3.

Latia was groggy when she woke up.

She blinked her eyes open and looked around at her unfamiliar surroundings. It looked like a living room. A very fancy living room, almost like it belonged to someone rich and powerful. She looked briefly out the window to her left and saw a blur of colors (grey, green, blue) moving at lightning speed. Where was she?

With a grunt, she slowly got up to her feet, rubbed her temple and realized that she had been sitting on a deep seated dark green couch. Looking down she saw that she was still in the loose grey pants and shirt that they'd given her as her only uniform to wear in the prison. She'd been wearing these specific clothes for two days in a row. Her greasy hair started to fall in her face and she quickly tucked it behind her ears, the best she could do right now.

She looked around for any signs of life, but it seemed like she was all alone in the room. On this Capitol train, clearly. Where were her parents? Did they even know that she was here? Why hadn't they been allowed to come and see her? Why was she here, period?

She heard a swish sound behind her and jumped. In walked a shaggy haired guy who looked like he was around her age. He was wearing a white shirt and brown slacks that were clearly hand me downs based on how faded they were. She knew him. His name was Wicker. Wicker something. Sampson? No, Mayfield. It was Wicker Mayfield. She remembered from attendance in school.

He came in, looked her up and down and a sardonic smile came across his face.

"You're finally awake," he said nonchalantly. "The food here is amazing. You should try it. Though, I'd strongly recommend a shower first. No offense. I might take one in a minute."

She glared at him mistrustfully and noticed that he was holding something. An apple that he'd already taken a few bites out of from the looks of it. Just as she was about to ask another question, two more people walked in. One was Giles Molespinner, the other was a woman in her mid-thirties with dirty blond hair hanging loose over her shoulders, a beauty mark on the left side of her face and a long, deep, jagged scar on her right cheek, perfectly complimenting the severe expression that Latia had grown up seeing at every reaping where this woman had been forced to stand up on the stage right next to the escorts as they read the names of that year's tributes aloud. District 5 had only two victors, she knew that: one from ten years ago, who had apparently won thanks to his engineering knowledge and had started a family since then. The other was the woman standing in front of her who had won one of the earlier games due to her incredible intelligence that she displayed all throughout, Therma Washington.

"Alright, you're both here," Therma drawled, sounding bored. "Great. You know who I am, I know just enough about you two, so let's spare ourselves the introductions—"

"Why am I here?" Latia asked. Her voice was shaking. She didn't know how much more of any of this she could take. Whatever this was. "Why? Please, just tell me. I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't. Why am I here? Did he pull my name out of the bowl?" She pointed at Giles accusingly. "Did he do this to me on top of everything else?"

"There was no randomness in this year's games," Giles squeaked as he held up his hands defensively. "You were hand selected—"

"Giles, enough," Therma said dismissively. "Look, you've been locked away for a while. This gist is this: this year as part of some kind of, I don't know, themed event, they decided that the districts should pick their blood sacrifice themselves. So, you can't really pin your death—assuming you do actually die—on him."

"What?" Latia screeched. "What? Why?"

"Wait, she really was in jail?" Wicker asked, sounding somewhat amused by this information. "You know I think I heard something about that. What did she do? There have been a lot of rumors flying around—"

"Go to hell," Latia snapped. "I know who you are and I know why someone would want you dead. You're the jackass who stole medicine from people who really needed it so that you could get high with your friends."

He held up his hands, slightly smirking as if this were some silly, amusing moment from his past that he liked to laugh about now. "Guilty."

"I'm not," Latia insisted. "I'm not guilty. So why am I here? Can someone please tell me?"

Wicker and Giles slowly backed away from her, but Therma just stared her down, her expression unchanged, despite the rising volume and unforgiving ferocity of Latia's voice. Therma silently walked across the room and headed for what looked like a table covered with glass bottles, a thing that Latia recognized as a liquor cart. Therma poured some amber liquid into a small glass, took a slow sip, almost as if to savor the taste.

Then she slowly turned around, glass in hand, her expression unchanged and said to Latia, "Think of all the people—the rich, powerful people specifically, that you've pissed off in your life. In the last month. That'll give you your answer. Anyway, it's done now and this little mystery is the least of your problems. Right now, you two are about to face down some of the biggest, meanest and worst that Panem has to offer—save for that little shrimp in Eight. And as for my track record for getting people out of the games alive, I'm two for seventeen, so it can be done. I'm certainly not gonna make the two of you any promises, but that's how it is. So, you're both gonna bathe, we're all gonna eat, and then you're going to bore me with various details about what you're best at and I'll see what I can work with. Latia, right?"

Latia looked up, not realizing that she had been staring at her feet while Therma was talking. "If you want to live long enough to figure out who screwed you, then you need to momentarily let that go and focus on what's happening now. This, right here, what you two are about to walk into, is a game of survival. And in the past it's just been scared kid against scared kid and for the most part everyone was just trying not to die. Now the odds are stacked even higher against you two, so you really need to focus the hell up. No more jokes, no more whining. Survival. I'm not gonna waste my time or my breath if neither one of you are gonna keep your heads on straight. Alright? Great. I'm glad we got that sorted out. Now, if you'll excuse me…"

Therma turned and walked out of the room, leaving the three of them alone together. The silence was deafening.

Wicker let out a little whistle, turned to Latia and said, "She's even nicer in person—"

"What's wrong with you?" Latia demanded. "Do you—do you know where we are? What's happening? We're about to be killed. Now, I don't know how prepared you were for this day to come—probably incredibly well based on what little I know about you, but still, come on. The extremity of all of this cannot be lost—not even on someone like you. So what the hell do you have to be so happy about?"

He just kept smiling at her, pretended to look around the room, shrugged slightly and said, "Hey, last few nights on Earth. I'm gonna live it up in luxury if I can. You should too. Seriously, their bathrooms are amazing. In fact, I'm gonna take a nice bubble bath before we make it to the Capitol. See you guys."

Then he walked out of the room too, leaving just her and Giles. At a loss for what else to say, she sunk back into the couch that she'd woken up on. Somehow managing to collect herself, she slowly looked up at Giles, who seemed to be looking for a good way to exit, and asked him, her voice small, "Why couldn't I say goodbye to my parents?"

She gave him a desperate look and he just frowned at her, seemingly confused. She narrowed her eyes at him in exasperation, "What?"

"Latia," he began softly. He slowly approached her and there seemed to be a question in his eyes. "Your parents…I was told they passed away some time ago. I think about two weeks ago, they said. Did no one tell you?"

She just stared at him. Her throat felt dry, her body felt cold, he sounded far away as he continued to try and explain things to her.

"It's just, they said that you were all guilty of treason and they didn't tell me any more than that. And believe me, I was curious. In fact, I'll admit I was a little excited to meet you so that I could learn more…"

He sounded like he was under water. And she, well, she felt like she was simply drowning. And she wasn't even trying to rise back up to the surface. Because really, what was the point?

Patch looked out the window, watching his district, a grey, bleak place full of smoke, slowly fall out of his field of vision. It really was something else. For the past month or so, he'd lived in fear that he would die there, hunched over a sewing machine, making uniforms for the Capitol's own private attack dogs and then ending up in an unmarked grave somewhere. Another child lost to some unnamed and incurable sickness that the pathetic, overwhelmed district doctors couldn't remedy with mere herbs. The one he'd spoken to had theorized that it was the flu that had swept over the districts five years earlier, but they were never able to confirm it. Not that it mattered. He wasn't long for this world. And at least this way he could go out with some glory.

It really was something to behold. Leaving Eight, it seemed like for the first time in his life he was actually seeing green on something other than fabric. Seeing mountains. Seeing a clear blue sky. He took a deep breath as he continued to marvel at the beautiful view that he wouldn't have gotten to see otherwise. He didn't care what other people said. This was right. He was right where he was supposed to be.

"Would you look at that," came a friendly female voice from behind him.

He stiffened. When he got on the train, he had avoided Inga as much as possible. Somehow, she was even creepier up close. Everything about her reminded him of a spider. She was a little bit taller than him, but she stood up unusually straight and always looked people in the eye when she spoke to them. Nothing particularly unusual or wrong about any of that, per say, but the way she did it…Her eyes seemed to go large as if they were trying to suck the life out of you, like she was attempting to look for your weak spots. And when she smiled…it was too large, like she was trying to prove that she could smile. Like she had feelings.

Patch didn't want to turn around to face her. He wanted to just continue admiring the view. But he knew that she wouldn't leave him in peace. No, that wasn't her style.

"It really is something," Inga continued as if they were lifelong friends just having a normal conversation. "You know, it's kind of funny, I thought for sure that I was gonna get stuck with that handsome fella and maybe we could use this long train ride to get to know each other. But then you stepped up and, well, that was real disappointing, you know?"

Patch rolled his eyes, wanting her to just go away and leave him be. But again—

"I mean," she continued with a cruel chuckle. "What exactly do you think is gonna happen? Are you gonna…stab someone? Can you stab someone? Have you ever stabbed someone? I mean, I doubt the pretty boy ever has either, but still. You know you're not gonna win, right? I mean, I'm not saying I would lay a hand on you, oh no, it would be like finding a little bunny rabbit and snapping its neck after you've caught it in a trap. It's just not fair, not really. I mean you just have no shot at winning. I do though. Do you know why, little one?"

She leaned in closer and whispered in his ear. Her breath, somehow, was humid, smelling of some kind of food that he couldn't identify that had been burnt to a crisp, and it made his skin crawl.

"Because I understand what it takes to survive. And it's not sewing clothes or cooking meals. It's doing whatever you have to do. Are you willing? Because I don't think you are. I think you're a little baby who's under the delusion that he's tougher than he—"

"Why don't you take a walk around the train," came a voice from behind the two of them.

They turned around and saw a man who, from his tired eyes and solemn face, looked a lot older than his twenty-eight years with his long, thick dark hair and an even thicker, darker beard. Woof Cadigan, the only winner that District 8 had ever had who won about twelve years ago. When Patch was just a baby, this man, who hadn't even been a man, had survived a slaughter.

Inga gave Woof one of her much too big (not to mention fake) smiles and Patch took note of the white and black dress she was wearing that went down to her ankles, allowing him a view of the lower half of her lace up boots. They didn't quite fit her right, only slightly too big for her. Besides, they didn't look like something that she could afford, given that she came from one of the poorest parts of the district. If Patch hadn't been taken under the wing of Satina, he might have been her neighbor. Thankfully, that had never happened and the two had rarely crossed paths up until this point.

Stolen, he had decided about her clothes. Stolen off the backs and feet of other kids who might have put up quite a fight. He wondered if they still had their eyes. Maybe they surrendered their clothing in order to keep their sight. Or maybe she'd stolen them and taken their eyes anyway. Who knew with her. After just a minute of interacting with her, he wouldn't put anything past her.

"I think that's a great idea, Mr. Cadigan," she said in an over-the-top, sugary sweet voice. "You know, I know I really shouldn't say this, but I think you'd be better off just focusing on me. I mean, if we're being realistic—"

"Young lady, please cut the bullshit," he said in a tired voice. "And don't even think about trying anything. You're not in Eight anymore. This is the Capitol. If you so much as blink in a way that pisses them off, you won't have an eye to blink with anymore. A no-tolerance policy I'm sure you especially can find respect for. Yes, that's right, I know who you are. Now take a walk. And to be clear, anything that you can use as a weapon I had them take off the train the minute old Rufino said your name. Everyone's gonna be watching you like a hawk. So don't screw around. Do you understand?"

Her falsely sweet expression slowly melted like a block of ice in the blistering sun. In a matter of seconds, she transformed into a nasty, ugly creature as she glared at him. Patch sincerely hoped that what he said about the Peacekeepers always being on their guard where she was concerned was true. For all their sakes.

"Go on," Woof said simply, almost as if he didn't care one way or another, gesturing to the door with his chin. "Better yet, why don't these fine men and women help you out. Caesar, Ebony, thank you very much."

Two Peacekeepers came in and herded her out of the room, and as they did so she cast one last glare over her shoulder at the two of them, letting her eyes rest on Patch for a little bit longer than what he thought was absolutely necessary, almost like she was accusing him of being in on this with Woof. Then she was gone and Patch let out a deep exhale. Apparently, he had been holding his breath. He coughed into his fist a little bit, checked his hand and, letting out a sigh of relief, he saw that there was no blood this time.

"Thanks," Patch said, noticing for the first time that Woof was dressed in what appeared to be blue pajama pants and a simple white button down shirt. He also wasn't wearing any shoes. He hadn't felt the need to dress up for the two of them, it seemed.

"That was the stupidest thing I have ever seen," Woof said, giving him a scolding look.

Patch was taken aback, and idiotically looked around the room, as if there was anyone else in the world that he could be talking to.

"Yes, you," Woof clarified. "What's the matter with you? Do you know how many twelve and thirteen year olds I have seen get picked due to bad luck and no one even thinks to volunteer for them? And then you step in and—"

"Exactly," Patch said defensively. "I stepped up. I stepped up. For someone—"

"Do you understand how low your odds are?" Woof asked. "Do you? How bad your chances of survival are. You are asking me—no, forcing me to look you in the eyes and try to give you advice on how to win when we both know damn good and well that you can't. Because if you thought that you could, you're an idiot, and I can't mentor an idiot."

"Apparently you can't mentor anybody," Patch fired back. "Considering none of the tributes that have gotten on this train in the past have come back."

He regretted the words as soon as he said them. He wanted to apologize or take it back, but Woof simply poured himself a bit of coffee and took a long, slow, careful sip.

"You have a death wish, is that it?" Woof asked quietly. "You want to die. I've had tributes like that in the past who were perfectly content with their position. Didn't even put up much of a fight in the Arena because they had no intention of going home. Well, son, you picked the worst kind of suicide. No one wins this game, not even the supposed winner. And no one leaves. No one survives this. And you definitely won't. I'm sorry, but you won't. And your death will be vicious and frightening to watch, and most likely even more so to experience. My only real hope for you is that it will be quick. So quick you don't even feel a thing."

Patch let out a little sigh and after a brief moment of considering this, confessed, "I know. I know I don't have a shot. I don't want to die, but I'm going to, hard as that is to really explain right now. But I'm gonna die on my feet. Fighting. Like a warrior. That's what you need to understand. The world is gonna see me fight like a warrior. And everyone is gonna know that I'm not weak. That I didn't die weak." Patch rolled his eyes and decided that it was finally time to be honest with himself. "I'll know it. I wanted to prove something to myself and this is how I wanted to do it. No one else is gonna get it, but I don't care. I did something brave. And stupid. And kind. And if I had the chance, I don't know what I would do differently. So mentor me to the best of your abilities, and we'll just see what happens, Mr. Cadigan. After all, if you could win by hiding under rubble for days, then I like my odds. Because that's pretty much been my own strategy as far as not dying on the first day."

Though Patch could have been mistaken, he thought he saw the hint of a smile on Woof's face out of the corner of his eye. It was faint and didn't last long. But there was no denying that it had been there. Come to think of it, that was another reason Patch was doing this, he supposed. So that no one would be able to deny that he had been here. That he'd been alive. He'd certainly made it hard for people to ignore him these past several hours, that was for sure.

"I'll do my best," Woof said solemnly. "Just as long as it's not that monster in the other room that comes home the victor. Hell in a damn hand basket, just when I thought there wasn't anything worse than a child not coming home from the Capitol, she shows up and proves that helping one come home may not be the best thing for all involved.

And now Patch was smiling. He just couldn't help it.

When Everett escorted Emmer and Maizie onto the train, the first thing they both did was eat.

They really had everything, just like the stories that he'd heard growing up had told him. Cake, Stew, warm, freshly baked bread, fruits of all shapes and colors, some of which he'd never even seen before in his life. He wondered if some of them were those Capitol mutations that he was always hearing about. The beef and potato stew had been his favorite and he ate two bowls of it over the course of the train ride. Maizie didn't seem to have a preference for any particular thing on the table. In fact, she was gobbling things up like it was her last meal. A part of him wanted to take this time to ask her about her own discussion with Mayor Wells, but ultimately thought better of it. She probably wouldn't have even answered him anyway.

"Since District 9 doesn't have any surviving victors," Everett said from across the table, getting Emmer's full attention while Maizie just focused on the glazed chicken and rice dish she was eating. "We had to find you someone else. A volunteer from the Capitol. Brilliant man. You're in good hands, yes you are. Both of you. His name is Tiberius Isley Longwell. A legend. A true legend. He's sleeping at the moment, it's been a very long journey, he's had so much to do and so little time to do it. But as I said, you are in good hands, I cannot wait until you all meet."

Maizie didn't even acknowledge his words. Emmer, straightened up, wiped his mouth with a napkin and asked, "Um, where are some of the old game tapes?"

Everett blinked at him, then a look of understanding quickly came over his face. "Of course, yes. Want to start studying right away? That's good. I respect that. It's about time brains won out over brawns and brutality. That would certainly be a refreshing change. Yes, I'll show you."

"Thank you," Emmer said, plastering on a smile as he gathered several other goods onto a medium sized plate before following Isley out of the room, sparing a brief glance at Maizie from over his shoulder and frowned. How was she so disinterested in what was going on? How was she not eager to start studying just like him? He tried to shake these feelings off, but it was proving to be very difficult.

Wells had suggested that he watch the tapes from 'lucky number 12'. Demetria Langford's year, he'd said. Her year. The one and only time that Nine had won. He'd been, what, five years old when that had happened? No wonder he had no memory of it, only second-hand information that he'd gotten from both those who remembered it vividly and those who simply speculated.

What, he wondered, would watching these games reveal to him about how to win? Or at the very least, survive longer than he would have otherwise?

He watched the reaping of the Twelfth Hunger Games. Heard her name being called and watched a somewhat tiny fifteen-year-old girl in a simple white dress with shoulder length dark auburn hair that she was holding back in a braid walk slowly towards the stage. She'd been so young, younger than him and she'd won. It was both frightening and a little bit of a relief for him. Like it wasn't impossible for him to have similar results.

Even now, before everything that would happen to her would happen, she looked pale and frightened, like she was already dead. Emmer remembered when he was younger and some of the other kids dared him and a handful of others to go to her house in the barren Victor's Village, convinced that Demetria's ghost still walked its halls. When it was his turn to be given the dare, he only got as far as the freezing cold living room when he heard Peacekeepers outside and one of his friends shouted that they run for it. Emmer had raced out the back door and still, to this day, couldn't believe how miraculous it had been that none of them had been caught and arrested, or worse.

But late at night in his bed in the children's home, he thought about how he had heard weird noises in that house, almost like a woman's cry. Like Demetria was still there, still afraid. Not that he ever would have told anybody that in a million years. He would have sounded insane.

Emmer tried to shake the memory off and focus on the game tape. He watched as Demetria slowly walked up on the stage, not making eye contact with anyone, even as the escort at the time, an orange haired woman in a blue suit asked her if she had anything to say. Unlike him and Maizie, she had refused to speak, vigorously shaking her head when asked.

Simply accepting that she was going to get nothing out of her, the escort moved onto the male tributes. And when she read the name aloud, Emmer's jaw hit the floor.

"D'Arcy Wells."

Emmer watched as a young boy, maybe around thirteen, with hunched shoulders and dark red hair combed back, just like it was now, albeit more elegantly and less boyish, walked forward. He had been reaped for these games. He was supposed to go into the Arena with her, but he didn't and she won instead—

Just as he realized this, he saw a young man step forward, bigger and stronger than young Mayor Wells was, but he couldn't have been that much older than him. He got in the boy's way and then he shouted the words that were so rarely heard in Nine during the reaping:

"I volunteer! I volunteer as tribute! I volunteer in place of him."

Young Wells just stared at him, his eyes wide with surprise—and maybe a dash of instinctive relief. Not that Emmer blamed him for feeling that way, and he actually did volunteer. Then a man, who Emmer could only assume was Wells' father, came out of the crowd before the Peacekeepers could drag him away, picked him up and took him out of the camera's view.

The young man took his place beside Demetria and was asked his name by the escort.

"Fenton Cleary." He sounded a hundred years older, his eyes very far away.

"Ladies and gentleman, your tributes for the twelfth annual Hunger Games!"

So this was what Wells wanted him to see? Was that really all? Not that it wasn't a huge discovery. Not to mention it was somewhat ironic. All three of them had been reaped, Demetria had won, but D'Arcy was the only one still alive.

What little hope he had been feeling earlier started to fade away.

Despite her family's obvious hatred for them, Alexandrite had always been fascinated by the Capitol. The glittering towers, the people and their weird clothes, the best technology in the country, having access to everything with the press of a button that even she and the other citizens of District 1 didn't have. Whatever her parents said behind closed doors, she'd always wanted to go to the Capitol. In fact, since her family was in charge of a literal goldmine, and her mother was a jewelry merchant who traveled to the Capitol from time to time on business, Alexandrite made plans to become one herself just so she could have an excuse to go there. In her wildest dreams, she shopped for an apartment, ate at some of the locals' favorite restaurants, maybe she made a kooky friend or two. That had been her childhood dream.

She looked out the window of the train as they left District 1, her stomach turning so intensely that she would be surprised if she didn't throw up at some point. She liked the idea of throwing up somewhere on this train in a spot where no one would find it and just leaving it there for the smell to fester and drive the passengers on this train crazy. A little present. A thanks for putting her in her current predicament.

"I tell you, you two are lucky," came a voice behind her.

She turned around and saw their mentor for this year, Royal Burgess, the victor of the ninth annual Hunger Games, she believed. He was speaking to her and Grant, who unlike her was sitting up and listening intently, all the way across the room as far away from her as possible, it seemed. They weren't really familiar with each other. They ran in different circles. His circles, for example, trained for the Games their entire lives, while her parents had never permitted her or her siblings to train for a single second. And they couldn't stress enough just how much they were not permitted to volunteer.

What about for each other, Jett had asked once. Their father's eyes had gone wide, he placed a hand on each of her and her sibling' shoulders, gave them a tight squeeze, looked them in the eyes, and then addressed the whole room as he declared that it would never happen. They would never, ever find themselves on that infernal train to go to those damn games.

"Back when I was a tribute we were treated like animals," Royal continued, looking around, leaning back in his chair, his feet resting up on the table. He took a sip from his cup, which looked like it was a glass of orange juice. "All shoved into one train car. We didn't have this lavish treatment. You're lucky."

"Lucky," Alexandrite grumbled. She wasn't even sure if either of them heard her. Or if they did, neither of them acknowledged her or her words.

"It didn't used to be this extravagant of an event," Royal continued. "It didn't used to be the honor that it is now. I certainly wasn't a volunteer, I can tell you that."

Alexandrite turned around and saw Grant, who she knew from all those years of watching him train in school was ready for this, smile proudly at those words. Grant had volunteered, just like most of the other tributes from their district had volunteered in her lifetime. But this year it had been turned into an election, like they were running for class president. Like it was an honor. Had things turned out differently there would have been another girl who would have received the 'honor' this year. Someone far more prepared to accept it than her.

"Hey," Royal said. "Hey you, Other One."

He was addressing her. Annoyed, she turned around and gave the large man a dead look.

"You're the Tallis girl, right? One of 'em? I have a cousin who was gonna work in your mine. Or, rather, your parents' mine."

"What?" she asked, not believing how casually they were both being about all of this. Especially someone who knew better than anyone what they were really in for.

"Just making conversation. You were too quiet over there."

"She doesn't think she should be here," Grant spoke up condescendingly.

She shot him a glare, which didn't seem to deter him as he went on.

"Unfortunately the entire District disagreed. Especially since her entire family had been getting an unfair pass for years while the rest of us—"

"Shut up," she spat at him.

Unable to take any more, she left the room and stormed off, heading towards the back of the train. When she finally got there, she allowed an angry scream to erupt from her throat.

Really, at this point she was all hate and bitterness. There was nothing else she thought that she could feel. Not even fear. Though, she suspected, that would come later.

And not that much later.