the beauty and the feral career { johnny x yael }

[lionel estrada d5 ᥫ᭡ kiah]

J O H N N Y

Flynn was relentless. Yesterday he had quizzed me for half the night about which plants were safe to eat and which would have me dead in a heartbeat. I had got most of them wrong. I had never been good at school. Partly because you actually had to attend school to be good at it... However, school was never a priority for me, not when each day was about survival. On the other hand, street smarts? I had that! A shit tone of it in fact. But the look of concern that Flynn gave me as he finally sent me off to bed gave me the strong feeling that that might not be enough. But not to worry, because before Flynn bid me goodnight, he informed me that in the morning we would go over the lists once again. Hooray.

But I couldn't be mad at him because I knew he was only trying to help. But... I just needed a moment. A moment to be able to breathe, to be able to process what was about to happen to me.

That's why this morning, before Flynn woke, I slipped from the apartment, dressed and feed I headed towards the training centre, hoping that it would be relatively empty.

Did I feel guilty about it? Yes.

But I didn't have time to waste on learning about flowers. I needed to learn how to handle a weapon. A knife? Yeah, I knew my way around a knife. It was my go-to choice from before Mr. Garner when I used to mug innocent citizens of District Six under the protection of the shadows. But a sword? An axe? I had no fucking clue where to start. And that was the type of shit that was going to get me killed. The careers would wipe the floor with my sorry ass. Besides, if I got hungry, Flynn would have to send me down a snack at the very least- right?

As predicted the centre is mostly empty, with only a couple of tributes milling around, getting ready for the day. At the sword station, I see one of the tributes I recognised to be a career from, I believe, two. Perking up, I smile broadly, marching over to the career with confidence that I shouldn't have. But I decided to embody the mantra 'fake it till you make it'.

"Hey there, friend!" I give a small wave, leaning against one of the benches covered with a wide variety of different-looking deadly blades. "Gotta moment to help out a fellow tribute?" My gaze flicks over the blades before returning to her. "I hear that District Two is quite talented when it comes to stabbing people with blades- well, you guys were. I hear nowadays the hot topic is waste management?" Okay, maybe bringing up the district's recent fall from grace was not the hottest move. However, it was too late to take it back now.

[fox]

Y A E L

► ► ►

She's unshackled from her bed and escorted by a very tall woman wearing the PK uniform. The doors push open to the training center with a gentle woosh.

She notices two things. The room is very big. Everyone is speaking and that somehow feels wrong.

It takes her a full minute to move from her spot. She looks over her shoulder just as the door shuts, catching the gaze of the woman for the briefest moment before she disappears between the panes of opaque glass.

She wants to be back in her room. She wants to be back in Two.

It's unsettling that they haven't killed her.

But then, she looks down at the bandages wrapped around her left hand, curls her fingers into a fist and feels the half-healed ache.

The first thing – they fixed her hand.

They pushed a serum through her wrist. The doctor mended the bones back into their sockets. He swabbed the cuts on her palms.

It smelled like the facility, an aseptic sharpness. There were rows of metal tools beside him, a pile of cotton balls dried with blood. Her right arm was handcuffed to the edge of the bed. It rattled softly against the metal frame.

He wrapped a cast around her hand.

She let him. She just sat here, dizzy with the liquid they'd injected into her.

Funny, all the times they let her bleed out in the facility, the lazy resurrection, a deliberate withholding of life. Now, breaking her own hand, they pumped three vials of medicine into her, they assessed the damage, reconstructed the anatomy, sedated her, good as new. It takes hours and not days. It's broken when they call it broken.

She learns another thing about control.

The sedative had kicked in. For days, she kept dreaming about being cut into squares and jarred like a specimen, pinned to a board, placed on a shelf of a cart in the market in Two. Her eyes were with her belly and her tongue floated in her blood. People passed her in the crowds. Someone tapped the glass with her liver in it.

It's the same feeling when she learned they were going to Nine. It's like her stomach splits wide open and swallows her from the inside.

Now a few days later, she can flex her fingers again.

Her hand is healing and it feels like betrayal.

Every time she swallows, there's the taste of blood. A very strange fluttering in her chest gets louder until she's shaking with it. Would they stop her if she grabbed the knife.

"Hey there, friend!"

She clenches her hands, turns to the boy, steps away from him, and turns back to staring at the table of blades. He's got a comically huge smile on, and it reminds her of a frog.

But he's persistent. Like a bug.

"Gotta moment to help out a fellow tribute?"

She stares right ahead and pretends he isn't there. It's supposed to work, but it doesn't – because he keeps speaking to her and she feels herself starting to seethe with annoyance. "I hear nowadays the hot topic is waste management?"

Then, there's a clip point in her hands, and in a flash she's got the tip pressed against his chest for a moment, eyes meeting his. A beat. Before the trainers react, she drops the threat and shoves the handle of the knife towards him.

[lionel estrada d5 ᥫ᭡ kiah]

J O H N N Y

Suddenly a tip of a knife was pressed against the vulnerable skin above my racing heart. Instantly my hands raise in a sign of surrender. "Whoa, easy there," I mutter, my mouth suddenly as dry as the desert. It was unnerving how quickly she had moved. It reminded me of a snake, movements quick, deadly and calculated. I would be lying if I said it didn't fill me with a dreadful sense of unease. Was this what I was to face in the arena? She was just one of the six careers that would be let loose in the arena. Wolves Vs rats. The odds so far out of my favour that they weren't even visible.

I had barely even had a chance to register what was happening before I felt the threat eased, the knifes handle shoved roughly against my chest. Quickly I take it, pushing down my unease, "thanks," I think??. I half expected some sort of threat or snarky comment to escape her lips, however she stays silent, her eyes boring into me as I readjust my grip on the knifes blade.

"So I take that as a yes," I say, moving from the table of blades towards one of the dummies. I knew how to use a knife, however I wasn't about to tell her that and demand her to show me how to use a sword or an axe. I think demanding such a thing would ensure that I would be the first name crossed off her list.

I needed to impress her. To show her that I was a threat. That I wasn't defenceless prey, easy pickings. At least show her that she didn't scare me, even if I would be lying through my teeth. "You know, I know how to use a knife. Might even say I had some skill. I am a notorious criminal after all." Okay, not quite true. Sure, I was a criminal. But my list of crimes consisted of theft, armed muggings- oh and disposing of the dead. Well, maybe I was more bad ass than I let on. Flynn Garner got himself a baddie.

I run a finger along the blade and instantly I feel a stinging pain. "Shit," I say under my breath, pulling my finger away from the blade to suck on it gently. Damn it was fucking sharp! Not like the rusted old metal that I had been working with back home. I should have seen it coming. This was the Capitol we were talking about. "Be careful, love, the blades are sharp." I say with a grin before turning back to the dummy.

[fox]

Y A E L

► ► ►

His hands come up, eyes on the clip point, suddenly quieter. There's a tremor that moves through him, she feels it against the tip of the blade. His fear is perceptible, it lies plainly. There is no enshrouding, no veneer of impassiveness, and something about it lights a different flicker of annoyance.

She moves away and his shoulders drop, adjusting his grip on the handle.

He's supposed to leave her alone now – he's supposed to take it as a threat, but the boy follows her. He's got a smile on again, that air of ease, holds up the knife and crows about his skill mere minutes after she had a knife to his chest.

She just stares at him.

And then he runs his finger along the edge.

She feels a slight jolt before it happens, a desire to smack his hand away from the knife – but then he's already cut himself. There's a delicate bead of blood forming at the shallow incision. He sucks on the wound, mood dampened for barely a second before he looks up at her and grins. He's an infinite well of smiles.

"Be careful, love, the blades are sharp."

He is going to die very fast.

But there is a curiosity, a little bit, over the unwarranted confidence. She wants to know if he's what he says he is, or if he's what she thinks he is – completely stupid. She follows his gaze to the dummy.