Sparks Fly

Chapter 1

The frosty air around me has long since stolen the warmth from my hands and the once-steamy flask of tea they grip tight. My body is stiff all over, as if my muscles themselves have frozen in the harsh January weather. If a predator were to attack me now, the odds of me walking away unscathed are miniscule. I should get up, get the blood flowing through my veins. I should do so many things. Say so many things . . . But instead I sit, still and silent as the first rays of dawn begin to break over the horizon and the calls of birds begin to split through the trees. I can't fight the sun. I can only watch helplessly as it drags me into a day that I've been dreading for months.

They'll be there by midday. The colorful circus that is my support team, along with a flock of camera crews, will have infiltrated my new house in Victor's Village. Effie Trinket, my old escort, who will probably be sporting a garish new wig in some obnoxiously bright color. My shallow and vain, yet surprisingly friendly prep team. My friend and stylist, Cinna, who made his extraordinary debut on the Capitol fashion scene after dressing me at last year's Games. Later, at the train station, there will be others as well. Madge Undersee, the mayor's daughter and one of my best friends. And -- of course -- my "cousins" . . .

When Peeta and I made it to the final eight in the Games, the television crews arrived in District 12 to interview our friends and family. When they asked about my friends, all fingers pointed back to Gale Hawthorne. What with the star-crossed lovers strategy that Peeta and I were employing in the arena, it didn't quite fit with our story that my closest -- and almost only -- friend was an attractive 18-year-old boy from the Seam. Luckily, some genius started the rumor that we were cousins. It wasn't hard to make that connection -- we both had that stereotypical Seam look: gray eyes, olive skin, dark hair. But what's even luckier is that our families were smart enough to go along with it.

After the Games, Gale began to work in the coal mines, District 12's industry. We used to have annual class trips down to the mines. The trips were already miserable on their own. The rickety old elevator that spits us out into too-small tunnels, the darkness smothering us as the rancid air provides no relief to the feeling of being utterly trapped. But after my father and several other miners -- including Gale's father -- were killed in an explosion, I couldn't even look at the mines without seeing it. The smoke that billowed out of the old elevator, dumping out fewer and fewer survivors with each trip. The roped off area for friends and family, where my mother, sister, and I waited anxiously until dawn. The grim look on the supervisor's face as the sun began to rise, and we knew that any sliver of hope that remained had been extinguished. The annual trip became an enormous source of anxiety. Twice I made myself so sick in anticipation of it that my mother kept me home because she thought I had contracted the flu.

I think of Gale, who is only really alive in the woods, with its fresh air and sunlight and clean, flowing water. I don't know how he stands it. Well ... yes, I do. He does it for the same reasons I would -- or would have if I hadn't volunteered at the Reaping last summer. For family. Where I did -- do -- everything for Prim and my mother, he does everything to feed his mother and two younger brothers and sister. And despite the exorbitant amount of winnings that I now receive -- more than enough to feed both of our families for the rest of their lives -- Gale is too proud to take so much as a single coin from me. He barely allows me bring in meat, although I know he'd have kept my mother and Prim supplied if I'd been killed in the Games. I tell him it's no problem, that I'd go mad if I had to spend the entire day in my new Capitol-issued house. Even so, I never drop off the game haul while he's around. Which isn't difficult, considering his work schedule.

Since he now works ten hour days, six days a week in the mines, the only time I really get to see Gale now is on Sundays, when we meet up in the woods to hunt together. I still look forward to it all week, but it's not like it used to be, when there was a certain ease to our friendship. When we could tell each other anything. The Games have spoiled even that. I keep hoping that we will regain that closeness, though a small part of me knows that that will never happen. The starving girl that he once met in the woods is dead -- twisted and murdered by the Capitol.