The Entertainer

by phantomwriter05

Living a directionless Vagabond existance under the guidance of his uncle, John Reese meets a girl in the woods one morning. What follows will unearth secrets that will shake John and the country to the brink. TSCC/The Hunger Games

1. Chapter 1

Ladies, Gentlemen … Kaotic. Welcome to the great Experiment!

Shout out too SarahWannabe, or Girlscoutsniper (However you know her as) for helping me with this as a Beta and Book reader.

All Events take place AU after the ending of "The Hunger Games" Movie.

Prologue: Allentown

There was a gentle breeze that selected the least-steady branches of the thick foliage-covered hills. The hills sat just outside the perimeter fence that barred off the fringes of District Twelve from the wild unknown that lay beyond the outer rim territory of the great and powerful Government of Panem -*un*affectionately known merrily as "The Capitol".

The truth was that John Reese, at the ripe age of fifteen, didn't exactly know what the official name of that government really was. He could ask his uncle again, but Derek never cared to answer really. There was a shrug one day, a gruff grunt the next, and on his worst days "Who gives a damn …" So John really didn't care to know. Maybe being known only as The Capitol was enough for those people. Maybe it was enough for the people here … in District Twelve.

Moving low across the meadow of wild flowers that had unnaturally grown past the normal height of most wildflowers, John often found the weirdest times to think about these mundane things. This was an awkward time mostly because "The Peacekeepers", or "Jack booted thugs" as Derek liked to call them, were thick as fleas today.

Reaping day …

Maybe not the best time to go sneaking across boundaries no one is allowed to cross, especially when Peacekeepers are flown in from other garrisons. It's to keep extra watch over the more fringe districts like Ten, Eleven, and Twelve. Sure, the local boys from the 32nd might overlook a hunter going into the frontier for game, as long as you gave them a "bite" of what you got. Seeing as how food runs scarce for both citizen and thug alike, it was really a catch 22 for a lawman. You've sworn an oath to protect the law and "Safe guard the future", but when there's fresh meat to be had, temporary memory loss is a common occurrence. But if you get zealous rookies right out of the Academy, or units from some of the inner districts … well you're sure to get shot.

Despite the risk, the one upside was that it really was a beautiful morning. The soft breeze off the mountains was like a mother's caress through his hair - not that he knew what that was like. The air was the right kind of cool, the kind that made his father's old dark brown leather field jacket feel snug. If he were to remove it, his skin would get all fresh, like taking a cool drink of water after a hard day in District Ten. Whenever John thought about it, he had to scoff at the irony of it all.

"The day you decide to grace us with some great weather is today, of all days," the youth muttered to the sky. John was never quite sure who he was talking to when he talked to the sky. Sometimes it was just to say stuff and not look like a complete loon, and other times he thought it might be him talking to his father.

No, he was pretty sure he was talking to his father "The Hero without fear". Kyle Reese was an eighteen year old boy when he died in the arena of the 108th annual Hunger Games. To this day it is still considered one of the most popular and famous matches of all time.

In all honesty, though he was renowned far and wide for his bravery, John's father placed third out of twenty four. The other two were career tributes from the inner districts- a boy from District Two, Arnold something … most people from the inner districts didn't have last names, the other and victor that year was a sixteen year old girl from District One, her name was Sarah.

John had always been fascinated with Sarah, like most people in Panem. She was quite a beauty, long mane of luxurious black curls, haunting green eyes, and milky skin. John would stare at her a lot when he was younger, she used to be a commentator with Flickerman, and though his uncle never let him watch the games out of "principle", John never missed Sarah when she came on. There was something in her eyes, this haunted sadness that made her even more beautiful. A difference from the younger, bright eyed, girl flirting with an eerily unchanged Ceasar Flickerman during her games interview.

But Derek hated her, so John never got to see her much. John's love for her was a secret one, in the Reese household you did not watch the games, and you did not have anything but spite for "The Rose of District One", but Derek had his reasons.

From how it was told to John, his father had been in an alliance with Sarah throughout most of the game. Together they had avoided many disasters, and saved each other's lives. In the end their antagonist was Arnold from District Two. He had been a ruthless career that had killed at least seventy-five percent of the tributes in the first four days. When their backs were against the wall, his father took a sword and went after the Career, while protecting a wounded Sarah. Suddenly, the screens went blank, for three days no one knew what had happened. When they returned Arnold was gone, and John's father was dead. Only Sarah remained, clinging to life, despite a leg rotting with infection.

To John that sounded pretty anti-Climatic, three days without knowledge? Why would anyone think that was great? But he guessed that whatever happened in there, it didn't top people's imaginations about what really happened.

"Yo' daddy is one of the bravest men whoever competed," some would say. But John never knew why … sometimes when he would sit and watch Ceasar Flickerman's pregame specials they would show past games. "The Duel in the Desert" or "The Terror of the Point" but the 108th never was shown. "You had to be there," the old men would say in the street. John always wanted to say "You weren't … if you had my old man would still be here wouldn't he?" but he would just nod.

The woods rustled with the breeze, this would make hunting hard today, the youth thought slipping into the shadow of the forest and out of the open meadow between the woods and the fence. To most people it would seem suicidal to even attempt to get in here over open ground. But the difference was that most people hadn't been taught how to work their way around traps like that.

John never knew his mother, and till this day didn't know anything about her. Kyle Reese had no sweethearts that anyone knew about, and his uncle refused to talk about it otherwise. It left John to be raised by Derek Thomas Reese, former mentor of District Twelve and winner of the 100th Hunger Games. Most importantly, not just any Hunger Games … but the fourth Quarter Quell. So thrust with a baby boy to raise, Derek taught John the only things he knew- how to survive, how to fight, and how to be a soldier.

They actually didn't live in District Twelve, in fact they didn't actually live anywhere. Out of the necessity of demons in his uncle's soul, they travel from district to district. Usually the Capitol didn't allow this, however Derek was a winner and a rich man, so he was allotted special privileges. But once a year, since John was twelve, they returned to their home district so that he could register for the games.

So for the last three years, on this day, John found himself in these woods, hunting for dinner tonight, because when he would sit at the table of his grandmother's old childhood house in the poorest area of District Twelve known as "The Seam" his uncle would be beyond shitfaced to provide dinner. He'll be drinking to celebrate John being spared from the fight, drinking to mourn the kids who will fight and die in four weeks, drinking to forget the boys and girls he killed many years ago, and drinking to fill the emptiness in his soul over the death of his family. To this day many people didn't know what happened to Kyle Reese, Arnold, nor Sarah … but there was someone John was convinced knew what happened … but he'd never be drunk enough to tell his nephew the story.

Three paces, a quarter mile from the spot in the woods parallel to the third stake on the electric fence, was a log with a bow hidden inside. Five paces from there is a verge covering what used to be a wolverines lair- inside is a quiver of surplus arrows he had nicked from a District Two academy. John spent a couple of minutes polishing away the years' worth of grim on the silver body of the bow, and arrows in the quiver with a handkerchief stolen from Derek's rarely worn suit.

He looked up at the mid-morning sun, checking the time. He had about three or four hours before he had to get back and get ready for the reaping. "Tonight might be a little sparse on the dinner …" he thought, then grunted, hitching the quiver on his shoulder and jumping on and off the log and began moving west, toward the berry bushes.

It was nice combination, being that most of the game in the forest tended to come by the area to eat. If John was lucky, he could get himself a baby deer, and some strawberries. John usually wouldn't mind a big buck, but there was no way he would get it home with all the Peacekeepers around. But then again, baby deer were a more tender meat than big ones, but they also didn't last as long in storage as the full grown.

Moving cautiously, the last thing John wanted was to get lost. The truth of the matter was that while, yes, he's hunted these woods before, he only comes once a year therefor he didn't know them all that well. Going west would assure something to eat, but the west section of the forest was also the most wild- feral dogs, bears, and if that wasn't enough, the trees grew tangled and thick, bathing the area in an artificial night.

The air was damp and heavy, thickened with cedar and moistened soil. Darkness fell like a great pavilion had been erected over John's head. His steps became softer, and he adjusted his quiver correctly, drawing a metallic shaft and connecting the notch, to the string.

Its five hundred paces through "Indian territory" before you reached the river, once you forded the clear rush of water, it was another two hundred paces to the wild fruit patches. If John was living here more permanently, he might trap in the area. People like fresh meat of any variety, and pelts are a lucrative item when the winter comes through, especially in this district with its heavy snows.

With the lack of the sun's morning rays penetrating the thick canopy high above the young man's head, a deep cold settled on the ground making the trip a slick and muddy one. John was suddenly grateful he had taken the button down coat on the hunting trip. Being that he was still a little hazy about where he was going, the youth started to count his paces, focusing on the ground as if the path was right in front of him.

That's when he stopped.

He must have been a little off today, with the coming reaping, and questions of his father that came annually, he never noticed that there was in fact a path in front of him. They were a track of footprints leading his way toward the hunting grounds. He could see his own breath when he shuttered one out. Quickly, he crouched next to the prints. They weren't just any prints, they were human.

"No, that's not right." He squinted at the tracks.

The feet were bare, which seemed normal he guessed, it was spring time, and some of the poorer kids of District Twelve only owned shoes during the late fall to early spring where they would sell the leather for extra food. It was the way the track sunk into the mud that confused him. The foot was small and slender, a petite girl, but it was the way it sunk in the mud, that didn't make sense to John. The girl had to be at least three hundred pounds, easily. But a girl with these feet couldn't support that kind of weight. Even if she was overweight and carrying a twelve point buck, it wouldn't look like that.

John got back to a full standing position, frowning down the misty way west. Without putting too much thought into the action he pulled his bow string back to half cock and began to follow the trail toward the river. There was a nervous clench in his stomach and his heart was racing, tracking the stranger with the weirdest print ever. He had been so puzzled that he hadn't noticed that the darkness began to recede and the soft trickling of running water began to echo in the hollow darkness behind him. He could smell the wet moss under his father's old supple boots, the damp fungus squishing under his soles. He frowned to shield himself from the bright light reflecting against the crystal flow of water.

Finding the end of the tracks, the teen rushed behind the trees, sidling and lurking behind cover trying to find a better view of the river, where his person of interest was heading. For a moment he pondered if she was lost, looking for a source of water. Either way, he wasn't going to take a chance, just in case this was some trap. He took a sniping position on an angle between a large trunked tree and a boulder several feet above the ground. Green eyes flicked back and forth from the shadows, looking for any sign on the river bed, or in the water. He wrapped his index finger around the arrow, and slowed his breathing. After a moment of nothing, he sighed, lowering his aim. He closed his eyes letting the sloshing of water in the waist deep river calm is breath, and lower his adrenaline …

SHEEF

The bow made a metallic creek, and on a dime John turned about face in a smooth effortless motion. With his aim square, and arrow notched back for the kill. The sharpened head was automatically pointed straight between curious eyes. He seemed to have found his mystery prey, or maybe she had found him, because she had come up right behind him and he had not heard a thing.

She wasn't quite what he was expecting, and maybe he wasn't what she was expecting either from the look she gave him. The girl looked about John's age, with shining dark hair in ringlets, and golden-flecked brown eyes that seemed almost stoic despite her curiosity. The girl's peachy skin glowed, and her slender body seemed to posture like she was nailed to a board. But through it all she didn't seem fearful, nor flinch at the weapon trained on her.

"Hello …" Her voice was gentle despite the disconnected look, and there was an almost disarming innocence to it.

"Hello" He repeated, despite the death glare he was giving her.

She seemed to get lost in her own head for a beat before she spoke again. "What's your name?" Her voice turning direct and forward; it took John by surprise.

"John" He replied, still keeping her at bay with his bow.

There was a smile. "Cameron" She said with a tilt of her head.

There was an awkward silence that filled the cold air around them. Taking a pause to think, John was starting to feel ridiculous trying to intimidate her, when she was smiling at him, almost as if she didn't consider the arrowhead a threat. Slowly John lowered his bow and relaxed his arm.

"What are you doing?" She asked curiously, as if these were questions in an opening protocol. He wasn't sure why, maybe it was the fact that she was very beautiful, or he found her innocence charming, but John felt safe around her, and dismissed the threat.

"Hunting" he replied honestly.

The girl got a strange look on her face. "Me?" She asked.

At first John thought she was joking, but when her eyes got darkly intense, he stiffened. "No" he replied in confusion. "For food." He corrected with a heavy handed voice that was supposed to be obviousness.

The girl tightened her cheek. "I could be eaten" She pointed out.

"I guess …" John sheathed his arrow back in the quiver as a sign of good faith. "But you're not really my kind of a meal." He quirked his eyebrow, that was when his stomach rumbled at the mention of food. He had left the house without eating.

"Could I be?" She asked almost hopefully.

It occurred to John, that this might be one of the weirdest conversations born out of the weirdest situation he's ever been in. He snorted at her, assuming she was joking and began to give himself some breathing room seeing as she was invading a good part of his personal space.

"I don't know …" he trailed off after a few paces. "Maybe if you were honey roasted," he chuckled to himself. When he turned back, he nearly went for his weapons as he found her extremely close to his face again.

"Just move here?" she asked, almost randomly.

What was she playing at? What is she even doing out here? Why did she make him smile when he answered.

"Yeah … sort of, you know, in a way I guess." He shrugged, awkwardly setting out for the riverbed.

"Heh, sucks for you." She smiled. Without missing a beat, the girl began walking with him.

"Heh," John let out a chuckle, and turned to get a better picture of what he was dealing with. She had dark hair, brown eyes, and peach skin. She actually didn't look like she belonged in District Twelve at all. Most people had black or blond hair, grey or blue eyes. From the look of her, she belonged in District 4. The problem with that is that no one was allowed to leave their District unless they were winners or people visiting from The Capitol. Speaking of the Capitol, she was dressed in a very fancy dress, might be one of the most fancy he'd seen since he had visited District One. Could it be that she was actually here from the Capitol for the reaping?

"Are you lost?" John asked.

The girl paused a moment. "Yes …" She answered in a serious deadpan response, a bit too much conviction to sound totally believable. But then what she doing out here anyway, in a dress, barefoot, without a weapon to hunt with? He might as well take her word for it, because he was drawing a blank on any other reasonable answer.

Leading the way, the boy hiked to the riverbed, and felt his stomach growl again.

"What is that?" Cameron seemed suddenly intrigued by his inner organ's groaning.

John gave a Derek-like grunt. "Hunger," he replied and found a perch on a boulder.

The youth observed the girl watching him in confusion. He wasn't sure if she was confused about his comment or the fact that he sitting on a rock, as if she never had seen anyone sit on a rock before. For a long moment she watched him, and then with a hop, she perfectly mimicked him. Once again, she had found, and was sitting in his personal space. He frowned at the action at first, while she stared with innocent unblinking eyes. Finally he just shook his head, reaching into his bag.

Baker's bread didn't come cheap in The Seam, and John had to trade for the loaves he bought earlier. Out here in the outer rims, capital credits and luxury items didn't count for much. So whenever John and his uncle returned "home", there was a bit of work that had to be done to sustain while they were there. So when John pulled out the warm bread with the thick slices of bacon between them, he knew it was something of high value that really deserved a special holiday on its own. On one of his rare drunken rants about his past, John had heard his uncle claim that his father was a baker once. John knew of a burnt out bakery near where they lived. He sometimes pondered since that night whether that used to be the old family business.

"How long have you been out here?" John asked, smelling the warm dough and the cooked bacon, letting it drive him mad.

"Three days."

With a snap of his head, John looked back up at her. She seemed unfazed by her answer, or by his reaction. She just turned her head slightly, eyes devoid of anything really. Suddenly he began to wonder if maybe she was running away from something.

"Why are you out here?" he asked, being captured by Cameron's eyes. He realized how, despite the dead look in them, there was something there, something alive, something different than he had ever seen before. For the first time since they met, she turned her head away from him.

"Are you running from someone, has someone hurt you?" he pushed gently.

At the queries, the girl slowly returned. Her look was fragile, like a hardened stone wall battered and cracked, but still held by a strong foundation. It was just the tiny cracks that captured John's heart.

"Yes …" She said quietly.

He wasn't sure why, but John had to fight to keep himself from touching her. He wanted to wrap her in a hug, to touch her cheek comfortingly, even just rub her arm. But all John could do was look at his hard earned sandwich, and sigh. He tore it in half, handing the girl one part. It was the only comfort he could offer her.

He thought maybe it would cheer her up. But all she did was look down at his gift, then back at him wordlessly, as if she didn't know what he wanted her to do with it. It made John feel like an idiot, he turned back with a shy blush and tore into his sandwich. He was just trying to help, now look at him, making an ass out of himself. His chewing was bitter and awkward.

Finally he regained enough courage to return to Cameron. She was chewing a bite of equal size to his, watching him. Silently they chewed, till finally John swallowed, then Cameron. Afterward, the teenage girl got the slightest of smiles as it went down.

"Like it, huh?" John scoffed with a grin.

"I've never tasted it before …" She replied as if to confirm it.

"Well …" John sighed. "Happy Hunger Games" he said in a mocking Capitol accent.

"And may the odds be ever in your favor." She replied in one of the best President Serena Kogen impressions John had ever heard.

The boy let out a hoot at it, which caused the girl to blink before she smiled; catching on that she may have said something funny.

Once again they were frozen to one another, John mesmerized by the sheer personality under the layer of stone dead pan in those eyes. Flicking his eyes down, he noticed some bacon grease rolling down her mouth, from the large bite she took from their sandwich. He couldn't stop himself when he reached out a hand, and cleaned it away with his thumb. It was the closest look of surprise he had seen from her, watching him with wide eyes. It was as if he just touched a priceless piece of work that no one had dared molest till now.

John went into full inner panic mode, but that wasn't the part that was in control of his body, because slowly he was moving her face to his. All she could do was watch, not with fear, but in true interest, and anticipation. She was invested in what would happen next.

Then he heard it, the beeping, and the hovering wining. If there was one thing that was stronger than the desire to kiss the beauty in front of John, it was survival. She must have heard it too, because she flicked eyes toward the tree line a second before him. Training took over and John twisted for his weapons.

THEOUW!

He loosed an arrow from his bow using instinct and ear to compensate for split second aim. Automatically he heard the shattering of glass and crackling electronics. Forgetting his prized breakfast, both teens raced from their spot on the river bank toward the tree line.

Lying next to a twisted tree was an metallic elongated orb, it's two eye-like sensor cameras encased in a rectangular, red glass protective shield. John's arrow had pierced one of the sensors, and the force had caused it to slam into the tree.

"Scouters!" John announced. Cameron's large eyes stared intensely at the malfunctioning machine. Scouters were artificial intelligent drones used by the Capitol to keep tabs of on areas and report back. If it didn't transmit their location, then the destruction of the drone would surely have a squad of Peacekeepers dispatched for retrieval.

"John, we have to go!" Cameron commanded. It was in her voice, that slight alarm … was she running from the Capitol?

"Right!" He pulled off his quiver, tossing it and the bow in the river, before finding the girl again. "If we go east and then turn south, we can get back to The Seam!" Without thinking he took her hand and tugged her with him racing into the woods.

It never crossed his mind that he was going through the thick of danger in the dark woods that he only causally knew. But luckily John's mind retained much of what he learned, and in panic, knowledge became intuition. Both their hands were clasped as they rushed through the woods. If he had been paying attention he might have been impressed to find the girl keeping up with him, effortlessly. But it was in John's opinion that sometimes stopping to think was as dangerous as not thinking.

Their feet made heavy thuds against the ground, and he was sure that if there actually were any game nearby that they would have been gone faster than lemon cakes on Christmas in District Eleven. If there was any evidence to that, as the couple exited the west wood, back to the well-spaced outskirts of the forest, they jumped a log and a flock of wild turkeys scattered in a dozen different directions.

Before he could turn at the marker adjacent to the weak point in perimeter fence, John began sliding on fallen leaves. Quickly John let go of Cameron, before he dragged her down with him. He landed with a thud. The girl stopped and watched him.

"Left!" he yelled at her. "Turn left, stay low in the meadow, it's the adjacent stake on the fence!" he motioned to her, his speech spoke in groans, the air out of his lungs. The girl took a step to help him but he pointed where she needed to go aggressively. "Go!" he yelled at her hoarsely.

She took a step back, studying his face, even with the usual stoic demeanor; he could tell she was surprised at his action. She stood for a beat watching him, almost as if searing his face in her mind, the way he had the moment he had laid eyes on her. Then, as fast as she was there, she was gone.

While he slowly found his way back to his feet, he took a private second to get himself straight. But all he could do was hear his uncle's voice in his head, lecturing him on his life and his choices. This Cameron is a stranger, a girl you just met, someone you don't even know at all. Now look at you, five minutes with her and you wanna play the hero, because she's got a beautiful face, and interesting eyes. Is she really worth a bullet?

He shook his head, maybe she wasn't, maybe she was worth it, but right now he was just as much in danger as she was. He had to get back, before the Peacekeepers got there and found their Scouter in shambles and him past the perimeter. He began to jog after the girl, slowly rebuilding the momentum in his body.

SHEEROW!

The trees rustled harshly and a pounding gust whipped John in the face. His grown-out, shaggy locks of dark hair swirled in the heated wind caused by twin jet engines of an unmanned craft loitering above the canopies. John saw a shark like aircraft appear above head, a spotlight darkened on its nose.

"HK!"

He threw himself into cover of bushes as the Capitol's automated patrol machine stopped a moment. The sound the spotlight made when activated was like the sound of a heavy metal box being dropped with a heavy clunk on a tile floor. The wide searchlight skimmed where he had been moments ago. He noticed as it passed that the heavy beam it used steamed the dew dampened leaves, and the youth was sure that the sheer candlelight power was like being under an oven lamp.

When John finally breathed, he was surprised to find that he had been holding his breath. But that was only when the HK's light clunked off, screaming away toward the meadow, and past The Seam. Getting out of the hedges he brushed himself off, the first thing the youth did was go right after Cameron.

"STAY RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE!"

"STAND DOWN!"

John could hear the strong voices of powerful men screaming from the meadow. Without missing a beat he sprinted for the edge of the woods just a step from the open ground between the fence and forest. He slid on his knee behind a tree trunk and peeked out to see what was going on.

A whole company of Peacekeepers in their pure white fatigues, polished black boots, and chrome plasma rifles were surrounding Cameron as she stood in the middle of the ring. Her eyes were searching them, it was a look he had never seen before. It was dark and dangerous, searching the area around her like a lioness picking her prey.

"Don't, don't you do it John … DON'T!"

His muscles were aching, aching to carry him out there to rescue her, to get her out safely. But he wouldn't stand a chance against a whole company of Peacekeepers. He was out numbered, certainly out gunned, and out of options.

And yet …

John was slowly creeping from his spot, if he could somehow create a distraction, she could slip away. It was crazy, but he knew his way around the woods a lot better than any of the thugs did. But what was he going to do?

"Is she worth it Johnny? Cause a head shot ain't no migraine!" he could hear his uncle's voice in his head.

Then as if he was fit with a tracker, brown eyes in the distance found him. Cameron was staring right at him from fifty yards away. He shot up in a ready position, but it was the look in her eyes, something halted everything in him. She shook her head at him.

"No … don't, don't let them take you!"

A mask of determination hardened his face. He stood to full height and came out of the tree line. "No …" He hissed. He couldn't believe this was going to be it, his life was going to end like this, over a stranger. But then would it be any different than his father? Decades later would people say he was as brave as his old man or would he be the stupid boy who wasted his life over nothing? He was about to find out.

Then, Cameron did something John didn't expect. She lifted her hands and walked into the thick of them, before anyone could see him coming. John slid to a halt in a patch of lilies as they swarmed around her. John wanted to charge after her, but all he did was watch as they quickly forced her down with a net, dragging her away like she was some animal.

The area got very quiet around him. The wind picked up, whistling through the trees, flipping his hair and jacket. The large open field of flowers swayed all around him when he slid to his knees.

It had been only five minutes and somehow he felt like those brown eyes would haunt him forever.

---

The Seam wasn't what people from other parts of the district might think; it wasn't like the toxic urban alleys of District Two. It was a scattered space of old houses, past their prime; some might say that they were past livability. But John hadn't been exposed to the environment yet in all the years he lived here.

The houses were small, off white from decades of disrepair - there was never enough money to fix them. They were perched on a hill of green, below lay a valley-like ditch where the power lines were strung down the middle between the houses.

John felt like he had strayed into a dream haze, trying to get over what had happened in the woods early that day. The collection of homes seemed to be shadows in his tunnel vision, as did the people. Sitting on a rocking chair was an old woman, or maybe not as old as she looked. The youth could hear the creaking of the rocker against the rotting wood of her front porch floor boards. Bellow him in the ditch valley, shirtless little kids dug through the moisten mud with sticks, while their mother scrubbed their clothes on a board, humming to the little girl holding a bucket still between her legs.

He stopped a moment and watched the two of them. He studied the little girl, dark haired, in a dingy cotton camisole that fit her like a night slip. He closed his eyes and all he could see was Cameron. Was she ever that little? Did her mother ever sing too her like that on their front porch?

He hurt all over, and he couldn't make it stop. Even when the mother looked up at him, and grinned lightly, he couldn't return it. He turned away only to find an old man sitting on his front porch. His thin face looked taut, his grey eyes suspicious as he thoroughly gnawed on the bones of a roasted squirrel. Something about the greedy way he pushed the metal tray toward him, the sheer entitlement to the picked apart animal, rubbed John in a dangerous way. It reminded him of the way the Peacekeepers took Cameron, with the same arrogance, like she was theirs, like she wasn't a person. But slowly the madness passed, and the old man wasn't an allegory for The Capitol, but a half starved old man living alone, most likely not to make it through the next winter. John moved on with a shake of his head.

Winners were usually built houses in a nicer part of the district called "Victor's village" But Derek Reese had told them to find a nice long board and shove it up there ass. So, The house that John lived in two months out of the year sat at the edge of The Seam, near the perimeter fence. It was a small two room house. It was fairly new in the community, only 80 years old. You could still tell it was white, and most of the home was repaired. When you had one of only two surviving winners of the Hunger Games from District 12, even if he didn't live in Victor's Village, he didn't live in a broken down shack.

When John was a baby, Derek returned with him to this house. They both lived here for the first six years of his life. Though John didn't know her name or anything about her, he knew his grandmother had grown up and lived in his house till she married his grandfather. Together they opened their own business, and lived above it. But something had happened when his uncle had gone to fight in the games, when he returned his parents were dead, and the family business burned out. The only survivor was John's father, who was told to run to his aunt in this house when disaster struck. John vaguely remembered his great-aunt; she had been quite young even when he was a toddler. When he concentrated he saw her soft blue eyes, the golden hue of blonde hair, and her beautiful fresh face like a raindrop. She was a kind woman, in her mid-thirties. His most consistent memory of her was how she would hold his uncle some nights when he had vivid terrors of the past, he could still hear her voice when she would take his face in her delicate hands and sing softly till it eased him back to normal. When she died Derek turned to the bottle and travel to supplant her song.

He crunched over leaves in front of a large willow tree. He stopped in front of the thick trunk, searching for the markings. It was a heart carved into the base, inside were two initials. One was a big KE and below in small hand was PE. John didn't know what it meant; whether it was his grandmother and her sister, or two other kids from District Twelve. Either way, he touched them for good luck like always.

For a moment it felt like someone was standing next to him, young and sad. Rather than flinch at the presence he closed his eyes. The wind picked up, and through the whistling crevasses of old homes and rustling leaves he could hear the soft words of a youthful voice singing in his ear like it did every night he was on the cusp of sleep in the house.

"Deep in the meadow, under the willow
A bed of grass, a soft green pillow
Lay down your head, and close your eyes
And when they open, the sun will rise"

Despite the drunken slur undercutting the song that was being sung, John couldn't deny that the pitches of the two voices were almost a match, the song clearly being taught to the man by the owner of the young female voice. The girl in his ear and Derek Reese sung the song the same way, both longing, both remembering a lasting memory of better days, and both heartbroken of what had become of the man singing.

John opened his eyes, and turned to the railed front porch of the home, to find who he thought would be sitting in an old lounge chair, feet propped up, next to a bottle.

"Here it's safe, and here it's warm
Here the daisies guard you from every harm
Here your dreams are sweet-
-and tomorrow brings them true."

He was a tall man of a medium build. Despite the handsome face, John was sure that he never seen him clean shaven. His soulful hazel eyes were hardened by memories of dead loved ones, and the trauma from the games he fought. Sometimes in the morning if you looked into the fogged icicles, you could almost believe that he had just killed someone … and maybe in his dreams he had … again.

This is Derek Reese, the victor of the 100th annual Hunger Games, and the sole survivor of the Fourth Quarter Quell. In the year that Derek was reaped, it was The Capitol's idea to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the games by taking four tributes from all the districts, two boys, two girls. The field had been woefully condensed; there was also a lack of high ground. The results of these factors led to some of the most vicious and barbaric fighting seen in almost 100 years. The sheer scale of the battles and the wholesale slaughter of tributes was one of the worst blood baths in recent history. It was one of the least talked about games not because of the lack of interest, but for the fact that for the first time ever, it had been seen as something not entertaining.

Finally, after three weeks, half starved, and mostly dead, Derek and a mayor's son turned career from District One named Satin, were the last ones left. In the end, both became mortally wounded from their duel. When they were unable to finish one another off due to a lack of strength, it became a battle of who could out live the other. For two days straight they lay across from each other. Eventually Satin died of a blood infection from a wound he'd gotten when he'd punched his opponent in the mouth, despite Derek being the one holding his intestines in.

When he was crowned, and returned home, he found no hero's welcome from District Twelve. They had all glared; all turned their backs on him. The Quarter Quell was brutal, and vicious. Derek had done all he could to survive and come home. But the cost was overwhelming; he gave himself over to nature forgetting everything but how to live in the arena. Everyone had seen him and the things he had done, the people he had killed. So when that train rolled in, and he stepped off that platform, bag on his shoulder, no one was there to greet him that rainy morning.

Then he found his home burned, and his parent dead. Someone in The Capitol didn't want him to win, or maybe Derek was always supposed to die. One day, when John was a boy they had passed the old burnt bakery in The Seam, his uncle for some reason had suddenly stopped in front of the doors and just began to stare. After a few moments he began to laugh, but the sound of his laughter wasn't infectious, fore it wasn't funny, it wasn't heartwarming. Derek Reese's laugh was crushing, devastating, it was the personification of helpless, regretful, sorrow. He laughed and laughed, laughed till he cried, and when he cried he said the same thing over and over again, "The Girl on Fire." John never understood what the girl on fire meant or what it was all about. John had used to comforted him when his uncle got that way, but now he left him to himself, there was nothing John could ever do to make it better, no way to return his grandparents to his uncle. He had become a walking parody to everyone, a dark mark in the country, a disgraced winner. Since John was a boy, people in the inner districts would give Derek Reese snide looks, and mutter "The man in ashes" and chuckle sadistically after he passed. He didn't know what it meant, but he figured it had something to do with the girl on fire.

"Deep in the meadow, hidden far away
a cloak of leaves, a moonbeam ray
forget your woes and let your troubles lay
And when again it's morning, they'll wash away."

He wasn't looking at John at all, though it seemed like he was. His uncle was staring at the carvings on the tree, and maybe that was why he was singing the old lullaby. John just sneered like he usually did when Derek was drunk and approached the porch, stomping on every leaf with a crunch under his double grip soles. John made to ignore the middle aged man, reaching for the door.

"Kill anything?" His voice still had a twinge of youth in it, though mildly darker and scratchy from the booze.

"Just an innocent girl"

John turned his head to the side watching the drunkard from his peripheral vision. "No …" He replied hardening himself to the sudden private smile of a girl in his memory. He pulled the door open; it gave a rusty squeak of a hinge unoiled since his grandmother had left.

"A lot of thugs marched through here, asking around." The older man didn't seem too fazed by the tidbit of information he provided. John knew that his uncle knew that it had something to do with him. Yet, Derek seemed strangely unaffected by the idea that his nephew could suddenly be a wanted man. Was he really that lost that he just didn't give a damn anymore, or did he know something John didn't?

"And look at all the hell I give." He replied shortly, entering the house. Once inside he gave the drunken man a glare, which he couldn't see, and even if he did, what would be the use? John let the door give its teeth chattering squeal, before it finally slammed shut.

He strode to the coat pegs near the door over an old dusty end table, hand carved in someone's spare time many years ago. He gave a moment to the silence; he let it wash over him. He removed his messenger bag roughly and hung it on his peg. The fog soon lifted over his mind and the events of the morning came to him clearly. Frustration became more and more apparent with each flash.

Here it's safe, and here it's warm
Here the daisies guard you from every harm

He could hear his uncle finishing the song. He closed his eyes, and he see her clearly, the thin rays of the sun in her hair, the way she would give the ghost of smiles, making him feel like she never smiled, never smiled until she talked to him.

Here your dreams are sweet-
- and tomorrow brings them true

It would be no more, she was gone now, taken by the thugs to their garrison. For all John knew she was already dead, executed in the public square. Maybe worse, maybe she'll be taken to The Capitol itself. Clasped into servitude to serve those rich bastards their food, clean their kitchens, and maybe comfort her master in his bed when his wife or her husband was neglecting them.

Here is the place where I love you.

A helpless anger overtook the boy as he threw his father's hunting jacket against the wall, and braced himself against the homemade table. Outside he could hear the Mockingjay birds who always gathered at the willow tree pick up his uncle's song. He looked down at his hand, and saw the grease stain of bacon on them. He remembered the way he cleaned her lips off, the way she watched him, both boy and girl not knowing what to do but surrender to the unseen force pulling them closer. He could smell her on his jacket; it was like lilacs and cooked bacon.

Here is the Place where I love you.

CRACK!

John punched the wall with all his anger and sorrow, for the girl he only knew for five minutes. He pulled his fist from a dent in the wall and placed his hands in the back of his head, winded from the strong emotions tearing him apart.

"Well if I had any doubts that you've got spirit, kid … you just put them to rest."

The foreign voice caught John by surprise and he whirled to confront it. A tall broad man was standing in the middle of the homes wooden living room. His skin was dark as ash, his face hard and primal. He wore a silver blue suit and gold eyeliner. In his hand he twirled a fedora hat that matched his suit.

"Do I know you?" John asked alertly. "Because only people I know set foot in this house." He had a male bravado to let the future opponent know that he couldn't be intimidated.

The man gave a good natured laugh at the threat leveled against him. "You got guts too … I like that." He trailed off walking farther into the living room suddenly out of sight. "It was always something I admired about your old man." He called to an unmoving teen.

It was a classic move, hooks to get John too follow, he may be bull headed, but the boy wasn't stupid. Yet, even if he knew what it was, the statement was too forward just to ignore. So John pursued the tall black man into the living room.

He found him near the fireplace mantle staring at an old black and white photo of a handsome boy with blond hair and blue eyes. There was a half grin on his face and a big sack of flour on his shoulder. He had a white tee-shirt and baker's apron that was covered in flour. John never really knew who he was, but while Derek told him not to worry about it, he insisted he stay on the mantle.

The youth didn't get too close, but he crossed his arms a few feet away, enough not to be in range for a sudden assault, but close enough to talk. The big man took the picture and studied it.

"You're not going to ask?" He said after a beat.

John frown. "Ask what?" He shrugged.

"How I knew, Kyle." The man replied.

Snorting, John just scratched the back of his ear. "You think you're the first person who ever came up to me, saying they knew my dad?" He asked dismissively. "When I was five my great-aunt and I would go to the old Mellark baker's shop. The old man, would always give us all the bread we wanted and a package of cookies just for me, because he 'missed' my father." John ended with a quirking eyebrow.

The big man just smirked at the story, staring a little harder at the boy's picture. "Did he?" he asked with a Cheshire grin reflecting off the dingy glass.

"Probably because he was my uncle's only friend ..." The boy muttered more than answered.

He placed the frame back on the mantle. "I wonder why that is." He said sarcastically, like he knew something that John didn't about the relationship between his family and the baker. John didn't like it.

"You know a lot about me and yet I don't know you." He glared.

The man turned back to face the teen, still smiling his bright Capitol white teeth at the boy. "Perry … Randle Perry, winner of the 85th District Eleven … in case you're interested." He bowed slightly.

"Which I'm not."

The man just grinned at the boy's sass. "No, of course not … maybe this will though." He reached into his suit pocket, and retrieved a red bandanna and tossed it to John. The boy gave Perry a long frown before he glanced down at it.

It was torn and tattered, been through the wars as it were. But it was when John gave it a hard look, noticing it was an arm band … like.

"You know about the Rebellion against the Capitol?" The youth couldn't hide the exclamation in his voice.

The Rebellion was a movement that John had heard about almost all his life. Like many things he couldn't learn himself he had asked his uncle about them. "All dead little girls, and star-crossed lovers." was what he would say in his classic gruff brush off of questions he didn't want to answer. In English it translated to "Don't worry about it." But on the other hand John knew enough about the origins to make an informed decision.

The Rebellion began during the 74th Hunger Games when a little girl named Rue was killed in the arena, and her ally showed her a great kindness by covering her with flowers. The girl's empathy, along with the anger over the murder sent the outer Districts into a frenzy. Though it was put down, the sentiment had lasted and over the decades, the shadow movement has grown, till here recently there had been open battles between Peacekeepers and Rebel militia in the outer rim.

"Yeah, I'm a rebel soldier, same as your uncle was, same as your old man." The big man twitched an eyebrow at the unloading of a Pandora's Box of secrets he just informed John of, waiting for him to react.

The youth was stunned quiet, before he gave a defensive chuckle. "No, no my uncle and dad weren't Resistance fighters, my Uncle was a hunter and helped my great-aunt with the apothecary, and my dad was a baker, a bread boy down at the Mellark Bakery." He motioned his head to the old man's closed down shop.

Perry just made an annoyed groan. "That's what everyone told you, huh?" He stiffly faced John, a glare narrowing his face, the look gave him a more brutish appearance.

"It's the truth." John took a step forward.

"No," the big man countered swiftly. "That's what your aunt said … she didn't like the idea of her nephews getting involved with us." The man sighed.

For a moment John thought about his aunt, she was a kind, gentle woman, people loved her. But he was no idiot; there were a lot of things that John knew where secrets in his family, hell he didn't even know the names of his own grandparents.

"What possible reason would my family want to have to do with the Rebellion?" He asked.

At the question the man gave a huge laugh. It was as if John had told him the biggest joke of his life. The more the teen had to wait for the man to recover from his tears and body shakes, the more his toleration of the man thinned. He didn't like it when people threw the fact that they knew things he didn't in his face, and above all else he detested people who liked to lord over him with the information

"I asked you a question!" John snapped.

Body shakes, evolved to chuckles. Taking his time, Perry cleaned his eyes with a handkerchief from his breast pocket.

"What reason does your family have for being involved with the rebellion?" He reconfirmed the question with a clear of his throat. "How about everything?" He posed to the boy.

Now he truly was lost. "Everything?" He said to himself, more than to the man.

Suddenly, Perry got quiet as if he might have let on a little too much. "Look, when your uncle got back home from the Fouth Quarter Quell …" he started.

"Yeah, I know my grandparent's home was burned to the ground."

"Right and your father …"

"Was told by grandma to run to his grandmother's house, where his aunt was and hide."

"Sure … but why?" He asked.

John frowned. "Because the house was burning down." He shrugged.

"Why was the house burning down?"

"I don't know, Electrical problems … my grandfather was a baker for god sake, he could have over heated the damn oven." John was getting annoyed.

"Right, but you just said that your grandmother told your dad to run here, and hide."

"Yeah … so."

"So, why would he need to hide, from a fire?"

"Look, Perry, are you gonna dance all night with your hand on my ass or are you going to make a move?"

The man just smiled at John as if he was an old friend. "Let me put it this way, your uncle unknowingly screwed up your grandparent's plans during his interview with Ceasar Flickerman." He said.

"Screwed up how?"

"He told Flickerman some things that zeroed the Capitol in on your grandparents."

"And why should that matter."

"You like the name Reese?"

"Do you like the name Perry?"

"I do, it's my family name."

"And Reese isn't mine?"

Perry got a knowing quirk to his big eyebrow.

John snorted. "Alright, so mom and pops "Reese" were hiding in plain sight from the Capitol, they found them, murdered them, and their boys joined the resistance to avenge them." He folded his arms.

It seemed like such a simple premise, and yet there was a hard sadness in John's throat fighting to get out. He spent almost sixteen years with his uncle, and in the matter of five minutes he got to know him better than he had in all his life. Suddenly, for the first time, John started to understand why he drank. He had killed to survive, returned home to have everyone turn their backs on him. He returned home to find his parent's dead only to learn that he had unknowingly brought it on them.

John fought the sorrow and returned. "So, why did you break into my house? So you could tell me the vague story of my family's woes?" He cleared the emotion from his throat.

"I didn't break into your house; Derek let me in too talk to you." The big man countered.

"About what?"

Perry got that impossibly white smile again. "I thought you'd never ask." He walked toward the fireplace seats and dug through a sack.

"I thought we'd never get there." John grunted in retaliation.

John reacted quickly, when the man, without warning, threw something large and heavy at him. He caught it, against his lower chest. It was rounded, cold, and metallic. The base was smooth, and scarred, as if someone had hacked at it enough time with a dull knife to scratch.

"That …" was all Perry said.

He glanced up at the dapper dressed guest, as he turned the object right side up. His face twisted, in shock and confusion as he took a good look at what was in his hands.

"Is this a joke?" He asked.

"Not a Joke." The large man reassured the teen.

The object was a skull, a human skull, a perfect replica of a human skull, except … it was made from metal. John took his thumb and rubbed it against the blackened and decayed teeth perfectly sitting in its mouth. There was a chill that went down John spine when he thought without its lips, it looked as if the chrome skulled individual died smiling. In its sockets were a two red sensor eyes like the scouter from that morning. The sudden memory turned John bitter. Those eyes were proof enough that whatever this was, it was Capitol made. Made by the people who took the girl he couldn't get out his mind.

"What is it?" He asked with a deep bitterness from within.

"What's left of the thing that killed your father."

The room went silent and still. Time somehow stopped for the youth he became aware of everything around him, the nervous breath of Perry, the creaking of the house, the Mockingjays in the willow tree outside.

"What?" John said just to say something.

Perry got a solemn calm on his face, and his small dark eyes became cold. "What you're holding is the head of the prototype model T-101 combat Infiltrator, known amongst our ranks simply as a Terminator." He leveled with the boy.

Something turned hard and cold inside him at the simple word. "Terminator" John repeated.

"It's a cybernetic organism, built by The Capitol's R&D firms and tested in the 108th Hunger Games." He explained.

Eye to Eye, the teen held up the skull and stared into it, seeing the outline of his face in its reflection. "If what you're saying is true, why is it that I've never seen it, or people talk about it, like the muttations in the 74th Games?" he asked, feeling like he was staring death in the face.

"You have …"

John flicked eyes to the bald man waiting for him to expand.

"It was wearing flesh and skin … they even gave It a name, to blend in …"

"Arnold …" John finished for him. "The career from District Two." He put down the head.

Perry nodded blankly. "Back then we got intel that the Capitol was going to test a new brand of weapon they planned to use against us during the games, we needed someone to go in as a tribute and find out just what it was. At the time, we knew it had something to do with the tribute that District One was planning on sending in."

"Sarah …" John said the name gently, as if it were sacred. The man stared at the youth, with interest at the way her name came out. The boy had the presence of mind to blush slightly at his own inflection.

"So …" he changed the subject. "You approached my old man for the mission." He guessed.

The victor just grunted with an old amusement. "He volunteered." He shot back.

"Volunteered?"

There were those pearly teeth again. "All we did was show him the picture of your girlfriend, and he volunteered."

"She's not my girlfriend!" He snapped, tossing the head back, never being a good sport at being teased. But judging by the man's endeared reaction when he caught the head it seemed to be a family trait, and an old joke at that.

"So he volunteered …" The boy carried on watching the man return back to his bag.

"Yeah, he found before the games that the machine would be after Sarah …" He replied.

"Why? District One is an old Capitol supporter." He was confused.

"Sarah was trained in an academy; she was the deadliest swordswoman of her generation. If the machine could kill her, then it could kill anyone." He replied digging through the bag. "We told your father not to get involved, while we think of something to counter, but instead he took the suicidal approach to the situation and tried to protect the game's second most deadly tribute." He shook his head.

John Reese had always admired his father for all the classical reason's a son admired a father killed on the field of battle, his courage, his sacrifice, his idealized existence as a hero without fear. But as John got older, and he saw how some districts such as one, two, and four, saw his father as scum, he began to have his own doubts about who his father was. But now that he heard the story, Kyle Reese protecting a girl who wouldn't blink in killing him in any other circumstance. He realized that maybe people really did have an accurate portrayal of his father. Maybe, just maybe, his dad really was the bravest man who ever fought in the games.

"So how does one kill a cybernetic killing machine?" he sighed.

"With this."

This time big strong hands handed the object to him gently. It was a medium length chrome cylinder with a black rubber grip at the bottom; three stripes of thick tape around the grip. In the middle were two buttons. John looked it over, flicking his wrist, studying the supposed Terminator killing weapon.

"A metalworker here in District Twelve smelted the material for it, and then a master smith in District 4 forged it, and a craftsmen in District 3 constructed it for us. We call it RX 1133." Perry watched the teen.

John turned the cylinder at an angle and flipped the red button. The Cylinder suddenly vibrated and a silvery blade shot out and with the ringing sound of sharp metal it began building upon itself, making the blade longer as it unfolded. When it finished, it stood long and slightly curved, glimmering in the early afternoon light.

"But your father called it, Dragon Slayer." There was admiration in the black man's voice.

The silvery blade made an almost ethereal ringing as it cut through the air, John flicked the weapon back, testing the weight and balance. The sword felt natural in the youth's educated grip, cutting easy strokes through the air as if it was made for him. For the little that John knew of his family, he had always been aware that every member going back three generations was a accomplished bowmen. Bows and arrows were the weapons of the Reese family. John himself was privy to a bow, but he found more comfort, and ease with a sword in his hand. He had found that he was quiet deadly as he was talented with the weapon, though for traditions sake he often chose the bow as his primary weapon, keeping the sword, much like his love for Sarah a secret attribute.

"He won't cut through chassis, but if you catch the Terminator on its vulnerable sides, he can be one devastating son of a bitch." The rebel added, watching John as he closed his eyes listening to the blades song.

The way the man said it, the leading in his voice. It made John stop what he was doing and open his eyes. He narrowed his brow, flipping the other button. The youth faced the guest in his home anew, the blade collapsing back into the cylinder.

"This might go as not needing an answer, but humor me, Perry." John tossed the sword back to the man. "Why are you here?" He glared.

The bluntness suddenly seemed to make the soldier nervous, and he paced away toward the window. It seemed that whatever was going to come out of the big man's mouth, it wasn't going to be easy. He cleared his throat of … emotion?

"John, I've come here …" He started.

"To ask me, if I would volunteer at the reaping in order to combat the new Capitol killing machine? Is that right?" John didn't pull any punches, crossing his arms again.

His recruiter nodded silently, unable to look at the young man. John wasn't sure if he actually warmed up to him for that, or if he wanted to shake him, for not being man enough to look him in the eye.

He weighed his options, listening to the room go silent. Could he really do it? Hell, it wasn't till now that it occurred to him that there were actually robots in the world. Yet, it didn't seem to shock him all that much. He looked out the window at the willow tree, the carved heart in its trunk. If he did this … what was the worst that could happen? He would die … well that was a given. But if he didn't what was his life? Wondering District to District, doing nothing? John didn't know a trade, know anything but how to fight, John was a hunter, a … Soldier?

"I'm a Rebel Soldier, same as your uncle was."

"I didn't break in, Derek let me in too talk to you."

"You son of a bitch!" John said automatically the realization coming to him like a hammer to the head. "You can go to hell!" John hissed through angry clenched teeth.

The man whirled, there was emotion in his face, but it was slowly being replaced by shock. It was apparent that he wasn't expecting to be denied.

"John! You're the …"

"I'm the what?" He cut him off. "I'm the only one who can stop it? Why? Because my bastard Uncle raised me for this moment?" John shouted at him, raising his voice so that Derek could hear him.

Perry crossed his arms. "We knew that once the T-101 was gone, that it was only a matter of time before they would try it again." He explained calmly.

"So, what? You decided that you had to have a back-up just in case."

"Yes!"

"So you're recruiting from the womb?"

"It's not that simple?"

"Make it that simple!"

"Your parents, your grandparent you were a genetic match for the mission … all of their skills, swordsmanship, two generations of archers, Strength, it was all passed on to you, we could see it the day you were born. Everything about you was a foil against what they're building. If the Capitol ever rebuilt the Terminator program again, we knew that you would be the perfect choice."

John found the man's pleading eyes, with an unsavory twist of rage, thinking about his life up to this point. The weapons, the training, both combat and survival. They traveled around the districts, so that he could get inside other tributes heads. All his life he was being trained to fight, and die for a cause he didn't know anything about.

"John …" Perry's voice got stern. "It's your Fate." He tried to make it sound comforting. But the sheer anger in the boy's gut, there was nothing reassuring about that.

"No …" John was stern. "There's no such thing." He was short and brutal. "And I'm going to prove it to you." He walked toward the door.

Perry crossed his arms. "This isn't about you and me, or about Derek, or your father. This is about our future, son." He made John pause. "You think this is just about some crusade against President Kogen, and her friends?" He pressed.

"Yes" John said bluntly. "I think this is exactly what this is about." He said.

Perry's jaw was squared and visible. "Millions of lives are at stake here, kid. If the Capitol is able to successfully test this new weapon, then it will be the end of the Rebellion, and the end of freedom in Panem." His voice was passionate and pleading. "All of the hopes and dreams sit on your shoulders kid, everything resting on one question ... will you join us?"

CREEEEEK

John opened the door.

"The answer is no." He glared.

For a long beat the tall man stood in the middle of the Reese living room, his Jaw rotating in order to relieve the pressure from all the devastated emotions inside him. He cleared his throat and lurched forward, sack in hand. He paused to say something to John, but he couldn't even find the boy's face. "Keep the arm band … It's were it was supposed to be in the first place." John suddenly realized that it was never Perry's. Once on the porch, he placed his hat back on, and gave a deep sigh. John watched him stride away, disappearing down the road.

John Reese's brain was on fire as he leaned on the door, outrage, anger, hatred. He had been to the inner districts and watched the other kids from there train in their Academies for the games. John had always felt bad for them. What was the use of a life when you were training for death. Now all these years later, it occurred to him that he was as much of a career as those other kids were.

His eyes turned to the drunken man sitting on his chair, feet up watching the willow tree as if someone was staring right at him. Slowly, distantly he lifted a green bottle toward his lips, keeping his eyes on the same spot. It was as if he was completely ignorant of all that had happened not only just now, but for the last fifteen years.

John strode over and without thinking, swept the man's feet off his perch. The porch rattled when the front legs of the chair returned to the ground with the man's full weight. He could smell the dark liquid when it spilled on his uncle's long sleeve. But, for it all Derek didn't make a noise all he did was wipe himself off.

In anger, John sidestepped into the older man's view so he saw nothing else but his nephew. Derek made a heavy sigh at the action.

"Were you gonna tell me?" John asked. He didn't need to build up, his uncle knew exactly what was going on.

Derek just stared at him, his mind seemed lost in a haze. "No …" it was a wonder were John learned his blunt honesty.

The boy crossed his arms and gave a sarcastic shrug. "Did you have any second thoughts?" He shook his head.

Derek lifted the bottle to his lips. "Seconds, and thirds, and fourths." He was taking a draft.

It just made John angrier. He reached over and snatched the green bottle out of Derek's hands and threw it off the porch with an impressive force. He could hear the dusty bottle shatter against the old willow behind him.

Taking another heavy sigh, the drunken older man leaned back in his chair, rubbing two fingers against his soul patch observing his nephew. It might have been his imagination, or his mind creating more things to make himself mad at, but John could've sworn that his Uncle got the ghost of a small proud smile.

Mimicking his uncle, John took a seat on the rickety railing of the wrap around porch. The anger was passing slowly, and now he wasn't sure what to think about anything. What was he going to do now? Was this all his life was meant to be?

"Why?" It was the query he couldn't get away from, the one question that his mind was screaming to be answered. "Why raise me like that … why, go through all that?" He stared into strangely sober eyes.

The chair creaked when Derek sat forward and John watched the man scrub is face, as if wiping away a mask he had worn half his life. "Just in case." He said, his voice muffled by his hands.

"Just in case what?" John tilted his head bitterly.

Derek's face emerged, and the boy was taken aback by how different he looked. It was as if he was someone else, someone John knew but hadn't seen in many, many years. It was a face that John had seen sometimes but dismissed as his imagination.

"Just in case, you were stupid enough to say yes."

BRUUUB!

The sound was foreign at first. It took some hard thinking, before it came back to John what that sound was. It was the shift horn from the coal mines. In all of the emotion of the day, the teen had forgotten that it was reaping day. It was the first call of assembly at the town square, for the potential tributes. The boy turned back to his uncle who was still drawing his attention toward the sound. He saw the sudden stress age his uncle into an old man, he dreaded that noise, too many bad memories.

There wasn't a word or phrase that John could properly express to fit how he was feeling in that moment. His uncle had spent all of John's life holding him at arm's length, fearing this day above all else. Should John be mad at him? Should he be understanding?

BRUUB!

"I've got to go …"

Derek turned back to the young man he raised and watched him. "Yeah … I guess you do." The rugged older man looked like he needed the drink he no longer had.

There were no words for the departure. John didn't know what to say to this rarely seen and not known Derek. So he just walked back into the house a moment and exited again, slipping on the old leather hunting jacket that belonged to his father, who inherited it from his mother, which she took from her father.

But as John was leaving, he fished out the red sash in his pocket. He stopped on the last step and lifted an elbow. The well-worn brown leather of his jacket was oiled and supple, but amongst the age marks, there was a tan line that seemed to stretch around his elbow. John took the cloth and pressed it against the jacket. He saw what he expected … it fit perfectly. He took the cloth back in hand and stared out into space, emotion's dwelling just underneath the surface, building against the barricade.

BRUUB!

The steam horn shook him out of the mussing and he just shook his head, flinging the arm band down on the leaves. He walked and walked till he disappeared on the road out of the Seam.

Derek Reese sat in his chair watching his nephew go, till he was gone. He just blinked and gazed around the old house where he had spent so many years of his life. It seemed so empty now. There was a time that the home was surrounded by laughter of happy children, having adventures … and bread. Now he was there with no one.

Suddenly the wind picked up again, the air against his cheek was like a hand stroking a comfort to him. In the corner of his eye he saw a brightly colored cloth that he hadn't set eyes on in many years. The chair creaked one last time as he stood his legs wobbly and unsteady as he chased it down the steps and into his grandmother's long dead apothecary garden.

When he finally got ahold of it, he was flooded with emotion over such a simple red sash. He closed his eyes and pressed the cloth against his face, as if he was kissing someone's forehead. A red sash born from blood, earned with blood. Derek scoffed when he thought that this family had spilled all the blood it had, for the cause it represented.

The wind picked up again and he felt someone standing in front of him. She was there when he opened his eyes. The girl was young, a little older than John, her skin was peach, her eyes grey. She was beautiful, wearing a dark hunting shirt and tan trousers. Her dark hair was in a single braid draped over one shoulder. Her eyes were searching and sad as she watched the man. She didn't speak, but her face said it all.

"I know I should've done more …" He said to her. She had no reply, she simply tilted her head at him, eyes becoming more and more glassy.

"I …" Tears were welling in his eyes. "I couldn't do it …" He cleared his throat. "I … I couldn't lose someone else." He shook his head looking back into her misting eyes. "I couldn't lose him the way I lost Kyle … The way I lost dad … The way I lost you." He sputtered a sob, a single sob for the past. The girl's expression lightened and she took a step forward, folding herself into him. There was a single tear on her clean cheek as she reached up to touch her child's face.

Derek closed his eyes, but the feeling of her familiar comforting touch never came. When he opened them he found that the breeze died down, there was no one there, just the echo of the past long forgotten, carved into the tree.

All that remained was the song of a solitary Mockingjay.

---

The sun was high in the cloudless sky of the early spring afternoon. The breeze was up, bathing the town square with a tender shot of cool air in relief from the unrelenting gaze of the sun. All around the rundown town square cameras were set up on metallic towers around the front of the justice building at the heart of the small town. In the bright day that seemed so rare in the weather patterns in this part of Panem, it was quite obvious that the heavy and aged coats of blackened grim on the old industrial buildings that gave everything a dirty aged feeling was on full display for the rest of the country to see and turn their noses up at. The grime came with the rest of the consequences of living in a District dominated by the coal mining trade. On unbearable hot days, the heat activated a certain hard and suffocating smell from the dust, leading many that had lived in the town to think if not all out say that it was in fact the closest a living mortal could get to hell.

But all of that seemed lost on Kacy Bobble, the escort of District Twelve. She was a young woman in her mid twenties. She wore a heavy plaster on her face as if she had dipped her head in wet glue and let it dry. On her cheeks were deep red circles of blush, and bright purple lipstick. She wore a tight skirt and a lace-fringed turquoise suit jacket. She peaked out from behind the curtain of the glass door, at the entrance of the big imposing justice building, down into the plaza filling with children from the ages twelve to eighteen.

They had to show up first, to sign in and then dictate how many times they would have to put their names in the reaping ball. The more times you put your name in, the more the Capitol would give you and your family. Most of the time, some of the poorer children would put in their name multiple times, and as reward for their courage, the government would give them roughly a year's supply of resources to last them and their next time .. If there was a next time.

Kacy hated this district, when she first signed up for the job; it was supposed to be so glamorous. All the girls wanted this job, three-hundred applied. Some came from better families, some had more experience in DR (District Relations), but they had chosen Kacy. The truth was that she was more than excited, her mother said this will make her little girl's career. Mother Bobble was right; there was no bigger spotlight on you when you worked for the Games. But if she only knew they were going to stick her in District Twelve, one of the poorest, dirtiest, and rebellious districts in Panem, she might have decided to continue to work at the family's hotspot restaurant. She had wanted a career district, a posh metropolitan setting, not quite like home, but at least close enough. But no they stuck her here, where they didn't even have hair straighteners in their showers. She couldn't think about the last escort who worked this district. Effie Trinket, the lady in pink, so beautiful, so promising, now she actually lived here, on a geese farm no less! She threw a promising career and a luxurious living away, and for what? A drunken old guy who won the games a bazillion years ago?

Uh, that wasn't going to be her, when this was over Kacy Bobble was going to get to a better place not spend her life in this dump with all the dirty, poor, and inbred kids. She dreamt of a place with real pageantry and athletes. She wanted to be the one to introduce the world to the next Sarah, and not be stuck here with a district that in 123 years only had four winners.

"Ms. Bobble" A dark and indistinctive voice addressed her.

Her jewels and adornments on her clothing jingled. "Hmm?" She sounded as bright as she could, this being the first day on the job and all, if she showed anyone that she didn't want to be here, they'd take this opportunity away from her, as quick as she had earned it.

The man's features seemed as indistinct as his voice. The inside of the justice hall was unlit, using windows for light on the bright day. She had a hard time making anything out, much less someone she recognized.

"Ma'am I am employed to have a word with you." His voice didn't have a capitol accent, but it didn't have a local flavor either, it simply, as the rest of him, was indistinctive.

The colorful woman tilted her head. "By who, sir?" She enquired brightly, a playful sense of curiosity.

Soles of a shoe clicked when he took a step back further into the dark. "Part of my job is to make sure you don't know." There was a dangerous seriousness in his voice that made Kacy feel an anxious nervousness straddle her chest.

"O … oh." Was all she could force out.

Satisfied with her understanding of the situation, the man continued. "I have something for you." He reached into a pocket at his hip, when he extracted the unknown object, it glinted in a sliver of light. Kacy squinted, trying to make it out, but it disappeared with the rest of him.

"When you choose for the girls …" He extended a hand into the light, he had on a black sports jacket, stiff and pressed neatly. In his grasp was a metallic finger brace. "Placed this on the index finger under the glove of the hand you plan to place in the ball. You will move your hand through the slips till one sticks to the finger." He commanded.

Kacy had spent her life being catered to her every wish, and she gravely disliked the manner in which this man was speaking to her. "And who is telling me to do this?" She asked her face building a flush.

The man made an amused grunt. "Someone much higher up than you and me." He replied. "Someone who can crush you and your family's restaurant to nothing." She could see the white of a sly grin.

Well when he put it that way …

"Consider it done." She tried to hide the emotional shake of her voice in a pleasant smile. She looked down at the metal finger brace, stainless, and shiny. She frowned at a thought.

"Do I wear this for the …." She glanced up to find herself alone, no man in sight, only people fluttering around, getting everything ready for the broadcast. "The boys." She finished her statement.

Suddenly there was the booming sound of dramatic music overtaking everything within earshot and a deep grandfatherly voice came over the intercom.

War! Terrible war! Widows , orphans, a motherless child. This was the uprising that rocked our land. Thirteen districts rebelled against the country, that fed them, loved them, protected them. Brother turned on brother, until nothing remained.

Kacy looked out to see that all of District Twelve had assembled when she wasn't looking. All of them, young and old, gaunt faces, some half-starved watched the presentation blankly. The woman was furious, she was supposed be on stage already, to introduce the film. But what was she supposed to expect from a district like this one?

Then came the peace! Hard fought, sorely won. A people rose up from the ashes and a new era was born. But freedom has a cost and the traitors were defeated. We swore as a nation that we would never know this treason again.

Thinking quickly, the young woman slipped her hand out of the glove, exposing her moistens skin, dampened by sweat to the air and quickly slipped on the finger brace. From the second she placed it on her finger she felt her muscles contract in her finger and she made a little girl whimper at the uncomfortable feeling of static electricity coursing through her hand.

So it was decreed, by the treaty of treason that the twelve districts of Panem were to offer up in tribute, one young man and woman to fight to the death in a pageant of honor, courage, and sacrifice. The lone victor, bathed in riches, would remind people of our generosity and forgiveness.

Quickly, the Escort bit back the tight cramping of her hand, slipping on the glove as fast as she could as the presentation was starting to wrap up with the thunderous majesty of the Panem national anthem.

"What are you doing? Get out there!" A woman somewhere behind her was whispering to her harshly.

"I know, I know!" She began to scoot out the door to the old grey and black railing of the justice building balcony, she was going as fast as her nine inch heals would allow her. She felt a blush come on as all of District Twelve began watching her instead of the end of the movie.

This is how we remember the past … this is how we safe guard our future!

As the large building sized screen went to black, Kacy was still a few feet away from the podium. There was dead air all around her, inside she wanted to scream. This was her first time hosting, and she was late to the podium. But just as she got to the microphone, she was hit with full frontal feedback, that made the crowd moan and curse, while making her yelp in a high octave.

"Heh … sorry, sorry. Most advanced culture on the planet … and still can't get a mic to work, huh?" She smiled brightly at the large crowd.

You could hear a pen drop.

"That was a joke." She giggled.

No one responded, just stared blankly at her, the way they had the presentation.

"Okay …" She cleared her throat, before finding her stage smile. "Welcome! Welcome, Welcome to the 124th annual Hunger Games and may the odds be ever in your favor!" She announced energetically, hoping to get them in it. But the crowd just continued to stare. Back at home whenever any master of ceremony announced that, everyone cheered. But not in District Twelve.

"So before we start …" She pushed on. "I believe we have a special guest to say a few words of encouragement to our future lucky contests." She cleared her throat. "Give a hand to the winner of the fourth Quarter Quell … Derek Reese!" She gave her best flaunting voice to juice up the crowd, but like always no one gave a hand. But worse still, no one came.

"Umm …" She said into the microphone. "Derek?" She looked around to find no one emerging from behind her. "Mr. Reese?" She said aloud, but no one came out.

"HEH, THAT'LL BE THE DAY!"

Someone shouted from the boy's side of the tribute lines. Kacy was starting to sweat under the gaze of not only all of District Twelve, but everyone back home watching the broadcast. Whatever boy had heckled up to her, she had to admit he was right, Derek Reese was not here.

"Alright then …" She gulped nervously, the ache in her hand was starting to intensify. She bet her lip. "Let's start shall … shall we?" She fought through the pain.

"You know what they say …" She tried to keep her stage smile, but her hand was starting to feel numb. "Ladies first." She just struggled out the point. Sweat was starting to melt off her plaster. She had to get the contraption off her finger, before she lost it.

Quickly, she shuffled on her heels to the large glass ball. In other districts the selection ball was grand, and finely decorated. Some were made from sacred stain glass, others plastic mixed with other audacious colors. But in the ass end of nowhere, it was a simple soot covered glass ball.

Clearing her throat, Kacy dipped the right hand inside, and like instructed shuffled through the papers, not grabbing anything. She simply flipped through the scraps, tossing them around, digging deeply inside. When she started to notice that everyone was watching with puzzled faces. She found her smile again. When she removed her hand from the ball full of names, she was surprised to find one of them sticking to her glove at an awkward angle.

For a moment she paused, was this the right paper that was supposed to stick? If it wasn't, whoever told her to put the finger brace on was going to kill her family. Her hesitation lasted only a moment, because the pain was getting intense, and she could no longer stand it anymore. She quickly shuffled back to the microphone and without any usual fanfare she cracked open the piece of paper.

"Cameron Phillips"

The crowd made a string of strange behavior when the escort called the name out. At first it was half of the crowd making a collective sigh of relief, then there was a pause to mourn who had been chosen. Kacy had always counted that as odd that amongst all of the districts, it was always twelve that seemed to mourn their tributes, winning never ever seemed to cross their minds at all.

"Who?" She heard someone in the spectator's crowd say aloud.

There was suddenly a small chatter amongst the crowds, it would seem that whoever this Cameron girl was, no one knew who she was. For a moment, the Capitol representative was going to have a panic attack. Had she been a victim of a prank? Was it a Prank by the Rebellion, to make President Kogen look like a fool? Or was it to make her look like a fool? Because that slut Sophia … bitch had been giving her the stank eye since that party …

Luckily, her fears were quenched when from out of the fifteen year old line, a slender girl emerged. She was a good size and skinny, There was a natural beauty to her face, fresh and innocent. It almost broke Kacy's heart to see her being escorted by the peacekeepers up to her. Up close she had a pair of innocently blank doe eyes flecked with gold, her dress was simple and yet beautiful, like the girl who wore it.

Kacy, didn't know if she should do it or not, but it was driving her to insanity. So while the girl walked up the long stone stairs of the justice building, the woman removed her glove and pulled the contraption off her finger. She made a pleasure filled sigh into the microphone at the sheer sense of relief as her finger muscles expanded. She gave a look down to see that her finger was a dark shade of blue, but slowly returning to normal again.

She felt the world's stare again, and realized what she had done with the microphone. "Umm …" She giggled nervously, turning she found the girl right in her personal space. "AH!" She nearly fell over, which funnily enough earned some giggles from some of the younger children. Not her jokes, or magnetic personality, but her nearly falling over. She told herself to remind the producers to hit her with a truck next time she needed to lighten up the mood.

"Hehe … AH! There you are." She tried to cover, placing her arm around the girl's shoulder. "So you're Cameron …" She tried to lead off for a round of questioning.

"Yes" She answered with a blank deadpan.

Kacy nodded. "And it seems like no one knows you around here." She giggled playfully.

"Seems not."

"Well don't worry, sweaty, that'll change … right folks?"

"…"

The escort was starting to get a little irritated at being the one to carry every conversation here. "So … anything to say?" She shook her.

"No"

A small glare was forming. "No? Come on beautiful … something we outta know?" She pushed. The girl blinked and turned her attention to Kacy who formed a big smile to encourage her.

"You're wearing a wig."

Pearl white teeth chattered under pressed lips at the innocent comment. "Okay …" she shoved the girl away a little less than subtly. She could just hear everyone laughing at her back at home. "The boys then." She tried to hide her anger.

"HEY!"

Someone shouting out to her caused everything to stop. She blocked the sun from her eyes with her hand, gazing over the crowd and saw someone step out from the boy's fifteen year old line. He was tall and slender with dark grown out hair, combed back and parted. His clothing wasn't like the others with a polished formal look. He had on a dark blue t-shirt under an old dark brown leather field jacket, he wore black cargo pants tucked into very old hunting boots of supple leather.

He walked closer to the stage till he was standing just below Kacy and Cameron, none of the peacekeepers barring his passage, interested in what he had to say it seemed. His green eyes flicked to the girl flanking the Capitol representative. For a long time they stared at each other, not saying a word. Then it looked as if he gave the girl a reassuring grin, before the teen turned back to Kacy and gave her a casual shrug.

"Why not?"

---

Author's Notes

Playlists …

The Title of the story is based off the Billy Joel song "The Entertainer" if you don't understand why that is … go listen to it. It was my muse.

The title of the Prologue was also named after the Billy Joel song "Allentown" in tribute to District Twelve nearly forty years after the events of "The Hunger Games" It was also a muse.

Derek's backstory is based off me listening to "Born in the USA" by Springsteen and a backstory being born out of that.

Some notes before I go …

No I will not be placing this in the Crossover area … If you bother me even once with this, your comment will be deleted and go unanswered. Yes, this is a TSCC story that takes place in Panem, but it's a Mainly TSCC story with vague mentions of cannon characters of the movie "The Hunger Games."

For a second time, This story is based off of the Movie franchise of the "The Hunger Games" I know of several things in the books that is contradicted by this story, but that's why it's AU. Try and enjoy the story.

As always Read, Review, and if you have questions drop me a PM, I'll be happy to do my best to respond.