They had run so many times since they'd decided to escape it felt as tried and certain as breathing. They barely felt the burn of their legs beneath them, or the awkward twist of their arms in the restraints, or the branches snatching at their clothes. The only reality was the flare of warmth captured between their palms.

Nezumi thought he heard Peacekeepers behind them, but over the thunder of their flight it was difficult to tell if it was just paranoia dogging him. But it wasn't a figment of his imagination when he felt the vibration of the hovercraft take off.

They stuck to the dense foliage from then on. When they couldn't maintain their sprint, they alternated between a jog and a run. Only when their legs felt like stone and their clothes stuck to them like a second skin did they stop.

Nezumi led them into in a close woven copse to catch their breath for a moment. The sun had meandered to the west side of the sky. They had run a good while, but Nezumi was not naive enough to think they could rest for long. The Capitol would be more determined now than ever.

But so was he. They would escape this time. Truly escape. Nezumi would not be caught; the shard brushing against the top of his leg promised that.

Shion's face was sweat-sheened and pale. He planted a hand against the nearest tree, only to pull it back to stare at the bits of bark that stuck to his sticky palm.

Nezumi had to remember then. That Shion had attacked a person, had stabbed them in the neck with a piece of glass. He still wore the woman's blood. Nezumi breathed slowly through his nose.

"Are you okay?" he asked Shion.

Shion's eyes snapped up and Nezumi swallowed. He had seen that look before, on starved district kids' faces, on tributes', on victors'. Nezumi never wanted to see Shion wear it.

Shion dropped his eyes just as suddenly. He nodded at the ground. Nezumi wanted to reach out to him or say something, but he didn't know what he should say. He could never figure out the right thing to tell to himself after his Games.

Shion rubbed his hands on his pants and Nezumi forced himself not to notice the brown smears they left behind. "We should cut these ropes," he said, measuring his voice flat. He fished the piece of glass out of his pocket and twisted his hands around to saw at the coil of rope around his wrists.

Shion kept still as the glass bit into the ropes around his own wrists. The restraints fell away, and Nezumi stepped back. Wind stirred the leaves around them and streak of stray sunlight slipped through the canopy and glinted off the glass. Shion's eyes lifted to the light and went wide.

Shion bolted. Nezumi called out his name, but he didn't go far. Shion doubled over against a tree and threw up. Nezumi waited until it ran its course before approaching. He crouched by Shion's side and laid a hand on his shoulder.

"She'll be fine, Shion. The Capitol's fancy surgeons will get her stitched up and she'll be back to oppressing the masses in no time. You didn't kill her. Okay? It's okay."

He rubbed small circles into Shion's shoulder blade and shushed the doubts inside. The Peacekeeper may not be dead. Wounds to the neck always looked bad, but people survived worse. Tributes survived worse. They would never know whether the woman died seconds after they ran or would be rescued and live a long life on a Capitol pension. But it was better to believe the latter.

"You saved us. You didn't do anything wrong."

Shion's body shook. He stared down at his hands like he couldn't recognize them. Shion didn't need to speak for Nezumi to know the horror in his expression.

But the horror slashed across Shion's face wasn't for himself. It was for Nezumi.

He might have killed someone, but Shion's only thoughts were, How could we do this to you? How could we force you to kill for our amusement, when now I know it feels like this?

Nezumi's chest tightened.

"It's not your fault." He drew Shion gently to his feet. "You're not to blame for what happens to the districts; you're just as much of a victim as any tribute or victor. It's the Capitol that's to blame. It's monsters like Fox and his Peacekeepers," Nezumi spat. What he wouldn't give to give the Capitol a taste of their own medicine.

But when he turned back to Shion the hatred flagged in his chest. "Don't cry, okay?" he murmured. He brushed the tears from Shion's cheeks. "I'm fine. And you're going to be too. I know how it feels now, and I'll be honest, that feeling never goes away, but it gets better. It…" Nezumi cleared his throat. "It got better for me. When I met you."

Shion stopped mid-sniffle. Nezumi's insides squirmed, but he was done shying away from this. What was he running from anyway? They were two kids alone in the woods with nothing but the truth between them.

"You saved me in the Games. And you've supported me ever since. Even when it cost you your freedom and your family. No one's ever done that for me, and I've never stopped being grateful for it. Even when I pushed you away, you never stopped reaching out to me. You protected me. And I'd do the same for you. We protect each other.

"So lean on me. And, all right, go ahead and cry if you want, but don't do it alone. No matter what you're feeling, or what you do, I'm going to support you. We're in this together."

The speech sounded better when he had written it by the fire all those nights ago, but Shion seemed to feel the weight of it just the same. His tears dried up, and he stopped shaking. He still looked pale, but his fingers tightened around Nezumi's hand and he smiled.

Nezumi would kill to protect that smile.

The moon was barely a crescent in the sky. There was too little light filtering through the trees to make running in the dark safe anymore. They had to trust that the low visibility would slow the Peacekeepers as well and cloak them until morning.

They spent a half hour trying to find a cave or something similarly concealed, but nothing big enough for two could be found. Exhaustion and thirst won out over caution in the end and they made camp along a stream. Nezumi sighed and slipped down onto the bank. Shion crouched down beside him and did his best to scrub the blood off his hands and cheek.

Nezumi stared at the light bluish froth brushing up against the bank. He was starting to feel like they would spend the remainder of their lives running, and making camp, and narrowly escaping, and running again. All his life he had been restless, but now he wanted nothing more than to sit down and stay put for longer than a few hours.

The air shivered with the sounds of water over rocks. Nezumi closed his eyes and allowed himself a moment to breathe. Shion tugged his sleeve and Nezumi turned to him. Shion gestured to his face.

"All clean."

Shion shoulders relaxed as an invisible weight lifted from them. He dropped down to sit hip to hip with Nezumi. Crickets chirruped from somewhere to their right, and the frogs across the stream answered throatily. The scene was so docile it was difficult to imagine that they had been on their way to an execution that morning, that they were still fugitives who'd have to pick up and run come sunrise.

"I wish we had food," Nezumi grumbled. The hunger pangs had eaten each other hours ago and now there was only numb emptiness sitting where his stomach was.

Shion nodded sadly beside him and mimed writing. The notepad was tucked safely into Shion's pocket, but it was just tinder without a pen.

"Eh. You don't need it. You're pretty easy to read." Nezumi pushed the pebbles on the bank around with his foot. He wanted to dip his sore feet into the cool, clear water, but his survival instincts warned him against getting caught without shoes on. When the sole of his boot skated over the surface of the water a tendril of red wisped away in the gentle current.

Nezumi pulled his foot up. "Gimme a sheet of paper."

Shion blinked at him, but pulled out his notepad and ripped a page out. Nezumi deftly folded the sheet into a miniature boat and placed it on the water. The boat drifted along the stream's surface until it snagged against a rock. Nezumi splashed until it dislodged and went on its merry way. Shion watched the scene from start to finish with pleased puzzlement.

"Whimsy," Nezumi said when Shion turned to him for an explanation.

Shion tilted his head. His eyes followed the paper boat until it disappeared into the dark. He turned back to Nezumi, tapped his own throat, and pointed up.

"I'm not screaming into the sky again."

Shion laughed, but shook his head. He repeated the gestures, but added more flourish to the hand movement at the end.

"Oh, you want me to sing." Shion smiled and hummed the first bar of "Survival or the Grave." Nezumi's brow creased. "That's a morbid selection."

Shion drew his mouth into a line and canted his head to say, Maybe, but fitting. Nezumi didn't fight him on that point and cleared his throat instead. He sang with his voice at a measured volume to keep the sound from the ears of any persons or mockingjays in the area.

Little mouse in the hedgerow,

Hawks circling overhead,

Run quick to your home now,

Or else you shall be dead.

The foxes are hunting,

The cats are in the brush,

Run quick to your home now,

Step quietly, but rush.

The sun and mounts are meeting,

Little mouse, you must be brave.

The time to run is fleeting,

It's survival or the grave.

Nezumi finished quietly. Ever since he sang the rhyme in his interview the contrast between the jaunty tune and the storyline bothered him. As though the narrator enjoyed the mouse's predicament. Then again, nursery rhymes all tended to toward the macabre.

Shion apparently didn't feel the same about the song. His eyes had gone soft and faraway as he listened and watched Nezumi. The waves of affection radiating off him were strong enough to make Nezumi's cheeks prickle.

Nezumi stayed very still as Shion leaned in and kissed him. The kiss barely lasted past the second it took for his heart to speed up, but he felt lightheaded.

"Was that payment for the song?"

The corner of Shion's mouth curled up. He shrugged a shoulder, and Nezumi paid close attention to how Shion's arm brushed up against his. Nezumi leaned back on his hands.

"I think it was worth more than that."

Shion's eyebrows raised to say, Is that so? When he leaned in again Nezumi made sure the kiss lasted well past a second.

Nezumi didn't know where they were anymore. They were way farther north than he had ever been, farther than the Capitol would ever allow. He wouldn't be surprised if they had crossed out of Panem's borders and entered whatever territory lay north. School lessons never included any information about the world outside of Panem; the Capitol would have everyone believe it was the only civilization still standing. But that was as unlikely as humans were resilient.

Nezumi chewed slowly on a handful of berries. After a short rest by the river they took a hearty drink to carry them through another day of hiking and set off. As they weaved through the early morning shadows, Nezumi and Shion scavenged for food. They were able to gather some mulberries and nuts to snack on. Shion had crammed as many as he could into his pockets and didn't seem to care that the inky juices leaked through the fabric.

He glanced at Shion. The kid was a mess of stains and dirt. Twigs poked out of his white hair and thin lines of healing scratches crisscrossed his face and arms. Nezumi knew he probably looked similar—worse maybe, since his hair was long. He could feel how much of a snarl the locks were, even pulled back. He didn't even want to imagine how much they smelled…

Nezumi shook his head. "We're quite the pair," he muttered to himself. Shion looked at him and Nezumi waved his hand that it was nothing.

Shion went back to swatting at bushes with a stick he'd picked up, occasionally plucking a pulped berry out and popping it into his mouth.

He was handling yesterday's events better than Nezumi thought he would. Or at least he was pretending to. Nezumi knew Shion had barely slept the night before. He had tried to talk to Shion about it, but Shion had only buried his face deeper into Nezumi's shoulder and refused to engage.

It had pissed him off a little, because it made him feel useless. It reminded him of his shortcomings in dealing with people and their hurts. Nezumi picked at the bandage around the cut on his finger. He would work on it. They would work on it. Together.

Shion drew to a sudden stop and Nezumi almost stumbled into him. His blood sang as he searched for threats, but Shion tugged at his elbow and pointed.

They had reached the edge of the forest. The ground sloped down into a valley lush with green grasses. The brush was high on the edge of the descent and on the slope down, but then the grasses and flowers flattened out.

As if the sight of a neatly manicured lawn wasn't enough to send Nezumi's head spinning, there was a house on the edge of the valley, shadowed pleasantly by the trees behind it.

Nezumi blinked and blinked again, but the house in the distance stayed solidly in the valley. A flag wavered in the breeze on the edge of the front porch, patterned in a way he couldn't recognize. A small pile of firewood lay to the left of the front door, and a garden bursting with pink geraniums hugged the side of the house. It looked like a cottage from a fairytale.

Shion goggled at it. He looked at Nezumi, eyes wide and hopeful and asking, Is this real? Nezumi shook his head in disbelief. He wanted it to be real. He wanted so badly for it to be safe and welcoming, for it to mark the end of their running and hiding.

A brown smudge appeared on the horizon, moving steadily in the direction of the house. Nezumi and Shion ducked behind a thick line of shrubbery. This, at least, was familiar to them.

The smudge took on the shape of a man as it neared. He was short and rumpled, with dusty blond hair. A rifle hung loosely from his shoulder and a few fowl and rabbits dangled from his hands. Nezumi narrowed his eyes at the man's inconspicuous clothes and unhurried demeanor. There was not an ounce of menace about him, but Nezumi kept searching, waiting for the threat to reveal itself.

The man stepped up onto the porch and the front door of the house flew open with a scream. The hairs on the back of Nezumi's neck stood on end, but Shion leaned forward and gasped softly. A little boy burst out of the house and hopped up and down in front of the man, yelling something with childish glee. The man dropped the game in his hands and scooped the boy up into his arms.

Nezumi's brow furrowed. The scene was strange to his eyes. He had only ever watched something like this on the Capitol propaganda videos: children raised high and twirled about by smiling parents while the narrator waxed romantic. He had certainly never experienced what he saw now, and he had no memory of any similar joy in District 7. But Shion's eyes were blurred with tears as he watched the man place the boy down and lay a hand on his cheek, and Nezumi swallowed as he remembered Karan doing the same.

A woman stepped out of the open door. She said something and the man laughed. The woman pecked the man on the cheek, lifted the rabbits and fowls off the ground, and ushered the man and child into the house.

Nezumi and Shion watched the closed door for a moment longer. Shion stood first. He wiped his face with the corners of his dirtied shirtsleeves and raised his eyebrows at Nezumi in question. But it wasn't really a question. It was a hope.

Nezumi didn't know what to think. He wanted it to be real—it looked real—but it was so outside the realm of his experience he was afraid to believe it. But the shine in Shion's eyes said he believed it, and he trusted Shion.

Nezumi stood. "You sure?" he asked.

Shion gazed at the house. Blurs of movement danced behind the window. Shion nodded.

"Good," Nezumi said, nodding back. "Should we wait…?"

Shion shook his head. Now, he mouthed.

Shion cracked a smile at the same time Nezumi smirked. "I think we've been here before," Nezumi chuckled.

That night on the roof of the Training Center was eons away from where they stood now, but the sense of growing excitement was the same.

Nezumi and Shion clasped hands and picked their way down the hill.