Chapter Text
Everyone in Six knows the story.
It goes a little something like this: two years ago, Yolanda Garcia won the Hunger Games. It was a quiet, somber affair that left the rest of Panem in a state of disarray, since no one knew what to do with the lithe woman who carved the hearts out of two tributes, went on to slit the throats of four more, and ultimately won her games by plunging a knife into the back of her district partner.
By then, everyone knew her not by the name of Yolanda, but as the Butcher. It wasn’t her choice to be given a title like that, but everyone had seen what she’d done to survive. Everyone had known exactly what was running through her mind, when Yolanda had snuck behind the eighteen year old girl from Four, and carved patterns out of her throat.
It was a very solemn time for Six that year.
While Trinity’s mind holds a fuzzy recollection of Yolanda’s games, there’s one memory that’s still fresh in her mind. One that she holds dear to her heart, though she’ll never admit it, since having hope is something most deign to deny in her world.
The story starts, albeit slow and mundane, like this:
She’s wandering the fences surrounding the Victor Village again. They’re not there to keep anyone out since no one is foolish enough to step near the Butcher’s domain. But still, months after Yolanda Garcia comes home with a scar running down the left side of her face, they know that she’s not the girl working in desolate factories anymore.
She’s the Capitol’s sweetheart. The Capitol’s vicious, cunning monster. The Capitol’s darling butcher. In her victory tour, Trinity’d watched as she delivered a speech about survival and necessity, and thinks back to why Yolanda felt the need to defend what she had done.
They were all pawns in the end, so, no harm done to the rest of the tributes, Trinity supposes.
Which brings Trinity back to the present: staring at the home of Six’s only victor. She’s not sure why she’s even thought about this place, but it’s a far cry from the lie she’s told others to get here.
Shuttered windows decorate the front of Yolanda’s home. On the front door, an ornate knocker hangs as the only piece of decoration. Around the area, a lone breeze flits through the air.
Trinity wonders how lonely it must be, to be hailed a monster and come back a girl. Or to be reaped a girl, only to return with your name synonymous with the devil.
So, Trinity fixes herself on the ground, and waits for something to happen.
(Nothing does.)
-
The next time Trinity runs into the whisper of Yolanda’s name, it happens in the crowded, slippery bar just by the rougher areas of Six.
Trinity’s nursing her own gift to turning twenty-three in the form of cheap moonshine. The bartender takes pity on her the minute he catches sight of her nervous eyes and muted state of unease. Around her, the bar comes alive in bright music and colored lights – a sight so unlike anything native to Six, that in turn, it’s become foreign to Trinity.
To Trinity, her district is somewhat synonymous with all that’s mundane. There’s not much to do in Six, aside from watching their tracks rust into a burst of oranges and browns. If you’re not working in a factory by the time you turn eighteen, then you’re counting down the days you’ll have to.
It’s a very, very slow way of living. Too slow to the point that elders liked to complain that it’s a slow way to death.
Trinity’d argue that everyone in Six knows enough about death– what with the Games being a yearly occurrence. No one was able to escape it, no matter how much they longed to try.
Except for Yolanda, of course.
Yolanda – their very own victor, sitting across the bar from Trinity with her head hung low enough that if anybody passed by her, they would never realize they’d just seen the Butcher in the flesh.
With a slow, dragged out sigh, Trinity picks up her glass and waits.
There were certain things people needed in order to understand the way the Butcher worked. Or, to understand the way Yolanda worked. While Trinity had never once come into contact with her, she understands three things about the woman so far:
- Early into Yolanda’s christening of being a victor, most of Six has chosen to push her away. She was a stain on their history. Trinity remembers clearly that her district would rather be remembered as a district that had never won, than a district that had to cherish a victor who’d turned on her own partner just to claim victory as her own.
- That large, empty house that Trinity had spent a day watching out of her own curiosity is tucked away in the Victor’s Village for a reason. Once or twice, she’d caught the tail end of gossip, and realized that Yolanda lives there alone, not for show, but because the Capitol had decided that the rest of the Garcia family was, to put it simply, a nuisance.
- For the better part of the evening, Yolanda’s been not-so-subtly staring at Trinity’s ass.
Trinity watches, from the corner of her eye, as Yolanda flags down the bartender and sends another look her way.
She feels herself grin.
Hook, line, and sinker.
Another shot of whiskey clatters down in front of Trinity. “From ‘er,” the bartender nods over to Yolanda.
With a murmured out thanks, Trinity deftly picks up the glass and sips it, thinking.
She’s heard countless stories about the Butcher.
Not from… girls like her. Just. Run of the mill gossip. Things like how she’d only show face on the days where crowds tended to thin out. How the scar running down her cheek never healed properly, and that it’s uncanny to look at. How she’d gotten away with killing seven tributes and blaming the blood on survival.
Hm.
The taste of whiskey slips down her throat in a burning, acidic manner when Trinity hears a low voice chuckle by her ear.
“What’s a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this?” Yolanda’s voice is like cloying honey in her ear. She doesn’t need to turn around to know that there’s definitely a smirk perched across her lips.
It’s equal parts humorous, equal parts infuriating to Trinity, that she’d managed to get the jump on her like that.
(She almost wants to twist her body away, just to see how the Butcher might react.
Almost).
“Nothing much,” Trinity replies. Her fingers come around the shot of whiskey again, swirling the ice around. “Thought I might treat myself tonight.”
Yolanda has an amused expression written all over her face when she takes the seat next to Trinity. “Really? What’re we celebrating then?”
Her use of we doesn’t go unnoticed by Trinity. Still, she doesn’t let her surprise show.
“Turned twenty-three today. Fuckin’ sucks, if you ask me. But, hey, I’m not complaining if it means another year of being alive in this place.”
Yolanda hums, placing a hand on Trinity’s exposed thigh. In the crowded heat of the bar, her touch is electrifying.
“Happy Birthday, pretty girl,” she murmurs, voice low. Then: “Wanna get out of here?”
Her words send little jolts of electricity down Trinity’s spine. Out of all the stories she’s heard about the Butcher, none have ever come close to something like this.
And yet…
Trinity downs the rest of the shot in one go, and turns towards Yolanda, breath hitching when she sees how dilated the woman’s pupils are. “Please.”
The rest, she guesses, is history.
-
By the time the evening spirals out into the early hues of the morning, Trinity has another story to add to the Butcher’s growing collection.
The Capitol once spun a story of how Yolanda killed a tribute with only her bare hands. Then, in Six, they trade secrets of how Yolanda had won the wrestling competitions circulating the schools. In the outer districts, Trinity knows they’re taught to fear the Butcher, and subsequently fear Six.
With one strange turn of events, Yolanda had singlehandedly changed the way their district was viewed. It’s a funny way of telling fate that for all its talk of chance and odds and predetermined ends, there were still ways to beat the odds.
This story though, Trinity realizes, is nothing like the ones gossip seems to favor around their district.
Yolanda Garcia’s good with her mouth, but even better with her hands. When Trinity keens over from agile fingers curling their way into a particular spot, she shuts her eyes and swears she sees stars.
When she opens them again, Trinity’s only met with Yolanda’s wide, grinning face. She’s enjoying this – but how could she not? It’s not often she gets to do something like this, Trinity comes to learn.
In the bedroom, Yolanda is something of a goddess. She’s never once believed in fairytales – of angels, or gods, or saints, but when Yolanda murmurs the word baby, and coos sweetheart into her ear; ultimately bringing her to the brink of longing, Trinity thinks she might find faith in her.
“Fuck,” Trinity whimpers, vision going glassy at the feeling of being full. “Fuck, fuck, Yolanda– fuck.”
“Shh,” Yolanda’s voice comes out in a teasing lilt. Digits press against the ends of Trinity’s core, before she rips her fingers out again, wetness following the movement in their wake. “Patience, baby,” she hums. “You can be patient for me, can’t you? I know you can, hm?”
“Yes,” Trinity half-sobs, half-cries out. She needs Yolanda in a way that she’s never known before. “I’ll be good. So, so good,” she babbles out, “need you, please–”
Yolanda doesn’t make any move to touch her though. She just pulls away to marvel at the sight below her: Trinity, flushed and needy. “I like you like this,” she murmurs, tucking strands of hair behind Trinity’s ear. “Such a good girl.”
The praise is making her head spin. Yolanda’s ability to go from praising Trinity for doing the simplest of things, to pulling stunts like this, is effectively rearranging Trinity’s brain the longer it goes on.
When she comes for the fourth or fifth time that night, Trinity sobs out Yolanda’s name. She repeats it like a prayer, like it’s something holy. By the time the sun begins to rise, Trinity begins to see the Butcher in a different light.
(A very different light, indeed).
-
Yolanda sends her off with hickeys pressed down the side of Trinity’s neck, all the way down to her chest. She sends her off, too, with legs that feel like jelly and a beautiful, blissed out brain that Trinity thinks is a far better birthday gift than anyone’s ever given her.
(She sends Trinity off with a final gift: A small satchel of fried corn nuts that Trinity hasn’t had since she was a child. It’s pressed into her palm without any room for disagreement, and Yolanda only tilts her head back to laugh when Trinity stammers a small thank you out.)
There’s something different about Yolanda Garcia. Something beautiful and fascinating and unnerving about her, but something gentle too.
It’s strange.
-
They start something tenuous, right before winter rolls around.
Trinity’s brothers realize something’s up when she starts disappearing for hours upon end during the weekends. Her usual lie of going out to the factories is usurped when they corner her and point out that there isn’t soot under her fingernails, instead, Trinity comes back with the scent of rosewood stuck to her clothes.
They tease her about it, first, because of course they do. Then when Trinity lets it slip once or twice that it’s not the usual women she picks up around the district, they get curious.
(Too curious for their own good, but still. As long as Trinity’s careful with what she tells them, they’ll never have to know about Yolanda. Anyways, that’s what she and Yolanda both want in the end, right?).
Surprisingly enough, Yolanda seems to share the same sentiment too.
One night, she pulls Trinity into a fierce, breathless kiss that leaves her with bitten lips and the air sucked dry from her lungs.
Yolanda looks at Trinity the same way she did all those months ago, and tells her something that makes her breath hitch.
“We’re just casual, right?”
Her heart hammers in her chest. Trinity thinks back to that lonely house sitting in Victor’s Village. Thinks back to dirty bars, and finding faith, and telling her brothers to knock it off, because she’s not about to introduce them to her mystery woman.
“For sure,” Trinity answers, leaning forward to capture Yolanda in another invigorating kiss. She does it partly to quell the thirst of want in her, and partly to shun the pieces of her that liked seeing the Butcher fall apart just for her.
Early on, she’d realized it was lonely being at the top.
She just hadn’t known that Yolanda had chosen to pull her along for the ride.
How funny, Trinity thinks. To believe that any of this was ever real.
-
Spring comes around, and Trinity stops going to Yolanda’s.
The Butcher has many names in Panem, yes, but Trinity sort of hates how she’ll miss calling her by her name more than anything.
To Trinity, she isn’t the famed killer the Capitol makes her out to be, or the monster that parents like to use to scare their kids, or the woman that frequents places no one wants to be caught in.
To Trinity, she was just Yolanda.
(Shame. She really liked it that way).
-
The thing about Panem is that the Games don’t stop for anybody. Not even for those reeling from life-shattering relationships that tethered the edge between what was real and what wasn't.
“What if it’s me?” Jude asks, sniffling slightly as Trinity leans down to fix his collar. On Reaping Day, these were the nicest clothes their family could afford to display. “I talked to Matt ‘n he said it wouldn’t be me, but what if Trin, what if–”
“It’s not going to be you,” Trinity shakes her head. “You’re too young. They pull names from anyone aged sixteen to twenty-three, and I know some people who have more than thirty slips in the ballot this year. Your chances of being reaped are little to none.”
“But what if?” Jude presses. “I’m not strong like you or smart like Matt. And I can’t wrestle like Dad or fix things like Mom can, and…” His jaw wobbles. “I don’t want to die.”
“Hey– hey. Look at me.” Trinity kneels down on their kitchen floor and ignores the dirt that’ll get on her dress. “It’s not going to be you, okay? I’ll make sure of it. Hell, Matt’ll make sure of it too. As long as I’m here, I’m going to protect you, yeah?”
She places a gentle hand on Jude’s shoulder. “It’s not gonna be you,” she repeats, “it can’t be you, so don’t worry about it.”
(This time, she doesn’t know if she’s saying it for Jude’s benefit, or for hers).
Jude gives her a shaky nod in response, so Trinity ruffles his hair for good measure. He’s got a reason to worry at least, the first few years of the Reaping are always hard.
Trinity knows though that his chances of being reaped are at the lowest point possible. He’s basically a speck of dust amongst the rest of their district. They’re so densely populated to the point that she’d have an easier time believing her name would get chosen over Jude’s.
But fate always has a funny way of fucking people over.
So, Trinity has to watch in mute horror as her baby brother is reaped, and the only thing going through her mind is that it’s not real.
It’s not real, she chants, when their district escort taps the mic again and calls out for Jude Santos. It’s not real, when the crowd of sixteen year olds part to reveal Jude, standing small and scared with his hands tucked into his pockets. It’s not real, when Peacekeepers finally start to push Jude towards the stage and he cries out Trinity’s name.
“Trin!” he shrieks, flailing in a Peacekeeper’s grasp. “Matt–” his voice sounds impossibly high now, reaching over the towering crowds that gathered in their district square.
It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s not real–
“Trinity,” Jude sobs out again when the Peacekeeper refuses to let go of him. He’s only sixteen and he’s getting reaped. He’s a red-faced, crying mess, and Trinity– she–
She snaps out of her stupor to run after Jude, feet hitting the ground in rapid, frightened movements. She makes it about ten paces before two Peacekeepers block her path, and all Trinity can hear is her brother’s cries.
It’s not real.
“I volunteer!” she shouts, heart hammering in her chest. Her ears feel like they’ve been stuffed in cotton, and all Trinity can hear is the sound of blood rushing into them. Everything seems to slow to a stop, then. “I volunteer as tribute.”
She’s never seen District Six turn this quiet before.
The silence is broken with Jude’s wails again. “No!” he twists his body in the Peacekeeper’s hold to gaze at Trinity. “No– no, Trin, no–”
Trinity watches as Matt appears behind the Peacekeeper in an instant to grab Jude from his hold. Her brother captures the youngest of the Santos family into a tight, unwavering hug, before he pulls Jude away from the tragedy that Trinity’s pulled in his wake.
Matt gazes at Trinity, mouthing one simple word at her: Go.
Trinity watches as the two Peacekeepers who’d previously blocked her path move their rifles to let Trinity pass. Up on the stage, their escort looks shell-shocked at the turn of events unfolding in front of her.
Behind Trinity, Jude’s cries quiet down to hushed sniffles as Matt pulls him further away from the crowd. If she strains her ears, she can hear her brother reassuring Jude that Trinity’ll come back home.
The longer she stays rooted in her spot, the longer Trinity thinks her veins may turn ice cold.
She wills herself to walk the long, arduous path towards the steps of the stage. When Trinity reaches the platform, their escort’s lips wobble into a thin smile and speaks into the mic to address the crowd: “Well, what a surprising change for District Six!”
She turns to Trinity and moves aside to let Trinity stand in front of the mic. “What’s your name, honey?”
“Trinity Santos,” her own voice sounds foreign and raw to her.
“Santos? Why, I bet that was your brother you just volunteered for!”
Their escort sounds too chipper for any of this – and it only makes Trinity feel wrong all over anymore. “Yup,” she says into the mic. “I– uh–”
It’s not real, her brain supplies. It’s not real. None of this is.
“Oh just cut the shit already,” a voice cuts in, dry and sharp. “She doesn’t want to be here any more than we all have to.”
Trinity pulls her gaze away from the crowd in front of her to the edge of the stage, a shudder passing through her when she realizes who it is.
Yolanda’s seated to the side where the rest of the victors are supposed to stay to watch the Reaping unfold. She’s their only victor though, so for the past two years, Trinity’s seen her sit a few inches away from the rest of the mayor’s family.
Her jaw’s clenched so tight that Trinity thinks the sound of teeth grinding might echo throughout the square. “Show’s over,” Yolanda says, making it a point to not look at Trinity directly. “Just pull another name so we can all go home.”
“I…” their escort trails off, looking around the square. She instantly brightens when the cameras cut towards her again. “Right! Right… er,” a hand goes back into the glass bowl. “Here we are. Hm… James Ogilvie! Is there a James Ogilvie in here?”
Thankfully, Trinity doesn’t know the name.
The crowd parts once again, this time from the side Trinity had previously been at. She lets out a silent sigh of relief. She isn’t sure she could’ve handled going into the games with a partner as young as Jude.
That’s when it hits her: she’s going into the games.
Trinity’s done a lot of stupid things before. She’d chased her brothers around pretending to be the monster under their bed. She’d accidentally lost her dad’s good pocket watch during costume day in school. She’d gone home with a stranger on her twenty-third birthday and stayed at the Victor’s Village until dawn broke through the sky.
None of them have ever felt as stupid as this.
Her ears still feel like they’ve been stuffed with cotton even when James Ogilvie appears beside her, brows pulled up so far up his face that he may as well have stayed in a perpetual state of disbelief. He doesn’t say anything – just, stares at the crowd in front of them and stays very, very still.
What a sight they must make, Trinity thinks miserably. She can already hear the announcers for this year’s Hunger Games during the recap segment: District Six, hah, they have a fighting chance this year for sure.
“Give it up for your tributes this year!” Their escort cheers into the mic, gesturing towards Trinity and James.
She’s met with silence.
From the corner of her eye, Trinity watches as Yolanda finally, finally lifts her gaze up to scan over her tributes for this year. Vaguely, she wonders if Yolanda thinks either of them are making it out alive.
When their eyes meet, the expression on Yolanda’s face says all Trinity needs to know.
The Games have never been kind, after all.
-
Her goodbyes are short and straight to the point. Which means that in the span of twenty-five minutes, Trinity leaves behind the only world she’s ever known.
Jude enters the room first, to wrap her in a tearful, trembling hug and tell her that she has to come home and win.
Trinity leaves him with a kiss pressed to his forehead and a hanging promise, but she hopes that her brother feels no guilt when he realizes that she’s not coming back for him.
Not this time.
As the old saying goes: May the odds be ever in your favor.
Well, Trinity doesn’t know how to beat the odds, if they’ve never been in her grasp at all.
-
Matt enters the room next and doesn’t have much to say. He bids her the usual: good luck and I love you.
In a surprising turn of events, he wraps Trinity up in a hug too and tells her that she’s the bravest sister he’s ever known. She’s too choked up to even point out that she’s his only sister – and just hugs him back tighter.
-
Her dad is next, which is probably the hardest good-bye Trinity’s ever had to say in her entire life.
He doesn’t even make it past her name: “Trin,” he chokes out, and Trinity’s already falling to her knees, crumpling into his arms like she’s five years old again and she still needs an open candle to go to sleep.
“I love you,” he repeats while he’s stroking her hair. “I love you, I love you. I love you, ‘nak,” her dad murmurs in the old language passed down from her ancestors. “You go to the Games and show everyone in the Capitol what you are capable of, hm?”
He helps Trinity dry her tears and push back the hair from her eyes. He’s still crying when he does it– eyes tinged with red, but he waves it off when she tries to point it out. “No use,” he says. “Let me cry for you. You just go out there and be brave.”
“Dad,” Trinity blinks back the stubborn threat of tears in her eyes. “Dad, I’m scared. I can’t be brave. I can’t do this.”
“I know, I know,” he hums out. “But you are already brave. You saved Jude. You can save yourself too. I know you can, my smart girl.”
She lets out a shaky laugh. “I’m not like the Careers. I’m not… I don’t know how to win.”
“You don’t have to know,” he tells her. “You don’t have to be anything you’re not. It’s all in you already, Trin. You can do this.”
“Okay,” Trinity murmurs. She’s got no more fight left in her to argue. “Yeah– yeah, alright. I can do it.”
Her dad’s eyes turn sad and soft when he looks at her. “But you come home after, okay? Don’t leave your old man hanging.”
Trinity just lunges forward to pull him into another hug. She tucks her head into the crook of his neck, and lets the world around her slip away for a moment.
Eventually, her dad gets up to leave. Still, his words persist in Trinity’s mind, and she carries them all the way up to the train ride.
You go out there and be brave.
-
Her mom doesn’t even bother trying to say goodbye. Trinity uses the extra five minutes to think about her future in Six, and what type of legacy she’s left behind for her brothers to follow once she’s dead. She hopes that they at least try to remember more of her than just a corpse sent back to them once the Games are over.
-
Her last visitor is someone Trinity hoped she’d never have to see again.
Then again, fate has a funny way of tripping people up. It also has an extremely dry sense of humor, which is how Trinity finds herself face to face with Yolanda after three months of refusing to even look the woman in the face.
She looks, for lack of a better word, good.
(Trinity sort of hates how she doesn’t mind her brain making that connection).
The scar running down the side of Yolanda’s face is an ever-present reminder of her Games. Aside from the tight bun she’s pulled her hair into, nothing in her body language gives Trinity a hint of what she’s feeling when she looks at Trinity, and purses her lips.
In that moment, she swears Yolanda’s eyes pierce her soul.
“Hi Trinity,” her voice comes out too rough around the edges. Too sharp. Like she hasn’t used Trinity’s name in a while. “You can’t just seem to stay away from me, can you?”
Then, with a swift twist of her body, she turns around and leaves the room before Trinity can even get a word in.
Motherfucker.
-
The ride to the Capitol is strange.
Their escort is wandering around somewhere in the fourteen – yeah, fourteen – cars that the train holds. According to her, it’s a state of the art, Capitol-made machine, so Trinity and James should be grateful that they get to experience this area of life before, well, they’re both brutally sent to their death.
James, or Ogilvie as he’s said he prefers, is too busy bouncing around and throwing out ideas of how to win before Trinity can even get a good night's rest in. He accosts her in hallways, in crevices, and in rooms, of strategies and battle plans, and it’s a little too unfathomable for Trinity to come to terms with. He wants to live, in a terrifyingly electric way, that he’s willing to do anything it takes.
Yolanda’s… difficult.
Trinity knows she’s their mentor and that she’s supposed to be right up there with Ogilvie, talking up strategic warfare and setting up traps, but all Yolanda really seems to do on the train is disagree with anything Ogilvie tries to throw her way.
They all try watching the recap of the Reapings on the large HD screen that the train provides. It’s bigger than Trinity’s ever seen, even bigger than the one she knows Yolanda has back home.
The announcers are whistling and cheering all the way up till District Four. Then, their attitude turns more somber the closer they get to the rest of the districts. They’ve got to be kinder, Trinity guesses, since they know that victors aren’t molded from those districts.
She watches the screen replay the Nine’s Reaping in morbid fascination. Trinity wonders who her strongest competitor may be. She wonders about the weakest of them all, and how easy it’d be to get sponsors for the younger ones. Wonders who it’ll be to finally kill her.
Will it be the short, spindly girl from Three with her too-large glasses but determined face? The tribute from One who volunteers for the name reaped in a heartbeat? The lanky boy from Eight who doesn’t look an ounce frightening in Trinity’s eyes?
“Him,” Ogilvie says immediately, pointing towards the screen. It’s still on the replay of Nine’s Reaping, though, they’ve turned onto the next tribute already. “What about him? Does he look like a good competitor?”
The ‘him’ in question is a blonde, reedy guy who shuffles up to the stage in slow, jerky movements. Like he’s trying to savor the moments of being in his district, before the games forcefully rip that away from him too.
Someone in the crowd tries to shout his name, but it’s drowned out quickly by their escort tapping the mic in a staticky frenzy.
Huh.
Weird.
Trinity really has no other way to place it, other than the guy from Nine looks like a mouse. His hair is tousled in every direction, and his eyes are sunken and sad. She doesn’t manage to catch his name when the feed decides to cut out, and just tucks away the thought of him for another day.
“There’s no way of knowing what ‘good competition’ looks like until you’ve trained with them in person,” Yolanda responds tersely. She’s seated beside them, spine stiff and hands folded in her lap. “You don’t win the games by pointing out who’s strong and who’s not. None of that matters when you enter the arena.”
“Then what does?” Ogilvie huffs out. “I just need to know how you won. People always say you’re the best from our district, so why won’t you help us?”
He says us like he still believes Trinity and him are a pair. It’s laughable, really. But Trinity doesn’t have the heart to correct him.
“I’ll train you two – separately – when you learn that you can’t cheat the games.” Yolanda reaches over to grab the remote and flicks the screen off. “Stop thinking of yourselves as a pair, and start thinking of what you need to survive.”
“But…” Ogilvie hedges, “We’re partners.”
Yolanda lets out a dry, brittle laugh. “No you’re not. You want to believe you two are. District allies don’t always stay the same when you enter the arena.”
She pauses to glance at the train car’s door, before returning her attention back to Ogilvie.
“You really want my advice? Don’t go around parading like you think you know it all – like you’ve thought of some brand new strategy to win over the Capitol. That’s not how it works here.”
“Then how does it work?” Trinity asks for the first time since the replay of the Reapings started. “If we can’t go in there outsmarting others or picking out who the strongest people are, what else can we do?”
A beat.
Yolanda hums thoughtfully, fiddling with the remote in her hands. “Let the people know who you are,” is what she settles on.
“Know who we are?” Trinity echoes.
“They care about appearances,” Yolanda nods at her. “If you want sponsors, you have to present a certain side of yourself. Play at an angle. The Capitol loves it when people do that. It’s all a show to them, anyway.”
“Oh,” Ogilvie says. “Like how you’re the Butcher.”
Yolanda hesitates. It’s the tiniest, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it split second of hesitation, but Trinity’s spent enough nights with the woman to notice that it happens.
“Yes,” she agrees, voice unnaturally calm. “If you slip into a role, they’ll eat it right up. It doesn’t have to be real to you, it just has to be real to them.”
Something in her stomach flips.
A part of her had always known that this… thing between her and Yolanda was never going to work out. It’s just how the world works. The Butcher may have picked her up from that bar on a dreary October evening, but it never meant that Trinity would continue to spend her weekends at the Victor’s Village, pretending that what they had was real.
Trinity has the overwhelming urge right there and then, to let the words tumble out of her mouth and ask Yolanda: was any of it real to you? Were we real or was I just a distraction for you to use?
She doesn’t say any of that, though.
Instead, Trinity gets up from her seat and very pointedly, leaves Yolanda and Ogilvie alone. It’s not exactly reminiscent of the last evening she’d ever spent with the woman, but she hopes Yolanda takes the hint and sees what Trinity’s getting at.
Two can play at this game.
-
She mulls Yolanda’s words over the closer they get to the Capitol.
Trinity’s never had to play at an angle before. She doesn’t even know what angle she wants to play at.
Lots of victors have come before her, trying their hand at winning the Capitol’s love and trust. Trinity can play a part well, but there’s no use if her heart’s not set on the role she’s being forced to play out.
Yolanda had undoubtedly won the Capitol by playing into the role of a no-nonsense killer. She’s efficient. Driven. She’d entered the arena with a goal in her mind, and emerged victorious. It’s no wonder her advice to Trinity had been to hide behind something that wasn’t real.
It’s certainly an easier way than coping with what truly transpires inside the Games.
There are only a few other victors circling the Capitol that Trinity thinks are worth noting this year. Jack Abbot, for one, is an interesting case from Four. He’d been a Career born and raised, so it was no surprise when he came out of his games wielding a fishing spear, triumphant.
What does take her by surprise though, is when Trinity watches his post-Games interview and she realizes that he’s wearing a prosthetic. She’d watched his Games and thought to herself that he was invincible.
By the looks of it, he hadn’t tried to take on a role. He’d laughed in his interview, mourned over the bodies of his fellow tributes, and cried when the last tribute he had to take out was a little girl, no younger than sixteen. He survived, to put it simply, by being human.
Huh.
Maybe she knows what type of angle she wants to play at now.
It’d be an easy role to play. Trinity could take a page out of Jack Abbot’s book and tell stories of the life she’s left back in Six. Of hot summer days with Jude and Matt. Of watching trains pass through their district and think about where they’re going. Of dark curls pressed against Trinity’s neck and a fleeting promise of forever.
When the train suddenly halts to a stop, that’s when Trinity knows they’ve reached their destination.
-
In the next hour, Trinity’s subjected to so many rounds of scrubbing and cleaning that she’s sure her skin’ll bloom into different shades of red by the time this is all over.
Her prep team is surprisingly adept at what they do, even if they spend half their time working on Trinity, and the other half gossiping with each other. Still, they’re nice enough.
Princess and Perlah don’t do anything without Trinity’s consent first, even if she’s heard of the horror stories coming from the Capitol about its stylists. They listen to her attentively and keep what she says in mind. If Trinity doesn’t want to do a certain thing – remove the tattoos down her arms, cut her hair, whiten her teeth; then they just nod and ask her what she wants to do instead.
It’s a very, very strange experience. Trinity doesn’t know the last time someone’s listened to her with actual patience in their voice.
She’s moved to sit in an empty room with a cot. She’s given only a thin towel to cover her bare body while she waits for her prep team to grab her stylist. The parade for tributes is always a hit or miss with District Six, since they never know what sort of costume their stylist for that year has up their sleeve.
They’ve been through every new trend the Capitol pushes out, while keeping a slight nod towards Six’s overall theme: transportation, efficiency, and movement. In the twenty-three years Trinity’s been alive, she remembers Six cycling through trains, chariots, and propellers. Once, their pair of tributes were doused in motor oil and nothing else.
She shudders a little at the thought, and decides that whatever their stylist comes up with this year, it can’t be as bad as the motor oil idea.
The room’s curtain is pushed aside to reveal a slender woman with brown skin and kind eyes. Trinity peers over the woman’s frame and realizes that in her grasp is a plastic bag. It looks too lightweight for it to hold anything that could mirror a bulky costume, so Trinity lets out a silent, little sigh of relief.
“Hello Trinity,” the woman says, moving forward to set the bag next to Trinity. Up close, Trinity can make out bright gold flecks dotting her eyelids. “I’m Samira. I’ll be your stylist for the Games.”
Trinity hums out a quiet hello back. She gestures towards the bag Samira had set down. “Is that my costume?”
“Your costume?” If anything, Samira just looks dumbfounded by the question. “Oh, god, no. It’s just clothes you can change into while we talk.”
Trinity blinks. “You brought me clothes?” Then, her eyes narrow slightly: “Talk?”
Samira just nods and turns around to face the wall. Trinity takes it as a sign to slip out of the towel and rifle through the plastic bag. “I believe Yolanda already briefed you on angles to push while you’re here?”
“Uh,” Trinity says, pulling a pair of loose shorts on herself. “Sort of?”
“Well that’s a start,” Samira hums. “You know, I watched your Reaping live. What you did for your brother was very brave.”
Trinity tenses as she pulls a t-shirt over her head. She notes that Samira still doesn’t turn around – maybe it’s to give her privacy, maybe it’s just to place distance between Trinity and herself. “Thanks,” she mutters out.
“Is that what you want to play at?” Samira asks as she finally turns around to face Trinity. “A savior type of angle? Yolanda said you’d be good at doing stuff like that.”
She inhales a sharp breath. “Yolanda said something about me?”
“Yeah. Said too much actually,” Samira says with a slight frown creasing over her features. “I’ve never seen her this determined to see a tribute’s parade through. I styled her tributes from last year and she was never this vocal about their appearances,” she pauses, “until you.”
Trinity raises an eyebrow. “She knows she has another tribute to mentor too, right?”
Samira barks out a laugh. It’s low and short, but it still manages to make Trinity smile. “I think she just cares about you. You’re something special, you know. You shocked just about everyone in the Capitol by volunteering.”
“I wasn’t really…” Trinity trails off, feeling her skin warm. She shrugs. “I acted on instinct. I wasn’t thinking about anyone else. I just thought about Jude.”
“Is that your brother?”
She stiffens at the question. “Yeah.”
“Trinity and Jude,” Samira muses. Her eyes have a sheen over them, like she’s in deep thought about something. “They’re beautiful names.”
“I have another brother,” she says. “His name’s Matthew – Matt for short.”
“Huh,” Samira says. She’s looking at Trinity now, head tilted to the side. “I think I know what to do for your parade costume.”
Trinity chews on her bottom lip. This could go either of two ways. “You’re not dousing me in motor oil, are you?”
“God no.” Samira shakes her head with a small laugh. “I wasn’t the stylist for Six that year – thankfully. But, no. It’s not motor oil this year.”
Then what is it? Trinity wants to ask – but Samira’s been nothing short of kind to her, so she bites her tongue and decidedly keeps quiet. “Is it trains again?”
“Nope,” Samira replies, gazing up and down over Trinity’s frame. She has a determined, firm look in her eyes. “How do you feel about angels?”
-
The parade is a success.
Samira’s efforts combined with Ogilvie’s stylist, Shen, transforms Trinity and Ogilvie from plain District Six tributes, to revered angels adorned in white and gold embellishments. They’re both sporting matching floor-length gowns with halo headpieces attached at the top.
The wings are a nice touch though. In Trinity’s opinion, they’re what completed the outfit. If she had to take a gamble, the wings would be what brought Six right onto the Capitol’s radar of districts to look out for in the Games.
True to her guess, the crowds eat their costumes right up. They cheer and yell Trinity’s name out when Six’s chariot passes through the path, and she watches in real time as the Capitol wonders if District Six may bring home another victor this year.
-
“They’re calling you a saint, you know,” Yolanda mentions, once, over dinner. Ogilvie’s nowhere to be found on their floor, so it’s just Trinity and Yolanda at the table. “Saint Trinity,” she hums. “It has a certain ring to it.”
Trinity refuses to meet Yolanda’s eyes. The mention of her Capitol-awarded title makes her stomach flip. “I don’t want to be a saint.”
“Too bad,” Yolanda says, voice even. “You can’t always have what you want in life.”
A pause.
It’s not real.
Something in Trinity burns.
Her fork clatters down on the table as Trinity pushes her plate away and she moves to get up from her seat. “Fine. Have it your way. I’m leaving–”
“Stay.”
The words leave Yolanda in an instant, catching Trinity off guard more than anything.
In the short pocket of time they’ve spent in the Capitol, they’ve exchanged nothing more than pleasantries around each other. Trinity lets herself slip a little snark here and there if she and Yolanda were with others, but nobody except the two of them knew just how far their history ran.
She hears things on an even larger scale now that she’s at the Capitol. The stories that are told in the horror of the Butcher’s wake will always follow Yolanda, but the Capitol has its own grotesque take on her games.
They say that Yolanda didn’t see the tributes as humans, just as moving targets. They say that the arena was turned into a graveyard the second she had a hunting knife in her grasp. They say that no victor has ever come close to emulating the Butcher, since no one has ever had the guts to do what she had done.
They say that for as much as she is a victor, Yolanda Garcia is also a murderer.
(Trinity supposes that even in the Capitol, where they’re taught to revere the Games, it’s harder to see good in others when you’ve watched them take the life out of seven tributes.)
“I’m not a saint,” Trinity repeats. She’s still standing, feet refusing to move. She thinks of Yolanda’s hands on her waist, of her bedroom, and of the simple order to stay, and feels utterly sick. “I’m not… I’m not whatever the fuck the Capitol wants to believe. What you want to believe.”
The venom she spits out is baseless and thin, she knows that much. Still, Yolanda’s gaze flickers over an expression of hurt.
“I never said you had to be anything.”
“Oh yeah?” Trinity laughs humorlessly. “What was that conversation about in the train then? About it not having to be real to you?”
Yolanda’s eyes harden. “Are you serious? You’re acting like this because you can’t get over a one night stand?”
“It was more than just one night,” she snaps. Her veins feel ice cold, but the rest of her body feels like it's on fire.
Blood rushes in her ears the moment Trinity meets Yolanda’s gaze.“I’m going to die in the arena. Do you even care about that? Or do you care more about keeping up appearances for the Capitol?”
She thinks Yolanda might intervene then.
Or say something. Anything. At least a few words that might make bearing the weight of the Games on Trinity’s heart a little easier.
She wants Yolanda, in some sort of selfish, guttural way, to want Trinity. Wants her to lie and tell her that she won’t die in the arena. Wants her to say that she won’t allow it to happen. Not to Trinity.
Yolanda’s lips part.
Trinity feels her heart skip a beat.
Then, Yolanda just gets up from her seat and fucking leaves.
-
For what it’s worth, training isn't half as bad.
Yolanda doesn’t make it a point to speak to Trinity for anything personal anymore, but she does manage to prep her and Ogilvie on what to do once they’re with the other tributes.
(“Show them what you’re capable of, but don’t show them too much. Save your skills for the real thing.”)
Trinity’s at the knot-tying station, trying to make it seem like she knows what she’s doing with the pieces of rope by her knees, when she hears a voice pipe up behind her: “I liked your costume in the parade.”
She whirls around to come face to face with the reedy, blonde-haired guy from Nine. He’s fidgeting with his hands, eyes darting around nervously like he’s a little too scared to look at her.
“Uh–” he says. “Hi?”
“Fuck off,” Trinity mutters. More to herself than to him, but he doesn’t need to know that. She turns back to the station and tries to ignore the guy.
He doesn’t leave though. He just kneels beside her and watches as she loops the rope into another knot, trying to copy the trap the instructor had perfected minutes ago. “You’re doing it wrong.”
Trinity exhales through her nose. She’s not about to lose her shit on some random tribute. Yolanda would kill her, probably. Then the gamemakers, or the Peacekeepers, or hell even their president would.
“Thanks for pointing out the obvious,” she grits out. Her fingers wind through the rope again, undoing the last knot. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”
Trinity gestures towards the rest of a Training Center with her free hand. Everyone else is occupied with their own stations, subconsciously huddling into their own groups. It’s only her and the guy from Nine who’ve beat the odds of what was expected from them.
Wait. Correction: Trinity’s right where she’s supposed to be. It’s the guy who’s singlehandedly ruining what little peace she’s managed to build up for herself in this place.
“Not really,” he says. He scoots a little closer to Trinity and points towards the rope. “See that loop? You have to make the remaining pieces go through them. Not over. That’s why it keeps falling apart every time you try it.”
She considers throwing something back in his face just to see how he’d react – but, also, Trinity doesn’t have many allies for the Games so far. Aside from Ogilvie, which, no, and Yolanda, there aren’t that many people in her corner.
It wouldn’t hurt to have at least one person fighting for Trinity’s trust.
Hm.
“Right,” she says. She does exactly what he says: twists and pulls the rope through all the regular steps, but instead of dragging the remaining thread under the loop, she pulls it through.
To her surprise, the bowline knot comes out looking just like the one the instructor had done.
Trinity turns to the guy, frowning. “Where’d you learn to do something like that?”
“I grew up with it,” he shrugs. “Nine produces a lot of grain, and we need to tie down the transport sometimes so it won’t fall…” he trails off awkwardly. “I’m, uh, Dennis by the way. Dennis Whitaker.”
He holds out a hand for Trinity to shake. She doesn’t take it, but offers him a thin smile in return.
“Trinity Santos.”
They settle into a comfortable silence after that. Once or twice, Dennis offers to help Trinity figure out a particularly complicated knot, but she just snarks back at him until he lets it go.
(He doesn’t try to help her unless she asks for it, afterwards).
“They’re all talking about you, y’know,” Dennis nods to where the Careers are. Something heavy settles in Trinity’s stomach. “Not that I believe any of the stuff they’re saying, but, er. I just thought you should know.”
“Huh,” she says. She hands a piece of rope to Dennis and watches as his hands make quick work of the fibres. “What exactly are they saying about me?”
“Just the usual. They’re calling you a show-off for the angel stunt. They don’t really like the ‘Saint Trinity’ thing. Uh, I think they said something about you going batshit in the Games “just like your mentor”?”
Trinity scoffs. “They’re all idiots if they think I’m gonna be anything like Yolanda.”
Dennis’ brows pinch together. “Oh right,” he breathes out. “You’ve got the Butcher as a mentor.”
She bites the inside of her cheek, hesitating.
“I don’t… I mean, I’ve just heard stuff about her Games, but I don’t really know anything about her.” Dennis stumbles over his words, trying to salvage together the fragile bond he and Trinity had built. “She seems nice.”
That elicits a sharp, dry laugh out of Trinity. “Yeah right,” she scoffs. “If she’s nice, then I’m winning the fucking Hunger Games.”
“I’m serious!” Dennis splutters. “She, um, I think I saw her one time at the cafeteria. She did tell me to move out of the way and then called me a ‘farm boy’, but I bet she’s a good teacher.”
“Maybe,” Trinity frowns. She closes her eyes for a brief second and thinks of Yolanda. Thinks of the last time she’s ever thought of her as someone nice. “Well, I don’t want to be like her. I don’t want to be Saint Trinity either, so,” she hooks her thumb to the Careers, “they can go fuck themselves.”
Dennis snorts, and it’s possibly the first time Trinity’s felt like she could be herself with someone again. He reminds her of Jude. Of Matt. Of her brothers and of every summer day shared with them.
He hands her the rope she’d given him – it was a tangled, unknotted mess before. Now it sits in Trinity’s lap as a perfect square knot. A peace offering.
“You don’t have to say yes,” Dennis starts, pulling his gaze away from the rope and up to Trinity. “But if you wanted, maybe we could be allies?”
His voice sounds hopeful and earnest. Like he really wants to be with Trinity.
She thinks back to how everyone had seemed so absorbed in their own training, and yet Dennis had felt the need to seek Trinity out despite the news circling her.
…Maybe Trinity isn’t the only one looking for people to have in her corner too.
“Okay,” she agrees. She tries to ignore the brilliant, bright smile that blooms over Dennis’ face. “We can be allies.”
-
“I think you have a shadow,” Dennis tells her on the second day of training. He’s knee-deep in the camouflage section, painting his arms shades of green and brown, leaves and sticks dotting both limbs.
“What?” Trinity frowns from where she's painting her ankles an impressive shade of gold. Sue her, camouflage isn’t her best skill, but she’s indulging in it just for Dennis. “Who?”
Without letting go of the paint brush, Dennis nods his head to the space behind Trinity. She twists her body to glance at what he’s pointing at, and she’s only met with a brief glimpse of the girl before she’s running away in flashes of purple.
“What the hell?” Trinity turns back to Dennis, blinking. “Who was that?”
Dennis hums, dipping his brush back into water. “Victoria Javadi. She’s from Two.”
Ah, right. A Career brat. “You think she’s spying on me?” Trinity pushes away stray strands of hair from her face. “Wouldn’t put it against a Career to pull some shit like that.”
“No, actually,” Dennis says, voice quiet. “She’s young – only seventeen I think. Her mother’s mentoring her this year.”
“Oh,” Trinity echoes, because that in itself, is kind of depressing even for a Career brat. “I didn’t know that.”
“Not a lot of people do,” Dennis shrugs. “They think that just ‘cause she’s from Two she’s this trained killer already. Which is insane because she looks like a baby deer.”
Trinity pauses, wondering.
She wonders if Victoria Javadi had volunteered for a place in the Games, or if she’d been reaped simply due to the odds being against her. She wonders if Victoria’s watching Trinity, not out of malice, but out of pure curiosity.
She wonders if Victoria’s mother feels any sort of guilt for bringing a child into this world, just to have to teach her how to survive.
With a sigh, Trinity stows that thought away for later.
-
On the night of the tribute interviews, Trinity’s brimming with fear.
She hasn’t talked to Yolanda in days, which means that in the hours Trinity was supposed to be figuring out which angle she should take for the interviews with her mentor, she’s spent them avoiding Yolanda instead.
So when Nick Barker, the overly charming and zealous interview host calls her name to go up on the stage, Trinity finds that she can’t fucking move.
A wave of nausea sweeps over her when she realizes it – the panic settling in like a heavy pit in her stomach. She wills her legs to move, her lips to part and choke out something – anything, but nothing comes out except a choked out whimper.
What the fuck, she thinks desperately. This can’t be happening. Not now.
In an instant, Dennis is right by her side, and he’s stepping over Trinity’s long, floor-length gown and pulling her down to the ground with him. “Trin,” he says softly. “Hey, Trin, hey– you’re okay. You’re at the Capitol,” he tells her. “You gotta breathe.”
“Dennis,” her voice comes out funny. Thick and hoarse. Like she can’t choke something down. “I can’t– fuck. I can’t go out there.”
“Don’t think about that right now,” he says. He grabs her hand and presses it to her chest, starting to breathe in an exaggerated manner. “Can you feel that? Copy my breathing, Trin.”
“I – I can’t,” Trinity’s heaving now, but no tears are slipping down her cheeks. It’s not like saying goodbye to her family, but it’s not like having to leave what she and Yolanda had either. It’s an entirely new thing that she doesn’t have the strength to comprehend anymore. “I– I–”
Dark spots flit over her vision when she tries to follow. Dimly, Trinity realizes that her entire body is shaking, and her breathing isn’t coming out in the way it’s supposed to.
“Just follow my lead,” Dennis says, breaking her train of thought. His chest rises and falls in tandem with Trinity’s ragged breaths. “Just like that. In and out, okay?”
Trinity complies, following his lead. Eventually, her breathing returns back to normal, but between the seconds Trinity’s spent having a mini panic attack, the more she realizes that she had never once gotten up onto Nick Barker’s stage.
Dennis helps pull her up into a sitting position, just as the crowd outside cheers.
“I gotta get up there,” Trinity swears under her breath, already moving to stand up, but Dennis pulls her back down.
“You don’t have to,” he shakes his head. “Someone already took your spot.”
Heat instantly floods her cheeks. Holy shit. “I can’t be known as the tribute that had a fucking panic attack before her interview,” Trinity groans, squeezing her eyes shut. “Did they bring out Ogilvie instead?”
Dennis’ voice sounds hesitant when he replies: “Uh. Not exactly.”
She wrenches a single eye open. “If they’re making up some lie about why I can’t go out there, I swear to god–”
He cuts her off, “It’s, uhm… maybe you should just see for yourself.”
With a frown, Trinity gets up on shaky legs to pull back the red curtain separating the tributes from the stage and the crowd.
Nick Barker’s face is illuminated on the many screens circling above the stage. He’s got his signature grin on, making him look every part of the charismatic interview host he presents himself to be.
But when Trinity’s gaze travels down to the settee setup that’s placed in the middle of the stage with the spotlights conveniently angled towards it, true to what Dennis had told her, it’s not Ogilvie on the stage.
It’s not any tribute either.
With a bright, almost uncanny smile, Nick Barker gazes out at the crowd and waves a hand to them. “Ladies and gentlemen, let’s give a warm round of applause to our very own victor, Yolanda Garcia!”
-
“So, Yolanda,” Nick Barker settles into his seat, eyes sparkling against the bright lights. “It’s a shame your tribute couldn’t be here tonight. I bet Trinity would’ve looked enchanting. But, do tell, how do you think she’ll fare for the Games?”
Yolanda gives him a good-natured, little laugh. “Oh Trinity? She’s determined, that’s for sure. Ambitious too, but she’s always been like that. That’s what makes her stand out. I think she has more than just a winning chance at this thing”
Nick raises an eyebrow at her. “‘Always been like that?’ Why, don’t tell me you two have history.”
Yolanda hums, eyes scanning over the crowd. “We do,” she says, and the crowd erupts into a wave of joint surprise. “It’s such a shame too, you know? She’s just…”
“Just what?” Nick leans in closer, tilting his head to hear Yolanda out. “Oh you have got to give us more than that!”
Something in Yolanda’s expression flickers, before: “She’s just a great partner to have. I hate having to reconcile with the fact that it… it might not last forever. It keeps me up at night sometimes, you know? Why her and why not someone else?
“Maybe it’s selfish, maybe it’s not. I don’t really care. I just care about bringing her home.” She doesn’t turn to where the tributes are kept, but something fiery is set into her eyes when she looks straight ahead at the crowd. “And Trinity, if you’re watching, or listening, or if you can just see me out for one second; I want you to know that I would’ve married you in a heartbeat.”
Around them, the room bursts into yells of disbelief and shock. Gasps echo throughout, and it takes Nick longer than it should to calm the people of the Capitol down.
“That’s…” he shakes his head at Yolanda. “I’m sorry to hear that. I do hope she wins. For your sake, and for her own.”
Yolanda gives him a small smile. It looks a little more like she’s baring teeth at him. “I hope so too.”
-
“Mind if I join you?”
The rooftop is quiet and hidden away from prying eyes, even if the invisible barrier placed between the railings and the sky is a telltale reminder that Trinity can’t escape death. Not now. Not tomorrow. Not ever.
And yet, for some reason or another, Yolanda seems hellbent on trying to bring Trinity to the brink of it.
The stunt she’d pulled – taking her place in the interview, calling Trinity her partner, saying she would’ve married her – it all comes back to Trinity when she lets out a little sigh and nods, not meeting Yolanda in the eyes.
She’s going to die tomorrow, she understands that much.
She just hopes it won’t be as painful as having to watch Yolanda talk about her like she still loved her.
“I meant what I said,” Yolanda offers quietly while she settles down next to Trinity. Below them, the Capitol comes alive in a blur of lights and colors. “About you hoping you’d win and come home.”
Trinity laughs – it’s dry and shaky, but also laced with something else she can’t place. “And the part about marrying me?”
She feels Yolanda shift beside her. Waiting. Hesitating. “It was real to me too,” is what she settles on. “I do care. Just… I can’t, Trinity. Not right now.”
It’s not an apology, but it’ll have to do.
“At least you were convincing about it,” Trinity shrugs absent-mindedly. She meets Yolanda halfway, their gazes locking in with each other. “My family probably thinks I’m crazy for hooking up with the Butcher of all people, but whatever.”
The edges of Yolanda’s mouth curve up into the start of a smile. “Well, it was your choice after all to come home with me that night. Maybe I was just that charming.”
Trinity snorts. “In your dreams.”
A beat.
“You know my dad told me to be brave,” Trinity says all of a sudden. She doesn’t know why she’s telling Yolanda this – she has no reason to. Not after all the woman’s done to her. “And I… I keep thinking about it. It seems so easy in theory, but…”
“But?” Yolanda prompts.
“I don’t know how to be brave,” Trinity whispers into the cool night air. “I can’t do this. I know I have to try for him and for Jude and for Matt, but I – I always fuck everything up.”
Trinity’s voice cracks on the last syllable. If Yolanda notices, she doesn’t say anything.
“If you want to be brave, you need to have someone to be brave for first,” Yolanda hums. Her eyes travel from Trinity’s face down to the roads below them. “So, who do you have to be brave for?”
The obvious answers run through Trinity’s mind in an instant. Jude. Matt. Her dad.
In a strange turn of events, she adds the name Dennis down to her list.
But a louder, sharper name cuts through her train of thought. One she knows she can never voice aloud.
You, Yolanda. Trinity lets herself go for a split second, breath hitching as her hand reaches out to find Yolanda’s. When their fingers intertwine, she feels herself shuddering at the touch; it’s electrifying and intense – nothing like she’s ever felt before. You.
Yolanda turns to hold Trinity’s gaze, lips parted slightly.
It’s so very reminiscent of their first night together – at the bar, with music leaking from the dinged up jukebox in the corner, and the taste of liquor was an acidic burn at the back of Trinity’s throat.
“Tell me you want this,” Yolanda murmurs. A challenge.
Something in Trinity’s stomach flutters. She thinks of how the sun will rise tomorrow and how she’ll never get a chance to kiss Yolanda again, when she rasps out, voice raw and tender: “I want you.”
That’s all it takes for Yolanda to close the gap between them in an instant, and capture Trinity’s lips against her own.
-
When Trinity wakes in the morning, she does so in her own room. The sun bears down through her windows incessantly, a reminder for her to get up and get ready, but it does nothing to distract her from the fact that something in her room has changed.
Sitting on her nightstand is a small drawstring pouch, weighing down a piece of paper that definitely wasn't there the night before.
Trinity blinks.
When Trinity moves to pull on the drawstring, she pulls out a small, wooden object that’s shaped like a stick. It’s thin and smooth to touch, with one end looking blunter than the other.
Hm.
Weird.
Gingerly, Trinity sets the small pouch aside to pick up the piece of paper that it’d been holding down. When her eyes scan over the words written down, she notices that the scrawl is undoubtedly Yolanda’s.
Her stomach flips at the realization.
Trinity, it reads. I know you don’t have a token for the arena. Consider this yours.
Then, as a postscript, Yolanda had written: It’s not a weapon, don’t worry. It’s a memento made by a friend of mine from Seven.
Trinity glances over at the token again and lets out a disbelieving, little laugh.
Yolanda had gifted her a replica of a hunting knife.
(What an odd, odd pair they make, she thinks. The Saint and the Butcher).
She moves to slip out of bed and ready herself for the day.