Chapter 6

I let myself go and left the conscious world entirely. I was floating somewhere. Somewhere peaceful. My dad was laughing somewhere, and I heard another voice laughing with him. My voice. Their voices were faint and muffled, as if I were only hearing the echos of their words.
"Look Nightshade, it's you!" My father's voice was all humor, like I remember it always being.
I heard my own giggle. "No its not Daddy! That's a flower!"
"Oh but this is a special flower," his voice softened into a confidential whisper. "This is a nightshade."
I could picture my pale blue eyes widening in wonder. "Nightshade..."
"It's so beautiful, isn't it? But guess what?" His tone is so convincingly urgent I can see myself leaning forward to absorb every word.
"What Daddy..?" I ask, matching his whisper.
"This pretty little flower can be made into the deadliest poison."
I can hear myself breath out in wonder.
"Remember that sweetheart..."
My false reality is shattered at the loud sucking sound of the vent above me. The tracker jackers buzzing around me are sucked out of the room. Not a single sting was left on me. I look over at President Snow through the glass walls. This is how I defy him, with my ability to tame his muttations. I can get Jabberjays not to mimic me. Have tacker jackers all around me and never get a single sting. Even his most vicious of muttations that looked like they had been through a paper shredder simply sat there growling the whole time, despite the meat hung around my neck. I smirked as I remembered that time. I had fed the ugly things the meat when my trial was up and even scratched one behind what I was pretty sure were the ears.
The door opens with a whoosh of the airlocks and I step out, the smirk still playing on my lips. President Snow's face is amused. In a way that wants me to run and hide.
"You certainly have talent." He says. But I can tell he wants to say: 'Wait to you see the way I have planned for you to die'.
I don't know, maybe he does mean it when he says I have talent. In the five years I've spent his prisoner, he has seem genuinely impressed with my way with his muttations. I want to think that I hold a special spot somewhere in his heart; a spot that isn't blacked and evil. The way he watches intently every last minute of my trials with his mutts. The hint of reluctance when he talks about how this Hunger Games will be the end of me and District 13. I mentally punch myself. No! I say. Don't fall for it! Don't let him into your head!
He dismisses me to go back to my room. I do, taking extra care not to rush. When I reach my room, I shut the door and lock it. I take a hot shower to try rid myself of the goosebumps on my arms and the chill down my spine. After I wash my skin raw, I wrap myself in a towl and leave my hair wet. Leaving a trail of water, I walk onto my balcony. I know that the rest of the Capitol can't see me. Some sort of technology blocks the outside's view of me. I watch the sun set with apprehension. I don't want this day to end. I don't want the last of the fiery rays of the sun to melt below the horizon. I didn't want tomorrow to ever come. My stomach lurched as the sun gave one last twinkle, one little mocking twinkle, before disappearing and leaving twilight behind.
Tomorrow was the official start of the 5th Hunger Games.