Carter Novak had been hiding his whole life.

When he was born, Carter's father was on the run from Capitol authorities. Taking shelter in alleys or the homes of close family friends was common as the men in white stormed by, shouting for the man known as Wendell Novak to show himself or risk being executed.

...

When he was four, the peacekeeping force - commonly referred to by those in District Six as the Whites for their uniform color - finally got a concrete location on Wendell and his family. At the crack of dawn, the squad of trained officers raided the broken down home. Wendell was caught and promptly shot, executed for rebellious behavior and smuggling dangerous weapons, including the firearms of fallen peacekeepers, to suspected rebels. His wife, Aran, kicked aside. And under the creaky sofa laid Carter, cringing at the loud noise and loudly asking what had happened to his Pa. He was dragged from his spot and slapped across the face, but it seemed the peacekeepers were through tormenting the Novak family. Or - more accurately - they were tired of the four year chase and couldn't muster the energy to finish off the family. Leaving the body of Wendell Novak staring blankly at the dingy ceiling and flickering lights above, they exited the home.

...

During the Rebel's Folly, the largest battle in the war and commonly considered the turning point in the fighting as Capitol forces rallied and obtained vehicles previously controlled by Six. Three quarters of the district was razed to the ground in the following carnage, though the citizens were to be explicitly kept alive at the orders of one Colonel Crius Marrow. After all, he rationalized at the displease of his soldiers; they'd need a work force to keep the new Capitol supplied. They found Carter, now 13, beneath a desk in his mother's flat. It had surprisingly held up through the bombs and the fires, though the rest of the house had not been so lucky. As he screamed at them to save his mother, to please, please save his mother, he was dragged away from the wreckage of a once peaceful home.

...

The Reapings. After a year's pause to rebuild, the President - former war hero Crius Marrow - announced something he'd been planning since the siege of Six. The Hunger Games. Carter was afraid. His mother - though alive - was now irreversibly crippled and couldn't get out of her own bed, let alone work shifts in the dirty factories of Six. Luckily, the brilliant president foresaw this outcome. To those who could not eat, he offered an out. The Capitolian Food Exchange, renamed to 'The Tesserae System' after the fifth games. This allowed families who were unable to provide food for one reason or another to be awarded with extra supplies - a quantity of grain for every extra slip in the reaping bowl. Carter knew the odds, so to speak, were not in his favor. So he did the only thing he knew how to do. He hid. And it worked, the first two times. Two other screaming boys were dragged off, but not him. He was safe. At Seventeen, Carter dared to hope he might escape the system. Just be able to work. To meet someone and to fall in love, leaving the thoughts of the games in a distant past.

Unfortunately, Lady Luck had different plans.

Hiding did not save Carter Novak at the Third Annual Reaping, as the people he'd used to obscure himself from vision parted around him as if he'd caught an incurable disease. It didn't save him as the Whites grabbed him and dragged him, kicking and screaming up to the stage and subsequently to the tribute train.

...

The Hunger Games. As he was raised into the old coliseum, Carter looked around in pure terror at his competition. The Ones. After two years of crying, beautiful children, the pair this year looked utterly terrifying. They were as confident as they were gorgeous, perfect looks marred by the cruel smirks crossing their faces. The Twos - big, like always. Everybody in Two was big. Carter made eye contact with the girl, immediately looking away. Everybody else was just like him - completely out of their league.

At the starting pistol, Carter ran blindly into the fray at the center of the arena. He hoped for a quick death. His mother - he knew she was watching. He wanted it to be quick, for her sake. Just one slash, and that's all it would take.

And then he tripped, sprawling out onto the floor. He heard the roars and high pitched screams of those killing and those dying. To his left laid a body. A thin girl with stringy black hair who Carter recognized as his district partner, Andrea Banks. The boy from the transportation district stifled a gasp, before his mind, in all it's panic, came up with a plan.

Crawling over slowly, feigning an injury, Carter reached his fingers into the blood pooling around his partner. Slowly, slowly, ever so slowly, he smeared it across his face. His body. Legs, arms, anything he could cover. Swallowing the rising bile in his throat, the boy from Six then laid the body on top of him, keeping his eyes half open and fixed to the sky. Everything inside of Carter was screaming. Screaming to get up. To run. To get the fuck away from Andrea's dead body, but he stayed transfixed in this spot. And nobody touched him.

Finally, there was one left. The girl from One, who had just slit the throat of her district partner who'd sworn he only counted 22 shots of the ceremonial pistol. She'd insulted him, saying he'd always been a bit slow on the uptake, and then the knife had hit his throat and he'd fallen to the ground. Raising her arms in triumph, the girl decided to take a victory lap. Cheering fans threw gifts at her. Water. Food. Undergarments from one particularly inebriated viewer. As she passed by Carter, he knew that it was now or never.

President Marrow was in the middle of congratulating Opal Stein from District One on winning the Third Annual Hunger Games when a shortsword was driven through the back of her head and she fell dead onto the floor. Behind her stood a bloodied figure with soaked brown hair and a trembling lip. After a moment of stunned silence in the arena, the President spoke.

"It appears... as if we have a new development. Boy. What is your name?"

"C-.. I'm- I'm-" Carter started, but he couldn't finish the sentence. Instead, he fell to his knees and began to weep, asking for forgiveness, proclaiming that he was sorry, sorry, so fucking sorry.

President Marrow glared on with hard eyes, the gears in his mind turning. It was obvious there were flaws in these games. The first two years had been fine. The winner had participated fully and accepted their victory with joy. But this..? This was unacceptable. He made a note to arrange a 'vacation' for the one responsible for keeping tally of deaths, as well as to arrange interviews with several prospects who had offered their help at running the games. The old arena would no longer cut it, as was obvious with the pitiful excuse for a Victor still bawling his eyes out below. New systems were in order for the Hunger Games.

...

Mentoring. Back in district Six, Carter could enjoy a relatively quiet life. The Capitol was unhappy with its newest victor, though he hadn't done anything to anger them. They hadn't been outsmarted - a mechanic hadn't been exploited. Carter Novak was simply the first tribute to effectively win through stealth, which some more dedicated fans would congratulate him for despite the anticlimactic end to his games.

During the following games, however, he was always, always afraid. Of his tributes - who looked at him with hopeful eyes and begged for his help in getting home.

Of his fellow victors. Magellan and Marcus had won the games 'the right way.' They were the Capitol's favorites. Their golden boys. And Carter was reminded of this fact every time he mentored. His wide eyed, shaking tributes were often the first killed as the pairs from Two and Four dispatched them in fear of another fluke victory or ambush by someone hoping to replicate their mentor's strategy. These pairs were noted to often work together during the preliminary stages of the games, though the alliance always seemed to fall through do to conflict of interest.

Carter himself was never treated badly, per say. The first two victors treated him with a cool indifference, but certainly made no effort to include him in anything they partook in together. He made few friends among the victors, but was treated with a somewhat grudging respect. As cowardly as it may have been, Magellan, Marcus, and many victors to come were big enough to admit that hiding under the body of their own dead district partner was not something they could have stomached.

...

As the new victors kept coming, Carter was happy to spend the rest of his life hiding. His home built far away from the main industry sections of Six and a small family with a wife and daughter was all he could really ask for. After so many failed attempts, Carter's hiding would finally succeed for just the second time in his life. He was left alone - one of the few victors afforded this privilege, and finally got some semblance of peace in his life. Save, of course, for that one excruciating month a year where they brought back the microphones and the interviews and everything else that forced him to drag himself back into the public eye and watch his shivering tributes be slaughtered.

Yes. Besides that, it was peaceful.


A little 'eh' on the ending; had some trouble with that part I suppose. Back to an in - games POV in the next chapter!