CHAPTER NINE : training season

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THE MOMENT THE ELEVATOR doors close and Evie has a moment to breathe, all of her energy quickly drains from her body, swiftly replacing itself with an all-encompassing fatigue. Every muscle hurts, screaming for the soft embrace of her bed. She has to fight to keep her eyes open.

In the living room, close to the elevators, Dillan is sprawled out on the sofa holding what looks like her third cup of Posca, judging by the empty glasses sitting on the crystal coffee table. Her head hangs back on the armrest, one leg planted on the floor, the other lying across the cushions.

     It seems Evie had been right about that.

Dillan perks up upon hearing Evie's footsteps approaching, eager to gush about the luxuries of the Capitol, but she closes her mouth immediately upon seeing the look on Evie's face. It's clear that conversation is the very last thing the victor feels like engaging in. Evie's eyelids droop, her shoulders slump as far forward as they can whilst wearing the pearl bodice, and she drags her cane with each laboured step. She shifts around constantly, restlessly, trying to work the knots and aches from her limbs. Now, she looks as exhausted as she's been feeling since the morning of the reaping.

"I'm going to bed," Evie says, even though it's only late afternoon. The floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room are on their default setting and bright golden light filters in past the sea-foam green curtains pulled to each side. The sky outside is bright cerulean blue, completely empty of clouds.

Dillan nods once. "I'll let Finnick know when he gets back," she says.

And Evie nods back. She debates sleeping alone, too upset about the situation her boyfriend has put her in, but eventually decides against it. "'night," she says, turning toward the living quarters.

After all, these are the last days she'll be able to sleep in the same bed as him. The last days she'll have his arm wrapped around her waist, his face snuggled into the crook of her neck, feeling his chest rise and fall against her back as he breathes.

     She'll never be able to return to him. She won't be able to kill him, and he certainly won't be able to kill her. If they wind up as the final two...

President Snow would sooner let the two of them commit suicide and leave the Quell without a winner than allow a double victory like last year again. It was bad enough that two nobodies were able to beat the President at his own game... if two beloved victors did the same? Who knows how the Capitol would react? Finnick, Evie, all the other victors, what they say goes. Capitol business owners would sell entire organs to have the endorsement of one of them. If a victor, especially an exceptionally popular one, rebels?

The President would surely unleash his wrath on them, on their families and friends, he would destroy everything that made them whole. For planting the seed of rebellion in the minds of his people.

     Evie heads to her room — the room that has always been hers — and once inside, debates shoving the chair from the mirrored vanity in front of the closed door. She can't lock it, but she can damn well indicate that she doesn't want anyone else entering. She wouldn't be surprised if Oscar had this setup in his room. No doubt, he doesn't desire any visitors at the moment. She decides against it, once she's in bed, she won't want to get back up to move it and let Finnick in.

     She wants to collapse into bed, but doing so whilst covered in glitter seems a worse punishment than the Games themselves. Evie's slept in a sandy bed before and had woken up rubbed raw in all the wrong places. She can't imagine this would be much better... just bluer.

So, a shower it is.

It's hard to loosen the clear straps securing the bodice to her body by herself but she manages it with great effort — though she does have to contort her body into inane positions to stare into the mirror behind her as she does so. She carefully places the pearl piece on a plush bench seat at the end of her bed, not eager to go breaking the thing. The skirt is easier to remove — all she has to do is slip it down over her hips. It piles on the carpeted floor in a puddle of shimmering blues, greens, and silvers. She kicks her shoes off, not caring where in the room they land. Someone will clean up while she's at training tomorrow.

     After that, she heads for the bathroom and steps straight into the shower. The million possible options for scents and oils and temperatures don't tempt her. Back in the old days — when she wasn't here as tribute or victor, but just as a regular girl with a tasty story for the Capitolites to gobble up — she'd mull over the panel for ages, deciding what she'd like her shower experience to be this time. Today, she hits the option for sea breeze without a second thought. If she can't be home, she'll smell like home.

     The water stings her skin, still sensitive from the scrubs and waxes her Prep Team had given her earlier, but the pressure soon soothes the ache. The glitter painted along her neck, shoulders, and chest runs down her body, gathering in the crevices of her collarbones, in her bellybutton, and in the deep chasm scarred into her left thigh, before pooling in the water around her feet and swirling into the drain.

     She stays in the shower until she's sure the water has done all that it needs to. The thing about the Capitol is that everyone is too lazy and pampered to do anything for themselves so the showers are designed to do everything for them — the water has washed most of the product from her hair, smoothing it down her now glitterless back in a thick dark curtain. All Evie has to do by herself is the actual work of shampooing and conditioning her hair, using the plainest scents of the products possible — vanilla for both — and rubs her body down with an unscented soap.

It's barely past six when Evie crawls into bed in a silky short-sleeved pyjama set, her body and hair blasted dry by warm air the moment she stepped out onto the shower mat. Finnick and Icarus' voices filter in from the living room — fast-paced and frantic but soft, so as not to disturb Evie or Oscar. Footsteps pad on the carpet on the other side of her door.

     "Eve?" comes Finnick's voice, soft but loud enough to make it through.

     "I'm going to sleep," she replies, her words slurring together from her tiredness.

Finnick cracks the door open, poking just his head inside. His anxious face softens when he sees her — all tucked into the soft blankets, just the top of her head and her eyes visible. He pads over to her, bending to plant a kiss on the top of her forehead. "Sleep well, then," he says.

Evie's hand snakes out of the sheets and she reaches for Finnick's. They don't say anything for a long moment, they just exist, fingers entwined. With his free hand, Finnick presses a button on a control panel, turning the window black and making the thick curtain slide shut with a soft whiiiiiiiiiiiir. The entire room goes pitch dark, save for the light from the hallway coming through the cracked door. "I'll be through later," Finnick says, sliding his hand out of Evie's grip and back to his side.

He turns and walks back to the door, checking over his shoulder to see if Evie will protest his leaving. She's already passed out by the time he looks.

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Finnick's side of the bed is empty when Evie wakes up, but the sheets are still warm. Wisps of steam seep into the room from the ensuite, along with the sound of running water hitting tile — Finnick's always been a morning-and-evening showerer. Reluctantly, Evie cracks her sleep-crusted eyes open, rubbing at them with the heel of her hand.

The blinds have been opened but the window is on its dimmest setting, letting in enough light so that Evie isn't operating in complete blindness. She shuffles out of the soft sheets, stretching out her muscles the second her feet hit the carpeted ground. The tiny digital clock to her right tells her that it's just past nine.

It's easily the longest sleep she's had since her first night out of the arena — and that was medically induced to prevent her from dying of major blood loss.

At some point during her fifteen-hour sleep, an Avox had come in to lay out two sets of clothes — her and Finnick's training uniforms. Evie strips her pyjamas off right then and there. Her semi-nude form is nothing Finnick hasn't seen, anyway. She puts on the smaller set of clothing — a black tank and knee-length leggings with geometric grey and gold panels — along with a magenta sports bra ( the Covey needs their colour, after all ) and throws her hair up into a ponytail.

The shower stops running as Evie steps out into the hall, following the scent of hot, fresh pastries. As she rounds the corner into the dining room, she's met with a spread of breakfast food so massive that there's no possible way the entire District 4 team would be able to finish it off. The amount of food that Oscar and Icarus eat alone could feed the entirety of The Nets, Dillan and Evie are self-proclaimed foodies, and even Finnick, who has to keep in peak condition 24/7, eats all the time and still there's no way on Earth they could finish this spread. Sure, Augustine is there to pick up the slack, and Orion and Finnick's stylist, Lira, may swing around as well, but even they won't be able to clean off the plates completely.

So much waste, and for what?

     Evie is acutely aware that she has an ample amount of time to eat before training starts — it's only around twenty past nine and training doesn't start until ten — but she'd rather not get too comfortable. She wants to get there bright and early, scope out the new gymnasium, get a feel for where everything is before the rest of the tributes arrive.

     Still, she loads up a plate with pancakes topped with cream and fruits, and a chocolate-drizzled croissant, and prepares a separate bowl of a healthy cereal drowned with milk. The Capitol is certainly a place where she could just treat herself to all things luxury, but Evie knows that she has to stay on top of her nutrition, too, if she wants to make it out alive.

     She's still not quite in the mood for talking, and nobody engages her as she stuffs her face. Well, aside from Augustine admonishing her messy eating. It's not like everyone in the room hasn't seen her eat like this before.

     Finnick arrives, dressed in his training uniform, by the time Evie has finished her cereal and is halfway through her pancakes. He took his sweet time getting ready, even though there would be no cameras on him today. He, too, loads his plate with some fruits, but he leaves the pancakes and opts for a plain croissant and a few slices of wholegrain toast spread with sweet jam. He cuts a banana into small pieces and adds them to his croissant before smothering it in honey. It's as close as he'll get to Dillan's pastry here, considering she's not allowed anywhere near the kitchen. She is a guest, after all.

When the clock on the wall reads 9:50, Evie stands and wordlessly heads for the elevator, wiping the leftover cream from her lips with the back of her hand. Finnick follows, having finished his food at a significantly faster pace than her. He beats her to the elevator, hitting the button for the gymnasium before Evie even has a chance.

The ride down is silent, too. Instead of speaking, Finnick has his hand resting on the small of Evie's back, not pulling away even as Beetee and Wiress pile in with them a floor down.

"Early bird gets the worm," Wiress says, wearing a smile that's not entirely reaching her eyes.

"Right, you are, Wiress," Finnick replies, flashing one of his pretty boy smiles back at her.

Beetee nods at Finnick and Evie over Wiress' shoulder, a silent greeting. He, too, must not be in a very talkative mood, unlike Finnick and Wiress, who are still rattling on about this, that, and the other.

Evie leans closer to Beetee so that she won't have to raise her voice too much. "You look like you need a coffee," she says with a teasing wink.

"The Capitol stuff is nowhere near as strong as the coffee back in Three," says Beetee.

Evie can't argue with that. District 4's coffee is also significantly stronger than the coffee in the Capitol. Here it's weak, watered-down, nothing like the bitter and almost salty District 4 delicacy. "I hear that," she says as the elevator doors slide open, revealing a long, dark silver hallway.

     Beetee and Wiress go first, Beetee holding Wiress' arm as he guides her down the corridor.

     Finnick offers his arm to Evie to assist her down the hall but she politely declines. "Can't have everyone thinking I'm nothing without the cane," she tells him, lightly nudging his side as she heads out of the elevator on her lonesome. She'd left her cane in her room, knowing that she'd have to train without it as she wouldn't be able to have it with her in the arena. So, she has to endure the numb ache rocketing up and down her leg as she takes each step.

     As Evie steps into the gym itself, she discovers that Districts 3 and 4 are not the only eager beavers in the centre. To her right, Cashmere and Gloss are working in tandem at the knife-throwing station, and Brutus and Chaff are standing side-by-side near the spear simulation. Directly ahead of her, Edison is hunched over a pile of his own vomit, a poor Avox having to clean it up right under him, and just behind them, Enobaria spars with a trainer on a raised platform. And to her left, in a small alcove next to the dining room, Johanna is becoming familiar with her axe once again, swinging it around and grunting all the while. Katniss and Peeta wander around the space, gazing at the action in an almost childlike manner. If she didn't know better, she'd think they'd never set foot in a gym before.

     Without a single second of hesitation, Beetee and Wiress both head for the survival skills station at the back of the gym, leaving Finnick and Evie alone by the elevators. It's not long after the pair sit down and start working on making a fire that Katniss goes to join them.

     "What're you going to do?" Evie asks, a hint of nervousness in her voice betraying her confident exterior. Luckily, her stance remains casual, even a little cocky. All of her weight is on her good leg, giving the impression of someone too cool to stand normally, and her arms are crossed over her chest.

     Finnick scans the area. "Knot tying, I think."

     Evie nods at him in acknowledgment. "I'm going to go, uh," she begins, gesturing at Brutus and Chaff, "throw some pointy sticks around."

     Finnick chuckles. That is what he'd called spears back when Evie had first gone into the Games, after all. "Have fun," he says, pressing a quick kiss to the top of Evie's head before turning away. He heads off in the opposite direction, leaving Evie to join up with the older men by her lonesome.

     They both nod as she approaches, acknowledging her politely. Brutus steps aside, giving Evie the space she needs. Beads of sweat are already forming on his forehead from his prior exertion. Evie heads to the weapons rack by the simulation, picking up a smooth chrome-plated spear — nothing like the wooden poles used by spear-fishers back in 4. She turns the spear around in her hands a little, reacquainting herself with the sensation. Even all these years later, holding it brings back flashes of blood and she's reminded of the feeling of pulling it from a dead man's chest.

     No, not man.

     Boy.

     She blinks away the memory, turning now to press a few buttons on an electronic screen. She sets the difficulty and duration of the exercise, then steps back as the simulation organises itself.

     Amber lights zip through the simulation hall, mapping out the area. They pulse back and forth a little before they all combine into one, materialising in the form of a man charging toward her. In no time at all, Evie reacts, launching her spear at it. It flies through the figure's chest, exploding into a bunch of cubes that crumble down on the floor before disappearing back into nothingness.

     A ten-second counter flashes up on a digital screen above the simulation, displaying how much time Evie has to retrieve the spear before the next figure may appear. She darts into the hall, snatching the discarded spear up from the ground where it lays, before turning on her heel to return to the platform.

     The counter disappears and the amber lights return, flooding the hall before making another human form. Evie attacks again, this time with a spin to add a little flourish, and strikes it through the abdomen. The figure slows before coming to a complete stop, collapsing to the ground like its predecessor.

     Like before, the timer reappears, giving Evie her allotted few seconds to recover her weapon. It's a little further away this time, so she has to speed up to make it back in time. The amber lights are already back by the time she approaches the platform again, and to get there before the entirely harmless figures return, Evie drops to her good leg and skids on her knee past the threshold. She turns to look behind her and sees two figures charging for her this time. She uses her momentum to throw the spear at the first of the two holograms, hitting it square in the chest. It flies through to the other figure, slicing through its neck thanks to the upward angle of her throw.

     The orangey lights go down, fading to nothing before bright white fluorescents light up the space. Evie pushes herself to her feet and returns once again to the long hallway to retrieve the weapon. This time, she returns it to the weapons rack.

     She tucks some loose hair behind her ears, wipes her forehead with the back of her hand, and glances around the space for Finnick — catching him in the midst of pretending to hang himself with a rope in front of a very unamused-looking Katniss. Typical Finnick.

     The digital clock on the wall reads 10:05. Training officially starts at ten on the dot, yet Atala, the head trainer, hasn't started giving her schpiel. She just stands there, probably hoping that a few more tributes will appear, but aside from a few stragglers — namely Blight, Cecelia, and Dexter — it doesn't seem that anyone else is planning on making an appearance. So, she huffs and calls the tributes who have decided to grace her with their presence to gather before her.

     It's nothing Evie and the others haven't heard before, so she tunes her out, although she does feel a little rude for doing so. Around a minute or two into the speech, she feels an elbow in her side. She turns to see Cashmere standing next to her, returning her arm to its rightful place crossed over her front. "Are you and Finnick joining us at lunch?"

     That's it, then — the official Career Pack welcome. Malachi had invited her nearly the same way all those years ago, though he hadn't asked. "Sit with us at lunch," he'd said, and by the look on his face, a refusal wasn't an option.

     Though he had been thrown a little off when Evie'd sat down with Ollie at her side. "You want me, you get him."

     Evie throws a kind smile at Cashmere when she nods. "Yeah, we'll see you there," she says.

     Once Atala concludes her speech, the tributes scatter once more — though Evie only has her eyes on one person. She watches as Katniss approaches the archery station, her curiosity piqued. Evie had watched Katniss' Games last year, but considering that she'd only acquired her bow after both Max and Marina had died, she hadn't been paying that much attention.

     And it seems that she isn't the only one interested. Instead, everyone else in the damn place ambles over to the viewing deck with her, watching through the thick glass panels as Katniss pushes some buttons on a holo-screen, a bow in one hand and a quiver of arrows slung over her back. Katniss steps up onto the mat in the centre of the training room and prepares an arrow on her bowstring as the fluorescent lights dim and the orange laser lights appear.

     "How do you think she's gonna do?"

     Evie glances at the voice's owner out of the corner of her eye, though she already knows who it is. Dexter smiles at her — one of those smiles that she's sure charms every young man and woman in District 10. She rolls her eyes at him.

     "About as good as you and your spikey mace," she replies, thwacking her shoulder against his. The two of them had grown pretty close, given that Dexter won his Games right after Evie won hers. She knows she can joke.

     Dexter nods thoughtfully, his eyes trained on Katniss' figure below, watching her as she watches for holographic assailants. "So, with the bare minimum ability, then?"

     He can joke too.

     The first of however many figures appears in the training room and Katniss reacts immediately — firing an arrow through its head. The second it goes down, another spawns higher up, not giving her any time to recover. Multiple arrows in a quiver mean that she doesn't need the time to retrieve her weapon, she has many more at her disposal.

     She takes the second figure out just as fast and a third appears. It throws an orange-cubed spear at her, which she swiftly dodges before launching an arrow at it.

     "She's really good," Evie says, keeping her voice hushed so that only Dexter can hear her.

     "D'ya see her take out Gloss' boy last year?" Dexter asks. Evie shakes her head. She'd all but stopped watching completely after Marina had died. She'd see a clip here and there when she passed a television screen, but after both tributes from 4 had gone, she had no skin in the game. No reason to want to watch children killing each other. "One shot. Straight to the heart."

     Evie watches as Katniss somersaults under a pretend axe. "More time efficient than bashing his brains in."

     "It was literally my only option."

     Down below, a figure holding a trident jumps down from a high landing. Katniss shoots it through the head and it crumbles in translucent orange cubes to the pad at her feet.

     There's a beat of silence, as everyone watches Katniss catch her breath. Then Wiress begins to applaud, drawing the younger girl's attention. She looks over to the crowd she'd accumulated —both confused and surprised that anyone actually cared to watch.

     Evie gives her a little nod, and then she turns to leave. She has a lot more training to do if she wants to get back home.

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a/n:
minor retcon time: i'm getting exhausted writing 'evangeline sky' all the time so, we're calling her 'evie'. it's already the shortened version i was going to have her friends, and finnick, call her, so it works out pretty well, i think. i've already gone back through the story and edited that so no takes-backsies.

date published: august 17, 2024
word count: 4.1k