Tyrell Crowley from District 2
Victor of the Third Annual Hunger Games

The Only Five Things Tyrell Crowley Ever Needed:

1. An opportunity

Hey, it didn't start off big. Just a shoddy home gym with a chin-up bar, a treadmill, and a sword. Not exactly the kind of thing you'd expect to grow into a district-wide institution. The truth is, when Tyrell and his father finished setting everything up, they looked over it and felt distinctly disappointed. This was supposed to prepare Tyrell for the Hunger Games? This?

Either the equipment was fantastic or Tyrell and his father simply had a knack for spinning gold from straw, because within a month Tyrell felt more prepared for the games that virtually anyone else in the district. It was true that there'd been talk in school about an academy to train tributes.

I bet it's some secret underground place, one of Tyrell's more imaginative friends had said at lunch. Some place where they train the tributes.

Yeah, another kid added. And if they want to go into the games, they can just call the Capitol and ask them to rig the reaping with their name.

No one knew how to respond. That's not normally how people spoke in the masonry district.

Back then, Tyrell spent every day of his life waiting for opportunities. Desperate for reasons to leave school, leave his town – maybe even leave the district. The Dark Days three years earlier were the first time he had ever felt truly thrilled.

In chaos, I feel truly at home, he wrote in his journal the night the rebels launched their first major attack on the Capitol's military base in District 2.

When Tyrell's name was pulled from the reaping ball, he didn't sob with fear. He didn't collapse with hopelessness. He just walked silently forward, staring down the cameras. It was impossible to read his expression. Something between excitement and terror. Those two emotions often go hand in hand.

When asked, Tyrell said his only impression of the train was that the food was fantastic. His only impression of the training center – a new addition this year – was that he'd never seen so many weapons in his life. Truthfully, he was bursting with anticipation. If he stopped bottling down his feelings, they would explode out of him like carbon flinging away a cork.

This was the greatest opportunity of his life. The thing he needed more than anything.

2. A little more time

"A forest? Again?" Tyrell muttered when he saw the arena for the first time.

He'd heard through the grapevine that the Capitol was planning on using different arenas in future Hunger Games. The forest was getting really old.

Before he knew it, the horn had sounded, and he was off his pedestal, racing toward the cornucopia like his life depended on it. Which it actually did. He grabbed the first weapon he encountered, a belt full of knives, and attacked his first target. But the girl from District 7 leapt out of the way before Tyrell could attack.

So did the boy from 12, and the girl from 3, and the boy from 1. Funnily enough, he'd never considered he might not be fast enough to catch a bunch of kids running for their lives. These other tributes weren't like rebels. They weren't ready and willing to die for a cause. They were just scared kids trying to survive.

By the end of the bloodbath, eight tributes were dead. Tyrell was responsible for four of these deaths, having trapped a group of tributes inside the cornucopia where they had nowhere to flee. The other deaths, courtesy of the girl from 4, took place outside the horn itself, in the surrounding field.

Tyrell crept carefully into the cornucopia, where the girl from 4 was gathering supplies in a big orange backpack. Suddenly, she leapt around, staring cautiously with her sea-green eyes.

"Ready to kill each other?" she murmured, laughing nervously.

"We don't have to." Tyrell entered the horn. "We can be friends if you'd like."

The girl's eyes widened with both excitement and caution. "For now."

"Yes, for now," he said. "I'm Tyrell Crowley."

"Aqua Mansfield." Her eyes did look like aqua.

Tyrell kneeled at Aqua's side and helped her organize the supplies. Eight cannon shots fired in the distance, and all Tyrell could think about was that he wished he had done more in the opening minutes.

"I wish I just had a little more time," he sighed, sliding tiredly against the interior wall of the horn.

A rare laugh escaped Aqua's lips. "Well you've got plenty of it. Now come on over here. I think you can stay."

3. A helping hand

Where am I? he thought as he slowly came to.

He remembered stepping into some kind of trap. Being yanked off his feet and trussed up like a chicken. Fighting against his constraints only tightened them.

Tyrell had long since stopped keeping track of the time. It flowed too inconsistently in this hellish place. Maybe it was the seventh day. Or the eighth day. Or maybe even the ninth day. But he only knew that from watching the sun. It felt like he'd been in the forest for months.

Where am I? Where am I?

I'm in the arena. I'm in the forest, he remembered, spotting a flash of bright-green leaves and sky through the tight net.

His hand wormed its way toward his pocket, and he let out a sigh of relief when he felt his knife. As long as he had a blade, he could cut himself free. He grabbed the weapon and started working. One moment, he was cutting feverishly, working with all his strength to break through the thick material of the net. The next moment, his right calf exploded with pain. An arrow, no doubt.

He cut fast and faster. Until he could free himself, he was defenseless against his attacker.

The world spun like a kaleidoscope as black splotches of pain dotted his vision. But when Tyrell tumbled out of the net onto the ground, the boy holding the bow was dead. Standing behind him was Aqua.

Tyrell didn't really know what to say. She'd saved his life.

"You shouldn't have wandered away," Aqua said, not loud enough to be registered as scolding but with just enough spite to make him feel a little guilty.

He swallowed hard. "Thanks."

She wasn't impressed. "Why didn't you come to the cornucopia at noon?"

"I was too busy getting trapped in nets."

Aqua let herself laugh a little. "You're not bad."

"If you ever thought I was bad, you wouldn't have saved my life," Tyrell said, finally getting to his feet.

"We're allies. Allies don't let each other get killed." Her gaze turned to the boy lying dead on the ground – the one who set the trap that captured Tyrell moments earlier.

"Do we recognize him?" Tyrell asked quietly.

Aqua shrugged. "I sat next to him at lunch. He's from District 10. His name was Ranch."

Tyrell didn't remember him, didn't recognize his face or his name or the color of his uniform. He was just another kid who needed to die if he ever wanted to go home to District 2.

As Tyrell and Aqua sprinted back toward the cornucopia, he realized how much the games were truly changing him.

4. A bit of luck

Tyrell's breath made clouds in the frigid darkness. A wolf howled nearby, and he yelped in fear, ducking into the undergrowth as the silver creature pounced into sight.

What a crazy day it had been. His throat and eyes still burned with smoke from the forest fire that had scorched away half the forest. The remaining four tributes (Tyrell, Aqua, a boy from 1 named Dazzle, and Ranch's district partner Vulpecula) were forced to retreat into the remaining cover of the trees – where the wolves were hiding.

A cannon fired in the distance. Did it belong to Aqua, Dazzle, or Vulpecula? Tyrell didn't know and he didn't really care; it was too late to think about the other tributes now. If he knew one thing for sure, it was that the gamemakers would not allow the wolves to retreat until the victor had been determined.

The wolves howled once more; a deafening sound at such a close distance, chilling him to the bone. His chest burned with panic despite the frigid night. Such a perplexing juxtaposition of hot and cold, cold at hot. Life and death.

Just when Tyrell thought the wolves might draw away, a stick snapped under his foot. The beasts all pounced at once.

I'm going to die, he thought. I'm going to die right here in the cold and nothing can stop that.

This wasn't the worst place to die, though. The snow was like a pillow. The sky was like a jewel-spotted curtain. And the air smelled like home.

A girl began screaming somewhere far away. Aqua, no doubt. Five seconds later, there was a cannon shot. Now there were only two tributes left.

Suddenly, the wolves dashed away as though deterred by some powerful electrical current. The gamemakers' doing, no doubt. They didn't want the wolves to make the final kill. They wanted a tribute-to-tribute clash to determine their single victor.

Through more than his fair share of luck, Tyrell had survived the night. Time would tell whether his luck would hold.

5. Some really good ice cream

It had been six months since the third annual Hunger Games. Tyrell sat on the roof of the District 12 Justice Building, dreading the moment he would have to walk on stage and address the residents of the district. He'd killed their female tribute, hacked open her neck with a sword three days into the games.

The Victory Tour was held in winter for a reason, Tyrell realized. So that it could be placed strategically halfway between the games. So the nation could never really forget what had happened in each year's arena.

The door opened behind him, and he closed his eyes instead of turning around. If it was someone he wanted to see, he'd know soon enough. He didn't want to look in case it was a peacekeeper ordering him inside.

"Hey, Tyrell," Luxor's voice said. Rowan was with him.

"Hey guys," he replied. He'd never heard his own voice so dreary before.

Luxor and Rowan sat down beside him, shoving a plate into his hands. "We snuck this out of the kitchen."

"Is this ice cream?" he asked, curiously prodding at the vanilla-scented dish with a fork.

Rowan nodded. "The best."

And so the three of them – the only three people who knew what it was like to escape the arena alive – feasted on the thick confectionary masterpiece atop the Justice Building.

As far as Tyrell could remember, it was the best ice cream he had ever tasted.

List of Victors

District 1 (1 Victor): Luxor Dodge (1st)

District 2 (1 Victor): Tyrell Crowley (3rd)

District 3 (0 Victors):

District 4 (0 Victors):

District 5 (0 Victors):

District 6 (0 Victors):

District 7 (1 Victor): Rowan Dobson (2nd)

District 8 (0 Victors):

District 9 (0 Victors):

District 10 (0 Victors):

District 11 (0 Victors):

District 12 (0 Victors):