A/N: In this chapter, we touch base with all of the old victors, especially those that haven't been mentioned in a while! And along the way, a new victor emerges, one of my personal favorite characters from the series and one of the only 6 victors who survives the second war.
Fun fact: I'm planning for this story to take a major deviation from canon at the very end. Something absolutely major is going to happen that doesn't happen in Mockingjay. Hmmm...
Beetee Latier from District 3
Victor of the Thirty-Second Annual Hunger Games
There was one group of people in Panem who stuck together through thick and thin. Their shared experiences bound them like oath; it was their duty to support and affirm each other under any and all circumstances.
They were the victors. In the history of the Hunger Games, thirty-one people had entered the arena and lived to tell the tale. Twenty-seven of them were still alive. They came from all walks of life and all different realms of experience. Under the same umbrella, there were loyal career victors, skilled public speakers, alcoholics, businesspeople, artists, an even a practicing physician.
Of course, not all of the victors got along. Over the years, they'd segmented themselves into smaller social groups. The entire lineup was simply far too large for each victor to form a deep connection with every other. The ones who banded together sometimes shared similar experiences, having won their games a certain way or with a certain skill. More commonly, they dealt with the painful memories in a similar fashion.
Each year, the victors gathered together to watch the reapings. It wasn't for the reasons the Capitolites did it, with their fancy reaping feasts and Hunger Games viewing parties. They did it because they couldn't do it alone. It would destroy them. It was a very real thought as the victors watched the tributes step forward that one of them would soon join their ranks.
The three District 11 victors had gathered together in the back room of the Justice Building to watch the reapings. They had a brief hour to catch up on all of them before their own pair of tributes was finished with the goodbyes and it was time to head off to the Capitol.
"I'm scared for them," Bluebell muttered. "More so than usual, anyway."
Crow swallowed hard. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
Seeder stared at her lap, her eyes filled with a very dark kind of hatred. "The games are going to be fast and bloody this year. Snow will ensure it. After last year, it's the only option to… to…"
"To set things back in order," Bluebell finished. Her eyes trailed off uneasily.
First, the girl from 1 stepped forward. The tall, curvy, seductive Fragrance Richards.
"Richards," Crow murmured. "That name rings a bell."
"The female last year had the same name. She must be a younger sister."
Seeder shook her head, fighting the urge to cry. "Horrifying."
"Are they really evil? Or have they been manipulated?" Bluebell wondered out loud.
But none of them knew the answer. It was a difficult question.
Then, the District 1 male stepped forward. His name was Tanner and he wasn't very large but he had deadly eyes and fast legs and the kind of lithe figure that suggested he knew a million ways to kill you with a sword.
"You ever seen the dogs in the field?" Crow asked. "They're bred to kill. Bred to pounce at anything that isn't moving. It's just like the careers. Raise them to kill from the moment they open their eyes."
There was something distinctly revolting about that.
"It doesn't get any easier, does it?" Seeder asked.
They all knew what she meant. It had been a single year since her Hunger Games, but she looked like she'd aged a decade. She looked at the older victors like Tyrell and Electra and wondered until it drove her crazy how they still held on after so long.
Bluebell started to shake her head, but stopped herself. "There's a numbness. A numbness that comes after this long. It's hard to explain. I wouldn't have made it without Electra, though. She was my saving grace."
"It's great that you've got so many older victors to seek help from. Seek support from," Crow said. "Every single one of us is just waiting to connect with you."
Seeder shook her head. "Not the career victors."
"Tyrell is wonderful, though."
"I think that's right."
The cameras showed the rocky terrain of District 2. It was time for the next reaping. The three District 11 victors leaned forward, more grateful than anything that they had each other.
There was a lengthy series of traditions for career victors after they won the games.
Once their victor interview was finished, they were rushed back to their home district, where the Academy they attended threw the most expensive party of the entire year the same week as Parcel Day. Then it was time for speeches: speeches here, speeches there, ten times the number of speeches you'd think a person could possibly give in just two weeks. And when the Victory Tour came around, the whole party started once more.
After the dust had settled down, every victor did something different.
Citrine spent half of her time in District 1 and half of her time in the Capitol. She was so fond of the shiny streets and fancy shops in Panem's ruling city that she had a special house built for her in a gated community just outside the heart of the Capitol. She was nothing short of a celebrity; paparazzi swarmed her whenever she wandered the city like lightning striking at every moment.
Peridot was more solitary but loved the Capitol just as much. She had a very mystical, almost exotic feel to her persona that enraptured all of her fans. Her love of the Hunger Games kept her popular with President Snow, who arranged endless public appearances for her every year. She liked the attention but was ultimately ready to settle down for some peace and quiet as she entered her thirties.
Vintner was so utterly wrapped up in the workings of the government that he hardly ever visited District 1. His home in the Victor's Village was mostly occupied by his family, and the friends which he invited over for lavish parties that made Peridot put in her earplugs. He'd been on President Snow's good side since before he was even the president; in terms of the safety of his family, Vintner was probably the most secure of all the victors.
Riletta, having reached the age of majority and having finished her post-victory celebrations for the thirtieth games, returned to the academy of District 1, where she took up a job as a trainer. She was extremely popular, and the young people of the luxury district looked up to her as the greatest role model they could ever possibly have with them.
The two career victors of District 2, Maximus and Ether, couldn't have led lives that were more different. Maximus was a party animal – inviting friends, peacekeepers, and even political figures to his lavish home in the Victor's Village where the sun never really seemed to set. He'd had the inside of his house remodeled with Roman-style architecture, including large columns in the marble-themed kitchen. It earned him a spot in the Capitol's most famous interior design magazine.
Ether was still fiercely loyal to the Capitol, but she did not go out of her way to show her patriotism. The strange chemicals introduced to her brain during her games had damaged her irreparably, and she still had not recovered; by the best guess of her doctor, it would take several more years for her to re-learn some speech patterns and thought pathways to which her games had laid waste.
Much like the outlier victors, the career victors gathered together to watch the reapings. But they were not mourning. They did not need the emotional support. No – they were celebrating.
This time, Maximus had rented out a limousine and a night in one of the most famous party venues in the Capitol. Something unique about Maximus' parties was that Capitol citizens off the streets were allowed to attend. This resulted in the most wild bashes imaginable: overturned tables were the least chaotic things to go wrong. But he didn't mind. He liked his parties just as wild as he was.
Citrine arrived first, pulling up in a long fur dress made by one of the finest clothing designers in District 1. She was nearing forty but looked fantastic, with a bright twinkle in her eyes that masked minor signs of aging. She was one of the few District 1 victors who never sought out plastic surgery, content with her own inherent glow.
"Congratulations on your tributes," Maximus said, welcoming her through the door. "Fragrance and Tanner."
She nodded gratefully, grinning. "And to you. I have no doubt Slate and Volumnia will fight well."
Maximus had arranged for a giant holograph screen to be set up near the dance floor, so the party guests could watch the reapings. He'd hired an employee from the Hunger Games Betting Board to take bets from anyone who wanted to splurge on the best-looking tribute. And there was enough food to keep an entire cohort of avoxes busy. Oh, yeah. This was going to be the best night of their lives.
Over the next hour or so, the victors arrived one by one. Tyrell was the only District 2 victor who never attended these parties. His loyalty to the Capitol had dissolved completely over the years. It was a shame, Maximus thought as he stirred among the ranks of merry guests, that Tyrell couldn't appreciate the Hunger Games like they all did.
Before long, it was time for the nighttime re-run of the reapings. The crowds of guests cheered as Fragrance and Tanner stepped forward, soon joined by Slate and Volumnia. Four well-trained careers who would certainly make these games interesting.
"They'll be going quickly this year," Peridot predicted at one point. "Because the last year's games were just so long."
"How many days, you think?" Vintner asked.
Maximus slammed a hand on the table, grinning. "Five!"
Peridot gasped. "No way. Five?"
"That's what I said."
They watched the rest of the reapings with rapt attention, cheering every time a new child was called to the stage.
Hardly anyone, though, paid special attention as the little nerdy kid from District 3 walked out of the crowd. He wore glasses on a strap that wrapped all the way around his head, a rather unattractive look that was nonetheless weirdly intriguing. He didn't shake at all as he moved. His eyes seemed to be trailing off somewhere far away.
Maximus was suddenly reminded of Bluebell and how her eyes moved the same way.
"Beetee Latier! Congratulations!" the escort bellowed.
He just nodded. "Thank you."
"What's the kid's name?" Ether asked, trying to be heard over the cheering guests.
"Beetee!"
"TV?"
"No, Beetee!"
She sighed, yelling the name. "Beetee!"
Others picked up the call, and within moments, the entire crowd was chanting "Beetee, Beetee!" like he'd already won. Maximus had to admit that it was incredibly weird. Strange they were giving such reverence to such a tiny kid with such a small chance of making it through the bloodbath.
By the end of the night, "Beetee Latier" was the running joke of the Capitol. Maybe it was the way it flowed and clicked on the tongue. It definitely did sound like a joke. But nobody said it seriously. Even most of the people saying it didn't know what it meant, or even the fact that there was a tribute bearing the name in this year's Hunger Games. It just inexplicably caught on.
"Who is Beetee, anyway?" someone might ask.
Only a shrug in response. "Don't know. Must be some new gadget from District 3."
The hardcore Hunger Games fans knew who Beetee really was. The mousy, mysterious boy from District 3 who was so calm it was almost creepy when the escort chose him to die. Of course, none of them knew that throughout his life Beetee Latier would establish himself as one of the most highly-treasured geniuses Panem held.
The reapings had another re-run at midnight. By that point, all of the victors had returned to the train station to assist and advise their tributes throughout the chariot ride the following day. While the Capitolites chirped about Beetee – they were using it as a verb now – hardly anyone watched as the boy with the famous name indulged the escort's questions on the reaping re-run.
"How are you feeling, Beetee?"
"Not bad at all."
"You beat the odds, didn't you?"
"Oh, for certain. Several orders of magnitude below a single percent chance. Then again, it had to somebody, didn't it?"
Even if they didn't get along, every single victor knew every other victor's face and voice by heart. They were all gathered together every year on interview night, squeezed into the front row of Caesar Flickerman's auditorium. Best seats in the house. To watch the kids who were about to die.
They were seated according to district, with District 1 on the left and District 12 on the right. The victors crowded in the right end of the row, those from the higher-numbered districts, looked significantly less excited than the others as Caesar Flickerman strutted onto the stage.
Jaguar and Annley were seated near the exact middle of the row; they had the best view. In more than three decades, only two tributes from District 6 had ever taken home the Victor's Crown. At least the tributes from 7 and 11 had some experience with weapon-like objects by the time they were chosen. Districts 6 and 8, which focused on factory work, typically provided the most helpless competitors. District 6 often the weakest of all.
"You spoke with her, didn't you?" Jaguar whispered. He'd neglected to exchange a few final words with their female tribute, Evelyn, before her interview.
Annley squeezed her eyes shut. Her mind was clearly spinning. "Just for a minute. She said she wasn't worried, but… you know."
Jaguar nodded. He knew.
"I had a nightmare about this last night," Annley said. "That they burst out of the stands onto the stage. That they killed them."
The saddest thing, Jaguar knew, was that in the enormously likely scenario both of their tributes died it wouldn't even hurt anymore. It had been too many years to let it bother him anymore. Too many years for it to still hurt.
Annley tried to force out one more thing before the lights dimmed and the interviews started. Something, anything, just to prove that she could still speak and move and that she wasn't dead from how horrible it all was. But she couldn't say anything.
Even if she had, Jaguar wouldn't have heard her. Electra was whispering something sharply into his ear.
The pair from District 1 went first, as usual. They were strong and likeable and they won over the crowds easily.
A little farther down the row, the three victors from District 4 were sharing a bowl of popcorn. Mags was fond of popcorn the same way she was fond as nuts. It was soothing to crunch down on them. It must have reminded her of the things they ate in District 4.
Ripple liked them too. He loved the way all the little pieces of food, though they weren't all exactly the same size and shape, fit nicely into the same container. He seemed to try to make a regular rhythm with how he crunched the popcorn under his teeth. As far as all the other victors could tell, he lived a happy life. And they were happy for him because of it.
Makani wasn't focused on the popcorn, even though Mags offered it to him. He was just watching the stage, eying the tributes from 2. They didn't have any problem winning over the crowd either. Of course they didn't. District 2 was the lapdog of the Capitol.
When the boy from 3 entered, dressed in a plain grey suit, there was no special reaction. Makani had to admit that the entire look was stellar. It was incredible how much of an effect the ensemble had despite being so simple. Everything enhanced the nerd look, and the boy was clearly embracing it rather than trying to hide it.
"Beetee, Beetee, Beetee," Caesar chirped. "We've heard your name quite a lot of times these past few days, haven't we?"
The audience picked up the chant instantly. "Beetee! Beetee! Beetee!"
Beetee himself didn't pay much attention to the audience. He was looking straight at Caesar. The look was comfortable if not quite friendly.
"Have you thought any interesting thoughts lately, Beetee?" Caesar asked.
"I think it's funny how everyone thinks differently."
Caesar raised his eyebrows. "That sure is an interesting thought. What do you mean by that?"
"Everyone's hearts look the same, so they work the same. Everyone's lungs look the same, so they work the same. And everyone's brains look the same, but they work differently. Isn't that crazy?"
"I love tributes like you," Caesar said. "Making us all think a little more."
"Maybe if you thought a little more, you'd…"
"We'd what?"
You'd get rid of the Hunger Games. But he didn't say that.
There was a split second of silence. Caesar caught on in the blink of an eye and switched the topic immediately. He was an expert at this.
"What about you, Caesar? Have you had any interesting thoughts?" Beetee asked.
He was leaning on his knees like he didn't want to miss a word.
"No, no, no," Caesar sang, waving his hand dismissively. "I haven't got an ounce of brains in me."
"Would you like some of mine?" Beetee asked. He tilted his head and made a gesture of pulling something out of his ear.
"Uck! Not today. You keep it for yourself. You'll definitely want to use it in the arena!"
"I think that's right, Caesar." Nothing more.
Silence.
"Go on! Tell us," Caesar urged. "What are you planning?"
One corner of his mouth curled into the tiniest smile. "Can't tell you yet. But it's going to be electrifying."
The buzzer sounded. The audience picked up their "Beetee! Beetee!" chant again. Now, they had associated the name with the boy. For days, they'd been cheering for him without even knowing what they were cheering for. But now, he had their eyes on him.
A little spark flew in Jaguar's chest. Beetee sure looked smart. Maybe there were more ways to take down the careers than by being stronger than them.
He noticed suddenly that Electra was staring darkly at her lap. Of course. She'd won the games by electrifying her final competitors. Even slight mentions of electricity made her uncomfortable. All the victors had learned long ago how to be sensitive toward one another. Every victor had something they hated talking about.
"Hang in there, Lexie," Mags whispered, tapping Electra on the shoulder.
Jaguar just offered her a small smile. He didn't know what else it was right to do, what with the cameras watching them so intensely. He didn't even know what he could have done. He'd never been very good at speaking.
"It's so loud in here!" Izzy groaned.
Normally, the victors were seated in the front row of the Flickerman auditorium to watch the bloodbath. This year, though, Snow was mixing things up. They'd been assembled in the ballroom of the presidential mansion for a night-long party leading up to the start of the games. The ballroom was connected to a large theater, where the victors were to be seated while the bloodbath was shown.
The victors weren't the only guests. Izzy had had to withstand an entire night of being swarmed and jostled around by fans from the Capitol. Teenagers who were in tears while they talked to her, in disbelief of the fact that they had finally met their idol. Creepy old men who wanted to get close to her for reasons other than her autograph.
As one could imagine, by the time morning came Izzy wanted to do anything but watch two dozen children thrown into the snake pit. But there was no choice.
Long ago, she'd chosen Argus as her companion for these kinds of social events. Yes, chosen him. He didn't always seem to like her very much, but he helped her around nonetheless. Any of the victors would have probably helped her around if she asked them.
One time, Izzy had tried to apologize to him for always dragging him around. All he replied with was "Us victors help each other out".
After a night of "partying", it was finally time to go to sleep. They had to be up bright and early: at six o'clock the next morning, the bloodbath started. Izzy wanted to go to bed early even though she knew she wouldn't be able to sleep. Lying in bed was better than having to look at the other victors any longer. It was just too depressing.
"We're all rooting for Beetee. You know that, right?" Argus asked.
He'd wandered away for a quick moment to talk to the other victors from the higher-numbered districts.
"I mean, I figured as much," Izzy murmured. "How do you think he did it?"
"Did what?"
"Got everyone talking about him."
"I don't think he did anything. Sometimes things just catch on for no reason. Like fashions and new slang. People just started talking about him."
She shook her head. "It's incredible."
"I mean, good for him," Argus said. "It's just… weird."
"Mysterious."
"Yeah, that's right."
And they shuffled off to their bed chambers without another word. Izzy felt all night like the conversation was still hovering in the air. She felt so many words floating around the place. She wondered which of them would be completed and which would be abandoned forever.
Even after thirteen years, Cobalt still kept the blue stone the escort had given her back in the nineteenth games. It was her most prized possession by several orders of magnitude. Sometimes she wondered how it would feel if she lost the stone. Sometimes she thought she would die.
It wasn't just a piece of jewelry either; it was a good luck charm. It had carried her through the games alive.
"There's a difference, I think, between the things people believe and the things people want to believe," Lumen had explained once. "You want to believe it helped you survive, but realistically, it only encouraged you to keep your head up. You did that yourself."
As they settled into the plush red velvet seats of President Snow's theater, the victors were dead silent. There was no chit-chat like there was when they sat together in front of the Flickerman stage. Not a single sound from any of the victors.
The victors weren't the only audience members, though; several Hunger Games officials were present in order to regulate the mentors' choices of how to use their sponsor money.
This year, Cobalt served as a mentor to the mysterious yet charming fifteen-year-old named Beetee Latier. Every time she looked at him, her mind was simply blown. Sometimes she thought she'd give anything just to see inside of his mind for a single moment. The way his brain worked was just so fascinating.
"Five minutes until the bloodbath! Wow!" Caesar Flickerman cheered on the screen. "And now for the moment you've all been waiting for… the arena of the thirty-second annual Hunger Games!"
At first, all they saw were cement walls. Cobalt's heart leaped into her throat as she suddenly wondered if the gamemakers were re-using last year's prison arena. This arena, it soon became clear, was entirely different.
The tributes were in the center of an enormous circular maze. The cameras showed an aerial shot of the entire arena, panning over mile after mile of twisting pathways. But the tributes would have much more to worry about than running into the cement walls. The cameras showed ivy that crept at superhuman speeds, fast enough to knock someone off their feet and drag them down to a terrifying death via strangulation. Then there were the enormous spiders. Cobalt could hardly even bear to look at them.
"This year," Caesar explained, "The cement walls around the cornucopia will not lift until twelve tributes have been killed."
Twelve tributes!
"I'm going to throw up," Cobalt suddenly blurted out.
Next to her, Lumen put a hand over her shoulder. It was so comforting it was almost fatherly.
The horn sounded, the tributes burst forward, and all hell broke loose for the thirty-second year in a row. The careers armed themselves instantly and began knocking down outliers. Cobalt watched with a revolted grimace as a young girl clawed at the cement walls surrounding the cornucopia, trying in vain to escape as Volumnia from 2 ruthlessly sliced open her flesh.
The outliers ran helplessly in circles around the perimeter of the circle, eager to race toward safety the second the walls lifted.
Cobalt tried her best not to pay attention to any of them. It would fry her brain. Right now, she just needed to focus on Beetee. Just Beetee Latier.
To her delight, the scrawny young man from 3 was doing remarkably well. He had a knife in each hand and an entire large pack, snatched from the inner reaches of the supply ring while the careers were distracted axing down an enormous alliance of outliers far away.
Next to her, Lumen let out a sharp cry. The girl from 3, Trixie, fell victim to Tanner from 1. Tanner was armed with a bow and he was firing so quickly he didn't even look to see where the arrows were landing. Trixie screamed as one of the arrows landed in her chest. She was completely still in a matter of seconds.
Once twelve tributes had stopped moving, the cement walls began lifting. Some of the tributes lay down flat in order to slip through as fast as possible. In less than five minutes, the walls had lifted completely, revealing the complex maze network that sprawled out in all directions.
"Where is he? Where is he?"
Cobalt impatiently muttered those three words to herself as the cameras showed scant video footage of the tributes. There were a few glimpses of Beetee, but he didn't seem to be running. He was walking ever-so-casually through the depths of the maze, backpack thumping lightly between his shoulder blades. He moved his eyes regularly back and forth to match the pattern of the thumping pack.
"What's the word for that?" Cobalt whispered.
"Grounding technique, I guess" Lumen suggested.
Only once Beetee had settled down for the night did he examine the contents of his pack. A bit of rope. Some useless objects like a slinky and a yo-yo. A small thermos of water; half-full, by the looks of things. At the very bottom of the pack, there was a little silver package the size of a deck of cards.
Cobalt had no idea what it was, but Beetee must have, because he yanked open the package excitedly. There were lots of little pieces inside. Wires and bolts and bits of metal. He leaped into action immediately, running the parts through his fingers and fitting them together with a kind of attention and care that seemed far beyond his years.
"That kid is up to something," Cobalt whispered, smiling. "I love it."
Over the next three days, Cobalt realized something uniquely perplexing.
She had no idea what Beetee needed.
Her first instinct was to send him some kind of weapon, like a bigger knife or maybe even something like a hatchet. His sponsor funds were immense, even greater than those of the least popular career tribute. He was clearly intensely invested in whatever he was working on. He had to crouch over the area where he'd laid out the little mechanical pieces to keep them from blowing away in the wind.
Between the moments when he was working on his project, Beetee was on the run for his life. The spider mutts emerged early on in the third day, triggering one cannon shot before Beetee realized they were a threat. He'd seen a few of them the day before, but only briefly. It was now apparent they would be the greatest threat besides the careers.
These games were progressing quickly. Incredibly quickly, almost impossibly quickly: by Day 4, there were only nine tributes left in the arena.
That was the day that Cobalt finally decided what to do. She'd write him a note.
What do you need?
There was a chance it was huge a waste of money. Every single character cost as much as a bite of food. But if Beetee was going to perfect the thing he was working on, he would clearly need help from outside.
Beetee read the note and set it down calmly. He stared blankly at the sky for a moment, apparently deep in thought. Then he slowly approached the nearest camera and let out a whispered request.
"A battery. Some kind of core. And more wire. So much more wire."
Cobalt's eyes widened, her heart racing. "The hell? What does he mean?"
She was begging. She felt stupid.
"I know what to do." It was Electra. "He's making an electrical trap using magnets."
She could hardly believe she'd heard her correctly. A victor from another district, helping her to give hertribute the assistance they needed?
"I don't know what that means," Cobalt admitted, a little sheepishly.
Electra sounded like she'd swallowed a science textbook. "He wants to use a battery to spin a pair of magnets around an iron core. Making an electric charge. And he wants an output wire to coil around the core, increasing the strength of the current. Thirty, forty, fifty coils – way more than enough to kill a person."
Cobalt felt like a moron while she explained to the sponsor official what she wanted to send Cobalt. "A metal cylinder about the size of his fist. Thin copper wire. A few coils of it. And a strong battery. Wait… what about the magnets?"
"He has those already," Electra said.
The official grunted, checking his clipboard. "That'll cost nearly all of your funds. Are you sure you'd…"
"Yes. Yes!"
She had a fantastic feeling about this. Was there a chance she was wasting all of Beetee's money on a device that wouldn't even work? Absolutely, and that idea was terrifying. But something about the boy's eyes as he fervently worked told her he knew exactly what he was doing and that he knew exactly what he needed.
"Deep breaths, Cobalt," Lumen murmured. "He's going to make it work."
For a man who was never sure of anything, he sounded remarkably resolute.
They turned suddenly back toward the screen as the boy from 6 screamed at the top of his lungs. A whole field of choking ivy had consumed him, wrapping him in its lethal tendrils and pulling him slowly toward the ground. He fought with all of strength, but he wasn't strong enough.
Annley let out a holler of despair. Jaguar tried to console her, but it was no use.
"Go on, Beetee. Go on, Beetee."
She didn't blink once as she watched the silver parachute drift into his lap. He nodded once and then got to work. Yes, this was just what he needed.
Canary Roselock watched the theater screen with no noticeable expression on her face. The light of the hologram shone on her features and made them look much more ashen. Almost like a skull.
The fifth morning came with a booming cannon shot: Evelyn from 6 had wandered into the path of the careers. She didn't even have time to breathe before the arrow came flying out of nowhere, landing in her neck. She was swarmed instantly, the entire pack hacking away at her with their deadly weapons. There was a brief moment of deathly silence.
"Just one more," Slate from 2 muttered. "Just Beetee."
"Beetee, Beetee," repeated Tanner, mockingly imitating the Capitol audience as they chanted his name.
There were seven tributes left: the six careers and the boy from District 3.
"I'm not surprised, honestly," Canary murmured to one of the other victors, Argus, during their lunch break. "We all knew these games would go quickly."
But nobody had been expecting them to end this quickly.
"The question now," Makani said onerously as they returned to the theater, "Is whether the careers will split up or immediately fight one another once they're the only ones left."
"Don't get ahead of yourself, Makani," Cobalt grunted, clearly offended. "He isn't dead yet."
But he was as good as dead and they all knew it. He was smart and he was popular, but there was no way he could possibly defeat six careers. Even with his little electrical device, he was effectively helpless.
As if on cue, the cameras showed Beetee trekking quietly through the maze. His face was caked with blood from an early morning encounter with a cluster of choking vines, and one of his ankles was so scratched up it hardly looked like his foot would have been able to stay on. He was limping. That wasn't a good sign.
"I want to send him some medicine," Cobalt burst out. "Or a bandage."
"We can give him a small pack of cloth bandages," the worker rattled off. "That's all."
"How many points does he have?"
"Seventeen."
"That little gadget of yours better work well, Beetee," Cobalt murmured, glaring at the boy on the screen.
It would. Oh, it would. Because it had to.
Canary settled into her seat just as the rain began to pour down. Faster and faster and faster. Soon, it was pouring down at a seemingly impossible rate. The cameras showed lower-lying areas of the maze flooded with water, the spiders scuttling for shelter as their habitats became flooded and inhospitable.
A pair of spider mutts clashed with the careers mere moments later. The mutts were strong, but the allies were even stronger. They beat down the enormous arachnids with practically no effort at all. Cobalt swore and buried her face in her hands. If the spider had killed just one of the careers, Beetee's chances would have been exponentially improved.
Exponentially. Beetee would have liked that word, Canary thought with a tiny smile.
It was the six careers against the one outlier. The victors in the theater had split into two teams: the career victors, rooting for their individual tributes to win; and all of the other victors, cheering for Beetee as he continued his endless trek, desperately trying to keep his device from getting wet in the rain.
"I'm such an idiot," Cobalt muttered. "That thing isn't going to work. I could have gotten him a sword. A sword, for crying out loud!"
Maximus chimed in. "Maybe if he'd worked a little harder in the training…"
"Shut up!"
They bellowed those two words in perfect unison. Sadly, it was the most unified the victors had ever felt.
"He's going to do it," Canary called, a buzzing feeling rising in her chest. "I can feel it. Can't you?"
"Not really, no!"
Canary stared at the screen with a gaze so intense she thought her line of vision might burn through the wall. Other than her, not a single District 12 tribute had ever made it out of the games alive. But District 12 tributes were not their own race. The final non-career in the ongoing Hunger Games was the most intriguing and clever tribute the games had seen in so many years. With luck on his side, it was far from impossible he'd manage to snatch the Victor's Crown. If that happened, they would all cheer.
"He doesn't even have a sword," Peridot muttered from the front row. "There's no way he…"
"HEY!" shouted the boy from 4. He pointed down the cement corridor, where a single mud footprint shone clearly on the ground.
The swarm of six began following the path instantly. The footage cut to Beetee, panting and glancing behind him as he ran.
Cobalt had worked herself into a furious, furious crying fit. "Downhill? The fuck? Doesn't he know half the arena is flooded? Why's he going downhill?"
"He knows what he's doing," Canary whispered, dumbfounded. "Oh, he sure knows."
Beetee leaped into the pool of rainwater, finishing the long trudge to dry ground just as the careers burst around the corner. Their weapons were drawn, they were ready to kill…
Beetee flicked on the switch and his handiwork roared to life, thrumming with an electric current powerful enough to kill. The careers entered the floodwater, sprinting madly in their shoes that were not waterproof, and Beetee did nothing but stand and stare as the six careers collapsed in agony, writhing and screaming from the power of the current.
In a single instant, the career pack devolved into a flailing mass of twenty-four limbs. The contraption sparked and died out, ruined. But it didn't matter. All six of the careers had already stopped moving.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Someone standing just outside the theater might have thought an explosion had taken place inside. Every victor not from a career district burst into the most joyous sound of reliefs imaginable. There were hugs and high fives and even tears. Some of the victors kissed each other. A peacekeeper pulled open the door and yanked Cobalt out of the room. Already, she was needed on the hovercraft to speak with Beetee.
Through smarts, speed, and more than his fair share of luck, the unassuming Beetee Latier from District 3 had won the Hunger Games.
Canary was at the head of the onrush as the victors scurried out of the theater and into the ballroom, where Capitol guests who had heard about Beetee's victory were similarly celebrating. All Canary could do was smile. Beetee was a beacon of hope and he would be forever. Proof that anybody could survive the games. He was up alone against the six careers, yet still he had succeeded.
She wasn't just okay with being from District 12. In that moment, she was proud of it.
"I told her that machine was a good idea," Electra murmured.
Canary just shook her head, laughing. "Want to dance?"
Suddenly, there was no such thing as death or careers or reapings. Only the knowledge that any of their children could survive. Only the fact that there was hope. It was tiny, but it was there.
The victors danced in pairs and groups and whole parties. "Beetee! Beetee!" They took up the chant.
But it didn't change the fact that twenty-three other children were dead. And the same thing would happen the next year, and the next year, and the next year…
List of Victors
District 1 (5 Victors): Luxor Dodge (1st), Citrine Whitacre (9th), Peridot Partridge (18th), Vintner Aphelion (23rd), Riletta Esteban (30th)
District 2 (5 Victors): Tyrell Crowley (3rd), Lancaster Percy (6th), Ajax Mathers (15th), Maximus Decimus (21st), Ether Driscoll (28th)
District 3 (3 Victors): Lumen Orlaith (12th), Cobalt Thindrel (19th), Beetee Latier (32nd)
District 4 (3 Victors): Mags Flanagan (11th), Ripple Hart (16th), Makani Lee (26th)
District 5 (2 Victors): Electra Wilty (4th), Fumer Griffin (25th)
District 6 (2 Victors): Jaguar Stratton (7th), Annley Benz (27th)
District 7 (3 Victors): Rowan Dobson (2nd), Willow Merrick (13th), Ebony Merrick (14th)
District 8 (3 Victors): Georgio Bronte (8th), Burton Flax (22nd), Stitch Elrod (29th)
District 9 (1 Victor): Izzy Mayfleet (17th)
District 10 (1 Victor): Argus Collymore (24th)
District 11 (3 Victors): Bluebell Singer (5th), Crow Kensington (20th), Seeder Woodstock (31st)
District 12 (1 Victor): Canary Roselock (10th)
