Hello everyone. My apologies that this chapter took so long (there was some things in my personal life that I had to deal with). I hope you all enjoy reading about district 3, and I hope to have the district 4 chapter up soon as well.

District 3 Reaping

Ada Linux (13)

The dye laden water swirls down the drain, leaving a faint pink ring line around the cracked porcelain bowl. I reach for a towel and wrap my hair up tightly to dry. The empty bottle I discard in the bin. No doubt this will be the last time I color my hair; luxuries like hair dye are expensive in District 3 and I'd only managed to snag this bottle because it'd been long past it's expiration date.

"Ada! Are you still in there?" My mom's voice calls out from the other side of door.

She shakes her head at the sight of my wrapped head and the stained sink beyond. "You know he hates it when you do that."

I can't help but smile a little. "That's why I do it." My father and I get on like Cesium and Water, which is to say disastrously. "Do I still have to stay the weekend with him?"

My mother sighs. It's an argument we have almost every week, not that the outcome ever changes. "You need to spend time with him, he's your father and he cares about you. Besides I have extra shifts in the hardware factory." That's what its usually comes down to: work. Life in District 3 is expensive and since they divorced my mother has had to take on extra just to keep food on the table.

I chew the inside of my cheek. "I guess." Even when I do go to my father's house I don't end up spending much time there. He's never been the hands on type and there's nothing to stop me sneaking out onto the roof of one of the old electronics factories to watch the stars.

My mother tosses her long brown hair. "Anyways, I didn't come to argue with you about you hair." She holds out a long blue dress. "New reaping clothes, I daresay you outgrew that yellow dress from last year." I take the dress. The soft blue fabric is obviously worn, but still in decent condition. My mother smiles. "I used to wear it to my reapings. Maybe it will give you luck."

"Thank you." I smile. "Hopefully I won't need too much luck though." My name is only entered twice this year. Compare that to kids from poorer families, who've been taking out tesserae since age twelve the odds are distinctly in my favor.

My mother cups my cheek with her palm. Tall and slender, with her glossy brown hair its like looking at an older version of myself. She smiles, although I can still the worry in her eyes. "You better go get dressed then. The reaping starts in an hour."

Malcolm Joyner (16)

The gears in my pocket clink and rattle as I shuffle forward in line. I pinch one of the little bolts between my thumb and forefinger, the cool metal giving me strength for the ordeal ahead.

"Next." The white armored peacekeeper snaps her fingers at me and I stumble forward to the check in desk. "Name?"

"Malcolm Joyner." My voice shakes and I clutch the little bolt more tightly. The peacekeeper flips to the J section of her ledger.

"Hand please." I hold out my left arm and she pricks the tip of my finger, stamping the blood under my name. A little device—no doubt made here in District 3—reads the sample. Malcolm Joyner flashes across the little digital screen. She waves me into the holding pen. "Next please."

The roped off area in front of the Justice building is already packed. I push and shove my way through the crowd to the area where the other sixteen-year-old boys have gathered. District 3 is relatively large, so I don't recognize all the faces around me. A few people are talking quietly, but most just stand silently, eyes fixed forward in quiet terror. Maybe they celebrate the Games in some districts—they certainly do in the Capitol—but here in District 3 the words Hunger Games are synonymous with a death sentence.

I wait quietly with the rest, fiddling with the scraps in my pocket. I wish I'd brought more. If I could build something right now maybe it would take my mind off the fact I could be drawn this year.

Thankfully distraction in another form comes soon enough. My friend Thatcher finds me, sidling up to stand next to me.

"Hey Malcolm." His face is ashy but he musters up a smile. "Ready for this year's games?"

I shrug. "Is anyone ever really ready?" Since I was old enough to understand what they were the Hunger Games have loomed over me like a dark cloud.

"It'll be fine. We've never been drawn before." Thatcher doesn't sound very convinced of his own words, but in truth he has far less to be worried about than I do. His father is the floor director in one of the factories, no one in his family has ever had to take a tesserae, meaning the likelihood he'll be drawn is relatively low. Not like mine. Each year I take out 3 tesserae in addition to my own slip. Next year it will be four, an additional slip added for my new sister.

20. That's how many times my name is entered this year. I run the figures in my head, trying to estimate how many other slips are in that bowl, and how large the changes of mine being drawn are. The odds are okay, I decide, not the best nor the worst.

Still I find it unfair. The whole tesserae system is designed to punish the poorest kids in the districts. Not that rich kids don't get drawn from time to time, but not often. And no one ever volunteers.

"I guess you're right." I try to smile, battering down the nerves rise like butterflies in my stomach.

Thatcher looks around clearly searching for a distraction.

"That's new." He points to one of the cameras perched atop one of the buildings adjacent to the Justice Building.

"Hmm." I follow his eyes to the reporter. "It looks like they've redesigned the focusing lenses. They'll have better zoom."

"How can you tell that from all the way over here?"

I shrug. I've always been good at putting things together, almost as good as I am at taking them apart.

At half past eleven Lucretia Artilla bounces up onto the platform. As always she's outfitted herself in a ridiculous combination of clothes, this year feather atop a wild pink mood. She waves at us all.

"Helloooo District 3!" I've never understood why, but Lucretia has always spoken like she's about to announce the winner of some fantastic prize. Maybe that's how they see it in the Capitol? To them the Games are an honor rather than a death sentence. "Welcome to this year's reaping. I'm sure you're all excited to meet this year's tributes!" She babbles on for a few more minutes about honor and national pride. Behind her the Victors what will be acting as mentors sit beside the mayor and other district officials. Beetee looks impatient as always while Nitra dozes through Lucretia's monologue.

Finally, Lucretia finishes expounding on the 'symbiotic relationship between the Capitol and the Districts' and turns her attention to the matter at hand. "As you all know we are here to select one young gentlemen and lady to represent District 3 in the 55th Hunger Games. As is tradition, ladies will go first." She crosses the stage, the click click of her heals audible in the tense silence. Lucretia reaches into the first bowl and pulls out a single white slip with a flourish. "This year's female tribute will be: Ada Linux."

There's a little gasp from somewhere in the crowd and a girl disentangles herself from the thirteen-year-old section. She's tall and lanky, with brown hair died a shocking pink at the ends. I try to recall if I've seen her in school before but any memory of the girl escapes me. The crowd waits in silence as she makes her way up onto the stage, stumbling slightly on the stairs. Lucretia extends a hand to her and helps her up the last few. Even at a distance Ada Linux's face is like a mask, not quite concealing her terror.

"Excellent!" Lucretia claps her hands. "And now the gentlemen."

My heart thunders in my chest as she reaches one manicured hand into the bowl where 20 of my slips are waiting. I clutch the gears in my pocket so tightly that I can feel the rough metal edges draw blood. Next to me I hear Thatcher suck in his breath.

Up on stage Lucretia unfolds the unlucky slip. "Malcolm Joyner! Congratulations!"

Ada Linux (13)

I bounce my knees up and down. I can feel where the velvet of the sofa has grown damp under my palms.

"It will be alright. It will be fine." My mother murmurs petting my hair. I know she's lying. No one my age has ever won the Games, much less from district 3. There will be kids from the career districts that could snap me like a branch. My mother knows all this. If anything, she's trying to convince herself.

Across from us on a plush chair sits my father. He's dressed up today, somehow actually managed to make himself look presentable. I eye him mistrustfully, waiting for him to start shouting at me, to tell me that he's glad that I've been reaped, that it's a good riddance. He does none of those things, instead patting my mother's hand as if to reassure her.

"She'll be just fine Alice, our Ada's a tough girl." He fixes me with his eagle eyes.

"Tougher than nails." My mother laughs a little, giving me a watery smile. "I remember when you were only eight. You got send home from school because Lewis Brighten tried to take your lunch and you hit him over the head with your textbook, knocked him right out."

My father squeezes her hand. "See what I mean. She's a fighter."

I remember that day too, sitting nervously in the principle's office, much like I'm now sitting in the Justice Building. Only Lewis hadn't tried to take my lunch—that was something I'd made up at the office—he'd been talking about my family, calling my mother a _ and my father a drunk. The later might have been true but I wasn't about to let anyone bandy that rumor around.

Still I let the memory give my mother a false sense of hope. There will be much worse bullies in the Hunger Games than Lewis Brighten.

There's a rough knock on the door and we all jump. The voice of a peacekeeper calls out. "Time's up."

My parents rise to go, my mother subsiding into a fresh wave of tears. She embraces me in a tight hug as the peacekeeper throws open the door.

"Be safe." She whispers.

I could almost laugh because there's nothing safe about where I'm going. Instead I return the hug and murmur, "You know I will."

She slips out the open door but my father hesitates. I'm so used to seeing him angry, raging, or else stonily indifferent to my presence. Now he's crying, something I've never seen him do, not during the divorce, not even when he was drunk out of his mind. The sight of it is almost more shocking than hearing my name being read out, almost.

He opens his mouth, then shuts it again as if thinking better of what he was about to say.

I cross my arms. "Well spit it out." My words sound harsh even to my own ears.

"I know we haven't always gotten along Ada." He pauses and I know he's feeling the weight of thirteen years of resentment and neglect, "But I want you to know that I'll be rooting for you." He presses something into my palm and gives me a final hug. Only after they've gone do I open my hand and look down at what he's left me. It's a ring, simple made of scraps of twisted rubber, the kind you'd find in one of the factories. I slip it on my finger. Thank you.