Trigger Warning: Alcoholism. There's also some bad language.

Manel Lobos, 22, District 10 Mentor POV

"Asteraceae's dead!" I declare, loudly. "You know what that means?"

"Shots!" Chaff cries. "Shots! Shots! Shots! Shots!"

I knock back a glass of whatever liquor Chaff's given me. I don't care what it is as long as it burns the taste of Fawkes' kisses away.

"May I have another round, please?" I ask the nearest avox.

Chaff guffaws. "Why are you so polite to the avoxes?"

I shrug. "Superstition. In District 10, we believe that, when you are rude to too many people, you lose your voice. The only way you get it back is when someone is rude to you. Then you steal their voice from them."

What I've just told Chaff is the biggest load of bullshit I've ever said in my life. It's easier than talking about my mother at the moment. But I doubt Chaff will remember anything I say. He is really drunk. Probably more drunk than I am.

I need to beat him. I need to get more drunk than Chaff.

"I thought you were getting sober," Chaff says. "What do I have to thank for changing your mind."

"My jerk of an ex-boyfriend," I say. "He dumped me."

"Ah," Chaff says. "Let me guess. He's tall, handsome, lots of dark hair, too smart for his own damn good..."

"Yeah," I say. "That's Fawkes."

"I've been there," Chaff says. "A word of advice. Never date a genius. They're good at lying and they're actually pretty stupid. They can't tell a hot guy from a hotdog. Eventually, us beautiful idiots will all get the message and the geniuses will all die single."

"Or they'll breed with each other and create a generation of know-it-alls."

"Don't put that image in my head, kid! Drink some more. Purge your stupid ex from your system."

"Purge!" I yell, as I knock back another glass.

"Hey, Manel!" Maia says, holding out a communicuff. "It's a call from President Snow."

"Tell him I'm exorcising a demon!" I say, reaching for another glass. "A demon named Fawkes!"

"Sorry," Maia says. "He's really, really drunk right now. You wouldn't want to talk to him... I have been tolerating him for the last sixteen hours. Why would I lie? I'm happy to pass on any messages you have for him... Oh, thank goodness. I'll be free of him for a while... I'm sure I can get him in the right condition to entertain a client. Thank you, Mr President. You are a lifesaver."

She hangs up and gives me one of her scary, businesslike looks.

"Right! You are getting cleaned up!"

"But I'm purging!" I protest.

"You can purge in the shower. C'mon!"

She grabs me by the shoulders and steers me to the elevator. Then she pushes me into my room, undresses me and shoves me into the shower. Normally, I'd feel uncomfortable being naked around a woman but I know that Maia's a friend. She's had to deal with me whenever I was drunk or high.

"Ow!" I cry as the water pounds into me. "Why are you so angry and scary, Maia?"

"Why are you such a sad, sad man?" Maia asks. "You meet a cute guy. He dies and you become an alcoholic. He gets brought back to life and you clean up. He dumps you and you fall off the wagon like a ton of bricks. Do you even know this guy?"

"Mayb-" I don't even get to finish the word. I throw up all over the floor of the shower. Luckily for me, it's all washed away in an instant. Unluckily for me, I feel another wave of nausea hitting me.

I don't know how long I stay there, vomiting in the shower and then crying because I'm so disgusted by the state my life is in. Eventually, I let myself sink to the floor as my senses return to me.

"Is there something wrong with me?" I ask. "Why can't I do relationships right?"

"You have had one boyfriend, Manel," Maia replies. "You have been dumped once. As for that Fawkes kid, he's probably had loads. I know a heartbreaker when I see one."

"How come he has all the luck?" I ask. "How come he gets to be a normal teenager and have boyfriends and I'm just lonely all the time. I was lonely in District 10 when I was too scared to come out and I'm lonely now I'm a victor and everybody wants to sleep with me. Well, everybody apart from the one guy I actually love."

"You don't love Fawkes," Maia says, bluntly. "You love the idea of him. And I'm sure he'd ask the same things about you."

I laugh. "How am I luckier than him?"

"I'm sure he's wondering how you managed to sail through your games without so much as a scratch when he died in second place with a knife in his throat and a monster in his body. I bet he's wondering why his leg is broken right now. I bet he's scared that his allies will turn on him because he knows he can't run. That boy died. He's going to die again and he knows it. It makes being dumped look pretty unimportant, doesn't it?"

"You don't understand, Maia," I say. "Fawkes was the only person I had left. At least he wants to live. At least he has happiness to live for."

Maia sighs. "You'll find happiness again, Manel. When we get back to District 10, I can help you find a new boyfriend if that's what you really want. I know how lonely it can be, being a victor. Fawkes really isn't that important. He was your first love and that makes him seem more important than he really is. But, when you start putting yourself back together, you'll realise that you don't miss him that much. Now get dressed. You'll be late."

Maia pulls me out of the shower and starts searching through my room for some nice clothes. She seems to find it hard. Maia can be incredibly picky when it comes to other people's outfits.

"Horns of Plenty, Manel, do you have one pair of trousers that isn't made of denim?"

"Yes," I say. "I wore them to my last date with Fawkes so... I burned them."

Maia swears and tosses me some underwear and a pair of jeans.

"No wonder he dumped you," Maia says. "You've completely lost it."

"I was drunk," I say, meekly. "I don't burn things when I'm sober."

"Stop getting drunk!" Maia cries. "Stop acting like a mopey teenager and get a life!"

Then she hurls a shirt at me. It hits me right in the face.

"I don't feel like a teenager," I say. "I feel old, like I've never had a childhood."

Maia's expression softens. "I know. I want to help you but first you need to do this. Go see your client and then we can work things out when you come back."

I get dressed with shaking hands. Maia helps me with the buttons of my shirt.

"Where am I going?" I ask.

"I don't know," she says. "Snow said there'd be a limo waiting for you."

"That's strange," I say.

"Maybe your client likes it strange," Maia says. "I don't know. I'm not the one who dictates what Capitolites find sexy."

We walk to the elevator and ride it to the ground floor. Maia is in no hurry to get back to her station. My stomach churns but it's more from alcohol than worry. There's nothing unusual about this. Just some mysterious wealthy person who wants to have sex with me at four in the morning. Just something I have grown disturbingly used to.

I think I'm going to be fine.

I think that until I leave Maia and the door of the limo slams behind me. A syringe is jammed into the side of my neck, forcing something into my veins. My vision blurs like I'm underwater and begins to fade.

What scares me most is that I've been here before. I've lost count of all the times I've passed out from morphling or alcohol and woken up somewhere strange.

As I lose consciousness, I'm angry. But only at myself.

Binah Katayanagi, 21, District 3 Mentor POV

For the last three hours, the other mentors have been my clock.

Honeydew had died at about two o'clock, causing Gloss to fight tears for a few minutes and leave. Liza had started cheering for Houghton to escape some poisonous fog at about the same time, which led me to assume that's what killed Honeydew. I was relieved that Fawkes wasn't in that section of the arena.

Then, at three, Liza started yelling at her screen again and Gabe announced his tribute's death at the claws of a giant monkey. I assumed that Houghton was also battling the monkeys and winning.

At four, when Liza started freaking out again, I was tempted to call Plutarch and ask him why the arena was picking on Houghton at hourly intervals.

Now it's five in the morning, I wish I had. Because Fawkes wakes up eye to eye with a snake.

He recoils, screaming and trying to scramble away from the snake. I can see the fear in his eyes. He's even more scared than he was facing Eros. And I know exactly why.

Fawkes is terrified of venom. It's what destroyed him last games.

I brace myself for the snake to spring forwards and bite Fawkes but it stops, suddenly.

Derrick swears from somewhere across the room.

"What happened?" I hear Cecelia ask.

"A snake," he says.

I'm about to tear myself away from my screen to ask Derrick more but Hatchet gets to him first. I know he'll get all the answers we need. Meanwhile, on my screen, Régine shoots the snake that'd scared Fawkes but, as she tries to retrieve her arrow, more snakes surge forwards. I know that Régine, Ageis and Silver are all excellent fighters but there are too many snakes. Somebody's going to be bitten and, even if it isn't Fawkes, watching one of his allies die from venom will hurt him.

But I also know that poisons have antidotes. And I have a friend who knows all about that.

I rush for the elevator, tapping my foot as I wait. I remember that Ramona went to Lumas' room to kill a spider for him. I have no idea why it's taken her three hours to kill a spider but I decide to look there first.

When I knock on Lumas' door, I have to wait a few moments for an answer. Finally, he opens the door slightly, looking like he's just rolled out of bed.

"What's wrong, Binah?" He asks, yawning.

"There's a problem with the alliance," I say. "I need Ramona. Is she here?"

Lumas looks over his shoulder as if to check something. When he looks back at me, he's blushing.

"Yeah," he says.

Something terrible dawns on me, something like the realisation that I only exist because my parents had sex.

"Did you two..." I start, not sure how to ask.

"Did we what?" Lumas asks, blushing even more.

Ramona appears in the doorway. "Come on. You said there was a problem with the alliance so let's go fix it."

She kisses Lumas on the cheek and drags me away to the elevator before either of us can react.

"What was that?" I ask, when we're alone in the elevator.

"I think I'm in love with Lumas," Ramona says. "We've been trying to keep our relationship secret for a year but there's no point hiding it anymore."

"Did you sleep with him?" I ask.

"Yes," Ramona says. "That is one way that people express affection. Don't look so shocked. I had to tiptoe around you and Fawkes when I woke up yesterday morning."

I blush. "I suppose we could've been more subtle."

"It's okay," Ramona says. "I never really got the chance to have a first boyfriend. If Fawkes makes you happy then I'm happy for you. But if he breaks your heart, I'll destroy him."

I laugh. "The same goes for you and Lumas."

I know I'm fooling myself. Lumas is even better friends with Ramona than I am. They know each other inside out. Their love is stable, reliable, certain.

Fawkes and I are different. There's no certainty in our relationship, not when I'm not even certain he'll survive long enough to see me again. I don't even know if he returns my feelings. I know Fawkes well enough but only as he is now - the damaged, vulnerable young man hunted down by nightmares. I don't know what he'll grow into, only that he has so much potential.

The doors of the elevator open and we dash out.

"Anyone bitten?" I ask Hatchet.

"No," he says. "The snakes are all in this weird formation. Look!"

We crowd around his screen. There seems to be an invisible barrier between the snakes and Fawkes' alliance. They can just stand there safely, without being attacked.

We head back to our station and sit down, just in case the situation with the snakes changes. Ramona stares at her screen.

"I don't like how those snakes are just there," she says. "Have there been any attacks on tributes while I was gone?"

"At two, there was some poisonous fog," I say. "Honeydew died. Then there were some monkeys at three. They killed Moss. Asteraceae died at about four but Drachma killed her. Something must've attacked Houghton at that time as well but I don't know what it is and he's still alive. Then the snakes arrived at five and killed Navara."

Ramona examines one of her notebooks - a diagram laid out like a circle with arrows leading off at different points. A few arrows cross the entire circle. I think it represents the bloodbath but I'd need to study it closer to be sure.

"So the attacks are timed and they correspond to different sections of the arena... What happens at six?"

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"Imagine the arena's a clock," Ramona says.

"The arena's a clock," I say. Suddenly, everything falls into place in my head, like a pattern in a computer program. "The arena's a clock!"

I snatch Ramona's notebook from her and draw spokes extending from the circle. Twelve of them, like the strips of land around the cornucopia.

"Lightning struck here are twelve, when there were twelve chimes," I say, scrawling a word in a segment of the diagram. "Then the rain started. Then the fog, the monkeys, whatever attacked Houghton, the snakes..."

I look at the diagram I've drawn, the attacks in every segment of the arena. The blank segment clockwise from the snakes will be the next to be attacked.

That's where Fawkes is. That's where all of his allies are. I look at the clock on my computer.

He has forty minutes before the attack begins.

"We have to get him out of there!" I say. "Is there something we can send him, a warning?"

"There's this," Ramona points to an item on the sponsor list - a black, plastic wristwatch. A chill runs down my spine. I'd worn one of those in the arena. It showed the faces of the dead because there was no sky. Shortly after my victory, I'd find myself unconsciously checking my wrist. It got so bad that I couldn't wear a watch or any bracelets anymore because the sight of something on my wrist would send me back into the arena.

If the watch disturbs me so much, after three years, I can't imagine how Fawkes will feel when he receives it.

"No," I say.

"Why not?" Ramona asks. "Because it'll unsettle him?"

"Yes," I nod. I can feel my heart beginning to race with fear.

"If he doesn't move, he'll end up a lot worse," Ramona says.

"Okay," I say, quietly. "Send him the watch."

Ramona presses a button on the screen and I watch the figure of our combined sponsor money grow slightly smaller.

A notification pops up - a message from Plutarch.

Send your tribute twenty-four rolls of bread. Remind him of home.

I know what it means. We escape the arena at midnight, day three.

I have more hope than ever before. Now I know exactly how long Fawkes needs to survive. Forty-two hours. They seem like an eternity but I know that they're a finite amount of time. I can cross them off until there are none left.

I know the next hour will be the hardest.

I decided to do another chapter focusing on mentors. Manel isn't coping with the breakup particularly well. Luckily, Maia has enough common sense to try to help him get his life back together. I found it strange writing Manel's POV because he isn't very invested in the games and he's not involved in the rebellion at all. At least, not yet. It looks like Snow has plans for him...

I also wanted Binah and Ramona to be the first mentors to figure out the clock arena. They're both good at spotting patterns. Unfortunately, they only figured it out less than an hour before Fawkes faces his first arena hazard. Can you predict what it'll be?