training arena, I want you to focus on the survival skills. Camouflage, making fires, learning which foods are poisonous – things like that. Keep to yourself for the most part. I’ll tell you when to let them see your skills with knives and spears. You know something, love? I think you’ve got a shot after all.”

-

For the rest of the afternoon, I did exactly as Finnick instructed. I waved at the crowd of people gathered at the Capitol, I blew kisses and smiled, but I remained reserved. Finnick followed me as Kip and I were brought to a large room where I was scrubbed down and waxed and plucked and scrubbed some more. Finnick stood in the corner, wincing every time a patch of hair was ripped from its follicles.

“I don’t miss that."

“I’d rather be hairy!” I wailed as someone ripped another panel of wax off my leg, but my cries were ignored by the staff. Eventually everyone left – even Finnick was kicked out, but without anything better to do, all he did was sit outside my room while I waited for my stylist to show up.

The door swung open without any notice, and in walked a short tanned man with spiky violet hair. I sat up and was about to say ‘hello’, but he cut me off. “Oh, dear. Finnick was right, we do have a lot of work ahead of us.” He said. He walked forward and took a lock of my short hair between his fingers, inspecting it. “Why, oh why couldn’t you have long hair, doll?”

I opened my mouth to offer an apology, but no words came out. He continued to inspect me carefully, tilting my head ever so slightly to one side or another, before he heaved a great sigh.

“You’re not unattractive, at least. That will make it easier. I’ll make you look amazing in whatever we put you in, but you have to have the attitude to pull everything together. If I put you in a sexy outfit, you have to act like you wear these things all the time. If you don’t do that, you’ll just look like a little girl playing dress up in her mother’s clothes. Can you do that for me?” The man asked finally.

I could do nothing but nod.

“Fantastic. My name is Shalim, and we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

-

He was right. I spent hours sitting in one chair, watching my reflection as my whole prep team flew around me. Finnick (who was now allowed back in my prep room) and Shalim had agreed to turn me into a mermaid, and Kip would be the matching merman. I'd been informed that the costume wasn't going to cover much, so I figured that this was the day they would try to make me appear sexy for the crowd. The prep team seemed to already know what Shalim wanted as they worked on me. They tried to hollow out my cheeks to make my face seem more sharp and angular, but it just made me look worn out, so they had to wash it off and start from scratch. My eyes were made to look longer and thinner, and by the time they were done I thought my eyes looked almost feline. My skin had an eerie light blue shimmery undertone to it, and they’d painted on a few aquatic-looking patterns on my temples in an indigo color. Even my hair was unrecognizable -- it was mostly straight, with gelled ends to make them look like small razor-sharp needles growing from my scalp, but periodically throughout my hair there was the lone softly curled ringlet. I hadn’t even seen my clothes yet, but already I could hardly recognize myself.

Shalim finally burst into the room holding his creation -- the tail. “We’ll have to train you on how to walk in it,” he said.

My stomach sank. “You mean walking in that costume won’t be the same as actual walking?”

Shalim gave me a funny look. “The whole point to a mermaid is that they have a tail. If you have a mermaid tail, you are not meant to walk. Have you ever noticed what fish do when you put them on land? Here's a little hint: they don't just get up and march back into the water."

I blushed. “Right. Sorry.”

The mermaid costume was unbelievable. The top was nothing more than a band of a few strips of what was supposed to be seaweed wrapped tightly around my chest, concealing nothing more than what was necessary. While Shalim was fitting the tail, the prep team got to work at giving the same blue undertone to the rest of my body so it matched my face. The tail was a soft lavender color, and while the heavy base started at my hips, there was a thin fabric that extended to make the scales look more gradient rather than having my ‘tail’ start too suddenly. The good thing about the costume was the end of the tail extended past my feet by several inches, so it would give me some height. But, like Shalim had said, there was no way for me to walk.

That’s when Shalim flicked a small switch on a remote, and I heard a soft humming of electricity come from the tail. I was suddenly floating half a foot off the ground, gently bobbing up and down like the motion of something floating in the water.

“Lean forward,” Shalim instructed, and so I did. As I leaned forward, the tail accelerated rapidly and propelled me forward, slamming me into a wall. “Gently! Gently lean forward!” Shalim corrected, and everyone ran to my side while Finnick sat in the corner, laughing so hard he fell off his chair.

“I didn’t know it was going to move!”

“Well, now you do, so be careful. Keep practicing. I’ve got another fully charged power pack for you, so we’ll swap that in right before you head out for the parade. You cannot mess up. If you fall or trip or smash into a wall the first time you meet the other tributes, you won’t be taken seriously,” Shalim said.

“Gee, really?” Finnick said sarcastically, though his remark was broken up by a few lingering chuckles.

I spent the rest of the afternoon with Kip, practicing how to use the costumes. Though Kip and I were in the same room, we didn’t even look at each other once, relying on our peripheral vision to keep us from colliding. When the time came for us to enter the hall, we left side by side, and I could hear the commotion from the crowds of people just past those doors, eagerly awaiting their first view of all the tributes together.

Several people were eyeing Kip and I as we floated with our prep teams, making last minute alterations. I didn’t make eye contact with them. Shalim had said to ignore the tributes and acknowledge only the audience, but I could feel the eyes of the tributes burning holes in my back. Maybe they weren’t watching us as intently as I thought. Maybe I was just being paranoid. But either way, it made me feel the pressure to perform well. Once we were in formation, I could take peeks out of the corner of my eyes to see what everyone looked like. A few people stood out; the girl from District 2 was the first one to catch my eye. She had pale porcelain skin and shiny black hair that ran all the way down her back. She had sharp angular features on her face and narrow green eyes that rarely blinked. She was beautiful, but just from looking at her you could tell she was deadly. I knew exactly who she was -- her name was Ingrid. She was the most well-known of the tributes so far because of what had happened at the Reaping. Another girl from District 2 had volunteered, but Ingrid had pounced on her, knocking her unconscious and breaking her wrist with her bare hands so the girl couldn’t participate. Nobody else had bothered to challenge Ingrid for the role after that.

I shuddered and turned to look at someone else, only to realize that the male tribute from District 1 was turned completely around, staring at me. I was going to look away, remembering that I wasn’t supposed to make eye contact, but I felt as though looking away meant admitting defeat. I straightened up and narrowed my eyes, matching his glare. He was tall and muscular with a strong jaw and blonde hair – just like almost every other boy who came from District 1. A half-smile spread across his face as my glare intensified. He simply stared back at me with a smirk, and I was reminded of how Finnick had constantly stared me down like this that first day on the train, preparing me for this. I straightened up and squared my shoulders, not even daring to blink. My eyes were burning, but I pushed through it.

The boy’s prep team came up and gathered around him, trying to arrange his posture. He blocked them out, continuing to stare at me. His expression was almost smug, and I knew he’d try to kill me first just for challenging him like this.

“Adri!” a woman from his prep team yelled. “Adri, you really need to get ready. You’re on in forty five seconds." She pushed at his shoulders in an effort to turn him around, but he was too large for her to move.

The boy – Adri – paused for a moment, before looking at the ground and laughing silently. He cast a quick glance back up at me for a moment with a smile and then turned around, letting his prep team make small adjustments to his posture.

“What was that about?” Kip asked me, jerking his head in Adri’s direction. I ignored him. Kip heaved an exhausted sigh. “Come on, Winnie. Finnick told us to try and get along for the sake of the cameras and sponsors.”

I put a grin on my face immediately, remembering his instructions to act like we were the best of friends. “Since when do you listen to anything that Finnick says?” I muttered through my grin.

Kip turned to grimace at me. “I’m just trying to look out for you. That boy will kill you the first chance he gets if you keep challenging him like that.”

“You let me worry about that. You didn’t seem too concerned about it earlier. I’d hate to trouble you," I said sarcastically, remembering the words he'd said back in District 4.

Kip winced but didn’t argue any further. The doors swung open and the carriages pulled all the tributes out in slow, synchronized order. The audience erupted into cheers, and Kip grabbed my hand instinctively. I had to resist the urge to yank my hand away, so as a distraction I turned and smiled at the audience. At this point we were both just standing, so Kip squeezed my hand to signal that we should turn our power packs on. I looked at him and he nodded, reaching down to turn on the hover device in unison with him. We gently lifted off the ground, and though I wasn't happy to be holding his hand, it did provide me with some balance as I readjusted to the feeling of being off the ground. The audience went absolutely wild, and I turned to wave at the crowd. I saw the shots on the main screen zoom in on Kip and I, and I couldn't help but feel my forced smile fade into a genuine one.

We pulled up to the front of the hall and President Snow started to give a grand speech for the sake of the crowd. Some of the tributes were watching Kip and I as we hovered at least half a foot off the ground, and I noticed that the Careers were watching us with particularly terrifying expressions. Ingrid was watching me with a contorted expression of disgust that made my blood run cold. The male tribute from 2 was giving the same look to Kip. I tried to ignore both of them when I felt my power pack start to flicker, the humming of the hover decide starting to cut out. Did they forget to put in a new pack? Or had the new pack just been faulty? I wanted to find some way to tell Kip to turn his pack too, so it would look like an intentional decision, but before I could even get his attention the power quit. I stumbled forward, and Kip automatically reached out to grab me, saving me from landing face-first on the floor. I glanced up and found Finnick’s face near the front of the crowd with the other mentors. He made a pained expression before burying his face in his hands, and my stomach sank as everyone around him in the crowd began to murmur, hushed voices of concern. Against my better judgment, I cast a glance over at the two key tributes to try and read their expressions. Ingrid was smirking at me like I was the most pathetic thing she'd seen, and Adri was chuckling at me. I felt my stomach twist as I realized that my mistake had just made me the 73rd annual Hunger Games’ biggest target.