Author's Note

I've been doing a lot of apologizing lately, and I have to do it once more: sorry for the long time between updates again, and for those of you to whom it matters (thank you as always for your support) the next few will probably be slow as well. Life has been unfortunately demanding. I hope this chapter isn't too awful to muddle through; more action is coming, I promise, but there were some things here that needed to be said.

The next few days are hard. The start of the Hunger Games has my mother back in bed nearly full-time again. I can't decide if I am sad or angry; part of me aches for her and the loss she feels anew, and the other part cannot understand why she doesn't fight harder. Each morning when I wake and give her medicine and persuade her to eat, I remind myself that she and others have always told me that I favor my Aunt Maysilee. That I am fundamentally different form my mother. That it is unfair to expect her to handle pain the same way that I do. Then, after I finish and have time to notice how much I miss her again, I can't help but think that she's a Donner, too, and her sister's twin on top of that. Surely she must have some of that fight in her, at least a little…. By the time I get to school, I take those thoughts and fold them up and lock them away because it isn't going to change. Though I'll always love her, each year that I have to miss her makes it harder not to feel abandoned. Betrayed. Not worth the fight.

I feel more alone than I ever have at school, which is honestly surprising since I hadn't thought it possible. It's not so much that no one speaks to me or seems to particularly care if I show up, because this in itself is as it always was. It's that I've placed myself in harm's way – literally endangered my life – for all the people here that hate me for having a life that they cannot. And I'm doing it because they can't have the life that I do. It gets my head going in circles so small and fast that I'm dizzy even sitting down. In fact, I fail a history exam so spectacularly one morning that the next day my teacher keeps me after class to discuss it because she was concerned that it was so unlike my usual performance. Since I can't tell her that history class is a sham and that I'm working with a group of treasonous rebels who want to make sure future students won't have to be subjected to such ridiculous propaganda, I lie that my sick mother kept me up the whole night before the test. When I accept her gracious offer to retake it, I seriously consider failing it again on purpose. I decide that this might be unwise in many ways, so in the end I regurgitate the answers that are expected of me and feel like I've sold a little part of my soul. Stay focused on the big picture, I tell myself, choose your battles carefully and you can win the war.

I see Gale from time to time in the hallways between classes or outside waiting to collect his brothers after school, and I had hoped to get a another friendly smile or even hello once or twice. But I get nothing from him. Even when he happens to look my way, he looks through me. At first I thought him distracted, with the Games finally begun and two families to feed, but it became clear that he has no trouble acknowledging anyone else. He talks and laughs with his friend Bristel, flirts back with the pretty Seam girls that bat their eyes at him, even carries on civil conversations with a few of the town boys whom he knows from trading with their parents. But not me; no, I don't even rate that familiar scowl of contempt. Those few, delicate bonds of friendship that I'd thought we had established were apparently a figment of my lonely imagination, an illusion fabricated by a wishful heart. But the falling in love – that was real, and that's the worst part.

I go home to a cacophony of disappointments. Now that the Games are ongoing, there is little for me to do to help the cause – most of that will be done by contacts in the Capitol now, where they are closer to the source. To keep me busy, my father (when he's able to actually be there) gives me newspapers from which to glean bits of information and the occasional encrypted message. I learn which reporters' articles to look for in each district publication, and how to decipher their codes. I appreciate the activity, but the gnawing sense of frustration at not doing some concrete kind of good never leaves me. When the media team is around, I find their presence to be a supreme irritation. It does not help when Tangerine says that she cannot believe that I never mentioned Katniss' handsome, feisty cousin before. I act nonchalant as I shrug in response and tell her that I didn't think much of it because he wasn't very friendly anyway (truth). I hope that the comment will cause her to drop the subject, but she just laughs and says something about enjoying a challenge; I try not to listen too carefully because my skin is already crawling. For some inexplicable reason, every time Rose cooks dinner she puts lima beans in it. I never really had an opinion about them one way or the other, but since I've had to share my living space with Marcus I've felt compelled to pick them out of my food. A minor inconvenience, I admit, but on top of everything else it grates down to my bones. Mom is still in bed, so I bring her dinner and do my best to convince her to eat. It's like breakfast all over again, but it gets me away from everyone else for a while. I hope that she'll rebound sooner than usual, like she did after this year's Reaping, because I'm starting to worry that I'm snubbing the Everdeens.

Throughout the evening, in between all of this, I watch the Games because they are on the television non-stop and our Capitol guests can't stand to miss a minute of it. It's a slow, nagging kind of horrible because despite the fact that Katniss is physically unharmed she has yet to find water and the clock is ticking; without it, it won't matter if the other tributes find her. It's awful to watch her wander, suffer, eventually struggle. By the end of the second day, I can't understand why Haymitch hasn't at least sent her something with the sponsor money she's undoubtedly been given. A look at my map gives a likely explanation; based on the tracker positions given on television, which are shown on a plain circular diagram to indicate only distance and direction from the Cornucopia, she is getting close to a small pond. No sense in wasting precious resources on something she ought to be able to find on her own. He must have noticed this before I put the pieces together – I just hope he doesn't wait until it's too late if she ends up needing his help after all. When she does finally find it, I'm pleased to find that my map is in fact accurate and I talk myself into believing that Haymitch was being shrewd and not negligent.

I spend far less time on my homework than I ought, but I figure if I've got a good enough excuse that it gets me a chance to retake an exam then I might as well get as much mileage from it as I can. I feel guilty that I can take a shower, which completely ruins the feel of the warm water. It makes me think of blood. I consider sleeping on the floor to make up for the shower, but just sitting on the edge of my plush mattress forces me to admit that I'm unwilling to give it up. While I lay there in a pile of soft blankets I think of Katniss tying herself into a tree and decide yet again that I'm a Horrible Person.

I know what it is; the sense of uselessness is killing me, and I'm no good at waiting. I think of the promise I made myself a few days ago. To fight. To count my blessings. To make myself useful. I have to admit, I don't feel great but I feel better than I did before I made the promise. It's just more exhausting to be angry than I expected.

….

Posy does pretty well, all things considered. She doesn't exactly have nightmares, but she sleeps fitfully. Still, it's far better than I could have hoped. Because of it, I'm further in debt to Madge Undersee than I could have imagined. It makes going to school difficult; it seems that she's everywhere I look, and I find it embarrassing that I haven't figured a way to settle up. I don't know if I ever will. And if there's something I like less than owing someone, it's being embarrassed by it. So for now, I avoid her entirely, and try to keep my sister away from the television.

Posy wants to see our friend, but I don't want her to see the kinds of things that upset her so badly before. As the days stretch on, I'm not sure I even want her to watch Katniss. I can't stand to see her wander through the woods alone in the arena. Though I'm relieved to see that the environment will play into her favor, that it is something so similar to the one she knows here, it's just a little too close to home. I can't help but wonder if I had been there with her, like I would have been in our forest, she might have found that pond sooner, and been less weakened and vulnerable.

I can't help but wonder if I should have volunteered.

It's not the first time the thought has occurred to me. But seeing her struggle on her own has turned the little whisper in the back of my mind into a roaring accusation. It's ridiculous to give it any credence, to even think it might have been an option to go with her. It had always been an unspoken but unbreakable promise between us; if anything happened to one of us the other would take care of the family left behind. She'd have hated me if I volunteered and left her sister stranded. I'd have likely been her first kill in the arena. Still, guilt is a stubborn thing. To make it worse, I know even the guilt would annoy her. So I try to go back to life like it was before Reaping Day, and I think I do a fair job of faking it. Even if there is a Katniss-shaped hole in it. And the Games are on television every night until the power goes out. And the only person there to help her is a clueless, sappy Townie kid who probably couldn't find water if he looked up in a rain storm.

For someone who's supposed to be in love with Katniss, Peeta Mellark doesn't seem especially concerned with helping her survive. He sticks with his pack of Career tributes, even suffers a few injuries (of them, I have to say the black eye is my personal favorite) to protect their supplies. I'll give him credit, he bandages himself up on his own and goes about his business with a lot less whining than I expect, but I still can't bring myself to give him any real respect. Hanging with the careers after all the hullabaloo about the star-crossed lovers from district Twelve – it just doesn't ring true.

To continue our show of support, we watch the Games each night with the Everdeens. Seeing Prim become increasingly distraught over watching her sister die of thirst softens me a little, and it becomes a bit easier to speak with her again. The relief we all feel when Katniss finally finds a pond makes it easier still. Her mother feeds us with whatever game I brought in the morning, which I take as a good sign; it would seem that she's not quite ready to let her youngest daughter starve to death just yet, and that means it's one less thing for me to manage. When the electricity dies, we have a convenient cue to leave. It may be easier to speak to Prim, but it still isn't easy.

The morning of the fourth day, I bring a turkey to the Everdeens'. I don't usually keep them because they typically fetch such a good price in town, but things are looking up for Katniss since she found water and it almost feels like it ought to be some sort of special occasion. The Girl on Fire can win now that she has what she needs. I even bring a bagful of wild onions and arrowhead roots to go with it, blackberries for after, and the pair of squirrels I caught should trade for a few loaves of real bread from the baker. He's been generous with bartering of late, since I've been showing up alone because my hunting partner is trapped in the arena like his son. I almost feel bad about practically robbing him blind. Almost, but not quite.

When Prim opens the door for me, glistening stripes stretch from her red eyes down over flushed cheeks, her lips twist uncomfortably as she tries to hold in a pained sound; because I so badly don't want to believe it, it takes me a full second or two to understand that she is crying. Everything comes crashing down, and the hope that I had been clinging to does nothing for it. In fact, it only makes for a longer, harder fall.

She wrings out the words like water from a dish towel. "She's hurt bad, Gale."

I pull her into me as she starts to sob because I don't know what else to do. It's like reliving Reaping Day again. I give her a moment to cry herself out before I ask her to try to speak again. "What happened?"

Prim pushes back from me a little, sniffs loudly, rubs tears from her eyes. "Fire," she says, and her voice cracks on the word. "They set the arena on fire."

I push her back into the house and drop my bag of game on the floor as I ask, "She's alive, though?"

"Yes, but…." she indicates the television timidly. I move around her to see the screen, and see Katniss staggering through sparse woods, clouds of smoke billowing around her. She is limping badly, her jacket is scorched, and the coughs that wrack her thin frame nearly bring her to her knees.

I can't stand to watch. I can't stand not to.

I sit numbly with Prim on the edge of her worn, lumpy couch while she tells me about what she saw this morning. She'd turned on the television to check on her sister, expecting to see her alive and relatively unharmed just like the last few days. Instead, she tuned in just in time to watch Katniss running for her life from airborne fireballs. She took one to a leg, and she is badly burned. She's lucky to be alive. But it's hard to say just yet how long that will last.

We watch until she stumbles upon a small, clear pool and eases her red, blistered leg into the water. When Katniss seems to be settled and none of the other tributes appear to be on her trail, I reassure Prim that her sister will be fine (I do such a good job I almost believe myself) and get her to school (the distraction will do us both some good). I suppose her mother is still in bed, miserable, and it infuriates me that though she is not letting her daughter starve, she isn't doing much to comfort her in the wake of this horror. I always thought I understood why Katniss did not get along with her mother, but seeing it firsthand is a completely different animal. I watch Prim out of the corner of my eye as we walk and she makes an effort at calming herself down; for the first time I'm truly grateful that she is not the one in the Games. I still hate the fact that Katniss is there instead, but Prim would never have made it. And that would have destroyed Katniss.

We arrive at school over an hour late. I am not especially concerned about it, but Prim is worried that she'll get in trouble. When we walk into the office to check in, the secretary doesn't help.

"You are aware that class started ninety minutes ago?" she says condescendingly. There are a lot of kids in this school, since it's the only one in the district, and it is clear that she doesn't know who we are and why we might be behind schedule. But that doesn't give her the right to be nasty. Well, maybe to me, as I'm sure I've done something during my time here to have earned it, but not to Prim.

I see Prim's eyes water, her lips tremble as she tries to prepare an answer, and the numbness in me burns away as my temper flares.

"Go on to class, Prim," I say, "you won't get in trouble. I'll take care of it."

She looks from me to the secretary (whom I silence with my fiercest glare when she opens her mouth to assure Katniss' sister that she will in fact get in trouble) and hustles out the door.

"Tardiness requires a write-up and detention for both of you. Those are the rules," snaps the woman behind the counter when the door clicks shut.

I lean forward and brace both arms against her desk so she can better appreciate that I am very capable of getting my way. "You can do whatever you need to do for me," I say calmly. It's not like I'd bother showing up for detention anyway. "In fact, if you'd like to tack on extra punishment for threatening you, go right ahead because I'm going to do it right now. Primrose Everdeen – " the woman flinches a little at the name as the recognition hits her – "has never caused any trouble a single day in her life and she woke up this morning to her sister nearly burning to death. On live television. It's an astounding testament to her character that she is here at all today." I give this a moment to sink in, even if it is an exaggeration; Prim was upset enough that I think if I hadn't been there she'd still be crying in her living room. "So if you so much as even record that she was tardy today I will string you up in the foyer out there like a goose headed for the pot. Clear?"

She blinks back guilty tears as she tries to apologize. "I'm so sorry, I didn't realize she was –"

"Well, now you do," I say as I stand back up and turn to leave.

"I didn't see this morning – is she alright?" she asks, and now she sounds genuinely concerned.

"Watch the fucking highlights at lunch," I snarl before I slam the door behind me. Doubtless it'll be the headline event. The Capitol's got to be loving this new version of the defiant Girl on Fire. And I'm scared to death.