"Here's your speech." Amaza hands me a small piece of paper with words that go as follows: Greetings, residents of 'said district.' Regardless of your losses, know that you have a chance to win the next Games. Never forget, how the Games unite us all. How our-I stop reading and I'm about to crumble up the piece of paper when Wayden stops me, who's sitting beside me. "What do you think you're doing?"

I know we've had our differences, and I find myself disagreeing with him yet again. "If you've read this, you'd know why."

"I have, and it's something I have to deal with."

I scoff. Wayden leans forward in his chair, crossing his hands together and as he presses down on his hands, they end up popping. His nails digging into his hands. "Filmlia, you're not seriously considering this, are you?" Pain and a hint of anger hides in his voice, but he keeps it quiet. And he probably knows what I'm thinking. Defy everything the Capitol puts in front of me that can make things even worse. Then again, what I could do may not be any better. Not that it'd help anyway. Either way, I confess. "I am."

Wayden looks like he could pull his hair out, and Amaza asks. "Do what?"

"Rebelling." Answers Wayden.

Amaza shoots me a disapproving look. "You think that's wise?"

"I don't care."

I know they mean well, but they can't see things like I do. And I'd wish they would. Whatever the case, I try to shake this conversation from this mind, everything from my mind, and focus on what the hell I'm going to do from here. I want to be myself so I walk around the train again, ending up in the last car. What I wonder is, is how the Games take place every year, not every four months. Must've been more rule changes. Disallowing people the chance to recover from the 76th Hunger Games.

In the moment I walk inside the car, I remember how Rissa and I chatted amongst ourselves. Together. I never found out what happened to her mother. I'll ask her after the Tour. And after the party at the mansion. Celebrating the fact that kids just killed other kids, and mentoring other kids to do the same. It sickens me to the extent where I really feel that I'll actually vomit on the floor of the car. And I do end up doing it, but nothing comes out. The force of the cough is stiffening, and I collapse to my knees, hacking up what food I've eaten so far. The joules of the coughs is almost blinding. I hallucinate Zeke coming to my aid, and as soon as I lean in for a kiss, Wayden shouts at me, telling me to wake up. That we've arrived in District Eleven. He sees my hair is a mess and I've been sleeping almost beside my vomit, the smell horrid in my nose. My neck is stiff. I force myself up and uncover the hair from my face. Wayden looks like he'll cuss me out, and I wait for him to do it. He tries to compose himself, and tries to fix my hair back with his hands. I smell alcohol in his breath. It's not making anything any better after I had been sleeping beside my vomit for who knows how long, and it'll be stuck in my nose for the rest of the day. I desperately need to lightly sniff some roses as to not shove any of the horrid smells into my nostrils. Wayden begins to get frustrated and leaves my hair the way it is, putting his hands up in the air like he's surrendering. And walks out of the room, telling me to get ready to face the cameras. Joking. "Surprised the smell in here didn't wake you up first."

When I look at District Eleven for the first time, in person, I find people picking crops and a giant wall beyond the field of crops. Must be skipping twelve because of the bombing. When we reach a stop, I've already reached the door before we do. Waiting to come out. When the doors open, Peacekeepers were doing the same thing, waiting. For me. I give them a glare as I walk out with my crew. As we're escorted, I look around and see the Peacekeepers are keeping an eye of me through those helmets of theirs. They even mimic the rhythm of my steps, the repetition in the motion. Moments pass and we're inside a small mansion. Amaza is behind me, waiting for the cue to tell me to go onto stage. A man is giving a speech, and then when he says, the winner of the 76th Hunger Games, Filmlia Treen! Amaza pats my back for good luck and Peacekeepers open the doors for me as I step out. I say thank you into the microphone and steel myself to read the speech. "Greetings, people of District Eleven. Regardless of your losses, know that you have a chance to win the next Games. Never forget, how the Games unite us all. How our-"

I get a lump in my throat and read the rest of the speech.

Greetings, people of District Eleven. Regardless of your losses, know that you have a chance to win the next Games. Never forget, how the Games unite us all. How our losses reflect our future. But always remember, that there are better days to come. The Games. Don't be afraid of the future. Embrace it. Embrace that you will always have a chance to become a Victor, living out the rest of your life in the best way possible. Together, we make a better world. Together, we make the Mockingjay.

Katniss gave this to Amaza. She saw the Victory Tour as a perfect opportunity to let me read this. I put it in my pocket and go another route. "I'm sorry I couldn't save Eura."

Everyone looks at me, expecting more. So I give it to them. "I was a fool to think our alliance would last forever. And she was like a sister I never had. A sister that could've been saved. She was brave. Intuitive. Beautiful. And I'm sure, like me, I never got to say a proper goodbye."

A tear falls down my face and I continue. "But I know all of you believe she would've said it if she had the chance. She would've poured out her heart. She would've died for all of you."

I look down at another piece of paper I put in my pocket. Names of the district tributes who died. "I didn't know Megan,"

I look at her family who is standing in front of a billboard facing up with Megan's face looking right at me. All four faces are looking at me. Megan's family consists of two brothers and two sisters, and a rugged father. Her sons and daughters look like they're all but fourteen. They could be going into the next Games for all I know. Megan's face looks dangerous. But her family's faces and composure show that she could've been more. The only Eleven girl left, and must've been the one who cut Eura with her fingernails. I look at Asha's family, a medium-sized brute with one sister and an able-bodied mother. Thirty. "I didn't know Asha, except that he hated the Games. And,"

I look at Savva's face. Looks like he was fifteen. Then his family, only consisting of a crying mother, mourning over the death of her only child. The tears are coming earnestly now. I feel so heartbroken, so guilty of my family. "I'm so sorry."

People as far as the eye can see, all listening to me. All looking up at me. Their minds more than likely on nothing else but my voice. The inside of me melting a little as I think of what else I'm supposed to do. I fold my thumb over my hand, making a four-finger salute as I whistle a four-note tone that starts out low, rising in pitch in the same tone. I wait for someone to follow my lead, and I only end up looking at nothing. We believe you, but we can't believe in you. I slowly reposition my hands back to normal, letting them fall to my side, relaxing. They're afraid. Like my crew was. And they'll keep being afraid. Even them. Least I won't have to do this for all the districts. The emotional toll on my body and mind feels worse than the physical does, and my exertion is only exasperating it. I allow the Peacekeepers to escort me to my cart with Amaza and Wayden already inside. Back to the trains. I could it for all the districts, but not all of them will cooperate like Eleven did. And I'm right. And after what Katniss did, they're less than likely to follow someone who supported her. I forget my speech I was given and recite the speech from Eleven, thinking it'd make things better. It doesn't, and some districts' Peacekeepers start gunning down people in the crowd where they stand when they start throwing food and wine bottles at me. Everyday is a new district. And every night is a new nightmare. Every. Single. Night.

I wake up, after enough nightmares one day, with uncoordinated steps, my eyes heavy, and my hands unable to grip my speech properly and I have trouble focusing. More people throwing things at me. More people gunned down. More people cussing me out live. More nightmares. Repeat. Four even kills a Peacekeeper when they pry him from his post, and surround him in the crowd, beating him to a pulp. If I wanted a Rebellion, I have the wrong kind. They're fighting back, just not in the way I'd want them to.

Three has better results, finally. Kinda. I recite the Eleven Speech and, as another upside, the tributes' families all have a family. Almost. But it's good enough. I look at Fitz and remember how much of an ally he was to me in the Games. When I salute, Fitz's little brother, who is mounted on a mother's shoulder, salutes back. I look at the Peacekeepers below me. I swear, if you kill that boy, I'll kill you. he looks to be no older than five.

My body shakes with fear, thinking they'd actually kill him. My mind spins around in my head as a Peacekeeper heads towards him, and then, in this moment of desperation, more people start to join in, whistling back. One district out of Twelve, and one out of a thousand chances it'd happen. The Peacekeepers are even worse under Katniss then under Snow. The tributes' families are all saluting, and a Peacekeeper on stage whacks me in the back with his Baton, knocking me to my knees and I hear him readying his gun. I gulp hard and tell myself that I tried. Everyone has their heads ducked, no doubt remembering or watching what happened to the other districts. They're cooperating. Then as the Peacekeeper is about to pull the trigger, one robust black man, about 6 '1,' stands up and shouts, NO! I frown even more at the floor of the stage and let out a tear of despair. You shouldn't have stood up. I look at him as I hear gunshots. They're bouncing off of him. Body armor. He came prepared. He tries to make it to the stage as fast as he can to stop the Peacekeepers, and as soon as I sense that he's going to pull the trigger, I do something about it. I spin on my heel and grab the gun, pointing it upwards so he fires at the sky. Even more quiet falls onto the district, and then the other Peacekeeper fires at my abdomen, escorting me to the cart and throwing me onto the train. "Hey there, kiddo."

Wayden's beside the door, obviously remembering all the other times I've been thrown onto the train. He has the couch littered with wine bottles from all the trips to the districts. I force myself to sit on the couch and slide away the bottles, frowning at the ground. "Two more districts."

"The last two Career districts. One with Stone's father."

Wayden lets out a moan and drinks up some more. So do I. I've drunk four wine bottles in seven days, Wayden's drunk more in more days. In doing so, I throw away those hours of training, gulping down the alcohol. The fire burning me on the inside, making it even worse. Remembering the Girl On Fire. I end up laughing about it afterwards. I chug down almost half of the bottle and come out gasping for air, Wayden trying to stop me. "You really shouldn't do this to yourself."

Every fiber of my being on fire, and I can't think straight with the alcohol fogging my mind. "Why? It feels good."

My voice a little droopy. "You don't think, I want this? I want this."

Wayden grabs the bottle and snatches it out of my hand, and we end up fighting over the bottle, eventually falling to the ground and Amaza walks into the car, shouting at us. "You're acting like children!"

I let go of the bottle and grab an empty one on the couch, raising it up into the air and laughing. "Want a, do you want,"

I feel so bubbly, so foggy, so weak, I give into the temptation of more alcohol, tipping the bottle down to get the last drop at the bottom. When I get impatient, I smash the bottle against the couch and throw the shards away, collapsing to the ground and laughing, hiccupping. Amaza tries to pick me off the ground and drags me away from Wayden. I end up laughing the whole way, and I ask her. "Where are we going? I hope it's somewhere nice like the Hunger Games."

I laugh my head off after saying that and fight Amaza's grip on me, telling her to let go of me and Amaza grabs my shoulders, me fighting her grip and Amaza trying to shout over me. Telling me I'm better than this. Telling me I'm stronger than this. I shout over her after a while. "You're just another….Capitol scum….Why should I…listen to what….to what you…have to….say…"

I wake up from my drunkenness in my bedroom at home. Feeling even more hung over than usual. It's like nighttime outside, probably really late. My mind's still recovering. The worse the pain, the better the alcohol feels, the worse you feel afterwards. That's what I think anyways. Zeke walks into my house unannounced and probably heard what happened. The fire inside of me beginning to settle, make me uneasy, my body disagreeing with me horribly. I rush to the bathroom, and as soon as Zeke lets out my name, I'm vomiting in the toilet for maybe hours. When I'm done, Zeke comes to my aid and my hair and my body is a mess. I've gone through so much stress, so much consumption of alcohol, my body's muscle structure has degraded and I'm like rubber for all I care. My crew and my friends say I may have actually aged exponentially. I'm eighteen, I look twenty-one. Or so. Without makeup. Premature aging. But I have a feeling it's more likely the pain than the booze. Zeke grabs me by the wrist and escorts me out of the bathroom and into the hallway, hugging me tightly and I can sense the pain in his voice. Too definite to hide. "I'm so sorry about what's happened to you."

I don't try to interrupt him, I don't feel like talking anyways. "I'm so sorry I couldn't protect you. Just two more districts. You can make it, and afterwards, I'm all yours. Deal?"

I can't argue with that, and I know the answer I should say. I give him a reassuring squeeze in the hug for an answer, Yes. Zeke snickers and continues speaking. "Know that I love you."

I begin to cry a little, and I try to speak. Zeke pulls away from the hug and shushes me. "Don't speak. They need your voice. Weak or not, they need it. The other districts will be watching you, and they need to know that you're being strong on camera."

I nod for approval and he gives me a kiss. Three seconds later, removing himself from my vomit/alcohol flavored lipstick. I whisper to him. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"What?"

He doesn't know he's been kissing the same lips four days in a row now, and Zeke recovers. "There's nothing you can do that can convince me you wouldn't do the same to me if you had the chance."

He's right. It's repulsive, but it's true. "I have some food if you're still willing to eat something. And you do need to eat, you know."

I nod for approval, and take this as a chance of rebuilding myself, to start recovery. I head over to his house and Mez and Rissa are already there. We dig into the elegant, exotic food and everyone notices me stuffing myself. Rissa asks. "When was the last time you've eaten something?"

I swallow my food and answer back. "Five meals every week, excluding weekends."

Mez whistles in shock, remarking. "I thought you'd be smarter than that."

"Blame the Games. Blame Katniss."

I jab my fork into the chicken and afraid I almost broke the plate. "Easy." Calms Rissa. "And blame the Capitol for sending me on this godforsaken Victory Tour."

"It's not that bad when you get to the Mansion, from what I've heard." Smiles Rissa. "You get all that food and get treated way better there."

"Some of them would probably rape me." I remind.

Zeke exhales deeply. "Let's think positive, all right?"

I try to take some deep breaths and try to take his advice. "Deep breaths. Focus. Think of something good that's happened." He finishes. Mez keeps eating, and Rissa tries to help. "Like how you lose yourself with a bow and arrow."

"Not alw-"

I take a second to stop myself, to try and recover. "Yeah."

I get back to eating the heaping mass of a chicken with some light yellow sauce sprinkled on top of it, and probably inside of it, too. My stomach's killing me, literality, like it'll eat me from the inside, and I keep eating. "Eat what you can. Tomorrow's District Two."

When I finish, in the middle of the night, I wake up and get my bow and arrows I have stuffed underneath my bed, and go out into the night. I activate a switch that switches the bow to a flashlight. A Black and Blue Tech Bow Fitz had sent me one day, complete with Tech Arrows, too. That's in my other quiver, though. I take the quiver with the normal arrows. I go to one of my training locations and start firing. My skills are a little rusty, and I don't always fire at the right spot I need to. Sometimes firing outside the middle, sometimes I do, oftentimes not, and sometimes more off than I need to. I keep going. Before long, my body's tired. After about twenty minutes or so. I tell myself to keep going, and I almost sense someone walking my way. With my memory, it might just be Iris. Usually coming here every now and then to sleep when she can't sleep at her house. She sees my poor archery skills and I stop to talk to her. "I would laugh, but it'd be too easy."

I give her a glare through the shadows. She can't see it, but she probably feels it. "Haven't seen you here in a while."

I put the arrow I had in my hand back in my quiver and remark. "Yeah, well…"

I have a feeling she's going to hug me, and she doesn't. "I've been busy."

"Why'd they drop you off here? You're supposed to be on tour."

"I needed a break." I answer back.

I take a deep breath and think about what she said. The only way it could've been possible. A Rebel Driver. Or someone that knew me. I hold the ends of my bow and grip it tightly, it recognizing my body chemistry and collapsing as the crevices slide into the bow, putting it in my pocket. "That is,"

Iris sees through the lights mounted on the trees, seeing the bow is pocket compatible. "Wow."

"Fitz Topher, District Three."

"Can I see it?"

"It's only coded to me. Sorry." I apologize.

She smiles back. "It's okay. Safer that way. Can you ask Fitz to make me one?"

"Sure." I reply.

I take a deep breath and try to fire backwards without looking, Iris shakes her head in disapproval. "Almost."

The next day, I'm whisked away to the trains to head to District Two. My body's sore from last night. Twenty minutes after Iris left, which was a couple of hours or so, I kept training. We just talked about the usual. How our family's doing, friend stuff. Not talking about the districts or anything of that nature. It felt good. Wayden slept on the floor, coated in alcohol. I do feel sorry for him, but maybe I should teach him Archery, too. Teach him how to deal with pain. Even if I'm still recovering myself, and I may not be the best at it. I shout Wayden's name and, when my voice isn't enough, I grab a wine bottle, still full, and get out a pot, pouring out the remains. I put the pot under a faucet in cold water, grabbing a giant spoon to mix together the warm and the cold. When I'm done, I step a few feet back just in case, and bathe Wayden in the liquid. He jumps up and throws a wine bottle my direction. I use my pot as a shield and put it down when he's done throwing them, or when he comes to. I put the pot on a nearby table and Wayden shouts. "What the hell is going on?"

"We're on our way to District Two."

Amaza had to escort me to the trains, along with some Peacekeepers, of course. I'm getting tired of them to be honest. "Oh." Wayden remarks, smiling. Then it hits him, he comments in a weaker voice. "Oh."

He's breathing heavily and I go to hug him, telling him how everything will be fine. "You don't know that."

How did he win the Games? And which one was it? I ask him this and he answers. "I don't want to talk about it."

I pull away from him and make my way to the door to exit into Two, shouting on the way out of the car. "Think about it."

I hear him scoff as I exit the car and I hope he knows that I'm trying. District Two is a nightmare, and people in the crowd start firing guns at me. Of course. Masonry. Very funny. I couldn't even finish my speech and the Peacekeepers escort me off stage before anything bad happens. Or before anything worse happens. Halfway through my speech, I see Stone's father coming off of his platform and making his way towards me. I look at the Peacekeepers around me. They're not acting. They wanted to keep me alive so Stone's father can what? Kill me live? I get my answer when he comes on stage and punches my temple, knocking me to the ground with a thud loud enough to be heard over the crowd's incessant pleas for the so-called, Father Figure, to kill me. He wraps his hands around my throat with an iron grip. If I were Rissa, he'd have pounded my face in instead of giving me a slow, painful, breathless death. The crowd continues to scream at him to squeeze tighter. The whole thing can be seen on the billboards that used to show the tributes' faces, now switching to the action at different angles. Four different ways to watch me die. Fighting back would be wrong considering he lost his son. Can't fight back even if I tried. He's even more hulked-up than his son is. Almost three times more buff.

I wait for death, and the next thing I know, liquid sprays my face and Stone's father's eyes have shards from a wine bottle in them. Wayden. I try to catch my breath and watch Wayden take on the beast by himself, with his own bare hands. The man is blinded, and keeps attacking blindly. Wayden grabs a shard stuck in his eye, ripping it out and cutting his eye socket off with the shard. After he does that, I hear a thud onto the stage and don't bother looking at his face. I don't bother looking at much afterwards. Watching Wayden do what he did has traumatized me, and I bet I'll never get that vision out of my head. I'm shuttering of fear, and I can't tell myself that everything's okay. It'd be a lie. Silence falls throughout the entirety of the district, and the Peacekeepers at the door have taken a few steps back away from Wayden. I hear Wayden's voice against the microphone, and I shudder as I expect the unexpected. "You can take everything I have, give it back to me, and take it again. But no one takes away what you gave back to me. Capitol Scum."

I hear him spit into the crowd and takes me away to the train, skipping the cart. I open my eyes when Wayden brings me onto the train, taking me to a storage room and I'm still trying to catch my breath. Forget the brain-scarring image I just saw. Never minding the blood. That's the least of my worries right now. I keep clasping my face with my hands when we enter the room, telling him not to kill me. Not to rip out my eyes and cut the socket with a shard from a broken wine bottle. He tries to calm me down, to no avail. I try to tell myself to calm down, and I start with deep breaths, unable to think about something positive. Tears are streaming down my face and he gives me a hug, me shouting at him why he did what he just did. He detaches himself from me and clasps my mouth with his hand, still giving me the ability to breathe but gives me the chance to let him talk. "We need to talk. Now."

We hear chatter through the walls in the storage room, once they leave, he continues talking. Me trying to steady my breaths, forcing myself to. "I won the 55th Hunger Games at sixteen. I had fallen in love with someone while I was training for the Games, and made some allies. But when the gong sounded, their first move was to kill me. I ran away from them, hid out of sight, and worked on making a plan. I didn't have much to work with, so I improvised with what I had. It was down to just me, and my allies, and I had watched the love of my life die before my eyes the day before. The battle was brutal, and I was lucky to have my limbs attached after the battle. Or, what limbs I still had left."

I unclasp my face and look at Wayden. My breaths steadier now and Wayden pauses, moaning as he tries to finish. "It was down to my best friend, and me. We were both missing a hand, we were losing blood, and our bodies were scarred. He begged me to kill him, begged me to end his life before it got any worse. I refused, so he took his knife and slit his throat in front of me."

He frowns at the floor and more tears fall down my face, but I don't breakdown or anything like that. Surprisingly. "I had to face the families at the Victory Tour, and I promise you, it was nothing but a nightmare. After the Games, after the Tour, I had taken up drinking, isolated myself from the world, and didn't bother making friends with anyone because I knew that someday, somewhere, somehow, I'd have to watch them die. So now you know everything you need to know about me."

He lets go of my shoulders, which, have grip marks on them now. Wayden leans against a wall, breathing heavily but slowly. I look at Wayden with pain in our eyes, and my body melts. Knowing how he'd never see the world the same way again, never close his eyes without seeing his friend slitting his throat, the love of his life. The Tour. Everything. Haunting his being. I say with a scratch in my voice. "I'm sorry, Wayden."

Wayden rubs his face with his hands and flashes a hand at me, telling me. "Don't be."

He lets his hands fall to his sides and he leans over, putting his hands on his bent knees, and as quiet surrounds this room like a virus, I decide to break through it. "You deserve so much better."

"Yeah, like what?"

"A chance to have your life worth something more."

Wayden shoots me a disturbed look. "You just watched me cut someone's-"

"I know, I know. It's just,"

I try to think about what exactly I was supposed to say, and then I say it. "You don't deserve any of this. I don't care what you've done, no one should have to go through something like that."

Wayden smiles back, and looks at me with compassion, replying back. "You'd be the first."