Eight days earlier (Reaping Day).


KerriAnne Terwilliger laughs like a gunshot, and when she's on the whiskey it turns into a firefight. Like her or not- and everyone figures that for themselves very quickly- she's got a presence you can't escape in a room. Plenty have tried.

"Sit and spin. Dacker's not on the table. That wet fruit hasn't pulled a tribute in all twenty years. Who's featuring him?"

"Dynamo Solutions, the big holo reality guys. They do underdogs, Mama. Appeals to the kids."

"What do they want with those? Kids are bastards. You were the lippiest one. I should've drowned you in a bucket years ago."

"That hurts, Mama. That's really hurtful." Sascha grins and generously tops off his brandy. It's vanilla, and Capitol, and a little bit shit. But the train's going to have a better selection than the automobile. They've only just gotten started.

KerriAnne winds down her headrest and cranes around to the teenagers huddled in the back seat.

"You," she levers at the girl. Points with second and middle finger around her glass. "You're seventeen-"

"Next week," she mumbles, twisting her lace hem ragged.

"-and you're too old to be having a cry, missy. You look like hell. I got my babies to shut up and ask respectful before they were four." The older woman flicks something damp and white at her. At least the girl catches it. Passable reflexes. "Clean that up. I want you happy and sparkly before the Capitol gets a look at you. There's always cameras. The moment you got up on that stage, your privacy was gone. I don't expect you to glow, but you look like ninety-to-one odds. Let's aim for a sixty."

"You, little guy?" Sascha crinkles his eyes. The boy shrinks into the back of the seat, wiping his nose with his sleeve. "Drink up. Calm down. The bar's wide open."

He offers his glass, and the boy shifts it between both hands, as if not sure what to do with it.

Two-year escort Margarie Tanicus clears her throat, adjusting her clementine pearls. She glances to their Peacekeeper chauffeur for backup, but he's busy actually doing his job in here. "With an older tribute there would perhaps be call for a legal exception, but I don't think-"

"Margie. Margie, look at me. Look at us. Have you seen Mama Hangman, first Victor of Eight?" Sascha tugs KerriAnne's broad face down next to his own. "Would we make bad decisions for our tributes? Look at these faces. We know what we're doing."

The boy sniffs it, sips on the brandy, and coughs hard enough to make his eyes bug.

Sascha cracks up behind his hand. "He's fine. He's fine. Put some hair on his chest. Anyone got another of those?"

KerriAnne pours him another glass, and the mentor toasts his mentor. They smile broadly at each other. Waiting for a crack.

Something's going to happen this year. KerriAnne didn't raise this slick bastard out of a bloatfly-choked swamp, slap him presentable and Capitol-gracious on his Tour and every other live appearance, temper his nightmares for years and his furious embers for two decades, without having the wits to sense something under his skin. What do they say in Ten? If it looks like a patty, smells like a patty, and feels like a patty when your foot sticks in…

It's probably a bullshit patty.


It was chilled, unrestful gray, but at least it wasn't raining. Rain in Eight usually comes with a flavor of the month- acid, smog, unseasonal sleet. Margarie had looked put out that she didn't get to unveil her luminol umbrella. Lined up and whispering with Chenil on stage, Sascha had looked preoccupied himself.

KerriAnne knows her kids. Games-born better than biological, by reason. She had smelled something. She was starting to sight it out too.

There was time to shuffle closer while the mayor was still expostulating over their shivering tributes. She joined them shoulder-first, bumping solidly into Sascha. "We making bets already, ladies?"

"Margie's new hair, Mum. We're both thinking of matching," Sascha whispered brightly.

"It won't be the boy." Chenil shrugged with gentle regret, squeezing Sascha's hand once. "He'll be luckiest if he goes down in the bloodbath."

"I know, I know. I'll feed him up. Give him a good week." His face twisted.

"That's all?" KerriAnne nudged.

"And a wad of lint." The ceremonies were winding up. Chenil would get to head home for the year. Not so much for the Hangman's Daughter and the peanut gallery.

"All right then." KerriAnne drummed on her gut. "Pray to Snow they'll have a minibar this time."

She was smelling bull, and something was getting sticky. Chenil wasn't one to weep over a thirteen year old, after the two of them she'd lanced on the same branch. And KerriAnne would wager Sascha had never held a girl's hand on purpose since his mother took him to grade school, and never with that micro-twitch of concentration. He waited a good, long time before he put his hand in his pocket, but she would bet both tributes that it didn't go in empty.


"Welcome. Welcome. Bedrooms are in the forward car. Food is everywhere. Attendants are here and there, if you need anything. I can't speak for KerriAnne, but don't expect me to scrub your hair." Sascha makes a circle with his arms out, finishing with a yawn and slump into an armchair. The children are clinging even closer with their mutual culture shock. It's cute. They haven't figured out they're not going to stay buddies yet.

Ancia, sixteen, wrists thin as baby bamboo stalks. And Loomer, thirteen, red-cheeked with unfamiliar alcohol. Every damned working kid is a Loomer. There've been two others Reaped that KerriAnne can remember. Mothers with no class.

"Go on." She prods the girl in the back. "Try something chocolate. I'm sure you've never gotten your hands on that before."

Ancia makes a stiff step forward like a nutcracker. She reaches for a glass covering case over a pyramid of cupcakes, and pulls a mint one out. Breaks it in half.

KerriAnne coughs sharply.

Loomer pulls his hand back before he can receive it, balling it up behind his back.

"Bang." She smacks her fist into her palm. They both jump. "You died. You came up, offered him your own food. Didn't guard your stance. Didn't make sure he's unarmed." She moves to them and taps on Ancia's throat, stomach, exposed wrist. "It'd take him a lot of stabs to kill you fast. No muscle. But if his knife's contaminated, or if you can't figure out how to wrap your wounds, or he hits one lucky artery, you just signed your papers. Show me how you'd do it better."

Ancia presses her lips together. She holds out the cupcake again with a shift in stance, knees bent and shoulders tight. She glances to KerriAnne for confirmation. She gets a smack in the side of the head.

"You looked away from him. You died. Eyes on the fucking objective, girl."

Ancia forces a shaky exhale and starts again. Slowly, Loomer reaches out for the treat. Ancia reels it back in by a few centimeters, and Loomer freezes. She grabs him by the collar and pushes him away, lifting her knee for a soft bump to his chin.

"What was that supposed to be? Do it harder. His chest, if you're worried about the teeth."

Loomer still looks terrified. Sascha rolls off the armchair with half a bagel in his mouth. "All right, hold on." He chews and swallows thickly. "Loomer's turn. You're a smart boy, and you're hungry. You've found this bigger girl. Subjectively speaking. She's got supplies, but you're the one with a knife."

"How would I get one of those?" His curly head sags low. "I'm just gonna run from the Cornucopia. And nobody'll want to sponsor me."

Sascha has already fielded a series of apologetic brand-loyal sponsor calls, and he knows for a fact this is true. But he ruffles Loomer's hair. "You make your own. Whittle a branch. Sharpen a rock. KerriAnne made one out of tape."

"Got a better couple of little helpers now." She pats the sheaths on her hips. "But you don't need steel. You can stick a lot of hard things into a soft place."

"And that's where you're aiming." Sascha presses a jelly donut into Loomer's hand. "Your reach isn't great, so I wouldn't suggest you aim for the eyes. As she holds out the food, lunge and sink this into her neck as many times as you can. Knock her arms down with your free one."

Ancia's cupcake extends like an olive branch. Loomer plunges his donut knife into her neck, and she jerks suddenly at the warm stickiness. Full of hyperfocused energy, he plunges it again, impacting her chin, shoulders, and breastbone. Flecks fly. It turns to mush in his hand. He's batting down her arms and stepping in the farther she backs off until Sascha calls a stop.

Jam drips pinkly down Ancia's dress. She's squeezed her own cupcake into green paste. Loomer is crying, lips peeled back into a heaving grimace.

"Good," KerriAnne says. She snaps her fingers. "New donuts. Again."


He unfolds it when he's over the commode, reaching discreetly into an adjacent pocket. If they've got cameras, and he doesn't doubt it, he can hope they have the taste to not peer too close. Although this is the Capitol we're talking about.

13 is a go.

He crinkles the slip into a ball, tosses it in, and drains it away.

"Fuck," he mutters, shaking off. And pretends, for the camera crew, that he's gotten an organ or two caught in his zipper.


(Thank you so much to my submitters and readers so far. There are still plenty of spots open!)