Chapter Eight:

District Eight's Reaping:

~~Katleen 'Katie' Nami's Point of View~~

Katie woke up early on the morning of the Reaping. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and laid in her bed for a while, trying to wake herself up more. She was very tired from the night before, when she had snuck out and partied at some boy's house. None of the girls there had liked her, but the boys sure did.

She had kissed that night. A lot of boys, actually. There had been drinks, and even some drugs that she had seen being shot up. She had only had some drinks, though.

And some of those boys had gotten farther than a kiss. She let them go ahead if they wanted to. All of the boys liked her for her body, but Katie didn't like any of them. No, she was above them. She didn't need anyone but herself, and she loved that. She hadn't relied on anyone since her parents had died when she was nine.

Of course that still hurt her to think about, but she wasn't really the crying type. She had run out of tears to shed at any expense. The girls didn't like her. The teachers didn't like her. She shed all of those tears long ago.

But the boys, for some reason, liked her. So she took that to her advantage and used it. Sure, they were using her for her body, and she knew that. But it was the only thing that she felt like she needed to do. The only thing that people liked her for.

The girls certainly didn't like her for it, though. They called her a whore, a slut.

Katie just convinced herself that they were jealous of her.

But she knew better.

Deep down, she knew that they were right about her.

And even deeper down, she didn't care that she was that. She felt important, and that was all that mattered.

Right?

She kept telling herself that.

Even if it wasn't true.

But she didn't let them get to her. They could all screw themselves, as far as Katie was concerned. She was perfectly happy with where she was: the Community Home, with her perfect body and beautiful black hair. Frankly, she didn't give a shit as to what those girls thought. She had herself, and that was all she needed.

~~Stitch Cobb' Point of View~~

"Come on, Stitch! Let's get them!" his best friend, Connor, yelled. The bullies ran off, snickering and laughing.

"No, it's fine," Stitch said quietly, standing up with Connor's help, and wiping the dirt from his nice Sunday clothes. He frowned. His mother would be furious with him for dirtying his clothes. She was a hardworking woman that couldn't afford to clean things often, so he would definitely hear about it when he got home.

"Damn it, Stitch!" Connor said to him, red-headed head in his hands. "You're too nice! You can't let those assholes push you around like that! You're so weak, man!"

"Well, I…" Stitch mumbled, scrambling for an excuse. None came to his mind.

"You what?" Connor demanded. "You can't stand up for yourself is what you were thinking!"

Stitch moved away from Connor. He stomped off past him, having enough of his neighbor for one day. Stitch walked on past the squeaky swing set to get to his house. He would have run, but his asthma held him back. He tried to go quickly away from Connor, but he ended up wheezing and coughing.

"Wait, man! I didn't mean it like that!" Connor called from behind him. Stitch just kept on walking away from him, the cold breeze stinging on his shaven head. His mother had shaved all of his head because of the lice that had been hiding in their room. She had even cut her own hair short, up to her ears.

He finally reached his old crooked house. He looked back, and saw that his friend was still in the same spot. Stitch turned back to the door and opened it up. He burst in, and quickly ran upstairs to his bedroom.

It was the Reaping. He was extremely nervous, and on top of that, his mother had to work, so she couldn't walk him to the Town Square, which happened to be a very far walk from their house. He could walk with Connor, but he didn't want to.

He grabbed his notebook from his tiny old desk, a dusty fountain pen that his father had given to him, and turned to his window. He undid the lock, pushed the window up, and squished his slender body through the frame, out onto the thick branch of the tall oak tree that grew next to his lopsided house. Stitch scooted back until he hit the trunk of the tree, the thick part that the branches depended on. In a way, the trunk reminded him of his mother. She had held Stitch together when his father had died. She even held Stitch together when she had her miscarriage, even though it should have been Stitch holding her together. He respected her immensely for her strength.

He sat on the branch, looking out at the neighborhood of his. Mothers kneeling down, kissing their children before sending them to their possible death. Street dogs limping around, fighting over tiny scraps from trashcans. Connor, sitting in the field of daisies that Stitch left him in.

Stitch sighed. Connor. His thoughts about that one boy were so jumbled up and weird, that he didn't know how to feel. He was trying to decide what he thought about his best friend. Did he like him more than a friend? Or was it just a brotherly love?

Stitch was ashamed of these feelings. In school he learned that it was only men and women that were allowed to love each other. At home, his mother never talked about these menial things. He had no idea what her opinion on these things were, but he only knew that he didn't want to tell her.

Or anyone, for that matter.

He couldn't decide. So he wrote exactly what he felt down in his notepad. He hoped desperately that Connor wouldn't stumble upon it, because then Connor would know. And that would be the end of life as he knew it.

What would Connor do if he found out? How would he react?

Probably negatively, Stitch thought. He knew his friend that well.

He sighed.

People started filing away from their homes, all walking out to the District Square.

Stitch climbed back to his window, and crawled into his room. Time to go.

~~Katie's Point of View~~

Katie dressed herself in loose brown pants and a tight black shirt, with her shoulder length black hair tied back.

The other kids had already started to leave for the Reaping, so she figured then was a good time to go, too. She walked out of the home and down the street and rolled her eyes at the people she thought were gawking at her. She quickly got her finger pricked, and then filed off to the sixteen year old section. Katie smiled at the people she walked by, and some, who didn't know her, smiled back.

She decided that the front was where she belonged, so she strutted up to the very front of the sixteen year old section and stood there proudly, ignoring whispers of the jealous teens around her. Don't hate me 'cause I'm beautiful, she thought to herself. They're just jealous. Boys like me, and not ugly girls.

"Welcome, one and all, to the 32nd Annual Hunger Games Reaping of District Eight! I am your host, Electra Hart," said the strange man on stage. His bright red hair curled around his eyes like a mask almost, and he had purple gems embedded into his skin. Katie touched her soft cheeks, imagining what that would feel like on her own skin. She decided it would only enhance her good looks. Who didn't look good without a little sparkle?

See, Katie hadn't grown up hating the Capitol. She'd grown up with dreams of moving there someday, living in big, fancy houses with handsome men all around and people to make her food and bring her clothes, and all the special things that came with being liked. She'd actually grown up hating the rest of Panem, after having lived in the Community Home. They weren't necessarily cruel or abusive, they just ignored the kids, since the owners had their own families, and not many people wanted more children. So for as long as Katie could remember, she had basically raised herself. Of course, her older sister Amanda had taken care of her and a few other more helpless children for a few years until one day Amanda left Katie to fend for herself in District Eight. Amanda hadn't been Reaped, she'd just disappeared. And Katie began to hate nearly everything about Panem.

"As always, I'll begin with the lovely ladies of this district! May the odds be ever in your favor, District Eight!" Electra Hart went to the slightly chipped glass bowl on the table behind him, and dug an elegantly gloved hand into it, slipping over the names like water over rocks, until deciding on a certain slip. He pulled it out, delicately peeling the wax seal off the folded paper.

What if it's me? Will I get picked?

The redhead swept his eyes over the crowd, drawing the expected reaction of hatred and suspense, before leaning forward, an ugly grin stretching across his thin face, and announced, "May I have a Miss Katleen Nami up on stage with me?"

Katie froze, her eyes wide in shock. She had been picked, she had been picked… This was real, too, there was no denying the sounds of thankful gasps around her, the pushes and shoves from relieved girls in the sea of teenagers. She dragged her feet on the stone beneath her, her confidence completely drained. Katie consciously crossed her arms over her revealing neckline on her shirt, feeling people's greedy eyes on her body, and for once, she didn't like this uninvited attention.

"My, what a lovely lady we have up here!" Electra screeched into the old microphone. People covered their eyes, a few people coughed to cover up their screams of shock at the unexpected noise, but most just shuffled along back to their parents, getting around the boys.

He draped his long, thin arm around Katie's shoulder, and she imagined a snake slithering over her. She pretended to enjoy his presence, supposing that she would eventually have to get used to his presence. But something about his red lips matching his red hair scared her as he looked down at her with a possessed hunger. She shuddered under his grasp, hoping no one noticed.

"Now for the gentlemen of the district!" Electra left Katie's side and plunged his hand into the boy's bowl, opened it right there at the bowl, and laughed out loud. People in the crowd began whispering, trying to figure out who's name sounded funny, hoping it wasn't their own. "Stitch…" he gasped between a spasm of laughter, before bringing himself to the microphone to finish. "Stitch Cobb."

~~Stitch's Point of View~~

It's me. It's me, I've been chosen, I'm going to die and I love my best friend, who's a boy. Is that why I got picked? Because I love Connor? Oh no…

Thoughts flooded through Stitch's mind at the second his name was called. He couldn't move or talk or anything. He had realized, in a split second, that he loved his best friend, and that he was punished because it was wrong. Should he tell his mother before he said a final goodbye? Should he tell Connor before the final goodbye? I should, he decided as he slowly processed that he was to get up onstage.

Once he made it beside the glamorous (and creepy) Electra Hart, Stitch smiled feebly, trying his hardest to look at least a little relaxed, and so he joked with his name to Electra and they made fun of each other.

After being escorted to the deep center of the Justice Building, Stitch calmly waited on the velvet couch, drumming his slender fingers on his thigh. He could have sworn that his heart was going to pound out of his chest. Stitch tried to breathe in deeply and relax himself, but he was scared and nervous to see his mother and friend before he died. Would he tell his mother, or only Connor? The prospect of telling the two of them scared him half to death.

Halfway there, he dismally thought to himself. Just then the door to his room opened, and his tired looking mom stepped in, tears running down her splotchy cheeks. Her short hair looked ruffled, and she smiled sadly when she grabbed him for a big hug.

And that was when Stitch lost it. He began to sob into his mother's strong, comforting shoulder. He had always been a 'Mama's boy', but he didn't really mind. He had lost his father when he was six, to lung cancer from the factory conditions, and hadn't had the chance to really know his dad. His connection with his mother was stronger than anything. Except maybe steel fiber, which his father had made in the factory.

His mother cried softly too, smoothing her son's short hair back. "Shh," she cooed, "shh, son." They rocked in an embrace like that, not saying anything really, because what was there to say when your son was destined to die? She couldn't have told him it would be okay, because it would most certainly not end up being okay, and they both knew that.

"I love you, Mommy," Stitch whispered into her. He hadn't called her that in years. She smiled sadly, tears escaping her dull blue eyes.

"I love you too, baby," she whispered back to him. Stitch wished for the moment to never end, but all good things must come to an end, and she was pulled away from him.

He stood motionless as his mother, the woman who had raised him, who had worked her finger to the very bone to keep him alive and happy, was being dragged away, helpless and scared and worried. Stitch tried to bite back the oncoming tears, but they were already there once, so they pushed by again, leaving him sobbing into his hands, standing there in the middle of the ridiculously polished and clean room. He sniffled and coughed on tears before he felt another pair of arms around him.

Connor.

Stitch wrapped his arms around his skinny friend. After a moment, Connor pulled away, tears in his own muddy green eyes. Stitch wiped his face off with the already-dirty sleeve of his nice shirt.

"Man, you're mom's gonna kill you for that mess of a shirt," Connor said, trying to kid around with Stitch. But both of them heard the quiver in his voice, both saw the way Connor looked down at his freckled hands as he said it.

"She didn't notice," Stitch mumbled to his hands the Connor did.

Connor stuffed his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. "So. Those bullies are definitely feel like assholes if they didn't before." Stitch laughed meekly, still nervous and debating about whether or not he was actually going to tell Connor his secret. They probably had less than a few minutes, so he would have to do it any second.

"Connor, I've been thinking, and since I'm gonna die and all, I thought I'd tell you now so I didn't have any last-minute regrets before I died." Stitch blurted it all out, a blush creeping up his neck to his hollow cheeks.

Connor looked at him suspiciously, wondering what his friend was planning on saying. He thought about making another joke, but thought better of it: Stitch looked like he was serious.

"Connor, you're my best friend and we've been friends forever now, but I think I like you more than that." The words spilled from his mouth, leaving a sour, ugly taste in his mouth. Regret washed over him when Connor didn't react at all. Why the hell did I tell him? Stitch asked himself, tears welling back into his eyes.

And as Stitch had predicted, Connor reacted negatively. "Whoa, man, I know we're friends, but I don't feel that way. That's…" Connor paused, searching for a word. "Weird. It's unnatural." He shook his head and backed away from Stitch. "Dude…" And without anything else, Connor Thread turned his back and left his best friend standing in the middle of a dusty room in a dusty district with nothing else to live for.

….

Katleen Nami had no one visit her. At least, no one who cared for her. Boys she didn't remember filed into the room, hugging her and telling her she could win. Katie stood stiffly, growing more and more hollow with each person. She could feel herself drifting away, care and love and hate all leaving her. She wasn't anything.

District Nine Reaping:

~~Jakke Tal's Point of View~~

"May the odds be ever in his favor."

Jakke couldn't quite think when his name was plucked from the glass bowl behind the hideous escort of District Nine. He stopped breathing, his head was spinning, and his heartbeat sped up much more than it should have. He was scared to death. He was going to die.

And when the people began to push and shove him toward the impromptu stage, he broke down into tears, great heaves of sobs that racked his tiny body. Some people around him sighed, whispering about how sorry they were, but really, most were just extremely glad that they hadn't been chosen. The Reaping was nearly over, and people wanted to get home to throw parties or do whatever it was they did when their child lived for another year.

But Jakke would never get to experience one of those parties. He was twelve, and it was his very first Reaping. So it wasn't possible that he could have escaped death in that way. He wasn't going to escape death.

Up until a year ago, he had thought that the Hunger Games were just a party where you could win food and money. He had thought that you could win happiness if you won the Games. But on his twelfth birthday, his parents had finally sat him down to talk about the reality of the Hunger Games. They told him that twenty-four girls and boys were shipped off to a big, scary district where they were prepared, poorly, but nonetheless prepared, to fight in a big game. And only one person could win the game, one person could come home to their families. Everyone else died, they explained ever so gently. And Jakke, being the gentle soul he was, cried his heart out for days, thinking of all the children who had died.

His parents decided that he was too soft for their world, so they tried to shield the best they could, but their efforts could only do so much for young Jakke as he approached the stage in the District Square. The scary lady next to Jakke asked for volunteers, just like she did for the pretty blonde girl on stage, and as expected, no one made a single noise. People stood still, but were very anxious to get home to their children and parents and to be away from the death. A loud, single sob escaped from the dam of silence, and then it rocketed up into more sobs until the Peacekeepers had to drag the woman away from the audience. People stared back in solemn silence, feeling sorry, but not sorry enough to stop the contact of club on skin, not sorry enough to stop the wailing and screaming, and not sorry enough to say anything to the brutal Peacekeepers as they dragged the woman's limp body away.

District Nine had been a rather strict and swift district to its citizens. The district would do what it could in order to get what needed to be done, and they didn't care how they did it. So if it meant beating an innocent woman into submission, so be it. They were getting the Reaping on with, and that was the matter at hand, not some grievous, unreasonable woman.

"Ladies and gents, I give you the tributes from District Eight, of the Thirty-Second Annual Hunger Games, Jakke Tal and Jordan Faith!" The escort, Sprinkle Stint, grabbed the children's hands into her own fat ones, and raised them into the darkening sky. Nobody cheered, instead they turned away immediately and filed away from the pen in the District Square.

"So much for an after-party," the girl, Jordan, muttered as they were escorted into the Justice Building. Jakke smiled a little, but he couldn't be consoled. He was going to die, and he knew it.

They were herded to their individual rooms, and once he got into his own room, Jakke plopped down onto the couch and cried. He was dead. He knew it. There was no doubt in his or anybody's mind about it, either.

~~Jordan Faith's Point of View~~

As she calmly sat down on the soft sofa, Jordan wondered how an average morning fighting with Lorena could end up with her possible execution. Nothing had seemed off with fate to her. Everything was fine, at least, when she had woken up everything was fine. Now, nothing was as it should have been.

Jordan smoothed out the wrinkles in her flannel shirt with shaking hands. She had been resisting the urge to break down since her name had been called in that squeaking microphone by that screeching woman. But she had looked out, and seen Ed's beautiful face there, and gained enough courage to continue the long walk to the deadly stage. On the way there, she had wondered what would happen if she just didn't go up on stage, since they couldn't hurt or kill her before the Games, since that would defeat the whole purpose. But she wasn't brave enough to find out, so she went up obediently, and that was how she ended up on the plush sofa of the Justice Building.

She closed her eyes and tried to relax. Was it a possibility, winning, surviving? Could she do it? She doubted herself, she doubted it all, but she had to give in to indulging thought that anything could happen, that there was a possibility.

She was thinking these things when her family came in, tears running down their faces. Her mother came in, her gray-blond hair looking limp and wet. Her father followed close behind, his hand closed around Lorena's small one. They all looked wet; it must have been raining on them as they waited to be allowed to see her.

Jordan stood up and went one by one down the line of her family, hugging each one, trying her hardest not to cry, but failing once she got to Lorena, her eight year old arms wrapped around her big sister's body.

"Jordie, promise you'll come back to us?" Lorena whispered into her big sister's long golden hair. Jordan felt tears prick behind her eyes, and then she was crying to her sister. "Please? I love you!"

"I love you, too, Lori. I'll try my hardest to come back," she said, lifting Lorena up into her arms. At eight, Lorena should have been too big to be lifted up, but she was very small for her age, for the district even, and it wasn't from malnourishment. She was just very small, like her short older sister.

"I don't want you to leave us," Lorena said, tears wetting Jordan's shoulder.

"I don't want to either, baby, but I have to go," Jordan replied honestly.

She set Lorena back down and turned to her parents. All of them were crying at that point.

"Mom," Jordan started, "Dad, I love you guys both so, so much. Thank you so much, for everything."

Her father's clear blue eyes were hard and angry. "No. Don't act like that, don't act like you're not coming back, Jordan Faith. This isn't a damned final goodbye. You are coming home, young lady."

Jordan laughed weakly. She stepped forward and hugged her father, whispering, "I wish it was that easy, Daddy. I really do, but it can't be. The odds aren't in my favor."

"My baby girl," he whispered as they hugged. It had finally collapsed on him: his eldest daughter was going to die. "Oh my God…"

"I know, Daddy. I'm so sorry," Jordan choked out, tears leaking.

"It's not your fault, darling," he said back, stroking her hair. "I love you, so much. I wish I could have protected you more. I really do."

"I know."

And before she could say goodbye to her mother, the Peacekeepers were pulling her family from the room, tears and loving words in their wake.

She was sitting down when Eddie came into her room, and they immediately joined in an embrace. She cried quietly into his strong shoulder, and he whispered kind things to her.

Ed and Jordan weren't dating, they were just great friends. At least, that's what they told themselves. People around them always commented, "You two are just the cutest." And Ed and Jordan would just laugh and deny the fact they were 'going out', but each wondered silently what it would be like.

"I can't return," she told him. The truth stung like a needle to a finger, but it was true. "I can't come back home, Eddie."

And he didn't lie. "I know, J. I know, and I wish so much that you could make it back here. I just want to know that you fought before you went. Can promise me you'll try?"

She nodded into him, needing no words. They stood silently, hugging.

"Jordan, I think you should know that I really like you," Ed told her quietly.

"Isn't that required when being friends with someone? A mutual liking?" Jordan responded, smiling just slightly.

"Well, yeah, but I really like you. Like, I want to be the father of your children," Ed said with a lazy grin on his wary face.

Jordan opened her eyes wide. "No, no you don't."

He laughed, replied, "Yes, I do, and you haven't any right to tell me what I do and don't."

"Oh, yeah? And what is it exactly you want to do?" she asked, hands on hips.

"This."

…

Jakke's father came to see him off before he left. He told Jakke that the scream was from his mother, Hazel, and that she was at home recovering from the beating. Jakke was so worried about her upon hearing about her condition.

His father was fairly brief, and gave him a final hug before leaving without the push of a Peacekeeper.

Jakke burst into tears the second his father left him. His mother might die, and he might, too. Everything was awful for him.

A/N: Hello, folks! I am alive, it's true. I must admit, I was fairly done with this story when I posted the rather dismal chapter a few months back, and I feel bad for letting writer's block get that bad. But now, clearly, I have regained my thirst for writing, and I am going to try writing this story whenever possible, same as for my other ones!

Thank you all for reviewing the last chapter and giving me so much support and love about this story, it really means so much.

And special thanks for vampirevampirevampire, who reminded me that this story needs some TLC. Thanks for the support!

I will try to continue with the sponsorship stuff, but the trivia was getting a bit overwhelming, so I am going to stop trivia until the arena, and only do points for reviews. So review and save a life!

Also, as you may know, many a people have given up on this story, so if you want to adopt a tribute, so to speak, PM me and ask about a certain person! Chances are, they've been abandoned. If you are reading this, and plan on taking someone in, thank you. Readers are awesome.

Thank you all so much, again. I love you, and will try to update ASAP!