A/N: Okay, so this chapter was written by SouthKentishTown, and everything in the point of view of Colette will be written by her. Jynx6 owns Jasmine, which was written by both me and SouthKentishTown and the next chapter will be written by me and introduces my character. We hope you enjoy!

My palms are slick with sweat.

Half of it's from the heat, a hangover from the hours spent marching through the soot-blackened, chimney like streets of District 3's Munitions Quarter under the boiling midsummer sun. The other half is from nerves.

It doesn't help that this is the year the food rationing fell short, and that between the three of us we could scarcely afford what the tesserae offered. As Mayor Enfield peers into the first of the great glass Reaping balls, it strikes me that 57 slips of those papers have my name on them.

Instinctively, my hand moves towards my throat as my eyes scan the rows of Plant workers for reassurance. A few rows forward, Circi catches my gaze and returns an anxious, shaky nod. In front of her, the Wireboard twins clutch at each other's fingers, burning their knuckles brazen white from nerves at their first Reapings.

At least it isn't just me on this one.

As the sun glares overhead, I bow my neck, craning between rows of pale grey and yellow uniforms for a glimpse of the Mayor's hand disappearing inside the Reaping Ball. With a sickening smile, he turns the sheet over, waggling his fat fingers in anticipation.

Sometimes, I swear that I could kill him. Between his rounded figure, his fresh-pressed pinstripe suit and the smug smirk he constantly wears, Enfield couldn't be further away from the rest of the dark, dusty reality of District 3. Even my family can scarcely afford the smile he wears like a bad smell.

Nerves twitch in my chest, and I ball my hand against the dull pulse of my neck. Any second now, and he'll unfurl the smudged slip, and I'll be safe, my name won't have been called, and I'll be alive again for another year.

Development is risky business, it always has been, and Munitions Development is an area with higher casualty rates than most. But I feel, with the sickening sensation that grows inside my chest, that a quick death from a bomb blast is far better than a slow, agonising death at the hands of the Capitol's Hunger Games.

I'm still crushing my hand tight towards my throat when I feel a firm, rough, familiar hand clasp onto my shoulder.

Stiffening, my muscles tense into the hard hollows of callouses; the three entrenched into his left palm, the one that bites into the line of his ring finger. I know without turning the exact size and shape of the grey smear of munitions dust his hand will leave, the throb of half-pain that flushes across my face reminds me of that much. I know the grim smile that sets lines of ash across his face, just as I know which one of my 3000 colleagues is holding onto my shoulder like it's the loose wiring of a bomb.

"Hands off Vanzetti. We're not in Wing 5 now." I keep my voice to a purr, not trusting it louder than a whisper.

The pressure intensifies beneath his hand, branding five circular bruises into my skin. It doesn't take much for my mind to imagine the snide grin that spreads across his face as he pulls himself close to my ear and whispers:

"Hey Bullet. It's you."

Four words and my heart feels like it has stopped beating.

For the first time in years the faint drone of my phantom limb returns, the tingling reminder of what I lost to my District years ago.

Now I'm going to lose to it again.

The peacekeepers haul me out, gloved hands clamping round my arms and forcing me from the stands into the brilliant heat of the square. Thousands of eyes appraise me, glaring warily from the relative safety of behind the cordon.

I can feel the judgement of every one of my friends minus one. Circi is beyond sobbing, her gaze fixed on me with a fierce anger that borders on crazed. Teewire Wireboard buries her head in her sister Voltess' neck. My mother, my father, both of them clutch their grey collars, choking back sobs. Even Vanzetti has a look that could be mistaken for remorse.

They're all here, apart from Veto. Balling my hands into fists, I take a step forward, away from the Peacekeepers and towards the podium. Then I take another.

The steps come thick and fast then, in long strides towards the raised dais from which the Mayor beams broadly. I used to laugh when he told me that he would hide in empty shell casings on Reaping Day, that he'd conveniently find himself 'lost' somewhere between the Hardware Quarter and the Town Square. Once upon another time, I thought that the Capitol wouldn't be cheated, that it couldn't be cheated.

Veto Coilvalve, whose skin was saved at the expense of others, who believed he could hide from the world in shrapnel and dust.

My prosthetic leg clicks impatiently with every stride, the only sound between me and the walls of silent would-be tributes. No one will volunteer, no one ever has volunteered. District 3 has one unwritten rule above all others – if you leave things to chance, then you're the only one to blame when the world goes wrong.

I left it to chance by even showing my face today, unlike Veto.

As I mount the stage, and turn into the full light of the lazing sun, a strangled half cry rips its way from the audience. Even I'm startled, my hand returning to rest by my neck. The crowd parts in a seam of disapproval, revealing the source of the sound.

"Beretta?"

My sister's name escapes as a soft mutter. She struggles forward, pushing through the waves of people towards me, hands outstretched as if she could reach out and touch me.

The Peacekeepers are quick to respond, carving through the crowd in flashes of white to where she stands amongst the spectators. She shouts something I can't quite catch, and they wave their guns at her. She just shouts louder.

"I volunteer!"

Her voice is scarcely audible beneath the wave of ashamed mumbling. Does she honestly not realise what she's done?

It dawns on her slowly, starting with the tips of her ears, before flushing her entire face red with shame. Backing off, a wave of hands pull her back into place. She should know better than to break District code. She should realise that she is too old to compete in the Hunger Games.

But the frantic gaze she throws tells me that she realises that the reason I am here is next to her fault. She's just too late. I avert my eyes.

The altercation over, Mayor Enfield wraps one hand squarely around his bow tie and plunges the other into the second sea of dirty paper. It takes him a few tries to decide on a scrap, tossing a few out of the way before choosing a fairly uniform piece earmarked with a black smudge across the top left hand corner.

If I were superstitious, I would cross my fingers. If I were from the Software Quarter, I would pray. But I am neither, and in the Munitions Quarter there is no such thing as luck, only probabilities and odds. The likelihood of my opponent being someone I don't know is high, thankfully, but leaving such things down to chance still makes my skin itch.

Unfortunately, it itches for a good reason.

"The male tribute is... Abalone Vanzetti!"

I can scarcely believe it, and from across the dais, Vanzetti clearly can't either as Peacekeepers usher him forward to the podium where the Mayor stands with his hand outstretched.

Our eyes catch for a fraction of a second too long, and thoughts flicker between us. It's probably a good job that we're both thinking almost exactly the same thing.

You're dead.