Connor Merlyn, District Five male (18)- (POV takes place at age 14)

I never thought I'd be the new kid at a school. All my life my parents had sent me to each level of a fancy prep school that went all the way from preschool to high school. Then during the summer right after eighth grade they changed their minds and said this other school, Briarwood Heights, was much fancier and better. So here I was, wearing a fancy suit and new shoes and fancy hair and trying to find my way around a new building. It almost looked like my house, all full of marble columns and shiny wood floors and statues of people no one cared about. I didn't want to be ungrateful- I knew how much I got in life because my parents were rich. I just wanted there to be more to me than that.

"Excuse me, do you know where the bathroom is?" I turned around and saw a dark-skinned boy clutching a pile of books. "I'm new." he said.

"I'm new too, actually," I said.

"Oh, awesome! I was so nervous. I'm Lucas." the boy said.

"I'm Connor." I said. I would have shaken his hand, but he was holding books.

"Are your parents rich too?" I asked. What a dumb question. Everyone's rich here.

"Funny story. I got a scholarship. But I turned it down because my parents ARE rich. I didn't want to take it from someone who needed it," Lucas said as we walked down the hall, trying to find a bathroom.

"I'm just here because of my parents. I didn't get a scholarship or anything," I said. I hated saying it. I wanted there to be something I did all by myself, without needing my family. We owned a power plant, but I didn't do any of it. It was there before I was born.

"New school year, new you," Lucas said, and he shrugged.

While Lucas and I were meeting lunch, another boy set down his tray on our table.

"Mind if I sit here?" he asked.

"It's okay, no one's there," I said. I looked up as he sat down and saw one of the prettiest girls I'd ever seen sitting next to him. She had brown hair and brown eyes and a very friendly expression.

"I'm Felix and this is Sabrina," the boy said. "We went to school together before we came here."

"Ooh, what school?" Lucas asked, not thinking it was a big deal. Felix paused, and Sabrina looked down at her plate. I hated how sad she looked.

"You know, just public school," Felix said.

"Oh, you two got scholarships? That's so cool," I said. My cheeks got warm when Sabrina looked up at me with excitement.

"Yeah! I want to be a doctor and Felix wants to be a lawyer. What about you two?"

"I want to be in technology, but I don't have a scholarship," Lucas said.

I pretended to push some food around on my plate. I was hoping they'd forget about me. Then Sabrina looked right at me and I had to come clean.

"I don't really know what I want to do. I'm just here because my parents own a power plant," I mumbled.

"That's okay. You'll figure it out someday. We just started, after all." Sabrina said as she sat next to me. I scooted over even though I wanted to be close to her. I had just met her and I didn't want to scare her away.

"Oh good, I was afraid you were going to think we were rich losers," Lucas said.

"I thought you'd think we were street rats," Felix said.

"No way! You actually did something to DESERVE this." I said.

"Your parents had to start somewhere, too. You weren't all just rich from the beginning of time." Sabrina said.

And that's how Lucas, Sabrina, Felix and I became friends. We hung out every day from then on for the next four years. Somewhere along the line some of us even became more than friends. I didn't think I deserved someone as nice and beautiful as Sabrina. My father didn't think she deserved someone as rich as me. I didn't think he knew what he was talking about.

Gigi Sampson, District Five female- 15

When people think of the black market, they think of things like guns and drugs. There are lots of other things that are a lot safer for small players like me. Sometimes I deal in things like pepper spray or those little bladed key chains- things that help people defend themselves but aren't really weapons, so the Capitol doesn't look nearly as hard for the sellers. A lot of my money comes from simple letters. Communication between Districts isn't exactly ILLEGAL, it's just pretty close to impossible with all the border regulations. It's not worth the Capitol's time to come after someone who passed a letter to a border patrol agent and paid him a little to send it along to the next District. I get to help families and friends that were torn apart and I make money off of it. Honestly I care more about the second part but I'm not heartless. Sometimes I make discounts for parents or old people or whatever.

As long as I stayed in my lane I didn't have to worry about the Capitol. I had a few Peacekeepers that knew about me and took a cut of my labor, so I didn't have to worry about them. There were some other Peacekeepers I did free favors for just to establish a "relationship". I would never try to blackmail a Peacekeeper. I wasn't dumb. What kept me safe was just that if I DID get arrested the Peacekeepers involved would probably still get outed just because of the investigation. I knew how to manipulate but I also knew who not to mess with.

The one person I never manipulated was my big sister Vida. Most of the reason I did what I did was so she and my nephews could have a better life. Our parents had always neglected us and when Vida found out the twins were on the way we just couldn't let them grow up in that environment. Their father wasn't in the picture. Really "father" wasn't even the right word for him. He was a cowardly bum who split on his own children. Life wasn't easy for two teenage girls on their own, and we were lucky to have made it at all. We both had part-time jobs, with matching schedules so someone was always home to watch the toddlers. If it wasn't for my less-than-legal activities we'd have to do something worse. If I was ever going to feel bad about the cons and tricks I pulled, which I honestly didn't feel bad about often, I slept better at night knowing I was keeping me and Vida out of drug dealing or prostitution.

Two days before the Reaping I sat on the edge of my bed going through my tiny treasure box. Sometimes I regretted how fast I'd had to grow up. I wished I could have been a normal teenager, with things like school dances and makeup and dates. My little treasure box held all the tiny pieces I'd managed to scrape together of something close to that. There was an empty tube of lipstick, all that was left of the only time I ever shoplifted before I thought about how stupid and dangerous it was to steal something from a merchant instead of a fellow black marketer. There was a costume jewelry necklace with blue fake jewels that I liked to put on and pretend it was from my fancy handsome lover. At the very bottom of the box there was a shiny plastic ring that kind of looked like silver if you squinted.

This one's for my beautiful princess Gigi, I imagined as I put the ring on and pretended to be listening to Stefan, my fantasy hot boyfriend who bumped into me on the street once and was immediately smitten, bringing me to meet his family who owned a huge factory that made a ton of money. He got me a silver ring because I liked silver better than gold, not because he couldn't afford gold. And his family also owned a clothing chain and they gave me one of the stores to design all the pretty clothes I wanted and I got to keep one of every design. We would live in a huge mansion and Vida and the twins could come too. No more living in a ratty apartment with mold on the walls and a shower that leaked constantly. Yes, just as soon as I met Stefan, life would be perfect.