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Whispers of her father clouded her vision as she came in and out of consciousness. The iron taste of blood clung to her lips and tongue. A throbbing ache traveled from the back of her skull to her toes. She didn't realize she was moving until her eyes fluttered open for a brief second. Flashes of swinging lights, pipes along the wall, the clanging of water…she struggled with her vision.

Ground slid under her. She was being dragged through a tunnel. A dark and dank tunnel.

One minute she was seeing the swaying lights of the ceiling, the next her father's smile. She tried to move her arms but they refused, limply they pulled along the grimy floor with the rest of her body.

"Help…" she whispered, her eyes closing. It was hard to stay conscious.

"Sir, I think she's coming to."

Suddenly her body stopped dragging. Her breathing sounded like shards of glass. A foggy form was leaning over her, at first it looked like two people but it was just her dizzied vision.

"Dad?"

Cruel laughter echoed.

Her brow furrowed. She was drifting between consciousness and oblivion.

Her father's toothy grin clouded her already muddy sight once more.

"No…" she could barely move her lips, "…you're not real."

"She doesn't know what's going on, just bring her into the room."

"If you say so, sir."

She gasped as the dragging started again. Her hands slid behind her head, she could feel her fingertips grazing the icy floor, feel every crack that she past.

Water dripped on her face, falling onto her nose and down her cheek.

Rusty hinges creaked, it sounded like a metal earth was opening up to devour her but she just let them drag her. Her muscles wouldn't move.

Her eyes floated around. It wasn't just that her body felt weak, her mind did too. A moment of clarity told her that they must have given her something to dull her senses.

Darkness of the mysterious leaky corridor fed into darkness of a hollow room. Flames danced on candlewicks, for a minute she was mesmerized by them. The whole room looked like a puzzle from her vantage point. There were walls, a floor, chairs, a table, but she couldn't put it all together in one coherent image.

In her drug-induced stupor she barely realized she was being picked up before her head slumped backwards. Pain in her ankles told her she was on her feet.

Hoarse breaths escaped her. Her feet were on the ground but they weren't holding her up, one of her captures was.

"Help me," she whispered in a daze.

The man studied her face, nodding to a shadow in the corner of the room, "There's no helping you."

Chains clamored. She tried to use her neck muscles to stabilize her head but it just made her dizzy.

"Make the links tight."

Metal ripping on metal screeched.

Whether there were two voices or five Pandora couldn't tell.

"Bring her over."

She tried to push the man away but it did no good. Her toes dragged along the floor, the man's grip on her was steady and confining.

Two hands on her arms turned into four suddenly. Their palms felt clammy and unsettling but the next thing she felt was a million times worse.

Chains. They were twisting them around her torso, arms, and legs. They felt like blunt knife digging into her skin.

Instantly a cry of pain bellowed from her cracked lips.

"Why are doing this!?"

The only reply she got was a brain scrabbling slice of agony throughout her entire body as a shadow pulled on the chains and sent her arms above her head and her toes barely touching the ground. It was as if her body was just going to tear in half.

She writhed in torment, moaning incomprehensible words. She couldn't form sentences.

The door opened. Shadows backed away from her, all except one.

Her head hung close to her chest but her eyes lifted.

Even in the faint light she could see who the shadow belonged to. Candlelight reflected in his glasses.

"Hello, Pandora."

She tried to move her arms. Her reward was crushing pain.

"Who…who are you?"

Tears solemnly fell from her eyes as her head rolled back.

He took a step forward. He was only inches away now. She could see her mangled reflection in his glasses.

Her tears fell across her lips, mixing with her blood.

"What do you want from me?"

"You've spent the past two years being honored for murder of innocence and freedom. You've been worshiped in an ivory tower, you're face plastered across the Capitol. They're calling you the face of the voice of the Hunger Games, did you not that? You're a traitor to the free. You ask me what I want from you? Who I am?"

She tried to reply but all he got was a groggy rasp.

"My name is Nyx Starson and I'm here to make sure that you pay for your sins and that the whole of Panem sees it."

Her heart filled with suffocating fear, her eyes blinked tears.

"So…" he whispered, "Are you ready for your premier?"

She yelped as the chains tightened. Her vision went black for a split second.

"Adler, give Miss Sullivan a shot of adrenaline. I want her wide awake for the show that's about to happen."

His smile was malignant and cruel. She could feel her whole body shake.

"We lost her tracker's signal here. That's when Jarvis called in us and few other officials. Apparently you had ordered him to activate her tracker, so it sent up red flags."

Military personnel filed past Adric as he walked side by side with a logistics team chief from the Capitol army.

Smoke and alcohol lingered in the air even though the club had been quarantined. He was taken to the back of a storage room. Boxes were broken and bottles were shattered. There were obvious signs of a struggle. His eyes lowered to puddles of blood.

"Have you identified the blood?" He asked, dropping to his knees as he caught sight of the tracker soaked in gore and a little bit of skin.

"Yes, sir, it's Pandora Sullivan's."

He pursed his lips. The breach in sector 7. His fingers angrily rubbed the side of his face and lips as he glanced around the room. It wasn't a false alarm at all. Clever rebels had managed to slip through the underground sewers.

"The breach…" he whispered.

"Yes, sir. We believe the two events are tied together."

His eyes darkly peered to the man, "Obviously, but what else have you found?"

The logistics soldier bumbled in panic. He dropped his eyes to his panel and started scrolling through several pages of data, maps, and blueprints.

"Well—uh—"

"Don't ramble," Adric barked, "Spit it out, we don't have time for this."

"Yes, sir, uh—if the breach was in sector 7 and they traveled all the way here they must have been watching Miss Sullivan for some time, my guess is they had a way of delaying the breach. Which means they have an electrical engineer—which would indicate—"

"District 3," Adric quickly finished the man's thoughts.

"Yes."

"What else?"

"The floodgate that we thought malfunctioned feeds into a system of underground tunnels that filter into many other Districts, it's a maze of sewage systems. Those doors and large hills of underground debris were the only things blocking them off. They've been that way since the Dark Days. Which is good and bad."

"Why?"

The man wrestled with the question, "Good because we know their point of entry, bad because those tunnels stretch underneath not only one District but three."

Adric grabbed the panel from the soldier and pulled up a map of the tunnel systems, "What Districts are they?"

"Districts 1, 2, and 3."

"We've been having unrest in District 3, it wouldn't be a surprise if that's where our perpetrators came from."

"Yes, but the rebels have a chaotic system in place. My men have been trying to create patterns within their attacks but there doesn't seem to be any practicality behind it."

"Could they still be in the Capitol?"

"Hard to say, sir. Given the amount of time and whatever resources they have, there would be no way of knowing."

Adric tried to hide his fears. He cleared his throat before bringing the walkie to his lips, "Jarvis, this is Pedersen."

Static and then a click.

"Adric, what's going on?"

"I need you to send out a squad to the underground. Got it? I want those tunnels searched from top to bottom."

"Has your superior okayed this, Adric?"

"Damnit Jarvis, just do it!"

He lowered the walkie and glanced at the blood splatter on the ground. The idea of Pandora bleeding in a sewer somewhere made his stomach churn. He would never forgive himself if she died. The logistics soldier seemed to notice and quickly responded.

"My best guess is that she was putting up too much of a fight for them."

"Smart girl," Adric whispered.

The soldier tensely blinked his eyes.

"So what you're telling me is that Pandora could be anywhere?"

"Sir, this wasn't a spur of the moment mission. This was planned. They must have been watching Miss Sullivan, my guess is they followed her here. Sir—we don't even know if she's still alive. We don't know what we're dealing with."

Adric's expression was so intimidating and grave that the soldier had to look away. He tossed the panel back to the man and glared. "No, she's alive."

"But sir—all this suggests—"

"I know she's alive!"

The room fell silent. Adric glanced around and clenched his jaw, "Send your reports to the Military HQ at the PSO. Got it?"

He only stopped by his home to take a shower and change his clothes. His eyes were full of angst and tire but there was no way he would be able to sleep.

Dawn was breaking.

Capitol citizens were still drunk off celebrations, the end of the 70th Hunger Games loomed through the streets. If only they knew what was lurking under the surface.

In less than 24 hours Pandora had been abducted and beaten. Adric's wove through the busy foyer of the PSO.

He past 7 levels of clearance, the highest number of checkpoints. He was about to enter one of the most guarded and secret regions of the Panem Special Operations. Military Headquarters.

Officially the Armory was the headquarters for the Capitol military, but unofficially—well—it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that only 10% of the Military were aware of the HQ.

He had already done the ID swipe.

Now came the retinal scan, which traced his iris with blue light.

Check point two was finished.

Next a white corridor waited. He cleared his throat at the end of the corridor and scanned the large white doors. His hand firmly pressed against the panel.

"Access Granted."

Chaos swirled through the room. Glass boards filled with charts, scribbled equations, and logistics surrounded a large operating center in the middle of the room. Screens along the east wall were reviewing the surveillance videos.

Officers of varying ranks whispered and bickered to each other. Blueprints were spread out everywhere.

Adric's jaw tightened when he saw his father.

He took two steps forward, clicked his heels together and raised his hand to his forehead in salute, "Sir."

His father's gaze studied his son for a moment, "At ease, soldier."

Adric couldn't fully ease though. His hand lowered but his eyes stiffly shifted around the room, "I've just come from the point of abduction."

"I heard. Jarvis tells me you were giving him commands."

"Well—I—"

"Now, I don't think I need to remind you that you're supposed to verify everything with me, do I?"

Adric lowered his eyes in shame and shook his head, "No, sir."

"Good. Follow me."

He caught his breath as his father turned around. Near the wall of monitors Mironov was standing. His cheeks were flushed. One look at him and Adric knew he was worried.

"How did Dr. Mironov get in?" Adric asked his father, straightening his uniform before coming to a stop.

General Trajan Pedersen robotically lifted his hand to a glass panel and brought up a map of the underground. He didn't look at his son when he spoke, "The President thought he could be of some service in helping find the abductee."

"How?"

"I didn't ask, you never asked unnecessary questions to your superiors, Adric."

Again, he held in his breath, "Of course, sir."

Sometimes Adric wondered if his father was even human. He had never seen him smile, never heard emotions in her voice. At an early age Adric learned to not ask questions, to listen and obey.

"A read the report you had the logistics chief send, it's detailed although I don't know how much help it will be."

"We know they got in through the floodgates under sector 7."

"Yes, but those floodgates extend throughout the 3 Districts surrounding us. Without ample details we may not have time to save this girl."

Adric tried to ignore the purposeful malice in his father's tone.

"I don't think they would capture her and kill her, not without an audience."

"Unless she wasn't captured at all."

"What?!"

"Straighten your posture, Adric."

He stretched his neck and pursed his lips in obedience but the fire in his eyes wouldn't die.

"Are you saying you think—"

"I'm saying that probability suggests Pandora Sullivan wasn't abducted but persuaded. I'm suggesting that we aren't dealing with kidnapping, we're dealing with a runner."

"She would never do that, she could lose everything."

"Never underestimate a person's will."

"You don't know her though, she wouldn't risk—"

"Adric."

He drew back as his father coldly peered to him.

"Yes, sir?"

"Your empathy is a very weak quality."

Adric bowed his head, peering away. He didn't dare talk back.

"Yes, sir."

"You are a good soldier, but you could be great, couldn't you?"

Suddenly his father pointed to his chest, it felt like a knife.

"But that—" he needled his heart with this finger, "That gets in the way. Don't be weak."

He didn't feel insulted. All he felt was guilt, because in some warped way he believed that his father was right. His lips sadly rubbed together as he nodded.

"Yes, sir."

"Now, go help Mironov. That batty old man is getting in the way."

Adric didn't lift his eyes till he was several paces away from his father. The doctor was pacing in front of the monitors. In his hand was a notebook he was scribbling into.

"Viktor," Adric greeted.

Mironov urgently grabbed his arm and pulled him to the side. His glasses slightly slipped down the bridge of his nose as he looked into the young soldier's eyes, "Do you know about the latest theory?"

"I was just informed."

"She would never try to run. How would she even have contact with these rebels?"

"I know, Viktor."

Mironov let out a wild breath and rubbed his hands together in thought, "What was she doing out there alone? I know none of us thought this could happen in a million years but still…she should have been with someone. It's not like her to go wandering."

Adric licked his lips. He knew exactly why she was out all alone, the thought of it made anger and spite surge through him. "Finnick Odair took the Victor's train to District 4. A one way ticket, Viktor."

Mironov's eyes widened.

"I went to her apartment. Everything was wrecked."

"Could it have been the rebels?"

Adric tried to hold back emotions, he shook his head. "It was Pandora."

"How can you be sure?"

"Every mirror in the place was shattered. You're her shrink, Viktor, you tell me what that suggests?"

Mironov stared at him with fright, he scratched his beard and mumbled something under his breath that Adric couldn't distinguish. After frenzied glances around the HQ the doctor finally looked back to Adric.

An urgency was sweeping over him quickly, an urgent need to tell Adric about Pandora's candidacy and what that meant. He had been sworn to secrecy but if something were to happen to Pandora Mironov would fall apart. Right then and there he made up his mind. He couldn't tell Adric the full story but he could tell him the important part, the part that matter at this moment.

"Adric…"

"What?"

Mironov looked around the room again, pulling them out of earshot, "I need to tell you something. It's important. It is crucial you listen to me."

"Okay."

"Now, I can't tell you everything I can only tell you this...over the past year I have been dosing Pandora once a month with a serum."

Adric's eyes narrowed, "Excuse me?"

"Just listen. I can't tell you what that is for, but Adric—the months almost up and if we can't find Pandora Sullivan by the time the clock runs out I'm afraid something terrible might happen to her if she can't get that dose of serum."

"Viktor, what have you done?"

"Don't you understand? I can't tell you. We need to find her, Adric."

"What's going on over there?!"

Mironov stumbled back and rubbed his beard. Trajan was staring at them suspiciously.

"We've got a missing person and a possible attack on our hands and you two are chatting it up over there?!"

Adric was dumbstruck. Mironov's words had unraveled him. He speechlessly turned to his father, but no words came out.

"Sorry, General!" the doctor immediately shouted.

"Hey—what the hell!?"

A crackling screeched through the large room. Soldier's cupped their hands over their ears, a few staggered back. All eyes turned towards the wall of monitors.

"General!" one of the operators was frantically shouting, he was flipping switches and pressing buttons like a madman, "Sir, something is happening!"

Swiftly Adric ran to the center of the room. Soldiers were crowding around the wall of screens. Every single monitor was black. No matter what the operator did he couldn't bring screens up again.

"Sir, I think someone has hijacked the system!"

"What?! How is that possible?"

Adric hands trembled, "The same way it's possible that the floodgates were opened. They have an electrical engineer…."

Voices erupted and garbled. Panic filled the room.

Soon the black screens turned to static. Then the static stopped.

The picture was clear.

A single man was sitting in a chair. He wore glasses. It was hard to make anything out around him, everything was so dark.

"Hello, pestilent soldiers of the Capitol. By now we are sure it has come to your attention that Pandora Sullivan has disappeared."

"The feeds coming in live, sir, but I can't get a lock on it!"

"Don't worry, this stream isn't broadcasting all over the Capitol. At least not yet. Believe me when I say our numbers, spies, and technology are just as advanced and plentiful as yours. But enough with the small talk—let's get down to business—"

The man with glasses whistled loudly and rose from his seat.

Every ear and eyes focused on the monitors.

Rustling and groans murmured from somewhere near the camera. Suddenly a figure was thrown onto the seat. A bag was over their head, their hands were tied together.

Adric stepped forward as one of the masked figures pulled the bag off.

Pandora's face was swollen and bloody. Her hair wildly fell over her face. A chain was gagging her mouth, pressing into her skin. She looked petrified.

"Oh my god," Mironov struggled to whisper.

The man with glasses quickly came back into the picture. He stood behind Pandora's body. She jumped as he put his hands on her shoulders.

"Behold your creation! Pandora Sullivan the face of the Hunger Games!"

Adric could barely contain the growl that simmered out of him. For the first time in his life he felt the distinct burn of hate.

"In 36 hours we request the release of three of our people. People we know you have in your custody. If within these 36 hours, our requests aren't met…all across the Capitol our engineers will hook into every screen you have, in every home, and we will execute Pandora Sullivan live."

Adric's chest tightened, his hands balled in to fists as he lowered his eyes to Pandora's startled face.

The man with glasses paused, smiling slightly before walking around Pandora and loosening the chain from her mouth and backing out of the picture once more.

"What are they doing?"

General Trajan studied the screens and crossed his arms, "There coercing her to plead. They think it will make their theatrics even more dramatic, I'm sure."

But Pandora simply trembled. The bonds around her wrists cut into her skin as she shifted her eyes around and struggled for breath. Adric wanted to burst through the monitors and save Pandora but he was frozen. As if his father could have ever called her a runner, she could barely sit up.

Her eyes were on something beyond the camera, there was no way of telling if it was a person or object, but then she grimaced. Someone was forcing her to speak.

A million monitors depicted her quivering lips as she opened her mouth.

"My name is Pandora Sullivan…."

Blood gushed out her lip and down her neck. It was obvious the lines were rehearsed.

"Please help…me…help me…"

Adric's eyes filled with horror. He squinted.

"C'mon, say something…say anything else…" he whispered to himself. They needed to save her, and to save her they needed details.

The silence was so long that he felt a terrible rock form in his gut. But then he saw her eyes lift once more. Again, her gaze darkly glanced to something behind the camera, only this time there was something else in her eyes.

She sniffed loudly and tilted her head up. It looked like she was trying to calculate something.

"Say it!"

She narrowed her eyes at the owner of voice.

More silence.

And then her mouth suddenly open. Her eyes stared directly at the camera, words started flying out of her so fast that the rebels didn't have time to fully silence her.

"The room is full of pipes. I can hear water and the air is damp! I was dragged through a corridor with water leaking—"

She was rambling any detail she could. Helping the military.

Adric's face broke into a sad smile, "Yes, good girl!"

Suddenly military officials started darting towards their stations.

"Shut her up, now!"

Adric could feel his breathing stopped as a shadow approached her.

"Nyx Starson!"

It was the last thing she shouted before a hand slapped her across the face, sending her falling backwards.

"Starson!" She screamed again.

Blood splattered against the floor.

Suddenly the screen went black. Leaving the whole Military HQ with several heartbeats of astounded silence.

Adric's father did a quick sweep of the black screens.

"Did you record that?"

"Got it, sir!" The operator quickly responded.

"Check for voice identifications! Someone look up the name Nyx Starson, right the hell now!"

Adric rushed to the nearest logistics member.

"She said there were pipes, water…."

The logistics officer pulled up maps and blueprints, "It could be anything underground, they could still be in the tunnel systems…."

"No, no way. They wouldn't stay down there. There's too much of a risk we would eventually find them."

Adric's eyes unblinkingly flipped through the maps. Suddenly he lifted his eyes.

"Pull me up a schematic of District 1."

The logistics officer pushed past the bustle of rampant soldiers and scientists and obeyed. Adric studied the diagrams for a only a split second, "She said she heard water….there are only a few places where she would hear that, where water would not only be heard but leak through the walls and ceiling."

"Yes?"

He slammed the panel on the table and pointed to the screen, "The Hydra-Dam."

The logistics officer stared at Adric in surprise and agreement, "It's right on the outskirts of the District 1. Difficult entry for the amateur but I think it's obvious these rebels aren't amateurs. It's a possibility."

"Pull me up exact blueprints now."