AN: This fic is for Irish Luck, whose willingness to try her hand at non-linear storytelling (and the Hunger Games Universe) has challenged me to try something different as well.

This fic is rated T for violence and language.


The Truth

That's how Victor Victor Ivan Klerkov finds us. Me in bed, grumping, with Tasha Pushkina trying her best to console me and groom Cry baby both at the same time. He tuts upon entering the room, weathered face drawn into a deep frown under his bushy beard.

"Now is not the time for resting, Petra Angelovna." He corrects as curt as a schoolmaster. "Now is the time for action."

I sit up in bed. I can't help but notice Tasha's spine has gone rigid. But this is a moment between Tribute and Mentor, and years of training have shown her it's best not to interrupt. She continues babbling to Malcovitch, now bouncing on her knees as she tackles the underside of his tangled hair. "I don't understand," I hear myself say. "I never agreed to your terms."

"Of course your didn't!" He cries impatiently, slamming one raised fist into the palm of the other. "If you had, moya Petren'ka, I would have been considerably disappointed!"

I understand now. "It was a test." Again.

"Yes, Petra Angelovna, it was." He sighs. "This time, to you believe me?"

"I'm not sure I like you." I finally reply.

"And I am sure you do not need to." He continues with disdain. "I did not ask if you liked me, Petra Angelovna. I do not care. I want to know do you believe me? Will you let yourself win the Hunger Games?"

A long silence. "I'll try."

"Do, or do not," he warns me. "There is no try. Not here. Here there is only win, or die." You decide. "Now come," he orders with a flick of his wrist. "We have business to discuss."

Behind me, Xavier Malcovitch giggles shrilly at Tasha's continuous prattling. I feel her eyes bore through me, but I don't dare turn my back to say goodbye. It might be another test…and with Klerkov, I can't afford to fail.


"Shoulders back!" My reformed Mentor bellows, "Chest out! Walk like a champion!"

Right. Sure. Like tightening my ass and shoving my pectorals out is going to convince anyone that I actually have breasts. I don't look like a champion—I look like an imbecile. "I'm walking like an idiot."

"Petra Angelovna, that you are far from," he corrects both me and my posture sternly. "Our friend Mr. Malcovitch, however, I am not so sure."

"Look, Klerkov, I'm ugly. The world knows it. Why the hell do you want to make me strut?" All of Panem saw me board that train. There'll be no fooling them now.

"Because, because, because, moya Petren'ka," he lays his hairy, bearish hands on my shoulders, gripping tightly, "because Victor Ivan Klerkov knows you are a champion, but to the world that does not matter. What matters is that you look it. Act it. And most importantly that they see it. You must fool the world into seeing you for what you really are." He enunciates carefully. "This will be your hardest task. They must see the truth within the lie."

I've sold Klerkov on my capacity to win the Games by being myself. Now I have to pretend to be me to convince the sodden idiots of the Capitol. For a Victor with a shitty record of losses, he's sharp. Smart. Victor Ivan Klerkov, you bastard. You could have saved any one of those Tributes if you'd really tried-!

...That realization comes with a bitter, bilious feeling rising in my throat. I chew my tongue. "What about Malcovitch?"

"What about Malcovitch?" He asks coolly, one eyebrow arched. "My job is a to train a champion, not play nursemaid to a little boy."

"So you're just going to let him die." I say. Like you did all the others, all those risky investments you never gave a chance...

"And that makes me a monster?" Klerkov chuckles, releasing me. "Good heavens. You were the one who was going to kill him."

There is no answer to that question. Either way, I'm damned. "He doesn't deserve to suffer."

"Few do, Petra Angelovna," my Mentor shrugs, but his large shoulders are weighted with the sadness of seventy-one—now seventy-two—deaths, even if his deep voice doesn't betray so much as a tremble. "Few do."


AN: For Victor Ivan Klerkov to have won his Games, he had to outlive 23 people. Since he is currently District 6's only living Victor, and stated that he has used his 'test' for 24 years, he has watched the deaths of 48 Tributes from his District. That adds up to 71. Xavier Malcovitch's demise will be 72.