Summary: Katniss Everdeen has lost hope and rediscovers the vocation of local Street Walker. Stealing needy husbands and rich men is a hard life, but will Peeta have the ability to take her away from that world?

Chapter 1

Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. In other words, that's how I survive. If that is my only excuses for my sins, so be it. At least I'm alive and well-fed. At least my sister has the strength to get up from her bed every day. And until I've passed my eighteenth birthday, this is the only way to avoid tesserae. The only way to avoid the Hunger Games.

After my father's untimely death, my mother's whole life collapsed on itself. While she stared at the blank wall beside her bed, I sold our furniture, our worthless jewelry, and Prim's baby clothes. It came to the point where I had to beg in the freezing cold rain. Beg. If my father saw me like this….

I lean against the trashcan outside the Mellark Bakery and clutch the muddy clothes to my chest. Why couldn't I be a little older? I reach for the rim of the trashcan to hoist myself up. I peer over the edge only to find it black and empty, all the way to the bottom.

"Get off my property, you Seam brat!" I hear a screeching voice say. "Get!" I try to turn and walk back in the direction of the Seam, but instead stagger backwards into an apple tree. It's branches hang low and barren over my head like an omen. The mud splatters on me, my skin, my clothes, my merchandise. I haven't eaten for so long that I feel that my stomach is touching the line of spine.

I can't make it. I'm going to die.

Through the loud rain, I hear the Mrs. Mellark scream again, a loud smack following after. I catch a few words like "stupid" and "pigs". I lift my eyes tiredly to the commotion. A boy with a stocky build and medium height steps out from the door with two loaves of bread, blackened at the ends. There's a long red welt on his left cheek and I can tell that he's trying hard to keep his eyes dry. He rips one burnt end of the bread and tosses it to the subdued pigs in the pen. I flinch when the pigs begin to run around, fighting for the piece. I want that bread.

When I look back, I see two bright pools of blue staring at me. His mouth is parted, as if he wants to say something to me. Say it, I think. Tell a starving, dying girl to get out. But instead, I am surprised when he closes it and chucks the loaves in my direction. The land on the muddy ground in front of my feet.

I glance back at him. What is he doing?

He nods at the bread and pointedly looks at me.

Is that for me? He doesn't answer. He turns around and walks back into the bakery, a string of screeches resuming the second he enters. I grab the two loaves quickly, stuffing it in the confines of my father's jacket and walk back to the Seam. Prim is eating tonight. I am eating tonight.

That was when I see the three young women standing in front of a door. They huddle under their clothes, and by the looks of them, they are most likely seventeen or eighteen. One girl gingerly knocks on the wooden door while the other two girls move closer together.

The door smoothly opens to reveal an older man with few strands of silvery hair combed sideways over his unusually red face. The girls make a motion to step in, but the man coldly raises his hand in a stopping motion. He gently wraps a thick hand around the middle girl's shoulders and pulls her in. He leers at the other two women, whose shoulders are half-slumped, half-relaxed, and shuts the door behind him.

It takes me at least two minutes to remember that he is Cray, the Head Peacekeeper. In the one time I've been to the Hob to purchase a piece of meat smaller than the size of my palm. We were able to ration that meat for at least four days. I saw him buy a bottle of whiskey as the vendor glared at him with hatred. From school I'd heard rumors of girls running to his bed just to hold a few pieces of coins. They had to be stupid girls. Who could let themselves get so low?

I rush past Cray's house, keeping my head low, towards my own home in the Seam. We'll eat tonight.

I walk past the meadow with its tall grass blocking the edges of the fence into the woods. Suddenly, a flash of a ball of yellow catches my eye. I lean in a little closer towards the grass and see a weed.

In the midst of dry, broken grass and pools of suffocating mud, a dandelion grows. I smile at the sign. May the odds be ever in your favor.

I meet Gale Hawthorne the following weekend in the woods. Every day since Peeta tossed me the bread and I saw the dandelions, I went under a small area of broken links and into what felt like freedom. I haven't been in the woods since Father died, and didn't think I could even go without him. I remembered where he hid the bow and arrows and decided that if I wanted to keep my family and myself alive, I needed to learn how to hunt.

And then Gale steps into my life. He doesn't feel threatened by my presence with him, but I do. Whenever we leave the woods together, I expect him to run into town and tattle to others that I'm poaching. Well, not really, since the only thing I can manage to take home are berries and roots. Animals are too fast for me.

Yet, he offers to teach me whatever my Father didn't. Or couldn't.

Day by day, week by week, month by month, I get better. Better than Gale even.

I see Gale at school whenever I go. He nods at me with a solemn, "Catnip," at my direction. I fight the urge to punch him for it, but he's the only one who can teach me how to hunt properly. Not often these days since I'd rather be practicing in the woods than learning how to mine. I don't need mining if I've got an unlimited supply of animals and fruits in the woods that are almost as unprotected as the Mayor's house. Although Gale's considerably handsome, he wouldn't hang out with the more popular kids of the Seam. He usually sits with a couple other boys and girls (even though most girls try to sit with him) that he probably knew his whole life. I sit with Mayor Undersee's daughter Madge, who talks the bare minimum. Like me. And I like her for it. Making friends at a time like now, that's unnecessary. All I need is to figure out how to hunt properly and keep Prim and Mother alive. In a few weeks, I will be eligible for the Reaping, which also means I can sign up for tessarae for the three of us.

I also see Peeta, more now than usual. I catch him glancing at me when he thinks I'm not looking every now and then, but he never mentions repayment for the bread. Maybe he's thinking about it. Maybe he's waiting for me to approach him first.

All I know is that I owe him my life; I'm just afraid that he's going to figure that out one day too.

A/N: I hope this is an original story on this Fanfiction category; I haven't yet found a Hunger Games story about prostitution. Another thing is that, this story is currently Rated T, but will later become Rated M. I don't graphically, per se, write sex scenes, since this is my first time writing anything like that, but you will see a couple floating around, lol. I'll try to update this story once a week; two at the latest. If any of you have read any of my other stories, you'll probably think I'm lying since I take forever to update those so wish me good luck!

Let me know what you think!

Extra Note: This is a re-written version. Old version can be found on my old account (which will be deleted soon).