A.N.: Hello, everyone!

What a ride it's been… Personally, I can't believe that we're out of the arena at last. The story isn't over, though. At the moment, I'm not entirely sure how far I'll go before I (probably) switch to a sequel about life after the Games. There may also be a fic about Vivienne, or about District Nine in general…or it will be a combination of the three… I'll let you know when I know for sure.

Before I continue on with this chapter, I'd like to put up some credits:

Tribute Creators (in alphabetical order, by account name)

A Type of Wallflower — Jude Paraux, Robin Sarabia

-ChloeWayland- — Erit Byrne, Icee Lightwood

Cosmo4ever — Sara Strickham

Hahukum Konn — Thera Adrastea

jedininjamellomaster — Bergamot "Iceburg" Palentia

Lanraja — Tam Penemue

'Luv-Rain' — Dalinder "Dally" Fernswith, Moh Kandeld, Luis Isofer, Bint Westley*

Max Alleyne — Moira Jemsom

MewMewApple101 — Dawn Calder

*Moh, Luis, and Bint were bloodbath names, with no character profile, supplied by 'Luv-Rain'*

Thanks for the characters, everyone! I hope I wrote them well. Also, thanks to everyone who has reviewed, and been supportive, and given me ideas! While I'm writing this, this story has just broken 100 reviews. That's more than any fan-fic I've written to date. Wow. Thanks again!

Now, the chapter...

XXX

The Head Gamemaker leans back in his chair in his private office, calmly taking sips from the cup of coffee in his hand. His job is finished for the year; now the control room is under the control of the Filmmaking Committee. He has little doubt that they will make a good recap; Kayla practically wrote a story for them herself.

His team now has a few days to sit back, relax, and be congratulated. After that…

The Head Gamemaker turns his chair towards a bookshelf and takes down a thick binder. He flips past pages of disjointed sentences and scribbles, diagrams and descriptions, pictures of forests and mountains and creatures of all shapes and sizes, until he finally comes to a blank page near the back of the binder. At the top of the page, he writes the number 48 in black pen.

Who can sit back when there's an arena to design? he thinks, smiling to himself as he picks up a pen and begins to write.

XXX

"The damage is superficial, really," the doctor explains with a shrug. "The knife wound in her arm, a minor concussion from hitting her head on a rock… Most Victors come out much, much worse. We're still going to give her a full body polish to get rid of her extra scrapes, but she'll be camera-ready much more quickly than usual."

Vivienne nods, staring through the glass window at the girl on the hospital bed. Kayla looks so small and helpless now, motionless and asleep with hydration tubes stuck in her arm, not at all like someone who's just won the Hunger Games. Arrian would take care of that, no doubt. The time of her looking weak should be over.

The mentor closes her eyes. She's done it. Thirty years of bringing children to the arena, and she's finally bringing one home. District Nine has a third Victor to add to its list.

She wonders if her mentor, Bennett, watched the doctors put her back together, like she's watching Kayla now.

He was probably off drinking himself into oblivion, she silently answers her question. Bennett had won his Games and come back a lost cause, friend only to the barman in the town. Vivienne had had to take on the arena on her own; she'd had to figure out how to win on her own. After she'd won, Bennett had stopped mentoring, getting himself sick enough that not even the Capitol could force him to return, even though he had barely been in his twenties.

I swore I'd never give up like him, Vivienne thinks. I swore that I'd never give up on the children; that I'd do everything that I could to get them home. Again and again I failed, but Kayla, dear Kayla, Kayla is coming home.

She thinks back to District Nine, which is probably in a state of happy chaos, trying to prepare for Kayla's homecoming celebrations. It had been absolutely hectic in her year, she remembers.

Hopefully not too hectic now, she silently adds, opening her eyes and looking at Kayla again. She's in no state to handle too much excitement, even if she did just win. We rarely ever are, but she most certainly isn't.

I'll have to carefully guide her home.

XXX

It's too hard to tell if I'm dreaming or awake anymore. I must have spent an eternity here, walking down hallways and running through the woods, following footsteps and voices that I vaguely recognize. Sometimes, I turn a corner and am rewarded with an embrace from Anise or a kind word from Bergamot. Others, I open a door to see Shimmer standing there, fangs bared and claws outstretched, more monster now than human. I am constantly worried, constantly stressed and in pain, trying to find my way out of the arena, out of the endless nightmare. I hear screams and sobs, but I do not know if they are my own.

When I open my eyes to find myself lying on a soft bed in a white room, I think that I'm out at long last, but I'm not certain, because Anise is standing at the foot of my bed.

It's time to get up, Kayla.

"Are you really here?" I whisper, my voice coming out low and hoarse.

I will always be here for you, Kayla, just as you were there for me.

"But I wasn't there," I protest. "I wasn't there, and they killed you."

Anise shakes her head. None of that matters now. Get dressed and go meet your team. The door is over there.

She points at the wall, and I sit up to look where she indicated, but all that's there is a wall. I turn back to ask, and she's gone.

I get up, and my legs tremble but hold me. At the foot of the bed, right where Anise had been a moment ago—or had she really been?—is an outfit, a dark green, sleeveless, hooded shirt and black leggings. The clothes that Arrian took out of the package in the Launch Room; what we all wore in the arena. I don't want to put it on. I want to leave it there and go far away from it and get out of the arena. But it's here, and I'm naked, and Anise told me to dress, and so I dress. Then I walk over to the wall, which slides open to reveal a hallway. I step out into the hallway and turn my head to look in both directions, but no one's there.

Maybe I didn't wake up, after all, and this is just another hallway in the nightmare. I turn to go back to the bed, thinking that maybe I'll wake up if I go back to sleep.

"Kayla."

I look to my right, and someone's there, walking towards me down the hallway, the person who called my name. It's someone tall with long, silvery-brown hair, wearing a plain purple dress.

Vivienne. It's Vivienne.

My mentor extends a hand. "This way, Kayla," she says.

I slowly approach her, staring up at her cautiously. Is she real? Is any of this real? Or will she disappear, too?

When I reach her, she bends over and wraps her arms around me, holding me in a gentle but firm hug. She's big and warm and smells like the woods, like home.

She's real.

"Well done," Vivienne whispers into my ear. "Very well done."

"I'm out now," I say, hardly able to believe it. "I'm really out now…"

"You are, Kayla." Vivienne holds me at arm's length, staring into my eyes with a calm determination. "You're out of the arena now. Remember that."

"It was hell in there," I say.

Vivienne nods and gives me a wry smile, wiping a tear off of my cheek. I hadn't even realized that I was crying.

"That just about sums it up," she says. "That's not what our friends in the Capitol like to hear, though, but we can talk all you want when we get home in a few days. All right?"

I nod, and she straightens, keeping a hand on my shoulder as she steers me into a large chamber at the end of the hallway. Two other people are here now: Minnie and Arrian. Very little is said—some congratulations from Minnie and a beckoning comment from Arrian—before my stylist takes me by the arm and leads me further down the hall and into an elevator.

"Where's Calpurnia?" I ask as he presses a button and the elevator begins to rise.

"Her job's done for the year," he says.

He doesn't have to say it; I know that her job ended with Bergamot. He didn't say it, though…because it would bother me? Yes, it would bother me. The fact that he doesn't say it makes me wonder at how calm and gentle everyone's been so far to me.

We exit the elevator and cross the darkened lobby of the Training Center. I guess the hospital was deep down, even below the underground gymnasium. Maybe it's as deep as the lava in the cavern. Maybe the cavern's around here somewhere, and the ground's about to fall out from under me and dump me into it.

I falter, staring at the cracks between the tiles in the floor, and Arrian gently tugs on my arm.

"This is the Training Center, Kayla," he says. "Not the arena."

I need the reminder. Has Vivienne been coaching him, then, about how to treat me?

Another elevator ride, this time up to the familiar ninth floor, where my prep team is waiting. They start forward quickly, but a glare from Arrian quiets them. I look over at him gratefully. I don't want any excitement, not now, not ever if I can help it.

Of course, I know that I can't. After a short, calm meal, my prep team starts to fix me up for the presentation. I close my eyes and let them move me from place to place, not resisting. I still don't feel entirely awake; this doesn't feel completely real yet.

I wonder if it ever will.

Someday, it will, Bergamot assures me. Someday.

Since it's him talking, and most of my mind is assuring me that he's dead, I'm not sure if I can believe him.

Eventually, Arrian returns with a light gray dress, which he slides over my head and guides my arms through the sleeves. The fabric feels cool and silky against my skin. Arrian tucks my hair behind my ears, looks me over, and nods.

"Have a look at yourself," he says, turning me towards the mirror.

My mind immediately flashes back to the parade, where I had crouched pitifully in fur that was too large, a wounded pup surrounded by hunters. I'm a wolf again, but different. This dress hangs all the way to the floor, and the sleeves stop at my elbows, but it fits my form perfectly. It's silver in color, and as I straighten, the lights in the room reflect ever-so-lightly off of the moving fabric, which now I can see is lined and textured very faintly. I've seen this light effect before: it's how moonlight shines off of a wolf's silver-furred back. Even my hair has a similar gleam; it's been brushed until it shines and left flowing down my back.

My fingernails have been painted with an off-white polish, with tiny yellow and brown flecks. I shift the dress to see that my feet are bare and my toenails painted the same way. They seem dirty, almost, but in a good way. They're claws, wolf claws. Not pointed and sharp like Shimmer's, like a monster's, but these are claws that have hunted.

I lift my gaze back to my reflection, to my face, which has just the barest touch of makeup around my eyes. I meet my gaze steadily.

"What do you think?" Arrian whispers.

What do I think?

"Not what I was another day:

Graceful hunter, not the prey."

Arrian nods and smiles.

"I'd hoped so," he says. "Are you ready to go down to the stage?"

The wolf-woman in the mirror nods. She's ready.

I'm ready.

Arrian leads me back to the elevator, down to the level of the gymnasium. He takes me into a small, dark room, where he maneuvers me over to a metal plate on the floor, which he has me stand on. Then he gives my hand one last squeeze and walks away into the shadows.

I can hear the noise of the crowd above me. It's deadened, but it must be deafening. They're all here to see the show. And not just them; there will be thousands, millions more, watching from all over Panem. Men, women, and children. Capitol citizens. District people. District Nine people. Townies and Woodsies.

My mother and father. My schoolmates.

Thalia.

She'll be watching, too. Watching the girl who outlived her love. Watching me.

I tense as the urge to flee, to run off into the darkness, to find my way out takes over my mind. I can't do this. I can't go out there. I just can't...

You can. You must! Stay strong, Kayla!

The voices above, the voices in my head. It's too much, too much.

Too much.

A pair of hands firmly grip my shoulders, and I jump, crying out. A voice hushes me. Vivienne.

"It's all right," she says, her voice barely discernable above the rumble of the crowd above us. "It's all right. You're the hunter, remember. You said so yourself, back in the arena, remember?"

"I did…" I can't even hear my own voice, but Vivienne seems to, or at least she sees my mouth move.

"And you were right. You are the hunter. You've always been the hunter. Remember that, Kayla. Please remember. Find that thing that keeps you going and hold on tight to it. If not for you, then for me. Find it for me, and hold on tight. Can you do that?"

Can I do that? Can I go out there, for Vivienne? Big, strong, alive Vivienne?

Yes. Yes, I can.

I don't have time to tell her, because the anthem begins to play, and Caesar Flickerman's voice booms, bidding the audience welcome. Vivienne lets go of my shoulders and hurries away, disappearing into the gloom. I want to call after her, to beg her not to leave me, but I can't, I know I can't. She has to go out there before me. And I have to be strong, for her. I have to be the hunter.

I look the role, don't I? I stand straighter, giving the darkness a silent nod. Yes, I believe I do.

I hear my prep team, Minnie, Arrian, and Vivienne get presented to the crowd in turn, to thunderous applause.

What is the thing that keeps me going, anyway? And do I have it? I have to find it, and find it quickly.

The metal plate beneath my bare feet pushes upward, and I am lifted up to the stage. I make a blind grab with my mind, grasping something close to my heart and holding it tight. I'm not sure what it is, nor do I have the time to figure it out.

For a moment, all I can see is white as the lights hit my face. Then I see the crowd, the screaming, yelling crowd. Hundreds and hundreds of delighted people right here, and millions more elsewhere. I calmly turn to face them all. My gaze is steady, my movements unwavering. I nod. The crowd goes wild.

Caesar extends a hand, which I take in my own. He leads me towards the victor's chair, and I gracefully follow, sitting up straight in the ornate chair.

The lights dim and the Capitol seal appears on the massive screen hanging from one of the nearby buildings. We are about to see the Forty-Seventh Hunger Games in summation, beginning to end, the tale of my victory and the others' deaths.

Again, something inside of me squirms and wants to flee. I dig my fingers into the arms of my chair, willing myself to stay seated, to stay strong, but it's just too hard. I can't.

The screen's gone. Ahead of me I see outstretched hands, Anise's and Bergamot's. Part of me wants to take them, but I'm afraid to. They're dead.

I remember Vivienne's plea, and I tighten my grip on my strength.

Hold on tight. Hold on tight.

The show begins.

I watch as she screen slides through the reaping, parade, training scores, and interviews, with this sort of mystic melody playing in the background. I appear again and again, determinedly stumbling along and looking generally pathetic, but the cameras pick out others, too: Shimmer confidently striding forward to volunteer. Anise stoically keeping her gaze on the chariot in front of her during the parade. Bergamot's "nine" for training. Briar dancing during his interview.

Then comes a scene that startles me and makes me sit forward in my seat, staring up intensely at the screen. There's me, standing at the edge of the roof of the Training Center, the setting sun providing just enough light to show Anise standing next to me.

"Whatever happens, in the end we'll be safe," I'm saying. "Good and safe, where no one can hurt us, or challenge us, or force us to face the deep, dark things that make us fear. We'll be fine, Anise. You'll be fine."

Anise turns to face me, and I caress her cheek, wiping away her tears.

Good and safe, where no one can hurt us.

Did I really say that, back then, at the party? Did I really believe it?

Yes, I believed it. It gave me strength. And I still do.

The fearful thing inside of me quiets and settles. I lean back in my chair, and the screen shifts to the bloodbath.

Now, I'm watching things that I've never seen before. The cameras follow me as I drop off the mountain and climb down to my private little ledge, and then they forget about me for a while, showing Shimmer and her pack slice, stab, and smash. Anise grabs Briar out of the way of Shimmer's knife. Bergamot grabs the bow and arrows right from under Thera's nose and flees into the trees. Landon watches his girlfriend die in front of him and loses his head, practically running himself into Phenom's sword.

Then, the screen mostly follows Shimmer as her pack hunts. There's a dramatic standoff with Bergamot, which is cut short by the attack of a massive black spider, which seems to give Shimmer's knives an even more deadly quality through its poison. Shimmer taunts gentle Moira of Five as venom seeps through the dying girl's veins. Little Ashley of Four manages to kill her district partner, Lucas, before Thera and Phenom slice her in two, spilling her blood rather artfully into the waterfall she'd been hiding behind. The spiders make a comeback, but the Careers prevail, albeit losing Phenom along the way. I suddenly appear again, trying to drop a rock on the Careers and failing to hit anyone. Jude and Robin of Seven stalk Briar and Dally, the friendly girl from Twelve, killing her while he escapes.

Bergamot runs through the forest, stopping to look over his shoulder, then starting again, sprinting out of the trees and across a clearing. Robin leaps out and tackles him, knocking him to the ground. I'm on my feet before I even realize that I am, reaching out to him, calling out to him, as Jude's axe enters his stomach. Then I'm there on the screen, reaching up and calling his name then, too. The me on the screen sags to the ground, and a sort of tremor goes through my body as I begin to speak. They play my farewell in full. The me on the screen turns and walks away, and I sit back down, too.

Then comes the earthquake, and suddenly Anise and I are the center of attention, as she slowly warms to my touch, and pours her heart out to me, and I comfort her with words. It's such a beautiful moment—there's not a sound from the crowd before me—and I can't believe it's me up there. It must be someone else, someone wonderful and strong.

In the dim light of pre-dawn, I see Anise wake up, ease herself out of my arms without waking me up, and give me a quiet kiss good-bye.

I see me sit up, my cave now fully lit in mid-morning, and my eyes widen as I find that she's gone.

I see Robin holding Briar to the ground at the edge of a cliff, Jude raising his axe above his head. I hear Briar's protests, Robin's taunts.

I see Anise sprinting through the trees. I see her grab Jude and Robin.

I see them fall.

I scream.

Everything starts to move so quickly, I can barely keep up. Briar sets an elaborate snare trap and kills Carn. Thera kills Briar, slicing through his neck. Shimmer duels Thera and wins, but she leaves with a limp.

Then I'm stumbling through the woods, crying and talking and looking generally upset, until Vivienne sends me the knife. I watch as a change comes over the lost girl on the screen. She changes in that moment, shifting from prey to hunter.

I have to remind myself that it's me on the screen.

That's the story that they're trying to tell this year, I realize. My growth from prey to hunter. But did I grow into something better?

Shimmer and I meet at the Cornucopia, and then everything gets chaotic again. We're dodging rocks and throwing knives and tumbling towards lava. It's as surreal now as it was then. Time loses all meaning as I watch us; it's like we're dancing, the hunters' dance.

Then Shimmer's hanging by her fingertips, and I'm snarling my final phrases down towards her helpless form. I slice through her fingers, she falls, and Claudius Templesmith's voice announces my victory.

It's over, just like that.

The anthem begins to play again, and I stand as President Snow steps out onto the stage, followed by a little girl who's holding a cushion. The President takes the crown, a silver circlet—did they mean to match my dress on purpose?—and places it on my head, smiling at me. I bow my head and curtsy deeply, the graceful wolf-woman taking over again. The crowd goes wild.

The evening becomes a blur of voices and faces and hands, with me squirming between wanting to flee and boldly staying put. It's too noisy, too exciting, too chaotic, too exhausting. Vivienne appears now and again, a reassuring grin on her face, which helps to keep me calm.

Once or twice, I think I see Anise turning my way, or Bergamot reaching out to shake my hand, but I don't dare think about them too much, lest they become real, lest I join them in death.

I lose all track of time. Finally, I find myself in bed, Vivienne tucking me in.

"Don't go," I whisper.

"I won't," she replies.

"Don't leave me to face it all alone," I plead, despite her reassurance.

For some reason, this makes her pause, an odd expression on her face.

"I'll stay right here," she says as my eyelids drift shut. "I promise."