This is the final chapter with the wonky formatting. We're just getting situated—the next chapter will be out ASAP and will have normal formatting.


Maize was doing less poorly than expected. She had a backpack and a sword. The backpack contained a firestarter, a box of add-hot-water porridge, a vial of iodine, some wire mesh, a spool of twine, some tinned meat, a package of nutrient bars, and a tiny pot and spoon. She hadn't been injured, and now she was thinking about her next moves. The desert didn't seem like it would be sustainable in the long term, but Maize had enough food. She would need some more water soon, but she expected she was better off than a lot of the other tributes. There had been eight deaths, which Maize hoped did not belong to anybody important to her, but that wasn't an insignificant amount of kills for the first day in the arena. That was a whole third of the tributes wiped out in the first thirty minutes, which was shocking on its face despite Maize knowing that it would happen, just as it had every year she'd watched the Games.

She was good at walking. She hadn't expected this, but she supposed it wasn't too surprising now that she thought about it. She did very little walking in District Nine, but she did stand up all day kneading bread, and that was more or less the same thing. Hiking across the desert made the muscles in her thighs burn, but she knew that she would get used to it. The trainers in the Capitol told her that her priority was finding clean drinking water, but she'd been counting on the presence of a stream, or at least some plants whose roots she could dig towards. She hadn't been prepared for an arena of this caliber, which was a grave misstep. Normally, this would send her into a neurotic hyperactivity and she would speed-bake. She'd chalk up a sign outside the shop advertising her services. People would line up to pool their tesserae rations and Maize would take the coarse grain and coax it into plush loaves. She'd set up an oven schedule. She'd make sure she never had a moment without work. The rest of the street rejoiced when Maize speed-baked because it was one less task waiting for them at the end of the day. Maize did it for free, because the Capitol provided fuel to run the kitchen and she didn't have to buy ingredients. At the end of the kick, she'd sit back as her mind stilled, but speed-baking wasn't an option in the arena. She needed to keep walking and stay alert for danger, and if she had to flex her wrists with every step to keep from going crazy, so be it.


Fahad spent most of his time in one of three buildings: his house, his place of work, and his bar of choice. He rarely ventured outdoors by choice, usually only to travel from one place to another. He lived in a desert district, at least in theory, but he'd never seen sand before. This was confusing and troubling. He asked Mare if drinking might have addled his brain and she laughed, then explained that not all deserts were alike. The desert of District Ten involved vegetation and scrub brush growing in packed, cracked dirt. The type of desert surrounding the Cornucopia had huge piles of sands in little waves that Mare called dunes. He asked her how she knew all this. "Picture books," she said. "I read a lot as a kid."

He'd never thought of her as a reader, but he could imagine it now that she put the idea into his head. Mare as a kid, hiding out in a tree somewhere or maybe a barn loft, chomping an apple and turning pages. Fahad had not grown up with books around the house, although he could read and write. They taught him that in school before he quit going and got a job at the meat packing plant. "And you remember what the books said?"

"Not really. But I remember it showed pictures of these rodents that live under the dunes in burrows. The way I figure it, the Gamemakers do actual research, and they have to put food in here somewhere. We know that they make realistic environments, so those mice or whatever other creatures they put here have got to drink water, and that means there's stuff around. We've got a bottle of water and a first aid kit, and I think we can manage if we play this right."

Fahad thought that sounded a little too good to be true.


The Careers were doing well. They had huge plastic drums of drinking water, weapons galore, and plenty of food to sustain them in the desert. The cannons had confirmed eight kills so far, probably with more deaths on the horizon. Tybalt had borne Nascha's corpse out from inside the Cornucopia and laid her to rest on the sand, but nothing was done about the other bodies. The Careers simply took a stroll a couple hundred meters away so the hovercrafts could scoop up the fallen tributes while they politely looked away.

Six of them remained, but both Fours were injured. The Seven girl had bitten Odicci's arm and done a fair amount of surface damage, but it wasn't much of a concern overall. Nathaniel's whole range of motion was truncated because of the armpit injury. He'd never really considered how much shoulder mobility was made possible because of the underarm muscles, but he was learning rapidly. He hadn't seen the Three girl until the last second, and he didn't have his spear on him, so he'd decided to do it by hand instead. He didn't see her weapon until it pierced his wrist, and then she'd taken his fallen dagger and stabbed upwards. She'd gotten away, which was the worst part. Surviving a Bloodbath encounter with a Career and actually injuring her attacker could prompt a dramatic rise in popularity. Popularity led to sponsorship which meant that Nathaniel's poor planning could lead to the girl being equipped with a more useful weapon. Nathaniel had lost sight of his initial promise not to underestimate anybody, but he wasn't about to make the same mistake twice.

He sat on a crate in the shadow of the Cornucopia while Haylia finished dabbing antiseptic ointment on top of the sterilized wound. She bandaged it to protect it from the elements and attempted to hug it better. Nathaniel was largely neutral on hugs, but he appreciated the sentiment. Haylia was pleasant and easy to get along with. "Take it easy," she ordered. "No use making it worse. Sit still and let it heal." Nathaniel was decidedly not a fan of sitting still. It made him feel like a useless lump, especially since he was the Pack leader. But he knew she was right, so he complied.


Tom was inconsolable when he learned Brielle was dead. He demanded to know why Twyla hadn't done anything to help her ally when she finally met him and Beemo at the rendezvous point and passed along the terrible news. "I wish I could have stopped them," she said. "But there were a lot of Careers and only one of me. Charging into there would have been suicide and you know it." Tom knew it. He just didn't want to hear it. He refused to speak to either of the Threes, but he did let Twyla sit next to him and clasp her hand lightly over the toe of his boot.

They stayed put for a while. Beemo was exploring the poison distillation kit and was delighted to see that it came with various dishes and containers, lots of spare darts, and a mortar and pestle. Twyla was understandably shaken up from hearing Brielle die, no matter how hard she tried to block out the screams. She knew they would show up in her nightmares. Beemo was preparing to do killing of his own, which she understood. Beemo wasn't a Career, so it felt different, even though there was no material difference at all. Twyla hoped she didn't have to see him in action.

She felt a weight on her shoulder. Tom had slumped his head against her. She gave his toe a little squeeze. "Hey there."

He draped his arms loosely around her neck. She felt wet eyelashes graze her collarbone. Tears started dripping onto her shirt. She moved both hands up to his back. She held him. "I miss her," he whispered.

Twyla pressed a kiss to his hair. "I know."


In the mentor penthouse lounge, a light pink telephone sat on a circular endtable made of polished walnut wood. It had a rosy painting stained onto the sides and a lace doily separated the phone from the surface. This was the source of all important mentoring-related updates. When it rang, any number of important people might be calling. Each mentor simultaneously was praying for and praying to avoid being summoned to the phone. The news tended towards the more extreme. The nature of the Hunger Games dictated that the news was more often bad than good, but there were exceptions. As the newest mentor, I sat closest to the phone. I had been made responsible for picking it up each time it brought an offering, but that had not happened yet.

At around three o'clock on the first day of the Games, the phone chimed. The other mentors' murmurs ceased abruptly. Their eyes snapped to me. I brought the phone to my ear. "Griffin Cadbury speaking."

"Thank you, Mr. Cadbury," a man said soberly. "This is Gamemaking calling for District Twelve."

"Yes, sir. One moment, please," I said into the receiver. Then, into the room, I said, "It's for Yew."

Yew Whettery stood up rigidly. I would have asked Aileen as the more senior mentor, but she was out somewhere. Every district needed to have one in the room at all times to monitor for pertinent updates and respond to any urgent communications, but most had two. The ones who stepped out usually did so to network on behalf of their tributes.

"Go on, Yew," someone said gently. He came to the phone hesitantly and I transferred the receiver to him. I was close enough to hear the faint, measured speech of the Gamemaker, who seemed to be giving Yew instructions.

"Right away, sir, yes. The Manolos, you said? Please thank them on my behalf." He tucked the phone to his shoulder and scrawled something on the small spiral notebook from his pants pocket. "How are the sight lines?" There was more on the other end of the call. "Right now, please. Thank you very much. I appreciate it." He replaced the phone on its cradle and smugly turned out to the room. "Someone wants to sponsor Aspen."


Hey y'all,

Have fun with this little morsel! Next chapter will be out later today and feature eight POVs. Enjoy!

—LC :)