AUTHOR'S NOTE

Hi! Thanks everyone who read Chapter 1, and the kind review! Here's the next chapter! Again, I don't own any Hunger Games characters or the Hunger Games, and PrimroseRaspberry owns her OC. I own my OCs.

2

I pick my self up from the floor. There's no point crying over spilled milk, so I step into the bathroom. The whole jacket shenanigan only lasted two minutes, and I never did get to finish that shower. I need to wash the sweat, jelly and tears from my hands and face. I turn the thermostat to the coldest the water will go. I shower as quickly as I can. The icy water has cooled down a small volcano of emotion inside of me, and I've stopped shaking from anger and more from cold.

Okay, Clove. Survival basics. Assess the situation before moving forward.

As I dry myself and put on a clean robe, I do just that. The fabric of the jacket is beyond ruin, but if I hide it well enough it won't be discovered before I'm nearly two hundred miles away in the Capitol. That'll lessen the blow from Enobaria.

It's not the fabric I'm worried about, though. It's the olive branch clasp. I need it to be visibly on me today, lest those District 1 brats use it against me later.

I run to my desk, jacket in hand, and grab a pair of scissors. I lay out the jacket on the varnished wood.

I start cutting the clasp away from the lapel, but Enobaria's thought ahead. I've got a spectacular talent for accidentally ripping clothes, and she's spared no expense in making the jacket unrippable.

My scissors skid from side to side on the stiff backing material every time I close them for a cut. The only thing I've managed to do after five minutes of labor is slightly fray the ivory silk.

It's a lost cause. I'm going to have to hope that Enobaria can smooth this over with District 1's mentors, otherwise I'm quite literally dead. Betray one Career district ahead of time, and the rest will follow.

There was one District 4 Tribute a few years ago who got into a pretty heated argument over a single piece of dehydrated apple with a District 1 girl. His own district partner killed him then and there.

If one piece of dried fruit can get me killed, who's to say an expensive, alliance-securing, symbolic piece of jewellery won't? My jelly-wielding apparition hasn't realised the gravity of the mistake they've made.

I throw the scissors down onto the desk with frustration and get up so vigorously the chair slides to the opposite wall with a screeching sound. Laying flat on the floor beneath my bed, I stuff the jacket between the bed-frame slats and my mattress, then shimmy out again.

My bedside clock tells me I have twenty minutes to be ready and downstairs, and I'm standing in a bathrobe with nothing on my face and my hair whipped into a soggy bird's nest. I pull on my remaining reaping clothes and check myself out in my closet mirror. Not bad, but definitely not to be broadcasted across the entire nation. I sigh and move in to the bathroom and start brushing my tangled mop. I'm going to have to prioritise hair over make up, as I don't have time to do both. I'd rather my eyebrows look like dying caterpillars than my entire head does.

After I've brushed, blow-dried and brushed again, I tie my hair up in a high ponytail, leaving a small strand to frame my face as per Enobaria's instructions.

Feeling as ready as I can be, I head downstairs.

The Victors have told us to gather outside the Career Centre's front doors. As I push them open, I see the Victors, a gaggle of parents, and a group of children stuck like glue to their coaches. It makes my blood boil that parents never bother to show for weekend visits and assigned hang-out days past a few months of their children being in the programme, and they still expect us to run into their open arms on Reaping Day.

I join my own parents only because my father is a broad man and can screen me from Enobaria. I can brave the small talk for a little while.

'Clove!' my mother dotes over me. 'Oh, how great it is to see you!'

'You've grown so much in a year!' Dad says, squeezing my cheeks.

I roll my eyes and step back a bit, only to be enveloped in one of my Dad's infamous suffocating hugs.

'Mom. Dad.' I say, once I get gaudy flannel and armpit out of my face, but I'm saved from default suburban we-haven't-bothered-to-see-you-in-a-year-but-anyway-how-are-you chatter by Enobaria.

Into the fire I go.

'Clove.' she nods me to the side.

I only need one word. She leads me, alone, off the wide, sweeping porch and onto the stretch of manicured lawn guarding the Career Centre. We stop underneath a dorm window, and immediately Enobaria's gathered facade drops. She pops a vein.

'Jacket, and don't tell me you just forgot to wear it. Clove, we don't have time for this.'

I tell her the truth, albeit very partially.

'I didn't forget to wear it.'

'So what is it then? You didn't like the color? Couldn't figure out how the clasp works? If you go back for it now, we'll be late.'

I stay silent and stare a hole through the ground.

Well, if the jacket wasn't ruined, I'd have time to go fetch it and come back twice while you rant. I think to myself.

'Clove, that jacket is a very expensive, personally fitted piece. Don't tell me it cost me a fortune for you not to wear it, and as a bonus, it helped me get you an alliance with District 1. Now, this may very well be your last day in this district alive, so I'm going to have mercy on you. But I have told you so many times, tricks like this will not stand.'

There's no way Enobaria will ever have mercy on me, considering I'm her favorite stress ball. I may have to pay for this in the arena, so nice going, jelly artist.

Fortunately, Enobaria's watch ticks to 8:25, and she gestures to me to follow her back to the gathering. As we leave, I glance up at the second floor windows, and notice the tiny outwards-jutting sills on them. Could they be wide enough to support a person hanging by the fingertips? Even so, if that's where the mystery intruder hid, I would have seen them when I looked down, and it would be impossible to dive into that position.

We arrive back on the porch. All of the excited buzz has faded, and I can see why. Brutus is practically exploding out curses at anyone who so much as looks at him. Even Lyme has backed away apprehensively.

From what I can gather, which isn't a lot, it's something to do with Cato.

Enobaria pulls Brutus to the side and begins to discipline him as if he's a small child, everyone else conspicuously eavesdropping, me included. She finally manages to calm him down enough to achieve some level of coherency.

Apparently, Cato is late. An actual criminal offence when it comes to the reaping.

Enobaria gives her watch another furious glance.

'We have less than five minutes to be there,' she declares. 'Meaning Cato can find his own way to the reaping. If he doesn't get there by the time the film is over, Lyme, you have my permission to put forward your trainee in his place.'

Lyme's seventeen-year-old, a beefy cretin by the name of Stultus, pumps his fist in the air. Cato better hurry up.

Enobaria leads the procession to the town square. It's a sunny morning, and despite how early it is, the heat has begun to creep up on us.

I've spent years imagining how my last reaping would go. How would it feel to do those hand shakes? To yell, 'I volunteer!' for all Panem to hear?

As it turns out, not too riveting. My stomach does backflips inside me and my knees turn into jell-o.

Cato arrives right in the middle of the Capitol issue short film, so at last I'm safe from being partnered with Stultus. Cato's redder than a tomato, if that's even possible. The entire district, and quite likely most of Panem, eyeballs him as he stamps his fingerprint and joins the other boys, mumbling something to do with doors on the way. The rest of the reaping goes swimmingly, at least as far as I can tell. I can't shake the image of the District 1 Careers watching a live broadcast of the reaping, their faces growing steadily purpler as they look for the olive branch and can't find it, from my head, so I just ignore it.

Finally, it's time for the actual reaping part of the reaping, after the mind-numbing torture that is the Treaty of Treason has been read.

When I imagined myself volunteering, I always imagined having feelings of dread, regret or intense elation. Instead, I feel fine. Anti-climactic, I know. But as I walk up the stairs of the town hall with everyone watching me, all my conflicting emotions boil down to some sort of neutral. However, butterflies attack my internal organs as I shake hands with the mayor.

This is it. No going back now. I've done it. I'm in the Games, and I'm going to win them, whether the other Careers like me or not. Definitely leaning towards the intense elation now.

The reaping is over in a rush. So are the goodbyes. It's pretty hard to focus on your teary parents when you're on cloud nine, but I'm glad I don't remember much of that conversation.

Pretty much everyone else I want to talk to will be on the train to the Capitol with me, with the exception of two.

Cultella, my closest friend in the training centre. She's only twelve, but she's bright and nearly as good with knives as I was at her age. She pulls me into an embrace and slides me a bag of my favorite candy. I thank her with a smile.

The other person is my first ever Career coach, Coach Garrison. Our conversation is quicker than quick, but it's all I need.

'So, Clove. You ready for this?'

'Readier than I'll ever be.'

'Attagirl. If you're still as good as when I trained you, those odds are definitely in your favor.'

'Thank you.' I reply.

He gives me a swift pat on the back, then leaves.

It looks like Cato's visitors don't hang around for long either, because our hour of farewells ends fifteen minutes early.

With around a quarter of an hour until our train arrives, we find ourselves leaning against the mahogany panelled walls of the main hallway. The Victors are in the mayor's office with the mayor and Metella, our Capitol representative, so we're left alone with two peacekeepers defending the door.

'Aw, damn it. Looks like our escape route's down.' I say, giving the uniformed men a teasing glance.

'Aw, damn it, looks like you're running out of jokes.' Cato retaliates.

'Fair enough.' That one would have worked a lot better if we weren't here of our own free will.

'What's with you being late?'

'What's with no jacket?'

'Hmm?' I say.

I nearly forgot about that little detail.

'Enobaria was boasting about it before. How she'd managed to get Capitol-quality fabric for a jacket for you. So, why aren't you wearing it?'

'Why are you late? Come on, I wanna know. I'm sure it's so much more interesting than my jacket.'

'Believe me, it's not. It's stupid.'

'You tell me and I'll tell you.'

'Fine.'Cato sighs. 'Just don't laugh.'

'I won't. Promise.'

'Okay. So, I was ready for the reaping, and I went to leave my room and go downstairs.'

'Great, so what's the problem?' I interrupt.

'Just shut up and listen. I tried to open the door,'

'Tried?'

'Shut. Up.'

I grin at his frustration.

'Please.'

'Anyway, I tried to open the door, but the handle wouldn't turn.'

'You need to unlock it first, dingus.'

'I did. It was like something was jamming the handle on the other side, so it wouldn't turn. After twenty minutes finally the handle turned.'

'So you're telling me I nearly got stuck with that imbecile Stultus because you couldn't turn a door handle?'

'I told you, someone jammed it! And when I finally got it open, there was literally no one there and nothing nearby that could have been used to jam the door.'

'Well maybe the door wasn't jammed and you were just being stupid?' I snort. 'You're the kind of guy that could pull something like that off.'

However, inside I consider that maybe I'm not the only one dealing with a phantom.

'You said you wouldn't laugh! And it sure felt jammed!'

'Okay, okay, I'm sorry. But what's your punishment? Being late to the reaping is illegal, right?'

'Yep. I'm getting fined.'

I burst out into laughter.

'Hey! What's so funny?' Cato snaps.

'You're not gonna be alive to pay that fine, moron.'

'Oh? We'll see about that. But it wasn't my fault I was late, even though there's no proof. Just a speck of jelly on the floor.'

'Jelly?' My tone drops.

'Yeah. Weird, right? We're not allowed food upstairs.'

The door to the mayor's office opens and the people inside step out. The train must be here soon.

I dash across the large entrance hall towards Enobaria. The sooner I'm on that train, the sooner I can be alone to think.

'Hey!' Cato calls. 'Aren't you going to tell me about your jacket?'

'Nope.' I say.

If my invisible jelly vandal is messing with Cato too, that means this isn't personal. Someone is set on ruining the Games, and there's no way I'm going to let them.