Pre-Reapings Part II.

In a world gone crazy, everything seems hazy.

Felix Agrippa, 17
District Six Male

"How much for this baguette?"

The woman in the bakery stall looks at me with a wary eye. "No way in hell am I selling to you, kid."

I exhale, leaning against the table and raising an eyebrow. "What, is my being here bad for business?" I tease. "I'm merely a hungry boy looking to buy some bread. You're gonna decline me the simple pleasure of having one of your baguettes?"

Her upper lip flickers upwards into a snarl. "I don't sell to thieves of your kind. Step away from my stand."

Next to her, a neighboring shopkeeper rises from his own chair and moves closer to us, meaty arms folded protectively. Clearly, he thinks I'm about to throw hands or something. I sigh again, taking a dramatic step backwards with my hands raised in my own defense. "As you wish."

"Now move on out."

"Fine." I shrug, offering a cheeky smile as best I can. "Remember this when your shop's gotta close because nobody wants to buy your shitty burnt bread anymore."

Where to go next? I slide out of the marketplace, sliding my stolen scone from my pocket and taking a big bite. It's not like I've got friends to spend my Reaping morning with, and I'd rather die than slum it with my parents for the upcoming few hours. I guess if I'm really feeling desperate I can make a trip back to my neighborhood and buy some weed or something, but I've been a bit poor in the pockets as of late. And I'm not about to fuck around and steal from a drug dealer.

I find my feet taking me away from the town center, more towards our dilapidated Victor's Village where all the rich folk reside. I wonder briefly how the victors are doing today as I pass their neighborhood, kids milling out and about one specific mansion. Garrett and Aston, our victors, aren't too keen on associating with anyone outside of their inner circles. Not that I'd blame them. I mean, hell, if I went through the hell of the Hunger Games I don't think I'd be too interested in frequenting small talk with randoms.

I journey past the victor's homes, my feet taking me up the familiar sidelong path of the mayor's house. It's nothing special, honestly probably less well-off than any of the rest of the districts, but it's housed me more times than I can count. For that, I'm grateful.

Not that the mayor knows.

It's too easy to sidle up to that one window, peer inside, and see that the mayor's in his study, no doubt figuring out what corrupt scheme to cook up next to ensure that over half the district stays in poverty, or how many hookers to order for his upcoming work anniversary. It's a great deal harder to scale the big oak next to the house and extend a fist to a certain window.

Atticus jumps at the sound.

He turns around in an instant, and even with a petrified expression I can't help my lips from peeling into a smile. He tears over to open the windows, and with no small deal of caution do I leap my way into his room.

"Are you fucking insane?" he hisses.

"Shut up."

He writhes away from my grasp, tugging at the God-awful maroon sweater vest he's wearing and slamming his door shut. "It's morning, Felix, there's no way my dad didn't hear you or something-"

"You talk too much."

Once again our eyes lock, his full of nervousness and fear. "I mean, what the fuck are you doing, it's Reaping day and everything and oh, ew, you have a black eye? Where the hell did you get that-"

"I'm over this." I drag him closer, body still writhing around in that cute but weird sort of panicky way that he does, and bring my lips up to his. I feel him relax in my grasp almost instantly, and after a short while do I pull away. I cock my head. "Better?"

"Maybe," Atticus grumbles. "I still think you're stupid. And I still have a lot to get ready for."

I snort, collapsing onto his pristinely made bed. With a hint of jealousy, my mind flashes back to the sweaty tangle of sheets I woke up in this morning, abandoning on the floor. "What, your dad didn't figure all that shit out months ago?"

"I've just gotten a new haircut," he says, hand outstretched to a jade comb on his dresser. "It looks horrible from almost every single angle except one."

"I think you think too much."

I allow myself to sink into the cushy mattress of the mayor's son, watching with slight admiration as he parts his hair so meticulously. It's hard not to fall in love with the way his lips press together in concentration, or the tremors that overtake his body when our faces are close, or the way his sweater vest stays untucked at the peak of his waist, sort of like a little duck tail. Who would've thought that in this fucked up world, he'd think the same things about me?

It's no secret that these meetings, through a window and conversating in hushed voices, are the norm for us. I mean, hell, for months his dad didn't even know I existed other than the village delinquent. While Atticus was in and out of business school classes, I slid in and out of stores with newfound prizes in my hands. While Atticus ate dinner with his family, I pressed my lonely lips to a bottle and hoped for an end to the grumble in my stomach.

It kinda hurts to think about shit that way. In no way are our lives parallel in the slightest; I suppose it was just a stroke of very, very good luck that one day our paths crossed and we were drunk at the same time.

"I'm nervous," Atticus murmurs after a moment. He turns back, hair parted oh-so-perfectly. He'd look good bald, to be fair.

I hum, cocking my head and patting the bed beside me. "Mayor's son worried about being Reaped?" I coo.

He slumps onto the mattress, slugging me in the shoulder and falling backwards. "Not like I've been under the limelight for my entire life or anything. Not like our district hates any sort of political guidance."

"If it makes you feel any better, your dad has literally been holding a slander campaign for me over the past two weeks. I'm not exactly known as the nicest kid in Six." Atticus's eyes fly open, and he's about to open his mouth in protest, but I shake my head. "Nah, don't even say shit. I don't want to think about it. Your dad's a bitch. I just want to be here right now."

Gingerly I allow my head to come down onto Atticus's chest, and I try to ignore the wild, erratic patterns that his heart pumps out at a mile a minute. Maybe I am stressed about the things to come – not like I had any friends around that would defend my name as the big bad mayor exposed literally all my secrets. Atticus, either. I suppose it's just us against the world.

Maybe it will be me.

Better fucking not be.

Kadrium Hawtrey, 17
District Seven Random

"Kadrium Hawtrey! Where in the world have you been?"

I duck my father's harsh scowl and clamber into our foyer, trying to escape the berating. "Just out for a walk near the lake," I reply, holding up my book tightly to my chest. "I was a bit stressed about today. Thought I'd unwind with some reading."

"We've twenty minutes to the Reaping," he guffaws. "and your hair looks to be an utter mess. Your mother's waiting upstairs to fix you up." I stand there for a moment, unmoving, until he swats a hand at me. "Go!"

True to this word, my mother is perched on the edge of my bed, trying to corral all three of my little sisters as they dash around my bedroom. Nerves are high on such an important day, I suppose. Inwardly I groan at how messy they're making everything, but force a smile to come to my lips instead. "Good morning."

"You been gone so long!" Jasmin, the youngest, practically leaps into my arms.

"Dad was real mad that you didn't come to breakfast," Clariel, my middle sister, pouts.

"I thought we coulda gotten ready together!" Arathea, the oldest at thirteen and freshly eligible for today's events, folds her arms in dismay.

I suck my teeth, nodding them off and taking a seat at my desk. "…And this is exactly why. I was having a bit of alone time. I'm sure we can have a family dinner or something after the Reaping."

My mother shakes her head. "We've got to work."

"…Okay, or not." I start at tugging a brush through my hair, but the constant chatter of my sisters just behind me makes my stomach twist in stress. I turn my head back to face them. "I'd love a bit more alone time if you all wouldn't mind…"

"Moooom!"

One look at my face, tight with disinterest and overwhelming makes my mother heave a sigh and usher all three sisters out of my room.

"Thank you." I sigh as she shuts the door.

Now it's her turn to perch on the edge of my bed, peppering me with questions. These I don't quite mind – chatting with my mother is nicer than it would be with any other member of my family. She's the most like me; constantly calm, quite quiet, pretty stoic when it gets down to it. I think I get my entire no-nonsense attitude from her. I love hearing her recite stories of how I was more mature at age six than any of my sisters have been to date.

"Nervous for today?"

"Nervous?" I don't stifle the laugh that bubbles up. "What have I to be nervous about, Mother? You've said it yourself, paranoia is for kids and people with something to hide."

"I just remember my own sisters' Reaping days," she hums. "I mean, not that any of them were picked, but it was always so high-strung and tense."

"But those were normal Reapings." I shake my head. "God bless us all that we've come upon a Quell. Do you really believe I of all people would be voted in? What have I done to make this district turn against me?"

My mother turns to the closed door with something in her eyes that I can't quite make out. Her voice lowers. "You know your father hasn't made the most friends since his insurgence into the world of business."

I try to push down the mounting resentment, the one that seems to come whenever I focus too heavily on my family. "Sure."

"He's pompous. He talks nonstop. I don't think the majority of this district is quite happy with how he's stanced himself toward the Capitol."

"But that shouldn't affect me." For the briefest of moments, my heart freezes. "Wow, Mother, you can't be serious in thinking that his actions would instigate me getting selected?"

"I'm just trying to prepare you for the worst, Kadrium."

The comb lies forgotten on my desk. I stand up, turning to the window and remaining silent.

It's a nice view. We've been fortunate enough to live in a house quite near to a waterfront, though it's marred with views of boats, fishermen, and docks. That's why I often go to the emptier lakes, the ones where you can actually hear yourself think rather than be confronted with the constant whirring of motors. Seven's a pretty big district, to its own credit. It's hard to find some place to breathe.

I turn back to my bedroom, eyes flickering to the tall ceilings and the luxurious carpet that lies beneath us. By no means are we one of the wealthiest families from the district, but we are well-off enough. And by all means, it's because of my father and the choices he was forced to make after the virus. Anyone else would've done the same in his shoes, especially to account for a rising family. Who can blame a man for simply trying to survive via an honest business?

According to my mother, half the district.

"I think you're being irrational." I exhale.

"I think I'm planning for the worst." She shakes her head. "You're seventeen, Kadrium. We've tried to protect you from the real world as much as we could, but you know district children have to grow up two times faster in times such as these."

"It won't happen." I hold my head high, nose tilted to the ceiling, just as I've been instructed to do since birth. Shoulders back, spine straightened, chin up. "I don't see a way that our entire district would turn on my father just for being a Capitol-lover."

"Jealousy runs deep."

A flash of anger courses hotly through my veins, but I won't retaliate. I'm better than that, better than she and the strange mind games she seems to be playing. "I don't want to hear anything of it. You are trying to scare me. You are being irrational," I hiss out, shaking my head. "And I'd like for you to leave my room. I will finish getting ready and I'll come downstairs when I'm done."

Her face melts into a mask of utter disappointment and discomfort. "You have got to grow up sometime, Kadrium."

With that, my mother exits the room silently, door swinging shut behind her.

You have got to grow up sometime, Kadrium.

She doesn't get it, does she? She doesn't understand the looks I get when I rub people the wrong way, the strange expressions that people make when I say things about my family life. I suppose I've never told her that I've completely shut my home life off from my school life, simply out of fear that people will consider me an outsider. I'm an introvert as it is. Why would I risk being a loner at school, or show any sort of weakness related with such a home life? Does she really think I've never considered the fact that people dislike my father?

Nevertheless, he may be disliked, but there is no way he's disrespected. Every path leads to somewhere, and so he's chosen the path of opportunity via Capitol relations. As I've said before, any man would do it to support his family. I know I would.

I can only hope that my district feels the same – somehow, I know they will.

Campbell Seavey, 16
District Twelve Female

There's something different in the air today.

Not the smell – no, the blatant scent of bullshit, negligence, and burnt oatmeal is just about as prevalent as ever. But there's something new in the way the kids around me shuffle around, the stolen glances of what can only be described as fear, a quieter sort of spell over the usual hustle and bustle of the orphanage dining room.

I keep to myself as much as I can, shoving the mushy blueberry porridge around my bowl with a spoon and resenting every single oat that composes it. Of the few tables that surround my lone island, the kids speak in hushed tones, some casting wary eyes over in my direction. I ignore them – why shouldn't I? I hate everyone here.

Of course, everyone here just loves to ruin my day far more than it's already been.

A shadow is cast over me, providing my eyes a break from the fluorescent lights and drawing a dim upon my already grey oats. I exhale, not bothering to glance up at my new neighbor. "Can I help you?"

"You scared, Campy?"

It's Russo, one of my most particularly hated peers. Of fucking course. Why wouldn't it be? Sometimes I swear his favorite hobby is grinding my gears.

I squint upwards at him, taking in his toothy, shit-eating grin and the audience gawping a table behind us. "Don't fucking call me Campy."

He slides himself into the bench across from me, plucking a blueberry from my dish and popping it into his mouth. I hope it's rotten. "It's 'kay if you are," he drawls. "I'd be terrified if I were you. Damn. I mean, it's not like you're new to the fact that everyone in the district hates your guts and wants you dead anyways."

A flush of heat rises to my cheeks. "The district does not hate me," I growl out.

Russo shrugs his shoulders, never letting that ugly fucking grin slip from his lips. He needs braces. Maybe a mint. Definitely a mint. "You're joking yourself," he says. "There's a reason you ain't been adopted the entire time you were here. Nobody wants you, Campy. Nobody wants to take in a kid whose parents sucked so bad."

"You got a lotta shit to talk, you know that?" I sit up straight, not caring if his groupies from the table over see. "Especially for someone with a face so fucked up that you've been here basically as long as I have. And gee, I don't see you having burdensome parents. Maybe the reason you ain't been adopted either is because you just fully suck as a person."

He wags a finger. "None of that," Russo leers. "I know some people coming to sign my papers in just a few days. They promised."

"Yeah, you've been promised that a lot, yeah?" The scowl doesn't lift from my face, but I note with satisfaction that his grin slips off of his. "And look at you, still sitting at the same table as me."

"Hey, fuck you, Campbell-"

"Would if I could. Now get the fuck out from my table."

I suppose I've hit a nerve. He shoots daggers from his eyes, crossing his arms. "I don't gotta do what you tell me, bitch."

"Sister Elizabeth!" I screech, throwing a hand in the air, hoping to catch the eye of a nearby nun. "Russo called me a bad word!"

The nun in question barely flickers her eyes over to me. In fact, she rubs more salt in the wound and moves in the opposite direction. Once more does my blood boil – not only at Russo's digs but at the fact that quite literally every fucking person in this orphanage glosses over the things that he and his cronies say to me.

"Fine!" I stand up abruptly, shaking my head in exasperation. "Since nobody here can see or hear me, clearly, I'm going to the bedroom!"

"Sit down, bitch," Russo says, clearly enjoying his newfound power.

Now Sister Elizabeth can see me. And more than that, she can grab my wrist with her bony little claw fingers, drag me to the hallway, and spit at me.

"Where do you think you're going?" she snarls.

I yank my wrist from her grasp. "Somewhere nobody can be mean to me."

"It is protocol for all you kids to stay in the dining room from nine to nine-thirty." Her breath reeks of cigarettes and those God-forsaken oats. "What, you think you're special, Campbell? You don't get special treatment here."

"Oh, I'm aware, and you have reminded me of it for the past twelve years." I fold my arms, glaring. "You know, for a person that's supposed to be religious and loving of all God's children and that shit, you really know how to exclude people from the fucking family."

Her hand comes across my cheek sharply, and I recoil, banging my head into the wall. Tears prick up into my eyes as her hand comes once again. The back of my head throbs in the aftermath. Two swear words. Two strikes. For fuck's sake, I hope those don't bruise up. I don't need another imperfection for the other kids to come at me for.

"You think you're funny," Sister Elizabeth hisses. "Such a rebel, aren't you? Just like your mother and father."

"I'm not my parents," I mumble, eyes glued to my orphanage-issued cloth shoes.

"But with that mouth of yours, you might as well be." Her tone cuts like a piece of broken glass. "Russo had a point, Campbell. There's a reason you've not made it out of here."

I've been here the longest of any other child. I'm aware of this, and the fact makes me burn up inside. Two years till I'm free, I remind myself silently as I swallow down what could be a lump in my throat. No – no sadness, especially not today. Anything but wallowing in fucking self-pity.

"Okay," I whisper hollowly.

There's a pause. Maybe she's reconsidering herself. Maybe she's giving me a break for once in my life.

"You'll go to the closet," she says. "You'll stay there until I get you for the Reaping."

"That's not fair." My head snaps up, meeting hers. "I didn't do anything! I know you heard it, Sister Elizabeth, Russo came to me and was talking about-"

"Miss Seavey!" Sister Elizabeth's arm moves as if to strike again, and I recoil. "You will do as you're told without this attitude you've picked up. Perhaps it'd be wise for you to take this time to pray for forgiveness of your sins. Heaven knows you need it."

Her hand closes against my wrist again. Cheeks burning with embarrassment, she tugs me along and parades me across the dining room, opening the janitorial closet with great embellishment. I swear every kid in the orphanage has their eyes glued on me as I slink inside, and as Sister Elizabeth slams the door behind me. Someone has the nerve to laugh. My heart deflates as I hear the key turn inside the lock.

Finally alone with a moment to myself, I slide to the floor. The chatter inside the dining room proceeds, albeit even more hushed than before.

I swallow back yet another lump in my throat, one that seems to be permanent. Shoulders shaking from hatred, I throw my face to the sky – or what would be, if there weren't a stained ceiling barricading me from it. I turn my focus to my breathing, steadying myself in preparation for the next few hours of complete hollowness and boredom inside this closet.

I don't deserve this, I remind myself, feeling a hot tear of anger slip down my cheek. And I never did.

A/N: Real Wild Child by Iggy Pop.

Hahahahahahahhaha idk why it took so long for me to update either sorry! Pre-Reapings are fun to read but personally I will never be doing them ever again because I cannot!

Next chapter's the Reapings. Everyone's fav chapter get hyped! I don't know what else to say here I haven't posted in so long that I just have forgotten how to write authors notes oops sorry :)! My school officially said that we will be IN PERSON and since y'all know I'm from America I will say it's a lil NERVE-WRACKING but whatever I'm a baddie and my immune system will simply say no to corona if it comes anywhere near me!

joking i am not that dumb idk if yall need a disclaimer at this point i really dunno

Either way that being said I will be continuing college in a few weeks (ew I'm a fucking junior literally what the fuck) and taking on two jobs and volunteering on the weekly not to mention a VIGOROUS freshman orientation week (idk why I signed up for that either I despised doing it last year and yet here I am volunteering 16 hours a day yet again! I honestly am somewhat of a mess!) so updates may still be sporadic. Can't promise anything! However I will reiterate I'm still hyped for this story so no worries on motivation!

Lemme know what you think about Felix, Kadrium, and Campbell!

What district are you most hyped to see at the Reapings?

Byeeeeee stay safe out there xoxo if you don't wear a mask you kinda suck