Fifty-seven night times.

Forty-eight meals.

...Eleven 'visits'.

That probably wasn't the right number because it got a little hazy towards the end and there were a few days that seemed to disappear on me, but it was close enough. I don't know why I was so determined to keep track, but something about making sure I kept the number in my head seemed to help. Every time saw the light begin to fade outside the window I'd repeat the three numbers out loud and Hazel would look at me silently. She knew what each number meant and I wondered if she had her own count.

Maybe it would have come with the same amount of time as she'd spent there, but even though I knew it was useless and extremely counter-productive I was unable to stop caring. I hit and I scratched and bit anyone who came into the room and quite a few times sheer frustration made me repeat my temper tantrum of the first day and I'd end up screaming and kicking the door uncaring that I knew it would only result in more pain.

I was glad we didn't have anything to see our reflection in but I recognised the way my body felt to me from a time once before, except that time it had been my choice...sort of. I think that I probably looked the same as I had in the months after Clove had died, when I hadn't been able to find the energy to eat any food or hadn't gone outside the house in weeks and done nothing but sit in the dark and stare into space, much as Hazel did now. Every time I did anything I felt like my bones were going to snap, which was quite a scary feeling for someone who had always been able to fight and hunt. But I silently just stored it away as one more instance of being powerless. There was a growing list now and I couldn't even think about it because if I did I knew it would be that which would send me truly crazy.

Some days Hazel and I talked. Hyde came up in the conversation after meal eighteen. Well, he didn't so much 'come up' as I brought him up very deliberately. Hazel hadn't spoken for three nights so I thought there probably wasn't anything to lose by raising him.

"Hyde was right, you know," I said carefully, watching her closely from the den of my blanket. It took her a couple of minutes before she looked at me.

"What?" she said, barely audible, blinking as if she'd been sleeping when I knew she hadn't.

"Hyde. He told everyone that you weren't dead. He was sure of it..." I trailed off watching her reaction. She stared unfocusedly at me for a moment and then exhaled.

"He never could face reality," she murmured eventually, turning away again.

I stood up still in my blanket and walked over to her, dropping clumsily to the ground in front of her so she really couldn't pretend like she was ignoring me. She looked at me warily, tightening her own blanket around her shoulders. "Well, actually, the reality is that you're not dead," I pointed out quietly.

"I am to him," she snapped back and despite her words which seemed like an obvious lie I understood her perfectly. She didn't expect to ever leave this place alive, and I suspected she had thought that for a very long time. I could have told her that hope can be a very strong thing but I didn't, because I agreed with her and we both knew it. We were both too pragmatic for our own sanity sometimes.

"Did you love him?" I asked after a long pause. She looked at me sharply and I knew why. Past tense. It wasn't a mistake. So I stared back at her till she was willing to give me an answer. We both took it as granted that he had loved her, everyone knew that. It was always Hazel's feelings which had been the mystery. She gazed blankly at where I sat for a moment, thinking. Perhaps she was trying to remember whether she had loved him or not. Everything felt so distant here. After a very long time she sighed softly.

"I honestly don't know," she admitted, dropping her head and rubbing at her forehead with the palm of her hand. She stilled, staring at the ground intently. "I'm not sure I can love people," she said carefully. "I'm not sure I'm made that way."

I kept my eyes on her for a while, strangely realising that her words made perfect sense to me. I'd always felt that things such as love were very distant from me, something other people felt. I couldn't even comprehend it most of the time. I'd wondered, occasionally, what it felt like but I always just came back to the fact that it surely would leave you vulnerable and defenceless, and that terrified me. The only person I'd ever allowed myself to love, well, she had destroyed me in the end. That's what love was. It destroyed you, tore you apart, left you scarred and broken.

We lapsed back into silence without me ever providing her with a response, which was probably answer enough in itself. At least Hazel and I were alike in that we didn't see the point in lying to each other.

It seemed she decided to return the favour, although it would have been accidental as she couldn't have known. During the thirty-sixth night she finally asked me about the Quarter Quell, which led to questions about other events of her missing two years. Neither of us were asleep and we both knew it so it hadn't been too much of a surprise when she spoke in the almost darkness. For once the room was relatively lit up with moonlight and when I had stood to peer at the sky out the window I'd seen a full, pale moon hovering in a cloudless sky.

Up until then I hadn't really thought about the fact that, of course, Hazel had no way of knowing that I'd even been in the Quarter Quell, and I hadn't been exactly eager to remember.

"What was the twist?" she asked bitterly, her eyes flickering as she no doubt wondered what awful thing the districts had been subjected to. I waited a long time before answering, playing with the loose threads at the edge of my blanket and avoiding her eyes.

"They...chose tributes from...existing Victors," I said slowly after a deep breath. There was silence till I couldn't stand it anymore and I looked up at her. Her expression was unreadable.

"Johanna?" she asked softly and I nodded. With Hazel 'dead' there had been no girls but Johanna to go into the Games for District 7. She let out a slow breath. "You?" I nodded again, still silent. "Congratulations then, I guess," she muttered. "Winning two Hunger Games...what are the odds?"

I shook my head firmer, only just realising why she was confused. "I didn't win Hazel," I corrected glumly.

"No, I guess not," she replied, glancing around the room then back at me. "I guess no one ever really wins."

"Hazel," I said firmly, slightly exasperated that she still didn't seem to understand. "Johanna's not dead, or at least she wasn't when we left the Arena. Neither was Finnick, Beetee too I think perhaps, the District 12 tributes, Peeta...Katniss," I added bitterly, really the only one I would have been perfectly happy to see dead. I thought of the others that didn't make it out and dropped my eyes, feeling a strange swirl of emotions for people I'd never even really liked but who had all the same been my friends and the only people I had had to share anything with for years. "Brutus is dead. Cashmere, Gloss, Mags, Chaff... lots of other."

She didn't reply for a long time and I realised it's a lot of information to give her all at once so I waited, playing with the edge of the blanket and trying not to think about the Arena. The blood, the vicious teeth, the fog, the water, the pain, hunger, fear... really though there was only one thing that I hated more than others. The jabberjays. I shuddered at the memory of their screeching, the noises that morphed into her voice, screaming at me to save her while I was powerless to do anything.

"...how the hell are you alive?" she asked after a long pause. "More than one Victor? But-"

"There was no Victor, Hazel. Besides, more than one Victor, well, it's already been done before," I spat bitterly, still unable to really accept the outcome of the 74th Hunger Games.

I glanced up at her to see her staring at me slightly open mouthed as if she couldn't quite find the words to voice her confusion. With a sigh I settled myself more comfortably and proceeded to give her a summary of events since the end of the previous year's Games. Some areas I was extremely vague on, simply because I did not know. The actually victory, in fact, of those Games I did not remember at all and all I had was what others had told me and what was common knowledge. There were a lot of gaps in why as well. Even though I had ended up in the middle of a Victor's rebellion, in the Arena, it seemed I still really had no idea the workings behind the events.

Leaning against the wall I looked towards her when I'd finished, to see if any of it made more sense to her than it had to me. One thing I had been fairly certain of for a while, Hazel would have been in the thick of the Victor's rebellion if she'd been there. I analysed the way she was frowning seriously at the floor. "You knew...didn't you? Whatever they were planning, not the Arena stuff obviously, but the rest of it? It's why you were going to leave, right? It's why you're here."

She glanced around the room although of course nothing had changed. When she looked back at me her eyes were brighter than they'd been before. "You know I can't answer that, Enobaria," she said with a small, mischievous smile which was the most emotion I'd seen her express in weeks. I held her gaze and then nodded, finding myself returning the smile conspiratorially because I knew that her inability to answer the answer enough for me and it gave me a strange little flare of hope, to think that there were plans in motion out there, plans that had been building for a very long time, and that even if we never left this room again at least something was happening to the world outside.

After the ninth visit I dreamt of Clove. Like every other time I had curled up on the ground where they'd left me, too ridden with shame and anger to even crawl to my blanket, and eventually just fallen asleep there.

I woke up in the woods behind my house in District 2. I knew instantly where I was and even though I couldn't see her somehow I knew Clove was there. I spun in a circle, calling her name, frantically searching the thick trees for a flash of her dark her or the glint of a blade. My ears strained for the sound of a footstep, or a breath, but there was nothing. As the time went I became more panicked, convinced that it was desperate that I find her, though not even sure how I knew she was there somewhere. I took off, running through the trees, still calling her name, leaping over logs and dodging branches like I would have been able to when I was seventeen, not like I would have been able to now. Even tracing the path around our small room left me exhausted, I could never have run like this. My throat was growing hoarse and scratchy from screaming her name over and over again and still I couldn't find her.

Suddenly out of breath I was forced to come to a halt, leaning against a tree and breathing hard, feeling my ribs ache with every gasped breath. Then I heard it. A scream. Her scream. Ignoring the lack of oxygen in my lungs I took off in the direction of the scream, even faster than before now that I had purpose.

She was sitting on the far side of a clearing, leaning against a scarred old pine tree and it took me half a second to cross the open space to her and throw myself to the ground beside her. Although I swear her scream had been that of a child, hers when she was six years old, she was fifteen now, just as she'd looked when I'd last seen her face to face...except for the blood. She clutched a hand to her throat but it didn't seem to make any different to the blood that was pouring between her fingers.

I felt a wave of sickness roll through me as I realised instantly what the wound underneath her hand would look like. I was frozen with guilt as she looked up at me, her eyes bright with tears, her face pale and pleading. I saw her lips move and knew they formed my name but there was nothing but a loud ringing in my ears. I shook my head.

"I'm sorry," I tried to say, but the words disappeared in my throat as I realised my mouth was sickly sweet and thick with the taste of blood. I tried to gasp breath but the blood filled my mouth, slithering down my throat, choking me. I fell backwards away from her, coughing, desperately trying to rid myself of the blood in my mouth that I knew was hers. I didn't kill you I wanted to say over and over again but nothing could escape passed the blood. There were tears in my eyes, blurring her face for a second and when I blinked her back into focus, just for a flash of a second, her face changed to the wide, terrified brown eyes that I knew belonged to Calico and which I would see until the day I died. "You did kill me," she whispered weakly then I blinked and she changed back to Clove's familiar face that with a hollow feeling I suddenly realised was too similar to Calico's.

"I'm sorry," I gasped passed the blood, not sure which dead girl I was apologising to anymore.

Hands suddenly dug themselves into my shoulder and I spun away from Clove's dying eyes, instantly finding myself awake and gasping for breath, pushing myself frantically into a sitting position and looking desperately around me for the person who was trying to attack me. Only Hazel was there, kneeling in front of my with a slightly alarmed look on her face. She tilted her head to the side as I caught my breath, closing my eyes for a second as I tried to separate my dream from reality. It had been too real; her eyes, their eyes...the blood.

Shaking my head I dropped my face into my hands, not wanting Hazel to see the tears that I suddenly realised had been pouring down my cheeks.

"Wow," she said in a perfectly calm voice as I concentrated on inhaling and exhaling at an even rate. "Your dreams are even worse than mine."

After a pause I slowly slid my hands away from my face, wiping the tears away at the same time, and reluctantly met her eyes. I'd never once let anyone see my nightmares, but I guess here I didn't have a choice. This was the first one this bad here. Before now I'd been able to keep them firmly in my head so when I woke the only sign that the dream had been were the images that continued to flash in my mind.

To my relief there wasn't a speck of pity in Hazel's eyes, only a hint of curiosity as she studied me. I shrugged in response to her statement, not trusting myself to speak yet.

"Who's Clove?" she asked suddenly, blinking at me in the gloom. "You were shouting for her," she explained after a beat of silence as I stared at her in horror. After another, longer, pause she seemed to realise it was a sensitive subject because she dropped her gaze and shuffled on her knees slightly.

"My little sister," I said abruptly, surprising even myself with the words.

Hazel continued to study the ground. "Where is she?" she pursued casually.

"She's dead. The 74th Hunger Games," I said forcing myself not to feel anything at the words. "...she was fifteen," I found myself inexplicably adding.

"Fifteen? Unusual for your lot isn't it?" I appreciated her tone, the curiosity rather than the pity. It didn't hurt as much if I thought about it as 'an event' rather than what it was.

"There have only been two people to volunteer before eighteen," I said, copying her tone. "Clove and-"

"You," she interrupted, looking at me.

I nodded, swallowing.

"Quite the family," she murmured, looking up at me through her lashes. I glanced away from her, hiding a grimace.

"I'm sorry if I woke you," I muttered, changing the topic. I shifted slightly, pulling my knees up to my chest, they were starting to ache in the position I'd been in. I glanced up at the window but the sky outside was still velvet black. It was nowhere near dawn yet, I must only have slept for a few hours.

"I wasn't sleeping," Hazel said slightly darkly. She reached behind her a little way and tossed something at me, which I instinctively caught. My fingers gripped into the worn, scratchy fabric of one of the blankets and I took it appreciatively, pulling it around my shoulders. Cocooned in the small shred of fabric I felt a little more composed, the reality of my dream fading slightly as I watched Hazel stuff her own blanket into a little shape and put it on the floor. She half collapsed down onto the ground, using the blanket as a pillow and staring up at the ceiling. After a pause I followed her, placing my pillow next to hers and playing down in the same position. The ceiling was a dark, hazy blue colour in the scant moonlight coming through the window. I could hear Hazel's breathing, and just feel the brush of her arm against my own.

We lay there in silence for a long time, though I knew she hadn't fallen asleep either and Clove's eyes were too fresh in my mind for me to even contemplate the risk of returning to my nightmares. I shivered slightly.

"My brother's dead too," Hazel said out of nowhere, her voice soft but surprising clear in the stillness of the room. "Two years before I was reaped a logging truck lost control and crashed into the school building of our town. He was eight."

I digested this information, absorbing the way her voice was heavy with a sadness that I guessed never went away no matter how many years passed. It was the same tone I'd heard Cashmere use when she told me I'd killed her older sister, Allure, in my Games. I wondered if my voice sounded like that when I talked about Clove, not that I had to many people. Junia, Cashmere and now Hazel were the only people I'd been forced into talking about it with. Hazel was the first one who I had pretty much volunteered the information for.

In the darkness I turned my head slightly to look at her profile next to me. She turned as well and met my gaze, her eyes looking dark and soulless in the lack of light. "Too many people die around me," she said quietly.

I didn't answer for a moment, thinking about it. People had a habit of dying around me as well. No family, no friends, not even that many enemies left. Whether I killed them or not they all seemed to die. "Perhaps we're cursed," I answered in the same tone.

She blinked at me for a few second and then turned back to the ceiling. I could just make out her eyelashes in the dark, fluttering rapidly, and I guessed she was trying to will away threatening tears. "Perhaps," she said in a voice choked with withheld tears.

I looked back at the ceiling too, tracing invisible patterns on the plain surface. "Maybe if we ever get out of here, it'll be a sign," I said without thinking. "Maybe it'll be a sign that our curse is broken. Maybe they'll stop dying then."

She never answered and we just lay there in the dark until dawn light began to fill the room, and then we just lay there even more, because there was nothing else for either of us to do.

A/N: This chapter will have to tide you over for several weeks probably as I'm off overseas for a month. I'm going to try and figure out a way to write while I'm away but there's never any guarantee. But I can promise you that, although things are looking pretty bleak, they are going to pick up very, very soon.

- Lu