Prologue
Bonnie couldn't go much further. The boost to their spirits from meeting the Mockingjay outside District 12 was gone, faded away in the vicious cold and blinding snow of this never ending winter. Twill could see that Bonnie's ankle, twisted when the two District 8 fugitives had jumped from the train outside 12, was worse. It looked and smelled bad and was obviously excruciatingly painful. Traveling through the wild with this injured girl couldn't continue. Perhaps their search for the mythic District 13 had been a mistake. Perhaps they should have stayed in 8. The Capital's crackdown couldn't go on forever and the destruction of that factory full of workers might have satisfied their need for vengeance.
The few supplies Katniss Everdeen had left them had run out all too quickly. Twill's hunting efforts weren't working at all and they had barely survived that encounter with the pack of wild dogs. Back at that small house by the frozen lake, Katniss had shown them how to start a fire. It had seemed easy and straight forward there, but out here nothing seemed to work.
Where was District 13? It felt like they had been wandering forever. Did it even exist? From their vantage atop this high ridge, all that was apparent to either of them was endless hills, endless forests, endless snow, endless cold, endless wind. They started their slow and torturous descent, Twill searching for the easiest path, Bonnie barely able to follow. Night came swiftly at this time of year and with it the fear of predators. They could go no farther. They found a fallen tree and huddled together against it, modestly sheltered against the wind.
With dawn, Twill could see that Bonnie was almost done. She determined to go ahead on her own, scouting out what was before them. Leaving Bonnie the pulse rifle stolen from a dead Peacekeeper in District 8, she set off unarmed into the forest. It all seemed so much the same. Every day the same trees. Every day the same snow. Every day the same cold. She was probably on the road for ten minutes before even realizing it was there. A road! Small hope that it was, it was the best hope they had had in weeks. It must lead somewhere. Finding her way back to Bonnie, she begged and bullied the girl onto her feet and together they worked their way back to the road. And then, to their amazement, a clearing! The driving snow made it impossible to see far, but just at the edge of visibility, it could be made out – a chain link fence! They stumbled through the open space toward it. At least twenty feet high and topped with vicious razor wire. This was no derelict structure; this was new and well maintained. Had they finally reached their destination, the sanctuary of District 13? There must be a gate! They stumbled wearily, frequently blindly, along the fence, but just as Twill thought there might be some other structure ahead, Bonnie fell with a shriek of pain and lay sobbing in the snow. Had Twill seen movement ahead of them? She turned to Bonnie, excited and encouraging, and tried to get the girl to her feet. Bonnie was just starting to respond when gloved hands closed on the two and hauled them up – the white gloved hands of Peacekeepers.