Trigger Warning: This chapter deals with some pretty upsetting issues. I don't want to write them up here because I don't want to spoil anything but if you're worried at all, PM me and I'll tell you what happens.

The Mentor

I sit on the bed, a bottle of poison in my hand, and read through the note resting on the bedside table.

My family and friends,

I can't live anymore. Losing Alex was too much for me. Every moment without him, I feel more and more lost.

I might not let on much. Ever since I was little, I've taught myself to keep my thoughts and feelings hidden. None of you are to blame. It's just my mind telling me to do things that hurt me. I can't stop listening to it. I've felt myself being pulled towards the darkness more and more since my games. Alex was the last good thing strong enough to hold me back.

I'm sorry if I upset any of you by ending my own life. I've always struggled with feelings. Sometimes I wonder if what I'm feeling is a distorted version of what everyone else would feel in my position. I hope that you all see that this is all my fault and there's nothing any of you could have done. All of you played your part in making my life a little brighter.

With love,

Ramona Hirose-Snow

It's the perfect suicide note. It ought to fool the Capitol. After all, I'd worn nothing but black ever since Alex had died. They'll all be so busy sighing about how tragic I am, they won't realise what I'm really trying to do.

My life had changed, yesterday. My dad had insisted on giving me a check-up after hearing from Beetee that I'd gone two days without eating after Alex had died. I'd agreed to it. I didn't want him worrying about me. I'd sat through test after test, watching my father grow increasingly concerned with every result that was slightly off.

Then he'd told me the news and I'd realised that there was a pretty big reason to be concerned.

Before Alex had died, we'd been trying to conceive a child. We'd succeeded.

I'm pregnant.

But I can't let my child live.

If my child is born, it'll be the president's great-grandchild. It'll be taken back to the Capitol. Either I'll be taken with it, and forced back into the role of president's granddaughter-in-law that I'd never asked to play, or I'd be separated from my child.

Either way, I know that to President Snow, my child will be nothing more than a piece on a chessboard. Something to be twisted, to be controlled, to be used against me.

To be poisoned.

Typical of you, Ramona. You're so scared of the president poisoning your child, you'll do it yourself just so he never gets the chance. Just like you were so scared of being reaped, you volunteered just so you could go into the arena on your own terms.

My bottle's full of sleeping pills and bleach. I measured the concentration of all the ingredients carefully. The dose is enough to kill me, but only if I don't get medical help. And I know that, in about five minutes, my parents will walk in on me and rush me to a hospital. It hurts me to think of my parents now I know what will happen to them when word gets out about this. Even if my plan works, the Capitol will still believe that I tried to escape them.

They'll punish my parents.

I remind myself that my parents know that I'm faking my suicide so I can kill my baby without the Capitol knowing. They'd told me, as we were planning this, that they'd happily sacrifice themselves for me. I wonder if they'll still be alive when I come out of hospital.

I wish I could do something like that for my child. I wish I could protect them. Something that Fawkes had whispered to a monster with a human heart, one night in the arena, comes back to me.

"If I had the opportunity to bring someone to life and guide them through it, I'd take it."

I know that I don't have that opportunity. I can bring my child to life but I can't guide them. President Snow will definitely take them from me. There's no way he'll let a district-born woman raise his great-grandchild. I might've been raised by rich parents. I might've won the Hunger Games. I might've married into the president's family and lived in the Capitol for three years. But I know I'll always be lesser than them. I can scrub myself raw in the shower and coat myself in Capitol make-up but I'll never be able to wash away my District 3 blood.

I have no power because I was born here.

And I wish, more than anything, that I could live in a world where that wasn't true. Alex could've brought us that world, if he hadn't been poisoned. The life stirring inside me, so small I can't even feel it, is the last piece of him I have left. My husband. My friend.

I can't hold on any longer. I have to let my husband go. I have to let my child go.

I raise the bottle to my lips.

I would've named her Aurora. I think, as the strange, chemical mixture pours into my mouth. I would've named him Borealis.

Then I lie back on the bed and close my eyes as the poison starts attacking my body. My thoughts become a blur, a blizzard in my head. I search for one thing to focus on as I drift away.

Binah. My one victor. My one success. I'd taken a risk letting her in on my plan, since she's so rash, but I owed her an explanation and the death of her parents seemed enough to be enough to shock her into silence. Fawkes' parents too. When Beetee had tried to get in touch with them and come back with the news that they'd been executed for 'consuming rebellious material', she'd been stunned.

"He's already dead." She'd said. "They can't hurt him anymore. Why did they kill his parents?"

Ever since we returned from the Capitol, Binah's spent most of her time indoors, hunched over a computer. I think she's plotting her revenge. I'm glad she's figured out that, if she rebels, she has to do it in secret. I'll ask her if there's anything I can do to help when I come out of hospital.

Because I'm still holding onto the hope that I'm going to live and come out of hospital. I know that my parents will find me and try to save me but now worry is creeping in that it won't be enough. Maybe I've made a mistake. Maybe I'll die from poison. My own weapon.

Something else comes into focus, out of the blur in my head. A pair of kind, blue eyes. My racing thoughts begin to slow, like they always do when I think of Lumas.

I want to live. I want to see him again.

I think of next time I'll see my friend. Binah's victory tour, six months sooner than I would've done if Binah hadn't won. It suddenly strikes me that Lumas doesn't know about the plan. He'll think I tried to kill myself. He did everything he could to help me and he'll always believe that it wasn't enough. He'll beat himself up about it.

Have I made a mistake?

My thoughts turn to the baby dying inside me. No, not dying. They never were alive. And they would never get the chance to be alive. Not in Panem. Not with the blood of the president from one side and the blood of a victor on the other. A victor who President Snow knows can kill outside the arena if she put her mind to it. If she wanted revenge for her dead husband, for being used, for being married off just so the president could kill one person.

After all, there's no better way to ensure that someone will behave than threatening their children. The Capitol had known that when they'd founded the Hunger Games.

I know that this isn't a mistake. I know that I did the right thing. And I'm the one who matters. Nobody else can make me feel guilty.

That's the last thing I think before I slip into a deep sleep, hoping that I'll wake up.

I apologise for giving this story a super bleak last chapter. I thought it would be a fitting continuation of Ramona's arc and I didn't want to tack it onto any other story, since it only happens a couple of days after Ramona and Binah come back to District 3. Besides, this is the Hunger Games. It's going to be bleak.

Don't try what Ramona did at home. If she survives, it'll be a) because she's good at poisons and b) because medicine in Panem is super advanced. It was brave of her to put her life on the line like that (and for her parents to help her given that they're likely to be executed for Ramona's 'suicide attempt') and for her to admit to herself that she'd rather her child were never born than they were controlled by President Snow. I understand that a lot of you might disagree with her decision and view what she did as murder due to religious or ethical reasons. While I only wrote this scene because it was true to Ramona's character and I don't want to write this story purely for political reasons and delve too deep into the pro-life vs pro-choice debate, I think that she made the right decision. The only thing she could've done better in that scenario is go to the hospital and get a proper abortion, and that wasn't available for her since she lives in a dictatorship and President Snow definitely wouldn't make one available for his granddaughter-in-law. For those of you who are pro-life and view Ramona as a murderer, bear in mind that she'd already volunteered for the Hunger Games (and not even for a noble reason like Katniss) and killed four teenagers, likely causing them a lot more pain than she caused her unborn child. That's all I have to say about this issue. Please don't hate me for bringing it up.

I hope you enjoyed reading this and put up with all my annoying quirks like recapping the deaths like an SYOT, chucking every reference and the kitchen sink at naming my characters, delaying the finale for a week because I like Halloween, hitting you with plot twists with no warning and putting my favourite characters through so much pain (looking at you, Fawkes). I probably won't write a sequel to this because it's set so close to the actual books but I will probably cover what Binah, Ramona and other major characters do in the rebellion (if they all survive that long) in another story.