Hector thought he would be alright, really; the rebel underground had recruited several allies from career districts in the past 10 years, including the most recent, and already forgotten, Lyme of the 56th, Apt of the 52nd, Aurum of the 44th and a handful from the decades before the 40s. Most importantly; they had Elluria who was incredible at collecting information. Surely, he could get away with shredding his secret messages instead of burning them. It was hot outside and he couldn't be bothered to get the box of matches. Sus and Karah kept telling him to be more careful, to not talk about rebellious activity outside of designated locations, to cover his tracks better, to stop taunting the peacekeepers. He didn't see what the fuss was about, honestly, they should learn to lighten up. Karah was always so quiet, he wanted to tell her to relax. He wouldn't though, he liked her, and she cried easily, and he didn't know what to do when people cried.
He was always a laid-back person; wining the 15th had done that to him. It had given him a large house and more money than he'd ever need, and he would spend all day reading without being told otherwise. For a while, all he could do was pretend to ignore the horrors of District 10, ignore how pointless his life felt. That was until Mags contacted him half a decade after his win. Knowing he was working towards something bigger than himself gave him a sense of purpose he needed. A lot of the early work was laying foundations for the future, it was tedious but after years of dull luxury, it was better than nothing. The hope that maybe the world would be a better place in the next century.
He started to lose interest by the time the 50s had come around. Others got to do the more exciting work, while he was stuck in 10. A little sloppiness here and there was the least of his worries. Phaesus had decided to get rid of the peacekeeper that supplied Hector with illegal Capitol drugs. Now there wasn't anything to entertain him. There was no point in covering his tracks if he had Elluria and the quarter of the Capitol's favourite group of friends on their side. Sus once called him a 'lazy fucking pig.' He thought that was very rude of her.
Then Mags approached Hector again, after the stupid photo shoot where Pirn creeped him out with her wide-eyed staring and mumbled language. Mags warned him of what his actions would lead to. She also said Durum and Sycamore were in danger too, to tell them. Well Sycamore had a notoriously explosive temper and didn't like Hector very much, and he was friends with Durum, why would he want to scare him? No, Hector changed nothing about his life. He couldn't bear to face discomfort.
Rebellion and Argon Valence were the only reasons Elluria Yeon was still alive. Constant prostitution kept her in the Capitol, one of her clients, a wealthy landowner, had given her the penthouse of his luxury high-rise apartment building. That was nice. It could never compare to the sweeping orchards of 11. People with skin varying from light tan to darkest browns, black hair varying from dead straight to tightly curled and brown eyes in all different shapes. It was colourful and diverse without the neon artificiality of the Capitol. It was home.
Her world became claustrophobic existing in only the bedrooms, hotels and parties. She adapted, using the skills that kept her alive in the arena to help bring down the very people behind its existence. While clients slept, she explored; fossicked through possessions, diaries and unlocked phones and computers, taking photos using an old camera that didn't connect to the internet. Keeping physical records. At parties, she'd listen and observe before sowing seeds of conflict with what she learned. She became an icon of mysterious beauty and with that, a label was slapped onto her. The country let her drift from bed to bed while the outgoing entertainers took to the spotlight. The greatest entertainment was three recent careers; Scion, Quartz, Apt - and 7's Cleome, who'd get drunk, do be reckless and stupid and make front-page news. The four represented everything Elluria loathed with their loud arrogance and gleeful bullying. They were brilliant distractions – she'd give them that. It distracted the government just enough so that they wouldn't immediately notice Hector and Sycamore's talk rebellious actions, caught in audio surveillance. She nearly stuck a knife in his skull for that. The amount of effort she had to put in to delete that section of dialogue then replace it with believable audio took several sleepless nights of work.
Elluria was the first to propose killing the weaker links.
No one was surprised that she wanted to do such a thing, she thought they more surprised that it'd taken that long for a person to suggest the idea. She knew they all felt guilty for having to make her do extra work. They should feel guilty. Fuck Hector and Durum and Sycamore and everyone else who made her fuck even one person more than she should have to.
She was doing it for the children in her district, always at her door asking for food. For a better future for her nieces and nephews. For a future where even one less person won't have to endure watching their father be whipped within an inch of his life for stealing medicine. She'd be dead if it wasn't for the risk her dad took, needing medicine should never be a crime. Every day she tried to be kind and fair even if the most of victors she spent so much of time with saw her only for looks and seeming aloofness.
She kept to the tight circle of budding alcoholics; bawdy Chaff, cautious Hog, calculated Haymitch and talkative Argon. At first, when she went to victor-only parties she lingered around them by default, they were the outers that were closest to her in age and they didn't have the energy to judge her. She discovered she had an awful lot in common with the coarse, cynical men. They were her home away from home. Never did she fall in love with them or vice versa – despite the endless rumours about her and Argon. Argon was from 5, he won his games using his mind more than he ever did anything else – like Elluria. Though while her gift was manipulation, his was his chemistry. His arena was an old landfill site and by sheer luck, he stumbled upon a massive section containing thrown-out bottles of chemicals and other liquids, his work in 5's powerplants made winning as simple as dropping chemical bombs at the unwitting and letting them die.
It was a completely and utterly insane way of winning and Elluria was insanely fascinated with it all in the same way Argon found her people skills astounding. They both valued intelligence and hated recklessness and lived to understand the world around them. She didn't believe in love, she thought it was an excuse that lustful idiots used to make frivolous choices. And then she met a sharp-featured man with bright red hair from District 5 and she understood why people wrote songs and books about love, because she fell in love with him, not romantically, it entirely platonic. It was love, regardless.
Beetee poked around the electronics store, pretending to ignore the man that had been watching him for the past week now. It was rather insulting that they thought he was foolish enough to communicate with the rebels, if he was one of them, he wouldn't do it while a man in clothes far too expensive for District 3 was watching his every move. Mags had approached him to join the rebel alliance not long after his time in the arena; he was too terrified to do anything but obey the orders of the Capitol. He was too scared to fight after watching six children die of electrocution. He heard them refer to him as a coward when they thought he wasn't hearing – except the 7s and 10s who'd say the word with a cruel, mocking smile.
He tried not to blame them, different districts had different values, the two districts in particular admired courage and humour. Beetee had both, only not in the way they wanted him to be. It didn't bother him much, he was close with his family and was happy to spend his time hidden away in his studio, trying to forget the horrors of his games by being distracted; inventing machine after machine, foregoing sleep for days to meet arbitrary deadlines that meant almost nothing. Victor's vices were virtually all the same, the careers who claimed they weren't dependent on anything were liars. Slick exercised to injury. Winnow would spend months writing, without ever leaving the house. Eris jumped at the chance to sleep – instead of nightmares, she got flashbacks. Like war, that's what the games did, it tortured, and it killed until all that was left were a handful of survivors that were merely the husks of who they once were.
Beetee paid for his items before driving back to Victor's Village, keeping one eye on his stalker and forcing himself to ignore the streets around him.
Like 5, 6 and 8, District 3 was an industrial district. It was a concrete hellscape. People lived in poorly built high-rises that were always at risk of collapse or in the process of collapsing. Merchants had the luxury of living in a mall-like structure, where the threat of death wasn't quite literally looming over their heads. Factories and processing plants haphazardly covered the district. Victor's Village was located on the outskirts, near the administrative offices, it was paradise in comparison.
Upon arriving home, he looked at the booklet of information regarding the upcoming games, the letter had arrived the day prior, though he'd been far too busy to read it. The mentors were as follows.
District 1
F: Quartz Vivacian of the 48th
M: Slick Tensile of the 25th
District 2
F: Eris Andronicus of the 36th
M: Scion Carver of the 51st
District 3
F: Wiress Preece of the 41st
M: Beetee Latier of the 32nd
District 4
F: Mags Flanagan of the 11th
M: Apt Byers of the 52nd
District 5
F: Porter Millicent Tripp of the 38th
M: Argon Valence of the 53rd
District 6
F: Elyce Miria of the 26th
M: Hummer Kirk of the 9th
District 7
F: Cleome Walker of the 54th
M: Mahogany Ristem of the 47th
District 8
F: Pirn Callouse of the 20th
M: Woof Barton of the 8th
District 9
F: Winnow Thatcher of the 4th
M: Bract Baphene of the 24th
District 10
F: Karah Abattoir of the 23rd
M: Sus Tenic of the of the 37th
District 11
F: Elluria Yeon of the 55th
M: Chaff Ire of the 46th
District 12
F: Haymitch Abernathy of the 50th
M: Haymitch Abernathy of the 50th
The list was as Beetee had predicted, a high number of victors from the more recent games, those who had no choice – like 9's only female victor, Winnow, and Haymitch. There was something else, something new that caught his attention. He was under the impression Hector was supposed to be mentoring, he was the only male victor from 10. Beetee was worried for the stubborn man, did the Capitol discover his allegiance to the rebels?
Elyce caught whispers that night in the Capitol, she heard words of horror and tragedy float over-intoxicated crowds. She respected Hector Sceran, where the others found him stuck in his ways. She didn't need to ask questions, people at the party discussed it in graphic detail, possible to hear even over the loud thud of music. A gas leak, a strike of lightning, a house going up in flames. When it became too much, then she escaped to an underground café, where the bread was warm and people were outcasts. She sat down at a beaten-up plastic table and tried to distract herself, talking about the upcoming games with Pirn and Karah over the phone, talking about anything that wasn't Hector. The women started to cry deeply pained sobs.
Hector wasn't kind or intelligent or anything special really, but that's what made him so important to them. She could spend 20 minutes talking about the latest book she' read, and he'd pretend to listen, then pass her a beer. He'd joke with Pirn about dead tributes and wonder how long it would take for theirs to die. The others called them fragile. The old man who was too lazy to consider other's feelings treated them with a level of carelessness they found refreshing. They looked up to him.
And then he was gone. And it hurt.