Seventy-two [Hunger Games fanfiction]

In District four, the sea is both home and prison. Caelis is eighteen, with salt in her veins and exhaustion in her bones. Years ago, a storm took her father and her little sister. Since then, she's lived only to survive: fishing, selling what she can... and selling her body. She does it to feed a broken mother who not only allows it, she demands it. No one protects Caelis. No one dares.
In Districts one, two and four, children are trained from a young age for the Hunger Games. Volunteering is a badge of honor. But Caelis has always avoided the arena. The Games are the least of her fears. Until the Reaping comes. And the thought of death starts to feel like peace.
Marius Tideborn, the boy who has used and abused her for years, should volunteer. But he doesn't. So Caelis does. Not to win. To die.
On the train to the Capitol, alongside arrogant Kai Rivendel, Caelis finds unexpected comfort in her mentors: Finnick Odair and Annie Cresta. No one knows her plan, to step into the arena and let it end there.
But everything changes when she meets Jasper Flint, the male tribute from District one. Trained, ruthless, wealthy. He volunteered, as expected. But something went wrong: the girl who was meant to volunteer with him backed out. His little sister, Ruby, fourteen years old, was reaped instead.
Jasper quickly realizes Caelis doesn't intend to fight. He makes her a deal: if she protects his sister in the arena, Ruby will use their wealth to save Caelis's mother from poverty.
Caelis agrees. Not to live, but to make her death mean something.
As the arena looms, among enemies, whispered secrets, and glances that cut deeper than blades, Caelis will discover that some bonds run deeper than hate... and even those who long for death may still find something, or someone, worth staying alive for.

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© This is a fanfiction based on the Hunger Games universe created by Suzanne Collins. The setting and any canon characters belong to Suzanne Coll