Trigger Warning: This chapter gets pretty dark, maybe even leaning towards the M-rated. There's substance abuse, cannibalism and severe trauma, as well as a few things I won't reveal up here due to spoilers but you can PM me about. There's also some bad language but, as you can probably tell, the situation warrants it.


Lumas Taffeta, District 8

"This is not my life

It's just a fond farewell to a friend

It's not what I'm like

It's just a fond farewell to a friend."

Elliott Smith, A Fond Farewell


There's a girl who Lumas Taffeta would die for.

But he can't die. He's a victor and victors are sacred. They'd tried to kill him in the arena and they'd tried hard. Lumas hadn't been naïve enough to hope that they'd stop trying now that he'd won his games. In fact, he'd even got some amusement out of imagining them in their meetings, arguing over how to give him a fate worse than death.

He might've even laughed if that hadn't given him too many bad memories.

When he'd found out how that argument had been won, he'd realised that he'd been right not to laugh.

Lumas Taffeta can't die for Tarantella Hessian. He can't volunteer to save her or lay down his life for her in any way. But he can go cold-turkey for her. He can endure all the tremors in his hands and the phantom pain in his leg and the maniacal laughter of the cannibal in his head for her. He can try to piece what's left of his mind back together.

He can try to forget that it's his fault that she got rigged into the Hunger Games.

On the morning the Sixty-Eighth Hunger Games are due to begin, Lumas arrives at the Control Centre early. He's too restless to wait somewhere else. He hasn't taken any morphling in six days, probably the longest he's been without a hit since his first dose in the Remake Centre. He can hardly keep the shaking under control.

The Careers and the Threes are already there. Lumas can't help it. His head fills with the voices.

I killed your tribute. Titus killed your tribute. I killed your tribute. My ally killed your tribute but I helped a little. I killed your tribute. Titus killed your tribute and I heard her scream for hours...

One of the twins from One turns to look at Lumas with sad eyes.

Titus killed your tribute, the voice in Lumas' head laughs. He tries to shake off thoughts of spiders scuttling all over him. Limbs like lead. Laughter and screams echoing down a tunnel. Teeth sinking into his leg

He can't move, he can't move, he can't move...

"I spoke to Dorian," The twin's voice pulls Lumas out of his arena. "He'll make it quick."

"Because he's a sissy!" The other twin crows.

I killed your tribute, Lumas thinks. In the bloodbath. How embarrassing.

"Dorian is not a sissy!" The first twin cries.

Lumas realises that the Careers had just been trying to negotiate Tella's death.

"Tella's not going to die," he tells himself, aloud. He doesn't trust himself to think it right. "She's going to live. You lived and she's much tougher than you."

Nobody saw us coming, though, Titus says, from the place where he'd made his lair in Lumas' mind. It was very clever of you, scoring a three and then killing a Career.

"Shut up, Titus," Lumas hisses. "There's no us. There's you and there's me."

But we made quite a pair, didn't we, Lumas.

"I said shut up!" Lumas yells.

Does it matter? I'll always be here, whether I talk or not.

"Lumas, are you okay," Cecelia walks over. Lumas realises that everyone is staring at him.

"No," he shakes his head. There's no point in lying. Cecelia can fuss over him as much as she wants but it won't change a thing.

"Are you wearing the charm I gave you?" She asks.

"Yeah," Lumas says, reaching for the metal cross hanging on a chain around his neck. He remembers the day she'd given it to him.

"The vampire has placed you under his curse," she'd said. "The only way to save you is to stake the head vampire. I'll ask Mercedes how Titus was turned. Maybe she'll know who the head vampire is."

"I already know who the head vampire is," Lumas had joked. "It's President Snow."

"No, no. I saw him eat some garlic bread on your victory tour. The President may be a wicked man but he's not a vampire."

Cecelia has some strange ideas. Sometimes they make sense to Lumas. Sometimes they don't make sense at all.

A lot of the time, nothing makes sense.

Cecelia guides Lumas over to his station and explains what all the equipment is for. Most of it is pretty straightforward - screens to display lists and tables, headphones to focus on what your tribute is doing, a communicuff to do deals with potential sponsors.

There's also a bucket.

"What's that for?" Lumas asks.

"If you need to vomit," Cecelia says. "We used to have one that we passed around but..."

"Was it my games?"

"Yeah..."

Lumas waits, full of nerves. A frail-looking old woman from District 7 sits to his left.

What happened to your tribute? Did I kill her? I didn't.

Did I?

You did, Titus pipes up. You killed everyone in that arena.

"Cecelia, how many kills do I have?" Lumas finds himself asking.

"Four," Cecelia says.

But maybe you have more than that, Titus says. Maybe you were in the mind of everyone who killed another tribute. I know you made me kill people. I certainly wasn't the one in control.

"How does that work?" Lumas asks. "I never said a word to you."

You were so, so skinny. Just one look at you made me so, so hungry...

"No!" Lumas cries, the terrible reality of everything beginning to dawn on him. This is his fault. Titus is his fault.

Yes! Titus gloats. Who do you think the real monster is, Lumas? At least I only killed in the arena. I was starving, so I ate. You were starving, so what did you do?

"I didn't do anything!"

What did you do, Lumas?

"I-"

"Lumas," Cecelia interrupts. "The games are starting. I know you have a vampire problem but you need to focus right now."

Titus laughs. I can't believe she thinks you have a vampire problem! We both know that vampires aren't real. Humans are the real monsters. Humans like us. Humans like y-

"Titus, I swear, if you don't leave me alone for five fucking minutes I will come in there and hunt you down," Lumas spits.

"Language!" Someone calls from across the Control Centre.

"Give him a break, Gajin," Cecelia yells. "This boy is under a vampire's thrall. He doesn't know what he's doing."

Lumas sighs and turns to the screen as the tributes rise to their places. Titus seems willing to leave him alone for now, which is a relief. It's hard because he's stuck in the Control Centre with a bunch of other victors. They make things hard. According to Woof, he'd almost overdosed after he'd stopped in District 6, been forced onto a stage to give a speech about Titus and then had lunch with Titus' mentor.

If he'd been anyone else Lumas would've wondered why the Capitol made him do a victory tour. One or two victors had managed to get out of such things due to severe trauma and what Lumas had been put through in his arena had been enough to disgust Capitolites. But Lumas knows that the Capitol wants to make him suffer for his rebellion as much as possible. If they push him over the edge, if he snaps, even if he dies, it won't matter to them.

If they can't kill him, they'll make him wish that they had.

But he can't give up. Not when Tella needs him.

He can't even try to chase the ghosts away with morphling. It's just like when he was paralysed on the floor of that tunnel. He can't move an inch.

The arena is a frozen wasteland. The tributes are smothered under layers of clothing. Lumas can still recognise Tella instantly. She stands tall and confident, her blonde-streaked braid poking out from under a hat. He knows her so well. They've been best friends for as long as Lumas can remember. They'd relied on each other for survival on the streets of District 8, two orphans with nobody else to look after them. He'd lost count of all the nights she'd comforted him over his nightmares.

Because, even then, Lumas had had nightmares. Nightmares about monsters roaming the streets and ruined bodies in alleyways. About the things that the peacekeepers had done to his mother in her cell and swing of her corpse at the end of a noose. About a stranger's body pressed against his, their struggles getting weaker and weaker as his garrotte bit into their neck...

He'd starved before his games. He'd suffered before his games. He'd fought before his games. He'd killed before his games.

But his games had given his nightmares teeth.

Lumas knows he can't live without Tella. She's the only person keeping him from being devoured.

Hope blooms in Lumas' heart when he sees that his best friend is launching between two scrawny outlier boys. It only grows when he sees a coil of rope peeking out of the pile.

Rope is their weapon, something so easily woven from scraps found in the alleyways of Eight. The only way to survive had been by garrotting people.

"She's got this..." Lumas whispers.

"She has," Cecelia gives his shoulder a comforting squeeze.

The moment the gong sounds, Tella rushes into the bloodbath. There's noise all around Lumas, from the Careers cheering on on their tributes to Cecelia quietly whispering to her father in Heaven. Lumas knows that her father isn't in Heaven, he's in District 8. According to Cecelia, Heaven is where good people go when they die, which doesn't explain anything, really.

But, right now, Lumas Taffeta isn't searching for an explanation. He's in the arena. There's nothing in the world but him and the girl running for the rope.

Then there's a sickening cracking noise and the ice underneath Tella breaks, plunging her into the freezing water.

"No!" Lumas cries. "No. No. No. No. No. No. No. Get up! Get up!"

Tella struggles to find a purchase on the ice around the jagged hole she'd fallen into. Somehow, she manages to struggle out and lie on the ground, shivering and breathless.

Meanwhile, the Careers are arming themselves...

"Please, Tella," Lumas begs. "Please get up. I need you to win this. Please! I... I..."

He's helpless. He's paralysed as his ally's screams are echoing down the tunnel. He knows that Titus is coming and there's nothing he can do to escape. There's nothing he can do to save her.

He holds his breath as Tella crawls towards the rope...

And another hand picks it up.

"Please, fight back," Lumas pleads as another girl stabs at Tella again and again with a knife. "Don't let her kill you! Come on, Tella! I... I love you."

He'd never told her. Why had he never told her?

"Hey, Lumas," someone approaches him from somewhere to his left. "I-"

"Don't talk to me!" Lumas snaps. He turns to see Finnick Odair and realises that he's mentoring the girl who'd killed his best friend. "It's your fault she's dead."

He gets up and storms out, limping a little. He still hadn't quite got used to only having one leg but he'd always had good balance.

This is your fault, your fault, your fault, your fault...

The voice in Lumas' head sings the same song, over and over. He has no idea whether it's him or Titus or even if there's a difference anymore. He knows that he needs morphling but he can't beg for it. That'll be admitting defeat.

But he can't fight anymore. He'd been fighting for six days but that just isn't enough.

In his head, there's a cannibal chasing him down. He needs to escape.

Lumas doesn't want to beg Royss Cardinal for morphling but it's better than begging the Capitol.

So he comes crawling back to the Control Centre, trying not to look at the other mentors. He can't avoid Mercedes. She gives him a disapproving look, like he's a dirty criminal.

Lumas knows that he'd been a criminal before his games. He'd been a thief and a killer. The look still hurts.

I didn't want to be like this, he wants to say. This isn't me. This is what they turned me into.

But he needs this escape.

Your tribute ate half my leg. Lumas thinks, as Royss hands him several vials of morphling.

He can't wait any longer. He shoots up, right there in the Control Centre, with everyone watching.


Lumas Taffeta wakes up in a pile of bodies.

For a moment, he thinks they're dead. He's definitely used enough to death. There's this one woman, as pale as a ghost with bruises all over her throat, who Lumas realises is still breathing and then a few vague memories of what she'd asked of him the night before break into his mind and add a new layer of horror to everything.

He'd been wandering around the Capitol, high, and then someone had put an arm around his shoulders and asked him to come with them. He had. He'd been too high to realise what was happening and then, and then...

Lumas has to get out of here. It's all too much. His best friend is dead and he's a total wreck of a person. The morphling is making him so weak, so easy to use. But he can't resist it. His body is falling apart. His mind is in splinters. He knows that he doesn't have long before Titus finds him again.

Being in so many life-or-death situations has made it easy for Lumas to spring to action, to prioritise things. He sits up and spots his prosthetic leg discarded on the floor, along with a pile of clothes. He crawls out of bed, batting away the grasping hands of half-conscious Capitolites, to get to his leg. Then, once he's attached the prosthetic to his stump, he searches for some clothes on the floor. Preferably his own.

But if Lumas walks out of here wearing a stranger's million-denarii trousers, it won't weigh on his conscience much. It'll be his only way of punishing the Capitolites in the bed for taking advantage of him when he'd been high.

Old habits die hard, he thinks to himself, as he plunders the room for as many expensive items as he can fit into his pockets. It's not because he needs any money. It's because he feels scared and helpless and exposed and he wants revenge.

Outside of that stifling bedroom, Lumas wonders what to do with himself. He wanders down the street and into the night, trying to fight his craving for morphling.

Lumas Taffeta realises that he should probably kill himself.

When he'd come back from the Capitol, with only one leg, a head full of nightmares and veins full of morphling, he'd thought about it. Two things had kept him alive. The first had been Tella, partly because she'd made him feel better and partly because he'd known that they'd have hurt her if he'd killed himself. Now she'd been killed, Lumas doesn't have that reason to live anymore.

The second reason would be that killing himself would just show the Capitol that they'd beaten him. But now Lumas is willing to admit that they had beaten him. They'd won.

Now he just needs to find a way to kill himself that will give them all the middle finger. That'll be his last act of rebellion.

Lumas settles on jumping off the roof of the Control Centre. Even if it's like the Training Centre and there's a force field on the roof, there's no harm in trying. Maybe, if he's lucky, he'll land on Finnick Odair and get one final kill. He asks a stranger for a lift and they're happy to give him one. Either they're doing it because he's famous or because they're a serial killer.

Put me out of my misery, will you?

They're not a serial killer. They drop Lumas off right in front of the Control Centre and drive off.

Lumas walks towards the elevator and wonders which floor will be the best to jump from. Is there even a way he can get to the roof? He can't remember the roof button from the last few times he'd been in this elevator but he hadn't been particularly focused on it.

While he's wondering things, the elevator doors open and Finnick Odair steps out.

"Ah, Lumas," Finnick says. "I was wondering when you'd come back to gloat."

"Why would I gloat?" Lumas asks, confused.

"Arethusa's dying," Finnick says. "Tarantella's being avenged."

"What?" Lumas asks, astonished, "But it's only... What day is it?"

"Night ten," Finnick says.

Night ten...

Lumas has been really, really high for the last ten days.

They could've done anything to him.

"If you want to, you can go up and watch her die," Finnick says. "I've got an appointment but I'll hopefully be back for the main event. You should go watch it, get some catharsis."

"Okay," Lumas mumbles. Suddenly it feels wrong to kill himself. He at least wants to make sure that the girl who'd killed Tella dies before he does. He strides into the elevator with absolute confidence and presses the button for the thirteenth floor.

"Hide your burgers, Taffeta's back." Someone mutters as Lumas walks into the room. There are a few snickers, which makes Lumas shudder.

There's a reason why Lumas vomits every time he smells meat. It's not a very funny reason.

The Control Centre is oddly empty. The only mentors left are from One, Three and Four. Then there are Haymitch and Chaff, who are both taking shots in a corner, hanging around even though all four tributes from Eleven and Twelve appear to be dead.

Lumas limps over to the Four station and takes a seat. The Four mentors all shoot him brief glances but return to their work. Apart from from one.

"You alright?" a young woman with dark red hair asks. She looks familiar but Lumas can't remember her name.

"Yeah," Lumas says. "Finnick said I could come here."

"I had a feeling he would," the woman says, with a knowing smile. "This year's been hard on him."

"Has it?" Lumas asks, with a slightly hysterical laugh.

"It was tricky finding willing volunteers this year," the woman says. "After..."

"Titus?" Lumas asks. The cannibal's only Career victim had been Gold, the boy from One, but it must've sent shockwaves through every district.

Oddly, there'd been two outlier volunteers. Lumas can't remember the districts, only an eager, bloodthirsty brute with a scar across his forehead and a pretty, regal girl with dark, depthless eyes. The only outlier district left in the games seems to be Three so maybe the girl's still alive. She could've been from Three. The boy definitely hadn't been.

"Yeah..." the woman says. "We got two young and eager kids to volunteer. Arethusa's sixteen. Rake was seventeen."

"That's not that young," Lumas pipes up.

"By outlier standards, maybe," the woman concedes. "The thing about Rake is that he used to be Finnick's best friend. But then Finnick got reaped and got famous and they drifted apart. Rake was angry and jealous. He wanted to be better. It got so bad that Finnick couldn't bear to mentor him. Scared of failing him, probably."

"So he chose the girl instead," Lumas says. "That's cold."

"He's just a kid," the woman says. "He doesn't know any better. Finnick's always struggled with mentoring. He started out too young and now... he's got no confidence. I think he's jealous of you."

Lumas laughs, bitterly. "He's an idiot, then."

"He's not," the woman shakes her head. "You were brave enough to mentor your best friend. You had her, until the very end. I think that's the one thing that Finnick wants right now. Your courage."

"I don't have any courage," Lumas says. "I'm scared of everything. I-I'm not even sure I can live with it anymore. With Titus in my head."

"I think you can," the woman says. "This is just a rough year. You're barely out of the arena and right in the spotlight. But the victor of this games is bound to be someone memorable, someone to take the Capitol's mind off you. You'll get better, Lumas."

"I won't," Lumas sobs. "The morphling... I tried fighting it. I lasted six days and you- you saw me at the end. I'm just going to get worse and worse and worse until I die. Or I end up like Lua or Royss and I can't think for myself anymore. I just... I just..."

He breaks down. The woman from Four pulls him into a hug, which feels nice. It helps keep him steady as shakes tear through his body.

"When was the last time you ate?" She asks.

"I don't know," Lumas sobs. "I can't remember what happened. I can't remember what they did to me."

"Well, let me get you some food," the woman says, softly. "You can eat fish, right?"

Lumas nods, hesitantly. He can eat fish. It's not like people.

The woman walks over to an avox and orders some food. Lumas is left alone with two men from Four. They both look sad. He glances at the screen showing the games, to see how the girl from Four is doing.

It's definitely the girl who'd killed Tella. She's small and slight for a Career. A lot of her protective clothing is missing. Wild strands of auburn hair escape from underneath an askew hat. Her snow goggles are gone, her eyes wide, blue and full of terror. Her face is pale. She digs through the snow, desperately searching for something.

A plate of fish arrives. Lumas eats slowly, trying to keep control of his appetite.

Appetite is something that scares him. Sometimes he'd gone days without food, shut up in his Victor's Village house. Tella could always convince him to eat.

"I didn't let you starve when we were on the streets, I won't let you starve now you're rich," she'd said.

Who's going to keep him from starving now she's gone?

While the girl from Four is digging, she begins to vomit a dark, blood-red liquid.

"What's happening to her?" Lumas asks, setting down his plate of fish.

"We think she's been poisoned," the woman from Four says.

"Who did it?"

"We don't know," the woman says.

"Probably Hirose," the younger of the two men - only middle-aged - offers. "I know a traitor to the alliance when I see one."

"Hirose?" Lumas asks.

"Ramona Hirose," Finnick strolls over from the door. "District 3 girl, seventeen years old, volunteer, two kills so far" he pauses. "Pretty... but absolutely terrifying."

"Finnick!" The middle-aged man says.

"Welcome back!" The older man adds.

"I managed to get out early. My client felt bad about forcing me to miss my tribute's death," Finnick explains. "How's she been doing, Sirena?"

"She's still sick," Sirena - that's her name - says. "Hirose's sent her on a wild-goose chase for some kind of antidote."

"Are the Ones still asleep?" Finnick asks.

"Yeah," Sirena glances over to the One mentors. "I've got no idea how they're doing. The Threes seem pretty cool about everything, but they're Threes so that doesn't mean much."

On the screen, the girl wails as one of her frostbitten fingers snaps off.

"Well," Finnick pulls a chair over from the empty Five station. "Arethusa's doomed. I can't say I didn't see it coming. I'm only grateful that she'll never be my neighbour."

He's trying to sound casual but there's pain in his voice. Lumas wonders if it's because Arethusa isn't the tribute he'd been hoping would win.

"How did your male tribute die?" Lumas blurts out.

"Ten," Finnick says, his voice distant. "He snuck up behind Rake, put a knife to his throat and tried to threaten his allies. It didn't work. Hirose just let him die. It was smart of her. Rake was her biggest threat."

"How did a girl from Three get into the Careers?" Lumas asks, changing the subject. He remembers the girl from Three in his games, Digita. They'd met by chance in the arena and become allies.

Digita had run away from Lumas when the spiders had attacked him. He hadn't blamed her, even then. He'd been a deadly person to get close to.

He just wishes that she hadn't run straight into Titus.

"We're still wondering," Finnick says, bitterly. "Forget ten steps ahead of us, Hirose's ten-thousand steps ahead of us. I'd be impressed if..."

"I'm sorry about Rake," Lumas says. "I've been there. Shit, I'm there right now."

Finnick gives a rueful smile. "I'm actually quite glad that Rake's dead. Ten did it quick. Discredit where it's due, he probably would've made it a lot more painful if Rake's allies hadn't been there, but I'm pretty sure that Rake didn't feel a thing. Not what it would've been like if Hirose had got to him. Besides, now I know he'll never end up like me."

Lumas is tempted to ask Finnick why he feels this way then he sees the mark on the side of Finnick's neck. It looks like a bite mark.

He realises that Finnick Odair hates being perfect. Almost as much as Lumas hates being a scarred and traumatised addict.

He thinks back to the Capitolites from earlier that night, the woman with the bruises on her throat from his hands. If an ugly, broken thing like him had been wanted like that, how much does the Capitol want Finnick?

"I think I understand you, Odair," Lumas says, quietly.

"I think I understand you, Taffeta," Finnick replies.


It takes several hours for the girl from Four to die.

During that time, Lumas Taffeta makes friends with the four mentors. They teach him some rude sea shanties and he teaches them some old folk songs from before the Dark Days. Ones about the government that people aren't supposed to know.

Lumas had chosen singing as his talent just so the Capitol would be forced to hear him. He'd decided that the singing was just a cover-up. His real talent would be pissing off the Capitol.

That's going well.

More and more reasons to live come with every passing hour. Lumas discovers that he'd achieved a somewhat legendary status among victors, even the Careers. He's the boy who'd faced Titus and lived.

"But the morphling..." Lumas says, sure that his addiction had been taken as a sign of his weakness.

"I don't think any of us are under the impression that you got yourself addicted," Sirena says, with hushed tones.

"I didn't," Lumas says.

Lumas Taffeta hadn't been addicted to morphling until he'd been in the Remake Centre after his victory. The doctors had told him to take morphling at least once a day, to help him with the pain from his leg. He'd known, even then, that they'd botched the leg operation on purpose and they were trying to get him hooked. He'd tried to fight his craving for the drug. Maybe he would've won if they hadn't given him so much while they'd been treating his injuries.

But Lumas had found himself shooting up in his bathroom with the door locked to keep all those concerned eyes away. He'd cried for hours over it. He was still trapped, still in his arena, still fighting like a cornered rat.

Lumas had felt like he hadn't won the Sixty-Seventh Hunger Games. He hadn't won anything at all.

He'd only lost and lost and lost...

All he does is lose.

One of the twins from One cries out, suddenly.

"Stop it, Régine! That is nasty!"

"What's happening?" Finnick calls over.

"Régine just killed Dorian," the male twin calls back.

"She's really sick," the other twin tries to defend her tribute.

"I think it's Hirose's fault," the male twin concludes.

"What gave you that impression?" Finnick deadpans.

The twin laughs hysterically. "I swear, if that sneaky little traitor wins-"

"Shut up, Gloss. Arethusa's dying," Finnick interrupts. "Wow, I can't believe she made it to third place."

Finally, the girl from Four, the girl who'd killed Tella, vomits into the snow for the final time. She's not a pretty sight. Her face is grey, covered with tears and a feverish sweat, despite the cold. Her fingers are nothing but blackened stumps.

Lumas feels relieved. He can't bear the thought of Tella's killer winning, being celebrated and mentoring every year.

Isn't her suffering fun! Titus speaks for the first time in days. Maybe the morphling had scared him away.

"I'm not enjoying her suffering," Lumas whispers, indignant. "I'm..."

What are you doing?

Lumas realises what he's been doing. He is enjoying the girl's suffering. He has a reason to. She'd murdered his best friend.

Maybe that was what the Capitol had thought when they'd founded the Hunger Games.

He's lowering himself to their level. He's as bad as them. A sadist. A monster.

"Who's left," Lumas asks, hoarsely. Somebody's going to survive this games. Even if Tella hadn't survived.

Even if Lumas might not.

"Régine and Hirose," Finnick says, as the other Fours begin to pack their things. "Want to see this through?"

"Yeah," Lumas says, quietly. He'd lost Tella to these games, the least he can do to say goodbye to her is to wait it out.

"Who d'you want to watch," Finnick asks. "Crazy, psychopathic District 1 traitor who's probably just been poisoned or mysterious, emotionless District 3 traitor who's probably just poisoned her."

"I'll take the District 3 traitor, please," Lumas says.

They shuffle over to the District 3 station, with Finnick giving a polite greeting to the mentors. They don't seem to mind Lumas, even though he'd killed their male tribute last year. He hadn't even known it at the time. He'd just seen a body in the dark and attacked. Then, about a day later, the boy's district partner had found him with the electric lantern she'd picked up in the bloodbath. She'd proposed an alliance.

Neither of them had known what Lumas had done to the boy from Three. He doubts she'd have allied with him if she'd known. He doubts he'd have let her ally with him if he'd known.

The girl on the screen has found a cave to shelter in. All of Lumas' instincts tell him that she's in danger but that's because his own experiences with caves have been particularly bad. Ramona looks so peaceful, sat against the wall with a serene smile on her face. How anyone can look so calm in the arena is a mystery to Lumas. Maybe it has something to do with the two cannons that she'd just heard.

"What do you think of her?" Finnick asks, casually. It all feels a little absurd to Lumas. It's a reminder that, even after everything he'd suffered, he's only eighteen years old. Here he is, talking to a friend - that's another strange realisation, that Finnick is his friend - about a girl.

"You were right about her being pretty," Lumas says.

"Yeah," Finnick says, a little sadly. "I'm not into poisoners, though."

She looks good enough to eat, Titus sneers. Doesn't she?

"Titus, you're dead. You can't eat anyone. Especially not Ramona," Lumas says. Then he gasps.

Titus is dead.

He'd been killed by a cave-in while he'd been eating Lumas' leg. The same cave-in that had forced Lumas to amputate what remained of his leg, since it had been pinned under the rocks. The gamemakers must've been laughing. They'd killed the cannibal and crippled the rebel with the same hazard.

That voice in Lumas' head is just something else. A drug-fuelled nightmare or a guilty conscience.

"Why do you keep talking to Titus all the time?" Finnick asks. "Is he still alive in your head?"

"He was," Lumas says. "I think I just got him out."

"Well done," Finnick pats him on the back.

There's a brief pause. Finnick looks bored.

"When will Hirose do something?" He asks.

"She doesn't need to do anything," Lumas says, calmly. "She's won. All she needs to do is wait for Régine to die."

Lumas quite likes watching Ramona Hirose, even though she's not doing much. She looks cold and calm, right at home in the freezing arena. He remembers writing her off at the reapings for her clean skin and her expensive-looking dress. She'd looked like a pampered, overconfident rich kid, despite the empty darkness in her eyes.

Now he realises that Ramona Hirose is the queen of the arena, the kind of queen who sits on her throne and plots.

"Why do you think she volunteered?" Lumas asks.

"I'd say to kill people," Finnick begins. "But probably not. If she'd volunteered just to kill people, she'd have probably poisoned all her allies at the first opportunity. She might be an evil genius but she's not Lachesis Dumont."

Lumas doesn't answer. Though he'd never met his district's second victor, he'd felt a disgusting sort of kinship with her ever since he'd won.

District 8 has a thing for villains. Woof and Cecelia had both been the villains of their games, despite being perfectly nice people outside the arena. They'd both been a little too odd for the Capitol. Lachesis had been the queen villain in an arena full of villains. Lumas - the rebel with a shady past - would've been the villain of his games, had Titus not been even worse.

Lumas lives in Lachesis Dumont's house, or, rather, in a house built on the ashes of Lachesis Dumont's house. Cecelia should've moved in when she'd won but she'd refused out of fear of being haunted. Some nights, Lachesis and her many victims would visit Lumas in his sleep and he would burn like she had. It'd probably all been in his mind, from all the drugs and trauma. But there's something deeper to Lumas' nightmares, a connection with the victims.

And a connection with the killer.

As far as Lumas knows, he and Lachesis are the only victors who'd killed before their games. He hadn't been a serial killer like her. He'd been a thirteen-year-old boy, unaware of his own strength and desperate for money. His victim had been an elderly woman. He'd put the garrotte around her throat to rob her and he must've held it there for a little bit too long.

It had been years ago. He'd accepted it years ago. But so many victors try to convince themselves of their innocence by saying they did what they had to do in the arena. Lumas can't do that, because he knows that he'd killed outside the arena as well.

"Do you ever think you're a monster?" Lumas asks.

"I think every victor should," Finnick says. "At least once. Otherwise they really are a monster."

"What if you think you're a monster all the time?" Lumas asks. "How do you get it to stop?"

Finnick sighs, eyes full of sadness. "You want to kill yourself, don't you?"

"How do you know?" Lumas asks, shocked.

"You sound like you've given up," Finnick says. "It's not that much of a surprise, really. None of us know what it was like in that arena, with Titus... I just know that it'd be sad for us all."

"Really?" Lumas asks. "I am really annoying."

"You are," Finnick admits. "But you're one of us. You're a victor. Remember Nate's funeral?"

"No," Lumas shakes his head. He remembers that District 7's first victor, the one with no kills, had died of old age earlier this year. He'd been to the funeral but he'd been too high to remember it.

"I'd never really known him," Finnick says. "He retired before I won. But I remember all the older victors were so sad. I know he never really let himself get close to any of us, apart from the other Sevens, perhaps, but he was one of us, a victor. Part of the family."

"Would any of you... miss me?" Lumas asks.

"Woof and Cecelia, definitely," Finnick says. "I know a lot of us Fours will, especially Sirena. You remind her of her boyfriend. He lost his leg in a shark attack. And Ramona..."

"Ramona?" Lumas asks. "We've never met."

"I know she'll probably want to meet you," Finnick says. "Between you and me, I think she has a bit of a celebrity crush on you."

"That's ridiculous!" Lumas cries. "You're the one that District 3 girls are more likely to get crushes on. You're gorgeous and I'm..."

"Something tells me that Hirose's not into gorgeous," Finnick says. "I don't know. Maybe it's just a hunch. One thing's for sure, I bet there are a lot of secrets in that pretty head of hers."

He runs his tongue over his lips.

"You're disgusting, Odair," Lumas says.

"I know," Finnick says, eyes glittering with joy. "I don't think she'd give any of her secrets up to me, though. I think she'll save them all for you. But there's only one way to find out..."

It stays, unspoken, between them. Talk to her. You have to talk to her, Lumas.

For that, Ramona Hirose will need to win these games, which looks likely at the moment. What's less likely is that he'll survive to see her victory tour.

Lumas studies the girl on the screen, the girl who, according to Finnick's hunch, has a crush on him. Not love, not like what he'd felt for Tella. A crush on a complete stranger. Not even a real crush, either. Just Finnick's hunch.

There are bruises on her throat, faded from time. Whoever had put them there had done it a long time ago and is probably dead by now. They remind Lumas of what the Capitol does to victors, especially the pretty ones.

They're sure to make Ramona Hirose suffer.

Lumas wonders who'll be there to protect her, who'll be there to take her under their wing, like the Fours had done for him. He can't think of anyone. She's too Career for the outliers and too outlier for the Careers.

Lumas owes Ramona a favour. She'd killed the girl from Four. And even if it had been long and painful, Lumas is grateful that the girl who'd killed his best friend isn't living anymore.

He wants to live long enough to thank Ramona.

Lumas Taffeta accepts that he is dying. He always knew he'd die young. He's burning out. But he wants to burn the Capitol with him. Maybe he can't do it in some magnificent way. Maybe the only way he can do it is by living another day. And another. And another...

Maybe, if he's really lucky, he'll live long enough to be kind to this girl. He might not be able to save her from whatever terrible fate the Capitol have planned for her. But he can try to ease the pain as much as he can.

There was a girl who Lumas Taffeta would die for.

Now Tarantella Hessian is dead, Lumas is just beginning to grasp her loss. He says a silent farewell to her and thinks of what Sirena had said.

You had her, until the very end.

Lumas has lost Tella, but not completely. He'll never forget about her. He can drug himself until he forgets his own name but he'll never forget how much he loved her. He'll always keep her memory with him.

Until his death. Until the final overdose. Until the very end.

But Lumas also watches Ramona Hirose as she waits for her victory. He doesn't love her. He doesn't even know her. She's a blank slate, full of potential. Ramona could've had a future. Something must've made her want to throw it all away in the Hunger Games. Maybe it was hope for something better.

Lumas hopes that she'll get it. It's hard for him to hope for anything. He'd never had any potential. Even before his games, he'd been a good-for-nothing street kid. But Ramona hasn't been broken yet and Lumas hopes that she never will be.

He'll protect her, as much as he can. More out of hope that she'll never end up like him than out of care for her. Though he might grow to care for her if she returns his kindness and if he has enough time...

Lumas Taffeta has found a girl who he can live for.

Now he'll see how long he can live.


If there's a prize for how much trauma a victor can endure, Lumas Taffeta wins it by an absolute landslide. Most of it he brought on himself by being so rebellious, although even the Capitol had to draw a line with Titus. Lumas is an absolute force of nature. He's probably the most rebellious victor of all time. The fact that he survived his games despite his rebellion is impressive enough. He really is a survivor. Even though he ends up dying young, he managed to get through so much and never really expected to live that long anyway.

Despite Lumas' dark past and terrible games, this is the point where Lumas hits rock bottom, since he has to cope with trauma, addiction, grief and getting exploited by Capitolites. A lot of these things I covered when I first introduced him in The Bride and The Widow but we only really got to see them from Ramona's perspective.

There have been a lot of different interpretations of Titus, including ones where he gets infected by a mutt or injected with a serum and that makes him lose his mind. In my one, he's just hungry. I don't think I've ever seen him have such a close encounter with the eventual victor, either, mostly because of his gamemaker-influenced death (I deviated from canon a bit and took him out with a cave-in instead of an avalanche but that was because I wanted to make Lumas' arena underground). Even though he's dead, he's a pretty major part of this chapter. Or is he? Maybe the 'Titus' in this chapter is just Lumas' mind playing tricks on him.

Tarantella is a bit of a relic from when I'd first started writing and Lumas was just a generic rebel from Eight. I didn't originally plan for Lumas to get so close to Ramona, particularly since he'd lost his best friend to her games, but, once I decided that the Capitol had got him addicted to morphling, it was inevitable. I hinted towards Tarantella a tiny bit in The Bride and The Widow but not that much because she died in the bloodbath and hardly interacted with Ramona at all. Lumas is unlikely to tell Ramona a lot about his relationship with Tarantella so it makes some sense that she doesn't really know about it.

Speaking of Ramona, this chapter signals the beginning of her relationship with Lumas. Finnick isn't totally wrong about her celebrity crush on Lumas, since what he did in his games is pretty impressive, but Ramona doesn't really get crushes. She probably just has a lot of admiration and respect for Lumas. Even though he's not there yet in this chapter, Lumas has the time and the reason to fall for her because Ramona helps him recover from his addiction.

Next chapter, we'll get to see these games from Ramona's perspective. Again, it was very long in my first draft because Ramona is my favourite victor I've ever written. She's the first victor I came up with and I've got pretty attached to her.