Chapter 2 : The Volunteer
The square was filling up when I arrived. Rope barriers divided the space into sections—boys on one side, girls on the other, families crowded behind barriers at the edges. Peacekeepers stood at every corner with rifles held at rest, their white uniforms pristine against the coal-gray backdrop of District 12.
I joined the line of boys waiting to check in. A bored-looking woman pricked my finger, pressed it to a scanner, and waved me through without a second glance. The blood sample joined thousands of others in the Capitol's database, confirming Nolan James was present and eligible for slaughter.
My Blind Spot sense buzzed like a hive of wasps. Too many eyes, too many directions. Cameras mounted on poles. Peacekeepers scanning the crowd. Hundreds of faces all looking toward the stage. The sense overloaded, giving me nothing useful except the knowledge that I was visible from every angle. No safe spots here. Not today.
I found a place in the sixteen-to-eighteen section and waited.
The stage dominated the north end of the square. Wooden platform, draped in Capitol banners. Two large glass bowls flanked a podium—one filled with girls' names, one with boys'. A row of chairs held the district's collection of leaders: Mayor Undersee looking gray and tired, Effie Trinket adjusting a pink wig that could blind someone in direct sunlight, and Haymitch Abernathy.
The mentor. The only living victor from District 12.
He slumped in his chair like a puppet with cut strings. Even from this distance, I could see the glaze in his eyes, the careful way he held himself upright. Drunk. Probably since before dawn. The Capitol considered him a joke. A cautionary tale about the hollow victory of surviving. I knew better. Behind that drunk act lived a mind sharp enough to win the second Quarter Quell, where forty-eight tributes had entered and he'd walked out alone.
Effie Trinket approached the microphone. Her voice cut through the restless murmur of the crowd.
"Welcome, welcome!" She beamed like this was a birthday party rather than a selection for execution. "Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor!"
She launched into the standard propaganda: the Treaty of Treason, the Dark Days, the magnanimous Capitol that generously allowed the districts to atone for their rebellion by sacrificing their children. Her accent grated like nails on glass. Everything about her screamed Capitol—the absurd fashion, the painted face, the complete disconnection from the reality that two teenagers from this crowd would die screaming for entertainment.
My jaw ached. I forced myself to unclench it.
"Ladies first!"
Effie's hand dove into the girls' bowl. The square went silent. Two thousand people held their breath while a woman in a pink wig shuffled paper slips like she was drawing lottery numbers.
She pulled a name.
"Primrose Everdeen!"
Somewhere in the crowd, a small blonde girl froze. Twelve years old. First year eligible. The odds had not been in her favor.
Primrose—Prim—began walking toward the stage. Her steps were mechanical, her face white as chalk. Behind me, in the spectator section, I heard a woman wail.
Then another voice cut through the silence.
"I volunteer! I volunteer as tribute!"
Katniss Everdeen pushed through the crowd. Dark braid, gray eyes, the same sharp features I remembered from—
From a story. From another life. She'd been fictional then. She was real now, shoving her way toward the stage with the kind of desperate determination that didn't care about rules or decorum.
"I volunteer as tribute," she said again, voice cracking.
Prim grabbed her arm, screaming. A boy from the crowd—Gale, my borrowed memories supplied—came forward and physically carried Prim back toward the spectator area. Katniss climbed the stage stairs alone, her face carved from stone even as her hands trembled at her sides.
Effie was delighted. "What's your name, dear?"
"Katniss Everdeen."
"I bet my buttons that was your sister! Don't want her to steal all the glory, do we?" Effie laughed at her own joke. No one else did. "Let's have a round of applause for our newest tribute!"
Silence. Then, slowly, the crowd raised their hands to their lips and extended them toward Katniss. Three fingers pressed together. The District 12 salute. Respect. Goodbye. I love you.
Katniss stood alone on that stage, sixteen years old, and the entire district told her they knew she was going to die.
"Wonderful!" Effie's smile never wavered. "And now for the boys!"
Her hand reached into the second bowl. The buzzing in my head intensified. Every camera pointed at that glass bowl. Every eye tracked Effie's manicured fingers as they closed around a slip of paper.
This was the moment.
In the story I knew, Effie would read Peeta Mellark's name. The baker's son would climb that stage, and the star-crossed lovers narrative would begin. But I wasn't Peeta. I didn't know him, didn't owe him anything. If his name was called, he'd go to the Games alone with Katniss while I stayed here, safe, forgotten.
Safe. Forgotten. Alive.
Just like my first life.
Effie's lips parted. She drew breath to read the name.
"I volunteer as tribute!"
The words left my mouth before conscious thought caught up. They echoed across the silent square, and suddenly every eye—every camera, every Peacekeeper rifle scope—swung toward me.
The Blind Spot sense screamed. Complete exposure. Nowhere to hide.
I didn't hide.
I stepped out of the crowd and walked toward the stage. My legs felt distant, disconnected, but they carried me forward. Boys on either side stared. Some I vaguely recognized from the borrowed memories. None of them spoke.
Effie's hand still held the slip of paper, unread. Her mouth hung open in a perfect O of surprise.
"Oh my!" She recovered quickly, professional to her painted fingernails. "A volunteer! How exciting! Come up here, young man!"
I climbed the stairs. The stage felt enormous beneath my feet. Katniss stood three feet away, staring at me with naked confusion. She'd never seen me before. Didn't know my name. Had no idea why a stranger had just volunteered to die beside her.
Haymitch Abernathy had straightened in his chair. His eyes—bloodshot, watery, but suddenly focused—tracked my every movement.
"What's your name?" Effie asked.
"Nolan James."
"Well, Nolan! That's quite the entrance! District 12 hasn't had a male volunteer in—" She paused, consulting some internal database. "—ever, actually! This is historic!"
I didn't respond. The crowd below remained silent, processing. Two volunteers from District 12. This had never happened. The Reaping was supposed to be random cruelty, not something people walked into willingly.
"Shake hands, tributes!"
Katniss offered her hand mechanically. I took it. Her grip was strong, her palm calloused from years of hunting. Her gray eyes searched my face for answers I couldn't give.
"May the odds be ever in your favor!" Effie chirped.
Peacekeepers stepped forward to escort us into the Justice Building. I caught one last glimpse of the crowd—Prim crying in her mother's arms, Gale staring at Katniss with something like heartbreak, thousands of gray-faced district residents watching two strangers walk toward their deaths.
The doors closed behind us.
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