Part 13: Talon Davenport, District 2

I wake up to footsteps squeaking and creaking down the orphanage hallway past my bedroom, and the sounds of two giggling girls. Ashley and Priscilla, of course! I crawl out of bed too, eager to play. Sure, I don't exactly have anyone to play with, because the two girls hardly ever notice me at all, and neither do any of the guys they hang out with, but I like to play by myself. Sometimes Estella, the cat, approaches me and I get just one friend.

I get dressed and run outside, while Priscilla and Ashley run around outside, happily squealing and playing together like only an 8 and 7 year old know how. I wander around and watch as opposed to playing, though. In the middle of the field I see an unfamiliar sight: a boy with dark hair and green eyes, sifting through the grass. Brandt Manson.

When I look closer, I see him staring down at a flower in the grass, and studying it. Almost immediately, I kneel down and take a look at what I see. It happens to be a daisy, and a very pretty one, at that. When I look over and notice that Brandt's picked a pretty flower, I pick one, too. Suddenly I hear the laughter of two older boys and look over to see Estella with her real best friends, Elijah and Nate. Suddenly the pretty flower is plucked from my outstretched hand by dainty fingers and I'm face-to-face with a smiling eight-year-old.

"This is pretty!" she says.

"Sure!" I agree.

"I'm Jezebel," she says.

"Talon," I introduce.

"Wow, cool name!" she giggles.

"Th-thank you!" I beam.

She smiles and says, "Let's be friends."

I grin and say, "I agree."

I was a lot better at making friends when I was eight. (And I'm convinced that Estella likes me more than she likes Nate, thank you very much.) I'm Talon Davenport, I'm 12 years old, and the second anniversary of the Hunger Games, which had the 16-year-old boy from District 1 as a Victor, is about to begin. Elijah and Ashley both died in those Games, so did Brandt's sister Paulina.

I talked to him the day she died. He didn't actually seem too depressed about it.

Now it's time for my age to experience our first reaping.

I meet up with Jezebel beforehand. She wears a white dress, bangs pulled back from her face and braided, and flashes me a sincere smile. "Morning, Talon," she says.

"Hey." I have to smile. Something about her makes me really happy.

"How're you holding up?"

"Fine," I say. "I mean, what's the possibility that, of every single boy in the District, my name gets picked? It's only in there once."

"As is mine," she says. There's a slight pause and she says, "Well, there still is a possibility."

"Don't worry about it," I tell her with a smile, "It'll all be just fine. It always is, isn't it? Besides, if I'm reaped, I can win."

She forces a small smile, "Maybe."

"I'd do it. For you. And I'm a man that stays true to my word."

She giggles, "You're not a man! You're 12!"

I laugh and she seems to be herself a little more. I flash her a smile and say, "We'll be fine."

She smiles back, relieved, and says, "Yeah, you're right. Meet me after the reapings."

I smile at her and she kisses me on the cheek before walking to the tables where they extract your blood. I blink after her, in a daze, before I'm snapped out of it by Brandt running smack-dab into me.

"Sorry little guy," he says, helping me up, "Didn't notice you there."

"Very funny," I tell him, but he just keeps a blank face on and shrugs. Uh, guess he wasn't trying to make a joke, then…

They scan the fingerprints of blood before sending us off, and Brandt walks to the 17's section and I keep my place at the 12's. Esperanza is the name of the Capitol escort, and she is thrilled to show us the video of footage about war before the video fades out and she claps happily.

When she walks to the bowl full of girls' names, all I can do is hope and pray that it's not Jezebel, and that it's not any of the orphans. She makes a dramatic pause before reading the name loud and clear for all to hear: "Priscilla Westfall!"

She walks up on the stage, in shock and terrified, and my heart breaks. Jezebel looks relieved, but she deflates upon seeing my upset expression. Priscilla's lost so much… And now she's going to have to fight in the Games….

She suddenly reaches in and picks the boys' name. Jezebel gives me a nod, though she's frowning, and I look back up on stage just to hear: "Talon Davenport!"

My heart pounds out of my chest and tears spring to my eyes. What are the odds!? I know I have terrible luck and nobody loves me, but seriously!? I start the walk up to the stage when suddenly I hear the loudest voice I've ever heard in my life.

"NO!" he screams. I swivel on a foot and stare at him. "HE'S NOT GOING INTO THE GAMES! I AM!"

My eyes grow huge and I stare at him in shock. Nate shoves past everyone, throwing me aside so hard I stumble into the arms of one of the other 12-year-olds in the front, as Nate McIalwain shouts, "I VOLUNTEER AS TRIBUTE!"

Nate wins the Games, and a little later, he commits suicide.

Now I'm 18 and living in the Academy (because I'm still an orphan), and the opportunity of a lifetime suddenly throws itself down at my feet: the privilege to volunteer for the 8th Hunger Games. I don't know why I was selected over everyone, I mean, I'm nothing too special, but I was, somehow, and that's all that matters to me.

A lot has changed in 6 years. Everyone I saw in that meadow is dead except for myself and Jezebel, who is now my girlfriend. God, she's great. Anyways, Elijah and Ashley died year one, Priscilla year two, Brandt year three, and Nate around year four or five.

Now's my chance to do some avenging.

I decide to surprise Jezebel one night when we're out on a date, watching the stars.

"Do you know the girl volunteer from Two?" I ask her.

"No," she says, "Do you know the boy?"

The grin comes back on my face, "I do."

"You look happy," she comments.

"I am! Jez, it's going to be me!"

There's a long silence.

"What?"

"Isn't it great?!"

"No!"

I sit up, shocked. "No?"

"No, it's not!"

"But-"

"Do you know what they do to Victors, Talon!? Horrible things! I don't want you to die!"

"I won't!"

"I don't want you to be corrupted, either! If you won the Games… I wouldn't be able to trust you anymore."

"What!? You can always trust me!"

"Not then."

"Jezebel, I'm finally good enough for something! I can finally do something great! Why can't you just be happy for me?!"

She sniffles, "I just can't be. Talon, if you go into these Games, then we're going to have to call it quits. Break up. Separate."

I can feel my heart break. "Jezebel, why can't we talk about this!?"

She sniffles, tears lacing her voice. "Talon… Please… I don't want to have to leave… I still love you so much… Say something, please…"

There's a pause and I hear her crying. Tears try to escape my eyes, too.

"I have to volunteer for the Games. It's my destiny."

She squeaks with tears and says in a whisper, "Fine." She buries her face in her hands and runs off.

I can only wonder if I made the right decision that night.

The next day, at the reapings, my heart hurts. Esperanza comes up on stage and greets us, showing us the video and then walks over to the bowl to pick a name. She picks some kid I don't know, and the voice I hear to volunteer is all too familiar.

There she goes, right on the stage, with a wide smile and a wink, twirling in her white dress and giggling like some kind of ditz.

"What's your name, dear?"

"Jezebel Perez!" she says. She looks radiant but sounds a lot different from when we used to spend time together. All I can do is stare, in shock.

I can't believe she did this to me. No wonder she tried to stop me from following my dream! Esperanza pulls the boy's name and barely finishes the last syllable of the name before I shout from the crowd of boys. The 12-year-old that she called looks back at me, and I shove him out of my way as I run up to the stage, rage filling every square centimeter of my entire being.

This is why I'm going to win the Hunger Games.

As a Victor, I realize suddenly that I've lost everything.

My Victor's talent is magic, something that I've been practicing since I was just a little kid. After my parents died, I found magic to be something that would always calm me down when I was agitated, or upset. When I started to think of them, I'd get out a deck of cards and focus on it: and I found that, even though magic is nothing but a distraction, it helped. It still helps.

Now, magic is what I do when I'm terrified of my future, or past. I found that self-harm isn't really for me: in fact, it usually just depresses me even more.

Now, one of those handy little Capitol secrets that nobody ever tells me about is the life of a Victor, and a big part of that life is everyone's best friend back home, prostitution.

The first couple of times, I dreaded it. Losing my virginity terrified me. Luckily for me, though, I met a really nice guy in 3 who offered to show me how to fuck guys before the Capitol could, and that was the first time there. I remember sitting up in bed late at night and just trying not to cry.

Now I understand why Nate killed himself.

It's one Monday night (Mondays used to be my free days) that I tried to die. I was close, too, I had a sword to my neck and everything.

Then a realization hit me, right there. That Nate went through the Arena in my place, back when I was 12. He gave me something that day: my life. It's a debt I will never be able to repay. The point is that I can't be like him. I have to make the best of things, not let them tear me down! How big of a failure would I be if I were to just throw away the gift that he died in giving to me?

It's when I put the sword down and walked away.

A blade never touched my skin again after that.

Slowly, I started to enjoy the sex. The minute I opened up and let it be pleasure, not just a chore, everything in my life became infinitely more optimistic. Before I knew it, people actually started standing in line to sleep with me, and a night with me sold for more money than anyone in the Capitol could've dreamed. Soon, I quickly became a favorite of President Augustus, and he was more than willing to accommodate my simple request: no interviews. I don't want to sound as stupid as I am in front of the entire nation, thanks.

Sex is something that I'm good at, and I'm certainly not used to that by any stretch of the imagination. It's something that I can do, something that brings pleasure to other people… And that makes me feel good.

Soon, I start talking in the Capitol accent that's always been a little natural to me, and I get tattoos, all over my upper body. I have my reasons. I have a normal pattern on my sides that leads the eye straight to my abs, snakes running down both my arms, and patterns on my shoulders. I use them to draw people's attention to my favorite parts of myself, and it works every time.

I think about sex more and more as my life progresses on. Soon it's the one thing that consumes my mine, and I'm out every day of the week with a client, and that's how I like my life and how I'll always like it for the rest of time.

Sometimes, though, every once in a while, I take a break on a Saturday, and invite my friend Nick over, and we drink together. That doesn't happen a lot, though, considering Nick is close with Platinum, the first Victor, who is obviously extremely weirded out by me. He doesn't like me that much, I can sense it in the way he gets uncomfortable a lot in my presence and that we are complete opposites: I started out as a goody-goody and became completely hardcore after winning the Games, while he started out as a bully and cleaned up his act after winning.

We'll never be able to mix, I'm sure.

We're opposites.

Now we fast forward a little more to when I'm a full adult at 31.

Nick Kensy sits across from me one lonely night in my lonely house in the lonely Victor's Village.

I usually don't spend my nights like this. In fact, I usually spend my nights having sex. But not tonight.

He's grown up. He's grown up from when he was 5 and I was 14. Now he's 22 years old and I'm 31. I want the time to rewind, desperately. I want to stop myself from losing everything, and I want to save him from Trevor, and I want to go all the way back to when I was twelve and just made that damn walk up there to that damn stage and never ever EVER let Nate volunteer in my place.

But it's all in the past.

And I can't change it now.

There's a long and especially uncomfortable silence between us. I honestly don't know what to say to him. All I can really think about, every second of every day, is sex. It's how I keep myself from crying the nights away. It's how I live in the present, and not the past. It's how I've gone all these years since I was 18 years old without shedding one tear.

And it's the only thing I know for sure that I'm good at. It's the one thing I'm positive that I can do to make people happy. Even though I'll never be that smart, or artistic, or creative, even though I'll never be athletic, I'll never be gentle enough to have kids of any kind, it doesn't matter. Because I will always be able to live with the knowledge that, even if I suck at every other thing in the universe, I still have one thing going for me: people practically stand in line to sleep with me.

Not to mention that I've been trying to be optimistic about being a Victor. Prostitution? Free sex! Mentoring? Yeah, let's gorge ourselves in the Capitol for a week! It's those little things that keep me here. And alcohol, too. Lots of alcohol.

Nick's eyes, dark green just like his father's, look quiet and shy, but he speaks up, anyways. "Talon?"

I have a bottle to my lips but flash him an inquisitive look.

"Do…Do you have…. Uh…" he scratches the back of his neck awkwardly.

"You've been spending too much time around Krietzer," I remark, after putting my bottle back on the table. "Spit it out, kid!"

"Right… Do you have…" he spits it out quickly, "Selfharmscars?"

The question catches me off guard.

He winces, "Sorry, you don't have to answer if you don't want-"

I answer honestly. "Yes."

"You do?" he asks quietly. I provide a silent nod.

"Where?"

I turn around and gesture to the back of my knees and thighs. "Right there," I tell him. "It's the only reason I don't have tattoos on my legs. Nobody pays attention to them because they're too busy gawking at my abs and chest. It's the power of ink."

"Power of ink?"

"That's right." I shrug my shirt off over my shoulders and talk in a small voice. "These aren't just random, Nick. See, I realized, after I noticed a tattoo on someone, that's always where my eyes went first. When people see my body, which they do a lot, the parts that will stand out are the parts that have ink. Nobody'll care about some stupid scars hiding behind my legs when the action's all up here. It's really a great thing… Being able to highlight the parts of me that I take the most pride in."

I put the shirt back on and Nick looks a little amazed. "Wow," he whispers.

"Amazing, isn't it?"

He puts the bottle to his lips and says, after a pause, "You're a lot more than they give you credit for."

"More what?"

"More… Creative. Smarter. Funnier. You're good for more than just sex, you know?"

"Don't give me that shit, Nick. I've been alive nine years longer than you, and I know these things better than you. If I were good for more than just sex, I would be living a life like Platinum's. I'd have kids, be sober, have things that make me happy besides just sex. Yeah, I'm good at magic. I've been doing tricks since I was 10. Sex and magic, all that I'm good for."

He drinks again without another word.

Finally, I ask him, "Why did you ask about my scars? Do you have any?"

He looks a little miserable, "Should I? Part of me keeps thinking I should-"

"You shouldn't. Nick, let me be honest with you. Half of the scars I have are from long before I went into the Games."

He looks up. "What?"

"It comes from not having any parents. It comes from losing Nate. It comes from a broken love that I was really upset about at the time. It comes from the…. The guilt, of Nate going into the Arena. It comes from the death of Brandt. None of them are from the Games. Besides, you have plenty more scars than you should, anyways."

He gives a quiet nod and we drink in an awkward silence.

"You should come with me to One sometime," he says.

"No I shouldn't-"

"Yes you should, Talon! It'd be good for you!"

"No it wouldn't!"

"Why the hell wouldn't it be, huh!?"

"Because Platinum is freaked out by me! Because he has a life now, and I'm a creep and don't belong in it! He's white purity, I'm black darkness, chaos, dirt!"

There's a long silence after that. "Opposites attract," Nick says quietly.

"I'll never be welcome there," I retort just as quietly, "I'd be kicked out in thirty seconds."

"It would help you," Nick says, but he gives up on the argument with that.

Nick makes small-talk and I listen quietly all night long until he has to get back to his place. As soon as Nick leaves, I find myself alone again, in a quiet house, in the quiet Victor's Village.

This isn't the life I wanted to live at all, but it's the one I'm stuck with, and it is my life. It's the gift that Nate gave to me, nineteen long years ago. And I can't end it any earlier than it decides to end. Even if I completely throw away my chance at a good future, considering I'm not smart at all and don't really do sports well and I don't sing or dance or beat-box or play an instrument, and I'm a drunk, broken, sex-loving Victor, I made a promise that I'd stay away from lethal things.

And, even if it doesn't seem like it, I'm a man that's true to his word.