Nothing happened on the second day.

That wasn't entirely true, of course. Alana found a small patch of edible berries near our grove and Lila accidentally hit a rabbit with a slingshot (purely luck, she assured us), but we ate the meat raw, too afraid to attempt a fire so soon into the games and unsure of how to save the meat for a time when we could actually cook it. None of us knew how long it took for rabbit meat to go bad.

But no one was injured. We didn't have a problem with the arena. Nobody died that day.

Nothing happened on the second day.

The third day, however, was a bit of a different story. Not for us, of course. We merely ate more bread, berries, apples, refreshed our camouflage, checked to see if Ten was still guarding the lake (she was), and told stories about our childhoods.

There were, however, two deaths on the third day. The faces of the boys from Three and Twelve were put up in the sky that night, and I saw Alana crying as I feel asleep. She had insisted on keeping watch, probably so that neither of us could see her cry. I didn't comfort her.

The fourth day was a bit more interesting. Nobody died, but for some reason, Ten had vacated the lake, possibly in search of food, possibly to keep from being in one place too long. Whatever the reason, she had left, so I was able to get water, and so were the girls.

We also bathed in the lake while I attempted to spear some fish. I made the girls stay far away from me as they bathed so that they disturbed the water around them and the fish looked for a stiller place, which was right where I stood. I managed to spear a few, but Alana's scream distracted me on the third fish (they were rather small).

"What's wrong?" I called.

"Something stung me!"

In the water, something had stung her, which could only be bad.

"Did you see it?" I said. "Do you know what it was?"

Many things that stung could be easily treated by things we had available to us in the arena, like human urine, but there were some things, created by the Capitol for battle, which were much more difficult to work with. I held my breath, hoping it would be something as simple as one of us peeing on her foot.

"It was long, thin," Lila called. "I dunno, it looked a bit like an eel, like I studied in school."

That wasn't necessarily horrible, but there was a variety of eel breed by the Capitol with an incredibly potent poison. They were called eelrays, because of the properties of a stinging ray, which they carried, but the sting was far worse than any sort of eel or ray could deliver. It was a fast-acting poison that literally made the blood boil.

"Was there some sort of pinching feeling?" I called. "Did it feel like pinching, or like a shock? This is very important, Alana!"

But she didn't even have to answer; because moments later, I felt a pinching in my right calf and I knew we were going to die.

"Out of the water, now!" I roared, hoping to spare Lila, at least. The three of us scrambled to shore, Lila supporting Alana, whose leg was already starting to twitch. "They're eelrays," I snapped, crawling over to the girls. "The poison's quick and deadly."

Tears sprung into Alana's eyes.

"Finnick, it hurts," she whimpered. "I feel like my leg is on fire."

I kissed her hand.

"I know, sweetheart," I whispered. "Be brave, okay? Tell me about your sister, again."

"Is there anything you can do?" Lila snapped before Alana could say a word.

"I need medicine," I hissed. "I can't do anything for either of us unless there's some sort of medicine! This isn't natural, it's a mutt, and there's no natural remedy!"

Another silver parachute fell from the sky, with a small bag. In the bag were two syringes with equal measures of a thick blue fluid.

"It seems you've got generous sponsors," Lila said bitterly.

"Don't sound so angry about it," I snapped. "I could save all of our lives. Now stick this in her leg, just above the sting. I'll do mine."

My hands shook, but I managed to hit a vein just above my own sting.

"Tell me about your sister," I said to Alana, who was still shaking with fear, so much that Lila and I had to hold down her leg to find the vein. "Tell me a story about her."

"Kylli," she whispered, her voice trembling. "Kylli's seven. She…she thinks she has a crush on the neighbor boy, because he kisses her on the cheek. I – oh, Finnick, it hurts!"

"It's okay," I whispered, petting her hand, watching Lila push the blue fluid into Alana's bloodstream and praying it wasn't too late for her leg. "It's going to be okay, now tell me. Tell me about the neighbor boy and Kylli."

She went off into a story she'd told two days earlier about how the neighbor boy had asked to marry her sister one afternoon the year before, and how everyone laughed because he was just five and the girl was six and the adults all thought it was cute.

It was a bit cute, I had to admit, and it was nice to think of things other than staying alive and everyone around me dying.

After about twenty minutes, Alana was well enough to return back to our clearing, where Lila tried her hand at camouflage (Alana didn't feel up to it) and we set up our camp, eating the fish raw. Alana fell asleep quickly, so Lila and I kept each other company for a while, not feeling safe without someone watching over Alana in her condition.

"Do you think any of us have a chance?" Lila whispered. "I mean, Jack had an eleven, and he died. Two Careers are already dead. Do you think there's any hope?"

Hope. What a funny thing, in the Hunger Games. Did I hope I would win? Of course I did. But was there any hope of winning?

"I don't know," I murmured. "How old are you, Lila?"

"Fourteen," she whispered back. "You?"

"Same."

"Nobody our age has won," she said. "The more I think about it, the worse our chances are."

I nodded.

"You know, we'll have to part ways eventually," I said. "All three of us can't win. At some point, we've got to try to kill each other, too. If we make it that long."

"I know," she whispered. "But I don't think I'll make it that long. I don't think I could kill somebody. I had a hard enough time killing that rabbit the other day, Finnick. I'm not cut out for this."

And she wondered why she didn't have any sponsors. Nobody wanted to sponsor a tribute who openly admitted that they weren't cut out for the Games. People wanted to sponsor a victor, not waste their money on someone like Lila, depending on others to survive and hoping she didn't have to kill somebody.

"Do you think you could kill Stella?" she whispered. "I mean, I know you two aren't competing together, but she's still from your home. It's different for us. The boys from our Districts are already dead."

I didn't answer her for a moment. It was a good question, I knew, because it was one I had been asking myself ever since my name was drawn at the reaping. The real question was what should I say to the cameras?

"I don't want to, I'll admit," I said softly. "Just like I don't think Jack would have wanted to have to kill Ellie if it came down to it, or even Tristin and Harmony. Nobody wants to kill their one piece of home. But I think I could do it, if someone else doesn't kill her first."

"Did you know her well," Lila said, "before the reaping?"

I shrugged.

"I knew her, yeah. We went to school together. But I don't think anyone knows Stella well. She's one thing to your face and something completely different to someone else's face. I'm not even sure Stella knows Stella. I – I think I did know her once, when we were little kids, but I don't think she's been anything other than a bundle of personas for years."

There was silence between us for a few moments as we digested what I had just said. I hadn't really meant to say so much out loud, and wondered what people would think of what I had told the whole of Panem about Stella. What would her sponsors think? And surely she had sponsors, because she was gorgeous and deadly. It was a recipe for the perfect victor, a face the Capitol would enjoy looking at for years to come. A face the prep teams would enjoy painting and a body the stylists would enjoy draping (for you couldn't really call what they had done with her "dressing").

Yes, Stella would make a perfect victor.

"Who do you think will die next?" I asked conversationally. "Still quite a few of us left, really."

"True," Lila said, handing me half an apple, which she had just cut. "I'm not really sure I want to start making bets on other people's lives."

I laughed.

"Not so morbid yet? All right, sweetheart. I might guess Leonidas would go next. I don't think he and Evie were working together. I'm pretty sure they were playing enemies during the time in the Capitol."

"Not everyone is as they pretend to be," Lila reasoned.

"True," I admitted. "And there's always Emilie. She definitely made a bold statement, forgoing the Cornucopia."

"I think it was preservation," Lila said with a shrug. "I think she knew she wouldn't survive the bloodbath. Ellie should have done the same, run off and hid, waiting for us. She is – was – good at hiding."

It was true, Ellie should have run, but reminding ourselves of it time and time again wasn't going to bring her back.

And she would have had to die, eventually, anyway.

"Anyway, I think the Careers are going to drop like flies this year," Lila said carefully. "I'm sure you've noticed they've lost as many as we have. And the way they all looked at each other in training, sizing each other up. I think they're all a bit paranoid. If they go enough days without a kill, they're going to start turning on each other just to feel as though they're being productive. I mean, that we know of, none of them have had a kill yet. And you must have seen the way Stella and Cora were looking at each other, like all they wanted was to slit the other's throat."

I had noticed, of course. But Stella looked at just about everyone that way when they weren't looking, so I hadn't put much store by it. Of course, now she actually was trying to kill people, so maybe I should have paid more attention.

"Tell me what life's like in District Eleven," I said conversationally, taking another bite of my apple.

She told me about the orchards where she had grown up.

"When I was a little girl," she said, "I would climb the trees, picking the fruit at the top that the tall men and machines couldn't reach, on the branches too fragile to hold anyone else's weight. It's beautiful in the treetops, Finnick, like a whole other world. For a while, I could tell myself I was free as a bird, but I grew up and I couldn't climb as high as before without disrupting the trees. You know, even the birds aren't free, Finnick. The Capitol owns all of us. Sooner or later, our imagined freedom comes to an end."

I knew we couldn't be on television at that point, because there was no way the Capitol would have aired that to Panem.

"It's either really a brave or foolish thing to say," I whispered.

She shrugged.

"I – I didn't tell anybody this, and maybe nobody remembers, but my Uncle Griffith died in the games, in the Quarter Quell. I wasn't even six months, so I don't remember it, but nobody in my family has forgiven the Capitol for taking him from us. I'm going to die anyway, Finnick. I know I will. Tomorrow's as good as any day, and I may as well say what's on my mind." She flicked a leaf off her camouflaged skin. "Tell me about District Four."

I looked up at the night sky, covered in clouds.

"It rains in the summer," I said. "The sea gets warmer, and the air and we get rain. It's not very good for fishing. But sometimes, when the weather is just right, you can go out to the shore and see for miles. I used to think there was something on the other side of the ocean, but I don't think so anymore. If there were something other than Panem on the other side of the sea, I think we would have talked with them by now, traded…something." I chuckled. "Anyway, last year on my birthday a few kids my age and I went down to the shore and stared out at the horizon as the sun went down. You probably haven't seen the sun set on the ocean, but it's beautiful, Lila. I've tried a hundred times to write the perfect poem to describe it, but it never quite works out good enough. The Capitol has a lot of beautiful things, but I've never seen anything as beautiful as the sunset on the sea."

"Do you go to the sea often with your friends?" Lila whispered.

"They aren't my friends," I said. "They were, but they're not anymore."

She frowned.

"Why not? Did you have a falling out? I wouldn't think it would matter now, not in light of what you're facing. They're probably supporting you anyway."

"No," I muttered. "Nothing like that. I – I don't know what I did wrong. One day I had lots of friends, and then suddenly, over the last year, nobody wants anything to do with me. I don't think I changed, but my mother says I have. I mean, I grew a bit, but everybody does that."

Lila smiled at me wryly.

"You mean you matured."

"I guess so," I said with a shrug. "I'm still a kid, though."

She laughed.

"Finnick, were your friends before boys or girls?"

"Boys," I said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. What sort of thirteen-year-old boy made friends with girls? I had only befriended Lila and Alana because they were helping my survival.

She was grinning at me through the dark.

"Finnick, they're jealous of you. That's why they aren't talking to you anymore, why they stopped being your friend. They're jealous because you matured well and you'll get all of the female attention. Nobody's going to be able to compete with you. You're gorgeous."

It was a very good thing it was dark, because I was sure I was blushing. I had never heard such a silly thing in my life. Firstly, why should they turn away from me for something I didn't even do? Secondly, what was there to be jealous of? I'd hardly ever even spoken to a girl; I doubted I'd be much competition. But…did she call me 'gorgeous'?

"I'm not sure I know what you mean," I muttered.

She laughed again and said, "Finnick, you're absolutely delicious. I mean, you're perfectly tanned and your eyes are like pools that someone could just fall into. And you just have presence, you know? Stella, she's very pretty, but she's all fake. You're a real person with the body of a god. You're still a bit young, but I bet once you turn sixteen you'll be beating them off with a stick."

If I turned sixteen, I reminded myself bitterly, but there was no point saying that out loud when the words hung so obviously on the air without being said.

"That's why you've got so many sponsors, you know," she said with a sigh. "I bet Stella and Harmony have lots, too. Or at least, Harmony did, you know, before she died. It's also why I don't have any at all."

"I don't think so," I whispered. "I think you're problem is you don't believe in yourself, Lila. It's like you don't even want to win."

She laughed.

"Oh, Finnick, do you really think winning is a victory? You may make it out of the arena, but you'll never really live again. The Capitol may have owned you before, but they will have an interest in the Victor, and you'll never have another nights' peaceful sleep until the day you die." She took a bite of her apple, chewed it thoughtfully and said, "It's like I said, tomorrow's as good as any day."

She was giving me a sign. She was going to die tomorrow, and she knew it, somehow. It was like she was asking them to kill her, begging them, but telling me as much as she could before she did go.

"And what would I do without you, eh, Lila?" I said charmingly as possible, well aware that there were probably cameras on us, although they wouldn't be broadcasting her mutinous words to the nation. But the Gamemakers and politicians would certainly be watching.

"You and Alana would probably have to split when I died, so you didn't get too attached," she said calmly, as if discussing how to divide up the rations. "You would have to start practicing whatever skill it was that earned you an eleven from the Gamemakers. And you need to be willing to kill them, Finnick, all of them. Alana, Stella, even Emilie, because you're the only one who can survive the afterwards, except for maybe Tristin, but who wants a victor from District One, anyway?"

I gave her a nervous sort of laugh as she leaned in and whispered in my ear, so softly that I almost didn't hear what she said.

"Make them pay," she whispered, "no matter how long it takes. You're the only one of us who can withstand the storm."