A/N: I had an urge to stick my computer in my freezer, so I did. And, very much to my surprise, it works now! I'm taking this opportunity to give you all the next chapter before it craps out again. Sorry for the wait, although some of you may wish the wait was longer… Also Hunger Games belongs to Suzanne Collins and How It Ends belongs to DeVotchKa

Skylar Andronicus let the Capitol attendant lead her out to Pliny. She could have done it on her own, but she wanted to play up her innocence. At least, that's what she'd told her mentor. In truth, she was nervous. She'd have been damn embarrassed to accidentally be walking all over the stage. She sat down across from the man. His tinny voice entered his ears. It was robotic, not like electronic sounding, but it seemed to follow an algorithm. The emphasis and emotion seemed programmed. Her fear soon turned into annoyance. Annoyance at the man before her, at the whole system, and that she'd allowed herself to be scared of these idiots.

"Aren't you darling, little Skye!" she heard the man bellow.

"Um… thanks?" Skye wiped her hands on her knees.

"Folks it seems we've had more than our share of mute tributes," it was a reference to Drakkon, Alisha, and Malik, that evoked laughter. "But here is out first blind tribute! Frankly, Skye, it's incredible that you've managed this far. Let's give her a round of applause!" Everyone cheered.

"Pliny, you know I don't expect you or anyone to go easy on me. Because they won't. You want to ask about my low score? Then do it." Skye said flatly.

"Er… We'll get there in a minute, but first, tell us, do you have any allies?"

"Axel Reeder." Skye said.

"So what attracted you to Axel? Why did you seek him out, out of everyone else?" Pliny asked.

"Ha…You're assumptions don't at all give away your disposition towards me. It's more than a little rude, Pliny. If you must know, Axel sought me out."

"Heh," Pliny tugged at his collar, "You certainly are a little firecracker!"

Livi answered that same question a little differently, although she was as offended by it as Skye was. She followed her mentor's advice, against every impulse, and did not let the crowd see her temper.

"Ahem," Livi cleared her throat, before speaking in a mocking girly tone, which was all she could do to appease her temper, "Rye Kuna was a little reluctant at first, but I won him over. He's a friend for now, and I think he'll be a good teammate once things get going. I think we have a real shot at winning this." Livi opened her mouth to continue talking. Her brain was telling her to insert a humorous remark at the expense of the careers but she again stopped herself.

Aven knelt down by the stream. Water flowed into her canteen and soon it couldn't hold any more. The water flowing into it was pushed out and small whirlpools were created near the edges of its mouth.

"Think we should be worried about poison or anything?" Aven questioned Skye. The blind girl shrugged.

"I guess we'd know by now."

"True," Aven said as she pulled the canteen out and screwed on its lid. She strapped it to her belt and let it fall to her hip. She wiped her hands off on her pants but they didn't become any less sticky. It was hot and muggy. Besides the dried blood on her head, she felt grimy all over: the back of her neck, her arms, and her hair. Thankfully her stylists had cropped it so short, otherwise it would be one hell of a mess.

"I think I'm going to take a dip," Aven told Skye.

"Alright," Skye replied. She heard the sounds of Aven splashing into the stream. It didn't sound very deep. It was a trickle at best, not rushing, like a river would sound. Skye felt her back slide down the bark of a tree. The flats of her hands touched cool mud and root. Even though she'd almost died in that trap, it was still hard to believe she was in the games. She and Aven had yet to encounter any other tributes. There didn't seem to be any shortage of food or water. It was like some summer day with a friend that wasn't hers by choice. Skye sighed.

Rye saw the boy, Axel, go into the river. Skye slumped back against the tree. The pair didn't seem too alert. If Blast had snuck up on them instead of him and Livi, they probably would have died. Lucky for him, and for Pepper, that hadn't been the case. Rye closed his eyes. Pepper. He could remember her plain as day although it felt like a lifetime since he'd seen her. He didn't have a choice in all this. He had to do it, for her. He opened his eyes and looked to the girl crouched down behind him. Livi actually reminded him a lot of Pepper.

They had the same pale skin. The same stubbornness, the struggle not to let their disabilities define them, to seem normal. The only real difference, Rye thought, is that one is my sister and the other isn't. Maybe Pepper was more innocent, but hadn't Livi probably been that way once too? Was he trading one for the other? No, that was rubbish. Livi was cooked anyway. And Rye was mucked too. He'd known he never had a good chance, not as one in twenty-six. The odds were maybe more nuanced than that, at least the Capitol bettors thought so, but all things considered, any one of them was as likely to croak at any minute as the other.

But if Rye went through with this, betraying a blind girl, a friend, and orchestrating the demise of another, what would that do to Pepper? Would she know? Would she understand? Would that ruin her? Those the world doesn't break, it kills, Rye thought. Rye brought his palm down on his face, and he pulled on it. Stress. There was only one thing he could do to save Pepper in both senses...

Rye looked at Livi and then back at the two girls. None of this mattered. It was all semantics, it was just his mind stalling. He forced himself up.

"Hold on," he told Livi. Livi Tarrlock tilted her head towards him, as if to look at him, although she couldn't. Rye produced a vial and a syringe from a secret pocket in his pants. He pulled the solution into the syringe.

"What's up?" Livi asked him.

"It's time," he answered. With one hand Rye grabbed Livi's head, and with the other he jabbed the needle into her neck and pushed down on the plunger. The Capitol's concoction coursed through her veins, a mixture of modified tracker-jacker venom, steroids, and coagulants. The sick bastards wanted the two blind girls to turn each other into pin cushions, couldn't have them bleeding out right away. Rye tossed the empty needle to the ground. He began trodding off towards Skye and Aven while Livi convulsed behind the rock.

The water was gentle, but Aven could tell it had pushed her downstream. She had been lazily floating and rolling over in it. It made her quite muddy, and ultimately wouldn't make her much cleaner, but at least she wouldn't feel dried sweat and blood all over herself. A little mud was better than that. Aven stood up, the stream was barely up to her knees. She stepped up onto the bank and squished the mud between her toes.

"Ew," she said. She took another step and began wiping her feet on the grass. She removed her undershirt, and squeezed it out, ringing out the water. She slid it back on. She cracked her neck and turned to walk back up to the pile of her clothes. She heard something behind her and let out a gasp. She turned just in time to see the hilt of Rye's sword come down and bash into her skull. Aven blacked out.

Skye's hands picked at the grass. She plucked the individual blades and twirled them around in her fingers. She leaned forward because the bark was becoming uncomfortable on her back. She began to softly recite the lyrics to a song that her brothers used to like.

"Forever's not so long. And in your soul, they poked a million holes. But you never let them show. C'mon it's time to go. And you already know. You already know how this will end," she quietly sang.

She had a cool effect going in her eyes. When she looked at the ground she could see green and when she moved her head up it quickly turned to an orange. She was kind of entertained watching the color change. She played around with the angle of her head, trying to find the spot just before the green blur became an orange blur. And she tried to stop it at a color in between, but it didn't really work. There were only two options: orange or green. She heard a shuffle in the grass.

"Are you done giving the Capitol another peep show?" Skye asked. Aven didn't respond. But she kept walking forwards.

"Aven?" Skye asked. The footsteps were heavier than Aven's. The stride length was different. There was a disturbing urgency to the walk. Skye slid upwards, hand against the back of the tree, standing herself up.

"Whose there?" No reply came. Whoever it was, was very close. Skye lunged forward. She was small but she seemed to catch the person off guard, she felt a body being pushed back by her momentum. Skye darted off but felt a hand wrap around her wrist. She was pulled in and felt a sharp pain as she was stabbed in the neck.

"I'm sorry," Rye mouthed as he injected the other vial of serum into Skye. Skye fell to the ground and staggered back against the tree. She seemed to be fighting the contortions and convulsions of the toxins. She couldn't for long. Her small alabaster frame began to writhe and struggle in the dirt. Rye steadied her head to keep it from banging against the tree, although he didn't know why it mattered, more of a gut reaction.

"Listen to me," Rye spoke into her ear, "you have to kill another tribute. You have to kill her. Otherwise, she's going to kill your brothers." Rye paused. These words were the Capitol's, not his. They didn't make any sense, but maybe they did to somebody tripping on tracker-jacker poison. Rye lifted the girl to her feet, awkwardly. He held out his sword for her.

"Walk straight, then kill, hurry" were his final instructions. At first Skye did nothing. She staggered a bit, and the sword's tip scrapped around in the dirt.

"Go!" He yelled. Skye grunted and went off towards where he and Livi had been hiding. It wasn't far. Rye turned and watched her go. She was still a bit off from what he'd injected her with, but with each step she seemed to gain more balance. It was a wicked thing he'd done. Soon Skye was running full tilt. It was a rotten thing.

When Skye reached Livi, there wasn't much to say, except that it went exactly as the Capitol planned. Livi heard Skye running, and with her own synthetic anger, rushed forward to meet the challenge. It was a sloppy fight. A fight between two blind girls. Livi Tarrlock yelled an animal's yell-the kind where saliva ran off the canine teeth to be flung outward. Skye slashed at the noise and hit nothing. Livi misjudged the distance and crashed into her. The two were sent sprawling. Livi scrambled up and felt the broad side of Skye's sword lacerate her shoulder. Livi returned in kind. Skye squealed in pain. She spun all the way around, almost drunkenly, with her sword and caught Livi's side. Blood spilled out. Livi plunged the point of her sword into Skye's stomach. It oozed. Skye took another hack at Livi. Livi at Skye. And so on. The two stood there hacking each other into oblivion. It didn't last much longer. Only the power of the Capitol's inhuman serum allowed them to sustain as much damage as they did. By the end of it they were two bloodied corpses in the grass. Grasshoppers hopped around the trails of blood and meadowlarks sang overhead, unnoticing.

"I've done what you asked," Rye said aloud when he heard the cannons fire.

"Now you keep your end of the bargain. I don't know what's on TV and what's not, but I'd like to speak to Pepper now." Rye reached behind his head with one hand and undid his ponytail. His dark hair fell to his shoulders.

"Penelope, I want you to know that I did what I had to. You may never know why. I had to do what I did, but that doesn't make it right. You need to know that it's never right to kill in cold blood like they make you to do in the games. It's never okay to betray your friends like they make you do. I've broken those rules, and I'm going to do the right thing. Stay strong, I love you Pepper… Now if you're watching this, then turn away. You're not allowed to see it."

Rye produced a small dagger he'd taken from the Cornucopia, thanks to Cadence's head start. He dragged it across both his wrists. The world would neither kill nor break his sister.

"Thank you, Livi" he muttered before collapsing into the grass and dying.

Back in the cave, where Rye and Livi hid from the mutts and Drakkon, Rye had a thought. He knew the Capitol was watching, always. Listening and probing. There was no way he could get out of killing Livi. Killing the girl that he'd grown to trust and respect. Scared and wet in the cave, he did something without thinking. They had already been writing on each other's hands to avoid alerting the mutts lingering just outside. But Rye continued writing. He took Livi's small, cold hand and formed letters.

I
M
S
O
R
R
Y

He spelled out on her hand. Livi made a confused face that he couldn't see in the dark. What the hell? She thought.

F
O
R
W
H
A
T

She spelled back to him. She heard him sigh, in the darkness.

T
H
E
Y
W
A
N
T
M
E
T
O
B
E
T
R
A
Y
Y
O
U

Livi gasped. She didn't respond. Rye wondered if she'd kill him then. Instead she took his hand again.

W
H
Y

Livi's mind raced. What possible reason could he have to betray her? Why would the Capitol want her dead? Why did Rye? Livi thought hard. Rye took her hand back, but she wriggled it free and wrote more on his-she remembered something from the train ride.

P
E
P
P
E
R
?

She gave it an emphatic question mark at the end. Rye simply tapped once on her hand, which she took to mean a yes. Livi felt her heart sink.

H
O
W

Rye took her hand and had it for sometime. He wrote out the somewhat complicated plan that the Capitol had. At first he wrote too fast, and Livi couldn't understand him. He began going more slowly, giving her time to take it all in. When it was done he let her hand drop. It hung there, at his side, for what felt like an eternity. Then he felt Livi take his hand.

D
O

I
T

She wrote. After that, the two exited the cave.