Prologue

An old man returned from Capitol, angry as he always was when confronted with its selfish citizens. His acquaintance had tried without success to convince him to see a proper doctor there instead of just being treated by their District's self-taught healers. Even though the man moved stiffly like a squeaky wooden door, he looked better than the majority of the people his age. He had few wrinkles and his hair grew still thick and dark black without a single gray tress. He was dressed up in a high-quality brown woolen coat, creased trousers and a rare bowler hat which several of the Capitol's flatterers had tried to buy from him.

The old man, as the head of one of the biggest factories in Panem, possessed appropriately high status. Lately, Teddy Woodward had started to delegate some of his duties, finally feeling that he might possibly be able to retire. His unintelligible rage towards the Capitol was the only thing that still got him to continue. When a few months ago the word of a final Hunger Games with Capitol kids begun to spread, Teddy was among the first and most avid supporters of the idea. He thought that the residents most responsible should be punished the hardest, and made a suggestion of forming a committee to choose designated children to compete. Finding mentors was a harder task when they couldn't use old victors anymore, but with little threat they managed to persuade 23 Capitol inhabitants to fulfill the vacancies.

Teddy ignored the night's biting strong wind and dragged himself slowly towards his factory's warehouse. He stopped before its massive door to hit it repeatedly with his engraved walking stick. Very soon a young and good-natured trainee appeared to let him in. Teddy struck the trainee with his stick and grunted him to show the letters.

The reason why Teddy had to enter an almost empty warehouse was to check the letters, which had become almost an obsession for him. Actually, he came to search just one letter that had been mixed with the thousands of other envelopes and backups. Teddy wasn't going to take the risk that they would lose Alden's letter. Teddy still got angry thinking about the selfish Capitol bastard Marcus Alden. He was a highly positioned member of the single party that had led Panem, so it was obvious that his son would be chosen to tribute. Teddy was almost surprised how little effort it took for him to get the kid thrown in with the chosen ones.

There seemed to be nothing wrong with the invitation letters. Even though Teddy would soon turn 80, he had run the largest paper mill of District Seven for decades. Once he had been just a poor trainee, so it was easy for him to figure how their sly minds worked. They'd try to do the job quickly, but of course, carefully enough so that they wouldn't get caught by their employer. But close enough wouldn't satisfy Teddy. Not this time.

He went to the fifth box and grimaced. There! Teddy smiled eerily when he had just been given a justified reason to come up with a punishment for his workers.

"Hey, hear this Jamie!" he shouted wrathfully to the stupid trainee. "I found Harlow Foster, Rupert Sullivan and Hanna Romy all in this." He tapped the top of a cardboard box with a yellow cross. Teddy checked his list, though it was unnecessary since he had memorized it weeks ago. "Foster should be with the red ones, Sullivan in the green and Romy among the blue-marked envelopes. So would you give me an explanation? What the HELL they all doing HERE instead?! What are you, blind? See this is damn YELLOW!"

Jamie tensed up and swallowed hard. "I-I apologize for that. I must have been mistaken... I- I'll get it fixed right away, s-sir."

"Just get out of my sight you idiot!" Teddy pulled out his ancient pistol to scare the idle trainee off. It was hard because his rheumatism made his hands to shake violently. As a result of that and his poor vision the thing accidentally fired a bullet. It hit Jamie's leg. He staggered, wailing from the pain, before he fell down and bumped into a deep paper cutting blade with his face. Teddy had nowhere near enough time to pay any attention to the unconscious or perhaps dead worker. The mess caused by this moron was now endangering the reaping that was due to be held next week.

Teddy was boiling with anger. He informed, or rather, threatened his workers to get to work at 1 a.m. After they arrived he first supervised the work so it would be done properly this time. Then he headed back to his office where he would later meet up with a colleague.

In his office, Teddy limped to his desk and opened its top drawer to take out an old picture of two children glued together. There was a nearly grown-up girl and a younger boy. The boy and the girl both had kind, freckled faces, reddish hair and sea green eyes. They shared similar looks as well as the gentlest personalities. Teddy cried silently and couldn't believe how long ago it was since they were gone. He went short of breath when a sudden aching pain came to his chest. Teddy had never talked about his loss after what happened. He wouldn't now either since he was old and already giving in to his illness.

He tried to remember the kindness of the girl in the picture. Teddy had been just 14 when his parents died in a wildfire. It was 11 years after the Dark Days ended, when District Seven was just rubble. Teddy got a job from the only paper mill and barely survived with it. He was malnourished, ashen and homeless orphan, and Maribel the only person who saw anything in him. Teddy had had many women but she was the only one he had ever truly loved.

Maribel was reaped in the 15th Hunger Games when she was 18, and died at the bloodbath of the first day. Teddy was forced to watch Maribel's death live on TV and he wanted to die because he let that happen to her. When Maribel's name was drawn in the reaping, Teddy volunteered to replace her, even though it was impossible and he knew it.

They had a son who was just two days old in the day of the reaping. Teddy was desperate when he considered the options he had. He could go to the Arena with Maribel and protect her and help her to come home. But there was no guarantee that she would win, and their son could lose both his parents, so Teddy made his decision to stay with Seth.

In Seth's first reaping twelve years later he was one of the few children who hadn't taken any tesseraes. Teddy had done all he could to save Seth from them, but they took him too.

"Are you sure we're to do this?" Teddy's colleague had come in and stayed quiet for a while before he spoke to him. Teddy crushed the picture in his palm and nodded as an answer. He wasn't the President of Panem, but he had connections which could have given him a slightest possibility of getting the Capitol Hunger Games cancelled. He had though no intensions to call them off, now when he could get the Capitol to pay back what they had done to him.

"1754. It's the final count of all the dead tributes in the Districts together." Teddy paused to think about them and felt disgusted. "No one stood up for them. Why should we then stand up for 23 Capitol kids?"

After Seth's death, Teddy had gone completely mad. When time passed he could get over losing Maribel. But losing his child Teddy could never overcome. Teddy became absent-minded but managed to seem sane to others. He started to rise in the social hierarchy and became one of richest people in their District. Teddy pretended to care about his assets when they really meant nothing for him. Seth had been everything to him. He still was. Every time Teddy felt he should do something to the coming Hunger Games, he thought of the excruciating scream in his mind, his little child's cry when he had been whipped to death.

Teddy wasn't there to witness the revenge he had waited for 49 years. His illness took him before the Capitol Hunger Games started. It was a good thing - he was better off not having to watch a twelve year old boy like Seth lose his life in the Arena.