Trust Me

“I’m so sorry, Shalim!” wailed one of the women from the prep team.

“Don’t apologize to me, Doris. Apologize to Winnie. And you’d better be damn sincere about it, because your mistake has probably just cost Winnie her life.”

“I’m so terribly sorry, Winnie. I don’t know what happened -- I was going to change your power pack, but then I saw that there were a few patches of your skin where the glitter was uneven, and I guess I just got so distracted that I forgot!” Doris said, blurting everything out so quickly I had to strain to hear her.

“It’s fine,” I said quietly, trying to force a smile on my face.

“No it’s not,” Finnick and Shalim said in unison. Shalim then continued on his own. “In case you hadn’t already guessed, Doris, you’re fired. You might be fined or imprisoned as well, so don’t think this matter is behind you. You know how important our work is with these tributes, and you know how important every little detail is. This girl is a target now because of you. Get out," Shalim snapped.

Doris bit her lip and nodded, fighting back tears as she gathered a few of her belongings and walked out the door.

“That was a little harsh,” I said quietly.

I regretted speaking almost instantly. Shalim whirled around with an astonished look on his face. “Are you kidding me? That woman’s mistake has pretty much guaranteed your death. Even if you survive, you’ll be lucky to have any sponsors. Unless you can really redeem yourself, you’ll have no alliances or sponsors or hope of survival. And that is all because of that woman that just walked out.”

Finnick wrapped his arms around me in what I guessed was supposed to be a comforting hug, but it felt more awkward than anything. “That’s enough, Shalim. You don’t need to scare her. There’s still time before the Games begin. She’s got plenty of opportunities left to prove herself.”

Shalim huffed an angry sigh and stormed out of the room wordlessly. I collapsed down on the nearest chair and peeled off my tail, feeling overwhelmed and frustrated. I was half-naked at this point, with only a thin band of seaweed around my chest and a small band of the tail fabric left around my waist, but I didn’t notice until I saw Finnick’s face.

Finnick grabbed a fur blanket from one of the arm chairs and threw it over me. “I’ll just...cover that up,” he said quietly, adjusting the blanket so it stretched from my chin to my ankles.

“So what’s the schedule for tomorrow?” I asked, snuggling in and making myself comfortable.

“Tomorrow’s your first day of training. You have two options at the training arena: you can either show them your knife skills, or you can focus on hiding your skills and learning more about survival skills. Both will be beneficial and detrimental, but in different ways.” Finnick took a seat on the sofa and stretched himself out on it, folding his hands behind his head.

“What are the pros and cons of each, then?”

“The pros of you showing your knife and spear skills will be that they won’t take you as a weakling anymore. You’re a Career tribute, so if you show desirable skills then it won’t be hard for you to make alliances. Plus, it'll help give you a higher score, which will make you more attractive to sponsors. But it will also get you viewed as more of a threat, and anyone who isn’t in an alliance with you will want to kill you at the first opportunity. If you make no alliances at all, then you’ll be screwed because you'll have no one to protect you and a whole arena of tributes thinking you're too dangerous to be left alive.”

I nodded, carefully mulling over what he'd said. I didn’t particularly want any alliances, as many of the Careers had a history of stabbing their allies in the back as soon as they showed signs of being too weak to help out, or too strong to let live. “What if I focus more on survival skills?”

“Then you’ll improve on your weaker spots, which can’t hurt. You’ll also look like less of a threat – the worst you could do is just outlive someone without showing them you've got any ability to actually make a kill. People will feel like leaving you alive won’t be as risky. If anything, it’ll just provide a distraction. Give the other tributes someone else to chase down, and they won’t worry about crossing your path because they could take care of you easily. On the downside, though, if someone wants to kill just for fun, you'll look like the easiest target. That’s what happens lot with Career tributes; they often hunt down the weak ones first, make a game out of it. It’s entertaining for them.”

I paused. “But I’ll have my knife skills. If they try and hunt me down, they’ll be taken off guard. I mean, if they're not prepared for me to fight back, I could take them by surprise and have a better shot at getting away.”

Finnick nodded. “So we agree that hiding your skills is probably the best option, but there’s a problem with you depending on your hidden knife skills. Where are you going to get the knives? I don’t want you to go through the initial bloodbath, when everyone makes a break for the Cornucopia. Nothing will help you survive that, it’s all about killing anything that moves and taking everything you can find.”

I paused. “I can make a spear myself.”

Finnick nodded. “That’s good, but I want you to work on weapons anyway. Scavenge. Find as many dead bodies as you can and steal their weapons before the Hovercrafts take them away. It’s gross, but at least you’ll be prepared. I want you to practice working with machetes and bows and arrows. Go down at night, after everyone else has finished for the day, and practice on your own. Don’t let anyone see you, not even Kip. I’ll make up some excuse for you. Just remember, by day, you stick to the survival stations.”

I mulled it over for a moment. “That sounds fair. At least then I’ll be able to work with whatever weapons I can get my hands on.”

Finnick smiled. “Excellent. I know you don’t want to be the victor, but I think you’ve got a wonderful chance at it.”

I smiled at him, then decided it was time to dig for a bit of information. “There are two tributes I’m a little nervous about. They keep eyeing me up like they want to kill me before the Games have even started. Do you know anything about the boy from 1 and the girl from 2?”

“Adri and Ingrid?” Finnick asked, his eyebrows raising. “I don’t know if you could have picked two worse tributes to make enemies of. They’re both positively lethal. I’m sure you heard about what happened with Ingrid at the Reaping in her District.” I nodded my head. “She’s only 14 but she knows how to kill without any weapons, and she’s eager to do it.”

I raised my eyebrows. I’d thought Ingrid was at least my age, so I was surprised to learn she was three years younger than me. “What are her skills?”

“Her mentor says her attitude is the most dangerous thing about her. She’s very skilled with a bow and arrow, but she's skilled enough to make confident kills with her bare hands. She’s gotten into fights at her school, and rumour has it that she once bit off a girl’s finger,” Finnick said with a grimace.

“That’s comforting," I said sarcastically.

Finnick laughed. “As for Adri, he’s quite tricky. His mentor says he’s barely spoken two words since he got here. The female tribute from his district claims there’s not a weapon he’s not extremely skilled with, and he could probably find a way to kill you with anything you gave him, even if it’s not intended to be a weapon.”

“So he was a volunteer too, no doubt?”

“Surprisingly no. There were no volunteers at all from District 1 this year. It’s a little surprising, but it’s happened plenty of times before. That doesn’t mean the girl from his District hasn't been telling everyone how happy she is to have been Reaped, though.”

I took a moment to absorb all this new information. “Is there anyone else to watch out for?”

“Everyone,” Finnick said dryly, a wry smile on his face. “But any of the Careers are definitely nothing to take lightly. Kip’s probably going to try and form an alliance with them. He’s wise to do so. With his size, he’s going to be viewed as a threat no matter what. I don’t know if you should worry about Kip or not. It’s pretty rare that people turn against the tributes from their own District, but the two of you obviously aren’t that close. It’d be best to keep an eye on him.”

I didn’t respond, knowing that Kip would kill me in a second if it came down to it and I should prepare myself to do the same.

Neither of us had much to say after that, and, both of us exhausted from a full day of events, we sat in silence for what must have been at least an hour. I was convinced he’d fallen asleep when he suddenly stood up.

“You’d best get some sleep, mermaid. You’ve got a long day ahead of you tomorrow. There’s no telling how brutal the other tributes will be once they have real weapons in hand and no audience to impress.” Finnick said. He turned to walk out of the room and stopped just before the door. “And by the way, you really should want to live. Even if you don’t think there’s anyone to live for, I’m sure there’s some people who’d be pretty damn devastated if you died. I know I would be.” I opened my mouth to ask him what he meant by that, but he’d already left the room.

The next morning my stomach felt like I’d swallowed a cement block. I knew that none of the other tributes would actually try to kill me when we were just in the training arena, but I still felt very uneasy about being around the brutal tributes when they had genuine weapons within reach.

I barely ate anything before I was called down to the training arena. Kip and I were the last of the Careers to arrive, and I saw the smirks on everyone’s face as I walked into the room. By that point I had decided it was futile to try and stare back, so I simply scurried off to the corner and began trying to start a fire.

“You know, it works a lot better if you use more leaves," chirped a sing-song voice. I turned around to see a bony girl with choppy red hair watching me.

“Oh. Thanks,” I said, grabbing a few more handfuls of dried leaves and placing them at the base of my pathetic fire pit.

The girl leaned down and rearranged a few twigs, adding a few more handfuls of moss and leaves herself. “My name is Jill. I’m from District 7.”

“I’m Winnie, from 4,” I said. I didn’t bother offering a hand to shake, as both of our hands were currently preoccupied with the fire pit.

“I know. Everyone knows you after last night,” she said with a nod.

“Yeah, I’m sure they all got quite a kick out of it," I mumbled, casting a glance over at the Careers pointedly.

“It could work in your favor, you know. Because now everybody’s watching you. They know who you are. You and Ingrid are the most talked about tributes right now.”

“But for different reasons. She’s brutal and lethal, I’m clumsy and a target.”

Jill shrugged. “I’m not worried about killing you. The second I get the chance, I’m killing Ingrid. She’s a big threat. From what I've heard, most tributes have just decided to let you go out on your own and starve or get picked off by one of the Gamemakers' creations.”

It was weird to openly discuss my death with this girl I’d only just met, but oddly enough, I liked that she was at least being bluntly honest. It was the best way for me to figure out what the others thought of me. “Really? That’s all they're planning?”

“Well, apart from the Careers. Nobody really knows what goes through their heads. They kill for fun, so killing someone who’s weak and helpless might...I don't know, turn them on, or something," she muttered. “Killing the weak is fun, killing the strong is eliminating a threat. They don’t spare anybody.”

“I’ve got two of the Careers breathing down my neck already,” I said, peeking another glance from the corner of my eye. Ingrid had been at the archery section for the entire morning and had hit every single human-shaped target right in the center of the bulls-eye that represented the heart. I was surprised to see Adri leaning against a wall, absently watching everybody. I wondered if he was trying to pick out people to form an alliance with.

“That’s bad luck,” Jill said. She stood and brushed the bits of broken leaves off her palms. “I should get to work. I can’t lose my chance to practice with the weapons.” She disappeared, headed off to the rack of machetes, and I turned away. I didn’t want to watch her massacre the dummies after the conversation we’d just had.

I spent a few more minutes working with the fire when, much to my delight, a spark finally caught. The pile of brush went up in flames almost instantly, and I knew that the only reason it had worked so well was because of Jill’s help. I sat there for a moment, watching the flames in awe and warming my hands over it, delighted.

“If you’re done warming yourself up, some other people might need to use this station, too," said a husky voice, right in my ear. I whirled around to see Adri’s face inches from mine, and I let out a loud yelp, falling over onto my back just inches from the fire. I crawled away from him, not daring to break eye contact. Fear rushed through me, even though I knew it was unjustified. He didn’t have any weapon in his hands, and besides, killing me now would just get him eliminated from the Games and killed, anyway. I remained paralyzed with fear, knowing that he could kill me in a thousand different ways with his bare hands in a matter of seconds, and tried desperately not to picture a handful of those ways.

Everyone turned to look at me, having heard my shriek, and some of them laughed while others looked worried at the fact that Adri was already toying with people. I could see no compassion in their eyes, though; they didn't care about me, but rather were more concerned that they would be next.

“Um, yeah. It’s yours.” I hopped to my feet and scampered off to the camouflage station, hiding behind a table stocked high with paint. I sucked in deep breaths and tried to calm myself down. Finnick hadn’t been joking – people really were trying to mess with my head. I was surprised that Adri was the one who’d done it first. I had thought that the Careers wouldn’t need to mess with the other tributes – they were already feared enough for their strength. Adri, being the biggest out of all of us, had no need to get inside anyone’s head. He probably already haunted people in their nightmares, I thought bitterly.

I continued to hide for a few more moments before I stood and began to work on camouflage techniques. I made sure to never let Adri get out of my peripheral vision, not daring to turn my back on him for fear of him sneaking up on me again. A few moments after I’d started to get into my work, a rough hand planted itself on my shoulder and jerked me upright.

I whirled around, wondering how Adri had managed to get behind me when I'd been watching him so carefully, only to see Finnick staring at me with a furious expression on his face. “Winnie, let’s talk outside," h said, his voice even and cold. He towed me out to the hall and for a few moments all he did was fix me with a furious expression. “How could you be so stupid?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, deciding to play dumb. I only wanted to try and postpone his rage.

“How could you let him get to you like that? I thought you understood that mind games just show your weaknesses! Now not only does Adri know he can toy with you, but so does every single tribute!”

I sucked in a shaky breath. “I couldn’t help it. He caught me off guard,” I murmured. I’d barely finished my sentence when Finnick pinned me against the wall and crushed his lips against mine. His hot breath filled my mouth as he forced my lips open, and his cool familiar scent washed over me. My hand found his face and I gave him a hard punch to the jaw before I knew what I was doing.