Life Debts

Chapter 1

I try not to think about the day ahead as I braid my hair back and stuff my feet into my hunting shoes. Cinna has sent some clothes for me to wear to the reaping today but I forgo them until the last possible minute. They feel like funeral clothes. Two more children will be given a death sentence this year. No matter who wins or dies in the arena, there are no winners. Haymitch and I both got the raw end of the deal when it comes to surviving. For the Tributes who die, the torture ends. Those of us who win the Games… we are perpetual players that are never left alone.

The day of my reaping Haymitch saw me throw a knife at him on the train and he knew I had potential to win. I told Haymitch to be straight with me about the Games and to not hold back. According to Haymitch, the biggest joke about the Hunger Games is that there is no victor. The 24 children who are reaped have a chance at becoming a Victor but then they are forced to mentor, for the rest of their lives, the new Tributes who will likely die. This is why Haymitch has turned to liquor. Each Victor finds a way to deal with the aftermath of survival. The lives we have taken in the arena and the deaths of the Tributes they have mentored continuously haunt the thoughts and dreams of us Victors.

My name had been selected four years ago out of all the girls of District 12. I was only somewhat surprised. My name had been entered plenty times to make the odds unlikely. It was the only way to get food, signing up for the tesserae.

When my father died, I was 8 years old. My mother shut down. She was a non-functioning for nearly a year. I had no choice but to step up and take over as the head of the household. I rationed out what little food we had. When the food ran out, we nearly starved to death. I was selling our possessions left and right but there was no one to buy. We hadn't eaten anything in two days when I realized that I could scavenge the garbage bins of the merchant's homes for leftover foods. I was coming up empty handed but refused to go home and see my mother and younger sister Prim, their faces hollow with hunger. That's when it happened. The baker's wife came out the back door, screaming at me. I was just an 8 year-old-girl looking for a scrap of food but she had no compassion for me. I could see a boy behind her in the doorway of the bakery, his hands lingering on a batch of dough that he had been kneading. I backed away, weak from hunger, and stumbled to the ground. I was too weak to get back up so I crawled to a nearby tree that was out of the baker's wife's sight.

I rarely ever cry, even then, but that day would have been an exception if I hadn't been dehydrated. The thought of failing my mother and Prim was more than I could take. I was desperate to find a way to give them something to eat but was out of resources. I heard the baker's wife start up again, the sound muted by the closed back door. I heard the horrible sound of something being struck. It was the sound of metal on skin. I gathered that someone had burned something in the over. I felt sorry for whomever it was that the baker's wife had hit. She had never been a nice person. My father always seems to pity the baker because his wife was such a difficult person to get along with. Any time we ever traded the game that my father hunted, it was always to the baker's wife and the trades were never in our favor. I once asked my father why we couldn't simply deal to the baker when his wife wasn't around but he simply shook his head and never answered.

I heard the back door open and the harpy's voice blasted out of the confines of the shop. I was so weak I didn't even raise my head to see what was going on. I saw out the corner of my eye the shuffling of a pair of shoes near me. It was Peeta Mellark, the youngest of the baker's three sons. Peeta was in my year at school but I did not know him personally. He was always surrounded by a group of friends, laughing cheerfully. I saw that his eye was already swelling shut and I watched him tear off the blacked scorch marks on the two loaves of bread that he had burned. He tossed the black parts into the pig pen near where I was slumped against the tree. Without looking at me, he tossed the two loaves onto the ground near me. One of them rolled next to me. Startled, I looked up. Peeta was staring out at something in the distance. It looked as though he wanted to say something but he must have changed his mind. He simply turned and walked away. I gathered the food and took off for home, half stumbling and half walking. The idea of food for Prim and Mother was renewing. Had Peeta burned the bread on purpose? I had a feeling that he had felt sorry for me. I hated being pitied but since it would keep Prim from dying I was willing to do whatever I could.

The next day at school I waited until the end of the day to catch Peeta alone. It was a difficult task because he was so friendly that people were always swarmed around him, unlike me. People avoided me and my scowl. I opened my mouth, prepared to tell him thank you and to apologize for the huge black eye that was there because of me but the words wouldn't come. He looked at me and shrugged his shoulders. It was as though he knew what I had been trying to say and was shrugging to tell me that he thought nothing of his actions. I looked down, embarrassed that I couldn't even find the words to thank the boy with the bread who had saved three people's lives with his act of kindness. I was ashamed that I could even say "Thank you" to a boy who took a beating for me. I saw a dandelion in the ground and remembered what my father said about them being edible. I suddenly knew what I could do to keep my family alive. I picked the flower and handed it to Peeta. His brow creased as he accepted my gift, confused by my actions. I smiled at him. The first genuine smile I had smiled in a year. He smiled back as I walked away.

After that day I began hunting. I had been taught well by my father in the ways of hunting but I had also been trained to never go under the fence surrounding District 12 without him. Now, I thought of what he would think if he knew I was doing this two times a day sometimes. When faced with the idea of being executed for poaching off the Capitol's land or starving I chose to risk hunting. I have never regretted my actions.

It was difficult, hunting. I struggled at first. A eight year old hunting to feed three people was a constant strain. We managed to survive. We were always hungry and we were always unsatisfied but we ate enough every other day to get by those first few years after my father died.

I met Gale in the woods when I was ten. He had lost his father in the same coal mining accident I had lost mine in. He, too, had realized that he could feed his family by hunting in the woods. After we crossed paths enough, we teamed up and began doing a lot better. We began trading and splitting the profits as was fair. He had three siblings and a mother to feed while I only had two extra mouths. Gale was three years older than I was and we both knew that our futures were not bright. Gale because he would always have to help his mother to feed his two brothers and one sister. Me because my mother had shut down and I was the only one working to feed her and Prim. As soon as we had been able to, Gale and I both signed up for the tesserae as many times as necessary to put food on the table. This is the reason I was only mildly shocked rather than in denial when my name was chosen at my first reaping. I was twelve years old and my name had been put in for the reaping 13 times already. Gale at 15 had his name in 30 times. I knew I would be reaped eventually since the number of times your name gets put in doubles every year and I had taken tesserae out 12 times to earn enough food for my family plus the one automatic entry that went in as soon as I turned 12. I just thought it would be when I was older. At twelve there was no way I could be considered a contender in the games when there were others who were 18 and huge.

When Haymitch, the only victor alive from our district, recognized that I had potential, he warned me that winning was the wrong path. He told me I'd be better off finding a decent way to die in the arena but I had promised Prim I would come home. Nothing could be worse than the thought of Prim starving to death after I was gone. Gale had promised to take care of my family if I was reaped in the same way I had promised to help his. There was only so much one person could do for 7 people. If I won, at least Prim would be able to live and have a life. That is why I am where I am today. Haymitch, who had turned to liquor in the days following his own victory, stayed sober long enough to coach me through mine. The other contestants were so much bigger and older than I was that no one paid me any attention. I was a plain-looking girl from the Seam in the worst district of all Panem. I had a stylist who was able to keep me looking attractive enough but at 12 there's only so much he could do for me. My costumes were by far better than all of the other tributes'. The sponsors want a tribute who will guarantee a good show, though. Not some girl who looks like she would be the first to die in the bloodbath at the Cornucopia. That was part of Haymitch's strategy, though. District 12 had been such a laughing stock that playing meek was easy. I was quiet and scornful during my interview and I knew that I would be getting no sponsors. Haymitch promised that as soon as I made it to the final 8, the offers would come rolling in. I had a talent that no one could have guessed: I could hunt. Many of the career tributes had been raised for slaughter, thinking that the games were a great honor. The rest of the tributes are horror-struck at having been reaped and have little skills at all.

During my games I was faster than all the other tributes. I was able to secure a bow and sheath of arrows before I disappeared into the forest. I picked a tree near the edge and scaled it. I picked off the career tributes first. I got them all but one. They were so preoccupied with killing the tributes who they thought were a threat that they paid me no attention until my arrow pierced their hearts. I made Hunger Games history. That first day I killed 8 tributes by myself; a record killing for any single person to achieve in all 70 years of the Games. I was able to survive by hunting and gathering. Rouge, the only remaining career tribute, had a stash of food that he had booby trapped. By the time there was just 8 of us left, I blew up the food he had, forcing him to speed up his hunting of the other tributes seeing as there was no food and no sponsors left for him, having lost all his sponsors to me on the first day. Rouge managed to stay alive off of the food he gleaned from the other tributes that he hunted while I stayed in the trees.

He was a very tall Tribute. He must have been fed with a specific diet since he was born to achieve such body mass. During the feast that the Gamemakers created hoping to draw us in to battle, he received full body armor. With no way for him to be pierced by my arrows, he began to hunt me. I had taken to the ground, knowing that he would be looking for me in the trees. I shot him through the neck when he exposed it by looking up into the trees and became the youngest Victor for 52 years.

The four years that followed were torturous. I had money and a nice house but, like all victors, I was haunted. I saved back as much money as I could to keep my family safe should they ever lose me again and helped spread the rest around my district. I was certain to buy from all the merchants and the Hobb, where I used to trade my game. District 12 now flourishes with my strategy. People are happier and times aren't as hard as they have been.

None of this can erase the hardship of being a Victor. I hardly ever sleep and I hardly ever smile. Not only do the deaths of those whom I killed in the arena haunt me, but also the deaths of the children I have mentored. I have mentored three years and all three years the tributes have died. I live every day like a funeral day. Today, however, is the worst of them all. I will know the names of the people I will be killing this year. Not only will I kill someone, but Prim will have her name entered into the reaping as she is now 12. Gale, who has continued to stick by me, has his name entered in 90 times and the odds aren't good. This will be his last year and so my every hope is that he can scrape by one more year. Of course, then his younger brother Rory will turn 12 and will be entered into the reaping pile and I'll have a new person to worry about in addition to Prim.

I walk into town and see that it's ghost-like. Most people sleep in on Reaping Day. No one has school or work so there is no traffic on the streets. I decide to distract myself by going into the woods. This is my escape. I feel free in the trees with the smell of pines all around me. The bow my father made me feels smooth in my hand as I sit on a tree branch, watching for game to pass by. After about an hour I notice a sound about 100 yards to my right and I am still. I see no movement. I can feel my hunter's senses kick into high gear. I am still searching for the cause of the noise when I sense something behind me and slowly turn around with as minimal movement as possible, bow loaded. When I finally inch around enough to see what had peaked my senses, I lower my bow, a slight smile on my face that probably looks more like a scowl. Gale is there, leaning against a tree, bow slung over his broad shoulder and three rabbits hanging from his belt. Gale is always testing my prowess as a hunter. He tries to sneak up on me but I always know when he's near.

"Catnip, Happy Reaping Day," he says to me as he finds a tree branch near mine that is strong enough to hold his weight. He hoists himself up starts scanning the woods to see the hunting potential. I nod to him but I don't feel like talking. My throat feels like it's full of chalk and I have no idea what I can say that will sound strong.

Gale is used to this quieter me. Ever since I came back from the arena I've been more reserved. I can see that he misses the old Katniss and that he wishes I would snap out of it. I can see the hurt in his eyes every time he receives my silence as a response to one of his rants about the Capitol. In the pre-Hunger Games Days, I would listen to him as he complained about the work condition in District 12 and I would join in now and then and help make him feel better but now that I am a Victor I know that nothing I saw will make our lives easier and so I say nothing. He is a good friend and he continues to use our old jokes and games as if I were the same. I have thought about speaking to him about the things that bother me but he wouldn't understand. There is no way that I could ever feel right about dumping it all on him, anyway. It is this that has caused the barrier between us.

When I think of Gale, I think of home. I am never more comfortable than the times in which Gale and I are in the woods together. There was a time when I thought of Gale as more than a friend but since then I have come to understand in more depth what happens to those who fall in love and get married. I have seen it firsthand. One of dies first and the other can't live. The children are an unnecessary complication that only causes worry for the first 18 years until the reapings are over. I don't want to be married and so I know this barrier is for the best. Without it, Gale and I might've admitted the feelings between us. I can't deny there are feelings but I refuse to act on them.

It's not fair to Gale for me to keep him for myself when I don't intend to marry him. Many of the girls at school are interested in him and it would only be right to let Gale have a normal life, something I cannot provide no matter how long I live. I'm not an expert on feelings since I am not that kind of girl. I am the type of girl who has dirt from the hunt underneath her fingernails. I am the girl who thinks practically. I am the girl who needs no one. The other girls are the kind to discuss the good-looking boys that are available and the color of the dress they wish they could afford. Gale deserved one of them. Someone who was willing to marry him and give him children. Gale should have a girl who does not wake up screaming in terror every night.

We sit in the trees and scan for food opportunities and due to our silence we are able to shoot a wild turkey, three squirrels and two more rabbits. On our way back, we come across a bunch of berries that I pick a gallon of, leaving the rest for Gale to pick tomorrow when I am on the train to the Capitol to mentor another Games.

At the Hobb we trade the turkey, and rabbits but I save the squirrel for the baker. The baker is very fond of squirrel and always trades me more than I trade him but I, unlike my father, refuse to deal with the baker's wife so I wait outside the back door until I am sure that she is at the front with a customer before I knock. The door opens a moment later and the baker appears. He sees the three squirrels that I have and offers me a smile. He takes the squirrels from me.

"A fine shot as always," he says. "I'll get your trade. Just a moment."

Gale kicks a rock that was near his foot and draws in the dirt with his toe. I can see into the bakery from the inch-wide opening of the door that the baker left gapped. Even though the coal mines are closed and so are the other merchants, the baker always works on Reaping Day because people need food for the Reaping feast that will occur for the families whose children are not chosen. Business lost is not something his wife allows. The door creaks open again and a bag is placed into my hands. I don't check to see what he has offered in trade. I never do. I do my best to keep on good terms with everyone that I trade with just in case. Besides, I am trying to ensure that the businesses do well to keep the District well fed.

I swallow and say, "Good luck," before I turn and leave, Gale following me. I don't look to see his face because I know that he will be just as worried about who will be chosen today. He has two sons that will have their name entered into the reaping.