"What do you mean you're trying to make the Career pack still work?"

My voice had risen to almost a yell as I glared hostilely at Marcus. "I mean, Blaze, that you won't survive without allies in the arena. People have made it on their own before, but you definitely won't in this arena." "I've got one," I said stubbornly.

"One won't be enough, Blaze," my mentor said in a withdrawn, strained voice, "Not in the arena they have planned. I'm putting an end to your constant unexplained absences here, Blaze. There is indeed strength in numbers, and you're going to need all the advantage you can get. Not to mention more tributes means more sponsors." "But Marcus…"

He sighed tiredly. "Either way, the meeting is still on. We're meeting with Jade and the District Ones in less than an hour."

I swore loudly. Normally I liked to keep myself composed in front of Marcus, my mentor who never even flinched at anything, but this was ridiculous.

"Blaze! Manners!"

"Shut up, Finkerbell," I scowled, finally sitting back down.

Our district's escort, Fink Underwood, the spindly man with neon yellow hair, was all about the well-mannered life. And I despised him. This was the third time in the entire week that I'd actually had to talk to him, after briefly on the train and then at dinner one time.

"Speaking of manners," Marcus's voice broke into my thoughts, "Zeke, I expect you to behave yourself as well. I've heard vague mentions of your run-in with the District One male, and there will be none of that here."

Zeke was on the other end of the table from me. No one had ever been informed about his abuse towards me, but once again somehow Marcus seemed to know. So, to my reluctant appreciation, he kept space between us.

"Fine, whatever," Zeke muttered, glaring at the glass in his hand.

"I'm serious, you two," Marcus said firmly, "I know you don't get along these days but it's time to look at the bigger picture here! All four of you will make a lethal, winning team, I know it. You've got to set aside your personal lives and care more about, well, staying alive."

"If I may impose my personal opinion," Fink interrupted, "I believe that, if you all can cooperate tonight, and actually manage to form a pact, you might also consider inviting the male tributes from Districts 10 and 11, they may not have a reputation but they are enormous."

Zeke snorted. "If Blaze agrees to ally with anyone besides her latest loverboy, it'll be that redhead who's obsessed with her."

"Oh, you mean the one who kicks your ass every time you two run into each other?"

The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them, and I saw his hand impulsively clench around the knife beside his plate.

"Both of you," Marcus said warningly, "I told you to behave yourselves. At least try to somewhat get along."

Zeke's words finally sunk in. Redhead who's obsessed with her, he'd said. I swallowed dryly, and then hesitantly asked, "What do you mean, she's obsessed with me?"

He sneered. "Well, hm, let me think… When you did decide to grace the training center with your presence, she rarely took her eyes off you… She literally attacked me for arguing with you…"

Arguing. Yeah sure, put it that way, I thought to myself.

"And when she's with her little friends nowadays, she's always mentioning your name, and yesterday? She even came here, looking for you."

I felt my blood run cold.

"Spark came…looking for me?"

"You even know her name, that's cute. Spark and Blaze, it sounds like a dumb kids' book."

"Do you think she would make a good ally, Blaze?" Marcus asked simply, curving the conversation toward the more productive, less aggressive side.

"I…" I swallowed again, staring down at the table. "I don't know. I don't trust her. But I also don't want to have to fight her in the arena."

"Well, we can wait to see what District One thinks of the idea."

Jade, I had to admit, was not what I'd been expecting.

I'd been expecting perhaps a worse version of Lacey, more social and excitable and blonde. But that was entirely not the case.

Jade was short, several inches shorter than the two tributes and their escort trailing behind her. Her hair was true to her name—jade green, straightened and cropped jaggedly at her shoulders, styled in an almost punk fashion. She had bright, catlike yellow-green eyes, which were rimmed in thick black eyeliner. In contrast to Marcus and his black-tie attire, Jade wore a ripped white t-shirt and neon orange, plastic-looking pants.

"Hello, Sevine," she said coolly, her strange accent ringing in my ears, and it was a while before I realized that "Sevine" was Marcus.

"Jade," he said curtly, standing up and folding his hands behind his back.

I looked past her and met eyes with Axel, and we smiled at each other, a habit by now. It was a relief to see him after being trapped on my floor all morning. Then again, he was here, and Zeke was here, so maybe I shouldn't feel too relieved too quickly.

"You must be Blaze." I blinked and noticed Jade was looking at me with interest. "The silent prowler-type one. I've met Zeke coupla times down on our floor, you I've yet to meet though." She extended a hand to me, and once I had gotten to my feet, I received the most intense, firm handshake I'd ever experienced.

"Nice to meet you," I heard myself reply.

"Heard all about yer knife-throwin' skills," she said with a jaunty half-smile on her face, "Quite excited to witness them meself."

We joined them in the seating area: Fink and the weird, Capitol-representative lady with a shaved, sparkly head sat together on one couch with Marcus and Jade, Zeke and Lacey joined each other on the loveseat, and Axel and I sat next to each other in side-by-side armchairs.

"So," Jade began, "What can you tell us about the arena?"

"Not much, I'm afraid," Marcus replied, "There are several surprises the Gamemakers are determined to keep as surprises."

"Oh, come on, Sevine," Jade rolled her eyes, "The Careers never follow all the rules, yeh know that." Marcus's thin-lipped smirk came on. "Yes, I am aware of that. However, these are the 100th Games. They aren't holding back when it comes to…elaborate designs." He cleared his throat, glanced briefly at Zeke and Lacey, and continued. "What all four of you should remember is that the arena…well, they are indeed games. The Gamemakers sit in their headquarters, basically playing a videogame, editing and changing and shifting your surroundings, and what dangers may lie within them."

As Marcus continued steering away from arena details and more toward team strategy, I tuned him out and glanced up at Axel instead.

"You never told me about your mentor," I murmured quietly. He turned his head and looked down at me.

"Yeah, well, didn't really think she was worth mentioning. She looks alright, yeah, but… Just keep in mind what I said yesterday. All Careers are psychopaths."

"What's up with her accent? That's not even Capitol."

"I honestly don't know. She won the 69th Games, and she's lived in the Capitol more often than not, throughout the years, perhaps it's her attempt at picking up the dialect. I have no idea."

"I'm sorry, Axel dearest, you got somethin' to say?" We fell silent to see Jade looking at us with an eyebrow raised. Axel slightly shook his head, and she then continued to reminisce about the time she wrestled a wild dog in her arena.

I stared at the green-haired mentor for a moment, vaguely fascinated by her, as she seemed so starkly different from Marcus and Fink and their formalities. Then I leaned over to Axel again, and whispered, "I'm sorry, did you say the 69th Games? That would make her what, like, 45, 46 years old? She looks twenty!"

"Agreed," he nodded, "I don't know what her secret is, but she looks like she's barely aged a day since her games, honestly."

I raised an eyebrow. "Is that a thing, then?" I murmured, "If you win the Hunger Games you become a supernatural creature? Because I swear Marcus is a vampire." Axel laughed out loud, shaking his head. I smiled, not in amusement at myself, but simply at the pure and contagious sound of his laughter.

Then my smile faded, though, because I noticed everyone else was staring at us.

"Nothing, carry on," Axel said amicably, an amused smile still on his face.

I stuck my hands in my pockets to keep them from wringing, and I found a familiar object in one of them.

"Hey, look what I've still got." I pulled the small wooden bird out and held it up for Axel to see. He smiled again.

"Glad my work is appreciated. I think it's rather fitting, for you, honestly. But I won't start on the fire puns again."

I almost snorted. "Well, if I set it on fire, then it'd be a blaze."

"I suppose. But then it'd be ashes, which would be a shame."

"Yeah, I guess so… What should I do with it, though? None of us can like, keep anything, here."

"You could take it with you, into the arena. Consider it an alliance gift. If you want, that is. If you don't have a token already."

I'd completely forgotten about the idea of a district token. I treasured nothing from District 2, and I barely belonged there anyway since I'd only lived there for a year. But they couldn't know that.

"Sure," I found myself smiling, and I pocketed the bird again. Axel had an unconscious, shy little grin on his face, I noticed, as he turned back to face the conversation again.

"—So what are we supposed to do," Lacey was saying, "If we run into that little group of rebels? They've got some actually talented kids, to be honest, and they all hate us."

"Ah yes, Blaze and Zeke were just dwelling on what to do about them," Marcus said with a hint of another smirk on his face, "Apparently their loyalties are somewhat questionable."

"I mean," I said hesitantly, wanting to veer away from discussing anything about Spark, "Lily Mellark is the daughter of Katniss Everdeen. She probably loathes the whole Capitol; I wouldn't be surprised if she's got a plot to try to overthrow it again."

Fink shot me a very disapproving look, but Jade merely laughed. "O' course she hates the Capitol. They executed her mum, didn't they? The thing is, I wouldn't worry too much about her. The Capitol is definitely going to make sure she dies, to be perfectly honest. They'd never let the Mockingjay's daughter win an' rise to fame."

"Spark, though," Zeke mused, and I shot him a hateful glare, "The ginger ninja? She's Mellark's lethal sidekick and Blaze's secret admirer, we should either try to kill her right away or give her a night with Blaze here so she'll join us." "What the—" Axel quickly clapped a hand over my mouth so my lengthy expletives were silenced.

"If Blaze would go along with it, that'd make things a lot more convenient," Lacey said snidely, "I know you two dropouts aren't aware of this, but in training lately? The redhead's become even stronger in the past few days. Yesterday she literally sent three trainers to the hospital. Nobody actually died, I don't think, but they looked pretty dead to me when she was through with them."

"Don't they only let tributes fight trainers with blunt wooden sticks?" I asked hesitantly, my mouth feeling very dry and my palms sweating at the mere thought of having to face that…machine in a fight.

"Exactly," she said, with a dark expression of something between a smile and a scowl.

"Spark sort of halfway clubbed them to death," Zeke chimed in merrily, "And there's how she snapped one guy's arm out of its socket with one hand, so casually that you couldn't even tell she'd done it till the guy started screaming."

"Does she have any weaknesses?" I asked weakly. Lacey laughed at me. "I wish. But no, she really doesn't. Most of the other tributes do: they'll be bad at archery, or they're afraid of fire, or it's easy to sneak up on them—the redhead isn't like that. She spends all her time whacking around with those weird swords of hers, but over the past few days, she's used other things too. She can hit the archery targets in the head, she can throw spears, axes, knives, she can build traps and start fires in a matter of seconds and her camouflage is on point. If I didn't know better, I'd say she's a Career. If District Five had a training academy, which they don't."

"Well, if you're lucky," Jade spoke up, after a moment of silence, "The arena might take 'er out before any of you have to deal with 'er. I heard they're workin' on a new snake mutation, Sevine, is that true? Huge venomous things the size o' trucks."

Marcus said nothing, but the growing smirk on his face confirmed all our fears.

"Well, maybe one o' them will bite the ginger's head off for you," Jade said to me with an amused little smile. I really wasn't sure why, but something about the friendly, jovial way she said that sentence made me start to laugh a little.

After another hour of discussion, Jade pushed back her chair and got to her feet.

"Well, I hope this has been informative for you tributes, but now I've gotta be gettin' back to our floor to deal with that nonsense you have to call a stylist. You all 're welcome to come join us on our floor for some drinks again, if yeh like."

The rest of us stood up with her, but I hung back as most of them headed to the elevator, hoping to say goodbye to Axel, since I did not want to join in what mayhem drinking might cause again.

"Coming, Carter?"

"Actually, I think I'll stay here, if that's alright." I looked up in surprise, to see Axel's expression something of a challenging calm, still his usual composed self, but the glint in his eyes daring any of them to try to stop him. Jade gave him a sideways glance, then said airily, "Sure, okay. Careers sure are gettin' friendly with each other this year. Have fun, you two." And with that, the elevator doors closed.

I felt a surge of heat well up in my cheeks, and I looked away from Axel when he looked at me. "I didn't mean it like that, obviously," he said, as if surprised at my reaction, "Jade's always been a rambunctious one, you know she looks at everything with a perverted mind." I shook my head, attempting a little smile. "No, it's fine, I know."

I went across the room and sat on the couch, staring at the blank television as I shook off the sudden strange feeling I just got. I wasn't sure what it was, exactly. Jade suggesting that Axel and I were like Zeke and Lacey, that we were intimately involved in some sort of fling, well… it just wasn't like that. Zeke didn't care about Lacey. Axel, I was almost certain now, really did genuinely care. Intimacy though…we barely ever touched each other. It was entirely platonic. Wasn't it?

That was what was wrong. The idea of a relationship in the Games. My parents had been that. And they had suffered and died. I didn't need to repeat history, I was here to defeat it, to finish what my parents had been striving for.

Axel sat next to me on the couch, and looked at me for a moment.

"Are you alright, Blaze?"

"I'm fine," I said after a pause that was just slightly too long, not meeting his eyes, staring at the floor. "Was it… was it about what she said? About Zeke and Lacey? Do you… you still have a thing for him?"

I reflexively sent a pillow flying at his head, which he didn't quite manage to dodge.

"No. I still don't see why you thought we were a thing in the first place. All he ever does is hurt me, physically or verbally. I'm done with his bullshit."

I turned on the television to avoid any more questions. On screen were two people, a man and a woman, sitting in an interview. The man, on the left, was adorned in a solid gold wig and wore alarmingly sparkly gold makeup. Julius Flickerman. The revered tv-show host of the Hunger Games event. The woman to the right I only faintly recognized. Her white-blonde hair was cropped, and slightly curled under, at her shoulders, and she wore a dazzling dress of pure sequins. The caption under her read Stella Sevine, Head Gamemaker.

Oh. My new best friend.

Oh. Also Marcus's wife.

This was weird.

"Did you see what she did to the tributes last year?" Axel asked me, "She's a horrible, horrible person. She's the main reason I'm dreading the arena. She's got a twisted, sick mind, despite the pretty face and happy personality." I shook my head, but internally I wanted to smile. Axel was amazingly good at easing tension. A few moments ago, I hadn't wanted to talk to him, but his tone and his expression and just his general openness made you want to be his friend, want to be on his good side.

"I didn't watch the Games last year. Or the year before that. Or the year before that. In fact, I've only seen the Games once or twice. And those might've only been tapes." He raised his eyebrows, turning away from the screen as Stella went on about her favorite way to "accidentally" drown tributes.

"Why not? Or, sorry, you don't have to talk about…" "I was a drug addict in District 4, at this precise time of year last year, actually," I said expressionlessly, "Diamorphling. Also known as heroin, to some old-schools." His forehead creased in concern. "Are you… okay now? Do I need to go steal some for you? I don't want you going into withdrawal in the middle of the Cornucopia battle."

I stared at him for a second, wondering whether I wanted to laugh or what. "I… no, I'm okay. But thanks."

The fact that he had… he had offered to help my addiction, without even knowing if I still had it or how bad it was, amazed me. He hadn't looked shocked, or afraid, and he hadn't…belittled me, in any way. This must've been why I trusted him so easily. Because he was trustworthy. He didn't judge me or council me or anything. He simply accepted what I was and moved on.

His words from yesterday, "You're a Career, of course you're a psychopath": little did he know, those were the most comforting words he'd ever said to me. I had suggested that I might be crazy, that I might be a terrible person and a monster, but he had all but come out and said I'd still like you if you're crazy.

I wasn't sure what that said about him, but I didn't even care.

"I don't know what else you've been through," his voice broke my train of thought, "And you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to. But if you'd like to share anything, I'd love to listen. Honestly, it'd be healthy for you, to tell someone and get it out, not to mention that I'd like to understand my ally. I could protect you better if I knew more about you, more than your favorite color and how you eat pomegranates."

The bomb had dropped.

We'd avoided talking about our pasts for so long. He'd only just opened up a little yesterday, talking about his family. But other than that, we'd steered clear. Now, he was asking. And the strangest part was—I felt ready, almost ready, to tell him. I always turned stony whenever people pried, but… I trusted Axel. I didn't despise him. And he was right. I needed to tell someone, and get it out. Keeping sixteen years of anguish pent up in my head had had rather negative effects already.

"Okay."

My own voice surprised me, and it was echoed in the look of mild surprise on Axel's face. "Okay, Axel Carter. I'll tell you. I'll tell you everything, if you can stand it. But I advise you—it may be the most unpleasant story you have ever heard."