Chapter Text
Kailey Richardson died on a Friday.
Peacekeepers reports showed that she was cornered on her way home in the afternoon, and that it was a quick death. Some said that the fourteen-year-old had gotten into drugs and was buying from the wrong gang, others claimed that it was a medical problem and that those boys were just unfortunate enough to be there when she died. Others, mostly students attending District Five's local private middle school, claimed that Tracy Sulzbach was the culprit.
"I heard that Tracy made a deal with the gang member because she got tired of Kailey following her around all day," some whispered in the hallways, and the words passed on from one mouth to another. "Which I can't comprehend because I would love to have Kailey Richardson following me around all day."
"I heard that Tracy placed poison in Kailey's food and that was how she died." Others were more bold, talking without a care in the world. "They were seen together earlier that day, so it isn't a long shot."
"But that wouldn't explain the stab wound."
"I guess not."
There was also a singular vocal individual, a grade younger than his deceased sister, Lance Richardson who doesn't hesitate to badmouth Tracy Sulzbach to whoever stopped long enough to listen. "I heard that she is actually a devil's reincarnation, and that she stashed her horns and wings in the abandoned parts of district five. Why else would she be visiting the old railroad so much?"
A decent amount of students latched on to that idea.
Even with all the rumor, the girl was dismissed as a suspect due to a high-level security camera installed at her front door, courtesy of a paranoid older brother: Kelvin Sulzbach.
Police followed the girl for a while, and she was always alone as she walked the streets, and the gang members claimed that they do not know the girl, and so Tracy Sulzbach was dropped as a suspect and Mrs. and Mr. Sulzbach got the right to return to their high paying engineering job.
The whole rumor was mostly dropped months later, and the gangs were arrested and serving thirty-two years in prison. The whispering doesn't stop though, and the loudest vocalist of the whole situation, Lance Richardson, followed Tracy Sulzbach around with a microphone and a camera until Mrs. and Mr. Sulzbach got fed up enough to get a restraining order for their daughter, but that didn't stop the glares.
A few more months passed before the whole thing died down, and the memories of Kailey Richardson became old news.
Tracy Sulzbach doesn't have friends, and that wasn't for a lack of trying.
Even before the whole Kailey Richardson fiasco, she had been stuck in a weird limbo between friendless and having acquaintances. Kailey had thought that she was funny, and often they explored the streets of district five together when the house got suffocating and her family's achievements overshadowed any contribution to the family name Tracy made.
They weren't friends, not really, and they definitely do not talk in school.
Tracy was the weird kid, the one who laughed too much at jokes that aren't even funny. The one that tries to tell jokes that never land that turn into an awkward encounter for everyone involved. The one that sits alone at the lunch table because everyone else was too cool to sit with her. The one that doesn't care about her lack of friends because she prefers her own company anyways, they just don't understand how awesome she was.
"You would've loved the train I found today."
The one that still visited Kailey Richardson, even as the rumors died down, with a wild flower she found on the streets and new stories to tell. She never knew what happened, but one day Kailey was there and the next she was not, and her little brother started harassing Tracy everywhere she went until her parents had to step in, which Tracy knew was a huge embarrassment to the family's name.
Sometimes people stare at her weirdly in school, but it must be the big headphones she wore everywhere. Other times, she catches people flinching when she approaches them with a bright smile, but she brushes it off like nothing and they don't mention it either. Tracy never had much experience in social cues, so she just noted it as a normal thing people do in society. At least they talk to her, unlike her family.
Four older siblings and two parents, and yet their only form of communication was with harsh words and disappointing gazes. She knew she would never be enough in her family's eyes, but that doesn't mean that she had stopped trying.
Tracy wasn't half-bad in math, but they love to remind her about how the twins were already doing college math when they were her age. She found the idea of engineering boring, and from a family of engineers, that wasn't something she could bring up as table talk during dinner. So not only do they have nothing in common, they would rather pretend she doesn't exist.
Kailey Richardson would understand.
"It was covered in overgrown flowers but it created such a beautiful aesthetic. I could see the sunset from there too, it was so so beautiful." Tracy sat crossed leg in front of the gravestone, and sighed. "I got a full score on my math test today, I tried to show it to my parents, and I think for a second they might have been proud of me, but then Atom came in waving his acceptance letter for this summer internship he applied for and suddenly everything I did didn't matter."
The cemetery was quiet at night, and maybe Tracy should feel more fear being alone in a place possibly haunted by ghosts, but the prospect of the supernatural world intrigued her, and she was nothing if not adventurous.
"I don't know how you ever survive knowing you could never live up to your brother's accomplishment. You're so smart, and so pretty, and you can have anything you want if you only ask for it but yet your brother somehow made it out of the district and is living his best life in the Capitol, and so now your mother was expecting the same from you, and your younger brother is also a genius, so there must had been a weight on your shoulder," Tracy sighed again, brushing away imaginary dust as she stood up. "I'll swing by tomorrow, okay? Don't ghost me! Get it? Because- yeah."
Tracy chuckled to herself awkwardly, before grabbing her backpack and making her way out of the cemetery. No one else dared visit after sundown, but Tracy enjoyed the quiet and having the street to herself.
When she got home, to a high-rise apartment on the wealthiest side of district five, the kitchen light was on, but there was no one else present. The television in her parents' room was playing, the twin's bedroom light was also on, her oldest sister was likely at her boyfriend's place, and Kelvin's voice was loud even through his bedroom door. His best friend's voice on speaker was also audible and Tracy wondered sometimes how Kelvin could stand the loud noise.
She heated the leftover in the fridge, and sat on the stool in the kitchen counter as she ate her food. This was the reality of her family on weekdays, when four out of seven are engineers, two having afterschool extracurricular that ends at various times throughout the weeks, and one who loves to explore the city but has no sense of time.
They try to eat as a family at least once a week, an ordeal Tracy would rather skip but doesn't out of respect to her parents. It was what it is, and Tracy longs for the day that she would escape her family's name. They had long given up on her due to her asthma, and her grade looks like trash, but maybe if she finally tried she could still have a decent shot at engineering.
Ha! I would probably die first before that happened.
If only she knew how close to reality that statement really was.
Reaping day started out like any other. Mother made breakfast but had left with Father before any of the children woke up due to an engineering emergency at work. Kelvin slept in until it was time to bring the twins and Tracy to the town square, and her oldest sister was nowhere to be found.
The twins were off doing a ritual they had long perfected through their many years of reaping days, apparently it was a prayer of some sort that would prevent their name from being drawn. Tracy thought it was a load of bullshit, but then they have two years of reaping left (including this one), so maybe they were onto something. Maybe if she was closer to them, they would include her, and what happened later on wouldn't have happened, but alas the most conversation she had ever had with the twins consisted of her older siblings making fun of her the whole time, so she wasn't eager to try again.
Kelvin straightened out the twins' clothes when they got to the checkpoint at the town square, and he turned to Tracy with a sigh and redid her tie (which Mother insisted that she wore), before patting her head and pushing her in the direction of the peacekeepers with the blood drawing machine.
She winced when they drew her blood. "Next."
No bandage or anything, and Tracy swore that this year the needle went in wrong because she was bleeding more than usual, so she just stuck her forefinger into her mouth and sucked, ignoring the metallic taste that reached her tongue.
She smiled at the group of kids around her in the fourteen-year-old section, many of whom she knew from school, but beside a few polite greetings most people ignored her. When everyone was accounted for, the mayor walked on stage and said a boring speech before the capitol fanfare played and they watched the same video Tracy had watched twice before already and the President gave a video speech about the strength of Panem. Their escort, a woman named Jewel, walked on stage.
She was blinding, her outfit reflecting the light from the sun, and many children raised their arms to protect their eyes from the light that was emitting from her outfit. Tracy squinted in discomfort as the woman tapped on the microphone a few times before speaking.
"Hello! Exciting time, I know, yes. So to start, we have the girls!"
The clear giant fishbowl contained names, three of which were Tracy's. Jewel took her sweet time, making faces as she shuffled the names around before deciding between two slips of paper and dropping one.
"Our lady representing district five this year will be… Tracy Sulzbach!"
"Thank fuck."
Tracy wasn't sure who said it, as the blood rushed to her ears and on autopilot her feet moved forward towards the stage. There was shock of course, because goddammit she will never see district five again because she was dying in that game, but she was also glad because her parents had no control of her in the arena, and they can't be disappointed at someone who was dead so…
She was so stuck in her thought she barely registered Lance Richardson's name being called if not for the death glare she received on his way up the stairs. Jewel was none the wiser, and she forced the two of them to shake hands before grabbing each of their wrist and holding it out into the air. "Your tributes for the Thirty-Fifth Hunger Games!"
People clapped politely, and then they were taken off stage with a group of peacekeepers surrounding them. When Lance caught her eyes, there was nothing but murder in them.
"I will kill you."
It sounded more like a promise than a threat.