A/N: Revised this chapter sorry! Read and review :3

Chapter Three

My head spun. Anxiety forced its way through my veins and pumped throughout every inch of my body. I managed to utter out, "What?"

Ivy dropped down from the tree, relieving Charlotte of her verbal duties. She let out an audible breath of relief, as if speaking to me put her under insufferable stress. The deep pink drained from her cheeks, but she continued to play with her fingers, glancing around the surrounding forest and directing her focus to a nearby songbird. "If you don't go to the rebellion, it's going to come to you. These things spread fast, like wildfire. If we have a strong image against the uprising…there's a chance to stop it." Ivy said, her crystal blue eyes piercing deep into mine.

I tore my eyes away from hers, seeking comfort in Charlotte's songbird. As if sensing the severity of the situation, it chirped a low note and fluttered away, leaving me to face the dilemma at hand. Of course, knowledge of the uprising disturbed me. It left a nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach, like the riots were not halfway across Panem, but personified, lurking behind me, breathing down my neck and whispering dark threats. An involuntary shiver traced its way down my spine.

I snapped myself out of my mental haze and glanced at the girls. They stood hand in hand, Charlotte meeting my eyes for an accidental moment. She fiddled with the hem of her dress, nervously awaiting my reaction. Ivy looked at me, mentally urging me to say something. Instead I looked up, observing the darkened sky breaking through the canopy of trees above us. The stars pushing their way through the deep blue of the sky reminded me of my parents, and my sister, Melody, awaiting my return home.

"I need to get home." I said, averting my eyes to avoid the shock and disappointment on their faces. Ivy let out an exasperated sigh.

"We came all the way from District 8." She said, her face showing the first legitimate look of exhaustion I had seen from either of them. "Hear us out."

"I need to see my family." I said, definitively. She sighed again, clearly aggravated, and walked back to her tree and swinging up into the lowest branch. Charlotte glanced back at me quickly before joining her, clumsily pulling herself up onto a neighboring branch and swaying her feet back and forth.

An immense amount of guilt accumulating in my being, I turned on my heels and began home. When I was out of view of the girls, I returned to tracing the tree roots in my path with my feet, allowing myself to escape into the haze of my subconscious. The news of the uprising still left a corrosive feeling in the pit of my stomach, tearing away at me little by little.

My clouded mind travelled back seven years, when I was ten, and only beginning to understand the world apart from the fantasy swirling in my mind. My logical brain was only starting to outgrow my massive imagination. As I passed through the kitchen to get to my room, I saw my father swoop quickly down into a chair and grasp his head between his hands, as if physical force was required to keep his skull intact. He began to tremble; low, gravely words escaped his lips in broken whispers. A loud groan escaped him, saturated in pain.

Terrified, I ran to my sister's room, forcing the door open and ignoring her protests to my entry. When she saw the horror written across my face, she whipped off her headphones and ordered me to sit down. I took a cautious seat on her bed. "Mom and Dad are very special people," she began.

She told me that Panem wasn't always as peaceful as it was now, that cruel people ran the country and forced children from the districts to fight in games to the death. I shook my head, starting to interrupt, but naturally she told me to shut up and proceeded. "One year, Mom and Dad were chosen from District 12. They pulled strings and managed to both survive, but they had to see terrible things during the games, and they can't forget it. When Dad shuts down or when mom screams at night, it's them remembering the games."

The information shocked me, not only because of the eye-opener about my parents, but because only a matter of decades ago the world was so unimaginably sickening. They didn't even tell me about the Quarter Quell or the rebellion until a few years later. And now, there was an uprising to bring Panem back to the place that broke the strongest people in my life.

I hadn't walked for more than a minute before I heard the soft crunch of twigs behind me. "Wait, Drew, just…wait…"

I spun around to see Charlotte approaching me, taking careful steps to ensure her bare feet remained unscathed by the weathered ground. She came up close to me, so that I could see the red flushing within her complexion and her left eye twitch ever so slightly. She met my eyes for a split second before closing them and throwing her arms around my neck.

She held me close, and I could feel the heat radiate off of her tanned skin. She gave off slight tremors, like a frightened animal, and some nurturing instinct within me compelled me to close my arms around her as well. Though confusion raced through my mind, I held on until her shaking ceased.

She pulled away, looking at me straight on, a desperate look in her black-lined eyes. "Just think about it. Please."