𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘'𝐋𝐋 𝐉𝐔𝐌𝐏 𝐎𝐅𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐋𝐄𝐃𝐆𝐄 𝐓𝐎𝐆𝐄𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑.
What District 2 victor, Saffron Creek, and prodigy, Finnick Odair, share is the very antithesis of what has been stolen from them. They test the edges of the rules that construct t...
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trapped on a tightrope . . . . .
Two hours before training begins, she follows an avox into President Snow's garden and she is reminded of a twin moment, years ago. He is sitting amongst a forest of roses. She is standing within a sea of thorns.
"Miss Creek."
She doesn't know how she should address him, so she doesn't.
"Walk with me."
She falls into step with him, and they stride through the rows of white roses, petals blurring in her peripheral vision.
"I assume you have heard of the situation in the lower districts?"
"I have."
The greenhouse smells sweet. It's unnatural. It feels like there's fuzzy exhaust inside Saffron's head.
"What will you do about it?"
She does not ask him to repeat himself, though she is surprised. He doesn't ask again. Each rose looks as if it was created from a photograph, she observes.
"Anything I can," she says, finally.
"And what would that be?"
Abruptly, he stops, and Saffron halts beside him. They maintain eye contact while shivers crawl the length of her body. He turns her feet to lead.
She inhales, holds the air in her lungs for two seconds, then exhales.
"Anything I can."
Snow smiles, revealing his grotesquely pristine teeth.
"Good."
He resumes walking and she is forced to follow. She counts the seconds. When she loses track, she counts the roses instead.
"You will be my inside ear," he tells her.
"What?" she says before she can stop herself.
"As old as I am, Miss Creek, unfortunately I am not yet senile. It is highly likely that a rebellion has been organized between the tributes, and I want you to confirm or deny my suspicions."
She is instantly very conscious of the bands around her ear. Saffron wrestles with the muscles of her face. Her jaw nearly falls open; she wants to grab the man by his collar and shake until he sees the senselessness in what he is doing. She is being forced into an impossible corner, but she cannot let him know that.
"Why me?" she asks instead.
Does he know something she does not? Does he have a weapon she did not know about?
"Why not you?" Snow counters. "You are smart. You are inconspicuous. You will be able to blend in where I cannot. And you have gained the unique trust of a particular tribute."
It is not quite a threat, she supposes.
"I am confident that you are capable of doing this for me."
Her throat feels as though it is filling with water.
"If I'm not?"
President Snow smiles. Her stomach aches.
"I am sure your family would be disappointed to hear that."
She stutters mid-step, though it was so very obvious that this was coming. This is his ultimate trump card, she suspects. However, something has grown astoundingly cold within her, and she no longer cares for false pleasantries.
"I don't think it would be a good idea to make an enemy of District 2."
Is that arrogant? she wonders. Is she truly so beloved to her district that they would go to war with the Capitol for her?
"Then perhaps you would reconsider if I told you that we would find ways to make Mr Odair disappear?"
Revulsion and rage and fear and confusion mingle in her heart and poison her blood. She knows that it was hubris to believe that her acting was so clean it fooled Snow into believing she and Finnick were nothing more than stage mates.
She was a fool.
A war is not won in a night, yet she deluded herself into believing it could be.
"No," she says resolutely. "I won't disappoint you."
"I'm sure you won't."
She runs to the bathroom afterwards and vomits until her eyes water.
