DAMAGED

A/N: Warning this is rated T for swearing, sexual themes and violence. Killing is not the only way to damage a person.

I awoke to the distant boom of a cannon. Someone was dead.

I sat up and grabbed the pouch and knife I had managed to grab before the Bloodbath. Two more cannons go off. Three dead.

I couldn't help but think fourteen down, ten to go. I had survived the Bloodbath and the first week. Not too bad from a District 3 girl with no prior training. Of course I'd been very lucky not to run into any tributes yet. The only troubles I'd encountered were dehydration and lack of food. The water was harder to find then the food but I'd had helped. I had followed the rabbits I saw to the watering hole. There I found this type of edible grass (pigweed, I could remember the trainer at the edible plants station mentioning it). I tried my hand at some snares. Even though they were clumsily built, I managed to catch a couple squirrels. I'd heard cannons but had seen none of my fellow tributes. I guessed they had not found the watering hole yet.

I decided to go check on my snares again. I'd eaten before I went to sleep but I was still not used to starvation. Already my stomach was growling for food. I belt the pouch around my waist and walk off into the forest. I check my snares and see one of them had snapped and broke. I sighed and started to fix it, trying to do the work quickly so I could be back at the watering hole by night fall. I was still working on the damned snare as the sky got darker and the temperature dropped. My fingers froze as I worked the ropes and my breath came out in puffs. I should go back now, leave the snare for tomorrow. I should go back to where I know it is safe.

Finally, my common sense won out and I started to make my way back to the watering hole, pulling my coat more tightly around me. The Gamemakers seemed to be making the arena colder every day. I wished I had gloves. Luckily we had been provided with boots. I shivered, glad that I had found a box of matches lying around in the woods. I was just thinking about lighting a fire and warming my frozen hands when I stop.

Someone is in my camp.

It was the boy from Two. The big, brutal one. I saw him decapitating dummies left and right in the Training Center. He had the most kills from Bloodbath. He was most likely the favorite to win. And I couldn't help but notice how his eyes examined the beautiful girls from One, Four and Ten.

Now those same evil eyes came to rest on me.

"So, this is your camp isn't it?" He asked, grinning viciously at me. I froze with fear, my heart beating wildly. Oh God, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die.

"I was hoping it would be the girl from Ten. But she's not smart enough to make something like this." He said pointing at the lean-to tent I had built.

"You see girl, I'm in a bit of a jam here. I just killed off three of my alliance members." He told me casually as if he were talking to an old friend. "Turns out Ruby and Arielle were not…interested in what I had to offer. Neither was Typhon."

Visions of the girls from One and Four flash before my eyes. He killed them along with the boy from Four. That means his District partner is still out there and the boy from One. But why?

What does that matter if I'm going to die anyway?

I noticed at the last moment that he had gotten closer as he was talking to me. I tried to move my legs and make myself run, but I was still frozen, looking up into those evil eyes.

"Oh but a girl like you would be interested right? More interested than the girl from Ten would be." He frowned a bit. "If only you were better looking like her." With that he reached out and touched my cheek.

A shiver of fear ran through my body and I bolted. I ran through the woods like a frightened rabbit, the hunter right behind me.

I ran as fast as I could, ducking branches, jumping over tree limbs. I started to pull ahead of the District Two boy but he still pursued me. Adrenaline coursed through my body and I sped up leaving him behind in the dust. I kept my pace until I could no longer hear his heavy footfalls. I slowed down, trying to catch my breath.

That was my first mistake.

He tackled my from behind and we fell and rolled on the ground. Suddenly he was on top of me, his heavy body pinning me to the ground. I struggled and fought and freed my right arm. I tried to use it to push him off of me but he was too strong for me. And I was so weak…so weak…I didn't stand a chance.

I continued to push my hand against his chest as he ripped open my coat. I opened my mouth to scream (not caring who would find us) but he covered my mouth with one of his large hands, muffling my voice. I redoubled my efforts to push him off of me. It didn't work but it seemed to annoy him. He grabbed my wrist with his other hand.

Snap.

I cried out in pain, but his hand still covered my mouth. My useless hand, broken wrist and all flopped to the ground.

That being done he took his hand away from my mouth and attacked my body. Before I can comprehend what is happening, my shirt had been torn and my pants were around my ankles.

I started to cry. "Please, please don't do this, please…."

My second mistake.

My pleas only made him smile. He caressed my cheek before taking off his shirt.

No, please please I don't wanna….

His body crushed mine and his lips went to my neck. I could feel him kiss my neck and start sliding his pants off.

My cries grew louder and he had to cover my mouth again. His kisses ran down my neck to my shoulder, to my breasts, to my stomach. He even bit me.

Get him off me! Someone stop him! PLEASE!

He stopped kissing me and hovered over me for a second. Then he descended on me and- No GOD NO!

My screams were muffled by his hand. He moaned with pleasure as he hurt me again and again.

Stop! Please stop! Please…please….

I don't know when but my screams slowly died out. I stopped struggling, stopped fighting. I just froze underneath him. I could still feel him inside me, but I couldn't feel anything else…there was nothing else…just me and him…my pain, his ecstasy….

I don't remember much else. He did his business, had his way with me and then got off me. I watched him put his pants back on then lay back down next to me on the grass. He stared at me for a long while before turning over to his other side and falling asleep.

I laid, as he slept, in the same position as he had left me when I was awake. I didn't know where I was or what I was doing here. But I knew what he had done to me. My fear had vanished and was replaced with numbness. I was aware that I was still in pain where he had hurt me, snapped my wrist and bit my skin. I just couldn't…feel anything. I was half naked and it was freezing yet the cold didn't bother me. I was in pain yet I did not hurt.

What had happened to me?

I sat up and stared at my left arm for a long while. There was a bruise around it from where he had pushed it into the ground. I looked down at myself and saw I was bleeding from where he bit me and black spots are starting to form where he pushed his body into mine.

Suddenly it all seemed too real to me.

I drew my knees to my chest and circled my arms around them. I put my head on them before I started to weep.

I had been violated. In the worst way. In front of all of Panem. I'm sure the cameras showed my disgrace in full and my tears now. The Capitol people are probably laughing at what the big Career did to an ugly girl. I'm surprised he didn't kill me when he was done. He probably just wanted to hurt me more.

I still don't know what provoked me toward my next action. My pain, my humiliation, the thought that everyone, my family and friends and all of Panem were watching me at that very moment. But something did.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted my knife. It had fallen when I was running and he must have picked it up. My fingers curled around the handle. He was still asleep as I bent over him and put the knife to his throat. I had no idea what I was doing but when I saw his eyes flutter open, I dragged the knife across his thoat.

The last sound the boy made was a very watery gurgle.

The cannon fired almost immediately. I stared at his face, eyes wide, mouth open a bit in surprise. The eyes had a deadened look about them. I used the knife to shut his eyelids. The knife cut into his skin and he looked as if he was crying tears of blood.

I fell backward onto the ground. I curled up into a little ball and stayed that way for the rest of that night, into the next day and into the following day. The hovercraft had already taken his body, his face had most likely been shown in the sky. My first kill. Fifteen down, nine to go.

Did I really care anymore? No. I just wanted to die. To waste away in the arena. I couldn't bear to face my family again, knowing the shame I had gone through. They wouldn't love me anymore, they couldn't. I was dirty. Filthy. No one would want me now. The boy I had back home had probably given up on me. He wouldn't want damaged goods. No one would.

I resigned myself to dying. For three days, I didn't eat, drink, or sleep. I stayed in my little ball, clad only in my underwear as the temperature dropped even more. One day it even started to snow. Finally I could not stand it anymore. I grabbed my coat and curled up in it. That felt better. I put my pants back on and laced up my boots. Little by little I started to live again. I sipped a bit of water one day and then drank a gulp the next. I started eating again.

Then one day another tribute came across me. Before she could ask what had happened to me, I had already buried my dagger into her chest. Her cannon boomed. Sixteen down.

I was surprised to find the numbness had dissipated in that moment. What I felt was triumph. With new ease, I held the knife in my hand and flung it into a nearby tree. It stuck in the very center.

I had made my second kill… and I had loved every second of it.

Ever since I had been violated I had been looking for something to make me feel again. This was it. Killing. That would make me live again.

The next two days passed in a blur. My kills blended together, I cut a throat, I stabbed a chest, I ripped, I tore, I mutilated….

Finally it was just me and the District 2 girl. I flung my dagger into her skull and her cannon went off. I vaguely heard Claudius Templesmith saying that I won but I continued to stab her body. They had to drag me away from her and force me into the hovercraft. I hated them for that, for depriving me of feeling. I fought them but a needle was put into my arm and the numbness returned, followed by blackness.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I entend for this girl's story to last for only five chapters covering her Victory Tour, her life in District three, and her first time as a mentor.

-Jacky Dupree