Disclaimer: I still don't own The Hunger Games.

Note: And here's a little more from some of Imalia's fellow conspirators.


Prologue
As It Could Be


Lana Khatri, 21
District Six
Victor of the 51st Hunger Games

She almost wished it could have been her instead.

Lana shook her head as she, Duke, and Nicodemus made their way down the ramp from the train platform. Vernon was still inside, probably drunk. He was usually drunk, but probably … well, drunker than usual. She had finally told him. Duke had let her do the honors, and it had felt good. After years of keeping their secret, it had felt so … so satisfying to finally tell him that they were the ones who had put a stop to the rigged reapings.

Well, if she was being honest with herself, it was Duke who had arranged it, although she hadn't known it at the time. Hadn't known it when she'd volunteered, determined to put a stop to the system Vernon had set up. The system that had inadvertently condemned her sister because Vernon had mixed up their names. The Quell twist had prevented her from volunteering for Lena, but there was nothing stopping her from volunteering the next year, all rage and fire and desperate to win to tear Vernon's system down.

All for nothing.

She could have strangled Duke when she'd found out it had all been pointless. That he'd already struck a deal with President Brand to make the reapings fair again – well, as fair as they ever were – in return for helping with his plan to ensnare District Thirteen. Maybe she would have strangled him, if she'd had all her fingers. She'd lost four of them during the Games when her right hand had been trapped under a pile of debris. She'd sliced them off in order to escape.

Lana's gaze strayed for a moment to Duke's peg leg, tapping on the ramp as they made their way towards the crowd. He'd refused a prosthetic. After debating for a while, she'd had a special glove made with prosthetic fingers, but she rarely wore it. Only when she really felt the need to grip something.

She'd worn it when she'd broken the news to Vernon, ready to fight back if he tried something. He hadn't. He hadn't said anything. But he hadn't needed to. Even if she'd been late to the party, she had been part of the deal that had spoiled his dream of only reaping those who deserved it. The only thing that could have been better was if it had been her who had brought Thirteen down.

It didn't have to be her. Duke had made that clear from the start. The deal with Brand had never been conditional on one of them being the one to strike the final blow. Still, there would have been something about being the one to seal the deal that might have felt more … final. As if maybe her sister could finally rest in peace, knowing no one else would be targeted the way she had been.

Still, it felt good. It felt satisfying.

But it wasn't enough.

Lena was still dead.

Duke gave her good hand a squeeze as they reached the crowd. "They're watching us," he hissed.

Lana shrugged. "Of course they're watching us. That's what crowds do."

Even as she said it, though, she knew what he meant. Felt what he meant. Something was different about the crowd. There was usually a crowd milling around whenever they came back from a Victory tour, or from the Games. But this was different. They hadn't come back from the Capitol; they'd come back from Thirteen. They'd won District Thirteen.

They. Imalia may have been the one to pull the trigger, but she and Brand had both been more than happy to spread the credit around. Imalia had wanted the Career system restored in Four. Brand had wanted … whatever the hell he actually wanted out of this. As long as they got what they wanted, they didn't seem to mind sharing the spotlight. Brand had made it abundantly clear that their victory wouldn't have been possible without the assistance of the other Victors.

In public, he'd been vague about who that included. He probably hadn't wanted to paint a target on anyone's back for rebels who might be out for revenge. But anyone who'd been paying attention to the Victors for the last few years could probably work it out on their own. And the crowd was paying very close attention now.

She couldn't help wondering what that meant. She doubted many people in Six really gave a damn about what happened to Thirteen, after all. If anything, there was probably some resentment over the fact that they'd been free from the Capitol for more than fifty years while the rest of Panem lived in poverty. No, she doubted many of the people in the crowd were upset with what she and Duke had done.

She and Duke. But not Nicodemus. He'd never been part of the plan. So what was he thinking, volunteering to mentor Thirteen? Why did he want to be a part of what was happening now?

Lana shook the thought from her head. He was probably just being kind. The same sort of kindness that led him to take pity on a teenage gang member who had been whipped in the square, bandage her up, and give her a good meal. She'd been a recipient of that kindness. So had Duke. And now District Thirteen was the whipped child he was meant to bandage and nurse back to health. Maybe it did make sense.

The crowd was beginning to thin by the time they reached Victors' Village. The houses always seemed so big. Too big. She'd cut her parents out of her life. Duke never talked about his, but she'd always gotten the impression they hadn't been around even before the Games. Nicodemus didn't have any family that she knew of, and Vernon…

Vernon had lost his son to the Games. That was the reason, she knew, behind what he had done. He hadn't wanted anyone like his son to die in the Games. Anyone innocent. So for years he'd made sure that the tributes were guilty of something – even if the only thing they were guilty of was having a name too similar to hers. Oh yes, he had a reason. It made sense.

But that didn't make it right.

And now she had fixed it. They had fixed it. It was over. There was no more conspiracy, no more planning and plotting and scheming and wondering when the strike would come. It had come. It was all done now.

Now she had to figure out what to do next.


Toshiro Koyama, 30
District Two
Victor of the 43rd Hunger Games

It could never really have been him.

Tosh gave the crowd a wave as he and the other Victors made their way off the train. The crowd wasn't focused on him, of course. This was Propsero's Victory Tour, after all. But they were always more than happy to cheer for the other Victors, as well – even those who might not particularly want it.

Vester and Talitha, in particular, were doing their best to sneak away quietly, ready to be done with the festivities for six months. Then the reaping. Reapings and Victory Tours – those were really all the pair of them bothered to turn up for. They wanted nothing more to do with the Games. They weren't Careers, after all. And even Ariadne, who was, seemed content to leave the rest of the duties and festivities to the younger Victors.

Mortimer and Harriet, meanwhile, would probably head back to the training academy immediately, where next year's hopeful prospects would be hard at work. Prospero and Balthasar would probably be here for a while – Prospero because the crowd would want to see more of him, and Balthasar because … well, because he was Prospero's mentor, and he seemed rather fond of the boy. Maybe he wasn't a father figure, exactly, but an eccentric uncle … yeah, that sounded about right.

And that left Tosh. The crowd probably wasn't sure what to make of him after the last few years. He'd spent a lot of time hanging around the training academy, mumbling about what a waste it was. Not that tributes died in the Games, but a waste that so many young people spent their lives training for something they were never going to experience. The Career academy churned out dozens of potential candidates every year, and only two of them were destined for the Games. The rest – they'd pretty much wasted the first eighteen years of their lives.

That had been his angle – really, the only potential angle here in District Two. District Four had their burned-down training center and faltering Career system for Imalia to grumble about. District Six was prone to all sorts of rebellious mutterings for Duke and Lana to feed off of. District Five still had small factions of the population that were upset with the relatively new Career system, and Oliver had quietly stirred them up here and there, all while supposedly keeping Harakuise off their trail. Harakuise had been in on it, of course, just as Brennan had known that Kyra was acting overly frustrated with the fact that he was training Careers.

District Two didn't have as much to work with, but he'd done the best he could. It had given him something to do. After Prospero's victory, he'd been ready with a new line of argument – pointing out that even an untrained tribute from District Two could win, so what was the point of all this Career training in the first place? It had been a good angle, but before he'd even had a chance to do much with it, District Thirteen had chosen to contact Imalia instead.

It was never really going to be him. Eldred had wanted to involve as many districts as possible, to put as much bait out there as he could, but he and Oliver had always been long shots at best. In order to contact anyone in District Five, Thirteen would have had to risk trying to get past Harakuise. And there just wasn't enough tension in District Two. They had too much of a reputation.

But that reputation was changing.

Oh, no one was speaking out against the Capitol. Not here. But the Careers … there were some people who had agreed with him when he'd suggested that the majority of the young trainees were wasting their potential, that they could be more useful to the district – and to the Capitol – if they put their skills to use elsewhere. There were some who had agreed that District Two's tributes even tended to do better when they weren't as prepared, when they had to think on their feet.

In fact, for all of District Two's reputation for turning out strong, ruthless, prepared killers, those weren't the tributes who had won. Harriet hadn't overpowered her opponents; she'd outthought them. Balthasar hadn't been Mortimer's first choice, and hadn't teamed up with the Career pack. The year before Tosh's Games, a rogue volunteer had stepped forward at the reaping and demanded to be chosen over the Career academy's designated volunteer … and the Victors had agreed. They'd voted him into the Games, and although he hadn't won, Septimus Drakon had certainly made an impression. When Tosh had volunteered the next year, he'd been relieved no one had come forward to challenge the academy's choice.

Then, during the Quarter Quell, which had forbidden volunteers, a fourteen-year-old from Two had placed fourth, working his way from one alliance to another with nothing but his wits and a willingness to stab his allies in the back. And second place had gone to a twelve-year-old from District Five – another traditionally Career district – who had been on his own for days after his allies had died. No pack. No one to rely on but himself. And he'd made it to the finale. And the boy who had won it all had been a thirteen-year-old from District Nine. Maybe being a Career gave tributes an edge, but it wasn't a guarantee. It wasn't even close.

And then there was Prospero, an untrained volunteer who had raced forward at the reaping, desperate to volunteer, knowing the Victors could shut him out but needing to try anyway. There hadn't even been a vote. The chosen volunteer had stepped aside willingly, but Tosh had to admit he wasn't sure how the others would have voted if she hadn't.

He wasn't sure how he would have voted.

No, there wasn't disloyalty in Two, but there was … something. Dissatisfaction, maybe, with how few of even the Career Victors were actually proper Careers. It was a tension that was growing in One, as well, despite the fact that they'd won the 53rd Games. Aramis had been a Career, yes, but not a standard one, and there had been rumors that he'd been a throwaway pick to make victory more likely for his district partner, who had been tall and strong and popular and everything the Capitol had come to expect from District One.

The rumors were ridiculous, of course. Anyone who had seen Aramis fight knew that. He was a force to be reckoned with despite his size – and sometimes because of it. But that hadn't stopped him from playing up the underdog angle, practically encouraging the rest of the pack and the audience alike to underestimate him. A Career playing the underdog – and winning as an underdog, not even as one of the Capitol's favorites that year – had shaken things up a bit in One. Aramis was drawing in new recruits left and right – kids who had assumed that training wasn't for them. Couldn't be for them.

Things were changing. Or at least they were ripe for change. Not disloyalty, not rebellion, but change nonetheless.

And something in him wanted to be part of it.


Kyra Presper, 18
District Twelve
Victor of the 49th Hunger Games

It could have been them.

Kyra took a deep breath as the train door opened. Brennan laid his good hand on their shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze. "Here we go."

Kyra nodded. As Victory Tours went, this one hadn't been as bad as they'd been expecting. Both of Twelve's tributes had died early on, so there hadn't been much reason to get their hopes up. And neither of them had been killed by Prospero, who hadn't been part of the Career pack. The Career pack that had decided Twelve's volunteer, Logan, was too much of a risk to have around. Too much of a Capitol favorite as Twelve's first proper Career volunteer. Popular Careers were a threat. Popular Careers were a target.

Brennan had told Logan that, of course, but he'd wanted to make a splash. He'd wanted to make an impression. Kyra's stomach churned at the thought, because they were certain Logan had wanted to make an impression on them. He'd had a crush; that was all there had been to it. Kyra had never shown any particular interest in him, never done anything that would lead him to believe there was more there.

If anything, they'd done the opposite. They hadn't exactly been quiet about their disagreement with Brennan about the way he was training potential Careers. That was part of the act. At least, it had started as an act. The truth was … well, the truth was more complicated than that.

On the one hand, Kyra understood his reasoning. And they certainly wouldn't have been upset if someone had stepped forward to volunteer for them during their own Games. They'd only been twelve, after all. Most people would have been happy to see someone else volunteer – someone who actually stood a chance in the Games.

But they had stood a chance. They'd won. They'd gotten lucky, but they'd survived. They'd played the game right, taken the right chances, made the right decisions when they'd needed to be made. They'd killed six tributes. Six. And they had made it home.

And Logan hadn't.

And that was it, really. That was the problem. There was no way to know in advance – not really know – who would have a chance in the Games. They were alive. Logan wasn't.

But somewhere out there in District Twelve was a boy who was alive. A boy who was alive because Logan had volunteered to take his spot. Kyra didn't remember the name that had been called; Logan had volunteered before the other boy had even started heading for the stage. But they were certain that whoever it was, he was grateful that Logan had taken his spot. Even if he hadn't made it back, he had saved someone else. Maybe that was an accomplishment in and of itself. A life had been saved.

No. No, even that wasn't quite right. A life had been traded. That wasn't quite the same thing, and they couldn't help feeling that the difference was important. Someone had still died. Just not the person who might have. The scales still balanced out to the same number.

But if Logan had won – if their Careers started winning Games that would otherwise have been lost – then what? Did that make it worth it? They weren't sure, but they had made it clear that they wanted no part of it. They didn't want to help other kids train and volunteer for their deaths. What Brennan did was his business, as long as he left Kyra out of it.

And he had. He'd asked exactly once if they wanted to help out with some lessons, and had backed off immediately when they'd said no. The two of them had played up their arguments for the sake of possibly convincing District Thirteen to recruit Kyra, but now that it was all over, they'd agreed to disagree.

District Thirteen. According to Imalia, District Thirteen had been considering making contact with several different Victors. Duke and Lana had both been on their list of possibilities. And so had Kyra. It could have been them.

And they weren't entirely sure what they would have done if it had been.

Back when he'd proposed the plan, President Brand had promised that retaking District Thirteen would have a positive impact on the other districts. He'd been rather vague about exactly what that meant, but it wasn't hard to see that things had gotten better in Twelve over the last few years. Change had come in small increments. Shifts were a little shorter. Wages were a little higher. Taking out tesserae provided a little more food than it had before. The changes were small now, but if those changes started to add up…

But was that worth the price? Was it worth condemning an entire district to the Capitol's control – a district that had been free of their influence for decades now? Was it worth the lives of the people who had been killed by the virus? Was it worth the children from Thirteen who would now die in the Games?

Imalia certainly seemed to think it was. And none of the others seemed to have any misgivings about the plan – none that they had voiced, anyway. Kyra knew better, of course, than to think that meant none of them had any questions at all; they simply knew better than to voice those disagreements out loud.

And so did Kyra. The deed was done, after all. District Thirteen had lost. The Capitol had won. Just like the Capitol had won fifty-five years ago during the rebellion. There was no point now in questioning whether it was worth it. No use in speculating about what they might have done in Imalia's place. District Thirteen hadn't chosen Kyra; they'd chosen Imalia. And there was a part of Kyra that was grateful for that. Because they might not have gone through with it. They might not have been able to hold up their end of the bargain.

And they didn't want to think about what might have happened then.


"You see the world as it is, and you see the world as it could be. What you don't see is what everybody else sees: the giant, gaping chasm in between."