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    JUPITER MARROW had no one she wanted to say goodbye to. When she had volunteered for the 68th games, she had spoken to her mother, Brutus himself as her teacher, and some excited classmates. She remembered she had wanted to speak to her father– he would have said something incredibly reassuring before she was sent in.

    But this time, seven years on, she found there was nothing she wanted to say, even if she had been given the option to.

    Jupiter's eyes were watery as she finally managed to form words, shoving Brutus off her as they boarded the train. Aurelia was waiting onboard for them, getting to her feet from the extravagant table, lips pursed. She looked flustered by the rush to the train, but Jupiter didn't care.

    "What happened?" Jupiter demanded, taking a step back from Brutus as the doors closed. "You two were supposed to volunteer."

    "Clearly Enobaria had other plans," Brutus said simply, and rather uncompassionately.

    Jupiter could feel herself slipping, but also felt she was entitled to a little bit of mania. "You're on the Council, you would know," she said firmly, lips pulled back.

    "Well, I don't know, kid!" Brutus exclaimed, unfazed by her reaction.

    "Calm, please, calm," Aurelia said serenely.

    The train had rattled to a start now, as District 2 and the mountains began to shrink behind them, the landscape blurring past as they left it behind. Jupiter found it was maybe the one thing in District 2 she would have liked to see again as it was torn from her.

    "Calm?" Jupiter snapped, turning her golden gaze to Aurelia in frustration. "This wasn't supposed to happen. I was the last person anyone wanted back in the arena. But here I am. How the fuck do you expect me to stay calm?"

    "Kid," Brutus said firmly.

    Aurelia looked perplexed at being talked to the way she just had, and Jupiter let out a noise of frustration and pulled away. "Call me for dinner," she called over her shoulder, retreating to the room set aside for her on the train.

    Thankfully, Brutus didn't follow her as she feared he might, and she was left alone to her thoughts, staring out the window as the scenery flew by them. She could no longer see the mountains for District 2, and it felt like the final nail in her coffin. She carried nothing from her house, only the shirt she wore for the Reaping. She had very little that belonged to her in that house.

    Jupiter wondered how Mars would react. It was hard to decide if he would be angry she was getting the attention again, or if he would be glad because he felt she deserved it. She realised she might never know. She had survived a Hunger Games before– she had made the decision to survive rather than play the game, and it had cost her everything.

    She did not know if she would be capable of that again. And this time, it would not be other teenagers with different levels of experience. If anything, she knew by odds she'd be one of the youngest in the arena. That night, they would play the recap of the Reaping, and Jupiter would get a look at her opponents. They would be people she had known over the years, people who had been warped by the Games just like she had.

    But they would also be people capable of surviving.

    Somewhere she could hear the announcement that she had won the 68th Annual Hunger Games. She could still remember the feeling of blood on her hands. She had not felt that in years. She could hold a knife still, but she did not know if she would be able to use it. Would Jupiter die in that arena this time? Probably. She would have to kill to live again, and she had spent years trying to separate herself from that year.

    To volunteer is to die.

    Except Jupiter did not volunteer. She had left it all behind to try and find peace and warmth where she could. This wasn't supposed to happen, she kept repeating to herself, as if that would make it untrue and she could go back to the cold house and the lonely monotony. Things would calm down, and soon she could visit Finnick by the waves and everything would be normal.

    After a few hours of running herself in circles, leaving her with crescents carved into her palms and her eyes darker than usual, someone knocked on her door. With a sniff, Jupiter got off the bed and opened the door, face softening as she saw it was Brutus.

    "Come on, kid," he sighed.

    Jupiter just frowned, gaze low, as she followed her former mentor back towards the main carriage where dinner had been set up. She usually enjoyed the feasts the Capitol prepared for them before any sort of event, but that year she found she had no appetite, just a void in her stomach that was eating away at everything.

    "I'm sorry for snapping, Aurelia," Jupiter said tightly, because she knew being at odds with her escort was not what she needed at the moment.

    Aurelia looked smug at the apology, which made Jupiter's stomach knot. "Well, thank you."

    She swallowed thickly, twisting a bunch of noodles around her fork. Brutus sat across from her– the table was too large for only three people. If they were joined by two more people, it might have felt like a normal year, Jupiter and Brutus getting to know the two teenage tributes for that year, Aurelia chiming in occasionally.

    Jupiter wished it was a normal year.

    "We should watch the recap of the Reaping," Aurelia suggested, sounding far too excited at finding out who else had been doomed to their fate. Jupiter said nothing, as Brutus agreed, using a napkin at the corner of his lips.

    Jupiter wished she could squeeze her eyes shut and be anywhere else in that moment, as the screen played the Capitol theme and then began the presentation of the Districts, in order from 1 through 12. She watched it every year, trying to help the tributes she was mentoring figure out the other Districts before they had even met them. But this year, Jupiter would know each person that was called to that stage.

    "It'll be good to see those two," Brutus commented through a mouthful. Jupiter was watching out of the corner of her eye, gripping her fork tightly to stop her hand from shaking. Gloss and Cashmere, twins from District 1, holding hands before the cameras, with proud looks on their faces.

    The next recording was of their own District. Jupiter watched as she was called, and found the silence between the end of Marrow and the moment she stepped forward to be far too long. She could see the confusion on her own face, as she leaned forward and looked down the line at Enobaria, who was stone-faced and unreadable.

    Brutus looked back to her, meeting her gaze. "It wasn't a Council decision," he told her firmly.

    Jupiter only nodded. "So Enobaria is that spiteful?"

    "Seems that way," Brutus said simply.

    Jupiter shouldn't have been surprised, but she was. She had spent years being told, especially by Enobaria, that she was a disgrace for the District, and her glory was false. It made no sense for her to be sent back in, even as a punishment. Jupiter had a feeling she may never know what had collapsed in the system they had in place. She wasn't even sure if it mattered.

    It was simply another nail in the coffin of change that had been rotting since the 74th Hunger Games.

    District 3 found Wiress and Beetee being put on stage. Jupiter briefly knew them, she briefly knew every Victor, but only a few she'd consider friends. But she knew as District 4 came on screen that friendship would not matter. She could only watch, helplessly, as Finnick's name was called and he mounted that stage.

    Jupiter felt as if someone had punched her in the stomach. Brutus said something about being glad they had him on their side, Career pack and all that, but Jupiter had stopped listening, looking at Finnick's grinning face on the screen.

    It was harder to tell over a recording, but she still felt she could read him and how much he was hurt. She wondered if he was watching the same recap now, watching her name called up and helpless to do anything but meet her there. Maybe, at least this way, she could get in a goodbye to one person she cared about.

    "You must be glad," Brutus commented, as the screen had an extended shot of Finnick waving and smiling at the cameras. "I know you two are close– could make a good team."

    Jupiter wasn't sure how to put into words that the last thing she wanted was to reunite with Finnick in the arena.

    Brutus and Aurelia seemed oblivious to her sore mood as the recap continued. As the only female Victor of District 7, Johanna Mason was Reaped, and from District 10, Fawn. Jupiter hadn't seen her in a while, and wished it would be under better circumstances, as the small woman practically glared down the camera, not hiding her feelings at how she felt about being brought back. The further away it got from the Career Districts, the less pleased the tributes were.

    Some were double Jupiter's age, they had families and had settled down as best they could. Like her, they had managed to make their own version of normal around the bloodstains and horrid nightmares. She imagined her father, around Brutus' age, being called back for slaughter. Not that it mattered– he had already taken his own way out.

    Jupiter found that as the recap closed off, and the commentary of the presenters began, she was struggling to imagine only one of them making it out. At her first games, she had known what she must do. She had known better than anyone, it was why she returned a pariah rather than a true Victor. But this was not as simple to detach from.

    "It's a good crop," Brutus commented once it was over. He had cleaned his plate, while Jupiter had barely managed half of hers, still deep in thought. "Will be a good Games, I think."

    "The Capitol will have a great time placing bets," Jupiter agreed bitterly, crossing her arms over her chest.

    "You should eat, kid, get your strength in," Brutus told her, noticing her plate.

    "Not hungry," Jupiter responded.

    Brutus sighed. "I know it's unexpected, but we just have to adapt and survive."

    Jupiter narrowed her eyes at the Academy line. "I know that," she responded coolly. "And you know only one of us is making it out."

    "It's not that different from a normal Games," Brutus responded passively. "We just have to be more prepared." Jupiter nodded. "I know this isn't what you want, kid, but I need you out there. I need the Victor I sent in the first time."

    "What? The disgrace?" Jupiter asked pointedly.

    "You're still here, aren't you?" Brutus bit back. Jupiter frowned. "Doing what you needed to do is what makes you a Victor."

    "And if I killed you?" Jupiter asked quietly.

    Brutus looked at her evenly from across the table. "I'd expect you to," he said after a moment. "Because if you didn't do it first, then I would have to kill you."

    For a moment in that carriage, landscapes blurring past them in the dark, Jupiter looked across the table and she was back in that house. She was looking at Mars, who she swore would kill her if he had the chance, because that is what they were trained to do. She was not looking across at a man who had celebrated her return, and been glad she survived.

    She was looking at a man raised in gore, who celebrated her brutality and wanted a weapon on his side. He seemed unaffected by going back, that there was a one in twenty-four chance that he would die, that he would be forced to kill the girl he had helped foster over the years. He wanted to talk strategy and options, go over their allies and competition, instead of thinking about what the Quell meant.

    It didn't seem to matter to him that he was enrolled to die– that everything was changing around them, that the rules had bent and they were going back in. All that mattered was the violence and how they were going to win.

    Jupiter had never won in the first place, and she truthfully wondered if anybody ever did, as she leaned back in her seat, accepting the fate that awaited her.

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lol suprise

 i wish i had a more interesting chapter to come back with, but here's this short relationship builder

next chapter we get to the capitol and see finnick! fun things are coming (was gonna say good but nothing that happens in this series is good)

please engage if you enjoyed this chapter! it really does motivate me to keep writing