Chapter Text

Dazzle Lustre

September

At the thundering sound of a heavy folder, Dazzle jolted in her plastic chair. Her brother dropped another beside it. He hesitated when he noticed her wince. The loud bang was reminiscent of a cannon, and Gem disliked it too.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, in the self-conscious manner that filled him when there was no audience. “They’ve never seen as many applications as they have this year, and they’ve asked me to go through a handful.”

Dazzle stared at the paper on the table as if it was about to bite her. Her brother made no attempt at organisation – the folders were not even colour coded – and she knew that he would take the entire day to pour across the information. They did not have the entire day. She would need to help him, and that was what she dreaded.

“A handful?” asked Dazzle. Whilst she had been sat with her feet on the chair, she slowly unfurled at the arrival of someone else. Her right knee clicked as she lowered it from her chest – an old injury which the Capitol had not noticed and therefore not healed.

“I said the same.” Gem pushed a purple folder to his younger sister. “I tried to do it on my own last night, but I think I need your thoughts on a handful.”

“I don’t have many thoughts to offer,” Dazzle mumbled, stretching out in her chair. She found a comforting rhythm as she tapped her polished nails on the plastic table.

The faculty lounge was a tired, grey respite from the large gymnasium and smaller classroom of the academy. There were too many chairs for the limited staff, and the highlight was a kettle that had been imported second-hand from the Capitol itself. There were no windows. Dazzle had originally tried to avoid it but now, she enjoyed the stifling silence.

“You’re good with this,” pushed Gem, gently. His own chair scraped harshly across the floor as he took a seat. “You’ve been saying that we need to start looking at something different. This is our chance. We’re sorting through identical applications to try and find the students who really have something, you know? We don’t just want another pretty face who’s been in Brigade since they were five and have watched the Hunger Games on repeat.”

Reluctantly, Dazzle accepted that her brother was right. The folder’s cover was cold to the touch as she flipped it open, but it burnt the flesh across her fingertips. “Do we even need to accept anyone?”

“If we want another victor, we need to have a potential volunteer in each class.”

Each application page was required to be handwritten. Around them, the local lower schools would support their graduating students with writing the best personal essay they could. The majority were often very similar, which meant that some desperate candidates went to great lengths to ensure that they were noticed. Dazzle was face-to-face with an application written in glittering pink pen, the margin littered with doodled hearts.

Gem peered over, ignoring his own task. “I’d give it a point for creativity,” he mumbled.

The candidate’s name and date of birth were carefully inked at the top of the page. “84 ADD,” whispered Dazzle, as she caught sight of it.

“They can apply at eleven if they’re a summer birthday,” explained Gem, quickly. “We shouldn’t consider excluding them just because they’re younger. By the time we start teaching again, she’ll be twelve.”

“She’s a child, Gem.”

“They’ll have chance to learn.”

At the academy, twenty new students were allowed to enrol each year. The class would be whittled down until only two remained on the year of their eighteenth birthday. They would volunteer armed with training in weaponry, audience manner and survival – and they would probably die in the arena, because Dazzle had no confidence in her ability to drag anyone else out.

The mentor leaned on the fragile table and placed her head in her hands, covering her eyes.

“Another migraine?” asked Gem, concerned.

Dazzle hummed in a half-hearted response. She had been plagued by debilitating headaches since the summer, but she did not want them to interrupt her duty. “The lights in here aren’t helping,” she murmured.

“We could take them down to the classroom?”

“No.” Dazzle’s answer was quick and certain. “I’ll be fine. Let’s get it over with.”

The room returned to silence as she tried to plough through the pink, swirling personal essay.

My grandfather volunteered for the arena, the applicant wrote, and I want to succeed where he failed. At the moment, my brother is already a student at your school. We want to win after each other and be another victor pair, just like Gem and Dazzle!

They did not mention Sparkle. District One never mentioned Sparkle.

Pushing the folder aside, Dazzle moved her head from her hands and rested it against the cool plastic of the table. The pain multiplied whenever she thought of her arena – or any arena. It crept along the base of her neck, reaching out in burning tendrils and consuming any thought that she tried to form.

“I’ll do it by myself,” said Gem, softly. “It’s fine, Dazzle.”

Her voice was muffled against the plastic. “It’s not.”

“Go home. Get some rest.”

Dazzle felt her brother’s hand lightly brushing her own. She refused to take his advice. Even if she returned to her house in Victors’ Village, there would be no opportunity of rest. Dazzle’s slumber was filled with visions of the arena: first, a goat that impaled every ally around her and now, a violent tribute spearing her sister in the stomach.

“I’m serious,” pushed Gem, who had somehow carried on with his life as if their summer in the Capitol had never happened.

She would not admit it, but Dazzle envied her brother. He had been lost in the Capitol. After Sparkle’s death, he had disappeared into the city and consumed enough alcohol to inebriate the entire academy faculty. It had taken a detox – a scandal of a procedure in the city – to drag him back to his normal self for the victor’s interview. By the time they returned to District One, he was even able to smile.

“Look – this one was highly commended during Phys. Ed. I’ll pick a handful like him, and I’ll be done by lunchtime,” Gem reassured. “I need you to be rested and ready to take over for when I’m in the Capitol, Dazzle. You can’t just keep pushing through this.”

Dazzle did not believe that she was pushing herself, but her mind had focused on a separate issue and would not let her argue about her health. “When are you going to the Capitol?” she asked, urgently.

“Beat the Victor is filming in November,” replied Gem. “They asked for you, actually. I said you weren’t going to be available and because it’s only a celebrity edition-“

“Don’t go.”

The instruction was certain. Dazzle had sat up and was pleading to her brother with shadowed eyes. “Please,” she added, for emphasis. “Don’t go to the Capitol.”

She would not be able to protect him in the city.

Gem shook his head. “I have to,” he replied. There was no room for argument. “I know, Dazzle. I know we want to mourn. It’s tearing me apart that we can’t say anything publicly-“

“You don’t have to go.”

“- but I have obligations, and we’ll both have to travel there in the summer anyway. I’m not letting you go by yourself – not like this.”

Desperately, Dazzle was trying for forget the duty of a mentor. She hated the regime of the academy but at least no one died in their sugar-coated combat. The arena was different. Dazzle did not know if she could handle another promise of victory to a losing pair.

That was not what frightened her about the city.

“I made a promise,” she reminded.

Gem nodded. “I know you did, but-“ he began.

“They won’t keep it,” interrupted Dazzle. “I promised that Sparkle would win – that was the condition they demanded to keep us out of everything. I don’t know what they’ll do now that she…that she…”

Her voice trailed away, disappearing into the grey silence of the room.

“I’ll be fine,” reassured Gem, but Dazzle knew her brother well and she could tell when he was lying. “I’m not there for long – not long enough for them to organise anything, anyway. And they’re all wrapped up in their newest victor rather than some old mentor.”

“Their victor’s mentor,” stressed Dazzle.

Gem repeated, “it’ll be fine.”

In the thick mist of uncertain reassurance, Dazzle gave in to the migraine that was brewing in the back of her grief-addled mind.

October

When the sky burned with a bonfire sunset, Dazzle managed the short walk across Victor’s Common to reach her neighbour’s home. The invitation had no signature, but it had been handmade: thick, rough card speckled with the dried petals of late flowers. Carnelian Jade, the only victor to take up papermaking as her talent, refused to purchase anything from a stationer.

The gate’s old hinge creaked to announce Dazzle’s arrival, and Carnelian was waiting at an open door before she had finished her journey down the cobbled path.

“Punctual, as usual,” greeted Carnelian. She pulled her former student into an embrace that neither enjoyed but both tolerated. “If I’m honest with you, I didn’t expect you to come.”

“It would be impolite to turn down tea with my old mentor,” replied Dazzle, simply.

Carnelian scowled at her voice: a monotone mess, rather than the trained tone filled with enthusiasm. To anyone who had never known her, it was clear that Dazzle was not the same person she had once been. The expression was fleeting. A forced smile soon replaced it.

“Well,” joked Carnelian, “you’ve never listened to me before.”

The home’s hallway was empty, except for a pair of practical shoes placed neatly beside the doormat. Carnelian had lived there long enough to leave her own mark on the Capitol’s provided furniture – mostly selling it to the highest bidder and replacing it with as little as possible.

“You always did hate mess,” mumbled Dazzle, with a sweeping glance across the lounge where she was led.

There had been three occasions where she had been invited to tea with her mentor: when she was chosen as a volunteer, when she returned as a victor, and when she returned from her first year as mentor. Carnelian had taken official retirement from anything to do with the Hunger Games, and that had put a swift end to their stilted relationship.

“I don’t hate mess,” defended Carnelian. There was an open wall into her kitchen, where Dazzle could see a Capitol-branded kettle sitting proudly on a granite countertop. It boiled water at the touch of a button. “I hate anything that is unnecessary. It’s beneficial to be disciplined in every aspect of your life. Besides, your class at the academy were a nightmare for leaving your bags and shoes everywhere.”

Dazzle had no argument to fight the accusation. Before the arena, she had lacked the self-control of a victor. It had been the biggest criticism hanging over her when the volunteering decision was made.

“Chamomile tea is said to calm,” said Carnelian, as she filled a small, metal cage with dried leaves and lowered it into a teacup. The boiling water rippled like a brook as it was poured over the contraption. Carefully, Carnelian carried the hot drink into the room and placed it on a low, black table to finish steeping.

Breathing in the earthy-smelling steam, Dazzle picked it up before it was ready so that she could wrap her hand around the heat. “You didn’t make one for yourself?”

“I’m not the one who needs calming, am I?”

The deep amber of the tea, like a falling autumn leaf, swirled from the steeping leaves. Dazzle watched it dance through the water as she evaded her mentor’s knowing gaze.

“We both know you did not come here to take tea,” probed Carnelian, gently.

Whilst she had retired once there were two other victors to take her place, the arena ran through Carnelian like blood. She understood the spectacle of the Hunger Games, and she understood the world behind it. It was knowledge that was rarely needed but, when necessary, Dazzle knew that she could come to her former mentor.

“After you were a victor,” attempted Dazzle, in a voice that did not sound like her own, “did you have…obligations?”

Carnelian leaned back against the plush cushion of her chair. “Obligations?” she repeated, after a pause.

The soft, sweet smell of chamomile filled the room like a soft sigh in a cold winter. Clenching a fist in the sleeve of her cardigan, Dazzle forced herself to continue. “Beyond mentoring. In the Capitol. With other people.”

“I think I know the type of obligation you are talking about,” said Carnelian, quietly, “and I was recommended for them, I believe. I was lucky, though. They left me alone after my first year as victor – I’m not quite sure they knew what to do with me.”

When it was placed back the saucer, the teacup made a soft sound like a windchime. Dazzle did not have the stomach for anything other than the unwanted conversation. She knew that her mentor had been a popular victor, but the 76^th Games had been the first under President Dux. There had been no precedent set for a new victor once the former had retired.

“And after?” Dazzle asked.

Carnelian’s face softened. “Once Ripple had won, they had made their decision. We were a couple in everyone’s eyes except our own, and there was no chance of selling anything that was already claimed by someone else.”

Dazzle could not look up. She watched her twisting hands as her mentor continued to speak of her experience.

“I remember hanging from his arm and steering him from conversation to conversation during his victory celebration. He was completely out of it, the poor boy. There was no one with a stronger mind than him once he had recovered, though. Ripple knew exactly what he wanted, and it wasn’t me.”

Outside, the autumn wind was beginning to rattle the howling gate.

“He didn’t like you?” asked Dazzle.

“No,” said Carnelian, softly. “He did love me, or so he said. I loved him, too. There was just nothing I could do to make him want to take it further. He decided he simply did not care for it. We kept up the façade to keep ourselves out of those obligations you speak of and then let it fade out once no one was interested in us anymore.”

Dazzle wanted to believe that no one was interested in her, but she knew it was a false hope. That had been the design of her promise – three golden victors who demanded attention. Now, there were only two.

“Ripple was my escape,” prompted Carnelian, “but who was yours?”

“Sparkle,” said Dazzle, plainly. She hated speaking her sister’s name.

Carnelian nodded, as if she had known. “I can see why you’re now in a predicament, Dazzle. It might feel for you as if everything has stopped, but the world will continue to turn for everyone else.”

To avoid an answer, Dazzle took a mouthful of the scalding tea.

“The Capitol is like a child, more often than not,” explained Carnelian, as her former student drank. “They like a shiny new toy. If you do not want to be played with, you have to entice them with something else. Now, your brother – he has done exactly that, although I imagine he played a very small part in it. You would benefit from doing the same, Dazzle. You need to give them that new toy.”

Despite finishing her warm cup of chamomile tea, Dazzle did not leave her mentor’s house feeling calmer.

November

The snow lay thick on the ground like a smothering blanket. The air was filled with laughing children as they sled down hills on tin trays, accompanied by smoke as cold households lit their fires. Dazzle hated it.

Luckily, the tribute cemetery was quieter than anywhere else. The white marble obelisk rose from the drifts like a warning, each tribute’s name embossed in gold. Beneath it, the graves – two freshly dug – were hidden beneath the sparkling crystal snow. Dazzle could hear her own feet crunching along the frozen ground. If she listened to the echo, she could trick herself into believing she was not alone.

It was considered a waste of good jewellery to bury it with a fallen failure. Dazzle had buried a golden bracelet with her little sister anyway – not on her wrist in her coffin, but amongst the coarse dirt. A tribute’s wooden box was always sealed by the time it arrived home.

Sparkle, her baby sister, was alone in a sealed, wooden box.

When she knelt in the snow, Dazzle felt the ice began to melt through the fabric of her thick tights. She did not cry. Instead, her shaking hand reached out to trace the lettering on her sister’s headstone.

It was her birthday – her eighteenth birthday, her final year of eligibility, her step into adulthood. To celebrate, Sparkle was alone in a sealed, wooden box. Dazzle swallowed a heavy sob. The roaring in her head muffled the crunching of approaching footsteps.

“I thought I’d find you here,” murmured Gem. The snow muffled his voice, as if he was speaking under a duvet or through a screen.

Dazzle looked at her brother’s shoes, trying to wipe away a tear that was threatening to freeze to her face. “You should be packing,” she mumbled, knowing that her older brother was due to be filming something in the Capitol. That was what scared her.

Crouching beside his sister, Gem ignored the comment. He did not dare to fully subject his own legs to the cold ground. “We should leave flowers in the summer,” he suggested, “when it’s warmer and they won’t die. She loved flowers.”

“She loved everything beautiful.”

“Let’s give her lots of beautiful things, then.”

The snow was beautiful. Under its glistening sheet, the graveyard was as pristine as anywhere else in District One. It made the view from Victors’ Village a little more bearable. It did not feel like a gift to Sparkle, who had hated the cold.

“She didn’t have to die, Gem,” said Dazzle, voice as cold as the ground around her.

Where did the blame lie, except with herself? Dazzle had been the one who encouraged her to volunteer, after the president’s demand for a sibling set of beautiful victors. Gem, Dazzle and no one – the final link in the necklace’s chain was dead in the ground.

“The Hunger Games have to happen,” said Gem, although his voice ended with the raised tone of a question. It was not comforting. He was parroting the same learning that they had all received. Then, he continued into something new. “There will be people who die each year. That’s the point – sacrifice. Sparkle made a choice that turned her into the sacrifice, but she’s still important.”

The sob caught in Dazzle’s chest, causing her to cough before she spoke. “I thought she could win.”

“We both know it’s different when you’re actually in there,” mumbled Gem.

It was different when you were in there – when everything smelled of blood and decay, and you were lost without the alliance that was meant to protect you, and there was no way of knowing what was happening around you. Sparkle could not have known that there was another pair. At that point, it was stupid to still be working as a team – she would have been told not to expect it.

If the arena did not follow the rules, training was almost pointless.

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” declared Dazzle, forgetting that someone could be listening. If she admitted it to her sister, it was as if she was admitting it to the world. “I don’t want to train, or mentor. I don’t want to go to the Capitol. I don’t want to be involved in these stupid Games anymore.”

Dazzle expected her brother to stop her rebellious torrent. He should have hurried to silence her or laughed and told her that she was being silly, or reminded her that he should have been more upset because he mentored the boy who had killed their sister. Gem remained silent.

Once she had finished, he shrugged and said, “then you need to get a victor.”

December

Gem did not pack lightly.

His house was an unsettled mess of a busy holiday. Since their mother believed that his house had the best view, the family had gathered around his table for their Winterfest meal. It had been tense conversation which resulted in a lot of leftover food, and everyone had been glad to leave. Now, the only reminder of celebration was the sparkling string which had been wound around the banister in decoration.

Dazzle remained, finding comfort in her older brother’s presence. She perched in his bedroom with the strewn mess of clothing, toiletries and odd shoes. Gem was head-first in a wardrobe full of clothing he had not realised he owned.

“There will be outfits on the train,” murmured Dazzle, as readjusted on her brother’s unmade bed. There was a book in her lap. She was not reading, simply tapping her fingers rhythmically on the abandoned page.

“I don’t want to be dressed in their outfits,” said Gem. He appeared from the wardrobe, armed with two silk shirts. “I don’t want to look like them. I want to be very clear that I’m from One. Burgundy or navy?”

“Burgundy.” Relenting, Dazzled closed her book’s cover. “They’re not that bad at styling, and on my tour-“

“I don’t want anything to do with them.”

Gem trusted his sister, folding the burgundy shirt into a rough pile and placing it in his leather bag. He threw the navy shirt to the pile on the floor. When he looked around at the mess, he rattled with a deep sigh and wiped his hair away with his hand.

“I can repack for you,” offered Dazzle, quietly. “I can have the bag ready for tomorrow, when they come and take you.”

“You shouldn’t have to,” replied Gem. He took a clothing hanger from the wardrobe and rescued the navy shirt from the floor. “I can look after myself.”

“I want to help.”

Dazzle’s voice was as cold as the snow falling outside, but she meant every word. By organising her brother’s bag, she would feel as if she was helping – it was all she could do as he was dragged away on the unwanted victory tour.

The bed creaked beneath her as she leaned over, taking the burgundy shirt and beginning to fold it so that the silk did not crease. It did not matter if it did – the Capitol had a special spray that could make clothing look as if it was brand new – but it meant she was doing something. Dazzle had learned that keeping busy would silence the worried voice in her head.

Gem joined her, falling back into a pillow as he sat down. He covered his face with his arms. “I don’t want to go,” he mumbled, muffled through his jacket. “It was bad enough when I went last month. Now, I have to stand there and smile whilst they all celebrate that damn brat-“

“Then don’t go,” suggested Dazzle. It was not that simple, but she longed for it as if it was. Gem had assured her that nothing had happened on his last visit but that did not mean they were safe. She rescued another shirt and continued to fold.

Gem shook his head. “I don’t think they’d let me avoid a whole victory tour.”

“Tell them you’re sick.”

“I’m his mentor, and the kid’s no use on his own. I saw him when I was in the Capitol. He’s a wreck. Someone will need to tell him what to do.”

Dazzle had decided she did not like the kid. Her brother’s victor had won because the arena had been designed for him. There was no skill in his killing and there was no honour in his audience-pleasing alliance. Gem deserved better than a victor like that.

He deserved better than the tribute who had killed his sister.

“I don’t think you should go,” mumbled Dazzle, willing to offer a problem but unable to think of a solution.

“I don’t mind the tour,” replied Gem, sitting up. “There’s a few people who I’m happy to speak to, and I never thought I’d get to see this districts again after you won.”

The tone of her brother’s voice did not change as he spoke, and Dazzle tried not to think about it too much. “It’s just him,” she suggested.

“Him,” Gem repeated. “I have to look at him the entire time and I’m only going to be able to think of Sparkle.”

Dazzle had almost returned to normality. It took more effort, and she slept in all of her spare time, but she was teaching daily at the academy and working on choosing the next pair of volunteers. It reminded her of the first month of her victory, when being outside of the arena felt exhausting and overwhelming. She had only been able to handle that because of her brother. He was providing a familiar pillar of support again.

It was impossible to imagine a whole month without him.

Holding her brother’s clothing to her chest without folding it, Dazzle tried to fight back the tears threatening to spring at her eyes. It was weak to cry.

“What?” asked Gem, who knew his sister too well. “What’s wrong?”

Dazzle sniffed. “I don’t want to be on my own,” she mumbled, dreading the silence of an empty house that awaited her. Her brother was being stolen before they could even toast the approaching year, sat together with steaming bowls of hearty, black-eyed pea soup.

Shuffling forward on his bed, Gem wrapped an arm around his sister. Dazzled leaned into the family comfort.

“I’ll be back before you know it,” he reassured, quietly. “Use this time to focus, just like we said. Make time for the academy and for choosing the volunteers. When you get your victor, we can have everything we ever wanted without having to go to the Capitol.”

Dazzle nodded as he spoke. Their new plan – their plan without their youngest sister – was as familiar to her as a bedtime story.

“When I get my victor,” repeated Dazzle, trying to comfort herself with certainty.

Chapter Text

Alyssa Revere

September

As she entered the training gymnasium, Alyssa held her breath. The building’s sharp, stinging burn of disinfectant clawed at her nose as she walked in the silent line. Their outside boots left scuffs of dirt on the polished floor. With a silent nod, they were sent to stand beside the wall and remove them. Alyssa had cleaned her training shoes so that they were a sparkling white, her own ritual for the first day back.

There was a handful of brave students who risked a whispered conversation. Otherwise, the orderly group of twenty children were silent. Alyssa kept her mouth tightly closed. She only snatched a breath when she grew desperate. Amongst the fastest to be ready, she stood waiting on the line painted across the sprung floor. She feigned attention by staring at the clock.

“Well, it’s good to see that some of us are ready,” announced Janus, in the scathing tone he used when disappointed.

It was an unvoiced warning, and it spurred the remainder of the class to move faster. They lined up without a mutter amongst.

“There are going to be some changes,” explained Janus, pacing like a roving wolf. “It’s been too long since we had a victor in District One. We are becoming a laughing stock on Panem’s stage, and we can’t afford to keep messing around.

Alyssa’s breath hitched. The acidic disinfectant burned her throat. She smothered the cough that threatened to upset her.

The training gymnasium had once been a comfort to her. Where was the familiar smell of the training mats, sprayed with the lavender cleaning spray? Where was the musk of the polish used on the climbing bars? Where was the sweet, enveloping aroma of the ropes which reminded Alyssa of her straw mattress? The building had been scrubbed of every memory she once held.

“There’s no time to train you together, focusing on people who do not care to improve. Instead, you’ll be placed into one of four groupings. At the end of the year, anyone in the fourth group will be dropped from the academy. You’ll want to be in the first group. That is the group where we will be considering volunteers.”

“Why would you want to volunteer?” mumbled a girl, when Janus had paced to the other end of her line. She nudged her friend beside her as she spoke. “They keep coming home in a wooden box anyway.”

Alyssa bit her tongue, clenching her fists until her nails bit into her palm.

Surely, she would be placed in the first group. Alyssa had been among the specially-selected few who were already allowed to train with real weaponry, Her name would be inked there on the register. She had nothing to fear.

Janus carried a board formed of black acrylic, a metal clip holding a sheet of typed notes. As he took his place at the centre of the waiting line, his eyes roved across the information.

“Fourth group,” he announced, loudly. “Opal Wythe, Sequin Burnish…”

As the list continued, Alyssa waited. Patience was a key quality for a good volunteer. She was determined to demonstrate it. Her name was not called in the fourth group, or in the third.

“Alyssa Revere,” read Janus, in the midst of the second group’s trainees.

When she unfurled her fist, Alyssa winced as her hands cracked into position. Her focus had wandered with the long list of names. Had she missed the switch to the first group’s register? If that was the case, it was a weakness she needed to fix.

It was a difficult step forward, as if her feet had been glued to the line. Alyssa dragged herself back into the familiar routine, repeating to herself that she was simply out of practice. By training with the first group, she would quickly fall back into everything she had already learned.

Janus reached the end of his category and started to announce the first group’s register with a quick glance to Alyssa.

October

It was Alyssa’s only secret from her father: a hastily packed academy uniform in a leather school satchel alongside unfinished reading and unsharpened pencils. Alyssa was not academic. Instead, she spent every lesson daydreaming about the crowd cheering as she returned as a victor.

It was a short walk from the school building to the academy, and many people made it. They skipped together through the vibrant piles of fallen leaves. Then, the routine was to change into the training uniform at school, fighting for cubicles in the small bathrooms. Alyssa wandered in the automatic crowd. They laughed and joked with each other as they pushed open the door to the locker room – ignoring Alyssa, because she was no longer someone who enjoyed conversation.

Luckily, Alyssa’s assigned locker was near the door. She only needed to endure the forced silence whilst she slipped on her training shoes.

Her father believed that she was doing homework with a friend, or attending extra tuition, or looking for part-time work – nothing to do with training. That had been strictly forbidden when her brother had been shot in the arena. Alyssa had listened to sobbed stories about how the Revere family could better themselves without threat to their life, and she had disagreed with them.

As she left the locker room to seek out the second group, Alyssa tried to lower her shoulders and calm her breathing. Her jaw ached from gritted teeth. It was a reminder that she was struggling with self-control. She could not suffer from the same distraction as her brother. She could not make those mistakes. She could not lose.

However, standing amongst the people who were not quite good enough sent tension soaring back through her body. Alyssa knew she needed to work harder. She was better than the second group. It was impossible to tell why she had been trapped there.

November

At the academy, it was a sin to be summoned to the faculty lounge.

Alyssa stood in the position that mimicked the military precision of a Peacekeeper. It was taught for them to show respect, but she could use it to hide her twisting hands. With her feet slightly apart, her trembling was invisible.

The room was tired. Whilst there were chairs, their upholstery was faded and stained. A kettle was boiling with a loud hum, but Alyssa could see the grey scum encrusted around the lid and spout. There was a mentor waiting but he looked tired and unwell.

Gem waited for the boiling water with his back to his summoned student. His caffeinated drink – an instant alternative to the coffee advertised between screen broadcasts – took priority. Alyssa’s fear was slowly fading to frustration.

Her mentor could command attention. Gem Lustre’s reputation was that of a skilled showman, a photogenic victor who would take longer with a kill if it looked better on camera. Alyssa did not find him particularly useful as a teacher. He was too lenient, with a focus on flair over skill. District One no longer had time for flair.

When he had taken his first sip of his drink, Gem finally turned around. “You’re a skilled fighter, Alyssa,” he began, in a voice that sounded as tired as the room. “I’m not concerned about your progress.”

Gem placed his mug on a coffee table and sat on one of the old chairs. He gestured for Alyssa to join him. She did, reluctantly.

“Thank you, sir,” she mumbled, when the pause grew uncomfortable. Alyssa stared at the floor to hide her blush at the unexpected compliment – she had anticipated a scolding, especially as a second group waif.

“I have a soft spot for you,” continued Gem. It was as if he was trying to catch one thought from a thousand flying around him. He could not sit still; as he spoke, he crossed and uncrossed his arms and his legs. “I see a bright future for you. That being said, it was my choice to move you down to the second group. Would you like a drink?”

Alyssa’s mouth flooded with a bitter taste. She shook her head, not wanting the coffee to add to it. “I am fine, thank you,” she replied, forcing trained politeness, “but with respect, sir, why did you move me?”

“Tea?” offered Gem, ignoring her. “Hot cocoa?”

The sweet drink – often served with cream, if they could afford it – was tempting. Alyssa still shook her head. “Why did you move me?” she asked, again.

If she knew the reasoning, she could argue with it or she could fix it. Alyssa hoped that either option would offer her a promotion.

There was a window in the faculty lounge. Rather than a view of the town outside, Alyssa could stare out across the gymnasium. The first group were training with real blades and real chances.

“We didn’t know if you’d come back to training after the summer, considering everything,” admitted Gem. “I certainly didn’t expect to see you back.”

As the information washed over her, Alyssa’s chest burned as if collapsing in on itself. Her brother’s failure continued to impact every moment of her training. She protested, “there was no doubt about me coming back, sir. I belong here.”

“Perhaps.” Gem leaned forward and retrieved his drink, taking a sip. “I don’t think you should be here, though.”

Alyssa’s respect for her mentor – what little there had been – was slowly bleeding out. She sat up in her chair and raised the volume of her voice, desperate to be heard. “I know I can do well here. I can show you-“

“You need to consider your brother,” interrupted Gem, shaking his head.

The meeting was a scolding. Alyssa had heard her brother’s name whispered like an insult since the broadcast ended. He had been a boring, predictable fighter taken out too son by someone who used a coward’s weapon. She had considered Ferro Revere – someone she missed with all her being – every single day.

“I will be better than him,” she promised.

Alyssa excelled with a bow and arrow, but she did not rely on poisoning the tip of her weaponry. She was better than that. She was better than everyone. She had no choice but to be.

“You shouldn’t have to be better,” said Gem. “Alyssa-“

“I will!” interrupted Alyssa, pleading.

If she volunteered, there would no longer be a missed meal when they needed to buy new shoes. There would no need for her father to work shifts at three different factories to make ends meet. There would be no need to hide in the shame that their brother had thrown them into. Victory was her path – her only path – to freedom, to honour, to opportunity.

“Ferro is dead,” stated Gem, as if she had not noticed – as if she had not noticed the whispered insults which followed her around, or the empty house that was cold without her brother’s presence, or the father that was slipping further and further away from her. Training was the only thing of value that she had left.

“I won’t die,” reassured Alyssa, who did not believe she was weak enough to fail.

Gem, a coward, stood up so that he could turn his back on her again. “That’s not the point,” he said, frustrated. “You need to give yourself chance to mourn, Alyssa. You’re throwing yourself into this far too hard. You don’t want to be in that arena. No one should want it.”

“I do want it.”

Alyssa was forceful in her honesty. She needed to taste success, savouring the sweetness of proving everyone else wrong.

When her mentor matched her volume, his voice rattled the windows in their rotting frames. “I know what it is like to lose someone in that arena-“

“And you know what it’s like to have someone win!” spat Alyssa, forgetting her manners. “Let me have that, at least. I can do it. I promise. And we need a victor, don’t we?”

“Winning does not mean what you think it does.” Gem took a deep breath as if he was going to continue his argument, but then he sighed. The silence was sudden. Pointedly, he asked, “are you certain that you want to do this?”

“Yes,” answered Alyssa, immediately.

Gem ran his hand through his hair, looking more dishevelled than he ever had done since his victory. Then, he turned and pointed to her as if scolding a child. “If you do this, I am keeping a very close eye on you,” he said, in a threat that was not threatening. “I’m keeping you in the second group for now. You do not have to do this, Alyssa.”

“I do,” insisted Alyssa.

December

“What are you doing?”

At the sound of her father’s restrained voice, Alyssa paused as she pushed her training uniform into her satchel. Their apartment was meant to be empty. Her father had buried himself in work and was rarely in their home at all. She had told him that pushing himself to breaking point was not healthy, but she could hardly blame him when she was doing the same thing. It was easy to bury grief in archery and hand-to-hand combat.

They had not even decorated for the winter, leaving the candles and the shining paper chains in the box in the understairs cupboard. It was difficult to feel ready for a celebration when not every guest would be there.

“I thought you threw that out,” her father continued, stepping from their small kitchen and into the tight hallway. They were lucky to have their own space – in the backstreets, many families shared a property with each other. “I watched you. You threw out your training bag and your shoes too, and we didn’t pay your enrolment fee. You gave it all up, Alyssa.”

Her father sounded hopeful, as if making a birthday wish on a dying candle.

Alyssa glanced at the door. In the heavy snow, it took her longer to trek to school, and she needed to be leaving. Her father noticed as she slowly tried to push the uniform further into her bag.

“What is going on?” he asked, cold.

He had encouraged her to bundle each belonging into an old sack and throw it into the shared garbage bin. Alyssa had not kept her promise. She had crept out reclaimed everything the same night, alongside filling out the enrolment paperwork and figuring out a payment plan with her brother’s saved coins. He no longer had use for them.

“Alyssa,” demanded her father.

Her hand retreated from the bag, empty. “I didn’t want to give it up,” she mumbled. “I’m doing well there.”

It was difficult for her to do well elsewhere. Her father worked enough to keep her from the factory, so she had no practical skill. Her schoolwork was decorated in absent-minded ink blots and rarely scored enough to keep her in the class. Her brother had told her not to worry – she could throw herself into training and flourish, just like him.

Ferro had fallen short, but Alyssa refused to follow his example.

“How could you lie to me?”

If her father had roared in anger and thrown a mug at the wall, Alyssa would have known how to navigate the shards littering the floor. Instead, he whispered.

Alyssa readjusted the uncomfortable satchel. “I’m doing well that,” she repeated, as if it was all she needed. Her family needed her to do well. They never had enough. They had never been enough. The path to victory was a well-trodden one, but it was their way out of everything.

“This is what killed your brother,” said her father, bluntly.

He had never been good with emotion. When Alyssa had cried as a young child, her father had only ever patted her on the back awkwardly. Ferro had been the one to comfort her – to hug her and to hum pointless tunes as she fell asleep.

The training academy had not killed her brother. The mentors had not killed her brother. The Capitol, for all it had laughed at Ferro’s death, had not killed her brother. Alyssa could recite this, but it would mean nothing to her father.

“I’m in the second group anyway,” she reassured, coldly. “They only pick a volunteer from the first. I just wanted something to do.”

Her father stared at the door behind her rather than at her. “And if they pick you anyway?”

“I’d refuse.” Alyssa spoke with such certainty that she almost believed herself. “Volunteering isn’t perfect, though. My name has already been called once. I’d rather be prepared if it happened again and the volunteer fell through.”

And think of the riches if I won, she wanted to add. Her dream was not worth the argument it would cause.

Her father was a hollow shell of himself. There was tense silence where there had once been laughter. There were cold, stale meals where he had once cooked. There was despair where there had once been pride. Alyssa missed him too – enough that her heart ached with lost in the same was as it did for her brother. It was easier to bury herself in the search for success than it was to address it.

“You do well there?” asked her father, his voice breaking.

Alyssa looked at the floor. She hated seeing her father cry, and it had happened often since the summer. “Yes,” she replied, softly. “Gem is looking after me, too. He offered considering-“

“Considering what you share, I suppose.”

Their family was not the only one who juggled their loss with their shame. Was it more honourable to be killed by the inevitable victor, or by the person who should have been?

“He’ll look after you,” continued her father, leaning against the kitchen’s doorframe. “He won’t make you volunteer. I think he regrets…”

Although his voice trailed away, he did not need to finish. Gem and Dazzle’s regret was as obvious as their success – but they persisted, because that was all you could do.

“I won’t volunteer,” lied Alyssa.

The fight seeped from her father’s body like blood. “If you’re doing well,” he relented.

“I am.”

Alyssa opened the front door before her father could protest. She was doing well. She would be a volunteer. She would be a victor.

Chapter Text

Icarus Shale

September

Icarus pulled his thin blanket further up his body, covering his shivering shoulders but exposing his feet to the cold chill creeping through the barracks. Outside, the trees were still dressed in burning leaves, but winter was gently whispering across District Two.

It was still his first week. He could not sleep amongst the rattling snoring of other people. Icarus could not remember why he had fought so hard to be there, with the tolling of the Justice Building’s clock reminding him of every passing hour.

“Not everyone will make a good Peacekeeper,” the head of the academy had told him. “That is why we encourage some people to volunteer instead. Unfortunately, that opportunity has passed. It is my recommendation that you return home and look for a career in masonry.”

Icarus had politely demanded that they accept him. They were unable to decline – he had passed every physical class and scored highly in academic testing. Now, he did not want to be there. He stared at the dark ceiling above him until his eyes watered and burned, but he would never admit to crying.

Tomorrow, the exhaustion would creep into his movement. He would be yelled at by a drill sergeant for his sloppiness. Complaints would be made about him. Icarus was supposed to be promising. He was supposed to be the best candidate. He was supposed to be a tribute.

Icarus’ stomach rolled with a longing that would not fade. It did not matter if he lay on his side of his back – it sat heavy like nausea, an illness which had no cure. He clenched his fists beneath his rough covers and tried to time his own breathing with the lucky, sleeping boys around him.

That arena had been for him.

Whenever he tried to empty his mind of buzzing thoughts, that fact returned to him. Icarus had watched the screen in his every waking moment. He would have flourished.

The academy provided little survival training but when they did, it was specialised to temperate forests. Icarus could climb and enjoyed scaling tall, metal structures. There was bountiful weaponry that he could have wielded with honour, rather than poisoning arrows and killing from a distance.

If he had been there, Epona would have been saved from her slow and dishonourable death. They would have reached the final two as a pair, ending it all with a traditional duel where the victor would have earned their privileges – or would they?

The unknown ate at Icarus like a vicious parasite. It was impossible to know what might have happened. Epona could have died as easily to someone else, or Icarus – as much as he hated to admit it – could have fallen for a trap.

Surely, it would still have been better than the reality where some Capitol brat had fumbled with a makeshift weapon and managed to win. District Two had been forced to settle for second. They hated coming second.

Icarus knew that he would be a good Peacekeeper. It was why he had argued for his place there, in a freezing barracks where he could not sleep. He was good at everything. If it was his destiny, he would succeed – but he should have been a victor.

He should have been famous. He should have been successful. He should have been warm and comfortable in a large house rather than lying awake with freezing feet. It was not enough to be a Peacekeeper, but the opportunity to be anything else had been stolen from him. That was what kept him awake.

October

“Keep away from anyone who tries to flee,” barked a commanding voice. “We don’t want to catch anything that they’ve got and bring it back with us.”

Icarus remained in formation, marching alongside a boy next to him despite not knowing who he was. They were jumbled together in desperation: women with men, experienced with new, district with district. District Five needed every guard that could be spared, and Icarus would serve there as long as he was needed.

He did not like his new home. District Five was a sprawling city forced into a small area, drowned in air filled with smoke and foul-smelling smog. The people would cross the street to avoid him. They spat in the footsteps of Peacekeepers and used their identities as insults. It was no wonder that illness was spreading rapidly amongst them.

Hiding his displeasure beneath his helmet, Icarus gritted his teeth and continued to march. The shadowed buildings were beginning to thin. Finally, sun could break through the tangle of concrete. It was not a sign of hope. They approached a building amongst the most repugnant in the district: the Cell.

Icarus had been in the Cell before. They were warned that it was a rebellious den of ill repute and that any Peacekeeper seen there in uniform would be punished – but the regiment would gather wherever hearty food and plentiful alcohol could be found.

This visit was not to be filled with revelry. They had been carefully briefed, with the front line armed with flamethrowers whilst everyone else carried a pistol. Icarus knew his order – he was to stand and wait for further instruction, whilst higher-ranking officials ended the chaos inside.

By that evening, the black market would be reduced to smouldering ashes like a tribute’s campfire. The constant crowd – and therefore, the constant spread of disease – would be halted. District Five would be kept inside with a strict curfew and forbidden from gathering in groups. The Capitol’s command would keep them safe.

It was already buzzing with brazen activity when they arrived. The law’s presence sent criminals scattering from the Cell with their pockets of stolen goods. It was an old factory with a high roof. Icarus could hear booted footsteps echoing through cracked windows as he waited by the western exit.

The initial blast of heat was like opening an oven on a summer’s day. Inside, the wooden tables and vats of brewing liquor were flammable. The dilapidated walls took in the bright flames and spewed panic from the wide doors.

Icarus did not fire, or pursue, or shout. He was there to stand watch until told otherwise.

As the crowed forced themselves to freedom, Icarus was harshly jostled from side to side. There was distant screaming. Shouting echoed in the roaring flames as they continued to spread and soon, the fleeing people were marred by bright red burns.

There was a gunshot – a rumbling explosion in the centre of the rebellious maze. Icarus could not stop himself from flinching. They were not supposed to be firing. This mission was necessary to stop the spread of disease. Whilst the burning was inevitable, a fired gun was to kill.

In the thundering footsteps, there was another. The sky soon sang with the continual firing of pistols in the midst of the flame. Icarus had been told to watch, so he did not move.

Someone was watching with him.

The figure stood still, obvious in the sea of movement. They did not turn and run with the crowd. They did not stop anyone to help them.

Breaking protocol, Icarus removed his helmet. The acrid smoke was hanging thick in the air, and it was difficult to breathe through his black visor, but it also offered him a clearer view.

He did not recognise the figure because he knew them. Instead, he knew of them.

“Sunnie?” he called, before he could bite his tongue. “Sunnie Evander?”

Icarus had watched every publicly available broadcast of the Hunger Games. He had studied how the quiet, blonde-girl from Five had maximised her opportunity with an ally before slitting his throat as he slept. Her rough-cut, badly-dyed hair did not disguise her.

At the shout, she turned away from the fire. Sunnie looked at him from his regulation boots to the helmet in his hand, to the hair that was beginning to grow back on his head.

Sunnie turned, confirming her identity. She appeared to look him over from his regulation boots, to the helmet in his grasp, to the buzzcut across his head that was beginning to grow back in. She performed the action with a neutral expression that showed her disgust at the people of power.

“What is this?” she asked, in a cold voice scorched by the smoke. The question was punctuated with a brief wave at the burning building. “What are you doing here?”

“Civilians are not entitled to an explanation of our orders,” replied Icarus, parroting the scripted response they had been taught. He stepped closer as the crowd continued their escape around him. “You should go home, Miss Evander. This isn’t the place for a victor.”

“If it is a place for my friends, it is the place of a victor,” replied Sunnie.

Icarus briefly wished he was still wearing his helmet, so that the smirk on his face was hidden from the rebellious victor. Sunnie Evander was admitting to associating with a black market of illegally imported goods and questionable activities. It was not a surprise. In the outer districts, you could only win if you placed your humanity aside.

He would have been a model victor, with a good upbringing and loyalty running through him like blood.

Sunnie glanced back at the burning building, but there was no emotion in her watercolour eyes. She did not really care for it. “Are you going to help the people trapped inside?”

There was no one trapped inside. The Peacekeepers were there to help people – not burn them.

“Home, Sunnie,” he ordered. The switch to her first name was a deliberate act to disarm her. Not every victor was worthy of respect. “There will be an announcement later. We’re stopping the spread of this disease before it travels any further. No unauthorised gatherings, and a curfew that you’ll be breaking if you stay much longer.”

“I’m familiar with skirting the rules,” spat Sunnie.

 Icarus ignored his instruction, certain that his superiors had not considered a stubborn victor in their plans. His hand went to the standard-issue pistol in his belt. The chaotic crowd were listening to the law. They feared it, which was why they ran. Sunnie Evander did not seem to fear anything.

“Home.” Icarus pointed the gun at the victor’s chest. Finally, there was a flicker of fear across her smug face. “Victors are not exempt from the law.”

November

Icarus betrayed the training which had disciplined him, becoming weak in his own distraction. He had been entrusted with an individual patrol. He had a task to wander District Five’s main city in the search for illegal gatherings. Instead, he had been dragged into a screen.

There was no one willing to travel to the disease-ridden district. As a result, the screen which had been assembled for the reaping remained on the wall of the Justice Building. It still displayed Channel One to the empty city, broadcasting for people who were not allowed to leave their homes.

With the victory tour approaching, it was repeating the Hunger Games. Icarus watched as his arena passed by without his influence. Epona lived on in the broadcast, confidently approaching a feast that would be her inevitable downfall. The boy – the false volunteer – had poisoned her. Icarus had managed to miss his partner’s death, exhausted by training and asleep by the time she had fallen. He had watched the feast. He could not watch it again.

Icarus turned away, immediately catching a crowd of four people disappearing into a side street.

There was a cursed shout trapped beneath his helmet. If he had been paying attention, he might have caught them and completed their duty without a chase through the dark.

It was easy to catch up with them. Icarus was trained in speed, and the group did not try to run.

“There’s a curfew,” he ordered, stopping where the path broke away in a fork. “I demand to know where you are going.”

The group had split themselves into two pairings and had set off down separate streets – only gatherings of three or more were banned, and Icarus hated their foresight.

“School,” shrugged one, as if it was a weekday’s early morning. She wore a pink dress trimmed with fine lace – a merchant.

“It’s nearly midnight,” argued Icarus.

“Night classes,” tried another. He was black haired and dressed in an old coat, speaking with an accent that differed from the girl. It was as if he was trying mimic hers, but it slipped in and out like a faulty generator.

Icarus did not like the way that the boy paced, tracing circles with dragging feet like a caged animal. He opened his mouth to argue with the weak excuse. Before he could, the boy darted forward and punched him on the jaw.

The helmet’s visor shattered, sending a spider-webbed crack swimming across the glass. Icarus’ neck jarred with the sudden movement of the weight. The boy took advantage of the shock, taking the helmet and wrenching it from Icarus’ head to laughs and jeers from his friends.

Icarus pulled his baton from the holster on his belt and was faced with four moving targets. It did not faze him – the inner-district alliance he had been trained to beat would have been four moving targets.

In the dark street, a dance began. It was a choreographed side-step of avoidance, with a jab forward to attack. Icarus missed as much as the group did, but his baton was stronger. He made contact with two unidentifiable heads.

The pink-dressed girl, with her airs and her accents, pulled a knife from her sleeve. A cold blade was biting at Icarus’ cheek before he even noticed the weapon. It cut up, down, right, leaving jagged scarring across his cheek as it bled crimson.

“Some ‘keeper,” she scoffed, jabbing her knife into his face harder. “You’re not welcome in Five. Going to send you home with a scarred face as a warning.”

It was not an arena, where fighting was entertainment. Icarus threw his baton to the ground. He took his gun from his belt and fired before he could think.

Whilst her accomplices scattered, the girl was hit squarely with the bullet. The pink of her dressed seeped with carmine. It dripped like poison. She was dead before she hit the floor.

Icarus watched her still body for longer than regulation dictated. They had never been allowed to fire at living targets during training – but it had been easy. He felt nothing except for the pain in his wrist from the shock of the gun’s recall.

Killing was a personal endeavour – blade as an extension of his arm, blood drawn with blood. A ranged weapon was a coward’s weapon.

Feeling for his standard-issue radio, Icarus sighed. A kill in the arena would not have come with paperwork.

December

Icarus did not understand why homesickness was pooling in the pit of his stomach as he wandered, alone, through District Five’s empty streets. The merchant houses had sparse Winterfest decorations in their warm windows, but they were nothing like the stone figures that adorned every windowsill back in District Two. He decided it was probably just a reminder that he would not be home before the family holiday.

The disease was still spreading, undeterred by their hard work. Icarus had supposedly been banned from individual patrols since his minor indiscretion but now, they patrolled alone in case anyone began to cough. Everyone wanted to go home at the beginning of the new year, but quarantine hung over them as a harsh threat.

With every step, Icarus wanted more. He needed to prove himself before he was returned to District Two. There were big, illegal gatherings rumoured to be happening across Five – and Icarus believed he knew where to find one.

Sunnie Evander was stood on the merchant’s street, illuminated by a streetlamp as if brazenly telling the world that she was breaking the law. An outer-district victor was often a harbinger of rebellion and Icarus was going to torch it, just as they had done with the Cell.

“Miss Evander,” he called, making his voice louder as if he was a monster lurking in the shadows. “I thought I told you that victors aren’t exempt from the law.”

His surprise arrival was effective. Sunnie jumped, hand trailing to her belt for a knife that had only existed in the arena.

Icarus lifted his visor, ensuring the victor recognised him. “There’s no need to fight me. Calm down, or I’ll be forced to use force against you.”

“I’m entitled to visit my old property,” argued Sunnie, in a voice that trembled with weakness. Icarus revelled in the sound of her fear.

“There’s a curfew,” he pushed, stepping closer in a march. “You know this. Besides, loitering with intent has been a crime for a very long time.”

Sunnie was a loiterer – turning up in places which did not need her presence, sticking her nose into issues when she was not content with her victory. Icarus would never have been that kind of victor. He deserved the position more than she did.

“Intent to do what?” asked Sunnie. Before her answer was supplied, she turned and walked out of the light with a quick pace.

Jogging to catch up with his criminal, Icarus walked beside her. “Intent to rebel, for a start,” he began. It was difficult to hide the grin that threatened to spread across his face. “There is no good reason for anyone to be standing around an abandoned building several hours into their curfew.”

The abandoned building was the old confectioners. It had been featured on enough broadcasts to be recognisable. Sunnie clearly missed her life before the arena where she stood in a frivolous shop and sold pointless candies. She had been caught, and now she was walking away as if it had never happened.

“Indeed,” she replied. The volume dropped whilst the sarcastic politeness remained. “Well, I was simply keeping an eye on the herd of squatters that have appeared to have moved in since my family left the building. I can trust you to take care of them, can’t I?”

Icarus glanced at the building as they walked away. It was abandoned – every entrance was boarded up and the step to the porch was littered with undisturbed debris. It was possible that she was finally going mad and giving in to delusion.

“Leave it with me,” he offered. “Now, Miss Evander, I must deal with you. You’re welcome to roam Victors’ Village if you wish to take air on an evening but otherwise, you must follow the law. People will start to think you are indulging in rebellious acts if we keep finding you out after curfew.”

“Victor and rebel do not often sit in the same sentence,” she said, coldly.

It was a lie as chilling as the winter air around them. Icarus did not trust a single victor who did not come from District Two. In the Capitol’s terms, they were monsters.

“You’d be surprised.” He managed to disguise the vitriol that flooded through him at the victor’s statement. “I studied you all, you know. I thought that the victors were the epitome of success. I am starting to realise that you’re not.”

Sunnie stared straight ahead. “Nobody decent tends to win.”

Icarus considered the 95^th Hunger Games, and the cowardly brats who had outlasted his training partner. He scoffed. “You don’t have to tell me twice,” he replied, as he kept pace with the guilty victor. “If I were you, I’d stay away from anything that might lead you to betray Panem. I don’t think I have to explain betrayal to you, Miss Evander.”

Chapter Text

Pedro Marin-Cortez

September

Pedro did not cry, but grief bubbled up like water in riverside mud and threatened to spill out when he least expected it. “Your kindness has meant the world to me,” he managed, as he took his landlady’s hand in his own.

“Oh, it was hardly kindness,” replied Beryl. “You and your boy looked so lost on that first day, it would have taken a monster to not offer you a room.”

“Panem has many monsters,” Pedro mumbled.

Beryl was a mining machine, dredging kindness from a quarry of discontent. It was not just the room, where she had waived rent until he had found a paid role. She had cooked them a hot meal every evening and helped them with the endless paperwork designed to take them in circles. Pedro had fond memories of sitting around her kitchen table and practicing an unfamiliar tongue with his son – a lost son, who had been ripped from him by Panem’s cold claws.

Whilst the world celebrated victory, Beryl had held Pedro as he mourned. Now, she stood on the edge of a grand farewell with a loaf of bread and a cheese in a cloth cover. Beryl tried to force both into Pedro’s hesitant hand.

“Keep in touch,” she urged. She watched across Pedro’s shoulder as if looking for an enemy.  In reality, she was checking to see if her son was wandering home from school. Jasper could be the enemy – Pedro was finding it difficult to tell. “I want to hear about your time, Pedro, and about what you’re doing with yourself. And you should come back too, when it’s been long enough. They’ll accept you here eventually.

Pedro scoffed, laughing painfully through a suppressed sob. “I do not think that is true.”

It was easy to ignore the people who spat at his feet in the market. He could pretend he had not heard the cold, cruel comments which were muttered as he wandered past. District Two treated him as if he was a criminal. His only crime was having a son who had volunteered – something they celebrated in their own children.

Leon had nearly won, too. Pedro had watched his son become a monster for no reason.

He needed to leave. With his worldly possessions in an old rucksack and Beryl’s offer of food in his arms, Pedro’s plan was to wander to a quarry out in the east. They were so desperate for workers that they would not question his family name. His chest ached whenever he remembered he was leaving his boy behind in a box, buried in foreign dirt.

“They will,” said Beryl, solidly. “They will accept you. If you’re being forced to live here, you should learn to embrace it and live here with friends.”

Pedro would never embrace the country that had taken his son. He loved Beryl, even as she spouted the opinion that was drilled into her, and embraced her in a final goodbye. If he had lived there as long as she had, he may have repeated the same ideas.

There was no chance of that now. Pedro was going to keep his head down and then he was going to leave, no matter what it took from him. If he died trying, he would be with his son.

October

Pedro was smothered by grey as if it was the smoke of an all-encompassing fire. It was woven through his rough, regulation blanket. The paint was crusted with persistent stone dust. The autumn’s clouds never separated enough for the sun to shine. Pedro choked on it with every waking moment and tried to wash the foul taste from his mouth with strong liquor.

There was one reprieve from the dull depression: the high visibility jackets, sewn of a sickeningly bright yellow. They were nothing like the warmth of his beloved southern lands. Pedro dreaded wearing them. It made him feel seen.

He took another swig from the unlabelled, brown bottle that had been left in the quarry’s boarding house. The other men had disappeared for the evening – somehow, they still had the energy to go and drink at a nearby tavern despite their long shift. Pedro would occasionally go with them.

It was his son’s birthday. He wanted to mourn alone.

The liquor burned his throat. Eventually, it would swirl in his head and drag him down into a slumber that was not plagued by nightmares. Pedro did not mind death. In the southern lands, it was an honoured part of life.

It was meant to be private, between a person and their family. Death was not a loser’s consolation, fought for in a manufactured arena. Leon had forced himself into a competition that had no place for him. In return, the Capitol had broadcast his slow, painful demise – or had they?

Pedro understood that other people were calling him crazy. The alcohol stopped him from caring. Whenever the Hunger Games were repeated in a broadcast, he poured across the final fight. Leon was unconscious, lying beside the eventual victor. His chest was still moving up and down. He was still gasping for breath during the serenade of the trumpets.

The Capitol had chosen to kill his son, and that was why he chose to drown his sorrows in black market alcohol. Pedro would either sleep or die slowly from alcohol poisoning throughout the night. He did not mind either way.

There was one final option: he could leave.

Around him, there were people who did not belong anywhere. No one with promise and potential would choose to work in an edge quarry. They were the people with criminal records who could not work elsewhere. They were the people with changed names to forget some terrible idea. They were the people that did not like Panem, and Panem did not like them. Whispering grew in that hatred.

Pedro had taken care to bring an atlas with him. It was one of Leon’s old schoolbooks, filled with incorrect maps which had been corrected by his son’s careless pencil. There was someone who lurked in the local tavern who could use their knowledge to plot a path. Pedro knew how to navigate. He did not understand Panem.

He needed someone to help him, but he would give anything to make sure that it happened.

November

“I want out,” muttered Pedro, pushing his hard-earned money into the reluctant hand of a stranger. “Me ajude, por favor. I want out of this land.”

He did not trust easily, but currency could ease any relationship. This man – Bastion – had been whispered about as someone who could help. He traded in a forbidden currency: maps.

“Be careful who you’re speaking with,” Bastion warned, in a gruff voice. “Walls can have ears around here.”

There was no point in pretending to understand District Two’s strange turn of phrase. Once Pedro thought he had a grasp on a word, it was being turned on its head in a new sentence.

No one was going to hear them speaking, anyway. There were very few perks to a position in an edge quarry, but the machinery was loud and the atmosphere in the tavern was louder. The chatter around them, casual and benign, was a cloak. People were more interested in filling their glasses than in the conversation of strangers.

Bastion swilled the beer in his glass around as if sampling a fine wine, finishing it in one large swallow. “Don’t need your money anyway,” he replied, forcing the handful of paper and coins back into Pedro’s lap. “Traceable, and pointless when they only take scrip here.”

“Anything, then,” promised Pedro. If his freedom was on the line, he was willing to beg beyond the confines of currency. “You take people from here, don’t you? You show them out?”

“Who’s been saying that?

Bastion pushed his empty glass across the stained bar top. Like a king on a throne, he turned his stool to face Pedro with a face as hard as stone.

“I take no responsibility for any of that illegal bullshit,” he said, clearly and slowly as if speaking to a child, “but if I did, I wouldn’t be stupid enough to arrange it in here. I wouldn’t be stupid enough to take cash for it. I know who you are. You’re that volunteer kid’s father, and you’re trying to get back to Ten.”

“I do not come from Ten,” argued Pedro.

“Wherever, then.” Bastion folded his arms. “I might – might – be willing to share information with you if you do the same back. I scratch your back, you scratch mine.”

He stretched out each syllable of the request. Pedro understood but wished he had the freedom of confusion. The Capitol had interviewed him about their history in District Ten when it became obvious that Leon had not grown up around stone. Pedro’s chest still tightened at the thought of his vague lies being broadcast to the nation.

Bastion traded with maps, and Pedro had an abundance of them. He charted his own land. He became his own cartographer. Panem’s maps were wrong, and he knew how to fix them.

“I’ll make you a map,” promised Pedro, sailing on the edge of desperation. “A map of where I come from, and the route we sailed. I’ll show you where the southern lands are. They do not show you those.”

He expected a pause, where Bastion feigned a casual nature about his curiosity. There would be questions, wide-eyed, about the forbidden world.

“Where’d you come in?” asked Bastion, instead. Their arrival from another world had already been discovered.

“Four.” Pedro glanced down, playing with his hands like a nervous child. “We sailed through water in Four, got rounded up by their big ships.”

“I can’t get you back to Four.” Bastion’s brutal honesty seemed upsetting, as if he longed for the challenge. “Through Nine could work, but it’s brutal in the winter. Long walk, too. Ten would be better if you’re familiar with the southern lands already. Or I could get you to Five. Reckon that would come out on the same coast you sailed in on.”

“Ten or Five,” begged Pedro, “or Nine, por favor. I need out.”

“Volume,” scolded Bastion. He shook his head. “Besides, I don’t specialise in getting people out. I can get you to another district. After that, it’s on you.”

Pedro agreed to those terms – to any terms – because he would do whatever it took to leave. He had crossed the world to be trapped in Panem. He could retrace those steps to find his way home.

December

Pedro clutched his son’s old atlas to his chest, as if it allowed him to hold the boy he had lost. The childish drawings across the pages were gone. His son’s memory had been attacked by an eraser, but Pedro knew that it would be worth the pain. He had traced an accurate representation of the southern lands beyond Panem’s rule instead.

Hidden amongst the pages, Pedro had sketched his own maps on stolen cream paper. They had each been dredged up from a very distant memory, but he was confident in his skill. There was enough information for anyone who wanted to navigate a world that Panem refused to acknowledge. It was exactly what Bastion had wanted.

The younger, harsher man was waiting in the cold. As snowflakes curled through yellowing lamplight, Bastion pulled his thick work jacket further up his face. It was a freezing meeting point, but the road was busy enough to not arouse suspicion whilst being quiet enough that no one would overhear them. Pedro was simply taking air, passing a colleague and decided to walk home with him.

“You’re not going to be making a path out of here any time soon,” warned Bastion, as soon as Pedro was within earshot. He still held out a waiting hand for his payment.

Pedro appreciated the honesty. In Panem, there were many people who wanted to stamp on him if it furthered their own lives. Bastion was a truthful man who would keep his promise in the end – but Pedro wanted it there and then.

“You lied to me,” he hissed, keeping a tight hand on his prepared atlas. The snow smothered the edge that crept into his voice. “I did what you asked. We each had the plan – path through Five, and then I can sail back to southern lands.”

“Five isn’t going to work.” Bastion scuffed his feet as he walked, leaving a mark in the frost that covered the road.

“Why not?” Pedro demanded.

“I’ve got people there, and there’s too much risk. New curfew, any movement being monitored. Nasty flu going around, apparently. I can get you there, but I can’t get you the papers you’ll need. You’ll be strung up on a hanging tree before you can even say ‘southern lands’.”

Pedro shook his head. With the pressure he was placing on the book’s hard cover, his knuckles turned as white as the weather. “I won’t get caught.”

“They shipped out our entire graduating class from the academy. The whole district is going to be crawling with ‘keepers, so there’s no way you’re getting out on a boat if you even get to the coast.”

When you spent your life pouring across a map, you noticed that there was never a single route to your destination. Pedro had memorised what was said to be Panem’s layout. He had plotted his own opinion on where each district began. There was another way.

“Take me up, northern lands,” he pushed. “Through Nine.”

Bastion laughed, hollow and cold like the swirling snow. “Through Nine?” he repeated. “You’d never make it. Don’t think you can even live up north when the winter’s rolling in. You’ll freeze to death if you try to make that journey on foot.”

“I’ll take train. I can travel with the cargo, hidden at the back.”

As they walked, they left their identical marks on the gathering snow. Pedro dropped back so that he could match his footsteps to Bastion’s. If anyone stumbled across them, they would see only a single man.

“I’ve had people do it,” shrugged Bastion. He hummed as he considered the offer. “I think it’d be too tricky to get you onto the main line. You’d need false papers to get into Six, and people are going to question you. You don’t pass as Two, and you don’t speak like you’re from Ten.”

Pedro had spent too long studying District Ten, trying to write the story that the Capitol was telling him to spin. There, the land stretched out to the southern lands but never quite reached them.

“Take me through Ten,” he demanded.

Bastion replied with silence.

“Take me through Ten,” repeated Pedro, “because that should lead into the raining forest, if I’m right. I have navigated that before. I would be able to find my home.”

“In the winter?”

“It is not winter there, not when it is winter here. It will be warmer once I am through that raining forest. I can get out of here through Ten.”

Finally, Pedro loosened his grip on the annotated atlas. He found the correct page and showed it to bastion, pointing to the path he hoped to take.

“Listen, man,” sighed Bastion, as he used the dim light of a streetlamp to look. “This is all a very bad idea, and you know it is.”

Pedro tried to force the atlas into the man’s hand. “Take me,” he demanded. “We had a deal. We promised. I need to get out of here, and I’ve kept my side.”

“You need to wait.”

Clenching his jaw until it ached, Pedro threw the atlas into the snow at Bastion’s feet. “I am tired of waiting,” he hissed. “I have lost my love whilst waiting. I have lost my son whilst waiting. This world, this country, is hell.”

“Hell?” asked Bastion.

“I need to leave here. I need to leave before I join them. I have people waiting for me – years and years of waiting for me to tell them what is out there, and I will return and tell them to never even think of leaving the southern lands.”

Bastion listened to each word, face becoming tainted with sympathy. He reached down and picked up the atlas, shaking his head. “The heat is on, and you’re noticeable,” he warned. “They all know you’re Leon’s old man, and they’re going to want you at that victory tour. They like to focus on the kids that come second. If you’re not there, we’ll all be in trouble.”

“I don’t want to be there,” stated Pedro.

“I wouldn’t want to be there either.” Bastion waved his hands, as if signalling a slow down to a roaring machine. “It’s just one of those things, ain’t it? I might be able to get you out after. It’ll be easier in the warmth, and I already have a handful of people looking for a path into Ten. If you’re as good as you say you are, you can lead them. Take off into the southern lands once you’re on your own. Get home that way.”

Without considering the longer wait, Pedro fixated on the part which meant the most to him. “Home?” he repeated.

Bastion nodded.

It would be hell – a long journey often was when there was no one beside you. The raining forest was a difficult terrain filled with terrifying creatures and raging rapids. Pedro was not certain how long it would take to step back into his own community. Still, he had already felt the worst pain he could imagine. He could handle it.

He would head out through Ten, free from Panem within the year. After the damned victory tour, he would be able to go home.

Chapter Text

Kinnie McCarthy

September

“There is nothing to be gained from moping about!” parroted the House Mother, despite the tears that often threatened to flood her own eyes.

Kinnie could not set the statement aside. It was a constant accompaniment at the back of her mind, especially as she sat copying out her neat notes in the classroom before everyone else filed in.

She floated through each day without anyone to confide in, looking for someone who had been taken and would not be coming back. Isabel’s absence could be heard in the Home’s creaking walls and in the rotting floorboards. There was never an absence for long. The emptiness had quickly been filled by a sweet young thing called Ada – a criminal’s child, which meant that most people kept their distance as she snivelled through the night in Isabel’s bed and picked at her food in Isabel’s chair and hid from the arena broadcast in Isabel’s seat.

Kinnie did not snivel in bed or pick at her food or hide her face. After all, there was nothing to be gained from moping.

On the classroom wall, there was a class photograph gathering dust. It was the only proof that there had ever been forty children in the class. Isabel’s old books had already been redistributed across the school. Kinnie convinced herself that she did not mind. The silence and the solitude allowed her to focus. The large desk meant that she could spread out her pages upon pages of neat notes. There was everything to be gained from throwing herself into her work until she was drowning.

Kinnie’s chest tightened whenever she considered the life laid out in front of her. Like every child from the Community Home, she would leave school early to look after the grizzling babies and the little ones who could barely toilet themselves. She would be destined to dreary factory work and an endless drudge of life. As there was no use in moping, Kinnie had worked out something she could do to change it.

She was going to win a scholarship to the academy.

It was a distant dream, discussed on long, stretched nights with her friend where the moon had taunted them with lack of sleep. Kinnie was not the brightest, and Isabel had often been alongside her. However, the academy did not want that. They wanted how rather than what, and Kinnie was very good at explaining.

The classroom filled around her, like a crowd of mourners shuffling along at a funeral. Isabel had been a cheerful force who often contributed to discussion, but not many would have considered her a friend. They hated what she represented: any one of them could be taken next year, forced to die as bloodbath fodder and doomed to never be remembered properly.

If you were reaped, you could come close to victory and hear your name in hushed whispers across the entire country. However, you could also die so quickly and mundanely that you did not even feature in the officially broadcasted repeat. Isabel had died for no reason other than to make a tired point.

Kinnie wanted to have a reason. With her friend’s absence powering her on, she had promised herself that she would study until her brain felt like a boiled cabbage soup. She was going the pass the aptitude test. She was going to win the scholarship. She was going to move into the boarding house, attend every single class and make something of herself.

As she waited for the morning’s lesson to begin, Kinnie copied up the careful notes she had made the day before. She whispered every single sentence as she read to force her brain to hold onto it. It did not matter if everyone around her thought that she was mad – she would show them.

The teacher began the lesson. Kinnie listened intently, made quick notes which she would repeat later, and remained in at their short break to ask detailed questions about the content. There was no time for lunch. She needed to pour over the book she had shamefully stolen from the stationer’s – it was said to help her prepare for the aptitude test, and she needed to know every single question back to front.

In the afternoon, there were assigned chores for each child at the Community Home. Kinnie completed them as quickly as she could before taking advantage of the long summer. It was calming to sit beneath the lone tree in the garden and read through the day’s scrawled notes. She would smuggle them under the table during dinner and copy them onto another page of her notebook by the moon’s light that night. Ada’s snivelling would have kept her away anyway.

Kinnie was plagued by a constant headache. When she sat still, her body quickly feel numb as if it was not her own. Her stomach growled when she forgot to eat, and her memory protested at the idea of any more information. Kinnie refused to listen to it. She needed to make something of herself. If she failed, what else was left?

October

Kinnie understood that it was wrong to tell lies, but she allowed them to drip from her tongue if it was for the greater good. It had been easy to claim that she felt too sick to stomach dinner. The House Mother’s pity worked for her, and she had been allowed to stay up in the dormitory to rest. Kinnie did not rest. There was work to be done.

Finally, she was sat in a quiet room where she could focus. There was a blanket of papers spread out across her bed. Distantly, Kinnie could hear the other children laughing across their meal. She was not hungry. She did not want to eat. When she was forced, Kinnie would hand her portion to another child whose stomach was rumbling louder.

It was possible to fill the emptiness with information: stolen paper scrawled with notes, booklets of practice questions where the page was fuzzy with how often it had been erased, flashcards stored beneath her pillow so that they could be reviewed before she slept. Kinnie was constantly on the hunt for another way to keep the information in her head. When it refused to stick, she made herself work harder.

If Kinnie wished for anything, she wanted to see beyond the grey that engulphed her. District Three existed with snatches of colour. She tried to find it in the bright grass in the meadow, or in the falling autumn leaves, or in the clear, azure sky. It was never enough. Kinnie did not have the time to pay any attention to it.

The only variation was the black when she finally closed her eyes, the same harsh colour as an old reaping dress.

November

Ninety-eight.

Kinnie stared at the number as if she had forgotten how to read. It was scribbled in her teacher’s favourite red pen, circled and accompanied with a smiling face. There were even three exclamation marks.

It was not enough. The aptitude test had no set goal, but the academy never took a student without a three-digit score. No one had ever won a scholarship with anything under one-hundred and thirty.

That final score was a long way in the future. Kinnie knew she would not sit the test officially until she was thirteen – a year and a half away, which was plenty of time to improve. Ninety-eight was a reminder that her dream was within reach.

There were a handful of other children within the large class who were preparing for their own aptitude test. Their teacher was kind, offering extra tuition and exam practice after school. Kinnie tried to catch the other whispering about people’s scores. There was an indecipherable combination of cheerful laughter and despondent moaning.

After she had finished handing out the other practice papers, the teacher stopped and slid into the empty chair at the desk. Kinnie wanted to scream at her, to tell her to get out of the way because that was Isabel’s seat. She did not. She was too control to let herself scream.

“I’m very impressed with your score, Kinnie,” said the teacher. She pointed to a question where Kinnie had dropped a mark. “There were a handful where we could easily build on your answer, too. There are not many people who can do this well when we’re still so far away.”

The intense of the original high had already faded, and Kinnie was left feeling like a drained battery. She would not be able to pay her tuition. She needed the scholarship, and she needed to start saving for her uniform, and she could possibly find the textbooks second hand and-

“It’s very good,” the teacher interrupted, stopping Kinnie’s spiral. Her face tilted in concern. “You’ve made such good progress, Kinnie. I’m just wondering…”

As the voice trailed away, Kinnie became painfully aware of all of the hard work she still needed to do. Her flashcards, tied together with a piece of string, were heavy in her pocket. The notebook pages hidden in her sleeve so that she could review notes at a moment’s notice were beginning to irritate her skin. Somewhere, there was something she was missing. She needed to do more.

“You look tired, Kinnie,” said her teacher.

Kinnie was tired of being told that she looked tired. It was commented on over a snatched breakfast and murmured in polite conversation in the classroom. Ada had started to complain that she could not sleep over the constant scribbling. The shadows which had formed beneath Kinnie’s eyes were simply evidence of her hard work.

“It’s hard to sleep in the Home,” answered Kinnie, thankful for the excuse.

Her teacher refused to step away. She edged her chair closer, their conversation becoming private as other students began to leave. “I’ve not seen you like this before. I’ve taught you for a long time, Kinnie. You have never been this tired. I do wonder if, with Isabel…”

Kinnie folded her test paper in half and began to shove it in her bag. It would live with the pile underneath her bed. There, she could review the questions that she got wrong as soon as the lights were turned off in the dormitory.

“Don’t run away from this, Kinnie,” her teacher warned. “You’re working so hard, but you’re going to burn out. This isn’t how to handle your grief.”

It was true that the constant work was helping distract her from the image of her friend being skewered on the screen, and the lack of food in her stomach was because she was still sickened by the sight of the blood, and she did not want to sleep because the memory of everything going wrong continued to haunt her. That was not why Kinnie continued to work. She needed to attend the academy and to do that, she needed the scholarship.

“I am fine, thank you,” replied Kinnie, in a voice too clipped and practiced to be true. It was too late for manners. She had places to be and notes to review.

As Kinnie went to leave the room, her teacher called after her, “look after yourself, Kinnie!”

Kinnie was looking after herself. By working now, she had the option of a future.

December

At the announcement, Kinnie felt the gnarled floorboards of her classroom collapse beneath her.

“That’s not true,” she argued, in a whisper that fought the tense silence. “It can’t be true. They wouldn’t do that.”

The snow was starting to fall in a flurry beyond a fogged window. The teacher had tried her best to decorate for Winterfest – limp paperchains hung from every wall – but the joy had faded completely from the room.

“I’m afraid it is true,” murmured the teacher. Her soft voice was too comforting – pitiful, if Kinnie was reading it correctly.

When she had been called up to the teacher’s desk before running home, Kinnie had hoped it was praise for her recent essay on how written music could be altered to hide a secret code. It could also be for a high score on a test paper about computing terms. It had been neither.

The letter on the teacher’s desk was written on the same yellowing paper that the officials used for the reaping eligibility letters. Kinnie was too proud to admit she could not read the spiralling, swirling scrawl. She started at it half-heartedly as her teacher pushed it over for her to read.

“We regret to inform you,” read the teacher, knowing her student, “that our annual scholarship has been discontinued. We have automatically disallowed anyone that you have submitted in this academic year. We trust that you will pass this on to the people concerned, and we apologise for the inconvenience.”

The letter jumbled into incomprehensible noise, like when the moonlight had not been enough and Kinnie’s notes had criss-crossed through each other in the dark. Kinnie clenched her fists and stood on her tiptoe as if about to take flight. “It can’t be true. I worked so hard.”

Then, her voice broke.

Kinnie had buried her grief and her fear beneath her hard work. Now, it meant nothing. She had nothing to show for everything she had buried under mountains of flashcards and eraser rubbings. Luckily, there were no other students in the classroom to see her tears.

“You can still get into the academy,” her teacher reassured. “Your score-“

“I can’t afford it!” cried Kinnie. “You know I can’t. I need the scholarship!”

There was nothing else to be said, as there was nothing more to offer. Kinnie’s work had led her to another dead end. The Capitol had snatched her future away from her.

Chapter Text

Tesla Faraday

September

Tesla looked at his reflection in the smeared mirror. His chest tightened beneath the crisp, white shirt.

“You look respectable,” nodded Linus, with a proud hand clasped on Tesla’s shoulder. He was protected from his supervisor’s skin by the thick cotton of the navy blazer.

“That’s a change,” murmured Tesla. When he lifted his hand, his reflection mimicked the movement. He pulled down on his left sleeve to hide the wire bracelet that adorned his wrist. The academy uniform explicitly banned any jewellery, but Tesla had not taken it off since the reaping.

Linus tutted – a small, clicking sound like a conveyor belt that needed oiling. He dropped his hands from Tesla’s tense shoulders.

“This is your chance,” he encouraged. “You’re a lucky, lucky boy. I’m glad that we’re finally going to get something out of you that isn’t mindless factory work. I want you back here as soon as you’ve graduated, ready to work in our higher departments – if the Capitol don’t poach you first, that is.”

“I doubt the Capitol will want me.”

Tesla managed a deep breath. It felt genuine, rather than snatched between sobbing or panicked gasps. The musty, factory air of his supervisor’s office tasted like old bread in his mouth – the moulding loaves that he took from the baker’s dustbin, which were still good if you tore off the ends and threw them to the pigs. Tesla would no longer need to rely on a merchant’s garbage for his lunch. The academy provided a free meal to every student in their care.

The reflection did not look like him, but Tesla owed it to his supervisor to try and live up to it. Linus had rescued him from the street by rehiring him. Linus had convinced the academy to let him take the aptitude test a year late. Linus had managed to talk him into taking the scholarship – after all, he had passed the test with flying colours.

Tesla was going to make something of himself. He was going to become the person that he had the potential to be – like Azazel had once said he could, before he was ripped away.

“You’ll need to watch your mouth,” warned Linus. He picked Tesla’s regulation satchel from the floor and swung the leather strap across his waiting arm. “Mostly, those academy kids are the rich kids. You don’t want to be getting on the wrong side of those families.”

“Noted,” replied Tesla, because he knew it was polite to acknowledge the advice which he had no intention of taking.

“You just need to keep your head down and get on with your work. I doubt it’ll be tricky, but you’re heading straight into second year so there might be things that you don’t understand.”

The satchel was heavy, filled with books that were still unread. Tesla had ignored his reading assignments. He had barely been able to afford them – Linus had pitched in for the uniform, and there had been a whip-around in the factory to fund everything else that the scholarship did not provide. Tesla was standing in his position due to sympathy. His body burned with the shame of it.

“You know where you’re going?” asked Linus, as the factory clock struck for the seventh hour.

Tesla had to be in the school building before eight. There, he would be told the classroom and company where he would spend the next year. He doubted he would enjoy it.

“I know,” he replied. His knuckles faded to white as he clutched at the strap of his satchel. The reflection did not look like him. The reflection looked good.

“Right, then. Off you go. You’ve got a shift on Saturday, and I’m expecting you to come and find me to tell me all about your first week.”

Although he willed his feet to move to the door, Tesla was rooted to the spot like a rusted machine. The black trousers were perfectly tailored to his size. His shoes were polished, reflecting the view of the uncovered lamp on the office’s ceiling. The emblem on his blazer had been handstitched by someone in District Eight. It was too much.

“Why?” asked Tesla, when he found the power to move. Instead of moving to the door, he turned to look at his supervisor rather than himself. “Why are you doing this?”

Linus went to speak.

Tesla interrupted him. “I don’t want sympathy.”

Linus stopped. He reached up to scratch at the back of his neck. Although the owner of a factory, the majority of the profit went to the Capitol. His own shirt sleeve was too short and rode up to expose a wristwatch with a cracked face when he moved.

“It’s not sympathy,” he explained. “We saw what you saw, Tesla. We know what happened with your father, and with your friend-“

“My boyfriend,” corrected Tesla, tersely.

“That, if you say so. We get the opportunity to recommend our younger workers to the academy, and you seemed the perfect candidate anyway. With everything else going on, it gave you a fresh start. We didn’t expect you to actually win the scholarship-“

Tesla lowered his head. Success was embarrassing. He had chosen not to tell his supervisor that he had the highest score the academy had seen on the test in recent memory.

“-but you did, so of course we were going to do whatever we needed to do to get you there.”

“I can’t repay this,” reminded Tesla, who ate from merchant bins and slept in the factory’s cobwebbed staff lounge.

“We know.” Linus gave the uniformed boy a small shove towards the door. “Repay us by keeping your troublesome mouth shut and giving this your best shot. You can do better than what you’ve got, Tesla.”

With a nod, Tesla accepted the explanation and headed through the office door. It was a short run down the metal staircase before he was on the factory floor – still full of exhausted figures at the end of their night shift – and on his short walk to the academy. He could do better than what he had, but Tesla did not believe he deserved it.

October

Tesla learned to keep his wire bracelet in his pocket. Since it had been spotted on his first day, he had been threatened with having it confiscated whenever he tried to tie it around his wrist. There was no chance that he was going to hand over his prized possession to any stuck-up professor that asked.

When he was alone in the academy, Tesla’s hand travelled to the pocket and found the treasure. The plastic coating was beginning to peel away from the copper wiring inside. Tesla made the decision to try and coat it in a clear lacquer to keep it safe as soon as it began to painfully poke his skin. He could not lose it; it was his final link to Azazel, before the arena had taken his boy forever.

It was easier when there was a professor in the room, and when they were silently learning about new concepts and ideas. Tesla was genuinely interested in the majority of his classes. He was beginning to speak a few words of an old, dead language. He understood the instructions used to make a computer do his bidding. His mathematical ability was the quickest in the class, and he knew enough words to string together a decent essay, and he was fascinated by the history of the country he hated.

It was terrible when they were waiting for the lesson to begin.

“What are you always playing with?” laughed Matrix, as he grabbed hold of Tesla’s blazer and yanked his hand from his pocket.

Tesla kept his grip on the bracelet and managed to hide it in his sleeve. “Knock it off, Ohmelle,” he growled.

“Have you still got that tatty old bracelet? Give it up, Faraday.”

Rather than rising to a yelled answer, Tesla stamped his foot down hard on Matrix’s polished shoe. The boy cursed loudly. If they had not already captured the attention of the second-year class, it was dedicated to them now.

“I knew a factory kid would never have any manners,” Matrix taunted, glowing red.

“I knew an academy boy wouldn’t be worthy of any,” replied Tesla. He knew it was a weak reply. When the entire class would support Matrix Ohmelle, fighting was futile. He would fight anyway.

Matrix tipped Tesla’s desk, until all of his overly expensive books had fallen onto the polished floor. “Whoops,” he smirked. “Come on, fairy. Pick them up. We all know that you can’t afford to replace them.”

Seething, Tesla stared down his tormenter. The nickname – scolded if overheard by a professor but somehow snuck into every conversation – stung. He needed to keep his head down, and his mouth shut, and get on with his work. If he did not, Linus would be disappointed. The factory would be disappointed. Azazel would be disappointed.

He clenched his fists and turned to pick up his books. Tesla refused to let the rich people win. When Matrix grabbed his arm and wrenched the bracelet from his grip, he stopped following the advice.

“It is that tatty old bracelet,” cried Matrix. He held it up in the air so that the class could laugh at Tesla’s treasured possession. “You’re soft, carrying this old thing around with you. What is it, some reminder of the factory because you miss it so much?”

Tesla turned on the spot. His jaw ached with clenched teeth.

Matrix continued with a cruel grin. “It’s a gift from your precious boyfriend, isn’t it, fairy? If this is all he could make, we didn’t lose a lot when he got crushed in that arena.”

The boy was yowling before Tesla even realised he had punched him.

His fist ached with dull pain across trembling knuckles. He had caught Matrix’s cocky jaw, followed by a hit across the bridge of his nose. Tesla realised what he had fallen into a second too late – and by that point, he decided to continue. There was a month’s worth of torment contained in his battle.

Tesla pushed Matrix in his chest. Already unsteady, the boy stumbled over onto the floor. His chest was left open. Tesla stamped down on it as hard as he could manage, feeling a rib crack beneath his force.

“You don’t talk about Zel,” he hissed, as the rest of the classroom erupted into a chorus of chaos. “You don’t get to talk about him! You don’t even get to have his name in your stupid, filthy mouth.”

“What in Panem’s name is going on in here?”

At the principal’s furious tone, the classroom fell silent. Tesla’s body shivered with the sudden cold chill. It was as if he stepped back and saw what he had done from someone else’s perspective – someone who had not felt the torment every day, but who had seen the explosion. He lifted his foot from Matrix’s chest.

“Faraday!” yelled the principal, crimson in fury. “My office. Now.”

Tesla tried to breath in a way that did not betray his panic. He bit his tongue to blunt it and grabbed his satchel so violently that his chair rattled on the wooden floor. Before he left, he reached down and picked up the bracelet from where it had fallen from Matrix’s grasp.

The walk to the principal’s office was cold.

Inside, the forbidden room was dark with mahogany and closed blinds. The principal’s desk was painfully organised, and Tesla felt unworthy of standing alongside it. His anger had not fully dissolved. It had calmed enough to realise that he had well and truly broken his promise to everyone who believed in him.

“Sit, Faraday,” ordered the principal.

Tesla followed his instruction, dropping his satchel on the floor. “It wasn’t my fault, sir. I was just-“

“I don’t want excuses.”

The principle opened a draw embedded in his desk. From inside, he pulled a length of red fabric, a needle poked in a cotton scrap and a spool of thread. “Students with infractions must be labelled with a red band on their blazer,” explained the principal, coldly. “It is your duty to stitch it to your own uniform before you return to class.”

Hesitant, Tesla reached out and took the supplies. He glanced around for the sewing machine that he needed to insert the thread into.

“No,” scolded the principal. “You’re studying here to develop Panem’s future technology, but you’re jeopardising that with your behaviour. You stitch these infractions by hand.”

Tesla’s hand was trembling too much to do any good. The anger had nowhere to go and was still trying to force itself out of his body. He could not stitch. His handwriting was barely legible, for Panem’s sake – anything to do with his hands was usually a disaster.

Shrinking beneath the principal’s cool glare, Tesla shrugged off his blazer with a scowl. He took the end of the thread in his mouth to dampen it and began to try and poke it through the needle’s eye.

As he worked, the principle spoke. “You’re lucky that I’m not immediately expelling you, Faraday. Ohmelle’s family is certainly powerful enough to demand it. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve done some serious damage to him.”

The thread continued to curl around the needle, but never through it. Tesla brought it closer to his face. He felt his tongue poke out across his lips as he concentrated and quickly hid it again. “With all due respect, sir, he deserved it.”

“Did he?”

“He called me a fairy.”

Tesla could bite his tongue through most whispered insults. He had learned to remain calm whilst people shouted, ‘factory boy’ and ‘scholarship kid’ and ‘cannon fodder’ at him. When they called him a fairy, it was harder to stay quiet.

Finally, the thread went through the eye of the needle. Tesla did not have it in himself to smile. He found the sleeve of his blazer and lay the red fabric across the navy.

“Are you sure that’s what he called you?” asked the principal, quietly.

District Three had no interest in the mythical creatures that featured in stories. They were stupid, time-wasting concepts. To be a fairy was to be flighty, to be weak, to be pointless – and in particularly spiteful tongues, it meant to be with another boy.

“It’s what they all call me,” muttered Tesla. He did not want to admit it, because it meant admitting that it bothered him – but he also did not want to be sat in the office and stitching his sleeve.

“And you’re letting them win by fighting back.”

Tesla cursed under his breath as the needle poked his finger. The blood beaded through the tender flesh and speckled across the fabric.

Tactfully, the principal ignored the language. He continued, “they’re testing you, because you’re new to them and you’ve unfortunately come in with a reputation. You’re justifying their comments when you fight back like that, you know.”

“Maybe that’s just what I am.” Tesla was beginning to get the hang of the motion, but his stitches were large and loose across the fabric. The label would not last long on his blazer.

“I want to think you’re more than that.”

Tesla hated it when people lied to him. “I don’t want your sympathy,” he snapped.

“Then it’s a good thing I’m not giving it.” The principal leant back in his chair, shaking his head like he was disappointed in a toddler. “You’ve made your choices in life very obvious. There are going to be people who treat you differently for that. It’s time to learn to keep quiet and let them say what they need to say, because you know you’re better than them. I’d have expelled you if I didn’t know your test scores.”

Was he better? Tesla wanted to believe so, but it was hard when he was constantly surrounded by people who needed to push him down. There was no one left to feed him with compliments and reminders – not like Azazel had.

“I can explain this sole incident by reminding people of your very difficult year,” said the principal. As he stitched, Tesla’s thread became more tense. He could not be held responsible for his actions if the principal started talking about his boy. Luckily, the principal avoided the topic. “I cannot do that again, so anything else and you will be out on your ass. Do you understand me, Faraday?”

“Yes,” said Tesla, sullenly.

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.” The principal gestured to Tesla’s rudimentary handiwork. “Keep stitching.”

November

Tesla was haunted by whispered rumours. After Matrix Ohmelle’s broken rib had healed, he returned to the academy and told everyone about the so-called unprovoked attack. The remainder of the class avoided Tesla as if he carried an infectious disease, and the school soon followed.

When he walked past them in the corridors, Tesla heard their vicious voices. They still called him a factory kid, and a stupid scholarship boy, and cannon fodder, and bad luck. Fairy followed him around like his own particular fanfare. Tesla could only hold his tongue through so many instances.

There were five stitched bands across his navy sleeve: violence, insubordination, unfinished work, insubordination, and insubordination. He liked insubordination.

The latest incident deserved more than a quick-tongued comment to a member of staff. Tesla hurried through the corridor with his head down. If the whispers followed him, he paid them no attention. He was on a mission.

Picking the lock on the classroom door, Tesla decided that it would be silly to take the computer registered in his name. He took Matrix’s device instead and stuffed the black rectangle full of possibilities into his satchel. It was easy to slip out of the room unnoticed – the majority of the academy were seated in the auditorium, preparing for the prize giving.

Tesla had no prize to receive. It was not his fault, as the principal had reassured him during his last sewing session. There was a pause between the year’s end and the ceremony, and Tesla had only joined in September. It did not mean that he was useless.

It did mean that everyone was in the hall together, with a camera for professional pictures and an air of being above their station.

With his heavy satchel, Tesla sidled against metal lockers until he found the unassuming door to the basement. It was not locked because there was really nothing down there: a boiler that was controlled remotely, a cupboard of cleaning supplies and the control panel for the academy’s sprinkler system. It was set to activate whenever it sensed smoke.

He travelled down the old staircase two as a time. It was easy enough to access Matrix’s account – the boy had bragged about using his own name as his password – and from there, Tesla knew enough to make the computer do exactly as he needed. He had stolen a cable from the technology stock cupboard the day before. Now, he plugged the laptop into the sprinkler panel and began to recreate the code he had painstakingly designed in his notebook.

The panel was not designed well. There was nothing in it to detect the smoke itself. Instead, it relied on sensors around the school. Tesla tricked the panel into thinking the computer was a new sensor, and he tricked the computer into thinking it detected smoke. In the time it took the signal to travel along the wire, the school’s alarm system was blaring.

Somewhere, sprinklers were drenching cocky, good-for-nothing prize winners. Their precious photographs would be ruined. Their vicious personalities would be humbled. If anyone investigated, the signal came from Matrix Ohmelle’s account. That was a personal revenge.

Tesla deleted his input from the computer. He closed the screen with almost enough force to break it and wrenched the cable from the port in his eagerness to leave. Someone would come and check the faulty panel eventually. He did not want to be at the scene of his crime when they came.

He was wrapping a wire around his forearm, wearing a satchel heavy with a computer, when the principal arrived at the door. The man was announced by the tip-tip-tip of his sodden clothing dripping onto the concrete floor. It matched the tapping of his angry foot.

“I somehow knew that you’d be at the centre of this, Faraday,” he announced, strangely calm. His damp hair slid water across his face as he spoke.

At the voice, Tesla stopped. He glanced to the door. The wire slowly unwound itself as his motion stopped, frozen. His chest tightened like a belt.

“Did you really think we’d accept it was Ohmelle?” continued the principal. “He was up in the auditorium with everyone else – plus there’s no way that Ohmelle would be able to code something like that.”

“It’s not hard,” replied Tesla, before he could bite his tongue.

“It’s not hard for you. Your mind is capable of so many things. I wish we could have seen the person you would have become if you behaved yourself.”

Briefly, Tesla considered lying. He was familiar with spinning stories but in the old basement, there seemed very little point. He had been caught with hands as red as the bands on his blazer. “Give me another scrap of red fabric, sir. I’ll have it stitched on by registration tomorrow.”

“This is not an infraction that you can stitch yourself out of.”

As he walked, the principal left a damp trail behind him. He held out an authoritative hand. Tesla handed over the wire. He shivered, as if he was the one standing in the basement in sodden clothing.

“As of this moment, you are no longer a student at this academy,” said the principal, quietly. His voice did not open to allow argument. “Your repeated infractions are impacting the learning of other students, and you are refusing to correct them. I cannot keep explaining away your behaviour with your troubled nature.”

“I am not troubled,” argued Tesla, with more force in his voice than he intended. During his many heated discussions with the principal, he had never found it difficult to make eye contact. He stared at the basement’s floor as the man continued to speak.

“It’s understandable that you’d be upset about what happened to your friend-“

“He was not my friend!” Tesla’s voice cracked as he yelled, the interrupting echoing from the room’s rusting pipes. “He was my boyfriend. Why is that so hard for everyone to say? Why does no one care about that?”

“Your peculiar affections are not the school’s concern. Your behaviour, however, is. I will escort you to get your supplies from your locker and then you must leave the premises.”

Tesla clenched his fists until the ached. The tension sat in his shoulders and whilst he wanted to throw another punch, that would get him nowhere. Breaking a principal’s rib would land him with a night in a cell rather than undoing his expulsion. The damage had been done.

When the principal began to move, Tesla rushed to step in front of him. “Fine,” he snapped, retracing the damp path on the concrete. “I never wanted to go to this stupid academy anyway.”

“Lying will not make you feel better.” Tesla could hardly hear the principal’s voice over the stamping of his feet on metal stairs. “There were a lot of people who put themselves aside to make this work for you, Faraday. They wanted better for you.”

Tesla had learned that he was not allowed to have better. Whenever life allowed him to be happy, it turned around and stamped down on him until he was further back than where he started. This expulsion was an inevitability.

“Azazel wanted better for you.”

The comment ignited a spark which Tesla could not extinguish quick enough. His shallow breathing caught in his throat in a furious sob which he did not manage to stifle. “Don’t talk about him,” he hissed. His voice was muffled as he reached up to wipe at his face with his stitched blazer sleeve.

“You know that it’s true,” continued the president, cold. “Your scholarship sponsor was telling me during our interview stages. That boy of yours, whatever your relationship, was a big advocate for you. He knew you could make something of yourself without him.”

You should have kept on at school had been Zel’s mantra, up until the final evening before he was dragged away from the Hunger Games. Tesla had pushed him off with a laugh. He did not want to study for the Capitol – but in reality, he had just never believed he was capable.

He was capable. He had been given the opportunity, and he had excelled.

Whilst the sprinkler system had been turned off, the building was still soaked. Tesla nearly slipped as he stormed up into the corridor. The president walked behind him and continued to torture him, as if he took joy in it.

“It’s a shame you’ve let him down.”

December

The academy suspended the scholarship before the winter break. Tesla heard of the change through market whispers: now, the only chance to attend was to pay the fee for the initial aptitude test and remain in lower school long enough to receive a final transcript. The door had been closed to all factory children, and anyone from the Community Home.

Tesla tried not to burn with the shame that it was his fault.

Whenever he ventured through the streets of District Three, it was as if the whispers followed him: failure, drop-out, brat. It was too difficult to avoid them. He still wore his branded blazer – it was the only coat that he had for the harsh winter that raged across District Three.

Tesla had refused to go home following his expulsion. He never wanted to see his father again. He would rather survive in the abandoned factory building he had found on the edge of the city, armed only with his uniform, his school satchel and the laptop he had stolen.

Too proud to be seen by the people that had believed in him, Tesla would only leave at night. He slept during the day. When he had spare time, he ripped and twisted textbook pages into kindling and sat in front of his glowing laptop screen.

The factory did not have power, but Tesla knew how to make cables, and he knew where each building kept their generator. He could make power – and he was going to use it. It would be his revenge one day. In the cold, rebellion was second to survival.

Tesla wrapped his blazer even tighter around his shoulders as he fought through the flurry to scavenge in a pile of market scraps. Material for a blanket could be good – if the academy did nothing else, he could sew – but food was the priority. Tesla was tired of his growling stomach.

If he went back to the factory, they would hire him – but Tesla had let them down.

“Look who it is,” called a voice, suddenly audible across the howling of a winter wind.

Tesla stopped, looking up from the broken crates that he was tearing apart. There had been people passing him all day – winter did not stop productivity in District Three. They ignored him, mostly. Tesla had not held a conversation with anyone since he left the academy.

He did not want a conversation with the person shouting across at him.

The man – the one who had torn him apart and threatened him as soon as Zel made their relationship public – was no father to him. Tesla was not going to pretend that he could be something that he was not just to stay in a home with someone who detested every fibre of his being.

He did not respond. Tesla went back to his scavenging. He did not owe that man his time.

“Digging through trash,” taunted his father, again. His words were softened by the snow, but it did not dampen the pain. “Heard all about you and the academy. Got yourself kicked out. Couldn’t even pull yourself together enough for that.”

Tesla gritted his teeth. His body already ached in the biting cold. The tension only added to his pain. He pushed through.

“Can’t settle down. Can’t do anything. Good for nothing, just like always.”

Don’t respond, thought Tesla. That’s what he wants. Don’t give him what he wants.

“You’ll always be a useless fairy.”

Tesla snapped, because he was a slave to his own anger.

“I’m not useless!” he shouted back, voice hoarse in sudden anger. He could not argue about the other insult – his father had unchangeable opinions about that – but Tesla knew that he could be useful to anyone. They just needed to treat him right, and no one dared to do that. “I’m not useless. You’re useless.”

He had a sharper tongue, but it failed him. His father often had that effect.

Now, his father’s taunting laugh travelled on the cold chill. “Not useless,” he repeated, with a smirk that Tesla wished he could smack off his face, “but you’re rooting through trash trying to find yourself some damn treasure. Should have kicked you out earlier. Should have kicked you out as soon as I thought I knew. You’ll never amount to anything, the deranged way you are.”

Tesla’s knuckles went white, clenching on the wooden crate that he had been searching for. They blended with the snow. His head, however, was red.

“I will,” he shouted back, finding a voice he had lost. “I’ll be better than you could ever dream of. I’ll be better than anyone. I’ll make District Three cheer my name – you just watch.”

Although Tesla had no idea how he was going to do it, he meant it as a promise. Tesla Faraday did not break promises.

Chapter Text

River Alexander

September

There was no music.

For as long as he could remember, River’s mother had sung as she swam around the house. The wooden rooms were filled with the repetitive, joyful verses of sea shanties whilst an ocean raged outside. Now, there was nothing but the beat of her footsteps as she paced the house and tried to find herself for the day.

Life did not stop because they were falling apart. Dazed, they each picked up the scattered pieces of their lives. River’s father was already back at sea, on a ship where contact was practically impossible. His mother forced herself to school each day and tried to teach through her rolling fog.

She had lost her smile and her spark along with her music. In a way, she had lost her mind. She could not find her shoes. She could not find her notebook. She could not find her bag.

“Here,” mumbled River, forcing a cup of weak tea into her trembling hands. “You rest. I’ll look.”

“No time to rest,” replied his mother.

“You have plenty of time. Sit.”

Her bag was still placed on a dining chair, trying to fill a table that was suddenly too empty. River found the pair of shoes on a rugged, driftwood shoe rack where they had been stuffed the previous day. The notebook had slipped between the cushions of his mother’s favourite chair, still filled with pages of figures from when they tried to work out how much sponsor money was needed to send a parachute into the arena.

River helped his mother into her shoes, placed her notebook in her bag, and led her to the door. “Are you sure you should be going into work?”

His mother forced a smile. She often spoke of her role in the comforting confines of their cottage – she needed to leave everything at home to be her best self for the class. “I’ll be fine,” she reassured, firmly.

When she left, the silence was immediate. River clung to his family where he could, as if trying to fill a hole in his life with people who understood it. It only made their absence more noticeable.    

Sennen was not pacing the house trying to find her spear or her school bag. Cove was not following her with desperate questions about homework or complaints about sand on his feet. They would never return home. They were lost.

The blunt inevitability was the most painful aspect of it. When a ship was lost, there was a chance that a survivor washed up ashore with a terrifying story to tell. River had watched as his brother and sister were lost in an arena too far from their home. They had not even been together.

River wanted to find comfort in the kitchen. It had once been his favourite room in their home: morning sunlight streaming through a salt-speckled window, with a fire laid for the evening. The tinder in the stove had been laid there for several days. River could not cook anymore – not after slaving away to fulfil the Capitol’s request of a fish stew that neither sibling had been able to taste.

On the windowsill, the chipped, cracked mug which they had used for the seawater sat and taunted him. His mother had tried: there was fresh water in it, and a sprig of bright-coloured flowers sitting limply in the porcelain. The decoration did not obscure the memory of crossing to the main journey without spilling a single drop.

It was illegal to bury a tribute at sea. Instead, people carried sea water from the tribute’s home beach and poured it across the dirt of their grave. River had managed it, but he could not carry two separate containers. As in everything, his brother and sister had needed to share.

River turned on the tiled floor and left. He did not stop, slipping on his shoes and walking out to the cliffside. There were painful memories in the ocean too, but the huge expanse of water helped make them easier to deal with.

October

“Mom?” asked River, cautiously. “Can I help?”

He had never expected to see his mother cry. She was the pillar of their home: there throughout everything, ready to support with whatever needed. She did not cry when her husband left on a boat for weeks at a time. She did not cry when her youngest children were dragged to the Capitol. She did not even cry when they were each killed in the arena. As the sea crashed, she was the rock that stood firm.

At the kitchen table, she sat with her head in her hands and sobbed. There was no response to River’s careful question. She hardly acknowledged him, just as she hardly ate and hardly left and hardly slept.

“Mom,” tried River, taking a step further into the kitchen.

Between thick tears and coughing sobs, his mother managed, “I can’t do it.”

River dragged a chair from the old table, wincing at the loud wood on the tile. “Can’t do what?” he asked as he lowered himself into the seat.

It was a long minute before his mother was able to speak again. She rubbed her eyes on the sleeves of her cardigan, looking older as she seemed so much longer. “Teach,” she admitted. “I can’t help other people’s children when I don’t have my own.”

Like the autumn ocean, River’s blood ran cold. “You have me,” he reminded, quietly.

His mother’s clenched hand reached out and brushed his own. “I know,” she corrected. “I know I have you, sweetheart. I couldn’t ask for anything-“

“You could,” River interrupted. “You can ask for me. Sennen and Cove should still be here, but you still have me.”

At the lost names, his mother flinched. Her hand crept away, and she retreated back into herself like a disappearing tide.

The answer seemed simple. River had become lost in the extreme end of every decision. “Don’t teach,” he suggested, like it solved every problem in the world.

“Don’t be silly.” His mother was breathing with a normal rhythm, and the only tearstains on her cheek were stale. As she realised that she had been caught, a bright blush spread across her cheeks. “We’re lucky, but we’re not so lucky that we can lose the money.”

River did not feel lucky.

“I can find work,” he shrugged. “It’s time I did, I think. Stop teaching if you can’t do it.”

“You want to cook-“ his mother argued, but River silenced her with a stern shake of his head.

He did not cook. Together, they ate cold, pulled together meals from market ingredients – if they ate at all. “I want to sail anyway, like Papa,” he lied. “I’ll do dock work until then.”

It was almost truthful. River did not hate the idea of trekking down to the docks each morning. If the hard work would keep his mind away from troublesome memories, he would embrace it with open eyes.

“Don’t be silly,” his mother repeated. “I’m not going to stop teaching.”

November

River was not surprised when his mother stopped teaching. Each day, she returned from her classroom in tears. Where there had once been kind words, there were now snapped criticisms. Where there had been clear correction, there was now incorrect knowledge. Where there had once been laughter, there was now silence.

The hustling chatter of the coastal town was preferable to the empty house where he had been confined. River tried to focus on the fresh view of the rolling ocean, rather than worrying about the mammoth task which awaited him. He needed to find work. The family were relying on him.

Wistfully, he stared at the boats which still needed a crew. It was a dangerous job, but River did not mind the idea of sailing. There would be something new each day. He would be distracted from the constant ebb and flow of grief in his head.

River made several half-hearted enquiries, but they each needed someone with sailing experience. There was a boat who needed a ship’s cook. River did not cook anymore. He was left with the dock, which was easy work to get but difficult work to complete.

“You don’t look strong,” complained the overseer, rubbing at the back of his neck with a grease-stained hand. On the dock, they wore canary-yellow overalls doled out at the start of each shift. They were ill-fitting and swamped the younger workers who were fresh from school.

“I’m able,” River pushed. “I can lift whatever you need. I’m quick too – mind and body.”

“I believe that.” The man’s voice was gruff with age. “I’m just not seeing someone who’ll keep up here, if I’m honest with you.”

River did not see it either. There was no other option. “Let me show you,” he offered, pointing into the bustling crowd. “I’ve heard you need people, anyway. You should be taking anyone as long as they can carry a crate.

“There’s a splash of truth in that, I ‘spose. Who are you, then?”

When River heard his own name, it reminded him of the reaping. He announced it and winced at the recognition on the overseer’s face.

“Don’t,” he pleaded. “I just need a job for now, and you need someone who can lift.”

“That I do.” The overseer folded his arms, his plastic gloves rubbing together with a cry louder than the shouting crowd. “We’ll give you a try. Meet me here, dawn tomorrow. I’ll try and snatch you some overalls that fit.”

December

“Alexander!” yelled a gruff voice, punching through the beautiful music of a dock on arrival day. People would sing as they worked, and overlapping tunes with clashing notes accompanied the rhythm of thumping crates and creaking chains. The ocean lapped at the coast as if trying to applaud.

River turned, taking the opportunity to try and loosen a growing pain in his shoulder. “What’s going on?”

“Phone call, at the inn. Get a move on.”

If he was called away on official business, River did not think that they could dock his pay. He pulled the thick gloves from his hand – they had not stopped trembling since the summer – and left behind the crate of fish that he was helping to sort and catalogue. The dread pooled in his stomach as he crossed the damp wood. Whilst the voice of his fellow people was responsible for good news, technology was only responsible for bad.

“Out back,” nodded the innkeeper, eyeing River with disdain as he shuffled into the dark business. It was considered rude to enter a public building in dock worker’s overalls – the stench of fish followed them around.

“Thanks,” River mumbled. He tried to make it to the back office without touching anything.

The phone, tethered by a curling wire, had been left speaker-up. He did not dare to slip into the old leather chair. River stood beside the old desk and pressed the speaker to his ear. There had been no phone call since the inevitable – Ocean McMurray’s miserable confirmation that his brother and sister were dead.

“Hello,” said River, half-hoping that there was no one listening on the other end.

“Hello!” replied a voice with far too much energy. “Am I speaking with River Alexander?”

“’Tis.”

“Brilliant! You’re just the person I was hoping for.”

The voice was tainted with the Capitol’s clipped accent. River believed that he could imagine her – a fake plastic smile on her face, with a wig balanced precariously on her head and eyes which were elaborately adorned with spidery lashes. She would never have worked an unwanted morning at the docks to cover for her mother’s loss of income. She would never have done anything which could break a nail.

“My name is Ophelia Cardew, and I’m currently in the process of organising the new year’s victory tour. I’ve been hearing that you’re somewhat of a chef.”

River could not silence the scoff which escaped his mouth. Chef – that had once been a childish dream, before the world had fallen apart around him. There was no time to cook for pleasure when you needed to cook for sustenance.

“There’s a bit of a rush in the Capitol for Four’s unique cuisine,” continued Ophelia, ignoring River’s complain if she had heard it. “The fish stew is particular popular – homemade, specifically! They’re shipping it into the city in frozen portions, but that’s not acceptable when we’re actually going to be in Four.”

In his new role, River’s mind was not challenge. It leaped at the opportunity to find an answer, catching the question before it was asked. “I’m not cooking for you.”

Ophelia laughed – a sound like imitation crab. “It’ll be a wonderful opportunity! After all, you’ll be at the celebration anyway. Your brother and sister – I do offer my condolences, I really do – were very popular here. It would really elevate the entire tour if your family were involved as more than just guests.”

“I’m not giving anything to the Capitol,” growled River. He went to slam the phone back onto the desk.

“You’ll be compensated, of course!”

River hesitated as the irritating laugher continued to echo through the phone.

“It’s difficult for someone from Four to consider, but the victory tour’s budget is quite impressive. Even more so, this year. I’m willing to match whatever you ask for. We’d need a serving of fish stew for a gathering of at least twelve, I’d say.”

As much as you ask for.

The casual, thrown-away offer played over and over again in River’s head. He did not think his inexperienced cooking had any value, but the Capitol had the money to flippantly throw at anything they wanted. Was it overindulgent to ask for a month’s wage? A year’s wage? The opportunity to leave the docks completely, at least until his grief faded and he could work with a clear mind?

“What kind?” he asked, quietly.

Ophelia’s wide smile was audible in her voice. “What kind of what?” she asked.

“What kind of fish stew?”

He had practiced several recipes. River would need to dig out his old notebook which he had shoved under his bed, unable to look at the pages where Sennen and Cove had added their own notes to their favourite recipes. For enough money, he might be able to stomach another look.

“Oh, there’s different types! Well, whichever is most traditional. Or your favourite, I suppose. We could do a variety?”

“I’ll make two separate kinds,” offered River, knowing exactly which two he would be able to do well. “I’ll make enough of both to serve twelve, and I’ll work with the baker to get it served with the right bread. That work for you?”

“That sounds delightful! Gosh, it was worth trying to track you down.”

River was unwilling to let the most important part be forgotten. “And about payment,” he pushed.

“Would you prefer cash, or a transfer – wait, can you receive transfer in the districts?”

“Cash is fine.”

“I’ll bring it with me during the tour and ensure that it makes to you. I contacted a chef beforehand, and I think I can get you the same payment they asked for. Wait, I have it written down here. How does this sound?”

Ophelia announced a figure which would feed River’s family for the entire year. It would replace their broken door. It would allow them to buy a memorial for the garden, meaning they did not need to traipse to the Capitol’s controlled graveyard whenever they wished to morn. There would still be enough left to put in their saving jar.

“I suppose that’ll do,” mumbled River.

Chapter Text

Sunnie Evander

September

Sunnie was a creature of strict habit. Each morning, she left her bed unmade beside an open window. The weather did not concern her. She needed the room to fill with fresh air whilst she scrubbed every inch of her body in the adjacent shower. Sunnie liked the burn of the sponge across her skin.

Clean and dressed in something comfortable, she would arrange her duvet and tuck in the corners with military precision. Sunnie could not leave the room until she had turned her bedside lamp on and off six times.

There was no need for breakfast. She drank black coffee instead, stirring it six times each direction so that it sat right in her sickened stomach. She did not add sugar. Sunnie could not stand anything sweet.

Then, she sat at the table.

Sunnie did not move. As the sun crossed the sky in the frame of the kitchen window, she watched the small birds which pecked through the grass of her garden. Occasionally, her mind remained blank, and she settled alongside the comforting birdsong. It was more likely that the painful, wretched memories would taunt her until she held her head in her trembling hands. Residual coffee stained the mug’s porcelain. When it was dark and her stomach was rumbling, Sunnie would spark back to life and throw the mug in the bin, no longer wanting to clean it.

There was never any food in the house. If Sunnie went shopping, she had to face her family’s boarded-up confectioner’s shop. Instead, she would throw a heavy coat over whichever mismatched outfit she had picked from her wardrobe and venture into the world outside.

She strolled as if she was on a mission, ignoring the guards who were stationed at the entrance to Victors’ Village. By taking the long path which wound around the school, she could avoid the memories which tainted the main square. They were replaced with other worries – which two children would she doom to a painful death the following year? – but it was still preferable to stumbling past her family’s old shop.

Counting her footsteps in every staggered six, Sunnie made it to the Cell – an old factory, overtaken by crawling vines and opportunistic businesspeople who wanted to sell where they could not be found. She ignored the stalls selling illegal alcohol. She did not look at the secret tables of stolen goods. Instead, Sunnie found Gennifer.

The younger woman had inherited her grandmother’s role of selling a perpetual stew, with a wooden counter where people could sit and enjoy a bowl. Gennifer knew that Sunnie wanted sustenance rather than socialising, which is why Sunnie would hand over the coins in her pocket without bothering to check the amount.

Sunnie ate in silence. Her jaw ached as she chewed six times on each piece of unidentifiable meat. She did not deserve a three-course feast, or a roasted bird, or delicate cakes. She was lucky to sit with a warm meal at all, considering how many people she had robbed of the same experience.

When her bowl was empty, Sunnie began the long trek home. Her breath was visible in the autumn air, and it would have been easy for someone to jump out of an old alleyway with a knife, but Sunnie welcomed the risk. Unfortunately, she would always arrive home safely.

The clock would strike midnight as Sunnie made it back inside. She kicked off her shoes, tapping them together six times to clean them, and stumbled back up her ornate staircase. Her coat was often left on the carpeted steps. Stripping off her outdoor clothing, she would bury herself beneath the bed’s plush covers. Sunnie rarely slept throughout the night.

Sunnie followed the routine as if she had been ordered to: no deviation, no hesitation, no opportunity to step away from it. When she knew what to expect from each day, it was easier. Change never resulted in anything good.

There were hissed whispers on the autumn wind: a flu, spreading like fire and leaving devastation in its wake. No one was saved from catching it. Sunnie heard the warnings, and understood them, and ignored them to continue with her day.

October

At the initial explosion, Sunnie pressed her hands desperately across her ears.

She was thrown back into the arena. Her body began to panic, tensing and holding on to every last strain of energy that it could catch. It flooded her with the adrenaline she needed to go and hunt – her and her ally, side by side, armed with blunt blades to kill whichever rabbit or squirrel or tribute happened to wander into their path.

There was no ally. Sunnie had killed him and then stood vigil by his coffin as if that paid for her betrayal. She could not bring herself to carry a knife anymore – how careless she had become.

The air was filled with loud screaming and crying as if trying to beg the world for mercy. A knife would not help. The thundering footsteps across packed ground was a bloodbath – and there was blood. Sunnie could feel the heavy, metallic tinge in the fear-stricken air as she stumbled back, trying to avoid the chaos in front of her.

Slowly, Sunnie lowered her hands from her ears. The explosions persisted, and the fire crackled like electricity. An explosion of any kind was a marker of death. She had only wanted a meal. She had only wanted her routine. Sunnie tapped her hand on her leg, counting to six with each repetitive run.

Acrid smoke filled her lungs when she took her next gasp of breath. It curled up from the building, poking through the roof like an ominous cloud, the harbinger of a storm. Chemicals burned well. The Cell was full of them: illegal fuel sources, alcohol, coals to burn fires. They all burned well.

The Peacekeepers, in pristine uniforms not yet tainted by Five’s dark smog, escaped from the building with a practiced precision. They looked to be helping people from the flames. They waved the crowd along through open doors, but they each held a gun – locked, loaded and ready to fire.

Sunnie stumbled back. It was not cannon fire. She had not killed anyone – not this time.

It could have been an accident. One misfired gun might have resulted in the dancing fire. The Peacekeepers were putting forward a military parade of rescue, because they were the good side, honestly.

The factory building was burning from five specific places: each of the four corners, and the very centre. Sunnie was observant enough to catch it in the chaos. Working with the Capitol since her victory, she knew the sly and backhanded way that the city liked to work. She was a victor because she shared the same weakness of character.

Around Sunnie, the air filled with screaming. People were burning alive, and the Peacekeepers were reluctant to go back in and help them. She did not know the name and face of everyone who made their living in the sell. Gennifer was there, holding her young niece’s hand, but Sunnie did not know who else to look for.

There was no useful skill in her trembling body – no medical knowledge, no escape route, no courage to run in and drag people out. Sunnie only knew how to kill, and how to make candy. She caused more trouble than she was worth.

“Sunnie Evander?” barked a voice, and she was forced to turn.

The shout came from a young Peacekeeper, whose dark hair was beginning to grow back from his regulation buzz-cut. His uniform was still a pristine white: no blood, no soot, no marker of violence.

“What is this?” she demanded, faced with someone who might know. Sunnie resented being recognisable but was willing to leverage it for information. “What are you doing here?”

“Civilians are not entitled to an explanation of our orders,” replied the Peacekeeper. He snapped Sunnie from her thoughts which were often quick to spiral. “You should go home, Miss Evander. This isn’t the place for a victor.”

“If it is a place for my friends, it is the place of a victor.”

Sunnie glanced back at Gennifer, who had begun to help usher people away from the burning building. Sunnie did not consider herself to have friends, but she was still capable of caring for people around her. It was just too dangerous to be close to them.

If Geniffer was helping, Sunnie wondered if she could turn and run. The arena had proved that she was not a helper. She looked out for herself. Sunnie remained rooted to the floor. After watching the swirling, smoking flames for too long, she turned back to the guard. “Are you going to help the people trapped inside?

“Home, Sunnie.”

It was a cold, hard no. Sunnie clenched her fists, the panic having given way to anger like it had once done in the arena. If they were refusing to help, it was not an accident.

The Peacekeeper continued, seeming to relish in his status above the victor. “There will be an announcement later. We’re stopping the spread of this disease before it travels any further. No unauthorised gatherings, and a curfew that you’ll be breaking if you stay much longer.”

Sunnie had no intention of staying – not if there were other people who could do a better job at helping than her. She still spat, “I’m familiar with skirting the rules.”

When the gun was aimed at her chest, Sunnie felt the familiar cold brush of death’s touch. It was too close. Her chest was tightening, her heartbeat pounding on her chest as if powered by a generator. This boy would shoot. He was too entranced by the fire in front of him to not want to spill blood.

“Home,” he ordered. “Victors are not exempt from the law.”

November

The winter bit at Sunnie’s shivering body. Whilst she had the money to buy a wardrobe filled with winter coats, she had not thought to wear one. Snow was threatening to fall. District Five remained inside, locked there by both the cold weather and the mysterious virus which was still spreading.

Since the Cell had burned to the ground, food had been harder to find. Sunnie found herself walking reluctantly through merchant streets to find anything that would fill her cupboards. If she was lucky, the bakery would still be trying to sell their day’s bread – although they would demand she cover her mouth with a scarf and place her coins into a jar of vinegar.

The bakery was dark, with only the orange glow from the kitchen’s bread ovens fighting through the fogged-up glass. The butcher was closed too. Every single shop was stopped, locked and bolted. On their upper floors, the household lights shone like glimmering stars.

There was only one shop with a light on the ground floor – the old confectioner’s building.

Sunnie could not bring herself to move from the streetlamp’s comforting glow. When she lived in the ivy-covered building, she had watched the rain falling through the orange beam from her bedroom window. Now, it illuminated her shivering body as she stared back in through the same glass.

It was alive now. Rather than a lamp, the light inside came from a flame. There were thick, heavy wooden boards nailed across the window and thick curtains had been hung across doors. The flickering, dancing glow still escaped, seeping out like seditious thoughts. In the air, there was a hum: collective voices, hushed and whispering through the barricades.

If people were there, they were breaking the strict curfew which had been imposed on them all. Sunnie regularly ignored it, but guards were lenient with victors. This hidden, hushed gathering would not be granted the same luxury.

The matched marching of a patrolling group echoed through a distant street. The Peacekeepers would be as observant as her. They would see the light in the window, and their staring would not simply be in curiosity. Sunnie wanted nothing to do with it. She could not help people. When she was there, people only died in horrible, painful ways.

Spurred forward, Sunnie scampered up the path to her old home. The cracked, stone paving was white with a dusting of icing sugar snow. It matched the ribbons which should have greeted her at the door, worn by someone Sunnie had allowed to die. Pained, she gritted her teeth and finished the journey anyway.

Sunnie clenched her fist and rapped on her old front door as loud as she dared. Instantly, the hum inside disappeared like someone switching off a generator. There was a spat hiss of, “’keepers?”

As quickly as she could manage with her freezing body, Sunnie turned her back on the old shop and disappeared into the street. She wanted nothing to do with whatever had started to happen inside. Behind her, she heard the scattering footsteps of people starting to disappear.

December

“Miss Evander,” echoed a familiar voice. “I thought I told you that victors aren’t exempt from the law.”

Sunnie did not like surprise. She jumped to combat instantly, her hands scrambling along her belt for a knife that she no longer carried. The dread began to pool in her stomach, with the shame of being unprepared and the fear of death that was inevitable.

“There’s no need to fight me,” said the voice. It was tainted with a laugh, and Sunnie felt a red burn across her cheeks. “Calm down, or I’ll be forced to use force against you.”

The Peacekeeper lifted his visor as Sunnie turned to face him, but it was a pointless action. Sunnie already knew exactly who he was: the young man who had been there when the Cell had burned to the ground, with a  distant accent that she could not place and a smile that was as cruel as a weapon. The only new addition was a jagged scar running across his cheek.

“I am entitled to visit my old property,” argued Sunnie. The fear quickly gave way to anger, like a discharge of static electricity. She gestured at the old confectioner’s shop behind her and hoped that the movement of her hand would distract the guard from the flickering flame behind the boarded windows.

It was dangerous to visit each day, wondering about the buzzing conversation inside. Sunnie wanted to join in but did not want to bring her bad luck onto whoever had decided to gather there. If she was loud enough, they might realise that they were about the be caught.

“There’s a curfew. You know this. Besides, loitering with intent has been a crime for a very long time.”

Sunnie knew it was not her family, although she had not spoken to her mother or father since she had returned from the city. How could she face them, knowing her sister’s death had been her fault? The replaying memory pained her body as if she was being torn apart. Desperate to make it stop, Sunnie tapped her foot six times.

“Intent to do what?” she asked, turning and walking out of the streetlight’s glow. As she hoped, the Peacekeeper followed her without a second glance at the shop building.

The winter sky was clear, with twinkling stars above them like indicator bulbs. The world would freeze overnight. Sunnie had remembered her thick coat, but she still shivered as she persisted down the merchant street. The Peacekeeper pursued her as if he was a wolf.

“Intent to rebel, for a start,” he began, and the sound of a grin was back in his voice. Sunnie clenched her teeth. The silly boy, drunk on his given power, was enjoying the whole ordeal. “There is no good reason for anyone to be standing around an abandoned building several hours into their curfew.”

“Indeed.” Sunnie wrapped her arms around her, seeking comfort but trying to make it seem as if her temper was still flaring. They would be on a different street at the next turn. The Peacekeeper had not noticed the activity in the house. “Well, I was simply keeping an eye on the herd of squatters that have appeared to have moved in since my family left the building. I can trust you to take care of them, can’t I?”

Her voice was thick with sarcasm. Despite her turn in the arena, Sunnie remained a terrible liar – but the guard fed from the responsibility as if it powered a battery inside him.

“Leave it with me,” he offered.

Sunnie nodded, trying to subdue her excitement at making it onto a second street. The old confectioner’s building was long behind them. If she had been loud enough, whoever was gathering had plenty of time to cover their tracks.

With a skip in his marching step, the Peacekeeper continued, “now, Miss Evander, I mist deal with you. You’re welcome to roam Victors’ Village if you wish to take air on an evening but otherwise, you must follow the law. People will start to think you are indulging in rebellious acts if we keep finding you out after curfew.”

“Victor and rebel do not often sit in the same sentence,” replied Sunnie, coldly.

Rebellion was a distant dream, and it was one that Sunnie did not often partake in. The mindset of every other victor was not her personal responsibility.

“You’d be surprised.” The Peacekeeper was not even out of breath, whilst Sunnie panted at her own pace. “I studied you all, you know. I thought that the victors were the epitome of success. I am starting to realise that you’re not.”

Sunnie suppressed a laugh. Was there anyone who believed that a victor was a decent person? Even in the heart of the Capitol, the appeal was that they had each committed inhuman acts to win their own survival. “Nobody decent tends to win,” she murmured, staring straight ahead.

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” said the guard, with a scoff. He stopped and dropped behind, shouting after Sunnie. “If I were you, I’d stay away from anything that might lead you to betray Panem. I don’t think I have to explain betrayal to you, Miss Evander.”

The night, and the comment, were ice cold.

Chapter Text

Raiden Dedisco

September

“You can’t go to school,” murmured Raiden’s father, hand stretched across his son’s burning forehead. He sat back on the mattress with a shake of his head. “You’ll have to start the new year a little later, Raiden.”

Shivering, Raiden had attempted to bury himself in thick blankets. He stared at nothing in particular through the smudged bedroom window as moving his eyes was too painful. When the cough rattled his chest, it echoed in his head like a pounding drum.

“You’d be better in a proper bed,” urged his father.

The only bedframe in the room was Solar’s and taking that was not the right thing to do. Raiden was willing to wait on the floor. He did not think his legs would carry him there, anyway.

“Need to go,” croaked Raiden, through a swollen throat that continued to burn. The room span around him as he summoned the energy to speak.

“You’re burning up, Raiden. You’ll catch up. You’re a bright boy.”

“I’m not!” Raiden’s voice cracked into a sob. He reached an arm to his face, burying himself in the crook of his elbow. The flickering bulb hurt too much. “Never been. Can’t get my head around any of the numbers.”

The apartment danced on the edge of an explosion, with an argument hiding behind every tense conversation. Solar had been the cement holding their family together. The relationship crumbled in his absence – although there had been a brief reprieve as Raiden lay in his bed, unable to shift the nasty winter flu which had overtaken their building block.

At his son’s protest, Raiden’s father sighed. “We don’t need to worry about this right now, do we?” he offered.

The old bedroom was a collective mess of both boys’ passions. Raiden had started to scrawl pencil drawings in his school notebook. They were pinned around the room like an eclectic art display: buildings visible from the window, or the other students in his class, or the bustling crowd in the market. There was skill in his stroke and his shading, but Raiden had not drawn anything else since the reaping.

Around each page, Solar had pinned smaller, pink slips of paper with printed ink. The betting slips – his own art – were his choice of flair for the shared room. They each represented something, like a new blanket for the winter months, or a loaf of bakery bread, or a pair of trousers for Raiden to wear to school.

Raiden had sat and studied them before he fell ill, trying to work out which number meant and how they could be used to make money. Solar was not there to do it anymore. Raiden needed to learn, but they each blurred together and made no sense to him. If he returned to school, he could start paying attention in their numeracy lessons and finally figure it out.

Standing slowly, his father mumbled, “this…betting thing, Raiden-“

“Need money,” managed Raiden. He wanted to pull another blanket over him, but his body ached too much to move.

There was medicine, if you believed the whispers of the neighbours in the shared lift. The Capitol had developed a cure which would take away the aching shivers. It was being sold at the local medical centre – for a high price.

“You know what your brother said,” warned his father. His voice played over itself in Raiden’s head, unable to focus through the fever. “I’m not to let you start betting. I’d rather we had nothing to do with those damned Games ever again.”

Raiden was familiar with fight, but his body could not summon it. He sank back into limp pillows. There was no protest as his father pulled the blankets from his body, leaving them at the side of the mattress.

“You’re too warm,” he said, trying to use a softer voice but falling short. The argument had already begun. It would rumble beneath them until they shouted at each other, but Raiden did not have the energy to shout. “You need to drink something too, Raiden.”

It was too much to move. Raiden’s dream of betting on anything and everything faded as he fought to breathe, chest rattling like coins in an old tin.

October

Leaning against the brick wall, Raiden folded his arms and scowled at the grey concrete. The assigned school uniform was uncomfortable. The blazer was barely thick enough to protect him from the breeze, and his shirt was too tight across his chest. Raiden’s body still struggled to stand. The fever had faded but the effect remained, leaving him with trembling legs and a lingering cough.

He had forced himself there, for there sake of scrambling with numbers before his brain was fully ready to focus. Raiden wanted nothing more than to understand the odds printed on his brother’s betting slips. They were desperate for money because they were desperate for medicine – as Raiden recovered, his mother and father caught the flu from him and were curled up in bed, worse than he had ever been.

“Dedisco,” mumbled the teacher, checking her long register of names a fifth time as they waited in an empty yard.

Raiden kicked a stone, sending it rattling across the grey expanse. Everyone else had already left.

The school had not changed in his absence. Whilst the other children had started to ignore him, he could not tell if it was because of his illness or because of his brother – both were considered contagious. Raiden had missed enough learning to be completely lost. With the exception of numeracy, he had spent the day drawing half-hearted doodles in the margin of his lined paper.

Lowering her glasses from her curled, grey hair, the teacher returned back to the top of the list. “Dedisco,” she read, again.

“I can walk home by myself!” argued Raiden, tired. It still hurt to speak, but he had regained his energy to argue. “Just let me go!”

“Dedisco.” The teacher ignored him. “Ah, here we are! Right, Raiden – I can’t let you go, I’m afraid. Here, it says that you’re collected by your older brother. I’m sure he’ll be around in just a minute…”

Her voice trailed away as she looked for a boy who was never going to come.

Raiden pushed himself from the wall and set off across the concrete, wrapping his blazer around him to keep himself warm. His body protested the effort.

“Raiden!” called the teacher, finally catching his escape. “You can’t go by yourself! Your brother-“

“Solar’s not coming!” yelled Raiden, not bothering to turn around.

His brother’s name seemed to remind his teacher, but no amount of shouted apology was going to convince him to turn back. Raiden was not heading home. He had a stop in the market to make first, where a long-haired man waited outside the butcher’s and placed odds on anything and everything which could be bet upon.

Raiden had seen him before, when Solar had dragged him along to place a bet on a feast after school. The man often scowled and stared at people with disdain, but Raiden was hoping that he had patience to teach someone what each number meant.

It was a simple path, with only one diversion from Raiden’s usual trek through the crowded streets back to his building block. The man was waiting at his folded table. Another man was with him, and they were engrossed in hissed conversation that was starting to spill out from their corner.

Not wanting to interrupt, Raiden hesitated on the edge and hoped for someone to notice him. He found comfort in the handful of coins he had dared take from Solar’s jar, turning them over and over again in his blazer pocket.

“You’re mad,” spat the oddsmaker, shaking his head at his companion. Raiden could just about catch their conversation over the rushing of people moving along the street. “It’s far too close to the centre of town. It’ll be crawling with ‘keepers.”

“Crawling?” repeated the other man, incredulous. “It’s boarded up, Kalo. They wouldn’t think anyone could even be inside.”

“The old sweet shop? Pascal, they’ll see the slightest movement and come in thinking we’re sugar thieves. We’re as good as on the gallows if we meet there.”

Raiden missed the old sweetshop: Evander Confectioners, where his brother had bought his birthday morning chocolate. It had been closed at the end of the summer. Mr Evander, the owner, had brought Raiden a final bar of chocolate straight to his door.

It was an old, empty building now. Why would anyone be meeting there?

“Consider it.” As he spoke, the man tilted his head in Raiden’s direction. “Watch what you’re saying. We’ve got a shadow.”

“Shadow?”

Spotted, Raiden found the confidence to step forward. There was a pause, and then a flicker of recognition sparking across the oddsmaker’s face.

“It’s just Solar’s kid brother,” he droned, with folded arms. “What you want, kid? Come to take up your brother’s reputation?”

“Obviously,” replied Raiden, but he could not dream of taking over his brother’s position. His voice failed him as he tried to make the admission. He stuttered, hoarse, as he asked, “wanted to see if you would, you know, teach me what all the numbers mean. And then I could place bets like Solar did. I want the money.”

The oddsmaker was amused, which was better than a straight no. “What you trying to buy, kid?”

“Medicine.”

The other man – Pascal, the oddsmaker had said – took a step back. “You ain’t got that nasty flu in your block, have you?”

“I’ve had it. I’m clean, promise. Need the medicine for my parents.”

There was a cruel pause. With a low whistle, the oddsmaker finally straightened himself out. “You survived that?”

“Yeah?” offered Raiden, not realising there had ever been another option.

“Come here.” The oddsmaker gestured to his table. “Clearly you’ve got a thing for surviving against all odds, so let’s teach you how to work them out.”

November

When he took the time to listen, Raiden discovered that the district was filled with whispering. Kalo, the oddsmaker, was often deep in conversation with Pascal whenever he arrived for a lesson. They stopped when someone else arrived but if Raiden waited at the turn of a bend, he could sometimes catch a few sentences.

The queue at the medical centre was filled with information, and Raiden was careful to listen to it all when he was waiting for his parents’ medicine. There was an illness. It was spreading quick. It did not behave like any of the usual winter viruses which travelled around District Five on an annual schedule – and people were meeting in the old confectioner’s shop to discuss it.

More importantly, he heard that people were willing to pay for information. Raiden’s occasional bets were not paying off. He needed another form of income to keep his household afloat whilst his parents recovered, and that was why he hovered on the edge of the street as if trying to step into a conversation where he did not belong. There was a curfew in place, but Raiden was learning not to care.

Evander Confectioners had been closed since Fern’s death. The dusty, closed building was now a hive of activity. Raiden stood outside in the evening’s shadow and watched as a slow trickle of people disappeared into the garden. Like honey falling from a spoon, it was slow but definite.

No one arrived together. Person by person, they snuck in through the creaking back gate. Raiden knew that they were heading inside – cracks of light creeped out from the boarded windows and when he watched, there were dancing shadows.

This was what everyone was whispering about. If they were to be believed, there was an opportunity to earn money inside.

Raiden left the comfortable safety of his shadow, pushing on the gate which had once been painted green but was now peeling with age. It cried out. Inside the old building, the buzz of hushed conversation faded. The movement around each crack stopped, as if they were all holding their breath and waiting.

The backdoor opened.

There was nowhere to hide in the garden. It was an expanse of concrete slabs, like the school’s yard, with some plant pots which had once been filled with sweet smelling herbs. They did not cast enough of a shadow to hide in.

“What in Panem’s name are you doing here?” hissed Kalo, peering out of the crack around the open window. He scowled at Raiden as if he was an unwanted bug, a cockroach crawling across the grey ground.

Raiden looked behind him, but there was no one else there. The oddsmaker was talking to him. “I heard-“ began Raiden.

“It’s rude to eavesdrop,” snapped Kalo. The man took a sweeping look across the yard with each spat word. “You need to get out of here.”

“Well, it’s rude to keep secrets!” Like a petulant toddler, Raiden folded his arms. His family were slowly recovering but there was no chance of them returning to work. He needed the money, and his oddsmaker was keeping something from him.

Raiden desperately wanted to confide in his brother, but he no longer had a brother to confide in.

“This ain’t something for you to get mixed up in,” replied Kalo, firmly. “It ain’t safe. You’re already chancing it by coming to see me each day. Run yourself home, pretend you were never here.”

“I need money,” Raiden tried, which had earned him an edge with the oddsmaker before.

“This isn’t anything to do with money. This is bigger. Go, Raiden.”

What could be bigger than money?

Raiden stood firm. The hissed and whispered conversation around him had piqued his curiosity, and it stuck like mud to a boot. “I want to help.”

“Raiden-“

“Let me help!” Raiden did not raise his voice, but he was one snapped comment away from stamping his foot.

Closing the door softly behind him, Pascal stepped forward. He lowered his voice to a barely audible murmur. “Raiden,” he repeated, firmly. “We are talking about something that will get you into serious trouble – not with ‘Keepers, but the Capitol. You need to go home.”

There was only one crime which went straight to the city: rebellion.

Raiden asked, “you want to take down the Cap-“

“Shut it.” Pascal’s voice was hurried and hissed, but it was not angry. He caught the comment from the air before it could be intercept it. “Please, kid. I don’t want to be responsible for you.”

The Capitol was responsible for his family’s desperate scramble for funds. The Capitol was responsible for the rising cost of medicine. The Capitol had taken his brother.

Suddenly, money seemed a lot less important.

“Let me help,” begged Raiden.

“No, Raiden.”

“If you’re going against the-“

“Quiet.”

“-the Capitol,” said Raiden, lowering his voice but refused to stop, “then I want in. They took Solar, Kalo!”

The comforting hum of conversation within the boarded-up shop began again – clearly, they had decided that Raiden’s arrival was not a threat. The peeling back door creaked open again. Pascal stepped out, head tilted in curiosity. “Who is it, Kalo?” he asked.

Kalo folded his arms. “A kid who’s going home.”

“I want to help,” urged Raiden, leaving the oddsmaker and trying to appeal to the person he might still convince. “They took my brother and I want-“

“Oh, it’s that kid,” interrupted Pascal. “Look, you don’t seem stupid. You need to keep your little loudmouth closed, or we’ll know exactly who went blabbing. Walls have ears, you know.”

Solar had once said the same, warning Raiden that speaking of their gambling at school would do nothing but cause trouble. He did not fully understand the phrase – walls were made of bricks and cement, with no ears at all – but Raiden knew it meant to keep his mouth shut.

“I won’t tell a soul,” he promised, almost flapping like a bird, “but you need to let me help.”

“Raiden,” complained Kalo, exasperated. “There’s nothing you’ll be able to do.”

Pascal hummed, looking Raiden up and down as if wanting to purchase him at a market. “Looks fast,” he said, “and no one would interrogate a kid.”

“Don’t you believe it.” Kalo turned his back, shaking his head. “Fern, Pascal. Look at what they did to Fern.”

The autumn wind blew a thick cloud across the moon, pausing the silver stream that was lighting up the garden. “You’ve said this kid is good at defying odds, right?” said Pascal. “Let’s give him a go.”

December

Raiden gritted his teeth, trying to wait out the winter’s night. It had been a difficult climb from his apartment window. His heart still pounded from when his feet had slipped on the drainpipe. If it had not been for the lower balcony which caught him, he would have been thrown straight onto the road.

To keep himself warm, he jumped up and down on the spot. Raiden only had his threadbare school blazer – it would have been too suspicious to take his thick coat to bed with him – and it barely blocked the cold chill swirling around the dark air.

“You the kid?” asked a voice, from a window about him.

Suppressing the urge to run and hide, Raiden looked up at the sound. He had a rough idea of what would happen to him if he was caught. If he thought too much about it, his chest would tighten and his head would start to pound. Raiden continually tried to remind himself why he was doing it – for his brother, who had been taken from him.

“Are you the kid?” repeated the voice, tense.

Raiden did not recognise the face: umber skin, with black hair curling around their pierced ears. They did not wear a Peacekeeper’s uniform. That was a good start.

She sighed again, glancing back across her shoulder and into the building. “Are you the kid I’m supposed to give this to?”

In the strict instruction, there had been very little information. Kalo had briefly explained that they kept everyone’s role separate so that if they were caught, not even painful interrogation could reveal the entire plan. Raiden was certain that he could withstand anything. He preferred the certainty of not knowing.

“I guess,” he shrugged. The night sky danced with the roving spotlight of a distant hovercraft.

“What are you ordering?”

Raiden had learned that one – a password inspired by the menu board which still sat in the old confectionary shop. “Seven hazelnut truffles, and four peppermint creams,” he answered, proudly.

Scoffing, the girl took the white-wrapped parcel she carried and dangled it from the window. “You don’t look like much of a runner.”

“I’m fast,” Raiden reassured. He snatched the falling gift from the hair and shoved it straight into the safety of his blazer’s pocket. “I-“

She had already disappeared.

Pausing, Raiden stretched through a painful silence. His tense body was desperate to run but he needed listen for the beating rhythm of marching boots. There was the familiar drumming of a patrol. They sounded distant enough to make a run for it, so Raiden pushed himself from the alley’s mouth.

Kalo had drilled it into him: it was more important to be fast than it was to be quiet. Raiden tore across the paved road with his own thundering footsteps. With the constant hum of generators adding a low drone to District Five’s nighttime serenade, he hoped that his own noise would simply disappear.

There was not much cause to run. Beyond the occasional physical education lesson, Raiden had not run for speed nor distance in a very long time. His breathing was still laboured from his spell of the flu and the force of the ground on his feet reminded him of watching his brother run to a golden horn, but he still pushed until his chest burned.

He ignored the pain in his chest. He ignored the pounding ache in his head. He ignored the marching feet in the distance, a hundred patrols looking for people doing exactly what he was doing. Raiden ran, full-lunged, until he burned like the sun in the cold air, grateful that there was no snow to betray his path.

When he heard a voice, he stopped.

Fear overcame instinct. Raiden ducked behind a shop’s sign, the confectionary shop so close that he could almost smell the old sugar. Immediately, his sweat-soaked skin was clawed at by the winter’s chill. He tried to keep his teeth from chattering, scared that someone might hear him.

It was a Peacekeeper, white-uniformed, with a helmet held at his side. There was another figure beside him. They were both staring at the old shop, as if they knew there was someone inside.

“There’s a curfew. You know this. Besides, loitering with intent has been a crime for a very long time.”

The authoritative voice floated along on the air like the warnings which were being blasted from hovercrafts. Raiden tried to swallow. It sounded as if the roaring in his head was broadcasting his location to anyone who dared to listen. In his pocket, the paper of the parcel rustled as he adjusted his position.

“Intent to do what?” asked the figure, turning away from the shop and sauntering away. The Peacekeeper followed her.

Raiden leaned against the sign, the fear flooding from his body like a melting frost. With the floor’s cold seeping through to his skin, he did not want to wait too long. He stood and went immediately back into a run.

Tearing beneath a beam of light on the road, Raiden skidded on the stone as he stopped suddenly. There was no patrol. There were no lights, or shouting voices, or spying eyes. He pushed forward through the creaking gate and disappeared into the isolated yard, a dying herb garden still trying to persist as Winterfest rolled closer.

Kalo did not wait inside the building – it was easier to be trapped if you were inside.

“Got it?” he asked, immediately.

“Yeah.” Raiden panted, digging the parcel from his jacket and handed it over immediately. His fingerprints were disguised by winter gloves. “There was a ‘keeper outside, just a second ago.”

Shoving the parcel into a black bag, Kalo looked to the street beyond the gate. “Did they see you?”

“No. Ducked behind a sign till he left.”

“Good kid.”

Kalo swung the bag over his shoulder, letting it dangle from a single drawstring. “You going to be alright getting home?” he asked, as a second thought.

With a smile, Raiden shook his head. He had already thought of this, and the pride at showing off his plan almost warmed him back up. “I forgot my homework at my friend’s house and decided to break curfew to go and get it,” he explained, “just so my parents don’t know how irresponsible I’ve been.”

Whilst Kalo’s face did not smile, it did soften. He clapped a cautious hand across Raiden’s heaving back. “Solar would be proud of you,” he murmured, before turning on his heel to complete his own portion of the run. Raiden did not need to know anything else.

Chapter Text

Volvo Cessna

September

As he watched the frost gather on the inside of the window, Volvo decided that it was going to be a long winter. The large train station – a central point between the four populated quarters – was abandoned despite the display of ornate architecture. There was never anyone passing across the platforms. When no one could cross beyond a merchant’s fence, there was no chance of jumping on a train to disappear.

Volvo did not mind the silence, as he had finally found somewhere to rest.

The empty glass bottle fell from his hand as he began to drift away. It was loud enough to wake him back up, and Volvo was suddenly aware that he would need to go back to the Petrol Station if he wanted more white liquor. He could not sleep after that sudden revelation.

He sat up, sprawled across a plastic bench for passengers who never arrived. Volvo’s stomach churned with the sick feeling of being poisoned, his head pounded with the sick feeling of dehydration, and his body shook with the sick feeling of not having enough alcohol.

It was his home – temporary and not much use to him, but home. Volvo had wandered away from his group with muttered apologies, intent on seeing out Dakota’s vigil from the very first night in the arena. He had not returned to the Eastern Quarter since.

She was gone. Her body had arrived in the traditional wooden box, and Volvo had stood to attention as she had been buried in the tribute’s graveyard. He was the sole mourner. Dakota had no one.

As he rolled to his feet, Volvo groaned. The low sound echoed around the waiting room. He swallowed the feeling of being sick and tried to keep the meagre, scavenged meals in his stomach as he stumbled to his feet. The station span. Volvo sat back down on the plastic bench.

They needed his brain, and his ideas, and his schedule. Without his leadership, the group would miss most of their imports and would not know any of the safe places to flog what they did claim. Volvo was hardly more use to them than Dakota when she had been at the height of her morphling use – but he was willing to resurface, whereas she had just wanted to sink.

Volvo struggled back to his feet. It would be a long walk back to the collection of abandoned buildings they had managed to turn into safe shelters. If they did not move constantly, it was easy to track them down. Volvo prided himself on not letting the Peacekeepers take a single member of his group – but they had taken Dakota.

There was too much to do. Volvo needed to organise more morphling shipments, and decide how to organise their tesserae pulling, and shake down the businesses that had used his absence as an extension on their debt. Despite the sun beginning to set, he left the waiting room to begin the long walk home. Volvo swallowed the feeling that he was saying goodbye.

October

“You’d have been right at home in Three,” muttered Volvo, as he attempted to balance on a stool where one leg was shorter than the other two.

Whilst the old shack offered shelter, there was nothing in the way of heating. The furniture leached warmth from shivering bodies. Volvo could stare up at the night sky through an unpatched roof, and he could listen to the howling wind through a broken window – it was no wonder that the majority of his group had disappeared to the Petrol Station, where they could at least buy a warm stew made with black market meat.

Fix remained with him, shivering as he tapped a stub of a pencil against his stolen notebook. “Doubt it,” he mumbled. “Wouldn’t want to work for them anyway.”

There was money in morphling, but it was a scattered windfall. Volvo had learned it was far more reliable to trade in spare oil and grain. If they could take more than their share from the tesserae pot, the profit could keep them fed. It had been simple when they had someone’s name to throw into the bowl.

“They haven’t actually stopped the loophole we were using.” As he tried to think, Fix started to decorate the yellowing paper in a pattern of spots. “It’ll just be difficult to do without one of our names actually in the bowl.

Volvo remembered his girl, and how he had convinced her that she would never be called despite the hundreds of slips with Dakota Ford inked carefully on them.

“Put a false name in,” he mumbled, pulling himself further into his threadbare jacket, “or use mine, if you need it to be someone already on the system. They’d have to check it when they pull me and then they couldn’t actually send someone who’s too old.”

“And then you’d be dragged away as soon as they realised what was going on. You wouldn’t survive any meeting with the ‘keepers these days. I reckon your list of charges would be as long as the damned railway.”

“I can talk my way out of anything.”

“I’d like to see you talk your way out of a noose.”

Fix was not a modest man – he spoke often of his great ideas and became more frustrated when they would not come to him. He began to click his tongue in rhythm with his scribbling pencil. “It wouldn’t work anyway,” he moaned. “It’s easier to make up a false dependent, that’s never checked. Who would go out of their way to give their child an extra entry? Plus, they’ve got no idea who lives with who once you’re outside traitor’s special street – but I can’t do that without a real name to tie them to.”

With her name still in the reaping bowl, Dakota had been the youngest of their small group. It had been an unintentional benefit – she was fast, and able to jump between trains, and able to distract anyone with varying charms. They had other people who could do that in a pinch, but they had no one to replace her in the drawing.

There was only one other person with that potential. “Sammie?” suggested Volvo, standing to pace as he spoke.

Sammie was nothing special: a wiry kid with a foul mouth and a strange penchant from climbing drainpipes. He had pulled himself from the Community Home’s grasp and wandered alone on the streets, crossing Volvo’s path several times. Occasionally, he spent the night with them and helped out when they needed something taking from a tall building.

“Does he go to the reapings?” asked Fix.

District Six was big. If you were quiet and careful, the Peacekeepers did not bother to look for a missing child who had not turned up. You lost that privilege when you started throwing your name into the bowl over and over again.

“If we told him to, he would,” said Volvo. He pushed away the tightening feeling in his chest. “The Home will have given him a ton of entries, anyway. They won’t even notice. We can just pull him in and be vague about what we’re doing.”

Volvo tried not to think of the likely future: Sammie’s name called in a reaping, and another person that had trusted him dead on the arena’s ground. There were too many entries. It would not happen again – surely.

“I could work with that,” Fix mumbled, finally making a useful note.

It was an easy decision. “I’ll speak to him.”

November

“I don’t work for other people.” Sammie folded his arms, petulant. “I don’t want to get mixed up with whatever it is you’re doing.”

“Well, that’s up to you,” shrugged Volvo. He suppressed the urge to shout we need some fresh blood for the reaping bowl and turned away as if he could not care less. “You’re light on your feet, ain’t you? Thought you might be useful. Well, it ain’t a ‘keeper draft. Not going to force you.”

Sammie was sat on a wall, feet dangling over the cracked pavement. The orange streetlight reflected through the empty green bottle he carried with him. He was not old enough to drink. That did not stop him. Volvo tried not to lick his lips at the sight of the liquor bottle, having managed to stay clean since his Dakota-induced stupor.

“Wait!” called Sammie, as Volvo feigned walking away. “What do I get from it?”

He was a typical Community Home kid – constantly wanting something but never thinking enough to consider the cost. Volvo looked back over his shoulder and served a tempting offer. “Cut of the profit, obviously. And people who’ve got your back. Somewhere safe to stay, too. And we ain’t going to let the Home take you back, even if the ‘keepers try.”

“They won’t,” Sammie argued. “Travelled all the way here from West by myself. No one’s getting hold of me.”

Volvo tried to hide his frustration at the boy’s smug tone. “Sure,” he offered, “but we ain’t letting them take you anyway. Not a contract, either. Don’t mind a kid walking out on it. We just want you to come over our way a little but more, and we’ll offer you a cut of everything in exchange for your time.”

Draining the last drop from the bottle, Sammie threw the empty glass across his shoulder and listened to it smash. “What’s the catch?” he asked.

Finally, thought Volvo.

If he heard the true catch, Sammie would never have agreed to anything. Volvo would not like, but he was good at stretching the truth until it did not resemble reality. Sammie was oblivious enough to fall for it.

“You gotta attend the reaping,” he warned, and Sammie’s face contorted into a scowl. “Nah, it ain’t that bad. They track who’s attending is all, and we don’t want anything else they can hold over you if they’re gonna catch you doing something else.”

“So my name’s gonna be in that bowl again,” spat Sammie.

“Name’s in it anything, isn’t it? There’re all those entries from the Home. They never call it at random, anyway. You’ll be fine, and you’ll only get a telling off if a ‘keeper catches you elsewhere rather than a whipping in the main square.”

Sammie shivered, but not from the evening breeze. Volvo shuddered at his own stab of guilty – using the rumours about the street boy’s public punishments had been a low hit, but it had worked.

“They don’t mess with us,” he reassured. “You won’t get lashed if you’re working with me.”

Sammie jumped down from the wall. “Tell me what I need to do.”

December

Volvo slammed the phone back onto the machine, plastic slamming against plastic. They could track his communication back to the bus depot but that would only be a problem if someone was listening, and he trusted his contact. If Volvo could not trust him, he could not trust anyone.

“Good?” asked Sammie, who had started to trot alongside Volvo like a lost puppy. He did not have a winter a coat – only a hooded jacket, coming unravelled where he had chewed through his sleeves to use them as gloves.

“Good,” replied Volvo. Pushing himself away from the freezing brick wall, he pulled his own coat tighter along his shoulders. His hand went to his belt. The gun was still there. “Well, not good. Five’s got something going on, apparently. Shipment could be delayed. And there’s the snow, too. Still, if we can get it in then there’ll be people for it.”

Sammie nodded, as if he understood. “And we get to keep the profit?”

“We do,” Volvo confirmed.

The young boy was becoming more and more interwoven with their work. Sammie craved it, living for the rush of rule breaking which brought them together. Begrudgingly, Volvo admitted that the kid was quick and bright with an optimism that had not yet been drilled out of him.

It was also good to have a reaping-age kid that they could flood with tesserae. As the harsh winter raged, the selling of the oil and grain was raking in more than delayed morphling shipments. Sammie’s entries were already uncountable.

“This is too good to be true.” Sammie followed along as they left the bus depot, kicking snow up in excitement as he wandered along the street. “We don’t even have to do anything. We just sell whatever we can and this person you phone lets us get away with it? No ‘keepers come after us?”

“If they got the chance, the ‘keepers would come after us,” warned Volvo. “Don’t think there’s anyone in this damned district which could change their mind, but this guy makes it hard.”

“Who is it?”

“Good kids don’t ask questions. Less you know, the better.”

Sammie scoffed but did not ask anything else. He wandered on the edge of the street where the snow was ankle deep. Volvo did not have the heart to tell him not to leave footprints.

They made their money in morphling. Once someone was hooked, they had been known to sell houses for a needle. Volvo did not let himself think too much about it.

“It’s not just selling,” he explained, wanting to set their new kid right. “You need people who’ll come back for more. Then, they’ll pay anything. We’ll use this new supply to try and get more people in on it. And don’t you dare try any.”

It was predictable. He had seen it happen before, over and over again. Sammie would end up hooked on morphling, with the yellow tinge to his skin and the glassy look in his eyes. He already drank like a dog. He smoked when the older guys offered him a stick. Morphling was his destiny – and if he was going to end up in the arena, it was for the best.

Volvo did not let himself think too much about that either.

“We’ll get you a coat with the cash,” he offered. Volvo hunched over his jacket whilst Sammie frolicked in the snow wearing only thin layers. “Can’t have you freezing whilst you sleep.”

Sammie kicked up another step of snow, adding the flurrying flakes to those that scampered across the sky. He held out his tongue as it fell. They melted on his tongue. Sammie licked his lips, laughing. “It’s not even cold!”

“Not even cold,” Volvo scoffed. District Six was frozen – a grey sludge of chemicals leaking across grey roads, petrol and oil staining the drifts. “Winterfest, and you’re saying it’s not even cold.”

Skidding in the snow, Sammie stopped. “Winterfest?”

“Well, yes.” Volvo waved generally in the direction of the distant lights. “What, were you expecting a gift?”

Sammie hesitated. “Nah,” he murmured, as quiet as the falling snow. “We never celebrated at the Home, anyway. Well, we got a better meal. Never got gifts. We’d have only nicked them off each other anyway.”

Volvo did not do sympathy. He did not do connection. He did not do promises. When he glanced over to his accomplice, the younger boy had hunched his shoulders up to his ears and had buried his hands in his pocket as if trying to keep warm.

“Let’s have a good meal,” said Volvo, thinking in passion rather than productivity.

Where were they going to get a good meal?

There was no food in any of their safehouses. Every merchant was closed. Volve would be lucky if he could scrape together a carrot to be boiled in snow water.

“Is it safe to light a fire tonight?” asked Sammie. “Can we roast potatoes over a fire, like they did in the Home?”

“Can probably get away with a fire whilst everyone else is busy singing of something,” Volvo answered, gruffly. “Might be able to find potatoes, too. We’ll do that. It’ll keep your hands warm.”

Sammie smiled, the spring back in his step. “Happy Winterfest, Volvo,” he offered, closely. They were the closest he had to family.

“Thanks. Happy Winterfest, Sammie.”

Volvo tried not to think of the hundreds of reaping slips with the boy’s name written on them.

Chapter Text

Camden Zenelli

September

Camden stepped into the academy’s yard, feet crunching against the floor as if treading on ashes. The nearby trees had carpeted the concrete in autumnal leaves before the return to school: an unusually early change in the season, as if everything was destined to be unusual.

The noise of old leaves was the only sound in the school yard. Camden gathered amongst his friends, all in new uniforms, but no one wanted to speak. Before the break, their conversations had largely revolved around teasing one particular student. It did not seem right to make fun of the dead.

“Did you have a good summer?” asked Bailey, eventually. She was often the first to break a silence – hearing everyone’s drama as her family tailored their newest outfit, she was never one to avoid a good story.

“Not particularly.” Camden’s bag felt too heavy on his back. He readjusted the straps as they rubbed red marks into the skin beneath his blazer. “My father kept me inside for most of it, once all the fanfare about the Games had died down.”

Bailey offered a sympathetic smile. “What – he didn’t take kindly to your vigil?”

“I didn’t think he would.”

Camden had spent a large portion of his summer break at the train station, waiting until the tribute train returned. Occasionally, his friends had offered to wait in his place as he ran for food, sleep and a shower. The station was never left empty. Between him and a mysterious man with too many bottles of alcohol, the tributes were guided on their journey to the graveyard without a single hitch.

His father had been furious.

The school’s bell rang out into the yard. It had been mechanised over their short break. Rather than a hand-rung metal bell, the electric buzzer sounded more like a warning than a welcome.

“Miss Romeo left after last summer,” said Bailey, as they begun the painful walk into the building. “I think she felt bad.”

“Why?” Camden stepped back, allowing his girl to enter first. “Wasn’t her fault.”

“Still, you know she liked him.”

The classroom had not been reorganised since the previous school year. Camden went to his desk – middle row, centre placement – and hated the fact that it was going to be empty beside him. Miss Romeo’s replacement, a middle-aged man with strained shirt buttons and glasses balanced across his nose, had not bothered to stand and greet them.

“You all seem miserable for the first day of school,” he announced, in lieu of a welcome. “Did someone die, or something?”

The class stayed silent. In the past, Camden would have blurted out the truth and rolled around in the uncomfortable atmosphere. He liked to make people laugh and did not care about who he hurt in the process – but now, he did. He cared because he had teased someone about something which had happened, and it did not feel as good when your victim with being stabbed through the chest on live television.

“Yes,” said Camden, looking at his desk. As the mayor’s son, the class often allowed him to speak on their behalf. “Someone did die.”

“Oh?” said their new teacher, in a curious mixture of sympathy and curiosity.

Bailey jumped in to save Camden, nudging his chair with her foot so that he knew she was behind her. “Saori was in our class,” she explained, mournful. “The tribute.”

“I see.” Finally, their teacher stood. His chair creaked as he moved. “I suppose his brother was in this class too, then?”

There was a solemn nod – the collective grief of a class of twenty, who were tired of watching the people around them be taken. The teacher nodded too, accepting their answer.

“You must be a cursed class. I wonder who’ll be next.”

October

“This is ridiculous,” murmured Bailey, leaning across her wooden desk. Her notebook was as serviceable as any pillow.

Camden wanted to lie with her but instead, he tried to focus on the screen at the front of the room. Being with Bailey had not helped his academics. Their new style of learning was not helping either.

Their teacher was not there to teach – not like Miss Romeo, who had punctuated the Capitol-created curriculum with her own stories and ideas. There were discussions and debates across the class, and short essays about interesting topics. It had been a room filled with learning. Now, it was flooded with boredom.

Each lesson was a video. The old screen was wheeled out in front of them, showing whatever the Capitol wanted them to learn about. The city did not like debate or questioning. They sat, they watched, and they made notes that they were expected to review at home. There was nothing else.

Camden hummed in agreement with his girlfriend, trying to be interested in the topic at hand. It was somewhere between a science lesson and a warning – a look at addictive substances which could inhibit their dopamine receptors, rippled with warnings about why never to take them.

“Why are they bothering to teach District Six about morphling?” continued Bailey, almost face down in her book. “If anyone is going to know anything about it, it’s us.”

Chuckling out of courtesy, Camden put his pencil down on his notebook. There were no real notes to make. The main statistic had already been recited to them: he lived in the district with the highest recorded drug dependency, and the highest recorded number of drug related deaths.

“I think it’s by design,” he murmured, trying to keep his voice lower than a whisper. Their new teacher did not care if they talked – their learning was their responsibility, not his – but Camden had learned to be careful when he spouted anything controversial. “The people who take it are so distracted by it, there’s nothing else they want to do. Stops them thinking. That’s why it’s all out there behind the wire, rather than here.”

“And when there is someone out there who can avoid it, they tend to be very smart,” replied Bailey.

Together, they thought of the same person. It was easy to succeed in world beyond the barbed wire if you did not go anywhere near the morphling. There were professions who would take anyone providing you were not dependent on a chemical.

“You’d think it’d be out there in the more rebellious districts then,” continued Bailey, as she stretched up. The flickering light of the screen caught the gold hairband she wore in her hair, curling neatly around her face from the strange cord she slept in each night. Camden tried to imagine his love beside a flickering campfire or a glowing lamp rather than the Capitol’s public safety video. She continued, leaning her chin delicately on her hand. “Ten, Eleven, you know. The ones they have to be concerned about.”

“They don’t have to be concerned about Ten.” Camden felt pride in knowing these things, having picked up political titbits from his father’s loud voice in his office. “But why here when it could be more use in somewhere like Five?”

He spat the district as if it was an insult. Amongst the merchant class, it had become one.

The programming persisted, moving on to a lesser-known drug called ketazopam. It was a sedative. It could cause paralysing effects if too much was consumed at once. It could cause death with an overdose. Camden did not have the energy to write a single fact down.

“It’s because we travel,” said Bailey, suddenly. Her own notebook was littered with doodles rather than information: little stars drawn in single lines, or cross-hatched shapes.

Camden hummed again, wanting more explanation. He leaned over and added his own drawing to her gallery: a smiling face with a crooked nose.

With a smirk, Bailey turned over her pencil and went to rub out her boyfriend’s addition. “They don’t want us learning anything about where we are,” she elaborated. “If we’re distracted, we won’t be a problem for them.”

“Makes sense,” replied Camden, cautiously.

It was a good idea, rooted in reality. His girlfriend was often the cleverest in the room but did not always know when to use her perfectly pouted mouth. After all, her family owned a tailoring business. They did not need to worry about the world around them as much as Camden did, tied up in politics. With Bailey’s input, the conversation was leaning dangerously close to something that could get them into trouble.

“You think the same?” asked Bailey.

Camden shook his head. “Capitol wouldn’t do something like that,” he said. “Besides, we’re a big district. Probably just harder for the Peacekeepers to control the flow of everything considering all the back entrances. It’s only hurting the people that take it.”

It was Bailey’s turn to hum, still sleepily fighting the droning voice of the video. “You’re probably right,” she murmured.

Camden did not agree with her. He had heard several stories from his father, and he knew that the Capitol would absolutely do something like that.

November

Camden wandered to and from his schooling with very little enthusiasm. Sitting in a dark room and watching repetitive videos was turning his brain to mush rather than enriching it.

Their new education was like a strange vein of morphling – making them sleepy, and dependent, and unable to fight back. Camden could not help but wonder if it was deliberate. Whilst he kept his mouth shut, he often argued with his own head about everything the Capitol was capable of.

The academy class had been silenced. They were lost in depressing videos rather than debate. Camden knew Saori, who had a surprisingly sharp tongue for such a quiet boy. It was likely he had said something in the arena which had not made it to air and now, the entire class was suffering for his rebellion. Camden smiled at the though. The revenge was exactly something Saori would have orchestrated.

Camden dropped his school bag onto the marbled floor of the entrance way. He could already hear his father’s voice echoing through the building, so he chose not to announce his arrival for fear of interrupting an important political call. His father must have forgotten to shut the door to his office again.

Accompanied by a soundtrack of potential political queries, Camden wandered into the kitchen to find something to steal for his room. Their housemaid had baked a tray of cookies that morning. The comforting scent still lingered across the pristine room. Camden stole one straight from the cooling rack and took a bite, pleasantly surprised to find that it was real chocolate. Despite the snow, the supply trains must still have been able to pull into the station.

The cookie crumbled. As he walked through the house, Camden trod a mess of crumbs into the red carpet. He needed to walk directly past his father’s office, and the mayor would probably notice that his son was home. Camden did not want that – he liked eavesdropping on important conversations.

He settled himself on a plush red rug. They were not allowed to redecorate the house as temporary, elected inhabitants. Someone had settled on red meaning power and laid a crimson carpet, like the one they laid at the station for new tributes. It was somewhere comfortable for Camden to sit as he finished his cookie and listened to his father’s voice, loud and clear.

“I don’t believe you,” his father said, stern. It sounded like a long-distance call – another mayor perhaps? – as there were pacing footsteps alongside the conversation. “It’s not believable, is it? You’d need to come up with something better. No, I’m not bailing you out. That’s not my job. I’m already doing far more than I should, really.”

Camden had caught muttered snippets: across the outer districts, there were several incidents which needed the input of another elected official. District Five had a dangerous flu travelling around their tower blocks. District Nine had an unnerved harvest team who had been caught planning an uprising. The mayor’s voice was harsh, but politics had no place for kindness.

“The shipment will be late. You have no idea of the chaos across Panem right now. No one does. It’s not your job to know.”

When he finished his cookie, Camden licked the remaining crumbs from his fingers. His mother would have scolded him for his manners – but then, eavesdropping was also considered rude.

“We’re all struggling. Look, I know it’s different for everyone – District Ten have had a huge outbreak of something in their livestock, alright? It’s going to be impossible to get a roasting bird for Winterfest. Your job is still the same. I need it done. I need everything calmed down.”

Calmed down?

Camden rested his head back against the wall. There was no concern in his home district – unless Five’s new illness had begun spreading through another quarter. District Six was quiet during the winter. People remained at work or at home, rarely hovering between as the snow fell in freezing flurries. There would be some people in the street where morphling would have disguised the cold until it was too late, but they deserved it.

It was probably a supply train. District Six would have volunteered to send something to another district, and now the mayor was left to try and organise a train in the winter weather.  Camden had experience with similar stolen secrets. It was always the easiest, simplest and most boring explanation.

Camden stood, walked by with footsteps loud enough to be heard, and disappeared into his bedroom.

December

Camden longed for the excitement that Winterfest had filled him with as a child, but it was difficult to find in a sterile house. The decorations had been sent by the Capitol – the old tree they had used when his father owned the stationary shop had been thrown away in the move – and they all twinkled in the same shade of red.

His mother was dressing for the evening’s event: a merchant get-together in the square, where they would light candles and sing. Their voices would drown out the gunshots from the streets outside the barbed wire fence. Camden was already dressed in a stifling suit which he hated but worn without protest.

Whilst there was a women paid to cook for them, she had been sent home for the holiday. The house was not even filled with the comforting clanking of pots and pans. It made the mayor’s voice even clearer as it floated from his study, despite his promise to not work on Winterfest.

The conversation was tense and hushed as if the mayor wanted no one to hear him. Camden stood beside the ajar door and listened to every word.

“That’s taking it a step too far, I’m afraid,” hissed the mayor. “Stay with the original plan.”

Camden could hear the buzz of a voice on the other side of the phone, but his father interrupted it.

“I’m not risking anything. The morphling is enough, and the spread of it is even more than it was a decade ago. Ketazopam won’t do anything that we can’t do with morphling.”

In the fog of his mindless learning, Camden was able to recall each of the complicated names. Morphling was the currency of the world beyond the barbed wire. You did not find morphling, but it certainly found you. Ketazopam was new but had been mentioned in a science class: a powerful sedative, used to force a body to relax.

“I want morphling,” stressed Camden’s father, his voice growing quicker and quieter. “We do not need to change this relationship.”

Camden did not know much about his father, but he knew that the man did not take morphling. That drug belonged in the yellow-tinged hands of the people beyond the fence.

“The Peacekeepers will be looking the other way, yes. I have more control than the Capitol in that respect. You’ll be able to get the morphling in through the usual route once the track is clear.”

If his father was not taking the morphling, he knew someone who was – or he knew someone who was trying to get into District Six. Camden could not stop himself. He stormed into the office, pushing the ajar door aside. “What is that?” demanded Camden, pushing his fists into his father’s desk. “Morphling. Ketazopam. What is that?”

The mayor slammed down the phone when his son entered the room. “Oh, Camden,” he laughed, too high pitched for his voice. “This isn’t something you need to concern yourself with, is it?”

It was – but Camden did not care.

“Who is going to get morphling in?” he demanded. “What are you talking about?”

His father stood, straightening his jacket. “We need to get to the square.”

“Tell me.”

Camden was desperate to feel safe in his own home. The barbed wire fence kept District Six’s danger away from him, but the Capitol could reach him from anywhere. His father’s choices would not reflect on his father.

“You don’t need to- to cause a fuss,” managed his father, starting to stumble.

Positioning himself in front of the door, Camden folded his arms. “We’re not going anywhere until I know what is going on.”

His father paused. “Don’t upset your mother, Camden.”

“Tell me what is going on.”

The holly, jolly celebration of Winterfest had long since faded in the midst of the argument. The mayor’s laughter had faded with it. Camden was serious.

“It keeps them quiet, Camden,” his father relented, with a shake of his head. “The morphling will keep District Six quiet. That’s why we do it.”

In a single phone call, the mayor was blurring the line between politics and policy and being plain problematic. “That’s illegal,” spat Camden, unnecessarily.

“Being in charge does not mean doing what is legal.” His father edged back, leaning into the side of the desk. “It’s about doing what is right, and a calm city is more important than any arbitrary law. Where would we be if people were angry, like in Five and Nine? Those people are savages. They are better sedated.”

Camden’s mind tuned the conversation out, like he did with each lesson that was played to them on a screen. He had fixated on the term legal. If you broke the law, you were punished – and when they could not punish the person responsible, they would punish anyone close to them.

If they had reaped a brother, they would reap a son.

“They’ll take it out on me if they catch you,” Camden hissed, lowering his voice. “You know they will. They can’t make it obvious that you’ve been funnelling morphling, for Panem’s sake.”

When his father laughed again, it was hesitant. “They won’t know a thing. There’s nothing in this room that they could use to listen in.”

“They know everything.”

The mayor pushed his son from the doorway, heading out into a world that he claimed did not know any better. “You will be fine, I promise.”

Chapter Text

  Sylvia Amandine

September

Sylvia did not feel the music as she once had. The old piano was dying. She was dying with it. Her husband had offered a new one – ordered straight from the Capitol so that you can play like yourself again, he had said – but Sylvia had turned it down. Music did not sound the same anymore, and it did not matter which instrument it was played on.

The dancing tuition was no longer a retreat, either. Her studio was occupied by three giggling girls – each the daughter of a merchant, and each unfamiliar with hard work. They danced for expectation rather than dancing for passion.

Watching her students as she played, Sylvia decided she could not care for them. Their feet were sickled. Their postures were lazy. Their emotional connection to the movement was non-existent. What was the point of correcting them? They would never be worth putting in for the scholarship.

Sylvia kept her letter – Ilara’s audition date and time – on top of her piano as a reminder of the student she had lost.

On the floor, another missed movement was met with comedy instead of correction. Sylvia slammed her fists down on the piano and forced a horrid sound from the yellowing keys.

“Out!” she yelled, scraping her stool across the wood as she stood to point at the door. Her three students stared at her, wide-eyed. They looked to each other as if they did not know what they were doing wrong, arms wrapped around their leotards as they tried to hide.

“Madame…Madame Amandine?” managed one, risking a step forward in her satin slippers.

Sylvia ignored her. “Out! If you do not take this lesson seriously, you do not take it at all. I do not teach silly little girls.”

Immediately, two students were startled enough to begin to collect their belongings. It was a slow exit – Sylvia had drilled into them that you did not walk in your ballet shoes as if they were rugged footwear. Each girl sat on the step down to the dance floor and began to unlace their pointe shoes.

The remaining girl – the butcher’s daughter – folded her arms. She leaned over the barre. “My father paid for this lesson,” she scowled, “and I’m going to stay and take it.”

“Then you will take it with no teacher.”

Sylvia stood from her piano, not caring for the scream it made as she leaned across the keys. Her prized music was resting on the instrument’s stand. She began to pack it away, tapping old pages together on the top.

“This isn’t fair!” cried the girl. “We’re entitled to this lesson. You can’t just stop teaching us!”

She ignored the hissed warning of her two friends. Sylvia had a reputation for her short temper – a temper which had not improved in recent months – and it would be better for them all if they rescheduled the lesson to another day. It would be different tomorrow, or next week, or next month. For that day, Sylvia was done.

“I do not teach entitled children,” she explained, curtly.

“You have to teach me!” The girl stamped her foot with a strange, hollow sound from the box of her pointe shoe. “I want to take the scholarship audition. It’s your job to help me pass it, isn’t it?”

Sylvia surrounded herself in calming things: the pink satin of point shoes, the yellowing piano keys, the soft cream of paper music, and the quiet beige of a wooden floor. In that moment, she saw red.

She swept her music across the top of her piano in her fury, sending it flying across the floor like forgotten reaping slips. “Never!” she yelled, voice rumbling across the quiet studio. “You will never take that audition! You will never pass it! You will never, ever have the passion in your dance that you need, you stupid, giggling girl!”

There was a silent echo – the aftermath of a furious cry. Sylvia regretted nothing. She was left with three frightened students – and one who burst into tears at the sudden criticism.

As a teacher, she should have stopped and comforted them. She should have apologised for her temper, blamed it away on the stress of being the mayor’s wife. Sylvia had too much pride to do anything except point at the door. “Go,” she ordered, quieter now that her fury was fading. “I will teach you at our next lesson, when we are all in a mood better for dancing.”

The three students did not argue. They hurried out in a silenced trio. Sylvia fell back onto her piano stool and held her aching head in her hands, ignoring the clashing chord that played as she leaned against the keys.

October

“You are driving everyone away,” said Birch, shaking his head at his wife as she settled in a plush chair. “You are doing absolutely nothing for the business.”

“What business?” waved Sylvia, before returning her hand to her head. She covered her eyes and shielded it from the room’s soft light, trying to stave off a headache which had threatened to brew since the summer. She could hear the crackling of the fire in their lounge. She could smell the acrid smoke. She wanted nothing to do with the light.

There was a glass of water on the table beside her, a cautious gift from her husband as an apology for the incoming lecture. With her eyes still closed, Sylvia took the cold glass and swallowed everything inside, desperate for the help it might offer.

“Your dancing school,” prompted Birch, softly. He juggled mayor and husband with ease, but had been forced to cancel a meeting to deal with the complaints about his wife. “You won’t have a school if you don’t have a single student to teach.”

Sylvia did not want a student. She snapped throughout each lesson, perturbed by the bright light in the studio and sickened by the sound of the piano. There was not a single student that deserved her time or her pain. They were all silly, young children who danced for the sake of dancing. There was no passion.

“I don’t wish to teach,” she announced. As it rumbled around the quiet room, Sylvia felt more certain of her thought than she had ever had when it had only been in her head. “I teach for the sake of giving myself something to do whilst you work. I no longer wish to do that. I no longer wish to dance.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” broached Birch, softly.

He had sat in his own chair with his own glass, although his did not contain water. The amber liquid came with a strong scent that had begun to float around the room with the smoke. The mayor’s love of brandy had never been kept a secret. It was as well-known as his wife’s love of music. Whilst Sylvia had moved away from what she adored once the Hunger Games had finished, the mayor had indulged in it more and more.

“Until my headache is gone, I cannot face the piano,” said Sylvia. That was true, at least. It was a convenient reason. The complaints that students had begun to throw at her could easily be explained away with this throbbing, swirling headache that was refusing to leave her alone.

“That is fair.” Birch downed his drink, taking a moment to savour his vice. “I just do think that it would help you to find your passion again, or your muse.”

“No one has passion for it, and neither do I.”

“Well, if you want to find passion then you can look away from the paying customers.” Birch placed his glass back down on the coffee table. “We have money, Sylvia. You do not need to teach to earn. Take your skill down into the woodlots and find someone who is willing to dance for the world, just like Ilara was.”

Sylvia tensed. “Do not say her name.”

Ilara Grove, her best dancer, was the likely cause of her headache. Sylvia had spent sleepless nights pouring across the paperwork to apply to the Capitol Academy of Performing Arts. It was tricky to find the correct form for a district applicant, and there were a lot of requirements to meet.

She had done it. Ilara had been given that audition, and would have travelled to the Capitol on the 5^th October to compete for a place that was not freely given. Instead, Ilara had travelled to the Capitol for the Hunger Games. She had died on the first day, talent bleeding out of her many wounds.

That had been when the headaches started, and they refused to stop.

“I do not wish to teach,” replied Sylvia, repeating herself. “I do not wish to dance. I do not wish to play. I do not even want to read the blasted notes on the stave. I am happy, Birch. I do not need to throw myself into that at this time.”

Her terse, formal voice was a sign that Sylvia wanted the argument to be over. Birch sighed, unsure how to proceed.

“I just want my wife back,” he offered, quietly. “I want the woman I fell in love with, who could not complete a single task without a sweet song or who pointed her tones to the tunes on the screen. I want Sylvia back, as much as I can.”

“Find a cure for my headache and you can have her,” mumbled Sylvia, but she did not believe it.

Sylvia had taken a break from her studio before. As with any passion, her love of dance and music came in waves. It was almost as if it returned with the leaves growing on the trees in the woodlots, as if piano and spring were synonymous. Ilara had been a muse – a girl for whom Sylvia was willing to work through any rut.

This felt final. The piano could be moved from the studio into their sitting room, an ornament rather than a piece to be played. The studio could be rented to someone else. If she did not dance, her life would carry on – Ilara’s would not, and there was no one else in District Seven like her.

“I am still the person that you fell in love with,” murmured Sylvia, although she did not believe it herself.

November

If it was a scale that her young son played on her old piano, Sylvia decided that she could stand music.

“That’s it,” she encouraged, with a bright smile and a painkiller that could dull the headache. It was not morphling – that was the drug of the lower class. Instead, it was synthesised from something similar. It was less addictive. Sylvia believed she was too strong to be addicted to anything anyway. The daily double dose of the medication was solely to help with her head.

Yewan grinned, his eyes filled with childlike wonder despite his old age of twelve. The piano had once been a forbidden instrument which he was never allowed to play.

When he coaxed music from the yellowing keys, he did so with passion. He played as if he wanted to do well. Entranced, Sylvia wrapped an arm across her son’s shoulder. “You have really done well, you know,” she murmured, with a brief hug.

“I like it,” replied Yewan. He played the scale again – a complete up and down, with the correct hand placement and a good sense of rhythm. It was nothing but to Sylvia, it was everything. Her head no longer pounded with the music. “Can you teach me how to read this too?”

Yewan pointed to the sheet music that was still resting on the music stand. Sylvia had been practicing it, before becoming frustrated and slamming the lid on her instrument shut a few days ago. It was not a tricky piece – a combination for one of Ilara’s doomed audition pieces – but Yewan would not be able to tell the difference.

“Someday,” replied Sylvia. She took the music and quickly bundled it away. “We’ll find you something easier first, I think. But you will read it, and you will play.”

Yewan grinned. Sylvia grinned back, excited to have another project to throw herself into. For once, her head was clear.

December

“Happy birthday, to someone special!” sang Sylvia, accompanied by her tone-deaf husband. Her clear tone carried the tune. “And we wish you many more!”

Yewan laughed, a bright face illuminated by thirteen dancing candles on a chocolate cake. He had not wanted any sort of party. Whilst there were balloons decorating the dining room, it was just their small family: Sylvia, Birch, Yewan, and the music that they made together.

“Once a year, we give a cheer!”

Birch was clapping a rhythm. Sylvia refrained from putting a hand to her head. The pain was back and her husband’s out-of-time clapping was not helping it. Music was not the healing force it had once been.

“To you, Yewan! Happy birthday!”

Yewan applauded himself and blew out his thirteen candles. The smoke danced delicately across the top of the cake as he grabbed a knife.

Sylvia saw her son holding a blade. She looked away.

“I’m thirteen!” cheered Yewan, as he pushed the knife through the chocolate sponge. He placed the first slice on his own plate, swiping a finger around in the icing and giggling as he licked it straight from his hand.

Strained, Birch laughed with him. “Thirteen-year-old boys do not eat with their hands,” he warned, forever a stickler for etiquette.

Sylvia did not hear thirteen. There was a roar in her head – a painful din – but one thing was clear throughout it all. She heard two – two entries in the reaping bowl. Her little boy was getting older and with each passing year, there was more chance of him being picked. The headache multiplied. With each beat of her heart, her head throbbed.

“I need-“ began Sylvia, but her own voice was too painful. She needed to be somewhere in a dark room. Without thinking, she turned her back on her boy.

“Mom!” he whined, ignoring when she winced. “You can’t go and hide on my birthday. You need to at least have some cake.”

Looking at his wife with a disdain she detested, Birch sided with his son. He placed an arm around his shoulder and pulled him into a hug. “Another migraine?” he asked. Sylvia nodded because she could not imagine what else it could be. “Well, you know that this happens, Yewan. We just need to let her go and lie down.”

“It’s my birthday! She’s been lying down every single day since the summer.”

His voice became muffled as Sylvia shuffled into the hallway.

Her son, holding a knife, was not a tribute. Ordinarily, Sylvia would never have entertained the thought of her son being entered into the Hunger Games. The arena was for rebels and monsters – not for her sweet boy.

That was what she had believed, before they took her dancer. The Hunger Games would take anyone. You could only survive if you were a monster. Until her boy aged out of the damned ceremony, Sylvia knew the headache would never fade.