Chapter 72: Thalia Wheeler

Katniss frowned. "I didn't remember much about her Games. Prim was sick for the first half of it so I wasn't really paying much attention then, and Rory got sick in the second half so I had to help Gale take care of him. What did she do?"

"I think she solved a bunch of puzzles while in her arena, basically did some super smart stuff," Peeta replied, scratching his head as he tried to remember Thalia's Games.

"Smart stuff, huh?" Katniss whistled. "Thought those were reserved for the kids from Three of Five."

Peeta laughed. "Seems like this Six has a few brains of her own then."

Katniss smacked her forehead. "Oh, right! Thalia! I remember her now, she helped to solve a case during her Victory Tour stop here, didn't she?"

"Kelly Skandi's kidnapping, I believe. Found her locked in the basement of Old Siggy, terribly injured but very much alive," Peeta recalled.

Katniss nodded, admiration suddenly flooding her veins. "She sounds nice, Thalia. Wonder what's happened to her."

Thalia Wheeler

District 6

Aged 16

2 Kills

THE DETECTIVE FILES OF THALIA WHEELER

Case 1: The Murder of Lexus Hornstead

Thalia shuffled her way through the jam-packed corridors of her school. Clutching her worn-out orange backpack and her old journal, she weaved her way past flocks of kids milling around, laughing at the latest gossip, exchanging pieces of homework and selling drugs and cigarettes. It was prime morphling season and many across every cohort were more than eager to get their hands on some of the 'good stuff'.

Not Thalia, however.

She had to keep a clear mind, free of any substance usage. It was the only way to keep the gears in her head turning to churn out new ideas and hypotheses.

After all, Thalia was the school's prime resident detective, and while everyone else was too drugged on morphling to remember, she could very much recall the moment someone ran into the hallway and tearfully announced the discovery of Lexus Hornstead's body. Like clockwork, everyone had pulled out a syringe to take an unhealthy dose of the popular drug, before resuming with their normal lives, as if nothing had ever happened. Laughing, doing homework, playing sports, all while high on the influence of drugs to compensate for the fear of a murderous presence among them. Even the teaching staff got in on the action. After all, classes were over for all except a few serial slackers who had to stay back for additional private tutoring sessions. Thalia figured no one had even bothered to call in the Peacekeepers or remove the body.

Which was perfect, because the Peacekeepers weren't exactly the sharpest tools in the shed, always picking out the wrong people to arrest, only to realise they were innocent after two weeks of searching in the wrong places and having to go back to square one all over again.

Thalia figured things would be better if she had the reins of this investigation. And besides, it was morphling season, people tended to be careless this time of the year, a prime suspect shouldn't be too hard to flesh out.

She approached the second floor Maths classroom, where, as she'd expected, Lexus's body still lay, slumped over two crumbling tables, a large knife sticking out of his blood-soaked shirt. Pinching her nose, Thalia edged closer. Lexus, or Lex as most people usually called him, was one year older than her and a known art enthusiast within the school. He often dished out fabulous paintings out of nowhere to sell to the Peacekeepers for a profit, which in turn led to him being able to purchase all the cheap morphling from secret connections to be sold at a higher price within the school grounds, ripping off weak, desperate addicts around the school.

Oh, and no one could look past the claims that Lex had plagiarised art made by other students, including an ex-boyfriend of his who promptly dumped him and kicked his arse after Lex had allegedly sold his art as Lex's very own work.

"Plenty of suspects, plenty of motives," Thalia mused. "But it wasn't your ex, nor was it one of those disgruntled kids you sell the horrid drugs too. Right, Lex?" She peered closer and took out a pair of disposable black gloves. Carefully pulling the knife out of his back, she noticed that there was a bright pink string of fabric lodged into his stab wound. Gently picking it up and examining it, she let out a small smile. "Huh, interesting," she murmured before placing the fabric into a ziplock bag labelled 'evidence'.

Turning her attention to the floor around her, she saw a couple of faint red shoeprints on the floor, leading away from Lex's body to the doorway. Examining the shoeprints closely, she recognised the patterns as being those from a newer model of the Colby shoe brand. It was apparently a recent trend among District Six's upper middle class, indicating that the suspect was of decent social standing.

Right beside the shoeprints was Lex's bag, draped loosely over a flipped chair. Still donning her black gloves, she began to rummage through the back before pulling out a dark notebook. Flipping through the pages, she found the usual assortment of lesson notes, plus a few snide remarks about the teachers and a few 'annoying' younger kids running around the corridors.

But what was truly of note was the last page. Thalia traced her hand over it, staring at the list of names jotted down on the yellowed page. Some of them she recognised as his classmates, others his relatives and probably drug dealing connections.

One time in particular, however, stood out. It was the only one written in red ink as opposed to blue ink, and had been underlined, highlighted in red and aggressively circled with the caption, 'Could end me'. "Neppatsrev Remiad, year below me," she read aloud. A frown began to form across her face. No one in that cohort bore her name, what could he possibly be talking about?

Then it hit her. Reading the name backwards, she realised that it gave her the name 'Daimer Verstappen', a pudgy, fairly well-to-do boy in her class who constantly bragged about his new shoes and wore a bright pink jacket, one that his mother had knitted for him. There were also plenty of rumours circling that he was involved with the Blair Bandits, a gang that operated within this region and sought to monopolise the morphling trade, especially amongst youngsters.

Thalia thought back to the time of discovery, around ten o'clock that day, right after the lunch bell had rung for both her and Lex's cohorts. Daimer had been in a particular rush in the opposite direction of the cafeteria, constantly mumbling under his breath as he bolted away. At the time, Thalia hadn't thought too much of it, but now she realised that he'd been heading in the direction of Lex's classroom.

A triumphant smile flashed across her face as she stepped out into the corridor. She caught a glimpse of Daimer lying slumped in front of a locker, slowly drawing circles in the air. He was incredibly high, that was perfect for her. She strode up to him and towered over the defenceless young boy, who gazed back at her with cold, empty eyes. "Did you do it?" Thalia asked,

Daimer sighed, "Yes, and it was no fun, hic! But he's been getting involved with Dad's clan and I- I had a mission!" He raised an imaginary class as a toast to no one in particular.

Thalia whipped out her voice recording device and grinned broadly. "Thank you, Damian. I hope the Peacekeepers give you a taste of justice." With that, she swung her hair and marched away from the school.

Case 2: The Winnipeg Bandit

By the time she turned fourteen, Thalia had already achieved quite a reputation within her District. The Peacekeepers regularly asked for her help in solving cases throughout the capital city of Winnipeg in exchange for a decent fee for her services. As a teenager who'd grown up in the maze of slums that District Six was comprised of, she could easily put on a disguise and blend into her surroundings, which made her a valuable asset for the Peacekeeping force when it came to solving crimes, although she often tried her best to avoid taking cases involved with anti-Capitol rebellion. She was never exactly the most rebellious girl in town, but she would never compromise her District peers' fight for freedom, especially since any attempt at doing so would likely result in a rare 'bullet in brain disease; being passed on to her by either rebel groups of gang lords or perhaps even both.

Shortly before the Reapings, with the sudden influx of people from the poorer, Eastern half of the District who'd arrived to send their children for the dreaded event, many temporary camps and inns had to be set up on the outskirts of the city. Tensions were already bubbling between the feuding populations of Easterners and Westerners, with brawls erupting all around Winnipeg necessitating curfews and tighter regulations. Mass floggings and executions became almost an hourly spectacle, as the crime rate spiked up to its yearly peak.

This year, however, Thalia was called in to investigate a particular individual who'd gained infamy and notoriety amongst the native Westerner inhabitants of the city.

"The Winnipeg Bandit, that's what they call him," Colonel Dawnroot told her, tapping at a blurry picture of a figure escaping through a dark alley, dressed in a red hoodie, brown trousers and green shoes, hauling a sack of cash over his back. "Twenty reported sightings over the past couple of days alone, fifty confirmed burglaries, five more are suspected to be linked to him and two more foiled attempts. Also wanted for two counts of assault against an old lady and a young man in his twenties, both of whom describe him as a middle-aged man with pale skin and a shock of brown hair. The old lady reports him having dark brown eyes while the young man says his eyes are light brown, the real eye colour might be somewhere in between those two shades."

"Real nasty fella, must be an Easterner," Sargeant Wildbreeze mused.

Thalia peered closer at the file of reports laid out before her. One of them had come from the family of Mazda Ihattaren, a friend of hers who lived right across the road from her. Mazda's report was the most detailed of them all, describing the bandit's trademark of a red rose being etched out on the front door along with the man's outfit being a red hoodie with faint gold letters on its front side. She'd also described him as having a limp on one leg, as though he'd been in a recent fight, and had further reported him as having a gruff voice that could barely string a sentence to her when she'd tried to confront him.

But the best bit of evidence Mazda had been able to turn in was a faded, torn photograph the man had been carrying in his pocket. Thalia examined the photo, one of a rabid-looking man with scruffy features that perfectly matched the reports given so far. There was a dragon tattoo on his left torso too, one that none of the reports had mentioned, which could be crucial in tracking him down.

"Where was he last seen?" Thalia asked.

"Down there," Colonel Dawnroot said, pointing to the southern part of the city, which was known for being less affluent and being the centre of tire production due to the rubber plantations that had been placed there around thirty years ago.

"And has he been seen near a camp?"

"The young man who was assaulted reported seeing him near Camp 3, just south of Winnipeg," Sargeant Wildbreeze said. "It's not a very big camp, but when we searched it last time, he wasn't there. We got three burglary reports just ten minutes later. We haven't been able to check back in there because of a manpower shortage after those fights broke out in the eastern parts of the city and Camps 5, 8, 11, 17 and 25."

Thalia nodded. "Well, get the hairstylist ready, it looks like I'm going undercover for a while."

Thalia trudged through the mounds of dirt and waste, making her way towards Camp 2. There was a sign that signalled her arrival there, although it was less of a sign and more of a rotting piece of wood nailed to a fallen log with the number '2' scratched crudely on it. She was dressed completely in sackcloth and was barefoot. Careful not to step on any loose needles, she slowly climbed a small yet putrid mound made of stuff that she really did not want to think about and got her first view of the camp. She wrinkled her nose. It was barely even a camp. People were just lying around in crude wooden tents or on plastic sheets out in the open. A few lay directly on the dirt. There was a small water station that spewed out brown liquid at one edge of the camp, guarded by a burly-looking man with tattoos all over his entire body and face. A gang member, possibly, Thalia knew that in the East, access to water stations often necessitated cash, drugs, a small beating for the gang's amusement, food or if it was a good-looking girl, well, Thalia shuddered to think of the possibilities.

She walked into the camp, wary of drawing attention to herself. If people knew she was a Westerner, let alone a Winnipeg resident, they would literally tear her apart and eat her for breakfast. So, despite the horrifying stench that threatened to knock the wind out of her, she resisted the urge to even wrinkle her nose. Instead, she lumbered onward, keeping her gaze low and her eyes glossy. She occasionally tripped over nothing in particular to further add to the effect, which seemed to work well enough.

Still, she kept on snooping about, hoping that the drug-infused people in the camp wouldn't think twice about this sleazy girl casually wandering through each and every one of their personal spaces.

"Come on, where are you?" she grumbled under her breath. There were few people wearing a hoodie here, courtesy of its increasingly high market price. But just as she rounded a corner and headed worryingly close to the water station, she spotted it. A red hoodie draped over a tiny plastic stool with faint gold letters peeking out on its front. A small smile spread across her face. "Jackpot."

But the bandit was still nowhere in question. Thalia looked around, racking her head. Surely he had to be in here somewhere, right? She turned her attention to the plastic stool. How odd was it that this man would bring a stool over to the Reapings, especially since he already had his own tent and plastic sheets by the looks of it. Carefully, she moved the stool aside, and to her delight, it revealed a trap door delicately built into the dirt. Thalia tapped the microphone that had been wired under her shirt. "I've found his lair," she whispered.

Instantly, a flash of Peacekeepers stormed into the camp, and within ten minutes, they'd fished the Winnipeg Bandit out, kicking and screaming in front of a crowd of unfazed Easterners, along with bundles of cash, gold and jewellery.

"Hey, that's only half of the loot, where's the rest of it?" Sargeant Wildbreeze wondered.

Colonel Dawnroot kicked the bandit hard in the stomach. "Well? Where is it, you slimy little prat?"

Thalia glanced over at the water station, where the big man still stood, glaring menacingly at the Peacekeepers. "Check the watering hole. And arrest that man, he's part of the same gang as the bandit, the Dragon Hyde. See? He's got the same dragon tattoo on the same part of his torso."

And sure enough, the lost riches were found, right there and then, hidden in the pipes of the station, but not before the burly man had taken a swing at Thalia, a punch she'd effortlessly caught with a smile.

Case 3: The Murder of Hercules Nichols

The year had not been kind to the band of existing Victors. Reyna, Nikola and Olive had all passed away due to natural causes, while Switch's health had begun to deteriorate rapidly, although her sense of humour certainly hadn't. The minute Thalia and the other tributes stepped into the train station, they were instantly met with a loud announcement from the station loudspeakers that blared out, "This is an important announcement! The trains have arrived, so cancel those plans and flush them down the train. Get it? And I'm always here for you, come train or shine! Haha, that's all for today, folks, oh and by the way, Claudius Templesmith's hair is looking like a bowl of rancid noodles today! It's Switch, baby, over and out!"

Thalia shook her head, but couldn't hide her smile. She'd shown barely any emotion since the Reaping, not even when an entire squadron of Peacekeepers had flooded her room in the Justice Building to frantically give her fighting and survival tips in a desperate effort to keep their beloved young detective alive and well. "Show them you're tough, Thalia. You're smart, you can do this!" Colonel Dawnroot had told her in a voice that was close to a shout of despair. And she'd followed his advice, keeping a tough, stoic face until she'd arrived at the train station.

The fun, however, would not last. On the night of the Tribute Parade, disaster struck.

"What happened to him?" Thalia asked.

Kimi shrugged. "Oh, Hercules? They say he was stabbed, no one knows who did it though. I can't imagine who would, he's a really nice guy, tried to help me get out of, well you know." His body shook a little and a shaking hand reached for his morphling, but Thalia slapped it away. He let out a disdainful sigh. "Ask Gwen, she's the one that discovered him. But really, Thalia, you should be focusing on your training."

Thalia chuckled softly. "Oh, the Peacekeepers already told me all that I needed to know. Even gave me two extra hours of Justice Building time just to give me the whole breakdown. Besides, this might bring me tons of sponsors if I can solve this quickly."

Kimi gritted his teeth but the world-weary Victor knew that there would be no convincing Thalia out of this. The Peacekeepers in the Capitol, already notified by their District Six counterparts that 'should anything happen within the Tribute Centre, just leave it to her, she's a professional', let her straight into the crime scene, against a rather incensed Draco's wishes, of course.

"Hercules is a proud icon of Two!" he shrieked as Thalia slipped across the police tape and into Hercules's bedroom, where the old Victor's body still say, sprawled on the floor, a pool of blood coating the rim of his mouth. "You can't seriously let this Outlier freak-"

"We have it on good account that she's a renowned detective in Six, she will get the job done faster than any of us, apparently," a Peacekeeper informed him.

Draco snarled at Thalia. "I will have you hanged for this! Or at least I'll make sure you die a sad, lonely death for this insult of our pride!" And with that, he stormed off, his rubber ducky slippers squeaking and squishing all the way.

Thalia frowned. She'd never had this ungrateful of a client, but no matter, she wasn't solving this case for his sake, she was solving it for her own. Perhaps, she figured, this would be her ticket to a better fate than poor old Hercules lying in front of her. She bent down to examine his body. "Any fingerprints?" she asked.

The Peacekeeper who had spoken to Draco shook his head. "None that we could find."

A scowl spread across Thalia's face. "Hmm, well looks like we're going to have to go by the evidence. Now, we need to figure out what poisoned him. I know the Capitol's recently perfected a new toxin detector, has that yielded anything yet?"

The Peacekeeper whipped out a small sheet of paper. Peering closely, he read out, "Says here his blood has been contaminated with cerberin, no one in my regiment knows what that is, though, we'll have to ask the doctors."

Thalia shook her head. "There's no need for that. I need a list of everything Hercules Nichols ate for dinner, and a list of everyone who's handled his food."

The Peacekeeper's eyes widened. "H-how did you-"

"Cerberin, a toxin produced by Cerbera odollam, otherwise known as the suicide tree. It's a species of plant that was introduced to Districts Six and Seven before the Dark Days and has grown rampantly in the Western side of District Six ever since. Very potent poison, very easy to hide in food and, as demonstrated by Mr Nichols, very lethal."

The Peacekeeper let out a low whistle before whipping out a walkie-talkie and giving Thalia's instructions to his partners. Meanwhile, Thalia continued to examine the crime scene. She walked over to the rubbish bin and flipped it open. Dumping out its contents, she discovered a small slip of crumpled paper. She unfolded it and read out its contents. "'District Two will pay, starting with you'. And it's signed with 'Y'."

"Sounds ominous," the Peacekeeper mumbled. "I think Julia and Enobaria reported receiving similar notes when we questioned them just now."

Thalia glanced closely at the handwriting. "I recognise it. It's that of the boy from Five, Yannick York. I saw him sitting in a corner before the Parade scribbling something into his diary. It's the way he writes that letter 'y', no one writes it like that, with those squiggles near the bottom, and the letter 'w', with two 'u's joined together and a tiny space in between. The remotest of differences that can spell out a criminal."

The Peacekeeper's jaw dropped. "What the-"

"And I can give a motive too. The Yates family, in Six's rumour mill, they are supposedly a powerful rebel group in Five. In fact, there is a gang back home in Six called the Golden Yates, run by a small branch of the family that moved to Six before the Dark Days. Now, most of the Peacekeepers in the Outlier Districts hail from Two, and in the Reaping Recaps that the tributes and Districts saw, which I'm sure is different from the one viewed in the Capitol, Yannick had quite the speech about how Peacekeepers from Two had recently massacred his family members. Oh, and not to mention, in Hercules's Games, a member of the Yates family was killed. In Enobaria's Games, Noah Arnold was the boyfriend of a Yates family member. And in Julia's Games, Julia killed Konrad Yates."

"How do you know all this stuff?"

Thalia winked at him. "Yannick didn't close his diary in time. I saw the words 'kill the Victors' and knew a mystery was bound to happen, besides the Yates have been quite a bothersome lot in Six recently, so I've done my research on them. If you check the security footage, it should show that Yannick snuck into the kitchen right before dinner was served to sprinkle in that very special ingredient: Cerbera odollam."

Sure enough, Yannick was caught and after a couple of beatings, he confessed to the crime. The security footage and a vial of poison found in his room further proved his guilt. He wasn't charged, not officially, but everyone, from the tributes to District Five to the Capitol, knew his fate was sealed in the arena.

As for Thalia? Well, as she'd predicted, she instantly became a crowd favourite overnight, and without even needing to see her train, the Gamemakers awarded her with the astonishing score of 10.

Fabulous indeed!

Case 4: The Escape Room

Thalia led her allies, a ragtag team consisting of her District partner Rivian, Chester from Eight and Cajun from Eleven, through the winding hallways of the hotel arena, the scythe she'd recovered from the Cornucopia held aloft, a focused look permanently splattered on her face. The Bloodbath had been quite straightforward for her. None of the particularly dangerous tributes had been placed on the adjacent pedestals, so she could easily run in, grab a weapon and some supplies before waltzing right out without a hitch.

Besides, most of the tributes were distracted by the sudden explosion of Yannick's pedestal anyway so she had plenty of time in the Cornucopia.

The group turned right and headed into a narrow corridor, lit only by a singular lamp that dangled precariously from the ceiling. There were six doors on each side of the corridor, along with a large red one at the very end of it. "Are you sure this is a good idea?" Cajun asked, anxiety dripping in her voice.

"Come on," Thalia urged. "The Careers were onto us not too long ago, if we turn back, we might run into them again."

Cajun nodded, although she didn't look too convinced. "Should we try opening these doors?"

Thalia shook her head. "No. Let's go for the big red one first, if it's anything like the yellow and blue doors we've seen all around here so far, it'll lead us to a passageway to a whole other section of the arena, hopefully, one far away from the Career pack."

As the whole group shuffled further down the corridor, suddenly, a large stone slab fell from the ceiling, sealing the entrance to the corridor with a loud 'tha-thump!'. The lamp began to flicker, the meagre light that it produced ebbing to a faint glow.

"W-what's happening?" Chester stammered, clutching his quarterstaff tightly.

"Shoot, everyone, try all of the doors, it's the Gamemakers, they're gonna make something happen and-" Thalia didn't even have time to finish her sentence. All of a sudden, billows of hot, puffy green smoke began to spew out from all around them, enveloping the entire corridor in thick, soupy greenness. The back of Thalia's throat began to close up and she could feel a horrible itch rising through her windpipe. Coughing furiously, she charged towards the red door and frantically tried the handle, but it was no use. The door wouldn't budge. "Damn it!" she yelped, moving on to the next door, but the fumes were already getting to her. Her chest began to throb, her vision began to blur and the entire place seemed to sway all around her as she tried to hobble her way to a door with what looked like a pineapple-shaped doorknob. Clasping her hands around its rough surface, she feebly tried to open it but again, it refused to budge. Her heart sank and anxiety began to bubble through her veins as red rashes began to sprout all across her skin, casting an unbearable bout of searing pain all across her body. "Grgh!" she squealed, clasping her chest as she struggled to make her way to another door.

"Over, ugh, here!" Thalia could hear Rivian's voice, ever so faint, ever so feeble. Her chest throbbed and ached and her legs refused to move as a hurricane of hurt and aching descended upon them, but she gritted her teeth, forcing herself to press onward towards the sound of Rivian's voice. Eventually, she reached an open doorway where the smoke didn't even seem to cross into, and with a great heave of effort, dragged herself across the threshold. A hand reached out to grab hers and pulled her inside, before the door, seemingly on its own, slammed shut behind her. Thalia coughed, but as if by magic, all of the tremendous pain she'd felt just a second ago began to quickly dissipate into a shockingly normal feeling, the speed at which it disappeared nearly taking the wind out of her.

"Whoa," she murmured. Behind her, there was a clicking noise and she realised, with a click in her own mind, that the Gamemakers had locked them inside this room. "Drat."

The room itself was medium-sized, around the size of her room at the Tribute Centre. There was a four-poster bed, a small bedside table with a nightlight, a jam-packed closet, a pink rocking chair, a desk and a small holograph projector. A small doorway led to what looked like a modest bathroom by Capitolite standards. But the most striking feature of the room was, undoubtedly, the large trapdoor in the corner of the room, chained and shackled, a large, skull-shaped padlock guarding its entrance.

Suddenly, the holograph projector let out a soft, mellow beeping noise and the flickering image of Caesar Flickerman materialised right before their eyes, prompting a small squeak from Chester. "Hello, tributes," he greeted them, his face and voice unmistakably solemn underneath that perfected smile of his. "Welcome to the escape room. Hidden all around the room are clues that will lead you to the key that opens the trapdoor. You have one hour to unlock the door before you are all eliminated. Good luck and may the odds be ever in your favour." With that, the holograph fizzled and Caesar's face vanished.

Cajun gulped. "What now?" she asked meekly.

In the corner of the room, a small monitor buzzed to leave, revealing a timer that flashed bright red. "One hour before Code 59 is unleashed," a robotic female voice read aloud.

"Shoot, we have to move!" Thalia implored. "Come on, search everywhere, look for anything you can find!"

With that, the group began to frantically search the room, digging through every last nook and cranny for any sign of clues. Thalia peeked under the bedframe and managed to fish out a small, crumpled sheet of paper. "The positives are out abuzz, as they head over to number fifty six without a fuss," she read aloud. "Damn, that's a terrible rhyming scheme."

"What the hell does it mean?" Rivian shouted from the bathroom.

"I've found a safe!" Chester yelled, grabbing Thalia's hand and dragging her over. "Two letter password, for every wrong one, there's a ten-minute cooldown," he read aloud from a finely printed tag on its side. "Oh no, we have to be- Thalia!"

Thalia pushed past him and punched in the letters 'B' and 'a' into the keypad. With a soft click and a tiny whirring noise, the safe yanked open, revealing a scroll in a glass bottle. "How the heck?" Chester asked, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Barium is element number fifty six, and positives means it has a positive charge of plus two," Thalia explained, fishing out the scroll and unravelling it. "Find me in the white container."

"All the containers here are white, Thalia!" Rivian shouted, fishing out bottle after container after flask from the bathroom cupboard.

"White.." Thalia murmured. There was a double spacing between the words 'white' and 'container', one that didn't even have the same length of a double spacing. Every other word used a single spacing too, which churned the juices in her brilliant mind. Then, she had an idea. She marched over to the bathroom, found a match and lit it before placing it underneath the scroll. Instantly, the letter 's' appeared right behind the word 'white', along with the number '21' and half an asterisk hidden right at the edge of the paper. "Give me the toothpaste!" Thalia demanded, thrusting out her hand impatiently. Rivian obliged, giving her a tube of toothpaste. She twisted it open and out spilled another sheet of paper. This time, it was filled with musical notes, a field beyond Thalia's comprehension.

A District Seven musician kid would be nice.

The numbers '78' were also printed at the back, which could, along with '21', form part of a larger password. "Does anyone know music?" Thalia asked.

"I can try," Cajun murmured. Grabbing the paper, she peered closely at it. "B-E-D. Bed. And underneath it is a C major, whatever that's supposed to mean."

Thalia whirled around, making a beeline for the bed. Chester was already there, rummaging through the bed fervently. "Found anything?" she asked.

Chester emerged from underneath a pile of bedsheets, holding up a small wooden chest triumphantly. "Had to dig through three whole layers for this one."

There was a digital lock at the side of the chest. Thalia started to key in the number '2', then stopped. "Asterisk..." she mused. She tried '1638', or 21 multiplied by 78. The digital padlock flashed red and buzzed. Thalia frowned and tried '112', 2 multiplied by 1 then multiplied by 7 and finally multiplied by 8. This time, the lock flashed green and clicked open, revealing a small blue orb. She wrinkled her nose and took it back to the bathroom. "C major, hmm..." She glanced around at all the vials and bottles laid out before her, courtesy of a rather frustrated-looking Rivian. Scanning each one of them, she landed on a particularly interesting one. "Lily-of-the-valley, wait a minute. It's also known as Convallaria majalis, if I remember correctly. C maj." Pouring some of its contents out onto the blue orb, it shook and trembled a little before cracking open, revealing a small key. With a grin, she snatched it and took it straight to the trapdoor.

It fit perfectly well and the shackles and chains came loose.

Glancing up at a not-so-well-hidden camera in the ceiling, she flashed a coy smile. "That was a little too easy for Thalia Wheeler, folks. Do better next time."

Case 5: The Pack Traitor

The final eight had descended upon them, yet their group still remained intact. The thought of splitting up certainly lingered, but Thalia deduced that with three Careers still at large, they would all be easy pickings for those trained machines in no time.

But by the tenth day, the pack's time together came to a screeching halt. Thalia was rudely awakened by the sound of choked sobbing, and as she groggily got to her feet, she noticed it.

Rivian's dead body, lying only a mere metre away from her face, a gash wound on his back.

A cannon fired in the distance but Thalia didn't care. She stared at Rivian, the shocked, horrified look in his face frozen in time. For the first time in her life, as she stared at a dead corpse, she could feel a cold chill running through the side of her face as her body tensed in horror, the realisation quickly dawning upon her.

One of them was a murderer, one who had just killed Thalia's District partner.

She couldn't bear to tear her eyes away from him. They were by no means friends, but at the very least, he brought along something distinctly Six with him. Maybe it was his accent, perhaps it was his mannerisms, but Rivian had always been a constant reminder of her home, where she was vying to return to, and he'd been the only person in the group who actually seemed to get along with her not simply because she was a useful sleuth.

He was a genuine, sweet kid who didn't deserve this, and all at once, the real horror of the Hunger Games, the real pain and anguish of death finally dawned on her.

"Oh gosh," she murmured, her ears ringing with white noise. The noise began to grow louder and louder, enveloping her in a world of hurt. She was forced to sit down and instinctively, her hands went up to her ears to cover them, but nothing seemed to be able to drown out the noise that slowly morphed into something else.

Voices.

"Rivian's death is your fault," a voice told her. "You had ten days to weed out a traitor and you failed. Now that boy will never race again, will never hold his newborn sister's hand again, will never do an air somersault in a chariot again. You're pathetic."

"Shut the fuck up," she quietly hissed as Cajun continued to sob. Rivian's death, wait no, his murder was now her top priority, and she had to solve this case with every last ounce of wit she had.

After all, her life was on the line.

"Who found him?" she asked, her voice harsher than usual but she didn't care.

"Me, I did," Cajun piped up, still whimpering. "I was supposed to be on guard duty after him but he never woke me up. That's when I-I found him."

Thalia nodded curtly. "Any weapons found?"

"There's this," Chester said, holding up a knife that had been dumped in a nearby rubbish bin.

"Alright, whose knife is missing?" Thalia queried.

"Rivian's. Whoever did it used his," Cajun murmured, shooting Chester an accusing glare.

In the distance, a cannon boomed. Thalia cursed under her breath. No time to waste, it's the final six now, she thought to herself. "How long ago did you find him? And don't lie, I can tell exactly how long he's been dead by his body temperature." Thalia couldn't really do that, but she hoped that Cajun wouldn't call her bluff.

"Uhm, about an hour ago?" she responded meekly.

"Was he already dead when you found him?" Thalia asked, gazing again at Rivian's corpse.

Cajun nodded quickly. "I-I checked for a pulse. There was none and I-I panicked..."

Without hesitation, Thalia grabbed her scythe and lunged at Cajun, a dark, murderous glint shimmering in her eye. With an ear-piercing scream, she swung the sythe at her and impaled her right in the chest. Cajun let out a choked gasp and gaped at Thalia with big, stunned eyes. "H-how?"

"You waited one hour before telling anybody. Also, you weren't on guard duty after Rivian, I was. No idea why you said that, but you've sold yourself as a liar and a traitor. Fuck you, bitch," Thalia sneered.

The cannon boomed shortly after and Thalia pulled out the scythe. Chester blinked rapidly in astonishment. "Wow, that was-"

Thalia struck him in the head with her scythe. As he crumpled to the floor, she calmly walked up to him and gave him a pitiful look. "Sorry, Chester. Final five, had to do it."

With that, she packed up her things and left the scene, forcing herself to blink back the tears before the cannon boomed and the sheerness of her hypocrisy set root in the cold, dark world of her heart. She couldn't bear to look at the corpses she'd just left behind, two of them by her own doing. As her boots trudged across the blood-soaked red carpet of the hotel, the hotel walls seemed to cave in on her, engulfing her in the madness of the Hunger Games.

Katniss and Peeta held a moment for Thalia. "How did she win eventually?" Katniss asked.

"Ran off from the boy from Four, then dodged him and pushed him into the hotel's swimming pool filled with piranha mutts," Peeta recalled.

Katniss let out a low chuckle. "Well, I guess everyone's gotta use a bit of brawn in the arena. Brains won't solve everything."

Peeta nodded. "You've got that right."

As the inner city of the Capitol, with its tall, lush buildings and lavish public parks and squares rolled into view, Peeta quickly flipped the page so they could move on to the next Victor. A tall, bulky young man with dark skin and short, black hair stood before them in the photo, a stoic expression masking a pained look in his eyes. In front of him was a crowd that roared him on, their hands raised high above their heads, their mouths wide open in cheers. This was unmistakably his home crowd of District Two citizens, and some of them even held banners of his infamous brick aloft in a supposed show of support, although it looked like it had the opposite effect on the poor boy. "Behanzin Musa."

VICTORS

District 1-Sapphire Huntington(4), Onyx Hibonite(9), Franc Montgomery(14), Crystal Montgomery(21), Sterling Jones(25), Luxe Carmichael(36), Geneva Cooper(37), Cartier Cooper(44), Valkyrie Montgomery(54), Gloss Irvine(63), Cashmere Irvine(64), Augustus Braun-Montgomery(67)

District 2-Ragnar Sveinsson(5), Reyna Boudicca(6), Draco Hadley(10), Scipio MacAllister(17), Freya Carson(22), Hercules Nichols(28), Julia Dawson(39), Brutus Gunn(42), Lyme Sveinsson(45), Evan Fortis(55), Enobaria Golding(61)

District 3-Nikola Johnson(13), Gadget Schroeder(24), Beetee Latier(40), Wiress Jansen(47)

District 4-Marina Bluebell(1), Mags Flanagan(11), Jolien Fisher(31), Timmy Fisher(32), Iris Fisher(33), Rafael Fisher(34), Coral Thiller(41), Poseidon Nakamura(58), Nemo Williams(62), Finnick Odair(65), Annie Cresta(70)

District 5-Shocker Crimson(8), Switch Kim(19), Flash Morrison(27), Porter Tripp(38), Marie Meredith(52), Ampere Chang(66)

District 6-Ford Hamilton(20), Kimi Bentley(51), Audi Lando(59), Thalia Wheeler (72)

District 7-Hassan Greenwood(2), Jill Wilson(15), Olive Sanchez(26), Birch Davison(35), Blight Gavin(53), James Silva(60), Johanna Mason (71)

District 8-Woof Casino(16), Calico Pepper(48), Cecelia Rheys(56)

District 9-Gwendolyn Whitfield(18), Laurel Flamsteel(29), Miller Thompson(49), Demeter Jarvinen(68)

District 10-Ringo Alvarez(7), John Gatwick(23), Mare Trybull(43), Colt Dias(57)

District 11-Orchid Bloom(12), Seeder Crue(30), Chaff Mitchell(46), Sprout Skhosana(69)

District 12-Axel Millar(3), Haymitch Abernathy(50)

Victors that are underlined are deceased.