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Chapter Text

The spear leaves the One boy's hand and slices through the air. The cameras cycle back to half speed; the screen splits in two to show his face on one side, grim-jawed and determined as he watches its flight -- and Katniss, wide-eyed and shocked but still brave, on the other.

Mom gasps, high-pitched and terrified, the sound half muffled by the hands she flings over her face. Onscreen, Katniss whirls around, drawing an arrow and nocking it in one smooth movement like she always does. (Prim could never get her grip on the string properly, couldn't draw the arrow back far enough for it to fly more than a few feet.) Katniss fires before the boy's arm finishes its downward arc. The cameras track both the spear and the arrow, the shafts wobbling in controlled circles as they whip toward their targets in opposite directions.

He's going to kill that little girl. The spear will go right through her, she's so small (smaller than Prim, even, but with wiry muscles in her arms and legs from climbing) and then she'll be dead. Prim holds her breath, and she's not glad -- that would be horrible -- but she is relieved. Katniss watches Rue when she sleeps with the same tight jaw and hard eyes and feather-light touches over her hair that she does Prim when she thinks Prim is sleeping. She's not supposed to look at anyone else like that; she's Prim's sister, not this girl's. Prim doesn't wish anyone dead (except she does) but she's been holding her breath since the Reaping and won't let it go until Katniss is back.

The girl is a complication. At least when she's gone Katniss will remember who her real sister is. When she comes back alive Prim will ask Katniss to forgive her for selfish, awful thoughts, for watching the Games like the Capitol does and rooting for a winner, but it will be okay. Katniss will be alive.

The arrow hits the boy in the throat and he staggers back, his mouth an open 'o' and his eyes rolling back in his head. In the next second the spear will hit Rue and Prim has to watch even though a scream builds up in her throat because she owes her, she owes it to the girl to watch her last moments. If she's going to die for Katniss then at least Prim can be there to see it. Gale would say that Prim is complicit (he doesn't use too many fancy words but he likes to spit that one out) but Prim doesn't care.

Except --

Katniss is fast, and brave, and she never ever thinks more than she has to. It's like she has a whole conversation in her head in a second and acts while Prim is still processing. On Reaping Day, Prim's brain hadn't even finished screaming no no no no before Katniss' voice overpowered her. Now, Rue's frozen in place but Katniss shoves her, sends her sprawling backwards into the long grass, and the spear drives itself into Katniss' chest.

It would have hit Rue dead-centre in the stomach and gone through the organs, but it hits Katniss in her ribcage. The crack of bone echoes through the television speakers. The cameras stop, Katniss in mid-fall with her arms splayed out, and then the speed returns to normal with a rushing whoosh and she pinwheels backwards, landing in a heap on the ground.

Mom screams, and Prim's screaming too but only in her head. Outside her mouth is slack and no sound comes out, not even a whimper, and she fights to say Katniss' name but nothing happens.

"Katniss!" Rue's cry pierces the air and the roaring in Prim's ears. "Katniss, no!"

And just like that, Prim finds her voice. "Stop that!" she shrieks, and she flings herself at the projection and claws at Rue's image. Her fingers go right through, the light and colours dappling her skin. Katniss' bloody chest shines across Prim's forearm before she pulls back. Rue drops to her knees and sobs, scrabbling for Katniss' hand and holding it to her cheek. "Stop it!" Prim can hardly breathe, can barely see, and she wraps her arms around herself and rocks. "You have no right! She's my sister, not yours! You don't get to cry over her! Stop it!"

Rue doesn't listen. She draws Katniss into her lap and strokes her face, leans her head down so their foreheads touch and her tears fall on Katniss' cheeks. All over Panem people will be crying (into their popcorn, Gale would say with a nasty, ugly twist to his mouth) but none of them are thinking about Prim. The commentators whisper what a touching farewell this is between such close allies. Mom wails, high and keening.

Katniss' eyes are glassy, rolling back and forth in her head and seeing nothing. Prim's seen this before on their kitchen table, when the men bring in an injured miner and expect Mom to work miracles with a handful of herbs and a needle and thread. Blood and spit bubbles out from the corners of her mouth. "Prim?" Katniss asks, her voice rattling in her throat. "Prim, is that -- Prim?"

"I'm here," Prim says, the words tearing themselves loose. "Katniss I'm sorry, I'm so sorry --"

Rue's eyes go wide, but then they soften, big and brown and wet with tears. "Yes," she says, quiet and reassuring. "It's me, Katniss. I'm here."

"Prim --" Katniss says again, half-choking, like it's the only word she remembers how to say. "Prim I'm sorry. I wanted to save you. I tried so hard --"

"You did save me," Rue says, but she's saying it all wrong, firm and strong and soothing like an older sister, because that's what she is in her family, the oldest just like Katniss. It doesn't sound like Prim at all, but Katniss is floating now, far away, and it doesn't matter. "It's okay. You saved me."

Katniss' breaths come short and fast. She tries to talk but the only sound that emerges is a low, croaking gurgle (saliva buildup in the throat, Mom said once) and this is wrong, all of this is wrong, this was never supposed to happen. "Sing?" Katniss asks finally. It's barely recognizable as a word; the Gamemakers add a helpful subtitle for people who aren't used to deciphering the last requests of the dying.

Rue nods. She brushes Katniss' hair out of her eyes and sings a slow, mournful song about the sunset at the end of the work day, how the apples in the orchard glow with golden light. It's not a Twelve song, not at all, and Prim grits her teeth. It's not supposed to be like this, and so she pushes away the sound of Mom hiccupping and shaking, the melody of the song that's wrong, all wrong, and sings Deep in the Valley instead.

Rue sings, and Prim sings, and Katniss' expression slides into a soft, dreamy smile.

Prim almost forgets until the boom of the cannon jars her back, and the cameras pan out to show Katniss, bloodied and twisted in Rue's lap, with the body of the boy from One sprawled and forgotten in the far corner of the screen.

Finally the cameras leave the glade, cycling through the remaining tributes: the boy from Eleven, sitting in his field, picking up ground snails and cracking their shells before popping the slimy bodies into his mouth; the girl from Five, slipping pale and wraithlike through the trees; the pair from Two, hunting together without talking; and Peeta, alone by the riverbank, painted with mud and shivering with blood fever.

Prim takes one breath, and there, that wasn't so hard. She takes another, and another, and somehow the world keeps spinning and the birds keep singing and the sun keeps shining, as if they don't realize there's no point to anything anymore. She turns around, then sighs and kneels down, taking Mom's hands in hers and running her thumbs over the knuckles. Mom's fingers are bloody, the fingernails torn down to the quick.

"C'mon Mom," Prim says, using her doctor's voice. "Let's get you cleaned up."

Prim doesn't bother to go to school the next day, but she does make herself get out of bed. She doesn't remember very much of when Dad died, but she knows that Mom just lay there, not moving, and Prim had to put bits of food in her mouth. Katniss even had to scrub her down with a bucket of water and a cloth because she wouldn't bathe or eat on her own. It's important to make the effort, to keep the brain from falling into grief, Prim tells herself. Mrs. Hawthorne stops by and takes Mom to her house; she asks if Prim wants to come, but Prim thinks of the Hawthorne boys, noisy and boisterous and trying to help cheer her up by pulling her hair and putting worms under her nose, and says no thank you.

Prim splashes water on her face and changes into a different dress from yesterday, but she stops when it's time to do her hair. Katniss used to braid her hair for her when Mom's hands shook too much, and now she'll never help Prim with her hair again. Never tuck in the back of Prim's shirt and call her 'little duck', never tweak the ends of her curls and tell her she looks like an angel until Prim starts making silly faces at her cat.

The thoughts press up behind Prim's eyes and try to push through as tears. If Prim starts crying she's afraid she'll never stop, and so she slaps her cheeks until the pain makes her gasp and she forgets about the pressure building up inside her head. The Capitol attendants brought them a new television after the Reaping as a replacement for their ancient, flickering set (it's a perk for the families of each year's tributes) and Prim wonders when they'll come take it away. It's not like they need it now that Katniss is dead.

But they haven't yet, and so Prim turns on the television and watches. Nothing has changed since last night; the scrolling ticker at the bottom of the screen announces there are still six tributes alive.

Rue leaves to search for Peeta around mid-morning, Katniss' backpack and quiver full of arrows thumping big and awkward against her back as she manoeuvres down over the slippery rocks. She left the bow with Katniss, placing it on her chest and folding her hands around the curved metal so that she lay like a fallen warrior from one of those old paintings.

(Katniss was always a fighter, so it's a fitting enough final image for Panem, but Prim can't stop thinking of Katniss' fingers, how nobody knows how gentle they were in spite of all the cuts and calluses, stroking Prim's hair and drying her tears at night.)

Peeta's stats appear in the bottom-left corner when Rue gets close to him, including a little health meter that estimates he'll be dead in another three days without treatment. That's a little generous, Prim can't help but think, with no one there to help him out of that mud. It might be keeping his temperature down, but his blood will be full of bacteria now. His body is poisoning itself from the inside out.

In the end Rue actually trips over him. She falls with a clatter on the stones and nearly slides right into the water; she's small and her pack is heavy and for a second Prim thinks that's it, she'll fall in and her supplies will drag her down and she'll die. But no, Rue catches herself with her hands digging into the mud and drags herself back up onto the large flat rocks. She lies there for a second, panting, then crawls over to Peeta.

Rue glances around for the Twos, but the riverbank is clear. "Hi Peeta," Rue says softly.

Peeta breathes shallowly, his eyes glazed. He probably spends his days hallucinating; the cameras haven't bothered with more than a quick pass during recaps for days now. "Hey Rue." Just talking that much splits his lip, blood mixing with the mud he's smeared on his face. "Good to see you. A lot of cannons lately."

"Yeah." Rue crouches and rocks back on her heels. Prim can't read the expression on her face, thoughtful and serious, and it sets off a warning in her head. There's only one winner, and Rue was never Peeta's ally. "Katniss was yesterday. I'm really sorry, Peeta."

Peeta lets out a shuddering breath and closes his eyes. Tears slide down the sides of his face, tracing pale, clean lines through the dirt. "Katniss --" he whispers. He shivers harder. "What happened to her?"

This time Rue flinches, and she scrubs her hands over her knuckles where she washed the last of Katniss' blood away. "The boy from One. He had a spear." Peeta hisses out a breath between his teeth, and Rue shifts in the mud. "I sang to her. She went fast, I think."

"I loved her." Peeta squeezes his eyes shut even tighter. "I really did. She didn't know until I said it, and I know she didn't feel the same way, but I wasn't lying. Maybe if I'd told her sooner we could've -- but I'll never know now."

Prim hisses out a breath between her teeth. Ever since Peeta Mellark made his announcement in the interviews, the commentators have barely even mentioned Katniss' sacrifice for her sister, making it all about Peeta and his feelings . A lightning flash of anger stabs Prim straight through her chest; Katniss was everything to her, and she deserved more than to be the prop in some boy's one-sided love story.

Peeta weeps now, but for the first time Prim understands how Katniss could look at Mom crying and speak to her with such ice in her voice. Peeta doesn't care that Katniss' death means her mother and sister could go back to starving. He doesn't care that Prim lost the one person who understood her more than anyone else. All he cares is that he never got to be her boyfriend. It's not fair .

"It'll be okay, Peeta," Rue says, and there's the danger voice again. It's soft but determined, and it makes Prim think of someone slowly drawing a knife, holding the blade edge-up so the sun won't flash on the metal, like Katniss tried to teach her. Rue reaches back, and she unzips the hood of her jacket, wrapping the canvas material around her hand. Peeta doesn't bother to answer, or even look at her, turning his face to the side and crying silently. It'll be a miracle if he doesn't die overnight.

Rue stretches one leg over Peeta and straddles his chest, then lowers her hand and clasps it down hard over Peeta's mouth and nose. "It's okay," Rue says again, insistent and calm and almost eerie. "You don't want to bleed to death, it's awful. This won't hurt."

Peeta's arms tear free from the mud with a wet sucking sound; he scrabbles at Rue, pushing at her chest, her ribs, her wrists, but it's been days and he's too weak. After a minute he lets his hands drop. There's nothing inside him left to fight; maybe nothing outside, either. Everybody knows that Mrs. Mellark hits her boys, and Peeta has an older brother who could have volunteered for him but didn't.

Prim's stomach twists, but when she tries to turn her head and look away, her neck sticks in place. She watches, frozen, until Peeta's eyes roll to the side and, finally, the cannon fires.

Rue scrambles off him onto the rocks, slipping and sliding sideways in her hurry until she makes it to the scrub-grass on the bank. A few seconds later, she turns and throws up onto the ground.

Nobody wants to watch a little girl vomit after she's killed someone, and so the camera switches to the other tributes. The boy and the girl from Two look up at the sound of the cannon. "Twelve must've bled out, finally," the boy says, and looks pleased. "So much for the girl on fire and her little loverboy, hey?"

The girl shrugs and continues sharpening her knife, the blade going snick snick against the stone curled in her fist. "I told you they wouldn't last. Wait for the parade to make sure, then we'll hunt the rest."

Prim turns off the television, hands shaking. With Peeta dead and Twelve finally out, it hits Prim hard. There will be no victory packages this year, just like every year, but now there's no Katniss to feed them, either.

Prim walks into the kitchen and takes a low, slow circle around the room, checking every cupboard. The bread that Katniss brought home on Reaping Day is long gone; no one is allowed to take tesserae during Games Month, and Katniss' last ration is down to a handful of dusty grains in the bottom of the container. That day in the Justice Building, Katniss told Prim to sell cheese from her goat, but breeding season won't start for another month or two at least, and Lady went dry after her last kid stopped nursing.

Panic swells up inside her, and for a second Prim lets it take her, pushing the air out of her lungs and squeezing her head. She presses her hands to her eyes, and a handful of tears leak past her palms and trickle down her wrists. She bites her lips together until they hurt to keep herself from making noise. Katniss is the reason Prim and Mom are still alive -- she fed them, she kept them safe -- and now she's dead.

The sobs try to claw their way out of her, but Prim will not let them. She won't. It took more bravery than Prim will ever understand for Katniss to stand on that stage, for her to go into the Arena; how much harder could it be for Prim to keep going?

Katniss kept their family alive, but she was sixteen, and Prim is only -- no. The tears dry up when Prim does the math, because no, Katniss was twelve when Dad died, the same age as Prim is now, and Prim doesn't have a younger sister to feed. Sure, Katniss could shoot and Prim cries when Buttercup brings chipmunks into the house, but. But.

Prim laces up her shoes, slowly wrapping the string around her finger and pulling the loops through. The Seam hits her like a wet washcloth as soon as she steps outside, the sticky heat heavy and pressing on her lungs, but Prim ignores the hairs clinging to her neck and the sweat running down between her shoulder blades. Her shoes kick up clouds of dust no matter how lightly she treads, and the sharp tang of coal dust stings her nostrils. Games month is a holiday in the Capitol, but here in the outlying districts people still have to eat, and so they work.

Rory is out front of the Hawthorne house, scowling and twining a loop of wire around a pair of sticks. "Twelve lost again," he sighs in an imitation of the men's grumbling when he hears Prim coming, but then he looks up and his eyes widen. "Oh, I didn't -- I'm sorry, Prim." He scrambles to his feet, brushing his hands on his trousers, and his eyes dart back and forth while he tries to figure out the polite thing to say.

Prim doesn't wait to hear it. "Where's Gale? Is he working today?"

"No, he traded a shift away after --" Rory winces. "Well, after. I think he's out in the clearing, where they used to -- I mean."

"Thanks," Prim says, and it comes out shorter than she means it to but she doesn't have time to stand around playing nice. She knows the clearing; Katniss used to take her there, back when she still thought she could teach Prim to hunt.

It doesn't take her long to reach the district boundary fence. Prim kneels down and holds her hand near it, waiting for the faint click and prickle of the hair on her arms that would tell her the electricity is on. Nothing, and so Prim slips through the gap, stopping the wires with her hand just in case someone walks by and wonders why they're bobbing. She's never been out here in full daylight, but it's almost nice, in a way. The woods aren't so unsettling when the warm yellow sunlight dapples through the leaves, instead of the cold pre-dawn grey and eerie mist.

Prim finds Gale at the crest of the hill, legs pulled up to his chest and forehead resting on his knees. He sucks in a breath when she sits down, the grass tickling the backs of her legs. "I can't look at you right now," he croaks out, his voice a dull rasp in his throat, and Prim wishes she were bigger, just for a second, so she could hit him.

"Then don't look at me." She's calmer than she thought she'd be. Katniss' death replays behind her eyelids whenever she closes them, but Prim keeps her eyes open and looks over the swell of the trees. "I want to offer a trade." Gale doesn't answer, but he doesn't tell her to go away, either. "You're busy now, in the mines. I know you don't have time to come out here every day anymore. Show me how to set the snares and where to put them. I'll come out in the mornings, check them, reset them if there's a problem, and bring anything that's been caught back to you. All I ask is that you let me keep one animal every time. You can still have most of it to feed your family, but you'll keep your promise to Katniss."

Gale inhales a mess of snot and tears, but still he doesn't tell her to leave. "I don't have time to make the rounds of the Hob for you. I'm down in the mines by then most days, and you gotta know who to sell it to."

"So teach me that, too." Gale snorts, wet and incredulous, but Prim doesn't let that stop her. Having a plan, whether it works or not, keeps her hands settled. "I mean it! Tell me where to go and who to ask and what's a fair price. I might even get better deals than you, because you look strong. People might feel sorry for me. You're already teaching Rory, right? Then we can split up and both go."

Gale doesn't say anything for a long time, and Prim tips her head back and looks up at the white clouds racing across the sky, glad for the breeze out in the open that wicks the dried sweat away from her skin. "I need this," Prim says, and she was doing so well sounding strong and brave but now her voice cracks and skitters up high and oh, there the tears are. "Gale, she's dead and what if I'm not like her, what if I'm not strong enough, what if I go to sleep tonight and tomorrow I just don't get up --"

She tries to pull it back, but it's too late. Prim lowers her head into her arms and rocks back and forth as the tears leak out of her faster than she can breathe them in. Katniss is dead and Prim will never see her again, and what's worse is that she's in a Capitol mortuary, and will they know how to do it right? Do they learn the rituals for each district? Did they put flowers on her eyes overnight? Did someone sit with her for the first twenty-four hours to keep her soul company? At least when she comes home they can bury her right, head facing the sunset --

"Shit," Gale mutters, and then he shifts, wraps an arm around Prim's shoulders and pulls her in close against his side. He smells like sweat and soot and cotton, and he rests his cheek on Prim's hair and hugs her tight. "I'm sorry, Prim, I just -- I love her." He says it fast, like the gush of blood when you pull something free from a wound. "She was amazing and I loved her and I never said it, and now she's just that merchie boy's crush and I had to say we're cousins and I'll never get to tell her."

Boys are weird. Annoyance prickles through Prim like sitting on a nettle, and for a second she almost shouts at him. He's just like Peeta -- who cares about his feelings when Katniss is dead? Part of her thinks the nice thing would be to tell Gale that Katniss loved him too, to give him a bit of comfort, but Katniss never talked to Prim about it and the idea of making her memory into a lie to make him feel better makes Prim sick. And so she doesn't say anything, just reminds herself that Gale was the other important person in Katniss' life and that means Prim has to share her grief.

"Peeta's dead too," Prim says after a long time, and Gale's arms stiffen around her. "The little girl killed him this morning."

"Will you promise not to tell my mom if I said 'good'?" Gale asks, his voice bitter. "I mean, not good , but. If he came back and not her, I think I'd kill him myself."

This time Prim actually laughs, and she watched him die and it was horrible and it's not funny but it feels good to laugh even though it's horrible. Maybe this is what drinking feels like; maybe that's why Haymitch Abernathy does it. She'd rather laugh at things that aren't funny than turn cold and dead and empty. "Me too."

After a while Gale sighs, pulls away and scrubs his face with his sleeve. "C'mon, I'll take you through the trap line. Wasn't anything there when I checked this morning, but my mind wasn't really -- y'know." He lets out a long breath, and he drops his hand to the back of Prim's neck and shakes her, just a little, friendly and reassuring. "You're a good kid."

Prim was a kid on Reaping Day, small and terrified and helpless. Now she's no taller, no bigger and no stronger, but she feels more, somehow. It might all disappear when she goes back home and walks into Katniss' empty room and sees their dad's jacket (orphaned twice over now) hanging on the wall, but for now, until the bubble breaks, it's like some of Katniss' strength has flowed into Prim and made her see how everything might not be impossible.

(It's a nice thought. That night Prim wraps herself up in the jacket, her nose buried in the leather, and the only reason she doesn't cry herself to sleep is because she's afraid she'll ruin it and what would Katniss think about that.)

Prim doesn't watch the rest live. It's not like any of it matters, not anymore, and she has the animals to feed and Mom to keep an eye on, and now she checks the lines every morning. Prim does tune into the recaps before she collapses into bed, but that's it.

It all falls like a good snare anyway; the boy from Eleven bashes the girl from Two's head in with a rock; the boy from Two stalks him for two days and takes a whole hour to finish him off. The girl from Five finally starves to death, and then it's Rue and the Two boy and the commentators sigh over what's sure to be a disappointing final finish.

"He should have gone for the little one first," says one of them, clucking her tongue. "That was poor planning. A Career should know better."

The boy from Two sits at the lake with a fish in his hands, speared through with the end of his sword, but he's not cooking it or eating it. He's just tearing it apart and flinging bits of meat at his feet, crushing the bones in his massive fingers. He hasn't stopped talking either, a low, growling mutter like rolling thunder or trampling hooves that turns Prim's stomach inside out. The cameras don't always catch it, but when they do Prim flinches back: gonna kill them gonna tear them apart tear their insides out make necklaces of their intestines you didn't like jewellery but I bet you'd like that make them all pretty for you --

In a way, the boy from Two and his ugly, terrifying rage feel like the only true moment of the Games so far. He's a killer -- he laughed with a girl's blood still splashed across his face and joked about making Katniss the literal girl on fire -- but he's hurting, too, now his district partner (friend? something else?) is dead. Prim doesn't want him to win -- can he even win or is he too far gone, can any of them win, what does winning even mean -- but she understands anger and helplessness and deep, gut-gnawing grief.

The cameras cut to Rue, curled up on a tree branch and looking up at the sky, eyes shining in the darkness. "Help me," she whispers. Mom flinches, and Prim reaches over and grips her hand, the cuticles red and cracked because Mom picks at her skin if Prim isn't there to tell her to stop. For a second Prim thinks that's it, a plea to the darkness, but then Rue sits up, balancing herself on the branch and digging her fingers into the bark. "I can win," she tells the cameras, determined even with sunken cheeks and fever-bright eyes. "Just give me a chance."

"She can't win," Prim whispers. "What is she going to do?"

It's ridiculous. If Katniss couldn't win in an Arena almost made for her, how is this girl going to do it?

Except she doesn't want Rue to win. The thought hits her in the gut like a fishhook, burying itself deep and working to pull every dark, ugly secret out of Prim and hang it on the wall, shining and dripping for all to see. Because if Rue wins -- if a little twelve-year-old girl with no fighting skills and no chance can win -- then that means Prim could have won, and if Prim could have won then Katniss didn't have to volunteer, and if Katniss didn't have to volunteer --

The two-note tone of a parachute cuts through the silence, and Rue scrambles up the tree to pluck a silver canister from the branches. The cameras zoom in on the mix of awe and gratitude on her face as she raises the palm-sized tube and three little poison darts, the way her expression hardens into determination. "Thank you," Rue says, and she slips them into her pocket, zips it shut, and melts away into the darkness.

"No!" Prim bursts out before she can stop it, and she wrenches her hand free from Mom's and claps them both over her face, fingers digging hard into her cheeks.

Mom whirls around to look at her. She takes Prim by the shoulders and pulls her in for an embrace, stroking her hair and murmuring in her ear. "It's all right," Mom says, soothing. "See, they're going to help her. She's going to win."

Mom doesn't understand, and for a second Prim struggles as the words no no no batter the inside of her skull like a trapped bird, but then the small rational part of her kicks in. It's good Mom doesn't understand; she's already minus one daughter, let her think the one she has is still the good little girl she almost lost. And so Prim lets Mom turn off the TV and rock her there on the hard, threadbare sofa while Prim pretends she's not wishing for a crazy monster boy to win just so that Katniss didn't die for nothing.

He doesn't win. Rue finds him the next night when even the endless drive for revenge can't keep him awake any longer, and she creeps out onto a tree branch and fires all three poison darts into his neck. He stiffens, then thrashes, then goes still, and Rue grips the tube in her small fist and heaves fast, shallow breaths until the cannon fires and the victory trumpets play.

Half the Seam cheers. If one of their own couldn't win, then at least the little girl from the second-worst district is a good substitute; anything better than another Two waltzing in and prancing off the with the crown yet again. Prim slips through the streets as people clap each other on the back and pass around jugs of terrible moonshine; she makes her way to the Hawthornes', just in time to run into Gale as he slams the door closed and storms out into the street.

It's getting dark, but Prim still catches the hard line of his jaw and the furious set of his eyebrows. "They act like it makes a difference," Gale spits out. "Like it matters who won, if it was that girl or that boy, like it's important --"

"But it's not," Prim finishes for him, and Gale looks at her, eyes narrowed. "It's pointless. All of it is pointless."

"I'm gonna go hunt," Gale says, crossing his arms. "I feel like killing something. You wanna come?"

Prim doesn't want to kill anything, but she might -- maybe -- feel like watching Gale do it. At least this way it'll get eaten after; at least here it makes sense . "Sure."

Gale bends down, lifts her up and places her on his shoulders. Prim leans forward with her hands clasped together on top of his head and lets him carry her out to the fence and the wilds beyond.

Chapter Text

The rest of summer drags on dull and lifeless, stretching out past September into the dog days of autumn and right through to the cold snap that strikes the Seam with a hammer blow. Coal production staggers as the men have to waste an hour every day digging snow out from the exits before they send the miners in, and each week that passes means the likelihood of another frozen body to step over until a random thaw lets someone peel it from the ground and dig a shallow hole.

Prim always hated winter, hated the cold that seeps into her bones and settles in her lungs and makes her chest rattle with coughs, but this year she welcomes it. It's cold and hard and brittle and so is she, and every day that passes with grey clouds obscuring the sky and frost rimming the windows is another day where Katniss is dead but Prim keeps surviving.

On the first day of Rue's Victory Tour, Prim will have to go down to the square and stare at the girl who lived instead of Katniss, but it's okay. It almost doesn't hurt anymore, like how after holding her hands under cold water for long enough, her fingers turn red and the ache finally stops. Instead of thinking about it, Prim takes the big stick out back to the outhouse to crack the ice in the privy before doing her business.

The temperature dropped hard last night and the film of ice is thicker than usual; it takes Prim a few good strikes to crack it, and the stench hits her hard in the nostrils and makes her wrinkle her nose. She ignores the bustle outside as everyone gets ready, the march of Peacekeeper feet as they spread through the Seam and make sure there's no one homeless asleep on the streets to clutter up the footage. She doesn't hear anyone come up behind her until the voice, high-pitched and affected and ridiculous, says her name in an accent she'd recognize anywhere: "Miss Everdeen, what are you doing? You have to be camera-ready in an hour!"

Prim turns around with the stick in her hand and stares at the Twelve escort, whose name she never bothers to remember because who cares? This year she's all in lavender, her wig perched on her head like a dead goose that flew into a power line, her mouth pinched into a disappointed rosebud. "What?" Prim says finally.

"Whatever are you doing with that stick?" she gasps, fluttering her hand. "Come here at once!"

Prim swallows hard, fingers tightening against the peeling bark. "Why? What do the cameras want?"

"You, your mother and the Mellark family will be on display to congratulate this year's adorable little victor," she says in that voice adults use when they think kids are silly for not knowing something immediately. "We didn't win, but we can still do District Twelve proud, can't we? Let's get you inside and cleaned up and away from that smelly old building!"

"I need to use the bathroom."

"Well, then come along inside and do it, I'll wait!"

Prim used to remember how to smile and make it real, but she does her best. Judging by the way the woman rears back, Prim didn't really do a good job of it. "This is the bathroom. You can wait inside if it bothers you."

The woman disappears like a hare into a hole in the brush, and Prim tries not to be amused.

When Prim comes back in, hands stinging from holding them under the pump, the woman is flitting through the house with an ever-more-determined frown on her face. Mom hovers in the doorway, wringing her hands, but her jaw juts out the way it does when someone laughs at them for being poor. Poor is a circumstance, Mom likes to say; being rude is a choice.

"Oh, dear, I hadn't thought of this," the woman says, putting a hand to her hair straighten her wig. "I don't know how I can possibly put you on the stage in any of this, I'd be ashamed!"

Mom exhales through her nose, eyes hard. "They're all clean, and everything is mended. There's no shame in that."

"Oh, of course, darling, I didn't mean that." She flaps a hand vaguely in Mom's direction, then pulls out one of Prim's summer Reaping dresses, starched stiff with the lace collar. "But these are all so somber --"

Prim can't even begin to imagine treating Reaping Day like a celebration. Her head hurts. "I'm not wearing a party dress to talk about my dead sister," she says, the words falling from her mouth like ice chips.

That makes the woman stop, and she looks at Prim with her head tilted to one side before it sinks in. "Oh! Oh, of course you wouldn't, what a good point, that wouldn't be appropriate at all. Yes, I suppose this will do well enough, though I wish we could give you some accessories to spruce you up a little -- but no, no, that would just cheapen the dress and make the jewels trashy --"

Prim tunes her out. Gale would know what to say to make the woman stop talking; he'd know the right words to say to make her mouth flop open like a fish, but that kind of anger takes more effort for Prim than she has room for. Finally the woman settles on a plain white blouse and one of Katniss' old skirts that Prim hemmed up to make short enough for her, and she tuts over whether it's good enough for a few minutes but finally leaves Prim alone to change.

"I'll do her hair," Mom says, more firmness in her voice than Prim has heard in months. Prim imagines herself with a pouffy Capitol hairdo -- or worse, their version of Katniss' Arena braid -- and doesn't argue. Mom's hands don't tremble as she brushes out Prim's curls, and she twists them into braids and pins them into a crown around Prim's head. The hairstyle prickles in Prim's memory for a second before she gets it: it's the style Mom did for Katniss the morning of the Reaping.

"Thanks," Prim says softly, lifting her hand to squeezes Mom's fingers where they rest on her shoulder.

The Capitol woman balks when Prim reaches for the battered leather jacket out of habit, making a noise like someone stepped on a goose. "You cannot wear that!" she snaps. "You'll get dust all over your clothes, and how will that look? They'll think I can't take care of you."

There's no point in arguing; Prim puts the jacket back while Mom fishes her old one out of the closet. It's worn and patched but it's light blue, like her eyes, and the woman huffs a little but admits that will have to do.

The Victory Tour is worse than Reaping Day, in a way. On one hand, no one they love is about to die; everyone shuffles toward the main square with the same dead eyes and flat-mouthed determination as in the summer, but the stink of fear is gone. But at the same time, food is scarce and illness plentiful; only the merchants have coats warm enough for the weather, and even theirs are worn and patched. Hardly anyone manages to stand in the square without coughing; many backs are bent with the force of it when Prim passes them to stand on the hastily-erected platform underneath a giant screen.

"Oh, not you, dear," tuts the Capitol woman, putting a hand on Prim's arm. "You come up to the front with me, Haymitch and the mayor."

Prim looks at the other platform, where Peeta's parents and brothers stand in a grim-jawed line. None of them have been whisked away to the main stage. "Why?" This time fear creeps in beneath the confusion and apathy.

"To shake hands with the victor, of course!" She lays a hand on Prim's cheek. "Primrose and Rue, the little girls that Katniss saved. Neither of you would be here today without her, you know! It will be a beautiful reminder of everything the Games stand for."

Maybe instead of the Reaping, Capitol citizens have a day where they all line up at a doctor's office to have bits of their brains scooped out. Prim's mind entertains itself for a second with thoughts of multicoloured brains floating in jars like cotton candy, but then she's jerked back when the hand moves to her shoulder and tugs her along.

The fear kicks into high gear as the crowd parts and Prim walks toward the stage like it's Reaping Day all over again. It's not, she reminds herself, and she pushes her hood back so the cold air bites her face, a sharp reminder of when and where she is. She focuses on the chill, the grey sky above, the faces of the adults who line the square instead of staying behind the rope line, and soon the hammering in her heart slows down and the roaring in her ears lessens.

Gale catches her just before she makes it to the stage. His fingers burn right through her sleeve and brand her skin. "Don't smile," he tells her, low and furious. He hasn't bothered to shave for the occasion, taking rebellion where he can. "Whatever they do, don't smile."

Prim gives one to him instead, the barest twitch of her lips. "I don't think I could," she tells him, and he nods once, sharply, and steps back in line with his family.

The wind whistles around the stage, stinging Prim's cheeks; the escort pinches them -- her fingers hard, the elongated nails digging into Prim's skin -- and coos over how rosy they look, how fetching they make her eyes. The crowd in front of the square grows, slowly, and they stand in the freezing air and wait for the train to arrive.

It should have been Katniss. She was supposed to come back; they'd have a big house in the Village and good food to eat and soft clothes to wear. Prim would have a big coat with fur that tickled her nose, and leather gloves that kept the skin on her hands from cracking from the cold. Katniss would be beautiful, her dark hair loose over her shoulders, and they'd stand together on the stage and hold hands and no one would remember the little girl who tried to replace Prim but ultimately failed.

The train whistle cuts Prim out of her thoughts; she curls her hands into fists at her sides to keep from hugging herself against the icy chill. "Smile, dear, smile," says the escort, patting Prim on the head, but she doesn't check, flitting off toward the large double doors like a butterfly that doesn't realize it's not meant to be out in this weather. The clouds above them hang low, formless and steel-coloured and heavy with the weight of the snow they're likely to drop by the end of the day.

The screens behind the families flicker on, Katniss and Peeta's faces appearing in high definition, expressions solemn. Prim's breath sticks in her chest like a knife. When did they take that footage? It's not a picture -- they blink, and move, their eyes flicking side to side -- and Prim tries to find the join where it loops but she can't. She imagines Katniss being dressed up in her jacket, her hair done up into a braid, and posed in front of a grey wall; imagines the photographers telling her to look serious, to turn her head this way and that, to tone down the glare of defiance into a look of calm contemplation.

"Remember, they probably won't be ever use it, because of course you're going to win!" the escort in Prim's head trills at Katniss, beaming brightly. "But oh, just think what a comfort it will be for them to see you one more time if you don't."

Gale told Prim months ago that nothing good comes from sadness but anger is a tool, a whetstone, and it sounded better than crying and wouldn't leave her stuffy-headed, so why not. But with Katniss staring down at her it flickers, and Prim forgets anything but grief, pressing down down down until her knees buckle. She almost drowns in it, but then she locks her legs together and digs her fingernails into her palms and her head breaks above the water.

Mayor Undersee's words float past her as he makes his victory speech, the same thing he says every year: congratulating the victor on their courage, professing his pride at being given the opportunity to meet in person. Then he turns toward the Justice Building, waves a hand, and the big double doors open from the inside. Prim's breathing tries to speed up, but she counts slow and forces it to match the numbers in her head even when her chest burns and the air scrapes shallow in her throat.

Rue walks onto the stage, slow and solemn, wearing a soft, dove-grey coat with fur around the collar just like Prim imagined, soft grey gloves on her little hands and soft leather boots on her dainty feet. Her hair falls in soft ringlets around her face, and like Prim she's a few inches taller now but her cheeks are round and full. Whenever Prim looks in the mirror she sees nothing but the sharp angles of her bones; the point of her wrist wears holes in her sleeves.

Rue's eyes meet Prim's, big and brown and wide just like on the television, and Prim can't move. Rue holds out her hand, and Prim manages to force herself to grip it and allow Rue to move them in a shaking motion, and the gloves are so, so soft and these hands changed the leaves on Katniss' wounds and they choked the life out of Peeta and --

And then she moves on, past Prim to the microphone that Mayor Undersee has to lower a good two feet in order for her to reach. Prim tries to hide her hands in her pockets, but her escort raps her shoulder with her fingers and so Prim leaves her arms at her side, fingers aching with cold and the desire to ball them into fists.

"I'm proud to stand here today with the brave people of District Twelve," Rue says in her clear, little-girl voice, and she's reading off of clean white index cards made from strong, pristine paper like Prim has never seen in her life. At school they use slates and small stubs of chalk so they don't waste paper, and the dust gets into her nose and grinds into her skin. Prim misses the next bit of the speech because she's too busy wondering what paper that nice feels like.

"Peeta loved Katniss," Rue says, jarring Prim out of it. "I didn't know him very well, but I knew that much. I hope that when I grow up I can find a love like that."

Prim imagines Rue's escort writing those words on the card and sighing with happiness. There's nothing about Rue killing Peeta, nothing about him scrabbling in the mud with Rue's hands blocking out his air. Just pretty words about a love that wasn't even real.

"And then Katniss --"

Prim opens her eyes wide and doesn't blink because maybe then any tears will be excused from the wind. She doesn't want to hear the words that Rue's escort or mentor penned for her, words that will reduce Katniss to a polite footnote in someone else's victory. She never pays attention to the speeches on the Tour anyway because they're always bland and tasteless like tesserae grain, bare minimum and nothing else. It's so much worse now.

"Katniss --" Rue's voice cracks, and Prim swallows, her chest burning. Rue drops the cards, holds the mic with her gloved fingers and looks out at Mom, standing alone on the platform under Katniss' solemn face. "Katniss volunteered for her sister, and she died to save me. I think she's the bravest person I've ever met. I'll never be like her as long as I live, but I'll try every day. Every day."

Her escort, whose face screwed up with worry when she went off the cards, relaxes into a calm smile and steps forward to draw her away from the microphone. Almost over, Prim reminds herself. A few more speeches and this will be over and she can have her sister back, not the picture on the screen with the story that isn't true and a sister who's an afterthought.

Except that Rue shakes loose and runs back to the mic, eyes desperate and voice raw. "I want to help you. I -- Katniss helped me. She saved me. I wouldn't be here without her. I want District Twelve to know how much I owe her and I want to pay it back. So after this, I want to donate one month of my winnings to you for the rest of my life."

Rue's escort sucks in her breath. Her mentor -- a big man, bigger than anyone Prim's ever seen in Twelve, with a hard scowl and a missing hand -- takes a step forward, then stops himself. Behind them all, Haymitch Abernathy lets out a bark of laughter and slides halfway out of his chair, and the square falls dead silent. Not even the shuffling of feet or rustling of fabric, no faint coughs or sneezes or sniffles. It's like time stops.

There is nothing, no amount of money or food or medicine or pretty packages filled with ribbons and soft satin for making beautiful dresses that Prim wouldn't trade if she could get Katniss back. But. But -- if they could get even just one-twelfth of a Victor's winnings (everyone knows that Victors never have to work again) for the next fifty years -- if they got this because of Katniss -- then she's still dead and that's still terrible but it's not entirely for nothing . It won't help Prim at night when she cries herself awake, it won't braid her hair or tuck in her shirt or threaten Buttercup, but it would keep Katniss' memory alive. For one month per year for as long as anyone in the Seam is likely to live, Katniss won't disappear.

It's not enough. It won't ever be enough. Katniss is gone and her jacket will be too big for Prim for the rest of her life, but it's an old saying in the Seam that sometimes good enough is, well, good enough. No point spitting on drop biscuits because you're waiting for a banquet.

And then, at the back of the crowd, Mom steps forward on her little stage and raises her hand, three fingers extended and arm outstretched in the air. Prim sucks in a breath, and Rue looks up, sees it, and her hand flies to her mouth. Mr. Mellark, on the other side, stares at Mom for a long minute, then he, too, lifts up his hand. His wife argues with him -- tries to yank it down -- but he pulls free and returns his arm to the air. He and Mom share a look that Prim has never seen before and doesn't understand, and a few moments later, the Mellark brothers join in.

By now the crowd has noticed, turning back to see what has the girls on stage so transfixed, and it starts in a wave. First the scattering of Seam citizens throughout the crowd -- they're the ones who knew Katniss best -- but then the merchants, who bought her game and traded her for soap and cloth and thread. After that Prim can't tell anymore because her eyes blur, and on camera it will look like a show of support for this year's Victor (she can hear the trilling of the commentators now, what a heartwarming show of district unity!) but it's all for Katniss. The Capitol might have forgotten her but District Twelve remembers.

Gale stares at Rue, eyes narrowed and mouth slanted in suspicion, but everyone around him has joined in -- Rory nudges him in the side -- and finally he does the same.

The last ones are Darius and Purnia, the Peacekeepers stationed at Twelve who always get shunted out of the way when the cameras arrive and the Capitol's squad comes to take over security for the day. They don't join in the gesture -- they can't, not if they want to keep their jobs -- but both of them lift their chins, just for a second. Short enough that Prim could have imagined it only she knows she didn't.

The Capitol Peacekeepers, on the other hand, glance at each other, fingers tightening on their batons. And they didn't care last summer when everyone saluted Katniss on the stage, but maybe it's okay when the kids are getting ready to die. Maybe the districts are supposed to forget when they're dead. That thought gets under Prim's skin, and Rue might be the reason Katniss is dead but she's at least given the moment back to Katniss instead of making it all about her, and if the Capitol doesn't like that --

Before she knows what she's doing, Prim steps forward and takes Rue's hand. Rue shoots her a startled look and pulls away, but it's just to tug off her glove and link her fingers with Prim's properly. Her hands are warm and soft -- if she had calluses from working in the fields or the orchards they're long gone now -- and Prim jumps at the small spark that shoots through her at the contact.

It doesn't mean anything's forgiven. It doesn't mean she and Rue will be friends. It doesn't bring Katniss back. But just for this moment the square hums with something that isn't defeat or resignation. Prim looks into her district's eyes and sees pride, defiance almost -- maybe even hope. And in this moment, Prim wants to be a part of it more than she hates her sister's almost-killer.

In front of her, Gale narrows his eyes, but it's not his angry face. It's the face he makes when he checks the fence for weak spots, when he studies a wasps' nest for the best way to bring it down. He looks from Prim and Rue, back to Mom and across the crowd, then over to the Peacekeepers waiting in a tense line along the side. He catches Prim's eye, then slowly, deliberately, reaches over and takes Rory's hand, lifting them above their heads. He holds the position for one heartbeat, two, then lowers their arms.

Prim sucks in a breath, then raises Rue's hand with hers, just like Katniss and Peeta did at the chariot parade. Her chest thuds as the crowd's gaze pierces her and holds her steady, and for a second she swears she hears Katniss' voice whistle on the wind.

And then the Peacekeepers on stage step forward and yank Rue back; they pull Prim away by the elbow, and she almost cries out in pain but bites it back because no one deserves to see her weakness, not anymore. Rue's mentor hovers near her, face like a thundercloud, and Mayor Undersee steps back to the microphone and hastily thanks everyone for coming and wishes the Victor a pleasant trip.

As soon as the doors creak shut, Gale leaps up onto the stage and grabs Prim by the hand, pulling her away into the crowd. "What was that?" Prim demands, but Gale hushes her. They find Mom -- the Mellarks argue in low, tense whispers as they hurry down the steps -- and Gale follows them back to the house.

Once the door is shut, Mom heads into the kitchen to boil water and make some tea while Gale paces back and forth. "Now will you tell me?" Prim demands. "You didn't want me to smile or anything, and then you made me do that. Why?"

"Did you see the Peacekeepers?" Gale isn't talking to her, and so Prim doesn't answer. Of course she saw the Peacekeepers. "They didn't want us saluting that girl and they didn't want you holding hands, either. It's just that there was nothing they could point out as actively seditious, not without making it into an even bigger deal than it was. This is important. This -- what if it happens?"

"I don't understand," Prim says slowly, but his agitation curls in her own chest, sending her heart tripping faster. "What if what happens?"

"They want us to hate each other," Gale says, and now he's taking the room in six strides or less, moving fast and spinning on his heel. "They -- of course they do, why would they parade the Victor through otherwise? To keep it fresh, to make us remember. They want us to hate that girl, they want us to blame each other, to keep us from looking up."

"At what?" Prim presses, and if Gale doesn't tell her what's going on instead of running around in circles she's going to paint him in meat juice and send Buttercup after him. "Just tell me!"

"At the real people to blame," Gale says, his eyes wild, and he gestures with his hands. "If we refuse to blame the Victor then we're finally free to point fingers at the people in charge. The most dangerous thing we can do is to show them they can't control us. Katniss -- she understood that. She didn't play their game the way they wanted. And now that girl. She offered us part of her stipend and we saluted her and you held her hand , and people won't ignore that. They'll see. It doesn't have to be this way. We can be stronger than they are. They only keep us down because they keep us separated."

Prim's head spins. Mom comes back with the tea, passing out the chipped mugs, and she sits at the rickety table and curls her hands around the porcelain. "That's not why I did it," Mom says, quiet but firm, and she gives Gale a disapproving look. "She looked so small up there all alone, and Katniss --" She closes her eyes, but then her mouth thins and she opens them again and she's still here, not drawn back into herself. "Katniss tried to save her, and that girl tried to give us some of her money, not that they'll let it happen. It felt like Katniss would have wanted me to show her some support." She turns to Gale and clicks her tongue at him. "I didn't mean to bring any trouble, and neither should you."

Prim shivers as the cold settles back around her. The feeling from the square is gone now, ripped away and torn apart in the wind; Katniss is gone and dead, her body lying cold in the ground behind the Victors' Village with all the others. There will be no extra food or money coming to Twelve because Mom's right, they'll never let a little girl give the orders like that. And now Rue's back on the train and speeding away from Twelve and all the memories, and in two weeks she'll be back home in her giant shiny house with her beautiful dresses and her little siblings, and Prim will still be sneaking out under the fence to pry stiff, frozen corpses of small animals from wire snares with chilled and aching fingers.

None of it matters in the end, just surviving. What happened today won't change a thing. Prim gulps her tea fast enough to scorch the roof of her mouth and doesn't bother to say anything as Mom and Gale argue. Instead she lets her mind drift to the trap line and whether they'll catch something good enough she can trade it for some gloves.

And so, the routine continues. Every morning Prim slips out of the house early in Katniss' leather jacket, slides between the lifeless wires and makes the circuit. If it's a good day she heads through into town with the goods, knocking on doors and making the trades before the sun rises above the windows. Some days Rory joins her; some days she's alone.

(The first time she showed up at the Hawthorne house after the mining shift ended, a burlap sack full of Gale's trades, he gave her a look. "You skim any off the top?" he asked, looking through it. "What was the haul?"

Prim dutifully rattled off what she'd traded away and what she got for it, and at the end she put her hands on her hips. "And no, I didn't. I took one squirrel like we agreed, you get the rest."

Gale gave her a long look, then his mouth quirked and he ruffled her hair. "Always skim off the top, I don't care who you're doing business with. Here." He broke off a piece of a day-old loaf from the Mellark bakery and handed it to her. "There, see? Now you're set.")

It means Prim pays attention to the pattern of the town a bit more, and she notices when the workers from Six who ride the supply trains into town every week start lingering. It's not until she catches Rory slip one of them a small bottle of Sae's famous white liquor in exchange for a whispered conversation that Prim puts the pieces together. She doesn't bother accosting Rory; that night she waits around the Hawthorne house for Gale to get back from his shift instead.

"What are you doing with the train workers?" Prim asks in a low voice. "You're giving them alcohol for information! What do you want to know?"

"Get inside the house, for the love of a dead canary," Gale mutters, glancing around. "You'd think after all this you'd have some sense."

Prim doesn't take the bait. "Well?" she asks, crossing her arms. "What are you trying to find out?"

"It worked," Gale tells her, and he holds her by the shoulders hard enough to cause a twinge of pain. "The Victory Tour, it worked! Every single district all the way down, except for One and Two. That's why the footage didn't reach us here -- it wasn't a communications problem, they couldn't air it. Every district people saluted her. By the time they got to Five they were shooting anyone who raised their hands. There was a massacre in Three."

"You sound happy," Prim says, half horrified, half fascinated. It doesn't make a difference to her or anyone in the Seam if a bunch of people in Three were shot by Peacekeepers; probably more people die in Twelve from starvation and black lung and everything else. Still. it seems tasteless to do a dance of joy about it

"I'm not happy they died ." Gale waves a hand. "I'm happy things are happening. If enough people listen and band together, who knows what will follow?"

"Whipping posts in every town square and a Peacekeeper on every corner, that's what," says Mrs. Hawthorne, appearing out of nowhere, and Gale flinches. "That's enough, Gale. It's bad enough you're filling Rory's head with talk, now you've got to start on little Miss Everdeen?"

The words I'm not little flash through Prim's brain, but as Dad said once when Katniss protested she was old enough to stay up to see the first meteor shower of the year, if you have to prove it, it's probably not true. "I'm going to head back home, Mom will be wanting me for dinner. Nice to see you, Mrs. Hawthorne."

Prim says nothing to Mom at dinner, but there's a good loaf of bread from the Mellarks and some turnips from the Cavendishes' cellar and even a bit of butter, and they sit down to a good winter soup by the light of a stump of candle. By the time she lets Buttercup lick the sides of her soup bowl, the riots have faded from Prim's mind. It's a silly thing to think; Gale's just hoping for anything, stuck down in the mines all day with nothing for his mind to do but spin. There's no way that Prim holding Rue's hand could lead to people dying in District Three.

One afternoon during math class, their teacher wheels out an ancient television that's probably older than Greasy Sae. Prim sets down her slate with the other kids, and they glance at each other and whisper as Mrs. Alder fiddles with the settings. "Sorry children," she says, standing back as the screen crackles. "There's a mandatory broadcast this afternoon. I know how you were all excited to keep doing mathematics instead of watching television."

Some of the other kids laugh, but Prim folds her hands in her lap, fingers clenched together and stomach twisting. The giggles die out as the Panem seal fades from the screen, and Prim holds her breath.

It's Caesar Flickerman and his blinding smile, informing everyone that Rue's thirteenth birthday is coming up this summer, and the Capitol is going to make a very special celebration for their youngest Victor. The camera cuts to Rue, at home in Eleven, wearing a light blue dress of silk and gauze that looks like it would feel like water and flower petals against the skin, and cost more than anyone in Twelve could make in a year.

"This is a very special time for you, isn't it Rue," Caesar says, beaming. "I heard you only turned twelve a few days before the Reaping. Isn't that lucky! Another week and you would have missed out on the most important experience of your life!"

Prim's hands curl to fists beneath the cover of her desk.

Rue smiles without showing any of her teeth. If she'd been born a week later then she would still be in Eleven and Katniss would be alive and -- "I'm looking forward to sharing my birthday with all of you," she says, looking pretty and sincere and everything, but she's obviously lying and even Prim knows that. Rue might be the Capitol's little doll now, but she must want to be left alone.

"Oh, and so you will, because the Capitol has a very special gift in store for you," Caesar says, leaning forward like he wants to pat her hair, but of course she's not really there with him. "It's supposed to be a surprise, but I just don't think I can keep it anymore! Should I tell her, folks? What do you think?" The audience roars. "President Snow has announced that, since you were so popular on your Victory Tour, each district will be sending you a birthday present! What do you think of that?"

Rue's eyes go wide. "I -- but they don't have to do that!"

Yes, Prim thinks, her heart thudding. Yes, we do.

Caesar goes on to speculate what each of the districts will be giving her, and it doesn't really matter what the real gifts will be because anything means more hours of work for people with backs already breaking, time away from home and families and children and jobs. Rue sits in her giant house with her face plastered in shock as Caesar imagines beautiful dresses from Eight, ropes of pearls on a string from Four, and glittering diamonds pulled from the mines at Twelve. The way he tells it, the miners only have to walk underground and pluck jewels right off the walls. Nobody in Caesar's story dies in an explosion and leaves their family to starve; nobody coughs up wet, quivering chunks of black goo that spatter the ground with blood.

The interview ends, and Mrs. Alder stands stunned, staring at the screen while Prim and the others shift restlessly. "Well," she says finally, mouth opening and closing like the time Billy Porter asked her where babies come from and why his Pa said he should ask Mr. Miller the shoe repairman. Caesar continues talking in the background, but Mrs. Alder flips off the volume and he jaws away soundlessly. "It's important in times like these to appreciate the Capitol's generosity."

"Do you think I'd get a big birthday party if I volunteered and won when I'm twelve?" asks Dominic Hayes. He's ten years old; his parents make furniture that's more pretty than useful, and he's always been a little silly. Gale says that's what happens to people who make art instead of food or tools.

Mrs. Alder presses her lips together. "I think you should be grateful for what your parents give you," she says. "They might feel bad if they thought you didn't appreciate what you already have."

Caesar's show turns off in the background, and the program changes to a news broadcast. The header reads DISTRICT EIGHT, and the camera swoops in on a man tied to a post as a line of soldiers raises their rifles. The ticker at the bottom says he tried to bomb a factory to halt clothing production. Mrs. Alder is busy giving Dominic a stern look as he pouts in his seat and doesn't notice until the class gasps.

Mrs. Alder looks at the television, lets out a sharp cry, and switches off the screen right as the soldiers fire and the man collapses in a spray of blood. "I think that's enough math," Mrs. Alder says, shakily. "Why don't we change to music instead? Who wants to start us off with the Dove's Lullaby?"

Prim moves her mouth in time with the words, but her mind is far away. It bounces back and forth between Rue in her pretty blue dress and the man and the guns and the blood until it all combines into Rue lying on the ground, her stomach a mess of red, soaking through the silk and soaking it shiny and black.

"Prim, you're not singing," says Mrs. Alder, her face white, and she's trying so hard to make them forget. Prim pushes the images away and starts to sing.

Chapter Text

Katniss taught Prim to recognize the signs of a cold winter years ago: geese and ducks migrating early; thick fog in the mornings at the end of August; raccoons with thick tails; tracker jacker nests built high up in the tops of the trees. This year, Gale teaches her the signs of revolution.

"Look at the prices," Gale tells her in a low voice, on a rare day off from mining as they make their way through the market. "The men say everything that's not manufactured here has shot up because there are shortages everywhere. Nine claimed grain fires took out two of their refineries so they can't deliver; Ten said a bunch of their cows caught some disease. Any time there's an uprising, the men say the prices always soar."

He always says things like 'the men' now that he's working in the mines, all chest puffed up with importance like he's not barely a year past Reaping age. Prim thinks that's why he talks to her, instead of muttering with the other miners over their bottles of cheap liquor down at the Hob; to them he's just a boy and they're quick to tell him where he's wrong. Meanwhile, sometimes his words make Prim frown, but she never has any proof to back up her feelings.

"It's not just the prices, either," Gale says as they weave through the stalls. "Shipments are spottier. We didn't even get any sugar this month; the men say it's like that all the way down the outlying districts. The Capitol is sending everything they can to their own city so the people there don't notice. Better we go hungry than them, right? Not like anyone in Twelve needs sugar or anything. Meanwhile Mrs. Mellark will be beating her boys for weeks."

He continues on -- refugees spotted riding the rails or out in the woods; TV broadcasts cutting out in the middle of a scene; the news playing the same clips of a handful of executions or floggings because things are too out of control elsewhere to show -- and Prim fights the urge to tune him out. Gale walks in long, jerky strides; he speaks fast, his hands cutting through the air in taut gestures. He's restless, eager for some of the unrest to hit Twelve, for the people here to rise up with the rest of the country.

"Rise up and do what?" Prim asks finally, her voice edged with exasperation. The Peacekeepers here join in kickball games with the children and trade items down at the Hob because they don't have to bother keeping order; the people of Twelve do it themselves, too beaten down to care. "Who would even notice? There are no cameras down here. Nobody would see. We'd just get shot or whipped and it wouldn't matter because the Capitol wouldn't even see it."

"You're too young to be defeatist," Gale says, giving her a hard look. "Where's your spirit? Katniss wouldn't think like that."

Katniss wouldn't talk like him either. Katniss wouldn't wish blood and whippings and curfews on their people. "Katniss is dead," Prim says instead, and he flinches away from her, his shoulders coming up around his ears. And Katniss wouldn't like this either, but it feels good, using pain as a weapon. Katniss' death doesn't fill her every thought anymore but it still aches, and it's nice to do something with it other than let it sit in her chest and turn to dust.

"Yeah, and whose fault is that?" Gale shoots back, recovering himself.

A few months ago Prim would have said Rue. Gale wants her to say the Capitol. Now Prim just shrugs, because dead is dead and does it really matter? Gale sighs and lets it drop, sidling up to Ripper and starting in on the price of a snared squirrel.

Spring hits the Seam in fits and starts, chased back out beyond the fence by a furious burst of winter like the snow is offended that the sun wants to make it leave. Prim remembers what Katniss taught her and ignores the weather; the animals know better than people, and so she watches the sky for the familiar V of geese flying back to the woods, birds nests of mud and sticks springing up under the eaves of buildings. In the mornings, even when it's cold and wet and misty, mockingjays twitter outside Prim's window. Buttercup yowls to be let outside instead of huddling beneath the stove.

She thinks of Rue watching the flowers bloom and the shoots poke their way through the ground from the comfort of her house in Eleven. What does she do all day now that she doesn't have to work to feed her family? Does she still go to school, wearing those soft, imported clothes, cheeks plump and shining with health from the food in her stomach? Do the others crowd around her at the midday meal, eager for a glimpse of her lunchbox as their own stomachs growl with hunger and they gnaw on tesserae biscuits? Prim peels bark from the pine trees and holds it in her mouth until the saliva runs, and she swallows enough to trick her stomach into thinking it's food.

Prim turns thirteen one chilly morning in early March. She wakes up at the same time she always does to check the traps, but this morning Mom is up already. She's laid out a breakfast of bread and cheese, and even a small pot of thick cream with a tiny sprig of mint. "Mom --" Prim crosses the kitchen and hugs her, and Mom presses her cheek to Prim's hair and rocks her back and forth. "You didn't have to."

"Yes I did," Mom says, and she pulls back, pushes Prim's hair out of her eyes and kisses her forehead. "You're all I have left. I love you." She pulls out Prim's chair, and Prim takes a bite of the warm, thick-crusted bread. This isn't day-old leftovers, traded from the Mellarks for one of Gale's rabbits; when she breaks it the scent of fresh dough hits her and she has to close her eyes. "I've been saving for a while," Mom tells her. "Here."

She hands Prim a small package, and Prim gasps when she peels the paper back. It's the Mockingjay pin that Katniss wore to the Games, the one that disappeared when she died because they'd dressed her body in new clothes and hadn't bothered to include it.

"I asked Haymitch Abernathy to get it back," Mom says quietly, and her eyes shine wet but her jaw sits firm. "It took me a while to convince him, but finally he found it. It was in a Games museum in the Capitol, with a pile of tokens from other fallen tributes."

Prim cradles the pin in both hands and holds it to her chest. "Thanks, Mom," she says in a hoarse whisper.

"I promised her I wouldn't leave you." Mom reaches over and rests her hand on Prim's shoulder, and her fingers shake more now than they used to but she grips her tight. "I'm not going to, baby."

Prim lets out a long, slow breath. Katniss' chair sits in the corner of the room, and her clothes hang in the back of the closet because Prim will be big enough to fit into them in a few years. She haunts the house and hides in the trees and flits around corners in the Seam, like if Prim turned a second sooner she might catch her. The pin is cold and heavy in her hand, and Prim turns it over in her fingers. "We're gonna be okay," Prim says -- to herself, to Mom, to the ghosts of Katniss and their father, she's not sure.

"Eat your breakfast," Mom says, and pushes forward a metal cup filled with warm, fresh goat's milk.

Another mandatory broadcast, this time when Prim and Mom sit down to supper, and Prim picks up Buttercup so he can't jump onto the table and try to pilfer their food while they watch. She carries him in and sits curled up together with Mom, piling the threadbare couch cushions against her far side so she doesn't feel the lack of Katniss' warmth. It sort of works.

The president stands on his dais and looks straight at them, his eyes fierce and focused. Prim's breath hitches in her chest. She would never want to stand in front of him and have to look into those eyes in person; last year they gave Rue a stepping stool, because he wouldn't crouch down to put the crown on her head.

"It's the card," Mom says, half in thought. "They're going to change the rules because this is a Quell year."

Prim learned about the Quarter Quells in school, and of course everyone knows the upcoming year is the 75^th, but she never really thought about what that meant. The televisions didn't even bother, what with all the fuss about Rue's upcoming birthday celebrations, but now President Snow reaches into a wooden box and pulls out a small envelope.

He slides the card free and holds it up and out at arm's length, reading out in a solemn tone. "On the seventy-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol, the male and female tributes will be reaped from their existing pool of victors."

Prim sucks in a breath as the words bounce around in her brain. "Oh, Haymitch," Mom says in a tired, pained voice, and she glances out the window toward the direction of the Victors' Village and its rows of empty houses. That's right -- there are no more Victors in Twelve. Mr. Abernathy will be going back into the Arena for his second Quarter Quell. He won't be coming back.

It's a strange moment of relief that hits Prim like an ice ball between the shoulder blades: if Katniss had won last year, she'd be the female tribute for District Twelve all over again. Prim would have had a year to live with her sister in the big house with the pretty dresses and rich food, only to lose her all over again because the odds would never be in her favour enough to win a second time in a row. No districts have ever done that except the Careers. In a few months Katniss would be dead -- for real this time -- and Prim thrown right back into the dark haze of losing her.

A knot in Prim's chest unwinds; if Katniss was always going to die, maybe it's better this way, to have already started to learn to live again instead of just now starting to dread. Is false hope better than none?

It doesn't matter, because the president is still talking. "In the case that a district should not have both a male and female victor to contribute to the Quell, the reaping-age family members of tributes chosen in the past decade will comprise this year's tribute candidates."

The world stops moving.

Mom lets out a shattered cry; Prim hugs Buttercup tight enough that he yowls in protest, and when she loosens her grip he shoots from her arms and dashes away to hide under the table, hissing and spitting. "No," Mom bursts out, and they're still talking on the television -- the commentators bring up a list of the living Victors and start placing odds on who would make the best showing -- but it doesn't matter. Prim wraps her arms around Mom and holds her close. Mom's fingers dig into her wrists. "Not both," Mom says, speaking to no one. "I can't lose him and my girls. Not another, please. Not again."

"I'm not going anywhere," Prim says into her shoulder, but she's shaking despite her best efforts to stop. "Tons of tributes had brothers and sisters, Mom. It's okay. They're not going to take me, too."

But Mom won't stop crying and Prim can't take it, she can't be strong today, and so she slips away and stands on tiptoe to reach the box at the back of Mom's healing room. There's a small vial of sleeping draught, only a few swallows, and Prim carries it back to Mom, settling herself between Mom's knees and pressing the glass into her hands. "Drink this," Prim tells her, and she uses her healer's voice, kind and gentle but also firm and strong. "It'll make you feel better."

Mom drinks with Prim's help, and a few minutes later her eyes flutter and she leans sideways. Prim helps her down onto the couch, arranges pillows under her head and the thin blanket over her shoulders. After that she heads for the front room, tugs Katniss' jacket from the rack and slips into it, pulling the collar up over her nose to inhale the scent of leather, dust, and pine needles.

Prim shuts the door behind her, casts a quick look at the night sky, and heads down the path to the Victors' Village to see Haymitch Abernathy.

Bottles clink across the floor when Prim slides the door open, and she's been in the room with injured miners when the stench of blood and rot fills the house, but it's not like this, stale and choking. But she's not here to talk to Mr. Abernathy about his housecleaning skills, is she. Prim follows the sound of the television -- "I for one would love to see a matchup between Johanna of Seven and Cashmere of One, wouldn't that just be delicious" -- and the raucous, unhinged laughter that follows every snippet of commentary.

"What do you want?" Mr. Abernathy calls out without leaving his spot, sprawled in his chair with a bottle dangling loosely between his fingers. "If you want an interview, just wait a couple months. I'll be giving plenty."

Prim steps in closer and takes a look at him, Seam-dark skin and hair washed pale in the light of the television. "How many are there?" she asks, and he snorts and covers his eyes with one hand. "How many tributes had families?"

Mr. Abernathy coughs out a laugh that's filled with knives and stinging nettles. "Sweetheart, what makes you think I remember?"

Prim stomps one foot against the ground. She doesn't have time for this. "Why do you drink, then, if you don't remember?"

He opens one grey eye and skewers her with it. "Little girl, I drink to forget, and lucky for me, I'm happy to say it's working pretty well."

"Then give me a list of past tributes," Prim says, folding her arms like Katniss used to do when someone failed to impress her. "You can do that, right? Then I can go around and ask. I want to know how many names will be in the bowl with me. I want to know my chances."

Mr. Abernathy leans down and picks up a bottle in one jagged swoop before letting it fly; Prim ducks, but it wasn't aimed at her. It hits the power button on the television and the screen goes black; she can't tell if he meant to do it or not. She doesn't remember what weapon he used to win his Games. It's never mattered before. "And which of the sacrificial lambs' little sister are you?"

Prim narrows her eyes. "I'm Primrose Everdeen. Katniss Everdeen's sister. She volunteered for me last year."

"Of course you are." He stops, gropes to the side until his hand hits the lamp and tugs at the string to turn on the bulb. "Well look at you, grown up so tall. I didn't recognize you without you looking scared to death."

"I'm not scared." Prim's heart shudders in her chest, and she digs her fingers into the smooth, worn leather of her sleeves. "I just want to be prepared."

"Sweetheart, I'm gonna tell you a little secret; with the Games, ain't no such thing as being prepared." Mr. Abernathy runs a hand through his hair, hanging lank and sweaty in his face. "Five out of six Careers munch it every year, and look at what they do to get there. Little thing like you, your best chance is to hope one of your friends gets picked instead."

Prim lets out a breath. At least her nose has grown accustomed to the smell; it burns her eyes a little but no longer tickles in her throat. "Do you really think they will?"

Mr. Abernathy licks his lips, then fishes around in the crack of his chair and pulls out another bottle. "You really want me to answer that?"

What she wants is to wake up screaming in the grey pre-dawn light with Katniss' arms around her, comforting whispers in her ear. "Yes," Prim says instead.

"Then if I'm being honest, I think it's gonna be you and me up there on the fourth of July," Mr. Abernathy says. "Unless you can bribe one of them to stand up for you when they call your name."

Prim swallows. "How many districts don't have enough male and female mentors?" she asks, and the itch to do something builds up inside her until she starts moving around the room, picking up bottles and setting them upright on the table.

Mr. Abernathy clucks his tongue. "I think you know the answer to that. Looks like your stunt with that little girl at the Tour turned a few heads."

Prim's fingers tighten on the table's edge, and she takes a long, slow breath and picks up another bottle, slotting it into place between two others. "It wasn't a stunt. I don't know why I did it. I didn't think it would mean anything."

"Story of a lot of people's lives," Mr. Abernathy says. "Short stories, that is."

"So what do I do?" Prim asks him, shoulders curled. She doesn't want to see the unimpressed purse of his lips and lazy drift of his eyebrows as they climb up his forehead. "I don't just want to wait around and hope that wishing hard enough means I won't get picked."

"Turn around," Mr. Abernathy says, and Head Peacekeeper Cray says that to the girls sometimes and Prim's spine snaps straight, but he doesn't say it in that kind of voice. "Don't be weird, I just want to see your face. See if you look like that sister of yours."

Prim does, curling one hand around her upper arm and fighting the urge to fidget. "I don't think I do," she mumbles, and she's never talked to Mr. Abernathy before and she doesn't want him to see the twisting fear inside of her. That Katniss was brave and strong and not afraid of anything and Prim is not like her at all.

Mr. Abernathy puts down his bottle, tilting his head and regarding her with half-closed eyes. "You do when you're angry," he says, and that surprises her. "You've got the same eyebrows. Same frown. It's good, they'll remember that for the cameras. They've spent the last year comparing you to the girl from Eleven, so that's good for you too."

Prim wets her lips. "You sound like you're planning."

"Maybe I am." He taps his finger against the arm of his chair. "How's your stamina, can you run?"

"Not very fast," Prim admits. No one in the Seam can; the coal dust gets into her lungs and makes hacking coughs whenever she tries to move too quickly. She could never keep up with Katniss when they played tag, and not just because Prim had shorter legs. "I'm better at hiding."

"Hiding only works if you get far away enough they can see where you go," Mr. Abernathy points out, and Prim winces. "You should run. In the mornings, before school. Start slow, just do a lap around the Seam. If your side starts cramping up then walk, but don't stop moving. Not until you're done, and then keep walking until your heart stops beating so fast."

"What about you?" Prim challenges. "You're going in too. What are you planning to do when you get into the Arena?"

"Hope they have drinks in the Cornucopia and make myself one hell of a final toast," Mr. Abernathy says dryly.

Prim narrows her eyes. "No," she says, and he quirks an eyebrows at her, bares his teeth in scorn. "No, if I'm going running, so will you."

He barks out a laugh. "Not a chance."

"Why not? You're definitely going in and I'm just a maybe." It's not a maybe and they both know it. That's also not the point. Prim bites her lip, but a trap will close on you just as fast if you creep into it than if you jump, and so she makes her self say it. "How will you protect me if you run or throw a knife?"

This time it's both eyebrows racing to see who makes it to his hairline first. "Say what now?"

Prim crosses her arms at him and stares him down, the way Katniss used to do when someone tried to undercut her on the price of a good, fat hare. "Are you going to protect me or not?"

It sounds nicer that way. It sounds nicer than "are you going to die for me", but she doesn't have to say it. Not when they both know.

Finally Mr. Abernathy chuckles, and this time it doesn't sound like broken glass. "You know what, fine. Show up tomorrow and we'll take the world's most embarrassing jog around town."

Prim swallows again and shoves her hands in her pockets to hide the shaking. "Thank you," she says, and Gale taught her never to push a sale, so she gives him a nod and lets herself out.

For the next few months, Prim compartmentalizes her life. Checking the traps and making the rounds of buyers in the morning, followed by a jog with Mr. Abernathy around the edge of the Seam; school during the daytime; more lessons with Mr. Abernathy in the afternoon before it's time to go home for dinner. It's -- well, it's not training, not exactly, nothing that would give Prim the edge over even a tribute her age in the Arena, let alone ones who've done it before. It's little things, like learning how to breathe when she runs for long distances ("Double your breaths," Mr. Abernathy tells her, poking her between the shoulders to make her stand up straight, "In-in, out-out, in time with your strides. You'll go longer that way") or how to wriggle out from under a hold.

He tries to show her how to throw knives, but Prim can't get her wrists at the proper angle for it, and he actually snaps at her. Prim refuses to cry, and the next day when she comes back determine to do it, he hands her a piece of copper tubing instead. "Here," Mr. Abernathy says, and tosses over a soft leather pouch filled with tiny darts, feathered at one end and wickedly pointed at the other. "You want to get some distance between you and anyone you're fighting. That girl last year had her slingshot, but it's one hell of a lucky shot to make a kill with it. You use this, all you have to do is get yourself some poison and then it won't matter where you hit, as long as it sticks long enough to draw blood. Easier to aim, too."

Prim lifts the tube to her mouth and fires -- it misses the target completely, but at least it flies past instead of falling with a thump three feet away like the knives -- and Mr. Abernathy's face twitches. "That's enough for today," he tells her, voice trembling, and he pulls the flask from his pocket and takes a long drink, baring his throat as he tips his head far back to get the last of the liquid. Prim has the horrifying thought that if she saw that in the Arena, it would be an easy target for one of her darts. "Go on, get out of here. Take a couple days off to practice and come back when you can hit something smaller than an oak tree."

"I just started!" Prim retorts, stung, but his eyes are shadowed and his mouth thins in the way that Mom does when memories of Dad or Katniss hit her hard. Prim bites back her anger; Mr. Abernathy has had years of memories to chase away, more tributes than Prim wants to think about dying on his watch. She'll leave him alone for now; maybe in a few days he'll come round.

"Was there a girl tribute from Twelve who used a blow dart gun?" Prim asks Mom that night at supper, not really expecting an answer. She definitely doesn't expect Mom to knock over the water pitcher and not try to chase it, staring at the liquid as it drips down from the table and pools on the floor. "Mom?"

"There was, in the second Quarter Quell," Mom says, distant, eyes looking over Prim's shoulder at nothing, but then she snaps out of it and gives her a hard look. "Why? What are you doing with dart guns?"

Prim hasn't told her about the sessions with Mr. Abernathy. They don't talk about the upcoming Reaping at all; it's easier for Mom to slide into a place where the bad things can't touch her, and Prim isn't going to try to make her change. "We were learning about the Quell at school," Prim says smoothly, and it's not until the lie leaves her mouth as easy as the truth that she even realizes what she said. "I was just wondering."

"She was -- I knew her." Mom passes a hand over her eyes, and it's so much like the gesture Mr. Abernathy does sometimes that Prim blinks. "We were friends."

Mr. Abernathy won the Quarter Quell, and if Mom's friend was in it -- Prim bites down on her tongue. "I'll clean up the water," Prim says, darting up to fetch a towel from the kitchen and mop up the mess. "Maybe after we can go over the plant book and you can how me the medicinal ones again."

Prim has them memorized -- witch hazel for pain and fever; sambucus for ailments of the stomach and lungs; pine needles boiled in water for women who can't afford a baby; on and on and on -- but it calms Mom to sit together and turn the pages. After Mom goes to sleep that night Prim will flip to the chapter on poisons ( the elder flower and leaves may be used to heal and cooked berries for food, but ripe, raw berries build up a low toxin that releases gradually and kills over time ) and study it until the candle gutters.

There are actually only sixteen of them in the square on Reaping Day. Ten years' worth of candidates sounded like a bigger number on paper, but most of the siblings have aged out since then, and not all of the tributes had sisters in the first place. The Mellark boys stand at the back, safely behind the rope with all the other brothers who don't have to worry. It's just Prim and the other girls, standing in their best dresses with the sun beating down on them.

Normal Reaping rules still apply. Prim has her name in twice, one for each eligible year, and none for tesserae because she promised Katniss and it's easier to peel the bark off the trees and make flour from the meaty white pulp anyway. That means the oldest girls still have the worst chances. Briony, eighteen years old and skinny as a tree branch, has four little sisters who all stand next to her, holding hands and looking up at the stage with expressions ranging from terrified to determined.

It might be one of them in the end. Maybe it won't be her after all, and years from now Prim will laugh at the months she spent practising how to run without gasping and blow darts into a target from fifteen feet away and climb a tree in a matter of seconds, but for now there's no point thinking about any of that. The bowl is there, enormous and empty with only a scattering of slips at the bottom, and Prim can't draw her gaze away. The opposite bowl only has one piece of paper, and Mr. Abernathy stands on stage in a grey suit and his mouth twisted in sour amusement.

Mom's in the crowd somewhere, standing with Mrs. Hawthorne's arm around her waist. This morning Prim asked if she wanted to stay home, but Mom's eyes flashed and she got herself out of bed and that's -- something? Maybe it will be okay.

The escort -- Effie, Prim finally made an effort to learn -- steps up to the microphone and reads out the new rules, reminding them all why only a handful of girls stand in the middle of the square as though they could have forgotten. They watch the film, listen to the spiel, but then Effie holds up one sparkling fingernail. "One more thing! Of course everyone will be excited to leap into the Arena to fight such worthy competitors this year, but in the spirit of the Quarter Quell and as a reminder that the judgement of the Capitol is final and incontrovertible, this year the rules allowing for a volunteer have been overturned. May the odds be ever in your favour!"

Briony lets out a soft cry and pulls her sisters close, and the cameras swoop in and project the image of the girls clinging together on the giant screens. When she catches sight of herself, Briony hisses and stands up straight again, moulding her expression into one of anger and determination.

"First, the boys," Effie chirps, and Mr. Abernathy barks out that laugh again, the one that feels like a slap to the face, but doesn't bother to mock out loud. She ignores him with the skill that comes with years of practice and reaches into the bowl, actually whirling her hand around like she's sifting through piles of slips. Prim exhales hard through her nose, and without meaning to she meets Mr. Abernathy's gaze. Right up there on stage, in front of all the cameras, he rolls his eyes, and Prim has to pinch her lips together to stop from bursting out with a hysterical giggle. "Haymitch Abernathy!" Effie announces, and he takes one long-legged step forward with exaggerated military precision.

"And now, the one we've all been waiting for ..."

The most replayed footage from last year's Reaping isn't Prim walking to the stage with her brave face on and tucking in her shirt. It's not her putting one foot in front of the other while her mind screamed at her to run away. It's her shrieking as they led Katniss forward, as Gale hauled Prim over his shoulder and carried her back behind the lines. This year it won't be like that. Prim's hands itch with sweat, but she doesn't wipe them; Mr. Abernathy taught her that only makes it worse, and it's a surefire tell for the cameras. Instead she splays out her fingers, just a little, and holds them away from her sides, lets her gaze go unfocused and concentrates on her breathing.

Prim concentrates so hard she misses the name. Briony's littlest sister starts sobbing and for a second Prim thinks it was her, but then that's her own face on the screen behind the stage and the other girls stepping back and there will be no miracles this year.

She knew that. She's spent months preparing for it, telling herself before bed every night, but turns out Mr. Abernathy was right. It doesn't really help.

Still. Prim holds her head up high, and she makes it to the stage without trembling or shedding a tear. Her face on the screens, when she catches a glimpse of herself, has lines around the eyes and mouth, but she doesn't look like the little girl who collapsed last year.

Mr. Abernathy steps forward and gives her a hand up as she reaches the top of the stairs. "Look up," he tells her in a voice too low for the microphones. "Over their heads. Don't actually look at the people. It'll be easier." Then she's on the stage and he moves back into his place.

Prim turns to face the crowd, and for a second she automatically goes to search for familiar faces and -- oh, oh, no, Mr. Abernathy was right; it's much, much easier if she doesn't. And so Prim stares over their heads, out and past them to the backdrop of buildings and trestles and containers of coal. The sun beats down hard and warms the top of her head, but the rest of her is neck-deep in ice water.

Don't think. Don't think. Don't think. This year they've learned, at least; no one applauds still, but they don't raise their hands in salute either -- not even Gale, wherever he is. Not when the square bristles with Capitol Peacekeepers. Prim lets the buzzing in her head take over until the ceremony finishes, then she turns and walks with Mr. Abernathy and the Peacekeepers who flank them, through the doors to the Justice Building to the rooms where she'll wait for her family and friends to come visit.

Except -- except they don't. They walk straight through the Justice Building and out to the train tracks, and by the time Prim realizes what's happening -- that they're not going to let her say goodbye -- it's too late. The panic rises but she's surrounded by people with guns and the train is right there, so big and terrifying and fast, and it's happening, really really happening --

Before she knows it, Prim is on the train with the doors shut, and the whole thing rushes away from the station. Usually they wait an hour to give everyone the chance to crowd up to the rails and wave goodbye, but today the only thing whipping past the windows are the buildings and scrubby trees.

Effie flutters about the room, pointing to the new decor -- the chandelier, the lights, the furniture -- and Prim tunes her out again, fighting to clap her hands over her ears and close her eyes except that won't make her go away for real. It won't stop the train or cancel the Games or anything, and Prim's chest hurts and her head spins and she said she'd be brave, she said she would be like Katniss but she's not, she can't be --

"Tense your hand," Mr. Abernathy says from behind her, and Prim snaps around to stare at him. "Like this." He makes a fist, and Prim imitates him, squeezing as hard as she can. "Okay. Now let it go, and do the same thing with your forearm." He leads her through tensing and relaxing muscle groups all over her body, and by the time they're done Prim can breathe again and no longer feels like she's going to fall. "Good," he says, gruff, and he pulls away and drops down onto a chair across the way. "Effie, will you stop prattling and let the girl breathe? You're going to drive her crazy before we even get there."

Effie purses her lips. "I'm only trying to help her relax. This is a stressful time for everyone; I thought she might enjoy seeing how things have changed since her sister was here --"

" Nothing has changed since her sister was here." Mr. Abernathy cuts her off. "That's the whole damn point. And learning about the furniture really isn't going to make anyone feel better."

"It's okay," Prim say, speaking over both of them, and they glance at her. "I'm fine. I just want to know what to do."

Mr. Abernathy sighs and pushes himself to his feet, grabbing a drink from the rolling tray. The ice tinkles against the glass, the sound strangely musical as he tips half of the contents into his mouth. "Right now, we relax. In a few hours, once the Reaping hits across all the time zones and they put together a broadcast, we'll tune in to get the first look at which of my friends we'll be trying to kill."

"Haymitch," Effie says in a scolding tone that's softer than Prim would have expected, before biting her painted lips together and turning away to fiddle unnecessarily with the curtains over the far window.

Mr. Abernathy glances at Prim. "You should head down to the observation car at the end," he says. "Some pretty nature coming up." He snatches up a full tumbler of clear brown alcohol and heads out of the room, leaving the glasses behind.

Chapter Text

Mr. Abernathy locks himself in his carriage that first night, and Prim goes to bed after an awkward, one-sided dinner with Effie. The next morning at breakfast, Mr. Abernathy ignores Prim's attempts to ask him if they should watch the Reaping footage. He talks right over her, going on about sponsors and image and all kinds of things, and Prim gives up. Soon enough the train whirrs around the final curve, a gigantic lake and massive white buildings flashing in the sun, and then people crowd the windows like flocks of multicoloured, fluffy birds and it's too late to watch anything.

Everything after that is an overload; the people are loud and close and everyone keeps touching her, and they whisper and giggle and hiss to each other until Prim pulls into her head to shut them out. The stylist is a nice, quiet man who's a breath of relief after all the pressure and the noise and the demands; he tries to draw Prim out and get her to talk, but she jams her chin down to her chest and answers in single syllables.

Prim's parade outfit is an elaborate mess of dark grey fabric that floats around her like smoke in the air above a brushfire; she runs her fingers over the soft material and wonders, as always, how much it costs. Most of the clothing in Twelve comes from the same shipments of plain fabric from Eight; in the footage of the Reapings, the crowds blend together in a soft wash of white and blue. It's too much for Prim now -- she's drowning in it, and she can't chase the feeling that the people will be looking at her costume, not at her -- until she walks out onto the chariot floor and gets hit in the face with the sea of insanity that is the other tributes.

Well. She's not dressed as an animal or a loaf of bread or a fishing net, so maybe she shouldn't complain.

"I have a few things to coordinate," Cinna says, and he keeps his hand on her back, between her shoulder blades, as he leads her into the room. He points at a chariot at the back, led by a team of coal-black horses. "If you wait for me at the chariot, I'll be right back."

"Okay," Prim says, holding her head up and forcing the words to come out even. Cinna nods, and she takes a deep breath and plunges into the crowd.

It's not the worst -- there are more people in the narrow, twisting alleys at the black market in the Seam -- but it's so much more here. Everyone is talking and laughing and greeting each other, shaking hands and slapping each other on the arms, and they're all so big and loud and the clashing colours of their costumes hurt Prim's head. She keeps her eyes down and weaves her way through, avoiding the other horses and their jingling harnesses and keeping her destination in mind like she's slipping between the trees in the woods.

It works until she darts sideways to avoid being stepped on and runs right into a wall. No, not a wall, a person, a giant man with arms the size of Prim's waist and a scowl that makes her want to run and hide under the nearest horse. "Watch out," the man rumbles with a voice like a tunnel collapsing. "Somebody might step on you."

There are four of them; they're all tall and beautiful and terrifying, and Prim sucks in a hard breath because these are Careers. She sees them every year on the screen, beautiful and sharp-toothed and terrifying. Even on television, thousands of miles away, they're enough to make her hide behind a pillow. Here, now, in person -- they're not eighteen and fresh-faced, they're grownups and they've already killed lots of people, more people between them than Prim has fingers -- Prim's heartbeat kicks up triple-time.

"Oh, she's precious," coos the tall blonde woman. She's dressed in nothing but glitter, stuck all over her skin like diamonds, and she drops a hand on Prim's shoulder and digs her fingernails in. Prim stands still because that's what you do if you meet a bear, not that anyone's seen a bear in Twelve in decades, but you know. "Gloss, don't you think she's just delicious ?"

"Absolutely scrumptious," says the younger of the two men, leaning on the blonde girl's shoulder and grinning. His costume covers a little more skin than hers, but not by much. "I could eat you right up."

Prim holds back a wince. "Thank you," she says instead, because she's going to be brave and that means she's not going to let them bully her. Katniss wouldn't run away. Katniss would glare at them and give it right back. "I like your outfits."

"She really is darling," the young woman says, giving Prim a hard-eyed smile. "The Capitol is going to love you, baby girl. I almost hope you win."

It -- when she says it like that, it doesn't sound like it's a compliment. It gives Prim a gross, twisting feeling inside her stomach, and she thinks of Mr. Abernathy locked in his house with the bottles littering the floor. Maybe winning the Games doesn't mean what people think it does even if you're one of the pretty ones who volunteered.

"Enough," says the wall, glaring at the others. "Parade's starting, let's get going."

As soon as they're gone, Prim releases her breath in a rush. She turns around to head toward her chariot, and that's when she hears it. "That was good," Rue says, her voice lilting and almost teasing, the way she was with Katniss when she asked about Peeta. "The bit about the costumes. They were almost naked and you didn't even blink."

"My mom's a doctor," Prim says, a roaring in her ears. Her voice sounds faraway. "I see a lot of naked people. At least these ones weren't bleeding." She turns around slowly in the direction of Rue's voice.

The last time she saw Rue, they were holding hands. They held hands and the country set itself on fire. Now they're back together, and in a week's time they'll be trying to kill each other.

They've dressed Rue in yellow flowers, sewn together to make a loose, flowing gown. It's pretty enough, and not crazy like the annoyed dark-haired girl and her tree costume across the room, but that's not what catches Prim's eye. It's the shawl draped around her narrow shoulders, grey and floating -- and an exact match for the fabric of Prim's dress.

It could be a coincidence. It might not. Prim can't stop staring at it, and that's why it takes her a minute before her brain clicks on about the flowers. They're not just any yellow flowers. They're the same flowers that were growing in the clearing where Katniss died.

Prim staggers back a step. Katniss' death will never leave her alone -- Rue will never leave her alone -- the connection chews on her heels like rats. It followed Rue through the districts on the Tour, into the Capitol and everywhere, and now if Prim makes it through the Arena alive she'll be haunted by ghosts wreathed in soft yellow petals.

"I've got to go," Prim bursts out, and this time she runs and doesn't let anyone stop her.

"Thought you got lost," Mr. Abernathy drawls when Prim finally makes it back to the chariot, scrambling up onto the coach with the aid of a stepping block.

"I thought you were drunk," Prim shoots back, surprising herself. She almost slaps a hand over her mouth, almost apologizes, but no, no actually, she means it. Mr. Abernathy spent months trying to help her, and then as soon as it mattered he hid himself in his train car and left her alone with her thoughts for two days.

"I'm always drunk," he says easily, though this time he's not swaying. He's dressed in dark charcoal-grey the same as she is, though if Prim is meant to be smoke from a fire then he's the coals beneath it, thin red-orange thread sewn through his suit and glittering when the lights hit. "Get ready, the horses give a hell of a lurch when they get started, and you don't wanna fall. They'll think I've started you on bad habits."

A laugh bubbles its way out of Prim's mouth before she can stop it. "You're terrible," she tells him, and some of the anger dissipates.

Mr. Abernathy gives her a wolf's grin that would be a match for the Careers, then he reaches over and takes her hand. "Head up," he says. "I'm supporting you, not protecting you. Look strong."

The horses jog forward, and Prim bends her knees a little to keep from falling as the chariots move out onto the main thoroughfare. The crowd screams around her, the words melting into one giant blanket of sound that wraps around her and blocks out the rest of the world. Prim grips tight to Mr. Abernathy's hand and stares at the back of Rue's head and its circlet of pink and yellow blossoms.

After the parade, Mr. Abernathy jumps down and jogs over to the Eleven chariot, waving Prim after him. Prim doesn't want to go see the Elevens. She doesn't want to look at Rue or the giant man who mentored her, who stood unsmiling behind her on the stage and now grabs Haymitch and pulls him in for a hug, laughing wide with his bright white teeth showing.

But it's too late now, and so Prim follows him and stands out of the way while Mr. Abernathy and the man from Eleven chat. Rue sidles around behind them, coming up to stand next to Prim. Prim tenses, but she already ran away from Rue once and that didn't help, and so she nods and tells herself she's anywhere but here.

"I don't get it," Rue says in a low voice, looking out at the other victors. "Why are they still pretending to be friends? They're going to have to kill each other soon."

Prim whirls around to stare at her, anger spiking hot in her chest. "Why did you pretend to be friends with Katniss?" she hisses. "I bet you were just glad someone else did it for you. That way people still love you. They'd hate you if the others died first and you had to kill her yourself."

Rue's eyes narrow to slits, and it's the first time Prim has seen her angry. "You don't know anything!" she snaps, keeping her voice down like someone might step on an angry dog's neck and hold it, thrashing, against the ground. "I didn't want her to die. But she saved me, and she died for me, and I never asked her to do that -- and now I'm going to die anyway ."

"So am I," Prim shoots back, and it's easier to think about if she takes the fear and throws it like one of Mr. Abernathy's daggers. "So is almost everyone here. It's not a contest."

Except -- it is a contest, that's the whole point. Prim and Rue's gazes lock and it's not funny, none of this is funny, but she bursts into giggles anyway. Th laughter rasps inside her and pulls some of the ugly out, and it's not so bad in the open instead of sitting deep in her gut and turning to poison. Rue joins in, and it's not the sweet, little-girl laugh she shared with Katniss as they sat together on the moss-covered log and passed roasted groosling back and forth between them. It's dark and sliding and it digs its claws into Prim's chest, and for a second they're not just two girls tossed into a game too dangerous for them. For a second they're monsters in pretty dresses.

But then it passes with a shiver, and Prim's back to looking at the girl who stood on stage while her sister rotted in the ground.

Rue holds her eyes for a few seconds before looking away, biting her lips together, and in the back of her mind Prim wants to know what Rue sees when she looks at her.

"All right girls," says Mr. Abernathy, and he puts a hand on Prim's shoulder and steers her away. "I think it's best if we all get some sleep. Plenty of time to chit-chat in the morning."

"I want you to talk to that girl today," Mr. Abernathy says the next morning at breakfast. "Don't ignore the others, if they come talk to you, but make her your focus. Make sure the Gamemakers see you together."

Prim frowns, staring down at the bowl of oatmeal in front of her that's filled with nuts and fruits and sugar, not the gluey mess from home. It's delicious, but it sits in her stomach like a rock. "Shouldn't I stay away?"

"And why's that?" Mr. Abernathy asks her, grey eyes studying her. "This is your angle, sweetheart, it's the one thing we know the audiences want."

"But the Capitol doesn't," Prim says, and they're in the Capitol right now and that makes it pretty hard to ignore. This isn't Twelve, where nobody cares what they do. "I -- Gale said. People died ."

"Oh, I'm not saying they want you two to skip off into the sunset together," Mr. Abernathy says dryly. "But what they're looking for is the moment when the two of you stop holding hands and turn against each other. They'll have a riot on their hands if anything happens to you before then. The Gamemakers know it, and the other victors know it, too. This is the moment they're waiting for."

Prim swallows the sour taste in her mouth, and she pushes the rest of her oatmeal away. "That's awful."

"Well we ain't playing croquet," Mr. Abernathy says, and when Prim frowns he says, "Rich people's game out here. Never mind. Point is, your best chance of surviving is cozying up to that girl right now. Make them think you're just young and naive, that she's all you have left of your sister and you're not thinking clearly. If they see the two of you glaring at each other or pretending you don't exist, there goes your interest." He digs his fork into his plate of sausages and spears one, shaking it in her face. "The Careers will knife you soon as look at you if they can get away with it, but they won't play against the established story. Not unless they can come up with a better one, and right now, they won't."

"But you'll protect me," Prim reminds him. "Can't we just fight together and never mind everyone else?"

"There's only so much I can do for you from the mentor seat," Mr. Abernathy says, but then he stops dead. "Shit," he mutters, passing a hand over his eyes, and Prim flinches. After all those years, it must be hard to make the switch. After a minute he snaps back, a brittle smile stretching his cheeks. "Well, you know what I mean. Yeah, I can protect you, but it'll be easier if we have allies. Take it from me, that girl is our best shot. That way we'll have as long as we can stretch it out before she has to die."

Prim lets out a long breath. "I hate this," she says, and she doesn't care -- Rue doesn't matter, she took Katniss away and Prim doesn't care how she dies, she doesn't -- but she doesn't have to like it, either. She might have sat in front of the television and wished for the boy from Two to find Rue and snap her neck, but that doesn't mean she wants to stuff poison berries down Rue's throat herself. "It's awful."

"You hate this." Mr. Abernathy's face twists, and Prim knows before it happens that he's going to make the change, away from the man who held her hand and straightened her wrist and helped her throw knives, back to the one who sat in the dark with his alcohol and the television and hurled abuse at the screen. The one who took his bottle into the carriage to drink away his pain and let Prim walk into the chariot room blind. "You've known the girl for all of half an hour in person and you don't even like her, and you hate this. Give me a break."

He heaves himself up and disappears into his room, and Prim stares down at the table.

The problem is, she can't think of anything different. Katniss at least had Prim, and then Peeta's love story, and later on her friendship with Rue; people could choose which angle they liked best, which story they decided to follow. But Prim -- what does she have? She has Mom, she has Buttercup. She's a girl whose sister died for nothing. None of those things will help her.

Mr. Abernathy is right; without Rue, nobody will pay attention to Prim. And if nobody pays attention to her, nothing will stop the Careers from cutting her to pieces as soon as the countdown finishes.

Prim waits for another half an hour, but Mr. Abernathy doesn't leave his room and the clocks are ticking, and so she gets up and heads downstairs alone. Not too many of the others are in the training room when she arrives -- two of them have fallen asleep anyway, and one of them is throwing up onto the edible plants section -- and Prim moves through the almost-empty room, wandering from station to station as a spider crawls down her spine.

Swords. Spears. Daggers. Things she doesn't even know the name for. Most of them are Prim's size or bigger, and she turns away from the weapons and makes for the survival stations instead.

A rustling sound above draws Prim's attention, and she glances up to catch a flash of motion as someone disappears into the netting strung across the roof. There's no way any of the big Careers could make it up there unnoticed, and few of the smaller ones are sane or well enough. It only leaves one person really, and Prim considers ducking out but she promised Mr. Abernathy, and the Gamemakers are watching.

A piece of the netting hangs down, and Prim wraps her hands around the canvas loops and pulls herself up. The whole thing pivots like crazy and she nearly falls once, twice, three times, but she hooks her arms through the holes and grits her teeth and finally manages to make it to the top. There it evens out, the woven strips pulled taut across the length of the room with a three-foot gap between them and the ceiling. Prim crawls, cautiously, in case they're not meant to take her weight, but they hold firm. And so she goes, moving slowly toward the centre where Rue lies on her back, staring up at the concrete above her.

"I came here last year," Rue says. "I just wanted a few minutes to myself. There's no cameras up here. I spent the first day finding them all. They're not watching."

"Oh." It puts Prim off her guard, not that she had anything planned to say before anyhow.

"Did your mentor tell you to make nice, too?" Rue asks, and Prim blinks because this is a different voice again, more subdued than the flash of anger the night before. It could almost be amused, except for the smooth blankness of her features.

Prim doesn't answer right away. She rolls over onto her back, the netting shifting, and closes her eyes. "Mr. Abernathy said we should be allies," she says finally, because that's nice and neutral. Business-like. Tributes ally every year who don't like each other, despite knowing how it will end. "I don't want to."

"Neither do I." Rue agrees, and the worst part is Prim actually feels offended for a second. "Thresh and I split up as soon as it started. We agreed it was better that way, in case --" She twitches, a whole-body flinch, and curls in on herself. "It doesn't matter. He's dead now."

She says it flat, like if she doesn't put any emotion into the words then maybe she won't feel any, either. Prim squeezes her eyes tighter until the darkness behind her eyelids spirals out in random flashes and patterns in colours bright enough to make her head ache. "Lots of people are dead," Prim says, and at least her eyes stop prickling.

"I know she's dead!" Rue bursts out. "Everybody knows. Nobody ever stops talking about it! They ask me about Katniss every time I do an interview. It's like -- it's like I didn't win at all. It's like her ghost won and just dragged me with her."

Prim clenches her teeth. "Katniss died to protect you. Maybe you could at least pretend like you're grateful."

"She didn't die to protect me," Rue says, and this time Prim looks over because her voice slides away from bitterness into something else, something empty and lost and aching. "She was still trying to protect you. She didn't know me. She never asked me about my family or my brother or my sisters or my mom. I knew about you and Peeta and your cat and all this stuff but she never asked. She never asked because she didn't want to know. She just wanted me to remind her of you."

"That doesn't make any sense!" Prim turns over onto her side, fascinated in spite of herself like the first time she lost a tooth and couldn't stop poking the hole in her mouth. "She already had me. Why would she want to make you into me?"

"I don't know! Maybe the tracker-jackers made her crazy." Rue breathes out hard through her nose. "Why else would she die to save me? I bet she forgot for a second that I wasn't you for real, like she did right before she died. Chaff told me that there's all kinds of weird things happen in your head when you get really scared."

Prim frowns. "How did you want it to end?"

Rue slides both hands up to her face and presses them against her eye sockets. "I just wanted it to be over. I didn't care how. But it's not. It's -- it was over but then it wasn't, and now it's really not, and maybe it never will be." She falls quiet, and Prim lets her because there's nothing she can say, because the swirling inside her isn't taking shape in anything that resembles words.

"They sent me bread," Rue says after a while, and her voice has gone quiet. Not soft, but -- quiet, like the shiver of thunder far, far away across the plains before the storm races in, and her district accent thickens. The hair on Prim's arms prickles. "My district -- we work hard. We don't make a lot of money. My mom, she's never even seen money. She gets paid in vouchers, and if she doesn't make her quota then she doesn't get her vouchers and we don't get to eat. But they gave me a loaf of bread, the first night when Katniss was asleep, after I found her and put the leaves on her stings. And I opened it up and inside -- there was a blade. Just a little one. Not big enough to use in a fight, but big enough --" She draws a line across her throat with the back of her thumb, eyes shining in the darkness. Prim can't move. "She was asleep, right? I got her to stop crying and screaming when I put the leaves on her. That was a kindness. I was supposed to do it then. She hadn't saved me yet, and I'd told her about the tracker-jacker nest before. I didn't owe her anything."

Rue's eyes fall shut. "But I couldn't do it. I was thinking about how she had a sister, and it makes no sense because I've got three, and a brother, but I couldn't just -- I couldn't do that to her when she was sleeping. And then she woke up and we worked together and made that plan to go after the food and I thought, okay. It'll happen then. It won't have to be me. They'll catch her by the food and it won't matter that I wasted that chance. But." She wets her lips and Prim is spellbound, caught, dragged on by the underside to this story she thought she knew by heart. "You know what happened. She didn't just die, she sacrificed herself for me -- or for you, through me, I don't know and it doesn't matter. And I felt -- awful, but she gave me a chance. And I wasn't going to waste that chance, not when my district works so hard --" A trickle of water runs down her cheek sideways, heading for her ear. "So I didn't waste it that time. I won. And then at the Tour I thought, she tried so hard to save you, if I could give you all just a little bit of money, help you out, then it would be okay. I'd pay her back and nobody would owe anybody anything. Only --"

Rue lets out a breath and Prim takes it in. "Only you're back here anyway, and so am I. It was still a waste."

"All of it." Rue hisses through her teeth. "Every Games-damned bit."

Prim has heard people swear before -- heard people her age swear, too -- but none of them looked like Rue, tiny and slender with big, soft eyes. The thought hits Prim and wriggles into her chest that she doesn't know Rue, not at all.

It gives her hope, in a stupid, terrible kind of way. If Rue can curse than maybe Prim can kill.

Except she shouldn't have to. That's not a thought any thirteen-year-old girl should have -- or fourteen, or fifteen, or any age. It's not fair. None of this is. Not that Katniss is dead, or that in five years no one will remember her at all because no one remembers the ones who died unless went crazy and ate people. Not that Rue's people worked so hard to give her such a terrible gift because it was the only way to help her. Not that Mom is all alone and Prim will never know if she'll be okay, or if she'll take up the bottle or swallow an entire container of morphling or walk out past the district boundary and never come back. Not that twenty-three people did the worst things possible to survive because they were promised life and freedom if they did, and now they're back here with no promise of anything at all.

It's not fair, and the unfairness of it gets its talons into Prim and digs deep. And just like that, the layers of anger and frustration and helplessness peel back and there's something else inside. "We held hands once and there were riots," she says slowly, and the drumbeat in her chest takes up a steady, rolling rhythm. "Imagine what else we could do."

Rue frowns and turns onto her side to face Prim. "What do you mean, 'what else'? I saw the riots, you didn't. It was horrible. People held hands and the Peacekeepers shot them and they all fell. Everything was covered in red --" She shudders. "You only want that because you haven't seen it."

"But if we could show them," Prim says, urgent. "That even if the Peacekeepers shoot them or the Capitol puts us back in the Arena, if we could show them they're right. The Capitol can't kill everyone, right? Who would they rule if we were all dead? So we show them."

Rue's breath quickens and she moves closer, and they're not touching but Prim feels the almost-contact down the length of her side anyway. "What are you talking about?"

"An alliance, like our mentors want us to," Prim says. "When we go into the Arena, we find each other and we stay together and we hide. And whatever happens, we don't kill each other. I mean it. Even if we're the only ones left."

"It won't work. They'll just kill us themselves." Rue frowns and shakes her head. "They do that. They'll make an earthquake or an avalanche or a rock slide or -- or bees, or fire or something -- and we'll die anyway."

"Yeah." Prim should feel more afraid than this, but she doesn't. Instead of the awful twisting of fear here's nothing but steel and ice and rock. Prim reaches over and grips Rue's hand. "They'll kill us. Everyone will know the Capitol did it. And what do you think will happen in the districts when they do?"

For a long, long time there's nothing but their breathing, trapped in the tiny space below the ceiling, and the feel of Rue's fingers twined with hers. Finally Rue nods. "We'll have to start now. They won't believe us if we don't become friends fast."

"And we don't tell our mentors," Prim says, and her chest twinges at the thought of lying to Mr. Abernathy when he's tried so hard, even on the dark days when it's too much and he hides inside himself, but what choice is there? He'll only tell her she's crazy. He'll tell her he said to make an ally of Rue, not a suicide partner.

"No, we don't." Rue's expression sets in thought. "Okay, I'm in, and we should go before someone comes up after us. There's an easier way to get down than the one you came up, I'll show you."

Rue climbs down first, then she helps Prim find her footing, small fingers holding Prim's ankle and guiding her feet to the right places. Prim feels the touch like tiny, insistent bruises on her leg, long after they're back on the ground and touring the room together.

They walk hand in hand, and Prim only ever looks at the Gamemakers out of the side of her vision, but they never stop watching, eyes glued to their entwined fingers.

They train together, sit together, eat lunch together. They walk the corridors and take the elevator together, and when it stops at Rue's floor she flings her arms around Prim's shoulders and hugs her close. "I'm glad you're my friend," she says, her breath ghosting across Prim's neck and tickling her ear, sending an odd shiver shooting through her. "I couldn't do this without you."

It's for the cameras -- of course -- and Prim hugs her back just as tight. "Same," she says, and on impulse, presses a quick kiss to Rue's soft cheek before leaping back.

Mr. Abernathy raises an eyebrow at Prim. He came down some time in the afternoon, and while he spent most of the day with the other victors, probably searching out alliances, he did shoot Prim and Rue a few looks. "Well aren't you two chummy," he says, and Prim's ears burn. "I've gotta say, I didn't expect you two to get along so well so fast."

"She's not what I thought she was," Prim says as the elevator whirrs up one final floor. "I understand her better now."

And so it goes. Any time it's possible for them to be together, they are. Any time it's feasible for them to hold hands, they do. They're never apart, and Mr. Abernathy starts to develop a tightness in his face that means he's probably thinking of what will happen to Prim when Rue finally has to die, but it's okay because he doesn't know. They have a plan. It will be all right.

At night, Prim cries into her pillow and tells Katniss that she's sorry, but there's no other way.

For her private session with the Gamemakers, Prim spends all her time arranging healing herbs and avoiding the poison ones. She demonstrates on a dummy how to make a tourniquet and bind a wound, how to apply a bandage to a head injury to stop the bleeding fast, how and where to cut if someone gets bitten to draw out the venom before it reaches the heart.

She scores a three. So does Rue. Mr. Abernathy' face when they announce the scores is tired, but resigned. He scores an eight, but won't tell Prim what he did to get it.

For the interviews, Prim asks Cinna if he can do the same thing as he did for the parade. "I liked that you made me match Rue," she says in her best soft, persuasive little-girl voice, the one she uses with the merchants when trying to get the best price. It wouldn't work on the Seam, not on people who have to fight for every bite of food until their fingernails are worn down to the quick, but rich people seem to fall for it. "It -- I didn't feel so alone. Could you do it again?"

"I'm way ahead of you," Cinna tells her. "Don't you worry."

That evening, Prim stands on stage in a dress of grey and white and hints of lavender that shifts when she moves. She tells Caesar Flickerman and the Capitol and the country that she's just glad for the opportunity to meet the girl her sister wanted to save. "Whatever happens, I'm glad I met her," Prim says, looking back to where Rue stands with the other victors in a long line across the back of the stage. "Of course I wish Katniss were still alive, but we can't look back, only forward. I wish we could be friends forever."

The audience sniffles, and Caesar pretends to wipe away a tear. Rue said the same thing in her speech -- how happy she is to meet Prim for real, to have time to get to know her instead of through Katniss' stories -- and now she catches Prim's eye and sends her a smile that's for the cameras but also just for them.

Rue's dress is a similar pattern to Prim's in shocking monochrome, and both their gowns have a strange, one-shoulder cape that doesn't make sense until they're standing together at the back of the stage. Prim curls an arm around Rue's waist -- Rue does the same to her, fingers resting against the small of her back with that same thrumming of energy where they touch -- and that's when Prim realizes. It's not two dresses at all, it's one, and they're not capes -- they're wings.

When the audience applauds at the end of the interviews, Prim raises her free arm and nudges Rue to do the same. The fabric falls from their arms, and gasps ripple through the audience because Prim and Rue stand together in a single costume, two little girls who come together to make a single mockingjay.

"I am going to talk to Cinna," Haymitch grits out through his teeth after, as he drags Prim by the arm to the elevator, eyes darting like he expects Peacekeepers to appear out of nowhere and drag them away any second. "I asked him to make an impression, not put a target on your back. Is he trying to get you killed?"

Prim doesn't answer, and she cranes around to catch a glimpse of Rue before the doors slide shut.

Late that night, Prim opens her door to a soft knock and has to throw both hands over her mouth to stifle a shriek of surprise because there's Rue, bouncing from one foot to the other with a small, pleased smile.

"How did you do that?" Prim demands in a whisper, letting her in and shutting the door behind her. "I tried to leave once, just to see. The doors are locked."

"The balcony isn't." Rue grins. "There's a forcefield a few feet down to make sure nobody jumps --" Prim tries not to think about why people would want to jump, and why the Capitol architects would know that and build in a way to stop them -- "but it doesn't activate from the outside. I climbed up from my balcony onto yours and came in through the window." She shrugs one shoulder. "They're probably fixing it right now so no one will try it next year, but oh well."

She's wearing a soft, yellow shirt and pants made for sleeping, and she's washed off all the makeup and pulled her hair back from her face. Rue looks thirteen for real, thirteen like Prim feels inside -- too young to be relied on to feed her family but too old to think she has a choice; not too young to die but too old to cry.

"I just -- didn't want to be alone," Rue says, and a few short weeks ago Prim would have laughed, hard and bitter like Mr. Abernathy, like Gale, because how dare she come here, to the sister of the girl who died for her, and ask for comfort.

Now Prim reaches out and takes her hand, the gesture familiar now, and almost soothing. "You can stay," she says, swallowing hard. If the guards haven't come pounding on the door yet, they probably won't. They probably don't care where Rue sleeps as long as it's clear she's not trying to escape. "These beds are way too big anyway. Me and Mom and Katniss could sleep in here and not even have to touch."

Prim sneaks out and grabs all the cushions from the couch, and she brings them back in and they pile them on the bed, building themselves a wall so it's not quite so wide and open and lonely. They crawl under the blankets, but then Rue hesitates. And she's the oldest, she's the one who was the Katniss for her family, always being strong and never ever showing fear or sadness or worry. Prim always had Katniss to hold her and chase the nightmares go away.

"Here," Prim says, and she tugs Rue close. She slips her arms around Rue and rests her cheek on the other girl's hair. Rue lets out a long, quiet sigh like a kettle releasing steam and curls in close against Prim. Their heartbeats slow to a gentle shared rhythm as they breathe in unison, and Prim closes her eyes and leans back against the pillows and pretends, just for a minute that they're anywhere but here.

Rue's gone when she wakes up, but there's a napkin from the food dispenser on her pillow, folded into the shape of a bird. Prim cradles it in her hands and stares at it until Effie knocks on the door and tells her it's time.

They put Eleven and Twelve on the same hovercraft out to the Arena. Prim sits in the oversized chair with her feet dangling nowhere near the floor, heart pounding as the attendant slides the harness down over her shoulders and locks it in tight. Beside her, Rue reaches over and grips her hand, and they hold each other tight while their mentors -- their district partners -- sit across from them. They look anywhere but at the girls they think will break when the other dies.

They don't know, but they will soon. They don't understand yet, but they'll see.

"They're going to put a tracker in your arm," Rue says in a low whisper. "It'll hurt, but just for a second. Don't worry."

Sure enough a woman steps in front of her with a giant needle, and she takes Prim's arm and turns it over, underside up. The needle slides into her skin -- Prim gasps -- but then the world slips sideways and turns fuzzy around the edges and it's not a tracker at all, it's a sedative. They're going to sleep until they arrive, and Prim struggles against it -- time is precious now, how dare they take it from her -- but there's no choice, and so she falls.

She dreams.

In her dreams Prim sees the Games unfold. She and Rue run away from the Cornucopia as soon as the timer runs down. Their mentors shout after them but it's too late, the girls are young and fast -- Mr. Abernathy taught her how to run -- and the men are older and tired and have too many years of drinking themselves to sleep to catch up.

The girls hide together, and the Careers don't find them. They win food and water because they're charming and pretty and naive, because the sponsors want them to have an easy time before they die so the shock hits all the harder. They play children's games and tell each other stories. Rue weaves flowers into Prim's long, blonde hair; Prim twists Rue's into tiny braids. They laugh and smile and look the other way when the laughter cracks and the smiles fade and a few tears slip out instead.

At night they curl together. At night Prim touches Rue's cheek with the backs of her fingers, strokes the smooth, soft skin. Rue closes her hand around Prim's wrist, fingers against the pulse point, and doesn't tease her for the bones sticking out. When they sleep, Rue's hand rests against the sharp point of Prim's hipbone but she doesn't seem to care.

They die.

A tornado whips them apart and bashes them to pieces against the rocks. A flood bursts out of nowhere, drags them away as they fight to keep their grip. A volcano. A firestorm. A pack of mutts. They die again and again and again as Prim's brain turns over the choices, trying to find the one that fits. Sometimes they're strong and brave and hold each other to the end; sometimes they sob and beg and plead, faces turned to the heavens. Sometimes they break their promise and kill each other.

It doesn't matter either way. Every time they die. They die and die and die and --

"Wake up."

Prim blinks away the cobwebs as her vision returns piece by piece. They're still in the hovercraft, Rue's fingers caught tightly in hers. Across the way Mr. Abernathy and Rue's mentor struggle to bring themselves awake, muttering curses and holding their heads. "Wha's goin' on?" Mr. Abernathy slurs. "They've never drugged tributes before."

"We needed to ensure a smooth transition," says the man standing at the front of the room. He's wearing grey; his hair lies close to his scalp, cropped short, and he speaks with an accent Prim's never heard before. It's like hers, a little, but more clipped, with flatter vowels. "This hovercraft and all the others bearing victors are now under the control of District Thirteen."

"District Thirteen was destroyed," Rue says in a small, awed voice. Prim nods. They watch the footage every year.

"Not quite," the man says. "The country was impressed with you, girls. My leader likewise. We launched an initiative, and now we're offering you the same choice we're giving every victor. You may go home put yourself at the Capitol's mercy and hope they decide you know nothing, or you can come with us and fight. If you want to go home, there will be no repercussions. We'll drop you off at the district boundary and you can make your way back. I suspect one or two of the others might make this choice. But if not --" His eyes flash. "You join the Rebellion. You fight. You become the Mockingjay and lead the people in an uprising that will crush the Capitol and leave it gasping."

Mr. Abernathy drags himself awake, punching himself in the leg and slapping both hands across his face. "Now wait just a Games-damned minute, that's not how this was gonna go at all. You said you'd get them out. I assumed that meant we'd at least go in."

"That was the plan we agreed on," the man says. Prim stares at Mr. Abernathy -- he knew about this and he didn't tell her? -- but he just glares up at the soldier. "But the more we analyzed, it became clear that the mockingjays and their effect on the country would only diminish with every death in the Arena. District unity through nonviolence was never the plan until last year's Tour, but it worked. We couldn't risk destroying it, and so we took the expedient course.

"That's a lot of fancy words for 'we're making this up as we go'," Mr. Abernathy drawls. "Chaff?"

"I'm a fan of any plan where no one has to die," says Rue's mentor with a shrug. "Though I was looking forward to spilling a little Career blood myself."

You and whose hand, Prim thinks before she can stop herself, and her ears burn again. Mr. Abernathy is a bad influence.

"You'll forgive me if I point out that's exactly the sort of attitude that would undermine everything we've worked to build," the soldier says, and Mr. Chaff grunts and folds his arms. He might agree; he doesn't have to like it.

So Mr. Abernathy had a plan all along, and it wasn't just making allies with Eleven and keeping Prim alive as long as he could before he died. "But --" Prim's mouth opens and shuts and she can't remember how to make it stop. "We were supposed to die. Together."

"We were going to inspire people," Rue says, looking to Prim for support, and Prim nods. "The Gamemakers would have to do it, and then everyone would see."

Mr. Abernathy slaps a hand down his face. "That was your genius plan?" he bursts out. "The two of you get chummy and wait for the Capitol to off you? Snow's frozen balls! This is why we don't let kids run the revolution."

Prim draws herself up to retort, but the calm man interrupts. "That would not have been a bad plan," he says, and Mr. Abernathy snarls. "The world does love a martyr, after all, and a pair of them even more so. But dying for a cause is easy, Miss Everdeen. Harder, I think to live for one, but that's the choice I'm giving you now. Come with us, fight with us, and wake up one morning to a free Panem."

Prim looks at Rue, but the other girl is far away. Maybe she's where Prim used to go in her dreams before the real world got too cold: the place where the flowers grow wild without district fences to keep them back, where children play and laugh and never have to worry about being chosen to fight each other to the death; where adults can disagree, in public, and not be dragged away and never seen again.

The place where Prim and Rue have time to find out who they are, by themselves and with each other, playing in Katniss' shadow but not trapped by it.

Rue raises her head. "Yes," she says, and she's thirteen and strong and beautiful. Prim doesn't understand it, but it takes her breath away. "I want to fight."

"I'm with the little bird," says her mentor, and he's exasperated as he shakes his head and smiles at her but there's something underneath, dark and tense and waiting. He's had a long time to be angry; finally he can do something about it.

"Up to you," Mr. Abernathy says, giving Prim a long look. "I said I'd protect you and I will. Where you go, I'll go."

Prim grips Rue's fingers tight and raises their joined hands as high as they can go before the harness stops them. "Katniss was right," Prim says, and the loss still aches in her chest and will never go away, but maybe, maybe she didn't have to die for nothing after all. "Let's start a fire."

"Done," the man says, and so it is.

Prim laughs, wild and half-crazed and dizzy with relief and fear and a hundred other things. Mr. Abernathy looks at her like she's lost her mind but then he's grinning too. She turns to Rue, whose eyes are bright and shining in the dim lighting, and the feelings swell up inside her and threaten to burst out, words tumbling around in her brain and piling up in her throat and going nowhere.

Prim opens her mouth and starts to sing, and a moment later, Rue joins her.