Ahh! I know, that was the longest wait for a chapter yet. Sorry, but life gets in the way sometimes, and a fanfiction isn't as important. But now I'm happy to present you with chapter 25, and I hope that you guys are still hanging on for the ride. :)

For a moment, there's a standstill and Roe and I can only stare at each other. My hands are still on her shoulders, but I'm afraid to let go of her, for fear that she might just blow away in the wind that's still clawing at us – whipping her hair into my squinted eyes and tugging ruthlessly on my clothes. More than that, though, I'm almost afraid to hear what she has to say. When there's only the wind to listen to, we still haven't screwed our alliance up past the point of return. Once she opens her mouth, though, there'll be no fixing any damage done.

"I'm not going to run," she informs me quietly, so soft against the angry wind that I have to strain to hear her. I abruptly drop her arms, stuffing my hands into my jacket pockets.

"I didn't think so," I try to explain, but it's awkward to try to defend myself after that, and I don't want to give her any leniency.

"The cameras?" She mumbles, ignoring what I said. I feel wary thinking about what she must have to say that the cameras shouldn't know about, but I'm so sick of being cautious.

"Spit it out, Roe, it'll be fine. They can't hear us over the wind."

"I'm from District Ten, right?" I want to tell her that of course I don't know the answer to that question, but I can tell that the catch at the end of her sentence is only her trying to steady herself. She hurries on anyway, picking up momentum as we huddle together against the storm, praying that the cameras – and the audience that could be watching us even now – can't hear this. I feel the eyes of the Gamemakers prying at us through the veritable sandstorm, and I know that the sand that's whirling around us isn't enough to completely hide what we're doing.

"But I haven't been back there in a long time." Roe blurts the words out in a rush, rubbing one shoulder as she talks. I don't think she even knows that she's doing it, but I know exactly what's hidden under those sleeves, even if she hasn't seen the bruises yet.

"My parents weren't exactly normal, only I didn't know that at the time. Not…not like…rebels." I see her flinch as I shift in place, and when she starts chewing furiously on her lip, I wonder why I haven't noticed how jumpy she has been. "They weren't rebels," she says again, releasing her lip and staring up at me defiantly. She's all over the place, emotions whipping as fast as the wind across her features, and I have to reconsider whether or not this story was a good idea. I don't know if I want to hear it anymore, and she looks like she's having a hard time retelling it.

But Roe pushes on, stubborn as usual. "I thought everything was normal when I was a kid. I went to school with everyone else and everything was fine. Even my parents were fine. I was only twelve when they did it, so it's not like I really understood what was going on. Or maybe I knew what they were doing, but I couldn't do anything about it.

"My birthday was a few months before the annual Hunger Games, but I never thought anything about that. It's just that when I turned twelve, there wasn't really a celebration. My parents started acting strange and jumpy, and every time I'd walk into a room they'd look up like I wasn't supposed to hear whatever they were saying. A week or so after my birthday, I'd come home from school and my mother would be missing, or my father would be, and I wouldn't see them until it was late. I thought that was weird, but I don't think they even knew I had noticed."

I don't know where this is going, but all I can think is that her parents are dead. They must be. It's the way she cringes, and the way she stresses on "was."

"They took me into the woods in the middle of the night. I remember that they carried me part of the way because I was so tired, but they were so panicked that most of the time they just yelled at me to go faster. I didn't know what was going on, but I followed them anyway because I didn't know what else to do. They were dragging a couple suitcases behind us, but I didn't think that this was going to be permanent. I thought they were just taking me into the woods to show me something. They were acting so scared that I didn't want to question it.

"Well, the woods outside District 10 aren't really woods so much as overgrown farmland and a bunch of trees, but it was still thick enough that my parents didn't think anyone would find us. But there were also a bunch of wild animals that my parents didn't anticipate and I don't think they were prepared to deal with, so someone discovering us was not the only danger. It was really hard that first night, especially when I couldn't put a face to the weird noises I was hearing. My parents were on edge as well, which only freaked me out more.

"My parents didn't pack very well, either. They couldn't fit many of the essentials into two suitcases, so there wasn't much to eat. I was miserable, but it wasn't like I could do anything about it. I think my parents changed their minds about halfway in and decided that it wasn't a good idea, but it was too late to turn back then.

"But it's not like it lasted very long." She snaps her eyes back to mine, losing the vacant look. "As I'm sure you've guessed, we got caught." Her voice is flat, angry, like she's challenging me to say differently. I don't want to hear the rest of her story, if this is how it ends, but I have no choice anymore. I feel acutely uncomfortable as she stares me down, forcing me back into this story of hers.

"There must have been a tip or something, and it wasn't very hard for them to find us struggling through the wilderness. They didn't give us a warning or anything – just swooped in on their hovercraft and sent a couple of Peacekeepers down to get us. My parents got the message and took off running, dragging me behind, but they weren't fast enough. The Peacekeepers grabbed me and started strapping me into something that would lift me into the hovercraft, and it wasn't like I could get away. As they were strapping me in I watched some of the other men execute my mother, and then my father."

Roe's cold eyes are watching me now, waiting for a reaction.

"They cut her throat. I don't know what they did to him, but there were awful noises. They left the bodies there and lifted me into the hovercraft. I don't know why they didn't kill me too, but I suspect it has nothing to do with mercy. They must have had specific orders."

"They tied me up in the back of the hovercraft and sped back to the Capitol. Or, at least, I assume that's where they took me. I still don't know, but it's the only place I can think of that would have places like the one they put me in.

"They knocked me out, so I don't know what happened next. But when I woke up I was in a prison cell." She stares at me again, and I wonder just how deep I've gotten myself with this story. This is not the confession I thought it would be. I had always assumed that this was Roe's fault; that she was a traitor/rebel/spy, or even a mutt. I had already blamed her.

She looks at me now with a challenge in her eyes, daring me to blame her now, now that she has told me this. Daring me to touch her again. She has storm clouds in her eyes, lightning forking across her gaze. She's not stopping to reflect on the pain of her story, or of losing her parents. She's only here to make a point now, to prove me wrong. I don't know whether that's strong, or whether this is all an act.

This could all be a lie.

But she's not done, I can see as she inhales again, breaking her challenging stare and glaring at the ground. She doesn't want pity. She wants to see me – what? Admit that I was wrong? I don't think that's all she wants.

She wants you to listen, Day informs me quietly. She sounds sad, and I know that she has swallowed Roe's pack of lies. She pities her.

She could be making all of this up, I hiss back, but Day shoots back a rebuttal before I can argue my case.

Would you just stop and take something at face value? You're making a conspiracy out of nothing.

It's a stinging remark coming from Day, normally so quiet, and I'm taken aback enough that I shut up as Roe starts again. But I can't make myself believe Roe. I'm too suspicious, even now.

"All my parents had wanted to do was protect me from the Hunger Games. Maternal instinct is strong, you know. It was a terrible plan, but they had to try. They couldn't just let me get killed like all of the other Hunger Games kids. And they truly thought it would work. They didn't think I'd end up in a prison cell.

"But that's where they put me, and I hardly knew what was happening. I didn't even see any other people for about a day, until a Peacekeeper brought me some food. I just got to sit in my concrete cell, thinking over and over again about how my parents were killed.

"I wasn't there long. The only time I ever moved was in the beginning, when I took a short trip to another part of this prison, now four stories underground. Maximum security. For the rebels.

"They thought I had a hand it what my parents did, or at least had some information, so the first thing they did was strap me down and implement basic torture methods." She doesn't flinch as she says it, but my mind is whirling, imagining twelve year olds and cold tables and screams.

That's empathy, Day whispers, but I can tell that it has affected her too, because her voice is trembling.

"Of course, I didn't know anything. They wanted to know about how my parents were part of a larger rebel cell, and where to find the other rebels. I couldn't tell them that my parents weren't rebels, that they were just trying to protect me. I tried lying and giving them what they wanted, but I was no good at that and I had no solid information for them."

You're good at lying now, I think, imagining a twelve year old with a much softer face than Roe's.

"They gave up eventually. It was no use to pursue a twelve year old when there were much more serious criminals to contend with. They dumped me and sent me to a cell in maximum security. I was twelve. Just twelve! Not some hardened criminal. Not a rebel. But they left me to rot.

"There were no faces, just disembodied voices from the other sides of the walls, but I made friends. I had to. Sometimes those friends disappeared, but that wasn't often. Mostly, my neighbors were others that were left in the cells to be forgotten. Apparently the Capitol had a habit of doing that – when we had outlived our usefulness, they had to find somewhere to store us. And pretty quickly, they got bored of us.

"The others talked of dying. Of finally being free. They said they wanted a good old firing squad in the place of the prison cells, but I don't think any of them really meant it. There were no suicides, as far as I knew.

"I didn't talk much, but I listened. I had sharp ears, and I was just young enough to be ignored. Rebel gossip passed through our hall and I knew it all. None of it was useful, or even that exciting; news so bland that the Capitol wouldn't have cared if they heard, and it was possible that some of it had even been fed to us by the Peacekeepers, as a joke. As false hope, as if someone cared enough to come rescue us.

"And, slowly, I grew up. But there wasn't much of a life to make in that cell. I tried, but it wasn't…easy. I wasn't a child anymore, and it was harder to keep hoping. When they came to take me out, I thought there were only two options. They were either going to kill me, or set me free. I didn't think that we might be coming here as they loaded me into a hovercraft as fast as they could and took off towards some distant place. I hardly knew what date it was, and I hadn't thought that the Hunger Games were starting that day. I didn't realize that there was a dead girl with black hair like mine, and that a little makeup would cover up our differences. I didn't realize that the Capitol was desperate to protect their agenda, and that they simply couldn't have the Hunger Games without one of the tributes.

"So that dead girl disappeared, and suddenly I was Roselie, District 11. They gave me instructions as they hurriedly suited me up. I was to run straight for the bloodbath. I wasn't supposed to live long enough for the viewers to recognize that I wasn't the same as the former District 11 tribute that they'd seen on TV. We looked alike enough that it just might work, and it wasn't like anyone paid attention to District 11, anyway. I was too skinny – fed on prison rations – but the Capitolites in charge thought that if I died quickly enough, it could work.

"When I got onto that plate, I couldn't do it. I was too scared to die, even after all of this. For 60 seconds I got to choose life or death, and I chose to run away from the Cornucopia and the Capitol, even if I was screwing up their Hunger Games. I was too weak to do what I was told. I figured my name was close enough to Roselie's to work, and I decided to play.

"Besides, how poetic was it that I was in the Hunger Games at all?" Her voice is darker now, angry. "It was just so ironic that me, a girl who was in maximum security for fleeing the Hunger Games, would finally end up right where she had feared the most." She spits the last words out. "I decided to play their game, because it made perfect sense to end up here.

"And if I win…then…" She breaks off, and I don't know if it's because she knows she's not going to win, or because she's not sure what winning means. "I beat them."

There's a long stretch of silence as we both take in what she has said.

"Final seven," she says bitterly. "I wonder how they interviewed my family?"

"I'm sorry," I say quietly, and I hope she knows how much I mean it. Not just because she's never had a life of her own, and not just because her parents are dead. For the bruises on her shoulders. For the place she's in now, that she'll probably never leave. Because the Hunger Games are the end of the line.

"I know," she whispers, and there's a catch in her voice as she begins to sniffle under her breath. Something breaks between us and it doesn't matter that Coral isn't here anymore to keep our alliance together. We huddle closer together against the angry wind, and I'm not sure anymore that Roe's story is going to destroy our alliance. I think that maybe we'll be ok.