+ Shorter chapter (relatively, ha.) I wanted to step away from too much politicking/Capitol stuff for a bit before we dive back in. Panem's a big place, after all, with a lot of moving pieces. Again, thanks everyone for your readership! Drop a line if you have suggestions/comments/anything else!

/ / / / /

This is the scummy part of District 4.

Brooke Larson was used to hanging around District 4's underbelly by now, but Nine Rills was a dump. District Four had long used six of the nine streams that surrounded the encampment of tin-walled shacks and open-air flea markets as a sewage system, dumping all kinds of waste into the sludge to be taken off to the sea. This place, on the southernmost edge of the eastern precinct known as Manheim's Gulch, had never been meant to house people. Even District 4 had its share of poor and despondent, however, despite the district's relative wealth compared to most of Panem.

Living here was cheap. It was also horrible.

It was no surprise to Brooke or anyone else that the district's black market headquartered in Nine Rills. The Peacekeepers ignored the wooden stalls hawking fish and sea goods dredged up from extras hauled in on the open ocean, but some things – weapons and, more importantly, words – could only be traded in secret. For that, there was the Blue House.

It smelled of sweat and motor oil, Brooke noted as she walked down the creaky driftwood steps to the massive basement complex. The Blue House wasn't so much a house as an underground series of rooms and stalls, cordoned off by cloth screens and blankets as makeshift walls and illuminated by scratchy white lights that made the victor's eyes hurt. It was dreary, but out of view: Only a single-story hut, its walls flaking with red paint, stood atop the site in view for the Peacekeepers or any other wandering eyes. A pair of descending staircases led to this, and passwords screened out those who didn't belong.

Brooke wasn't here to meet any of the whispering old men discussing dangerous topics, nor the greasy-haired woman in rags peddling her homemade bone daggers. She was here to talk to one man in particular, a different man, a Capitolian of all things.

He was the pale man.

Her guest sat in the furthest stall from the main entrance, closest to the rear, hidden staircase that opened up to a sewer grate beside one of the nine Rills. For a Capitolian, he didn't dress well: A thick, patchwork woolen coat covered him from head to toe, concealing the short, midnight black hair and the almost bleached-white face she'd seen before. He was a monstrous man, twice the size of her fellow victor Finnick Odair, yet he had a strange habit of moving so quietly she barely could tell he was in his stall at all.

"You're not late," the pale man said as Brooke pulled a heavy blue quilt across the entrance of the stall. It was a half-measure of privacy, but it would do.

The victor sat down on a wooden crate across from him and crossed her legs. His conversations had a habit of being long, and she wanted to get comfortable beforehand. "Nothing else to do today."

"Your tributes are in their private sessions right now."

"They're not my tributes. I don't go to where you're from."

He paused. "No," he said after an uncomfortable silence. Brooke hated how he didn't move an inch during those pauses. If she could just see his face… "They're not. They'll die, anyway."

"Your leaders are still that mad about last year?"

"They are petulant people with a habit of throwing tantrums. I have to return soon. Business."

"Any kind in particular?"

"Yes."

Hm. Brooke wanted details, not simple yes-or-no answers. Here was a man who seemingly could go anywhere he wanted, even blend into the darkest pits of District 4 despite being from the Capitol, and all he could tell here was yes. "Why are you here, then? We're not doing anything."

"What is West up to?"

"Rio? He's consolidating. He's in hiding, guy. Do you think he can just up and start shooting people? No one wants to run out and get into that mess again."

"They will. Given the right motivation."

"Oh yeah? And what's that?"

The pale man slid over a tiny black block, no bigger than the tip of Brooke's little finger. "The Peacekeepers here are holed up in the Presidio overlooking the bay. As long as they have that stronghold, they control District 4. You will not root them out with riots or protesting."

"Duh."

"What's inside this data chip will root them out."

Brooke eyed the block with a wary eye. "What is it? Some kind of bomb?"

"I work in the Capitol. I save the bombs for important tasks," the pale man said. "It contains the technical specifics to the Presidio. Layouts of the fortress. Entrances. Passcodes. Patrol routes. Vehicle garages. Hovercraft schedules. Even the times when trains deliver weapon and ammunition."

She recoiled. That was…no. "Bullshit."

"Leave it if you want. I'll find someone else."

"No!" she said, grabbing the data block before he could pull it back. "I don't – how did you –"

"I work in the Capitol. It took the one who works for me five minutes to put together."

She gulped. The one who works for me. Brooke had a hunch the pale man had bigger plans than Rio West's vision for District 4, but thinking about it made her head hurt. "What do you want in return?"

"Do not move any time soon," he said. "Stay underground. Keep West hidden. He's a capable leader, but he's nothing if you act rashly in his name. For now, wait and let the Peacekeepers believe they have the upper hand. And I need you to leave this place now."

"District 4?"

"This basement."

Brooke frowned. "I was going to talk –"

"Peacekeepers will converge upon the main entrance in forty-five seconds."

"What?"

"I gave them the information. I told them this was the center of a rebel movement. They will burn everyone in this place and think they have struck a great victory. They will be wrong."

Brooke looked around, panicking. She wanted to believe he was lying, that the pale man finally had told a joke, but he didn't as much as flinch. "I can't let these people burn, they don't even know."

"You asked for the right motivation. I give it to you."

"Rio and I are trying to help people, not watch them die!"

"No one helps like a martyr. Fifteen seconds."

Brooke set her jaw and stood up from the table. She couldn't let this just happen, even if the pale man was spot-on with his assessment. This was –"

Bam!

Smoke flooded the front doorway. Someone screamed. Shadows moved forward in the haze. Her mind racing, Brooke bolted towards the rear escape. Someone else hurried towards her just a shot rang out. He tripped, stumbled, and spat up a mouthful of blood. Dead.

Oh shit. Storm and Sea, protect me.

Brooke burst open the iron grate, revealing the dirty, stone-layered rear staircase. Her lungs burned as the smoke grew thicker and more shots rang on.

Fwoosh!

They have a flamethrower, she thought. The next scream was long, loud, and horrible. For a moment, she remembered a child in her Hunger Games, a girl, District 5, she believed. She'd fallen into a swampy pool filled with giant alligator mutts not ten yards in front of Brooke, and as the beasts had pulled her under, she'd screamed, just like that. Long, loud, and horrible.

Brooke looked back as she pulled herself inside the stairwell. The pale men stood as still as a statue in the middle of the basement as two figures fell in front of him. Fire leapt from the wall. A half-dozen other shadows marched forward, hunched down in combat pose and clutching weapons. Peacekeepers.

The victor could just make out what one said. "Down!" a Peacekeeper shouted. "Down or we shoot!"

The pale man reached for something. A Peacekeeper's gun rang out, bang, but only the pale man's trigger finger flinch.

Hao! The pale man's gun whined, a dark, mournful cry, not at all like a gun but like a man howling in pain. Hao! It whined again, a third time, six times! He looked back as the six Peacekeepers fell. Brooke nodded, out of breath, her mind spinning as she closed the grate.

The last thing she saw was the pale man pull his hood farther over his face as he walked forward into the smoke and flames.

/ / / / /

"I hear you went to my daughter's party a couple nights ago."

I gulped. Two days after Calla's uncomfortable advances, my mind still swam in dark seas. It didn't help that the night before had delivered another bombshell. My tributes' chances were dwindling ever more after Fenton had received a six in training and Mari a four. Even Finch couldn't console them. I was running out of ways to help my kids survive, and I hardly knew how to make their situation better when I was dealing with my own darkness.

Even Caro's Gardens couldn't lift my spirits. The Presidential Mansion's arboretum was a beautiful place in the heart of summer. Thick-trunked plants sprouted vivid red plumage, their branches hanging so low their flowers almost touched the surface of the still reflecting pool. Here and there Capitol attendants rested on shady benches or walked down pebble-strewn paths between ferns the size of horses, but this place felt a peaceful sort of lonely.

It would have felt more like that if I hadn't been here with the president.

Creon Snow didn't look so impressed by the Gardens. He'd no doubt walked these walks a thousand times himself by now, but given the way he creased his brow and narrowed his eyes even more than usual, something else troubled him.

"I did," I said at last.

"Have fun?"

I knew he wasn't actually asking if I had fun. "Rex Rousseau took me. I met Calla."

"Rex?" he said, rolling his eyes. "Didn't think he got out."

"He was happy to introduce me to a bunch of people."

"Way I hear it, he shuts himself in for months at a time," said Creon. "I don't care about him. What did my daughter want?"

I stopped in my tracks. How could I even tell the truth about this? "I…I think she was interested in me."

Creon snorted. "Lecherous woman."

"I didn't mean to –"

"You think you're offending me?" he said, leading me on further down the garden path. "Her grandfather raised her. My father. I had a little hand in her upbringing, but not most of it." After I said nothing, he added, "You want to ask if I regret that? No. I don't. I would've raised her right if I could've, but I had a job to do in the districts. I had to coordinate Peacekeepers here and there, so I did my job. It was what my father needed, so I did it. If Calla's too much a hedonist to understand the same duty, that's on my father."

He set his jaw and looked over the reflecting pond. "I suspected for a long time he coddled her. Taught her to play the piano and watch the Games, but never taught her an ounce of responsibility. Now you know what not to do if you ever have children."

"Maybe it was just love."

"Love. That solves nothing," he said. After a short while, he added, "Do you want children one day?"

"Me? I…yeah," I stuttered.

"Really? Why?"

"I…" I stopped. He'd been honest with me, hadn't he? That was better than a lot of people. "My dad didn't want a girl. He made that clear. I want to do better."

Creon shrugged. "Worse reason than some, better than others. Taurus Sharpe has children. I doubt he had as good motives."

"He talked to me at the party."

"Yeah? And what did he say?"

"Julian was drunk, and Taurus didn't like that you keep him around."

"Julian's the best at his job, he has important connections, and he's good with little details. I already knew they barely tolerate each other. What else?"

"He…he said he wants me to be a 'advisor.' He mentioned something about potential."

Creon narrowed his eyes further. "Potential?"

"He said I should prove that I can do this stuff and all. I don't know."

The president pursed his lips and nodded towards a stone bench between a pair of palm trees. "Sit."

Sometimes when talking with Snow, I had a feeling he was winging it just as much as I was. He was less than two years into his job, barely more into it than I was into being a victor. "Taurus is a smart man," Creon said, slumping forward and planting his elbows on his knees. "Smarter than most in the country. Responsible man, too. He might butt heads with Cyrus and Julian, but he's valuable to keep around. I almost had him keep an eye on you instead of Cyrus."

"What?"

He glanced over at me. "I told Cyrus Locke to keep an eye on you after you won. Make sure you didn't do anything stupid and that you were trustworthy. You've been fine enough so far. It's important to get the truth out. My father was no fan of lying, and apart from his other faults, he was right about that."

Creon pulled a small silver orb from his pocket and twirled it around his fingers. "Cyrus, Taurus, Julian, they're all smart people, all well-connected, and all have been playing this little game a lot longer than I have. That's why you're valuable to me, even if Taurus Sharpe sees you good for something else. You're a new to all this subtlety, all this smiling with one hand stretched out and one behind your back. You're not the only one, though."

"I spoke to a man the other day," he went on, continuing to twirl the orb between his fingers. "He's the chief scientist here in the Capitol, Varno Rensler. Another man who needs to get out more. He makes all those beasts you see in the Games. That black thing that chased you around last year and put you in a hole? That was his doing."

"You talked to him about that?"

"Not about that. I don't care about that. He's a smart man too, one who knows his way around the technical bits I can't be bothered to learn. I went to him with this," said Snow, holding out the orb. "Know what it is?"

"A ball bearing?"

"An assassin's weapon. Once it carried a poison that would kill my father. According to Rensler, it was built in District 3, but is made up from components and materials that never find their way into any of 3's foundries."

Creon pocketed the orb. "I admit I'm in a position of weakness with Rensler. I learned all I could about you, but I never looked into him hard enough. If he can help me figure out who killed me father, than I want to figure out if he's trustworthy. I want to know what he wants."

"And you want me to help?"

"Yes."

I exhaled hard. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Sometime in the next few days, approach him about sponsorships," Creon said. "I can tip your escort off into setting up a meeting. It won't be hard. If you want money from him, take it, but learn what his aim is. Find out his motive. He knows a lot, and I want in on it."

I nodded, but I felt my spirits sink even further. Another wild chase around the Capitol in the hopes of unearthing secrets about these people I didn't know. Taurus Sharpe wanted me to prove my responsibility, and it seemed Creon wanted the same thing. Maybe I wasn't up to it. Maybe I wasn't up to any of this. Maybe I just wanted to sit in these gardens for a while, to lay down in the grass on the edge of the reflecting pool and forget about the world in the afternoon. For now, I couldn't imagine anything better.

Unfortunately, that wasn't an option.

"Terra," Creon said right after dismissing me. "You really want to be a mother one day?"

I turned. "Yeah. I do."

"Wait on Rensler for a day and a half," he said. "You have two children now, and that's how long you have with them. Make it count."