Another Fire


Chapter 1


Disclaimer: I am not Suzanne Collins and I don't own the Hunger Games, although I'd like to.


"Watch out," someone said, almost directly into my ear.

Startled, I jumped a little. I didn't even hear the person sneak up on me, and taking that as a bad sign, I whirled around and tried to catch a glimpse of the person who had given me the warning. I caught a flash of black hair and in doing so, tripped over the very thing I had been warned about, a loose stone. I fell disgracefully, flat onto my face. I lay just like that for a good 30 seconds, trying to comprehend what had just happened. Just as I was about to attempt to stand up, I felt someone cautiously grab both of my shoulders and pull me to my feet.

"Thanks," I said sheepishly, brushing myself off and tucking loose hair behind my ear.

I turned around to properly see my savior. To my surprise, though, there was no one behind me. And I hadn't heard anyone walk away. Poof. One second they were helping me up and the next they were gone. Scanning the crowds in the town square, I caught sight of a dark-haired, tall boy my age, walking quickly through the throngs of people. I blinked, and he disappeared out of my sight. That couldn't have possibly been enough time for him to get anywhere far. Definitely weird.

I practically ran to the grocer's to fetch the eggs my dad had told me to get. "Hi, Essa." I greeted the blond-haired girl behind the counter as I walked in. Essa was the grocer's daughter, and the only other person that was my exact age in our district. She looked up from the magazine she was reading.

"Hey Ruella," Essa replied. "Does your dad need something again?"

"Eggs," I said, smiling, "He was about to bake a cake for Gabriel's birthday tomorrow, but he forgot to buy all of the ingredients."

Essa took as long as she possibly could to pick out five eggs, making a big show of inspecting them and checking them for cracks so that we would have more time to talk. "Did you see that new guy? He's around our age," Essa asked me, finally placing the first egg into a paper bag.

"What new guy?" I asked, but my mind immediately went to the dark-haired guy who had helped me up.

"Tall, black hair. Gray or blue eyes, I couldn't tell."

"I think I saw him," I said.

"Yeah, well, he came to buy milk and bread. He doesn't talk much, but I managed to get some information out of him." I laughed at that. It was just like Essa to interrogate any stranger who walked into the store.

"Well?" I prodded.

"His name's Ray, he's 16, and he came from District 2," Essa recited.

"Family?"

"Didn't say." Essa finished, putting the last egg into a paper bag. "You'd better go now. Dad's gonna get mad at me for holding the business up," Essa said, gesturing towards a few other customers who'd wandered in.

"Bye," I called over my shoulder as I went. I quickly walked home, knowing very well that I was supposed to have been back a good fifteen earlier than right now. As soon as I got home, I put down the bag of eggs on the counter and took off my shoes.

"Mom?" I called out from the kitchen, bracing myself for a lecture on being irresponsible. A few seconds later, my younger brother, Gabriel, walked into the kitchen.

"Shhh!" he hissed, "Mom and Dad are arguing." He signaled for me to get down on my knees. I rolled my eyes.

"Come on," he insisted impatiently, "Do you want to know what's happening or not?" With a small sigh, I obediently got down on all fours. With Gabriel in front, we both carefully crawled out of the kitchen and towards the living room. Feeling pretty stupid, I crawled faster to get in front of Gabriel and knelt right outside of the living room entrance.

No fair, Gabriel mouthed, I was supposed to be first. I shrugged and put a finger to my lips.

"Him? Here? Oh my god, no, I can't see him," my mother cried shrilly, and my dad immediately shushed her, mumbling something comfortingly to her.

"You're not kidding, are you? He's really here? In District 12?" my mom asked after a slight pause, her voice having a slight undertone of hopefulness. Mostly, though, she just sounded angry, as if whoever she was talking about should've gotten permission from her before setting foot in the district.

"Yes, Katniss, he's here," my dad replied in the gentle tone that he saved for my mother's fits. "You don't have to see him if you don't want to, okay? It's your choice."

"So Gale Hawthorne's back home," my mother whispered so softly, I barely caught the words. Gale Hawthorne. I'd heard that name before, in a discussion on the war in class, and several times from my mother. When Gabriel was younger, I remembered she would always slip up and call him Gale by accident, and she'd scream for someone named Gale quite a lot in her nightmares.

"Why don't we go to bed?" Dad suggested gently. I could hear Mom mutter a reply, and there was a series of creaks that signaled they were getting up from the sofa. I turned to warn Gabriel to flee, but he was already gone, feverishly crawling down the hallway towards his bedroom. The little traitor. I would've laughed at him at any other time, except that I was about to get in major trouble for eavesdropping if I didn't find a way to subtly escape in the next thirty seconds. Think, Ruella, think.I finally settled for getting up and dashing to my room, but my dad was out of the living room before I could attempt that.

His blue eyes, the same color as mine, widened when he saw me. "Go to bed, Ruella," he said, shooting me a look that said we'll talk about this later.

I nodded gratefully. I wasn't in trouble, at least for now. I ran to my room, trying not to look at my mother, who was looking more vulnerable than ever. For the past few weeks, she'd been having these fits where she'd lock herself in her room and either cry or sit silently for hours, not even letting Dad in. Gabriel and I had actually had to pry the bedroom window open from the outside to see what the heck was going on. But right now she looked even worse than when she'd come out of her fits. Her face was completely red, her eyes swollen and puffy. Her black braid was disheveled and falling apart.

I almost rolled my eyes at her, almost. But then I reminded myself of what my mother had been through when she was only a year older than me, and I managed to suppress the urge.

Once I was in my room, I opened up the simple brown canvas bag I used for school. I took out my textbook, and flipped to the table of contents. I ignored the entries for Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, and scanned the page for Gale Hawthorne's name. I finally found his name, and there was only two or three pages of information on him, compared to the twenty or so pages on my mother and father. It made me uncomfortable in class to see everyone talking about my parents as if they knew them personally. "Katniss Everdeen was the Mockingjay, the leader of the rebellion. Such a brave soul. The Girl on Fire, she was called," my teacher would say, choosing her words carefully, knowing that Katniss Everdeen's daughter was sitting amongst her students.

I actually snorted out loud at that. Brave soul? The Girl on Fire? If only they could see their Girl on Fire at home, and see the mess she had become. Gabriel and I had practically raised ourselves. While our parents tried their hardest to support us and help us, they just couldn't. They had just experienced so much horror, so many things I couldn't imagine enduring at my age, that they were both slightly insane and emotional wrecks. When I was little, my father would have fits where he thought my mother was an evil mutt, and he would have to hang on to a piece of furniture to help clear his head.

My mother would wake up screaming in the night, waking up both me and Gabriel. When we went to see what had happened, my dad would gently shoo us away and tell us to go back to sleep. Eventually, Gabriel and I got used to the outbursts and fits, and they became part of our routine.

Gabriel still didn't know all about the Hunger Games, since he was only in seventh grade. I, however, knew a little too much for my liking. I had recently been allowed by my dad to see the tapes of the 74th and 75th Hunger Games, the ones my parents participated in. They were horrifying and cruel. I looked away whenever an innocent kid was being killed, or when my parents were cuddling a little too close to each other for my taste. Gale Hawthorne. My mother had also screamed for him in the 75th Hunger Games when some mutts were playing his screams, along with my mother's dead sister and mother.

My textbook told me that Gale Hawthorne had been the mastermind behind the plan to blow up the Nut in District 2. There was a bunch of information about the different weapons he had designed, but none of it helped me figure out his relationship to my parents, specifically my mother. Going to bed that night, I made a mental note to start an investigation of my own, starting with an old woman named Greasy Sae that my mom had known when she was young.


Reviews are appreciated! Don't hesitate to criticize me, I'm looking for ways to improve on my writing.