The next morning, Croyale wakes me up early, looking perky as usual. "Come on, sweetie, time to get ready for the first day of training!"

While her loyalty to the Capitol and spoiled lifestyle irritate me to no end, I still find myself envying her carefree and happy nature. I wonder what it would be like not to have to fear for my life – for my sister's and friends' lives – once every year. She flounces out of my room and I sink back into my bed. Just for a second, I contemplate locking myself in my room and not going to training.

But I have to. I have to play their game.

I get up, take a shower, and get dressed. I look in the mirror at the new, waxed and polished version of me. This is all Panem knows: an illusion. This isn't really me. I don't have shiny hair; or long, fake eyelashes. In a way, this makes me feel better; my privacy less invaded. The Capitol isn't intruding into my life, but instead they are fabricating a fake life for me and displaying it for the whole country.

As I walk to the elevator, I see Elya waiting for it to arrive. He smiles at me. I can't help it – I smile back. The door makes that electronic bing that made me jump the first time I heard it, and we get on.

The small girl from Twelve is also in the elevator, clinging to the boy from her district. She looks scared and he looks angry. I wonder if he's angry at the girl for annoying him, or angry at the Capitol for his situation. Probably both. When we get to the eighth floor, the female tribute gets on. Her name is Ennie, I remember. We all collectively back up, subconsciously keeping our distance from this scary tribute.

Nobody else enters the elevator until the third floor, when both Lynetta and Claud get on. Lynetta says hello to me and Elya and starts chattering about the last couple days, "The food really is great! We never have such variety in our district, do we, Claud? Oh, and our escort is just hilarious. Her name is Seliza but she tells us to call her 'See.' Like the letter. And there isn't even a C anywhere in her name, either. Ha! Isn't that crazy? It's like me asking you guys to call me 'Pee.' Oh oops, I said pee! You know–"

"Will you shut UP?" growled Ennie. We all look at her. "Nobody cares. And you're giving me a headache."

Just then the elevator doors opened and Ennie shoved her way out. The Twelves follow. I hear Elya breathe a sigh of relief.

Lynetta, on the other hand, looks on the verge of tears. "It's okay," I tell her, "nobody likes her anyway."

Thankfully, Lynetta seems to cheer up a little, and we all exit the elevator. We walk down a grand hallway, full of intricate glassy lights and preserved bouquets of flowers. As we approach the training center, we see two armed guards. "What are they for?" I whisper.

"To keep us from killing each other before the Games start," Lynetta says ominously.

We get to the room and Elya looks at me expectantly. "So, Rienna, where to?" I notice Lynetta and Claud staring at me too, waiting.

Huh. Looks like I'm the leader of our little group, then. Or maybe Elya's just trying to get on my good side. Either way, I should probably start leading. "Well, since we're allies, we should probably split up so that we can learn as many skills as possible between us four. How about… two of us go to weapons and two go to the shelter building station?"

Lynetta and Claud nod. Elya says, "Sounds good. You and I can go to weapons. That okay with you guys?" He looks at the District Threes.

Lynetta says, "Yup. Off to shelter building!" They walk off together.

This leaves Elya and me alone together. He whispers, "How long are we going to be able to stay with them? Alliances always end in betrayal. We see that happen every year. I like them, though, so I don't want to have to kill them – but I will not let them kill us."

"Well, Claud doesn't look like he could hurt a fly. And Lynetta can't kill me, or she'd die too. The only way they could betray us is if Lynetta tried to…" I couldn't say the word, "hurt you, and I'm sure you could take her. I think an alliance would be good for us. Strength in numbers, you know?"

"Whatever you say, boss." He winks. "At least you're safe." As if.

We start at the archery station. Surprisingly, after just a few tries, Elya is managing to consistently hit close to the bull's-eye. I just can't get the hang of it, though. The weapon feels too heavy for me. I tell Elya that, and he says we should try the knives instead.

These are much better. Unlike the bulky bow, I can actually get a decent grip on the knives. I throw a small dagger at the dummy, and hit it in the shoulder. Not a fatal blow, but better than missing completely.

I try again, aiming for the head this time. The knife goes into the dummy's eyeball. Nice.

Elya nods, impressed, and tries to throw a couple. He hits the dummy each time, but never in a vital organ. He hits the arm, then the thigh, then the knee. He holds out a long serrated knife for me to try once more.

I throw it straight at the heart, and surprisingly, it hits its mark. The trainer nods approvingly at me. "Well done."

Next, we try swords, spears, and other dangerous metal objects, but none of them work for me as well as the knives. Elya seems to have liked the archery station best. Well, then. Guess we've found our weapons.

The training coach tells us it's time for lunch, so we meet up with Lynetta and Claud and sit down.

"Did you guys learn anything?" Elya asks.

"We spent a while at the edible berries section, finding ways to remember which are poisonous and which aren't. Like this. 'If the center is white then put up a fight. Because if it's not blue, it could kill you.'" She sings the last part.

"Lovely."

"Well, it helps us remember that blue is good and white is bad. We have others, want to hear them?"

"Maybe later, thanks."

"Okay. So what did you guys find out at the weapon stations?"

"Well, Elya is really skilled with a bow and arrow, which is helpful. If, you know, we can find one at the Cornucopia. I wasn't really good at any of the weapons–"

"That's not true, Rienna!"

"–except for the knives. I could handle those alright."

I glance reproachfully at Elya for interrupting me, but don't say anything. He was trying to defend me, after all. Lynetta and Claud are both nodding.

Claud says, "How about after lunch we switch? You guys learn survival stuff, and we'll work on some weapons."

"Sounds good," I say. Nobody mentions the unspoken implication behind his words: that we'd all need to know as much as possible in case the rest of us died.

When lunch was over, Elya and I head to the shelter building station. This is usually a pretty deserted station, since most of the tributes believe that weapons are more important. The trainer shows us how to make a small hut out of vines and twigs, and how to seal it off from the rain without making the entire structure collapse. It takes a long time, but when we finish, I step back and stare, proud of our work.

Then, the evil-looking Ennie comes over to the station. She innocently asks "Did you two just make this?"

Hesitantly, I reply, "Yeah..."

"Well," she says, looking at the trainer, "give me a chance to teach you a lesson. And that is," she walks over to the hut, "that it's twice as much fun to destroy something," she stomps all over the structure, "as it is to build it." She smirks at our gaping faces and stalks away.

"She… She ruined our hut!" Elya exclaims.

"Sorry, guys," says the trainer, "but we would have taken it down after you left anyway."

While this made sense in my head, there was still a huge difference between the Games' trainers tearing down our hut and another tribute doing so. That Ennie chick just started a fight between us, and she knew it.

For whatever reason, she had decided to single us out, and for that, she'd pay.

When it was time to leave, we meet back up with the District Threes, and ask them what they've learned. Little Claud shakes his head sadly, and Lynetta says, "Nothing really… fit with Claud. Most of the weapons were just too big. It's okay, honey, you'll be fine!" I notice a hint of desperation in Lynetta's voice; she seems to really care about Claud, almost as if he were her little brother.

"What about you, though?" Elya asks Lynetta.

"Oh, well, nothing to really be proud of, but I managed to handle the swords and spears. I definitely couldn't hold up against a Career or two, though."

We walk to the elevator to return to our floors, and it breaks my heart to see Claud so disheartened. "Hey Claud, I saw you at the knot-tying station this morning. You looked really good – I could tell even the trainer was really impressed! That's really good for us, because Elya and I don't know anything about knots and we might need them to catch food in the arena."

He looks slightly mollified as Elya nods in agreement. Then we're at the third floor and they have to get off. "See you guys tomorrow, then," waves Lynetta. We have two more days of training before the interview. Can't wait.

Jewel pounces on us as soon as we walk out of the elevator. "How did training go? Did you make any allies?"

I hesitate. "Well, yes. We think we're going to be allies with the pair from District Three."

"Hmm. That boy will be useless," she says contemptuously, "but the girl looks promising. Just don't get too close, or she could stab you in the back." This last part was directed only toward Elya, of course.

As we returned to our rooms, Elya apparently decides to bother me some more with all this romance stuff. "Rienna," he starts. "Rienna, listen. I'm so happy you agreed to be my ally–"

"So you can get close to me for an easy kill."

He rolls his eyes. "Yeah, clearly that's the point of all this. No, seriously, think about it from my perspective. I know that you despise me for what I did. Would it be worth it to me to try to seduce you, just so it'd be easy for me to kill you?" I raise my eyebrows. "No, it wouldn't. If I wanted to do that, I'd probably just stick with a 'best friends' angle. Think. The only logical reason I could have for trying to convince you that I do love you," I cringe at that word, "is because it's true. And I don't have much time left to tell you."

"Okay, well consider me told," I say icily. Then I frown – maybe I'm being too harsh? But all it takes is one thought about that day, years ago, and I manage to walk into my room and shut the door behind me.

I lay down for what is sure to be a restless night.

In the morning, I awake to a banging on my door, demanding my presence at breakfast. We eat, we go downstairs, we train, we come back to bed. The only interesting thing that happens is Ennie, from District Eight, throwing a life-sized 180-pound dummy clear across the training room. It crashes into the spear station, which panicked the trainers for a while.

Sheesh. That girl is scary.

The next few days pass quickly, until before I know it, we're waking up on interview day.

Jewel comes in to talk to us briefly. "You four make up one of the biggest non-Career alliances anyone's ever seen. Use that to your advantage in these interviews. The more you seem like actual, real children, the more sympathy and sponsors you'll get."

After a second, she adds, "And maybe people will question the morality of killing innocent, friendly children."