Trigger Warning: Substance abuse, cannibalism and other District 6 things.


Mercedes Matthews, District 6

"I pretend to try, even if I tried alone."

Sufjan Stevens, Flint (For the Unemployed and Underpaid)


Mercedes Matthews can't sleep.

She's a smart girl. She knows that if she doesn't do well on this test, her grades will slip. And if her grades slip, she'll be less likely to get a good job. And if she doesn't get a good job, she won't have much money. And if she doesn't have enough money, her parents won't be able to help her out because they don't have much money either.

So here she is, at the kitchen table, studying. Her stomach is full of coffee. Her parents are both asleep. She knows that she should probably sleep as well but she can't. Every time she tries, she's tormented by thoughts of failure. She constantly feels like she doesn't know enough.

Mercedes Matthews feels like she should try harder.


Mercedes Matthews can't sleep.

She'll never get the chance to take that test. One slip of paper made sure she'll never take that test.

The arena this year is a nightmare. The only weapons in the Cornucopia were giant spiked maces. The only route away from the Cornucopia was over a series of delicate wooden walkways. That amounted to a lot of tributes falling into the water and drowning.

Mercedes is lucky that she'd thought to drop her mace as the planks had broken beneath her. She's lucky that she found the strength to pull herself out of the water.

She's not a skinny girl. Not enough exercise and too much cheap junk food made sure of that. Now she thinks it's a trade-off. Her weight puts her at a disadvantage on the treacherous walkways of the arena. But it also means that she's unlikely to starve.

And she's unlikely to eat, especially with Lua as her mentor.

She can drink, though. She can drink lake water. Even if it gives her cholera.

Mercedes knows she's sick. She knows she's going to die unless she kills everyone else and kills them quickly. So she can't sleep. She can't lie down and let her body shut down, for fear it'll never start up again. She has to keep searching the arena for opponents, a broken plank clutched in her hands.

Mercedes Matthews' body might shut down. But her mind won't give up.


Mercedes Matthews can't sleep.

She'd expected being a victor to be easy. She was rich. Now she could focus more on herself. She'd hoped to have spare time, time to have fun and make friends.

She hadn't counted on her mentor.

Every time Mercedes visits Lua's house, she sees a mess. She can't help but try to clean it up. Soon she finds herself working as Lua's servant, cleaning up her vomit, making sure her syringes aren't littered all over the floor. And Royss is just as bad. Now both of them are high and curled up on her sofa. Mercedes has to watch them both to make sure they don't choke on their own vomit.

So she can't sleep. Not when she could wake up and walk downstairs to both their vomit-stained corpses.


Mercedes Matthews is sleeping peacefully.

She's not allowed to leave the Capitol yet. Snow had made her sign a one-year contract, since she's the most recent victor and everyone is supposed to want her. She'd only had one client so far, and he'd been a wealthy fanboy who'd wanted to 'collect' every victor.

It probably has something to do with the fact that Finnick Odair has just come of age.

Mercedes has no clients. Her tribute is dead. She has no responsibilities and an entire city to explore. Yet she finds herself unable to leave the Control Centre. There are three people keeping her there.

The first is Finnick. He and Mercedes are the two teenagers in a room of adults. They both know it. They'd made friends quickly and now she doesn't want to abandon him to face mentoring alone.

The second is Royss. Mercedes can't leave him alone either. Finnick can at least function without her. Royss can't.

The third is Titus...

Mercedes falls asleep on one of the bunk beds in the Control Centre. She has no idea how long she's unconscious for. She's only even aware that she'd taken more than a short nap when someone is shaking her awake.

"Wake up, kid," a man's voice says.

Mercedes rubs sleep out of her eyes to see who's waking her up. It's Tesoro Bullion, which confuses Mercedes. She hadn't realised he'd cared about anything other than parties.

"What's up?" She asks, groggily.

"Your tribute ate my tribute," Tesoro says, bluntly.

"What?" Mercedes asks, rushing over to the screens. Royss watches the games with a blank expression on his face as Titus rips open the chest of the boy from Five.

Mercedes watches as the cheerful, friendly boy she'd met on the train - who she'd befriended so easily - tears his victim's heart out and sinks his teeth into it and it's a sight that ensures that she'll never sleep peacefully again.


Mercedes Matthews can't sleep.

She hasn't been able to sleep for the last ten days. The only rest she'd got was when Mazda, her tribute, had been caught and tortured to death by the boy from Ten, which had caused Mercedes to break down and lose consciousness. Luckily, nothing had happened to Renault, Mazda's district partner and ally, who'd managed to escape.

Mercedes hadn't been willing to trust either of her tributes. Her tributes - because only the foolish and naïve really believed that Royss was the one who actually mentored his tribute. They'd both been friendly on the train Titus had been friendly on the train and he'd turned into the worst monster the Hunger Games had ever seen.

Now she realises that there's no chance that Renault ever was a monster. There's no chance that he'll ever be a monster. He was just a kind boy with wide, blue eyes and a stutter.

Mercedes knows that she needs Renault to win. She needs someone who still has their wits about them to help her mentor and she'd prefer to have someone the same age as her. She likes Renault. He's tall, the tallest tribute in the arena, and handsome in a shy, boy-next-door way. If he wins, he'll be Mercedes' boy-next-door.

But, on day ten, winning looks impossible.

The arena's a frozen tundra. It's impossible to survive without firewood. Mercedes knows, from the numbers on her screen that are far too low, that she can't afford the firewood that'll save Renault's life. She'd only be able to keep him alive so far because Mazda had been a minor celebrity, a teenage ballet prodigy on track to becoming a professional ballet dancer. She'd had some money left over from Mazda's horde of fans but it's not enough.

Renault is the last true outlier left. Even the brute from Ten was caught by the Careers earlier that day. Mercedes knows that Renault is hard to catch - he is a running champion, after all - but nobody can outrun the cold.

All the Careers left are strong and popular, particularly the sly girl from Three who'd slipped into the pack and taken it over. Earlier that day, she'd managed to convince her allies that Renault was a psychopath who had to be killed. Mercedes and Finnick had had a good old laugh about that, though both were too worried about their tributes to laugh for long.

As Renault curls up in a snowdrift, shivering, Mercedes can do nothing to help. All she can do is watch the boy she'd begun to care about - her best shot at having someone to share the burden - drift off into an eternal sleep.

He's one of the lucky ones. He doesn't feel a thing.


Mercedes Matthews can't sleep.

Things had been strange since the Seventy-Fourth Games. Strange and uncertain and scary. This much she knows: Lumas is dead from an overdose, which is incredibly suspicious given that he'd been clean for years. Now the Capitol want to kill more victors in the Quell. There's a rebellion brewing and Mercedes wants to help.

She tosses and turns all night, worrying. Sometimes she searches for Lua and Royss in their houses, just to make sure they're not dead. She knows that they won't be. They are what the Capitol had wanted to turn Lumas into, docile, mindless and helpless. Unable to fight back.

They'll die in the Quell. Royss is Six's only male victor, so he's doomed. Lua has a smaller chance of being reaped but she's just as unlikely to survive another games. Mercedes finds a selfish part of herself hoping that they'll both die, just to give her a break. Six's only other victor, Taia, had been absolutely useless when it came to helping Mercedes look after two morphlings but at least she'd been able to look after herself. If Lua and Royss both die in the Quell, Mercedes will have about five or ten years of freedom before Taia gets too old and needs someone to care for her. Maybe she'll even be able to mentor another victor in that time.

But Mercedes knows that she won't give up on Lua and Royss. She can't give up.

It's like she's still in her arena. She can't give up. She just can't give up.

When the communicuff rings, she picks it up. It's Finnick, which surprises Mercedes. She'd always thought of him as a little kid, even though he's only a year younger than her. He's up past his bedtime.

Finnick tells her the plan. She's in.

She'll make sure that Lua and Royss are both in as well.


Mercedes is probably the least flashy victor of the sixties. She got a bit unlucky, sandwiched between Finnick and Lumas. In fact, Mercedes is one of the most unlucky victors, since she has to care for the morphlings on a daily basis with no help and she has to deal with the consequences of Titus's actions. If one good thing comes from Mercedes' bad luck, it's that she is in the perfect position to lead the morphlings during the Quell. It's probably only because of her that they're able to join the rebellion and Lua's able to save Peeta's life. Mercedes may not be as charismatic or strategic as some victors but she makes a great leader just because she's willing to take charge and get things done.

Speaking of getting things done, next chapter is going to be long. It was really long in my first draft and, while there a few scenes I'll probably be able to cut, it's about one of my favourite victors. It might take me more than a day to write it. Those of you who have read the books will know him as the boy who scored a three in training. Those of you who've read The Bride and The Widow will know him as Lumas Taffeta, the boy who rebelled before it was cool.