74th - part 9
johanna’s pov
In the morning, I get dressed and head up to District 12’s floor, pounding on the door of their apartment as if it’s not the break of dawn. Well, honestly, who cares? If Katniss isn’t already awake, I’m gonna change that one way or another.
A thin, Capitol woman opens the door wearing a silk bathrobe, her pink hair full of rollers. “Do you have any idea what time it is?” she scolds me. “I was sleeping.”
“Sucks.” I push my way into the apartment and look around. “Where’s Katniss’s room?”
“That one,” the woman sighs, pointing at the only closed door in the apartment.
I knock twice before trying the handle, which surprisingly is unlocked.
Katniss is lying face down in bed, her hair sprawled across the pillow in a messy halo. I don’t feel guilty about invading her space until I realize how intimate it is to see her wake up, to see the way she stretches her arms and rubs her eyes. She lifts her head up enough to see my face, then groans. “What time is it?”
“Time to get up. We have mentoring to do.”
Out of curiosity, I wander around the room while Katniss crawls out of her bed. She keeps her windows on the same setting I do: trees. And she doesn’t have anything on her dresser except for a gold pin, which I pick up absentmindedly, feeling the cool metal against my skin.
“My friend gave it to me,” Katniss murmurs. “It’s a—”
“A mockingjay.” I smile and hand over the pin to her. “We have them in 7, too.”
As she takes the pin, her hand brushes mine and I suddenly feel a rush of regret about being here. I mean, this is her fucking bedroom, and she’s standing in front of me wearing pajamas that cling to her, revealing her thin frame and hardened hunter’s arms. At least she doesn’t seem uncomfortable with my presence, but still.
“Come on,” I say as casually as I can, “the boys are probably begging for the sweet release of a shift change by now.” Stepping out of the room, I hear her laugh behind me as I close the door and head for the living room.
The Capitol woman from earlier is eyeing me suspiciously. I glare back at her, but she just raises her chin. “Katniss didn’t mention that you’d be coming over. Neither did Haymitch.”
“I just came to get Katniss.”
Speaking of, Katniss bursts out of her bedroom fully dressed, still pulling her hair back as she smiles at me and the woman. “Morning, Effie.”
“Good morning!” chirps the Capitol woman.
“Ready?” Katniss says to me as she finishes her hair. I nod, and Katniss quickly smiles at the woman again as she tells her, “I’ll be back at 8.”
“Perfect, dear. And don’t worry, I’ll make sure Haymitch gets out the door on time.”
“Thank you,” Katniss grins.
We walk out together, Effie waving at us from the doorway as I punch the elevator button. No one else must be up and moving, since the elevator hasn’t left the floor since I arrived. When we step in, I clear my throat and turn to Katniss.
“So do you actually like your escort?”
“Effie? Yeah,” she answers. “She’s…Capitol…but she cares about the tributes, and me.” She smirks sneakily and adds, “And she really cares about Haymitch.”
“Seriously?”
Katniss laughs and nods. “They think they’re so secretive about it, but it’s so obvious if you pay attention. Peeta pointed it out last year. Honestly, I can’t believe I didn’t see it earlier.”
“I would’ve never pictured Haymitch with someone like her.” At the affronted look on Katniss’s face, I backtrack a bit and clarify, “I never pictured Haymitch with anyone. He’s…well, you know. Not very charming.”
“He’s abrasive and she’s annoying,” Katniss admits. “Maybe that’s why they work. They just piss everyone else off.”
The elevator stops and we get off, walking next to each other on our way down the hallway. When we get to the viewing room, it’s much less crowded than yesterday and I figure the Careers must have been busy overnight.
Blight grins at me so eagerly that I know we were right about him and Haymitch being bored. “You missed a wild night,” he declares.
“Really?”
“Nope. They pretty much slept the whole time,” he complains. “Although, the Careers got the boy from 8 and both from 5.”
“Damn,” I mutter. This means we definitely have to act quickly with the plan. I don’t want it to come down to our four tributes, which means Lance and Holly need to separate from the 12s as early as possible. Which means they have to kill the Careers today.
There’s only one way to send that message.
I turn to Haymitch, who’s getting to his feet and stretching with a yawn. “Can you guys stay on watch for a bit?” I prepare myself for his protest, but instead he just looks at me with confusion.
“Why?”
“So that Katniss and I can go hunt down sponsors.”
“I thought we were going to wait until they started planning and use that to our advantage,” he says slowly, as if trying to catch me in the act of doing something suspicious.
I gesture around the room at the noticeable lack of other mentors. “They don’t have time to fuck around. Soon it’ll just be them, the Careers, and maybe a few other people who aren’t threats. Who do you think the Careers will target?”
“So your plan is to…what? Try and send them something useful?”
“No, we can save the money for when they really need it. I just need to buy them some bread and they’ll know what it means.” Everyone looks at me doubtfully, but I know what I’m doing. If I just remind the kids that I’m watching them sit on their asses, they’ll start getting serious about attacking the Careers. Plus, I’ll be able to send them something useful later, once they have a plan.
“What makes you think that you and Katniss can do a better job than us?”
I shrug. “You’ve been up all night. And I can tell just by looking at you.”
“Fine,” Haymitch grumbles, because he knows as well as I do that appearances are everything in the Capitol. “But make it quick. I don’t wanna sit here all day.”
I grab Katniss by the wrist and pull her back out toward the elevator, practically running. Haymitch isn’t the only one who wants this over with; I fucking despise talking to the sponsors, so I don’t wanna spend a minute longer than I have to talking to them.
The sponsors hang out in a public viewing room, which is much noisier, more crowded, and generally more exciting than the Mentors Only room. It’s where the more sociable mentors hang out, or those who are actively seeking sponsors for their tributes. In my couple years, I’ve spent maybe 15 minutes tops in here. I fucking hate it. Even two years ago, when we had a tribute that could’ve survived, I sent Blight to get sponsors and sat in the mentors viewing room by myself.
It’s not just that I don’t like the sponsors. I could suck it up and deal with them if it meant I’d give my tributes an advantage. But they don’t like me. I’m not a popular victor, and I don’t play their game very well, so they see right through me. If I tried to convince them to support my tribute, a lot of the sponsors would laugh in my face and walk away.
“You have to take the lead,” I tell Katniss as I give her a little shove into the room.
Her head whips around at me. “You’re not gonna help me?”
“Nobody likes me.”
“I like you,” she says softly.
I want to roll my eyes and glare at her, but I end up just doing the former as a smile involuntarily creeps across my face. “You’re my ally, so you don’t count.” I wish I could make myself believe that. I don’t like the way her words make me feel…valued. “We’re here to make people like us enough to pay us, which means you don’t want my help.”
“I do. Please,” she insists, “I’m the worst at making people like me. Ask Haymitch.”
I have a hard time believing he actually told her that, because it seems so far from the truth. Katniss isn’t the most likable person, but she’s popular here. The Capitol people adore her, the District people respect her, and…well, she made me like her, even though I didn’t before. But I don’t dare tell her any of this.
“Fine. I’ll try, but I’m serious about you taking the lead.” I walk over to a table of Capitol people, plastering a fake smile on my face as I gesture to Katniss. I force my voice to sound pleasant as I address the table. “Hello, I’m Johanna Mason from District 7 and this is my ally, Katniss Everdeen from District 12. How are you all this morning?”
“Bored!” jokes a man in a vibrant green suit. The table titters and agrees.
“Lucky for you, we can fix that,” Katniss replies. Everyone looks significantly more interested as she gazes at each of them, meeting their eyes and smiling at them as if we’re all old friends. “Our tributes are planning to attack the alliance between Districts 1 and 2.”
“But that’s foolish!” exclaims a woman with purple skin.
Katniss shakes her head. “I thought so too, when I decided to try it last year. But I did what I had to do…to get home to my sister. And for Rue.” I can’t believe she’s willing to use that card, but it’s unbelievably effective. One of the sponsors actually bursts into tears and has to be consoled by the people sitting next to him. “It paid off, because here I am with you. So…we’d like to propose an offer to you. To make sure that our tributes can have the same chance I did.”
Everyone leans forward, hanging onto every word Katniss says. She’s a fucking natural at this.
“All we ask is that you help us make a small purchase.” She looks to me for help, and I provide a number that’s probably higher than necessary, but better safe than sorry, I guess. Soon, the whole table is practically tossing money in our faces. We thank them several times, then I hook my arm around Katniss’s and drag her away, because I can see the asshole in the green suit raking over her with his eyes.
“Damn, Everdeen,” I mutter into her ear as we flee, “You know how to fucking play.”
“Honestly, I don’t know how I did that.”
“Well, figure it out, because we’ll have to do it again sooner or later.”
She groans, pulling our arms apart as we step back into the elevator.
When we get back to the mentor's viewing room, I tell Katniss to hand the money over to Haymitch, who beams and hugs her excitedly. He breaks away from her and approaches me, but fortunately he just sticks out his hand to shake mine. Good, because I would’ve punched him if he tried to hug me.
“She got it from one table,” I tell him.
“No kidding?”
“Seriously. They love her.”
He looks at Katniss and smiles again. “Nice job, sweetheart. Now, I’ll just run and submit this. We’re buying bread?” He turns to everyone for approval, while Katniss and Blight look at me.
“Yep,” I declare. “Just bread. And if you can write a note with it, say ‘get to work.’”
“And sign it from all four of us,” Blight suggests.
Haymitch nods and leaves, with Blight following him.
A few hours later, the tributes are sitting at the mouth of the cave and chatting when the parachute clatters against the rock, startling the kids. Cole jumps up, grabs it, and yanks it open, grinning at the sight of the bread. He passes the loaves over to Santhe and Holly, then unravels the note.
“What’s it say?” asks Lance.
“‘Get to work,’” Cole reads with a chuckle. “Guess the mentors want us to attack.”
“How?”
“No idea.”
The boys look at each other for a moment, then Lance shakes his head. “I’m going to get water. There’s a small pond, it’s not far. You’ll be able to hear if I need help.” He steps out of the cave and disappears.
“I think I’ll follow him,” says Holly. “He didn’t even take the water bottle.” She grabs a plastic bottle from one of the backpacks and chases Lance out of the cave. Whether she’s playing up the star-crossed love or going to talk about their exit, I think she made a good choice to go after him.
Cole sits down next to Santhe and breaks a loaf into four pieces, taking one for himself and offering another to Santhe. “Wish we had some Capitol jam to go with this,” he jokes.
Santhe chuckles and shakes her head. “What is it about their jam? Seriously.”
“It’s good! You’ve tried it…”
“Cole, it’s literally just jam. You make it sound like it changed your life or—”
“It did change my life!” This kid is ridiculous. But when I look over at Katniss, she’s laughing. Maybe this is part of their strategy.
“I can’t tell if you’re joking or not,” Santhe admits.
“I…a little, but also I’m not,” says Cole. “To you it’s just jam, but to me…it’s like…the little things. The things that make life better but in such small ways that we overlook them or take them for granted. I love jam. I don’t know how much longer I’ll have to eat it, so I want to love it out loud while I can.” He smiles at Santhe and something in her expression changes.
She looks at him, leans forward slightly, and murmurs, “Don’t say that. You’re not gonna die…you can’t.” Then she kisses him.
I gag dramatically. Katniss scowls at me and punches my shoulder.
“Seriously? You want to watch them make out?”
“I’ll tolerate it if it’ll get them sponsors.”
“Well, I won’t. It’s harder to watch than the actual Games. No offense, but I gagged a lot when you were in the arena,” I risk the joke, and she chuckles, fortunately. My tributes return to the cave and the 12s break apart just in time.
“We have an idea,” Holly announces.