When you were young—very, very young, so young that you still struggled to pronounce your words just right—you knew that you were going to compete in the Hunger Games.
Your father did. It is rare that you can go a whole week without the people of the district repeating it once more (they don't call you by name very often, instead of Janine you hear Koga's daughter, a victor's daughter), and even then, the stale reeking of alcohol lingers in every corner of every room in your home and overwhelms all of your senses and serves as a nigh-constant reminder, anyway.
(You have stopped jumping when he does, you are finished with crying when he yells at nobody, you no longer question the knife that Koga holds tight in his fist when he sleeps or the poisons that are constantly clipped onto his belt. All of that has become routine to you, just the way that it is. You are aware of these things in the same way that you are of your own breathing—you aren't, until you are, and then it is the only thing you can think of until it passes like an exhalation.)
He is sober enough to make you strong, if only barely. The others in Panem call District Two a career. In exchange, you call them lazy. Your father teaches you all that you know, all that you would ever need to. This is how you block a punch. This is how you hold a knife. This is how you climb a tree. This is how you set a snare. This is how you kill a man.
By the time you are eleven, you can walk through a forest you have never heard of before in your life and identify what's safe to eat and what's not. You know which herbs you can mash together to create which poison and the concentration of each required for the potency you want, ranging from "mild irritant" to "agonizing death" and everywhere in between. You know at least eight ways to kill somebody with just your hands, fifteen if you are given a stick. You know how to set traps and which places are ideal, and you know how to deal with the ones that struggle after the snare's jaws clamp down even though their hope is lost.
For these reasons, you refuse to live your life without participating in the games. You would rather die in one of those arenas (which you won't when you are chosen; you are confident in this if nothing else) than live coddled and content. If you die, you will go in a blaze of spit and blood and screams and pain and glory, never in some sort of pathetic serenity. Fifteen will be the magic number, is what you decide when you are twelve years old and it is your first reaping and you are almost disappointed that it is not your name being called. At fifteen, you will start to take tessarae that you would never need as a Victor's daughter, and offer to take it for others if you have to. At seventeen, you will volunteer. This will give you time to work up to all of your potential before you are chosen as tribute, although for years you are giving and taking to your milestones in your head, because you're never quite sure.
You are fourteen when it finally happens—nobody would ever guess your age right, though, because you are tall and strong and you hold yourself up like a victor's daughter (a victor yourself, you are sure that this will be) should. You are standing in your row thinking about how you should have taken tessarae out this year when the Capitols's escort, a tiny wisp of a woman made an entire foot taller by her heels with skin dyed a gentle pink and hair the color of fire, calls out the name Janine Kyo. It's hard, but you manage to suppress the grin threatening to split your face ear-to-ear into a smug, haughty sort of smirk as you make your way up to the stage. There are volunteers, as there usually are in this district, but you immediately insist on your place. Nobody is going to take this glory from you.
When the escort fawns over you in her kitschy Capitol way, she makes it a point to make a display over you being a Victor's daughter. You smile and nod like you should, of course, but it's the greatest feeling in the world when you hear Janine, when she pulls you out of his shadow just by saying your name. His legacy is one that you want to live up to, of course, it is all you've ever wanted, but you have your own spotlight now and in it, you are absolutely radiant.
While the escort is hustling over to the other side of the stage to the tune of the rapid clickclickclick of her too-high heels to pick a boy's name, you look to your father, who sits beside Surge, a family friend (who is currently giving you the widest grin you've ever seen and two thumbs-up) and alongside the rest of the victors of the district. Look, dad, you want to tell him, it's finally my turn.
You aren't sure what you expected to see or what you wanted from him, but the way that the light has faded from his eyes isn't it.