Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Part 1

The sun rises over the horizon, the warm yellow rays glinting on the freshly fallen snow. Samuel, from where he’s crouched by his and Rebe’s spot overlooking the valley, lets out a shaky breath.

It’s Sunday.

It’s been six months since the Games. The Victory tour begins today. Samuel glances down at the gloves covering his fingers, keeping them warm from the frost. Ander had sent them to him from the Capitol, one of his newest designs.

His fingers flex against the leather material. He misses the old ones he had before, a hand me down from Nano. His mother had thrown them away after he won the Games but before he came home, saying that a Victor didn’t need to wear rags anymore.

He shakes his head again and stares out at the sunset. This used to be the old Samuel’s favourite time of day in the forest, watching as first light filters through the trees and casts everything in a golden, rosy glow. He inhales the cold crisp air, lets it wash through his lungs. He doesn’t want to face the cameras and all the people. He wouldn’t mind seeing Ander, since the only time he’s communicated with his friend has been over the telephone, but anyone else—

He cringes at the thought of the Victor’s Village being flooded with cameras and Capitol people. He just wants to forget the Games, wants everything to go back to how it was before. He’s just finally managed to settle into a routine that vaguely resembles normalcy. Now it will all be disrupted again as he and Carla travel through all the districts.

He looks to the spot beside him, where Rebe used to accompany him every morning. Now, they only have one. Rebe is still too young to be working in the mines full time, but her eighteenth birthday is only a little bit away, so her training has started, and she has school too. Since Samuel is a Victor, he’s not expected to go anymore, so he has hours upon hours to fill his time. Rebe needs to rest more now, since she spends most of her free time in the mines, so the only day she has entirely off is Sunday.

He isn’t even sure she’s going to show, especially today, but he came regardless. It’s not just the fact that since she’s so busy now, he’s the one in charge of bringing in food for her family, since he doesn’t need to worry about his own anymore because of the winnings pouring in from the Capitol. They’re wealthy now, so he doesn’t need to hunt in the forest and scavenge for strawberries and other edible plants to ensure their survival.

Rebe won’t take any of his money though, so this is the compromise. Samuel doesn’t mind it at all, obviously. Whatever he can do to help them, to help Rebe.

Rebe.

He fixates again on the empty spot beside him. He can still remember the taste of the bread she traded for them on Reaping Day, the snark and laughter in her voice. He closes his eyes tightly, almost as if by doing so he can will the memory to life and go back to how things used to be.

He and Rebe don’t talk about it, not really, but things have changed.

For one, everyone in the Capitol thinks they’re cousins. When he’d arrived at the train station and had been hugged by his mom and Nano for so long he could scarcely breathe, his mother had turned around and said, “Your cousins are here too!”

Of course, he didn’t have any cousins, but when he followed her pointed hand and found Rebe and her family at the end of it, he played along. After all, what choice did he have? When a tribute reaches the final eight, the Capitol sends interviewers to their districts to speak to the families and friends. When they’d ask the townsfolk who he was friends with, they naturally all pointed to Rebe. But of course, it was inappropriate for his only friend to be a pretty girl, especially with the whole star-crossed lovers angle, so someone came up with the idea to make them cousins.

But it’s more than that.

During all the festivities and celebrations that ensued the weeks following his and Carla’s return home, he didn’t find a moment to be alone with Rebe. There were too many cameras, too many people, and he had been keenly aware that he was still in trouble with the Capitol, so no matter how strained things were between him and Carla privately he never let go of her hand, never stopped kissing her and smiling at her sweetly.

He soon learned that this had been nothing but painful for Rebe. That watching him with Carla had been to her an act of betrayal and heartache.

He’s startled from his musings by the sound of leaves crunching beneath someone’s feet, and he’s on his feet at once, bow raised to face the new threat the Gamemakers sent to kill him—

“Easy,” Rebe says, approaching him like he’s a wild animal in need of being calmed. “Easy. It’s just me.”

Samuel takes a few deep breaths. It’s just Rebe. Just his friend. The person who he used to tell everything too, even if he can’t anymore. Even if the Games have robbed him of that too.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her quietly, lowering his bow. He pulls his scarf out of his face and then looks at her. He’s pleased to find that she’s wearing the scarf that Ander sent, that he gave to her. He also gave her some for her younger siblings too, to protect them from the cold.

She shrugs a little, like it’s no big deal, and he’s reminded a little of the casualness that used to exist between them. It gives him some hope that they may recover from the Games and return to how they used to be, even if he knows it’s futile.

“I saw some turkeys on my way here,” she says. “They just walked right by me as if they owned the place.”

A small laugh escapes his lips.

“How rude of them,” he returns, grinning weakly. “That’s what happens when you spend all your time at school or in the mines.”

Rebe smiles a little then too.

“Come on,” she tells him. “Let’s go show them who owns these woods, huh?”

She retrieves her own bow from the hollow log he keeps his own in, and then she guides him through the forest. The Capitol hasn’t robbed them of the easiness in which they travel through the woods at least. They can move in sync like this, like they learned to over the years. It’s the only time he can almost forget what happened. How much has changed.

They arrive at a small clearing, watch as the turkeys peck the frozen ground for food, unaware of their presence. She shoots him a meaningful look, allows him to slip in front of her so he has a better view. Rebe is good with a bow, but he has the better aim. Her forte is fishhooks and snares. Carefully, so he doesn’t make a sound, Samuel props up his bow and notches an arrow, aims at a particularly plump looking turkey, and lets it fly.

But it isn’t a turkey anymore. It’s the boy from five, then the boy from one. They appear in front of his eyes, choking on their own blood and gasping with pain because he killed them, he killed them—

Samuel pulls away with a scream, gasping and struggling to make his limbs move, but they aren’t working, the Gamemakers will send another fireball to burn him alive—

He thrashes wildly against the hands that come to hold onto him, to keep him in check, because they’re not Carla’s hands, they’re Lucrezia’s or Polo’s or—

“Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay! You’re here, you’re with me, you’re safe.”

It’s just Rebe.

He repeats it to himself like a mantra, slumping against a tree trunk.

It’s just Rebe.

He’s back home in district twelve. He’s safe. Carla is alive. Carla is safe. Rebe is here.

“I’m sorry,” he gasps, shying away from her touch. “I’m sorry.”

They sit there in silence for a few moments. Eventually, Rebe peers over his shoulder.

“You shot it, Samu,” she says. “It’s dead. It can’t hurt you.”

Biles rises in his throat. It’s dead. As is Omar. As is May. And Polo and Lucrezia and Foxface and Glimmer and—

He nods weakly and swallows the bile down, unable to find the words.

They eventually make their way to her house to deposit the game and plants they collected. Her mother Sandra is there, along with her little siblings, Posy, Vickie and Rory.

“That’s going to make nice stew,” Sandra says, accepting the turkey.

She eyes Samuel and Rebe critically, noticing the gap between them. Samuel flushes a little under her gaze. Usually when he deposits the game, he doesn’t stick around too long, uncomfortable with the knowing look Rebe’s mother keeps sending him. There’s hardly anyone around that knows him better than Sandra. Knows the bond he shares with Rebe, the steady closeness. But ever since he’s been back from the Games it’s like he’s under a magnifying class. He doesn’t know how much Rebe disclosed to her mother regarding what he told her about Carla, but Samuel has the feeling that Sandra is watching him closely, waiting for something.

Many people no doubt had assumed he and Rebe were involved in some way. Even Guzman had assumed so at some point before the Games even happened. Maybe they thought they would have gotten married, even though Samuel had genuinely never thought about her in that light until he was thrust into the arena with Carla. Carla. Sandra is probably wondering what his intentions are, especially since he was the one who came up with the whole star-crossed lover’s thing in a moment of impulsivity.

He will never forget the look on Rebe’s face when she found out he wasn’t forced into it, that it was something he came up with on his own. The way her eyes had widened, and her lips parted with shock, as if she were staring at a stranger or some monster. Like he had done the worst thing imaginable. It hurt almost as much as the look on Carla’s face on their way home from the Capitol.

Now, Rebe excuses herself to go to the washroom quickly, and so Samuel stands there in the tiny kitchen, the same size in his old home, and fidgets under Sandra’s knowing gaze.

“Thank you again, Samuel,” Sandra tells him. “Rebe has been so busy with the mines and school lately. And I know she likes to keep her Sundays just for you.”

He flushes a little at the implication.

“It’s no problem at all,” he says. His back straightens when Rebe reappears in view.

He says goodbye to Sandra, who wishes him luck on the tour, and then he and Rebe wander out of the house, feet crunching against the snow plastered to the ground. They walk in an almost comfortable silence towards the hob. Samuel fidgets a little. The pouch filled with gold coins he stuffed in his pockets seems unnaturally big again.

No one in the Hob wants charity or handouts, so Samuel simply tries to visit as many stalls as he can and buy as much as possible without seeming like he’s pitying anyone.

He says hello to one of the nicer peacekeepers, Daria, as he finishes up a bowl of soup he bought from Greasy Sae.

“Looking forward to getting all prettied up?” Daria teases, finishing her own soup as well. She’s one of the more decent peacekeepers, always at the Hob, always willing to help out when she can. She’s probably in her mid-twenties, but with her curly auburn hair and freckles she looks younger.

“You know it,” he grins weakly, nerves twisting in his stomach.

Rebe reappears by his side a moment later with the things they traded, and soon they’re wandering out of the hob and back into the snow, walking aimlessly. They go past the orphanage as they walk, and though the snow has mostly covered the tracks, Samuel can still see the footprints leading up to the shabby building. He can see the scrapes of what looks like a cane in the snow and knows instantly that those footfalls belong to Carla.

His heartbeat quickens as he makes himself walk faster. Rebe doesn’t question it.

Carla has been bringing the orphans bread and other goods she bakes. He’s seen her coming in and out of the orphanage with baskets of freshly baked bread or other pastries.  She hadn’t talked to him about it (not that she needs to) – not that Carla has spoken much to him these past few months. The last time they even touched was when the month-long celebration that was held in their honour when they came home ended, right up until the last camera had boarded the train.

One of the few perks of winning the Games had been seeing the starving kids of the Seam running around town holding cans of food the Capitol had sent as part of their winnings. Every month for a year the whole district would get more food, oil and grain. Seeing their joy had somehow lessened the guilt brewing in his gut.

“Samuel?”

He snaps out of his reverie. They’ve reached the end of the Seam now, near a row of abandoned buildings. They stand in silence for a few minutes.

“You have to be heading back soon,” Rebe says.

Samuel turns to look at her.

“You don’t want to be late for your girlfriend.”

“This again?” he sighs, rubbing at the space between his brows. “Rebe, it was an act.”

“An act you came up with,” she points out, as if that changed something. “And it was a good one.”

“What difference would it have made if Carla had been the one who came up with it?” he snaps. “I did. I did what I needed to do to survive. To come home. To Nano, to my mom, to you—” he cuts himself off.

Rebe’s eyes widen a little as she stares at him.

“Do you mean that?” she asks him quietly.

A small sound escapes his lips.

“Of course,” he replies. “You’re my best friend.”

Instantly, her face closes off once more. Samuel curses himself inwardly. He doesn’t know how to solve these things. How to approach these problems. He doesn’t. Not only has he hurt Carla, but Rebe too. Samuel has been too busy trying to readjust to life out of the arena to really sort out any of his feelings.

“Right,” Rebe murmurs, looking down at the ground.

Frustration builds in his gut, and Samuel opens his mouth to say something, but he’s cut off by Rebe closing the distance between them and sealing his lips with a kiss. Her lips aren’t as dry as Carla’s had been the first time in the cave, but they’re colder. Her hands cradle his face closely.

She pulls away before he can decide what to do, or even if he likes kissing her. Strangely enough, he never really thought about it all these years.

“I had to do that,” she murmurs, letting him go. “At least once. Good luck with the cameras.”

And then she walks away without looking back.

Samuel slumps against a pole and tries to clear his head. Rebe had kissed him. Rebe. His Rebe. His best friend. He can’t help but wonder what his reaction would be if she kissed him before the Games, or if the Games hadn’t happened.

There’s no point in thinking about that, though. The Games did happen.

Eventually, he picks himself up and stumbles his way home, still in shock. When he arrives in the Victor’s Village, he sees that Nano has finally finished covering the flowers he planted months before in coverings to protect them from the cold. Nano had grown other flowers too, which ones with thrive in winter, in both the front and back yard. The pink camellia’s just barely peak out under the layer freshly fallen snow. Nano had taken to gardening ever since they moved into the house.

His brother has changed since Samuel volunteered. Samuel had noticed it the instant he stepped off the train and Nano came running to sweep him into his arms. His eyes weren’t cloudy from drink, pain or bitterness. He had managed to stop drinking when Samuel was in the arena. They hadn’t talked about why, but Samuel knew his brother didn’t want to be drunk and passed out if Samuel was killed.

Maybe if he had died in the arena Nano would have gone back to drinking, would have returned to the passive, dull life he had assumed ever since his arm was chopped off, but that didn’t happen. Samuel is alive, and Nano is too.

It’s more than just his face though. When he had reached the final eight in the arena, the Capitol had come to district twelve to interview his family. Apparently, Nano’s stump was too ugly for the Capitol audience, so they’d given him a prosthetic arm that he can attach on and off the stump. They’d let him keep it while Samuel was in the arena, and now Nano had it permanently. Samuel finds it hard to hate the Capitol sometimes, when he sees how much joy it brings his brother to have more mobility again, to not feel compromised or like a burden, even if it was the Capitol’s fault to begin with.

He tears his eyes away from the flowers and starts toward Valerio’s. He’d gotten some more liquor for his mentor at the Hob. When he enters the house, his nose wrinkles in disgust. He’s never gotten used to the filthy condition Valerio has allowed his house to enter, not that Samuel’s visits ever last long. Dirty clothes, dishes, rotten food, and empty bottles of liquor cover the ground. The shutters are closed like normal, making the air feel stuffy and stale.

He finds Valerio slumped down on the kitchen table, snoring loudly, a bottle of liquor by his side.

“Valerio!” Samuel hisses, shaking his shoulder. “Valerio, get up! The cameras are going to be here soon.”

His mentor doesn’t even stir.

Samuel huffs loudly and grabs a glass of water left on the countertop and tosses it onto Valerio’s head. Instantly, Valerio is on his feet, yelling, slashing at the air wildly with a knife. Samuel had forgotten that his mentor always fell asleep with one clutched in his hand. He easily takes a few steps back and watches as Valerio angrily swipes his arm in various directions before calming down at the sight of Samuel.

“What on earth was that for?” Valerio snaps, pushing his damp curls back. “Are you trying to kill me?”

“You asked me to wake you before the cameras came,” Samuel shrugs.

Valerio scowls violently.

“Yeah, without giving me hypothermia.”

“If you wanted to be babied, you should have asked Carla.”

“Asked me what?”

Samuel whirls around at the sound of her voice. He hadn’t even noticed her come in. She’s already in the kitchen, a grey scarf wrapped neatly around her neck. She places two loaves of bread on the counter, carefully wipes down one of the knives Valerio has strewn out, and begins to cut it into thick, even slices.

“Nothing,” Samuel says stupidly, unable to do anything but watch her. She’s cut her hair into bangs that neatly frame the side of her head and fall just above her brows. It suits her. She’s propped her cane up by the door. She doesn’t need it so much now from what he’s seen of her over the past six months but with the frosted ground, the cane helps keep her balance.

“Samuel is a strangely dislikeable person,” Valerio says, as if that explains everything.

Carla doesn’t say anything. She puts the bread on a plate and carries it over to the table, observing as Valerio starts to munch on the perfectly baked loaf. Samuel just keeps on staring at her. There’s a part of him from the arena that relaxes at the sight of her standing next to him, cold but alive, present, his ally against Polo and the Gamemakers. But most of him is filled with so many emotions he doesn’t know how to figure them all out. Confusion, hurt, guilt, shame. There’s a bit of longing in there too, he can’t deny that, but everything else drowns it out.

She looks strong, Carla. So unlike the feverish, injured, worryingly thin girl he knew in the arena.

“Would you like some bread, Samuel?” she asks him cordially.

Her eyes are blank as they gaze at him, but Samuel can sense the tension in her shoulders, the rigidity with which she is holding herself. She hasn’t forgiven him for breaking her trust, for making her feel like a pawn. With everything she told him in the Games, he doesn’t blame her.

But she has moved on, he knows that. He remembers—

“No,” he replies, forcing the word out of his mouth. “But thank you. I ate at the Hob.”

She nods, and that’s that.

“Brr,” Valerio says, shuddering mockingly. “You guys better warm up before the cameras get here. Remember, you’re supposed to be in love.”

Samuel’s eyes drop the ground.

“We remember, Valerio,” he says, moving towards the door. “See you in an hour.”

And then he’s back in the cold again, the snow helping to cool off his flustered skin. His eyes dart to Carla’s house, where she has kept a few of the lights on.  He’s never actually been inside of it, but he assumes based on evidence from Valerio that the layout is the same.

Her mother and Uncle hadn’t joined her in the Victor’s Village when she came back, so Carla has the whole house to herself. But she hasn’t been lonely.

It only happened once.

Samuel had woken up mid-scream from a nightmare, having just watched Carla’s throat be torn out by one of the mutts in the arena, and he’d flown out of bed without thinking, bounding down the stairs, shaking hysterically. It was his job to keep her alright, to keep her safe. He was just about to sprint to her house and start pounding on the door just to make sure that she was alive when he spotted someone exiting her house.

Samuel isn’t entirely certain of the boy’s name, but he remembers him from school. It was the boy who used to carry her bags often in between classes, trailing behind Carla, clearly enamoured with her. He was one of the Merchant kids. Yeray. The sun had only just begun to rise, so there was no one else to see it. But the other boy had spent the night at Carla’s house, and was sneaking out of it now like some lovesick teenager.

Luckily, he hadn’t spotted Samuel standing there on the front step of his house, staring at him stupidly. He’d fled back inside without a word and ran back up the stairs, ignoring Nano who had been woken by all the commotion.

Now, Samuel shakes his head at the memory. He has no right to be mad at her or ask her about it. None at all. And he isn’t mad, but some tiny part of him—

He shakes his head again. No. No. He leaves a trail of footprints behind him as he moves towards his house. His mother has spent every waking moment of the past two days making sure everything is perfect for the cameras when they arrive, so he spends a good minute or two beating the snow off his shoes before he enters the house, wiping them clean on the matt.

His mother is there to greet him though.

“Don’t worry, I’m taking them off now—”

She laughs nervously as she picks up his boots and puts them in the closet.

“Don’t worry about it,” she tells him, face oddly pinched. “It’s just snow. How was your walk?”

“Walk? I was—” It’s then Samuel catches sight of the Peacekeeper standing in the hallway, hovering right by the kitchen doorway. He gulps. He’s had this nightmare dozens of times by now. Waking to find Peacekeepers in his house, having just finished strangling his mother and carving a red smile onto Nano’s throat—

“It’s more like skating,” he finishes. “You should be careful when you go out.”

“Someone’s here to visit you,” his mother tells him, her face oddly pale.

“Oh,” he comments casually, as if it’s normal to have a peacekeeper in the middle of his house. “Is Ander here early?”

“Not quite, Samu—”

“This way, Mr. Garcia,” the peacekeeper cuts in, gesturing down the hallway.

It’s odd to be directed as such in his own home, but Samuel follows him without comment. After all, he knows better. He’s sure to shoot his mother a reassuring look over his shoulder, and says something about them teaching him more etiquette for all the districts before he looks away. He knows he hasn’t convinced her.

He doesn’t even know what’s going on, for crying out loud. The peacekeeper leads him to the study and closes the door behind him, making Samuel feel like he’s been locked into a tomb. When the door had shut, Samuel turned to face it, so it takes his nose a moment to register the conflicting scents of roses and blood.

He whirls around again, and his eyes land on the silver haired man with watery green-blue eyes sitting by the desk reading a book. It takes his bewildered, shocked mind even longer to place him.

“Ah, Mr. Garcia, you just arrived at a particularly riveting moment in the book, give me one moment, would you?” President Teo says, staring at him with his snakelike eyes.

Samuel doesn’t know how he gets there, but he finds himself sitting in the chair opposite the desk, waiting for President Teo to finish reading the page. In his mind, the president should be viewed surrounded by marble pillars and dozens of peacekeepers and otherwise important looking people. Not here. Not in District Twelve. The more Samuel thinks about that, the more he thinks about why Teo is here exactly.

And he knows there’s only one explanation. He’s in trouble. Serious, horrendous trouble. And that means his family is too. He squirms a little in his seat. He wants to go on his knees and plead for mercy, and say that the only thing he wanted to do was to keep Carla and himself alive, that he didn’t want any rebellion or trouble, that he just wanted them both to go home. That the thought of leaving the arena without her was unthinkable. The only defence he had back in the Capitol during the interviews was that he was so madly in love with her that he’d rather commit suicide than carry on.

And stupidly, naively, after the Capitol and the cameras had left him alone for the past few months, he’d thought he’d succeeded in convincing them all. Evidently, he hasn’t. It is this realization that makes him feel like the intruder instead of President Teo.

A second later, the other man lets out a small if relieved sigh, and flips the book shut. Samuel looks up to find President Teo looking at him already. It occurs to him then that he probably hadn’t even been reading the book, had instead taken the time to observe Samuel, to scrutinize him.

“I think this situation will be a whole lot easier if we agree to just be straight forward and honest with one another,” President Teo comments lightly, leaning back into the chair. “Don’t you think?”

“Yes,” Samuel replies after several seconds, his tongue having been frozen to the roof of his mouth. “I think that would save time.”

President Teo smiles fleetingly at him, and a shiver runs up Samuel’s spine.

“My advisors said you would be difficult or rebellious,” The elder man says. “But aren’t planning on being that, are you?”

“No,” Samuel answers automatically.

Another stretches President Teo’s thin lips.

“Good. You see, that’s what I told them. Any boy willing to do such a thing to preserve his life isn’t interested in throwing it away. Especially since he’s so attached to his family. His mother, his brother.” He trails off. “And all those cousins.”

Samuel’s hands curl in his lap. Rebe. President Teo obviously knows they aren’t related. But in a way, it’s good that Teo has mentioned all of their names. Now Samuel knows for certain what is at stake.

“I have a problem, Mr. Garcia,” the president announces. “A problem that started the instant you pulled out those berries in the arena.”

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Samuel blurts out before he can stop himself.

“Perhaps,” President Teo allows. “In truth, I think that if Malick Daou had had any brains at all, he would have blown you to pieces right then and there.” He grins, as if finding it funny. “Can you guess where he is now?”

Samuel nods. Malick Daou is no doubt dead.

“A pity, really,” President Teo comments. “I rather liked him. And so much potential just wasted. But alas, I don’t forgive people who fail me, Mr. Garcia. You can understand that, don’t you?”

“I understand.”

The smell of roses and blood has grown stronger the more time Samuel lingers in his presence. It chokes him.

“After he let you live, there was nothing to do but let you play out your little scenario,” the president continues. “And, I must say, you did a splendid job, too, with the whole love-crazed star-crossed lovers, pining in silence for years bit. Truly. There were even moments I was touched. And the people in the Capitol are more than enamoured with your little tale.”

Samuel’s heart rises in his throat.

“Unfortunately, not everyone in the districts fell for it.”

And then his hope turns to ashes in his mouth.

“Of course, you don’t know this,” President Teo continues. “Seeing as you have no access to information in any of the other districts. But several of them saw your little trick with the berries as an act of defiance, and not one of love, regardless of what your intentions were. If a little boy from twelve, not even a man, can do such a thing and come out unscathed, what is to stop them from doing the same, hmm?” He tilts his head as he studies Samuel closely. “What is to prevent, say, an uprising?”

A small gasp escapes his throat.

“There have been uprisings?” he breathes, caught between being chilled and elated by the possibility, though he does his best to hide it.

“Not yet,” President Teo replies. “But they will come if things do not change. And with uprisings, revolution often follows. Do you have any idea what that will mean? Murder, rape, possible extinction. We would destroy each other, Mr. Garcia. Whatever issues people may find with the Capitol, believe me when I say that the problems that would arise if we released our grip on the districts for even a second would be far worse. The entire system -- human civilization itself, would collapse.”

The frankness of his words both surprises and alarms Samuel as he processes what he’s being told. Uprisings. Rebellion in the districts. All because of him. Maybe if he hadn’t been in the Games the thought of rebellion would have appealed to him more. But his mind latches onto President Teo’s other words: murder. Rape. Possible extinction. All Samuel can feel is the weight of Omar’s little boy in his lap as he died, and all of his elation disappears.

Nano, his heart whispers. Nano.

It is Samuel’s job to keep him safe, to keep his family safe. Nano has finally managed to like life again, and Samuel would rather die than have it taken away.

“It must be fragile if it can be brought down by just a few berries.”

The words just fly out of his mouth.

President Teo chuckles.

“Yes, I suppose it is. But not in the way you suppose.”

Samuel opens his mouth to respond but is cut off by a knock at the door. It opens to reveal his mother with a tray of tea and biscuits.

“Sorry to interrupt,” she says, eyes flashing to Samuel. “I thought you might be thirsty.”

“Ah yes,” President Teo comments, smiling at her. It almost looks welcoming. “Please, leave them here.”

His mother deposits the tray on the desk and walks out of the room, quietly shutting the door behind her. Samuel’s gaze flickers to the cookies on the tray. Samuel had refused to buy anything from the bakery when he came back and had yelled at his mother and Nano when they’d gone. Carla must have heard about it somehow, because she’s been giving cookies and bread to his mother or Nano ever since the cameras left. She bakes, Valerio drinks, and Samuel hunts. They all do something to try and keep their minds off what happened in the arena.

No other hand could have decorated these cookies but Carla. Something lodges in his throat.

“What do you need me to do?” he murmurs finally.

He looks up to find the president already munching on a cookie, humming slightly to himself.

“Delicious,” the older man says, ignoring Samuel completely. “Truly. Miss Caleruega is quite talented.”

“She is,” Samuel agrees quietly.

“How is the love of your life?” President Teo asks, grinning slightly. The stench of roses and blood overwhelms Samuel. The president leans over conspiratively. “Tell me, what was her reaction when she found out you were just using her? Of your… indifference towards her?”

“I’m not indifferent—”

“Don’t lie!” President Teo interrupts sharply. “You promised.”

“I’m not indifferent,” Samuel repeats, more to himself than the president. “I’m not.”

The older man observes him for a moment, seems to consider his words.

“What I need from you, Mr. Garcia, is to act madly and hopelessly in love with Miss Caleruega. To leave no doubt that the only reason for you pulling out those berries was because you couldn’t imagine living without her. Understood? Otherwise—” The President stops himself short. “Well, I’m sure you can imagine.”

“I can,” Samuel replies, thinking of Omar, thinking of Nano. Thinking about all the tributes in the Games. “I’ll convince them.”

President Teo chuckles.

“No,” he corrects. “Convince me.”

Samuel watches as the other man rises to his full height and leaves some metal projector on the table. With one tap, an image suddenly emerges in the air. A gasp rips itself from Samuel’s throat. It’s Rebe. No, not just Rebe. It’s her kissing him this afternoon. Of course the Capitol had cameras everywhere, watching him. Samuel was stupid to think that they weren’t looking. So incredibly stupid.

“Do convince me,” the President says, “I’d hate to get rid of this cousin of yours.”

And then he’s gone, almost as if he’d never even been there to begin with.

Samuel is slumped over in his chair, his head buried in between his legs as he forces himself to breathe, to try and get some air in his lungs. Everyone he loves is doomed. All he needs to do is convince everyone that he’s madly in love with Carla. To act.

But he isn’t a good liar. He never has been. Carla is the one who can act for the camera, who can pass off every role she’s given. Every persona. Samuel came up with his love confession in the heat of the moment, an act of desperation to help get him home. It helped Carla too.

He doesn’t know if he can do this. If he can push aside the swell of varying emotions that rise in his chest whenever he looks at her and convince everyone they’re in love.

He straightens when he hears the door push open, turns to find Nano and his mother standing in the doorway.

“Everything alright, Samu?” Nano asks, looking at him closely.

“Yeah,” he says, forcing a smile to his lips. “They don’t show it on camera, but President Teo goes to congratulate all of the Victor’s before the tour.”

Relief flashes in both of their eyes.

“Okay, then, Samu,” Nano says, grinning at him. He must have just gotten back from the physician. Apparently, it was unacceptable for the brother of a Victor to work in the mines or have no trade or skill at all, so Nano had been given the choice of the litter. Surprisingly enough, he’d chosen medicine like their mother. Nano spends a great deal of his time with the physician in town, though they all know he learns the most from their mom, who is still the healer everyone from the Seam flocks too, though she has long stopped charging for her services.

“Time to get you ready for the cameras, yes?” Nano continues. The grin on his lips isn’t like how it used to be before his arm, but it’s happy all the same. Samuel will do whatever it takes to make him keep smiling this way. To be happy.

“Yeah,” he says, smiling a little. “Sounds good.”

Ander shuffles behind Samuel as he straightens out a few of the designs strewn out across the room. His friend had arrived a few hours ago, helped Samuel prepare for the cameras. Samuel is dressed in a snug black turtleneck and other form fitting clothes, a purple scarf wrapped around his neck. Even though he wouldn’t choose to wear it in his everyday life, it still suits him. Again, one of Ander’s many gifts.

Samuel starts to look at the designs too.

“They really are beautiful,” he remarks. “I’m growing to be quite talented.”

Ander snorts and chuckles at the same time.

Every Victor is supposed to have a skill. Valerio is known as the drunkard of the Capitol, so he doesn’t have any. But Carla has her painting and baking. Now that she’s rich, she can afford to order large canvases and pretty paints from the Capitol. Other tributes have baking, swimming, dancing, fishing, the works. Samuel has nothing. He tried it all and failed. He’s good with a bow, but that’s hardly an appropriate gift. Someone tried to get him to start a singing show, but he refused. He wouldn’t sing for the Capitol. Not in a million years. So Ander volunteered to introduce him as his prodigy in fashion, though really it’s just them talking on the telephone and Ander doing all the work.

“You lazy thing,” Ander jokes, poking his cheek as he walks by Samuel.

Samuel is about to reply when he catches Nano at the door, watching them.

“You look handsome, Samu,” Nano tells him, smiling at him briefly.

“Thanks,” he replies. “You do too.”

Nano is dressed in a dark red sweater and black slack pants, his hair styled neatly.

Nano approaches him, stops just in front of him.

“You know you can talk to me, right?” he murmurs to Samuel.

Samuel can’t help but stiffen a little. When he’d come home, Nano had tried to talk to him about what Carla said, about Samuel not blaming himself for what happened with Nano’s arm, but everything that happened in the arena had been too raw. Too fresh. Whenever he thought about it at the time, he was filled with wild, frantic panic that consumed every inch of his body. He’d refused adamantly to even discuss the arena or anything he said in it, and screaming at the top of his lungs, and Nano had finally stopped trying.

“I know,” he replies, patting his brother on the shoulder just like he did to Omar in the arena. “I know.”

And then it’s showtime. Cayeatana has left his house to go check on Carla, so Samuel is without his escort’s high-pitched laughter and outrageous wigs. It’s a big big day, Cayeatana had exclaimed when she stepped into his house. It had taken him five minutes to scrub off the purple lipstick stains she left behind on his cheek.

“You got this,” Ander whispers in his ear, leading him to the door. “You’ll be great.”

And then he gently pushes Samuel out of the door. For a moment, Samuel can’t quite place his surroundings, but then he catches Carla coming through his own door. Unbidden, he hears President Teo’s voice in his head. Convince me. He knows he must.

 And then he’s running towards Carla, as if he can’t bear being apart from her for even another second. He picks her up and whirls her around, but her cane tangles with his legs, making him slip. He has just enough wits to slide his hands under Carla’s head, cushioning her fall. He’s on top of her now, enveloped in her warmth, and then they have their first kiss in months. Her mouth is warm, the shape of her lips familiar even after all this time. It’s full of fur and frost and lipstick, but he can still sense the steadiness that Carla brings to everything as she kisses him back.

She won’t leave him alone. She won’t abandon him or betray him with some half-hearted act of love, no matter how badly he’s hurt her. She’s still looking out for him, still upholding their unspoken agreement about keeping each other alive. Somehow, the thought almost makes him cry.

They greet the cameras, smiling and giggling, and all Samuel can think of is getting them all – Teo in particular – to believe the act. The instant the red blinking light on the cameras vanishes, Carla slips her arm out of his. He aches with the loss, almost loses his balance.

“Good acting,” she comments, looking at him closely.

“You too,” he replies feebly. She always makes him nervous. Always.

“I almost thought that kiss was real.”

The words pierce his chest like a knife. Carla brushes past him before he can say anything. The rest of the day is a blur of cameras and getting to the station, saying goodbye to his family, and getting on the train with Carla, Valerio, Cayeatana, Ander and Alexis. The same team they had during their time at the training center.

“First stop is District Eleven!” Cayeatana squeals as they sit at the dinner table, clapping her hands together.

Samuel flinches. Omar. Samuel hadn’t even thought about that, about visiting Omar’s home. How on earth is he going to pull off being some happy, besotted lover when he’s in the home of his dead ally? Of his friend. The thought makes him feel ill.

When Samuel falls asleep that night, he dreams of Omar turning into a mutt and tearing out his throat. Even though he’s a monster, when he opens his mouth his voice comes out normally.

“Why didn’t you save me?” he screams at Samuel. “You let me die!”

Samuel wakes, thrashing against the sheets, yells still exiting his mouth. It takes him a moment to realize that there’s a hand on his shoulder.

“Carla?” he asks once his vision clears. Her robe hangs open, revealing her nightgown. She stares down at him, brows furrowed.

“I was walking on the train,” she explains. “I heard you screaming.”

“Oh,” he murmurs. “Thank you.”

“No problem.”

Samuel is keenly aware that if he doesn’t at least try and talk to her, that he might lose her forever. That this distance between them will grow so great that he won’t ever be able to cross it. The thought is unbearable, but the words still don’t come. He doesn’t even know if she would want to hear it.

“Why were you up?” he blurts out.

Something flickers in her eyes. She still hasn’t let go of his shoulder.

“I can’t sleep well,” she replies curtly, letting go of him.

Samuel wants to ask her to stay. To help fight away the nightmares. To be beside him just like he grew used to in the games. There have been mornings – more than he cares to admit – where he wakes expecting to see her curled into his side, her blonde hair tickling his nose.

“Goodnight, Samuel,” she tells him from the door, and then she leaves.

Samuel is tired beyond words the next day. Sleep eluded him for the rest of the night, and so he has to use his hand to prop up his chin. He’s eating absentmindedly as Cayeatana goes over the schedule for the day. They’re to arrive in district eleven in just a few short answers. Samuel isn’t ready to face the cameras.

No, more than that. He isn’t ready to face the families. Omar and May and—

“Remember to enjoy yourselves,” Cayeatana says, finishing her little speech. “After all, you’ve earned it.”

“Excuse me?” Samuel snaps. He shrugs off the hand Ander places on his elbow. He’s heard countless of these statements from Capitol attendants before. During their victory interview, he heard some of the extra stylists talk about where they were when certain things happened.

“I was in the shower,” one of them said, describing the moment when Omar died.

It had all been about them. Not about the tributes or the lives lost.

Usually, Samuel can shove his annoyance down, but today he just can’t quite manage it.

“I said you’ve earned it,” Cayeatana states, looking puzzled by his annoyance.

“By killing people!” Samuel bursts out.

“Samuel—”

“Stop,” he snaps at Valerio, rising to his feet. “Just stop.”

He makes his way out the compartment and just keeps on walking. Great. Now he’s upset Cayeatana. Frivolous, mindless Cayeatana. Just one more thing for him to worry about. As if he needed to add anything else to his to-do list.

Samuel stops in the last train compartment, some kind of living room. It’s abandoned, so Samuel curls up on the couch propped by the large, wide windows, watches as the they zoom past the trees and fields. How is he going to do this?

He really doesn’t know. He really, really, doesn’t.

He remembers what Nano said, about Samuel being able to talk to him, but—

He can’t. As much as he might want to, he just can’t. He doesn’t want Nano to worry, just wants him to enjoy the new freedoms they’ve been given ever since he won the Games. And Rebe—

He can’t tell her anything now, can he? The Capitol has taken that from him too. His mind flashes to the kiss, and outside of the fear that he feels because President Teo knows about it, he still isn’t sure how he feels. Lovely.

Samuel misses when he used to know his place in the world. Living in the Seam was a constant, never-ending struggle, that’s undeniable. But he knew what his role was. What to do with himself. He went to the forest. He hunted, he foraged, he fished. He took care of his family and spent his time with Rebe and made sure Nano didn’t die. That he protected his big brother.

Now—

He’s interrupted from his thoughts by the sound of the door opening.

“I’ll apologize to Cayeatana later,” he says, not looking away from the window. No doubt it is Valerio, coming to chastise him, something his mentor likes to do often.

But it isn’t Valerio.

“You don’t need to apologize,” Carla says, sitting beside him, though she’s careful to keep a small distance between them. “Not to anyone. Including me.”

His lips part with surprise.

Samuel studies Carla as she glances down at her lap, her fingers tracing the patterns on her skirt.

“I’ve been wanting to say this for a while,” she continues. “But you don’t owe me an apology, Samuel. Not really.”

“Carla—”

“Just, let me finish, okay?”

He nods, falls back into his seat. It takes her a moment to look him right in the eye.

“You saved us,” she tells him softly. “I know that. You did what you had to do. I shouldn’t be punishing you or holding you to anything you said in the Games. It isn’t fair, and I’m sorry. But I can’t—” she cuts herself off. “I can’t pretend. Not with you. Not after everything we’ve been through. I can’t be kissing you in front of the cameras and then not saying a word to you in real life. So, I’d like to try and be friends, if you’d like.”

Friends. Samuel has never been good with them. It’s Carla who was the popular one in school.

But—

The idea of it is so appealing that Samuel finds himself nodding.

“I’d like that,” he admits shyly.

Carla smiles at him, and—

“I’m sorry too,” he says.

“Samuel, it’s alright—”

“I’m sorry if I made you feel like you were just a piece in some game,” he clarifies. “I never want you to feel like that, though I know you have every right to feel that way because of how I acted. I am sorry for that. Truly.”

She is the one to nod now.

“I appreciate that,” she murmurs.

Silence fills the air. Despite all the trouble it’s caused them, Samuel can never bring himself to regret blurting out his love for Carla during his first interview with Caesar Flickerman. Without it, one of them would surely be dead.

“So,” she starts, flashing him a smile. “Friends?”

“Yeah,” he replies. “Friends.”

She chuckles a little, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

“So, how does the whole friend’s thing work?” he asks. “I’ve never been very good at making them.”

She laughs again.

“Oh, you know, you just have to get to know someone is all,” Carla says. “All the deep stuff.”

“The deep stuff?” he repeats.

He’s never seen her like this before. Joking, almost teasing. This is what it must have been like sitting next to her in the cafeteria at school.

“Mmm-hmm,” she hums. “Like, I don’t know, what’s your favourite colour?”

“Well now you’ve just stepped over the line,” he replies, glancing out the window. He hears her laugh.

“No, really,” Carla says. “What is it?”

“Green,” he replies. “What about you?”

“Orange,” Carla tells him.

Samuel wrinkles his nose.

“Like Cayeatana’s hair?”

“No, not quite like that,” Carla says. “More like the sunset. A soft orange with hues of pink and purple.”

Samuel pictures it in his head. It’s peaceful.

“That makes sense,” he states. “Do you paint it?”

“I try to,” she says. “But I can’t get the colours just right.”

A thought occurs to him.

“I’ve never seen your paintings before.”

Carla tilts her head at him.

“Really?”

“Really,” he confirms. “Everyone raves about them but I’ve never seen any. Well, nothing besides your cookies.”

“Don’t worry, those are the masterpieces.”

She stands up and extends her hand to him. Not for show. Now, just in friendship.

“I have a train cart full of them,” Carla says. “But you should probably apologize to Cayeatana first.”

“Oh, right,” Samuel says, groaning a little.

Carla laughs at him. “Don’t be afraid to lay it on thick.”

They walk back to the compartment hand in hand, and Samuel spends a few moments apologizing to Cayeatana. He feels a bit ridiculous by the end of it, but she sighs and is surprisingly gracious when accepting his apology. When she’s done, Carla leads him down a few cars to see her paintings.

He isn’t sure what to expect. Large flowers, meadows, birds, the sky. But when Carla pushes the door open, Samuel can see that he’s entirely wrong. Carla has painted the Games. Some are sketches from what looks to be charcoal. Others are actual paintings.

He looks around the room. Every single one has something to do with the arena. He understands them all because he was right there with her. One is of water dripping through the cracks in their cave. The dry river the last day in the arena. A hand picking up red berries. It takes him a moment to realize they’re Foxface’s. The Cornucopia. One of the mutts. Lucrezia throwing one of her knives. Polo throwing a spear. And him.

Samuel is everywhere. In the trees. Cutting down the tracker jacker nest. Getting water from a stream. Lying unconscious in a pool of blood. Feeding her soup. And one he can’t quite place. It must have been when she was almost delirious with fever because there’s a golden hue or mist that surrounds him.

“So?” she prompts. “What do you think?”

“I hate them,” he says, the words flying out of his mouth. He can almost taste the blood in his mouth, can hear the ringing of Polo’s screams in his ears as the mutts tore him apart. “They’re extraordinary, really. But I spend my time trying to forget the arena and you’ve just cemented them in life. How do you recall all these details so exactly?”

“I see them every night,” she murmurs, looking at one of him extending out the berries in his palm.

That he understands. Nightmares. Samuel was no stranger to nightmares before the Games, but now they haunt him whenever he manages to sleep. He hasn’t slept through the night since he came home. Carla understands it. Of course she does. She was right in the arena with him.

“Does it help?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” she admits. “Sometimes I think it does. Others…” her voice trails off. “Better to wake up with a paintbrush in my hand than a knife.”

Samuel hums in reply.

“Do you really hate them?” she prompts.

“Yes,” he says. “You’re very talented. But I can’t bear to look at them anymore.”

She laughs a little.

“Come on,” she says, tugging at his hand. “Let’s go back to the compartment we were in. It has the best view.”

They walk hand in hand, and Samuel is comforted by the weight of hers in his. He’s missed it, though he isn’t entirely sure what to make of that information.  They reach the compartment just in time. The fields of district eleven are endless. Wheat fields upon wheat field that stretch as far as the eye can see. There are workers in the field still. He sees men, women, even children, stop what they’re doing, straw hats on their heads, and look at the train zoom past.

There are so many of them. A small gasp escapes his throat as he catches sight of several orchards. Maybe Omar used to work in them. He doesn’t know. But he can picture it so clearly it breaks his heart.

Carla shoots him a look from the corner of his eye, but Samuel doesn’t look at her. Grief catches in his throat. He catches sight of the fence rising up around the fields. They’re at least thirty-five feet in height, covered in barbed wires and spikes. It makes the one in twelve look childish.

There are watchtowers in the fields too.

“That’s new,” Carla states, frowning a little.

It is. From what Omar told him, someone losing a hand or their life because they stole something isn’t a rarity here like it is in twelve.

It keeps on going on and on.

“So many people live here,” Carla says. “The one we see in the reaping can’t be the only children who live here.”

Samuel has reached the same conclusion himself. But all he can think of is Omar, tiny little Omar, being called onto the stage at the Reaping with nothing but air to greet him when there were calls for volunteers.

Small communities of shacks spring up here and there, but they’re all deserted. In comparison, the homes in the Seam look like mansions.

Eventually, they pass into a tunnel and Samuel—

“Did you see that?” he gasps, pressing up against the window.

On the wall in the tunnel, though he’d only just gotten a glimpse of it, he’d seen his mockingjay.

“I did,” she states, looking at him.

It takes everything in him not to tell her about Teo and his visit.

“Ah! There you two are!” Cayeatana simpers, clapping her hands together. “Time to pretty you two up.”

Samuel doesn’t complain when she ushers them back to their compartments. He lets Ander dress him in a dark blue suit and neatly comb and style his hair. When he meets Carla by the train station, where the Mayor of Eleven greets them, he finds her wearing a dark blue frock that falls to her knees.

There are cameras to greet them as the mayor escorts them to their car which will lead them to the justice building. Cayeatana gives them both talking cards for the speech they have to give to the crowd. Samuel is quiet and withdrawn. The mere thought of looking at Omar’s family makes him want to cry.

“I’ll do the talking if you want,” Carla offers quietly, giving him a small smile.

“Thank you,” Samuel tells her gratefully.

Valerio merely scowls at them and takes a long drink from the bottle tucked in his jacket.

Soon, they’re being led through the Justice Building, which is run down even by Twelve’s standards, and escorted onto the stage. Samuel knows that the crowd before them can only be a small sample of eleven’s population, but the size of it still takes his breath away. He can barely remember his own name in the face of it. He knows the cameras are watching them, knows that Teo is watching, so Samuel plasters a smile to his face, though he’s sure it look forced.

Carla takes hold of his hand as they walk to the microphone, and for that he is grateful. Beyond grateful. He cannot understand how Valerio and every other Victor did this alone.

He hangs by her side as she breathes into the microphone.

He stares out into the crowd, takes note of the faces. Some are angry, others are blank. Most are searching, almost pleading, as if waiting for some kind of sign. Samuel gulps, and looks up. Across the sea of people, there are two platforms. On one side, a pictuere of May, the one they used for training scores, hangs above it. On the other, Omar. The breath is knocked out of his chest.

Their families stand on either platform. May’s is almost vacant except for two women, probably her mother and grandmother, both of whom don’t look up from the ground. On the other platform, though, is Omar’s family. His little siblings. His mother, whose face is still carved fresh with sorrow.

I’m sorry, he wants to scream. I’m so so sorry.

Two girls come and give them bouquets. They accept them graciously, lines falling from his lips that have been ingrained in his mind by Nano and his mother over the past few weeks. Carla pulls out the cards Cayeatana gave them from her pocket, but doesn’t even look at them. He knows then that this is coming from her, not the Capitol. That she is speaking what she feels.

He watches her as she talks about how May and Omar made it to the final eight, or close to it, about how they both kept him alive – thereby keeping her alive – and how this is a debt neither of them will ever be able to repay.

“I am so sorry for your losses,” she concludes. Carla hesitates a little, lowering her cards. “This can no way replace your losses, but as a token of our thanks we’d like for each of the tributes’ families from District Eleven to receive one month of our winnings every year for the rest of our lives.”

Samuel can hear cries of surprise from the crowd. He can almost hear Cayeatana squeal with protest, even though she’s tucked inside the Justice Building. No one has ever done what Carla has just did. There’s no precedent for it. But she did it anyway because she thought it was the right thing to do. It is the right thing to do.

She never fails to surprise him with how good her heart is.

When she turns to face him, eyes slightly anxious, the kiss he presses to her lips doesn’t seem forced at all. When he pulls away, Carla glances at him, as if asking if he has anything to say. He shakes his head, stepping away, but not before glancing at Omar’s family, at his little sisters, one last time.

One catches his eye. She must nine at most, and her expression isn’t joyful but reproachful.

Because I didn’t save Omar, he thinks at first.

But that isn’t it.

It’s because he hasn’t said anything.

Samuel stands on the stage, lips parting, shame filling his stomach, and somehow finds his way to the microphone.

“Wait,” he breathes, before they can turn it off. “Wait.”

He’s keenly aware that everyone in the crowd is staring at him intently, but his eyes are only on the families, flutter between May’s and Omar’s. He catches Omar’s little siblings staring at him with tears in their eyes, and their resemblance to his dead ally makes his breath hitch in his throat. He doesn’t know how to start – how to form all his emotions into actual sentences, but he tries. For May. For Omar.

“I want to thank the tributes of District Eleven,” he says. He looks to the pair of women on May’s side. “Without May, I would have died a long and painful death. I only ever spoke to her just that one time, and she spared me. That’s a debt I’ll never be able to repay. I didn’t know her, but I respected her for her integrity, for her refusal to take part in the Careers games, even though they wanted her from the beginning. I understand what it means to owe someone, and so I understand why she did what she did. There’s nothing I can do that will ever make up for your loss.”

The old woman with curved shoulders raises her head and looks at him. Samuel can vaguely see a trace of a smile.

He turns to Omar’s family before his courage runs out.

“But I did know Omar. I wouldn’t be alive today without him either. He’ll always be with me. I see him in the yellow flowers that grow in the Meadow by my house and the sunlight that filters through the trees. I hear him in the chirp of the Mockingjays that sing in the trees. But most of all, I see him in my older brother, Nano, every time he laughs. I tried to save him. I did. But I couldn’t. And I’m sorry.” Emotion makes his eyes burn, but Samuel is almost finished.

“Thank you for your children,” he adds. “And thank you all for the bread.”

He feels broken and small like a child as a long silence consumes the audience. Then, from somewhere in the crowd, someone whistles Omar’s four note tune from the arena, the one that was meant to signal that they were both safe. Despite the sheer amount of people, Samuel instantly finds the whistler, an old man with dark black skin in faded overalls. He meets Samuel’s gaze, and without hesitating presses the three middle fingers of his left hand against his lips and extends them to him.

Everyone in the crowd instantly follows. It’s the sign Samuel gave to say farewell to Omar after he died.

Samuel should be touched. He is touched beyond words. But he’s also terrified. President Teo’s words ring through his head, and it is then that the full impact of what he said hits him. There’s a sudden crack in the air as the peacekeepers withdraw their weapons, and Samuel watches as they descent into the crowd and pluck the old man from the crowd.

Without thinking, Samuel moves to stop them.

“No, please,” he cries, being pulled away from yet another peacekeeper who locks an arm around his waist. “No, please, leave him alone, don’t—”

They’ve just gotten him and Carla back into the Justice Building, but the doors don’t close in time. The peacekeepers drag the old man on top of the stage, force him to his knees, and then put a bullet in his brain.

A scream rips from Samuel’s throat as he launches himself at the door. Even Cayetana lets out a shriek. Samuel is only stopped from clawing the door open when Valerio catches him.

“Come on,” his mentor hisses, grabbing him by the wrist. “Come on!”

Valerio latches onto Carla as well, and drags them away, Samuel shivering and trembling all the while. He doesn’t know how Valerio knows where he’s going, only that they eventually arrive at a dilapidated attic filled with cobwebs and dust.

“What did I do?” Samuel asks, sinking to his knees the instant the door closes. “What did I do?”

“Get up,” Valerio says, forcibly pulling Samuel to his feet.

“I never meant for anyone to get killed,” Samuel blabs, eyes wet. “He has to know that, he has to—”

“What are you talking about?” Carla asks, frowning at him. She looks pale and shaken too.

“Teo,” Samuel blurts out. “He came to see me. He’s worried about rebellion in the districts. He thinks that they don’t believe our love story, that they believe me pulling out the berries was about defying the Capitol.”

He explains everything as best he can, watches as Valerio and Carla grow more and more incredulous.

“So they want you to make them believe it,” Valerio states.

Samuel nods wordlessly. It feels good telling them the truth, like an unbearable weight has been lifted off his chest. Carla is quiet for a moment before she lashes out and kicks over the chair standing next to her.

“You should have told me that before I went out and offered them the money!” she exclaims loudly.

Valerio steps towards her.

“Carla, calm down—”

“I won’t calm down!” she snaps. “I don’t even think they’ll survive the day because of what I did, damn it.”

She shakes her head so violently that her careful updo becomes undone. She fixes them both with a stare.

“You didn’t know about this?” she questions Valerio.

“No,” their mentor replies honestly. “I had no idea. Why would you think that?”

“You both have kept me in the dark about your plans before,” Carla replies, making Samuel wince. “And you chose him in the arena at my expense.”

At that, Samuel snaps his gaze to Valerio.

“Look, sweetheart—”

“Don’t bother, Valerio,” Carla interrupts, waving a hand at him dismissively. “I know you had to pick one of us, and I’m glad it was him. But this thing you two of you have of using me in your little games has to stop, alright? You have to stop excluding me in these things. We both know I’m better than Samuel with the cameras and with people in general, so I know what to say. But I need to be prepared.”

“You will be,” Samuel says, voice raw. “I never meant to keep you in the dark.”

There’s a beat before he adds, “I just wanted to keep you safe.”

Carla’s eyes are a little sad as she stares at him. He’s never thought about what it must have been like for her when he turned up in the arena with burn medicine and bread when she was near death and had nothing. The anger on her face fades.

“I know,” she says softly. “I know.”

“Just help us get through this trip, Valerio,” Samuel pleads. “Just help me get through this.”

To his surprise, Valerio laughs. He snaps his fingers in the air.

“This trip?” his mentor drawls. “Boy, wake up. You think this is going to end when we get home? You’re never getting off this train. You’re a Victor now, so every year they’re going to drag you out and dangle you in front of the Capitol, where you’ll have to mentor tributes. Your love story is never going to end, handsome.”

He’s right. Samuel had forced himself not to think about the future, especially when he was arena. What it would mean if he won. But the future is here now, staring him in the face, and he can’t breathe. He’s filled with such despair at the thought of being in front of the cameras every year that he almost collapses.

When he looks at Carla, she looks solemn and teary eyed too.

“I hate them,” she says. “People.”

And then she stalks out of the room.

For a moment, Samuel doesn’t know what to say.

“Did you really choose me, Valerio?” Samuel asks quietly.

“Yes,” his mentor admits, wiping a hand over his face.

“Why? You like her more.”

“True, but before the rule change, I could only hope to get one of you out alive. After I saw how she protected you in the arena with Careers and leading them away from you, I figured that between the three of us we could have a chance of bringing you home.”

“Oh,” is all he can think of to say.

The smile that spreads on Valerio’s lips is bitter and sad.

“You’ll see the decisions you have to make now that you’re a mentor,” he tells Samuel.

Oh, God. Samuel has been too preoccupied with President Teo to even think about what his future may look like. The thought of spending the rest of his life mentoring tributes and watching countless of them die makes him shiver.

“Come on, handsome.” Valerio says, grabbing him by the arm. “Breaktime is over.”

They stick to the cards. Samuel always forces a smile to his lips, and kisses Carla whenever he can. They get caught at dinner parties trying to sneak away to be together, and he never lets go of her hand, which is the only thing to anchor him throughout all of this.

They visit each district, and the days soon slip into weeks. Into endless parties, forced speeches, forced kisses. Not all of the districts are like eleven. Others seem muted and quiet, just like twelve is usually during the Victory tours. But certain ones are filled with angry crowds. Samuel watches them all push back against the peacekeepers with a heavy heart. They don’t live like they do in twelve, where the peacekeepers are generally mild. Here the anger is real. Any spark here will set into flame. There is no burying it. No amount of love or kisses that could hide this away.

Samuel keeps the knowledge of his impending doom to himself.

But the most significant thing that happens on the tour is that he and Carla start sleeping together. Not together together. But on the night they leave district eleven, Samuel wakes up screaming, his nightmares full of Omar crying as the mutts rip him apart, as he begs Samuel to help him.

Carla is nowhere to be found.

For whatever reason, Samuel makes his way out of bed and stumbles through the train compartments. If walking around at night works for Carla, it may work for him. He’s also desperate for human contact, for anything to keep him sane. Carla kept him sane in the arena. It’s moments like these where he isn’t sure where he would have ended up if he hadn’t had her by his side for most of the time.

Samuel makes his way to the compartment where they all eat dinner together, and it is there that he spots Carla curled into a ball on the couch by the window, whimpering quietly. The lamp by the couch is still on, so Samuel can see how tightly her muscles and limbs are wound up, as if she’s about to spring into a sprint in her sprint. She’s having a nightmare. Samuel recognizes the signs well.

Without even thinking, he moves over towards her and starts to shake her.

“Carla,” he calls quietly. “Carla.”

Her eyes fly open, wide and full of panic, and Samuel just holds on, waits for her to calm. Slowly, she does.

“Thank you,” she murmurs, voice small.

It breaks his heart.

And yet, there is a part of him that’s glad. Not glad that she’s having nightmares of course. He’ll never be happy that she’s in pain, that she’s haunted like he is. But that he isn’t alone. That he isn’t crazy or overemotional for having been so affected by their time in the arena.

“I’m sorry,” Carla continues, wiping at her eyes.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

She looks down at the couch.

“I must have fallen asleep,” she mutters. “I just sat down for a moment.”

It occurs to Samuel then how exhausted she must be. He doesn’t know how long she spends walking down the train, trying to keep sleeping at bay. It explains why whenever he wakes up and has his windows open he always smelled fresh bread and cookies wafting through the air from her house, no matter how early he woke.

Samuel is tired too. So tired. The last time he remembers even feeling remotely safe as he slept was when they were in that cave.

“Come on,” he says. “Let’s had back.”

Carla stays on the couch.

“I don’t think I can move yet,” she confesses quietly, almost as if she is ashamed.

The nightmare must have been really bad.

Samuel bends down and scoops her up in his arms. He’s put on weight and muscle since the Games, so it is a lot easier to do it this time around. He feels Carla tense a little at the contact, can almost feel the protest on her lips, but after a few seconds she settles in his arms and leans her head on his shoulder.

Warmth blossoms on his skin where her lips brush against it.

“Thank you,” she whispers into his skin.

He shrugs a little.

“It’s what friends are for.”

Carla doesn’t respond.

Samuel tries to ignore the lump in his throat, the thought of Rebe that flashes in his mind. But what good would it do think of Rebe now? It won’t help him protect his family or those he cares for. Carla is included on that list, no question.

They arrive at their respective rooms, and Samuel gradually sets Carla on her feet, helps steady her. They linger in the hallway. Samuel doesn’t want to be alone; he realizes. From the way she hasn’t let go of his hand, he knows Carla feels the same.

His throat dries as he stares at her. He doesn’t know if he has the right, after everything. Carla glances down at the ground. She won’t ask him either. She may have extended out a hand of friendship, may have forgiven him for what he did in the Games, but she won’t be forthcoming like this either.

“I don’t want to be alone,” he says quietly, before he can talk himself out of it. “Will you stay?”

He feels fragile as he asks, but he doesn’t regret it. He can’t. His fear of what his dreams will bring doesn’t let him.

He hears her swallow loudly.

“Okay,” she says.

He leads her into his room, and he slides back into bed, Carla scooting in behind him. It should be awkward but it isn’t. After all, they’ve slept with each other before. In the sleeping bag, they were even closer than they are now. They tuck in against each other just like they did in the Games, arms wrapped around the other, guarding against dangers that can descend at any moment.

Nothing else happens between them.

There are mornings where Samuel wakes up with morning wood, and his cheeks flush red with embarrassment but he always sneaks into the bathroom before she wakes up and takes a cold shower. One time she turns in his arms, her green eyes wide. There’s no way she doesn’t feel it. They’re too close for her not to.

“It’s natural, Samuel,” she says quietly, taking note of his embarrassment. “It’s just biology.”

Biology doesn’t make it less humiliating for him. He doesn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable, but she still comes to his bed every night, or he goes to hers, though that happens less often.

The arrangement becomes a subject of gossip on the train, and Cayeatana chides him about it. All Samuel can think is that he hopes President Teo hears about it and is further convinced by them. He doesn’t have the energy to think about Rebe and how much this would hurt her if she found out.

The day after they leave district three, Valerio takes them out for a walk as the train is getting repaired.

“Listen you two,” their mentor starts, as they walk down the train tracks just like they did when they returned home after the Games. “If President Teo wants you two to be some happy in love couple, I can tell you he’s disappointed. Instead of looking in love and enthralled with the Capitol, you guys look stunted.”

“You’ve seen the stuff that Cayeatana gives us to read,” Carla complains, frowning. “We’re doing our best.”

“It’s not good enough,” Valerio tells them.

Samuel knows it’s true, even if it hurts to hear.

“You both have to do something to ramp up the romance, convince the districts of your eternal love.”

“We could get married,” Samuel says.

“That’s not funny,” Valerio says, eyeing him pointedly.

“I wasn’t joking.”

“Samuel,” Carla says, looking pale. “Samuel, you can’t mean it.”

“I do.”

He looks away from her to Valerio.

“If you’re right, and we never get off this train, it’s going to happen at some point eventually. May as well be now.”

Valerio chuckles a little.

“It’s bold, I’ll give you that. Are you ready to propose?”

Right. Samuel is going to be the one who has to propose.

He forces himself to shrug.

“I’ll have to be.”

He sees Carla flinch in the corner of his eye.

“Okay,” she murmurs, face expressionless. “Let’s do it.”

She returns to the train without a word.

No matter what Samuel does, he’s hurting someone.

Later than night, they lay in his bed with a good amount of distance between them. It isn’t how they usually sleep. Usually they’re just tangled limbs, but now they both lay on their backs, staring up at the ceiling.

Samuel knows Carla is awake from the sound of her breathing.

“I’m sorry,” he states quietly. “I’m sorry I tied you to me during my interview. I’m sorry I took away your choice. That you won’t get me to be with who you want. I’m so sorry.”

Carla is silent for a moment.

“Do you regret it?” she asks him finally. “Coming up with the love confession?” Her voice is blank, but genuinely curious. Despite that, Samuel recognizes it for the weighted question that it is.

Does he regret it? It certainly would have made his life a lot easier if only he had come out of the arena, if he hadn’t been forced to get to know her. But could he have lived with himself if Carla died in the arena? He would have spent his whole life wondering what her motivations were when she killed the girl from four moments before he dropped that tracker jacker nest. The recap of the Games would have shown that Carla was protecting him all along. Could he have lived with himself then?

“No,” he replies, honestly enough. He glances at her from the corner of his eye. “Do you hate me for it?”

When Carla looks at him, Samuel redirects his gaze to the ceiling. It feels to intimate, looking her right in the eye.

“I could never hate you, Samuel,” she whispers.

Samuel almost shivers.

“I’m sorry too,” she murmurs. “About Rebe.”

He stiffens slightly.

“Was that really the only time you kissed her?” she asks him, no doubt referring to his tearful confession in that attic in district eleven.

Samuel is so surprised that he answers quickly, “Yes.”

Has that really been bothering her all of these weeks?

“What about Yeray?” he asks her.

The sheets rustle as Carla shifts on her side.

“What about him?” she returns.

Samuel gulps a little. He can hear the wind howl from the open window. Carla can’t sleep unless it’s open, however little.

“I saw him,” he confesses awkwardly. “Coming out of your house one morning a few months ago.”

He doesn’t mention why he was up that morning, that he was about to run into her house and start banging on the doors just to make sure she was alive, that she was safe.

“Oh,” is all she says for a while. “We’re not together, Samuel.”

“Sorry,” he replies eventually. “It’s none of my business.”

“We’re just friends,” she says. “And that was just a distraction.”

“From the Games?”

Carla doesn’t answer.

The visits to Districts One and Two are particularly brutal, seeing as Samuel was either directly responsible for or played a role in all of their deaths. The families are all hollowed eyed and gazed with grief, but the father of the boy from one glares at him so fiercely Samuel drops his gaze in shame.

His nightmares are horrible that night, but Carla is there to soothe him, to help calm the panic ingrained in his bones. They reach the Capitol around three weeks after they left home, and during their first interview with Caesar Flickerman – which is broadcast to all of the districts and is mandatory viewing – Samuel drops on one knee and pulls out a ring Cayeatana gave him for the proposal.

He’s spent a lot of time practicing with Valerio. Cayeatana had given him a card to memorize.

Caesar is crying as Samuel grabs a hold of Carla’s hand and stares into her eyes. All he can think of is Nano and Rebe and his mom, how betrayed and confused they must all feel. He shoves it away.

“Carla,” he begins, aware of the crying and cooing of the crew, of the cameras surrounding them. He wants to hide away and cry somewhere, but he can’t. He just can’t. “I love you to the moon and back. With the passion of a thousand fiery suns.”

Valerio is glaring at him from behind the camera, a clear sign that Samuel needs to amp up the romance and do better. Samuel clears his throat. What was it Valerio told him once? The best lies have a grain of truth in them. Samuel used that advice during their victor’s interviews, and he uses it to guide him now.

“I’m so glad I was in the Games,” he says, “Because it brought me to you. It gave me the chance to get to know you and love you. You make up a piece of my heart. I can’t imagine a time where I won’t love you.” He pauses for a moment. “We bleed the same, you and I. Carla, my love, will you marry me?”

“Yes!” she cries, beaming, letting him slide the ring on her finger. “Yes, of course!”

And then she’s in his arms and Samuel spins her around, thinking of Rebe, of President Teo, and hoping that not only he’s convinced him but that he’ll have the chance to explain.

President Teo comes on stage to personally congratulate them and welcome them to the capitol after the completion of their tour. Samuel watches as he greets Carla and offers her his congratulations, before he turns his attention to Samuel. His stomach is in knots he raises his brows, allowing him to ask the question he wouldn’t dare voice.

In answer, President Teo gives a slow but unmistakeable shake of his head.

In it, Samuel sees the end of all hope, feels despair rise in his stomach, but he shoves it all down. No, he thinks, picturing his family back home. No.

As if he can sense his thoughts, President Teo smiles at him. In it, Samuel sees his doom.

“How do you feel?” Ander asks, smoothing out the lines of Samuel’s tuxedo. “You’re an engaged man now.”

They’re about to leave for the party at the President’s mansion.

“I feel different,” Samuel replies, forcing a smile to his lips. He knows Ander is watching him, concerned, but Samuel can’t bring himself to reassure him. He’s failed. He’s failed. He tries not to let his despair show too much.

Samuel looks at Ander instead.

“What about you?” he asks, realizing that he doesn’t know all that much about his friend’s personal life. “Any fiancé?”

He’s suspected for a long time that Ander and Alexis, Carla’s stylist, are involved, but he’s never seen any direct proof.

“No,” Ander says, smiling slightly. “Nothing like that.”

The door opens, revealing an Avox that walks into the room and hands Samuel a cealed envelope.

“What’s that?” Valerio asks, appearing in the doorway.

“I don’t know,” Samuel says, prying it open.

Dear Mr. Garcia, it reads. Congratulations on your engagement. As an expression of my gratitude and heartfelt congratulations, I hope you enjoy the honeymoon destination I have chosen for you and Miss Caleruega. My regards, President Teo.

Samuel frowns down at the message in his hands.

“What does this even mean?” he asks Valerio and Ander, who are standing nearby. “Honeymoon? Are Carla and I still meant to stay in the Capitol or something?”

“Who knows?” Valerio returns, frowning a little himself. “Whatever Teo does is a mystery to us all.”

Samuel crumples up the message and tucks it in his pocket. Cayeatana is there soon with Carla at her heels, and she starts to usher them to the party.

“Smile,” she commands, reaching out to pinch Samuel’s cheek. “And control your attitude! Remember darlings, this is all for you, so enjoy it!”

It’s a long walk to the President’s mansion from where they’re at. When they arrive, the party is already in full swing. People are dancing, laughing, and they’re cameras everywhere, tracing their every move. Samuel reaches for Carla’s hand without thinking. People seek them out wherever they go, since they are the star guests.

He doesn’t see President Teo anywhere.

He and Carla stick to each other’s side, unwilling to be parted. The food is the most impressive thing that Samuel has ever seen, and they gorge themselves until they can’t eat anymore. Cayeatana tracks them down after they set their plates down for a moment.

“Why aren’t you eating more, my victors?” she asks.

“We’re full,” Carla explains.

Cayeatana reaches for two glasses of a purple liquid from a server.

“Drink this,” she tells them. “It’ll make you sick, so you can keep on eating! Everyone in the Capitol does it.”

Carla sets down the glass so precisely it as though it might detonate.

“Samuel,” she says, “Ready for a dance?”

In reply, he leads her out onto the dancefloor. The music is slow, so he doesn’t have to worry about remembering any complicated waltzes Cayeatana taught them on the train. He just puts one hand on Carla’s waist and the other intertwines with her hand, and they sway back and forth.

“You think they aren’t so bad,” she murmurs in his ear, “And then they do something like this.”

All Samuel can think of is the small, emaciated bodies of the children in the Seam. The hunger that used to plague him and his family. All the bodies he’s seen collapse in the streets from starvation. And here in the Capitol they’re making themselves sick at parties so they can eat more.

“Maybe we wrong, Samuel,” Carla whispers, “to try and calm things down in the districts.”

His grip on her waist tightens.

“Don’t say things like that here,” he snaps. “Especially here.”

No one seems to have heard, so he relaxes a little.

They’re interrupted by someone poking him on the shoulder. He turns to find Cayeatana and some man he vaguely recognizes standing next to them.

“Samuel, Carla, this is Benjamin Blanco, the new head Gamemaker.”

Samuel eyes the man. He’s older than Malick Daou was, maybe around Valerio’s age, maybe a little older, with brown hair flecked with grey and wide clear glasses that fall down his long thin nose.

“Hello,” Benjamin Blanco greets. “An honour to meet you both.”

“I remember you,” Samuel blurts out. “From my private session.”

He recalls the man falling into the punch bowl when he shot the arrow at the pig.

“Ah yes,” the older man says. “Don’t worry, I’ve recovered from the shock.”

“Congratulations on your new position,” Carla says. “It’s a tough act to follow.”

“Carla!” Cayeatana hisses, before her features smoothen. “Come, come, let’s go fix your makeup.”

Carla’s makeup is flawless, but she lets their escort lead her away regardless. Samuel forces himself to make small talk with the other man, though in reality he’s just exhausted.

“Are you planning the Quarter Quell Games already?” he questions politely.

Benjamin smiles briefly.

“Yes,” he replies to Samuel. “Yes, the arena has just finished being built. Believe it or not, I have a strategy meeting tonight.” He pulls out a gold watch on a chain from a vest pocket and flips open the lid before frowning. He turns the watch in Samuel’s direction so he can see the face. “It starts at midnight.”

Samuel is about to ask what he means when he’s distracted. Benjamin has pushed some button that makes an image appear on the face of the watch. His mockingjay. It’s gone by the time he finishes blinking, but it was there. Benjamin snaps the watch closed.

“Good night, Mr. Garcia,” he tells Samuel, and then he’s off.

They’re on an express train back to twelve for the last celebration of the Victory tour. Samuel and Carla are in his room, his head resting on her arm. He doesn’t remember her coming in last night, but he’s glad she came.

He shifts a little, careful not to disturb her since her face is pressed into his chest, but he finds she’s already awake.

“No nightmares,” she states quietly.

“What?”

“You didn’t have any nightmares last night,” she explains. “Neither did I.”

She’s right. For the first time in what feels like forever, Samuel has slept through the night.

“I dreamed of Omar,” he says, thinking back.  “I was following a mockingjay through the woods and it had his voice.”

“Did it lead you anywhere?” she asks him. The diamonds on her engagement ring catch in the morning light pouring in from the window. The sight of it makes a lump form in his throat. Rebe. Rebe.

“No,” he replies, turning onto his back. “But I felt happy.”

“Well, you slept like you were happy.”

“Carla, how come I barely ever know when you’re having a nightmare?” he asks her. It’s true. There’s only been a handful of times where she’s woken him up because she’s being disruptive in her sleep because of night terrors. Most of the times it’s him flailing and screaming.

“I’m not sure,” she replies slowly. “Most of the time I just wake up paralyzed with terror.”

“You should wake me next time,” he says, reaching out to brush the hair off her forehead.

Carla smiles briefly, but it isn’t exactly happy.

“Samuel, I don’t think we’re going to be sharing a bed for quite some time, if ever, so what exactly would be the point?”

He stiffens a little, pulling away. She’s right, he knows she is, but it still stings a little, even if it has no right to.

Carla slips out of his bed without another word.

For the final celebration party, they get ready at the Mayor’s house.

Guzman joins him in the guest room he’s been given to get ready in, Ander having disappeared to get ready himself.

“You look nice,” his friend tells him.

“Thanks,” Samuel replies dryly.

Their friendship has been cemented over the past few months now that they’ve spent more time just hanging out normally. As it turns out, Guzman also had long hours of the day unoccupied, and now that Samuel did too, they just started to spend time at each other’s houses. Guzman teaches him how to play the piano, and Samuel has taken him to the forest a few times and taught him how to shoot. He really isn’t bad company at all.

“Are you sure you don’t want this back?” he asks Guzman, straightening the mockingjay pin on his shoulder.

“Yes, I’m sure,” his friend replies, rolling his eyes. Samuel had offered to return it when he came back from the games, but Guzman had refused then too.

“Hey, can you point me to the bathroom?” Samuel asks.

“Sure,” Guzman replies absentmindedly, fixing his hair in the mirror. “It’s just down the hall.”

Samuel leaves the room and wanders down. His guest room is a little away from Guzman’s father’s office, a man who Samuel used to trade with before the Games,  so he pops his head in to say hello. The television has been left on. Samuel is about to turn away since the study is empty when the television beeps.

Update on District 8, the screen reads. An announcer appears on screen saying that things have gotten worse, that a level three alert has been called, whatever that means. Textile production has been halted, and reinforcements sent in. The camera cuts away from her to show the main square in district eight which Samuel recognizes from the tour. There are banners with his face being waved in the street. Dead bodies – peacekeepers, most of them – litter the ground. The square is filled with screaming people, their faces hidden with rags and masks, throwing bricks and glass and rocks. Buildings are burning, and there is the sound of relentless gunfire.

This is what President Teo calls an uprising.

Samuel leaves a pair of gloves and a bag filled with food at his spot with Rebe the next morning. It’s a Sunday, and the cameras left right after the party finished. Rebe hadn’t bothered to show up to the dinner, though the rest of her family did.

Samuel knows his own family had wanted to question him about his engagement, about what the hell was going on, but they had let him alone for the night. He feels bad about sneaking out so early, but he needs to talk to her, if she comes.

He carries on deeper into the forest, marking trees every so often with the butt of his bow so she knows where to go. He’s leading her to the lake, a place he’s never showed her before. His father had showed Nano, and Nano had showed him when he was around ten. Nano took him up there every so often to teach him how to swim, and they spent hours just burning in the sun, laughing and swimming in the water.

Samuel cherishes those memories close to his chest. There’s a small cabin that’s still standing near the lake made of concrete. It’s small, but it will serve his purpose. He hopes Rebe comes. If not, he’ll have to go to her house in the dead of the night, and so much time will be wasted. He can’t afford to waste any more.

After a few hours, he reaches the cabin. He gets to work on building a small fire inside and crouches in front of him, trying to keep warm. He needs Rebe to help him figure out everything. He needs his best friend.

Rebe arrives faster than he expected, holding the unopened bag of food and gloves he left behind. Her bow and a dead turkey are slung over her shoulder. She doesn’t even look at him, but he can still see the hurt carved into her frame. Hurt he caused.

“Rebe,” he calls.

She looks at him. She can’t quite mask the pain in her eyes, the sense of betrayal she feels now that he’s proposed to Carla. Now that they’re going to be married. In truth, the reality of that situation has barely even registered with him properly. Such a future is the Capitol’s design, not his, but it’s his reality nonetheless.

They don’t say anything for a moment.

“President Teo threatened to have you killed,” he tells her, deciding to be entirely honest. “You and both of our families.”

Her eyebrows shoot up to her hairline.

“Unless what?” she asks, crouching down beside him and warming herself by the fire.

“Unless nothing, now.”

“Well, thanks for the heads up.”

Samuel turns to her, ready to explain everything, and then he catches the amused glint in her eye. He hates himself for smiling, since this isn’t at all a happy moment, but he can’t help it.

“I have a plan,” he says. “I’ve been thinking about it all night.”

“Oh yeah, what’s that?” she questions, tossing the gloves into his lap. “I don’t want your bride-to-be’s hand me downs.”

“They’re not Carla’s,” he says. “Ander left them behind because I mentioned you needed a pair. And she’s not my fiancé. It’s part of the act.”

“Give them back then,” she says, snatching them out of his lap. “At least I’ll die in comfort.”

They’re quiet again.

“You guys bleed the same, huh?” she asks.

Samuel sighs and closes his eyes.

“It was part of the act,” he repeats, staring directly into the flames.

Rebe is the one to sigh now.

“Okay, Samu,” she says. “Explain it all to me.”

He does. She never interrupts to her credit, just like she used to. Samuel used to feel like Rebe was the only person in the world who listened to him whenever he talked and was genuinely interested in what he had to say. He watches as she begins to munch on the food he left in the bag, his eyes catching on her scarred fingers. Scars he used to share before the Capitol got rid of them all. He trusts her hands with his life. Trusts them to keep his family safe. Trusts them with his life.

She whistles when he’s done.

“Damn, Samu, you’ve really screwed things up.”

He laughs.

“You have no idea,” he says, his mind flashing to the images he saw on the television last night. He hasn’t told her about that yet.

“What’s this plan of yours?” she asks.

Samuel takes a deep breath. “We run away.”

She blinks at him rapidly, surprised.

“We take to the woods and just run for it,” he says. “It’s the best shot we have.” Again, she doesn’t say anything. Just watches him. Samuel grows defensive. “You said the morning of the reaping that we could make it—”

He’s cut off by Rebe pulling him into a crushing hug, squeezing him so tightly he can barely breathe. He has to lock his arms around her waist as she rocks them side to side. She’s laughing, happy, and he can’t help but laugh too.

“Okay,” she says, pulling away, beaming at him. “Let’s run away. Let’s do it.”

“Really?” he breathes, a crushing weight lifting off his chest. He hadn’t realized just how anxious he’d been for her answer until now. “You’ll come?”

“Of course I will,” she replies.

“I know it’ll be hard,” he babbles, “What with all the kids and all, but we could do it. Are you sure?”

“A hundred percent.”

She tilts her forehead so it rests against his own. He’s caught off guard by her proximity, by the way her eyes bore into his. Samuel doesn’t move away.

“I love you,” she whispers.

Samuel freezes. He never sees these things happening. Never picks up on any of the cues.

“Samu?” she prompts, waiting for a reply. “Do you love me?”

His lips part helplessly.

“Rebe, you know how I feel about you,” he says. “But I can’t think about that right now. Not until my family is safe.”

He can see the disappointment in her eyes, but she doesn’t push him for more.

“My mother will need convincing,” she says quietly.

“Mine too,” he says. “Maybe even Nano will.” He stops to think. “Valerio will be the biggest challenge though.”

Rebe jumps as if startled.

“Valerio?” she demands incredulously. “You’re not asking him to come with us?”

“I have to, Rebe,” he stammers. “I can’t leave him and Carla behind because they’d—”

He stops at the sight of Rebe’s scowl.

“What?” he asks.

“I’m sorry,” she snaps at him. “I didn’t realize how big our party was!”

Samuel is getting angry now.

“They’d torture them both to death trying to find out where I was,” he says, trying to keep his voice even. “I can’t just leave them, Rebe. I can’t.”

“What about Carla’s family?” she asks. “They won’t come with us, you know that. Will she just leave them? What if she decides to stay?”

Samuel blanches at the thought.

“She won’t,” he says.

“So, what?” Rebe demands, cheeks flushing with fury. “If Carla says no to running away in the woods, you would just leave without her?”

“She won’t say no, she’ll see reason—”

“But if she doesn’t?” Rebe cuts in. “What then, Samu? Hmm? What then?”

“Then she stays,” he replies. His voice breaks at the end of it. Could he just leave Carla or Valerio behind if they refuse to come with him? The answer comes to him suddenly. No, of course he couldn’t. No matter what, they’re his family now too. He has to protect them. He has to.

Rebe scowls at him.

“Right,” she says, shaking her head.

Samuel grows angry then too.

“We have to leave!” he exclaims. “Rebe, see reason. They’re going to kill us! Nano, my mom, your family, Carla, Valerio. Everyone! See reason. After what happened in eight—”

“What happened in eight?” Rebe interrupts, eyes widening. She takes a step toward him and shakes his shoulders. “Samu, what happened in eight?”

“An uprising,” he replies, unnerved by the growing glint of excitement in her eyes. “People were out in the streets fighting peacekeepers.”

“It’s happening,” Rebe gasps quietly. “Samu, it’s happening. People are fighting the Capitol, this is what we’ve wanted all these years—”

“I never wanted any of this!” he cries. “I don’t want it. They don’t know what they’re getting themselves into. They’re all going to get killed.”

But Rebe only shakes her head.

“People are looking to you, Samu—”

“I don’t want anyone looking to me!” he snaps. “Okay, I don’t. The only thing I want is to keep my family safe. To keep the people I care about safe.”

Rebe scoffs and scrutinizes him closely.

“I’m not going anywhere, Samuel. I’m going to stay right here. If you’re the person I thought you were all these years, you would too.”

She tosses the gloves at him. They hit him right in the face.

“I changed my mind,” she says. “I don’t want anything made in the Capitol.”

And then she stalks out of the cabin.

I don’t want anything made in the Capitol.

Samuel can’t help but think that those words are directed at him. Is that what Rebe thinks of him now? That he’s just some Capitol toy? Probably. He’s not the person he used to be, that is for certain. Terror has taken hold of his soul, terror sowed by President Teo. He doesn’t know how not to be afraid anymore. Rebe doesn’t understand. Rebe is brave and brash and full of fire. She doesn’t know what it’s like.

Tears prick his eyes as he stares into the fire. He wish he could call her back and tell her everything she wants to hear. That he loves her. That he’ll fight by her side. But he can’t promise her that. He’s just afraid. He wants to curl up in this cabin and have Nano come and stroke his hair back when he was younger. He just wants everything to be alright again.

Time flies by. He isn’t sure how much. But soon enough he forces himself to walk back to the district, Rebe’s words ringing in his ears. He wishes he could be braver. That he could be as courageous as Nano was when he stole that watch.

Eventually, he makes his way into town, and walks around aimlessly through the streets.

“Samuel,” Carla calls out.

He turns to find her waving at him from a corner.

“Carla,” he greets, hugging his game bag close to his chest.

“Been hunting?” she prompts. He can see in her eyes that she thinks it’s a bad idea.

“Yeah,” he says, throat raw from his argument with Rebe. “Carla, we should run.”

“What?” she asks, looking around. “What do you mean?”

“We should all just run away, all of us. Escape.”

“Samuel…” her voice trails off. She must catch the desperation in his eyes. “Okay.”

“Really?” he breathes, relief flooding in his chest.

“Yes, I’ll go with you. But I don’t think for a second you’ll actually do it.”

Samuel reers back, annoyed beyond measure.

“Be ready,” he snaps crossly. “It could happen at any time.”

He moves to walk away, but Carla calls him back.

“Hey,” she says. “I’ll go where you go. You know that.”

He does.

It’s then he catches sight of people gathering in the town square. Carla grabs a hold of his hand.

“Come,” she murmurs. “Let’s go check it out.”

They walk slower because she’s still using her cane because of the icy road. Something flies out of his bag as they approach the crowd.

“I’ll go ahead,” she tells him.

Samuel nods and moves to catch the plants that he hadn’t secured properly in his compartments. He turns to look at the crowd, and finds Carla moving back to him, her face unnaturally pale. It’s then that Samuel hears it. A slashing sound in the air followed by a soft thud. Samuel frowns. He’s never heard anything like that before.

“Samuel, go,” Carla says. “Just go and get Valerio, alright?”

“What, why?”

She tries to reach for him, but he brushes past her, making his way towards the gathering of people. He starts to push his way through the people.

“Go home!” some of them spit at him. “Haven’t you done enough?”

Samuel has no idea what’s going on. All of their faces are pale, drawn and tense. Fearful. It’s only when he reaches the front of the crowd that he understands why.

There’s a peacekeeper holding a whip by some post that hadn’t been there hours ago. Tied onto it, the only thing holding her up being her hands tied to the top, is Rebe. The back of her shirt is ripped open. Her back is ripped and bloody, and she’s slumped against the post, unconscious. The turkey she had hung over her shoulder earlier lays by her feet.

Samuel doesn’t put the entire picture together until he sees the peacekeeper raise the whip in the air again, poised to strike.

“No!” he yells, rushing over at once. He doesn’t even try to stop the peacekeeper, just stands in front of Rebe, shielding every part of her he can. “Stop!”

The whip comes crashing down on his face. The pain is almost blinding. He falls to the ground, has to stick a hand out to prevent himself from collapsing entirely.

“Get out of here!” the peacekeeper snarls.

Samuel doesn’t move.

The whip cracks down on his face again, and this time Samuel falls down entirely. His eye has swollen up already.

“Stop it!”

This time, the voice isn’t his, it’s Carla’s.

His cheek pressed to the ground, he looks up find Carla standing in front of him and Rebe, cane forgotten. Her hands are spread out at her sides.

“That’s enough,” she says.

The new peacekeeper snarls at her.

“I’ll hit you this time, girl,” he spits. “Get out of here!”

“Carla,” he groans quietly. “Go.”

She ignores him.

You stupid, brave, beautiful girl, he thinks, staring up at her. He forces himself onto his elbow. Her blonde hair glints in the sunshine.

“Hey!”

It’s Valerio’s voice now. Samuel looks to find his mentor stumbling across the square. Valerio trips over an unconscious body. It takes Samuel a moment to place it as Daria.

Valerio bends down and grips Samuel’s face.

“Just perfect,” his mentor groans. “You’ve ruined my groom’s handsome face just months before the wedding!”

“Not my problem,” the peacekeeper says.

“Not your problem?” Valerio sneers. “Well, it most certainly will be when I call the capitol and ask why you bloodied one of half of the star-crossed lovers from District Twelve’s face?”

A flicker of recognition forms in the peacekeeper’s grey eyes.

“He got in the way of distributing justice,” he says, as if that excuses his actions.

“I never said he was smart, okay?” Valerio replies. “That’s his cousin, and this lovely lady you almost hit is his fiancé, Carla Roson Caleruega. Know that name?”

After a second, the peacekeeper nods.

“Listen, I think you’ve made your point, haven’t you? What did you get in? Twenty, thirty lashes? More?”

“She was poaching.”

“I know,” Valerio says. “I see the turkey. But you’ve made your point, haven’t you?” Valerio gestures to the crowd gathered in the square.

The peacekeeper lets out a grunt.

“Fine,” he snaps. “But if I catch her with anything again, or if any of you intervene, I’ll have you shot on the spot.”

Samuel watches as he stalks towards the crowd.

“We are all living under curfew!” he yells. “Anyone caught outside afterwards will be shot on sight! We’re going to maintain order around here.”

The crowd scatters. Samuel watches as a group of peacekeepers – some of which he recognizes from the Hob – come and collect Daria’s unconscious body and carry it away. The new peacekeeper – Samuel hears someone call him Thread – disappears.

At once, he forces himself to his knees and works on untying Rebe’s hands.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, stroking back the hair plastered to her forehead. The air is thick with the smell of her blood. “Rebe, I’m so sorry.”

She doesn’t even stir, but he can see that she’s still breathing. A few people from the crowd come up – people he recognizes from the Seam, and Guzman, surprisingly enough.

“We need to be careful,” Valerio says, pulling out a knife from his pocket and cutting the ties easily.

Guzman catches Rebe in his arms. Samuel scrambles onto his feet to help.

“I’ll go tell her family,” Carla says. Someone from the group volunteers to help lead her there since she doesn’t know the way, and then Carla is off. Samuel can only think of Rebe and the blood dripping from her back.

Four of them carry her to his house over their heads, her back exposed to the open air. Samuel is still in pain, his cheek and head throbbing, his eye swollen over, but he grits his teeth and bares it. This is his fault. It is. If he’d just died in the arena, none of this would have happened.

When they open the door to his house, his mother and Nano instantly spring into action, yelling for them to bring her to the kitchen. They deposit Rebe’s body on the table, and she whimpers even in her sleep. Samuel is almost beside himself, his entire body shaking violently.

His mother brushes past him, entirely focused on her patient. It strikes Samuel that this must be one of the few times his mother is actually aware of who she is. Her purpose. Nano is like her too. He helps their mother grind medicine in a bowl and start to prep bandages.

Samuel just watches, struck with grief, with guilt, not knowing what to do.

“Help her,” he whispers, begs, pleads. “Help her.”

The blood is still gushing from her back.

Sandra suddenly appears in the kitchen doorway with Carla close behind. She goes to her daughter’s side without a word, murmurs sweet nothings in her ear, looks very close to tears. Samuel understands the feeling.

“If she’d had her usual haul,” Valerio murmurs, “It would have been a lot worse.”

One of the people from the Seam who helped, a man called Thom, looks at Valerio.

“She said that she saw the turkey wandering over the fence and killed it with a stick. Quick thinking too. If she said she was in the woods with weapons—”

“They would have killed her,” Samuel finishes, clenching his eyes shut.

Your fault, his mind whispers. This is all your fault.

He should have done more to convince her to run. He should have been able to convince Teo. He should have done whatever it took to keep the people he cares about safe. He’s failed. He’s failed Rebe in more ways than one by not being the man she wants and expects him to be. Braver. Stronger. More Confident. He let fear get in the way.

Samuel is distracted from his musings by his mother pulling out a little bit of pain medication. It’s expensive stuff, things they can only afford a small quantity of even now with all his winnings. She usually only uses it to help aid patients who are dying, to ease their passage into death.

“Give it to her,” he says. “Give all of it to her.”

His mom hesitates and shoots him a look. If he’d be a healer, they’d run out of all the pain medication in a day. He can’t bear to see people in pain. He just can’t.

“Just give it to her!” he yells, reaching for the medicine. “Can’t you see she’s in pain?”

As if on cue, Rebe lets out a groan, her eyelids fluttering, and Samuel loses it.

“Give it to her!” he yells. “Who are you to decide how much pain is enough?”

Valerio and Carla have to wrestle him out of the room. Valerio drags him by the waist, ignoring his flailing limbs, and pins him down to the couch in the living room. Samuel struggles against his hold, sobbing and struggling to break free. After a while, he stop struggling, and just lays there against the couch, crying. It’s all his fault. All he can see is Rebe’s battered and bloodied body. It’s all his fault. So many people are dead because of him. He deserves to die. He deserves it.

Guzman suddenly appears in the living room, a box in his hands. He must have gone home at some point. Samuel hadn’t noticed.

“This is my mother’s,” he says, leaving it on the table. “Use it for your friend, okay? Let me know if I can do anything for you guys.”

And then he leaves. Carla, who had been sitting next to him this whole time, reaches forward and pulls the box open. It’s medicine. Powerful drugs.

“Brave kid,” Valerio swears under his breath.

Samuel, strangely enough, grows calm because of it.

“He’s a good friend,” he whispers, sniffling. Valerio eases off of him and lets Samuel take the box from Carla’s lap. He stumbles into the kitchen.

“Use this,” he tells his mother.

He falls into a chair nearby the table, Sandra on the other side, and watches. The tension and pain on Rebe’s face vanishes as his mother injects one of the vials into her back. At some point, Nano treats his face, but Samuel only has eyes for Rebe. He doesn’t move from the chair. Not once.

“I have to go,” Sandra says. “A storm is coming and Rebe—”

“She’ll be alright, Sandra,” his mother says. “Truly. She’ll be asleep for the next few hours. She’s stable. Nothing will happen to her.”

“Thank you, Pilar,” he hears Rebe’s mother say. “Thank you.”

And then she’s gone. Samuel holds the ice Nano gave him to his cheek and scoots closer to Rebe, rests his uninjured cheek on the table, just watching her. Everyone else trickles out of the room.

Samuel watches his friend – his best and truest friend – sleep. She’s beautiful and strong. She’s the only person he could truly be himself around for years. Without her, he would have been so lonely. So incredibly lonely.

Samuel sits there and imagines what it would have been like if their roles had been reversed. If she’d been the one to go to the Games and leave him behind, and randomly confess her love for some random Merchant boy. Have to watch her kiss that boy and become engaged to him. Samuel would hate her. He would feel so betrayed.

He sighs softly. Rebe is his, and he is hers. Why did it take him so long to see it? Why?

He presses a gentle kiss to her lips and pulls away.

He hears the wind howl outside. The storm must still be ranging.

“Hey Samu,” Rebe whispers, calling his attention from the window. Her face still tenses with pain. Her eyes are only slits now, but they still focus on his face. “You still here?”

Right. Running away.

Samuel doesn’t think there’s anything on earth that could force him from this table, from her side.

“Of course,” he murmurs back, pressing a kiss to their intertwined hands. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to stay right here and cause all kinds of trouble.”

Already Rebe is losing consciousness, but he can still see the smile twitch on her lips.

“Good,” she breathes, before the drugs pull her back under.

Samuel is woken by someone shaking his shoulder. He stirs blearily, rubbing at his eyes. He had fallen asleep with his face on the table. The other side of his cheek throbs painfully from the blow he took yesterday. Rebe’s fingers are still locked around him, just like Glimmer’s had been wrapped around the bow—

The smell of fresh bread and cookies is what makes him look up. Carla is staring at him, her face carefully blank, but he can see the glimmer of sadness in her eyes, the only emotion she hasn’t managed to hide. She must have been watching them for a while.

“Go upstairs, Samuel,” she tells him, looking away and settling the bread on the counter. He can see the redness around her eyes, the blue tints. He realized she can’t have slept at all, must have been baking through the night.

“Carla,” he starts, heart pounding. “About what I said, about running—”

“I know,” she cuts him off. “I know. You don’t need to explain anything, okay?”

He thinks about the loaves of bread and cookies she just put down, her willingness to step in front of him and Rebe at the whipping post, and something inside of him fractures. He’s tied her down to him forever because of one moment of impulsiveness during his interview with Caesar Flickerman, and she doesn’t even hate him at all. No matter what he does, he’s hurting someone.

“Carla—”

“Just go, okay?” she says.

Samuel forces himself upstairs and collapses on his bed, just barely managing to sneak underneath the covers. The dreams that come for him make his blood scream. Lucrezia chases him down and cuts off pieces of his flesh – his nose, his lips, his eyes. Then she transforms into the mutts that chased him, Carla, and Polo onto the top of the Cornucopia and starts to drink the blood pouring from his wounds.

Samuel wakes with a strangled cry, skin damp with sweat. He flops down against the pillows and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, trying to will the images away. He wishes that Carla were here to comfort him, to remind him like she did on the train that it wasn’t real, that it was just a dream, until he remembers he isn’t supposed to want or crave that anymore. He’s chosen Rebe, and that’s that.

Gently, he feels around on his cheek. The swelling has gone down a bit. He makes his way to the windows and pulls open the curtains. A fierce blizzard has arrived, meaning no one will be able to travel or move anyway. He tiptoes downstairs, and Carla has disappeared. His mother and Nano are coating Rebe’s back with layers of snow mixed in some green substance.

“Why didn’t you put that on the night before?” he asks them, hanging around in the doorway, feeling sick to his stomach.

“We needed to let the wound set, Samu,” Nano replies without looking up from his work. He’s good at this, healing. Samuel never would have thought it. But he is.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” he tells his mom.

“It’s alright. People get emotional when it comes to the people they love.”

The people they love.

Samuel looks down at the ground and frowns. Does he love Rebe? Yes, of course he does. Without question. But does he love her the way she wants him to? He did kiss her last night. That doesn’t mean nothing. His frown deepens. He still doesn’t have an answer to any of these questions. Is still miserably, wretchedly unsure about everything except his need to keep his family safe. Does she remember him kissing her?

Samuel glances at Rebe’s sleeping form. He hopes not. He can’t give her his heart confidently, undoubtedly, at least not now. He doesn’t have it in him.

“Right,” he says.

“It’s a good thing we have snow,” his mother murmurs.

“What do you do when it’s hot out?”

“Try and keep the flies away.”

Samuel nods absentmindedly, his eyes drawn to Rebe’s bloodied flesh, and stumbles to the bathroom, throwing up all the contents of his stomach.

By the time the storm clears, gallows and whipping posts have been set up in the square. Sandra comes to take Rebe home to recover two weeks after she was whipped, and so Samuel barely sees her anymore since the peacekeepers are watching his every move.

After pathways through the snow are cleared, Carla comes to his house, and they walk through the town hand in hand, watching the peacekeepers flooding the streets. He sees Greasy Sae in the stocks and Carla has to tug him away so he doesn’t say anything. They walk some more. People avoid them wherever they go. Carla doesn’t even bother trying the bakery. Her mother sees them walking in the streets and doesn’t even stop to say hello.

Samuel looks at Carla, sees the hurt flash in her eyes, and squeezes her hand gently. She shoots him a grateful smile, and then they go visit Valerio.

“Thinking about running away, handsome?” their mentor asks.

He sees Carla stiffen at the corner of his eye.

“No,” he replies. “No.”

Life settles into this new normal. A strict curfew is enforced. Countless patients visit his house everyday to get treated by his mother, even though her supplies are running low. The forest isn’t an option, not even Rebe questions that.

But one day Samuel does. It isn’t even the countless bleeding backs, the starving children, or the click of guns in the air that makes him try for it. No, it’s the box of tuxedos sent to his house by Cayeatana, which she informs him over the phone have been carefully picked out by President Teo himself. He checks with Carla, and she got her own package of wedding dresses.

It’s then he remembers what President Teo said, about them going on some honeymoon. That must mean the wedding is still on. That the president still sees a need for it in his sick, twisted mind. A lesson to all of the districts. Samuel can’t stand it anymore. The sitting indoors, the screams of the injured, the bodies hanging in the streets. He just can’t. Guilt and frustration eat away at him, and so he sneaks into the forest just as dawn breaks, covering his tracks until the trees do it for him.

The fence hasn’t been turned on, which is surprising. Samuel is determined, for whatever reason, to get to the lake Nano showed him, which their father had shown Nano in turn. Maybe to say goodbye to the place, or to muse over memories long gone. Maybe just for an escape. The trek takes a long time, and Samuel has just reached it when he hears the click of a weapon behind him.

He whirls around, arrow at the ready, and is just about to let it fly when he sees the peacekeeper uniforms.

“No, stop!” the woman cries, waving something around in her hand.

For some reason, he listens. She’s holding a piece of bread in her hands. It’s stale and grey, but Samuel can just see the image stamped in the middle.

It’s his mockingjay.

End of part one.