I don't own anything. Just so everybody is clear on that.

This is my first Hunger Games fanfic. It takes place in modern times with a few changes to it. Just something that's been wondering in my mind after reacquainting myself with the Hunger Games verse and from reading so many mystery novels over the years. I hope you all will enjoy it.

Just a shout out to my sister who introduced me to Hunger Games several years ago. Although she's the biggest pain in the world, I love her. Thanks for encouraging me to write this.

Chapter 1

He ran through the trees in the woods. His heart was beating a million miles per minute, a stitch was growing in his side, and he was covered with blood and sweat, but he didn't stop to even catch his breath.

He had to get out of here, or he would end up like all the others.

He cleared the woods, entering a meadow where just a few days ago, people had gathered to have picnics. Now, it exposed him, but if he could just make it over the ridge he could get help.

He heard footsteps running out of the woods he had just escaped coming towards him.

He was going to be next!

He ran as fast as he could, ignoring the pain he was in as he climbed the ridge.

He could make it. He was almost there.

Then his foot caught on a rock, and he tripped and fell on the ground hard, but his focus wasn't on his pain. He rolled and looked up to see the axe dripping with blood from previous victims coming down-

I woke up gasping, sitting straight up from my bed. I could feel my heart beating so fast it took a while for me to slow it down and breath at a normal pace. I looked over at my alarm clock to see that it was just a little after four in the morning. I knew I shouldn't have watched that horror film with Gale last night.

I felt movement next to me, and realized it was my sister, Prim. She had watched the movie with us along with Gale's brothers and had asked to sleep with me once we got home. That movie had scared me as well, and I hoped that Gale's brothers slept with him last night. It would serve him right. Even with Prim lying next to me I knew I wouldn't be able to get anymore sleep. I had to get up early and make sure we caught the bus for school.

Careful not to wake Prim up, I crept out of my bed and realized that she wasn't the only other occupant in it by the sound of hissing. Adjusting my eyes in the dark I noticed Prim's ugly cat Buttercup lying next to her legs and hissing at me for waking him up. "Screw you too." Getting out of bed, I made my way towards our bathroom down the hall, being careful not to wake my mother up. She had taken the nightshift last night and had just come home less than an hour ago.

Once I got in, I stripped my pajamas off and began to take my shower. As I cleaned myself, I ran through all the things I was going to do today.

The bus for my field trip would leave at five in the afternoon, so I would have only a couple of hours to make sure Mom and Prim had enough groceries to last them the weekend I was gone, and check to see if I had everything I needed packed.

The field trip I was going on was a weekend getaway to the Capital Hotel, one of the grandest hotels in Panem. In school, several of the top students from sixth to twelfth grade in my school were chosen to go on what most kids in school called, "the coolest field trip of the year." I had studied and worked my but off to get good grades, and had apparently made it among those high numbers. Originally, I didn't want to go because of the money, but Prim and my mom had both begged and persuaded me to go. I hadn't gone on any field trips since my parents' divorce because I didn't want to leave Prim alone with our messed up parents. My godfather, Cinna had even stepped in, telling me that I shouldn't waste such an opportunity while I was still young before I went off to college in a couple of years.

After making sure I was scrubbed clean, I stepped out of the shower, wrapping myself in a towel, and then began to brush my teeth out.

The kids who were going on the field trip from my understanding were all excited, and who wouldn't be? On this trip, not only would we be staying at the Capital Hotel, but Governor Snow would be there as well for the weekend. His next election was coming up in the fall and he was already working on gathering votes for his reelection for what seems like the tenth time. I honestly haven't kept track. Personally, I was looking forward to getting away from my parents and their crap, but I heard that the Capital Hotel had the best food in the county.

After brushing my teeth, I set to working on detangling my hair, wincing as I tugged the painful knots out of my hair. Once I got that done, I went back to mine and Prim's room. My alarm clock went off, waking Prim up. She hit the snooze button and was rubbing the sleep from her eyes when I came in.

"Morning Katniss," she yawned.

A smile reached my lips as I leaned down to kiss her forehead. "Morning, little duck. Just got out if the shower. Bathroom's all yours."

"Thanks." She left, leaving me to get dressed for the day. Just a pair of jeans and my favorite green t-shirt. I braided my damp hair and gathered all the homework I did the night before and stuffed it into my bag. We would be gone Thursday night and wouldn't come back till Monday night, so my teacher's had allowed me to work ahead on some of our assignments before finals came in a couple of weeks.

My backpack filled, I then went to our kitchen to make me and Prim some breakfast and pack our lunches for the day. There was some oatmeal I could heat up, but we were running low on milk. I would have to add that to the grocery list. While the oatmeal cooked, I made Prim and myself some sandwiches and the rest of the black berries I got at the market the "Hob" last week.

By the time I was done, the oatmeal was ready, and Prim came in dressed for school. As she packed her lunch into her school bag, she looked at me with wide eyes. "You didn't pack the rest of your cake."

I shook my head. "No, you and Mom can have it for dessert tonight."

My cake was from my birthday last night. Prim had made it herself after saving her money to buy the ingredients. Although the cake was overbaked and the icing was thin, to me it tasted better than any of those cakes from the Mellark bakery could have. The fact that my baby sister did something like that filled me with such love that it almost made up for my mother not being there to celebrate, and my father forgetting about it. Almost.

After we ate breakfast, we got our shoes and coats on and headed out towards the bus stop where Gale and his family were waiting. His mother had to leave early in the morning with them to go to work and drop little Posy at daycare. Like us, they couldn't afford a car if they wanted to send Gale to college in the fall.

"Hey Sweetie," Hazelle hugged me which I gladly accepted. Since my parents' divorce Hazelle had become like a second mother to me from all the times me and Prim go to her house to hang out with her kids.

"Hey, I finally got your birthday present," Gale said, handing me a box I recognized with the Mellark logo. "Happy Birthday, Catnip."

"Gale, you shouldn't have." But I ripped the box open and inhaled the smell of freshly baked homemade bread. My mouth was watery, but I shared it with everyone as we waited for the bus to come. When it did, Gale and I sat together with Prim, Vick, and Rory in the seat across from us, and Hazelle and Posy in front of us.

We live in a poor area called the Seam where everyone was either homeless or lived in a rundown house like ours. Of course there were some nice houses in the town area where people owned businesses. My mother was actually among those well off people until she married my father and her parents disowned her. My parents were able to manage on their own for a while even after they had me and my sister. My mother was a nurse, and my father a detective in the Panem City Police Department, so they should have been able to provide us a stable life, right? Wrong. When my parents were divorcing, my father spent a good deal of his time drinking my booze, and my mother was battling severe depression because of the divorce. Every night, Prim and I would huddle together and try to block out their yelling and screaming. I would lay there wondering why they were fighting. If two people loved each other so much why were they fighting? Prim cried every night in my arms as we listened to them, and I promised myself that I would never get married or have kids. If love caused that kind of pain to you and your children I wanted nothing to do with it. To this day I still haven't forgiven either of my parents.

"So did you sleep at all last night?" Gale asked me.

"Yeah, but I kept dreaming of a masked serial killer coming after me with a butcher knife." I glared at him.

Gale laughed. "Come on, it was not that bad."

I punched his chest, and he laughed harder. Suddenly, he had his arm wrapped around my neck, pulling me down, and messed with my hair.

"Hey!"

I wrestled out of his arms and we were both laughing.

After Hazelle and Posy got off, the bus finally dropped us where we could walk to school.

"So, when do you leave for the trip?" Gale asked as we walked.

"At five."

"Do you need any help taking your stuff there?"

"No, my mom's only working half a shift today. She and Prim will help," I explained to him.

He leaned down closer to me so our siblings wouldn't hear. "And what about your dad?"

I snorted. "I'd be amazed if he even remembered." It wouldn't surprise me if he was passed out drunk who knows where. Honestly, how he's still in the force is a mystery. He must be some good detective for them to keep hold of.

Gale dropped the topic as we reached the schools.

Saying goodbye to our siblings, we each went our separate ways to our lockers. I walked into my homeroom and sat in my seat in the back next to Madge. Madge and I our cousins even though we look alike as a dove to a robin. Our mothers are twins. Even though their parents had disowned my mom, she and my aunt had maintained contact throughout their lives, allowing me and my Madge to able to know one another.

Madge smiled as I sat down next to her. "You excited about the trip."

"Yeah," I lied because I knew that I would sound ungrateful and spoiled if I said no. although it would be nice to get away from everything, it didn't feel right leaving Prim alone.

Class started. It was English Literature and we were wrapping up on Edgar Allan Poe. The theme of death and horror reminded me of my nightmare this morning. Some days when I can tolerate him, I would hear my father discuss his cases with his colleagues. The victims they found mutilated, tortured, and on the peaks of insanity would give me nightmares. I shuddered.

000{{*}}000

Haymitch

I woke up to somebody shaking me awake. I groan, wishing the person would just p*** off.

"I'm sorry, Haymitch, but I've got to open and I can't have my customers climbing over you to eat," a voice told me.

I opened my eyes to see Greasy Sae glaring down at me. The sun was shining down behind her that I had to close my eyes again. My head was killing me, and I smelled like vomit. The heat was unbearable too. Greasy Sae helped me get on my feet. Turns out I had been laying on the front steps of her diner. I must have passed out here sometime during the night. It's all a blur. The last thing I remembered was- oh right.

Thanking Greasy Sae I made my way over to my apartment. I stink horribly, and I needed to deal with this hangover before I went to the department. My apartment was filthy with old clothing and empty bottles all over the place, a sign of my bachelorhood these last five years.

I stripped and stepped into the shower. Sure enough whatever I had eaten last night came out and covered the floor of my shower. I stayed under there till I was certain all the vomit washed away. The headache was still there, and I could still taste the vomit in my mouth, so I brushed my teeth and began to make some coffee. By the time I was dressed, the coffee was ready. However, when I went to pour some into my thermos, I noticed a small wrapped box with a envelope on my kitchen table.

Happy Birthday Katniss

Shit.

I had meant to drop by their house to give Katniss her birthday present, but something had come up. Great. I remembered she was leaving for her school field trip tonight. I'll give it to her then. In the meantime, I had to show up at work.

Calling a taxi, I made it by noon.

I walked into the department to the noise and bluster of everybody and my headache returned. Some people stopped and glanced at me, but nobody dared to stay too long before going back to whatever they were doing. Good. I finally got to my office that I shared with Chaff and closed the door. I poured some whiskey from my flask into my thermos and drank. The headache slowly faded away. Chaff wasn't in here, not that he would have minded or reported me. He was just as bad as me.

I had just sat down at my desk when the office door cracked open.

Plutarch Heavensbee, the captain of the department, my boss, and the pain in my neck. "You missed the meeting this morning," he told me.

I sip my coffee. "I overslept."

He gives me this look that says he obviously doesn't believe my bullshit, but he accepts it. I'll give Heavensbee this much: as much as he can be a pain I would have been out of a job a long time ago if it wasn't for him.

"What'd I miss?" I ask him as I sorted through the mail on my desk.

"The governor is planning his weekend excursion this weekend. His head of security Seneca Crane asked us to send some of our men with them over the weekend," he explained to me.

"The Capital Hotel, right?" Katniss was going there for her school field trip this weekend. The Capital Hotel was one of the richest and fanciest in Panem. Off along the mountains, surrounded by the woods it was a dream vacation most here in Panem could only dream of having. It offered activities, tours of the woods and mountains, and with the governor being there it was an extra treat. The only reason Katniss' school was able to send her and her classmates there is because the governor offered to pay for their trip. Governor Snow's reelection was coming up this fall, and I believe this weekend was a show to all his supporters how much he cared about their children and their education and experiences. A bunch of crap if you'd ask me.

"Kind of extreme, don't you think?" I asked Heavensbee. After all, the Capital was so far out and secluded, only way to get there was by a single bridge. That and flying.

Heavensbee shrugged. "With the forecast predicting heavy storms, the Commissioner didn't think it could hurt to add some of our guys to the security detail."

I snorted.

Then Heveansbee's eyes turned sympathetic. "I know you're dealing with a lot considering the anniversary of your family's death is coming up…"

I clenched teeth so tightly my teeth grinded.

"But like I told Chaff: it doesn't matter who you are. I can only cover for you for so long before the commissioner decides to give you the boot," Heavensbee told me.

I glared at him with my gray eyes. "I'm dealing with it."

He nodded. "Have a good day." With that, he finally left me alone.

I looked at the two photos sitting on my desk away from the door where only I could see them. The first one was taken twenty-five years ago back when I was a teenager. There I was with a cocky grin on my face, one arm around my mother, the other around my girlfriend, and my little brother standing in front of me outside my old house. Two weeks before my mother and brother were burned alive in that same house, and two weeks before I went through a living nightmare. The other photo on my desk were of my girls: my two daughters and their mother. My youngest, Primrose looked just like her mother with her blonde hair, blue eyes, and her face fresh as a raindrop. No doubt in my mind that she would be just as beautiful as my ex-wife when she was older. Right now, she was still innocent and still in that stage where she didn't hate me yet. My oldest, Katniss… she looked like me. Same dark hair, same olive complexion, same gray eyes, and God help us, the same stubborn nature as me. Ever since the divorce, she has hated me and her mother. Not that I can blame her. Today, my ex and I wish that we had handled the divorce better around the kids. At the time though, we were selfish. I called her a spoiled brat. She called me a selfish bastard. Whatever spark we had back in the day, it wasn't there anymore. Now, we're just a couple of screw ups trying to raise our girls in this messed up world. She'll get on me for forgetting Katniss' birthday, but I'll make it up to them. Somehow.

I went through my mail. Most were just bills from the bank and other random crap. However, as I got towards the end of the pile, I found an envelope without a return address. I always had the occasional thank you or hate mail from time to time like everyone, but I had a sense of uneasiness within me as I opened it. My answers came as I read the letter inside and recognized the handwriting.

Good day, Detective,

It's that time of the year. Are you still looking for the remnants of last year's players? While you were searching for them, I was looking for this year's game. Our special game. I look forward to it. Shall we see how close you can get this year? Happy hunting. Good luck.

And may the odds be ever in your favor.

The Gamemaker.

By now, the blood flowing in my veins has turned to ice.

The Gamemaker is a serial killer that has been around for almost fifty years. Every year, around summertime, he stalks twenty-four teenagers and kills all but one of them. The places where he kills them varies every year. He kills them with any sort of weapon you can think of. From stabbing them to burning them, or releasing a pack of wild animals on them. He makes it out as some kind of sick game, hence the name Gamemaker. It's different every year, but some of the facts remain the same: twenty-four children are stalked and all but one of them die. The one he leaves alive is so they can tell of his gruesome deeds and taunt the policemen of their inability to catch him.

He's completely insane.

Even with today's technology in examining evidence, he's never left a clue that could be used to find him. Just one scarred and traumatized child every year. He lets you know he's starting his games by sending a letter to someone in the PCPD as sort of a challenge to try and save the children he's stalking and catch him. Since I started making a name of myself in the department years ago, the letters have been coming to me more often than not, and every year as I struggle to try and find the Gamemaker, I watch twenty-three children die and one witness so messed up they couldn't help you if they tried.

As I read the letter over and over again, my thoughts are on the poor twenty-four children the Gamemaker has chosen this year. One final morbid thought enters my head.

The Games Begin.

000{{*}}000

So what do you guys think for starters? I might update depending on what you people think. The POV will vary on different characters in the story, but the main one will be on Katniss. Thank you all. Please leave reviews to let me know what you think.