Wahoo! More favorites, follows, and reviews! Keep those good old reviews coming! I'm hoping to get updates coming faster, hopefully. I'm just super busy right now with school and eventing season is still in full swing with back to back competition weekends for me coming up. But it gives me a lot of thinking time so I have great ideas for what's to come!

Enjoy the chapter!

Playlist for the chapter:

Applause-Lady Gaga

Royals-Lorde

You Wont Find This-Carrie Underwood

Please note that some of the songs I'll have here have no connection to the emotions in the chapter at all.

Xoxo ~Mocking Verse

Applause. All around us, filling up the Capital until I think it can't possibly get any louder. They shout and scream and stomp their feet on their seats.

I let the smirk come on my face. I flourish under the attention. If there is one thing that the Capital citizens love, it's their Victors. Most of us in one giant parade must almost be too much for them. I wonder if they've realized that their loosing twenty three of us, perhaps, in just three days?

I keep my hands behind my back and sneak a glance at Finnick. He's already looking down at me, his eyes alive as he smiles. I let out a soft breath fleetingly and then glance behind us as the noise grows even louder.

District Twelve looks magnificent. They stand out in the dark and I just raise my eyebrows before turning back around, my face settling into a cool façade of indifference.

Our horses start to turn, taking their place beside District Three as the others position themselves around us. And then the devil comes out. His eyes scan over the lot of us and I do the same quickly.

'The strongest of the strong' it rings in my ears as it settles in my stomach. All the reapings were rigged. Perhaps Two was not, obviously Brutus and Enobaria would volunteer themselves to go back in, it was probably expected. I shift my gaze to District One and can't help the pang in my stomach when I catch sight of Gloss standing beside his sister.

He looks over, feeling my gaze on him, and nods to me. But I know it means nothing. Once the gong sounds, it's everyone for himself. Unless you have an alliance of course. But it won't matter if I run into Gloss by the cornucopia. It does not matter that all that he taught me while I was in forced prostitution probably saved my life. I won't hesitate to kill him.

But I'm not too surprised to see him and Cashmere. You can't just kill one sibling, in case of rebellion, the living one would obviously side with the Rebels. Besides, siblings dying together are always more entertaining to Capitalites.

District Three has their two smartest Victors. Beetee. And well, I don't know why Wiress is there, she's smart but only Beetee can understand her since she can never finish a sentence. The habit has always bothered me, to a point where I have actually had my hand locked around her throat threatening her to just finish the fucking thoughts she has.

The peacekeepers weren't very happy with me for that. Not that I give a shit or anything.

Then there is Finnick and I, who were reaped for obvious reasons. Districts Five (Quincy and Mindy) and Six have both of their most recent Victors. Seven got Johanna, who is so snarky and blatantly against the Capital, along with Blight, their strongest male Victor.

Eight (Nial and Venus), Nine (Will and Sarah), Eleven (Chaff and Seeder), and Ten(Rodger and Celena) also have their strongest Victors, even if some of them are now in their forty's some their fifties. Twelve has Katniss and Peeta, who got us all into this mess.

"Welcome citizens of Panem!" Snow nods to the crowds when I look up at him, and then he turns to us and he locks his gaze with me. "Victors!" another nod, of which Finnick and I do not return. We don't change out expressions, we don't move, we don't acknowledge his presence. None of the Victors do. President Snow drones on about how important the Quarter Quells are and I only half listen to him until the very end. "I have been told, guaranteed, that these will be the most exciting Games yet! Good luck to our Victors, and let the Seventy Fifth Hunger Games begin!"

"You think you could throw a trident farther than me?!" My voice rises as I take another sip of my brandy and Johanna scoffs at me from her spot on our couch. About twelve Victors are on the fourth floor of the tribute tower, after Finnick demanded we have a 'Hunger Games reunion' as we got off the chariots.

Which then followed with Johanna stripping in front of Katniss as she told her she wasn't invited because she hasn't even met everyone yet. Then I got stuck in the elevator with Katniss, Peeta, and a naked Johanna. It was worth it to see Katniss's reaction to the situation though.

And now we're here. Finnick, Mags, Johanna, Blight, Chaff, Gloss, Cashmere, Seeder, Haymitch, Celena, Nial, and myself all take up the living area.

"Of course I can! Trident and axe throwing basically have the same mechanics!"

"No, no they don't. Tridents longer, you throw them like this-" I make a weak throwing motion, my hand ending straight out from my body, my elbow locked in an extended position. "Axe is like this-" I throw nothing again, my elbow still bent by the end unlike the trident throw. "So no, you can't do it better than me."

"I agree." Finnick speaks up from behind me and tightens his grip around my waist as I sit on his lap.

"You two are gross." Haymitch glares over at us and Chaff nods from where he sits across from his longtime friend.

"No, your two loverbirds are gross." I stick my tongue out at Haymitch and he rolls his eyes. "Where are they anyways?"

"In bed."

"Oh, they're so young, still having curfew. I remember that, I never paid attention to it."

"The only thing you eva pay tention to is how ta kill somebody." Celena speaks up, her District Ten accent thick, and my head rolls across Finnick's chest as I look at her.

"I'm taking that as a compliment." I let out a soft laugh, "Besides I wouldn't be saying that if I were you, I'll be the one putting a blade through ya little throat."

"How you know that one?" she asks, narrowing her eyes.

"Because I want to, you and your rope tricks always bugged me. I'll make sure to make your death nice and slow."

"I don't doubt you will if you get the chance."

"I'll get the chance less than a minute after that wonderful gong sounds."

"Not if I get that good'ol rope round your neck first."

"What if they don't give you any?"

"They will. Just like'em to put rope 'n tridents 'n all that other shit so we can make it exciting."

"Or they don't give us anything and it's all hand to hand."

"Or at the very end they say 'just kidding we aren't having the Games this year!'" I look over at Gloss, who said the previous remark. He's leaning up against one of the support beams and I narrow my eyes at him. He matches my gaze and shrugs. "Hey, a man can dream."

"That's one dream that isn't coming true." I feel Finnick's chest rumble as he laughs at his own response and I let out a snort.

Katniss Everdeen is scared of me.

I can see it in her eyes, in the way she watches me while I work at each station. How she follows my actions closer than any other Victor here. The way she flinches each time my trident hits its mark.

"ela está com medo de mim" I tell Finnick while we tie knots together a few hours into training as I jerk my head shortly in Everdeen's direction. She sits; talking lowly to Peeta as he sits alongside the morphing's from Six, painting his arm.

I hadn't noticed them really at first, and I can't come up with a reason as to why they were reaped.

Finnick looks up at me with a smirk. "eu sei." I know he tells me, staying along with our Districts language. "Ela me disse que não gosta de como você jogou seus jogos" I scoff. I don't care if she doesn't like how I played my own Games. It's kill or get killed, there are no rules.

"Eu não gosto de como ela jogou a dela também, ela pode ir chorar sobre isso com seu namorado falso." Finnick laughs at me, a barking laugh that echoes through the training center and causes the other Victors to look over at us.

"That wasn't nice." Finnick says, nudging me with his elbow.

"I don't really go for nice." I glance up when I register footsteps coming this way, and see her walking towards us. As much as I don't like her, I know this is the time that we need to intact our alliance with her. I was all against it, but Finnick insisted that it's a crucial point in the plan. We were going to wait until we were in the actual Games to make the offer, but Haymitch pointed out that Katniss will see me as a major threat, more so than Finnick thanks to my cheery attitude, and shoot at me first before asking questions.

Finnick grins widely as she sits down a few feet away from us, taking up a piece of rope. "Hey Katniss." His voice is a soft purr, smooth as silk that makes my stomach knot up.

"Finnick." Her voice is curt as she focuses on the rope in her hands.

"I don't get an acknowledgement?" I ask, causing her head to snap up as she looks at me.

"Stellar."

"It's Stell." Finnick and I say it at the same time.

"Sorry." I shrug as Finnick moves closer to her, taking her hands and easily helping her finish a complex knot she was failing at tying. I let out a breath; I've been tying those with my eyes closed since I was seven.

"So Katniss, we look forwards to spending time with you in the arena." Finnick lets the sentence slip as he finishes tying a knot, his right wrist ending up right in Katniss's line of vision.

The golden flames bracelet he wears catches the light from the ceiling and her eyes lock onto it. Eyebrows furrow and she looks up at my partner, who keeps his wrist where it is. The change of light in her eyes lets me knows she's understood what is exactly being said and she looks to me.

Eyes drift to my bare wrists. I do not wear the flames anywhere. Mainly because I refused to.

"I'm with fish boy." I smirk and she lets out a groan before she nods.

"It'll be safer working together." And that seals the deal of our alliance.