I'm so sorry, you guys. I'm well aware that my writing and posting speed has slowed down dramatically. That's Real Life barging in and yelling at Fanfiction to give Amata back so she can devote all her attention to schoolwork. Annoying but necessary.

With that being said, there will be one more chapter after this one before the Games actually begin! Exciting, isn't it? Okay, maybe I shouldn't be getting so excited about killing off all these wonderful characters, but still...

Also, just saw the Hunger Games movie and enjoyed it very, very much.

Fun Fact of the Chapter: How the Escorts Got Their Names, Part VIII. The District Eight escort, Gregor Dellacroy, is named after 1) Gregor the Overlander, another book by Suzanne Collins, and 2) a deliberate corruption of the surname "Delacroix".

…..

Darian Latone, Father of Jace Latone, District Nine

Don't say anything stupid, Jace.

That's the first thought that runs through my head as my daughter steps into the spotlight on that stage. Of course, I know Jace wouldn't say anything of the sort, especially not on national television. She's too smart for that. She knows too well the destruction that one wrong word can bring.

I wonder if Sylvie's watching this right now. If she's still alive and able to watch, that is. No one's really sure what happened to her all those years ago or what's happened since. I only managed to catch the words "relocation to Capitol" before the flurry of sobs and screams and knives and mutilated tongues and blood on the kitchen floor—

I wonder if Sylvie and Jace have ran into each other. Would Jace have recognized her mother? Would Sylvie have had the heart to try and tell her who she was?

I force myself to stop speculating and focus all my attention on Jace's interview. It seems to be going well so far. Liya is asking the standard questions (what were your impressions of the Capitol? who's rooting for you back home? nice training score—tell us about that!) and Jace is giving all the standard answers. She seems to be playing the "stubborn" angle, which works well given the lack of detailed information that she's giving, with a dash of her natural snark thrown in that seems to be delighting the audience. Which is a good thing. Keep the audience and the Capitol happy and you have a much better chance of survival.

"So, Jace," says Liya, "this has been fun. Our time's almost up; do you have any final remarks for our audience?"

Jace's bites her lip. I know she doesn't really want to do any of this, but to refuse might cost her some sponsors, so she talks. "I won't let you down in the arena. I'm going to put up the hardest fight I ever have in there." Her voice is quieter than usual, but her gaze is intense. Jace knows exactly what the Capitol wants to see. They want to see teenagers from the districts struggling for their lives. And she's planning on giving them that, exactly that. Nothing more, nothing less.

Her buzzer rings and I let out a breath I didn't even know I was holding.

Noaa Carpenter, her district partner, is interviewed next. He's likeable enough, answering Liya's questions with the sensitivity of an artist that some of the more sympathetic Capitol people will appreciate. I wonder if Jace has allied with him.

Liya asks him about his district token.

There's a change in Noaa's face, and I know that he's angry, angry beyond belief. The boy isn't even trying to hide it. He clenches his teeth and glares at the Gamemakers' panel as he says, "It was taken away from me."

"Oh? What was it?" Liya leans forward, expecting a juicy secret to surface.

"It was just a poem. Not a weapon. Nothing dangerous! Just words on a battered old piece of paper."

Words are weapons.

"Maybe it was an artifact," suggests Liya. You can tell she's on edge, trying to cover up something she suspects is a secret. "You know, from before the Dark Days. We're trying to organize a museum of them here in the Capitol."

"But it was my poem." Noaa is far too angry for the Capitol's comfort now. His anger is a rebellious anger; never a good thing for a tribute to show, especially not the night before the Games. I find myself hoping that Jace hasn't allied with this boy, who obviously isn't thinking about the implications of his words. Just like Sylvie didn't think...

Keep the Capitol happy, and you might survive. Anger them, and you never will.

…..

Landon Jacobsen, Brother of Chantelle Jacobsen, District Ten

It's eerily quiet at our house. The TV's volume is turned down to the lowest setting possible, and neither Annalise nor I say anything. Even Max just sits there, staring at the screen and whimpering a little, and that dog is never quiet. It's like he knows that too many people are gone.

"Anna," I say, half-whispering. "Chantelle's up."

Annalise comes over from the kitchen area, carrying our dinner, a sandwich for each of us. She sits on the couch and hands me my sandwich. We both train our eyes on the TV screen while I turn up the volume, just in time to hear the interviewer ask, "What's your family like, back home?"

The Chantelle on the screen looks a bit wary. I know she heard the gunshots at the Reaping but never knew the outcome of the situation, and she certainly doesn't know if she's allowed to refer to the events on national television. After a moment's hesitation, she starts, "Well, there's my mom and dad, of course, and my older siblings Annalise and Landon. They're twins. There's also Gramps and Gram... my grandparents... We all live on a ranch near the outskirts of the district."

Annalise scoots a little closer to me and lets out a barely audible sigh. Oh, Chantelle. If only you knew.

But then again, maybe it's better if she doesn't know. It might have devastated her, to get that news right before the Games. It's better if she still has the energy and the spirit to fight her way through the arena. And if I know Chantelle, fight she will.

I glance at Annalise, who's staring wide-eyed at the screen, almost looking as if she were about to cry. I know this is so hard for her, maybe even harder than it is for me. All those goodbyes and apologies and "I love you"s that she never got to say. All those times that she flat-out didn't care about Chantelle, times that she might never have the chance to make up.

All this time I've been sitting with Anna in silence has made me realize that Chantelle was so... alone all of the time. And that pretty much breaks my heart. I hope she knows that her family—whatever is left of it—cares about her.

Come home, Chantelle, I think. Come home and I promise you'll never be alone again.

Chantelle's district partner, the blind boy, Anderson, is helped up to the chair. I can't help but feel sorry for him. I don't know what happened to his family. In the riots that followed the Reaping, no one—especially not if you were related to the tributes—was safe. The Peacekeepers seemed to take a sadistic pleasure in "cutting down the crowd". And here he is, thrust into the Games when he has pretty much no chance of survival. I can't even imagine what that must feel like, much less how Anderson is managing to deal with it so well.

Apparently, a similar question is on the interviewer's mind. "Anderson, I don't believe that in one-hundred and ninety years worth of Hunger Games we've ever had a tribute quite like you."

"Blind, you mean?" His tone is caught halfway between being morose and hopeful. His... uniqueness might endear him to a few Capitol sponsors, although they'd have to be incredibly reckless to bet too much on such a lost cause.

"Yes. How do you think this will affect your performance in the Games?"

There is a long pause; obviously this is not the question Anderson wanted to hear. He bites his lip and says quietly but forcefully, "Don't forget me. Don't forget my face. If I really am the first blind person to go into the Games, then I want to be remembered for it, regardless of whether I live or die." The fact that his eyes are closed somehow makes his words more powerful. "I don't even care about your money. I just want to know that you care about me, that your hearts are with me."

Well, if that doesn't make every heart in the districts melt, I don't know what will.

I want to root for Anderson, maybe send him some food or something, but I know that if Chantelle is to return, he can't. He'll have to be just another victim of the Games, of the Capitol's cruelty. It's an awful thing, but I'm powerless to stop it. There can only be one victor, and it's going to be my sister. It has to be.

…..

Delilah Ray, Sister of Cameron Ray, District Eleven

Caprice Alexander is exactly the kind of tribute I'd like the most if this were any other normal Games. Intelligent, calm, likable, and, most importantly, really strong-willed. She's making it clear that she's not going to let the Games change her.

"I'm a person," she tells the Liya Marsalla. "I am a living, breathing, thinking person and I'M-" She starts forward, looking scarily angry for a moment before regaining her composure and continuing in a quiet but firm voice. "I am going to try my hardest to stay that way."

"No doubt you will," says Liya.

I don't think that means anything to the Capitol audience, but it does to me. Words like those are an inspiration to us back in Eleven, where every day in school it's hammered into our heads that we're just laborers and incapable—no, unworthy—of thinking for ourselves. Caprice is the kind of person I'd rally behind.

But it's her district partner that I'm watching, because that boy tribute is my brother Cam and more than anything I want him to make it out alive. He got a good training score, which normally would make me hopeful except that so many other tributes scored so high. What scares me the most, though, is how defeated he seemed after the reaping and on the chariots, and how defeated he still seems during this interview.

"Cameron, you'll try to come home, right? You're strong. You can tie ropes better than anyone I've seen. You know how to skin and kill animals, at least on the farm, so you can hunt..."

"Goodbye, Delilah..."

His whole body was so... limp, and his eyes just didn't show the life that had been in them only an hour ago...

"So, Cameron," says Liya. "We were looking at your family records after you were Reaped and found out that your father was a tribute in the 180th Games! Tell me, how does that legacy affect the way you're going to play the Games?"

There's a pause as Cam, Momma, and I all start to realize what was just said. A second later, Momma lets out a shriek of sorts and grabs my hand to pull me away from the television set.

"What? What's going on? What was she talking about? Momma!"

She's on the verge of tears, sobbing and swearing under her breath. We make it out the door of our little house and into the middle of the street before she breaks down, falling onto her knees and crying uncontrollably.

"Momma, calm down. What were they talking about?"

She doesn't respond. I take in a deep breath and try to be calm.

The 180th Games. That would have been right around when I was born. If Dad were of tribute age then, then they must have been young when I was born and even younger when Cam was. But that's common, here in Eleven. So why would Momma have tried to hide it from us?

Because he was in the Games, a part of me realizes. Momma watched him die. Probably a horrible, bloody end. They would have shown the footage over and over again during recaps. She wouldn't want to be reminded, and she certainly would never have wanted us to see the footage and know it was our dad. So she managed to convince the whole sector to stay quiet about it...

With this rolling around in my head, it's a miracle that I manage to get myself and Momma back into the house in time for the final few moments of Cam's interview. They're still talking about Dad when Liya asks if he has any last remarks.

"I do," he says. "All my life, my dad's been kind of this big mystery that I was constantly wondering about. Now I know who he is, what he did, and why. We're finally connected, somehow."

I'm surprised at how calm he sounds when he adds, "Now I have closure. There's nothing left to wonder about. I can go in peace."

He doesn't say "die," but we all know what he means.

I press my hand against the screen of the television and shake my head, tears blurring my vision. This isn't right. This isn't fair. Is Cam really giving up, just like that? Just because he knows what happened to Dad? Does he think it's his destiny to die like this?

Come on, Cam. Please don't give up.

Come on. You have people to come back to. You have your whole life ahead of you. Don't throw it away.

Please.

…..

Danielle Hemsworth, Friend of Riley Rynne, District Twelve

When Riley walks onto the stage, my heart sinks a little, because I can tell she hasn't been holding up well in the Capitol. There were hints before—her expressions at the Reaping and on the chariots, her training score that was so much lower than what she deserved—but this is the final proof. The way she holds herself, the way she speaks—it's exactly the way she was when I first met her. Hurt. Traumatized. Sliced up and abused by the people who should have loved her until she had no sense of self-worth.

The Capitol does exactly the same thing to its tributes, to the people of Panem. Riley can see the similarities all too clearly. And it's breaking her.

The interviewer tries to talk to her about plans for the arena, strengths, possible alliances, but none of it's doing any good. My best friend is dying inside, under those lights, and there's nothing I can do to save her.

"My name is Riley Rynne," she mutters under her breath, ignoring any attempts at a conversation. "I am 17 years old. I lived in District Twelve, but Twelve is not my home. I have no home. I'm a tribute in the Hunger Games and I can fight. I can fight with swords. I can win. I'm strong."

And then it starts over again, repeating and repeating like a mockingjay that only knows one song, until it utterly fails to convince anyone of Riley's strength or mental stability. Her body remains absolutely still, her gaze fixed on one of the cameras as if she's staring straight into District Twelve. A chill goes down my spine.

The buzzer rings and Riley leaves the stage. Kirby, the baker's son, takes her place and begins to talk about growing up in Twelve, the family he's left behind, and Fawn Rivers, our girl who died three years ago, his fiance.

"So that makes at least... what, five tributes with family members or close relations who've previously gone through the Games?" Liya says, more to the audience than to Kirby. "Emily Raine, Marius Sheer, Anderson Birk, Cameron Ray, and now you."

Kirby nods gravely. "Do you remember Fawn? She jumped in front of an arrow to save a twelve-year-old."

There is a pause. "Um... there was a lot going on that year, but yes, I do think I remember something." Liya doesn't sound convincing in the slightest. Kirby's hand clenches into a fist.

I remember Fawn. I knew Fawn—she lived just a few houses down the street. Her parents were tailors. We went to school together, and she always gave the younger Seam kids part of her lunch. I remember when she jumped in front of that arrow, and I remember Riley telling me that she wished she could be half that brave.

I remember telling Riley that she already was brave, standing strong despite all the suffering her family had caused her. And then we watched Fawn Rivers die...

My hand grips the hilt of a sword and pulls it off the rack as I storm out of the training center. Riley was brave and smart and kind and sad and sure as hell didn't deserve the treatment she's getting. I can't take it out on the Capitol—not yet, anyway—and so I do the only think I can to avenge my friend.

I walk over to the butcher's shop and run Riley's so-called-father straight through the heart.