A/N: There will be twelve teeny-tiny (150-400 words) drabbles in this series, all prewritten and based off sequential quotes from The Hunger Games.
It's technically against the rules to train tributes before they reach the Capitol but it happens every year. In District 12, we call them the Career Tributes, or just the Careers. And like as not, the winner will be one of them. - pg. 94
They bring him a new training partner after he'd accidentally broken the last one's neck. It wasn't my fault, he'd cried as he gaped down at his hands, his giant, strong, cruel hands. He doesn't even remember how it happened. One moment she was snarling insults in his hold and the next his vision was red and clear and she was sobbing on the ground. He'd visited her in the hospital, purposefully not looking at the machines keeping her alive, and she'd kicked him out with a shudder, with a scream.
He thinks this new girl knows his reputation; how could she not? She stares at him with her brown eyes wide, this tiny little girl with a round baby face and spindly legs and bones so fragile he could just snap them without even trying, and he hunches his shoulders and tries to make himself look smaller because he knows, he knows what he looks like to strangers, to girls, he knows that he's too tall and too big and too mean-
"He'll do," she announces, like she's granting him a favor with her approval. Sooty lashes flutter in a slow, bored blink; she looks for all the world like she's about to roll her eyes.
He blinks, not really sure if he should be feel more relief or outrage at her indifference, but he decides on outrage because anger is easier, better- "Shouldn't you be afraid of me, little girl?" he snaps, standing so close to her he can almost hear her heart beat calmly, steadily, dangerously.
The smile that spreads across her face is languid and chilling, challenging, feral, and he takes an instinctive step back before he can catch himself. "No, I think you should be far more afraid of me."