Ready or Not (D2 Train)

m a r g u e r i t e

Ready or not (Uh-huh), here I come, you can't hide
Gonna find you and make you want me

Marguerite had watched the sallow skinned boy make his way toward the stage and wondered if they might share some sort of common bond. Maybe both were rougher around the edges. Maybe they could laugh at how no matter how much they might have trained for this (had he trained for this with those elbows?) nothing could’ve prepared them for the spectacle. And neither of them could want it – at least, not for the same reasons the usual glowering kids from two had.

And then he let out that damn howl, and she was so, so, disappointed.

“Here we go.” Marguerite muttered under her breath while casting a side eye that should’ve turned Hugo to stone.

If she lived the moment a hundred times over, Maggie couldn’t picture any histrionics from her side of the stage. And maybe that was a mistake. She folded her energies inward, simmering like a collapsing star.

She took no visitors inside the justice building. (Not by choice – who came to visit an ‘orphan’ who’d written up their will and testament that read like she'd intended a clean break?)

Her time had been spent pulling books from the shelf of her would-be holding cell. Whatever business the room had with polished hardwood floors or marble busts, they’d skimped on the finer details, like the books arranged by color above her. Most of their book jackets described pulpy adventure novels about cowboys or pirates, with a few offering the thrill of space.

“Huh.” Maggie hunched over the table in front her, her feet tucked under her on the vinyl of the booth behind her. She had just gotten to the budding climax of the first few chapters of the romance she’d chosen when the train had started to lull into motion. Or at least, as she patted at her headwrap, found that district two had melted away into unremarkable gray mountains and flat desert.

This would be fine (well, not really). Not at all, actually –

She dog eared her page and leaned to press her face to the window.

If her whole life was back there, what was she supposed to make of where they were headed?

Beyond the usual fight to the death and antics of the games she was to have lived and breathed for, Maggie kept returning to what should’ve been motivation. Her likely brutal death, for one – but she’d already died once that day, so she could bury the existential a little longer.

A perfect time to fill herself with caffeine and nothing else. Nothing fought anxiety like an empty stomach and strong black coffee.

When the door opened, Maggie placed her book down and twisted her fingers around the edge of her coffee cup.

“Hey.” She took in a breath. Her father had always taught her to make charitable assumptions. To give enough grace that whoever might’ve been standing in front of her might eventually return the favor. And so, when Hugo emerged, she pointed to the other side of the booth and gave a shrug.

“It’s just me. I don’t think Shy is going to come out of his room, if he's even here. I feel like no one has seen that guy in ten years.” She wasn’t angry two was without representation. More that one had fucked off to join the capitol and that the other couldn’t be bothered to give anything of himself.

“I’m Marguerite. Though you already knew that.” She took another sip of her coffee, “Man. This shit is bleak.”