I'm going to do a few Gamemaker POVs so you can get acquainted with the suspects! There's quite a lot, so these will be staggered between reaping chapters. All of the Gamemaker POVs take place the day before Leto Rubens was murdered. If you don't remember, Leto Rubens was murdered the night the 188th Hunger Games ended, so these chapters will take place as the Gamemakers are preparing for the finale of the 188th Hunger Games.

If you need a reminder on whom everyone is, you can go to Athanus's POV in the first prologue.

Prologue II: The Betrayed

Vanilla Cassatt, Southeast-Sector Camera Operator, 29:

Leto paces around the room, frantically running his fingers through his white hair. His hair is actually red - he just dyes it white because he thinks it makes him look more mature. I'm one of the only people who know its true color. One time, I told him that his white hair was sexy. I think that's why he keeps dying it.

"Is the boy going to die or what?" Leto demands, pounding on Cicero's desk. The boy from District 4 has been critically wounded for the past two days and Leto has been very anxious over his fate. Leto was secretly hoping the District 4 male would win, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen anymore. It's so cute how anxious Leto gets over his favorite tributes. I used to comfort him when his favorites died. I liked the feeling of him in my arms - his muscles were hard and ropy but he still felt soft when I wrapped my arms around him.

"Uh… I don't think Zander is going to make it," Cicero admits. Leto groans and slaps Cicero's desk angrily. "I mean, if he somehow wins in under three days, we could probably save him. But there's no way he'll be able to fight in any sort of battle. The District 2 female and District 7 female are still alive and both are definitely strong enough to defeat him."

Leto rubs his sleep-deprived eyes, thinking hard. When he's lost in thought, his brow crinkles. It's absolutely adorable - not a word that most people would use to describe Leto Rubens, but I'm not most people. I know Leto. I know all of his dreams and fears and strengths and weaknesses and I know how big his heart really is. We're meant for each other. It's a shame he forgot that, but I know one day he'll remember. He'll think: "Why was I messing around with that stupid blonde bimbo Alexia? Vanilla was meant for me!" and he'll come running back into my arms.

"Use a mutt to direct the girls from 2 and 7 together. We'll have them fight - hopefully, they'll each injure each other enough that Zander will have a chance," Leto decides.

"Isn't that sort of game manipulation?" Vesta questions, twirling her pen around her fingers. "We're not supposed to do that. It's in our contracts. We can make the games more fun but we can't specifically choose who wins—"

"Shut up, Vesta!" I shriek. "Leto is our boss and he knows what he's doing! Don't talk back to him!" She spins around to look at me, her dark hair whipping Coco Verdi, the Obstacle Creator, in the face. Vesta opens her mouth to say something to me, but before she can, Coco grabs her by the hair and begins screaming in her face.

"Watch where you put your fucking hair!" Coco yells, her face turning purple with rage. "I ought to cut your hair off!" Coco grapples around on her desk until her fingers close around a pair of scissors. Coco brings them towards Vesta's head at a violent pace and the room erupts into panicked yells. Alexia even faints but is caught by Morpheus Vinci, the Muttation Creator, before she can hit the ground. What a coward.

"Whoa, whoa!" Star yells, leaping over her desk at the front of the room. Star tackles Coco off of Vesta and wrestles the scissors from her grip. Coco thrashes around and yells several threats at both Vesta and Star, but quickly calms. When Star realizes Coco is calm again, she delicately releases Coco from her hold.

Coco gets to her feet, brushing off her white uniform. She's completely calm now.

"I'm sorry for my outburst," Coco states, nodding politely at Vesta. Without any more explanation, Coco sits back at her desk and returns to designing obstacles for tributes. The whole office slowly relaxes and returns to their work, even Vesta, who's tenderly patting her scalp. It's almost funny how quickly everyone forgets about the incident. Coco's outbursts are nothing unusual. She's always had a bit of an anger issue, though she's been going to therapy for it for the past year under Leto's request. It's gotten a bit better - at least, this is the first time in months that any of us have genuinely feared for a coworker's life.

"So, anyway," Leto starts. "Can someone get the 7 and 2 girls to fight? Morpheus, can you send a mutt after them?"

"Sure, I'll just whip up a mutt in a few seconds," Morpheus replies sarcastically. He's still holding Alexia's unconscious body. Leto doesn't seem to notice Morpheus's sarcasm or Alexia's fainting.

"Thanks," Leto says and walks off to his office. A moment later, Vesta follows him, glaring at Coco as she exits.

As soon as everyone is settled back into work, I open the lowermost drawer in my desk and pull out a small leather journal. I open it up to the next blank page and begin jotting down notes.

9:18 - Leto was nervous about D4M again. He was very cute. He ordered Morpheus to make a mutt to drive D2F and D7F together. His aggression was really sexy.

"What are you doing?"

I slam the journal shut. Looking over my shoulder is Pomponius Bryton, a fellow camera operator. His lemony perfume is very strong right now and makes my head spin.

"Nothing," I respond, chucking the journal back into the drawer.

"Were you taking notes on Leto's every movement again?" Pomponius asks. He sits on my desk and begins inspecting the various gadgets on my desk.

"No! I don't do that!" I exclaim.

"Calm down. I'm not judging. I have an office romance, too."

"Sure…" I say sarcastically. Pomponius holds up a snow globe. It's the one modeled after my old high school, where I met Leto. We even had our first kiss there. That was where he asked me on our first date. We even lost our virginities together in one of the janitor's closets.

"What's this?" he asks, turning it over to see the white flakes fall on the miniature brick building.

"It's a snow globe, you dummy."

"I know that." Pomponius rolls his eyes. "What is it of? What's the little building?"

"My high school," I mutter gruffly. "Hey, why didn't you know that? We went to school together. This is your high school, too."

"Oh." Pomponius inspects it curiously. "I guess I blocked it out. My high school experience was kind of awful."

"Sad. Anyway, stop touching my stuff and get back to work."

"Fine," Pomponius sighs. He tosses the snow globe to his other hand and places it back on my desk. Pomponius goes back to his own desk. I breathe a sigh of relief as soon as he's gone. I don't have anything against Pomponius, but Leto doesn't like him and I don't want him to catch me chatting with his enemies. He might think I'm moving on from him - and I can't have him thinking that. Leto needs to know that I'll be here when he's ready to run back into my arms. I'll be waiting for him… Till death do us part.

Cicero Windsynth, Northeast-Sector Camera Operator, 31:

My phone buzzes and I jump. I was in the middle of setting up the cameras for the upcoming fight scene between Livvie and Bracta, the girls from 2 and 7. I grab my phone, preparing to press "reject call" but when I see who's calling, I immediately accept.

"Dad!" I exclaim, pressing the speaker to my ear.

"Hello, Cicero. How are the games going?"

"Fine. You know that I'm not really interested in them. Why are you calling?" I ask, trying to ignore the fact that Dionysus Goldswan is now leaning over my shoulder, attempting to eavesdrop on my call.

"Is that your dad?" Dionysus whispers. I nod, pushing his face out of my personal space. "Can you ask if he heard back from the Secretary of Education yet?"

"Later," I hiss. I attempt to listen to my dad, but Dionysus's interruption caused me to miss a few sentences. "Sorry dad, can you go back? I missed what you just said." Dad sighs but repeats what he was saying.

"I heard back from the Secretary of Education-"

"Is this Dionysus's thing?" I groan. Dionysus smiles eagerly.

"Whom? No, this is about you. I finally convinced her to relaunch the investigation into your expulsion. She was hesitating because of the time gap, but she eventually agreed. They're going to check the security cameras with higher-tech analysis. Hopefully, it will prove your innocence this time."

"Okay, thanks," I sigh. I immediately feel a weight lifted off of my chest. After all these years, I could finally get my life back… I could finally have a chance to follow my dreams instead of being stuck here underneath Leto's thumb.

"Now, what were you saying about Dionysus?"

"Oh, yes. Remember? My friend Dionysus Goldswan wanted you to talk to the Secretary of Education about getting his daughters accepted into Snow Academy. Their applications were denied but he was hoping you could pull some strings-"

"Cicero, I just asked for a favor from her. I'm not going to ask for another favor just so your buddy can cheat the educational system. If his daughters weren't smart enough to get into Snow Academy, they wouldn't be able to keep up there anyway. Tell him that. I need to hang up now. It's a busy day today."

The line clicks off before I can say goodbye. Dionysus stares at me with hopeful brown eyes.

"So?" he prompts.

I hesitate, then shake my head. Dionysus slumps over in his seat.

"Fantastic," he mutters through clenched teeth.

"There are plenty of other prestigious schools. Val and Victoria are smart. I'm sure they'll get accepted elsewhere." I awkwardly pat him on the shoulder, but he shrugs away from my hand.

"I don't really want to talk to you right now, Cicero," Dionysus coldly states. He begins skipping through camera footage on his computer.

"Well, are you still going to take me out tonight to meet girls?" I nervously ask.

"No, I think I'll stay at home. If you're not going to help me, I should try to get my daughters into some school."

"I-"

Before I can say anything else, Dionysus stands up and walks off over the break room. I sigh and lean back in my chair. It wasn't my fault. I tried my best. Why can't I ever seem to keep any friends? Leto, Pomponius, Dionysus… they all gave up on our friendship at the first chance they got.

I hear Leto yelling at Morpheus about something a few desks away. I attempt to ignore the noise but it's impossible with the volume of Leto's voice.

It's odd how quickly people change. Leto isn't anything like the boy I met when I was seven years old. He was an easy-going kid, but he would always stand up for his friends. He had an inherent sense of right and wrong and refused to let anyone exploit their power. I bury my face in my hands as I think back on that day when I believed Leto would always have my back.

I was seven but I looked far younger than that. My curly hair was slicked back and I was dressed in a sharp navy-blue suit. Daddy had dressed me that morning. Daddy always said, "dress for the job you want," and I wanted to be a politician, just like Daddy. I even brought a pocket mirror to school so that I could consistently check that my tie was straight. It was just a clip-on, but Mommy said she would get me a real tie for my eighth birthday.

I sat down at my desk (front of the classroom, of course. How else would I learn properly) when I heard sniggering behind me. I turned around to see Basil Lakefray laughing at me. Basil was a big boy with tan skin and shiny black hair. He wasn't wearing a suit. He was wearing a tight t-shirt and sweatpants. Judging by his outfit, Basil wanted to grow up to be a grimy District kid.

"Nice tie." Basil snickered. "You look like a girl."

"Ties are manly," I refuted. "My daddy says so."

"Oh yeah? Who's your daddy?"

"He's a Sec-reh-tar-y," I said proudly, pronouncing each syllable carefully. My daddy was the Secretary of the Treasury, but I couldn't pronounce "treasury" yet. Whenever I tried, it came out like "treachery" so daddy told me to stop telling people he was "Secretary of Treachery".

"Secretaries are girls," Basil said haughtily. "My dad said so."

"Nuh-huh," I exclaimed, my face reddening. "Daddy's a man. He's the most manly man I know."

"You don't know a lot of men, then." Basil shrugged. "Because your daddy's a girl."

"What's wrong with girls?" someone said. I swiveled around in my chair to see a red-headed boy sitting next to me. He had a tie on, too! It wasn't as nice as mine, but still. "I like girls. Girls are pretty. Why is that an insult?"

"Because… because girls are stupid," Basil argued.

"Incorrect," the boy said. "My moms are girls and they're very smart. One is a teacher and the other is a surgeon."

"What's a surgeon?" I asked.

"She cuts people open to make them look prettier," the boy explained.

"That sounds painful. Wouldn't that just hurt?" I wondered aloud.

"I don't know. But lots of people go to her so that they'll be prettier. She gives them smaller noses and stuff."

"How does she give them smaller noses?" Basil asked doubtfully.

"Why don't you look it up in a book or something? Actually, you probably can't read," the boy said.

"I can read!" exclaimed Basil.

"Read that," the boy dared, pointing at the blackboard in the front of the room. At the top of the blackboard were the words "Tuesday Lesson Plan". Basil scrunched up his face.

"Tuh… tuh…"

"See? You can't read it," the boy said. "Now, stop talking to my friend. You're not smart enough to communicate with us."

"What's 'communicate'?" Basil asked, but the boy had already begun ignoring him.

"Don't listen to him," the boy said to me. "Your daddy's not a girl. I bet he's really manly."

"He is," I said, smiling. "I'm Cicero Windsynth."

"Leto Rubens. I think it's good that we're friends. That means we have each other's backs. My mama said that there's a lot of people who try to mess with people like us at school because they're jealous of how smart we are. If we stick together, we can combine our brains and destroy anyone who tries to mess with us."

"I like that. We should be friends forever."

"Okay. But if anyone says anything mean about me, tell me, okay? Then I can get strong and beat them up. And if anyone says anything mean about you, I'll beat them up, too."

"I already like being your friend." I smiled.

Simon Elgar, Head Arena Designer, 42:

I'm glad I have my own office. I don't think I could handle it if my coworkers saw me spontaneously breaking down into tears every twenty minutes. I know most of them would understand, but not Leto. I can't let Leto have the satisfaction of seeing me crying. I won't let him know what he's done to me. Leto's the type of guy who likes to exploit his power over other people and laugh when he sees their misery.

Gold car, wet pavement, yellow windows.

I'm supposed to be working on the arena for next year, but I can't focus. My eyes keep drifting to the silver frame propped up on my desk. It displays a picture of a happy family - a daughter, a son, a wife, a husband, that stupid parakeet.

Wooden door, brass knob, creaky hinge.

The daughter is dancing, the skirt of her dress billowing out to her knees. She begged for that dress for months after seeing it in a catalogue. Her parents refused to buy it at first but when her daddy was promoted to Head Arena Designer, he bought it for her. The price was outrageous, but anything to make his little girl happy…

Empty room, crackling fire, spilled wine.

The son is wrapped in his daddy's arms, waving his chubby fist at something in the background. What was he looking at? Oh, yes, there was a man selling ice cream in the park where the photo had been taken. The boy wanted ice cream. He was mildly lactose intolerant and would probably be a nightmare later, but the daddy got his son ice cream anyway. Anything to make his little boy happy…

Drunk giggles, a smoky cologne, two footprints leading to the bedroom.

The wife is kissing her husband on the cheek. A little peck, nothing more, but for the husband, it is enough to represent love and devotion. She wears a shiny engagement ring on her finger. The diamond is big and luxurious and it makes rainbows in the sun. Way too much money, but the husband proposed with it anyway. Anything to make the woman he loved happy…

Long corridor, man's tie, thumping heart.

The husband is smiling. He has his son in his arms, his beautiful daughter at his side, his wife kissing his cheek… his life is perfect. He loves his family. In this moment, he even loves the pet parakeet perched on his shoulders. It will shit on his suit later that day, but that's okay because his family loves the parakeet and he would do anything to make them happy…

Open door, creamy skin, white hair.

The man was happy.

Heavy breathing, red lips, soft whispers.

The children were happy.

Dizzy, frozen, shocked.

The man thought his wife was happy.

I stared in shock as Vita, the woman I had spent ten years with, had two children with, and had given my heart to, hungrily made out with my boss. Her beautiful caramel hair cascaded down her bare back. She gripped at his spiky white hair with a passion she had never exhibited with me.

Leto's cold blue eyes drifted away from her face and up to me. He stared at me for a second, his expression unsurprised at my arrival. He wanted me to show up. He wanted me to hurt. He wanted to watch as my heart was torn out of my body and my life shattered into a million pieces. An evil smile crawled across his face. Vita lustfully moved her body against his, but Leto just stared at me with that same evil smile.

"Vita." The word meant to be firm, but came out in a choked gasp. At the sound of my voice, Vita twisted around and hurriedly climbed off Leto.

"Simon," she gasped. She attempted to cover her breasts with her arms, as if I hadn't seen them before. As if I were the one who shouldn't see her naked.

"Good evening, Simon." Leto grinned.

Vita sat across from me, looking ill. After a week of avoiding me, I'd finally cornered her. The kids were at school, I had called in sick to work, and there was nothing stopping us from having this conversation. The one we needed to have.

"How long," I asked.

"That was the first time," Vita said. Her hazel eyes avoided mine. I'd known her for fifteen years. Did she really think I couldn't tell when she was lying to me?

"Be honest. How long," I restated. Vita stayed quiet. "Look, you need to tell me the truth. I'm willing to make this work, but I want honesty from you."

"Simon-"

"I thought it over, and I decided I'm not asking for a divorce."

"Simon-"

"For Alison and Micah's sake, of course. I don't want them to see their parents break up."

"Simon-"

"Maybe we can love each other again. I think I can forgive you, I just… I need time."

"Simon-"

"I still love you, of course. I could never stop loving you."

"Simon, I don't want to stay together."

I froze. I had spent so many days debating whether or not I should stay with Vita that I didn't even consider that she might not want to stay with me.

"I want a divorce," Vita said firmly. "I think I'm in love with Leto Rubens."

"Wha-" I couldn't form any other words. This was a turn I was definitely not expecting. "Leto Rubens? He's a player, Vita. He has his own wife. He doesn't give a shit about you."

"I know he loves me," Vita insisted. "He told me so."

I shook my head at her naivete. She wanted to leave me for Leto Rubens, the evilest man I knew. She wanted to tear apart our family for this man. I couldn't believe it. Everything seemed to be crumbling around me.

"How could you do this?" I asked, my voice cracking. "I thought you loved me."

"I did. I did for a few years, but then you started gaining weight and you stopped worrying about fashion trends. I mean, the suit you're wearing right now hasn't been in style for three years. And that color really clashes with your hair."

"You're breaking up with me because of my fashion sense?" I clarified. My whole body seemed to be trembling and I couldn't get it to stop.

"No, I'm breaking up with you for a lot of reasons," said Vita. "Your fashion sense just happens to be one of the bigger reasons."

Alison was the first to be called up. The judge was an elderly man with a green mustache. Alison had her hair curled for the ordeal. I had expected her to be broken and sad. Her parents were getting divorced, after all. But Alison had a big smile on and she was wearing a bright purple silk dress with a bow in the back. Alison had always loved attention, and being in front of the court was exciting for her.

"Alison Elgar?" the judge asked. "Born July 18, 182 HG?"

"Yep!" Alison smiled.

"Which of your parents do you want to live with?"

"Mommy!" Alison said chirpily. My heart dropped. The word echoed around in my head - "mommy mommy mommy mommy". Alison wanted to be with her mommy. She didn't want me, even though I was the one who had always shown her love. I wasn't the one tearing apart this family. I was the one who had done everything to keep her happy - apparently, she was happiest without me.

Micah was called up next and I could barely watch. A small part of me hoped Micah would want to stay with me, but I knew deep down Micah would do whatever his big sister did. Micah wouldn't want to be apart from her. Alison held his hand as he stood up next to her, dressed in a frilly light-blue tuxedo.

"Micah Elgar, born November 29, 185 HG?"

"Uh-huh."

"Which of your parents do you want to live with? Mommy or daddy?"

"Mommy," Micah muttered. Across the aisle, Vita let out a relieved cry.

"My babies!" she exclaimed, and Alison and Micah ran into her arms. "I knew you would pick me. I just knew it. No child can live without their mama." Vita glanced over at me. "You can keep the parakeet, Simon."

My head aches. I try to restrain my next bout of tears, but I can't resist as they begin sliding down my cheeks again. I grab ahold of the picture frame and clench it so tightly my fingers ache. I pull out the wastepaper basket under my desk and prepare to chuck the picture into the trash.

My arm hesitates. The happy faces of the family stare back at me.

I thought they loved me. I thought they loved me.

My arm begins shaking and I set the picture frame back on the desk.

Broken marriage, broken heart, broken life.

Do you think any of these guys is Simon's murderer? I'd love to see some guesses in the reviews... Obviously we still have quite a few suspects left, but the list of potential killers will be narrowed down as the game progresses.