Author's Note

I do not own the Hunger Games.

First real chapter! And much longer than the prologues!

WARNINGS: Language and swearing in this chapter.


Luciente was woken by her mother's shouting ringing through the house. As the last fuzzy images from her dream faded away, she thought for a moment she could still hear the number 'fifty nine' ringing out. It was soon drowned out by noise from downstairs, the scuffling of the younger children waking or being fetched from their beds by the older ones.

She stretched out on the thin mattress and gazed at the ceiling.

Reaping day.

Universally the most hated day of the year across District Ten.

This was the day they had to send at least one - in all probability two – teenagers away to the Capitol to die.

They had no real need to worry this year, not that they knew that.

Bale, the eldest of her mother's children with her new man, banged on her door. "You'll have to get up if you want breakfast!"

She waved a hand at the door, not that he could see it. Bale turned twelve two months ago and had spent the last week on and off crying about the reaping. Ariel had tried telling him it was okay, it was already sorted – but he was having none of it.

Fuck him then.

The boy was intolerable anyway. She was pretty sure her mother must have been pregnant with him when she left their father – the ages didn't quite add up otherwise – and he was a smug, snide creature who seemed to think he owned every room he walked into.

Fuck she hated him so much!

Just the sight of his smug fucking face-!

The smell of bacon wafted up through the wafters. It did smell good. There were other things though.

She rolled into a sitting position and gazed at her reflection for a moment. Her skin was still tan, even now she couldn't roam so far. She combed her fingers through her hair, easing out the knots. It had grown long – almost intolerably long – since her mother took her knife away so she couldn't lop it off when it started getting like this.

Bitch.

She grabbed her towel and headed through to the bathroom while the hordes of the damned children were still downstairs eating breakfast. That was the one good thing about living here. Warm fucking water. At least, when the water heater was working. Her mother, the bastard she married, and most of her kids claimed they had no issues with it and it never seemed to happen to them, but more often than not it would conk out on her and Ariel, forcing them to either reset it or finish washing with cold water.

Cold water was fine.

She had washed with cold water for years.

She twisted the shower on and waited for the water to heat up before stepping beneath it. He didn't have warm water in prison she knew. Made her feel kinda bad enjoying this.

Only kinda though.

She finished up with her shower and wrapped the threadbare towel around herself before slipping out and padding back up to her room. Her dress for the reaping was laid out on her clothes chest at the end of her bed, the only two pieces of furniture in the room. It was a faded green, with an even more faded yellow flower pattern around the hems, and considerably too small for her now, since her mother said they couldn't afford a new one (and yet they could outfit Bale, hmmm?). She'd considered spending some of her remaining winnings on a new one, but that felt like a waste. She reconsidered that decision briefly given how tight the dress was around her waist, butt and boobs, but there was nothing to be done about it now. Combining her fingers through her hair, she dragged it back into a ponytail. Whisps remained loose, dancing around her face.

Sliding from the bed, she knelt and fumbled beneath it for the loose floorboard beneath it. It pried up under her fingers and she slipped her hand inside to retrieve the coinpurse, which she tucked into an inside pocket.

A sharp rap came at the door. She reached out and shoved it open. Ariel's slight figure slipped inside. "I brought you some food."

She grunted, flashing her teeth and taking the plate.

"Are you alright?"

Luciente raised an eyebrow.

"You know, the reaping."

She shrugged. "I'm not scared of the reaping. It's not my time to die."


Hyperion was woken by the blare of the prison alarm and sat up with a start. His cell door rolled open.

"ATTENTION PRISONERS. PLEASE PROCEED TO THE SHOWERS."

Not the routine. It should be breakfast first.

Right.

Of course, reaping day.

One of the guards stepped into the cell, banging his baton against the wall. "Get up you lazy piece of shit!"

He was up, he was up.

He scowled at the guard and strode from the cell. Up and down the short corridor the other prisoners were being hauled from their beds. Most of them were his age, around eighteen, but there were a few younger, and one poor boy of twelve who only cried and claimed he didn't know what he'd done whenever they asked him.

They trooped down to the shower block, where the showers were already running. He stepped under the cold water and washed down before taking a towel to dry off. Identical piles of clothes were being passed to the boys as they left the showers. One was shoved into his, a while shirt and black trousers, both emblazoned with his prison barcode, exactly the same as last year. He stepped back into his cell to dress. They were ill fitting, far too tight across his broad, muscular shoulders and thighs and hanging several inches above his ankles. He tugged at the collar, attempting to loosen it, to no avail.

The alarm blared again.

"ATTENTION PRISONERS. PLEASE PROCEED TO THE CANTEEN FOR BREAKFAST."

Yeah yeah yeah.

Breakfast was a rather small portion of oatmeal and a glass of water. He finished his slowly and steadily. At the end of the table, twelve year old Gideon was crying.

"What if they pick me because I'm here?"

Sixteen year old Keith rolled his eyes and stole his bowl.

Too slow, too bad.

The alarm blared a third time.

"ATTENTION PRISONERS. YOU HAVE FIVE MINUTES REMAINING FOR BREAKFAST."

Fuck, he bet she wasn't getting timed to the second for her breakfast.

Or maybe she was from what she'd said about living with their mother.

She'd have been better off staying wild in the woods.

They'd have been better if they made it.

She'd visited him yesterday, as had the families of most of the boys here.

"Don't freak out tomorrow," she'd said, and she sounded so… certain about it.

He only sighed. "You've seen something again, haven't you?"

She closed her eyes. "Maybe."

"Are you sure?"

"As sure as these things can be. Just… don't freak out. It wouldn't make a good impression."

The alarm made him jump this time. Gideon wailed and burst into tears.

"ATTENTION PRISONERS. PLEASE PROCEED TO THE MAIN DOORS."

At least it meant sunlight.

Fuck, he hadn't seen sunlight in fucking forever!

He kicked his chair back and began to make his way slowly to the door.

She could be wrong of course. She had been in the past. But she'd also gotten better since then.

He reached the main doors, and a pair of handcuffs was slapped onto his wrists and tightened.

"No funny business," grunted the peacekeeper.

Hyperion was tempted to flash him his teeth, but decided against him. That was a good way to take a bullet to the head. No mistakes or arguments were allowed in the prison. The feral part of him had spent two years gnashing its teeth and snarling as he forced himself to behave.

One by one, the boys were filtered out and led onto the road. From here they'd be taken down the road to the dusty little outpost town to join the line of other teenagers.

Two of them were going to be sent to their deaths today.

He had a feeling he knew who they'd be.