Hurray for quick(er) updates!
And for great betas- one of which I happen to have. This chapter and every chapter before and after it's legibility to unsuspecting readers like you are thanks to Writting2StayHalfSane. (She's also the one who would normally tell me that the previous sentence is awkward.)

This chapter is brought to you today by the number 4, and a special little girl who hails from it.


The lady standing on a box in the center of the gym had one nose hair much longer than the others. It quivered with every one of her breaths and had a kink partway down its length.

I knew six ways to break a person's nose, and could probably get hers in less than a minute if I moved right now. I'd slip between my District partner's hip and the waist of the Two girl beside him, most likely brushing her thigh but that would be explainable considering she'd chosen to wear a skirt to our first day in the Training Center. The One boy in front of them stood with his shoulders slouched forward in complete lack of interest; they would work as hand holds to help launch myself off the ground. Using the momentum of his height plus my spring leap, I'd swing my legs around and probably clip her temple. Before she hit the ground, I would have landed on the edge of the box, heels hanging over the edge, and would bring my elbow upwards in a vertical movement to smash her hair-breeding snout into her skull. Forty seconds max. I'd be left with the One boy annoyed, the crowd panicky as they realized what happened, and the lady unconscious for a good three hours. Plus a pool of blood that would stain the pure white tiles that made up the gym's floor and might be inconvenient if the Peacekeepers came snooping.

I shifted my weight to my right foot as the completely untouched instructor concluded her speech and smiled at us, acid dripping slowly from the false grin. The kids around me were falling out of the tight group we'd been packed into, sifting through the knot of humanity to try and connect with potential and established allies. I made myself small as the group of taller kids melted away around me; the other tributes from the Career Districts were left standing their ground around the vacant speech box.

The girl from Two tossed her long black ponytail impatiently over a bony shoulder. "I'm Cadmium because my parents were factory brain-dead retards who really wanted a son. Call me Caddy and get your finger broken off. It's Mia," she snapped in the general direction of the One boy, who was slowly rolling his head around to audible snaps of his neck.

"Slink," he said lazily. For a moment I thought he'd called her an offensive name; then I realized that he'd just stated his.

The Two boy snorted and moved to lounge on the edge of the speech box. "Screwy nickname," he commented dryly.

"It's a kind of leather," the One replied tiredly, clearly exasperated with the other boy's lack of luxury material knowledge. "Made from the skin of unborn calves." He shot me a rather pointed look, and I crumpled my forehead slightly and tugged at the edges of my mouth. "And how should we address you, oh critical one?" he added, appraising the tan boy.

"Router," the pierced Two answered lightly, nibbling absentmindedly on the end of one of the small silver bars through the edge of his lower lip. The tiny noise of teeth connecting with metal sent metallic waves of irritated energy down my spine. I did my best to stay wide-eyed and kept my mouth clamped shut.

He raised his metal-riddled eyebrows at the thicker blond girl who lingered near the back of the small cluster, on the other side of the box.

"Wonder," she piped up boldly, eliciting snarky chuckles from Router and Mia.

"Well, it's pleasure to be in the presence of a real live Wonder," my District partner said smoothly, offering his water-toughed hand to her. The movement pressed the sleeve of his white tee shirt against his upper arm; the 4 printed there showed easily through the thin material.

She watched his outstretched gesture critically before folding her sturdy arms defiantly over her chest. He took the message clearly, her rejection sliding off of his cool shell like a drop of oil.

He was one that I definitely looked forward to seeing break.

"It's Sebastian, in case you were wondering what to draw hearts around in your diary," he added slickly, meeting her piercing glare fearlessly as he accepted a back-handed high five from Slink.

"Who's the little girl?" she snapped bluntly, jerking her chin in my general direction. I suddenly found all five pairs of eyes on me.

I cleared my throat in what they would probably interpret as a nervous action. "I'm Taia," I announced quietly, lifting my chin slightly.

They all just watched me in silence for a few moments. Router's snort broke the awkward silence. "All right, then, little girl—welcome to the alliance. What are you, like ten?"

"Twelve." Be nervous, I reminded myself sharply. Be quiet. Be innocent. Be unexceptional.

"And can you do anything with that tiny little self of yours?"

"Well," I started, my voice shaking over the single word. I cleared my throat again. "I can swim."

I could stay under water for twelve minutes and thirteen seconds. I could move through it without rippling the surface. I could dive into it without making a splash. I could catch a fish with my bare hands. It wouldn't even know what hit it.

"She can swim," Slick repeated in sarcastic awe. "Signed and sealed. Never met a Four who could do that."

"You've never met a Four period," Mia pointed out, whacking the back of his head. He took the hit good-naturedly, but I could spot the fire that was waiting to be ignited behind his placid grey gaze.

"And…" I paused, switching my gaze to the pipe-riddled ceiling as if racking my brain for any other lethal talent I could possibly come up with. "I can run. Pretty fast."

I could outrun every kid my age in Four, and probably most of the adults, too. I could do a mile in four minutes and nineteen seconds. I could run for hours on end. Then sleep for fifteen minutes and run again.

Wonder eyed me critically. Something about her gaze made me worry that she could actually see right through me. It was unlikely, and wouldn't matter at all in only a few days' time, but it still bugged me that my innocent front might not have every idiot in this alliance completely fooled.

"Have you handled any weapons?" she asked casually, not lifting her steely gaze from my face.

I could hit a bird eighty feet up with a pebble from a slingshot and lodge the projectile in its eye on the first shot. I could hit a knot in the bark of a tree thirty feet away with a handle-weighted knife. The tree could be forty feet away if the weapon was balanced. And I could take six men down with a bow if I had ten arrows and four minutes.

"Yes," I replied, mentally shifting my approach slightly so as to avoid lying blatantly in my answer. "I've had some practice with knives. I shot a bow a couple of times. But I think I'm okay at the slingshot, too."

This earned some low whistles and crows from the male side of our cluster.

"I like her," Router announced paternally. "Let's give Tiny a break—now I'm actually curious as to how many men you've murdered to gain respect in a District full of little blond hotties." He directed his icy blue gaze to Wonder, who didn't react at all to his jab. On second glance, I noticed a vein pulse underneath her jaw as she clenched it in silent anger. If I had had a knife, I could slit that vein in one clean sweep and left her unconscious to bleed to death or drown in her own blood. Whichever should occur first.

Resisting the strong urge to meet her prying eyes confidently, I slouched my narrow shoulders forward and let my eyes track down to her feet in a display of silent fear.

"I haven't killed anyone," she answered smoothly, addressing Router directly. "I know a hundred different ways to, though, and I could very easily practice on you right now."

Router held up his hands. "Hey, just curious here. Retract the claws, beasty."

"Do you have any… special talents we should know about?" Sebastian peered up at her through his fair eyelashes. "Seeing as we're all in an alliance here and really should trust each other," he tacked half-heartedly onto the end. I noticed how his brilliant blue eyes flickered momentarily to her clearly toned biceps before gluing themselves back on her wary face.

"I know my way around a sword," she said emotionlessly, gaze wandering over my head and to the different stations at which the other eighteen tributes were now acquainting themselves with different sorts of killing devices.

"That's impressive," my District partner commented lowly. He moved smoothly to stand nearer to her side. "Care to show me? I'm usually pretty talented with long, lethal sticks but the sword and I have never really clicked…"

It was very clear in her green gaze that his velvety tone and long fingers trailing slowly up her wrist took no effect on her judgment. "Mia," she demanded, the order hardly softened by her non-aggressive body posture, "you have excellent shoulders. I'll show you how to use them instead of your elbows and wrists to get more leverage on heavy, unbalanced weapons."

Mia seemed taken aback by the fact that this One girl thought that she might possibly have something more to learn, but nodded pleasantly enough and led the way to the station across the gym that sported the clearly lethal and freshly polished weapons, as well as erectly waiting Avox in white protective gear.

As soon as those three left (Sebastian already moving ahead to speak quietly with Mia) Slink pulled Router slowly to his feet and they faced each other for a few moments without speaking.

"I want to see what Tiny can do," Router announced, running a hand sloppily through his mop of pitch-black hair and teasing the ends into an even more ridiculous mess than they had been in before.

Slink shrugged and rolled his shoulders. "Don't really care as long as I get to beat the shit out of one of these Avox girls."

Router turned his icy gaze back on me, the paternal edge still clear in his eyes. "How are you at hand-to-hand?"

My thoughts flew to the warehouse back in Four that my father and I had turned into a sort of training room. It had started as a deserted hunk of concrete that stunk of fish and hosted empty wooden crates in all its corners. Father had cleared a space in the middle of the room and announced that I would no longer be going to school; that instead, I'd be here every day with him to "improve my talents."

That had been the week before I'd turned four. He showed me how to hold a knife, and how to hit a man. He told me that one day, I'd be able to show everybody how special I was, and then he and I would get to live happily, and have lots of money and food. So the warehouse had slowly begun to clear out of stinky sardine crates, and filled instead with a wide variety of weapons, mostly nicked from the real training centers around Four. Blades had replaced cobwebs and forgotten rubbish. Mats were dragged in, and I eventually got used to exchanging blows with my own father. He was no master, but his mistakes were my learning devices. I was eight when I first beat him in a hand-to-hand fight. Since then, we'd just been timing my victories, writing the digits on the unpainted walls as constant reminders of how I could become better, faster and stronger.

My current time was twenty-four seconds to disable, twenty-eight to kill.

"A little," I squeaked, curling my fingers around the fabric of my loose tee shirt. Router smirked and stretched hugely as he led us over to the arena lined with navy blue gym mats. A broad-shouldered instructor watched us approach warily, the numbers pinned to the fronts of our shirts clearly pleasing him.

"I thought some Car—talented tributes might find me eventually," he said with a smile, kicking one of the partially folded mats open with the tip of his running shoe. Slink grinned back, cracking his knuckles audibly and leering at a particular Avox assistant. I noticed the way her knees quivered ever so slightly in her skin-tight body suit; a tiny drip of nervous sweat beaded on her temple and a minuscule muscle in her upper lip twitched. She was scared senseless, and had probably never fought anyone in her entire life. Not like she needed to; her job here was to be a punching bag.

"You kids know the basics?" the instructor barked at us, his canine-like grin still blazing. He looked like a burly gym teacher admiring his favorite students. It curdled my appetite, and I itched to destroy one of the Avox assistants standing motionlessly in heaps of their own fear. But off course I wouldn't. I couldn't, not so early in the game. I had to wait until we were loose in the arena to really kick it into gear.

"A thing or two," Slink replied with a similarly predatory beam.

"You can use these two mats here, take your pick of a partner. They all have the same level of experience, and are categorized by body weight and height. And don't worry about going easy. Seriously. There's plenty more where these came from!" The man gave a beefy laugh and slammed a meaty hand on Router's shoulder before strutting off to try and recruit a couple of kids standing nearby and watching the two boys and me.

Slink strut slowly by the six Avoxes, sizing each one up as he passed. It didn't take long for him to grab the upper arm of a particularly pretty girl; he probably outweighed her by at least fifty pounds and had six inches on her. It was not an even match, not by a long shot, but I doubted he was looking for a challenge. He just wanted to show off.

Router rolled his eyes at his ally as if he was exasperated with a misbehaving pet. He didn't stop him, though, as the One boy pulled the girl over to the furthest mat and placed her where he needed her to be to begin. If her fear had been obvious before, now it was blinking in neon lights. As he poised himself for the first strike, she froze up and became rigid and braced in her completely unprotected vertical position. One blow would knock her clear off her feet.

Router was more sensible in his choice. He and a hard-eyed, muscular boy retreated to a mat that allowed plenty of space for Slink and his match.

The Two boy glanced up at me questioningly. "You just going to take notes, or are you actually going to fight someone?" His tone was light and teasing. He trusted me.

I shot him a shy smile and moved forward to tap the very smallest girl on the shoulder. She seemed relieved to be paired with me instead of one of the boys. I shoved stiffness into my movements to imitate awkwardness as I picked a mat. After setting the girl at a good distance from me, facing me in her complete unprepared entity, I raised my hands in fists near my jaw. This would be a smart starting position if my opponent were attacking; she clearly wasn't, but it was a beginner's mistake and for the next week I would be playing the beginner.

Just as I was about to calculate how hard I'd have to swing to get a strong reaction without giving myself away, a scream ricocheted around the gym. A relative silence followed it as every tribute and instructor looked around for the cause. In any other situation, I would take advantage of my opponent's foolish but temporarily distraction and attack from her blind side, but instead I forced my limbs into inaction and wheeled around to find the source of the noise.

The pretty brunette Avox standing opposite Slink was kneeling with both of her hands pressed to her face. Blood dripped down her wrists and stained her white jumpsuit with bold scarlet drops. A sob racked her thin frame, making an odd sucking noise between her palms. It seemed extremely loud in the quiet that surrounded her.

Slink grabbed her roughly by the elbows and towed her to her feet, ripping her hands away from her face to inspect it for himself. He seemed irritated, and impatient, yet flustered as he floundered with a girl who he wasn't technically responsible for, and he'd just been informed was disposable.

"It's not that bad," he told her tensely, his voice low and almost impossible to pick up under the babble that slowly filled the gym again. "It's broken, yeah, but that's minor. Get a grip so we can continue." She stood motionlessly by him for another moment, blood and tear stained face frozen in shock, with his hands roughly gripping her elbows and supporting almost all her weight. The knuckles of his right hand, I noticed, were stained with her blood.

My own Avox's hand flew to her mouth, eyes widening in shock and pity for the other girl. Foolish. I could have killed her ten times already if we'd actually been fighting. But the resemblance between the girl who stood before me and the girl with the shattered nose in Slink's arms was clear. They must have been sisters. Or something. I couldn't care less. An Avox is an Avox; they're bad people and deserve to be here. It's really just simple as that.

"Do you need a replacement, or…?" Router called uncertainly over to where Slink and the girl were still standing. His partner had a split lip already, but was dealing exceptionally well with the other wounds he'd clearly received in the past few minutes.

"No," Slink called back, "I like this one. She's fine."

Our proximity to their mat allowed us to catch the next few words he murmured by the wounded girl's ear. "I'll try not to screw with your face, sweetheart, but no promises on where else my hands might go."

She gasped and tried to draw away and bring her hands back up to her face, but he'd already struck her side, hard. She was clearly winded, crumpling onto the blood-smeared mat helplessly while trying to grasp her middle for air.

"Stand up," Slink ordered roughly, hands back on her elbows. She cried out again as he straightened her, but with another harsh whispered threat she stood still. The next blow was to her collarbone, and this time she did scream.

"What the hell?" a masculine voice demanded from a nearby station. The quiet that had fallen again in the gym made his shout seem even louder and more threatening. I raked the crowd for its owner, but the combat instructor spoke first in his rage-infused rush across the mats to where the injured girl and the One boy stood.

"I'm so sorry," he growled as he approached them. For a split second, I thought he was addressing the girl whose face was covered in blood and tears, and whose nose now had an unnatural bend in it, and whose skin on her collarbone was blotching with popped blood cells and early bruises.

But then to turned to Slink. "They were warned and heavily prepared for these practices. They were supposed to be prepared by now." His wide back shifted to face the sobbing, bloody girl. "Bitch," he mumbled under his heavy breath as one of his huge hands rose to strike her across her already stained cheek. She cried out again and staggered back a few steps with dry, raking sobs that were now silent in her fear of this Capitol-issued man.

"There are others back by the table, but I can find you another…" he jerked his head toward the once-pretty girl bluntly to fill in the word choice, "if you want."

"Don't bother. Tiny won't mind me borrowing her Avox for a bit." A crazed sort of anger blazed behind his grey gaze as he turned it on where I stood, stone like, by the sister of the girl he'd just publicly beaten.

The instructor shrugged and seized the broken girl by her arm, towing her roughly after him as he made for an unmarked white door on the back wall. He was clearly muttering to her as he yanked her along, tugging abusively on her arm every few steps with angry emphasis.

Tears were now rolling down the face of the Avox girl I was supposed to be fighting. Slink wiped the blood on his hands onto his shirt hastily as he approached us.

"Hope she's not as fragile," he said to me with a smirk, eyes darting up and down the small girl's frame.

"Leave her alone!"

This shout was not mine. It matched the masculine yell from earlier, and now its source was marching over from the knot-tying station, twine still tangled around his fingers. A large number ten was pinned to his simple tee shirt, and his black bangs flopped over his fiery gaze, doing little to shield its wrath.

"What'd you say?" Slink asked calmly, hand locked around the girl's wrist, frozen in the act of pulling her away to his mat.

"I think you heard me. There's three huge guys over there if you want a good fight." The boy gestured to the table along which the remaining Avoxes lined up.

"You seem to be the one who wants a fight here," Slink countered.

"Rather me than some girl who's half your size and obviously never fought anyone in her life! Didn't anyone tell you it's rude to hit girls?"

"Didn't anyone ever tell you it's dumb to get in fights that will probably result in your death?" Slink glanced at the boy's shirt mockingly. "Ten?" he spat as an added stab.

Router was suddenly in our tight group, his piercings glinting in the harsh gym lighting. "Back off, Ten. Slink, this one's already taken. Tiny was 'bout to start with her," he glanced down at me, "right?"

I nodded shyly, then directed my gaze at my shoe tips.

"There you have it. Here's a tip, Ten: you live longer when you don't step on such important toes. Go pick fights with your own kind." Router's warning glare at the Ten boy would have sent any other tribute backing down right away. Not this one, apparently.

"I'd rather not. What kind of a person takes a little girl's training partner?" The boy's jaw was set; it was clear he wasn't leaving without a fight.

Slink seemed more than happy to provide one. Without any warning or distinct provocation, he swung a tightly balled fist at the kid's temple. The hit connected; the Ten kid clearly hadn't been expecting it. What surprised me was the fact that he immediately rebounded and hit back, aiming for the tender spot right beneath Slink's ribs. He missed due to the fact that the One boy was faster and had slipped out of the way in the same motion of his second blow to the kid's face. Ten would have a black eye for sure.

That was all the disorientation that Slink needed to deliver the vital hits that took the bold boy down. One elbow to the inside of his neck, one fist to the side and a knee to the stomach as he doubled over, and the Ten boy was crumpled on the ground, unconscious.

"I don't like him," Slink stated simply, his breath coming unevenly as he shook out his wrist and studied his work.

"God, you couldn't have stopped waling on her when she stopped fighting?" Router whined at his ally, also watching the now-still boy.

"Ah, she never fought. I was just having a bit of fun."

"You're going to have to stop acting like a kid if you want to be serious about this," Router warned, eyes darting up to the other boy's momentarily in a brief serious moment. They stood in relative silence for a while. I felt like a third wheel. The cold area around the spotlight was neither comfortable nor familiar to me.

"Did you see his right hook?" Slink asked quietly with a smile.

Router fought his own grin. "This one knows what he's doing."

I didn't see how that fact was amusing, but the boys exchanged tiny grins all the same.

"He was the one in the reapings who was already all bloody and stuff when they called his name," I offered quietly. My act was wearing thin; the desire to really explode and destroy something—anything—was growing stronger with each shy glance I took at either boy's face.

"Right you are, Tiny." Router nodded approvingly and set a brother-like hand on my shoulder. I fought the instinctive flinch that was fighting to surface under human contact.

And as they called us for lunch, all my mind could process was my annoyance with the fact that it hadn't been me exchanging blows with someone else today. My fight had been taken from me, and I wanted it back. Bad.


I love the Training Center. It's such a wonderful oppurtunity for non-District, non-allies to mingle. Which is why there will be two (yes, 2) entire chapters of it. Next chapter will be visiting another new focus tribute who hasn't really been mentioned much, as well as our favorite D7 guy and D9 specimen.

You have another reason to review today- not just with your reactions to Taia (and the rest of this year's Career pack), but also with what you think the plural of Avox is. I thought, maybe, it was just Avox, but that sounded awkward and looked weird (and my beta reminded me of my already present dislike of it). I went with Avoxes for this chapter, but what says you? Was it somewhere in the books and we just missed it?

It's your turn. Good luck.
Topsy