The echo of the door slamming behind him rang loudly throughout the room. Everyone was quiet now. Still and silent, most of them staring at Zeke, but a few staring after Axel or even at me.

I felt heat blossom in my face, my stomach turning, sweat beading on my forehead and hands. My breathing was quickening, my eyes darting around the room, processing how many people were staring at me.

I could feel a panic attack coming on.

But after fifteen very painful seconds, paramedics came in for Zeke and the whole room reanimated, the chatter louder than before. The noise clashed against my ears, and I found myself at loss for what to do. I was rooted to the spot, trying desperately to fight off the impulse to break down in front of everyone.

It was only when Zeke groaned and sat up that my brain reanimated, and I realized that I needed to get out of here. He would murder me for this humiliation. When he sat up, I choked down a noise in my throat. I could tell, bruised and battered as he was, that he was looking for me.

The other half of my terror, though, was Axel. He was the calm, collected one, the funny, genuinely nice one, but not the violent one. That aggressive outburst had, honestly, shocked me. Amazed me. I'd had no idea he could get so angry or ferocious about anything. Could I dare go look for him? I supposed he was all I had left.

Finally I forced myself to move. After a tense two minutes of sneaking across the room, avoiding Zeke's line of sight, I was almost to the closest exit door when he stood up, against the paramedics' insisting he lie still. "Someone's gonna get it," a voice sneered behind me. I actually jumped, startled, and I turned to see Spark, smirking at me, looking as fierce and rebellious as ever.

She had taken the liberty to rip off the sleeves of her training uniform, leaving her wearing a sort of raggedy-looking tank top. Her fiery hair was slicked back into its usual, crisp high ponytail. Her eyes had a mischievous, amused glint in them, different from the look of pure fury when she had stood up to Zeke yesterday.

"Career drama so early in the season. My my. How ever is the pack going to stick together?" she cooed lazily, shifting her weight to one leg, her arms folded, her body language the epitome of I don't care about anything.

"Shut up," I muttered, cursing myself for getting caught in this situation. I was on the verge of a panic attack and caught in the gaze of my nemesis. I turned away to eye Zeke again, ignoring whatever taunt came out of Spark's mouth, my breathing quickening again and my heart pounding in my head. An unpleasant jolt hit me when his head turned and he spotted me. "Come with me," I said quickly, and I grabbed Spark's arm and half-dragged her out the door.

As soon as it closed behind us, she whirled around, twisted my arm behind my back and had me down on my knees with her foot on the back of my head in three seconds flat. "Do not touch me again," she said crisply, before finally letting go and stepping back to let me up. I slowly got to my feet, eying her, trying not to look too surprised. She was strong. Incredibly strong. Her figure was slim and she was very fit, but she must have trained specially not to build bulk muscle. Because she was at least twice as strong as she looked. And that was scary.

So while I wanted to punch her for daring to take me down like that, I bit my tongue and avoided a fight. Instead, as calmly as I could, I said, "Okay. Sorry. Chill. Can you tell me how to get to the District One floor? This isn't the way I came in."

She raised an eyebrow, her arms folding again. "Me? Help you? Please. Have you already forgotten how little you and I like each other?" "Well, honestly, you and I haven't personally spoken until now. You're thinking of Zeke, who did all the big-headed insulting yesterday. The guy I'm currently running from."

Spark relaxed, just slightly, her expression both skeptical and amused. "Your own district partner, antagonizing you. How will you manage without him?" I exhaled slowly, fighting off the desire to put her in her place, not in the mood for throwing taunts back and forth. "I'll live. I don't need allies. I've managed on my own for this long." "Sounds to me like you do want allies, if you're going after the other Career idiot."

I didn't have time for this. Zeke could come busting through those doors at any moment. Ignoring her, I turned and started walking down the hallway. "You're going the wrong way," Spark called after me. I stopped, my hands clenching into fists, my teeth grating together in irritation. Without a word, I turned on my heel and walked back past her.

And right at that moment, the door flew open, and I was thrown back against the wall, Zeke's hands wrapping around my throat. His dark eyes flashed with a now-familiar menacing glare, which was made more frightening by the trickle of blood down the left side of his face.

"What was that, huh?" he said heavily, obviously still in pain from his head wounds and all the more angry. "Think you'd have your little friend make me look like an idiot, huh?" His fist connected with the side of my head, and I crashed to the floor with a tiny yelp of pain. Agony suddenly blossomed in my torso, as he kicked me—hard—in the stomach. I curled up into a ball, bracing myself for another hit, but none came.

Instead, there was the sound of scuffling, a grunt of pain, and Zeke hit the floor before I could even look up. When I did, I saw Spark, staring down at him in loathing. She kicked him one more time in the head for good measure. When we made eye contact, she stared at me for a long time, as if determining what to make of me. Finally she said, "You owe me, District Two."

And then she turned sharply, her flaming ponytail swinging behind her head, and she re-entered the training room.

I shakily got to my knees, my stomach and head aching horribly, and I staggered to my feet. My vision swam before me. After a few wobbly steps, I straightened myself out, and eventually found the staircase.

When I finally reached the first floor, I raised my hand to knock on the door, when it suddenly flew open before me, and Axel and I almost crashed into each other for the second time. "Blaze! Are you alright?" In answer, I collapsed, out of both pain and fatigue. I was caught before I hit the floor, though, and I felt myself being lifted into the air and carried inside. "I'm so, so sorry, Blaze, I realized as soon as I got back here that I shouldn't have left you alone." I was vaguely aware of being laid down on a bed. A glass of water was pressed against my lips, and I reluctantly drank.

"What happened? Where are you hurt?" "I'm fine," I mumbled, rolling away from him, curling up on my side and trying to go to sleep. "Blaze, don't fall asleep, you might have a concussion." "I'm fine," I mumbled again, trying to wave him off as he tried to put an icepack on my forehead. "Get her to lie still, would you?" I heard him say. Another pair of hands made me lie on my back again, and propped me up against some pillows. When my vision focused on the newcomer's face, I realized it was one of those funny slaves that were everywhere around here. The girl was very young; she couldn't even be as old as me.

I looked warily back at Axel, who put the icepack back on my forehead, and then started checking my arms for bruises. I smacked him away, self-conscious about him looking closely at my scarred skin. "Where else hurts, Blaze?" "My stomach," I mumbled. He gently lifted my shirt up, just a little bit, to get a view of the darkening bruise across my lower torso, and I saw his eyes widen in shock. "It's okay, I wasn't planning on having kids anyway," I said sarcastically.

He cracked a small smile, before taking a lotion from the servant and gently rubbing it into my skin. "I don't think it's that bad. We can get you to a real medic, if you need. No need to throw your dreams of parentage out the window." I snorted. "We're in the Hunger Games. I have no future."

He looked at me, almost curiously. "So pessimistic. I thought you were better than everyone here?" "Not Zeke. I'm going to be his first target, and I know what he's like with people who shame him." His smile vanished. "Well he isn't stronger than I am. I won't let him anywhere near you. Besides, he should go after me, not you, for what happened earlier."

I looked at him for a long time, studying his face. His loyalty amazed me. What had I done to earn such an ally? "You trust me so easily, Golden Boy. I could be a deranged psychopath, for all you know." "You're a Career, of course you're a psychopath," he said dryly, "Zeke is, Lacey is, I am. We're all insane, for wanting to be in these Games."

I was quiet for a long time, not really knowing how to answer. Maybe it was true. Zeke wasn't the most stable person—he was at least a sadist if not completely mad. Axel, I wasn't sure anymore. He seemed completely sane and stable, until today, when he snapped like that. It hadn't been just a simple slap and a "how dare you." He might have killed Zeke if the Peacekeepers hadn't gotten to him.

"So," he said, in a slightly lighter tone, cuing a change of subject. "We've got one enemy, then. Lacey will probably side with him, since I, well, haven't been the warmest with her. So that's two. Anyone else we should worry about?"

"Spark." The word escaped my lips before I even noticed it. He nodded. "Right, her and Mellark and whoever's with them. Two boys, I think, I forget which districts…I think one of them came with Spark, the little one might be from Eight."

"Sure, Mellark's a threat too, but Spark genuinely scares me," I said flat-out, not even caring that I had just admitted I was afraid of someone. He shrugged. "She's good with swords, I'll give her that." "I talked to her, Golden Boy." He looked at me. "You what? What did she say?"

I winced as his fingers rubbed lotion into a particularly painful spot on my stomach. "Initially she was making fun of me. I tried to ask her how to find you; that was a mistake. Then Zeke came out and started beating the crap out of me when…" I found it hard to form the next words in my mouth. "Spark saved me from him."

Axel stared hard at me, as if trying to see if I was joking. "She…what?" "She saved me. She stopped him. She threw him off and beat him up. She's strong, incredibly, alarmingly strong. Much more powerful than she even looks. When we first went in the hallway she took me down in three seconds. How am I supposed to fight that in the arena? What are we up against here? I'm not just wary of her, I'm afraid of her. I don't know how she got so skilled, or who trained her, or where this girl ever came from, but she's genuinely alarming. Her fluctuation between violent fury and laid-back sarcasm of a personality isn't the most delightful thing either."

It struck me that I had just described myself. Unpredictably violent. Mysterious origins. Well-trained with blades. Overall frightening disposition.

He gently tugged my shirt back down and sat beside me. He nodded at the slave girl, (I had forgotten she was there and the sight of her almost made me jump), and she left the room. "Well, we'll do our best to avoid her, then," he said gently. "But I owe her," I mumbled. "Those were her words to me. 'You owe me, District 2.' I hate owing people. I may not strike you as someone who fulfills promises, but I can never ignore a debt. It's something of a character flaw."

"I really don't know what you strike me as, honestly," he mused, helping me prop myself up on pillows before sitting back again. "You asked me earlier, why I'm nice to you. I sort of brushed the question off. Because I really don't know the answer, Blaze. Everyone else seems to consider you a terrifying threat." "Because I am," I muttered, "That's all I've ever been."

"That's the thing, Blaze. I think that's why I talk to you. Because I believe you're no different from the rest of us, and you just admitted to it. You said you're scared, Blaze. We're all scared. Every single one of us. Even Zeke is scared. I doubt you can see it, but I certainly saw it when I attacked him earlier. Fear. None of us are emotionless monsters. We're afraid, we're excited, we're sad, we're tired. You don't let that show, so everyone fears you, but underneath, you're human, Blaze, just like the rest of us."

I stared at him in hostility, his words for some reason inciting sudden anger in me. "You think you know who I am, underneath?" I said flatly, "You don't know anything about me."

"No," he admitted, "I really don't. All I know about you is, well, you're stubborn and you're good with knives." "That pretty much sums me up," I muttered flatly.

"No, I think there's more than that. You just don't want to tell me." "What am I supposed to tell you?" "Anything you want. Something that no one knows about you." I pursed my lips, thinking. What did no one know about me? Well, I wasn't sane. I was in a freezer for a decade before developing into a grown human infant. I'd killed people. I had multiple identities. What was I supposed to say?

"Like what?" I asked, at a loss and really not wanting to share anything.

"I dunno, like… what's your favorite color?"

The absurd question caught me off guard, and I looked at him. He was completely serious. I… I didn't quite know, honestly. I went through every color I could think of, figuring I should answer at least this before he got to anything actually personal.

"Black," I said finally. "Black? That isn't a color." "I know. That's why I like it. Red reminds me of blood. Blue and purple are the colors of the bruises I get when people beat me up. I have bad associations with basically everything. I like black. Black is peaceful. Black is sleep. Blackness is the escape from pain, unconsciousness. I choose that one."

"Hmm," he nodded absently, a curious expression on his face, as if turning my words over in his mind. "What's yours?" I asked after a pause. "Hmm, well… honestly, I guess I'd say white." "And you accused me of not picking a true color." He smiled, a genuine smile, an endearing expression that made him impossible to be annoyed with. "Yes, call me a hypocrite. But I'd have to say white. White, like black, is also peaceful. It's calm. Serene. White is purity. Unblemished by anything else."

The next five days were quite possibly the happiest days of my life. Though coming from me, that wasn't saying much.

Each day was the same. I woke up very early, got dressed, and immediately went down to the District One floor—and I stayed there until late at night, when it was time to sleep. I never went to training again. I couldn't face Spark, Zeke, or anyone else.

I avoided all contact with Zeke, never worsening or bettering our situation. If I ever saw Lacey, we exchanged uncomfortable looks but nothing more.

In the mornings, I met Axel in his room, and he ordered breakfast for us. It took a day or two to convince me to eat something substantial. Throughout my life, there had been multiple times when I'd have to go for days, even weeks, with little to no food. By now, my stomach felt full after consuming just an apple, or a piece of bread. Now Axel had made it his personal challenge to ensure I got my complete daily nutrition.

Once we ate, we talked. Never about our lives. Never about our current predicament, being days away from the arena. We never discussed anything about our past, our present, or our future. Well, except for a few amusing daydreams about a future too extravagant to be possible.

"There will be a huge victory parade, of course," he mused, frowning and rubbing his chin as he pretended to be considering this very hard. "With giant floats that all have my face on it. It'll last a whole week and travel through the entire Capitol…twice." "Right, because what could be better than an enormous parade of this frightening thing?" I mused, a light smile on my face as I prodded him in the forehead. "My parade would clearly be better, because there would be dancing bears and little blue elves and confetti made of sugar." "Oh Freckles, think of the mess you'd make," he scoffed. "My mess? You're the one with the great big party on the roof of the skyscraper down the road."

When we weren't joking around, we either exchanged more "deep" information about ourselves (I learned that he hated raspberries and had a pathological fear of chickens), or we taught each other how to do things. Right now, I was showing him how to whittle something out of a chunk of wood with a knife. "So," he said, after a minute of silence and concentration, "I know you don't want to tell me anything…detailed, about yourself, but I guess I can tell you a little more about me." I stopped carving the small wolf I was working on, and I looked at him. "If…If you want to." "Sure. There's nothing too crazy. I just want you to feel like…well, like you know me better than someone you've known for only a week."

"Okay, well, go for it." In truth, I was very curious. I did want to know more about him. Everything about him. He was just always so relaxed, content, and incredibly nice, and I wanted to know why. And how. How someone could go through life in Panem and not end up ruined. How someone could go through life in District One and not end up spoiled and selfish.

"Alright. First, do you have any questions?" I thought for a moment. "Why do you have an accent? I mean, sure, District One is a Capitol favorite just like Two, but…" "No district citizen really picks up a Capitol accent, I know," he nodded.

"See, my grandfather is from the Capitol, originally. He had an affair with the woman who was then the Head Peacekeeper of District One, and my dad and uncle were eventually born from it. Their whole family acquired something of my grandfather's accent, and I picked up mine from my dad. My uncle had a really strong accent, I'm told. He and my dad were such good-natured, fun-loving people."

"Were?" I asked. "Both of them ended up in the Games. My father won the 79th, and my uncle, Marvel, he died in the 74th, as I told you when we met. I never got to meet him, but I'm told he was a really funny, nice guy." I studied his face, curious, his expression a serene, sincere calm. "And my dad, well, he's never been too stable," he continued, "Because of his time in the Games. Whenever I'm around, he tries his hardest to stay sober and composed, but I can tell even that is hard for him. I've never asked about his Games, but I know that they were awful. He's permanently scarred, from whatever happened in there, and he goes mental every time the Games are even mentioned. I thought he'd die on the spot when I volunteered for the Quell this year. I'd never seen such a terrified, regret-filled expression. He made me sign up for Academy just so I'd be prepared, if I would ever get reaped, but he never dreamed I'd actually choose to participate."

"Why did you volunteer?" I asked, genuinely curious. Marcus had shown us the review of Reaping Day, and all the other tributes, but I had sort of zoned out. "I volunteered for a tiny little boy. Barely twelve. I'd never seen him in my life and I still can't even remember his name. It was sort of… sort of an impulse, I guess, but I couldn't just sit there and watch such a little boy be sent to his death." "Got a soft spot for kids?"

"You could say that. I have a little sister, see, she's only ten years old. With our dad incapacitated and our mom working all the time, she and I are closer than anything. And with such young kids in the Games… Every time I see one, I imagine my sister in their place. How she would feel. How I would feel. Every time I think about killing someone like that little boy from Eight, the one with Lily and Spark, I see my sister in his place. I will never be able to kill someone smaller than me. Because of her. It's just too…horrible."

He fell silent, and didn't say anything for a long time, idly chipping at the piece of wood in his hand. When he finally spoke again, he held it out to me. "For you," he said with a small smile. I hesitantly reached out and took it from him.

I had been prepared to laugh at a rough first try, but what he had given me was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. "It's a firebird," he explained, "A phoenix. Ancient creature from mythology. Thought it… went well with all the fire puns I've been bombarding you with." He cracked an endearing smile, and I realized I was smiling too.