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It's All a Lie

PROMPT 36: I was watching the movie ‘71 and I got this everlark prompt idea where it’s panem but without the games and there is a rebellion starting in d12 and peeta takes part in it but during a street riot he gets injured and katniss and her dad find him and take him in and take care of him for a while and hide him from authorities looking for rebels. -Submitted by Anonymous

DISCLAIMER: First things first, this story is only very loosely inspired by the film ‘71, a British made film set in 1971 Belfast, Northern Ireland, and the tumultuous times commonly referred to as The Troubles (an apt name if ever there was one. Yikes). If you haven’t seen the film, I highly recommend it, although if you are not familiar with the history, I also suggest brushing up on it before you watch since the film takes the approach that the viewer knows what several acronyms stand for and what the motivations are for all three sides (yes, three) of the conflict. So if you don’t know that, you’ll get lost in the first twenty minutes. And it’s really intense and violent. Like several children die graphic deaths in it kind of violent. Oh wait, I’m talking to THG fandom… Anyhow, you’ve been warned.

Now for the standard disclaimer, I am not Suzanne Collins nor am I affiliated with Lionsgate, Warp Films, or Creative Scotland. In fact, I’m not affiliated with any movie production or book publishing companies on any continent. Which means I have no claim to these characters or their story lines and gain absolutely nothing out of writing this other than the joy of destroying your hearts.

WARNINGS: Rated Teen and up for depictions of violence and executions, equivalence to racism and police brutality, character and child deaths.

My everlasting thanks to @titaniasfics who read through this at the last minute to make sure it didn’t suck completely. All mistakes are mine. I plan on doing a serious round of editing before posting to AO3.

You asked for it, Anon. Hugs and I hope you enjoy, whoever you are! -katnissdoesnotfollowback

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It’s the fire that finally tears me from my dreams. Bending and dancing unnaturally. Alive and reaching out for my father. For my mother and my sister. For me. My body jolts with the force of my waking, and it takes me a moment to catch my breath, to orient myself in my home.

The bed is warm, inviting me to return to sleep, to forget responsibilities. My father still snores softly in his bed, although the faint light filtering through our dust-covered windows suggests that it is past time for me to rise. Slipping from my covers, I hiss at the cold floor beneath my feet and dive back into the warm blankets to search for my woolen socks, which must have come off as I slept. The delay gives me time to check the clock on our mantle, which is really just a board nailed to the wall where we have a few pictures and trinkets displayed. My parents’ wedding portrait. The most recent school pictures of me and my sister, Primrose. A vase for fresh flowers, empty for now in the last cold weeks of winter before the weather turns warm.

The clock claims it’s just past midnight. Confused, I shiver, thinking of the fire in my dreams. I remind myself that it wasn’t real and the glow outside cannot be from imagined fire. Still, I am cautious as I creep to the window, bypassing my father’s bed.

I can’t see much through the coal dust coating the outside of the pane. It’s a constant problem here in the Seam, the layers of the black stuff which always seems to accumulate over everything. My father hates it. And although Prim and I pitch in to help him keep our home as clean as possible, there is nothing we can do about the coal dust that settles outside, gathers too quickly for us to keep up with it, although we do scrub our windows at least once a month.

Unable to see through the window, I make my way to the front door of our house and step outside, just for a moment, shutting the door behind me to keep in the little warmth our pot-bellied stove provides.

The sky glows orange over the square, a few dozen blocks distant from our home, and a humming noise fills the air. A hundred angry bees, or perhaps people. There’s a gunshot and then a scream. A dull roar of collective voices in anger or anguish.

Heart pounding I return inside and crawl back in bed. My father used to speak of things like this and nights like these. Protests. Riots. I’ve never know one to occur in my lifetime, though. I lay there, motionless, listening for more noises that might tell me what is going on in the heart of our District. My feet itch to return to the door, but my head reminds me that it would be dangerous and futile. All I hear is the thumping of my my blood in my ears and the stalwart breathing of the only two people in this world who I am certain that I love. For their sake, I dare not brave the streets again until morning.

What could anyone in District 12 hope to change by protesting in the streets?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I keep my head down as I walk beside my father into town, our game bags loaded from an especially good haul. My eyes long to look skyward, to enjoy the brilliant blue above us. We’ve already spent most of the day beneath its glorious expanse, and I let myself get distracted by its beauty more than once. Still, I would rather look up than down.

But that’s not a good idea here. Our boots scrape quietly on the stones of the town streets. We make our way behind the shops that ring the square. We’re not welcome up front. Despite the fact that my father has been trading with them since he was a teenager, and I joined him ten years ago, Merchants still look on us with suspicion and distrust. They will buy our meat and wild grown produce, but they will never really look us in the eyes.

Stopping at the first store, the butcher’s, I scan the back alleyways for Peacekeepers while my father knocks. Not that Peacekeepers are any great threat. Most of them are as starved for fresh meat as the rest of us. Some of them are our best customers. There’s always a chance, though, that a new arrival or a Peacekeeper facing a promotion might actually take the laws against poaching seriously. Then we’d both be in trouble, and probably take my little sister along with us.

Rooba, the butcher, cracks the door and peers out at us.

“Morning, Rooba,” my father greets her solemnly and opens his bag to pull forth the four turkeys we shot.

“Not interested today,” she says before he’s even got his hand wrapped around their bound legs.

“I’ve got four plump turkeys in here,” my father tries to explain, but Rooba shakes her head.

“You’ve not been about town since early this morning, have you?”

My father stiffens and my eyes dart between the two of them. We usually head out well before dawn, when it’s easy to slip out of the District unnoticed, in between Peacekeeper patrols. Although, we don’t broadcast that information. It’d be stupid to hand out specifics that would give the Peacekeepers an easy time to catch us in the act of committing a crime.

“I like you, Sage,” Rooba says. “You’re a great supplier and a good father, but don’t come to my door again, alright?”

With that, Rooba shuts the door in our faces. My father turns and strides to the next door. I follow, questions burning on my tongue. All day, I wanted to tell my father about what I saw last night, to ask him all these burning questions, but whenever a quiet moment presented itself, the words seemed to stick in my throat. I wondered if it was something that would anger my father.

We have no luck at the grocer’s either. Or the cobbler’s, both families that are usually more than willing to purchase meat from us. My father doesn’t even try the sweet shop or the bakery, two more of our regular trades, instead turning silently toward the Seam after Mrs. Cartwright apologizes profusely and informs us she can’t buy one of our rabbits today.

For a moment, I watch him limping away, confused. When I finally realize he’s not going to wait for me or explain, I hurry to catch up, falling in step with him. We take slow, measured steps back towards the Seam, avoiding the square itself or the main roads. My mind churns so that I barely notice our direction until my father ducks his head and leads me through the low door to the Hob.

It’s unusually quiet, although we do manage to unload two of the turkeys to Greasy Sae and one of the rabbits in exchange for some thread and paraffin wax that we need to make candles. Unfortunately, as I stand counting our meager coin and glancing at our still mostly full game bags, I know that we won’t be able to afford the new shoes that Prim needs. Hers are worn through, handed down from me. The shoes weren’t even brand new when I wore them, but purchased second or maybe even third hand in the Hob.

I watch from a distance as my father tries to bargain with Ripper. We usually don’t trade with her, since she sells contraband liquor, something we have no need for, but if she’s got coins from a sale of her own, it might be worth it. Eventually, my father manages to unload another rabbit in exchange for some money.

“Here,” he says as he returns to me and drops the money in my palm.

“What now, Papa?” I ask quietly. His forehead furrows and he turns towards the door.

“Home, Katniss. We go home now. There’s not much else we can do,” he says. I walk a few steps behind him, sudden anger bubbling in my veins.

I don’t understand why he’s not trying harder. He could be having one of his bad days. Ever since Mama died two years ago, my father hasn’t been quite the same. He still gets up and works his shifts in the mines. Still joins me in the woods on his off days. But he’s not the same. He used to laugh and sing, pull my sister and me into warm, unexpected embraces.

Maybe it started with the mining accident.

When I was twelve, my father would take me into the woods early. Before dawn. Before the Peacekeepers were out on patrols. Long before the whistles at the mines blew, shrill and lingering, to call the miners to work. He taught me to hunt, and to find the beauty in our world which seems to hold so little sometimes. I learned far more valuable lessons in the woods with my father than the District school could ever hope to impart to me.

In January that year, when I was looking forward to my thirteenth birthday in just four months, there was an explosion at the mines. I remember the alarms sounding, and how we were released early from school that day. I found Prim, waiting for me in the school yard, and as we walked towards the mines, I wondered where our mother was.

She was already there, aiding as much as she could as broken bodies were brought up in the lifts. Each time the lift clanged to a halt, though, she stopped and turned to watch. Prim and I were helpless, held back behind barriers the Peacekeepers erected, shivering in our threadbare coats, but I could see my mother. A healer. Her hands and her soft voice could work magic. That day, though, I could see her shoulders shaking with the effort of holding herself together as we waited.

Eventually, the number of miners being brought up each time grew fewer. Then, I heard my mother sob. She shoved a poultice into the hands of the man she’d been treating, ordering him to place it on his burns. She sprinted to a man I could barely recognize, held upright between two other miners, face twisted in agony, leg bent in two places, and flung her arms around him.

My father’s leg was broken, and he was one of the lucky ones. Dozens of miners were crushed, blown to bits, or trapped and suffocated to death. My mother set his bones right there, as Prim and I watched, crying and clinging to each other. Despite even my mother’s skill, though, my father’s leg never healed quite straight, leaving him with a limp. My mother said it was because one of the bones was shattered, not a clean break.

Once my mother had fashioned a splint for him, she turned to go back to work, but my father stopped her, grasping her hand and holding it briefly to his lips, a look of adoration shining from his eyes, even through the pain.

They were often like that, my parents. Anyone who looked at them could see how in love they were, how they lit up, fireflies in darkness, whenever the other was near. When she died two years ago of a fever that she caught from a family she was treating, the laughter and the light left my father’s eyes.

I examine his hunched shoulders as we work our way towards our house in the Seam and feel my own shoulders sagging under the weight of our failure today. It started out so promising, but now I wonder what we will do with two turkeys and all the rest.

“We’ll salt the meat tonight and try to sell it tomorrow or it’ll have to feed us,” my father says once we’re inside our home. “Where’s Prim?”

“Maybe out back with Lady,” I say as I scan the two rooms of our home for her. She’s not there. I glance out the window, hoping to see her on the dusty streets of the Seam, making her way home for the night, but there’s no sign of her. “I’ll go see if I can find her.”

“Katniss–” my father begins, but I don’t let him finish. I need air to think, and won’t find it in that shack where my mother’s ghost keeps my father distant. Besides, I can cover more ground than my father can with his leg.

My eyes sweep the streets of the Seam, searching for the blonde braid swinging over a brown coat. Prim stands out in the Seam, much like my mother did, since they both carry the fair skin and light hair coloring of people from town. Most people from the Seam look like me and my father. Straight black hair, dark olive skin, and gray eyes.

Once, I asked my father why people from town seemed to hate the Seam. He said it was because they thought we were a threat, that they didn’t really know any better since the Capitol made sure they continued to feel that way. I’ve never really understood his words, only knew it meant that I couldn’t fully trust any Merchants. I suppose I can’t blame them too much. Unlike us peasants in the Seam, most Merchant families can at least afford three decent meals a day, whereas in the Seam, sometimes we don’t know where our next meal is coming from. Maybe, if I had a full belly all the time, I wouldn’t question the words of the Captiol.

My mother told me one night that I needed to slow down, that I ate like I’d never see food again. I told her that if Papa and I didn’t hunt, I might not. It was cruel and I was angry at her over something stupid. She wanted me to wear my hair differently for school pictures that year or something and I didn’t much care for the way she suggested it. What did it matter? The pictures were for the Capitol to keep track of us more than anything else. Sure, they sent home one printed picture with each kid, but we all know what those pictures are really about. They get filed away somewhere next to a sample of our blood, which they periodically use to check up on us, make sure we haven’t bolted for the woods. They claim that accountability is safety.

District Twelve, where you are certain to never get lost and can starve to death in safety.

Anyway, she died a few weeks after my moment of sass, without me ever really getting to mend that rift. When she died, my father packed away her things. There were moments when I thought we should sell them. My mother would rather we sell her precious dresses and her porcelain tea set she brought with her from town than see us starve to death, at least I think she would. It’s not that my father was neglectful or anything, but without the added income from my mother’s work as a healer and my father slowed down by his leg, there were a few months I thought we weren’t going to survive.

My father refused to part with anything my mother once held dear. The pretty blue and lavender dresses remain wrapped in some sort of delicate paper in a trunk under my father’s bed. The tea set stayed in our kitchen cabinet. Every so often, Prim will pull it out and serve tea with goat cheese spread on slices of warm bread.

There’s no sign of Prim. I’ve almost reached the edges of the Merchant quarters when a voice calls out to me.

“Hey. Catnip.”

I halt and turn to face the only person I call a friend. Gale Hawthorne.

“It’s getting close to curfew,” he says. “Shouldn’t you be at home?”

“It’s nowhere near curfew yet,” I say with a scowl. “Have you seen Prim around?”

“Yeah, she’s over at the Williams’ place. And it is close to curfew. Guess you and you father were a little too busy today to get the news.”

With a quick glance down the street towards the Williams’ home, I turn my attention to Gale. At least I now know where Prim is. Getting her home won’t take as much work with a starting point. Besides, his words have caught my interest. Even in the woods you have to be careful what you say. There’s no telling who might be listening. So inside the District, we often have to talk around what we really mean. Gale knows exactly where my father and I were this morning. He used to come out to the woods with us, and my father taught Gale as much as he could.

Gale’s father died in the mining accident that left my father with a twisted leg. Sometimes, I think he resents my father for living. I suppose I can’t blame him. If our positions were reversed, I might have resented Mr. Hawthorne. Still, my father tried as best he could, but Gale often spent our time in the woods raging against the unfairness of the Capitol and the way the Merchants had it far easier than us. My father once told Gale that it was to their advantage to divide us this way. Grudgingly, Gale had admitted to me once that my father was probably right about that part. It didn’t stop him from scowling or muttering backhanded insults every time we tried to trade with Merchants.

Eventually, his surliness caused a rift. One day, Gale stopped coming into the woods with us. I know he still hunts and traps. On mornings when it’s just me in the woods, when my father has already left for work in the mines but I have time to hunt before school starts, sometimes Gale and I work together. My father taught him a little about traps and snares, but Gale somehow took my father’s teachings to new levels. He has a gift with snares.

It hurt that neither of them explained to me what happened between them, but every time I brought it up, my father would say that Gale’s rants were scaring off the game, so he would probably do better on his own. Gale would say that he preferred the solitude. I know there’s more they’re not telling me, but I can’t argue with their reasons either. Still, Gale is my friend.

“What news?” I ask, trying to hide my impatience to get Prim and go home. Between Gale’s words, what I saw last night, and the behavior of the Merchants this morning, it’s clear my father and I missed something important.

“New curfew, new regulations,” Gale says. “You should get Prim and head home.”

I chafe under his advice, feeling as though he is purposely excluding me from something big, and jump when a hand lands on my shoulder.

“Mr. Everdeen,” Gale says tightly. “Figured with two pretty daughters, you’d be more wary about new regulations.”

“Katniss,” my father says. “Go get Prim.”

“Papa, she’s–”

“Go get her,” he repeats and stands watching Gale warily.

“Alright,” I mutter and walk slowly off towards the Williams’ home.

“I told you to leave Katniss out of this,” my father says, confirming my suspicions. My brow furrows and my palms sweat. I never thought my father would treat me like a child, and the worst part is, I don’t even know what he’s keeping from me. Since I have to fetch Prim, though, I don’t hear Gale’s response.

At the Williams’ door, just a few doors down from Gale’s. I knock, and wait only a few seconds before the door opens.

“Oh, hello, Katniss,” Mr. Williams says, a kitchen knife clutched in his fist. “Good to see you. Prim’s almost done. Ah, if you want to come in, we can discuss her payment while she finishes.”

Finishes what? I want to ask, but I’m already pissed at my father for keeping me in the dark and now Prim appears to have a secret as well, so I nod and step inside the house, which is almost an exact mirror of ours. Two rooms. One for sitting and eating, another for sleeping and bathing. For them it would be a touch more crowded. They have three kids, although the oldest is twenty and will likely move out as soon as he finds someone to marry, be assigned his own house. Thom is the same age as Gale and works with him in the mines. Anyways, you don’t get a three room house unless you have four or more kids.

“Two spoonfuls if it becomes unbearable,” I hear Prim’s soft voice. “I’ll be back tomorrow morning and again after school to change the bandages, alright, Thom?”

My stomach drops. She’s been working as a healer.

“We used to pay your mother in tomatoes,” Mr. Williams states, his hands now weaponless. I wonder why he answered the door armed. “But, uh, seeing as how it’s not quite spring…”

“Whenever your crop comes in,” I say automatically, knowing that was how my mother operated. Besides, people in the Seam hate owing anyone anything, so I know Mr. Williams is good for it. My voice sounds harsh, and I can tell Mr. Williams doesn’t appear convinced. My mother and Prim have a much softer mein than I do, I know. I don’t smile much, and I know people find me cold. It’s safer that way. Keep your head down, hold your tongue, never let people see what you feel. It’s served me well in trading with Merchants, but it must come off as harsh to Seam folk, so I try to soften my tone.

“It’s not a problem.”

He smiles slightly and nods.

“Don’t know what we would’ve done without Primrose. She’s…well she’s got your mother’s touch.”

That’s what I’m afraid of, but I say nothing, instead try to smile at him. Prim steps out from the bedroom and stops short when she sees me.

“Katniss, I–”

“We better get home before curfew,” is all I say to her and she nods, slips her freshly washed hand into mine. We leave behind the cramped home, and I squeeze her hand, grateful that my father appears to still be caught in a heated talk with Gale. He’s got enough to worry about with whatever new rules the Capitol has imposed on us and the effect it seems to be having on our relations with the Merchants. I don’t want to burden him further. “We’re not telling Papa, but you have to be home on time from now on or he’s going to figure it out.”

“Yes,” Prim says. “Okay.”

“You were delivering goat cheese, understand?”

Prim nods in answer.

“I hope you’re okay being paid in tomatoes come summer,” I whisper right before we reach my father.

Prim nods again and even manages to smile as she lies to Papa. He nods curtly and leads us back home. I keep ahold of Prim, to let her know how close it was, and how angry with her I am. My father would never allow Prim to be a healer. Even though my mother taught Prim everything she knew, was training Prim to be a healer alongside her before she died, losing Mama to the fever changed my father’s views on the matter. Pride turned to fear, and Papa forbade Prim to heal on her own. Obviously, she’s been doing it anyways, behind our backs.

When we get home, we prepare and eat a silent supper, the air quivering in tension around us. It radiates off Papa’s shoulders, as I desperately try to hold off my questions. Finally, Prim fills us in with idle chatter about town. It’s fairly easy to decipher what she’s telling us.

The stocks in the square were unusually full today. The Peacekeepers tightened curfew in response to an increase in lawlessness. Coal quotas have been increased and rations reduced.

It seems foolish to me. Tighter measures such as these would only make people angrier, more likely to protest. I wonder if Thom Williams participated in whatever happened last night. It would explain his injuries as well as his father’s jumpy behavior.

“Straight to school in the morning, girls. No reason to do anything that might shine badly on this family,” my father says as he chews on his fried squirrel.

“But Papa,” I start.

“No, Katniss. It’s late. Don’t argue with me on this. You can see your boyfriend some other time.”

Does he mean Gale? He can’t mean Gale. Gale’s not my boyfriend. My father must be talking in riddles to avoid mentioning our hunting.

I purse my lips as indignation simmers in me. The weather is starting to warm. The animals returning after the cold of winter. Plus I was thinking of scouring the woods for herbs for Prim, like we used to do for my mother. If she’s going to insist on being a healer, she should at least have easy access to the tools she’ll need. I don’t want to lose her to a fever like we did Mama, but Prim is fourteen, nearly fifteen. By that age, I was hunting on my own in the woods, and there’s nothing illegal about what Prim is doing. The Capitol won’t dispense lashes or time in the stocks to her for healing a few injured or sick.

That night, I fall asleep waiting for sounds of more protests. Life in Panem isn’t a bunch of roses. People starve almost every week, all while the Capitol claims to provide protection and nourishment for us. There were times I thought Gale was right, although I didn’t know what could be done about it. Still, I try to understand the people who would risk jail or execution to let the Capitol know they thought the government is wrong. Abhorrent.

It was basically decided from the moment I was born that I would work the mines once I hit the age of eighteen. That’s in just two short months. I’ll be granted the few weeks until the end of May to finish school, which is really a joke anyways, as most of our classes have to do with coal production. Merchants attend classes geared towards running a business and only a few of our classes overlap. Reading and writing, physical education, music.

I hate being underground. Every year, on our class trip to the mines, I would get sick, thinking of how close my father came to dying down there. I hate the dark and the cramped spaces, the awful smell. The suffocating dust that hangs in the air. For awhile, I thought that I could just make my living as a hunter. What great catches I could make if I had all day everyday to devote to the woods. But it wouldn’t work. The government keeps close tabs on us, to include our work schedules. They would know if I didn’t have a legal profession. So full-time hunting is out.

I don’t do well with battered, bleeding bodies. Ironic, given the fact that I can skin a rabbit or pluck a turkey without a problem. But it means that my mother didn’t even bother teaching me how to heal. I learned a few things in the moments before my stomach revolted and I had to flee the house for the meadow and fresh air. And that means that I am left with mining. Which makes me want to throw a rock through a window. So I guess I can sort of understand the people who are protesting. That’s when it occurs to me that Gale might be one of them. He hates the mines as much as me, if not more. I hope he’s safe tonight, and strain my ears, fighting sleep to catch some sign of unrest.

Nothing happens.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We’ve managed a pair of rabbits and one stringy squirrel. It won’t fetch much, so we quickly reset the snares and move to our line closer to the lake. Another rabbit. The silence between us is stifling, and I hate the fact that Gale still isn’t telling me why my father seems so badly to want to avoid him. Or what it is he’s not supposed to involve me in.

We take a break by a stream, splitting one of the drop biscuits made from ration grains that my father wrapped up before he left for the mines this morning. He meant it for a before-school breakfast, not a while hunting breakfast. I feel guilty sharing it with Gale, for being out here in the woods at all, but this is Gale’s day off, which means it’s our only chance this week to really talk. As upset with him as I am, I still don’t want to miss out on that.

“We could leave, you know,” Gale says as I toss a stone into the stream, watch it sink to the shallow depths and rest near a patch of water moss.

“And go where?” I ask.

“I dunno,” Gale mutters, wrists resting on his bent knees. “Maybe join the rebels.”

I scoff at the suggestion. It’s treason, and I glance around us to make sure we’ve not been followed. The rebels. Groups of vicious people living in the wilds between districts, intent on bringing down the Capitol by any means necessary.

Every so often, the Capitol catches one and has them dragged to the square of the nearest district and publicly executed, live on national TV. The event is treated as a holiday, a celebration of the power and stability of Panem. Schools close. The entire populace is expected to be present in their squares to witness the spectacle. They even go so far as to take attendance, pricking your finger and marking log books with your blood before scanning it to match your DNA to your identity. An absence means Peacekeepers will be visiting your home that evening to make sure that you’re either sick or dead. Two days in the stocks if you aren’t, plus the Peacekeepers are guaranteed to search your home for contraband.

“What would we do with our families?” I ask, knowing that at the first mandatory event we miss, our families would be jailed or maybe even executed. I don’t know. No one has left District 12 in the time I can remember. We’d have to take our entire families with us and somehow survive in the wilds. Eight people. Even if we did, the rebels tend towards violence. We might be killed on sight rather than welcomed with open arms.

“We could survive,” he says. “Even without the rebels. Your family and mine. We could do it.”

It’s crazy, although a part of me thinks it might be better than staying here.

“Then you’d miss out on marrying Penelope Summers,” I tell him with a serious face. He grins and shakes his head.

“You’re never letting me live that down, are you?” he asks, referring to the rumors that flew around school after he and Penelope, the daughter of one of the Ministers of Justice, were caught near the slag heap two months ago.

The details made me blush, but it’s not unheard of, especially for a boy like Gale. He’s handsome and strong. Strong enough to take the harsh conditions in the mines, plus he can hunt. All of that makes him highly desirable, Seam blood or not. I hear the girls whispering about him at school. They all want him and every last one of them shunned Penelope after the incident, mainly out of jealousy. Truthfully, I was a little jealous too. Not because I have designs on Gale, but because good hunting partners aren’t exactly thick on the ground here in Twelve. Few people have the gumption to do what we do, to brave the woods. There are a few courageous souls who cross the fence every autumn to pluck apples from the trees just beyond the fences, but otherwise, my father, Gale and I pretty much have the woods to ourselves. Except for the rebels.

“I’m never getting married,” I declare to the cool air. “Or having kids. It’s just not worth the handful of extra money.” It’s a gamble I don’t want to take.

“You say that now, Catnip,” Gale says with a strange gleam in his eyes. “But the right man could change your mind.”

The intensity behind his words disturbs me. Where did all this talk of marriage and children come from anyways? There’s nothing romantic between Gale and me. Never has been. I stand abruptly and brush the dirt from the seat of my pants.

“We should head back,” I say.

As we walk back towards the fence, Gale and I both grow tense. Despite the dangers of illegal hunting, which range from being caught to being attacked by wild dogs or worse, this next stage is truly the most dangerous. Trading. Especially now that our more lucrative trade partners have grown far more suspicious of us. I wonder what lies the Capitol told them to heighten their mistrust. Maybe Gale knows, but the last thing I want right now is to send him on a tangent.

Gale halts, then slowly lifts a finger, pointing out a gaggle of wild turkey to me. Quietly as possible, I draw an arrow and nock it, take aim and let fly, following rapidly with a second shot. By the time I’ve drawn a third arrow, the birds are scattered enough in panic to make chasing them pointless. Still, two wild turkeys added to our catch will make for decent trading. It’s been another good day, the animals finally venturing out to brave the reawakening world after the long winter. We collect our catch and keep moving. We still have a lot of ground to cover to get me back inside the fence in time for school. Gale will probably return to the woods after we finish our morning trades.

As we move, chills run down my spine. Other than the woods being abnormally quiet, though, I can’t pinpoint a reason.

A shout echoes over the hills. Gale and I react as one, dropping into a thicket of brush and knocking arrows, pointed outward in self-defense. My heart thumps wildly in my chest. I want to ask Gale if he thinks it’s rebels or Peacekeepers come to arrest us, finally. He shakes his head slightly when I turn towards him, a signal to remain silent.

As we watch the woods, I see a flash of bright red. And then more shouting. It’s two people, running as though a fire trails behind them. Leaping over a fallen log, the one with black hair, a single streak of purple curling over his forehead looks up. A bird chirps and the boy yells at the red-haired girl.

“Run, Lav! Run!”

It happens so fast I nearly scream with the girl. Out of nowhere, a hovercraft appears, the belly emblazoned with the geometric eagle of the Capitol. A harpoon of some kind spears the boy through the middle and then he’s airborne. Up up up, until he disappears inside the hovercraft.

She’s still screaming, his name perhaps, her voice mangled with emotions as she trips and tries to run, falls to her face twenty yards from where Gale and I are hiding. Her eyes meet mine, a lovely shade of lavender. My mouth feels glued shut, and I’ve no idea what to do. She blinks and opens her mouth, reaches towards us, but then a metal claw grabs her, and lifts her up to the hovercraft as well. So fast, I blink and she’s gone.

The woods fall silent as the hovercraft once more disappears. We sit there, and I wonder if Gale’s heart is pounding as hard as mine. I can’t tell because my own pulse and this strange ringing is all I can hear. We wait there until the forest returns to life, which is far longer than is prudent, but my body is frozen, rigid with terror.

We’ll have to split up to accomplish our trades today. Thinking of mundane, everyday tasks helps me pull it together enough to take Gale’s hand when he stands and offers to help me from the thicket. We walk in total silence back to Twelve, never once mentioning what we witnessed, all talk of rebellion and anger towards the Capitol stifled for now.

I’m not even certain I manage decent trades, and trudge home, depositing the herbs I gathered for Prim on the kitchen table before setting to work skinning and preparing one of the rabbits to turn into stew. I forgot the greens I planned on gathering, and for some reason, this is the thought that makes me collapse at the table and bury my head in my folded arms, ignoring the stench of entrails on my hands.

My arms muffle the choked noises I make as I try to process what I witnessed. They had to be from the Capitol. The rebels live in the woods, removed from society. The clothes this pair wore, although tattered, looked expensive. Would rebels even have the kind of hair dye needed to produce the unnaturally colored tresses those two wore? No one in Twelve can afford to dye their hair like that, and I imagine the people of the other districts are the same. But why would they want to leave the Captiol? It’s no secret that our Merchant Class is well off, and even more so than them, the Capitolites are loaded with cash. I cannot fathom anyone wanting to leave a life where you go to bed with a full stomach every day of your pampered life.

I don’t know, I don’t know. I only know that I should have done something. But what? Then I realize that’s the problem. Nothing I could have done would have changed their fate. This realization does nothing to assuage my guilt.

I’m shaking with it, trembling head to foot, when there’s a loud laugh outside the door. I jump to my feet, toppling my chair and gasping. I wipe my eyes, run to the window to check, certain that I finally pushed too far, certain they’ve come to arrest me.

Nothing.

I’m still watching the street when Prim comes in from her morning trades and healing rounds. In addition to her healing services, she sells Lady’s milk and cheeses at the Hob. I hope she’s stopped selling to Merchants, although she might have more luck with them, given her appearance.

Primrose inherited our mother’s fair merchant looks. I watch her now as she washes her hands, up past her elbows, and splashes cool water on her face. Focusing on her soothes away the terror, if only a small amount. She’s lovely and fresh as morning dew. My mother was beautiful as well, and even though the harsh reality of life in the Seam wore on her, leaving behind wrinkles and weathered hands, my mother’s beauty shone through whenever my father would smile at her or twirl her around the house for no reason other than to make her laugh.

“Rabbit stew tonight,” I say, and return to the stew, pushing away my memories of my mother and how my father was when she was still alive.

“Yum,” Prim says merrily as she joins me in the kitchen, eyes the stew and smiles before diving in to help.

“How is Mrs. Thompson?” I ask, hoping to distract her enough that she doesn’t notice my agitation.

“Fine,” Prim says brightly. “She’ll probably deliver soon.”

“You’ve been delivering babies?” I ask, a little astonished. My mother took Prim along on many of her house calls, to include deliveries, but it still stuns me. I knew she was seeing Mrs. Thompson to help her along with the pregnancy because she told me where she was headed this morning, but this is healing on a whole new scale.

“I –” Prim fumbles, her cheeks turning pink.

“Never mind,” I say. “But you should start thinking about how you’re going to explain this to Papa when people start knocking on our door for remedies or midwife services.”

“I’ve been working with the apothecary,” she whispers. More wonderful news. “He’s been teaching me a lot and his wife has helped me learn more about being a midwife. They understand that the Seam needs someone whose services they can actually afford.”

“And that’s you?” I ask testily. Prim sighs and shuts her eyes tightly.

“I’m doing what I can, Katniss. Just like you are. I’m good at this and it helps not just our family, but a lot of families. Please don’t make this about Mom,” she says. “Mom knew the risks and so do I. I’m doing everything I can to be safe.”

Where, I wonder, did the little girl who always wanted to braid my hair in intricate styles and sing to the birds in the meadow go? She’s grown up so fast.

“Besides,” Prim smiles at me, her eyes glinting in mischief and victory. “We both know you didn’t sneak out of here right after Papa left to meet up with Gale at the slag heap for some early morning canoodling.”

“Canoodling?” I say, my cheeks heating at the mere suggestion of me kissing Gale. I’m really not sure how I feel about it. Clearly thinking she’s won, Prim stirs the stew and crushes some dried seasonings to add.

“Fine,” I sigh. “I found you some herbs. They’re in the white sack on the table.”

Prim’s eyes widen and she hurries over to the table to examine what I managed to collect for her. She makes a soft sound of delight and then her arms wrap around me from behind.

“Thank you, Katniss!”

I smile and pat her arm awkwardly, glad I could make her happy. Still a little worried for her, but as she pointed out, I’m not exactly obeying our father either, nor am I engaged in a safe or even legal form of livelihood.

Once the ingredients are all added to the stew, we dampen the fire a little and leave it to simmer all day while we’re at school. We quickly change into our uniforms and head out into the cool morning air. It’s already warmed up a bit since I was out hunting with Gale. It’s a bit of a walk and we move briskly through the Seam and skirt the edges of the town square.

We pass the bakery on our way in, and I have to tug on Prim’s hand to keep her from wandering over to the front window and pressing her nose to the glass. I know what we’d find - expensive and lavishly decorated cakes that we could never afford, perfectly shaped loaves of mouthwateringly delicious breads. Every now and then, I trade with the baker for one of those loaves, and I have often dreamed of being able to afford one of the smaller cakes for Prim’s birthday.

“Not today, Prim,” I say, and she starts to protest, but glances over in time to spot the baker’s wife as she places another beautiful cake in the window. That woman is a sour tempered witch and most people try to avoid her, preferring to deal with the much quieter and mild mannered baker. Prim lowers her head.

“It’s okay, Little Duck,” I say as I tuck in the back of her shirt, which has come loose again. It’s an old school shirt of mine, worn and nearly threadbare, two sizes too large for Prim just yet. In the moment, I need to mother her a little, to forget that she’s almost grown. “Maybe this afternoon.”

“Quack,” she says with a sardonic twist of her lips, making me laugh the way only Prim can.

We arrive at the school just in time and separate. I join the other seventeen year old kids and she joins with the fourteen year olds, all of us in orderly lines by age, gradually falling silent in the moments before the bell rings, so that when the school doors finally open to admit us, the only sounds in the schoolyard are the scuffling of shoes and the intermittent cough. I try not to look at the source of the hacking or think of the potential for more income if the kid is Seam and their best bet is to visit Prim. Already I’m thinking of her skills in terms of our survival.

Our mother was the daughter of the Apothecary, and learned the arts of healing under her parents. We don’t have doctors in District Twelve. Doctors are trained in a fancy school and live in the Capitol, and very few residents of District Twelve can afford a trip to the Capitol. Besides, you only go by invitation, and most of the illnesses and injuries in District Twelve require immediate attention. We can’t wait on an invitation and a two day train ride to the city. Instead we have healers, and my mother brought her trade with her when she left town. My father, and later me as well, would scavenge for medicinal herbs out in the woods. It’s a lot different than the neat rows in the apothecary’s garden behind his store, but since my mother charged far less than him, the people of the Seam could actually afford her services, leaving the much wealthier customers to the apothecary himself.

Eventually, the old apothecary died, leaving his business in the hands of his son, my mother’s brother, I suppose. I’ve never even spoken to the man, although it sounds as though he and his wife have taken Prim under their wing. On the one hand, I am grateful they are continuing my mother’s teachings since this is what Prim wants to do. At least it will keep her out of the mines once she reaches 18. I wonder if my father has thought of that. But then I also have to wonder about the apothecary’s motives. As far as I know, my mother’s entire family stopped speaking to her when she married my father, which is why I know nothing about that part of our family. So why would the apothecary change that now, when so many Merchants seem to be withdrawing from contact with the Seam?

It turns out to be a dull day at school. The only excitement comes in the form of an announcement. All citizens must report to the square at four this afternoon for a mandatory viewing. Other than that, it’s the same drivel about the glorious history of Panem, math lessons that are geared more towards Merchant children who will eventually run one of the many businesses in the square, and science lessons that are actually designed to prepare Seam children for a career in mining.

We don’t even get our usual hour of outdoor physical education since it starts raining shortly after lunch. Instead, we’re stuck in the gymnasium, with me dreaming of trees, puzzling over the apothecary, and ignoring the shouts of the other girls as I miss a block on a shot at our goal. As if I care about kicking around a stupid ball.

I receive a few dirty looks in the locker rooms as I change out of my P.E. uniform and back into my class uniform. I ignore those too, thinking ahead to how I might escape into the woods after the mandatory announcements, since it means my father will be home early. I may have to settle for an afternoon in the meadow, searching for greens, herbs, and if I’m lucky, dandelions.

Maybe, if I time it right, I can sneak Prim up to the bakery window after the family has left the shop for the square but before we’re required to be accounted for. The cakes in the bakery window are one of the few truly beautiful things in District Twelve, so I hate to deny Prim any chance to see them. They just make her so simplistically and wondrously happy.

When the bell finally rings, releasing us for the day, I wait along the side of the school yard for Prim. On the other side of Twelve, miners are rising up from the depths of the earth on rickety old lifts. The Capitol has timed the announcements to coincide with the shift change, so all mine workers will be present, the swing shift workers allowed a delay in reporting to work for the mandatory attendance.

I spot Gale across the yard, waiting for his siblings, and we share a nod, but we don’t really spend time together outside of our hunting and trading. There’s just no time, although he seems to find time for other girls just fine. I watch as another Seam girl, an eighteen year old whose name I can’t remember smiles up at him. Ugh. I don’t get the appeal of flirting like that. Maybe because I’ve never tried it. Maybe because no boys have looked at me the way Gale looks at that girl. Whatever. I’m never getting married anyways, so it’s better for all of them to just leave me alone.

“Did you have a good morning?” Prim asks as she slips her hand in mine. “I didn’t get to ask you since we were running a little behind.”

I nod and tell her it was a good morning, not wanting to scare her with the story of the red-haired girl and her companion. Beside, that’s a story I have to keep to myself inside the district. I switch to asking her about school, a much safer topic. From an early age, I learned to hold my tongue, keep my head down and not attract too much attention. I was already walking a thin line with the hunting. If I talked the way Gale does about the Capitol, Prim might pick up on it and repeat things I said. Then where would our family be? In jail. Or dead.

Keeping our pace deliberately slow, we gradually fall back a few paces behind the crowd of people headed to the square. By the time we reach the bakery, the windows are dark, indicating that the family has already left for the announcements. I let go of Prim’s hand and let her stare longingly at the cakes.

“Oh, look, Katniss. This one has daisies on it. Aren’t they beautiful?” she breathes, her warm breath fogging the glass so that she has to shift to the right and view a different cake.

“They’re lovely,” I say, admiring the crown of ivy on a four tier confection of pure excess.

I can’t imagine having enough money to buy something like that, although I suppose if Gale marries Penelope, he’ll have a wedding cake like that. He’s supposed to take his second and final round of aptitude tests this summer, to determine if he’s been appropriately placed in his career. Most Seam folk are classified and then remain miners all of their life. But Gale is smart. Maybe he could even get the chance to go to the Capitol to study engineering. He has a knack for things like that. Our snares are mostly his design. But again, a future like that is only possible by invitation. Gale could come back as a mining foreman, though. Or be sent to another district. Our teachers are like that. Trained in the Capitol and then sent to another district to educate the rest of us.

It’s more money than miners make, and if I had any talent beyond shooting things, maybe I could go, too. Bring in scads more money and security for my family. Maybe then my father wouldn’t have to work the mines anymore, although I know it’d rub him raw to place all of that on my shoulders. It’s a dream I can’t afford, though, because it probably won’t happen. I grab Prim’s hand again, tug her away from the window to join the lines checking in to the square.

We check in, and I suck on my finger to deal with the sting of the needle before we find our father and join him. I like the square. The shops are a bit run down, but there’s something almost quaint and inviting about their architecture. Most of the Merchants live in the apartments above their shops. The upper windows are picturesque with their lace curtains and window boxes that bloom colorful flowers in the spring through summer. A few even swap out the summer blooms for autumn marigolds to keep the cheerful touch of color. On market days, when the trains from the Capitol and other districts arrive with fresh supplies and goods, and holidays like New Years, the square has an almost jolly and carefree attitude to it.

Except for the Hall of Justice. It’s a dark, imposing building that handles most legal transactions. Everything from weddings to floggings and the occasional hanging. The Peacekeeper barracks are behind it along with a smattering of houses for the commanders and their families. Gale has been in there before, after his father died and there was paperwork to be filed. Burial deeds. Widow’s benefits for Hazelle. Changing her status to Head of Household, responsible for accepting the family’s rations and other legal matters. Making Gale the beneficiary of the death benefits should Hazelle die before he turned eighteen.

I glance around and notice a few Peacekeepers with gold ribbons stitched down the sides of each leg of their pants. I’ve never seen Peacekeepers in uniforms like those, and there appear to be more Peacekeepers than usual. I study their faces, searching for a familiar one, and at first, find no one that I know. Eventually, I spot Darius, adjusting some kind of projector while a Peacekeeper with gold stripes barks orders at him.

I like Darius. As far as Peacekeepers go, he’s not bad at all. Usually good for a laugh, and he hangs around Greasy Sae’s stall in the Hob quite a bit. He once joked with me that I should trade one of my rabbits to him for a kiss.

Turning away from Darius, I find a few more that I know, and note that none of them are wearing the gold stripes. It doesn’t bode well at all.

Static crackles and the screens flanking the Hall of Justice flare to life. The people of Twelve fall silent and wait for the news.

“Good evening, citizens of fair Panem,” a voice intones. “Your quick assembly is appreciated.”

I try not to snort in front of Prim and the rest of the district. As if we had any choice.

“And now,” the voice continues as the picture finally focuses. The Great Seal of Panem, a geometric eagle with the most ridiculously unrealistic and angular feathers for spread wings, arrows clutched in one claw, an olive branch in the other. Rays of the sun radiating out from behind the bird. “A word from our exalted President, Coriolanus Snow.”

The seal fades to reveal President Snow, sedately seated behind his massive desk. I assume it’s massive. It certainly looks that way over video. He smiles at us, an expression that is no doubt meant to be comforting, benevolent. It comes off as creepy.

“My dear countrymen and women,” the president begins, his voice magnified and echoing through the town. “Tonight, I must bring you unfortunate news.”

A murmur travels through the crowd, but it has no chance to grow as President Snow continues speaking, unaware of the effect of his words. Or maybe he is, because he shakes his head, like a disappointed father.

“Ours is a delicate nation, still struggling to overcome the terrible situations our ancestors left us to deal with. Each of us plays a role in the system that keeps us from deteriorating into the barbaric state of years long past. Recent events, however, have forced the hand of the Capitol. In order to remind you, the people of the districts, of the benevolent and caring aims of the Capitol, in accordance with the recommendations of your district representatives, the following measures must be taken to maintain the good order and peace we have enjoyed under the rule of the Capitol.”

Easy for him to say; he’s running the show. I hold my tongue, though. Keep my face impassive that no one can read my thoughts and feelings.

“First,” President Snow lifts a piece of parchment and reads. “To counteract recent disruptions in certain districts, output quotas have been increased ten percent across the board.”

This gets the Seam families to grumble a little and look around in disbelief. My hands begin to shake and several of the Peacekeepers ringing the square shift to grip their rifles more securely, as though they were anticipating trouble tonight, and this grumbling is the first sign.

“Second,” an oblivious Snow continues. “Several squabbles amongst the representatives have shown a complete disregard for the needs of the nation over the needs of the individual districts. Therefore, in an attempt to streamline the bureaucratic processes that a governing body must engage in, the Capitol has moved to disband the current representative body and replace it with one consisting of one representative per district. The Mayor of each district will provide said representation for his people.”

As one, heads turn towards Mayor Undersee, seated on a dais next to several officials from the Hall of Justice. He bows his head, a gesture of contrition, or acceptance. The Ministers of Justice nod in agreement and applaud. I suppose we are meant to join in, but no one dares. It’s not like our representatives do much good anyways, but at least they existed, usually voted from among the Merchants. Now, Snow has made it clear. The Mayor is selected by the Capitol, usually one of the Ministers of Justice, most of whom hail from the Capitol originally.

We don’t get a voice anymore.

Perhaps it won’t be too bad, though. Mayor Undersee seems to be a reasonable man. He married a girl from Twelve, after all. Her twin sister runs the sweet shop in town, and the Mayor’s daughter, Madge, is kind. She’s sort of my friend, I suppose. We usually eat lunch together, although we rarely ever talk.

“Third,” President Snow announces. “In light of current difficulties, the Marriage Incentive is to be reduced forty percent. Fourth, working class citizens must complete and pass a test in addition to their aptitudes upon completion of their school years. This test is designed to ensure that only the best and brightest of our citizens are allowed to vote on future matters. Restricting voting privileges thusly will aid in ensuring the continued growth and prosperity of this great nation as well as its security. All current working class citizens who have completed school and already moved on to their career appointments will be asked to submit to the testing as well. Specific dates and times will be delivered by the Ministers of Justice.

“I must remind you, in these trying times, that all measures enacted by the Capitol are done so for the safety and prosperity for all. I ask your full cooperation in maintaining the security and peace of this nation.”

I can’t help it, my jaw drops open. Beside me, my father’s spine stiffens and he makes a strange noise in his throat. My mind reels with the information. The president frames it as taking care of us, securing our future, but I wonder. If we’re no longer full-fledged citizens with a stake in our future, what are we then?

But President Snow isn’t done. He carefully places the paper on his desk and smooths the surface.

“Now I must address a most serious issue. Our Peacekeeper squads work tirelessly to maintain good order amongst our districts. Their vigilance has recently yielded much to be concerned about.”

The screen flickers and although the President’s voice continues, sounds from another location join in. Howling wind that I can see whipping the clothing and hair of the people standing in a square, much like ours. A computer generated graphic flashes up on screen and stays in the corner.

District 11.

The people of Eleven are eerily quiet and still as five people are dragged onto the stage set up in front of their Hall of Justice. Three men, one woman, and a child. They’re bound, hands behind their back, one of the men walks with a severe limp. All of their faces are hidden beneath burlap hoods.

“A squad of Peacekeepers, in accordance with Search and Discover Act 24.12.8,” the president announces as the five people are led to the nooses hanging from the gallows on the stage, “Discovered a pair of men sheltering in the home of a Working Class Family of District 11. Such actions, aiding and abetting treasonous rebels, is expressly forbidden, and punishable by death. These men, the rebels, are dangerous to the security of all people of our nation.”

The President’s voice has shifted from one of a lecturing parent to something much more sinister as the nooses are placed around their necks and tightened.

“They will murder and steal, undermine all that we have worked together to achieve. Let this night stand as a reminder that such treason cannot and will not be tolerated. For the sake of the Capitol, the Districts, the people of Panem, the very foundations of our lives, I sentence these five persons to immediate death.”

At his final words, a Peacekeeper pulls a lever, opening the hatches beneath the feet of the doomed people. They drop and the child wriggles a moment. A woman in the crowd screams. Someone else sobs, but the sounds are quickly hushed. I can’t tell if the commotion occurred here in District Twelve, or far away in District Eleven.

The wind buffets the woman’s body, knocking it into the child beside her, sending his legs thumping against the beams supporting the stage. The screen returns to the President, a hard look now twisting his features. Prim hides her face in my father’s chest. My father grasps my hand and squeezes tight.

“I expect and appreciate your continued patriotism and cooperation. Good evening from the Capitol.”

His speech ended, the screen displays the seal once more as the anthem blares through the speakers, making half of the people around me flinch at the first brassy note. His message could not be more clear. Submit to the new restrictions, or suffer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chaos erupts almost as soon as the screens go black. Shouts ring the square. A Peacekeeper lifts his pistol and fires into the air.

“Shut up, Seam trash!” A lone voice sounds in the crowd, accompanied by some shoving and another shot into the air. My father maneuvers us to the edges of the crowd, and I go willingly, all thoughts of sneaking into the woods fled, burned out of possibility by the images of the child they hung and the red-haired girl.

“Disperse and return to your homes!” the Peacekeeper on the dias yells. “Any stragglers will be shot!”

In a strangely disjointed flow, we move out of the square. Somehow, my family is jostled to the middle of the crowd. As we turn down a lane in the Seam, new horrors await. Peacekeepers throw objects out the front door of a shack, a woman pleads on her knees, tears streaming down her face, hands grasping at a Peacekeeper with gold stripes, his half visor covering his eyes. The man stands there, impassive and cold, and watches as more gold striped Peacekeepers drag a young man from the house as well, his face already bruised and bleeding. The Peacekeepers force him to stand upright with his hands on the walls of the shack, then they tear off his shirt and one swings a lash. He cries out at the first stroke, his hands sliding down the wall, leaving streaks in the layer of coal dust as his mother screams. Red welts appear in his flesh, and the Peacekeeper raises his arm again.

My father steers us down a different street as Prim makes a soft, distressed noise when the lash whistles through the air once more. On that street, Peacekeepers have gathered piles of contraband goods. They wrestle Ripper into handcuffs, which is difficult, given her missing arm. One takes a bottle of her liquor, her only livelihood since the mines wouldn’t take her back, even though they’re the reason she lost that arm. The Peacekeeper smashes the bottle over the contraband pile and then drops a lit match among the things. Radios, old newspaper clippings, a violin.

The fire flares high as my father grabs my neck and forces me to look away as we continue home. We live deep in the Seam, all the way by the meadow. How much more will we have to witness before we reach our illusion of safety.

My mind churns with a list of objects in our house, attempting to determine if there is anything that will land us in trouble. We keep our weapons in the woods, hidden in oilcloth to protect them from water, tucked inside hollow logs. It’s a good thing, too. If they found bows and hunting knives like ours in our home, we wouldn’t be lashed against our own home, but probably shot, for inciting rebellion.

My stomach churns with each block we traverse and each new violation of dignity it reveals. No wonder my father wants Gale to stay away from us with his treasonous words and seething anger. It does no good, no good at all when the people in power are willing to go to such lengths as these.

When we reach the house, my father shoves us inside and shuts the door behind us. I scan the house, opening cupboards and eyeing the food and cutlery stored there as Prim takes stock of her herbs, making sure nothing she has would be reason for punishment. Lady herself is safe. There are no laws against us owning small livestock such as goats, chickens, or even pigs. The family three houses down from us keeps a pair of sheep, even, and sells the wool each spring.

My father does the same as me only in the bedroom, but when his eyes discover what Prim is doing, he freezes.

“Primrose,” he says sternly.

“Not now, Papa,” she snaps and glares at him. I’ve never seen her truly angry before, and in that moment, my father sucks in his breath. He sees it, too. How much she looks exactly like Mama right now in her righteous indignation. “Don’t be a hypocrite when they’re about to bash in our door and tear our life apart for no reason other than that they can.”

We stand there, stunned into silence, and then the pounding begins.

My heart hammers, and since my father and sister appear to be locked in some kind of silent battle, I slink to the door and open it, my face frozen into neutral.

“Primrose!” Mr. Thompson gasps, leaning against the door-frame. “Is Primrose here?”

She brushes past me, with a quick apologetic look, her head held high, and a basket draped over her arm.

“Right here, Mr. Thompson,” she says, gently taking his arm and guiding him back through the Seam towards his house, and no doubt, his wife.

I shut the door and my father curses behind me.

“Where the hell does she think she’s going in this chaos?”

“To deliver a baby,” I whisper and stand by the front door as my father paces, waiting for the Peacekeepers.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The worst thing they do to us is upend the small trunk in which my father keeps my mother’s things. My father spent exactly five minutes holding a shattered teacup in his hands as he wept before finally rising and attempting to clean up the mess. I help as best I can, carefully scrubbing the dirt from mother’s dresses and hanging them to dry, then working with him to right the overturned beds and sew the straw back into our mattresses.

I assumed the Peacekeepers would do a lot more searching in our home, given my family’s history of poaching. So many other families faced worse than we did. I suppose none of the current Peacekeepers or citizens were willing to risk losing their best source of fresh meats in exchange for a handful of coins or leniency. Really, I suppose it’s because there’s a penalty for purchasing illegal goods as well. Anyone who informed on us would be punished right alongside us.

At least they left our dinner basically untouched, although one Peacekeeper did demand a bowl and made me take a bite first, to check for poison he had said, before he scarfed it down. My father and I eat the stew in silence. He stares into the fire and I keep checking the clock, measuring time against curfew and how long it might take Mrs. Thompson to give birth to her baby.

I wonder what would possess anyone to bring a child into a world like this. The slim hope that things might get better? They only appear to be getting worse. And if it was foolish for people to gather in the square to protest two nights ago, it would be flat out stupid to do so tonight with all of these unfamiliar and zealous Peacekeepers.

“Papa,” I say when it’s only thirty minutes to curfew.

“I know,” he says quietly. “We’ll go check on her. Ask the Thompson’s to keep her for the night, if they still need her.”

He stands and heads into the bedroom. I follow and watch him pull on his boots. I never took mine off, but I imagine they might bother his leg.

“She was right, Katniss. About me being a hypocrite,” he sighs and wobbles slightly as he stands, turns sad gray eyes on me as I shift uncomfortably under his piercing gaze. “I’m sorry. And I’ll apologize to her as well. Just please don’t keep secrets like this from me anymore. It’s hard enough protecting you both as things are, secrets make it that much more difficult, understand?”

“Yes, Papa,” I whisper, thinking of half a dozen things I want to spill out onto his shoulder right then and there, but the walls have ears and so I settle for shrugging on my jacket and slipping my arm through his as we head out into the dusk. The secrets will have to wait for another day, either when we’re in the woods, or when I can figure out how to tell him without speaking words I shouldn’t.

We’ve only gone a few hundred yards when we hear it, the rising rumble of shouts from the square. Papa holds me closer and we pick up our pace, move as quickly as his leg will allow until we reach the Thompson house.

While Papa catches his breath, I pound on the door. It opens a tiny amount and one gray eye watches me through the opening. Then the person throws the door open wide. Leevy Thompson reaches through the door and pulls me inside, dragging my father behind. We nearly stumble and I glare at Leevy.

“I’m sorry. So sorry!” she says. “I’m just nervous.”

Leevy hurries to the window and glances outside. My father sends me a look I cannot decipher. He straightens and pulls Leevy back from the window. She stands in the middle of the room, fists clenched at her side.

“I can’t blame you,” my father says to Leevy. “It’s exciting welcoming a new life into the world. And a lot of responsibility for an older sibling.”

A look of confusion sweeps over Leevy’s face as she points toward the window. Her mouth opens and my father cuts her off before she can say anything about the events outside.

“Is your father available? I’d like a quick word with him if he is.”

Nodding dumbly, Leevy heads back into the bedroom. For the moment the door swings open, my father and I catch the sounds of frantic breathing and the rhythmic cadence of Prim’s voice. Then the door shuts and we’re left alone.

“We can’t leave her here,” I whisper.

“We may not have a choice,” my father says and glances out the window. “We can’t take her home before the baby arrives, and they may need her to stay longer. She should be safe here.”

Mr. Thompson hurries out of the room, his face flushed and his sleeves rolled up.

“Sage,” he says and scrubs the stubble forming on his chin. “I know I shouldn’t ask this of you. She’s your youngest girl and all, but I–”

“It’s okay,” my father says, stunning every one of us in the room. He swallows and shifts nervously on his feet while Mr. Thompson’s mouth vacillates between open and closed.

“She’ll want to make sure the baby’s healthy before she leaves,” I explain, jolting both men out of their odd exchange. “And it sounds like that won’t happen before curfew. Could you see her safely home tomorrow morning? If it isn’t an imposition.”

“No, not at all. I’d be happy to. Thank you,” Mr. Thompson says as I loop my arm back through my father’s. He leans into me and I manage a smile for Mr. Thompson.

“Then we’ll be on our way, Zeke,” my father says.

We couldn’t have been inside the Thompson home for very long, but as we return to the streets, the air vibrates in silent tension. I strain my ears to hear any sounds from the square, but there’s nothing. The light of day rapidly fades as we walk towards home, the streets empty. It feels unsettling. Wrong.

I try to distract myself with my father’s sudden turn around. I want to ask him what changed his mind. I want to tell him about Prim learning from the apothecary, to ask about why Mama’s family ignored us for so long and yet now seems willing to reconnect. Or maybe they just want Prim. Either way, it’s a puzzle I want answered.

I’m only half paying attention as we turn a corner, a handful of blocks away from our home. My father slows, and I glance at him, but his eyes have trained on something in the shadows. As we approach, a distant shout breaks the silence, muffled and made unintelligible over distance. I can hear my blood humming in my ears, my stride shifts to the one I use in the woods, to stalk, or when I sense a threat but need to move slowly to avoid detection. Beside me, I can feel my father doing the same.

A hand. It’s a hand laying across the street.

“Papa,” I whisper as my eyes follow the hand to a body lying prone against the side of a house.

“I see it, Katniss,” my father says, extricating my arm from his. I look around us for some sign of a companion or family. He’s not dressed like a Peacekeeper. Papa crouches down in front of him.

“Who is it?” I ask.

“Can’t tell. He’s wearing some kind of mask,” Papa says as he waves a hand in front of the person’s face. When that gains no response, Papa picks up the man’s arm and checks his wrist for a pulse. “He’s alive but injured. Badly.”

“We should go,” I urge, thinking of the girl in the woods and the child in Eleven. I can feel the fires of my dreams licking at our heels.

“We can’t leave him here like this,” my father says and grabs hold of both the man’s arms, staggering to his feet as he tries to pull the extra weight off the ground. My father grunts and I rush forward to help him hoist the man over Papa’s shoulders. “It wouldn’t be decent.”

“We don’t know anything about him, Papa,” I say, voice strained. Whoever this is weighs a fair amount. Finally, we get him secure on Papa’s shoulders with Papa leaning on me for added support.

“Let’s just get him home and fixed up as best we can,” Papa says.

We take cautious steps, swaying slightly under the load. My heart thumps wildly in my chest, every beat an affirmation that this isn’t a wise decision. That we’re only inviting danger on ourselves. My only consolation is that if we do get caught, Prim was out of the house, with no knowledge of what we’ve done. They won’t be able to hang her. I hope.

Behind us, close to the square, there’s an explosion and a series of screams rise up on the air. I squeeze my eyes shut and take a few deep breaths.

“Papa,” I try to reason with him, but he wants to hear none of it.

“Hush, Katniss. We’re almost home.”

When we reach the house, I slip out from under my father’s arm to open the door, holding it ajar as my father staggers inside with our charge. I check the streets one last time, grateful that no one appears to be out tonight, before I shut and bolt the door. It won’t do much good against Peacekeepers if they decide to enter, but it will at least give us something resembling a warning.

“Turn on some lights,” my father orders. I flip the switch, but there’s nothing. As usual, the electricity is out. “Candles, Katniss. Light some candles.”

Gathering a few and a box of matches, I follow my father into the bedroom as he lays the man down on the bed I share with Prim.

“This way, we can pass him off as Prim, asleep in bed,” my father whispers.

“No one will buy that,” I argue.

“Katniss,” my father gives me a look that I know, even in this gloom, is creased in annoyance. “Your sister reminded me of something today, and I need you to work with me, no matter how scared you might be.”

“I’m not scared,” I insist, and set up the candles just to prove it.

“Good,” my father says. “Help me get this sweater off of him.”

It’s a bit of a struggle, but we manage to get him upright and pull the thing off of him. He’s got a stocky build, broad through the shoulders, and warmth radiates off him, even through the layers of clothes. As we move to lay him back down, I notice a dark patch on my pillow.

“His head’s bleeding,” I tell Papa, my stomach beginning to revolt.

“Okay,” my father says, voice wavering for the first time since we found the stranger. “We’ll have to take the mask off. Your mother always used to say that head wounds look worse than they really are because they bleed so damn much. I’ll go see if Prim’s left us anything to work with. You get that thing off of him.”

I hesitate for a moment, thinking about the events of the past week and it occurs to me that the reason the stocks and the jail are busy but not overflowing is because, like this stranger, the protestors must have worn masks. Unidentified unless they were arrested, caught.

“At least we’ll know where to take you home in the morning,” I say as I swallow back bile.

My hands shake as I grasp the lower edge of the mask and work it up over his face. My breath catches as I find smooth, pale skin. A nose dotted with freckles. Golden lashes that catch the light of the candles. Nauseous at the thought of what I’m probably going to find, I decide to get it over with and yank it the rest of the way off.

“Oh no,” I whisper. Not him. Because I know this face, and its owner’s name, the familiar blond waves. The removal of the mask has confirmed my worst fears.

“Who is it?” My father asks as he returns, spilling a few things on the bed, and giving me worried looks. I swallow and wave at the boy in my bed.

“He’s a Merchant, Papa,” I say.

“I can see that,” my father says, squinting at a tiny needle. “His abdomen is sliced pretty good. He needs stitches, I think. Do you know him?”

“No,” I whisper. Shaking my head, and unable to look at my father. It’s not really a lie. I don’t know him. We’ve never spoken more than a few words at school. I think he bumped into me in the hallways once and said, “I’m sorry.”

But I know his face. And his name. Peeta Mellark. You don’t forget the face of someone who was your only hope.

Shaking myself free me of my thoughts, I look at my father, who is clumsily trying to thread a needle.

“Here,” I say, taking it from him and swiftly threading it while my father shifts to cleaning the head wound. “We should take him to the apothecary. He’ll be able to help more.”

“No,” my father says as he hands me bloodstained rags. I set them aside and my father grabs my hand. “Katniss, is that really that you want to do?”

I don’t know what I want to do. I feel like I owe Peeta Mellark my life. And not just mine either. In a second, I relive it. The moment Peeta Mellark imprinted his face forever on my memory. The frigid rain pouring down my back as I sat huddled next to the tree behind the bakery. It’s a debt that has hung on my heart every day since, and one that I feared having to repay. And here in front of me is a chance to square that debt. I don’t think my father is talking about that, though. He doesn’t know about Peeta Mellark helping us two years ago. Even though I don’t know why my father thinks it’s a bad idea to take him to the apothecary, I shake my head. It feels right.

“I’ll bandage his head,” I say as I hand my father the threaded needle in exchange for a couple of bandages.

My mother focused on teaching Prim, but I learned enough to be able to at least get the gash on the back of Peeta’s head covered and wrapped. The bleeding should stop soon.

“Now, I couldn’t find anything for pain,” my father says nervously. I turn to find him angling the light and then unbuttoning Peeta’s shirt and leaving it gaping open.

“You can’t sew him up with nothing for pain,” I whisper harshly. The pain will be monstrous.

“We don’t have much of a choice, unless you know where Prim keeps her spare medicines.”

“There’s sleep syrup in the kitchen,” I say and my father shakes his head. My hopes for quickly stitching Peeta up and then returning him to the bakery before curfew fade into ash. Then I glance at the clock and realize, it wouldn’t have happened anyway. It’s already past curfew.

“If we give him sleep syrup, we won’t be able to move him quickly, and we might need to do that.”

“Do you think the Peacekeepers will search houses tonight?” I whisper, suddenly worried at all the things we’ve said within the fence. Wondering if the Capitol would go so far as to wire individual houses. Seems like a lot of extra nothing to sort through for the slim hope of information they’d want. Either way, we’re already in too deep. My father shrugs.

“They might. I need you to hold him down,” my father says, wiping at sweat that has formed on his brow. Nodding, I position myself on the bed and grip Peeta’s shoulders. My father takes a few rasping breaths and tells me he’s going to start sewing. I look away, unable to watch the needle piercing Peeta’s skin.

He twitches beneath me, his lips ticking and then his eyes fly wide as a shout escapes his mouth. His body jerks from side to side, trying to escape the pain.

“Hold him, Katniss. Hold him!” My father says.

“Shh, shhh,” I coo and try to climb on top of Peeta. Eyes wild in fear, he nearly knocks me to the ground once, but I manage to get my knees on his upper arms and hands over his mouth. He bucks beneath me and I strain to hold him. Even wounded and weakened, he’s strong.Tears leak from the corners of both our eyes as Peeta squeezes his eyes shut and his wails of pain vibrate against my palms.

“It’s okay. It’s okay,” I plead frantically, scared that the neighbors might hear him. “We’re trying to help you. Shhh. Hush. You have to be quiet, Peeta.”

He freezes beneath me, his arms unbearably tense beneath my knees, the muscles hard as rock. Peeta opens his eyes and stares at me. In the light of the candles, his blue eyes appear darker, a deeper royal blue instead of their normal shade.

“It’s okay,” I say again as his face contorts in pain and I muffle his scream with my palms, although he keeps looking at me. “I know it hurts, but we have to stitch it together. Just look at me, okay?”

He nods and I smile in relief. His arms shake against my legs but I keep talking to him, nonsensical words meant to soothe and comfort. He never takes his eyes off mine, even as tears stream down his cheeks and his soft sounds of distress puff against my hands. I keep hoping maybe he’ll pass out with the pain, but his gaze remains steadfast.

“It’s okay,” I whisper softly, my head bobbing in encouragement. He’s vibrating with the effort to hold still, his head mirroring the motions of my own, maybe in an attempt to soothe himself. Pain, fear, confusion, and disbelief swirl in his eyes. It’s a look I’m familiar with. The look of one who knows he’s become the prey. I move one hand away from his mouth and slowly brush back a lock of hair that’s plastered itself to his forehead, the way one soothes a wounded animal. His eyes widen slightly, but he doesn’t flinch away from my touch.

“It’ll be okay. We’re not gonna let them hurt you.”

I don’t know where my words come from. Some deep well of conviction I never thought I could possess. I blink and tell myself it’s because of what he once did for me. He probably doesn’t remember, but I do. And I’ll never forget it. Never not owe him for it.

“Almost done,” my father says behind me.

“Just a few more stitches,” I whisper. “Then you can rest, okay, Peeta?”

His eyes are turning glassy, my legs are aching with the affort of keeping him pinned to the bed.

“Done,” my father sighs in relief.

“All done,” I whisper. My words meet silence. It’s then that I realize how close I am to Peeta’s face, hunched over him. I sit up and crawl off of him, set to work helping my father bandage the newly sewn gash on his abdomen.

Peeta watches us while we work. Every now and then, I feel my father’s eyes on me, but I can’t bring myself to look at him just yet, confused by my response to Peeta Mellark. Finally, as he helps Peeta lift his hips so I can wind gauze around him to secure the bandage, my father breaks the silence.

“So you thought it’d be a good idea to protest the Capitol,” my father says quietly. My heart thuds in my chest as I keep my eyes trained on what I’m doing but my ears honed onto the sound of my father’s voice. Peeta doesn’t answer, so my father keeps talking.

“I once thought that as well. It would be easy, we thought, since they seemed to care so little about Twleve. And it was the right thing to do. They had just upped the quotas and cut pay. I had two daughters and a wife to feed. Beyond that, there’s only so far you can push a human being before their dignity strikes back. I know why someone from the Seam would want to rebel, but it’s hard to figure a Merchant kid rebelling.”

My eyes flicker up to Peeta and find him watching me again. For a moment, we stare at one another, then his eyes shift slowly to my father.

“Unless of course, you’re facing a future in the mines. What are you, the third son, right? Not much chance you’ve got a town living waiting for you unless you marry into one. That hurts the pride, I imagine.”

Still, Peeta says nothing. I blink and think about this for a moment, though. How would I feel if the only way to stay out of the mines was to marry out of it? Truthfully, that is the case. I’d have to marry a Merchant, though. For some reason I look back up at Peeta, and feel disappointed when I find his eyes still trained on my father.

“Hm,” my father hums, a wistful smile on his face. “The talk always starts in the mines. Angry words whispered under the hum of machinery and the clang of pickaxe on rocks. Hard to eavesdrop down there, you see. Even harder to get electricity that deep for listening devices. So we talked until our jaws hurt and pride stung even worse.

“They must’ve had an informant or something, though we could never prove it. We’d only just begun to plan when the explosion happened. Ninety-six miners killed. Forty-eight wounded. A handful of us crippled for life. Lost arms, twisted legs, missing eyes. We should have known better that day, when they sent us into an older shaft, claiming the night shift had worked to shore it up, make it safe again. They didn’t need to claim responsibility for the explosion. The message was clear. Rebel and we’ll kill you, replace you with slaves more willing to take our abuse. You feel like a slave in your warm kitchen, baker boy?”

Peeta licks his lips as we tie off the bandage and speaks for the first time since we brought him here.

“Don’t have to be a slave to know it’s wrong,” he says hoarsely. My father grunts.

“You didn’t answer me. And do you know how much danger you put your family in tonight?”

Peeta turns his head away from my father, his gaze briefly flickering to me. “It’s different for us. They wouldn’t hang my family like they would’ve yours. I’d be a disgrace, sure. Customers would stay away from the bakery from a week or two, but eventually, they’d return.”

“How can you know that?” I ask harshly, suddenly angry at Peeta, for his careless treatment of his family. I can’t imagine putting my sister or my father in danger like that, although I suppose we already have, for Peeta.

“It’s what happened to the apothecary about twenty-five years ago,” Peeta says. My father chuckles lightly, making both Peeta and I stare at him.

“Well, son, I can’t argue with that one,” my father says and I realize that Peeta is talking about my parents. My mother. And what happened to her family when she ran away to the Seam to marry my father. It never occurred to me that anyone other than her might have paid some sort of price for her actions. Maybe that’s why her own father shunned her. To cut ties so his customers would forget her indiscretions and return.

“But there’s a mighty big difference between falling in love and marrying below your class and rioting in the streets,” my father says softly.

“We weren’t hurting anyone,” Peeta says just as softly. “Not even the Peacekeepers.”

“No, I imagine you weren’t. But sometimes it doesn’t matter what your intentions are, things go wrong anyways.”

My father stands, a little unsteadily and moves to remove Peeta’s boots. I realize we’ve long since finished bandaging him and stand to help my father.

“Take my advice, son. Find yourself a lovely Merchant girl to marry. Exist in blissful ignorance of what really goes on in the mines. Love her like she’s the sunrise and the sunset, and die a happy old man.”

“Thank you, sir. But I’m not sure I can just turn my back on the wrongs I witness here and live happily. I’ve done that for so long already.”

My father nods, something akin to admiration in his eyes. “Maybe not. But for your sake and that of your family, you should try. Now get some sleep. We’ll see about getting you home in the morning, but the Peacekeepers might come knocking on doors tonight.”

Peeta nods and settles onto the bed. I cover him with a sheet as he closes his eyes and turns his face away from me. My father burns the bloody rags and pillow, and the mask Peeta was wearing while I scrub his shirt and sweater. My father places Peeta’s boots next to his own, to make it appear that they belong to him instead. Once we’ve cleaned up our mess, I check on Peeta once more. His breathing is soft and even, so I cover his face with the sheet and my father motions me over to his bed.

“You sleep with me tonight, Katniss.”

“Yes, Papa,” I say and obediently change for bed, washing my face and hands before sliding in and waiting for my father. I expect questions as I think about what just happened. How I used Peeta’s name. How my father figured out who he is just from that. There’s no way my father will believe I don’t know him now.

My body sinks into the bed, and I’m wound so tight that I think sleep will be elusive. But as I stare at the lump on my bed that is Peeta’s body, my limbs drag me under. I barely register my father’s weight shifting the mattress, and part of my brain thinks I imagine his last few words.

“So he’s the baker’s youngest son. Peeta Mellark. And you do know him. At least a little. How ironic.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sleep plagues me. Taunts me with strange dreams and I wake in the middle of the night. With a sigh, I head into the other room to get some water and rummage in the cupboards for anything we might have, knowing that I won’t be getting back to sleep anytime soon. I manage to find a pair of small oranges and a few slices of bread. Normally, I would eat in the main room, but a quick glance out the window terrifies me.

The horizon to the west glows menacing red, somewhere close to the mines.

Retreating to the bedroom, I peel one of the oranges and debate sitting on my father’s bed with him, or my bed with Peeta. As I’m mulling it over, the lump shifts and I find myself staring down into the eyes of Peeta Mellark. He doesn’t look away. I’m used to him looking away. Until tonight.

As we stand there, I think of all the times I’d find his gaze on me in school, only to watch it flit away. My muscles tense under his unwavering perusal.

“Why did you help me?” He asks, his voice hoarse. Without thinking about it, my arm extends, offering my cup of water to him. He eyes it for a second and then looks back up at me.

“It’s water,” I explain. “Drink.”

With a wince, Peeta manages to sit upright before accepting the glass and drinking deeply.

“Thanks,” he says after he drains the cup. I return to the kitchen to refill it. As Peeta sips this time, I offer one of the oranges, but his face turns green and he declines. I perch on the edge of the bed and munch on the tart fruit as we study one another.

The strange thing is, we’re probably pondering the same question. Why did you help me?

It was shortly after my mother had died, when I was fifteen years old. My father came down with the same illness that had killed her. He couldn’t work in the mines for over a month. Sometimes, in a delirious rant, my father would call out for her. Beg for her to stay with him. Once or twice, he mistook Prim for her. She held him and placed cold cloths on his brow as he whispered to her, things he would usually only say to my mother.

When I told Prim I’d take care of him, she’d shaken her head with tears in her eyes. She thought it might help him to believe Mama was there by his side still. I thought she was nuts. That the loss of our mother was only prolonging his illness.

Without my mother’s income from healing and my father bedridden, the money disappeared so fast. It was in the middle of a bitterly cold winter, one of the worst the District could remember. I was desperate and selling whatever I could. That afternoon, I had been in the Hob, trying to sell some old clothes that had belonged to Prim. She’d long since outgrown them and my parents had been holding onto them, along with the hope for a third child. With my mother gone, I didn’t think we’d need them anymore.

No one else seemed to need them either. We were close to starving. We’d barely eaten in days beyond some broth and mint tea. I was dizzy with the hunger and stumbled through the frigid rain, along the alley behind the row of stores lining the square. I searched the trash cans for something to eat, to take home to my sister with her ribs showing and her hollow cheeks, her steadfast determination to nurse our father back to health.

I found nothing but empty cans. Not a scrap left behind, as they must have been emptied recently. I remember that I kept looking, futily lifting lids and staring, hoping to conjure food in their gleaming depths. As I approached the bakery, a waft of warm, yeast scented air reached me from the open back door. It almost bowled me over with the hunger it elicited. I checked their can, too, but it was cruelly empty as well.

Then a shrill voice began yelling obscenities at me. Peeta’s mother. The baker’s wife. She yelled about Seam trash pawing through their cans and being nothing but a menace, a drain. Entitled and worthless. I turned and tried to flee, but only made it as far as the shadows of the apple tree. As I collapsed against the trunk, I looked back. She had left the doorway, but in her place stood a boy. I knew his face from school. We’re the same age so we’ve always been in some of the same classes, I suppose. It was Peeta, watching me. Only for a second, though. Then he turned and retreated into the warmth of the bakery.

Relieved that he didn’t tell his mother about my continued presence, I slid down the trunk, ignoring the scrape of the bark against my skin as I tried to cry. I felt I ought to cry then since I was wishing for death to take me rather than return home empty handed.

There was a screech, and I looked up, expecting to find the baker’s wife returned to finish chasing me off. But the scream came from inside the bakery. There was the sound of a sharp blow and then a slight scuffle. Peeta came stumbling out the back door, clutching a couple loaves of bread.

“Stupid, worthless creature!” His mother screamed. “No one will buy burned bread. Feed it to the pigs!”

I watched as he walked over to the pen where they kept the pig. His mother stood in the doorway, face twisted in fury, watching him as he tore off a chunk of burned bread and tossed it into the trough. Already, a red welt was forming over Peeta’s right eye and cheek. I wondered what she hit him with. And how could she have done something like that to her son. My parents never laid a hand on us, but that didn’t mean I didn’t know what it looked like. There were kids who lived in the community home. Orphans, children abandoned as babies by desperate girls who couldn’t afford to feed or raise a child. I wasn’t sure which fate was worse, since the children from the home often came to school with bruises on their arms or the imprints of hands on their cheeks.

As I sat there, motionless, the bell rang in the bakery, and his mother hustled to the front of the store to help the customer. Peeta looked over his shoulder at the bakery once, then glanced my way before tossing the bread in my direction. It landed a few feet away as he hurried back inside, the rain water flattening his hair against his head, making his shirt stick to his frame. His feet squelched loudly in the mud and then he slammed the door shut, cutting off the light and the warmth of the bakery.

But the bread just sat there. Right in front of me. Did he mean for me to take it? I didn’t care at that point, and snatched up the bread, stuffing it under my shirt and gasping at the heat of it scorching my skin. But I clung tightly to it, to keep it as dry as possible. This was our chance at life for a few more days.

I ran home and burst through the door, shoving the bread into Prim’s hands as she fretted over how wet I was and the fact that I’d probably catch sick. She stared at the loaves as I tore off my clothes and dried myself before dressing in something warm and dry.

The bread was fine, nearly perfect. Only a few burned sections that we scraped off with a knife. It was hearty bread, full of raisins and nuts, stuff that a turkey or an entire brace of squirrels might fetch in a trade. Prim and I ate one loaf of it slowly, slice by slice, even managed to coax some of it into our father along with the last of our broth.

For the first time in weeks, we went to bed full, and it was only as I drifted off to sleep that I wondered if Peeta Mellark had burned the bread on purpose.

It seems an infinitely important question to answer right now. For two years, I’ve let that debt stand, always half expecting him to cash in on it, but somehow not stunned when he never did. After that hollow day, I noticed more about him. I mean, it’s hard not to notice him anyways, but once I was firmly in his debt, I couldn’t help but keep track of the boy with the bread.

“Why did you help me?” He asks again. I shrug, trying to make it seem unimportant.

“My father didn’t want to leave you in the streets. Why’d you wander this far into the Seam?”

“I didn’t think any town families would welcome me with open arms. Besides,” Peeta says, handing the half-empty water cup back to me. “I’m not sure I knew which way I was headed other than away.”

Away. Away from the protests and the square, I think.

“You think I’m stupid,” he whispers.

“I don’t think you’re smart,” I say, and to my surprise, Peeta smiles.

“You know, I never really believed the lies the Capitol tries to tell us about people from the Seam. It never made sense to me.”

“What lies?” I ask defensively, suddenly angry on behalf of my people.

“That the Seam is the reason for all of our suffering. For the rations and restrictions. The tests and everything else. They try to convince us that we aren’t safe in our beds and shouldn’t trust a labor worker as far as we can throw them.”

“Well that’s not very fair,” I say, curling my knees up to my chest. “I’ve seen you wrestle and throw hundred pound bags of flour right over your head. You’d probably be able to throw me pretty far.”

Peeta’s eyebrows lift in surprise. Uncomfortable with how much I seem to know about him, I try to shrug it off as well.

“Then I guess I can trust you,” Peeta says and gives me a sweet smile, with just a hint of shyness. Unexpected warmth flows through me.

“Besides,” I say to distract him from the blush spreading across my cheeks. “You helped me once.”

Now his brows crinkle in confusion.

“What? When?” He says and I stare at the bedsheets, trying to avoid telling him.

“The bread,” I whisper.

“You mean those crummy burned loaves?”

“They weren’t crummy to us,” I say, thinking not of the bread itself but what happened the next day.

“I think we can forget that,” Peeta says and anger bubbles in me, indignation at his suggestion that I just forget what I owe him. “I mean, you just saved me from death’s door tonight.”

“You wouldn’t understand,” I say testily.

“Why not?” He returns. “Because I’m too dense? Too stupid to figure it out?”

“No,” I say hotly, checking to make sure our conversation hasn’t woken my father. “Because you’re from town.”

“Right,” is all he says, but his voice has calmed, evened out. “It keeps coming back to that. As though I don’t have eyes in my head or the ability to figure out that people who risk their lives to help one another can’t possibly be as bad as the Capitol makes them out to be. That maybe the real enemy isn’t my neighbor but the person deciding all of our fates from miles away with no knowledge of who any of us are and who goes to bed with their stomachs empty, still rumbling with hunger, or filled with the stale leftovers we couldn’t sell.”

Peeta shifts in bed and lays back down, pulling the sheet up over his head. I stare at him for a few minutes, wondering about what he said about stale leftovers. I always just assumed that Merchants led a charmed life. Maybe they don’t face the risk of starvation, but most of them barter with my father and me for meat, instead of purchasing it fresh from Rooba. It seems depressing to me, living on the stale leftovers and subsisting only on illegal trades. Maybe the Merchant life isn’t as great as I once thought. At least when my family has food, I can be certain it’s fresh.

I stand silently and make my way back to bed, huddling under the covers and fighting my confusion over Peeta Mellark. I sleep fitfully and wake a few hours later as someone knocks on the door. It must be near dawn, and my eyes jump first to my bed. The sheet lays flat on the mattress, no sign of Peeta.

Behind me, my father stumbles to the door. As soon as he opens it, Gale barrels inside.

“They’re searching homes. There’s a couple Merchants missing and we’ve all been accused of kidnapping and murder,” he says without preamble, his gaze sweeping over our home for any signs of fugitives.

My father follows his gaze, and I catch the flicker of worry and confusion as he realizes what I already know. Peeta’s gone. He took his clothes and his boots with him, leaving no sign that he was ever here.

“Where’s Prim?” Gale asks sharply.

“At the Thompson’s,” my father says. “Gale, why are you barging into our home this early?”

“Someone saw you carrying a body into your home last night,” Gale explains.

“We didn’t kidnap anyone,” I say rashly. Suddenly angry with Gale, furious with him. It’s a hundred things I’ve been ignoring or trying to excuse for months that all boil to the surface at once. My father places his hands calmly on my shoulders, but he can’t stop the words from flying out of my mouth. “You’re the ones protesting in the streets and bringing violence down on all of our heads. Papa and I just got stuck cleaning up part of your mess.”

“Katniss,” my father sighs as Gale’s eyes gleam with the light of the hunt.

“Who is he and where’d he go?”

“Maybe we helped a girl,” I say and cross my arms, directing all my wrath at being kept out of the dark about my father’s past as a rebel, which Gale must have known about, now that I think about it, at Gale.

I hunt illegally with both of them and I can’t believe they didn’t think I could handle this. It makes perfect sense, though. Gale must have known and tried to convince my father to rise up against the Capitol again. Scared and beaten down by the mining explosion and Mama’s death, my father must have refused, tried to keep all of us as far from any protests as possible. Until Prim reminded him that sometimes doing what’s right means taking a risk.

I’m swamped with sudden guilt for the way I treated Peeta. This is what he was trying to tell me last night.

Gale heaves a sigh and turns a few times, as though seeking direction.

“Okay fine. Don’t tell me what you know, but you can bet the Peacekeepers will be knocking on your door soon and searching the streets for whoever it was you helped. So I hope it was worth the risk.”

“He was,” I say, tilting my chin up defiantly. Gale’s eyes flicker in hurt. Maybe that was the wrong thing to say. He opens his mouth as though to say more, but then clamps it shut and storms out of the house.

“Katniss,” my father cautions. “It was probably unwise to anger Gale.”

“I’m not really concerned about that right now, Papa,” I say as I move behind the dressing screen in the bedroom and tug my clothes from yesterday back on. Right now, I’m thinking of Peeta, injured and hobbling through the Peacekeeper riddled streets with no knowledge of their patrols and every chance of getting caught. Perhaps even pulling out his stitches. If the rumor they’re passing around is that the missing Merchants were kidnapped in the midst of the protests, he could probably say he managed to escape, but the stitches and bandages would hint otherwise.

Not to mention, I don’t think Peeta would try to blame anyone in the Seam for his condition. Not after what he said to me last night. And I believe him. I’ve paid attention over the past two years and noted how he seems immune to the hatred and distrust that pours forth from so many Merchants, especially those around my age. Now I think I understand why.

I sit on the bed as my father tries to stop me, and yank on my boots, rapidly lacing them as my heart thumps and I check the clock, mentally planning the safest route towards town, with no way of knowing if I’ll even manage to cross paths with Peeta.

“Papa,” I say forcefully as I stand. “Go back to bed. Prim is safe for now, and you can always say I left without your permission. Or that I went to fetch Prim home. But those excuses won’t work if you’re awake when they knock on the door.”

“Katniss,” he says, but I’m already out the door and ducking right, down a street I know should be clear of Peacekeepers right now.

Moving as quickly as I can, I slip into dark doorways or down the occasional alleyway to avoid the patrols. They’ve stepped them up, which will make things harder. I’ve almost reach the edges of the Seam and swallow back the fear that I won’t find him when I notice a smear of blood on the side of a house. It’s streaked as though someone tried to remove it by wiping and only succeeded in spreading it further. It’s mostly dry, and at just the right height to have been someone’s abdomen.

Hopeful, I continue down that street towards town. At an intersection, I pause and poke my head around the corner, checking right then left. About thirty yards down that street, I see a figure, hunched and moving slowly, blond hair shrouded in morning mist. Peeta.

I follow him on silent hunter’s tread, and grasp his arm, covering his mouth with my hand to stifle his cry of alarm as I shove him into the space between two houses.

“Are you mad?” I ask in a whisper. “They would’ve caught you for sure.”

He glares at me, and satisfied that he won’t cry out again, I remove my hand.

“I couldn’t put you and your father at risk anymore.”

I roll my eyes, exasperated. “So you’d rather make our risk mean nothing by getting captured this morning? By hanging for treason?”

“Better to hang by myself than with you beside me,” he whispers. I blink, unnerved by his tone of voice. He looks away, his jaw clenched. The sight transports me back to another day. The day after he gave me the bread.

The day dawned with a beautiful blue sky, fresh and cleaned by the rains. The air had warmed, as though spring had arrived overnight. I meant to thank him somehow that day, although I knew it would be foolish to approach a Merchant kid in school. I was determined to find a way. Then he walked past me in the hallway, with a group of his friends, and never even looked at me. I watched him pass, sick to my stomach at the sight of the angry purple bruises on his face, his right eye swollen shut.

In the school yard, I thought to try again when I found him, loitering with his brothers, but staring at me. He dropped his gaze, though, and I watched him a moment as his jaw clenched. Unable to look at his bruised face, I dropped my gaze as well, my courage once more fleeing. That’s when I saw the bright yellow dandelion, the first one of spring, and bells went off in my head. I had been hunting and foraging and trading with my father for years at that point. But as I reached for the dandelion and plucked it, twirled it in my fingers, it occurred to me that I knew how we could survive. I could do it without my father by my side. All of it.

I grabbed Prim and raced home. We spent the afternoon foraging for dandelions and other edible plants that carpeted the reawakening meadow. That night, we feasted on dandelion and wildflower salad. The next morning, I ventured into the woods, alone for the first time. I didn’t make it as far as our snare lines, but I did manage to shoot a squirrel and a wild dog. The dog was a happy accident, and I braved the Hob to trade with Greasy Sae.

Wild dog isn’t usually a popular catch, and I don’t hunt them on purpose, but meat is meat, and if I have to shoot one out of protection, like I did that day, Greasy Sae has always been more than willing to buy and call it beef stew.

After that, I ventured further and further alone, and my father healed under Prim’s care. When he was well enough to return to the woods and to the mines, I had been carrying the brunt of our hunting and trading for over a month. He saw no reason to stop me.

Since then, I’ve never been able to shake the connection, as silly and farfetched as it may seem, between the bread that gave me hope and the dandelion that gave me courage to stand up and do what needed to be done to ensure the survival of my family. The least I can do is make sure he survives just one more day, the way he once did for me.

“Did you hear me?” He says and I realize that I zoned out for far too long. “I said go home, Katniss.”

“No,” I say simply. “You won’t make it another three blocks without me. And I will not have you wasting my father’s and my sacrifice on some noble cause.”

“That doesn’t make sense. You’re risking your own life right now when your safety is what you’ve deemed my noble cause.”

“Shut up and lean on me,” I say, pulling his arm over my shoulder. His weight is comforting, the warmth of him against me a reminder that he’s still alive, if not out of danger yet. For some reason, it steadies my nerves.

“Why?” He whispers in my ear, his breath tickling the hairs on my neck. “Give me one good reason why.”

“Because,” I say, looking out into the street to ensure that our way is clear. “You would do the same for me.”

I have no idea why I believe this about Peeta Mellark, but he thankfully doesn’t refute it and we move down the street, back into shadows to take a rest, down another block and finally behind the first set of town houses. It’s slow going, but we move towards the square, the only sounds keeping us company the thumping of our own hearts, the puffs of our labored breaths, the scrape of his feet on the dirt, and the distant noises of Peacekeepers searching homes.

As we take a break against a store that sells men’s clothing to the wealthy, I hear a noise that stops my blood cold. Orders being shouted back and forth. We’re tucked in an alley, behind a pile of crates, but if a Peacekeeper walks down the alley, there’s nowhere to hide.

Peeta’s eyes widen in fear as their voices draw closer, and I hold a hand over his mouth to muffle the sounds of his breathing, he nods in understanding and places one of his hands over mine for a second. Reassured that he understands how much danger we’re in, I remove my hand. He snatches it up and laces our fingers together. The contact surprises me, but I hold tight, unwilling to let go. His presence is strangely steadying, solid as a rock.

Shoes scuff on the paving stones and I lean closer to Peeta, craving warm human contact before we’re dragged to the square and flogged. The white uniform comes into view and halts. I stare at the familiar green eyes and freckled face, trying to convey my apologies to Darius as his mouth gapes open at us. What a sight we must be to him.

He blinks and shakes his head just the smallest amount.

“Find anything, Darius?” A harsh voice calls from the main street. He swallows and turns away from us, walking confidently back to his commander.

“Just a couple of alley cats, Commander” he says. “I think one’s missing a leg. Tough little bastard.”

“Alright, let’s keep looking,” the commander yells. “Next street!”

Peeta and I listen to the sounds of them moving on and release loud, relieved breaths once they’re far away to be well out of earshot.

“That was close,” Peeta whispers. “You sure you don’t want to go home?”

“We’ve gotten this far,” I say and drag him out from behind the crates to keep moving.

“How do you know you can trust me?” He asks at our next stop. “The distrust goes both ways. I’m not an idiot. I’ve watched too many people from the Seam drop their gaze and shy away from Merchants in what looks an awful lot like fear.”

“I told you,” I say nonchalantly. “You helped me once.”

“So we’re back to that bread, are we?”

“Yes,” I say, watching him closely as I ask the question he already asked of me. “Why’d you do it? Why did you help me?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” he says, his voice tinged with something like hurt.

“Because I’m too dense?” I ask archly. He searches my eyes and I can’t help the smile that spreads across my lips. He smiles back at me and my use of his own words.

“No, you were always way too smart. Fierce and independent. I guess that’s why I never managed to work up the nerve to talk to you.”

I shake my head, not wanting to accept what he’s saying to me.

“You’re shaking your head,” he says. “And here I thought I’d been so obvious. Everyone else in this District seems to know that I’ve had a crush on you forever. I thought that was part of why you were always scowling at me in school.”

“I was scowling because you were always staring,” I say and blush, because I know that’s not entirely true. He grins at me, clearly knowing now that I’m partially lying, trying to deflect it all back on him. He wasn’t the only one staring.

“Was I?” He whispers, the stupid grin still on his face. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I’ll stop. You know, if we survive the day.”

My breath catches as we watch one another. I stare into the blue eyes, the same color as that glorious spring sky two years ago, that I somehow trust. I can’t explain it and look away, embarrassed.

“No, it’s fine. I don’t mind that much.” There’s a noise a few blocks behind us and we hurry down the street a little further. We’re only a few buildings away from the bakery.

“The bandages and injuries won’t be easy to explain,” I say, suddenly worried about what happens once we get him home.

“It’s okay,” he says. “I can hide the one on my stomach fairly easily and I’ll just say the one on my head is from fighting with my brothers.”

“But won’t they call your bluff?” I ask.

“No,” he says with a strange, sad smile. “They’ll assume I got it somewhere else.”

Suddenly, I’m crouched against the tree again, listening to his mother scream at him and strike his face. My insides flip at the thought that it may have been a normal occurrence. That no one at school or in the District, or even within his own family would question why Peeta Mellark shows up with mysterious bruises and cuts. It makes me angry and indignant.

He shrugs and looks back out into the streets, eyes the bakery just fifty yards away from where we hide.

“So what happens after I walk through that door?” He asks. Now it’s my turn to shrug. “I mean between you and me. Do we just go back to pretending the other one doesn’t exist?”

I start to shake my head, the idea unpleasant, but then I’m thinking of Gale and the rest of the District and how would we even explain whatever this is, some kind of clandestine friendship, or at least a truce of sorts, between a girl from the Seam and the boy with the bread.

“I don’t know,” I whisper. Something flickers in Peeta’s eyes, and his voice turns hollow.

“Well I suppose it doesn’t matter,” he says. “I’d ask you to start coming to our door to trade again, at least while I’m there working, but I’m not sure that’s a good idea either.”

“We’ll be fine, Peeta,” I say, certain he means it as an insult because there’s a part of me that still doesn’t believe a Merchant could be this nice or selfless, despite all the evidence to the contrary. “My family finds ways to survive.”

“I know that,” he says with a smile. “You forget I’ve eaten your squirrels.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” I say, unable to explain to him what it is I’m thinking or feeling right now as his smile widens. I check to make sure the coast is clear and drag him the last fifty yards to the apple tree where I once waited for death and instead received a gift from this boy.

“Well maybe I just want to see you again,” Peeta whispers.

“You shouldn’t,” I say and keep an eye open as he catches his breath and we hobble to the back steps.

“Is it Gale?” He asks softly.

“What?” I say. “Gale’s my friend. He wouldn’t want to see me get hurt.”

“Oh,” is all Peeta says. When we reach the steps, I release him. He leans a hand on the wall and snatches my hand as it retreats, presses it to his lips. They’re soft and warm against my cold skin, releasing a fluttering of butterflies in my middle.

“Thank you, Katniss,” he says and then climbs the handful of stairs before disappearing into the bakery.

I foolishly stand there a moment before I begin my trek home. I move a lot faster without Peeta, but I can’t erase the feel of his lips on me or the way his eyes glowed as he kissed my hand. As I reach our house and collapse into my father’s waiting arms, barely noticing Prim in the back corner, I realize why it affected me so much. How many times did I see my father do exactly that to my mother, look at her that way and kiss her hand.

And as I sit there in my father’s embrace, fighting back tears I don’t understand, I find myself wishing for the weight of Peeta’s arms around my shoulders. But how can that be when I barely know him?

#springtime edition

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#springtime edition