+ Thanks for the review, Dancing-Souls! I've been intentionally keeping the progress of the Games (ie deaths, kids remaining, etc) dark, due to the arena's construction, but the first part of this chapter will give a little fill-in to where we're at…along with keeping the Capitol plot going. Also, this chapter is a lot longer than I anticipated. Big backstory chapter.

"Do you have to fidget?"

Galan Green drummed his fingers on the table inside the Presidential Mansion's Assembly Hall. The air conditioning hardly helped keep out the oppressive heat of the summer afternoon, as the bright Capitol sun shined in and turned the room into a hothouse. Across the table with arms folded, Lucrezia sat as still as the crystal statues lined up along the walls. Her stare bothered Galan. Maybe she was Creon's spymaster, but did she have to make it so obvious in person? He could feel the paranoia oozing out of her gaping eyes, as if she thought he'd set off a bomb at any minute.

"Didn't think we'd have to wait so long," Galan said with a forced smile.

Lucrezia didn't return the gesture. "Taurus is a busy man."

"And so am I. I'm running this thing called the Hunger Games. You might've heard of it."

"So do you have to fidget?"

Galan scowled as the door slammed open. All six-foot-five of Taurus Sharpe strolled through the door, his midnight-black hair shined and coifed, his eyebrows narrowed with an eagle's glare. He wasn't alone. Golden sunlight glistened off of Creon Snow's greying hair. Panem's president didn't wait for any ceremony from his counsel: He took the first seat he found and propped his elbows up on the waxed mahogany table. His tunic looked radiant to Galan, all silver and blue in the colors of the house of Snow.

"I don't have all day to talk," began Creon before Taurus had even taken a seat. "Your media follows me around like a puppy, Galan."

The Head Gamesmaker threw up his hands. "I told them to stick to the tributes today, and I –"

"Well, you've got them after me. Forget it. Let's get down to business."

Taurus folded his arms and stared straight at Galan. The Head Gamesmaker had a bad feeling about where this was going: Without Julian and Cyrus on his side, he was outnumbered – and facing the president, something that he hadn't expected. It felt like all eyes were watching him for the slightest slip-up.

"I haven't been keeping track much of your little games," said Creon, spitting out the last word like it was a curse. "But Taurus tells me you've got something useful planned for all the expense. I admit, I'm getting a little tired of this whole circus, Galan. My father might have tolerated spending ten days in the summer on nothing but games, but I'm not going to shut down this city every year just for entertainment. I want some actual results out of this."

Galan paused for a moment to collect his thoughts. Not a good start. "I…for results, you know, the Games are good to remind the districts –"

"They're not doing a very good job keeping them in line, Gamesmaker, if I have to send Cyrus out to keep the peace in District 4!"

"There is…" Galan stuttered. He clenched his fist and his jaw. "We're down to eight tributes right now. If District 4's the priority, we have both of them alive – if you want, we can have one of them win."

"One of them won just last year," Lucrezia purred. She watched Galan through half-closed eyes, like a mountain lion strutting before cornered prey. "You want to give a district full of anarchists another rallying point?"

Heat flushed Galan's face. "If you think I'm just bending over –"

"No, you're not," Taurus interjected. His voice was iron and ice. "District 12 chafes under the renewed pox outbreak. You have no trouble killing off their boy just yesterday with that monster of yours in the arena. Now, we're left wondering if you've even paid attention to what I've recommended about our victor this year, Gamesmaker."

"Look, I know what you want."

"I don't much think you do. District 4's useless as a winner. What are we getting out of these others? The same old same old?"

"I'm inclined to agree," said Creon. "I might not have paid much attention the past week or so, but District 1 and 2 are the last of our problems. They're loyal. They can sacrifice. Same with District 5. You've kept around a girl from their district for how long? For what end? In ninety-six years, we haven't so much as sniffed trouble from them."

Galan waved his hand in the air and leaned back in his chair. He hadn't expected an inquisition. Coriolanus Snow had paid close attention for years to the Games. The man had intervened a number of times in outcomes, yet he'd always found some way to turn winners to his advantage, whether that was forcing the pretty victors into prostitution or pressing others into doing favors for the Capitol's elite – no matter how strange the requests. Clearly, his son wasn't so interested in personal gain from the Games. Creon, it seemed, saw the Games less as an opportunity for individual power and more as a vehicle to stabilize the districts.

Damn it. He shouldn't have had the beast kill off that boy from 12. Shoulda killed 5 instead…

"I've given who wins some thought –" Galan started.

"I hope so," Taurus cut in again with a scowl. Galan hated that gaze. He'd rather Creon chew him out for an hour that look Taurus in those black eyes of his. It felt as if they'd suck him away to some dungeon deep under the bowels of the Capitol, where they shut away subversive avoxes and the like. "I'd hate to have to call Seneca Crane back up."

Galan bit his lip. "Let's not get hasty, 'kay? We still got District 3 and 9 in play. The kid from 3 in particular is a smart guy. He handles his business, he's got a good shot of getting to the endgame."

"So let's say that's what happens," Creon said, cracking a knuckle. "What do we get out of District 3 winning?"

"First off, the boy's smart. He's figured out how to carve out a niche in the arena. He's got food, survival tools. He's even watched the other tributes and kept an eye on a few of them, all while never being seen. We're looking for an informant in their ranks, and someone who doesn't have any feelings for the other districts. This boy's not a team player. Maybe he doesn't trust us, but he's got no reason to trust any of the other districts, either – or the victors. We can work with that. It'll take some persuasion, some reinforcements, but we can work with him."

Creon snorted. "That's a lot of hypotheticals."

"It's also the chance to cash in some chips with District 3," Galan went on. "They haven't won in forever. It starts off your first Hunger Games with a show of mercy, sir. You give the underdogs a chance to win."

"Too much mercy and we look soft to dissenters," said Lucrezia.

Creon dismissed her with a wave of his hand. "It's a fair point, and I'm not going to make too much out of a game. District 4's my top concern."

"My spies tell me the fishing captains are restless," Lucrezia said, leaning forward. "The talk in the district is reaching treasonous levels."

"Purging them won't solve that problem," Taurus countered. "It's not just one or two voices, like you seem to think. It's a down economy in the district, it's poor hauls for the last three years, it's several incidents with Peacekeepers in just the last few months, and then there's the only thing the Head Gamesmaker got right: We're in a period of change. We can't afford to think removing one or two boisterous men will solve our problems."

"We can't tolerate dissent," scoffed Lucrezia.

"Nor foolishness," Taurus said. His furrowed brow was enough to quiet her counter argument. "But we might be past that point already." He turned to the president, his eyes narrowing and his fingers clenched. "I'm not sure Cyrus Locke's…permissive view of the situation will do anything to quiet District 4's discontent."

Creon paused, slouched forward, and said, "Cyrus has served well for two decades. He knows people. He'll settle them down."

"All the best to him if he does," Taurus said. "But if he doesn't? How long can we afford to let District 4 pretend it can stand up to us with impunity?"

For just a moment, Galan saw doubt cross Creon's face. "If he doesn't, we'll have to re-evaluate things. We've had peace for almost a century. They'll settle down or I'll make them settle."

/ / / / /

"Something's on fire."

I could smell Tethys's suspicion. The air thickened the farther we hiked into the city outskirts, reeking of sulfur and charcoal. A red glow lit up the horizon. Rising clouds of smoke drifted up into the night sky, eliciting a furious flurry of lightning bolts. Thunder boomed.

"At least it's bright. Sorta," Delfin grunted. He kicked a rock up the hill as we trudged up it. "Just for once, I'd like to see the stupid sun."

I sighed. It was hard remembering what the sun felt like, even though I'd spent my whole life atop District 5's hot desert. Our here amid the black sand and midnight sky, it felt like the sun had never existed. Nor any of those other comforts, really – the Capitol's fancy showers with their dozens of temperature settings and fanciful, fluorescent shampoos seemed like quaint fantasies. I could barely fathom my shiny dress from the interview with Cicero Templesmith as I felt the ragged holes in my trousers. My shirt was torn up in places, splattered with blood and other spots I couldn't identify. More and more, this horrible, hellish place was invading my understanding what the world was supposed to be.

"Does it have to be so damn hot?" Delfin grumbled as he tromped up to the top of the hill.

"It's been like that since we started," I mumbled.

He sighed and twirled his spear in his hand. I didn't feel comfortable that he was the only one of us armed. Tethys trusted him, and she'd saved me, but I still had the feeling that Delfin prided his survival over hers, no matter how long their history together stretched back. Only one person would escape from her alive, after all.

"They could at least have some rain or something," Delfin complained. "Just something to change up the whole damn dreary – oh. Whoa."

He stopped on a dime at the top of the hill, his face filling with confusion, his eyes wide and questioning. When I hurried up the last few paces to the top of the hill, I saw it too. The Gamesmakers had torn up the outskirts of the arena, where I'd run to on my first day and committed my first kill. The loose scree, the thick sand, the hills and depressions, they were all gone.

In its place was fire.

Rivers of molten rock reached out like bright, burning incisions in the scabby black land. Lava seethed and roiled, kicking up tendrils of smoke that rose high into the sky. Angry red fingers reached out to the horizon and beyond. The Gamesmakers were making it clear: We weren't going that way.

"Didn't you say you went out there originally?" Tethys said, watching on as a large, flat rock tumbled over and over in a fast-moving lava stream.

I shook my head. "It wasn't like this before. It was just…just sand and stuff. Rocks."

"Guess going back to the Cornucopia's off the table," Delfin said. "Ahh. They're fencing us into the city with the others and whatever that…thing…that was chasing us was."

He creased his brow and narrowed his eyes. Before he had the chance to say another word, Tethys grabbed his arm. "Hey," she said, lowering her voice to little more than a whisper. "We'll figure it out, okay?"

"Yeah, I just don't know about heading back into that thing."

"We've gotten this far. Just listen, okay? We'll be fine."

I wrung my hands as Tethys reassured Delfin. Queasiness stirred somewhere deep inside of me. Maybe it was longing or envy of the feeling I could hear in Tethys's quiet, confident words, or the fraction of a second of vulnerability that crossed Delfin's eyes, but all of the sudden I felt as alone as I'd been in the arena. I'd talked and even laughed with Ember, but I'd never felt something like that. I'd never felt anything like that even back home in District 5, and most likely, I never would get the chance.

Damn it. I looked away and sniffed. The emptiness gnawing away in my stomach threatened to overwhelm the screaming of a rational voice in my head: Don't you cry in front of them, Terra. This just means they'll throw you away even sooner than you thought.

I hated this place.

"Hey."

Delfin stirred me out of my self-loathing. He let his spear trail in the sand behind him as he tromped down the hill, back towards the black stone blocks of the city's outskirts. Tethys trailed a few steps behind him, but paused just for a moment as she looked back at me. A fret crossed her lips. "You okay?" she mouthed.

Ugh. "I'm fine," I whispered, glancing down at my feet. "Fine."

She paused for a second before nodding, but she'd seen my hesitation. In another place, in any other time, Tethys and I could have been friends. She had a gentle heart and cared for people, that was certain, but I couldn't shake the paranoia and suspicion that this arena stirred in me. I'd seen too many things, done too many things, and now even a look of concern from Tethys's eyes made me shiver in disgust at my weakness and tremble in fear of Delfin's weapon.

I wanted to say so many things, but I only walked. For an hour, I could do nothing but walk.

Delfin stopped at the first sign of the necropolis's broken cobblestone road peeking through the black sand. All around us, crumbling stones littered the ground as if a mountain had exploded across the desert. Up ahead, however, the jagged, haunting buildings of the city leered out at us, teasing of more supplies and hiding spots but also teeming with danger.

Boom!

A cannon roared. In the distance to our right, one of the howling, milky-white gas bags that had chased Ember and I earlier drifted through the sky, raining lightning bolts down on some poor kid far away. It was the first cannon I remembered hearing since Glenn…since I'd killed Glenn.

Since I killed.

"Those things creep me out," Deflin said, pointing towards the gas bag as it moaned and screeched high in the sky. "Where do the Gamesmakers come up with this things?"

"I think that's kinda the point," I said.

He shrugged. "Yeah. Let me know if either of you see any happy things any time soon. Let's hold up here for the night. Or for the…okay, everything is night. Let's just hold up here."

At least my two new allies weren't short on supplies. After starving my way through the desert flats during those first few days, I was happy to have a meal, even if it just was canned beans and rice. When the whole world seemed out to get me, when even my feelings turned on in myself, a full stomach was as nice a respite as I could imagine. It was funny how something I could take for granted back in District 5 was such a luxury. Back at the Capitol, this wouldn't have qualified as a snack.

We'd barely finished eating before Delfin fell asleep.

"You can sleep if you wanna," Tethys said, wrapping her hands around her knees and burying her feet in a pit of sand. "I'll watch for now. I can just wake him up when I'm tired."

I shook my head. "I'm not really tired either."

She gave me a sad little smile. "Don't trust me?"

"No, I do."

"I don't blame you. You just met us, really," she said. She ran her hands through her hair and sighed, and in a bright flash of lightning, shadows raced across Tethys's face. The divots under her eyes turned into deep depressions, and the flash made her high cheekbones seem as if they stuck out from her skin. "It's kinda hard even to trust myself right now."

I lay down on my side, rested my head against Delfin's backpack, and asked, "Why? You two're doing fine."

"It's – "

A soft, low beeping cut her off. It was faint at first. When I glanced up, however, a flickering green light caught my eye. Another flash of lightning lit up a silver parachute fluttering in the air behind it. Sponsors! My heart jumped. I'd completely forgotten about sponsorships, given how I'd stumbled my way through the arena so far. For that matter, I'd almost entirely forgotten Finch, Daud, and Elan. It seemed like I'd met them a lifetime ago.

Tethys saw it too. "Probably just more food or socks," she said.

My excitement died at once. Duh. Of course it's not for you, the voice in my head said. Of course those two would be getting sponsors. Delfin was a tough guy, a confident guy, someone clearly at home with that spear he carried. As for Tethys, well…young guys in the Capitol wouldn't have a problem sponsoring her. Her red hair was a mess and dust cloaked her face, but I still remembered her shiny high heels and flowing turquoise dress from the interviews. She was a pretty girl underneath all that muck.

I was just Terra.

Tethys snatched the parachute out of the air and cracked open the matte gray case it carried. She looked perplexed for a minute, looked up at me, and said, "It's for you."

"What?"

"Someone else doesn't trust me, I guess."

Nervousness crept up inside me as I took the package. Why would someone in the Capitol sponsor me?

More questions than answers cropped up as I opened the case. Inside lay a curved dagger longer than my forearm, the blade jet black with a jagged red streak inlaid from hilt to tip. Someone had carved a crude "5" into the stark white grip. Whoever had sent this would have seen my allies by now, so Tethys was right: They sure didn't trust my allies. Definitely not Finch and her kindheartedness. Maybe Elan, but I had a guess who'd sent this kind of gift my way. I just didn't know how he'd afforded it.

You're good at killing people, I imagined Daud saying somewhere in the Capitol. So go kill them with a real weapon.

"Somebody likes you," said Tethys.

I shoved the package off to the side next to Delfin's pack. "I don't even know how to use that."

"Not really that hard. Just…stabby!"

Tethys reached over and pushed me with her last word, and I only just held back a laugh. "Why don't you have anything?" I asked. That had been bugging me. Tethys seemed like she could hold her own, but she didn't even carry as much as a stick or brick.

"I trust Delfin," she said, her voice growing quiet. She looked over at him as he slept, his breathing soft and slow. "He's better at that kinda thing anyway."

"Whadya mean?"

Tethys bit her lip and sighed. The light behind her green eyes clicked off, and suddenly exhaustion washed over my ally's face. "You probably think we're just dragging you around for fun," she said, looking off into the darkness.

"No. I mean, no."

"I thought I'd be ready for this kinda thing," Tethys said, keeping her eyes on Delfin. "You know. The arena. Competing. I've known for a while I was gonna volunteer this year. Even when we ran from the Cornucopia, I figured I still had it in hand. Then when Delfin killed that girl from 6 on the second, third day, whatever day, just gored her when she was sleeping, it did something. I just kinda lost it."

She shook her head, and from the way she clenched her jaw, Tethys looked like she was holding back a tear. "He just killed her, and he never even flinched. I looked her in the eye as she woke up to the spear in her belly, and she looked back at me. I'm never gonna forget that. I still feel horrible, and I didn't even stab her. I just watched. That was bad enough. Maybe I just wanted to do something good, or maybe you just seem like a good kid, but I can't just push that off to the side."

"It's funny," she said, resting her chin on her hands. "Deflin was always a really nice guy growing up, and then he came in here and just let loose."

I watched her without a word. Tethys wanted to get something off her chest, before she died or Delfin died or I died, or we all did. I guess we all felt this way here underneath the endless night.

"Were you guys friends before?" I said after a long pause.

She nodded. "My dad's a dock manager, and his mom works as a machine operator, repairing the boats back home. They talked from time to time, and I met Delfin when I was six or so. He was a fat little kid."

"Really?"

"Yeah. His dad has a good job as a first mate on a boat, so his family always has a lot of food. We were in the same classes when we were little at school, and I remember a lot of the other kids poking fun at him because he was a bit pudgy. Maybe that made him want to do this, I dunno. But he was a good guy. He shared his lunch with me a few times and always made friends with the girls more than the other boys. One time, maybe even two years ago, we were just sitting out on one of the cliffs overlooking the bay back home. Sun setting, middle of the summer, cool sea breeze, kinda romantic. I thought he liked me back then, and I thought for a minute he was gonna kiss me right then. He didn't. Couldn't, I guess. I just…I just wonder."

She looked away again. "We were both happy to volunteer, but I'm never gonna know what woulda happened to either of us if we hadn't."

I fiddled with one of the straps on Delfin's backpack. Could that have ever happened in District 5? I wasn't the girl to make friends that Tethys sounded like, but listening to her reminisce as her eyes watered opened up a yawning void in a piece of my heart. I'd missed a lot, and I wouldn't get the chance to do so many things.

"I probably sound like an idiot," Tethys said, rolling her eyes.

"No! No, I just don't really know about any of that kind of stuff," I said. "Home's kinda boring for me."

"Yeah? What'd you do for fun?"

I frowned. "Not really anything fun. We do electricity and all that back home, so I worked on fixing solar panels."

"You?" Tethys leaned back and laughed like that was the funniest thing she'd heard in months. "You're like fourteen!"

"Fifteen. But yeah."

"And they trust you with that?"

"Yeah. That was fun. Ish. I always wanted to work on the big river dam we have as an engineer or something, but…guess not."

"That's fun? Way different kinda fun than I know."

"I dunno. We don't have boats or anything."

"C'mon. Fun. What do you do when you just want to screw around with friends and whatnot?"

I bit my lip and shook my head. "I don't really have a lot of friends."

Something close to regret flashed across Tethys's face, and she looked down at her feet. "Oh. Sorry. I feel kinda stupid."

"No, don't. It was just, my family never really encouraged that sorta thing."

"What's that mean?"

I stopped. Suddenly I felt like I'd said too much, like I'd let Tethys a step further into my feelings than I'd wanted to. As much as my brain told me to back off and play it off, however, something deep within me told me to push on. She spilled her secrets. Who will you ever tell your feelings to again?

Screw it. I didn't care if the Capitol was watching.

"I have a twin brother," I began. "Flint. He's a good guy. We look after each other, but I just feel like…he's closer with my parents. My dad owns a bar, and he works there with him and my mother. They always criticized him when he'd get bad grades at school or something, but when I would, they wouldn't care. When Flint and I would argue, he'd say they liked me more, but I just don't think they ever really cared much about what I was doing."

A voice in the back of my head warned, Stop, stop. You're getting carried away. I ignored it. "When I was twelve, my dad had me sign up to start working on the power fields. A lot of kids do that so it wasn't that crazy, but we didn't need the money like some of them do. Between four hours a day doing that, though, seven hours at school, and walking to and from places, I barely spent any time at home that wasn't sleeping for six days a week. I didn't have a lot of time for other stuff. Definitely not friends. I don't even know if I knew my parents, really. My mom didn't see me off for this. My dad did, but he only told me not to make him look bad."

I forced a little laugh. "I was never hungry or needing for anything, but I never really had anyone else there. Maybe my parents didn't want a daughter. I dunno."

It was only then that I noticed wet streaks running down my cheeks. Feeling stupid, I turned away from Tethys and rubbed at my face. So much for looking tough.

"I'm sure they're proud of you," said Tethys. Her voice sounded anything but convincing.

"Yeah," I said with a nod. "Guess so. If that's worth anything."

Tethys looked away. "Why don't you get some sleep, Terra? Don't worry about taking watch. I'll make Delfin stay up. Just get some sleep."

That was my cue to stop. When I lay down away from her, however, I felt terrible. I didn't want to sleep. Energy surged through my veins from my admission, but guilt also hit me. If, by some bizarre chance, I did win this, what would be waiting for me back home? The guilt of knowing Tethys died so I could, of killing the boy from 7 and Glenn, of watching Ember die in front of my eyes? All for what, so I could go back to a place that didn't feel like home?

As my eyes fluttered shut, I didn't know whether or not I eve deserved to win. When I woke up, that was the last thing on my mind.

"Terra. Terra, get up. Get up!"

Tethys shook me awake. I yawned and stretched – and I froze as I saw terror in her eyes.

"What?"

"Grab that knife you got and let's go. Now!"

Nearby, Delfin clutched his spear and breathed hard. Up on the ridge behind us and surrounded by a dark cloud of smoke, something horrible, something unnatural, something that may have once been human but no longer was, reared up and bellowed. Three dangerous-looking mutts, looking like someone had taken a praying mantis and a dog and smashed them together, lurked around the center figure – and I was sure they wanted nothing more than to sound off another cannon.