My breathing is heavy and uneven as I escape with Atticus to his room. My muscles ache but I continue tearing through the house with him draped in my arms. His blood showers down my faded blouse as I gently slide him onto the dusty floorboards behind his bed. Close behind, my parents bitterly shriek our names.

"Atticus! Atticus, come back to me!" I whisper frantically.

I can not bear to see protector, my eldest brother, but most of all my best friend, in this agonizing terror. His blood seeps through his ragged gray school shirt and colors his light brown hair with stains of harsh red. I'm pleading for him to wake up, to see the hazel eyes, for they calm me like a sedative would. Sharp alcohol bottle slivers plunge into his chest and face from my parent's rage. My mind rummages desperately for a way to regain his consciousness, but is interrupted by the terrifying rumble of my parent's drunken footsteps coming closer and closer.

"Ariana! Don't play games with us dear; there will be plenty of that after the reaping. Come on out."

I lay my head down on Atticus' chest in defeat, but my thoughts are cut off with the steady thump of his heart. He's there. He will come back to me. I swallow the lump in my throat and snatch an old rag, damp from the rain, and press it against Atticus' cuts. I begin to pick out fragments of beer bottles when my mother swings open the bedroom door.

"Why are you hiding, Ariana, from your dear sweet mother and father?" She snarls.

I've played this game my entire life. Sometimes I cringe at the person I could be if I had been born to a different family. I could have friends. I could be the one my schoolteachers cherished. I could have a future. But I can't have any of that. Sometimes I stare at the children in the village square in despise. The way their parents held them tight before the reaping, or bought them candy even though it was their last cent for a few weeks. Those moments of observing others teach me the harsh reality of what I live in… Atticus is the only person in this heartless, bitter world that can teach me what love is. I'm just a lonely girl filled with not a soul, but anger, violence, and troubled memories.

"There you are, my beautiful Ari. You know your mother and I don't appreciate your disrespectful behavior. Apologize to us, Ariana. Now." My father slurs his words, but somehow manages to look me directly in the eyes. I say nothing.

My mother advances forward, poised to hit me.

"Say it."

Her bony hand descents quickly through the air towards me. I know what to do; practically everyday for the past thirteen years I have been abused by my parents. I rarely let them hit me, but when I do it is only to save Atticus. I lunge under her smack and end behind her. She leaps at me in anger, her fingers desperately wanting to claw at me, but I'm too small and quick for her. I get a running start and hurdle myself up onto the wall planks that keeps our poor excuse for a house held up. I shut my eyes for only a moment and try to think about climbing trees with Atticus. That's all this is. I pounce from slat to slat, barely escaping the grasp of my parents. I swing higher through the wooden boards and flash my parents a smile from up the wall.

But that's when it happens.

Atticus gives a tortured groan from behind the bed. My stomach heats up and lurches painfully. My taunting smile washes away and the color leaves my face. I have to get to him before my parents. I scurry down the wall planks and find two alcohol bottles resting half-empty. I hurl them into the hallway, enough to distract mother and father. Adrenaline pumps mass amounts into my blood stream as I scramble across the floor to my brother.

"After EVERYTHING we do for you. We have given you a home, food-" Mother begins.

"You call THIS good parenting?" I whisper as I scoop up Atticus and hold out his blood tainted body.

My father strides across the room and grabs a fistful of my hair and yanks it up to his level. I refuse to meet his eyes.

"What did you just say, Ariana?"

I wince at the threatening low snarl coming from my father. Out of instinct, I pivot to the side and drive him into the wall with my shoulder. He's so drunk that he topples over without a fight. As I charge towards the door with Atticus, my mother flings her half empty bottle in my direction and hits my skull with an ear-splitting CRRRACK. I taste hot blood in my mouth, but nothing could will me to stop running. I leap through the frayed screen door and yank our reaping clothes off the clothespins with the little force left inside me. In panic, I dash a few yards towards District 5's power plant, which is a repulsive monstrosity that towers over our homes and lies next to the fence that separates us from the forest. I crinkle my nose at the sulfur smell of coal sent from District 12 that we convert into power, I've lived here 13 years and I still can't get used to the smell. My arms are throbbing under my brother's dead weight, but as gently as I can I lay him down in the dry, overgrown weeds that shake lightly in the breeze.

"Please come back to me Atticus, I need you." I murmur.