OK, the first two chapters are Serenity's victory tour. Just saying. And I know, I know that the victory tour is supposed to be in thhe winter, between the games, but I had a twist. The reapings come in chapter three and there's a little twist not mentioned in the book...a good one...

Part Two: A Force in the Quell

All my life I've been good but now,
I'm thinking 'What the hell'
All I want is to mess around,
and I don't really care about
If you love me, if you hate me,
you can't save me
-What the Hell? by Avril Lavigne

Mags enters my house holding a purple and green three tiered cake in her hands, topped with aqua '13' candles. "Happy birthday!" She sings to me.

I groan and tell her to set the cake on the table. "I told you that you didn't have to get me anything. That included a cake." I scolded.

Mags smirks. "That was from the triplets, they're very sorry they can't be here today but they promised to see you bright and early on the train tomorrow, to get you ready for District Twelve."

I gulped, remembering Trey was from Twelve. I frown. "My victory tour is way overdue." I do some calculations in my head. Today is May twenty third. We spend a day in each district, which starts tomorrow, and one in the Capitol, with the one day saved for District Four, since that's last. That's fourteen days. That means we return one day before the reapings, exactly.

"Well, what with the presidential elections, the Capitol has been very busy." Mags says. Thats true. And thanks to me, our new president is Coriolanus Snow.

"Just putting a dabble of blush here." Calypso says to herself, stroking the soft brush against my skin. It's been nearly a year since I've last seen her and soon she'll be choosing her next tribute to style since she has the ability.

"Who you think you'll be styling this year?" I asked, examining my nails, which were expertly painted navy.

"I don't know. I'm kind of tired of doing likelys, so no Careers. Well, with twice the usual I should manage to find one loser I could turn gorgeous." She says mindlessly, moving to my eyelids. She reminds me of the twist of the Quarter Quell.

I scowl, even if it can ruin my make up. "Hurtful." I say.

Calypso chuckles. "I just said I didn't want a Career this year, implying you were one, therefore not a loser." She squeezes my shoulder. "I'll admit, I'm going to miss working with you. I've never grown close to a tribute before."

"Have you styled any other winners before?" I groaned, seeing that there was navy streaks through my hair. It was only two weeks ago I managed to get my aqua dye out. Great. Just great.

She thinks, how long can this list be? She's been in this business no more than thiry years. "There was my first tribute, Jette. Hmmm. Oh! Carleson, Avery, Tudor, Melinda, Rosario, and you." She exclaims.

My eyes widen, she's had seven winners out of her twenty five years. "Jette? Jette was your first tribute?" Jette probably is my favorite victor out of all of them. She was so pretty everytime she was on stage. She partook in the first Quell, hailing from District Seven.

"Yes, yes." She says dismissevely. "Oh! And Wave, how can I forget Wave? I remember seeing him at the reaping, so shy and innocent, now look at him!"

"Wave was yours too?" Wave was another example of her brilliance. I remember seeing him when I was nearly eight, having an insta-crush on him.

"Yes. One of my favorites, along with you and Avery." She's referring to the girl that won ten years ago, being District Twelve's first and only victor to this day. She was a fiery one, so quiet until her final battle, which is one of my favorites but my mother makes me watch it on mute. I never knew what her and the boy from District Two said to each other until recently.

"Is styling, like, some sort of thing that runs in the family?" I asked.

"No but I hope my son will follow in my footsteps." She started curling my hair with a blazing iron.

I blinked. She never mentioned any kids or husband. "Son? I didn't know you had children."

She smiled. "I don't. I have a child, and he's adopted. I just got him three months ago. Cinna. I named him Cinna, it means creative."

"It's a cute name." I say, then she makes me stand up to put on my dress. I think that's all I get to wear. I take a look in the mirror. "Really, Calypso? Really?"

She forced me into a sundress (which I find funny because there isn't that much sunny about D-Twelve). It's a light wear, the fabric soft. There's a belt, really more like a string, at my upper waist. It's navy and white striped.

"Apparently they like you in stripes. And blue." She shrugs, like there's nothing else to say. The train comes to a sudden halt, we must be there. "Do you know what you're sayin during your speech?"

I nodded. "I just hope I don't start crying." Trixxa bursts through the door, tells me I look pretty as always, and says we must get into a car to go to District Twelve's Justice Building. Calypso says she'll meet me there. Mags squeezes my hand and tells me I'll do fine. Wave, I have no idea how he managed to tag along, says that District Twelve likes me. They also told me that some merchants from Twelve sponsored me after Trey died.

I remind myself that all I have to do is give a speech, meet the parents, talk with Avery a little, and have a small dinner with the mayor, the parents, Avery (in other districts it's with more), and my team which consists of Knighty, Mags and Wave, the triplets, and Calypso.

When I arrive, there's a huge crowd waiting for me. In the poorer districts usually there isn't that big of a turn out. They cheer for me, some give me small smiles or waves. None try and attack me like what happened in previous years.

I step onto the stage and look into the crowd. Directly below me is a woman with long auburn hair and two toddlers with tufts of the same hair color, which must be Danica's relatives. To the left of them is a married couple, they look young, somewhere around their early thirties and a small girl, like seven, and a baby boy on the mothers hip. The seven year old looks a lot like Trey, so they must be his family.

I lean into the microphone once the cheering dies down. I expected more officials here but since there are none, I'll just have to go out on a limb.

"Hello." I say, and blush, because my voice sounds so small. "Um, there's so many things I'd like to say about District Twelve. If you watched the games, you know that I allied with Trey from day one. I know I made a Career alliance when I was reaped but there was some...complications.

"When I watched the reapings from the other districts, you can ask anyone from my team, I immediately wanted Trey as my ally." Mags and Trixxa nod, because stupid Wave was drunk that night. "And when he was interviewed, I guess he wanted me as an ally too because he made the first move. Trey has saved my life in so many ways. After he died, he was my motivation to keep fighting because I owed him that. He trusted me with his life and now I had to honor it.

"Although I cried the next day and I might have seemed defenseless, the whole time I was thinking about how and what I could do to win. Even though we shared a kiss, he was like a brother to me. I will never forget him, and I'm eternally grateful for the time I got to spend with him and get to know him." The crowd burst into cheers and it looked like his family was crying.

I turned to Danica's family, the toddlers were silent and the mother was bowing her head respectively. "I admit, I didn't care too much for the older tributes as you saw during my games." There was a little laugh from the audience. "So naturally I didn't really notice Danica. I didn't pay her mind until Trey brought her up, with his anger towards Cristan. And when I watched my games over, seeing the fight with him, it gave me a new respect toward older tributes. If she was still here, and if I lived in District Twelve, I think we would be good friends. Thank you." I stepped away from the stand and walked backstage, as there was several applause for me.

I was driven with Mags and Wave, with Knighty yelling into her phone, to the mayor's house where I was going to have dinner with everyone. The car was silent the whole ride.

Besides the mayor, we were the first to arrive, well Calypso was there too with the triplets. She was the first to reach me, giving me a hug. "That was well put together." She whispered into my ear.

I couldn't stop the silent tears from falling. "I miss him so much." I cried.

Someone cleared their throat behind us. I broke my embrace with my stylist and saw Trey's family. They motioned me foward and I excused myself, saying I wont be long. "Mr and Mrs. Evansce." I greeted.

"Hello Serenity." The woman said.

"I'm deeply and truly sorry for your loss, I really am." I say, wiping the tears from my face, glad all my makeup is waterproof. "Sorry, thinking of the games makes me emmotional." I sniffled.

"We would just like to tell you how much we appreciate everything you've said." Mrs. Evansce says. "We could tell Trey was very fond of you."

I don't know whether she means love fond or sister fond. So I just say, "To be honest he deserves this more than I do. In the short time we had together he's become one of my best friends."

She nods. "Everything happens for a reason, we're strong believers in that saying. I think you won because you deserved it just as much as any other tribute, maybe even more. You never acted out on brute, just reason and retribution." Who am I kidding? Retribution is just a nicer way of saying revenge.

"Thank you." I say because that's all I really can say. I don't know how much more I can handel at this point.

You would think other districts would be eventful. But really, they weren't. My speech was mild and short for District Eleven but I did meet, and to some extent befriend,the victor of four years ago, Chaff. He seems like a cool guy. We swapped numbers and I left him with a promise to stay in touch.

Ten was...how do I put this...awkward. And painful. Very, very painful. If it wasn't for me District Ten would have gotten their first victor in twenty years. They, like District Twelve only have one living victor. I witnessed Cordilla's death and then later blamed myself so Tye would attack. And Tye...people are saying our battle was the most suspensful. I killed him maliciously and I couldn't even look at his family in the eye. Needless to say they were giving me death glares for killing their genius son.

The we had Nine. Nine was tortorous, just like Twelve. I had to face Ebony's family, and I actually cried on stage because she had an identical twin, that was crying silently as I spoke about her dead sister. The family, like Trey's, thanked me for helping their daughter and saying such nice words about her.

Eight was nothing. I didn't know anything about those tribues, I didn't even know their victor. Seven was probably the best for me, you know? I knew exactly what to say. I got a laugh out of them, saying how much I enjoyed watching Livia battle with Jessa, and how I wish she won the battle. I condemended the boy, whose name was Mason, for making it far, farther than I thought I could go. I got a thank you from Livia's parents for saying how much I respect her and looked up to her, because I don't know if I could have faced Jessa without watching her do it.

Six was almost as bad as Ten, if not worse. I actually complimented Tye whereas I couldn't say one nice thing about Titus. He killed so many people close to me and he almost had me. I couldn't even hide my disgust but the parents actually came up to me and apologized for their son. That, I must say was a first.

Like Eight, there was nothing to say about District Five. At that point I used pre-written speeches for them and Three, skipping over Four. I have a lot to say to my district.

In all honesty, I was dreading Two more than any other district. Here we have the twins that saved my life numerous times. And all I gave to them was a brutal death. Well, Fathom's wasn't as bad as his sister's, which was named number one on the most bloodiest death list.

I was dressed in something respectful. A hot pink cardigan and forest green business pants because those were the twins favorite colors. I was only speaking to one family this time. And yet, it was double the pain.

The first thing I did was ask for a minute of silence to honor the twins, something I'm only did for this district. Then I started my speech about the Halloway twins. "When I first met Fathom and Faith it was the Opening Ceremonies. Blue and I originally allied with them, because it was a natural thought they could win. But District One propossed a counter-offer so our alliance had to wait.

"I think Faith looked at me like a younger sister because she was constantly saving my life in ways I don't think any of us realize. I can't say thank you enough to show how thankful I am towards Faith Halloway. To me, she's an older sister, an idol, an inspiration, a visionary.

"I think it's safe to say I grew on Fathom. Our relationship was...tentative. I don't think he really trusted me until Faith admitted how much she respected me. He saved my life two times which was two more too many. He owed me nothing but yet he risked his life for me and I can't express how grateful I am towards that. Behind the danger and uninviting demeanor he was really an amazing guy. In the end he surprised me but when the final battle came, the end was really dedicated to Fathom." I finished. The audience was silent at first but then it erupted into several cheers.

Dinner was eventful, more than any other district. Mr and Mrs. Halloway and this guy named Chet, who was Faith's fiancee pulled me over.

I told them my true feelings about the twins, how I adored them and looked up to them, which was nothing less than the truth. They in return told me that Fathom sent himself in to protect Faith because she was getting married in two months and was with child.

"I never knew." I shook my head. "But Faith really was probably my favorite in the competition."

"She was voted fan favorite." Mr. Halloway said. "We wanted to tell you that despite what Fathom said, we would still love him even if Faith died."

I nodded. "I hope you do know that I would never kill him. I could never do that to him. I just figured if we could get rid of Tye then we would let the Gamemakers decide who was going to win."

"We know that." Mrs. Halloway said, they were turning towards the rest of the guests. Her eyes were flooding with tears as she gave me a kiss on the cheek. "You're a good person, Serenity, no matter what other people tell you."