Volunteer Games Chapter 4, a hunger games fanfic

"Volunteer Games"

Chapter Four

By Brian Grove

Brian at rescueddoggies dot com

Disclaimer – As I'm British and male, it may come as no surprise that I don't own Hunger Games.

An experienced beta would be welcome.

Previous Chapter:- Stefani's mother provides the clue they need, but it is the judge who deciphers the message Gail puts in her paintings.

Volunteer Games - Volunteer Games - Volunteer Games - Volunteer Games - Volunteer Games

The hovercraft was quite crowded as the judge had arranged for a small team of doctors to join us. While they were boarding, Mom ran back into the house for a minute. "Have to make a phone call," she yelled. She was back in less than a minute.

No matter how much I wished the hovercraft to go faster, it was a little after ten o'clock when the arena came into view. The games started at ten. I wondered how many would already be dead. And what of Gail?

A speaker blared out from the hovercraft. "By judicial order, these games are suspended. You are to lay down your weapons at once. Anyone who kills another tribute from this moment on will be tried for murder. Anyone who injures another tribute from this moment on will be charged with that crime. All tributes are to make their way to the cornucopia immediately." The message repeated over and over again.

As the hovercraft descended we saw the bloody remains of the bloodbath and a few tributes beginning to come nervously out of the woods.

Without even looking at the judge for permission, the medical team went into action. Many of the tributes had injuries of one kind or another.

But we couldn't see Gail anywhere. Mom and Dad weren't leaving the judge's side, but I could see the increasingly desperate look on their faces. I ran around the cornucopia, checking each of the bodies. None was Gail. Had she gone into the forest injured and died there? Or was she lying out there somewhere, hurt or even dying?

The judge was quietly speaking to the nearest tributes, the ones who were uninjured. He turned back to us and shook his head. "None of them will say anything," he said. "We really need to find your daughter, Madam President."

"I'll find her," Mom said. "I'll be able to track her."

"I'll go with you," I said.

"You'll stay here and guard the judge, like we promised."

"Guard him from what?"

"Anyway, if I wanted someone with me in the forest when I'm tracking, I'd take Peeta," she said with almost a grin.

"Dad?" I said at the same time as he said "Me?"

"Yeah. He makes so much noise he'd scare off any animals out there."

In spite of the seriousness of the situation, it made me laugh a little.

Mom took her bow and asked the other tributes if any of them had seen which way she'd gone. A huge monster of a boy said he could show her part of the way. He was well-armed with knives and it didn't take much to work out that he'd been one of the careers.

Mom nodded brusquely and they disappeared into the forest.

"I'm going with her," I said.

The judge simply said, "Go!"

The boy was making enough noise that they would have been easy to follow even if they hadn't stuck to the paths.

Then it went quiet, not silent, but quiet. They'd stopped moving. As quietly as I could I crept around the next bend in the path. The boy had his arm around Mom's neck and was about to slit her throat.

I gasped and he looked up. Before I could react, the knife was already flying at me. I was lucky. It only hit me in the arm. That distraction was all Mom needed. She'd escaped from his grip.

I ran at the boy, my own knife at the ready. Welcome to the Hunger Games, I thought.

He was trapped between us now. Mom was a few yards away, her bow already primed.

He looked like he didn't know which one of us to attack first. His moment of indecision didn't last long. He ran at Mom, but an arrow hit him in the shoulder. Mom looked annoyed at her poor shot, but already had another arrow ready.

I'd reached them by that time and put my knife at his back. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't gut you right now," I snarled.

"Drop your knives, all of them, then turn around, slowly," Mom said. "Do anything apart from what I say and this arrow won't hit only your shoulder."

He dropped his weapon, emptied two others from his pockets and turned around.

"Now walk," Mom said. "Don't try to run. If she doesn't kill you, I will."

I kept my knife at his back as we walked back to the cornucopia. The moment we walked onto the plain, a doctor came running, and...

"Gail!" Mom cried.

"Don't bother with him," I snapped at the doctor. "He doesn't deserve it."

Gail looked at me, disappointed.

"He tried to kill Mom," I said, wondering why I felt I had to defend myself.

"I knew you'd come," Gail said to mom. "Pity it took you so long to convince the judge about my message."

"It was the judge who worked out your message," Mom admitted.

The boy's shoulder was bleeding quite badly.

"Mom, we need to get his family safe," Gail said.

"But he's a career," Mom replied with a tone of disgust.

"Mom. Now. His family and all the others. Especially the careers."

To Mom's credit she didn't waste time asking for explanations. "Beetee. You listening in?"

"What else would I be watching?" Beetee sounded almost amused.

"Are we live to all of Panem?"

"Yes. I made it so they can't cut the feed."

Mom spoke quietly to the judge. He nodded.

"This is Katniss Everdeen. I have the chair of the Constitutional Court with me who has an emergency order for peacekeepers in all the Districts and the Capitol. Judge?"

"Peacekeepers. You are ordered to take all the families of all the tributes into custody at once. Do not allow anyone to see them until I give the order. They are in grave danger and this is protective custody. If any harm comes to them, you will answer to me. Inform President Beetee in the games control room when the families are safe."

Like Mom, Beetee was an ex-President, so the judge used his title.

The boy cried out, "Not the head Peacekeeper in Two. He's with them. And get Lata and her family safe too. And keep my sisters safe from my parents."

"The Deputy? Is he okay?" the judge asked him.

"He's okay, I think."

"Deputy Head Peacekeeper in District Two. You heard the boy. Take personal control of this operation in your district and take your Head Peacekeeper into custody on my authority. Do not allow him to have contact with any of those in protective custody."

He looked at the boy as if to say, 'Okay?', then he spoke again. "Capitol Peacekeepers. Nobody is to leave the games control building. Seal all the rooms. Only President Beetee and his team are to be permitted in the control room. Take everyone else to the staff dining hall. Keep the senior games officials separate from one another and do not allow them to communicate. I will be joining you as soon as we can get there."

"Now?" I asked.

"Now I need to speak to your sister," he said.

"Yes, your honor?"

"Why don't you tell me what this is all about?" He spoke kindly, almost like a grandfather. "And remember, all of Panem is watching in."

"Before she answers your questions, I have one of my own," Mom interrupted. "Where were you? Why didn't you come with the others when we told everyone to come here? Do you know how worried we were?"

"I was too far away. I knew you'd come, somehow, but I didn't know how long you'd be. So I ran and kept on running. Then when I heard the announcement, I wondered if it was a Gamemaker trick, so I came back, but carefully."

The judge looked impatient. "Now we've resolved your little domestic matter, perhaps we can get onto the reason we are here?"

"I don't know where to start," Gail said.

"Why don't you start with yourself. Tell us why you volunteered."

"They were going to kill Dorada and Jerard, and Chiapaska and Salique."

"What? Why them?" I asked.

"They said my family was too well protected, but they could kill them easily. They showed me photos, one was Dorada in the bath. They said they could get them wherever they tried to hide. And..." she shivered at the memory and when she continued her voice had dropped in tone. "And they'd make it slow. They were going to torture them."

Mom said something under her breath and it was probably just as well that it was too low for the microphones to pick up as I don't think it was very Presidential.

"I couldn't let that happen, Mom," she said, in a tone that almost begged for her approval. "Not after Stefani." She turned to the judge and said, in a colder voice, "That's how they got Stefani too. And most of the others. In some of the poorer Districts, they picked kids with large families and younger brothers or sisters who were still starving, threatened to have their fathers sacked from their jobs, but promised them plenty of food for life if they'd volunteer."

"That doesn't explain the careers," Mom interrupted, ignoring the look of annoyance from the judge. "Their Districts wanted the games to return. You can't tell me they had to be forced."

"It's more complicated than that. It always has been. Cranto can explain better."

We all turned to the boy, but the judge had turned to the doctor working on him.

"Is he okay to speak?"

"Yes. He'll be fine," the doctor replied, then grinned. "I'd have expected a worse wound from a Mockingjay arrow."

"Hey! I'm out of practice," Mom cried, pretending to be offended.

"Cranto, is it?" the judge asked.

"I'm not saying anything," said Cranto. "Not until I see my sisters and Lata."

"Lata?" Mom asked.

"His girlfriend," Gail answered.

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The interviews with the judge took all day, then each tribute was flown to be reunited with their families. Except for the careers. Like Cranto, they refused to speak until after they'd seen their families safe and sound.

We returned to District Eleven where floods of tears and hugs greeted Gail.

Sadly, for the families of the eight tributes killed in the bloodbath, there was no happy reunion.

Several weeks later the judge came to see us with the results of the investigation. He looked about ten years older in just a few weeks.

"We've arrested officials from just about every district," he explained to Mom. "They manipulated the food program you set up to make sure that some families were kept starving. Always large families, with lots of young children. Then they'd offer the eldest child a way to make sure their younger siblings survived..."

"By volunteering," I said.

"Yes, and if they didn't volunteer, they and their entire family would just disappear. It only took one example of a family who disappeared in each district to ensure that the others would comply. They volunteered because they knew they'd die anyway and at least by volunteering, they had a chance to live and their family would be 'safe'."

"One family disappeared in each district?" I asked. "Why didn't anyone do anything?"

"There's still no real coordination between districts. As far as each district was concerned, it was an isolated case. They always picked a family with an unstable parent to disappear, so everyone just assumed they'd done something, taken them away from the district or something. Nobody who'd be really missed."

"I thought we'd done enough to stop people starving," said Mom.

"There was enough food for everyone," the judge pointed out. "Just that those in charge made sure it didn't get to everyone who needed it."

Mom looked upset, so I hoped to change the subject. "What about the richer districts?" I asked.

"District Three, was similar to the other districts, minus the whole starvation bit. They volunteered or they and their families would simply disappear."

"But the career districts? They've been volunteering almost since the games started."

"As Gail said, that was complicated. And it goes back almost to when the games began. The President at the time was a sadist. I suppose you'd have to be to introduce the games in the first place. After the first games, he wanted more action, more blood to keep people interested. They recruited couples to foster or adopt babies and bring them up as careers. If there weren't enough babies to be adopted, the simply arranged an accident for mothers-to-be who were close to delivery. The babies would be removed and shipped off to another career district, to avoid any risk that they might resemble their parents too much and be recognized."

"That's awful," Mom said.

"The couples were well paid and they were guaranteed that any of their own children would never be reaped. I'm sad to say that there was no shortage of people willing to raise tributes for the money and to guarantee the safety of their own children. If a tribute died in the games, that family would continue to be paid as compensation."

"That still doesn't explain why they volunteered, or why the careers were so brutal," I pointed out, not willing yet to let go of the hatred for the careers I'd got from Mom and Dad.

"Most were told to volunteer. They were told they were going to be reaped anyway, and if they volunteered, they'd receive help in the games. If they didn't volunteer, they'd be reaped and not get a single gift from a sponsor. As for the brutality, the amount of help they'd receive would depend on how cruel they were in the games. They'd also get more money if they were Victors and their families would get more money if they didn't survive. If they had others they were close to, younger siblings or even just close friends, they could earn a guarantee for them to be immune from the reaping if they put on a good enough show. If they didn't put on a good show, there was always someone close to them who could be made to suffer and they knew it. Of course, they were brought up to think that the brutality was something to be admired."

Dad looked more shocked than I felt. "All these years I've hated them and they were just as much prisoners of the Capitol as we were."

"Worse in some ways," said the judge. "You had a one in however-many-thousand chances of being reaped. They grew up knowing that they would be reaped or be forced to volunteer one day."

"What's happened to them now?" Mom asked.

"Their parents are all under arrest, but most have relatives or friends who will take them in."

"Most?" Dad asked.

"Cranto is a problem. He has nobody. His girlfriend's parents don't want him near their daughter now all this is coming out. He's one of the reasons I come here. He was close to your Gail even though he is a lot older than her."

"No," said Dad. "No way."

"Dad!" Gail cried out.

"No way. He tried to kill your mother. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

Gail looked like she wanted to say something, but it was Mom who answered. "He was trying to keep his little sisters safe," she said. "That's something I can understand."

It was instantly understood that we'd be taking him. Dad didn't argue.

Satisfied, the judge turned to Gail. "Well, young lady. Thanks to you, the directors of the company will be in prison for a very long time, along with a lot of corrupt officials from the Capitol and the Districts. There are amendments to the constitution in progress to prevent anything even remotely like the games ever happening again. All because you were clever enough to get message out and brave enough to volunteer."

Gail looked happy, but simply replied, "My mother is the Mockingjay and my Dad's Peeta Melark. What else could I have done?"

Volunteer Games - Volunteer Games - Volunteer Games - Volunteer Games - Volunteer Games

Author's notes...

Please review.

Brian

THE STORY SO FAR

Chapter 1

The volunteer games begin, but aren't popular with viewers. Changes are made, then Stefani, Dorada's sister, unexpectedly volunteers.

Chapter 2

Katniss sent to prison and stripped of the Presidency for trying to take action against the games. Stefani is killed. Gail spends her time trying to find proof that something isn't right about the games. Then she disappears, another volunteer for the games.

Chapter 3

Stefani's mother provides the clue they need, but it is the judge who deciphers the message Gail puts in her paintings.

Chapter 4

The arena is raided and secrets come out which rock Panem to the core.