All rights to Suzanne Collins, author of the The Hunger Games trilogy.


I met Saige once, when she came to us looking for a remedy for her little sister, Lily. One day in a harsh winter, two years ago while Katniss was out in the woods, Saige came looking for a treatment for pneumonia. She was sixteen then and just as desperate as we were, and pneumonia was a hard thing to treat when the whole district was so cold.

It really was so cold that winter, I almost thought Katniss and Gale couldn't pull through in the woods since all the animals would be hiding in hibernation. But as surely as mom and I ran to bring Lily what medicine we could procure, just as surely did Katniss and Gale manage to hunt what sparse game there was. There's a great sense of community in District 12; nobody ever gives up on anyone else, family or otherwise. It's our responsibility as decent people to help each other out.

Eighteen this year, so close to freedom, Saige just didn't escape the reaping, and it's a terrible thing. I had Katniss this year. Lily will be facing her first reaping alone the next. I remember that day we went over to help, we brought food with us, and it almost seemed like they didn't recognize what they were eating. The entire Camphor family is as responsible as can be, but the conditions of poverty are just so bad that access to a source of food like the woods is a blessing I came to realize was much more than a lot of people had.

Saige and her family lived almost exclusively on the tesserae rations. I can't imagine what else was happening; those rations weren't enough on their own for anyone to survive off of. There had to be another source of income, however meager, that her family had. But I never figured out what it was, and on the occasions I visited them at night, her wasn't there.

And I shudder to think Lily might disappear the same way.

But there was one group that thinks differently. The racketeers, who even now look at the most malignant curse to find a profit for themselves. There's no reconciling that. I hear one of them, barely hiding his laughter only so that his companions don't become enraged with jealousy. "Right on the money," one of them says to him, and that enrages me.

That, the racketeering and the gambling on people's lives- children's lives- is the worst of Panem's society. Those who can look at the Capitol's atrocities and are motivated to think, "How can I make it even worse? How can I get in on it?" None of them have anything on the line, save possibly for their pride, and I don't know how they can bear to live with it.

The life of a soulless leech is nothing to be proud of.

Effie Trinket, in her too high-pitched and sharp-accented voice, continues, "And now for the boy tribute!" She more quickly this time snatches a piece of paper from the other bowl, full of boys' names, and I have no doubt in my mind that Katniss is worried about Gale. Forty-two slips is nothing to sneeze at, and I was worried enough about my slip, all in its lonesome. The odds really are terrible no matter what.

From her toxic clutches, Effie Trinket reads the name of the boy tribute: "Peeta Mellark!" The boy from the bakery Katniss and I pass by every day. The one who stares at her sometimes after school. Perhaps I'm being harsh on Katniss to say Peeta's the only one doing it, but if that's not the case, he's the only one who's obvious about it.

There's always some dark memory for me to drift to, and dad's death is by far the worst. We all still shudder at the way he was completely incinerated in the mine explosion those four years back. The news of it was all we got, and part of the news was that there wasn't going to be a body to bury. Not a body to be had, not even pieces, morbid as it may be. All that came with the news bearer was enough coin to last a month before mom was to find a job.

In Katniss's hands, it lasted two, and after that, the starvation came in the beginning of spring. It was a long countdown to the next winter; dad pulled, almost carried us through the last. None of us really knew what we'd do without him. Even Katniss, determined as she was, was drained and hopeless. It got darkest on a rainy day, shortly before her twelfth birthday, when she took my baby clothes to the Hob to trade for food of any sort. She was out a long time; we were worried she might have caught a disease we were simply in no condition to be able to treat.

When she finally returned home, safe and sound, she brought two loaves of bread, charred on the outside but perfect on the inside. It was, almost literally, the first thing we'd eaten in weeks.

She had also brought back hope.

From that very moment she returned, dripping wet and shivering with the icy rain that was winter's last grasp on our spirits, we saw the way forwards. And I just can't shake the feeling that Peeta had something to do with it.

There's a source of thunderous applause behind me as Effie Trinket presents Saige and Peeta. A thunderous, odious and hollow applause that can only be coming from the one racketeer who must be thinking that he's some sort of prophet. An oracle whose profits come solely from the souls of others. And it's not just his clapping, but his laughter, too, that drives me insane. As the mayor stands to give a speech so somber that the rest of the district turns their heads to listen, there's a maniacal riot in the back.

He knew them! He knew them both and didn't care nor cry. Everyone else could stay silent in heartfelt respect for Saige and Peeta, and comprehend the tragedy in the mayor's tone, but not him.

He has earned my ire.


"How much longer?"

It's official. Gale has just gotten the order to go to work in the mines, although he was lucky enough to be given a grace period. "A week at least," he tells me, "but it's probably not going to be a big deal until the games end. The district can't force me to go to work if the Capitol's forcing me to watch their horror show."

I laugh at the one thing the Capitol did that's working out in my favor. I have to wait until I stop, because the very next thing I tell him is the most serious thing I've ever said in my life: "So when you're out with Katniss anyway, can you bring me all the poppy plants you can find?"

Gale curiously looks at me for an eternity. He's trying to figure out what I want with poppy plants, since it's a plant he's always passed before without acknowledging. All the better that he's never paid attention to it, for if he'd studied it as thoroughly as he has fruit-bearing plants, he might be able to tell right away. He puzzles it through, mulling over everything he knows about poppies out loud to see if I react.

The gravity of my face doesn't let up even for a moment to poke fun at the frustration showing on his. Either he's frustrated that his gambit failed or that he just can't figure out what I want, and when he finally caves, "What are you going to do with poppy seeds?" only then do I loosen myself to a smile.

"I'm going to take it to the Mellark bakery. See if I can trade it for a way to get food." Sort of.

My real intent is to make morphling. There's very little I can say to Gale about it, but I want to make and sell morphling. What I can explain, and do, is this: if he's going into the mines, it absolutely follows that he's not going hunting anymore. Without him, Katniss can't keep up with what it will take to feed both our families, for any number of reasons. The most practical among them is that just by being there, Gale doubles the amount of stuff they can carry back to into the district.

He's quick to follow up on how vital he is to his and Katniss's hunting trips. I'm glad Gale at least understands that there's a problem to be solved, even if he can never know just how I intend to solve it. Then he picks up on the Mellark family, and he frowns a bit at the realization that Peeta had a longstanding crush on Katniss: "Do you really think working with them is a good idea?" he asks. "Is there something they can do that you think I can't?"

There are plenty of things I need to do, and things I need to go smoothly. Dealing with Gale's pride is not something I need to do, and it's certainly nothing I ever want to do. "That's not the point!"

"So what is?" he demands.

"The point is I need you to help me help them help me help us all. Can you do this? Just bring me any poppy plants you find?" There are people passing by behind our house where Gale and I are talking. Well, arguing, at any rate. They give us a glance and then keep going, but they're all shocked to hear me raise my voice like that. "Just do this for Katniss, alright? You can help her out, and I promise she'll never know a thing about it."

Now I can't tell a thing about the tone of the thoughts racing through his mind, but the content of those thoughts has something to do with giving to my sister in a way she can't pay back. Gale lightens up to hear me say that, and agrees, "I'll do it. All the poppies you need," as he gives me a quick hug. His timing really is impeccable, because just as I turn around, Katniss arrives back from her business. "All done at the Hob?" Of course Gale notices her too.

"Just stocking for tomorrow," she answers him. Typical of Katniss, she's already back to her woods shirt and pants and dad's old leather jacket. "Prim, supper's almost ready." She looks to Gale as I nod my understanding and start heading inside. I linger just long enough to hear, "You want to eat with us?" He doesn't. Family matters.

Supper on reaping day is normally a time for celebration, and Katniss has gone far out of her way to make sure we eat as well as possible. Fish and green stew is an enviable feast in district 12, and almost unheard of in the Seam. By all accounts, she could make that pot of stew last us three days or more, but this is all for tonight, as a sort of thanks for the odds being in our favor today.

It's a rich stew, due in large part to the fish and greens having come directly from nature this very morning. I could never forget this- how filling it is, how much effort it took to gather and prepare everything- and then we bring out the bread. It's the fresh loaf of the wispiest, fluffiest bread I've ever seen, and the very first loaf of anything I've ever seen through. Katniss makes sure to show me the hole in the middle, where she tells us Gale shot an arrow through it.

The warmth of its first fire is long gone, but the loaf is none the poorer for it. Mom cuts a few slices of the bakery bread, so soft that a hot stick of butter could cut though it like a hot knife through butter. We eat the bread with a chilly, sweet cream of mixed strawberries and blackberries. In tandem with the stew, this treat- there's nothing else to call it, but the closest match would be the cakes on display in the window of the Mellark's bakery- makes me savor every bit of the taste. It also reminds me of the work I have up ahead.


Viewing the Hunger Games is mandatory effective immediately, even though it's barely been a day since the reapings. The trains are arriving in the Capitol now, and the tributes are getting the chance to make their first impressions on the audience. How much it matters, I can't really say. Even less so who catches my attention most. There's the girl from district 11, Rue, who's about my age. I can't imagine how it all went there, and I sincerely hope there wasn't anyone so calloused as the gamblers here in 12.

Gale's arrival alone, with a load of poppy plants, just like he promised, brings me outside the house so mom can't hear. There's something on his mind. "I had to leave Katniss alone at the Hob to get you this," he says to me with a scathing tone. "To make sure she didn't know." Contrary to his voice, there's a look of concern in his face, because trusting someone blindly is something he's learned over half a decade to avoid. "Prim, how much of a difference is this bread going to make?" he asks me.

"It'll all be worth it," is all I can say. "You'll see."

"I- it's just," he stutters, unable to piece together what he wants to say, "I don't like tricking Katniss like this. We've been out in the woods so long, I feel like she's my sister as much as yours." Come on, Gale! Thanks for the poppies! I'll take it from here! I want to tell him, screaming at the top of my lungs. "Doesn't she at least deserve to know what you're doing?"

"That can't happen, Gale," I caution. "Thanks for the poppies. I'll take it from here." So close.

He leaves with unusually tense and heavy breath, but without a sound; I can't tell how far he is. I spare the television one last glance, catching a glimpse of some of the mentors. District 6, called the "Morphlings" after the drug they're addicted to, and the one I'm about to concoct. They're incoherent, in dreadful condition, and they look hollow. Their haunting image embeds itself in my mind as I bring the poppy plants over to the bakery in a box in my toy wagon. I'm impressed it fits in there.

Katniss and I used to walk by the bakery every day before and after school, even though it wasn't strictly on the route, but it wasn't out of the way, either. I find its windows covered with shutters today, and I realize that they're still in mourning for Peeta. I awkwardly stand in front of the door for minutes until one of them notices me and comes outside to greet me. "Hi, Mr. Mellark," I answer. "I'm Primrose Everdeen. May I talk to you for a minute or two?"

"Right here?" He's wary of what I could have to say that I don't want to rest of his family to hear. Rightfully so, but he seems to remember Katniss and how desperate we were years ago. Knowing me by association, he faintly raises his hand to signal he wants to help. "Okay," he assents, "I'll do whatever I can. Times are tough all around without Peeta."

"Can I trust you to keep a secret?" I launch right into some things that I need him to understand, and which I don't care so much whom he tells, just to gauge his response. "Katniss's friend Gale got an order for mining work as soon as the mandatory games viewing finishes. I don't think we'll be able to feed ourselves anymore without him unless you can help me with something."

"Anything I can do, Prim, I'm willing to help." He looks at the box and asks what's in it, and whether its contents have anything to do with my request. They have everything to do with it.

"I have a box of poppy plants," I tell him.

"You want to bake bread?"

"No," I say. "That's the secret: I want to make morphling."

Mr. Mellark's jaws visibly drop. He shudders in his voice, unsure of himself for some reason, unsure of who he's talking to. "Morphling?" he inquisitively repeats. "Prim," he starts. "I don't know how to make that, I'm sorry."

"I think I do. I just need a place and equipment to do it with. The fire pit at home is not going to be sufficient." It sounds perfectly logical. It's an admittedly tough formula, and it requires some degree of technology. This is district 12, so it doesn't require all that much, but more than there is in our house. I've already told him this is the big secret, so telling him that I need his stove to Katniss and mom don't find out it a useless point now.

He wants to do it. He wants to find any excuse he can to convince him that it's worth the risks, and his arguments against it fall off in intensity. "What if the Peacekeepers find out?" If they find out, given how corrupt they are, they'll want in on it. It might be the best thing that could happen for the Peacekeepers to find out we're making this.

"It's a profitable market," I say. The only other supply of this comes straight from the Capitol and it's never enough, be that for medical purposes or for addicts. "I'll split everything fifty-fifty with you, if you'd just help me out." His face is contorted in a painful struggle of two parts of his mind. If not for the coal dust, I might be able to smell the smoke coming out of his furiously racing thoughts, flipping back and forth: "Do it!" "Don't do it!" "You have to! It's for the family!" "You'll get your whole family killed if you do this!"

I can see a bit of their television screen through the doorway. Haymitch is on, looking for sponsors already. "Peeta needs help," I whisper, and as soon as I do, the smoke clears. Mr. Mellark makes up his mind in a flash.

"I'm in."

When I come in, I learn that they've been keeping a sort of vigil for so long, that they haven't eaten anything. Mr. Mellark is brilliant on his feet and offers to take them all out somewhere, so as not to eat out of the blood, sweat and tears of their son. He mouths to me, "one hour," and as soon as the door shuts, I get to work.

I crush all the poppies and look through all the closets for cleaning chemicals. Mostly, what I need is sulfur to extract the morphine from the poppies, and then I can begin boiling water to process it. There's a few bottles of cleaning acids, some full, some partially empty. I take a full bottle and put just a little bit of it in the heating water before turning my attention to the extraction process.

It's tedious and repetitive; I end up extracting the same handful of crushed poppies at least a dozen times, but when it's all done, I put the extract in the water and wait for the morphine to separate from the other chemicals.

Within my one hour time frame, I have a batch of real, natural morphine. I even had time to find little glass bottles to package it. No syringes, though, it's too much to ask a bakery to carry a bunch of those around. It's ridiculous to think about this as a rewarding process, but I have full confidence that, if I just prepare some actual solvents next time around, my stuff will be better than the Capitol's wholly synthetic formula.

Still, actual morphine is going to make a lasting impression on anyone willing to try it. I take all of my product and place it in the box in my wagon. There's a knock on the door that instantly drives my heart rate up, only to calm to normal when I see it's Mr. Mellark. Mouth agape, he looks at the kitchen area mess, and he might think a bomb went off there.

He absent-mindedly pats me on the shoulder and mutters, "I'll clean this up, Prim. You do what you have to do." I'm grateful for his help, in getting the space for me and cleaning it up when I finish, and I'm surprised he doesn't make any mention about his cut. That end of the deal is on me.

I make a similarly absentminded thanks and farewell, and I make my way to the Hob. One of two places Katniss never took me. A place she considered too dangerous for me. The Hob used to be a warehouse for coal, abandoned after the Capitol decided coal trains should run directly to the mines to save some time. At least, that's what I suspect. The place is so big, it had to a warehouse, and I can't think of any other use for a warehouse in district 12 other than storing the Capitol's coal.

There's an ancient woman sitting next to a large cauldron, almost like a witch, shouting about beef stew. Everything else goes downhill from there, but I have no case to condemn any of their practices. I was here to participate in the depths of the cesspool.

There were displays of tattered clothing, tables among tables of halves of shirts and single pants, not pairs. Some stands had relatively higher quality clothing, including a leather jacket that looked suspiciously like dad's. No, I shake that thought out entirely. That's something Katniss would never part with. Damaged as it may be, it belongs with her. It brings out something in her, some special regard and fond memories like mom has in her apothecary dresses. Odd as it may be, Katniss looks much more like a girl in dad's jacket than in any dress anyone could make her wear.

Oh, and there's alcohol. It just can't be a proper black market environment without alcohol. There's more liquor than clothes here, and an even wider range of qualities for this thing that really matters. It makes sense that Katniss comes here so often. There's a bigger market for everything here than there is in town unless someone can fill a specific niche.

Past the islands of bad breath and drowning, there are gambling nests, and in the dim light in the warehouse, I can just barely make out the face of the racketeer from reaping day. I suddenly remember the Morphlings from district 6. My mind flashes back to the miserable looking state of their lives, and impulsively, I talk to the racketeer. "You, uh," I look down at the needle set by his gaming chips, "you use morphling?" I ask.

"Why you asking, dearie?" Oh man, the wretched smell! He's got to have a bottle of liquor at the leg of his chair, or five, his speech is so slurred, I'm glad he only make one 's' sound in that sentence. "You're not getting your hands on mine!" he roars with laughter. That same, awful laughter during the mayor's speech, except this time it's like he's spitting the alcohol back up and drooling it out at the same time.

"I might have something better," I tell him. "Something more natural and wild. Perfect for someone like you." I'm about to open the box when I add, "If you think you can afford it."

"If I can afford it!" he shouts. Everyone's looking at us now as he slams a sack of coins on the table. A sack big enough that it would take up the entire wagon. "Just one thing now, girlie. Just who do you think you are that you think I can't afford what you're selling?"

I think about this long and hard. "Foxglove," I call myself. "But it looks like I presumed too much." I set the whole box closed on the table and snatch the sack of coins. "This," I give it a shake, "should be just enough. Enjoy it." And with that, I load the money into my cart and leave with everyone's attention.


Katniss arrives back from the woods first today, which makes me think she and Gale are trading days to stay behind in the Hob. She comes back with food and her first story about the place. "Someone died at the Hob," she announces. "Someone named Colton Rudgi, apparently he just became rich and died from an overdose."

"A morphling OD?" mom asks, concerned why she didn't hear about this sooner.

"No," Katniss responds, "not exactly morphling, something kind of like it. His wife, Erica, died too. I asked what could have caused it, but from what they told me, he may have been poisoned instead. Everyone at the Hob just said 'foxglove'."

I drop my gaze and instinctively turn towards the back wall. My mind drifts off of the most random secret compartment in Lady's shack where I hid the money and onto the fact that I just killed the racketeer and his wife. I just can't believe it. I should feel much worse about this.


AN: I can't possibly keep up this chapter size nor this update pace.

A few interesting things: Foxglove is a poisonous plant, which Katniss should logically know about, and Prim learned about in the book.

Ricin is a toxin that is deadly to most animals, but ducks have an inexplicable resistance to it.

This is going to get really dark really fast.

Stay with me, everyone.