A special thank you to ETNRL4L, Vyrazhi, TheWomanWhoCodesAndWrites, Shadesunrider13, Cairn Destop and guests Well of Wishes, Iacopo, Lollipop, Supernova18, Gingerfluff and Flibidi, for reviewing so regularly. You make me laugh and learn, and some of you have even become friends. So thank you.

The people have spoken, an outtake on peacekeepers will be written. I've already begun it.

Enjoy^^.


"I'm going to the Capitol," Glynn finally announced, her eyes far away. "Apparently Madam President is convinced that I'm very good at my job."

The Capitol? But- It was as if one of the elementary rules of existence had snapped beneath her. Mags just stared, unable to form a coherent thought. How could she be going to the – She couldn't be meaning permanently!

"We'll talk tomorrow. I've yet to make sense of this," Glynn said, tearing her eyes away from the ocean. "I'll be leaving next week."

She stood up and offered Mags a hand. Hazel eyes met green, but Mags saw no anger or sadness. There was fear, but also… wonder?


Year Eleven, Early November. One day later.

"I'll take care of it."

Mags put down the box of detergent with a wince. "Angel, you sure you don't want us to hire someone?"

Esperanza looked at her as if she was daft. "Taking care of the house takes me two hours a day tops. You and Mama both work more than me. I'm not made of glass, Mags. I don't want someone in our stuff, it's dangerous and it'd stress you out too."

The twenty year old nodded. It just bothered her never to lift a finger for her own family. She was the eldest and she barely even made her own bed.

Esperanza planted a kiss on her cheek before giving her a shy smile belied by the intent sparkle in her dark eyes.

"Mags, I want to train for the Games."

Her smile fell when she saw the expression of utmost horror on the victor's face.

"Not volunteer, stupid," she huffed, "just train. I want to become a teacher for the younger trainees. You said they'd start at fourteen, right?"

Mags swallowed as her heart started beating again. She wished that sudden mental image of Esperanza in an arena locked far, far away into the deepest recesses of her mind.

"Will I have to kill strays?" Esperanza added with a wince.

Mags' eyes narrowed in annoyance. That'd seemed like a good idea at the time, showing Adria and Dover blood, the reality of life ebbing out of an innocent being. Her annoyance morphed to grief as the bitter taste of failure scorched her throat.

There had been no light left in Ruben's eyes when she'd seen him last.

"Mags?"

"No, that's something for the real volunteers, the older ones. I'm not having classes of fourteen-year-olds murder flea-ridden scruffy cats," Mags said with a wry smile. Her smile bloomed into a grin as she turned to her sister. "Join this year's class. You'll test the new teachers and I'll adapt your schedule so you can truly learn as much as you want. You should be able to be an instructor before you're eighteen that way."

"Eighteen?" Esperanza complained, a pout forming itself on her lips. A calculating light entered her eyes. "Adapted schedule? May I give Gabriel Makea and that other guy, you know the brown-haired one with gorgeous smile, self-defense lessons? Marquise said I'd make a decent peacekeeper."

Mags groaned. In moments like these, she was reminded that the shapely beauty before her had barely hit puberty. Rich food had hastened her development but not her maturity, not regarding boys anyway.

"Didn't you want to patch things up with Ford Gibbs?" She tried. Not that she'd liked that cocky boy much but he'd been the one Esperanza had talked of most for almost a year.

"You broke your leg because of him and his stupid friends. He's an idiot. He was okay at first but then he started complaining all the time, like he was too good for the job you gave him," Esperanza said in distaste. A dramatic sigh escaped her lungs. "I don't even know why I still bother with guys. They're all attention-seeking idiots."

Mags refrained from telling her sister that it was inevitable that the loud and handsome popular boys she kept gravitating towards would grow unhappy with dating a girl they couldn't impress.

"Start the lessons like everyone else first," she said, not wanting Esperanza to grow up spoiled, "then we will talk about it some more. I need to go see Glynn."

Every last trace of annoyance left the raven haired teen's face, replaced by deep concern. "Is there something I should do? Say some things, watch some people?" Fear shone bright in her eyes as she grasped Mags' arm. "What will they do to her?"

Now Mags regretted having told Esperanza such grim stories when she'd wanted to come with her to the fortress city. She didn't want her doubts fuel her sister's nightmares.

"Nothing, because Achlys personally recruited her," she said, with greater confidence than she felt. "Glynn can take care of herself better than anyone I know."

Esperanza's lips twisted in bitter acknowledgment, a frightening fire darkening her youthful face.

"She was too good for District Four, right?" She said, her voice shaking in rage. "So they're stealing her. I hate them. They'll take everything good." Esperanza exhaled, her eyes narrowing in much more common anger. "Who's going to be making bracelets with me when she's gone? It's not fair."

She buried her head into the crook of her older sister's neck when Mags pulled her into a hug.


"We're supposed to stay by your side at all times unless you are in your house," Dario said.

"Glynn is no danger and the beach is large and open, you'll see anyone coming from afar."

"You have something to hide?" the peacekeeper replied, his voice hitching as if he couldn't believe how stubborn Mags was being. "Your safety is our job. You should have the whole squad with you at all times, not just two of us hanging back. The reefs are full of small hiding places and most weapons have a thirty yard range!"

Mags met Dario's wrathful gaze with a scowl of her own. He'd been like that ever since Finley had slipped past them and unfortunately Mags couldn't retort that she needed them out of earshot to plan the rebellion properly.

"My job is to bring order back in District Four and heighten production," she said. "Peacekeepers are perceived as unpredictable threats. I'm trying to change that by having the abusive ones punished and showing that most are not, but I'll never get things done if I'm surrounded by guards."

"You're talking of citizen," Dario said, his light brown eyes flashing with contempt for them. "I'm speaking of Glynn." His jaw tightened as it often did when Mags' orders clashed with what he'd been taught was good procedure. "Okay, we'll stand back, but you're taking Marquise with you."

Mags' reply died in her throat when she realized the young man before her was making what he saw as a huge concession.

"Very well," she said, squaring her shoulders as if it'd grant her more authority over him. "Thank you," she added, causing his eyes to flicker in surprise.

"Dario," she began as Camilla stepped away from them to call Marquise.

The man straightened and gave her a curt nod. Odd how someone could be so determined by a set of rules.

"Is Camilla all right?" Mags whispered. "She barely ever speaks. Marquise assures me she's just shy with me, but I'd like your opinion."

A boyish smirk broke Dario's face. He erased it off swiftly, his jaw tightening at the unprofessional slip.

"She's fine, she doesn't relate much to people," he said, looking now slightly uncomfortable. "She and Marquise get along because I think they get what it is to be different. She told me she'll express her opinions once she'll have learned enough for them to matter."

Mags stole a glance at her younger female guard. Different indeed, atover six-foot high with very plain features and a heavy frame, although there was no doubt there were hard muscles beneath that deceptively soft looking-skin, the peacekeeper was unlike any woman Mags had seen before. Indra had been masculine and rough-looking enough, but Camilla was… proof nature could be quite unfair.

And yet the blonde's expression was always mild, even pleased and she obeyed without question. Mags had no complaints, but knew all too well that she could not afford not to know who she worked with.

"What's your opinion on Marquise?" She stifled a smile when she saw Dario's terrified expression. "I will never hold what you say in private to me against you."

The man didn't seem too reassured. "It's what we say on women from One. Beautiful but vain, weak, easy," he said, wincing at his own words, "obviously she's not weak and the guys who thought she was easy got a nasty shock but she doesn't act like… She thinks she's better than the rules, she likes flaunting that…" he shook his head. "It's not her fault she's beautiful, but she always has to be the center of the attention and…"

"It angers you," Mags finished, proud she was keeping a straight face.

She had seen how Marquise fixed the uniforms to be just tight enough to turn heads, and how her chin rose and her hips swayed whenever they neared the barracks, as if she had something to prove. It seemed every peacekeeper had something to prove, except Marquise didn't play with the accepted weapons. Even Mags had taken months to see beyond the vain fun-loving gossip and truly warm up to the blonde.

Dario crossed his arms, his expression very serious. "I can work with her, she does know a lot. It's my first assignment; I have lots to learn."

He failed not to blush when Marquise arrived.

"Talking about me?" The blonde said with a smirk.

A flash of anger crossed Dario's eyes before he stepped back to join Camilla.

"I'm starting to think peacekeeper regulations would brand you as insolent," Mags joked.

Marquise lifted her eyes skywards. "They're all so tightly wound you'd think they'd implode." A soft snort escaped her nose. "I tried to fit in, back when I was new and insecure. I stopped wearing makeup, but my hair was still too long to sit well. I stopped talking or smiling too much, because it was unprofessional, and then, I stopped talking altogether because there was always someone who looked at me crossly. One day, I caught myself making a long detour because cutting through the mess hall would have been putting on a show. I realized then that people wouldn't change their opinions, so I decided that if they were going to disapprove, it would be about me being myself, not pathetically begging for popularity." Marquise's voice grew smug. "And now, they still talk behind my back, but to my face they're friendly, because I have power, because being like this gives me power. Besides," she said, "the Lieutenant, Sergeant Ajax, Legend, Camilla, we're more than fine. Even Dario's slowly unwinding." A beautiful smile bloomed on her red lips. "And you're a great friend."

Mags grinned back. "You won't even have to compete with Glynn anymore," she said. Her smile suddenly felt forced.

"She'll find a way," Marquise said with a shrug. "She's so annoying. It's like she knows I grew up in a house full of stinky chinchillas and that I'm just passing through, to be a ranker forever, while she'll be the one building an empire with you."

The last sentences were spoken softly, but the wind was in Mags' favor. The victor pushed her golden-brown hair out of her face, her sudden pang of sympathy overwhelmed by sheer confusion.

"Marquise, had I not had you, the only place I could have ever spoken freely would have been at home. I can go nowhere without a guard. You had the others give me space. Circe, you are the reason people are less afraid of peacekeepers, because they can see that we're friends. What do you have to feel insecure about?"

Marquise chuckled dryly, looking mollified nonetheless. "Being rich, beautiful and influential is what we're told to be in One. We're luxury merchants. It's not about being competent and hardworking like here. We have to be the best, or we're no one."

"What has that to do with Glynn?" Mags said, her eyes now on the short-haired girl waiting on the sand.

"She rich, beautiful, influential and your friend," the peacekeeper replied, the words reluctantly exiting her mouth. "She reminds me of home and I can't manipulate her. I don't like it."

Mags shook her head slightly. Honestly.

Glynn's eyes moved from Mags to Marquise. "She had to come? New peacekeepers aren't kidding around."

"Dario knows the rulebook by heart," Mags replied with a faint smile.

Marquise shuffled her feet, a rare expression of unease on her face.

Glynn chuckled. "You can stay, Marquise, it's not like Mags wouldn't have told you later."

"What did Achlys want?" Mags said, her heart hammering in her chest as she sat down next to her friend.

The crash of the waves of the sand dimmed as she remembered Sylvan's passionate words, a life-time ago in a bunker built during an age now forgotten, about ambitious District people being hired to work in the Capitol resurfaced into her mind. She'd never thought it'd affect her.

"Intelligence, someone who isn't part of Capitol circles," Glynn began, not as upset as Mags would have expected her to be. "The hospitals were targeted during the war and they lost many important people. The void was filled by others but there are alliances, exchanged favors and basically all kind of power plays that prevent those who deserve those positions to access them. Madam President wants information and order."

"So you'll be spending most of your time in the hospitals?"

"Yes," she said. "You'll have to give me a way of contacting Syrianus and Dr. Alexanders since it'll be easier to start with someone I know." A grin slowly made its way on Glynn's lips. "I'll have access to mutt technology and everything, this is so cool."

Mags crossed her arms, staring at the other in confusion. "Cool?"

"Mags, you didn't need so much anymore. I trained Caspian to do my job, you have now networks in all the towns, the recruits will come and my mother will help you select them and train other people to help you. You'll be quite fine and I would have been stuck in Creneis being an instructor within a year anyway."

"Wouldn't you have liked that?" Mags replied, her face falling slightly.

Glynn shook her head, her fingers drawing shapes in the sand. "It's very sad to think the knowledge I have makes me an expert. I'm twenty, I've got everything to learn and in the Capitol, I can. Many are shallow idiots, but the information is there, I can have access. Facts about all the districts, history, about the books they have stored in their computers, everything I'd never have a chance to learn here."

"Wow, I didn't know you were so bored in Creneis," Mags said, defensiveness drying up her throat. What was wrong with her town?

Glynn sighed, her expression turning hard and serious. "People here don't give a flick about learning anything that isn't directly productive. Lycorias, Galene… everywhere is the same. Your academy is the only place where there's a glimmer of substance, a study of people instead of just learning how to make a basket." Her face fell when she realized how harsh she sounded. "I don't mean they're stupid, but Mags, they're all so afraid of the Capitol that they don't dare to go beyond what they must to survive. We're taught questions are suspicious, that thinking is useless. I want to be able to argue on the principle of justice, to stop and wonder where ambition comes from. You're one of the few who don't look at me as if I'm an alien, a dangerous alien," she spat, bitterness etched into her face. "And that's because you're one of the very few who believe the world could be different. Most don't dare conceive, as if thinking too loud would get them killed. They're poor and don't have the time to worry about what makes the world what it is. I want to be able to discuss the Capitol's motives, the reasons behind some of their odd laws, without having people wonder if I'm a snitch wanting to sniff out rebels."

The auburn-haired woman took a handful of sand, letting the wind rustle her woven bracelets and steal the yellow crystals from her loose grasp. "We were children during the war," she whispered. "We were home-schooled in a time where adults weren't afraid to have opinions, to dream. We're the last generation who has known true ambition and hope." She turned to Mags, "there is nothing for me in Creneis."

The steely confident tone chilled Mags to the bone. Two years she had known Glynn and yet never had she realized how deep the other's thirst for knowledge ran. She'd known the girl was ambitious, if Glynn climbing up to her balcony before anyone else had thought to support her hadn't clued her in, the girl's relentless networking and help at building the academy had been unmistakable proof, but now, she feared that what had made Glynn so special was threatening to consume her.

She had expected Glynn to be terrified and distraught. Instead the hazel eyes which had looked so lost the night before were blazing with terrifying intensity.

"Is your family okay with this?" Mags muttered, aware the question was unfair.

Glynn dropped her gaze, her voice a wistful whisper. "It's my life to live. Jett is scared and we'll miss each other, but he'll be fine. Pa understands, he was like that once too. He's the one who taught me to think and I know that if he hadn't found Ma, he'd be miserable. Ma, she has a love of people, of pairing them up and hearing their troubles, that makes her happy and keeps her going. I have none of their passions, just the one of learning, of being challenged. Maybe what I need is to grow up, but it won't happen by staying here." A mischievous smile broke her lips. "It won't be that much more dangerous than what I've being doing for you."

Mags grasped Glynn's hand in alarm. "Don't try anything," she said, her vehemence almost scaring her. "Keep in touch, ask questions, but don't try anything, not for months, or even years. Achlys must trust you and she'll be watching you closely. I need you alive," she stressed. "You're a threat to Capitolites that don't care to plot under Achlys' nose. They'll be desperate for an excuse to have you removed and can't even be allowed a reason to suspect. They might even try to remove you themselves," she said, her grip on Glynn tightening.

She was relieved to see no trace of flippancy in Glynn's demeanor. "I'll make sure they underestimate me or feel they've corrupted me," the young woman said. "I'm just a girl from the districts after all. I won't get cocky. And don't worry," Glynn said with a wink. "I'm not a talkative drunk, I checked at home to make sure."

Mags scowled at that, wishing the memory of her one memorable hangover forgotten, and then laughed, because she could perfectly picture Glynn convincing her father to get her smashed and then interrogate her just to experiment.

"Do you think Achlys was honest with you?" Marquise said, putting a hand on Glynn's shoulder. "Officers rarely reveal to rankers the whole truth of tangled situations. She will want information about the hospitals, but since it's you, she'll ask of Mags, and the more you meet their expectations, the more they'll ask of you, until you fail."

A muscle in Glynn's jaw ticked. "I'm a smart person," she said, her voice laced with sarcasm. "I wouldn't act against the good of Panem. I know what's good for me, unlike those fools in my district. Mags is too compassionate, she believes in the greatness of mundane folk," Glynn continued in the same airy tones, "that's why she's angry at the workers all the time."

Mags' jaw fell slightly as outrage warred with mirth. Was that what Glynn had told the President? "How did Achlys approach you?"

"She's not afraid to cross country. She's always some place or another apparently," Glynn mused. "This time, it was Lycorias, because something had happened in food conservation." Glynn shrugged at Mags' concerned expression. "Nothing earth-shattering. Ach-," Glynn caught herself, "the President –I need to lose that bad rebel habits, –", she muttered wryly, "didn't look concerned, more resigned and bored about it. Caspian," Glynn's eyes narrowed and she took a sharp breath. "Caspian," she said angrily, "was very quick to say he was an assistant, a nobody really, and that I was the one who knew absolutely everything and look at how brilliant I am, before running off as if his life depended on it." Glynn huffed. "He's got speedy survival reflexes, that one. Left me alone with that terrifying woman before I realized what was happening to me."

"She's scary, isn't she?" Mags said in a small voice, happy she finally had someone that could relate.

Glynn nodded, her face losing some color. "She started speaking and even with what you'd told me, I thought I'd been wrong all this time, and that she really meant well and was a caring brilliant person. She's so elegant and charismatic, I just wanted her to like me, and then she drops a bomb and you remember that she's the woman who invented the Hunger Games."

"Tell me about it," Mags grumbled. "Most of the time she doesn't realized she's slipped from reasonable to monstrous. Don't be fooled, she's rational but cold as ice and loves it when people respect her for the power she has."

A tentative calculating smirk brightened Glynn's face. "If I become a main informant, I can control the information transit. I'll tell her enough of the truth to keep her satisfied. She knows I'm your friend and she seems fine with us corresponding –we'll need to establish a code-," Glynn's smirk grew smug. "She also figured I'm corruptible."

"And why is that?" Mags inquired, wondering if she should be alarmed. What had Glynn told Achlys?

"Because I said that Creneis' people were in their large majority as intellectual as the fish we caught and that I couldn't stand it. She offered to let me go to university part time." Glynn gave a helpless smile. "I'm totally bought."

Marquise snorted and Mags failed to repress hysterical laughter.

"Circe, you're arrogant," the victor exclaimed, "and the worst is that Achlys thinks so lowly of the districts that she'll believe you."

"To think lowly of? That's what they call being right in Creneis Town?" Glynn deadpanned, making a decent imitation of Lucian's accented drawl.

Mags swatted her. "You'll take to the Capitol like a fish to water."

"I'll buy you girls stuff and you'll think of me and my sweet smelling new house when you'll be fixing the sewers."

"May I drown her, Miss Mags?" Marquise said with a hopeful expression. "I heard they have great medicine in the Capitol. She'll be fine"

Mags crossed her arms. "Oh don't hold back on my account."

Seeing the ease with which Marquise overpowered Glynn and swung her over her shoulder, Mags regretted not having included her friend in their self-defense lessons. Surely Glynn could convince Achlys of the necessity… Mags nervously wrung her hands.


Year Eleven, November. A few days later.

"You won't find anything more," Angelites told the red-faced Ajax "There is nothing left to find, Sergeant. In a District of over forty-thousand people many plan and scheme, and among those some are not logical or sane. There is no conspiracy, there was just man who blamed my daughter for the evil in the world and who paid for it with his life."

Mags fought to repress the shiver running up her spine at the haunting memory. She barely dared to go alone in the back garden anymore.

"Any breach in security must be found and fixed before such weaknesses in the peacekeeper force become exploited by rebels," Ajax ground out. "I will find who let Finley come to Creneis even if I have to go to Galene myself." The officer glared at the two women as if to dare them to protest.

Unimpressed, the older Abalone nodded. "Very well, Sergeant, have a good day," she said before exiting the barracks.

"He's wasting his time, Mags," she said with a sigh. "Even if he does find a name, what will it change? One man will be punished and the others will be more rigid for a month or two and then it'll be back to normal. I'd prefer to see him make sure those awful Webster twins stopped bullying children after school."

Mags linked arms with her mother. "Peacekeepers are taught that anyone who breaks the rules is a stain on the profession and that the others must erase that stain."

"So interrogating a terrified seven year old to trick them into revealing their parents have some rebel opinions is fine," Angelites said in low tones, her lips curling, "but giving a pass to a harmless-looking unarmed accountant is cause for months of relentless tracking?"

"In what world do peacekeepers make sense?" Mags replied, repressing a sigh of her own. She stopped when she saw a sandy-haired young man standing against the side of the street.

"What are you doing outside in the cold, Mortimer?" Her mother asked.

Marlin's older brother was shivering in his thin coat. He gave them a large smile.

"Glynn and Marlin are shouting at each other inside. I'm giving them a little privacy." His smile grew impish. "With a bit of luck, they'll reveal deeply buried feelings and hook up. That'd make for interesting nephews and nieces and a nice bit of extra money," he said, rubbing his hands together.

Shouting? Mags and her mother shared a worried glance.

"Please wait here, Legend," Mags said.

Mortimer flashed Marquise a broad grin. The woman simply raised a diffident eyebrow.

The ropemaker's door was made of sturdier wood than most. Mags had not known until now how efficiently it isolated from noise. She hastily shut it back.

She'd rarely heard Marlin so furious. "What's good for everyone else isn't good enough for you, is it? It never was, you always knew better!"

"You love power, Glynn," Marlin was saying, "don't you deny it. The Capitol is the worst place for you. They have no principles, they'll see you slip and drag you down and you'll come back not knowing right from wrong. You think they were born monsters? No, they chose the easy way, denial. And you will too, once we'll be far away and all those educated gentlemen with their artificial handsome faces will charm you with their books and clever phrases."

Glynn wasn't shouting, but she most certainly wasn't calm. "If people stay docilely in their place, the Capitol will win. Maybe if people had ambition rather than wistful thought, things would change, Marlin. You'd have me hold back like a coward," she snapped. "I'll dare to try even if I know I may fail, and I'd presume to ask of you to believe in me."

Mags had frozen, not daring to go make her presence known. Why couldn't she have minded her own business? And yet with tempers running so high, if someone overheard them, it would be a disaster.

"You're selfish. You think knowledge is such a big thing. You always did, forcing people to hear what they didn't want to hear when we were little, and now this," Marlin said. "There's trying, and there's getting yourself killed because your ego is too big to accept it's all so much bigger than you, Glynn. How can you do that to your family?"

Mags swallowed, for this could have applied to her when she had volunteered. She hung her head when her mother tightened her hold on her, ashamed they'd had the same thought. But if she had succeeded despite all odds, so could Glynn.

"You have such a tunnel vision of things. You're so scared of losing everything tomorrow that you don't give yourself the time to think long term. And you don't want to think long term, because you've all accepted that the future can only be bad, Marlin. Well I refuse to live like that. My family wants me to be happy, and they won't chain me here now that I can do so much better."

"Why don't you move to Lycorias and find a guy if we're not good enough," Marlin said, crossing his arms belligerently.

"Well I'm not good enough either for you people, aren't I?" Glynn hissed. "Never was. Too overbearing to be friends with, a waste of honest people's time with my stupid questions, scary… A disgraceful person, drawing and hanging around at fourteen instead of working like any good daughter ought to. 'Speaking to old sailors living off her parent's hard earned money, the spoiled brat'," Glynn spat, a hard ring to her tone. "Thought I had a hearing impairment too."

Angelites suddenly tugged on Mags' arm, apparently deciding they'd stayed in the shadows long enough.

"You never cared about people's opinions," Marlin said, now uncomfortable. "Who does here? There's Mags, me and Caspian and even Esperanza loves you and your family's brilliant. Even the peacekeepers listen to you, you have a place here, Glynn. Why deliver yourself to them?"

"Marlin, I don't have a choice," Glynn said, the fight having gone out of her voice. "Achlys said 'please' and 'thank you' but she never asked. I'll be very careful and I'll miss you, but it's such a huge opportunity, for all of us. I'll be on the inside. I'll see who they really are and what they can really do! You're angry because I'm going there willingly."

Marlin glowered. "Yes. You shouldn't be that happy."

"It's the fact she was that convinced Achlys that she'll be loyal, though," Mags intervened. She found it quite extraordinary that Glynn had it in her to make the best of this forced exile.

The two started at the interruption.

"We could have been peacekeepers, children," Angelites said, her expression tight. "Please be more careful."

"Sorry," Glynn hastily said, shock and sheer dismay crossing her features.

Marlin sat back on his bed, his arms crossed. "The Capitol is a foul place," he said somberly.

Mags shuffled her feet. She couldn't dispute that, but wasn't it better to have Glynn seize the opportunity instead of being anguished and lost?

"It's where I'm needed, and where I must be." Glynn turned to Mags. "We need to talk about that Plutarch kid too."

"Damn it, Glynn," Marlin exclaimed, a vein throbbing in his temple. "You'll be alone with no true allies in a foreign place where people love the Hunger Games and stick wings on their shoulder blades for the kicks or worse, because they feel they need to, how can you not act like it?"

"I don't see how the majority of them being batshit insane changes anything," Glynn said, her brow furrowed in genuine confusion. "I think you just mistook me for a social person. I just want a full access computer and a couple of sane people. From what Mags saw in the Capitol, both are available."

"That's not -," Marlin shoved a pile of clothes off his bed and stood back up, breathing hard. "Tell me you're scared."

"I'm terrified, Marlin," Glynn acknowledged in soft tones. "But I could also learn to play the piano, and that's pretty cool," she said, her hazel eyes far away once more.

Marlin let out a furious breath. "The piano? Get out," he snapped, "you're making me so angry."

"Get over yourself and give me a hug, Marlin," Glynn said with a tired sigh, "I'm spending tomorrow with my family and leaving in the evening, and I don't know when I'll be coming back."

"She's always been a little insane herself," Mags said, hating to see him so worked up. "No one's got a better chance at doing this well."

"You're blinded by all those promises of secret Capitol data and future allies," Marlin replied viciously. "I'm worried because my friend is about to go into a serpent's nest."

Mags recoiled as if struck.

Doing nothing under the illusion we are not responsible is more criminal than playing this game of human chess, Glynn had said. Was she really treating her friends as mere pieces? Was it really getting out of control?

Her mother tutted, her grip strong on her daughter. "That's no way to think. You're one lousy rebel, Marlin."

"Fuck you, Ma'am," the young man replied stiffly.

Mags' eyes flew open in shock, and only her mother's painful grip stopped her tongue. How dare he!

But soon after, Marlin opened his arms and pulled Glynn into a fierce hug, his eyes glistening with tears.


I don't think I've ever written so much dialog in a single chapter. I hope it wasn't confusing or repetitive.

Next update will be before Sunday 13th.

Please review^^