monstrous by brames

The Hunger Games is the property of Suzanne Collins.

ii
no justice

Another year, another failure.

Peeta sighed as he watched the hovercraft retrieve Taisha's body. Her death marked the twenty-third year in a row he'd failed to bring a tribute home. She'd placed fourth, the highest a Twelve had scored in over a decade, but that fact offered little comfort to Peeta. In the Hunger Games, anything short of victory meant death.

His boy this year had been a lost cause. Knox was an archetypal scrawny outer-district pubescent; his death in the bloodbath came as a surprise to no one.

But Taisha had been another story entirely. Tall in stature and brawny in build, the Seam girl was a natural scrapper if ever he'd seen one. Combined with her fierce tenacity and practical, no-nonsense attitude, Peeta had dared to hope, for the first time in years, that he had an actual contender on his hands.

The girl from Four smashed that hope to pieces with a single devastating shot from her sling. Taisha, still recovering from a grueling battle against the tributes from One, never saw the attack coming. Her cranium was concaved before she even had a chance to react. Had he been younger, Peeta might have raged at the injustice of it all. Taisha had taken down two Careers. Taisha would have killed that girl in a fair fight. Taisha had deserved to win.

Never mind that Taisha would certainly have done the same had she been in Four's position. That was simply how the Game was played. Deserved to win? Victory only belonged to those with the fortitude and foresight to seize it. Normal humans could afford to have qualms about deception and murder. Tributes could not. There was no room for impractical concepts like justice and honor in the arena.

Katniss had understood that best, far better than he had. It was only because of her decisiveness and willingness to dirty her hands that she had been able to drag Peeta out of the arena. Yet she was dead, and here he was, adding another two names to his list of failed mentorships. Even outside the arena, there was no such thing as justice.

Because in a just world, the rebellion would have triumphed and put an end to the Hunger Games. In a just world, the Capitol wouldn't have used him as a pawn to catalyze the Mockingjay's downfall. In a just world, he would be free of the nightmares and guilt that still haunted him even decades later, remnants of unspeakable torture and brainwashing.

But the world was unjust, and Peeta could only do his best to cope with it. He rose from his mentoring station and headed down to the bar. He was no Haymitch; at least he had the decency to put his drinking on hold until his job was done. With both tributes dead again, he was free to numb the pain of his failure with alcohol and vice.

Only for a little while, though. Tomorrow he would awaken hungover and miserable, wondering why he was still alive.

That was the real question. What was Peeta still living for? His family was gone, exterminated in a rain of wrath and hellfire. The woman he once loved was dead, his memories of her tainted by the Capitol's torture. And what had he done with his life since, besides twenty-three unsuccessful years as a mentor? What reason did he have to keep going?

Twenty years ago, it might have been a sense of youthful optimism. A foolish hope that as long as he kept trying, he would somehow bring a kid home. That even though he couldn't save Katniss or his family, he could still save someone, anyone. He couldn't be a disgrace forever.

But that well of delusion had long since run dry. Peeta knew how naive it was to expect a victor to suddenly spring from the slums of Panem's most impoverished district. Yet still he persisted, doing his best year after year to be a good mentor, to give his tributes even the barest sliver of a chance. Because if he gave up on these kids, who else would fight for them? Not the Capitol. Not District Twelve. No matter how many setbacks he suffered, Peeta had to keep hanging on, trying his best for his tributes.

Because he was the only person left who would.

author's note

Took me a while to think of an idea for a second prologue. Thanks for your patience and support.

Submissions are still open. There are plenty of spaces left, so keep those tributes coming.