AN. Thanks for all the follows guys and thanks for your amazing review fasisaanime, it was very much appreciated. Hope everyone enjoys this chapter and please leave a review at the end. As always the hunger games belong to Suzanne Collins. P.s sorry about the grammar.
Is it possible to feel really old even though you haven't lived that long, because that's exactly how I feel.
It's the day of the reaping for the 71st hunger games and I feel like shit. In my 19 years I've watched 378 children be mercilessly slaughtered on live television for the capitols entertainment and within a few weeks that number will have risen to 399.
399 children's deaths that have been cheered over and celebrated and played and replayed in slow motion. 399 families that have been ruined, though they don't show you that part, only the glorious bloody physical messes, not the emotional ones. Guess that's too boring to the Capitol socialites so they don't bother.
In two I've never really had to worry about the reaping. There's so many children in two of reaping age that the chance it's going to be your name that Andro Desmen shouts out is not even worth worrying about. Even if you get picked the chance of you actually going into the games is even more virtually non existent.
The so called 'careers' in two are heroes for several reasons. The first being that they volunteer to take the place of an unwilling tribute, which makes both the chosen tribute and their family eternally grateful and relieved.
The second reason is that because of the volunteering it means that nobody really has to worry about the reaping or the hunger games as there's no chance of it ever happening to them. Except for making time for the mandatory broadcasts, the hunger games hardly affects us.
The final reason the the careers in two are heroes is that they win. They spend most of their lives training on how to kill and incapacitate people, which means that they're stronger and faster and have a better chance of winning than any other district. Winning the hunger games means that extra grain and oil is provided for the district that the victor comes from. Despite what people think, even though district two is favoured by the Capitol, there are still poor people. Lots of children take a tesserae or twenty to feed their families and extra bread means more food to eat. Less hungry starving people.
In twelve though things are very different. It's something that only dawned on me a couple of weeks ago when Katniss started getting snappish and the whole district started getting tense.
It's half nine in the morning and while the square and the town would usually be buzzing with people it is now deserted. There's quiet in the district. So much in fact, that it's almost deafening.
The stage sits in the empty square and where in two there would be bright coloured banners hung up, balloons and even bands playing, there are only a few worn Capitol flags halfheartedly placed around the square. I can see more in a box by the stage but obviously the people setting up didn't want to decorate for the occasion any more than was absolutely necessary.
There are just enough flags to not get pulled up on not celebrating enough, but too few to make it look like a celebration, which I guess is how the people in twelve like it. Their only act of open defiance against the Capitol.
At eleven the town square is filled with nervous children and tearful adults. I look to where Katniss is in the fifteen year olds section. From here at the furthest edges of the square where I am patrolling with a gruff Capitol peacekeeper I can't see her. She seems to be lost in a crowd of other dark haired and dark skinned Seam children.
Recently she's started to fill out and look more like the teenaged girl she's supposed to be rather than just a scrawny child. I have to say the change looks good on her and she's grown a few inches too. No longer does she look like the hungry little girl I saw in the winter but instead a growing woman.
It's not only me that's noticed either. I've noticed some of the boys her age sneak glances at her when she passes. Not that Katniss has noticed any of these things of course, she's oblivious as always. I remember teasing her in the hob about it.
"Why miss Katniss you're looking mighty fine today, going anywhere nice?"
I flutter my eyelashes at her.
She snorts at my antics but I continue.
"It won't be too long before all the boys will be begging for your attention."
She raises her eyebrows disbelievingly.
I don't know why she has such low self esteem. Maybe she thinks that she's ugly? She's not though. She actually quite pretty. Her dark skin colouring signifying that she's from the Seam might put of some merchant boys, but any merchant family would be lucky to have her, particularly with her skill set.
The game she catches could provide meat for the butcher or skins for the tanner. The bakery could have fresh meat pies and she could gather lots of herbs for the apothecary. Probably not the apothecary though because that would be incest.
Apparently Katniss's mother was from town like I thought and grew up an apothecaries daughter until she was disowned when she married Katniss's father and moved to the Seam. Katniss told me that little bit of information one evening when I mentioned about her and her mother being such good healers.
Her mothers older brother runs the shop now with his two boys. I don't even think Katniss knows what they look like. She says she tries to avoid going in there if she can because her uncle either doesn't recognise her or chooses not to and treats her similar to what mrs Mellark treats people from the Seam, which is badly.
Her grandparents live in a small apartment not to far from the shop and help out sometimes. I can't count the amount of times they've probably walked past each other or even talked to each other and they've never said anything. I wonder if they even know that she exists. Then I thinks that's crazy, because who in district twelve hasn't heard of Katniss Everdeen? Even if they didn't recognise her face they would recognise her last name.
I really can't understand people who can pretend like their families suddenly just don't exist. How they can one day go from loving you and the next pretending they didn't even know you existed. I will never be able to understand how you could hate your child so much that you would rather have your grandchildren starve to death than acknowledge them.
My father was an asshole who eventually left when I was seven, but at least it knew that he didn't love me in the first place. He always made sure that me and my mother knew how unhappy he was with us and how my mother had trapped him in to marriage by getting pregnant with me. He often came home drunk after being at the bar and ranted and raved about how many women he'd screwed that night that weren't my mother.
When he left it was probably for the best. At least we had more money then because he wasn't wasting it on booze and prostitutes. The only thing I ever got from my father was my height. Everything else was from my mother, except from my sense if humour, no one knows where that came from. I like to think think that I'm so cool that I developed my own brand of humour. If Katniss heard that she'd laugh her head off at me.
We never talked about what happened after that night we cut the mans leg off, but we couldn't just ignore it like Katniss seemed hell bent on doing. By the time I woke up she was gone and the after the first two Sundays when I didn't see her I figured she was avoiding me, so I waited out by her house one night.
"You can't avoid me forever you know." I said coming up from behind her as she went to open the door.
She jumped and turned around wide eyed.
"Darius" she hissed "what are you doing here?"
"Some hunters hearing you have."
"Could you be any louder ?"
"Sure I can I said -"
She clamped a hand around my mouth to stop me from finishing. "Ugh, come on" she dragged me in to the house and slammed the door.
"What do you want?" She asked annoyed, tapping her foot against the wooden floor.
"Why are you ignoring me?" I demand.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Come on Katniss don't play dumb with me."
"Fine, you know exactly why I'm avoiding you, I can't believe I did that."
"It's ok Katniss" I say gently, pulling a chair out from the table and sitting down. "Everyone cries once in a while, it's natural."
"I'm not weak!" She spits out defiantly.
"I didn't say you were weak I just said it's ok for you to cry."
"What do you care?"
"Katniss of course I care, we're friends."
"We're not friends, you're a peacekeeper, I hunt illegally."
Ok so that one hurt. "So, I buy and eat your illegal game."
"Yeah so you're a customer, I sell it to you so you don't turn me in."
I suck in a sharp breath. "Is that what you think of me?, that I would turn you in like that?, that I don't care about you? You honestly think I'm that kind of person?"
When she doesn't say anything I start to get angry. "What the hell Katniss!"
"I can see where I'm not wanted, I'll let myself out!"
The next few weeks were awkward. She stopped avoiding me but when she came in the Hob we didn't speak. I didn't even glance her way.
Three weeks later though she turned up on a Thursday when I was talking to Sae on my lunch break. I almost didn't look at her, but after she stood by my elbow for a few moments fidgeting nervously I finally turned to her "what?"
Sae busies herself with something at the back of the stall giving us privacy to talk.
She doesn't say anything for a few moments but I can see her turmoil in the creases of her eyes and the lines on her forehead. Eventually she just decides to thrust a small worn cloth pouch at me. She shifts nervously from foot to foot as she stares at the floor. I take it that she wants me to open it so I take a look inside.
Inside the pouch are a collection of black and reddy-pink berries.
"I just wanted- I mean I didn't- it's ok if you don't- "
"Thanks." I whisper.
She looks up at me in shock. I know she's trying to tell me she's sorry but just finds it hard to say the words. I toss a berry in to my mouth and moan as the sweet juice fills my mouth. It is undoubtedly one of the best things I've tasted here in twelve.
"You know I bet these berries still don't taste as good as you." I say wiggling my eyebrows at her.
She barks a laugh and relaxes. Just like that out argument is forgotten and things go back to normal. Well, not completely normal. Katniss trusts me a little more now and she's starting to open up to me. Not straight away but little by little. I can see it in her eyes, she's less guarded around me, even if it is only slightly. I think we're something more than acquaintances now. Not quite friends but getting there.
It's for that reason that I'm worrying today. Katniss has fifteen slips in the bowl which gives her a higher chance of most than being picked. I hold my breath as Effie Trinket puts her hand in to the large glass bowl and pulls a pristine white slip out.
"Kathleen Littlewood!"
My breath comes out in a gush and I smile from behind my blacked out helmet. Katniss is safe for another year.