+ Thanks again to my lovely guest and melliemoo for another pair of wonderful reviews! It's always a great feeling to know others are enjoying reading along – and don't worry about Drake, haha, he has quite a big role to play in all of this as we move further and further along.

/ / / / /

The kids from 1 and 2 were arguing again.

Cerise from 1 had skewered a rabbit-like creature to cook. Ignoring the fire to relieve herself hadn't been the best idea, however: The lighter fluid District 2's mentors had sent in to start a blaze in the wet conditions of the cloud forest had blazed hot and fast, enough to engulf the rabbit in an inferno by the time Cerise got back. Now it smoked on the damp earth, a charred, blackened ruin, as Brocade berated her.

Daud snorted, "Sure no one saw that comin'."

"Why do they team up every year?" I said. It was cold in our Control Center office, and with only Daud and the Games for company, it was dull. "Except last year. Of course."

"Didn't work so good not teaming up last year," said my mentor, shrugging and swishing around a cup of pungent coffee.

"Ha. Acheron didn't seem like the sort for teams."

"Wasn't. Most don't think like that. Want to improve their odds against everyone else not from 1, 2, or 4."

"I know that, but –"

"So why ask?"

"'Cuz it's still dumb. Like it's not totally obvious the alliance is going to break down when it happens every other year."

Daud slumped his shoulders and sighed. "Results're proof enough. One-in-six odds're better than one-in-twenty-four."

"Mutts can still do it. Or someone else can sneak up and kill one of them anyway."

"It's a game of chicken. Years they team up, each of 'em's confident enough they'll be the first to move on the others and get the upper hand. When you're that confident you take risks. And if you are the first one to move and you shank the others in their sleep after you've killed off most of the arena, you have all the best supplies and much less and probably weaker competition. Easy route to winnin' right there."

He sucked on the dregs of his coffee. "If you're one of them morally superior people it's not a very good strategy, but they don't come out of the arena often anyway. Finch lectured me on numbers and game theory one day. Guess a little stuck."

"That still doesn't make total sense," I protested as Brocade slapped his hand against a tree and swore at the girl from 2 to the gasps of Cicero and Caesar Flickerman. "If everyone in the alliance knows what everyone else is thinking, then that strategy's useless."

Daud pointed at the television. "You're watching it."

Cerise from District 1 had pulled a sword on her district partner, waving the weapon in his face and shouting at him to back off. The girl from District 2 pulled a knife and it was on. Achilles stood back watching as Brocade kicked the girl from in the shins, making her stumble before he swung wildly with his axe. Cerise blocked the swing, but she wasn't quick enough to counter his punch to her face. She reeled back, ducking behind a tree as Brocade swung again with his weapon.

The girl from 2 darted in, looking to stab Brocade but only managing to slice his arm as he wheeled on her. He cursed and threw her aside. Before Cerise could close, Brocade swung his axe high over his head and brought it down with a sickening thunk into the girl from 2's skull.

Achilles, watching, raised an eyebrow.

Cerise howled and lunged. Her district partner backpedaled, blocking her sword strike with the haft of his axe and shoving her back. The two grappled hand-to-hand, punching, spitting and clawing at each other. Cerise bit Brocade's hand, and the boy swore and dropped his axe. She fell back and swung, but he caught her sword hand and backed her into a tree. Cerise groaned and strained against the force of his grip, but her district partner was stronger. In a final push, Brocade pulled the sword up to his chest and forced it towards his district partner. Cerise's eyes darted nervously. Sweat popped out across her forehead as the blade drew closer.

Brocade grunted and shoved the edge against her throat.

Crimson sprayed the tree's bark.

I frowned. The blood and violence didn't even shock me anymore. It felt routine, expected. I didn't feel a thing for Cerise and the girl from 2, perhaps a bit of optimism for Fenton's chances with two of his bigger threats out of the way. It was a sickening rationalization, but a pragmatic one. Little by little, I was accepting that what happened in that arena was beyond my control.

It was numbing, calming, even.

"Same old," Daud muttered.

"Is that how it feels after a while?" I asked with a sudden burst of confidence.

"You've watched 'em before you came here. You should know."

I hesitated. On a side screen, Fenton clawed through the underbrush, clutching a sac we'd sent him that he'd filled with our canteen and the roots and nuts he'd scrounged up. His best weapon still was only a sharp obsidian chunk: Despite my protests, Finch had rebuffed every push to send him a weapon yet. "He needs other things first," she'd said over and over.

Fenton, however, wasn't on my mind. The blood fest moved me to admit something I wasn't sure it was a good idea to reveal.

"No," I said. "I mean actual killing. Not watching it."

"Watchu mean?"

I sucked in a deep breath. "Someone – someone told me that you're not just talking to people to get sponsorships. That you're – you're fighting people, killing them even."

He put down his cup and looked at me. He narrowed an eye. "Elan didn't just tell you."

"He might've shown me."

"Prying prick. And don't you start. It brings in more than Finch ever could hope to."

"Daud, do you realize what you're doing? I want Fenton to win too, but I'm not going to kill people for him! I don't know if Finch knows, but you're not –"

"Leave it."

"I know you might think-"

Daud hurled his cup into the wall, shattering it into a thousand shards. "Leave it!" he roared.

His eyes had turned to coals, his face etched with crimson anger. I shrank into my seat. Daud stormed towards the far wall, slamming a fist against it and leaning his forehead against the slate. Guilt drummed up in my gut: I hadn't meant to provoke him, but there I went again, souring another relationship all because I said something dumb.

"Leave everything fucking alone," he snarled over his shoulder.

I huddled against my seat and wrapped my arms around my chest. "Two people prying into my damn life was enough," said Daud. "Now I've got three. The gods are just laughing at me. Even winning these damn Hunger Games makes things worse. I can't even get one quiet year without someone calling me a monster. Like I don't already know that."

"I don't think that," I said, my voice little more than a whisper.

He scoffed. "'Course you do. You never would've brought it up if you didn't. And you think it's just avoxes, who're gonna die whether or not I'm the one swingin' the sword." He looked over his shoulder with a grimace. "You think it's so bad running around doing whatever the hell you're doing for the higher-ups. They haven't killed any of your people yet."

"Mari's dead."

"Screw her, she's a poor bastard but a tribute. Knew that had to happen." Daud sat down on the floor and slumped against the wall. "You're never gonna stop asking, are you? You and your damn question, always wanting to know everything."

"I just want to help."

He scowled and stared at the wall. "Killed my first one when I was seventeen. Not even in the Games yet. Not an avox, not a tribute, not a Peacekeeper. None of that. Found it easy ever since. Not that hard to kill someone."

I made to stand up and approach him, thought better of it, and pulled back into my seat again. "Who was he?"

"Not he. They. Two little shits from Redhammer. I actually loved someone once, when I was dumb and didn't know any better. Bet that baffles your mind. She was a good girl, one I loved, year older than me. Her mom got in a spot of trouble, couldn't pay things off, so she took on her debt. Then she couldn't pay the debts off, so these two punks came along. Debt collectors they were, paid by some small-time crime boss in the tunnels. They didn't even give here a chance to explain. Just broke into her house one night and stabbed her with a stone knife. Broke it off in her body. Word from her mother has it they just walked away, talking about what to eat later. Just like that."

Shadows flickered across Daud's face. "So I did the same thing. Paid what little money I had to find out who'd done it. Closure means more than forgiveness. Found one sleeping, snapped his neck. Caught the other right after he'd poured a bath. Forced his head under the water and held it there 'til he stopped wriggling. Held it a little longer to make sure."

He stuck out his chin. "You think it's so bad to kill people. So wrong. It's all I've known how to do well for more than half my life. Don't you tell me otherwise."

"I am telling you otherwise. You have a choice in this."

He shook his head. "You and Finch are the only things I've accomplished in twenty-five years. Only kinda thing I can accomplish. Don't know any other way to go about doin' that, so don't take that away from me. I can't persuade anyone. I can't lay with these people. I can't play their games of intrigue. If doin' what I do means you have to hate me, so be it. Some of us are born to be hated."

"I don't hate you."

"Doesn't matter. Kept someone alive who didn't have to die. Better than nothin', even if it meant killin' people who would've died anyway."

/ / / / /

The Training Center Commons was a strange floor.

I'd tromped off from work after Daud's admission, unable to sit in the same room any longer. I had no idea what to say to the man. He didn't want sympathy, and no matter how hard I tried to convince him of my sincerity, he refused to do anything but wallow in his station. I had meant what I said: I didn't hate him. I wished he'd see things otherwise, but he was my mentor. He'd done his part to get me out of the arena alive, so I owed him at least my support. Whether or not he wanted to accept that was up to him.

So I'd ended up here, the Training Center floor between District 1's base and the atrium that I'd missed up to this point. I'd come searching…what? Company? I wasn't sure.

Perhaps I'd expected a crowd, but I didn't get one. It was quiet in here, despite the attempts at making a cheery interior. The Commons was smaller than District 5's floor, only a single room as large as our den and our dining room put together. A series of couches ringed the room, along with a trio arranged around a table in the middle. Three colossal television screens hung on a wall opposite floor-to-ceiling windows that looked over the Forum. Cicero and Caesar talked animatedly on one of them, with the other two showing footage from inside the arena – one focusing on the two from District 4 as the boy nursed a shoulder wound, while the other showed Achilles tromping after Brocade through the misty jungle.

With a few of the districts knocked out of the Hunger Games entirely already, I expected more people here. Instead, only Lyric and Quintus greeted me, the two seated around the central table, a trio of half-full bottles and a handful of glasses between them. Green, yellow, and blue cards scattered about on the table between spilled drink.

"Our new victor approaches!" Quintus hiccupped. "Have you enjoyed the latest Hunger Games? The vivid struggle between life and death, the viridian arena full of dangers and mystery, the pride and prestige of being a victor? The secret formula to it all…sitting around drinking and playing cards."

"And waxing poetic," said Lyric, tossing a card on the table.

"What're you doing?" I asked, slumping into a couch opposite them.

Quintus waved his hand over the table. "Certainly not playing cards and drinking!"

"Gimme that," I said, yanking the bottle away and filling a glass to the brink. The brown liquor slammed my nose immediately, but I didn't care. A drink was the least I needed.

"Surprised," said Lyric.

"At what?"

"That you drink."

I snorted and tipped the glass back. It stung my throat. "Whatever. How'd you play?"

"Now she's betting. You're a poor influence," Quintus chided his district partner. "Each card has a value from one to eight. You get a hand of ten Positive cards increase you, negative decreases. Deal 'em one at a time to each player, and you can either play one from your hand, wait for the next round of dealing, or stand and call it for the round. Closest to twenty-five wins the round. You go over, you lose automatically. If it's a draw, you do it over. First to three wins takes the match. Only get to keep the same hand for the entire match, so do play it carefully."

"You're gonna take all my money if we bet," I pouted.

Lyric snorted. "Not enough to blow on strippers?"

"It's her first year now. We have time to corrupt her," said Quintus. "Drink harder. You're way behind. We've been here an hour and a half."

He didn't have to tell me. I didn't know where Quintus and Lyric had gotten all the alcohol from, but it never ended. Three drinks passed in what felt like no time at all, and my head wobbled before I'd even grasped the card game. Cicero, Caesar, Brocade, Achilles, and whoever else was on the screens blended into a whirl of green and gray on the wall.

"We're going to lose. A huge difference that makes," said Quintus, slurring his words as he dealt cards half onto the floor. "I was Phoebe-sized when Brocade first started training, yah? I think he pissed himself the first time he watched someone punch another at the training academy back home. You were there Lyric, huh?"

She shook her head and leaned back on the couch. "Sheesh, too long ago."

"Complainer! And to think you have a voice in who gets picked to volunteer," said Quintus, swirling his drink before gulping it down. "Keep forgetting you're here, Terra. Talk more so I don't."

I giggled into my fifth glass. "What'mi s'posed to say?"

"Guys want to be entertained," Lyric said, stifling a belch. "Especially Quintus, because he has a brain like a peanut."

"I'd think it's tastier than that," said Quintus. "Tell us something you've done. Or haven't done."

"I haven't done a lot."

"Terrible story! You need to get out more."

"Then get me out."

Quintus looked up with bulging eyes. "That's a g-great idea! You're a prophet. We should go see the Gamesmakers right now."

"Right now," I laughed, gulping down the glass and pouring more. "Yup."

"I slept with Galan Greene once," Lyric said, wobbling as she tried to stand up. She fell back down onto the couch and pushed off against Quintus's arm to stabilize herself. "He was like a walrus. Those big tusked animals books talk about."

"What the heck is a walrus?" I slurred, managing to stand up just enough to get on two feet. "You made that up."

"Book said it. I haven't seen one. Zoos're supposed to have them here."

I stood up, struggled to find my balance, and puffed out my chest. "I'm Johanna Mason," I said, stumbling towards the door. "I specialize in trees, and you all are idiots. I'm going to the zoo without you. The walruses – walri – are mine. So long, squirts."

I stumbled into the door just as it opened. My head fell into Drake's chest as he stepped out. He caught me as I tilted backwards, my glass falling to the floor and shattering.

"What the –" he started. "Oh. Oh god."

"You!" I giggled, trying to wriggle out of his grip. "You can't come. You're the bad guy."

Drake looked towards Quintus and Lyric. "What'd you two give her?"

Quintus snorted. "Who knows? I – I'm a bad guy, right Lyric? We should be bad guys together."

Lyric laughed and keeled over. "Don't – I'm going to barf on you."

"Barf on him!" I said, waving my hand towards Drake. I ended up swatting the air. "Don't fish barf?"

"Uh, no," said Drake, laying me on the couch. "This is insane. What did I step into?"

"She probably thinks you're pretty," Quintus mumbled, his eyes fluttering. "Right Terra?"

I laughed. "Ew! He's hairy!"

"That's what I get for shaving," murmured Drake. "Yeesh. This is a disaster scene. Go to sleep, Terra."

"Mmm," I mumbled, pawing at the cushions. "I don't listen to you."

"Yeah, that's obvious. I'm getting out of here. Go to sleep."

Sleep came easy.