Kenny Michaels, 15

D8M

West-Northwest of the Cornucopia

10 July 329 AEDD

Shrike — Hozier

Kenny was feeling like the most helpless person in the world. He'd achieved moderate success. He'd survived the Bloodbath, gotten his hands on supplies, and even triumphed over the first challenge the Gamemakers threw his way, but the cannon had brought him back down to earth. The death of the boy from Ten confirmed what Kenny already knew: the Games were back on and there would be no mercy. Four days of peace had almost convinced him that something had gone wrong in the Capitol, someone had raised enough hell or rebels had finally found success and halted things, but no. There was simply a lull between deaths, as sometimes happened, and nobody was coming to rescue him.

There had been no way to save Travis from the other side of the television screen. Kenny remembered the horror too clearly, the sensation of seeing someone that looked like his brother but wasn't quite right. The Travis in the Hunger Games didn't have stupid stubble on his chin or a scruffy haircut or acne. All the things Kenny associated with his brother disappeared, were shorn off or scrubbed away by the Capitol, and Kenny had to see his brother die without feeling like himself, which was in some ways worse than the actual loss. He hadn't grown up as quickly as Travis, he supposed. He'd had no stubble that could be removed. His stylist decided not to cut his hair, but had considered it until Kenny pleaded for it to stay. She'd shrugged. "Suit yourself. I get paid whether people like you or not." He'd entered the Arena looking more or less like he always did, but Travis had been stripped bare before the world.

If Kenny died, he would die a man. Travis had died a Capitol mannequin, and there were few things that frightened Kenny as much as sharing that fate. His parents were distraught over their oldest son's selection, but they'd tried to remain positive. They commented that a fresh, sponsor-friendly look could mean the difference between receiving lifesaving supplies and dying of a preventable ailment. They pretended that the dissolution of his humanity didn't matter as much as his death, but Kenny hated their arguments, even though he knew they were right. When it was Kenny's turn to be interviewed, the picture they'd pulled up of Travis had been a shot from after his makeover. There was a reason he'd brought a photo from the good days as his token. It didn't include Kenny, just Travis, a sleepy-eyed smile filling up the camera frame. It felt right that while Kenny aged, Travis stayed the same.

Yes, he was surviving in the arena. River, check. Supplies, check. Food, check. But nothing was as horrifying as the realization that even if he escaped, even if he found a way out or by some stroke of luck left as the Victor, nothing would bring back Travis, and therefore his grief would never end. Kenny aged, and for now that was fine. He saw pieces of Travis in his nose and chin and the way he cut his pancakes on Sunday mornings, but living meant aging past Travis, eclipsing him, time spooling out like an unknowable road leading him away from his hometown. Kenny was fifteen. Travis had died at sixteen. What was going to happen now? What did the future bring? Did Kenny even want to live, and if not, what was the best way to die?

Was he going insane? That happened sometimes, especially to tributes who spent the Games alone. They had plenty of time to consider vague and shapeless questions because asking yourself about the meaning of life and the last time your dad picked you up before you got too heavy or he died or part of you died or he started drinking was preferable to asking yourself about the strange creaks coming from the forest at night. Kenny thought about his parents. Shannon and Clark Michaels weren't enough in that they were sometimes selfishly afraid or overbearing and didn't love Kenny the way he wanted to be loved but they were enough in all the ways that mattered. Kenny was starting to think that maybe death was the better option. He feared death and all the things it could take and keep and refuse to let you remember or forget, whichever of the two hurt worse. He feared a post-Travis, post-age-fifteen existence even more. He feared coming back wrong would be worse than never coming back at all.

Suddenly, a girl broke through the trees. The girl had no weapon. Kenny knew instinctively that he should draw his, but he didn't. He was entranced, thrilled, even, by someone so sweat-soaked and grief-stricken bursting into his corner of the Arena. "Hello," he said. She stopped abruptly, as though she hadn't been expecting to see someone else.

"Hello." She stood eight or ten feet away from him, arms loose at her sides, her jacket tied around her waist, her chest heaving with breath. She was from District Ten. That was all he could recall. Not her training score, or her angle. Her stylist put her in a pig costume for the Tribute Parade. She wore a cowboy hat most of the time in the Capitol. She was wearing it now. It fascinated Kenny that it remained on her head after so much running, with no closure to keep it on. Then he remembered she had been dating her district partner, the one who died, and Kenny's head thrummed with questions.

"Did it make you want to die, when he died?" he asked. She stared at him, not speaking.

"Yes, some."

"But you're still alive."

"I'm not done in this world."

"I think I want to die, but I don't want to do it myself."

"Why?"

"It's going to hurt, and I'll feel stupid."

"But then it will end. Give me the dagger, hon. I'll kill you if that'll make you feel better."

"Thank you." This wasn't what he had planned. "Here, have my pack. The plants in it are safe, I've been eating them since I got here." He dug the picture of Travis out of his pocket and looked it in the eyes.

"Thank you. That's helpful. I can forage if I know what's safe." Kenny passed her the dagger, handle first, and then, reverently, the photo. "Anything you'd like to say before you go?"

"I'm going to see my brother again. I know I'd be worse off winning than losing, but if you can, try to get his picture out of the Arena. I think it's what he would want."

"I'll do that. Ready?"

"Ready."

"Ten, nine, eight—"

Beemo Hudson, 13

D3M

North-Northwest of the Cornucopia

10 July 329 AEDD

Easier — 5 Seconds of Summer

KABOOM!

All three allies jumped at once. "Second cannon in two days," Beemo said.

"Do you reckon the Careers are starting to hunt?"

"Well, yeah. Who else could it be?"

"Maybe that outer district girl? With the nine in training?"

"She didn't seem like a killer."

"Who does?"

"The Careers." The death of the boy from Ten had sent the alliance scrambling. They all wanted answers. The Careers were responsible for the kills in the Bloodbath, but they weren't necessarily responsible for these newer cannons, and that was an unnerving thought. The Careers went in to kill. Everyone else went in to survive. The first kill by an outlier was a division between those who played along and those who defied the Capitol's doctrine. Such a tribute was typically showered with gifts rewarding their adherence to the principles behind the ritual of the Games.

Beemo had to admit he was a little disappointed to not be the first. Or, who knows, maybe it had been the Careers. Either way, he knew that he would lose his nerve if he kept waiting for other tributes to come to him instead of heading out and tracking them down soon, but he couldn't do that without risking his own life. He didn't want to freeze up when the moment of greatest importance arrived. He also didn't want to betray his allies and kill them this early in the Games, even if he didn't trust Tom not to do that to him. He was just trying to find a way back home, and if he had to poison someone to do it, that was okay. He wasn't special. He wasn't a bad person, just like most of the Victors weren't bad people. The Capitol forced them into impossible circumstances and there wasn't a way to come out with your hands still clean.

The obstacle was that Beemo was a fundamentally good person and therefore did not want to commit murder unless in immediate danger. The smart thing to do would be poisoning Twyla and Tom immediately, taking their supplies, lighting a huge fire or something to draw in the Careers, and sniping them all to death. However, that was not going to happen anytime soon. Beemo enjoyed the company of his allies. He was afraid of the Arena and preferred traveling through it with other people. And killing people who had been nothing but nice to him seemed wrong, so he didn't kill anyone. Instead, he kept a close eye on Tom, relied on Twyla to help look out for signs of danger, and carried on as though nothing significant was happening around him.

He brewed poisons every day. He had more than enough poison. He did not need to make any at this point in the Games, but he pursued increasingly complex recipes one after the other to distract him from all the things he wanted to avoid thinking about. The Arena was boring. Twyla took a lot of naps. Tom made flower crafts. Beemo brewed poisons. Everyone needed a way to fill the time, but not something so distracting that it would prevent them from fighting for their life at a moment's notice. It was a tough situation for any tribute, but the fear was beginning to prick up the hairs on the back of Beemo's neck. All was not right in the fortress. Beemo was not sure how or where this knowledge came from, but his body had never been so sure about anything in his thirteen years of life.

It could have been Tom plotting. This was the most likely answer. There was also a chance there were other tributes on their tail, or the Gamemakers were sending something their way to punish them for inactivity. The answer was holing up in the tower together. Nobody challenged Beemo's intuition. Perhaps they were feeling the same thing. If the threat was coming from inside the house, this was not going to help Beemo in any way, but he came down on the side of abundant caution. He had been fine for the past four days with Twyla and Tom. One more day would probably not be the end, but it could be.

He had to remember it could be. The cost of making a mistake at this stage in the Games was astronomical. Any misstep might be deadly, any path could lead to a pit trap, any venture outside the safety of the shelter could result in a mutt attack, and Beemo didn't know how he was supposed to proceed. He had always been a creature of facts and logic. He thought and tried to avoid feeling except when it involved a hunch about information in criminology classes. Now, he knew why he needed both. The Hunger Games evoked primeval urges long repressed by things like society and laws. His parents' work demanded that they witness the worst of humanity. Beemo had heard all about the animalistic parts of people that appeared when they felt cornered, and why a piece of prey with nowhere to run will claw someone's face off to get away.

It was almost time for the discord to erupt, and Beemo wanted to be ready.

Maize Bono, 15

D9F

Due East of the Cornucopia

10 July 329 AEDD

Mariners Apartment Complex — Lana Del Rey

Maize hadn't ever expected to become someone's savior. Girls like her were damsels in distress, skittish and in need of rescue. They couldn't be trusted to scrub a dish without being watched like a hawk. District Nine might have liked Maize's bread, but even if she never went outside, their words found a way back to her. She's slow. Something's not quite right with that girl. Her poor aunt, that woman must be dead tired. I've no idea what I would do if my sister ran off and left me with her baby. There was a loose mythos of the district, based on folk stories that operated by magical logic. Maybe it had something to do with the plain, primitive district industry. Maybe it didn't. Either way, the people still held their festivals on certain days as tradition required.

Children grow out of stories, eventually. Maize knew that witches and hags didn't actually occupy the freezing woods surrounding the habitable towns, nodes all strung together in a row by well-worn paths through the forest. The first thing most parents told their kids as they ventured beyond the family fields was to never stray from the road and always come home before dark. Aunt Chia had told Maize the stories were all made up, that all parents in all places wanted their children to stay safe and it was only sensible to avoid the unknown. She was not a superstitious woman. The same could not be said of the other women her age, the mothers of Maize's would-be classmates whose gazes lingered when they saw the little girl in the back of the shop with the sharp brown eyes that were always, always watching.

She thought she'd found the answer to everything when word of changelings first reached her. There were fairy babies disguised as human children, who were switched out for them and perfectly passed as humans except in all the areas they didn't. Maize didn't talk to adults. Maize didn't understand etiquette, she interpreted speech literally, and she didn't like the feeling of being observed. She sat all alone and was happier for it. She had been a good baby, who never cried or woke at night. Maize had toddled up to Aunt Chia and explained that she needed to be taken back to the forest, returned to the wilderness, so Aunt Chia's real niece could come back and Maize could finally be with people like herself.

Then she learned fairies weren't real. Maize was just a dysfunctional human, not a mythical creature. There were things wrong with her that nobody would ever explain, but she had to muddle through somehow. She turned into a ghost, a wisp of a presence that was soft like steam, pliable like smoke, who disappeared in most light. You looked through her until you forgot she had ever been there with you in the first place. She heard things she wasn't supposed to. If she had a penny for every time Aunt Chia shut up a rude townie by reminding them Maize could hear the nasty things they were saying about her, she'd have enough money to pack up and move to the Capitol.

Danny was the first friend she made, and she met him four days ago in the middle of a deathtrap that would kill one or both of them in less than a fortnight. There were so many things they would never get to try, and since Maize had always assumed she was the worst human alive, it never occurred to her that there were even more passive people out there. Since the formation of their alliance, Danny had latched onto her like a life preserver, which she was. She wondered if he only teamed up with her because of her sword, but did it really matter? They'd found a little bit of solace before the inevitable final act, and that was better than nothing.

The river had been a fascinating discovery. It furnished their every need, and it was shockingly broad. By Maize's assessment, it might take hours to cross if you could hypothetically ford it in a straight line. It capped the edge of the crescent of frozen forest. The first thing Maize had done after drinking her fill of the water was strip down completely and plunge into the frigid water, punching through the crisp top layer of ice with an explosive cannonball maneuver. Danny had shuddered from the riverbank, and even though Maize had immediately shrunk from the cold, muscles locking, she ducked her head under the surface. The water, so sparkling in the sunshine that it appeared almost cloudy, felt like a comfortable hug clasping her shoulders. She scrubbed herself clean with moss and gritty mud from the river bottom. It felt like she was cleansing her soul, unburdening it of its problems.

It took her much too long to work the first hair tie out of the matted curls in the bun. She looked at her reflection in the glassy river. She seemed like a monster. A thin, strong one. She needed bread. She needed bread to remind her of her humanity. She needed to engage in a fundamental act of creation, but she lacked ingredients. There was nothing she could do. It suddenly seemed like a foolish idea, the bread. She didn't get to keep her humanity in the Arena. She had never even gotten to enjoy it in the first place. Something tempted her to abandon ship and tear across the terrain to hunt down ingredients, but she couldn't do that. She needed to keep her head down and stay with Danny and survive. He was relying on her.

She was also relying on her.

Nikita Valeta, 18

D12M

Cornucopia

10 July 329 AEDD

Speed Drive — Charli XCX

The Career Pack had been halved temporarily, and Nikita was in a buoyant mood. Orpheus was voyaging off in search of vulnerable outliers, and there had already been one cannon during the first half of the day. He assumed it was the party Nathaniel was leading. Gamemakers liked spurring on ambitious Careers, and it was a sign of good things to come. Until Haylia and the two aforementioned boys got back, Nikita would be spending a few days in camp with Odicci and Tybalt.

This was causing strange feelings to manifest and metastasize in Nikita's chest, where his heart ostensibly plodded along beneath the skin. Orpheus was a sunbeam with warm hands and soft kisses who never got impatient or snapped at anybody and gave himself over wholly and eagerly. He was the kind of handsome Nikita belonged with, in an ideal world. Orpheus reminded Nikita a little bit of his mother, so perfect, so tolerant, with a heart big enough to absorb his father's turbulence. But Orpheus deserved better than him, just like he sometimes thought his mother deserved better than the man she married.

Tybalt appealed to Nikita for decidedly less healthy reasons. The voice in Nikita's dreams was constantly tearing him down, telling him he wasn't good enough, telling him his ankle had been the end and he was in way over his head and he never should have signed up to become a Peacekeeper in the first place. Tybalt's casual disregard for Nikita's emotions was loving at its core, but it shared the jagged edge of his misdirected conscience. Tybalt toyed with him and teased him. Nikita had ever imagined that he'd look forward to being jerked around, to testing the waters and finding out which side of Tybalt was going to roll out of bed in the morning, but god, who didn't want to be possessed by someone so saccharine, who spun magic with intentional hands and let his stubble drag against the back of Nikita's neck when he held him.

He told Tybalt more than he should have. He told Tybalt about Nikolai Fassnacht and the interrogation, and his confrontation with Odicci, and Tybalt had guided him along with little acknowledgements and the unbearable kinetic energy of hands at shirt hems. He'd been played, but he realized it tragically late. Lunchtime brought anger, anger directed at Tybalt for ignoring him all morning after fawning over him all night, and Tybalt laughed. "Easier to just ask if you want it that badly, Twelve."

"I thought you were serious."

"I thought you were taken."

"You knew that I was with Orpheus, and you, you—" he spluttered angrily, searching for a harsh enough word, "seduced me into telling you too much, and it's not fair!"

"A classic example of blaming the mistress. Who strayed, doll? Was it me? Or your boyfriend?"

"You tricked me."

"I didn't do anything out of the ordinary."

"As if it's ordinary to pet on someone and then pretend nothing happened in the morning?" Nikita threw him a betrayed glance.

"Nikita, if you want to be mine, that's your choice to make. You're disposable, of course. I don't care for you like that. But if you want to see where this goes, to make the most of your limited time, I'll help you out."

Nikita considered that. Tybalt was disgustingly detached. He could only imagine the posse of eligible girls and boys from the Academy (who had not been expelled because of foolish, avoidable overexertion injuries) that surrounded him at all times, waiting on him, pouring him drinks and sidling up next to him at parties to cut in. It was too much for Nikita to endure. He glanced over at Odicci, who was languidly weaving some plant stalks into a brimmed dome to make herself a sunhat. "What?" she asked. "Is there food on my face?"

"No. Sorry." Odicci regarded him with only a mildly judgmental expression.

"Not that you asked for my advice, but there's no reason you need to be in a romance. Codependency isn't the best move in the Hunger Games."

"I'm not codependent. I just...like the company."

"Everyone dies at the end. No point in it, really."

"But there is. Don't you want to feel like you're part of something bigger than yourself? Like there's more to you than just you?"

"Of course I do. I'm a Career backing the Capitol, which is in dire need of a popular Victor, one whose path in the Games is beyond criticism. Do you really think the Gamemakers will let you live if you coast by on your boyfriend's—boyfriends'—kills?"

"You know everything. You always know everything, but I'm starting to think maybe you don't know that people normally experience common emotions during the Hunger Games and that it's a psychologically difficult experience."

"That's outlier mentality." Nothing could have stopped him in his tracks more effectively.

"What did you just say to me?"

"That's outlier mentality. Oh, boo hoo, Nikita feels bad about himself because he got kicked out of the Academy for being too much of a try-hard. Self-doubt isn't for Careers. Self-doubt is for Aspen, not for you."

"Nathaniel has self-doubt too," he argued.

"Yeah, what I said. Self-doubt isn't for Careers." This remark was so stinging that he retreated to Tybalt's arms. Tybalt then went off to talk to Odicci in private, and when he returned, he was looking at Nikita with genuine compassion.

"This is hard for all of us. I'll take care of you. Don't worry."

And Nikita trusted him.

Hi Nikolai,
We investigated that train attack. No cargo seems to have been stolen, but we did find Vallis Albertine's body. It was a single shot to the head, no signs of a struggle. We also recovered Tisiphone Bonometti's radio. CCTV footage of the terminal indicates that Konstance DuMouchel was responsible and took Bonometti to the rebel base. It appears Bonometti went willingly. Once again, thank you for your support on this matter. I appreciate your discretion regarding the obstacle of the internal defense systems.
Isabel Jimenéz, Head Peacekeeper of District Six