Our Love Could Be Lethal Act I Re-Write

Act I: Betrayal of the Fittest

Percy survives the Feast along with the other Career Tributes, though that day I was honestly for surprised Haymitch survived our pre-countdown bar trip. He ended up being right of course, both of his tributes were gone within the first thirty minutes of the Games. According to Haymitch, that was them lasting longer than usual. The boy made the mistake of running straight into the Bloodbath, and Percy tracked the girl down on the outskirts of the forest. The lush forest arena was a stark contrast to the ruined city I had last year, an attempt by the Gamemakers to shake things up no doubt. In total, fifteen tributes were gone by the time day three rolled around. All six of the career tributes still remained and all were still with the Pack.

I sit at my station at the Mentor Control Centre, watching Caesar's nightly show along with Finnick who sits only a few seats over from mine. We decided to get takeaway from one of the many restaurants in the Tribute Centre before making our way here; partly due to not wanting the bother of dealing with the Capitol public for longer than it would take to stand in line. Finnick, Augustus from 1 who won the year before me, and I are the only ones in the room, all the other mentors having left for the night already. I've learned that the career mentors tend to take turns monitoring in shifts, especially during the middle days where things start to slow down and the tributes are far apart in the arena. It's no wonder that even once you become a career victor, there is still a hierarchy just like there was back in the academy.

"...now, my friend, we are getting so very close to something exciting happening here. As we know, the Career Pack tends to stick together until every tribute—outside of their group of course—who scores over a 7 in their evaluation is gone." The screen Caesar is pointing at lights up with the photos of all the tributes and their scores, the ones who have died already are faded and in black and white. "There is only one tribute outside of the Pack left who got over a 7: our boy from 10, Astor, who got an 8."

"That is true, Caesar," says Claudius, "but like we saw last year, it can be advantageous to break from the Pack earlier. Make no mistake, it certainly gets you deep into the game. We've seen 1, 2, and 4 finish consistently high even when they don't win, but the question is now becoming, 'do you want to drag five other people who have eights, nines, and tens to be your final competition?'"

"Since we did our final eight interviews this afternoon with their families, out of our people left, who are our top picks?"

"Dare I say, I think 2 has an excellent chance of going back-to-back this year. Their boy, Perseus has been looking fierce." A montage of Percy fighting in the bloodbath begins to play behind Claudius as he speaks. "He's got three kills already and you can tell he's itching for that fourth. I'd say he's the one to beat right now."

"Don't forget, he told us, well, me," laughs Caesar, referencing his interview with Percy, "that he is childhood friends with Octavia, our victor from last year. They went to the same school." A unanimous scoff comes out of the mouths of the three of us in the room because by school he really means the Academy. I honestly don't know why we keep up the charade. Everyone knows the careers train. Preparing for the Games being against the rules for the sake of some sort of perceived fairness is ridiculous; the Hunger Games never has been and will never be anything close to fair. The rule is never enforced anyway.

"It's a miracle that these people buy the whole 'childhood friends' thing every time. Doesn't 2 have like, a quarter of a million people? Like, it's not even a little bit suspicious to them that all the tributes and victors always seem to know each other?" says Finnick.

I give a slight chuckle. "That's the problem. It would require them to use common sense."

Finnick grimaces. "I forgot they don't have that here."