A/N: Massive thank you to Haiden for betaing this chapter, as well as Logan, Linds, and Times for looking it over - I seriously couldn't've done it without you guys!

Night Before.

Hera Dalenka. District 2.

That celebration was…

Unusual.

(Fun. That was what she'd felt. Adrenaline and life shrilled in her veins while chardonnay and foam creamed her throat. Euphoria pervaded her head and Hera Dalenka had never felt better.)

But she's feeling… feeling…

(Mercurial. Exuberant. Frantic.)

… strange.

She's back at the Two quarters, now. She isn't sure how. She'd stumbled in. She can't control her limbs. They shake. And her own fingers are shaking, too, and she's a little bit numb, unsteady, unsure how she should feel. Her heart's palpitating.

What had happened at the party?

It wasn't mandatory - there were few of them, there, actually. The party was something special that the Leader Head Gamemaker made. For the Careers only, she'd said. Join us, if you'd like.

She knows that Four Male hadn't gone. Rhodos. And her District Partner. Kiernan. Too young for it. But… everyone else did.

(She did.)

There wasn't much she remembered. Only fragments of the sharpest moments were left in her mind, like jagged verglas amid a land of mist. All else had fell, like snowfall, down into oblivion.

A memory—she'd seen Dior. With that Victor. She doesn't remember from which Games, just that she was from Eight. A staredown they were indulging in. Their faces... staticky, enmisted, distilled…

She can't remember their faces. Do they matter? Theyaren't what Hera needs to remember. There was something else, more imminent, more tremendous that happened at the party… she can't remember what, exactly, but she knew it was more important than Dior Marini.

(It was hurt. Anger. Something agonizing. Pain oozed off Dior and the Victor in waves. Even Hera could feel that.)

And she'd seen the One boy. Chrys. He was so… confused. Lurching around. He'd found a place to sit by a carved bench under pine trees. All of him was shrouded by shadows. And Chrys had met her eyes, and he seemed so…

Faraway. Their eyes had met, then. That moment Hera remembers clearly. It was glass amid fog. There was an understanding. Perhaps. But that washed away with the crashes and screams and the chaos of feet.

(Explosions. Starlight. Dust. Crazed limbs. Sporadic coughs. Pleading yells. Something had happened, then. But she doesn't… remember.)

What Hera remembers, is this:

She'd gone down to the bar. It was rustic; made-up of boards and nails that streaked across the counter. There were men, there, in their zany fashions, with beards that curled up to their eyes and half-shaved heads that dropped ponytails down to their ankles.

They greeted her. She isn't sure if they knew who she was—a tribute, about to enter the Games—but they treated her like she was one of them. They brought up her winning grin. Told her that they'd seen her somewhere. And they'd raised a glass, and said, toast to that.

(She laughed. She beamed. She passed her smiles like they were candy. And they clapped and slammed their coins on the counter, and they said to the bartender, some more, some more—)

Alcohol. And she felt so ethereal, and then there was more, more bills and more drinks, and she doesn't remember when she hits the ceiling, but she was in space and she was entirely…

Weightless.

(No.)

And she's falling. Hera's falling and her fingers scramble for a counter, for something to root her, for something to clutch. And she holds a counter, the one in her quarters, (not the one in the bar, there's no rust-metal pushing against her fingers, safe, she's in her quarters), and she staggers, and what echoes in her mind is—

No no no no no. She promised herself. She was gonna get better. She was gonna get ready. She didn't have to…

(It's the last time you'll have them, anyway, Dalenka. Why not?)

Hera sucks in a breath. Her hands move across the wall, and she's staggering, she's so close to falling.

She staggers into her room and she collapses in bed. Hera closes her eyes, forces her breaths out. She's okay. She's safe. She's not in the party anymore. She's alive, she's here, she's okay.

But why does she feel so…

She's shivering. She gasps breaths, in and out again. She's so cold. And her only thought is this.

There were explosions in the party.

And she doesn't know if they were real. She doesn't know if they were made-up.

(It's all she is. High or nothing; and the in-betweens are what hurt most. When she knows what's happening to her but she doesn't stop. She can't stop. She'll tell herself not to, and she'll remember that in her relapse, and she'll relapse, and…)

What is there to Hera, at all?

Rhodos McNamara. District 4.

Rhodos clasps his fingers, and presses them together to stop his twitching.

His private session went well enough, earlier in the day. He'd showed them what he could do: that he was versatile with a spear, that he wasn't bad with a trident. He scored a 9: classic for a Career. It isn't too high; isn't too low. But he's anxious.

(It's not actually anxiety. Not in the strictest definition; not really. But there is a vacuum in his chest, and his skin is cool, and he doesn't really feel anything at all. He isn't anxious; but he's feeling… something.)

He'd skipped the party because of it. But now he's wishing he'd went. The District Four quarters are… overwhelming. They're Capitol apartments; furnished with white quartz, with abstract art. Serrated crystalline waves make the walls, and they're so beautiful they're almost moving, no, hurtling with power that's reminiscent of the seas back at home.

(He wonders if they use the same room year after year: if this had once been the place of the District Fours of the prior year, and the year before, and then the year before that. He wonders how many are dead now.)

If only he wasn't here.

(He could be back with Mrs. Larimar. He could be strumming a guitar, or be playing around with a lyre, or trying his hand at the piano. If the Games were not here: he could be living a dream. Making the music he'd liked; producing his own tunes. Perhaps, one day, he could've shown them off, too, if he could gather up the courage to do so. He would've: and then he would be a different person. Not Rhodos McNamara, a tribute of the Hunger Games, the fighter, the follower. He would be Rhodos McNamara: acclaimed musician, maybe. Maybe, without the Games, his parents would've let him go down that route.)

Maybe.

The door creaks. Rhodos's eyes flick up to his District Partner. Despite her tightened posture, she's undeniably weary.

Althea doesn't acknowledge him. Her eyes scour their apartment; but it's offhand, like she doesn't quite know what to do. She moves towards the counter - where there's a coffee grinder. That action itself makes Rhodos start: he hadn't seen Althea drink anything but water.

("It's to keep a clear head," she'd told him, that time he'd offered her a drink, back at the Victor parties. "You're better off when you're alert.")

"Althea?" he says. "Are you okay?"

Althea whirls towards him. For a moment, she looks like she's about to burst. Her face's gaunt, and a tightness lines her brow. She looks like he'd seen her in training—that same concentration, that same coldness, that same…

(Pain?)

"I'm fine."

Althea's hands leave the coffee cup she'd held. She strolls away from the counter—towards the quarters.

(He should say: that's great. You did amazing in the Private Sessions, by the way— a ten's insane. He should let her go to her quarters; if not, he'll bother her on purpose. Right now, Rhodos's best course of action is not to say anything.)

But something overtakes him. Perhaps it is the way that Althea had looked so defeated. When before—she had been so cold, so victorious. Now, she's deflated, tired. Resigned.

This Althea he is seeing is so different from the one that he'd seen in the trains. Perhaps it is because he had gotten to know her, across the course of a week, and perhaps it is because they've talked more than a few nights away, about District Four and about the feeling of the sea's waves, and perhaps it is because they've bonded over their parents. But seeing her so obviously in pain aches against him.

Rhodos hustles in a breath. He steels himself; he strains to make the words past his lips. "I… I don't think you are."

A laugh echoes from Althea. It's hollow, in her chest; sardonic, wracked. She turns to him. "What do you know, Rhodos?"

It's cold, it's bitter. It's thudding in pain.

(And she's right—he doesn't know anything. He doesn't know what's gotten her so weary, doesn't know her past nor what's broken her down: Rhodos McNamara doesn't know a thing about Althea Ivory. They've talked about Four, sure: but their conversation had been shallow like the shore's waves, so much so without substance. He'd told her so much about himself; but her, about herself?)

(... she's right: Rhodos doesn't know the first thing about Althea. But he wants to.)

"Hey, uh." He feels his face flare, and Rhodos rubs the back of his neck. His ponytail knocks against his knuckles, as he levels his eyes at Althea. "I liked to do music, back at home."

(It's not something that he's shared with strangers. It's not something that he'd share with anyone, out of the blue. Even when people had come up to him and asked what he loved to do, he'd fumble and say the generic training, and he might've tacked and music, too, like it's just an afterthought. But, Rhodos supposes: they're in a death game now. They're District Partners. Not quite strangers, anymore.)

Althea narrows her eyes at him, like she's suspecting some motive behind the topic change. But her curiosity gets the better of her. "What type of instrument?"

"Guitar. It's my favourite," and he feels his lips quirk. "You should try it too if you can. You're absolutely crazy with a bow—a guitar'll be a cakewalk for you."

Althea seems slightly confused, still; like the topic change's still inexplicable.

"What about you?" Rhodos supplies. "Uh, what do you like to do?"

And suddenly—his District Partner looks unsure.

"I don't know," she says. "I haven't really… thought that much. Everything's been about training."

"It doesn't need to be," he reassures. "I mean, what do you like to do in your free time? There's got to be something. Not everything's gotta be all about training."

Althea stays silent.

"Or it can be. It's totally cool if you're passionate about training, though! Definitely gives you an edge in the Games… and it shows."

He gazes at Althea anxiously. Althea breathes in; breathes out. It's like she's trying to think. Finally, her eyes look up to meet Rhodos.

"I don't know why you're doing this, Rhodos," she finally says. "I read people well. You're not trying to trick me. But you… don't have to do this. Whatever it is. I don't know you; you don't know me. We can just… keep it like that."

Something constricts his chest. He should just leave it like that—that's what Althea would want. And he isn't about to intrude, isn't about to make her uncomfortable. That's how she'll be happy. That's how they'll both be.

(But that would be a lie, he knows. Althea may want to remain distant; and he may be too willing to comply. But should he? Should they, anymore?)

Rhodos lets out a breath. "We can, if you want. But you're wrong—we do know each other. I know you're smart and strong. You like the feeling of the waves on your skin; you like the seagulls that squawk across the skies. You're cool but not aloof, and you're an amazing person. You're great with a spear, crazy good with a bow, and probably the most devoted to training in our District. Your passion is training. And you know what I like too— music. You know about me, too."

Althea scoffs. But it's half-hearted.

"You don't have to close yourself off," Rhodos says, quietly. "You shouldn't need to."

Quietness overtakes the room. And Rhodos hopes.

"Well." Althea's lips quirk and she shakes her head—almost in spite of herself. "Since… you really wanted to know. There's somebody back at home that I'd like to get back to."

Her smile's a glimmer, then: so raw against the moonlight. And he's never seen it before: Althea, so wholly herself.

"Do you know who Kani Fairchild is?"

Kiernan Alcraiz. District 2.

He isn't ready.

Five minutes, the voice in the speaker booms, and the words pin his skin with ice. All around him, the clatter of machinery echoes; the steps of a few people echo. The end, he thinks, and then: for their beginning.

His escort is a twenty-year-old woman, with an incomprehensible name, and she's one too eager for the Games. She fusses over him. Last-minute brush-ups, we'll clear up the bags under your eyes easy, don't move, dearie, it'll be a fast one…

Kiernan wants to scoff. He wants to glare at her: go away, he'd seethe, don't bother, I'm dying anyway.

But he doesn't. His heart's jumping like it's made of wires. Electricity's frenetic in his skin, and his eyes can't keep away from the launch tube. Transparent and cold: it's so clinical, so much like being in a test-tube.

(And that itself is darkly funny to him: for he is the Capitol's experiment, the boy thrown into the Games to prevent rebellion. What is he to them other than that: a lamb to the slaughter.)

He scoffs, then. Three minutes, the speakers say. Kiernan bats away his escort's hands; and her expression crumbles before him. As if he gave a crap.

Tributes: please enter your launch pads.

(It's stupid, the way the Capitol phrases things. They try to frame the launch as if it were voluntary, as if it's autonomous, but there's nothing voluntary about it all. As if, if he'd refused, he wouldn't be wrestled in—kicking and screaming, and marked for an earlier death than he would've had if he hadn't just conceded.)

He isn't ready to die. He isn't—he can convince himself, all right, he can try, but he wants to scream. Maeve, the Capitol, the Games—they've brought him here. And no matter what the hell's happened in the 55th Games, no matter what he feels about the Capitol displaying his sister in all her goddamned glory on-screen, it doesn't change a single thing: he's the Capitol's retribution. He's here because of Maeve.

Kiernan's pushed in. The tubes close. One minute until launch, the voice resounds again, and it's muffled; he's trapped. The Peacekeepers stare at him from the other side: watching, contemplating, waiting.

The whirr of the platform beneath him creaks; the tube shakes as it ascends. His breathing's so shallow, fuck, he has his inhaler in his fingers, he's okay, he'll be okay, fuck he can't breathe, he wants to cry, can't use them before the Games, you've got a limited supply, but he's choking and how's that for dying, before the Games even begin—

(And then, the glint of the sunlight slathers his hair, the tubes shudder open, and then he's breathing, his eyes are burning, the platform clicks, and then Kiernan is in the Games.)

Jordyn Moriau. District 13.

The Games shimmer back to her, in a sheen.

It is familiar.

But not because she'd been in them, a month, two months, so many (so little) months prior.

(Not because when she dreams, the Games propagate themselves in her mind. Not because when she sleeps, all she sees is their faces, back in her face: resigned, grinning, tired; Scott, Maeve, Brynn, destroyed, pained, tired—)

Everything she's seen—the death, their damnation, her dreams— stands as a mirror of the 55th that she can't break free from. But it is not because of that which makes her stomach rile so when she gazes upon the 56th Games.

(In an uncanny way, it looks so much like her Arena. But it is not the same, still: because it is deluged in gold, it is radiated in amber, it is nature, gilded, it is unreal.)

She closes her eyes. She is ready. Jordyn is ready: she has protection on her body and she has a gun in her belt and she's geared-up, she is prepared.

(But the vest is so tight against her chest, and she doesn't like the sensation at all; her fingers shake on the gun, she isn't sure how to hold such a weapon at all; and the way Cynane sees her imbues her with unease, for there is no reprieve from her eyes, and Jordyn feels so small.)

And she has a squadron of men behind her, still. Her mission is simple. She'd known that the operation was inevitable, after she'd escaped the Arena. After she'd shown them just what could happen. And her nerves had steeled, after the war-cries and the periphrastic chants. When she'd seen the verve of Thirteen and her face in lights.

(When she had sworn to herself: she would no longer allow herself to be impuissant.)

They're in Panem. Vultures—brown-nosed beaks, gore-red eyes, a screech in their haunches— splatter the bricks and sprawl upon the streets. The yells for change resounded from their gullets; in breathy whispers mouth-to-mouth.

Propaganda. Flyers. Whispers. All a harbinger of the same thing— the arrival of a revolution.

She's the face of them all.

(Annus mirabilis. Cynane's lips had lifted, then, as Jordyn watched her gaze upon the chaos that waged conflagrations across the Districts.)

A genesis.

A change.

Something new.

Something better.

The revolution had come, and Panem had responded. Riots ravage the sights of Three; Six; Eight; One. All with a myriad of cries.

Three.

THEY DISPENSE AND FORGET. DON'T LET THE CAPITOL FORGET.

(Her name is Ryleigh. His name is Daniel. That is what she remembers. She'd seen the way they'd acted at his interview, like gazelles caught in strobe-lights; seen the way the pair clutched at each other like they were one another's lifelines.)

Six.

Bring our children back to us.

(Jordyn knows the tributes, there, too. Herman and Fascia. How Herman shook in fear during Six's chariot-rides. She'd seen the protective gaze Fascia had thrown Herman's way, and then the flash of intimidation in Fascia's eyes, like she was daring anyone to fight them.)

Eight.

KILL THEM ALL.

(And there is something about the Eight pair that resonates with her. Sadie Rendevez and Victor Vernina were their names. The former eighteen; the latter fourteen. The child clung onto the older girl, and the older girl shielded the child under her arm: protective, careful, kind. Despite her vociferous attitude and the middle-finger she'd sent up to the Capitol that had been seared in all of Panem's mind.)

(Jordyn, too, has a feeling that Victor is not the child's name. But that, she supposes, she will know another time.)

… and then there's One.

Don't let them forget what happened in the 55th Games.

Snow's visage is graffitied upon brick. Vigils are held for the dead. Maeve's fucked-up angelic face pulses on the streetsides in a yellow gleam. Madison's suicide is broadcast across the skies.

Her face emblazons their banners, their cry. Jordyn had seen it all from the safety of a screen: it was so unreal.

(No longer.)

"You cannot stand around, Jordyn. You are the face of this rebellion—you are its leader."

She was there, with Cynane, in the war-room. She'd watched her: they were alone. And discomfort had resided in her stomach, every time Cynane's eyes had met hers.

"Here is the list," Cynane said. "That is your quest. You know what you have to do. You've done it before. Go in—get out."

"Save them."

(Is she even ready?)

"Your friend is getting ready," Cynane says, and Jordyn feels the hairs on the back of her neck prickle. There is so much coldness in her voice, and Jordyn can imagine the President's face, even as she gazes on ahead, forces the Arena back in her head.

"Spent too long in convalescence."

(How does one spend too long in convalescence?)

Jordyn does not ask that. Instead, she lets out a breath. Nods. "Okay," she says, and closes her eyes.

No. No more companions—no more people dead. She had a squadron already; was that not enough? They did not need to bring her upon their mission. Especially not right after recovery. Especially not on a mission like—

"I presume she'll be joining you."

Cynane's eyes pierce her back. Jordyn's throat is chained. She turns her eyes towards the leader.

"Yes."

"Good. I expected as much." Cynane pushes her lips together. "Although there is concern about her eyes."

Jordyn presses her fingers into her palm. "Okay," she says out. "And—you're still making—letting her on this mission?"

"Her health should not be a worry," Cynane states, and her fingers swish over the shimmering hologram; like a touch in a resplendent sea, dipped in gold.

"Do you really think we could conduct this mission without her?"

And Jordyn's throat constricts. What Cynane has not said lingers in the air.

We need the publicity.

"Safe travels," Cynane says. Her eyes move away, and Jordyn can only stare at Cynane's back, conscious of the silhouette she projects.

The words slip through Jordyn's lips. "Thank you."

Cynane does not look at her, still.

"Ah," Cynane says, and her eyes are upon the entrance of their room. "There she is."

The door opens, and Jordyn's heart jumps into her throat. She'd heard the news, creeping through the grapevines - but she didn't think it was true. Consciously, she knew. But she didn't want to believe it. Couldn't— for what it meant.

Until now.

Jordyn's eyes are wide and her mouth is dry and her stomach is empty as she stares, as her stuttering mind attempts to work itself again.

It's her.

She's here.

She's actually alive.

A/N: Hi folks! Thank you so much for reading! Hopefully that wasn't that much of a bomb... anyways... ! We're nearing the Bloodbath which is SO exciting, but first of all!

1) What do you think about Hera's current state, right now? What's up with the explosions?

2) Thoughts about Rhodos and Althea?

3) How about Kiernan? Is our kiddo gonna be alright?

4) And... of course, Jordyn. What do you think about the subplot going on? Who do you think's the figure? Any hopes or predictions?

5) Finally: what do you think's going to go down in the Bloodbath? Are the Careers gonna take it? Are our Outer District kids up to something?

Thank you so much for reading! Let me know what you think.