Sparks Fly

Chapter 1

I get a good haul from our usual line of snares, the majority of which have been designed and set by Gale. He has an affinity for them, much like I do with my bow. It's what makes us the perfect hunting partners. Where he knows how to precisely balance and weigh every intricate wire and stick,  I can shoot at an animal in almost complete darkness and still take it down with one arrow. It's more than experience. It's a second nature. I reset the snares with a careful hand, knowing that I'll never be as naturally inclined to trapping.

I make it back to the fence surrounding District 12, the sun now illuminating the bleak winter day. As always, I wait for the telltale hum of electrical current running through the chain link fence. So much for it being charged 24/7. I slide underneath the chain link that has long since loosened from from ground and come out in the Meadow, just a stone's throw from my home. My old home. Legally it is my mother's and still belongs to her. If I were to drop dead at this very moment, both her and my sister Prim would be forced to return there. But for now, they're both happily settled in the new house in the Victor's Village, and I'm the only one who uses my childhood cottage. To me, it's my real home.

I step into the small front room to change my clothes before my walk back to Victor's Village. I make quick work of it, as the lack of life in the house has left only a bitter cold remaining. It is here that I slip out of my father's old hunting jacket and pull on a scratchy wool coat that doesn't quite sit right. Switch out my old and worn, but incredibly comfortable hunting boots for a Capitol-made pair that pinches my toes. Clothes that reflect my newfound status as a victor. My bows and arrows are already stashed in a hollowed out log in the woods. Despite the minutes counting down to the debacle that will shortly be arriving at my house, I allow myself a moment to mourn my old life here. We barely survived most days, but I knew precisely who I was. Who I was meant to be. A life in which I somehow felt a stronger sense of security for myself and my family than I do now.

I hear a yowl and scratching at the back door and I nearly roll my eyes in annoyance. I swing the door open to reveal Prim's disgusting yellow cat, Buttercup, and I'm greeted with a hiss. The only thing the cat and I have ever agreed on on is how much we hate the new house. He sneaks back here whenever Prim in is school. We've never been each other's biggest fan, but now we have a common hatred. I let him in, feed him a chunk of beaver fat, and even rub him between the ears for a bit. "You're hideous, you know that, right?" I ask him. Buttercup vies for more attention from me, but we must leave. I've already been here too long. "Come on, you." I scoop up the cat in one arm, my game bag in the other, and haul them both out onto the street. Buttercup springs free and disappears to find his way back to the new house.

The shoes are tight and uncomfortable as I stride down the cinder street, frost crunching under my boots. Gale's house is within view in mere minutes. His mother, Hazelle, sees me through the kitchen window, where she puts down whatever she's working on, dries her hands on her apron, and goes to meet me at the door.

I like Hazelle. Respect her. When Gale's father died in the same explosion as mine, she was left with three boys and a baby due any day. Nevertheless, she was back out on the streets hunting for work within a week of giving birth. As a new single mother of four, the mines weren't an option, so she turned to washing the clothes of some of the wealthier townspeople. Gale, despite being only fourteen, became the provider of his family overnight. He was already signed up for tesserae, which entitled them to a meager supply of grain and oil in exchange for his entering his name extra times in the Reaping. His skills with snares didn't hurt either. But it wasn't enough to keep the large family afloat without Hazelle working her fingers to the bone on that washboard. If not for a salve my mother makes her, her hands get so red and cracked, they bleed at the slightest provocation. But between Hazelle and Gale, they are adamant that none of the other kids, twelve-year-old Rory, ten-year-old Vick, or the baby, four-year-old Posy, will ever sign up for tesserae.