Luka

The moment I'm allowed off the stage, I calmly but firmly round up all my fellow District 5 victors to an emergency meeting.

Now I pace the room, energy crackling through me. I know that the odds are in Gus' favour. He's strong, he's handsome, he's loyal to the Capitol. He's already famous. His toughest opponents, the Careers, are likely to be in a state of disarray. But I want to increase the odds. I want to set him up with the best combination of our victors to mentor him. The four people I've assembled in this room - plus Becky, who I let go so she could drop Dynamo off with his father - all have their own unique experiences and skills. I want to use them all to my advantage.

Once I've assembled my ideal mentoring team, then I'll try to figure out why Dynamo, a kid who's twenty-five percent Capitol, suddenly got reaped for the Seventy-Sixth Hunger Games.

After five minutes that seem like ages, Becky arrives still looking shaken from her son being reaped. I survey the room of rain-soaked victors and start to speak.

"As you all know, we have a serious situation," I say. "My grandson has just volunteered for the games and nobody is leaving this room until we have assembled the most efficient mentoring team possible- Hey! Turbin! I see you sneaking towards the exit, kid. Stop it!"

Turbin Bloodhawk, the second victor I mentored, stops in his tracks and sighs. I know he wants to go back to his house as soon as possible. He rarely leaves. But he's also an expert in stealth.

"Anyway," I say. "I'm going to start by saying I would like to mentor Gus. I feel like it's my responsibility to look after him. Does anyone want to be my backup mentor?"

Two victors instantly raise their hands. Sotope Baymark is no surprise. She was the first victor I ever mentored and she's been my best friend ever since she won her games. Out of the six of us, she's the most experienced with killing Careers and the most hardworking and competitive mentor. Durning the Twenty-Ninth Hunger Games, when Sotope's tribute lasted for two months, she put herself in the hospital with exhaustion, which led to the Capitol introducing a new backup mentor system. All my grandkids call her Aunt Sotope. She's technically a grandmother to Becky and Arcas' kids, since she adopted Becky after mentoring her to victory but she hates it when anyone points that out. She says it makes her feel old. Besides, I don't think Becky and Sotope saw each other as mother and daughter, more like two friends, one of whom was too young to legally live alone and in danger of getting sent back to her old community home, and one of whom felt the need to help her friend out and be her legal guardian for a year or so.

The other victor is a surprise. Tesoro Bullion, my personal least-favourite neighbour. We've despised each other for decades. Tesoro was sentenced to death for operating machinery under the influence - a serious offence in a district where one accident could cause a nuclear meltdown. Since he was still eligible to be reaped, his execution was delayed so he'd have the opportunity to volunteer at the next reaping. He took it, joined the Careers and manipulated them all into believing he was their number one ally. When only Careers remained, Tesoro stepped back and let his allies fight each other, and then picked off the last remaining Career, who was already badly wounded. Ever since then, he's been drinking, womanising, causing havoc and just generally being annoying. It makes my blood boil that a criminal who deserved to die could just use the Hunger Games to escape his sentence.

Presumably, he just put his hand up to annoy me.

The choice is obvious.

"Sotope, you're my backup mentor," I say. "Who wants to mentor the girl, Becky?"

Becquerel Heartmerry-Starkwain, or Becky for short, is probably the least skilled of our victors. She won her games when she was fourteen and three-quarters, so that's kinda understandable. Her biggest skill that got her through her games was speed. She managed to outrun five Careers, lure them onto some train tracks where her ally, the boy from Six, drove a train into them. Then Becky stabbed her ally - now her final opponent - to death with a piece of broken glass. I think she could be useful to have on the team, though. She would work well with me and Sotope. Ever since Becky won her games, she's been eager to participate in Victor's Village sporting competitions with me and Sotope. I taught her how to ride a bike. Now she's faster than me. When she started dating my son, I was really happy for them both. Now they're married with three kids and I'm proud to call Becky my daughter in law. I think it would be useful to have someone happy to work with me and Sotope mentoring Gus' district partner.

Becky shakes her head. "I'm sorry, Luka. I wish I could help but I don't think I can mentor the girl. I just… can't pretend that I want her to win. It'd make me feel so guilty. Besides, one of us needs to stay in Five and look after the kids. I know they still have Arcas and the others but I think it would be easier for them to have someone who actually went through the games telling them that Gus is going to be okay."

"That's a good idea," I say. I'd been so caught up with worry about Gus that I'd forgotten that my other four grandkids - especially Dynamo - are also going to be struggling while he's in the arena and I won't be around to help them. "If you want to go to the goodbye room and check in on the others, you're excused from this meeting."

Becky gives me a quick hug and then rushes off to the goodbye room to say goodbye to Gus and try to comfort her kids. I turn to Elisabeta Silverpine, the youngest of our victors.

"It looks like you're mentoring the girl, Beta."

"Wait!" Tesoro cries. "What about me? I want to mentor the girl!"

"I'm not leaving you alone with an eighteen-year-old girl." I say.

"I don't care about the girl," Tesoro snaps. "I didn't get to mentor last year because of the Quell. I missed all the rad parties when Fawkes Chau won and, may I remind you, I picked him first for the Quell Tribute Draft so I won that. You must be so embarrassed."

I roll my eyes. Now I know why Tesoro wanted to be Gus' backup mentor. He doesn't care about mentoring. He just wants to party in the Capitol. Also, it was a mistake for Sotope and I to let him compete in our yearly Tribute Draft, which was a fun little game we'd started playing after Sotope retired from mentoring because she missed having a tribute to root for. We only let him compete because we both thought we'd absolutely thrash him but he just happened to pick the Quell victor on his first try and now he won't let either of us forget about it.

Sotope glares at Tesoro, obviously annoyed that he was reminding her of her loss.

"You can take your Quell Tribute Draft victory and shove it up your-"

"No swearing in the Justice Building, Sotope," I interrupt. "But you are right, he totally can. Now can we please give Beta a chance to speak?"

Beta hesitates for a moment. Out of all of District 5's victors, she's probably the one I understand the least. She doesn't really socialise with the rest of us. Becky invited her to one of our family gatherings after she won in an effort to be welcoming and Beta politely turned her down. She's not as reclusive as Turbin but I mentored him so I understand him to an extent. She doesn't cause trouble and stir the pot like Tesoro. All I know about Beta is that she won her games by hiding in a tree and shooting her last opponent with a poisoned arrow. She seems to be pretty strategic and that could be useful. I imagine she's also worked with some of the younger mentors in the Control Centre, which could also make her useful.

"I'd like to mentor Tornada," she says.

I give a sigh of relief. "Okay. You're mentoring the girl."

"Hey, who put you in charge of who gets to mentor the girl?" Tesoro asks.

"The same people who put my grandson in the games. I have more to lose than you. Therefore, I'm in charge."

"You don't have more to lose than me. You have five grandkids. You can afford to lose one. If I don't get to mentor this games, I'll miss out on two years of parties in a row!"

I'm about to punch the idiot for saying that his parties matter more than my grandson's life. Beta clears her throat, interrupting our argument.

"I'd like a backup mentor, of my own, actually," she says. "I pick Tesoro."

"What?" I ask. "What about Turbin?"

"He's not here. It's just the four of us."

I glance around and realise that Turbin is nowhere to be seen. He must've snuck away at some point.

Why won't these victors just behave? They all know Gus. He visits Victor's Village regularly. Don't they want to protect him?

I sigh with frustration. "Goddamn stealthy bastard left the fucking emergency meeting without my permission."

"Hey, language," Tesoro says. "No swearing in the Justice Building, Starky!"

"Get out," I say.

"But it's an emergency meeting."

"You have nothing to contribute, get out!"

"You swore in the Justice Building, maybe you're the one who should get out!"

"There are piña coladas on the train," Beta says, innocently.

Tesoro is out the door in a matter of seconds.

"D'you really think he'll help you?" I ask.

"I've been mentoring alongside him for eighteen years," Beta says. "I think I can handle him."

"Can you keep him away from us?" Sotope asks.

Beta just laughs.

"Okay," I say. "Now that we've settled on the three of us mentoring, let's talk strategy. I think we should all work together."

"I thought it would be better if we worked separately, at least until our tributes decide they want to ally," Beta says.

"Really?" I ask.

"What about Tornada?" I ask. "If we're all working together to protect Guston, she'll realise that we're all working against her. At best, she'll be demoralised. At worst, she'll be resentful. Do you think she deserves to be abandoned and written off just because she had the bad luck to be reaped alongside your grandson?"

I hesitate for a moment. The two things I value most in the world are family and justice. When I was young, I believed I could have both. I could protect my family while being an honourable and virtuous person.

Now I realise that that's impossible. I had to break the rules to build my family in the first place. I dated Callisto Jasper, my tributes' stylist, in secret for fifteen years. When I proposed to her, it caused a scandal. People judged me for 'corrupting' a Capitol woman. But I knew it was right. I knew we were in love.

All of the terrible consequences that followed, they happened because I did what was best for my family.

Now I weigh my options. Family or morals? Do everything I can to protect my grandson or admit to myself that I'm not gonna let these games be fair, that Tornada will be at a disadvantage because of my actions?

I decide to take a calculated risk.

"Okay," I say. "You can work alone if you want. But the moment that girl dies, I want you working with me and Sotope. And if you've got any advice for how to work with some of the younger mentors, let us know."

I've been watching the Hunger Games from a victor's perspective for over sixty years. If I had to guess who'd last the longest out of my fit, confident grandson and his skinny, terrified district partner, I'd bet on Gus. Maybe if it'd been Dynamo going into the games instead of Gus, I'd be a bit more worried. But right now, Tornada's already at a disadvantage. I'm just going to assume that she dies early in the games and then Beta joins our team and helps Gus win. And that's assuming that Tornada doesn't realise that her best chance at survival is allying with Gus and we become one united District 5 alliance.

"I think you'll be fine, Luka," Beta says. "I know you haven't mentored since the Second Quarter Quell but I think a lot of the younger mentors will want to work with you. You were good to them on their victory tours. You probably know a lot of them better than I do."

"Can I have an example?" I ask. I still don't feel confident.

The older I get, the more I feel I'm losing touch with the younger generation. My life was shaped by the war and the hardship that followed. The majority of people in Panem weren't alive to experience that.

They also weren't alive to experience the Capitol before Coriolanus Snow took over.

"Fawkes Chau," Beta says. "He hasn't mentored yet. I barely spoke to him on his victory tour. But you and Callisto were talking to him the entire banquet."

I frown.

Fawkes Chau is a pretty bad example. It's not because there's anything wrong with him. He's a great kid. At one point, I believed he'd be the future of Panem. He was the perfect tribute to win the Quell, a shining example of the Capitol's kindness and mercy. He was the boy who'd earned his second chance. He was the victor I'd been waiting for for decades, the one who would win over the youth and get them to support the Capitol. Plus we got along very well when he came to Five on his victory tour. He talked to me and Callisto about his struggle to adjust to living in a completely new district and Callisto shared her own experiences from when she moved to Five from the Capitol decades ago.

If Fawkes Chau were mentoring this games, I would at the very least consider an alliance between his tribute and Gus. But I doubt he will be. It's likely that he's so traumatised after what the rebels did to him that he won't be able to mentor, which is a shame. I think he'd have made an excellent mentor.

"C'mon," Sotope says, grabbing my arm and distracting me from my worries. "Let's get on the train."

I can tell she's excited to be mentoring again. It's been exactly twenty-five years since she retired. Maybe she's a little anxious as well, though I know she'd never admit to it. She's never really been an emotional or sentimental person.

She's never been into politics, either.

In the car, on the way to the train, I watch the rain splatter on the windows and start to wonder why Dynamo was reaped. I have never asked whether or not my kids or grandkids' names were in the reaping bowl. I know that there's a possibility that they weren't. The Capitol don't tend to like it when kids with Capitol blood get reaped. I remember there was this massive scandal when Surf Depthell, victor of the Third Hunger Games, was revealed to be an undocumented half-Capitol bastard, and he didn't even die in the arena. The Hunger Games are meant to punish the districts for their rebellion and putting a kid with Capitol blood in the arena would punish the Capitol as well and defeat the entire purpose of the games.

However, I can't ignore the current political situation. Panem has just survived an attempted rebellion. Over the last few months, there has been violent unrest across many districts.

Every district experienced a significant peacekeeper crackdown in the wake of the Victory Tour Attack. In some districts, the were met with resistance. In other districts, such as Five, the crackdown was welcomed.

District 3 and District 8 were tearing themselves apart as the rebels split between moderates and extremists and started fighting each other. Both districts have been worn down by constant violence and fear for almost two years.

In District 10, people were so outraged at the rebels for hurting one of their victors, they began to take justice into their own hands and formed vigilante posses to hunt down suspected rebels and put them on trial. They became so violently protective towards Fawkes Chau that they'd attack members of the paparazzi who took photos of him without his permission, believing them to be rebels doing surveillance for another attack on him. The Capitol sided with the posses, choosing to ban the paparazzi from entering District 10.

Soon, stories of District 10's vigilantism spread to District 9 and District 5 and both districts began to establish a similar posse system. Nine's vigilante posses were less militant than Ten's but they also lacked a figurehead to unite under, leading to different posses targeting each other. As for Five, our peacekeepers anticipated an increase in vigilantism after the Victory Tour Attack and were prepared for it. They began to ask for civilian volunteers who wanted to catch rebels to join official posses, each one lead by a peacekeeper who would try to maintain proper protocol and keep the posse organised. As a result, Five didn't experience the violence and chaos that Nine and Ten did.

Not even the Career districts were safe. On the day of the Victory Tour Attack, a boy in District 2 murdered his foster parents. The peacekeepers in Two were very secretive and chose not to reveal the killer's name, where he was imprisoned, what sentence he would serve or any potential motive. This led to the killer becoming a cult figure among the disillusioned Career youth. They theorised that he must've murdered his foster parents to honour the rebel Régine Maurin. She'd infamously criticised the Career system for encouraging parents to abuse their children and she'd been a District 3 tribute in the Quell, meaning that the murder took place on the day Fawkes Chau was in Régine's district. People started calling the killer 'Jack Frost' as a reference to Régine's nickname, 'Frostbite', and a series of copycat killings began to take place across One and Two as Career kids murdered their parents and guardians. District 4 escaped the Jack Frost Killings but only because their training academy had already been branded rebellious by peacekeepers and burned to the ground, with many of the students being executed.

I feel like I'm reliving my childhood in the wreckage of District 5 after the war. Even though this new failed rebellion never devolved into a war, it seems to have reminded the country of the damage the rebels can do. I'm only grateful that District 5 has been relatively unscathed so far.

This is the political climate in which Dynamo was reaped. Not only is he a quarter Capitol, he's my grandson. I've always been very vocal in my support for the Capitol. I'm probably the most famous Pro-Capitol victor in Panem. It's entirely possible that he was rigged into the games to further some kind of political agenda, to manufacture a Pro-Capitol victor with Capitol blood to consolidate the Capitol's victory over the rebels.

I wouldn't put it past Coriolanus Snow to rig the reaping for his own gain.

I disagree with his corrupt methods, but I have to admit that the way he rigs the reapings often benefits the Capitol as well as Snow.

If Dynamo was reaped to further some kind of political agenda, it's likely that Gus volunteering will also further that agenda. He is also my grandson. He also supports the Capitol. He also has Capitol blood.

If I'm going to help Gus win the games, I'm going to have to figure out exactly what the agenda is.

To those of you who aren't familiar with him from All I Do Is Lose, meet Luka Starkwain, victor of the Fourteenth Hunger Games. He's the reason why his family is so Pro-Capitol but he's also a bit more rough around the edges and jaded than the others. He had a very different upbringing to everyone else in his family and he's… not the biggest fan of President Snow. Currently, he's just trying to stay calm and make the most of a bad situation. Let's see how long he's able to remain calm.

District 5 has assembled their mentoring team! I had fun putting all of Five's victors in the same room. Luka has an established relationship with all of them apart from Beta, and I enjoyed writing these relationships. Luka's mentoring team is a bit of a mixed bag since he's got his best friend on his side but he's also stuck with his arch nemesis and Beta, who is willing to challenge him. The four of them are all very different ages (Luka is 78, Sotope is 66, Tesoro is 46 and Beta is 34). One of the themes of this story is generational divides, particularly the one between Luka and Gus.

This chapter turned out longer than I expected. I think it's partly because it was originally going to be a Beta POV but I decided she's not going to be a POV character. It's probably for the best, since she's quite mysterious. Luka's first POV chapter in my first draft was just before the parade so I brought forward some thoughts from that chapter and put them here. I also decided to do some world building and establish some of the goings on in the districts after the Victory Tour Attack.

In Star-Crossed, I only briefly touched on the widespread effects of the attack because I was more focused on Fawkes and his trauma but the widespread effects are pretty devastating. I did A-Level History and I've studied a lot of historical dictatorships so I tend to take a bit of inspiration from them when writing Panem. The violence in Nine and Ten is a cross between the Red Terror in the USSR and the Cultural Revolution in China (and also Mao's purge of the landlords). The Red Terror came about due to an assassination attempt on Lenin, while the violence in Nine and especially Ten came about due to an attack on Fawkes. I didn't realise this as I was writing Star-Crossed but the way Snow has created this cult of personality around Fawkes and is using it to his advantage while Fawkes is sick and helpless is similar to what Stalin did to Lenin in order to gain power. Maybe I was subconsciously inspired by that. Meanwhile, the Cultural Revolution wasn't carried out by a state-controlled secret police but by ordinary people - mostly students - encouraged to be violent by Mao, while the violence in Nine and Ten is also carried out by ordinary people. The chaos and infighting in District 9 is inspired by how the Red Guards would sometimes split into factions and attack each other based on ideological disagreements. The violence in Nine and Ten isn't really relevant to this story. I just thought it'd be interesting to write about.

The Jack Frost Murders, on the other hand, aren't based on any historical events but they are relevant to this story. You'll find out why in a couple of chapters when we see what state the Careers are in.