A/N: District 11 has always been one of my favorite districts. Little Rue's eerie description of life in her home district has always fascinated me, so I decided to give a District 11 character's home life some spotlight in this chapter. The narrative kind of alternates between his life before the games and during the games. You'll see what I mean ;) I hope you enjoy reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Crow Kensington from District 11
Victor of the Twentieth Annual Hunger Games

A whistle shattered the evening quiet. Crow let out a sigh of relief and slid down against the tree trunk, letting the rough wood slowly scratch his mosquito bites on the way down. The bug spray shortage had been going on for weeks now. And if there was anything worse than being sunburned, it was being sunburned and bug-bitten.

The orchard where Crow and his family worked was far too big to alert everybody with the sound of a single whistle. That was why they used the mockingjays to communicate. Every tune meant something different. A little two-note trill meant it was lunchtime. A leaping, urgent melody meant that there was an emergency. And, everybody's favorite, the four-note run meant that the work day was over.

Crow rested in the bough of the orange tree, motionless for several minutes. If there were any peacekeepers around, this could theoretically get him shot through the head, but the peacekeepers were just as eager to get home as everybody else at closing time.

By the time he'd started to move again, the air was filled with the sweet sound of mockingjay song. If there was anything in the world that Crow Kensington loved, it was the mockingjays. He hated the sun because his skin was easily burnt. He hated the ground because it hurt him whenever he fell out of a tree. And he hated the sky because, no matter how beautiful it seemed now, it was bound to rain sooner than later.

But, to him, the mockingjays were the most beautiful part of the natural world. They were harmless and distracting and sometimes even friendly. As he walked to the front gates of the orchard, joining into the swath of groaning and hopeless people, one of the little birds landed on his shoulder. He let out a whistle, and the mutt affectionately echoed the melody. Crow let out a rare laugh. His only friend in the world was a bird. That wasn't much to be proud of.

The zone of District 11 where Crow lived, nicknamed the Citrus Zone, was far from the worst area of the district. Its people were fed well, clothed well, and there were even rumors that they had the shortest work days. But it was still dreadfully painful to slave away, day after day, shinnying up tree trunks and piling fruit carefully into boxes.

The word carefully was not to be taken lightly. Everyone remembered the day a little girl had been shot for dropping oranges into a basket instead of stacking them carefully. The District 11 peacekeepers did kill a farmer every once in a while, just to remind everybody that they could. But less lives meant less work, and less work meant less profit, so it wasn't difficult to stay alive in District 11 if you minded your own business.

If all those years of orchard work gave Crow one advantage, it was hardening him beyond belief. He was used to guns being pointed at him, mistrustful of anyone who seemed too friendly, and as unresponsive as he could possibly be whenever he witnessed human death. Back then, of course, he didn't know how helpful these personality traits would be. He was headed somewhere cruel and dangerous, a place where he'd need every ounce of his skill to stay alive.

Was Crow Kensington up to it? Of course he was. Surviving was his second nature. But that didn't mean it would be easy.

Early in the morning, the rain returned with a vengeance. The arena, a subtropical forest, had a nasty habit of raining at the most inconvenient times. Of course, Crow thought, the gamemakers probably sent the downpour whenever things started to drag. He wondered who he should be angry at now. The Capitol, for forcing him into this arena? God, for letting this happen in the first place? No, that wasn't right. If there ever had been gods, they were the gamemakers now.

Fortunately for him and his allies, the forest was heavily populated with mockingjays. Since Districts 11 and 12 were so utterly overrun with the musical birds, every member of the alliance already knew how to use them.

Crow suddenly remembered it was his turn to signal a rendezvous. But things were looking bleak for the mockingjays, who roosted timidly in the jungle trees. It would be impossible to hear their song over the roar of the rainfall. Crow could delay the signal for a few hours, wait until the rain lightened up to call for his friends. He was sure they would understand.

An hour later, when the downpour turned into a light sprinkle, he scrambled up a thick vine and grabbed some citrus fruit from a nearby tree. It wasn't any fruit he'd ever seen before, but it looked edible, and given he'd been eating them for days he figured it was safe to keep going.

From his resting place high above the ground, his view of the jungle was incredible. Mere feet away, the ground fell away into a steep slope. It was a bit of a risk to hang around this close to the edge, but Crow was confident in the firmness of his footing.

No use putting it off any longer. He whistled the four-note tune as loudly as he dared. Moments later, the mockingjays had picked up the signal. They even changed the melody slightly, altering some of the notes to give the melody a sad and creepy quality.

Ridge was the first of his allies to appear, having followed the mockingjay song to Crow's location. Crow dropped out of the tree, examining Ridge's face carefully to make sure it was really him. His face had a strange gray tinge, as though permanently dyed from the coal dust that he'd rubbed into it over the years.

"Any commotion in these parts?" he asked.

Crow dropped the rest of the way out of the tree, sliding down the vine and onto his feet. "Nope," he said. "Just a toucan ery now and then."

"A toucan?" Ridge repeated, eyes widening with delight. "I've always wanted to see one of them in person."

It was a funny thing, seeing Ridge so happy. It boggled Crow's mind how anybody could be happy in the Hunger Games. Maybe that was his damn fault for always looking on the dark side of things, but hey, pessimism had kept him alive thus far.

"Well, now's ya time," Crow said, referring to the toucan. "One's gotta appear soon."

The four-note mockingjay melody started to die out, so Crow repeated it, giving the birds a fresh melody on which to feed.

"They're friendly creatures," said Crow, letting one of them land on his outstretched finger.

Friendly. That word felt weird in his mouth.

Ridge said nothing; he wasn't the type to waste words. The boys just sat cross-legged on the cool jungle floor, munching on the dark orange fruit and waiting for the girls to arrive.

Lavender showed up next. She was also from District 11, but Crow hadn't seen her before the reaping. The first time he saw her, thundering onto stage, he got the distinct impression of a tiny charging bull. She had a fiery passion for laughing death in the face. That he had to respect.

"From the river," Lavender said, handing out thermoses full of water. Apparently, Lavender explained, a single broad river wound its way through the rainforest. The careers were using it to travel quickly, which meant that even going near it was dangerous, but Lavender wasn't the type to live without taking risks.

Besides, Crow thought as he splashed his face and neck, cold clean water was worth risking your life for.

It was half an hour before Rose showed up. Crow had always thought she was remarkably healthy and clean for a girl from District 12. Rose came from a merchant family, she explained. They lived outside the slum area called the Seam that housed most of 12's population.

Crow, Lavender, Ridge, and Rose. The tributes from the two poorest districts of Panem, the districts whose tributes always died in the first ten minutes. But now, several days into the games, all four of them were still kicking. And, Crow had to admit, their friendship was invaluable.

It almost seemed too perfect, but Crow couldn't let himself get comfortable. No matter how beautiful the sky looked, it was bound to rain sooner or later. He would be stupid to put that out of his mind.

The sunlight slanted through the reaching arms of the orange trees, bathing the lunch area in bands of golden light. Crow's mother kept her eyes closed while she ate her lunch; the alternating strips of light and shadow tended to give her headaches.

The older District 11 residents got their lunch first, which meant it was nearly half an hour before Crow got his helping. A slice of cheese, a bit of meat, an apple, and a glass of ice water. The bare minimum number of calories needed to tide him over until dinner. In District 11, nutrition wasn't an exact science, but those with lower calorie needs were blatantly given less food every day. Wouldn't want to let anything go to waste.

"How's the picking?" an older guy asked. Crow didn't know his name, but he'd seen his parents talking to the old guy several times before.

"Same old, same old. Sure feels nice to take a break," Crow responded.

"Mind if I sit down?"

"It not my table. Take a seat."

Their hands smelled tantalizingly of oranges and lemons. But, as far as Crow could remember, he hadn't eaten nice fruit in his entire life. They were for the Capitol, not for the people who picked them. And the peacekeepers regularly made examples of people who munched on the fruit themselves.

He took a bite of his cheese and squinted a little, thinking of boots and guns and mockingjays.

"Only four more hours 'til we go home," said the older guy, who Crow learned was named Widdon. "Four hours 'til the four note melody."

Crow smiled, an unfamiliar feeling. "I wrote that tune, you know."

"Really?" Widdon asked. "Well, it's a great one. It sounds like home."

"Where's home?"

"Little hamlet, ten minutes northa here by train."

It wasn't generally appropriate to ask about home in a place where nobody much had a consistent home. But the old gent was just so friendly. "How're you holding up?" Crow persisted.

Widdon grunted sarcastically. "Least I can starve to death with folks I know around me."

That was enough of that. No use digging any deeper and running frustration high. But what could they talk about besides home and work? Crow wasn't exactly the friendliest person in the district. That, he realized, was why he didn't have any friends. He wasn't friendly. It was an obvious and cruel connection, but somewhat satisfying nonetheless. He lived on his own here. He and his parents and the tired men who stopped to eat and talk, floating in their own little bubbles around their dirty garbage heap of a district.

Then, of course, there were the mockingjays. At a nearby table, two boys were humming softly to a mockingjay perched between them. The bird perked its head back and forth between them, debating which tune to mimic. Eventually, it settled for middle ground, combining them into a soulful but joyous little tune.

A peacekeeper blew his whistle, signaling the end of lunch. Clearly, Crow thought with disdain, the peacekeepers wanted to end things before the rest of the mockingjays picked up the new song. Wouldn't want the people of District 11 feeling too unified.

Crow, Lavender, Ridge, and Rose moved quietly through the jungle, through curtains of vines, past ominous leafy dens where snakes' bodies could be seen in flashes of sunlight. Ridge and Rose were adamantly against moving any closer to the river, but their current position made finding water an immense challenge.

Finally, after a particularly long and hot day, Rose broke. "To hell with this. Let's go to the river."

"Knew you'd come around," Lavender said, her lips curling into a shadow of a smile.

Rose crossed her arms in frustration. She wasn't used to being laughed at.

When Lavender had described a "river", Crow had imagined a quick-moving stream a stone's throw across. But this river was so wide he could hardly see the other side. The water moved so slowly that Crow had to toss a stone into the water, just to make sure it wasn't some kind of clear jelly.

No wonder the careers used this river to travel. It was an utter blessing of the gamemakers.

"Ever taken a look at the fish?" Ridge asked.

Crow peered into the dark water. Some kind of fish were moving down there, but he wasn't curious enough to stick in a hand and feel them. Ridge, too, seemed unsettled by the things lurking deep in the water.

A scream broke through the noise of the jungle, and Crow jerked his head backward so suddenly that his head spun with whiplash. He glanced quickly at his allies to see who'd let out the scream, but the only thing on their faces was confusion. The scream happened again. Not just a sound of terror, a sound of someone being murdered.

"Out of here!" Rose hissed, throwing all her belongings together and dashing away into the jungle.

"Shouldn't we be runnin' away from the noise?" Lavender cried out skeptically.

Crow quickly realized that would be impossible. There was no way to tell where the noise was coming from. It seemed to be coming from all around them. Unless… unless it was coming from above them.

They all scampered backward as the huge anaconda dropped out of the trees, the loops and curls of its body falling into a spaghetti-like pile. A chunk of bloody flesh was stuffed into its mouth.

"RUN!" Crow screamed. There was nothing he could do to help as the giant snake pounced in Ridge's direction, yanking a strip of flesh out of his shoulder. Ridge fell to his knees, gasping in agony. An evil sizzling noise came from his wound. Poison.

Rose went down next, helpless as the anaconda hugged her tightly in its slithering body. Lavender tugged Crow aside, yanking him off-course into a much denser region of the rainforest. The predator was preoccupied with munching on Ridge and Rose, but not for long. Crow got the impression it was mere moments before the mutt would be on the prowl for the two surviving members of the group.

Could a snake prowl? The pointless question flew through Crow's mind as he and Lavender bolted for cover. He forced it out of his head as quickly as he could. Now wasn't the time to try and think clearly.

The next two days were total insanity. Cannons fired every few hours, making him suspect that a number of deadly mutts were on the lookout for unsuspecting tributes. That, or the careers were hunting especially wildly nowadays. The latter didn't seem very likely, given that only a few of them were still alive.

"How many careers left?" Lavender asked one afternoon as she and Crow walked quietly along the river.

"Just two," he answered. "The girls from 1 and 4. What their names again?"

"The girl from 1 is named Princess. The girl from 4 is…"

"Wait. Princess?"

"Yeah, and that ain't even the worst. The boy from 1 was called Splendid."

Crow couldn't help but laugh. Splendid?

The two tributes were pretty quiet after that. The constant drone of the jungle was too loud now for either of them to hear one another without yelling. The upside of this was that their footsteps were completely inaudible. And, while he could climb trees like nobody's business, Crow wasn't exactly good at moving quietly.

Crow didn't make his first kill until the tenth day of the games. He and Lavender had just eaten some sweet-tasting berries for lunch when they settled down at the riverside to relax and cool down. Lavender plucked some cool leaves, damp with cold mist, and laid them over his arms and legs.

"I feel like a bug. Unda a steamy bowl," Crow remarked.

"You and me both," Lavender agreed. "I'd better get us some more berries now. I don't wanna have to gatha anything in the early morning. We might be too hungry."

"Sure you don't want me to help?"

"Sure."

Lavender wandered away, but she wasn't gone for long. She came back with a sour look on her face, like she'd seen something horrific.

"I… there's somethin' I need you to see," she stammered. "Be quiet for now."

It was the pair from District 8. Less than thirty meters away, the allies were curled up on the ground, snoozing softly beside one another. Crow and Lavender shared a scary look. It would be easy to kill the pair of kids right now. Too easy. But could they bring themselves to do it?

They could. They would have to. Crow signaled for Lavender to pull out her knife, and they tackled the pair from District 8, cutting open their throats so suddenly that their screams were already choked by the sound of blood. The mockingjays started to mimic their screams, passing the tune back and forth to create a horrifying symphony of human suffering.

So this was what it felt like to take human life. He'd seen tributes kill each other hundreds of times on television, but nothing could prepare him for this. This… this was the most unhuman thing he'd ever done. The Capitol had shattered his humanity like a sheet of glass.

And he was angry. He was so angry that his vision turned red and his blood turned to roaring fire.

"I have an idea, Lavender," he whispered.

Marcus Cornelius, president of all Panem, was painting his nails. Not colored paint, mind you, only a coat of clear polish that made them sparkle in the lights of his study. It was important, Cornelius thought, for a president to have shiny nails. Panem's leaders had been polishing their nails for years, and it was an attribute that struck fear into the hearts of district citizens. He often watched his predecessors on television and thought they looked just like they had talons.

But the Capitol didn't keep the districts in a stranglehold by being beauty queens. There were the peacekeepers, the propaganda shots, and – of course – the Hunger Games. The Hunger Games crossed his mind every fifteen seconds, no matter what he was doing.

The games didn't work without the victor. That's what he told Ajax Mathers after he won his games, the week before he choked on a rope. That's what he told every victor who ever had to be reprimanded. And it was true. The games needed a victor.

So when Crow and Lavender, the final two tributes in this year's games, threatened to commit double suicide, it was quite an emergency. They were clearly hoping that the Capitol would let both of them win, but they couldn't have that. The president barked for the head gamemaker to kill one of them instantly. So a viper mutt came flying out of the jungle and onto Lavender's neck. BOOM! Dead. Crow was declared the victor.

"That was very smart of you, Mr. President," said Rio.

Indeed, President Cornelius was not alone in his study. A young man named Rio was here too. Rio had lived his entire life in the Capitol. He struck it rich in the stock market during his teen years, and he was influential and popular enough to be chosen as a Patron for the fifteenth annual Hunger Games.

Supposedly, the Patrons were all executed after the fifteenth games ended. But that wasn't actually the case. They were allowed to survive in secrecy, take on new names and identities. Rio was one of the few Patrons who made a life for himself after the games. He became an assistant in the president's mansion, and Cornelius paid him well for it because he did fantastic work. Rio was also privy to the president's darkest discussions. However, he was forbidden from interacting with the other Patrons. None of them were allowed to talk to each other. If they started to congregate again, it would be too hard to keep their existence a secret.

That was very smart of you, Mr. President. Rio's compliment echoed around Cornelius' mind. Of course it was smart of him. He was the president. His nails looked like talons and he kept the districts in line with his horrible Hunger Games. It was very, very smart of him.

"I'm glad you think so, Rio," he said shortly.

"Mr. President… was the finale of the games aired live?" Rio asked. "The part where Crow and Lavender… well… you know?"

"No, it was not," Cornelius answered. "We told the districts that, due to technical problems, the final battle was not captured on camera. In their minds, the final two tributes had a grand showdown and Crow emerged as the victor."

Rio examined the president's face carefully, noticing something deep in his expression.

"They aren't convinced, are they?" he whispered.

"No, Rio, they are not."

"They don't need to be. By the next Hunger Games, they'll have forgotten all about it. By Crow's victory tour, even."

"I think you're correct," Cornelius said. "But never underestimate the memory of people who have been oppressed."

"I would never do that, sir."

They stayed there, seated across from one another in Cornelius' study, for a long time. Two dark men discussing dark things on a dark night. Thousands of miles away, a man named Crow Kensington tossed and turned in his bed in the Victor's Village, trying to force the memories of the games out of his mind. The two men's purpose was to remind him that the power of the districts was nothing compared to the power of the Capitol. And as long as that thought had been planted into his mind forever, they'd won.

They'd won.

List of Victors

District 1 (3 Victors): Luxor Dodge (1st), Citrine Whitacre (9th), Peridot Partridge (18th)

District 2 (3 Victors): Tyrell Crowley (3rd), Lancaster Percy (6th), Ajax Mathers (15th)

District 3 (2 Victors): Lumen Orlaith (12th), Cobalt Thindrel (19th)

District 4 (2 Victors): Mags Flanagan (11th), Ripple Hart (16th)

District 5 (1 Victor): Electra Wilty (4th)

District 6 (1 Victor): Jaguar Stratton (7th)

District 7 (3 Victors): Rowan Dobson (2nd), Willow Merrick (13th), Ebony Merrick (14th)

District 8 (1 Victor): Georgio Bronte (8th)

District 9 (1 Victor): Izzy Mayfleet (17th)

District 10 (0 Victors):

District 11 (2 Victors): Bluebell Singer (5th), Crow Kensington (20th)

District 12 (1 Victor): Canary Roselock (10th)