Chapter One:
Primrose Everdeen should be dead.
With the stunt Katniss pulled Prim figured she wouldn't even make it to see her sister's homecoming. But instead of being killed, she was taken away. Away from Katniss, her mother, her cat… everyone she loved and everything she knew.
Prim is lucky to be alive; that is what the Capitol told her; but it hardly felt like it. Each day she lives is not a gift granted by merciful hands but a long and drawn out punishment for both her sister and herself.
They moved her to a new District and told Katniss she was dead. More recently she has begun to believe the only reason she is not is at the chance the Capitol ever decides to utilize her to future torture and manipulate Katniss they want her still alive. Until then, she is to wait hidden under the façade of saddened and in the ambiguity of all the other parentless faces of the orphanage, in District Two no less. It helped to remain her anonymity, who would ever think the Girl on Fire's sister would be in District Two?
The drizzling of rain falls into her knotted blonde hair and ran down her face as she moved in the alleyway to take shelter under one of the awnings attached to a side of a building.
The people here teach everyone to grow strong and be brave to bring home honor but she see pasts those words, that motto slapped onto every other sign in the District.
"Bring Honor to Two!" They say.
Prim scoffed, leaning against the dingy side of a building and trying to ache the soreness in her chest that always came when she remembered her sister.
Making yourself strong to prey on the weak is not bravery though, the brave don't hide behind their strengths, but maintain their pride in the weakest parts of them. That was the sort of thing Gale and Katniss would always tell her.
Those are just some of the thoughts she had been having lately. The kind that would have worried her a year ago when she was just the naïve little thirteen-year-old girl whose name was called and whose sister volunteered for her. Katniss was brave, and Prim could not help but see where it had gotten her and grow bitter.
Everyone seemed to talk about her here, but everyone hated her, even the ones at the Orphanage who should be sympathizing.
She had to grow up and so she did, becoming shaped by the District of brutes: of the too rich and the rock quarries. Of bitterness and depression. Of homesickness and loneliness. Isolated among people who if they knew who I was would hate me…
"Of course I am going to Volunteer! This is the Quarter Quell! The hell to Storm, I'm getting on that stage." The disembodied voice echoed off the walls and pulled Prim from her pity party, her eyes darting up and her body scrambling to hide behind a discarded trashcan.
Her eyes peeked around her shield to the two boys entering the alleyway, obviously seeking a private and dry spot from the rain. They were large, and from the way the dressed and what she had heard of their conversation they were one of the rich members of the society. The elite. The future careers. Panic washed over Prim as they moved to the awning she had been sat under not too long ago and she considered if it would be better to make a run for it now or wait it out and hope they did not discover her. Both ideas seemed bad.
"What if the twists complicates it, keeps people from volunteering or has it as a District vote? I heard a rumor about that." The slimmer of the two, though still defined with intimidating and flourishing muscles, said.
The second, with blonde hair cut sharp to his face and blue eyes as bright as her mother's but lacking all the heart and replaced with something dark, frowned at this notion suggested by his friend. "I'll start a campaign." They laughed at this, though Prim had no idea how it was funny. Such an idea made her sick to her stomach, the sort of idea meant to tear Districts apart, not make it fun.
"I heard another rumor too, but you won't like it." The brunette said, almost wearily flickering his eyes about as if fearful of his own friend. "Callico's mom is having this affair with this Capitol bureaucrat when her dad isn't home. Her mom tells her secrets she hears in exchange for her silence." Prim's eyebrows furrowed together and she clenched her fists. She hated these stories, how people's life could be focused on such pointless things when so many of her people starved and withered away.
"What did she hear?" The giant asked, his muscles tensing and his eyes furthering darkening. He was inquisitive but there was an edge to his voice.
"She heard the Quarter Quell won't have new tributes, that the twist is the tributes will be all Victors." Prim does not have time to see the other boy's reaction to this information, because as soon as she hears it a panicked squeak was released from her lips and her head knocked into the metal tin can as she fidgeted to contain herself.
Both of them snapped their heads in her direction, but she could only half focus on them. The word 'Victors' and the image of her sister in the Games once more kept playing over and over in her mind. It would mean Peeta too, and what would be the chances they both make it out again?
"Are you spying on us, you rat?" The blonde boy was towering over her, lips curled and his voice like a snarl. His body was tense; him himself was intimidating enough without his friend looming behind him. Prim stared up at him and saw all the faces of the Careers throughout the years who had slaughtered so many innocent children. She was speechless.
In Prim's silence, the boy- or more like a man- had picked her up by her shirt as if she was some ragdoll. He pressed her into the side of the building with his fist, lifting her feet from the ground with almost inhumane ease; Prim could only stare at him with wide eyes. All the memories of slaughter Katniss had tried to hide from her… he reminded her of a killer.
"Speak up rat and tell me what you're doing listening to us." He growled, his hand deepening its pressure into her throat. She wheezed for air.
The brunette behind her even seemed fazed by his friend's demeanor and after a careful examination of Prim he was speaking. "Look at her Cato, she is probably from the slums." Prim's eyes shifted from the brunette's to Cato, wondering if this changed anything.
"She looks familiar." Cato pushed, still not letting go but his grip loosening. "Aries, you recognize her?"
The brunette, Aries, stepped forward and narrowed her eyes at Prim. She could feel her heart racing and tried to maintain a flat face. Did they recognize her? She panicked, wondering what would happen if they did.
"Do you train at the center?" Aries asks. Prim shook her head as best as she could with Cato still pressing her into the building.
"I work part time at a bakery." It felt like an inside joke, homage to Peeta. She hoped it would quench their curiosity.
Aries laughed, "Why would we be in a bakery?" He asked as if she had just said there were two suns. She had forgotten, they were rich boys- they probably paid people to buy their food.
Cato looked up at her again, silent for too long, and something flashed in his eyes and almost immediately Prim knew what he had realized. "You are the District Twelve rat's sister."
"Do you hear yourself? She's from Twelve. That's impossible." Prim was panicking, and it was growing harder to hide it.
Aries seemed skeptical, Prim found solace in at least that. "She's right Cato, besides this isn't worthy our time. She's just some gutter baby." He looked bored as he spoke, and Prim tried to not be insulted by his words. She knew what he said did not matter and his disinterest would be her saving grace.
Cato still looked unconvinced.
"I'm going to re-watch those family interviews, you better not be a liar, Rat." Cato said with a final hard look, releasing her to drop to the ground like some limp thing.
Prim was so caught up in fear, in the way it pulsed through her body like fire, that she had not released they left unto the rain thickened and soaked through her clothes. Standing to her feet she glanced around the alleyway, truly feeling like a rat or a gutter baby- a slang term she was far familiar with after her time in District Two.
She moved with trembling limbs, finding her way back and trying to hold back tears. It was not just the threat of Cato, all she could think about was what Aries had said. Was Katniss in danger again?