I'm taken to a room on my own before I have the time to say a thing to Talon. I'd like better to get to know the boy I'm going to die with, but I suppose I'll have time enough for that on the train to the Capitol. For now, at least, I have to focus on my family.

Kita comes first, slipping through the door quick as a flash so I barely have time to see the peacekeeper on the outside. He doesn't hug me this time, but instead sighs. "Fern the Wise?" he says and grins at me. It's nice to see he means it in the way his dark eyes crinkle at the corners with the effort.

"You said it first," I tell him. "I just wanted to share it with the world before they forget."

He stretches out his arm and claps me on the shoulder. Kita's grin fades and his jaw clenches when he stares down at me. "Why?" is all he can ask.

"Because Layla White was ruining my jacket," I say, jutting my chin up to be as haughty as I can. "Fashion like this doesn't grow on trees, Kita, it would've been a shame to let it go to waste as a snot-rag."

He doesn't laugh. "This is serious, Fern. You shouldn't have done that."

"You say it like I don't have a chance." I do my best to pout. "Where's the faith, brother?"

"Most of it's with the Career tributes, I'd wager," he replies coolly. "You're a stupid, stupid girl." Before I can whine about that, Kita catches me and pulls me close for the second time that day. "I thought it would be your name," he admits, "I had a feeling that..."

"Me too," I say, hiding my face in the coarse material of his shirt. I'll miss this – somehow I don't think the arena will favour physical comfort like me and Kita do. If I'm lucky I can hug a tree. Maybe Kazia will volunteer...

"You're laughing again," Kita tells me. "Why?"

"Because my escort is a tree and our district has nothing to do with lumber."

Kita's laugh rumbles in his belly and makes me shake with the power of it. "She's thinking outside the box," he says as the door opens and it's time for him to go. Kita tightens his grip on me long enough to whisper in my ear, "I'll be cheering you on, Fern. Use that wisdom and come back to see my six kids, okay?"

His voice cracks and suddenly my brother is pulled away from me. "Try your best," Kita says and then he's gone. The door shuts behind him and I'm left to my thoughts, not that I have many of them right now besides the fact I might have just wasted my last minutes with Kita. I didn't even tell him I love him.

I think I want to cry, but my eyes feel dry and kinda sore. I reach up and touch the wet wool at my shoulder and decide that Layla has cried enough for the both of us.

It feels like an eternity passes before Daddy shows up, and he's not alone. Holding his arm as though she's his anchor to the here and now is Layla White. They make a strange pair; she's tiny a blonde with her tear-stained face glistening faintly; and my daddy looks big, strong, and silent. He doesn't even meet my eyes for a short and painful while.

"I didn't know you knew each other," I say when nothing else comes to mind. My eyes flicker to Layla's face because, for now, she's easier to look at. "Why aren't you with Iris?"

"I'll see her soon," Layla assures me. Her smile is pretty and I regret not knowing her more. She seems like she might make a good friend for me, without the tears, of course. "I wanted to say thanks and..." she trails off, glancing at my daddy.

"Save the thanks," I tell her. "I get to go off and enjoy the Capitol luxury while you guys are stuck here with cows and grass. I'm the lucky one."

"You are," she agrees. I try my best to ignore the concerned look she's giving me – it's not nice when someone thinks you've lost your mind. I'm not going to let her know that I was thinking the same about her.

Daddy coughs but says nothing.

"Are you mad at me?" I ask him, shrugging out of my jacket and draping it over one arm.

"Mad?" he repeats, blinking slowly at me. "Mad doesn't quite cover it."

"You can yell at me if it helps, I'll respect your parental choices." I can hear the smile in my own voice and, for a second, I think he's going to laugh and break all this horrible tension.

He scowls and stumbles back, hands shaking by his sides. "This isn't the time for those... those... jokes," Daddy splutters. "Don't you realise what you've done? Don't you?"

My eyes widen and I open my mouth to retort but no sound comes out.

"It wasn't you," he says. "It wasn't you and it didn't have to be you. One more year – we could have made it through one more and then you could have lived your life as you ought to. Stupid girl."

I frown. To hear Kita call me that was okay because he managed to smile when he said it, but Daddy is serious. Deathly so. The way he glares at me with those hazel eyes and his lips pulled back over his teeth gives me shivers.

"I didn't mean to upset you," I mutter, no hint of joking in my voice. For the first time in a long time, I have nothing more to say.

When he leaves I am grateful. Layla manages to linger just long enough to thank me again and take the jacket I give her. "Wash it," I say. "And keep it. It's more your DNA than mine now, I think."

With a weak smile she leaves and I'm glad to be alone again.

Talon says nothing to me as we are taken aboard the train. In fact, I think he does his best to avoid making even a second of eye contact with me. It hurts, but I don't hold it against him. I'm still reeling from my last goodbye – if you could even call it that – with Daddy. Nobody came after him to lighten the mood and I don't know what to make of that. Some company would have been nice, but real friends back home are hard to come by.

Back home. Back home. Even thinking those words makes me feel uneasy. We only pulled away from District 10 moments ago and already it's like miles – and years, too, distance is better measured in time – have passed by without my notice. Hannibal and Ivy are huddled close in two cushy chairs by a food-stacked table that makes my mouth water just to look at. They must hear my stomach grumble, too, because they're looking right at me.

"Hi," I say, walking over before the few nerves I have can get the better of me. It's easier to fake confidence when Ivy drops her stare. "I'm Fern."

"We know," Ivy drawls, checking over her nails which have been sharpened to lethal points. "It's our business to know the tributes' names, and the rest of the Panem's, too."

I raise a dark brow at her. "You know all the names in Panem? Wow, you must have a real good memory."

Ivy glares and Hannibal clears his throat before she can shoot me down for that pathetic attempt at a joke. "Fern the Wise, was it?" he asks and rakes a steady glance over me from head-to-toe. It's a strange feeling, but that dulls when he speaks again, "A volunteer."

"It's not unheard of." I shuffle my feet and look down at my boots. From the walk to the Reaping, they're caked in fresh mud that I'm sure leaves prints behind me. "I fancied my chances."

"I don't," Ivy says. "Not at all." Her eyes flicker towards the screen on the wall. "You need to see the other tributes, see how stupid a mistake you just made."

"If everybody could stop calling me stupid for just five minutes, that'd be great."

"Mouthy," Ivy notes. "Aren't you scared, little girl?"

"Terrified," I admit with a nod launching into a spiel of babble I didn't know I had in me. "Honestly, I don't know what the heck I'm doing here, only that I can't go back. I don't know what I was thinking, or why I did that, or what I'm going to do when I get in there. I don't know what my brother's going to do, or how he's going to deal with Daddy when I'm gone. I don't know if I could bring myself to kill, or even if I want to try and survive this."

Hannibal reaches over and pats my hand. "There's a lot you don't know," he says and smiles at me. "Lucky we have all this time to figure it out."

"Lucky isn't the word I'd go for," Ivy mentions.

I breathe a sigh of relief and shake my head to push away the nerves that nibble on my good sense. "I agree with you," I tell Ivy. "Lucky doesn't sound right. Is fortunate too close? Or maybe we could go for pleasant? Or okay? Or-"

"Sarcasm?" Ivy guesses with a bitter kind of laugh. Her teeth, I notice, are the same strange green-white as her head. I hope for her health's sake they're Capitol alterations and not a natural decline of her physical state. Maybe she survived her Games by eating nothing but peas and they've changed her appearance forever.

I shrug. "I honestly don't know."

"Well pull up a chair," Hannibal says, gesturing to an empty seat beside him. I sink into it without a word of protest and he flashes me a faint smile. "Where's the boy?"

"I think he went to-"

Talon clears his throat from where he stands in the doorway, Kazia beaming behind him. His cheeks are wet and there are smudges of the green Kazia wears on her cheeks colouring his forehead. "I'm here," he mumbles. "Hope I didn't miss anything."

Ivy's brows shot up into her hairline, but Hannibal spoke before she could ask the question on her mind. "Nothing much." He shook his head. "Sit. We can still catch a few of the Reaping ceremonies, get a feel for your competitors."

"What's the point?" Talon sighs and takes his seat. For a boy of twelve, he does a good impression of an aged old soul with his shoulders slumped and a permanent frown twisting down the corners of his mouth. "Not like we stand a chance."

"Don't count us out so soon, kid," I say and flash him by goofiest smile. "Never know, could be an arena full of cattle with the only solution milking our way out. Then we'd win, no doubt about it."

Hannibal and Kazia laugh – though I wasn't joking for their benefit, it's nice to hear a little appreciation – but Talon just stares blankly right at me. His eyes are glassy and I can't help but think he's going to cry. "That's not funny," he says, his voice thick with emotion. Talon kicks at one of the table-legs. "Won't happen anyway."

Ivy surprises me by nudging him with her foot. "Don't count it out, kid, nothing is too extreme for our beloved Games."

By the time we're all settled, the only Reaping we watch together is District 2's, since none of us can sit still long enough to wait for another. When the catch-up rolls around, I'm sure the mentors will force us to watch and see who else we'll be facing.

The Career district holds up to its reputation with two volunteers, though theirs don't look like they made the sporadic sacrifice I did – the two of them are lethal as they ascend the stage. Both are good looking blondes with bright eyes and brighter smiles as the crowd cheers for them.

Three of twenty-three names I know now – Talon, Magnus, and Silver. I vow to learn the rest before we're pitted against each other in a few days' time. Maybe if I remember their names, someone will remember mine and this won't all have been such a stupid whim.

And maybe the arena will be full of cows.