Katniss made it to their lunch table before Madge did.

The food on her tray was the most frequent lunch the school served them. The kids around her chattered on the same as always, not aware of what had transpired in Katniss' life the day before.

That was the way she wanted it. Madge and Peeta had seen too much. It made her uncomfortable, even if Gale had thought that was ridiculous when she'd confided in him later that evening.

A tray slid onto the table across from Katniss. She looked up to find Madge smiling at her. There was a hint of sympathy there that was not typical and that caused Katniss to look down at her beans instead of risking more eye contact.

"How isー"

Katniss heard the sound of another tray sliding against the table's surface and looked up to see Peeta settling in beside Madge, who was watching him with raised eyebrows.

Katniss had thought he might approach her at the end of the day to ask a few questions, but she hadn't expected this. She glanced at his friends, who were oblivious to his absence as they continued laughing amongst themselves.

Peeta followed her gaze and shrugged.

"I talk to them every day," he said. "I was worried about Prim."

"Me too," Madge said, leaning forward on her elbows.

She had recovered from Peeta's appearance quicker than Katniss had. It took her several moments before she realized they were expecting a response from her.

"She's fine."

That was a more than adequate answer for two people who hardly knew her sister. Katniss took a bite of her beans, trying to ignore, at first, that the other two were still looking at her expectantly.

"She's resting," she said once she'd swallowed.

She had no idea what more information they could want. Talking about how Prim had coughed the whole night through seemed like too much to share in the school cafeteria.

"I'm glad," Madge said. "She deserves it after everything the other day. No one should have to get out of bed for at least a week after something like that."

Peeta nodded in agreement.

"It was rough," he said, "but I'm sure your mom will have her up and moving around in no time."

Katniss shrugged when he looked to her for confirmation. She didn't feel like explaining that this was frequent. Sure, Prim would get better, but then it would come back.

"She will," Katniss said.

They looked satisfied with the answer, relieved to know that a little girl wouldn't be suffering as much in a week or so's time. It almost made Katniss reveal the truth to them in a fit of anger. She might not have been able to stop herself if it had only been Madge across from her.

Peeta had shown her kindness before, but it had been from a distance. Him actually speaking to her left her feeling distrustful. It made her feel as if he wanted something in return, and she had no desire to get wrapped up in a situation where she owed him anything. She couldn't afford it.

Their attention was easily swayed. Peeta turned to Madge and began to talk about something that was, to them, far more serious than Prim's current condition.

"I guess you both watched the games last night."

Madge hummed in agreement, but Katniss could only look at him as if he were an idiot. The games were required viewing during the evenings. Even in class, the teachers would devote time to staring at the screens. That very well might have been the only reason they had a summer semester. They learned more about how to murder innocents than anything else.

History classes that compared the current games to those of the past. Science lessons that explained the specifics of the arena. English classes devoted to writing essays about which tribute you favored to win, backed up with evidence from their past performance.

Suggesting one hadn't watched the nightly recap was stupid at best. There was only one answer that was legal.

"That girl from Eight," Peeta said. "Josie, I believe her name was. That was harsh."

"Terrible." Madge groaned. "I saw parts of the human body that I never wanted to see."

"That was the one that got gutted," Katniss said slowly.

Her mom and Prim had hid their eyes during it, while Katniss had watched one of the tributes from Two do to the girl what Katniss had done to wild game she had caught over the years. Though it had unnerved her, Katniss hadn't been able to stop staring at the undeniable proof that humans really were animals when it came down to it.

Madge shuddered, dropping her fork to her tray.

"I can't eat anymore," she complained, covering her mouth with the back of her hand. "Now I keep seeing it in my head again."

"Sorry," Katniss said, though she wasn't sure if she should be apologizing. She wasn't the one who had brought it up.

"How do you do it?" Madge asked, prompting a confused look from Katniss. "Talk about it so calmly," she clarified. "I can barely even watch it happen, yet you just don't seem to care."

"I care," Katniss shot back. "It's disgusting, but we've been watching it our entire lives." She shrugged. "I don't know how else I'm supposed to feel about it. It happened. Getting worked up about it won't do anything to help anyone."

She didn't look at the other two, sure they'd be looking at her the same way Prim had looked at her after hearing Katniss' response to a similar question once. Katniss had felt ashamed to see the ambivalence in Prim's eyes, and though she cared far less about Peeta's and Madge's opinions of her, she didn't want a reminder.

For a few moments, it was quiet. Then Peeta spoke.

"You'd make it in the games."

Katniss was glaring at him before she could think better of it.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Peeta held up his hands in surrender.

"Nothing," he said, sounding as if he regretted his choice of words. "But we all know what you do. The hunting."

He lowered his voice as if someone would overhear and report them to a peacekeeper. Katniss wondered if he'd ever spoken out loud about breaking the law, even if it was someone else who had actually broken it.

"You'd make it in the games," he continued. "If there's one person in District 12 who I'd bet money on winning, it'd be you."

"Not much competition," Katniss muttered.

No one in Twelve had lasted much longer than the Cornucopia bloodbath since Haymitch Abernathy had won, and that had been before they were born. Katniss had a hard time believing many of the stories they'd been told about Haymitch's games were even true when she'd seen him stumbling around Twelve, barely coherent most of the time, her whole life. One might have even blamed him, at least partially, for Twelve's helpless tributes over the past couple of decades. The parents of many of the dead tributes certainly did.

"Maybe not," Madge said, "but Peeta's right. You'd stand a chance."

"Thanks," Katniss said with a roll of her eyes. "I'll try to take that as a compliment."

She didn't like to spend time thinking about whether or not she'd be capable of driving an arrow through another human's heart if she needed to.

Peeta and Madge fell silent. Madge mirrored Katniss by looking down at her tray, but Peeta kept his eyes on Katniss, observing the way her shoulders slumped over and she picked at her food.

He couldn't tell her that what he'd meant to say was that she was strong, so he changed the topic to the only thing his frazzled mind could come up with.

"Haymitch Abernathy came in the bakery the other day."

He regretted saying it as soon as Katniss scowled at him. Of course neither she nor Madge would care about the comings and goings of Haymitch Abernathy. No one did.

"It was right before the games," Peeta trudged on, not wanting to admit defeat. "He was drunk, obviously, and he came in and bought tessarae bread. Dad tried to get him to buy something more expensive, but he just wanted the tessarae bread. He said it had been years since he'd had it, and he wanted something new. Told us to just give him the damn bread and stop bothering him."

Katniss sniffed in annoyance. The richest person in District 12 had deigned tessarae bread worthy of being part of his meal. Katniss knew how the bakery had come to possess tessarae bread. Everyone did. That bread wasn't made from grain given to the Mellark children. Mr. Mellark was known to buy tessarae grain from children for more than it was worth. There were rumors that he'd pay in sweets along with the cash. It was common knowledge that Mrs. Mellark should never be approached. She'd chased a young girl out of the bakery with a broomstick once.

Selling the grain or anything made from it was illegal, but the bakery was hardly making a profit from it. It was kept hidden, under the counter, when they had it. The peacekeepers didn't ask questions.

The bell rang signalling the end of lunch. Katniss grabbed her tray and fled before either of them could speak to her again.

XXX

The TV was already on when Katniss arrived home from school. Prim was propped up on a pillow and watching it with the same look of faint disgust and fear that she usually wore during the Hunger Games. Their mother was at the table, sewing a rip in one of Katniss' shirts.

The only sounds were the familiar rustling of trees and underbrush that Katniss was used to from the woods, except it was coming from the TV.

Each year that there was an arena with a forest, Katniss was forced to watch tributes make mistakes that she knew would cost them. Few of them, she realized, had been in such an environment before. Eleven was the only district Katniss knew of that allowed anything resembling a forest to grow inside the district itself, and those were carefully maintained orchards, with short trees sitting in neat rows.

The tribute on screen was one of the tributes who had seemed especially ill prepared for the environment he was facing though. He was a large boy from District 4. From what Katniss had seen, the few trees in Four looked unlike anything Katniss had seen in the woods around Twelve or in that year's arena.

"How many have died today?" Katniss asked, setting her school bag on the table that sat in the middle of their kitchen space.

She had homework that consisted of answering some questions about District 2's industry because their female tribute was the current favorite to win in the Capitol. It wasn't anything that couldn't wait, if Katniss bothered to do it at all.

"Two," Prim replied. "Both boys. From Three and Ten."

Katniss tried to recall those two particular tributes. She couldn't remember the name of the boy from Ten. He must not have done anything remarkable.

The boy from Three had been planning something against the Careers who had been using him, but she supposed that hadn't worked out. His name might have started with an 'S', but Katniss wasn't sure.

The image on the screen changed as Katniss sat down. It was the girl from Eleven. Katniss remembered her name: Rue. She'd captured Katniss' attention when her reaping aired because of her similarity to Prim.

If Rue and Prim were put side by side, Katniss was sure they would be a match in size. That must have been what it was that drew Katniss to her. It was difficult, at times, to figure out what a tribute would be like outside of the arena, but Katniss got the impression that Rue and Prim had very different personalities and abilities. Prim certainly wouldn't have been able to scale trees with the ease that Rue did.

She must have worked in the orchards of District 11. There was no other way she could have navigated the treetops in a way that Katniss hadn't seen any other tribute manage.

Katniss had been trying her best to track Rue's movements throughout the games, but the girl wasn't a Capitol favorite, which meant the cameras often forgot about her for long lengths of time as they tracked the excitement.

She'd used her skills to her advantage, staying high in the trees where none of the other tributes were capable of getting to her. Even if they tried, the branches she perched on looked like they'd snap under the weight of someone any larger than herself.

Not once had she descended to hurt another tribute. Only to get food or water when needed.

"It looks like someone has their eye on the smallest of our tributes," Caesar Flickerman narrated, his voice alight with glee. "This goes to show you, folks: tributes can't stay hidden forever."

Katniss grimaced at the screen as the image changed from Rue to the boy from One.

"Where are the other Careers?" she asked.

Prim shrugged.

"They're still alive and together. I guess he thought he could take her himself."

Prim's voice sounded as upset by that as Katniss felt. The expression on the boy's face was one of thinly veiled rage directed at a young girl who had done nothing to him except been forced into the same arena.

The camera switched back to Rue, her eyes shining as they tracked the boy's movements. He was coming for her, but he didn't yet know where she was hiding. Rue had the advantage as she tracked him from her vantage point. Her best chance was staying still and observing.

Katniss' heart drummed in her chest. Never before had she felt concerned for a tribute whom she'd never met. It had never made sense to her how people in the Capitol became attached to people they'd only seen through a television screen. Rue, though, was different than the others, and Katniss felt bile rising in her throat as the boyーMarvel was what Flickerman was calling him in the narration that Katniss was hardly paying attention toーcame to a stop ten feet from Rue's tree.

"I know you're around here," he growled loud enough that he risked bringing another tribute upon him. "You can't hide forever, little bird." He laughed at the nickname. "That's what Glimmer calls you, you know? You're the only one we haven't seen since the Cornucopia. That has to end. This is the Hunger Games. You can't hide forever."

He fell quiet, and Flickerman took the opportunity to agree.

Rue did nothing but watch. Her face was devoid of emotion except for her wide eyes.

Marvel growled when there was no answer, as if he'd expected his idiotic tactics to work like magic. Rue not obeying his whims had him enraged. He kicked at a tree in his frustration, making enough noise that any tributes nearby certainly knew his location.

Rue leaned forward on her branch slowly enough that not a leaf rustled.

Katniss found herself leaning forward just as Rue was onscreen. There were a few tense moments as Marvel paced, eyes scanning the treetops. Rue had camouflaged herself magnificently, and Marvel began to wander in the opposite direction, still looking for her.

Once he was far enough away, Rue and Katniss both leaned back, letting out long exhales of relief.

"That was a close one, folks," Flickerman said as the camera tracked Marvel. "But rest assured, someone will find her eventually."

He gave a boisterous laugh. Katniss stood up and announced that she was going hunting. No one said anything as she disappeared out the door.