TW: Taylor's POV is centered around the loss of a young toddler.

Tommy Jute, District Eight male (14)

We had four more years of this. I didn't know how I could possibly bear it. I just knew I had to. No one else could bear your struggles for you. Even if they could, I'd never met anyone who would. Cairn, maybe, but they had enough problems of their own. Most people learned from the Games that life wasn't fair. I learned it far earlier than that, when we all learned Cairn's constant cold wasn't just a cold. Cairn's lungs were tearing themselves apart and while there was no cure for Districters. Only for people.

The boy in front of Cairn gave them a dirty look as they tried to stifle another coughing fit. Usually it wasn't this bad. It was the dust kicked up by a thousand children shuffling to their spots, and the standing in line for hours, and the stress of maybe getting sent to get killed by other children. But the really important thing, obviously, was that it was mildly annoying to the people near them.

"You got a problem?" I asked the boy, my blood already heating up.

The boy craned his neck to face me. He had ginger hair and the pale sort of face where your expression stands out stark- in his case, one of distaste and annoyance. "Maybe try a cough drop sometime?"

"Oh, wow!" I said, putting a hand to my forehead. "Why didn't we think of that?" The contempt in my voice started darkening into anger as I went on. "Maybe that will make their lungs stop falling apart from the inside."

"It's fine," Cairn said, looking at me nervously. I knew they were afraid I'd start a fight and draw the Peacekeepers. I wanted to, 100%, but I was angry, not stupid.

The boy shot me a sneer and turned back to face the platform again. "Some people are a waste of space," I said to the back of his head.

I turned to Cairn. "You okay? Lean against me if you need." Cairn's illness didn't usually cause fatigue to the level where he couldn't stand long enough for a Reaping, but it was all I could offer. I hated not being able to help him.

"I'm all right," Cairn said. Fanfare blasted, signaling the escort was about to take the stage. Cairn looked forward and I tried to look like I cared.

"Let's do the ladies first this year!" the escort said after some garbage I hadn't listened to. I'd been keeping an eye on the Capitolites milling about watching the spectacle to see which were dropping half-eaten food into the garbage for me to fish out. She pinched a slip and then held it up. She pretended to open it, then closed it, then opened it back up, like this was all a grand joke and we were here to watch her and not because we'd be shot if we didn't.

"Taylor Treadle!"

Didn't she kill a baby or something? I'd never seen Taylor but her appearance matched what I'd heard. A spiky-haired girl with tattoos all up her arms walked rigidly to the stage and stood glaring with her arms folded tightly on her chest. If the baby thing wasn't true, she seemed like the kind of girl I could get along with.

"And now the boys!"

The escort grabbed and opened the slip so quickly I barely had time to be afraid. There wasn't much to fear anyway. If Cairn got Reaped I'd just volunteer for them.

"Tommy Jute!"

I looked over at Cairn reflexively, still thinking about protecting them more than about myself. I saw the fear in their eyes but was more pained by the shame. It was written all over them. They wished so badly that they could be the one to protect me and felt so very, very small that the best thing they could do for me was allow me to die.

There was one thought, even more shameful, that was buried in my mind. As it settled it and I knew I was going into the Games, almost certainly to die and leave Cairn alone, I flashed back to years ago, to a visit to the Justice Hall. I remembered the donut the receptionist had been munching on as I so passionately told him there'd been a mistake, that my name was going to be in the wrong bowl. I remembered his casual shrug as he'd boredly unclicked female and clicked male. It was the moment when the world acknowledged who I was. I hated that I even thought it. I hated that the ugly, bitter thought crossed my mind. My name would have been in the other bowl if I hadn't. The butterfly effect would have stirred the slips, bringing another one to the top. I remembered the elation when that bored Capitolite had checked that box. I hated, I hated, that the Capitol had used that moment to kill me.

Taylor Treadle, District Eight female (15)

Coos and baby talk rose from the far corner of the classroom. It wasn't ideal to get pregnant at fifteen, but life happens. Georgette, with her large frame and her irregular periods, hadn't realized until she'd felt the baby kick. It seemed too late then to do anything but meet the little one. She'd taken two weeks from school to recuperate, then taken another few weeks of independent study, but then there was nothing to do but soldier on. With her dead parents and her distant family, the only option was to bring him along. So far none of the teachers had given her trouble. She wasn't the only mother in our school.

Gianni was a month and a half old. He had a mop of black hair that tended to mat up in one spot. His big brown eyes wandered the room. He could open his chubby little fists and wave his hands in the air. He lay like a lump against Georgette's chest and when he napped he suckled in his sleep. He was a beautiful, perfect gift. I'd never been so interested in the dates on the whiteboard since class started. When I looked at them on the far left of the whiteboard, I could see him in the corner of my eye. My heart fluttered when his eyes caught mine. His innocent, perplexed expression was aimed right at me. My heart fluttered, and then I stood up and left.

"She's leaving," I heard someone whisper as I walked through the door. The girl's tone was mingled relief and accusation. They must not have seen Gianni look at me. Someone would have said something. It was why I'd stood to leave- to cut them off before they could. Everyone had something to say. They said a million different things, but everyone always had something to say.

There was almost no one in the hall outside class. Class was starting in two minutes and we had a large enough gap between classes that no one was ever late. Mr. Tapp was already seated at his desk and shuffling papers. He didn't say anything as I left, though he knew I wasn't going to the bathroom or to fetch something from my locker. The few students I encountered shifted to one wall or another to let me pass. I opened the door to the gym and heard it click shut behind me.

Our "gym", as we generously called it, was a bin of ancient sports equipment and a couple of wrestling mats, which were rolled up and stacked by the wall when not in use. The little nook they made between them and the wall was where I went when moments like these came. I crawled into the gap and wedged myself into place, my back against a mat and my legs curled around another one. I pulled some markers from my pocket and started a new design on my arm. I found a gap between a sunset and a semicolon and started working on a feather.

I wondered if she knew. Did Georgette know just what a baby was? A baby was like a match held in your fingers. It was a brilliant, unique light dancing like magic with its colors and shifting form. It was like a match. A single breath, the shake of a hand, a dot of water, and it was ash. One drop and it was ash, and so many parents who trusted me with that light. One moment of not looking, of helping a little girl sharpen her pencil, one balcony so welcoming with its sunset view, one toddling step, his arms too small and clumsy to right himself, and he was ash. It stayed in my mind like a scar, my wonder if he'd ever known he had been alive.

One moment and you knew you never, ever, ever deserved your own. That you should stay far away. That your sleep would be disturbed by memories and not by the fussing of a baby. No tiny socks with rainbow beads on strings. No first smiles and first words and first steps. A life alone with those around me pulling away and with my arms empty. Sometimes it seemed fair that my punishment was to never stop wanting.

I'd always known her name would have been Henna.