Sorry, guys, but I still don't own The Hunger Games. Unfortunately, the judge sided with Ms. Collin's when she said that she most certainly didn't give me permission to sneak into her house and steal her manuscripts. Curses, the legal system should be more faulty!

As always, Peeta is my homeboy. Enjoy!

~5~

Abby was in a completely opposite predicament as Jennifer. Feeling more than a bit like Rapunzel, she gazed out of the side of her imprisonment. There were no windows, nothing that she may have been able to escape through. The only air came through tiny holes, carved smoothly into the clear walls. The entire room had only about a twenty-foot diameter, and its glassy walls curved around to form a cylindrical penal complex. A completely inescapable room suspended what must have been three hundred feet in the air.

It wasn't really glass, though. If it had been glass, it would have broken by now—she had hurled her body against it several times, preferring death than torture at the hands of her captors. After succeeding in doing nothing but giving herself some bruises, she had stopped and checked out her surroundings more fully.

Abby stood up once more, placing her palm against the wall and giving it an experimental push. Nothing. She bit her lip and looked upwards, a glint of sun reflecting off of the smooth surface and casting rainbows all around. She ran her fingers along the air holes again… could it be, possibly…

No. It simply wasn't possible. The idea that somebody would have spent millions- probably billions—of dollars, building a solid diamond cage just for her, was unthinkable. She was nobody special; why go after her? Jennifer, she could understand. She was one of the only real psychics in the world. And Sammy—well, Sammy was certainly different. Pretty, smart, and talented—who wouldn't want that? But why Abby?

You have something they want, said a voice inside of Abby's head. And they'll take it from you, no matter the cost.

"That's not true," Abby said aloud, hoping to make herself believe the words. "It's not."

The voice laughed, fingernails down a chalkboard. Think what you want dearie, but they want something from you.

"No. They took me by mistake. They only really want Jen and Sammy."

Yeah, right. If they had only wanted them, they would have just gone to California. Instead, they traveled all the way across the States to get you. And anyways, why would they want them and not you? That Jennifer is too quiet, too reserved. She doesn't seem…natural. And that Samantha… well, she's obviously hiding something.

"Maybe it's because I spread the word about Carla? And about how Scholastic sucks?"

Maybe, maybe. Tell me, Abigail, do you really think that the fools at Scholastic could pull this off by themselves?

"Well, no. But still—"

But what, dearest?

"Goodbye, voice!" This being said, Abby shut her mind, forcing herself to think of nothing but the color pink. The voice hated that.

She blinked several times, warding off the wave of nausea and distress that fighting off her Schizophrenic tendencies usually brought on. She forced herself to look out of the wall again, at the city below.

City? Below? How had she missed this before? She caught her breath and stared at the rooftops of skyscrapers beneath her.

All the colors seem artificial, the pinks too deep, the greens too bright, the yellows painful to the eyes, like the flat round disks of hard candy at the tiny sweet shop.

What? Why had that thought come to her? The moment that she thought it, she realized it was not her own. But where had she heard it before…?

Now was not the time for petty musings. The more time she spent enclosed in this prison, the more claustrophobic and paranoid she felt. She slammed herself against the glass wall again, banging her fists frantically. "Help! Help me!" she cried. "Please! I'm up here!"

People were beginning to gather on the streets as the day began. No one bothered to look her way. They were too busy milling about, chatting with one another. They were so far below her that, even with her super heightened senses, she couldn't see a thing.

Against her will, Abby began to wail. She sensed that invisible cameras were watching her, probably, but she didn't care anymore. She wanted out, and she wanted out now.

Suddenly her sobs ceased and she gasped in surprise. She pressed her face up against the diamond room, and then narrowed her eyes as she attempted to sharpen the image. Her pupils diluted then grew smaller, imitating a camera lens.

There! Across the city, she could see the tallest building—second only to the one that she was currently trapped in. It seemed to be some sort of clock tower, vaguely resembling the Big Ben. Sunlight streamed down onto it, shining off of the metallic hands. Birds twittered happily as it ticked.

Wait a moment. Sunshine? Birds? She distinctly remembered being blindfolded and made to walk downwards. It had stretched on for miles, making her legs sore as she walked. She recalled the smell of wet earth, the feeling of mugginess in the air as they had descended. So how was she here now? In a city so vibrant and colorful?

Oh, I forgot, she thought. Anything's possible in a candy city, where even the prisons are made of pure diamond.

Except for the floor, that was. The floor was solid concrete, with no lines or cracks. She wondered how it was that she had managed to be in that room, what with no exits or entrances in sight. Maybe they had built it up around her as she slumbered. Speaking of sleeping, she was tired, so tired. She let out a yawn, and then curled up by one of the walls.

Only half awake, Abby reached out and touched the diamond wall. Smooth, smooth, smooth… then bumpy. Wait, bumpy? Abby sat up, feeling her way around the wall. Yes! There it was, some kind of lettering. Absolutely minuscule, but definitely there. She narrowed her eyes again, letting them focus on the words.

In the place usually reserved for "Made in China" were the words, "Made by SC."

•••

Polly knelt down and touched the ashy ground. As a fire talent, she had experience with burned things. She had even lost friends to the uncontrollable element before. But this was different—this was more personal. Sara had been a kind of teammate, a mentor to everyone on The Hunger Games Unofficial Fan Site. To think that she had been alive and well, enjoying herself at the convention just days previous, made Polly angry. A tear escaped her eye, touched the fiery surface of her skin, and quickly evaporated. Reaching up, she used the back of her hand to wipe her eyes. No need to show David that she was weak.

"See anything?" David asked quietly. He had been acting very strange as of recently, ever since they had arrived at the wreckage. Polly supposed that it was due to the fact that they were surrounded by fire remnants. David was a water and air talent, making the two of them an oddly paired duo. Not that she mentioned this to him. He was uncomfortable enough as it was.

"Nope, not yet," she chirped, forcing more cheerfulness into her voice than she actually had. What little hope that she had for Sara surviving was fading as the hours stretched on. Unless they found her soon, and the chances of that were highly unlikely, she was gone.

They spread out, scouring the area of the crash. When they came to a fence, they stopped.

"Didn't Sara fall over this fence?" Polly asked.

David wiped sweat away from his brow. "You mean we've been searching the wrong area all morning?"

Polly took one look at him, and then began to climb the fence. She jumped over the other side, landed heavily on her feet, and began to scream, "Sara! Sara!"

"She won't be able to hear you, you know," David began to say, but Polly shushed him, excitement budding in her eyes.

"Sara? Sara!"

"Mmmmmmhmhmhmhm," came a mumbled sound from near some bushes. David grabbed Polly's wrist and half dragged half carried her over to them. They knelt down and cleared away the bushes.

She had known that Sara would be worse-for-the-wear after her accident, but she hadn't expected it to be this bad. She gasped and her hands flew to her mouth. From beside her, David inhaled sharply.

"That bad, huh?" Sara tried to say, but it came out more like, "Thayet mmm Batttt, hurr?" She tried to smile, but her lips were too cracked and creased for her to properly move them. Her face, hair, and clothing were streaked with blood and caked with mud, and cuts and bruises matted her otherwise perfect skin. On of her legs was bent at an odd angle, and the bone of her left arm was practically sticking out of her translucent skin.

"Oh, god," Polly said hysterically, gripping David's arm tightly. "We have to get her to a hospital!"

"We can't," David said, not sounding one hundred percent sure. "I mean… how would get her there? And how would we explain it?"

"I don't care!" Polly snapped. "She needs help! Now!"

"I know she does," David said, chewing on his lip. "Do you have any idea where Dee is, by any chance?"

Polly gaped at him for a moment, and then shut her mouth. "Uh—I'm pretty sure that she's vacationing right now."

"Where, though?"

Polly thought back to all of those late-night YIM conferences. "She's in… she's in Canada!" she proclaimed, growing excited. "Toronto, if I remember correctly!"

"Great!" David cried, standing up. "You stay here and protect Sara, and I'll fly back to Toronto and find Dee."

"Fly you high, warrior," Polly murmured, but he had already walked away.

•••

Ana left out a huff of frustration. She and Dally had been watching the entryway of the force field for what must have been hours, and so far, not a single interesting thing had happened. At first they'd kissed and caressed, but as the day wore on and became too hot to hold on to each other, they had separated and begun to patrol the area.

Dally was not pleased to let Ana go off on her own, but she had simply whined and complained until he let her. She was a big girl, and in any case, she was holding a machete. Nobody ever messed with a girl wearing cargo pants and holding a machete.

Still, Dally worried. If the kidnappers had no qualms about kidnapping three teenage girls, two of who were only thirteen, then what would stop them from raising a hand against his Ana? They had, after all, just murdered a sixteen year old by making her car explode. Dally balled his hand into a fist. Poor Sara. She was dead now, no doubt about that. If she had been still alive, then either David or Polly would have called to confirm it. The fact that they were still gone made it hard to believe that she had survived.

Sara. Dally had known her pretty well, as well as anyone else had. They were fellow moderators, often zapping one another with their "power sight" during the convention. They would text and YIM during the long, boring meetings that Leo and Jennifer would create. It made them more fun, being with his forum-sister. He owed to her memory, as well as to Jennifer, Sammy, and Abby, to bring down Scholastic. Or at least die trying. But if anything happened to Ana…

Ironic. Throughout the entire Hunger Games, Dally had been annoyed with how infatuated Peeta was with Katniss. About how he spewed noble comments regarding how he would rather die than live without her. He had seemed too pathetic and feeble, loving such a kick-ass girl. And now Dally was Peeta. And Ana was Katniss.

He hoped that their story wouldn't end the same way—with Dally only having one leg, and with all of their teammates dead.

•••

Emma touched her hand to the invisible force field before them, patting it down and searching for an entrance. No such luck; the wall remained completely entrance-free. She sighed and turned to face Leo. "How much longer are we going to keep looking? We've gone completely around, three times! If we were going to find something, we would have found it by now!"

Leo agreed, very downcast. "I guess that we should go meet up with Dally and Ana now."

Emma touched Leo's shoulder, very lightly. "I'm sorry, Leo," she murmured. "I want to find them just as much as you do. But this isn't helping."

"Yeah, no, you're right." Leo acknowledged. "It's just… well…"

"You like Jennifer?" Emma inserted, raising an eyebrow.

Leo flushed. "No, no! I mean, I like them all!"

Emma grinned mischievously. "All of them? You know that Sam and Abby are too young for you, right?"

"No! Not in that way!" the poor boy was getting completely flustered now. "I mean… just Jen…"

"So you do like her!" Emma shrieked, jumping up and down with glee. " I knew it! I knew it! I—"

Leo grabbed her, put his hand over her mouth, and pulled them both into crouching position. "Somebody's coming!" he whispered hoarsely. Emma simply nodded, wide eyed.

A door, or that's what they supposed because they couldn't really see it, slid open, revealing two guards. Dressed in all black and suited up with guns, knives, and walky-talkies, they began to patrol the length of the wall. A kind of lock box shimmered into existence as a third guard hurried out after them. He paused to pound some numbers into it, and the door clanged shut behind him. He followed his fellow guards to another edge of the fortress, than disappeared.

Emma clutched Leo's arm. "So it's not really invisible," she whispered. "It's just camouflaged— really, really well."

"What? What makes you think that it's not invisible?"

"If it were invisible, then we would still be able to see them now. We can't, so it's solid."

"That makes sense," Leo admitted. "Come on—let's go back to the camp. I think that I know a way to get us in."

"Did you see the code as he typed it in?"

"Kind of." Leo stood up, brushing dirt and leaves from his pants. "Let's go."

•••

The first day that you are approved by the Powers That Be, expressly made by the Goddess, Suzanne Collins, you know. It's a kind of tingle. When you first wake up, your toes feel like they have pins and needles in them. As the day progresses, the feeling spreads up and around your body. It fills you with a sense of joy and wonder. By the end of the week, your powers have settled in, and that feeling leaves you. But it is something that you always remember.

Sammy woke up with a start, that same feeling creeping up somewhere around her midriff. Her first thought was, "Wait, what? My powers settled in half a year ago!"

Her next thought was something infinitely far more confusing. "Why the hell am I underwater?!"

Her third thought was, "Why am I not going upwards for air? I have to go upwards for air!"

This third and final thought forced her mind into starting, and she kicked off of the bottom of the water container, breaking the surface and gasping for air. Her long wet hair hung in her face, so she flipped it back and braided it.

Glancing about the room, all that she could think was, "This isn't my bedroom." Then all of the previous days events came flooding back to her—getting kidnapped, being threatened, watching Sara be murdered. She took a long look around her room, and then bit her lip. She was in a tank, wires hooked up to her arms, legs, and back. The outlying roomed seemed to be some sort of laboratory.

"I didn't know that Scholastic had a lab," she mumbled to herself. A sliding door opened somewhere behind her, and a tall, lithe figure slipped through. "Good morning, Sammy!" chirped a very familiar voice. "And how are you feeling today?"

Chills ran down her spine. She turned around very slowly, careful not to detach any wires. "Hello, Carla."

Carla smiled, her bouncy platinum blonde curls swinging wildly around her face. "I'm so glad to see that you've remembered me," she simpered, her voice like a wind up toy. "I thought that you may have forgotten our… chat."

Sam smiled as politely as she could. "Yes, I do. Now, would you mind telling me what these wires are for?"

Carla's simpering smile turned to surprise, and then to delight. "You mean…you haven't noticed yet?"

"Noticed what?" Sammy asked, a note of pleading in her tone.

"Perhaps I can explain that," a voice said, from behind her again. Sammy jumped, then whipped around. A young scientist, probably in his mid-twenties, blushed as her gaze fell on him. "You see, Miss Harp, you've been selected for a most exciting experiment."

"I don't remember signing any waivers," she said, with a pointed glare at Carla. "Just wait until my lawyer hears about his."

Carla laughed, throwing back her head and shaking about her curls. "Oh, Sammy, Sammy, Sammy!" she chuckled. "Honestly! Did you really think that we would just let you go tell the world about this?"

Sammy's blood felt cold in her veins. "What do you mean?" she asked slowly. Carla smiled, baring sharp, pointed teeth.

"You don't exist anymore, sweetheart." Carla held up a copy of USA Today. The headline proclaimed, '4 Missing in deadly car explosion, presumed dead'.

"No," Sammy whimpered. "No! You can't do this! You can't!"

"Oh, we will," Carla said sweetly. "In fact, we already have. Why don't you take a look down?"

Slowly, Sammy looked down. She gasped in shock and horror. Where her legs had once been, now grew a long, purple fish tail. "You made me a mermaid?" she shrieked. "What the hell?"

Carla twirled a lock of hair around her finger. "Not just a mermaid," she said. "A muttation mermaid."

"A… muttation?" The words reminded her of The Hunger Games, of the reason that she was in this mess in the first place. "Oh no. Oh no. I'm sorry, ma'am, but you're insane. This isn't right! This isn't legal! This doesn't exist!"

"Oh, I'm afraid it does." A new voice this time, sounding both deeply remorseful and deeply satisfied. A stench of blood and roses filled the room. "Welcome, Miss Harp. Or should we call you Miss Carp?"

Sammy turned around yet again, her arms looking frail in comparison to the slim and powerful tail. Her jaw dropped and her eyes bulged out of her head. And this time, her blood really did run cold.

But that just have been because she was half-fish.

•••

Dee, having received a very urgent email from her friend David, was nervously pacing around the edge of the pier at Niagara Falls.

What to do, what to do. They were all gone. Sammy and Jen and Abby kidnapped. Sara found dying in a bush. A force field concealing someplace they couldn't get into.

Dee needed a nap. Aspirin. Because this was too hard to take in. But of course, this would be a whole lot harder for all of them. They were the ones there, after all.

But what could she do? Why had David e-mailed her?

Oh. Because she was in Canada. They needed help now.

Go get to a hospital, she told herself fiercely. That's what they need.

So Dee hurried from the pier, her feet slapping the ground with each step, and she didn't stop running until she had reached the first hospital in sight.

•••

Still so dark. Hungry. Thirsty. Dirty. Sweaty, muggy. Greasy, unbrushed hair. Cold.

Jen wanted a shower and dinner and a bright fire in her living room.

About an hour ago, she had taken to muttering to herself. "Gotta go. Gotta eat, gotta drink, gotta get clean, gotta sleep and dream...." As if she were insane. As if this were back a hundred years ago and she was in an insane asylum. Because that was what it felt like.

All her nightmares were filled with death, gory images. So many times Jennifer had seen rats eating chunks of her flesh, multiple times she'd witnessed Leo trying to save her but being shot ruthlessly by her captors.

Nightmares had never plagued her before. This was the worst type of torture. She was reminded of the tracker jackers from The Hunger Games. Targeting that one place in your brain that holds your fear and makes you live it through your dreams.

Now she was inflicted with terror in her mind—a place that'd always been hers, the mindcaster, the one who didn't have to worry about anyone controlling her mind though they'd have to worry about hers controlling theirs—but here, here the darkness and the dankness and the disgustingness of all that was happening had worked their ways into her head and now she was having these bad dreams.

Tracker jackers. The Hunger Games. Why did those words send jolts through her mind?

Because Jen knew where she was.

And as soon as she realized this, she jumped to her feet. Hearing the scratching of sharp, tiny nails on the ground, Jen knew the rats were scuttling away from her sudden movement. The first attempt she made at moving since she'd been thrown in here.

Which had probably been days ago.

She'd already become resigned, though she hadn't wanted to. She had just been lying around, curled in a corner, acting insane. Acting as if there was no escape.

Now that Jen knew what was going on, that wasn't going to happen anymore.

. . .

As they walked, Ana stared critically at Dally. There was something about him. His features were too…she didn't know. Too male.

She didn't love him.

The thought sent something running down her spine.

Sorrow? Annoyance? …freedom.

Breaking up with Dally could mean something else. She'd be free from guys. Free from the prison that is a relationship.

Sure, it'd been nice. Having a boyfriend. Who was totally sweet.

Suddenly breaking up with Dally seemed it would be a huge obstacle.

Ana stopped walking, and Dally turned around to look at her. "What?" he said.

"I love your accent," Ana retorted, the habit still strong. She shook her head. "I mean…I mean…Dally, look."

He gazed into her eyes, an earnest look in his eyes. Like he loved her. Really loved her.

"Oh, god…," she muttered. "I don't know how to say this. I'm not going with that cliché, 'it's not you, it's me,' thing, because it's not. It's something else. But…but…."

"Let me get this straight," interjected Dally, his accent flat. "You're…breaking…up…with…me?"

Ana regained her poise. Her voice was not as choked, her eyes not as cloudy, as she said, "Yeah. I am."

Dally shut his eyes for a long moment then turned away, walking forward stoically, not acknowledging Ana. How…how could she do that? To him, to them?

She'd complimented his sexy accent a moment ago! He felt a tear in his eye. But he couldn't cry.

Next to him, Ana was boiling, now. He was mad at her? Why the hell should he be mad! It wasn't her fault.

Though neither knew it, they both made vows to themselves. To have as little to do with each other as possible now.