It's not Lyme.

Brutus has just enough time to weather the treasonous wash of gratitude before his brain registers who it is: Enobaria, young and bug-nuts crazier than everyone in the Village put together. He can't imagine what her mentor had to do to get her back to where she is now, or what happened to her before the Arena to make her like this, but normal Twos don't just go out and start biting people's windpipes. Brutus doesn't know and doesn't ask, and whatever Nero knows he ain't telling.

Lyme's kids all do their best not to look too happy about their mentor being safe, though Claudius clings to her pinky finger like a child and Brutus does his best not to notice. This year's escort calls for volunteers - Enobaria sings out you'd better not fucking dare - but the square stays silent. It's as good a choice as any, when the choices are between bad and worse and worst. She's young, she's strong, and she's got the chops to get the job done.

It makes sense by the numbers, too. Enobaria wasn't right when she went in and came out even more broken than ever, and Nero patched her up as good as he could, but with the Capitol's demand that she keep her image fresh, ain't much he could do to try to pull her back. They never got her fit to mentor, and that means while she's got people who care about her, she's not responsible for anybody's sanity.

Enobaria rolls her shoulders and narrows her eyes as she stalks toward the stage, teeth bared in the morning light. It's not relief that crosses her face, but it is something about the way she exhales, how she's barely holding back her pace, like she finally just got her nails into an itch in the middle of her back that's been bothering her for years. Like she expected the Reaping results, like she always knew it would be her, and she's glad to see the charade over and done with.

Brutus prefers not to chase that thought too close. This is the girl with the messiest Games on record despite not having an Arena that demanded it, who woke up in the hospital with teeth filed into points because one impulsive act rerouted the course of the rest of her life. The Capitol kicked off an entire decade of crazy Victors because she delighted them; Enobaria spent her ensuing years living up to her reputation.

The Village accepted her no matter how off she might be, but Brutus used to look at her out the corner of his eye and remember her in the Arena, covered in blood and laughing laughing laughing until she made herself puke from the force of it. Then he'd blink and focus on her there in the Village, safe and flipping a knife over her fingers, but with eyes that look far away.

Brutus has never been able to read her, one of many reasons why he didn't put his name in to be her mentor, and he doesn't try now. It would be wrong anyway, trying to pick her apart like a puzzle, when that's exactly what the Capitol commentators and Games pundits will be doing. Besides, what's done is done, but it's not over. Brutus straightens his shoulders, sweat creeping down his spine, as the escort reaches into the male tribute ball. He holds his breath as the name falls onto the square with a heavy thud.

Of course it's Nero. Enobaria's mentor, the only man in all of Panem who can look her in the eye and tell her to quit it and she does. Some of the others could maybe get her to knock it off, could argue using her personal brand of circular logic to get her to come round, but he's the one she respects, the one she'd listen to even if she didn't have to. It's Nero who took the busted-up killer and stitched her back together into something that could pass for human.

He won't want volunteers, that much is for sure, just like Brutus wouldn't if it was one of his girls in there. Nero will want to protect Enobaria, not to keep her alive - she can do that on her own just fine - but to keep her sane, to make sure she doesn't get lost in the dark and the blood and the show.

Even so, that only gets her to the Victory hovercraft; after that is a whole new life with a double dose of murder under her skin, years ahead of her without the only person who can call her 'Bari' and not get a knife in the kidney.

Nero takes a step forward, and no one else will dare. Before he can stop himself, Brutus glances behind him, where Lyme stands with her Victors. She shakes her head, the corners of her eyes tight, and without moving her mouth she begs him harder than he's ever seen her do in her life not to go. The only thing that comes close was when Brutus stood with her in the control room last year, kneading the fist-sized knot in her shoulder while she argued futilely with the Gamemakers to be allowed to send something to end Cato's torture.

Brutus couldn't help her then, and he can't now. He promised Lyme he wouldn't go in with her, but that's all he's got. The rules exist for a reason, because without them the Hunger Games would be nothing but a pageantry of horror and blood. The rules are what give it honour, give it purpose, stop it from being twenty-three kids who murder each other to no point again and again and again.

The kids were right when they put it to vote that night; Brutus couldn't see it then but now it's as clear as the sky on a summer afternoon. No mentor should go in with his Victor, not when the most important part of mentoring is the rebuilding process, and Brutus' duty spreads out in front of him. Lyme may as well ask Brutus to stop the sun from rising.

Nero walks toward the platform; onstage, Enobaria's Victor-face slips for a moment, the triumphant smile falling away to shock and fury. Brutus lunges through the crowd, hoping if he does it fast enough none of his kids will cry out or try to stop him. "I volunteer!" he shouts, and for a second the world fractures itself in two. He's split between the Brutus of now and the Brutus of then - the one with scars surgically removed and the one who hadn't earned them yet - but then he takes another step and everything slides back into place.

He doesn't look at Nero as he passes. If Brutus walks back down this stage in a month, he's not sure how he'll look Nero in the eye ever again.

Now's not the time. There are hundreds of cameras on him - the screen to the side of him divides down the middle as he strides up the stage, and for a second Brutus nearly stumbles. They've cued up the footage from his first Games so that himself at eighteen and himself in his forties mount the stairs side by side. On his left, twin Enobarias give the crowd identical wicked grins, save for the flash of gold in the older one's mouth.

Coincidental choice of cards or not - Brutus refuses to go down the path Claudius insists on whacking through the treason brush - this year is about punishment. It's to remind the districts that they aren't invincible, that just because Katniss Everdeen played the Gamemakers with her little stunt last year, doesn't mean anyone else will be allowed to do the same.

It's not Brutus' fault, nor the fault of Two, that this happened, but that doesn't mean he can slip up in the slightest. If he's walking out of here - if he wants a district to come home to - there's no choice. Brutus wants the Games to continue without any more surprises, any nasty twists. He wants District 2's children safe in the knowledge that no one will ever call on them to face an Arena full of people out to kill them in brutal, creative ways. There's only one way to do that.

Brutus has to play the game, and play it well, with not a hint of hesitation. He reaches for Enobaria's hand, raises their arms above their heads, and together they roar at the crowd. It's enough to break the spell on the silent, shocked audience, and finally the people start to cheer.

The Victors in the square stay silent. In a time when a kiss of the fingers is a powder keg, half the districts smouldering and the Capitol ready to pull the trigger on the rest, they can't give any sign of a unified send-off. Nothing that might stoke the flames. And so they stand in silence, watching but unmoving, and Brutus turns and marches back into the Justice Building. He doesn't let himself wonder how many of them he'll see again.

The young Peacekeeper who escorts him to the waiting room keeps twitching, like he can't decide whether to try to bluster to make this feel normal or ask for Brutus' autograph. Likely as not he'll have grown up watching Brutus' Games and thinking of him as a hero; maybe he's one of the ones who collected the signed postcards, waiting in line at every event to get Brutus' scrawl across the laminated paper. It doesn't matter now, and Brutus ain't gonna hold a grudge. Kid's doing his job same as Brutus, and that's that.

Once he's alone, Brutus actually counts back on his fingers. He can do simple math in his head just fine thanks, but it's a good grounding technique even if he doesn't need it for the actual calculations, twitching each finger against his leg as the years go back. Five full runs of his hand tapping against his thigh plus one more finger for luck, that's twenty-six. Twenty-six years since he stood in this building as a tribute the first time, his head stuffed full of fire and promises and a whole lot of willful ignorance.

The room looks exactly the same, whitewashed and spartan and unforgiving, but that could just be a trick of memory because it ain't like Brutus has been back here since. Nobody ever does; every part of a Two's life gets split off into very clear sections for very good reasons, and you never cross those lines back again. The Justice Building is for the kids, and it's clear as he stands here, one personal Quarter Quell's worth of years between his experiences, why that's so.

There's nothing to reassure the tributes but nothing to distract them either, to break the careful programming wrapped around their minds. It's like the bubble plastic the people at those fancy shops wrap their knick-knacks in so they don't get smashed on the journey home. The tributes who stand here will be broken to bits soon enough; don't want to start the unravelling now by messing with their concentration.

Comfort is always more dangerous to focus than threats. Anyone who's ever lost somebody knows that it ain't always the death itself that gets you, that you can run for days on your own power and think you're doing just fine, but then it's a hand on the shoulder or a quiet word that sticks the knife in and leaves you unwound and shattered. The stark professional distance of the Justice Building reminds the tributes that they're nothing but statistics, and that's good, like the weight of a solid sword in their hands.

As long as there's no comfort then the tributes don't remember that they're human, and if they don't remember they're human then they forget that they can die. That delusion is enough to last them until there's no running from it and the only thing left to do is fight. It worked well enough for Brutus last time, but that was coming straight from five years of knowing that his life would end at eighteen and anything after that would be a bonus.

All fine, except that Brutus has spent the last twenty-six years living out that bonus, and he can't just climb inside that box again. He'll stick to the rules and tradition like he always does, but Brutus can't just rip out a quarter of a century of life experience and memories and knowledge of exactly what happens on both sides of the Arena and send himself back in raw.

It's one thing to be eighteen and avoid doing the math on his own chances; not so easy after decades of scribbling the adjusted odds on a napkin while listening to a pair of Gamemakers gossip at the next table over. Brutus can't just unlearn the years of tracking trends and calculating percentages. He can't forget how many times he's stood with a tribute on the Reaping stage in July (eleven) and how many times he made the return trip with a body in a coffin (eight).

It is strange to be in his forties and still have to go through the pageantry, standing in the Justice Building pretending to wait for the family that's never going to come. Brutus has no idea if his parents are even still alive; he hasn't seen them since he was eighteen, when two strangers with faces that tickled at the back of his brain came in and confirmed to him that the kid he'd been before the doors of Residential closed behind him was dead.

It's better this way, really. The last thing Brutus needs is to have someone try to call him 'little man' again.

No wife, no kids, either, and twenty years since Brutus gave up the possibility of that ever happening. It had been a stupid dream, the sort of thing a dumb young Victor thinks to himself when suddenly his life extends out far past the eighteen years he was guaranteed. Brutus had been young and idealistic, giddy with the glut of opportunity that now lay in front of him. He'd told himself to make sure he recovered and got his trauma under control, because no one would want to marry a man who still slept with a knife and flew into violent rages.

Years of utterly failing to make anything work with a non-Victor, every attempt at bridging that gap between them bursting into flames, convinced Brutus that no one but another Two could ever hope to understand him, and no one but a Victor would be able to handle him. With his own Victor off-limits, the next female winner from Two had been Lyme, and despite the efforts of many to get them together, they couldn't possibly be less suited. One awkward evening at the request of their mentors resulted in a textbook checklist of deal-breaker after deal-breaker until they both had to laugh so they wouldn't murder each other out of embarrassment. After that, there'd been no point, and Brutus married his job instead.

That's better anyway. Brutus isn't sure he would have been able to step in for Nero if he'd had a family waiting, and that kind of personal selfishness is absolutely unacceptable. It introduces ambiguity, a clouding of duty, and Brutus is the kind of man who requires clarity in all things.

He doesn't jump when the door opens, but it's close, and he raises an eyebrow when Lyme shuts the door behind her. "There something going on I don't know about?" Brutus asks her, and it's not funny, but he won his Games with a dark, sliding humour that shocked the Capitol audiences as much as it amused them, and he finds himself slipping back into it now. "Don't tell me you're having regrets about not letting me sweep you off your feet after all."

"Still not my type, caveman, but nice try," Lyme shoots back, and the familiar banter smoothes out some of the twisting in his chest. "No, I just - thought you'd want to know, before you got on the train. Odin called dibs on you."

Brutus isn't surprised that his former mentor is the one insisting on coming with him to the Capitol, but he can't divorce himself from the strangeness of it. On one hand, the direct flow of authority will help remind him where he is. It's been over twenty years since Odin gave Brutus a direct order and expected him to follow it, but if ever a situation arose where Brutus needed to defer, he would. That's the way it works in Two, the way it always has.

But on the other, Brutus isn't eighteen years old, and he's not sure how his brain will deal with the dissonance. He doesn't look at Lyme, not wanting her to see anything on his face. He's doing his best to hold it back, but the cracks are forming at the edges of his control and he won't have it. Lyme lets out a breath. "I'm coming, too."

His head snaps up. "What?"

"Yeah." Lyme gives him a thin smile. "I think it would be a good year for Claudius to shadow, you know, Victor Games, full of experienced tributes who know how it goes, it's a good warmup for him as a new mentor. But of course this is an important year, so we can't have Odin's time divided looking after him. I'm going along to make sure we always have someone to cover you."

It's bullshit, every word of it, and Brutus knows he should disapprove - it's a flagrant misuse of Two's mentor rules, which allow for additional mentors to accompany the tributes in the case of training a new one - but he can't. It has nothing to do with Claudius, that in all likelihood the kid will be sent to the sponsor floor and rarely be allowed in the control centre at all, but it means Lyme has an excuse to come along with him. It means that Brutus won't be stuck trying to fit his current self and past self together on his own.

"Nero's got Enobaria?" Brutus asks.

"Yeah."

Not surprising; nobody but her mentor would be able to handle her like this, and not many would work that hard to bring her home over Brutus, either, loath as Brutus is to admit it. So it's not surprising, no, but it does underscore just how non-standard this is, that Nero now has to help his Victor-tribute kill the man who volunteered to ensure that he wouldn't have to go in with her.

Not wrong. It can't be wrong. But at the same time, it never should have happened. This isn't the way the Games are played.

Lyme lets out a breath and runs a hand through her close-cropped hair. "Your kids wanted to come see you. I told them not to, but I can call them back if you want me to."

Here in the Justice Building with only Lyme as witness, the last modicum of privacy he'll ever have for the rest of his life, Brutus allows himself a wince. "Yeah, don't," he says. Civilians say that no parent should ever have to bury their child, a lament that predated the Hunger Games and during the Dark Days must have been chillingly prescient, but for Brutus, no Victor should ever have to see their mentor in a situation like this.

And, more selfishly but no less true, Brutus' resolve is rock solid on its own, but if he has to look into his kids' eyes and tell them why he's leaving, he might find himself breaking down the door to take it all back.

"That's what I thought." Lyme looks exhausted already, but she'll take some stimulants and get some restoring cream under her eyes before she goes back out for the cameras. It's the only kind of cosmetic she or Brutus ever bother wearing. "Look, I need to ask. Are you going to play?"

Brutus stares at her, uncomprehending. "As opposed to what?"

She meets his gaze steady and unflinching, and in her eyes Brutus sees the same question that sometimes flits around Claudius' face before Lyme gets scared and gives him a smack; the one that looks awfully like the face Katniss Everdeen made when she reached into her pocket for those berries.

Brutus hisses. "Yeah, of course I'm gonna play," he says, and Lyme wipes the look off her face like it had never been there. "There's no other choice."

Because there ain't. Say there is or isn't a rebellion. Two has stood loyal this long and been rewarded; they're not going to fall like a shoddily-made granite pile just because the going gets a little tough. Not to mention, any rebellion will be led by people who will be happy to rip Two to pieces in the aftermath.

If they can't believe in the Capitol, what's left?

"Just checking," Lyme says, her voice a careful neutral. "We'll talk later, but I got them to let you go to the train early if you don't want to wait here for the rest of the hour."

It's tempting, but there are cameras documenting their every move, and while nobody ever pays attention to the Justice Building in Two because the farewells are boring at best and downright uncomfortable at worst, someone will notice if he leaves before his hour is up.

"No," Brutus says, and Lyme nods like she expected it. "Go do your job, I'm fine here."

Because she shouldn't be here - none of the trainees from the Centre are allowed to see their classmates off, no matter how friendly (or not) they are - and the longer she stays, the harder it is for Brutus to pretend it's just another year and all he has to do to come home is what he's always been trained to do.

Lyme's cheek twitches like she wants to say something else, but then she shakes her head and leaves, closing the door behind her.

Funny enough, once Brutus is finally on the train his head settles a little. It's not a big shock like the Justice Building, that slap in the face of familiarity after all those years away. Brutus has ridden this train as a mentor more times than he has fingers, and it doesn't exactly put him in the proper headspace as a player, but at least it's not a knife in the gut.

Enobaria's already there when Brutus makes it into the common car, sprawled across a couch with a blade dangling between her fingers. They'll have searched her the same they did Brutus, but any Two worth their scars knows how to keep a few knives hidden. "Mentors are talking," Enobaria says, a nasty twist to her voice. "Looks like it's gonna be a real party. Somebody's gotta be using up a hell of a lot of favours to get this one through."

"Who else you got besides Nero?" Brutus asks. The last time he did this as a tribute, he and his district partner Brynn (the commentators loved the symmetry of their names that year) had kept it professional, rivals but not enemies, not yet. Brutus is going to play the game, sure, but at the same time he doesn't see the point in that this year.

"Ronan," says Enobaria, and well shit. He did always have a soft spot for the lost causes. "Artemisia's the third, since you all had to get greedy."

Two of Lyme's - one mentor, one Victor - on the other side. Brutus swallowed and kept the grimace from his face. At least it wasn't one of his; when Lyme pulled the excuse to train Claudius, he'd worried they would give Petra to Nero just to make it fair. Half a second later it hits him that they probably tried exactly that, and Misha stepped in to stop one of Brutus' girls from going up against her mentor.

"Well," Brutus says. "I'm guessing the trade-off is making us spread around a couple of the others to the other districts, the ones who don't have enough left." Like Eleven, both of them going into the Arena with no one on the other side with a headset to send them miracles.

"Nero said they'll have to make do with their escorts instead of sending Twos." Enobaria shrugs. "Wouldn't make a difference, but I guess they figured that inter-district harmony wouldn't look too good when we're all helping the others slaughter us."

It's the sort of thing that Enobaria can get away with saying, because she plays up her crazy to the point where she could probably joke about chewing on the President's throat and just get a 'oh, you!' from whoever's in the room. Brutus can't afford that, and he doesn't approve either, giving her a hard look.

"Yeah, yeah, I know." Enobaria frowns and drags the tip of her knife across her fingers, just hard enough to draw a line of blood below each of her nails. She watches the red beads well up before sticking the tips in her mouth. "You realize, you try to save me and I'll fucking kill you myself."

Brutus raises his eyebrows. "Say what now?"

"You heard me." She looks at him, eyes narrow and teeth bared. "I'm going in, fine. I get to drag along Mr. Rule Book himself, okay. But you try to pull anything like protecting me, you're not gonna like what happens."

In spite of himself, Brutus barks out a laugh. "Girl, I don't like you half well enough to take a sword in the gut for you." He's not sure whether he means it, but he knows what he has to say, and that's easier. Better anyway to get used to talking without connecting it to anything real, since once the train stops he won't have a choice.

"Good," she snaps, settling back against the rich cushions. "Because we're winning this, I don't care who it is, and if we're going to do that, we both need to be sharp. Can't do that if one of us is thinking about dying."

She's right there, and Brutus nods. "Agreed. But standard rules apply, all right? Let's not be the final two if we can help it."

Enobaria sucks the last of the blood from a fingertip with a loud smacking noise. "If we are, I'll do you quick," she says, something flickering in her eyes, and that's as much of a promise as she can make him. "I won't play around, not with you."

"Same," Brutus says, but Enobaria only laughs at him and says she's so surprised.

Brutus rolls his eyes at her, but at the same time, she has a point. Everyone knows Brutus' game, the kind of angle he plays, and he'll have to work to make sure he's not predictable, to walk the line between familiar and boring. Except as the train whirrs through the mountains, tired adages about old dogs and new tricks come to mind. Brutus sighs before he can pull it back.

Enobaria eyes him over the tip of her knife, miming like she's going to throw it between his eyes, but Brutus wasn't reaped yesterday and the tendons in her wrist never flex, which means she won't. "You seriously gonna keep up with the honour shit this year, after all this?"

That, Brutus doesn't have an answer to. "Dunno," he says. "Guess we'll have to see what my mentor says."

Enobaria tips her head back against the sofa and laughs until her voice scrapes raw in her throat. Without looking she tosses the knife away and presses her hands over her eyes. Brutus sits still while the handle quivers in the mahogany panelling behind his head.

They already have the basic information for each district, phoned in from the Capitol as part of Two's privileged position, and Brutus glances at the sheaf of papers in his lap and shuffles through them. Names, districts, and stats, just like every other year, only this year it's more than age and basic figures like approximate height and weight plus any relevant facts revealed at the ceremony. This year the unofficial lists are bursting with information about the Victor-tributes, since the Centre has always had access to the winners' information as soon as everything is tallied after the Games finish.

It's a kind of morbid curiosity not entirely in keeping with proper Career spirit that makes Brutus flip through to his own sheet, but he needs to know. They'll be using this information later, either against him or to help him, and he can't go in blind. This is already irregular; the sooner he remembers that he's nothing but statistics on paper, the better off he'll be.

District 2. Winner: 49thHunger Games, age 18. Number of Arena kills: 9. Signature weapons: spear, sword, close combat. Sustained injuries: titanium bones in right hand (Arena); clavicular osteolysis in left shoulder (training). Overall health at time of 75thHunger Games: good. Addictions: none. Current age: 43. Overall tribute ranking: 7thby popularity (last poll date: 72ndHunger Games). Starting odds: 5-1.

Brutus grunts and slides the paper back in place. Could be worse, though the younger Victors have bumped his odds back since he was a teenager. He doesn't look at Enobaria's; that's too much too soon, and either way he's not going to be the one to kill her unless he has to. If they're the final two they'll see what happens, but Brutus knows her stats, and he's not going to plan the best way to do it.

They have time before the train hits the Capitol, and when the mentors return from their meeting, Odin suggests they watch the rest of the Reapings. For the first time since they called Nero's name, Brutus has to swallow a shout of protest. As soon as he sees the others on the stage, it's going to be real. They're not his friends exactly, not for the district that always stands apart, but colleagues and rivals and compatriots, and over the years sometimes that line starts to blur. Twenty-six years ago Brutus sat here and watched twenty-two strangers step up on the stage while he and Odin discussed the best ways to kill them, but this time it won't be like that.

There's no arguing with the tactics, though, and Brutus keeps his mouth shut and nods.

Right from the get-go, District 1 proves his point when Cashmere and Gloss glide onto the stage, each of them stepping forward before their escort finishes reading the name. It's the kind of twisted romanticism that the Capitolians sigh over, except these aren't dumb kids. They're in their twenties; they've seen horrors that Brutus has never had to face. He gives thanks to President Snow and the Capitol for making sure none of his Victors have, either, but that doesn't change the reasons why the siblings are the most popular Victors District 1 has put out in years.

They stand together, gold hair and glowing skin and bright green eyes, a matched set a year apart, their smiles hard and dazzling. Whatever their plan, they've already made it, and unlike Brutus he doubts there's even a shimmer of hesitation between them.

"Ah," Odin says quietly, his face drawn and lined. "Of course."

"Care to share with the class, gramps?" Enobaria drawls.

Odin doesn't even bother to chide her. "Everyone meets their end," he says. "For those two, this will be the only chance they have to make it theirs."

"What, so they're pushovers all of a sudden?" Enobaria wrinkles her nose. "That doesn't sound right."

"That's not what he means," Nero says, patient, and Enobaria subsides, pushing her foot against his thigh in a sulky gesture. "Pretty sure they're going to take out everyone they can before they go. They don't intend on walking out, but that doesn't mean they'll just lie down."

"Make their end and bring down the world with it," Enobaria says, and this time her eyes flicker. "I can respect that. Plus it makes it easier for me."

Enobaria isn't friends with Cashmere and Gloss - the One/Two rivalry is too strong, and they've always resented her for avoiding their fate - but they did win in the years following her, and that makes a kind of connection even if they never never pulled their claws in. It's one that Brutus definitely does not share. They're way younger than him, for one, and he stays the hell away from anyone the Capitol sells. He never managed to square that away in his head, it's sick any way he looks at it, and the less he puts it in front of him the better.

He stares at the siblings and their hard, bright smiles, and something unpleasant settles in his chest. It isn't just about making a good show and taking out the other Victors while they can, doing the Capitol's bidding to the end and outshining all the rest. There's defiance in the lines of their shoulders, the way they twine their fingers and raise their hands above their heads. There's an ugliness beneath their smiles that Brutus doesn't understand but makes his skin crawl.

This won't help him win - Enobaria's right, if they've decided they're not coming back then that means less guilt for him - and so Brutus shoves the thoughts away.

Nobody is surprised when the Career districts receive the most commentary and build-up out of everyone in Panem; they're the only ones with a pool of Victors big enough. Most of the others have barely managed to scrape up one living Victor per sex, and it's difficult for the commentators to draw out much anticipation out of a sure deal.

There are upsets. Mags from District 4 volunteers for Finnick Odair's girl Annie, a fact that seems to surprise the commentators but which Brutus and every mentor in the room saw coming. Mags started the Career system in her district; she's tough and fearless and one of the few non-Two mentors that Brutus treats with nothing but respect. She's brought more Victors out of the Arena than any mentor in Panem, and since her stroke a few years back, Four hasn't managed to net itself a single Victor.

"I'm surprised they let that happen," says Claudius, staring at the screen with a frown. "Mags and Odair aren't going to have the kind of onscreen drama that he and his girl would have, and Mags is far better known as a mentor than a tribute anyway. Won't the entire Capitol audience be throwing things at their televisions right now?"

Brutus glances at Odin, who lets out a breath. "Best not to question that sort of thing at this stage," Odin says.

Enobaria snorts. "Well if you won't say it, I will," she says. "They want someone pretty left over in case Odair doesn't make it out. If he dies they'll need someone to pick up the slack, and Little Miss Crazy has a better shot at it than the old lady."

Brutus actually winces, and Nero leans forward and rests his hand on Enobaria's shoulder. "That's enough," he says firmly. "Show some respect."

Enobaria sinks low in her chair, folding her arms across her chest in a mutinous gesture. "Why?" she demands. "What's the point? You know it's true."

Claudius looks green around the edges, but this is the big leagues now and that means he can't go running to Lyme every time he scrapes his knee, not anymore. For her part Lyme doesn't touch him, just lets him sit there and mull that over and try not to throw up all over himself.

The thing is, Enobaria is right. District 2 made a deal decades back that they'd provide the best show, the strongest tributes, the finest weapons and Peacekeepers and everything else in exchange for their Victors being left alone after they win. It's one of those things nobody talks about but everyone knows; it's just the Twos stay away from the sex trade because they can't stop it and the more they poke their noses in the stronger the danger that the whole deal will go away.

But Enobaria has this one nailed. There's no way Four's two youngest, most attractive Victors will be tossed into the shark pool leaving Mags behind. Not when they're already losing Cashmere and Gloss. Even more convenient that they won't need Annie's mind in tact for them to get what they want out of her - it might even be better if it's not, since they can just shoot her up with drugs and tell themselves it makes her happier.

No. No, Brutus knows better than this. He's been on the mentor circuit for too long to fall prey to this kind of thinking. This is for kids, and untrained kids at that, and if Brutus is going to have his world pulled out from under him before he's tossed back into the Arena, he sure as the Reaping ain't going to do it letting his mind fly to pieces like this. Enough. Brutus has been mentoring longer than the kids who would have gone in this year have been alive; he doesn't need his mentor to knock him down and set his brain to rights like he's a fresh Victor all over again.

As if he heard Brutus' thoughts, Odin glances over and gives him a serious look. Brutus wants to break his gaze but can't, that would be as good as bursting into tears, and he clenches his jaw instead. "We don't have to do this now," Odin says, but he knows the answer. Brutus shakes his head, and Odin nods and turns back to the screen, resuming the feed.

District 7's Johanna doesn't even wait for her name to be called, just pushes her way on stage with an irritated, "Well, we all know it's me, don't we," and crosses her arms, glaring out at the cameras. Enobaria rolls her eyes - the two of them clashed more than most Victors - and flips off the screen. District 8 has the next big surprise, when no one steps forward for Cecelia. They actually have to pry her kids off her before she can take the stage. The camera swings around to Eight's other female Victor, who stands and looks at the ground, refusing to let her eyes meet the screen.

Claudius makes a choking sound - kid's got mommy issues from here to Twelve and back again - and Brutus pretends he doesn't see Lyme shift position to press their shoulders together. Enobaria sometimes trains kids for the Games but would never, ever want any herself; Lyme thinks they're parasites that should be locked away until they pupate at thirteen and stop being so leaky and whiny and needy and disgusting. As for Brutus himself, Brutus is not going to think about it, not any of it, not right now. Everyone in the train car goes silent. Cecelia's kids sob in the square, screaming and begging someone to take her place. She stands, still and pale and wide-eyed, surrounded by crumbling grey buildings.

"And yet when this all gets aired everywhere, we're going to be the monsters because we jumped at the chance," Enobaria drawls, and she doesn't let a lot get under her skin because being crazy and detached is how she deals with things, but she's not inhuman, and her lip curls in disgust. "Meanwhile this'll get played off as a tragedy. Maybe I'll look forward to tearing out their hypocritical hearts after all."

"Enobaria," says Nero in a gentle, warning kind of tone.

"I didn't mean hers!" Enobaria protests, waving a hand at the screen. "She was stupid enough to have kids, but that's not what I'm talking about."

The gnawing feeling inside Brutus explodes outward. Before he can stop himself he snaps, "If anyone deserves to win, it's her. She's got kids. She made something. What did any of us -" But they're all staring at him now, and Brutus slams his mouth shut.

"She pushed a bunch of babies out of her vagina," Enobaria says, her expression incredulous, waving her hands in short, spasmodic gestures. "That doesn't make her special, that doesn't make her worthy. It just means she let some jackass stick his junk in her. Anyone can do that, that's not a talent, and it doesn't make her deserve to win! We're the ones who fought to be here, we're the ones who worked every damn day so our kids have the best shot to survive. That's what counts, not being a - an incubator!"

Brutus clenches his jaw and crosses his arms, fingers digging into his biceps. Claudius is still staring at the screen, an agonized look on his face, but for once Lyme isn't paying attention to him. She's looking at Brutus, dawning horror and understanding on her face. Don't, she says, eyes tight and mouth pressed thin, just like she did at the Reaping. Please don't.

Brutus looks away.

Ronan clears his throat. "I think Odin was right, we should give the footage a rest," he says, using his politician voice. He taps his cane against the floor to punctuate the statement, and this time there's no arguing. "Mentors will review the footage and tell you anything you need to know, you have the files so that should be enough for now." He thins his lips into a line. "We all have a lot to deal with. Use this time to get your heads back in the game."

"Fine. Maybe I'll try to have a baby in the meantime so people will give two shits about me when I die." Enobaria touches her fist to her chest in a salute that's only a little mocking, then swings herself out of the berth and heads for her private compartment. Nero doesn't say anything, just gets up and follows her out.

Brutus exhales through his nose, forces his fingers to keep still instead of tapping against his leg, and heaves himself to his feet. "Gonna go look over the files," he says curtly. "I'll be ready."

Brutus guesses Odin will follow him in about an hour, but right now Brutus needs to be alone. The more he stares at the television, at the folder of paper in his hands that's full of information he already knows, the clearer it is that he can't outrun the weakness. He needs to let it catch him, needs to fight it, wrestle with it, stick a knife in its neck and watch it die, and then he'll be fine. But he can't let anyone see him like that, not Lyme, not Odin, not anyone. Not until he's gotten it under control.

When Brutus was younger, he would have trashed his compartment, throwing anything even remotely fragile into things that weren't, smashing the mirrors and breaking the lamps into pieces. But even in the depths of his rage and confusion now - faced with the thought of shoving a spear through the stomach of a woman with three kids; twisting the head off a man too drunk to notice because when he was eighteen years old he killed his own mother when she tried to bring him out of a nightmare - Brutus can't bring himself to do that. He has to let the horror find him, but that doesn't mean he can unleash the monster, not yet.

Brutus has been an executioner for the past twenty-six years, and you can never really forget how to be a killer any more than your fingers forget what it feels like to curl around the handle of a spear, but it's not a headspace he's occupied for a long time. The one promise that Two makes its Victors is that they'll never have to enter it again, and Brutus doesn't know what will happen if he does but he knows he can't do it on the train.

Instead of giving vent to the torrent inside him, Brutus grips the edge of his dresser and closes his eyes, his entire body shaking. For a few minutes he lets himself think what he can't, what as soon as this little fit is over he will lock away for the rest of his life - whether that's three weeks or thirty years - that this is wrong. All of this, this perversion of the rules, of the system he fought and nearly died to defend, this spitting in the face of every sacrifice that every tribute has ever made, be they Careers or outliers or the muddy bits in the middle, is wrong.

The thought pounds in his skull like a headache, and Brutus' breath leaves his body in ragged gasps. Wrong. They promised that not one Victor would ever have to take another life. Wrong. That he would send children to their deaths, but if he got them out he could make them the same vow. Wrong. That the Capitol loves and protects its loyal servants; follow the rules, don't ask questions, keep your head down, work hard, and all of it will be worth it. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

It's terrifying - it's like crashing through the ice when he was thirteen, thrown into the frozen lake to learn how to swim in the worst of circumstances, that initial shock before the pain sets in - and it won't leave. It creeps under his fingernails and into the space behind his eyes, but then Brutus exhales. Again, and again, and again. He opens his eyes, stares at the man in the mirror who could be the father of the boy who stood here all those years ago, and when he does, the breath comes easier.

It's wrong, but it's necessary. Brutus swallows, this time without pain, and he narrows his eyes. Yes, it is necessary. It became necessary the day that Katniss Everdeen and her boyfriend held up a handful of berries and dared the Capitol to do its worst. Since the districts took up that whisper of treason and turned it into a rolling wave.

It is wrong, but the Capitol knows that. What's happening to him, to Enobaria, to Cecelia and the others, is nothing more than an exercise in exactly how wrong things have become. They live in a world where sixteen-year-old girls think they can defeat the Capitol because they believe they're indispensable. Where an entire district can riot at the death of a little girl and feel justified in it as though Two doesn't lose both of theirs nearly every year just like the rest of them. Where the outliers can stop sending their supplies and blame it on the weather or downed train lines and think their anger justifies starving the ones who rely on those goods. This Quarter Quell is a natural extension of what needs to happen: to remind the people once again that their doom is always, always of their own making.

The people turned their backs, and now they will lose their heroes. There is no better reminder of the Capitol's power than that. You can't punish a traitor because they've already lost their core; the only thing you can do is take away the things they love.

Brutus closes his eyes, lets the thoughts roll over him like fog on the mountains, and when he looks up again, he almost believes it. All he needs to do is keep telling himself, over and over and over, keep throwing the spear into the target, and by the time the train reaches the Capitol and Brutus looks into the sea of cameras and painted faces, it will be a part of him.

There is no other way.

Forty minutes later, Odin knocks on the door to Brutus' compartment and steps through the door. "You all right, son?" he asks.

Brutus lifts his head. "Yes, sir," he says, and doesn't waver.

"Good." Odin nods. "Let's talk strategy."