A love struck Romeo, sings the streets of serenade

Laying everybody low with a love song that he made

Marvel had always been something special. The entire district would light up when he strutted through the street, holding his noble head higher than everyone else's. He knew, as every other person in the district did, that the year he was eighteen, he would be the male tribute. He would bring glory to their district because everyone knew that he was Marvel; that he was unstoppable.

He knew it too. He would look around his district, around at the people who would always look back at him. He had a dark twinkle in his eyes as he flexed his muscles, showing off for the girls who would swoon if he so much as glanced their way. He was admired and adored; everyone knew his name, everyone knew who he was. He had his share of girls and he had his share of laughing adventures with the rowdier boys in and around the district.

And I was completely overlooked.

I was beautiful, yes, but there was an abundance of beautiful women and girls in District 1. I was nothing special. Like every other girl in the district, I was also crazy for him. We all knew better; he would never settle down. He would go off to the games at eighteen and when he returned, he would be just as reckless as the other Victors. Yet, watching him goof around with all of his bravado, I could only think of what he would do when he found out that I would be his District partner.

I was destined to be his female tribute.

I drew in a thick breath as Gloss cleared his throat. The room – full of teenage hopefuls preparing for their own games – quieted. They knew that the tributes for the upcoming 74th Hunger Games were to be announced today. While everyone knew that Marvel was to be the male tribute, had known it since he was a young boy, no one had any clue who the female tribute would be. I ran a hand through my long hair, waiting for my name to be uttered. I knew that I didn't stand out as person, as a fighter, but I knew that I could. I had been, like every other child in my district, in training since I was five years old.

"Marvel," Gloss drawled, not one for theatrics when there was work that could be done, "and Glimmer."

While applause had grown for Marvel – boys had clapped him on the back and girls had batted their eyes – everything stopped when my name rolled off Gloss' tongue. They all looked my way curiously. I could read it in their eyes, "Her? Why her? Surely there is someone better than her? What's Glimmer ever done?"

I could sense Marvel's eyes on me. Hesitantly, I looked away from my own pale hands and looked toward him. He was already on his feet, simple arrogance filling even his walk. He approached me and held out his hand. It was calloused from the weapons he had become adept at using over the years. I put my more feminine but no less worked hand in his. It was warmer than I thought it would be.

"Glimmer," he said, his deep voice saying my name for the first time. "Welcome to the 74th Hunger Games."

I put on a gorgeous, wicked smile, already trying on fronts to play for the Capitol audiences. "Welcome to the 74th Hunger Games, Marvel," I echoed with a sweet voice.

He grinned. He pulled his arms back, bringing me to my feet. I dropped his hand after that, as though he were scalding me. Tributes, once named, were not supposed to become overly friendly with one another. Still, we walked close to one another, shoulders nearly brushing, toward where Gloss was waiting for us, Cashmere lurking in the background.

Gloss clapped his hands loudly. "Everyone back to training; if you are no longer eligible for the Hunger Games either leave the training grounds or help the younger potentials. Thank you!"

He turned smartly on his heel, leaving Marvel and I to trail along behind him. He led us away from the others and to one of the back rooms where we would train, one on one, with him and Cashmere for the next year. It was filled with advanced weapons, textbooks, and computerized training programs and simulations. I felt a small bead of unwelcome fear enter me at the sight of a deadly spear. Though there were many spears to train with on the grounds I was used to there was something about the look of this one – so pointed, so deadly – that made my stomach churn.

Reality confronted me brutally in that moment. I was going into the arena in roughly a year; I was going to be in the fight for my life and I would not win. I felt my heart skip a beat at the cruel thought; I would not win. I was going to die like so many other tributes before me. I may have had a fighting chance – I was a Career after all; I was no slouch with a weapon – but I had to fight Marvel. And as I had learned from years of being around him that one did not fight Marvel. One lost to Marvel.

I dared sneak a glance at the handsome boy next to me and the only thing I could hope for my future was that he not be the one to end me.

Find a streetlight, steps out of the shade

Says something like, "You and me, babe, how about it?"

I curled my legs up under my body, glancing up at the sky. I brushed a hand through my hair, twisting it around my injured palm. I had scarred it trying to shoot a bow earlier that afternoon, only for Cashmere to shake her pretty head at me and tell me to stop; that I couldn't shoot an arrow and that I should stop trying before I killed her, or worse, Marvel.

I sucked in a deep breath, studying the dark night. I liked it when it was late, when all was calm and I could be alone with my thoughts. I didn't have much of a chance to do that these days. My life was filled with training and more training. My body, though it had never been unhealthy, was now a finely-tuned machine. I was more muscular than ever; every ounce of femininity I had once possessed had given way to my new physique. I ran my hand along where my curves had once been. I never thought I would miss my layer of body fat.

"Glimmer."

At first I thought I had imagined my name crawling from the darkness. But when it came again, I finally looked out at the street, squinting at my surroundings.

"Glimmer," Marvel repeated, stepping into the light so that I could see who was calling to me.

"Hello," I breathed, embarrassed to be caught daydreaming at three in the morning, hanging out of my windowsill in my revealing night clothes. "What are you doing here?"

He kicked at the grass. "I was out and about; saw your light was on." He shrugged casually, "that's all."

"Oh." I looked down, brushing my bare toes against the earth. "Marvel, can I ask you something?"

"Sure." He moved closer, anticipating conversation.

I glanced up at him, already blushing at what I was about to ask. "Do you ever get frightened?"

He scoffed. "Me? Frightened? What could possibly frighten me?"

I fixed him with a stare. "Death." I said bluntly.

He paused. "I'm not going to die."

No, of course he wouldn't. He was unstoppable, Marvel; the great fighter of District 1.

"I am," I breathed, with no intention of actually voicing my thoughts. Yet, there they were, voiced to the world for the first time. My secret; my fear. I was going to die and it was going to happen unbearably soon.

Marvel looked awkward. "Glimmer . . . "

"You don't have to say anything." I interrupted.

We were both silent for a long time.

I'd gotten so wrapped up in my thoughts – how it was going to happen, how long I could make it, what kind of legacy I wanted to leave in District 1 – that I had nearly forgotten that Marvel was there. It wasn't until I felt his fingers, light and spidery, running up my bare thigh that I suddenly snapped my attention back to him. I looked over at him and he grinned cheekily back.

"Tributes aren't . . . " I stuttered.

"Tributes schmibutes," he dismissed. "C'mon, Glimmer. You're beautiful. And I've wanted you since you were announced as my female tribute. It's agony wrestling you every day when I can't do anything more than that; when I can't change our fate."

I slipped from my windowsill down into the grass beside him. My heart was in my throat – I had never done anything like this before, but I knew that he had based on the tales the gossipy girls swapped with one another in school. Yet, I threw my leg over his thighs so I was straddling his lap. He placed his hands around my waist, drawing up the bottom of my night dress, as I dropped my lips to his. We fumbled in a tangle of limbs for a minute before the moment finally came. There was a pain from my waist when we came together.

As he sucked on my neck, giving way to pleasure, I rolled my eyes up at the moon. I wondered if this was what heaven felt like; being part of something more than yourself. I dug my fingernails into his shoulder blades, feeling his own muscled body moving beneath my hands, and memorized the feeling. I memorized the feeling of two heartbeats, of limbs moving in tandem to bring about grace. I wanted to hold on to the feeling of breath mingling in lovely passion because I knew tomorrow our bodies would meet again on a training ground.

There would be no grace to be found there. When we moved together on the training ground, under the watchful eyes of Cashmere and Gloss, there would only be bloodshed on our minds. We would only be thinking of an unknown arena where it wouldn't matter if we were popular; if we were the chosen ones. There it would only matter if we could survive; if we knew how to fight and hunt and keep breathing through terror. It would only matter if we had the drive to win and the drive to fight the memories once we carried them home.

I felt Marvel's sweat on my chest and wondered what he would be like when he returned home. The Victors were known to be reckless, known to be partygoers. Yet I saw the pain in Cashmere and Gloss' eyes as they trained us, as they fixed our stances and barked advice. I had seen their own bloody games televised for all to see and wondered if they had ever looked down at their own hands and thought about how they had taken a life.

Everyone thought the Victors had it all. Everyone thought the Victors were the ones to be with their riches and their fame.

I had come to find, since becoming a Tribute, that it was not the case. Though the thought of death scared me, I think I would rather die than have to live with the truth of being a Victor – of being a killer. I think Victors are scarred and haunted; people to be pitied and understood rather than envied and idolized. I don't think Victors are the life of the party because they want to be but because they have to be; they have to prove there is some life still residing in them, that they are not just built out of a Capitol arena.

Looking at Marvel's shadowed face, gorgeous in the moonlight, I knew that he had the same thoughts; he would just never admit them. I wrapped my legs tighter around his waist, holding him to me and giving him a feeling of life so that he would have something to hold onto after everything else was gone.

I don't own anything recognizable. Thanks to my beta: Noble6. The song is Romeo And Juliet by The Killers.

~TLL~