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THE UNFAMILIARITY OF A NEW ROUTINE HAD ALWAYS BOTHERED HESTIA. For years, she had the same pattern: wake up, go for a swim, go to school, work, home, swim again. The Reaping was a rare disruption in her schedule, typically causing little ripples throughout her week depending on who was chosen. With her name being drawn, the ripples were waves, pulling her under to suffocate her.
The train was a sort of middle ground between home and the Capitol. They weren't safe, but they weren't about to die, not just yet. Now, in the zoo, anything was possible. She couldn't go out to swim, she had to go to the bathroom when the Peacekeeper's decided, she ate at the mercy of her mentor and the crowd. It sucked, depending on others.
It had never occurred to Hestia just how long a day was. For six hours, she was confined to school, then three hours Pearling, along with the spare hours she spent swimming. Everything moved faster for her underwater, time determined only by the rays of sunlight that broke the surface of the water. In the zoo, with nothing to do, she became increasingly aware that twenty-four hours was an extremely long time to have nothing to do.
While Hestia tried her best to push the impending fight out of her mind, it was all Mizzen could talk about. If the boy didn't get his thoughts out, he'd explode, apparently.
"Do you think they'll go out and find my dad?" Hestia half-listened to Mizzen as he rambled to Tanner nonstop. The cowboy was indulging him, more out of boredom than anything. "He's on a fishing trip, they wouldn't just not tell him, right?"
Tanner nodded, "Right." He cast a glance at Hestia, a small wince on his face as the two exchanged knowing looks. The Capitol absolutely would just not tell his father. "They'll probably send for him."
Oh, how Hestia wished she could trade places with Mizzen's father, be out on the water, far away from Panem and the Reaping and her stupid mentor.
"One of the women," Mizzen said, nodding out to the crowd, "told me that she was surprised at how different our families were. You had your whole family, I just had Mags."
But did I have my whole family? Of them all, who did she think of first when she considered them hearing of her death? She was ashamed by the answer. Caspian, even though he is gone. I don't see how it matters. You get along with your sister?"
Mizzen nodded earnestly, launching into stories about his older sister growing up. It became increasingly obvious to Hestia that they did indeed have very different families— but perhaps Mizzen wasn't the one lacking in love.
She hardly noticed the boys leaving her side to talk to some of the other tributes, her mind too preoccupied with replaying memories one final time before she was sent to die, to fill the space so her final days weren't endless amounts of nothing.
