Chapter Two: Sixty Six

I always wondered what it was about him. Peacekeepers were not known for their guilty consciences. Even those that came out of District Two – flunked their Career training I supposed – didn't particularly care about the atrocities they had a hand in. Whether it was because they were a different breed of animal than the rest of the District or because in District Six where drugs to numb the emotions and more were constantly present and easy to acquire. Either way, any deeds worthy of the devil they might have committed where locked tight in the backs of their minds or brushed off completely as soon as the shift was over.

District trash, I thought, scowling. That's all we were to them. A collection of gangs, freelance criminals, dealers, buyers, gamblers, and even those who were brave enough to steal the fastest vehicles made in the District from their warehouses before being shipped to the Capitol and raced at deadly speeds through the poorly paved streets.

Yes, I could see how the rest of the Capitol, hell, the rest of the Districts looked down on Six. On top of the constant crime we only had two Victors. Shut ins that never left the village unless duty required them. From what I could remember from my early days in my parents' tenement they had been getting more and more dependant on morphling as the years since they'd won their Games. I couldn't say I blamed them. The 56th arena was a pitch black hell of nightmares with carnivorous animals stalking the tributes through dark underground chasms. The water had given anyone who drank it terrifying hallucinations that for many lasted until their death. Ironically, it was only because they knew drugs that they survived. Managing to make a chemical compound using the minerals from the slick rock of the caverns kept them from going insane. They'd dug deep into the toxin riverbed until they found red clay the same exact shade as the rocks around them, plastered themselves with it, and hid. It was over fairly quickly and too bloodless for the Capitol's liking but seeing twenty three other children go insane must've done enough for the ratings that it was kept on syndicate for those who could actually access a TV. The 42nd arena was less of a mental hellhole but held in what appeared to be an abandoned trash heap from the days before. The Cornucopia held no food or water or any type of supplies, just bricks as weapons, and multiple tributes met grizzly ends through starvation trying to find out how to get food in the barren wasteland when it seemed no sponsor gifts were coming their way. Some would venture further into an abandoned town and into the buildings in hopes of finding supplies onto to fall through floors into pools with live electric cables dipped into the water. Most took their chances with the small abandoned town, unwilling to risk it in the giant heaps of trash that stretched on for what seemed like miles and miles. The trash moved at night and who knew what creatures were lurking underneath waiting to swallow tributes whole. And the few who braved the trash heap? Most of them managed to get cuts from the rusty metal that was everywhere. The tribute outfits for that arena lacked shoes causing multiple lacerations in the feet of tributes which turned quickly into blood poisoning and tetanus. But somehow the District Six tribute managed to stay alive in that dump, whispering to the rats and other creatures that scurried in the piles, covering himself with their scent, smearing trash on them to fool the creatures noses. Then they waited until the last tribute dropped from sepsis. Both times it'd been one of the only Games were the Victors won without shedding anyone else's blood.

Such a shame for the Capitol. Such a shame.

I banished the thoughts of arenas and the Games from my head. There was no use thinking about it all now when I would be attending the Reaping in just a few hours. Being scared shitless with horror stories wasn't going to do anything to me but mess with my head and I couldn't afford that.

Still, we were District trash and the man in front of me believed it, knew it. Why else would he have said such a thing the night they slaughtered my parents? When he yelled for a sedative it was to contain a dangerous, rabid animal – me. When he blinded me with his coat – or at least I thought it was his, Marius had climbed the Peacekeeper ranks just as I had climbed the ranks of crime that very soon after his wardrobe had gotten an upgrade. No more threadbare grey-blue ankle length jackets. Now a slate colored well pressed military uniform with the five gold stars that meant he ranked among the highest Peacekeepers in his platoon.

I didn't want to think about what he might've done to earn those stars. It probably involved death in some way or another – whether actual killing, reporting on others who might've been rebellious and were silenced for it, for raids among the lower class drug-ridden rings that I still partially belonged to, it could be for any of that but I doubted it was for actually keeping any sort of peace.

Peace was a lie in District Six. Maybe it was a lie in all Districts. I wouldn't have known.

Yes, he earned his stars just as I earned my stripes.

And yet, yet, he continued to keep his eye on me even after I was delivered to my first community home. When I ran away from that, he was the one leading the small squad to find me – runaways were not allowed – and drag me back to a stricter home; rinse and repeat. It was him who insisted on visiting me once every few months or so though from those meetings I knew he was keeping careful tabs on my behavior and what the staff at whichever hellhole I was living in said. Was it a guilty conscience that made him check up on me after mowing down my parents and turning them into red mist or was it because he, like most in the District whether Peacekeepers or regular Six-ers, thought that the criminality ran in the blood and he was just waiting for the time I finally made too severe of a mistake and he could finish what he started and also shoot me dead.

Of course, then there was the claim he was the reason why I hadn't ended up at Halsch sooner than I should've but I dismissed the rumor. I stayed out of Halsch because I was smart. It was only my last deal with the D6 Diamonds my parents had created and then passed that knowledge on to me that finally landed me where I was today. Was it better than being shot full of holes? Sure. Was it still prison in all but name? You betcha.

"Don't talk like that," Marius said, a frown breaking his serenity.

"Or?" I challenged, leaning forward.

"Or nothing," he said. "Just that I have much better things to do with my paycheck than bribe half the officials in the District to turn a blind eye and I'm not even sure it's worth it when you do nothing to change. You have a life to live." In a rare display of anger he slammed his fist down on the table.

If he thought I'd jump he was very wrong but his words rankled me. Of course. You have a life to live. But did I? Did I though? Not until I was nineteen and safe from the Reaping did I truly have any sort of life to live – not when I could die by a single slip of paper. But of course he wouldn't understand. Of course the fear that swelled in the chest of every child twelve through eighteen as the day came closer, of course the creeping dread that colored our every waking moment, of course the idea that one day you could be fine and then spend the next hurtling toward your death didn't cross his mind. I might've been 'District trash' but he was Capitol scum. Did he ever have to worry about where his next meal would come from? Did he ever have to pound someone bloody into the ground at the community homes because they tried to cop a feel when they thought you weren't paying attention? All he had to do was wear that pretty uniform – no longer the ratty blue-grey ankle length jacket that was standard issue to every private in the force but the blindly white uniform of a captain, a commander, something worth something – and go about his way. He would never face the hardship any of us had. He would never have to worry about his children dying in the Games, or his friends, or his siblings. Today was a holiday to him and nothing me.

"Well," I said, voice eerily calm despite the red clouding my vision. "Perhaps today you'll lose your ball and chain."

Marius froze, his dark green eyes locking on my face and taking in my expression. "Fuck," he said and I held back a noise of surprise because Marius hardly ever swore outside of words like 'goddamn' or sometimes 'crap', "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking – of course you – that was poorly worded on my part – I'm –"

"Sorry?" I cut him off and stood. If the chair hadn't been bolted down to the floor then it would've have slid across the room from the force of my movement. "Yeah," I said scathingly, "tell that to someone who believes it."

I didn't say another word as I walked out of the visitors center, still raging on the inside, seething with a hot fury and an even hotter hate. If I was that much of a burden to him he didn't need to stick around; Panem knew I would rather he didn't! But no, he hung around like a large rat in the scrapyard lording over its cache of goodies while the little mice starved in front of him.

I could take a lot of things but not that, not from him, not after everything that had happened.

I was half-expecting Dove to jump, startled, as I walked back into our shared cell and loudly slammed the door but instead the blonde haired girl was lying with her face down over the thin mess of cotton that was called a pillow, mouth half open, snoring and dead to the world. It didn't matter that the Reaping was a few mere hours away; she needed her beauty sleep and I would end up being the one responsible if she made us late for roll call.

My gaze passed over her sleeping form onto the wads of chewing gum stuck to her headboard and then to the long, flowing hair that had escaped the trial-by-lice half the other residents had to go through. Maybe it was time to change that.

From beside me in the sixteen year old pen, Dove ran a self-conscious hand through her poorly cut hair. The sound of her screaming when she woke up a mere hour before roll to find her hair nearly destroyed with chewing gum nearly made me cry I was holding in my laughter so hard. What made it even better was Sister Sloan's reaction – usually I was the source of the Sister's ire but this time it was directed full force at Dove as she screamed about how 'really, on a day like today' and 'I thought you were a civilized human not a pig' and the best one 'we've no time for fancy works or styling, you're holding us up, Dominic, go to the janitorial office and grab me a pair of scissors, Brother Heink should still be there.' The shrill shriek that came out of Dove's mouth was like music to my ears and nearly made me forget about the coming event.

Nearly.

Because now we were outside on a stuffy July day in Six. We Halsch House kids were lined up in neat little rows with our grey jumpsuits and our yellow stripes but most didn't throw a look our way. Too many people were packed into the square by the justice building, far too many than would be humane but what was humane about this in the first place? Corralling a bunch of children like cattle and picking a prized one for the slaughter. Not for meat or the hide or anything else usable, but for entertainment like the bullfighters of old log before Panem had existed.

I squinted up at the stage, eyes irritated by the bright sunlight that had broken through the smog. Of course this was the day where the entire District actually saw the blue of the sky instead of the oppressive gray clouds pressing in front all around us.

From the stage I could make out a few people. Mayor Callahan, an older man in his late fifties who was married to his job – not that the women of the district minded – stood in his place next to the podium but not daring to take his place just yet. Next two him were two near half-dead figures sitting in chairs looking only mildly presentable. I knew them second handedly, the two Victors that District Six had left – the third dying of a gas leak that had been missed by the repairman the last time he'd visited the farthest house in the Victor's Village for its yearly tune up. From what I knew, they had to scrap bits of the man off the sidewalk in the resulting explosion. Who knew he had such a bad habit of smoking indoors?

The two that remained were younger of course but still addled by the drugs they used to ease their pains. I couldn't blame them. The only reason I didn't do the same was because I didn't believe in taking from my own stash. It was bad business. But you could see even from where I was that these two might be addled and half-dead looking but there was a way in which they perched upon their chairs that signified they were much more aware than they seemed. Like their Games, maybe, hiding their skills in plain sight so well that nothing and no one would believe they existed in the first place.

I zoned out through the reading of the Treaty of Treason, it wasn't like we didn't know every word by heart by now, and was near asleep while standing with the heat of the day wringing us out like wet rags. But a sharp elbow in my ribs pulled me back to attention as I pressed a hand to the painful spot. Likely, there would be a bruise.

Dove, who had clearly since figured out that I was the one who destroyed her perfect hair, gave me a disapproving look. "Pay attention! You'll make us look bad!"

I said nothing but slowly ran my eyes up and down her person easily expressing without words that I didn't need to do anything to make her look bad. She was doing so fine enough on her own.

Our Capitol escort, Gladius Glad – yes that was his actual name – gave a giant round of applause to the Mayor's speech and the rest of us followed along half-heartedly. Just grit your teeth and get it over with. That mindset applied for many things in District Six so why not this too?

"Well, isn't it lovely to see all of your shining faces," Gladius said in a tone that very clearly implied it was not. "No, hold the applause," he raised a hand and I rolled my eyes. As if anyone was going to applause for him, "today is a very special day! I've been the escort to District Six for many years and I have always been wowed and humbled by the people and its citizens." Did someone else smell bullshit or was it just me? "That being said, I recently was promoted to a bet-another District as an escort and will be leaving you. Now, there's no need to cry." As if people were going to cry for him when he flatout insulted our District. "I've left you all in capable hands! Introducing, the marvelous, wonderful, captivating –"

"Yes, yes, Gladius, I think they get it." The woman seemed to materialized from the shadows in her navy blue pants suit and dark hair. Funny, while Gladius was in a startling shade of pea green with a top hat made from a literal peacock, eyes surgically altered to appear silver, and hair dyed te yellow-green color of vomit, his companion had minor alterations if any at all that I could see. Her hair was straight and lovely with the fringes dyed silver and with the suit that looked like the bougie version of a mechanics uniform she fit much better among the throngs of people in the crowd than her predecessor.

"My name is Flick, not Flickerman, Flick. Just the one word. Like this," she demonstrated by flicking Gladius on the nose like he was a naughty dog. "And I'm thrilled to be representing you all as the new Capitol escort to District Six. It is, after all, the sixty-sixth Hunger Games! I can feel the luck in the air this wonderful afternoon! It's like our President has smiled upon us, I do think this year has something special in store for us! And speaking of special, nothing says special like changing up old traditions!"

There was a murmur amongst the crowd but it was quickly hushed as from the back of the mass of bodies a Peacekeeper shouted for order. Flick walked to the reaping bowls with a bounce in her step and I frowned realizing that she was headed to the boy's first.

Gladius was stammering something about tradition and I could've swore I heard Flick reply under her breath with some very choice words that tradition could do with itself. Without further to do she plunged her hand into the reaping bowl and smiled, calling out "Thaddeus Halsch!"

The boy who walked up was nearly twice the size of Flick, who was a tall woman in her own right, maybe a few inches taller than my six feet, and with a familiar glower on his face. A Halsch House kid. One I knew pretty well though I wished I didn't. He was a Reg who'd gotten into a number of fist fights with me in the chow line before and I was pretty sure the crooked slant of his nose was due to me. He was one of the Regs who thought he was superior for being a Reg and that made him dangerous. With a fierce temper, he'd even hurt some of the very young Regs who had the misfortune of stumbling in his path. I disliked most children as a general rule but even I couldn't handle someone who broke the wings of baby birds before they were able to fly. The fight we'd had was legendary, possibly going down in Halsch House history as the first time someone managed to make a near fatal wound with a pencil. I was quite proud of it.

Flick asked him to introduce himself which he did but not before glowering again at the escort clearly thinking she was insipid for asking for his name right after she'd just said it. If it were anyone else I'd say it was a case of goldfish memory but Flick was Capitol. We weren't important enough for our names to be remembered even mere seconds after they were said.

Thaddeus grumbled his name into the offered microphone while Gladius gave the cursory clap. I noticed that Flick hadn't even bothered and so did a good half of the District. Whether due to hate for being a Halsch kid or due to sheer lack of caring though was up for anyone's interpretation.

I was admiring the angle of his broken nose and reliving the satisfying crunch it made when my fist hit it and caught myself up in the memory of the moment so much that at first I didn't hear Flick speak again. But after a pause and a clear of her throat, she read the name again without a hint of annoyance in her voice.

"Dominic Halsch."

I startled but immediately pushed all the emotions threatening to rise up inside of me until my face was a cold mask – the same mask I used when dealing with Peacekeepers, angry home matrons, my clients, and most human beings in general. A cold feeling came over me, like I'd dunked my head underwater and wasn't able to surface. Like the ice that hung from rooftops in the winter, sharp and spiked, trickling down my spine until it was ramrod straight.

With a breath, I took a step forward from our formation and made my way down to the path toward the stage, walking at a slow, measured pace that portrayed a calmness I didn't feel. I was waiting for the, yelling for the yelling of Peacekeepers, the escort the reaped tributes of Crimmie fame in the Halsch House had every time one of our names was selected. But there was none.

I made the walk up alone until halfway through I realized I was alone no longer. A rough, warm hand grabbed mine and steadied the shaking that I'd thought I was hiding. He said nothing, didn't even look my way, but Marius finished that walk beside me until we came up to the stage.

The Peacekeeper placed both hands firmly on my shoulders, squeezing them in what was meant to be reassuring. In one flowing movement, he took a piece of clothing off from where he'd cradled it in his arms and put it around my shoulders. My eyes widened at the sight of it. Blue-grey, tattered from ages of use, and smelling faintly of harsh chemicals, I knew that coarse fabric more than I knew my mother's voice.

I wasn't going to tear up. I wasn't. But that didn't stop me from embracing him – maybe embracing him was the only way I would keep the feelings inside me. For a long moment there was just the two of us in each others arms. All to soon, it was over, and I was taking my place upon the stage.