Waverly Mongelle, victor of the 70th hunger games, has had an anger in her ever since her brother died. So when Plutarch asks for her help in the revolution, she readily agrees. But what will happen when the plan involves her fake marriage to the very person that killed her brother? And why is Plutarch so concerned about the third Quarter Quell? R&R!

A/N:

Well, here it is. I have finally made my first hunger games fanfic. And it's only taken…three or four years…*sigh*. But anyway, I know this first chapter doesn't give away too terribly much about the plot but please stick with me!

I am woken from my sleep the same way I always am. Through Grandmother's gentle touch on my panicking body, her voice soft compared to my horrified screams.

"No!" I hear a voice shouting in utter terror. It takes me a moment to realize that it's my own. "No! Leave me alone! Get away!"

"Waverly, wake up. You are dreaming, Waverly."

My eyes fly open and I jolt upright, red eyes looking wildly around for a weapon that they won't find. It's not until I see Grandmother's face that I am truly out of my nightmare.

Except I'm not. Unlike nightmares people usually have, I can't wake up from mine. I may be able to pretend, but they never truly go away. It's just that at day I can at least distract myself and act like nothing happened. But there is no saving me from the dreams at night. That's where Mima comes in.

"Sorry, Mima," I mumble, using the nickname I have used for my grandmother since I was a child. There was a time, for a while, when I had discarded the name made for the sole reason of my not being able to pronounce "Grandmother" at age four. But ever since returning from the games five years ago and finding that my father had abandoned us in my absence, I've reverted back to the old habit.

Mima gives me a gentle smile, one of the things she is best at. Her old blue eyes, which have become more gray than anything, look softly down at me. Her fragile hand gives my own a comforting squeeze.

"You know you don't have to apologize, Waverly," she reminds me, "not to anyone, and certainly not to me."

"Sorry," I repeat.

My name is Waverly Mongelle. Almost five years ago, I won the 70th annual hunger games. I live in district 5, a place nearly devoid of victors. There are three male tributes, two of them elderly and one of them a man with two young kids and a newborn. There is only one other female victor, but I haven't seen her since she mentored me in my own games, and even then I don't remember ever hearing her speak.

During the day, it's easy to pretend. It's easy to forget that the games ever even happened, to stow it away in a place of your mind you never go to by choice. But at night, there's no hiding from the memories. They're always there at night, when you can't escape them. The Capitol doctors wrote it off as shock at first, but after they had to stop the video of clips from the hunger games (customary for winners, along with the interview and victory tour) because I started screaming at seeing the faces of those I killed, they diagnosed me with post-traumatic stress disorder.

But, like I said, it's easy to pretend during the day. I avoid the slaughterhouse, keep physical contact to a minimum, and only visit the doctor if I absolutely have to. It makes things better, if only a little bit.

During the first year after the games, I tried to get over it, return to normal life. That was when I started throwing knives on the wall of the back of my Victor's Village house. No one seemed to care, or if they did, nothing was done about it. At first, it was hard. I had to stop frequently, suddenly convinced that I was back in the arena. My older brother Cory had to pull me out of my nightmares, both when I was awake and when I was asleep.

Things got worse again after Cory volunteered for the hunger games the year after.

My brother was my best friend. My stress reached a new high after he left. I couldn't eat because my sudden fear of it being poison; I couldn't sleep for fear of being found by careers; I couldn't even leave the house without being pursued by tributes trying to kill me. Mima tried to bring in a doctor, but on seeing her—a woman that had been close to my family for a long time, someone whose daughter I would pass the days with when I was little—I screamed until she left, convinced that she was from the Capitol.

The nightmares could be counted on. They were expected at night, and they were almost always the same: some variations of me killing and being killed. But the visions, and the fears, they were random and usually made no sense. Once I even managed to convince myself that my grandmother was a fallen tribute, out to kill me. I knew what the district was saying about me, that I had gone crazy. Sometimes I believed them.

When Cory died, I became the worst I had ever been. For months after all I can remember is screaming. Bloody, horrible shrieks of pure terror. Hot, heavy tears pouring down my face. Hyperventilating until I couldn't breathe. My life was a living hell. I was always in the arena. Only this time, Cory was there with me. And neither of us could leave. We were trapped, and there was no escaping.

After a while, the visions and screaming subsided. My head began to clear up a bit. That was when my hatred fully began to settle in. Hatred for District 2 tribute, Sam Ivory. The victor of the 71st hunger games.

And murderer of my brother.

Once my head cleared itself of the visions and my heart began to darken, it was easier. I learned how to put up a front, how to pretend. I became very good at it. I would go to the Capitol events that they wanted me to go to, be interviewed by those that wanted to interview me, I even went to the broadcasted interviews of last hunger games. Of course, I never mentored. Even the Capitol knew that was too much to expect. But I could still pretend.

The nightmares never truly leave, though.