Power to the People: The Thirty-ninth Hunger Games

Chapter 6

Byke Sainz POV

Reaping Day was just like any other day for me. I didn't have to worry about things like that. I never volunteered because I didn't feel like it, but I knew I'd win if I did. I was trying to get a last bit of sleep when my father burst into the room.

"Byke! Time to get up," he said. I rolled over against the wall and groaned.

"I got it! Ugh," I said. They were always on my back. I got out of bed- because I was ready, not because they told me to- and threw on some clothes. My mother tried to hug me as I went out the door, and I squirmed away.

"Mom! I'll be right back," I said. She and Dad huddled together in th kitchen like there was something to be afraid of. They don't know what I'm capable of.

I kept an eye out for Arun on the way to the Reaping Center, and I found him as I was getting my finger pricked. I glared at the assistant when she shoved the needle in, then stood next to my friend. He was the only one who ever hung out with me. The others were too stupid to keep up with me, and they weren't worth my time.

The whole Reaping was a waste of time, but Otho was the worst part. Every year he got older, but he refused to acknowledge it. He wore the same tight pants and frilly shirts he'd worn in the replays I'd seen of Games ten years ago. He was a strutting fop and I counted the seconds until he was gone. This year he started with the ladies. I smirked when he called Ree's name. Everyone knew her. She was the mayor's ungrateful adopted daughter. She spent her time either moping around or pretending to angelically help the poor. Her Reaping caused wonderful chaos, too. She screamed and cried, and her mother fainted on the sidelines. It made me want to laugh. But that all changed when Otho read the next name.

"Byke Sainz!"

I plastered a tough-guy look on my face and stomped onto the stage, pointing out Ree to the audience as if to say Look at this baby. I'm not like her. Inside, I felt just like her. That sort of thing wasn't supposed to happen to me. I was special.

My parents made a terrible fuss backstage. They cried and wailed and carried on something horrible. They wouldn't even leave until the Peacekeepers dragged me away, and Mom had to toss my token, a necklace she'd been planning to sell, from the doorway. I could have told them I was going to win. The more I shivered and trembled, the more I repeated it to myself.

Ree Morning POV

There's too much pain in Six. Not really for me- my life was easy after the mayor took me in. Most of our trouble came from a commodity that wasn't even ours. We didn't make morphling. It just came through our railroads and inside of our transportation. It seeped into our homes and families and tore them apart, like it did to mine. I would rather die of pain than use it.

A pricked finger barely hurt at all. It would hurt worse to see who they would pick to die. I never expected it to be me. I was only thirteen, and far too rich to need tesserae. When I heard my name, I thought I must have imagined it. I only knew it was real when the Peacekeepers took my arms and pulled me onstage. Everything around me seemed surreal, from my mother on the ground to my father screaming in the face of the Peacekeeper posted at the edge of the Reaping Center. My eyes fell onto the boys' section, and I finally saw something that moved me.

"Peyton!" I screamed. He'd been gone for two years, ever since the social workers moved us into separate group homes. I'd begged my adopted parents to take him, too, but they never listened. My joy at seeing him was shattered when I noticed he was standing in the delinquent section. That's why I'd never been able to find him. He'd been in juvenile prison.

I clawed at the Peacekeepers holding me and strained to run to him. They weighed me down like chains and didn't let go until they'd thrown me backstage into a room in the Justice Hall. I hoped to see him when the door opened, but my parents came in alone. My mother was wailing and screeching horrible noises as she grabbed at me, and my father shoved the Peacekeeper guarding me back a step.

"This is unacceptable. I want this fixed immediately," he said. The Peacekeeper didn't even flinch.

"No special treatment," he said. My father kept arguing, but I could barely hear over my mother's wails.

"Why didn't you tell me about Peyton?" I demanded.

"Worry about more important things! You're going to die!" my mother said. My lip trembled and I started to cry.

"That's enough. Out," the Peackeeper said. He signaled for help and two more of them came and they all dragged my parents out. My mother screamed the whole way and reached out her arms for me.

After that, seeing Kylo couldn't be any harder. He stumbled over his words, like he didn't know what to say first. I knew what he was aiming at, and I stopped him before he got there.

"I know what you're going to say. Maybe if things were different. But they're not. Let's just be together as friends- no awkwardness. I don't want to remember you as stuttering, after all." I didn't trust myself to speak more after that. I cracked a sad smile and Kylo followed suit. He slipped a bracelet onto my wrist. It was a simple, gray circlet of woven steel. Wherever I went, it would remind me of him.

Later, the Peacekeeper handed me a diamond pin, saying it was from my mother. It was a beautiful token, but I knew what I'd be wearing in the Capitol. I wanted to be the best I could be, apart from anything my parents had achieved. Their diamonds couldn't save me. I was on my own.

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I added Apollo Wilson to One Shot at Victory. Suffice to say it's a most gratifying chapter.

PrinceofCorinth still needs a few Tributes for "Nobody's Gotta Know: Hungers Games XII SYOT". Since I have skin in the Game (Two Tributes) I want them to get filled so I can read more.