BLURB: She will survive this world. She will survive and thrive, and grow strong enough to burn it all down. She doesn't owe this world anything, after all. Not anymore. (Olva Dimond is picked as District 12's Tribute for the 72nd Hunger Games along with her younger brother. Everything changes, and only Olva knows. But who the fuck cares? Olva doesn't.) (OC/Self insert) (M for a reason)

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TWO

What Dies Inside Us

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"Olva... Olva, I'm scared... It hurts, Olva..."
"Hush now. I know, dear heart, I know it hurts. But everything will be alright now, Olva's here... Everything's fine. You'll be fine now, Oliver, you'll see..."

See, Olva had been scared too, was what she never told her brother. Since the very beginning and all throughout, Olva had been downright terrified shitless. And when her little brother was Reaped as District 12's male tribute and she inadvertently pulled a Katniss by immediately yelling "I volunteer! I volunteer as Tribute!"... Well, suffice to say she'd been even more terrified, if such a thing were possible. She didn't have Katniss Everdeen's balls of steel. She didn't have wicked archery skills, didn't have that disturbing killer instinct that the protagonist seemed to have in spades. What Olva did have, were Plans. Plans that were liable to change as her life progressively fucked up from ground level to the high heavens, but they were still Plans, and they were what she had. And though in perpetual flux, what remained constant was the fact that her Plans were always simple.

First it had been "lay low and wait for Katniss Everdeen to save the world."

Then it was "kill everyone else and then kill self to save Ollie."

But Ollie's dead. DeaddeadDEAD, and there's only one thing Olva can do for Ollie, even if she can't really do anything for him anymore.

Fuck Katniss Everdeen. Fuck the Capitol. Fuck President Snow and fuck the world. Ollie didn't deserve to be eviscerated by a mutant creature for the sake of national entertainment. None of these kids - even the trained killer ones - deserved to die for something so shallow.

Olva would show them.

Who needs a Girl on Fire when you have the Diamond Girl?

"Olva, I'm scared. I'm scared!"
...Me too, Ollie. You're bleeding so much, and oh my God, I can see your intest- Please don't die!
Don'tdieDon'tdieDON'TDIEPLEASEOLLIE-

"You'll be fine Ollie, right as rain in no time, you'll see."

Winning is hilariously easy once Olva has been shed of her brother and her sensibilities. It becomes as easy as laying low and murdering the fuck out of the last girl remaining. Laya, she thinks the name was. It took days of cat-and-mouse, but Olva has long since learned the lesson of patience. The last time Olva had been impatient, she'd placed her own and Ollie's names up for possible Reaping, all just for a bit of food she would have harvested soon from her little home-made garden anyway. But Olva has never been that honest with herself, and so she blames the government instead. She's not wrong in doing so anyway.

Children don't deserve this, and sorry, but she'd kill this girl anyway.

Some things were just more important.

"But what if one of us gets Reaped?"
"Psh. As if that would happen to us first timers. There's a bunch more kids with bigger chances of getting picked, Ollie. Have a little faith."

She faintly recalls that the girl, Laya, got a low score in the pre-game private trading session, but for the life of her, Olva can't rightly give enough shit about that. Killing a killer and killing an innocent... it's hard to tell the difference when they all bleed the same red blood. Apathy, instead of antipathy, is what made it easier and easier, as each death she witnessed from the cover of foliage slowly morphed in her mind from "brutal child murder" to "one less obstacle." This, she thought, at once feeling cold and strangely disgusted with herself, this must be how those watching the Games can stomach the yearly child murder fest. It was routine.

Then she remembered the clinical and distant smiles of those made-up neon barbies from the Capitol, with their mass-produced nose-jobs and lip fillers and Botox, grinning down at Ollie like he were a prized show poodle because isn't he such a cute little darling? It's a tragedy he won't last long in the Arena...

Olva remembers their shallow sentiments and thanks fuck that she's not that far gone yet.

(She spares a glance at Laya, who is desperately clutching at the arterial spray gushing from her neck. Zero obstacles left. Thank goodness.)

...Or is she?

Laya's form twitches and inevitably falls still, and Olva can't quite muster up enough regret in killing the girl because, hell, at least she died quickly. Ollie had agonized for an hour, and she had to... had to...

She shakes her head and rises on tingling but surprisingly strong legs, cutting a solemn figure over her last kill. She picks up the girl's corpse as a carrier comes into view, along with the blinding lights and the deafening anthem of the Capitol. She frowns at the lights and gently closes Laya's unseeing eyes shut.

As she gets picked up from the Arena, blood-soaked and sweaty as she is, Laya's thin body in her arms, a familiar face greets her right as she enters the carrier. The anthem fades as the doors slide shut, and she's left with an eerie chill and ringing ears at its wake.

"Abernathy," she greets the man flatly, as he stares at her with beady eyes that almost seem...concerned. "I apparently won, against your bet to the contrary. Does that mean I win something from you?"

"Your life, smartass," Haymitch Abernathy grumbles as he throws her a wet towel to wipe herself with. It lands limply on Laya's body. "That's all you get. You win your damned life."

And you lose everything else, remains unsaid.

A/N: Oh wow. I seem to be on a roll with this one. Tell me what you think!