Shimmer Argent, 18, District 1

I'm angry.

In District One, everyone knows that, if I'm angry, they should stay very far away.

Apparently, no one ever told Pleaton Danalander.

The plate sails through the air and hits our wonderful escort right in the face as I slam my bedroom door closed again.

Those stupid Sevens! How DARE they refuse me, after I so generously welcome them into my pack! They have no right to refuse me, no right whatsoever!

I kick the wall, which only hurts my foot, and just makes me angrier.

If I had those two…! They're killers, I can tell. Jude picks up those enormous axes like they weigh the same as a feather, and while Robin isn't as strong, she tears those dummies apart piece by piece, grinning as she does so. If I had those two, I could dump Phenom and still have the best fighting force in the arena.

I stand in front of the mirror and glare at my reflection for a while.

Well, that's too bad for them! Now they'll die sooner rather than later. I'll pick off Robin from a distance—right in the upper back, so that she'll die from choking on her own blood—and when Jude turns to fight me, I'll throw a blade through his fingers, and when he drops his axe in pain, I'll step forward and stab him in the stomach… Maybe I'll twist the knife a bit as I do so, too. Oh, it will be a long and painful death for Jude Paraux.

I grin at my reflection, baring my teeth as I do so.

Now, my pack. I'm at the head, of course. Then there's Lucas. He's not very bright, but he's good with a spear. If there aren't spears in the arena, we'll get him a stick or something. He won't need a weapon, necessarily, so that's good.

Thera's the best with a sword, but she's arrogant. Too arrogant. She lords over her partner—then again, who wouldn't? He's such a wimp.—and she walks around like she owns the place. She could rebel against me, but she won't if she knows what's good for her. I think that she knows. She's smart enough to wait to try to take me down… but I won't let her take me down.

Phenom. He's really nothing special. He's decent with a sword. That's all. He'll be easy to dispose of when the time comes.

I need another member…

I walk over to the wardrobe and pick out an outfit like the one that I wore to the Reaping, but with short sleeves. I feel like showing off today.

Who's there to pick?

…Carn?

I snort as I pull on the tunic. He's really big, bigger than me, and he's muscular, but he doesn't know how to hurt something. Then again, he put up a decent show when Thera was laughing at him…

His anger makes him strong. If I can manipulate his anger to work for me, he could have some value… I'll make a decision later today.

XXX

Briar Tussen, 12, District 11

Over and under… Over and under…

I weave the ropes together, forming many small loops that link. I couldn't copy any of the snares that the instructor showed us, so I'm improvising.

"What's that for?" Moira asks. She's just fiddling with a piece of rope, twisting and turning it around and around. I think it's more to keep her hands busy than anything else. Her District partner, Tam, is actually working with the instructor.

"Well, you put this part on a branch," I explain, pointing to a slightly larger loop. "And this one here goes on the ground. You stretch this loop out overhead, like on another branch or something, and when a person steps on the ground loop, it tightens around their leg. And that one tightening makes this one tighten…"

I pull on the loop and show her how the others tighten in turn.

"…and it pulls on the stretched loop, which falls. So they're suspended by two loops, the one around their leg, and the stretched one, which fell around their neck. The person's weight pulls the rope tight, so, yeah."

"…Wow," says Moira. "Do you think that it actually works?"

"If it does, then it's a pretty sweet weapon," says Tam, who was paying more attention to us than the instructor, it seems.

I have mixed feelings about the rope loops in my hands. Sure, it would be effective, assuming that it works. I'm not about to test it, of course. But still… The thought of someone actually hanging from it is…unsettling, to say the least.

"It kinda looks like a spider web," I say, hanging it from the fake tree branch on the wall so that the loops fall over each other. I place a hand on the "web."

"Help! I'm stuck!" I yelp, tugging at it like it's sticky.

Moira laughs a little. I've had success with making nearly everyone I act out in front of laugh, except for Anise. She's out on the obstacle course right now, running around and around.

I think she's avoiding me.

XXX

Kayla Rakkor, 15, District 9

"What does it take to make a person disappear?" I mutter to myself, dipping my arm in brown paint and placing it against the picture of a muddy riverbed on the floor.

"I can still see the rest of your body, you know," Bergamot says.

"Well, I don't think that Arrian would be too happy if I ruined my clothes," I reply. My sleeves are rolled up as far as they will go, but I'm still careful.

"I don't think he'd care."

I sit up and glance at Bergamot. He's been in a foul mood all day, probably because Vivienne took his bracelet. It was his token, so the review board has to take a look at it.

Like they'll find anything dangerous in a leather bracelet.

I didn't bring a token to the Capitol. The thought just hadn't occurred to me at the time, and I don't really have any prized possessions, anyway. If I get out of this alive—when I get out of this alive! Think positively, Kay!—I don't think that I'll want anything to remember the arena by.

The girl from District Six is sitting nearby, leaning against a forest scene, her eyes closed and her face covered in dark green and brown paste. Unless I focus really hard, she doesn't appear to have a head.

"You're really good at this," I compliment.

Her eyes open. It's a little eerie, seeing her black pupils staring out from an array of leaves.

"Your name's…Sara, right?" I ask. She nods, and her hair, which was piled up behind her head, comes undone. Now it's pretty clear that she's a person. Sara glares at me.

"Sorry," I say. She doesn't say anything, just glares at me and turns back to the paints.

Neither she nor Bergamot is paying any attention to me now, so I wander over to the picture of a small cave and sit in front of it, thinking. If I were to disguise the entrance to this, how would I go about it…?

There aren't any supplies available for that sort of camouflage, but I picture in my head setting up leaves and branches above and around the cave, scattered around so that they won't look placed, and then with a heavier concentration around the cave entrance. Only a small hole would be visible, but no one would pay that close of attention. I wish that I could test it out…

Hunter's mouth is big and wide,

Little prey knows how to hide…

I sigh.

Who am I kidding? The word "prey" practically means "victim". People like Shimmer, they're hunters. They're Victors.

I'm prey.

XXX

Carn Hurdy, 18, District 2

"Carn."

I turn around, and there's Shimmer.

She's got to be a half foot shorter than me…so why the heck does she make me feel so nervous?

"What do you want?" I ask, trying to sound tough. "Make it quick. I want to go eat."

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but you're in," says the District One tribute. "You sit with my pack today. You do not attempt to leave my pack. I am in charge of the pack. Is that understood?"

…I'm in?

"Yeah," I say, hardly able to believe my luck. "Understood. Right."

Shimmer rolls her eyes and strides off towards the cafeteria.

I grin. Take that, Thera! And you said that I'd never make it…

With people to back me up, maybe now I'll have a chance…

XXX

Ashley Coralis, 14, District 4

My fingers tie a hook to a fishing line without my mind paying much attention to it. I've been fishing all my life, so there isn't much point in my being at this station…but I really don't have anywhere else that I want to go. It's familiar here.

I close my eyes and wrap my hands around the fishing pole, trying to imagine that I'm on the docks in District Four.

It doesn't work. I'm still in the Capitol.

"That one looks good," says the girl from Ten, who is looking at a large book with pictures of fish in it. I glance over.

"You wouldn't want to catch that," I mutter.

"What?" She blinks at me with reddish-brown eyes.

"There are tiny spines on its fins," I explain. "They have poison on them."

"That's right," says the instructor. "You could end up in incredible pain, or even paralyzed, if you get pricked by one of those."

"Oh…" says the girl. "Well, I guess I'll be avoiding it. You know a lot about fish," she adds to me.

I shrug and turn back to the fishing line.

"Not that it will do me much good," I mutter.

"It's food," she says. "I doubt we'll be able to get much from the Cornucopia, what with that District One girl."

I glance over at the knife-throwing station, where Shimmer Argent is hitting bulls-eye after bulls-eye.

The Ten girl sighs.

"I'd like to be over there with those knives," she says. "But I think she'd murder me if I even touched one."

"Does it matter?"

She gapes at me.

"What do you mean, 'does it matter?'" she asks.

"We're all doomed, anyway," I say. "Die sooner, die later… It's all the same."

"Well, I'm not going to die," the girl determinedly says. "Give me a blade, and I'll be fine. I'm going home to my brother."

She stops suddenly and turns away from me.

Her brother?

Of course. She has family to miss, too… We all do. We're all stuck in these Games.

The girl looks sad. Sad, like me. I want to do something, but I don't know what…

Suddenly, I remember little Briar coming up to me yesterday, and how he asked me a question that had confused me but had made me feel good, too.

"I'm Ashley," I say. "What's your name?"

The girl turns back to me, looking a little confused, but there's a little smile on her face.

"I'm Dawn," she says.

So that's why…

XXX

Landon Meddel, 16, District 8

"What the heck am I going to do?" I shout the instant Alastair closes the door of my bedroom. "I've got nothing. No allies, no skills, nothing! I don't have anything to show the Gamemakers tomorrow, and I don't even want to think about the arena! And Gabby…! How the heck am I going to keep her alive? I'm useless!"

My mentor lets me rant, standing there and watching me calmly.

"Sit down, kid," he says.

I sit on my bed. Alastair continues to watch me for a few moments before speaking again.

"You aren't the first tribute to feel like that," he says. "I've watched nearly twenty pairs of teenagers from my District go through the training and the arena. Every one of them feels the strain, the pressure to stay alive, and the hopelessness of their situation. You've got it doubly so, because you care so much about your partner.

"I can only help you so far, Landon. The arena is like no other place on Earth. You have to fight for your life. You have to put on a good show for the audience. You try to hold on to your values, even as they slip through your fingers.

"I can tell you this one thing for sure, though: No one, I repeat, no one knows how things will be in the arena. I saw a girl get an eleven for her training score only to die in the bloodbath. I got a five, and here I am."

Alastair turns back to the door.

"The one thing that we can't control is the odds," he says as he opens the door and leaves me alone with my thoughts.