By the time Gilda wakes us up with her wild thrashing, it's too close to morning to bother trying to sleep again.

"Gilda, Gilda!" Kizee whispers desperately in the dark. Gilda pants, eyes shooting open and nightmare fading in them.

"It was just a dream," Gilda tells herself, seeming surprised.

"You can talk about it," I offer, but Gil shakes her head.

"No," she slips out of bed and into the hall.

"Would you like me to make you coffee?" I call after her. She shushes me and I see she's peering into the boys' room. Raphael and Parchuck share a bed, too, though theirs is more spacious than ours. Or perhaps it's an illusion, since there's only two of them.

Gilda leans against the doorframe and stares at Raphael's face.

"He was in the games," Gilda says quietly. "I can't even volunteer to go in his place if I wanted to."

"But Seamus and Moller put their names in a few extra times to keep him out," I point out. Gilda nods indifferently.

"That doesn't mean he can't still get picked." She shuffles towards the kitchen and I take Kizee's hand as she shudders at the thought of Raphael getting picked. Raphi is just a year older than she is and the two are as close and as quarrelsome as any brother and sister could be. They somehow manage to simultaneously loathe and complete one another.

Kizee enjoys feeling welcome with me and Gilda. The youngest of the four Collands/Maddys girls, she often shies away from our company. I brew coffee and the three of us watch the sky turn gray and sip the drinks without milk or sugar, trying to keep our voices down to allow Parchuck, Raphi, Salla, and Darrin a few more precious minutes of sleep.

Kizee holds her breath for a long while.

"Still nervous, Kizee?" I ask quietly. She nods, exhaling into her coffee cup. "Don't be."

"I'm wearing your old blue dress, right?" She looks up. "The one Mom made before..."

"Yes," I interrupt. "Yes, you're wearing my blue dress." She seems relieved. Gil slurps her coffee loudly and I hear shuffling footsteps approach. Salla appears in the hallway, looking groggy and overtired.

The mood is somber as she leaves to rouse Raphael. Gil, Kizee, and I rush off to make ourselves look semi-presentable.

I look over Kizee as I tie the large bow on the back of what used to be my powder blue dress. She looks like a fresher, more naive, and less world-weary version of Salla with her honey-colored hair pulled into a braided bun. Needless to say, she looks beautiful, though something still seems to be missing. The three of us borrow some of Salla's face powder.

Gilda and I also wear hand-me-downs, ones that come from Salla and my mom's old belongings. Gil's dress is bright red and, paired with her pigtailed braids and a bright ribbon, makes her look like a baby doll. Mine is a sunny yellow and falls to my knees, which are knobbier than I like to look at in the mirror. Gilda and Kizee enjoy trying to do something with my hair (Gilda commenting, as whenever she does things with it, at its near-whiteness) while I powder my eyelids carefully.

I realize all of a sudden what my sister is missing.

"Hey, Kizee," I call. She turns. I undo the ruby pendant that hangs around my neck. Her eyes bulge. "I think you should wear this."

"No, Zaylie, that's always been yours!"

"No it hasn't," I shrug the thought away. "It was Mom's first." She pales.

"No, then."

"It'll protect you, and it will look beautiful with the blue dress." She looks apprehensive and I sigh. "You can give it back to me tonight. It would make me feel better. Please?" Her face brightens and she turns around, inviting me to fasten it around her neck.

Then we're off. The ground crunches under our feet. Raphael squeezes Kizee's hand comfortingly as she starts to hyperventilate. Salla walks some distance behind the four of us, Parchuck on her hip and Darrin holding her shoulders.

"Gil! Zaylie!" We turn to see Ellsa and a raven-haired girl named Verita, whose acquaintance I've made several times in the past.

"Kiz," I turn to my sister, whose eyes are wide as dishes. I kiss the top of her golden head. "Don't be so worried. You'll be alright." She nods determinedly and steps ahead of the rest of us.

I catch Moller's eye momentarily, but he's deeply involved in conversation with a boy named Taran. Gil, Ellsa, Verita, and I join the rest of the sixteen-year-old girls.

"Welcome, welcome, welcome!" We all mouth along with the words as soon as they're heard over the loudspeaker. The scripted speech is always the same. I get a good look at Dibby Millighan, trying to discern who was closest to predicting her outfit.

No clown makeup this year. Her whole face is one uniformly pale white color save for the electric blue eyeshadow and mascara, but I have to commend her for toning down last year's train wreck. Or maybe 'candy-coated vampire' has gone out of fashion in the Capitol. Who knows?

Her dress is strappy and sleeveless and midnight blue and she is head-to-toe covered in bows. Her high-heels (at least eight inches) have enormous iridescent black bows on the toes and dragging ribbons on the heels. She has a sparkling wig on her head which by itself would be hideous, but the 'hair' shaped into an enormous bow at the peak of Mount Dibby's Head is enough to make one gag.

"Welcome, children!" She giggles through the mic. "Welcome, welcome, welcome! It's a beautiful day in the most beautiful district of Panem! I can smell the outdoors, and not many of us in the Capitol have that leisure. I feel like the luckiest woman alive! Come on, come out!"

I see Seamus lingering among the boys and a smile slowly creeps onto his face. He makes a sign to me, trying to indicate somehow that he's won the bet. I pull a face, shake my head, and frown.

As the fanfare starts playing, I can see Kizee in front of me. She looks startled and terrified and my instinct is to want to hold her hand. I try to drive Dibby Millighan's obnoxious voice out of my head and focus on the faces around me. I wonder which of us it'll be this year.

After this is over with, families will go home, rejoicing and celebrating their one more year of togetherness. Gil, Kizee, Raphael, and I will head home to Salla, Parchuck, and Darrin. Two families will mourn, shut their windows, and eat either weeping or in silence.

I can't wait for it to be over with. I hope I don't have to say goodbye. I hope it's nobody I know.

"Now isn't that wonderful?" Dibby proclaims through the microphone. Her girlish giggles are met with a stoic, bitter silence. "Just absolutely marvelous!" We stare. She laughs again. "Now for my favorite part! It's now time to select one dashing, brave young lady and gentleman for the privilege of participating in this year's annual Hunger Games! Aren't you just so excited?" Privilege? For some reason, she finds that she needs to keep talking as she shuffles over to the first of two glass bowls. "Oh, I'm waiting with bated breath! I can hardly- Oh, I can't even- Oh!" I glance over at Gil, who seems to be absorbing this like a sponge, a wicked grin on her face. No doubt she'll be using this for her act at our feast next year. "Well, ladies first, I guess!" Dibby wastes no time in plunging her hand into the bowl, waving the slip of paper in the air like a flag. "And this year's district seven female tribute is..." she holds her breath, as do we all. "Zaylie Collands!"

My world starts to swirl. I have to have heard her wrong. Somebody starts screaming, and the rest of the girls (save Gilda, Ellsa, Verita, and Verita's friend Gattie) back away as though I have some sort of contagious disease.

"Come on, darling!" Dibby spots me and waves me up to the stage.

"No!" I hear someone shrieking. "No, you can't take her!" Someone is pushing through the crowd towards me. Kizee? Gil? I can't tell at this point.

"Come on, dearie!" Dibby grows impatient, waving me on. My head spins. Finally, two peacekeepers grab my arms and haul me forwards. "You're Zaylie?" I nod, feeling as though I have just swallowed a lump of sand. My breathing hitches. "You are quite a beautiful girl. You're a lucky, lucky girl, Miss Zaylie Collands!"

"I don't think so," I murmur, shaking my head. Someone continues to wail in the crowd. "Why would I be lucky?"

"Now for the boys..." she stammers, cheeks a little red under the bright white powder, and hustles over to the other bowl, hardly able to walk in her outfit. If my situation weren't so dire, I might have giggled at how she keeps tripping over the ribbons on her heels. "Nantucket Everard!"

The boy stumbles forward. He's my age. I've seen him a time or two around, but I have no recollection of having had any meaningful conversation with him. I do know, however, that he goes by Tuck and that he has a sister Kizee's age named Amadea, to whom Kizee is close. He has dark brown hair and his skin is tan from spending time in the lumber yard.

I wonder which of District Seven's three victors will be our mentor. Nantucket doesn't take his eyes off me as he makes his way to the stage. It hurts to think that for me to return home to my sisters, he'll have to die. I wonder if he's thinking the same thing. His eyes are very green.

"Oh, very nice! Very nice!" Dibby Millighan squeals. "Shake hands, you two!" Tuck's calloused hand takes my own and our eyes stay locked.

Our hands don't separate.

"Hold on, I want to say something! District Seven," I find my voice finally, dropping Nantucket's hand to make a grab for the mic (much to Dibby's clear annoyance), "thank you for everything!"

"And that concludes this year's reaping!" Dibby trills, moving the mic out of my grasp. But the damage has been done. Tuck and I remain standing center-stage, hands stretching out towards the crowd. Gil is the first to reciprocate the gesture, but the rest of the crowd follows.

"We about to die salute you!" Yells Tuck with a glitter of humor on his scared features. Someone who could be his mother wipes tears off her face. Tuck takes my hand again and a child screams bloody murder. Kizee? Amadea? Who knows at this point?

"That's quite enough!" Dibby whispers harshly. "You two are making a scene!" We're led away as quickly as possible. Only when the peacekeepers surround us does Tuck drop my hand.

We may be about to die, but at least I'll go down with the knowledge that somebody loves me in my district.


I know! Fast update, huh? That's unusual for me! :) By the way, when I was describing Dibby Millighan, this is what I pictured in my head: http :/ allysonkat . tumblr . com / post / 21897795398 / i-think-this-ought-to-be-a-capitol-fashion-maybe . Just for a point of reference. I hope you all liked it! I'd love to hear what you thought of it! That means REVIEW my lovely readers! Review! Perhaps it'll spur me to update fast again, which, for those of you who read my other stories, know NEVER happens. And you'd like that, now wouldn't you? ;)

There are a few things I'd like to mention about Zaylie's family. Zaylie's friend Gilda and her little brother Raphael have lived with Zaylie's family since they were very, very young. Gil and Raph are not actually related in any way to the Collandses. Zaylie's parents are both dead, and so they share a home with Zaylie's twenty-five year old sister, Salla, and her husband Darrin. Salla and Darrin's six-year-old son is Parchuck. Just in case that wasn't entirely clear. Their family lives in basically abject poverty since Darrin is generally the only one bringing in money (unless Gil contributes from her black-market trades, but that's an on-off sort of situation since she doesn't want peacekeepers tracking her down or finding out and potentially taking it out on Raphi). That's why they all share beds. Zaylie is fiercely loyal to her family and will remain so.

I would like to say a word or two about Freya as well. None of Zaylie's friends really know much about her, but the grave was an old meetup spot when they were still in school. All of their mothers had died by the time they were twelve (except Ellsa, whose mother is fatally crippled). They suspect that she may have been a fighter in the initial uprising, but they aren't entirely certain. Either way, they are convinced that she watches over them as a guardian angel, since Seamus was almost killed at age thirteen in an accident at the lumber mill and he said he dreamed of her healing him during his recovery. Since there's no real religion in the Districts, just superstitions and such, many people are left to make up their own beliefs if they are the kind of person who naturally has faith in things they can't see (lots of children come up with these and as they grow up, either drop it or keep believing in whatever it is in private). Freya is Zaylie, Gil, Ellsa, Seamus, and Moller's closest brush with what could possibly be called religion.

I hope that cleared up any possible confusion (though nobody let on in any reviews that there was any, I felt I'd just explain so everyone was on the same page).

REVIEW! REVIEW! REVIEW!

That is all.