Hi everyone. I've been very absent, but this story is almost over and I'm avoiding it with all I have. I hope you enjoy Max's life and that you're mad her blurb is ending as well. I hope you'll leave a comment telling me how mad you are. I like comments no matter if you're mad or happy. Just let me know what you think. Thank you and enjoy.

My head was shaved again as I walked through the crowd of people. Some recognized me and gave a nod of recognition, but other than that I was shown no love. I was reduced back to the lowest part of the food chain in the human race. I was the fighter that everyone watched get beat to death for fun. Where humanity went was oblivious to me, but it most definitely was not here. Not one person seemed to understand that there was life outside the arena they were now in.

This leftover football stadium was the only arena big enough to hold all of the spectators and their families without causing problems. Fights had broken out before and they happened every time, but it could've been much worse with a smaller space. At the moment, I was walking through the innards of this stadium looking for Tyler. He was the reason I was here.

I passed a kind face and nodded to Justin as he kept his hands tucked deep in his pockets and kept walking. That's when I met the other fighters. It started out with families and grew into an entrapment of anger as young men and women prepared themselves to kill a person as close as two feet away from them. Tyler and Veronica were to the left only a few groups back. Veronica was in tears hugging her father with all she had. He held her as closely as he could unable to say anything to her that would make her feel better.

"Tyler," I slid up next to him squatting so that I could talk to him quietly, "where's Father?"

"Max what are you doing here?"

"Tyler, tell me where he is," I snapped and he fell silent for a moment.

"Getting a good spot."

"So he won't be back?" I clarified and Tyler nodded. "Okay," I muttered looking up to where Gale was waiting around like an observer trying to make bets by the body build of the fighters stuck in the Prep Pit. "I won't you to take Veronica and this car," I slid a set of keys into his hand curling his fingers over the cold metal. "You get home to Malia and don't look back." Tyler was about to say something and I squeezed his hand. "Get home Tyler."

"What about you?" Tyler whispered holding Veronica's shoulder but trying to keep our conversation private. All of her ringlet hair was gone and her eyes were puffy and red from crying, but she seemed to be in awe of my presence as I looked just like her, just taller and better built for the Trials.

"I'll call you when I get back to safety. Don't worry about me." After that I ignored him and bent down to hug Veronica. "You and Daddy are gonna go home now, okay?" She nodded hugging me tighter than I thought she could. "Everything's going to be okay. No one's going to make you come back to this place ever again. I love you Veronica." I pulled away from her carefully wiping a tear from her cheek.

"I love you too Aunt Maxine," she said as Tyler grabbed her hand and pulled her away from everything. They were gone in the crowd before I could even stand up straight. Gale nodded slightly to me and then was gone as well.

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN WELCOME TO THE HUNGER TRIALS!" Old Capitol music started to play and the crowd went up in volume by leaps and bounds. Their roaring almost covered up the announcer, but I could somehow still catch his words through the concrete walls around us, "THIS YEAR WE ARE WELCOMING A WHOLE BRANCH OF NEW COMERS! WELCOME YOUR FIGHTERS!" The people around me started to drain out and I watched them as they did. Eventually they only trickled out and then were gone running onto the field to make their entrance. I went last walking past Justin who slid a gun into my waistline at the small of my back.

"Don't forget this," he told me as he handed me a necklace with dog tags on it that made it clear that I was now a Peacekeeper. He kissed my cheek and then let me walk into the arena on my own against twenty-nine people that wanted me dead with the ultimate sign of betrayal hanging against my chest just beneath the neck of my shirt.

The first thing I did as I walked out was look straight at my father and watched his face as he decided his reaction. Their was the slightest flinch of shock and then he composed himself. I thought he was going to stay and watch the carnage he had loved so much that he put his children in the center of it. However, my father is not a stupid man, so he stood and headed for the back door.

My focus changed to where Gale was and he nodded to me and also a woman who was walking by him. She quickly changed directions and was gone within moments in the crowd to catch my father. This was full infiltration. Gale had set up a perimeter a half mile out. Looking around, I was sure almost half the crowd was a peacekeeper by the way they walked. They didn't look guilty and they walked with a stiffness that seemed to be government issued.

"WE HAVE A LAST MINUTE CHANGE: WITH A SURPRISE REAPPEARANCE WE HAVE MAXINE BEAUREGARD BACK IN THIS FIGHT. MAYBE HER FINAL FIGHT." There was no welcoming applause which meant my news had been secret had been spread. I was now the intruder…and the target. "THE RULES ARE: SURVIVE. WELCOME TO THE TRIALS." All of the fighters stepped up onto their plates where they had to start from so that there was no premature harm. "THREE, TWO, ONE." A cannon was fired and that was the beginning of the Trials. We stepped off our plates and went after the nearest person with whatever weapon we had on us.

My usual brass knuckles were tucked onto my fingers, but this time Justin had gotten the technology branch to enhance them slightly. The first punch I landed to my opponent sent a shock through their body until they were on the ground out cold. It was the only way I could take them out easily without being terribly noticeable. I took out three by the time my fellow fighters started to notice something was up. Then I became the target.

Six of them came at me forming an unspoken alliance only to be broken when I was dead. Justin tensed up in the crowd from my peripheral, but I didn't pull my gun yet. I wouldn't let myself. I took out two who were in front of the pack and then took off running. The other four where brute strength and didn't seem to have much agility on their side, even the girl. They were meant for close quarters fighting where they could corner their prey. In the middle of a devastated football field, I would be able to run circles around them forever. I didn't have time for that though.

Turning on one of them who had the most speed out of all the bears I punched his stomach and then laid a softer one to his neck which sent the shock through him until he was out. The two men after him went down just as easily. The last man was harder to get a fist on. His dodging skills were low, but every time he took a shot at me he would get me, all he had was his bare hands.

Looking over at the other fighters I noticed I wasn't the main focus. A boy with a knife was fighting heavily with a hoard of people. Seven people laid at his feet in a pool of each other blood. Two more came at me, one with a mace, and the other had a knife. With the swift move of my foot I knocked the mace out of the boys hand and grabbed his neck waiting for him to go down at what looked to me a lack of oxygen. The girl still came at me and I grabbed the blade of her knife sending a fair shock through her body that left her shaking on the ground. No one noticed the oddness of her death since the other boy had taken out another three people in the time I had faced two.

I tried to get near him and take him out before more lives were lost, but he took out another before I could get through a single thought. So I ran at him. With all the soldiers I had been around that were all about planning and taking down the enemy with tactical procedures that created the best chance for recovery. Not then, it wasn't the time.

I grabbed a boy from behind throwing him to the ground without electrifying him. "Stand down," I hissed multiple times as I threw punches to him that looked intensely painful but in the end were soft blows that any fighter would be grateful for. When I stood he stayed down and played dead for the sake of staying alive. The next two did the same with the brains they had kept through their childhood of brainwashing, having life still ruled over their raising.

The boy was still taking down people one by one until only three of us stood. He turned toward me and his eyes grew wide for a moment before he looked at the other girl who was a weakling that had stayed out of the fighting until now when she had no choice. Luckily for her, he didn't go near her. He turned on me.

"You want to start this now?" I asked loudly shouting to him from across the distance I had left between us.

"If we start it any later one of us will be dead," it seemed to be more a of a promise coming from his lips as if he was confident enough to say that I would be the one dead.

"Let's not forget that I've gotten this far in the Trials too Phoenix. I didn't die as fast as you and your family thought I would." Phoenix was a boy from my town when I was little. They moved away after I refused to marry their son. As the youngest I was supposed to be the test dummy, but the survivor. When they had set a boy for me to marry it had been Phoenix who had a whole history of winners and fighters in his family. We had been friends for years, and when I flat out refused their family got mad at me. I was chosen to fight and they were convinced I would die, quickly. But, here I was.

"Why'd it take you so long to get this far?" He asked mockingly.

I shrugged watching him as we began to circle each other creating a dance out of death. "We've obviously both never lost a fight, so why are we arguing about this? Now tell me what you know about the girl before one of us has to take her out."

"Replacement, she'll be easy to take out. She had no idea what she's doing." Phoenix looked at her past me and winked. That was Phoenix. Even as a kid he took pleasure in screwing with people's minds. "Now, you'll be an interesting fight," he smiled at me like I'm sure a demon would in its domain. This was his domain. The old Hunger Games would have been his pride and joy to compete in. Of course, those had been a whole different mental game.

Pain shot through my back toward the bottom of my ribcage and I went down to the ground trying to find the source of the pain. Phoenix was standing in shock, but that little girl shoved me over and used the hilt of her knife to stop her fists from being the things to dig in to my skull. With every crushing blow I felt pain spike through me. When I tried to fight back she seemed to find a way to pin down my arms. "You killed my sister!" She screamed at me hitting me harder with every syllable. Out of nowhere a shot rang out and all hell broke loose, but my consciousness faded before I could make sense of it.

Hope you enjoyed. Let me know what you liked and what you didn't like. There's not much I can do about it at this point, but improvement for my next story if there is one. Thank you!

Sincerely,

wisegirlindisguise