Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games!

AN: I've had this character in my head for awhile now, and I've finally gotten around to writing her story. I know my writing isn't the best, and I do work hard at proof reading my chapters before putting them out. But things still slip by. I hope you enjoy the story anyway, please let me know what you think!

"It has been twenty five years since the districts' defeat by The Capitol. For such an important anniversary we shall be holding a Quarter Quell, and these shall be held every twenty five years. For the very first Quarter Quell, as a reminder to the rebels that they are responsible for the Hunger Games, and it is their children that die in the Hunger Games each year, it is up to the districts citizens to vote for who is to compete in the Hunger Games this year."

President Azen continued to speak more up on the large screen in the District Square , but my head started buzzing at this news and I couldn't hear anything else he said. I peeled my eyes away from the TV and forced myself to look at my younger brother. He had tears forming in his eyes, because he knew what I knew; it was very likely I'd be voted into the games.

Suddenly the crowd around us felt like it was closing in on me and I couldn't breathe. I knew, deep in my mind, that everyone wasn't staring at me, wasn't judging me, but I couldn't help but feel like they were.

I grabbed Ulric's hand and pulled him through the crowd, pushing and shoving people as I went because I didn't care. I didn't care if they got mad at me and I didn't care if they hated me for it. They already did anyway.

This would be the perfect opportunity for the citizens of District Six to get rid of me. Why wouldn't they? Why would they vote to send some poor kid who never breaks any rules into the games over someone like me who cheats, lies, and steals? After my public lashing last year everyone saw me as nothing but scum. No one felt bad for me, their worried looks and fear struck faces as the peacekeeper brought down his whip onto my back didn't fool me. I was caught stealing food right out of their homes; I was a thief.

Or at least they thought I was. So I let them believe it. If people wanted to point at me on the streets and say "That's Castilla Shan, the girl that stole straight from our homes" then I might as well live up to their expectations of me. Rather it was true or not.

I pulled Ulric all the way home, he sniffled and wiped his nose the whole way but managed not to cry until we were inside. Once through the doors of our home he wrapped his little eight year old arms around me and started crying. I held him close and tightly. I was going to lose him... no it was worse than that, he was going to lose me. Finally I let go of him and pushed him away gently at arms length and knelled down so we were the same height.

"Listen to me, Ulric, alright? Wipe away those tears, I'm going to do everything I can to make sure I'm not picked this year. But since the odds are against me, I'm going to go do something I never said I'd do. I'm going to go get tessersa. One for each of us. Me, you, mom, and grandpa. That way if I am picked, all of you have food for a year, alright?"

Grandpa heard us talking and called from the bedroom just then, "Castilla? Ulric? Is that you two?"

"Yes grandpa," I called down the hallway, "I'll be right in." I turned back to Ulric. "Go wash up, and then after I help grandpa eat his lunch I'll come play a game of cards with you."

Ulric nodded and went down the hallway to the bathroom. I stood in the silence and closed my eyes and took in a deep breath. My whole body started to shake from a mix of emotions. Anger, fear, sadness. It was all too overwhelming. I opened my eyes and pushed the vote out of my mind and turned to the task at hand. Grandpa's meal. I opened the old small refrigerator I salvaged the parts for years ago and pulled out what was left of the vegetable soup mom made last night. I started up the gas stove, taking a mental note of how long I was using so not to use the rest of our gas, and quickly heated the soup to a manageable temperature. It wouldn't be the warmest soup in the world, but I knew grandpa wouldn't complain.

I took the soup, along with a glass of water, and walked down the hall to the door at the very end, Grandpa's bedroom. Grandpa was laying in bed, like he always was, looking up at the ceiling. He smiled when he heard me enter.

"Hey Grandpa," I said kindly as I set his soup down on his bedside table. "I'm going to help you sit up, now, alright?"

He nodded and I lift him forward while putting the extra pillows we keep beside his bed behind his back. He thanked me and tried to reach for the soup himself, but he and I both knew he won't be able to get it. Four years ago grandpa became completely paralyzed from the waste down, and partially paralyzed from the waste up, after he fell down a flight of stairs at work. That's when I started stealing. That's when I fell into the wrong crowd. That's why I got the lashings.

I took in shaky breathe, the memories coming back to me.

"Is everything alright, babygirl?" Grandpa asked.

"Fine, Grandpa. Just thinking too much." I spoon feed him another bite of his soup.

After he swallowed the mildly warm soup he smiled at me, "You need to stop doing that. Relax, don't let the reaping worry you so much."

"It's different this year," I explained, "they are adding new rules because it's a Quarter Quell."

"Ahhh, yes. I remember the rumors going around about those. Every twenty-five years. I can't believe it's been twenty five years already. How have things changed?"

I pushed a green-bean around in the bowl with the spoon and watched it twirl around. Grandpa gently reached out and almost touched my hand before he's forced to stop. I smiled weakly and moved my hand forward so he could set his fingers onto my hand for comfort.

"What is it?" He asked gently.

"Everyone is voting this year," I said quietly, "there is no reaping. It's a vote. All those years I didn't take tessera because it was too risky was a waste. I should have just taken it, gotten us the food that way. Because the way I was getting food before..." I broke off. I was stupid then. I was desperate. "... everyone here hates me. They'll vote for me."

Grandpa's eyes sadden, "Everyone knows you have a family." He was trying to reassure me, I knew it, but it wouldn't work.

"Everyone has families grandpa, that's never stopped kids from getting reaped before. I'm no different. People know I'm a thief, people know-"

"You stop there," Grandpa said, "from what you've told me, you didn't deserve those lashing."

I shrugged, "Maybe I did."

I knew if grandpa could have popped my hand for saying that he would have. Instead he slowly and painfully pulled it away from me.

"Here, finish eating. I told Ulric I'd play a game with him when he finished cleaning up."

Grandpa finished his lunch in silence, once he was done he asked to keep sitting up for awhile and I helped him get his hands positioned on his book so it'd be easy for him to turn the pages. I left the room and quickly cleaned the bowl and spoon in the sink before heading back down the hall to the bedroom Ulric and I shared.

Ulric's bed was shoved against the wall behind the door, so I closed the door behind me so he'd be visible sitting up in the corner. He had a blanket wrapped around him and he was hugging his knees with one hand while sorting cards with the other. I climbed onto the bed with him and silently helped him sort the cards.

"I'm going to everything I can not to get voted in," I finally said.

"It won't work," he mumbled, his chin on one knee.

I finished sorting my cards, letting another silence fall over the room. I shuffled up my cards again while I tried to think how to break the news to Ulric. He was young, yet he had to grow up so fast.

I finally just blurted the news out, "I'm going to go talk to Axl.''

Ulric gasped and his eyes widened as he looked up at me, "Cas, no!"

"It can't hurt anything," I said.

"Axl is evil, Cas!"

I chuckled a little, "I wouldn't say evil, kiddo. He's just the world's biggest jackass."

"Grandpa says jackass is a mean word."

"Not when you're calling someone who really is one that," I explained.

"I still don't think you should say it," Ulric sighed.

"Alright, I won't. I'll just call Axl evil then."

Ulric smiled and went back to sorting his cards. I look down at them and smiled. It was a silly game, an easy kids game, but he loved it. I place my diamond two under my diamond ace then start searching for the diamond three.

Later that evening mom returned home from work. Mom worked at a factory that made wheels. It wasn't a glamorous job, and it didn't pay nearly as much as it should, but we were thankful someone was still willing to hire her after the bad name I put on my family.

She threw her jacket on the armchair and turned to me, a mix of emotions in her face.

"You heard," I said.

"Of course I heard!" Mom snapped, "they made us watch the broadcast at work. Then I had to spend the rest of the day looking over my shoulder only to find people staring at me."

"I'm sorry," I mumbled.

"I don't want you to be sorry, Cas. I just hope you finally realize why I've been so angry at you for all these years. I told you over and over not to get mixed up with that crowd and I told you a year ago to stop provoking people! Yet you continued too."

"Everyone sees me as a liar and a theif! There is nothing I can do to change that, mom. I'm sorry. And I had no way of knowing the district was going to vote this year!"

"Have you thought about your Grandfather? I can't leave my job. What is he to do during the day with no one here to help him? Have you even thought about your brother? He can't walk to and from school by himself."

I gritted my teeth, "Of course I've thought about him. How could you even ask that?"

"He's losing his sister you know, despite everything you've done he looks up to you."

"Stop," I said. My voice was even, because if I didn't keep myself emotionless I'd be screaming.

"I was hoping you could get another job soon, go around and ask again, apologize to everyone. But that won't be happening now. You'll be dead and you're brother will be starving back here -"

"Stop!" I screamed. "Just stop." I gritted my teeth again and held the back of the armchair tightly. How dare she. How dare she bring Ulric into this. How dare she say he's going to starve without me here. She was his mother, not me! Nothing was stopping her from going out and getting a second job so she could feed her child.

Mom looked at me like I slapped her. I half wished I had.

I brought my voice back down to an normal volume. "Don't ever speak about Ulric dying again. Speak badly about me all you want, but not him." I turned and left then, because I couldn't stand her talking like that. I should have just went to my bedroom, but instead I burst through the front door and down the rocky street. The sun was setting and the sky was orange, any other time I would have taken in the beauty of it, because all the factories were shut down that time of night and the smog wasn't filling the air, but I was too angry to really notice just how beautiful it was.

It was chilly, and I wrapped my arms around myself to try and stay warm. I didn't bring a coat and I only had on a thin long sleeve shirt. A slight wind cut through me, but I didn't stop walking. I turned left down the street that leads away from the large cluster of houses I lived at and down toward the large river. District Six's River wasn't a real river, it was a giant concrete river, with with a large concrete wall stretched all the way down one side. Water gushed out of large pipes in the wall and down into the river.

In school I had seen in books and videos images of real rivers; ones with dirt, sand, rocks, grass, weeds, flowers. They're colorful and bright. District Six's river was grey and dull. The water was loud as it rushed from the pipes and down into the flowing water.

I sat down carefully near the edge, just far enough away so small sprays of water wouldn't splashed up onto me.

My whole body was shaking, and I came to realize it was half from the cold of the windy evening and half from anger. I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. I suddenly realized I wouldn't be getting dinner, not after storming out like that. Mom won't even bother making me food.

The sun set behind me and a couple lights flickered on around the river, but I was mostly plunged into darkness within thirty minutes of sitting by the river.

I gently rocked back and forth absentmindedly and start speaking out loud to myself, wallowing in my own self pity. "I acted like I didn't care. I let them all blame me. I put this on myself. I'm going to have to go into the Hunger Games. I'm going to die."

Loud high pitched laughter erupted somewhere to my left, making me jump from fright. I turned quickly but didn't see anyone, but I heard a couple girls laughing again and some boys shouting over the loud roar of the water. I realized almost instantly they didn't notice me. I stayed where I was, if they stumbled upon me so be it. But it was probably just some kids from school out having fun on a Friday night. They were probably celebrating that it was very very unlikely they'd be picked for the Hunger Games this year.

If they stumbled across me they'd just murmur to each other and act like they didn't want me to hear the awful things they were saying about me even though they really did. They'd whisper behind their hands and giggle and glance over at me and make me feel like I was left out of some big joke. A joke where I was the punch line.

I hugged my knees tighter and tried to ignore the fun screams and laughs from the group somewhere up the river from me. But I couldn't help listen to them and wonder who it was. I couldn't help thinking that maybe if I had made different choices all those years ago maybe I'd be with them right now having a good time and joking about some other poor teenager who made poor life choices and sealed their fate.

Instead of picking good friends, I picked people like Viktor and Irisa and Axl. I picked friends who pushed me into making all the wrong choices. I picked friends who wouldn't be there for me when things turned to shit. I picked friends who had no problem putting all the blame on me. I picked friends who didn't even care about me at all, I was just someone for them to use and toss aside.

But tomorrow I would go talk to them, I would confront them and try to set things right.

It wasn't until my teeth were shattering from the cold that I finally made myself stand up and walk home. It was late, very late. Ulric would already be asleep, so I'd have to sneak quietly into bed so not to wake him. I reached the house and was happy to see someone left on our front light. It was flickering and moths were fluttering around it but it made it easier for me to put my house key in the old rusted lock. I pushed the creaking door open and closed it behind me, making sure to re-lock it and to turn off the light. I decided to check the small refrigerator for any extra food. Nothing. I checked the cabinets and found a couple bananas. I quickly ate one, leaving the other for Ulric's breakfast tomorrow, then went quietly to my bedroom. I slipped out of my clothes and into something more comfortable in complete darkness so Ulric could remain asleep.

I crawled into bed and sighed to myself. I wasn't looking forward to paying Axl a visit tomorrow. I wasn't looking forward to trudging up all those old memories and feelings, but I had too.

Tomorrow would be a long day.