A/N: I finally got it up! Thanks so much to everyone who gave me ideas for names - I don't think I actually used any of them, but they were all really great. So, please read the chapter and tell me what you think.

"I know who you are." I say slowly. My voice sounds too loud in the quiet wilderness. Echoing.

"You do?" the redheaded girl raises her eyebrows in surprise, and for a second she looks very young. Younger than me; she can't be older than fourteen. "Oh. Of course." Her face relaxes into a half-smile, and the youth is gone. It makes my stomach twinge nervously. She takes a step closer to me, so that we're hardly a foot apart, and then shakes her head. "No. You don't know me," she continues, confusingly. I don't understand what she's saying. I don't understand any of this. "You know my sister."

"What?" I ask stupidly, blinking. "No, no – that's…" I shake my head, trying to clear it. She leans away from me, beckoning the other person in the tree to come down, before facing me again. "That's insane." I finish lamely.

"Makes more sense than the alternative." She smirks. "Which is that I am my sister, the escaped Avox who's suddenly found her voice and managed to get to the very edge of district twelve without being captured. Again." She deadpans. "Believe me, this makes much more sense." The other person from the tree, a boy, has gotten to the ground and is walking towards where we stand. The boy behind me releases his grip, cuts the ties on my wrists. I could run – I know that I should run, but my feet feel cemented to the ground.

"So then who are you?" I demand. The boy from behind me has moved and is now standing next to the redhead; he towers over her, as thick and strong as any of the trees that surround us. His skin is a tanned, nutty brown and his hair looks like it's just growing out of a brutally short cut. There's something that I recognize about him, but I can't quite think of it. It's not really important now, anyway…

The other boy, from the tree, has reached us. He stands on the other side of the girl, tall and lanky, with blue-black hair that hangs in his eyes and slight smirk, though I don't know why he'd be happy – there are the beginnings of a massive bruise on his right temple, just starting to color.

"This is Asher." She nods to the massive boy, who, despite his size, looks no more than sixteen. "And Caden." She gestures to the slighter boy on her other side, and he grins at me. She's smiling slightly, too. For kidnappers, these people seem oddly friendly, I think.

"I'm Arilea."

"Right. Nice to meet you." I give them a tight smile. "I guess it's safe to assume you already know who I am?"

Arilea's smile grows. "How could we not? You're famous."

"Legendary." The dark-haired boy, Caden, adds.

"Caden." She shoots him a look.

"What? It's the truth." He says easily. "That's why we need you." He adds, giving me a serious look.

"Need me? For what?" I ask skeptically, raising an eyebrow, as Arilea flings an arm out to smack him so quickly I can only see a blur, but Caden, almost as if expecting it, dodges her neatly. "What, you want me to kill someone for you?" I suggest bitterly, shaking my head.

"No – " Arilea inserts earnestly, taking a step towards me, and I get that flash of her youth again, and it makes me angry. What control does she have on me? She's a child – hardly older than Prim. And then I remember what they did in the square and how they took me away from her and my mother; how Prim could be hurt now, and I'm being held hostage in these woods, useless, in the place that used to be my sanctuary.

Anger and frustration fill me and suddenly I'm screaming at them. "Or, what, are you mad at me? Because I won? Because you think I want to take on the Capitol?" I shout, hurling my words at them.

"Why would I be mad at you? You saw what they did to my sister!" Arilea yells back. She starts toward me angrily, but Caden throws an arm out, catching her around the middle, holding her back.

"Lea," he says quietly, warningly.

"It's not like I can help her." I say coldly. There was a time, I know, when I could have, but not anymore. "Find someone else."

To my surprise, the three of them suddenly still. Arilea's ducks her head, her cheeks blooming with color that matches her hair and Asher stares at me defiantly, if somewhat nervously. It's Caden who gives it away though, when his eyes flick to one of the particularly thick clump of bushes and brambles around us, and back again.

Unthinkingly, I sprint all out at the bushes, tearing through them. Without warning the ground falls out from under me, and I'm tumbling down, down, down, careening downhill into the ravine I didn't realize was there. Along the way, I hit something hard and jagged and I can feel the sting as it rips the fabric of my shirt. I cover my hands with my face as I roll, trying to shield myself from the sharp rocks that jut out of the hillside.

Abruptly, I hit something solid, but not hard exactly, and I stop rolling, landing sprawled out in the soft dirt.

"Nice landing." Says a voice from behind me that's instantly familiar.

"Gale!" I exclaim, throwing my arms around him.

"You're an idiot, Katniss." He says in response. I pull away, so that I'm on my knees beside him, and I notice the boy sitting a few feet to the right.

"Peeta," I breathe, seeing for the first time the thick knots of rope tied around both boy's wrists and ankles.

"Katniss." His wrists strain at their ties. "Are you alright? What happened to you?" Peeta says, noting the tear of fabric that bares my collarbone.

"I'm fine." I shake my head, wipe at a scratch on my cheek.

"Katniss, where's Prim?" Gale asks. I look over at him, see his silver-gray eyes searching my face, and I remember all over again how stupid I was to ever let her go. I'm about to tell him that I don't know, when someone answers for me.

"She and your mother are in the bakery." Asher says in his gruff voice, striding down the steep hill. "With your family." He adds, turning his stony gaze to Peeta.

"We led them there so they would be safe." Arilea insists, sliding gracefully down after him, Caden at her side. "We don't mean harm to them or you."

"And what about Gale's family?" I demand angrily.

"Gale wasn't part of the plan." Caden says, looking at Gale coldly. "Obviously." I look down at where Gale is sitting on the ground and see that he's gazing steadily at the bruise on Caden's temple.

"You did that?" My eyes flick back and forth between the two boys.

"Reflex reaction." Gale says, unconcerned, looking up at me and I note the long gash that cuts across his cheek, a slow trickle of blood running down his face; how did I not see it before?

"You don't mean any harm? So tying up my friends, blowing up the square, and kidnapping me – "

"Well we're sorry. Okay? It was the only way." Caden insists as he cuts their ropes with a short, handled knife that tapers off to a deadly point. Gale rises fluidly to his feet and crosses quickly to my side, but Peeta, with his leg, moves a little more slowly.

"The only way to what?"

"We told you," Arilea says slowly. "We need your help."

I'm about to start shouting again, but Gale cuts me off. "To do what?" The three of them exchange a look, as if deciding what exactly to say.

"We need you to help us take down the Capitol."

A/N: I had a really hard time writing this chapter, but I like the way it turned out. Please read and review. Also, for future reference, the names are pronounced like this:
Asher: should be obvious, really.
Caden: Cay-den
Arilea: Air-i-leah