𝐆𝐋𝐎𝐑𝐘 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐆𝐎𝐑𝐄 ▸ HUNGER GAMES [ 1 ]

TWO

TWO -

District 2's Academy opened long before I was born, perhaps before my parents were, even.

The cavernous institute built to instruct 2's best teenagers in the art of killing has become somewhat of a trademark of the District. Though technically illegal by early Hunger Games standards, the Capitol have over the years, elected to ignore the obvious training the kids of the lower Districts receive before the Games.

Once in the arena, Academy students like me are known as Careers. Young boys and girls with a flair for death.

Most of the merchants avoid sending their sons and daughters to train, as it poses a small risk that there will be nobody to eventually take over the businesses. But the stonecrafters' kids, who make up the bulk of the District's youth, and those from the rare families who have begun to provide the Capitol with Peacekeepers, like mine, tend to get signed up by their parents at an early age.

Not only does it make them stronger and more capable of dealing with physical strain, useful for when they will go to work harvesting stone from the mountains or loading trains on course for rest of Panem, but it helps with discipline too. For that reason, it puts the kids more at an advantage for later life, even if they will never actually use the skills acquired in an arena.

But then there are families like Cato Hadley's. Victors families.

There are only a couple of them left in District 2 now, but the Hadley's are by far the most infamous. Darius and Elena Hadley won consecutive Hunger Games during their teenage years, and later married to produce what they hoped to be a winning line.

They train from birth to hunt and kill, to build strength and stamina to a level far surpassing any ordinary Career and are forced to volunteer once they reach seventeen. For them, there is no greater honour. With four former Victors sharing the name, the Hadleys are the most successful family in the history of the Hunger Games.

And the boy standing in front of me is next in line to the throne.

"Squeezing in some last minute training before the Reaping tomorrow, are we?" Hadley smirks, and I want to punch the smug look straight of his perfect face.

Sometimes I wish he were ugly, but then I wouldn't have anything to stare at, to pass by math class. Not that he has ever noticed, and not that I wouldn't hesitate to turn one of my knives on myself if he had.

"I could ask you the same, Hadley." I spin my blade around my hand in an attempt to look bored. After years of friendly rivalry, the nonchalance at his sudden appearance is easy to feign, but my mind is racing. There is no way I am planning to volunteer myself tomorrow. I have at least a year left before Xavier would even let me consider stepping up to the podium.

But Hadley is only a few months away from his eighteenth birthday, and as the last eligible member of the family glory hunter cult, his father must be itching to send him off to war. I'm not trying to catch a last minute training session, but maybe Cato Hadley is doing just that.

If that is his plan of action, it doesn't show. The golden boy just shrugs and swings his blade in hand, chuckling lightly to himself. "I was kidding about the Reaping, but it's almost pack up. What are you doing here so late?" He stares down at me quizzically, something which is not hard considering the height difference bordering on a foot, between us. It is times like these when I despise being short.