A/N: Thank you for all the reviews/alerts/favorites. I really appreciate the feedback. It's incredibly encouraging. Hope everyone out there continues to enjoy! I really liked writing this chapter.


Haymitch rarely comes to see me anymore, which means I'm either doing something right, or that he's hiding something from me. With campaign posters both for and against incorporating Panem creeping up throughout town, I can only assume that he's hiding something from me.

Things with Gale are tense as well. He expects me to join his rebellion, and a part of me wants to, but I'm hesitant, unsure if it's the right move for my family. If incorporation fails and I'm leading the charge, I'll be sent to prison on some technicality from my laundry list of inconsequential offenses. If incorporation succeeds, a new battle will be waged for our survival, but it seems manageable for now. Gale doesn't understand my reasoning, he sees the bigger picture for the livelihood of all of Panem. I'm selfish I guess because I only care about the safety of my family.

Peeta, surprisingly, becomes the only person I feel I can trust. Everyone has expectations. Hoops that I must jump through to earn their approval. With Peeta however, it's different. Nothing seems to disappoint him. The moments we spend together in Arena are now the only times I find myself at ease. I no longer wait for him to approach me, I now seek his company in the bakery department.

"What happens to two day old bread?" I ask him. I lean against the day old rack and cross my arms across my chest.

He picks up another plastic wrapped loaf and inspects the date on the label before placing it on the cart. "Feed it to the birds I guess," he shrugs. "This kind of bread gets too stale after a day or two."

"Nonsense," I say and pick up a loaf of my own to check. "Stale bread with an egg wash is the perfect breakfast treat. I hear it's all the rage in Europe."

"France?" He questions with an amused grin.

"So they say," I say, and hold up my chin with arrogance. "I wouldn't know, I only own vacation homes in Barcelona, Naples, and Athens."

"Mediterranean girl, eh?"

Although my mother's name was Irish and my father's English, my father was a melting pot of Greek and Italian heritage as well, giving us our darker complexion. He'd show pictures of the seaside villages that his family originated from. The water always so sparkling and beautiful. "I'm like a fish," I tell Peeta.

Peeta picks up another loaf and places it on the rack. "French toast is plain though, it's too bland."

"That's what maple syrup is for," I argue.

"Expensive," he says carefully, knowing that he's skating along risky territory.

"Not if you make it yourself." I don't have any trees in my backyard because I don't have a backyard, but the woods along the interstate are lush with giant maple trees. In the winter, I tap as many as I can while still being discreet. The trees are county property after all and while they're not utilizing their resources, they don't want others using them either. Maple syrup is one of the few luxuries we allow ourselves. By the time the sap we've collected is boiled down we only get about six ounces of syrup. We usually trade half of it, if we can't manage, but what we keep we savor.

"What else do you make?" He asks, his eyes alight with wonder. Peeta's the type of guy who has food handed to him on a daily basis. He's never had to hunt for it. It's always available to him.

"Clovers, dandelions, scallions, you can gather all those in the meadow. There's also a great berry patch we make jams with. Those are the easier finds because you don't have to hide it," I explain. I'm not sure why I'm trusting him with this information, but I continue anyway. "It's when you get into the trespassing and the fine able offenses like tapping trees or hunting and fishing without a license in restricted areas."

"So you really go around the forest shooting rabbits with a bow and arrow?" He questions. I hadn't known my livelihood had been such a source for gossip.

"The bow is mainly for sport," I say. "Snares work better sometimes because they're simple to set in the morning and you can come collect them at the end of the day."

"Is that why you were..." he trails off and his eyes flit away like he's ashamed of what he's asking.

"Arrested?" I only started hunting and gathering after my release. I figured everyone in Panem knew of my sordid tale. He probably has, but in a town laden with gossip it's hard to pick out what is real and not real. My crimes were heavily covered in the local paper and even though I was guilty, only about half of the articles printed about my story were true. "No," I say. "I killed someone."

Peeta isn't surprised by the news, he only nods. "Glimmer," he says, his voice barely breaking a whisper. "So it's true. You were the TJV dealer?"

Tracker Jacker Venom.

After my father's death, my mother checked out. She used to be a highly regarded nurse at County General, but after a few errors in medication distribution to patients that almost cost them their lives, she was let go and essentially black listed from the medical community. Her job was the only semblance of order that she had left. A gentle thread that kept her tied to sanity. With that broken, she lost track of everything. One would think her own children would be reason enough to keep fighting, but every time she looked into my large gray eyes she'd see my father and drift farther away. She once avoided my pleading gaze for an entire month. "You're gone," she'd mutter repeatedly, scratching her fingers across my face until I turned away.

There were days however, that she would come back to us. Not many people in the Seam have medical insurance and my mother became invaluable for providing the care needed. It was the order that she needed to hold her fragile self together. Her practice proved to be difficult without medicine though, and when the only payment her Seam patients could provide were trades of food and clothing, my mother was forced to find alternatives. She had learned many basic combinations from my grandfather, who made his fortune off the development of prescription medicine. Natural remedies that were just as effective as the expensive chemicals he used.

Night lock for example, is a poisonous berry, but only the skin is toxic. The meat of the fruit can be juiced to form a sleep serum, that she used in lieu of anesthesia. For a sedative, she found that using the venom of a tracker jacker would calm patients. Tracker jackers are an aggressive breed of wasp that carry a venom that is poisonous to humans. In small doses it causes hallucinations and paralysis, in large doses it's lethal. There were hives of these insects all along the edge of the Seam and nobody dared travel near them. My father knew tracker jackers couldn't survive the first freeze and would clear out the hives in the late fall. With this knowledge, my mother collected a hive the morning of the first freeze, when the the wasps were in shock and their venom still recoverable. She could only make a batch a year with this method, but it proved to be invaluable.

A buzz began around the drug starting in the Seam when a group of kids swiped a vial from our home. Interest spread quickly in Panem High, where I was a freshman at the time, because of the recreational potential. It all seemed silly to me, the idea of poisoning one's self on purpose, so I ignored the demand for more.

My mother had good days, but still was often unreliable. There were weeks where she'd never leave her bed. She'd only lie on her side and stare out the small window over her dresser, waiting for my father to come home. Neighbors would give what they could. They all loved my father too and needed my mother well to take care of illnesses and injuries. When you're already stretched thin, a cup of soup split three ways doesn't go too far. It was the thought that counted.

With the little money we had, I'd put on my father's hunting jacket and head to the market. It was important to always buy at least one item so no one suspected anything. My jacket would be filled to the seam with bread and canned goods, but I'd only buy a gallon of milk or whatever was on sale that week. This method was difficult in the summer when it was too warm to hide in a jacket.

One morning when I scavenged through the empty cabinets for the fifth day that week, I broke. Prim and I would go another day clenching our stomachs while we struggled through our hunger. We didn't deserve this fate. I slammed shut the empty cupboard and stalked towards my mother's medical chest. Ripping open the lid, I pushed aside the dwindling supply of herbs and collected a dozen vials of the clear liquid. When I returned home that afternoon, my pocket was filled with twenties. I had never held that much money before in my life.

It was then that Gale took interest in me. We had grown up living only a few homes apart, but he was older than me by two years and we never interacted much. His family was in a similar situation and he too was struggling to provide. He wanted in on my burgeoning business, but my supplies were out. It would be another year before I could replenish it, waiting for that first freeze. Gale was smart though and found a way to expand. He developed a trap for the tracker jacker hives so we could catch them all through the season. Cap kids were tripping over themselves to get their hands on what had been dubbed TJV and they had no concept of money. You could charge them a hundred bucks for a vial that cost five cents to produce and they'd think they were getting the better end of the bargain.

The full vial would leave you tripping and nearly paralyzed for a few hours, but a couple of drops on the tongue gave you about an hour of hallucinations.

Glimmer had three vials injected directly into her blood stream, the equivalent of sixty tracker jacker stings, when she was found dead outside of a bonfire in the woods. In the blink of an eye every Cap finger was pointed in my direction. Gale was a junior at the time and would have been tried as an adult. I was just a little girl so I took the fall. The drug wasn't illegal, it hadn't even been recognized by the FDA. Cap lawyers are paid to overlook these things.

"Did you ever use the stuff?" Peeta asks, his voice hushed so we don't draw any attention.

"Sometimes," I say. "When times are really bad. It's like an escape."

He frowns, "I thought the venom reacted with fear, wouldn't that just make things worse?"

"It reacts with the chemicals in your brain," I explain. "Most people are terrified when they see a tracker jacker so when they're stung they have horrible hallucinations. I'd find any good moment I'd stumble upon, like a fulfilling meal and try to hold onto it. Whenever I was full, I'd use the venom and it was like I'd never known hunger."

"Do you still have any?" He asks, and his curiosity makes me hesitate to answer.

I toy with the leather cuff I wear around my wrist. Tucked in the pocket is a stone used to sharpen arrowheads that I inherited from my father and a small vial of TJV. I only started carrying it again after my sentence began at Arena. Prim's suffering had drawn her towards a life I'd tried to protect her from, Haymitch was threatening to send me back to prison, and now Gale and I were fighting. I hadn't used any, but its presence made me feel safe.

Peeta's eye catches my finger toying with the edge of the frayed leather. His hand covers mine and his large finger slips beneath the pocket. "Can I try it?"

I shake my head and draw my hand away.

"You think I'm soft, don't you?" He says.

I fill my arms with a few loaves of bread to distract myself and begin to sort through the dates. I consider that perhaps he's teasing me now. That he's pulling my leg to see how far I'll go. "The first time we met you told me you were saving up for a car, like it was for fun," I say with a giggle so that he knows I'm playing along.

"My life's not perfect, you know," he says. My eyes meet his and I recognize a pain that I saw a lifetime ago through the rain. A boy, selflessly throwing a sack of bread to a girl with nothing. The harsh crack against his skin as punishment.

"I do," I say, my hand reaching for his.

He squeezes my hand and clears his throat. "My mother..." he begins, but I silence him with my fingers. His eyes turn cold. He lifts the edge of his shirt and turns his back to me. There's a round patch of puckered skin the shape of an egg at the base of his back. It's shiny and pink against his pale flesh. "I burnt a batch of bread once. She put a spoon in the oven and struck me with it, so I'd never do it again."

I touch the shiny scar with my fingers and he flinches. "Peeta," I murmur. I draw my hand along the plane of his back, my fingers dipping into a canyon of shallow welts, no doubt from past whippings. "Why?"

"Because of the reminders," he says, and his eyes stay focused on a point past his shoes. "That he'll always love her more."

My touch lingers along his warm skin. I try to withdraw my hand, but I can tell that the physical contact is comforting to him. I press my palm flat against his back and his body shudders beneath it. "Who?" I ask.

"Your mother," he says. "My mother, she hates me for loving you. It reminds her too much of the way he loved her."

I gasp at his confession. Peeta and I had barely spoken before a few weeks ago and these scars trace back to years of abuse. The heat of his skin is suddenly too much for me and I pull it away as if it were on fire.

He turns and catches my wrist in his hand. "Take me there, Katniss," begs Peeta. "Please."

Peeta has given me so much. This is the least that I can give to him.

It's barely eight on a Saturday morning. The store will be dead for another few hours. No one will even notice we're missing. I glance at the red light across the store that is watching us. We're not safe here. I take his hand, locking my fingers with his and lead him across the aisles towards the stockroom. We'll be safe there.

I push through the large swinging doors and wait for them to rest into place with their usual crash. Carefully, I tuck my fingers into the leather pouch to retrieve the small vial. Peeta inspects it with caution, but never questions me.

"Stick out your tongue," I tell him as I twist off the cap.

"Hold on," he says, and he reaches into his pocket for the fold of cash tucked in his jeans. "How much?"

"It's on me," I refuse.

"Please," he says. "Let me."

I sigh, "Fine, twenty." Usually for a Cap I'd charge fifty for this dose, but since I plan on slipping the money back to him anyway, the number isn't important. He pulls a twenty from his fold and hands it to me before sticking out his tongue.

I remove the cap to expose a wand similar to the kind used to blow bubbles. I tap it against his tongue and then dip it back into the vial to repeat the procedure. The normal dosage is much larger for maximum effect, but it lasts several hours, which we cannot afford. These few drops will give him a brief high, similar to being intoxicated, that should subside within the hour. "That's it," I say when I'm done.

He nods. "Now you," he says and takes the vial from me. I shake my head but he slips another twenty into my hand. "Now you," he repeats. He dips the wand into the vial and holds it out to me, determined to repeat the routine. "Come with me," he says, and his blue eyes lure me towards him. My mouth opens and my tongue slips out and I feel the numbing liquid drip against it. Once my dose has been administered he leans in and kisses me, his lips foreign against my numb tongue. He pulls away, his eyes wide as the drug consumes him.

The door creaks and we take off running but when I glance over my shoulder, there's nothing there. The room seems to morph around me. Rows of shelves and crates begin to bend and twist like branches of a tree that weave into a forest. Colorful prints on the labels of boxes seem to bleed into tears that flow onto the concrete floor. I feel Peeta's arms wrap around me as he dives into a cardboard cove, where we are protected from the woods around us. We're safe here in the cave until the storm passes.

The length of his body stretches across mine and I'm consumed by his warmth. I seek his lips with hunger and explore his mouth with my tingling tongue. I can't get close enough to him, I realize when our limbs are completely tangled. His hands grip my cheeks and he kisses me firmly, but it is not enough.

Our hips fuse together and I feel a growing heat that shoots from my core to the tips of my toes. He moves against me and I gasp. I've never felt such delicious ecstasy before. His hand ventures from my cheek and I feel his fingers along the column of my neck, gaining courage as they brush the side of my breast. I hiss at the sensation and wonder how such a primordial sound could be encouraging. He brushes his hand past again, causing me to cry out and I can feel his satisfied grin against my lips.

He pulses against my thigh again and my hips instinctively lift to meet his. Our lips continue to tangle furiously as we fall into a rhythm. Touch, lift, thrust, gasp, kiss. It's unlike anything I've ever experienced. The drug continues to cloud my brain with lust as I buck my hips against his. His broad hands slip beneath the hem of my shirt, his smooth fingers igniting shivers up my spine with every inch of flesh they come in contact with. His palms grasp my bare breast. Folding and kneading them with expert precision like dough he has prepared a thousand times before.

We continue to move together. Our bodies molding with fervor only excelled by the high we are riding. Every muscle in my body clenches around him, desperate to hold onto this sensationg. The pressure between our hips drives me wild. He moves more quickly, his breath growing ragged and it ignites a new pleasure between my legs. It grows and grows. Climbing to a peak that I can't reach. Suddenly our movement stops and I begin to fall freely back to earth. "You are amazing," he murmurs into my hair.

I struggle to catch my breath, trying to force the words to form. "Why me?" I finally ask.

He's calm now and his fingers run gently through the hair that's escaped my braid. "My father told me once that when you love someone, everything stands still, even the birds in the sky." He pauses to press a kiss to my temple. "I swear since the first time I saw you, I've never heard another bird sing."

I curl my body against him until I mold into his side. "That's probably because I've shot them all," I say lightly.

His smile is so warm as he begins to chuckle that I want to hold onto it forever. I steal it with my lips, drawing the curve of his mouth to memory. The perfect smile that I will always keep.

We lay there for a while, tangled in our cardboard cave when he finally says it. "Is there anything going on between you and Gale?"

I can feel his heartbeat in my ear when he asks. Steady and strong. I wonder how he can picture anyone else in this moment. "No," I answer honestly.

"Okay," he answers with a content nod. He slides away from me, leaving a void from his delicious warmth and climbs to his feet. It takes me a moment to recognize him leaving but in a moment he is gone.

I draw my knees to my chest. I can still feel his touch, that has left a trail of fire in its path. All of my senses are heightened, and it isn't from the drug. I undo my braid and tame my thick hair with my fingers before braiding it again. I feel a strange from of empowerment from allowing myself to lose control. It makes me want to do it again.

I'm drawn out of the comfort of our makeshift cave by the sound of shouting. The stockroom gives way to a dairy cooler that also houses juices and beers and transitions directly into the main store. I make my way to the edge of cooler and peer between the lines of bottles at the commotion on the other side of the glass door. The step ladder used to stock the higher shelves is positioned at the edge of chips aisle. My eyes drift upward and I see a little girl, Rue perched on the highest shelf.

Rue is only twelve years old, Prim's age, but like me she is the oldest in her family. She has five younger brothers and sisters to care for and was caught stealing from Arena when she crashed into an unsuspecting Undersee's leg and a bag of potato chips popped beneath her sweatshirt. She too pays off her debt by stocking the store's shelves. She's so small that she can fly from shelf to shelf like a little bird without making a sound.

Rue is not alone though. A crowd of Caps have surrounded the step stool and their leader, Marcus Cato, lunges up the step stool towards her. She scurries across the top shelf with ease, just missing his furious grasp. There are two types of Caps. The ones that live their lives of privilege in peace and the ones that live their lives of privilege by making others miserable. We call these the Career Caps, because it is the only job that they will ever know. Marcus Cato is the fiercest of the Careers. His father is former military and now owns a chain of successful gyms along the East Coast. He's also in charge of security at Circenex, one of its earliest employees. In other words, he's extremely wealthy.

Cato lets this entitlement go to his head. He's bigger than most. He spends most of his time at a gym after all. And he uses his brawn and his bank account to intimidate others. Rue is probably the tiniest foe that he's ever encountered.

"Give me back my wallet!" He growls as he takes another swipe at her.

Rue darts from his grasp again. "Not until you put it back!" She shouts. "I saw you take it and the card in your wallet says you're not old enough to take it."

"You're being ridiculous!" He says. "I should have you fired for this!"

"Fine," she agrees. "Then you can show Mister Undersee what you have hidden in your pockets."

"You're making a huge mistake," he says with a frustrated grunt.

For the first time there's a brief flash of terror in Rue's eyes when she realizes who she's dealing with. Cato is stubborn, he never loses, no matter how long it takes the balance always shifts in his favor. Even if she drops the wallet now, this battle will not be over. Suddenly when I look at the top shelf, I see Prim huddled away from Cato's grasp and I jump into action.

I slide past the row of coolers to the stockroom door. "Is there a problem here?" I ask as I approach them. Cato's pack is smaller than usual only made up of him, his right hand Marvel who is tall and lanky and not overly threatening, and Clove who is a petite little spitfire. Even though I'm outnumbered, both of his accomplices step back warily. I do have a reputation after all.

"Jail bird," Cato grins, unaffected by my presence. In fact his eyes darken at the prospect, like he can't wait to take on a more worthy opponent. There's a lust in his gaze that I recognize. It's the same way that Peeta was looking at me earlier, when we were tangled together. The look made me feel like I was flying. Now, when it's reflected in Cato's eye, it makes me feel sick.

"Is there a problem," I repeat with more bite.

"I was just making a leisure Saturday morning purchase, when I was accosted by one of your fellow employees," he says with a smirk that makes my skin crawl. "It's my fault though, I should have known better. This place is already crawling with criminals."

I set my jaw and hold his eye unyielding. I will not give him the satisfaction of degrading me. "Are you all right, Rue?" I ask.

"They stole beer, Katniss," she calls back. "It's in their pockets."

Cato chuckles and it causes me to shudder. He takes a step towards me and although I want nothing more than to distance myself, I hold my ground. He cocks his head until our faces are mere inches apart. "You can check if you'd like."

I swallow thickly. My shoulders tense to my earlobes as I suppress the disgusted shiver that drives up my spine. I grasp my fingers into a fist and the swipe against the plastic case of my box cutter that's latched on my belt. My lips press together in a satisfied grin as I disengage the cutter and slip out the blade. "If you don't mind," I say suggestively.

He wiggles his eyebrows and lifts his hands over his head to allow me better access, throwing a cocky grin over his shoulder towards Marvel. I lift my right hand as a distraction and wiggle my fingers to make a show before I reach towards his waist. Just before my fingers brush the edge of his pocket, I dart my other hand forward armed with the blade and stab it into the lump in his jeans. There's a hissing sound as a liquid sprays from his pocket and spreads across his lap as if he's wet himself.

Marvel and Clove laugh with delight and even Rue begins to giggle from her perch. Cato on the other hand turns red. First from embarrassment, then from rage. He frees the can from his pocket and throws it across the store. It crashes into the refrigerated case behind me and it takes everything in me not to jump.

"This isn't over," he sneers. He begins to stalk down the aisle but is frustrated when he realizes that his crew is not following.

"You forgot something!" Rue calls out, satisfied by Cato's punishment. She tosses his wallet to the floor and it lands on his feet.

Cato huffs and bends over to retrieve it, his face still fuming from his humiliation. "We're leaving. Now!" He barks. Marvel and Clove comply, but they still can't contain their snickers. "This isn't over," he repeats. The flame in his eye pauses my heart with terror. I can't even comprehend the trouble that I've gotten myself into.