There are no deaths to project against the night sky tonight. The remaining tributes have survived the day and so has Rye. I sit inside of the Cornucopia by his side, holding his hand as we wait for the medicine to finally take effect. I can already see the color beginning to return to his pale skin and his breathing has steadied. I have regained hope that he might make it out of this arena alive. I just wish that Cinna would hurry up. How long does it take to get into the Capitol? I even start to wonder if they had tried and were captured. However, it only being six days into the games, it seems like it has been a lifetime since I was clinging to my father's torso, begging him not to leave me. I also wonder who was generous, and might I add, crazy enough to donate the money to get this medicine for Rye. Not only are we poor ourselves, but were the most hated children in Panem. So why on earth would someone donate their money to keep one of us alive? I have no idea who this person is or where their sanity went, but I'm very grateful. I watch Rye as he takes breaths and twitches every now and then. Carson joins me and checks on Rye's condition.

"How is he?"

"He's better," I say, "But I'll feel better once he wakes up."

"I think we all will."

We sit in silence, the awkward kind where neither of us know exactly what to say. So I break the silence myself.

"Listen, I never thanked you, for helping Rye. I'm sure he would have died without you because I know I wasn't much help."

"That's the way you react when you see someone you love in pain like that. I know that when you came back with an arrow in your side I…" he trails off.

I suddenly remember something that I didn't pay much attention to when it happened. Something that Jessie said.

You sure gave Carson a scare.

Is that how Carson reacted when I was hurt? Seeing Rye so upset and seeing me with an arrow in my stomach? Did he fall apart as I did for Rye? Because he cares about me? Does he…love me?

"Anyway, you're welcome." He blurts out, trying to save his drop of the conversation. Again the awkward silence begins to fill the Cornucopia and I can easily hear the others outside laughing and sharing memories. This time Carson interrupts it, and excuses himself to let me have time alone with Rye. I watch as he walks out, his silhouette against the light from the fire. Even in the dark I can the creases and curvature of the strong muscles in his arms underneath the tight shirt that he was given to wear in the arena. I admit the boy is really attractive and he seems to have a way with Rye. But I am unsure that I feel the same way that he does. Boys have never been interested in me. So now that one possibly is, I am unsure of what to do with myself. I have never had a boyfriend, so I don't know how to be a girlfriend. I guess I could learn. But I don't know if I want to.

How did Carson react anyway? I was out cold so I have no idea. But maybe someone else can tell me. Jessie will know because she's the one who told me I scared him to begin with. But right now, I need to stay with Rye. Because I want to be the first person he sees when he wakes up. I want to be the first person to see those blue eyes when they open. As it grows later, I agree to keep watch so the others can sleep. While the others lay wrapped in their sleeping bags, I watch and listen for intruders. But I also watch Rye, hoping that every time I turn to him, he will be awake. But every time I am disappointed. Luckily it's a rather peaceful night. No canons or sounds of hunters looking for someone to kill in their sleep. When the sun rises, Rye is still unresponsive but he seems to be looking even better than yesterday. I check his bandage and clean the wound, trying to keep out infection the best I can. I watch the sky begin to brighten and feel the cool morning breeze as it blows into Cornucopia, making me shiver. I pull the covers around Rye a little tighter so he won't be cold. My yawning is showing my fatigue from not sleeping in two days but I wanted to make sure that Rye didn't wake up alone. So I had to stay up with him. I don't think I will sleep until he wakes up.

The others sleep late this morning but Jessie is still the first one up. She prepares her weapons for her morning hunt and starts to leave the Cornucopia. I run after her, pulling her to a stop so that I can ask her about Carson the day I was hurt.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Shoot."

"When I woke up after I was injured, you said something. Something that has made me start to wonder about the day I got shot with the arrow."

"What about it?" she asks, obviously annoyed that I have interrupted her morning routine.

"You said that I gave Carson a scare. What did you mean?"

"I meant he thought you were going to die."

"But how did he react?"

"Well, when Melana and I carried you back, you still had the arrow inside of you and you were still bleeding pretty bad. We got to the Cornucopia and Carson saw you unconscious and I swear the boy was crying."

"But…why? Why would he cry for me?"

"Damn girl. You're just as slow as your mother was about how your father."

"What are you talking about?"

"He loves you, Danica! Can't you see that? The way he protects you and Rye? The way he jumped right in with your little "alliance". He sees you the way Peeta saw Katniss. Beautiful, smart, and a survivor."

I don't know why, but a smile starts to creep onto my face as I get this warm fuzzy feeling in my chest. I don't know why, but I like the fact that Carson would see me as someone who was beautiful and smart. Someone that makes his heart pound when she steps in the room. Or the Cornucopia in this case. This is new, to have someone interested in me for a change. It's exciting almost.

Then, a mischievous smile controls Jessie's emotions as she starts to laugh.

"You like him too, don't you?"

"What?"

I don't like him, do I? No of course not.

"You like him too. Admit it!" she teases.

"No I don't. I have more important stuff to worry about other than Carson."

"Mmmhmm. Well just let me know when you two realize your lying to yourselves." She walks out into the distance, past the tree line and I watch as her figure disappears into the still dark woods. When I return to the Cornucopia, I am so lost in thought, thinking about Carson having feeling for me, about my feelings for Carson, if there are any, that I don't watch where I am going. I walk straight into the side of the Cornucopia and with a loud bang, I wake up everyone inside. I can't help but express the pain that it pulsing through my forehead and shoulder right now from the impact. I run my hand over my forehead and when I look at it, a small amount of blood is covering my index finger. Great. I busted my forehead open because of my own stupidity. I imagine everyone in the entire nation of Panem is laughing at me right now. I feel embarrassed but I just walk back inside of the Cornucopia where everyone is watching me.

"What was that?" Carson asks, "Why are you bleeding?" He stands up and rushes over to examine my wound. A perfect example of what Jessie was talking about. I gently push his hand away and smile.

"Oh, I'm fine. I just ran into the side of the Cornucopia. Wasn't watching where I was going."

Carson laughs and Melana sighs as she buries her face under her blanket, annoyed she had been woken up over something so unimportant and falls right back to sleep. Meybell gets up and walks over to us, and says, "Oh, it's just a small scratch." She grabs a rag and dabs it clean.

"Well since were already awake, we might as well get started with the day." Carson goes outside to gather wood for the fire.

"So what was taking up so much of you attention that you run into the side of the Cornucopia?" asks Meybell after Carson leaves.

"Nothing, I just wasn't watching where I was walking," I really hope that she doesn't pursue the answer so I break in with a question for her, "So how did you end up with the Careers?"

"Well, their main goal was to get to you and your brother first. You know, since you're kind of hated by everyone in Panem."

"Thanks for sugar coating it," I say. But she just laughs.

"So they knew I was the best chance they had of taking you down so they offered my protection in exchange for finding your weaknesses." Meybell becomes quiet and looks down at the ground, avoiding my gaze, "I knew one of them was your little brother. I knew that if something were to happen to him, we would easily be able to take you down too. So Lars sent Hana and Heather to kill Rye."

"Oh," is my only answer.

"I'm sorry Danica."

"It's okay," I say, but I am still rather surprised and hurt by Meybell's actions. I thought even though she probably hated me herself, she would still have to decency to protect her own. But since she is descended from District Five, maybe she didn't feel the same loyalty that I would have for her. I look over at Rye who is even starting to reposition his head on the sleeping bag. Hopefully, he will wake up soon.

"He won't stop trying to kill you, you know."

"Well let him try. I'm not afraid of him."

"Yeah. Well, I guess I should…go help gather some wood." She walks outside and joins Carson on the edge of wood where he is gathering stray limbs and sticks to build our fire. I watch him hand a pile he was holding in his arms over to Meybell who slumps with the weight of the wood that had little effect on Carson. I wonder if mining coal has the same effect on a person's body. Thankfully I wouldn't know. My father never had to work in the mines. He always found work somewhere else. Someone who would pity him, a man with a wife and two children to feed. Someone who would let him do repairs on their house or something like that. I was especially thankful for that when there was the large mining accident and most of the children in my class lost at least one parent. I remember that day very well. I was eleven so Rye was eight. School had just started so it was very early in the morning and our teacher was in the middle of taking attendance when the alarms went off that signaled an accident in the mines. Even though I wouldn't be affected by it, I was still scared along with the others who did have parents in the mines. I remember everyone filing out of the door, finding their brothers and sisters and make a bee-line for the mine elevators. It was utter ciaos. I even went to find Rye who was still slumped down in his seat. We make our way out of the building and I was a little unsure of what to do. Nothing like this had ever happened before so I didn't know if I should go to the mines with everyone else or go home. I ended up making my way to the seam, Rye's hand in mine. Our father came out of the house, showering us with questions as to why were here and not in school.

"The alarms went off," I said, "Something must have happened in the mines."

I remember seeing the registration of what I said in his eyes. They had friends from before the rebellion that worked in the mines. My father took both of us by the hands and led us inside where our mother was still in her robe at the breakfast table. The confusion on her face was apparent.

"There was an accident at the mines so school was canceled," my father released us and I hung our jackets back in the closet, "I'm going to go see what's going on." He was gone for hours.

It was odd being at home at that time of day, but Rye and I made the best of it. We slept, played in the yard outside and then slept some more. That night he came home and I had never seen him so sad. Mother ordered us out but my own curiosity and stubbornness was what drove me to listen in around the corner. I made Rye go back to his room, but I listened as my father told my mother what had happened.

"What happened?" Mother asks.

"Just about the whole mine collapsed," Father sighs as he sits at the table. Mother joins him and he continues, "Over a mile in length. Killed everyone under it."

"How many?"

"Hundreds," he shrugs.

My mother buried her face in her hands. Her father was killed in the mines when she was a little girl. But she doesn't talk about it much.

"The mines are just too old and too deep. It was only a matter of time before the whole thing came tumbling down," he said.

"So what does that mean for 12? I mean, what will the Capitol do if it doesn't need us anymore?"

"They'll always need us. Most likely they'll just make us dig another way in."

"It means they'll need more miners too," my mother's words later began to make since. She meant that my father would have to work in the mines and for a while, I was terrified I would come home to find out my father was in the mines, miles and miles under ground.

Luckily that didn't happen. Father was right about the Capitols need for coal because just days later, crews were on the scene, digging through the rubble and found another way to get to the coal. The mines were open again within a month. We haven't had a major accident like that since, but it's only a matter of time before it happens again. Because like he said, those mines were there when there was no such thing as Panem and people lived with freedom that I can only dream of.

I can't believe my eyes when Jessie returns from the wood, emerging from the depths of the forest with what looks to be a wild pig. It's rather large so she drags it behind her as she walks. The brown, ugly hog is obviously genetically altered because the tusks on this thing are huge. They could easily rip a person apart if you encountered one. I ask her where she found it and she said there was a whole family of them rooting around in the dirt in the woods. She said it took some fighting, but she eventually cut enough in the right places to bring it down. I am still healing from my wound so of course Carson won't allow me to help Jessie drag it back to the Cornucopia. Carson takes it by the hind legs and Jessie and Melana each grab a front leg and they carry it to the fire.

"How do you skin a hog?" Melana asks.

"The same way you skin everything else. You just have more to work with," Jessie answers, "I did the hard part and gutted it."

"Ew," Melana wrinkles her face at the thought of oversized squirrel and rabbit entrails.

"Has the kid waked up yet?"

"No not yet," I reply.

"Well there is a bunch of these squealing trolls running around in the woods for us to catch," Jessie wipes the pig blood from her hands on her pants, "I'm going to need some help."

"I'm not going with you," Melana bends over and rubs her hands in the grass.

"Don't look at me," Meybell throws her hand into the air and walks back into the Cornucopia.

"I have to get finish gathering firewood. You should go with her Danica. You need the practice. Just don't exert yourself too much," Carson says.

"But what about Rye?"

"Dan, he'll be fine. I'll keep an eye on him," Carson smiles as he walks back to the wood he dropped to help carry the pig.

That's the first time anyone has called me 'Dan'; like Carson is so close to me that he's using nicknames now. But his calling me that gives me a sense of trust. Like we are close. I know he will take care of Rye, and Rye won't go anywhere. He'll be right here when I return from hunting. And we could use the extra food.

"Okay, I'll go with you," I say.

"Good," Jessie leans down and pulls the knife out of the hog's rib cage that was still lodged there.

"Just let me go say goodbye to Rye."

Jessie rolls her eyes and let's out an exasperated, "Fine."

I kiss Rye on the forehead and brush a stray blonde curl from his eyes as I tuck the covers under him so it fits more snuggly. It oddly chilly outside today and everyone is wearing their jackets except for me. Back in 12 this would be classified as a typical fall morning so I slip on my jacket before I pick up my bow and arrows and join Jessie back outside.

"I'm ready," I say. I must admit that I am a little excited to try out my new skills. After hitting that bulls-eye yesterday, I feel a little more confident about my archery. I'm nothing like my mother was, but I'm doing pretty good to have only been shooting arrows for a few days. My mom must be bursting at the seams because I have picked up on it so quickly. This will be the real test.

Jessie and I enter a part of the woods that is unfamiliar to me, but Jessie seems to know where she's going. So I follow her through the pines and across gullies. She stops to show me the tracks that belong to the hogs. A few feet from the tracks are freshly rooted up dirt where the hogs searched for food to eat. Jessie says their nose contains their strongest muscles which allow them to plow up the earth like that. I try to remember what this rooting and the tracks look like. It may be of some use later on. We continue to walk through the woods until we come to an opening and we hear the sounds of our prey. Jessie pulls me lower to the ground behind some shrubbery. In the open, over a dozen of these wild boars are rooting up the ground around them. Even some of the young squeal and chase each other at their mother's feet. Compared to their elders, the juveniles are actually kind of cute. Their spotted with stripes running along the little piglet's backs. Their squeals and yelps are loud and piercing.

"You think you can hit one of them?" Jessie whispers.

"I think so," but it was a lie. I honestly didn't think I would be able to even get close to them. They were further away than the target I used to practice. But I string an arrow anyway and slowly stand up. I manage to get completely upright without startling them. I pull the string back and take aim for the largest hog I see and release. All hell breaks loose.

The high pitched squeals and screams are so loud I have to cover my ears. The hogs scatter, mowing down anything that stands in their way. I hear branches breaking and popping even with my hands covering my ears. One of the pigs even starts to come barreling our way but suddenly decides to change coarse and takes off to our right. When I look back in the opening, my arrow lays in the grass. No pig. Even though I am disappointed, I am not surprised. I knew I would miss it and Jessie is probably pinching herself to hold back her profanity from me.

To my surprise, she slaps me on the back.

"It's okay," she comes to stand beside me surveying the empty space; "We'll get 'em next time. Plenty more of them around here."

We continue to venture deeper into the wilderness was I spot several Mockingjays perched on the branches above our heads. They are beautiful in flight because you can see the spots on their wings so clearly. There are all kinds of wildlife throughout the woods. Squirrels, rabbits, snakes (not very excited about that one), foxes, birds, and even some deer make an appearance. If these weren't the woods of the Hunger Games, I would say they are really quite beautiful. I can see why my mom could spend hours in them at a time. I wonder if the woods surrounding 12 are as beautiful as these.

We continue walking until Jessie freezes in her tracks, turns to face me and points behind her slightly. I look over her shoulder to see three hogs grazing by the river. I nod and slowly step around her, bringing a stringed arrow and my bow into position and I lock my aim.

"Steady," Jessie whispers behind me.

I slowly and quietly breathe out through my mouth, my eyes never leaving the hog. I feel the string as is slips from my fingers, releasing the arrow into flight. It seems like ages before I hear those famous squeals again, and my hog falls down to the ground, thrashing and crying in pain. I feel a possum grin overcome my face and Jessie rushes forward to finish him off, lodging the knife into the side of the pig over and over again until it finally stops moving. I join her and retrieve my arrow. It wasn't in the ideal spot of the ribs where the vital organs are, but I'm just relived that I hit the thing at all. I remove the arrow and wipe it off in the grass before I put it back in the sheath. Jessie guts it, leaving the entrails behind for the other animals to eat. Jessie just has the hind legs in her hands before a boy charges out of no where from behind and puts Jessie headlock, cutting off her air. She gasps and wheezes as the boy brings a knife up to her throat and is seconds from slitting it. I watch in horror as she turns blue from the lack of oxygen and the knife grows dangerously close to her neck. She's my ally and I have to do something to stop him. Without thinking twice I whip an arrow from the sheath and send is flying into the boy's rib cage; barely missing Jessie. He lets out a cry of pain and released his grasp from Jessie and they both fall to the ground. The boy clutching his side in pain and Jessie gasping for air. The boy dislodges the arrow from his side and blood floods the grass surrounding him. He turns pale as the life drains from his body. I watch the true shock of what I have just done sending trembling fear throughout my body, as the boy takes his last breaths.

Boom!

He was my first kill.