Renata wasn't sure how long she had been in the hospital. Long enough that the noises of the monitors that covered the wall didn't distract her. They faded into the dimly lit background. The days seemed to run together in this foreign place. The only people she saw for weeks on end were the doctors that checked on her and the occasional person that walked past her glass-paned door. Sometimes Leona would come in to see her, and the first time Rini had saw her she had wept. They were safe, the whole lot of them. Leona had informed her that Mags was in Thirteen as well and that the extraction plan had worked. That is, the extraction plan outside of the arena.

There was no news of what had happened to the people left behind. No news of Finnick.

"Where are you?" She whispered, her body trembling.

Darkness answered her and she closed her eyes, her lips pressing into a hard line in an effort to keep her cries silent. She wasn't the only person in the hospital who had frequent bouts of sobbing by any means, but sometimes if she got too loud it would attract someone wanting to stick her with more needles or offer another type of medicine to remedy that. Crying used to be a source of relief, it provided an outlet for feelings of anger or sadness, even happiness. No amount of tears that she shed brought any relief. Her guilt, her grief was never-ending.

"If you don't go, then we're both dead!" He had shouted. "Don't look back. I will find you, I promise."

Why had she listened to him? She had abandoned him. Even if he was still alive, what were the chances that she would ever see him again? He had been the Capitol's darling. He practically had marks on his skin from their grip on him. Now that they had proof of him being involved in a rebel plan, they would never let him go. This was supposed to have been his chance at freedom and she had robbed him of it. She turned over in bed, feeling awfully sorry for herself. What a waste she had been. On him, on Cecil, on everyone she had ever been associated with.

"Where are you?" She whispered again, frantically. Her throat was thick with tears and she choked quietly, her fingers digging into the linens on her bed. She couldn't stay here much longer; the air was stagnant. She longed for a breeze.

The door to her room opened and she hid her face into the pillow, not in the mood to see anyone. If it was a doctor, she prayed that they would be satisfied in giving her more sleeping medicine and then leave without another word.

"Renata," A familiar voice said. A voice she had believed to be dead.

She sat up and reached for the remote beside her bed that controlled the lights. Katniss Everdeen stood at the end of her bed, in the same white hospital gown and with the same bloodshot eyes that Rini had.

"You're alive," Rini whispered, swallowing. Her eyes drifted to the bandage wound around her wrist. Had she tried to hurt herself? No, the memory of Johanna cutting her arm filled her head and she swallowed again, hard. "I'm sorry. I didn't know what was going to happen. I thought you were dead."

Katniss continued to stare at her, barely acknowledging her apology.

"Is Peeta okay?"

Her mouth twisted at that and she finally looked away. "No. I don't know. He's in the Capitol. They left him behind."

Another wave of guilt hit her; had she been responsible for Peeta's capture too? "They've got Finnick," She whispered, her lower lip trembling. "I don't know who else. All I remember is seeing you and Beetee on the hovercraft. Is there anyone else?"

The younger girl shook her head, her slight frame trembling. "Everyone else was taken." She was quiet again before turning to leave.

"Are they…alive?" She was afraid to ask.

Katniss lifted her chin and met her eyes again and Rini recognized the expression of agony on her face that echoed her own. "I don't know."

The metal slab would have been more appropriate as an autopsy table than a bed. Still, he sighed in relief to lay upon it. It would take only minutes before the chill set into his skin, but for a brief moment he could rest comfortably. The light in the cell never shut off, throwing his sense of time completely out of wack. Sleeping was sporadic, plagued with nightmares. How long had he been here? Was he actually alive?

Finnick held his thin wrist, looking at the newest damage. All the fingernails on his right hand, save his pinky, had been pried off. Dried blood stained his skin and he swallowed, knowing that the numbness he felt now wouldn't last. He would awake to more aches and pains that his body was hiding from him.

Someone screamed; maybe Johanna? He closed his eyes and shivered, willing himself to get off of the metal bench. With a groan, he pushed himself up and onto the floor. He pressed his back into a corner by the sliding cell door and grabbed his thin blanket, carefully wrapping it around himself. It hardly kept in the heat his body held, despite his wishful thinking. His sunken eyes drooped and he felt himself fall into sleep rather than letting it take him.

He had never seen such an amount of snow. He brought his hand up to shield his eyes from the blistering wind, turning around. There was no distinct landmark in any direction. The white desert seemed to be never ending, and it was getting colder. The powder crunched under his boots as he headed forward, his teeth chattering louder than the howling wind. Where was he supposed to go? Was there an end to this?

Someone grabbed his shoulder and whipped him around. A boy with brown skin and flashing white teeth. Before Finnick could react, he raised a knife and plunged it into his eye.

Finnick snapped his head up, smacking it against the wall. He wasn't sure of how long he had been out, probably only a few minutes. His heart was pounding so fast that it made his whole chest ache. What kind of dream had that been? His hand was throbbing and his fingers were swollen as he moved to his eye, breathing a sigh of relief when it was still there, intact in its socket. The blanket had fallen from around his shoulders and his body felt like ice.

There was something very familiar about the nightmare. The landscape, the boy that had attacked him. They weren't just nightmares, he realized. They were memories. Not his memories, however.

Rini's.

A sob burst from his throat so suddenly that he didn't recognize it was coming from him. He put his head in his hands, swallowing hard. Being locked up was making him crazy. It was hard to distinguish what was real anymore. Drawing a shaky breath and closing his eyes, he began to tick off a list of things he knew for a fact to be true.

"My name is Finnick Odair," he began, his voice sounding strange to his ears. "I'm twenty four..." Or was he twenty-five now? "M-my home is District Four," he continued in a whisper, tears blurring his vision. "I was in the Hunger Games. I was taken prisoner in the Capitol. Rini escaped. Rini is safe."

It was the one thing he could take comfort in. He had seen her get taken onto the hovercraft and off to safety in District Thirteen. Far away from the tortures that had become his everyday life. It was better this way. He had been dealing with the Capitol for many years. It would take more than a few gnarled fingernails to break him.

"I can leave?" Renata asked, sitting up in bed. The IVs had all been removed from her and purple bruises covered her arms. She had been in the hospital a little more than a month, she had found out. How had that much time passed? "Where am I supposed to go?"

The doctor handed her a slip of paper that had N-34 written on it. "That is the number for your living quarters. Tomorrow you will get your first schedule and you will be assigned to a job. Do you have any questions for me before you are discharged?"

She blinked and shook her head, not sure of where she would begin her list of questions. "No. Thank you for your help." She gave the doctor a small nod when she smiled and got up, the floor cold on her bare feet.

"I'll walk you to the elevator. It can be a bit confusing your first time."

Renata nodded again and she followed the woman out of her hospital room and down the hallway. She peered through the glass doors of each room they passed, wondering if Katniss was still in the hospital. Most rooms were empty, the few that had occupants were people that Rini didn't recognize. A shiver went through her and she folded her arms over her chest. The hospital gown she wore was a bit drafty.

"Here we are," The door screeched when it was pulled open and Renata peered inside. "In you go. Once you get to your floor, you'll see signs for room numbers. If you need anything, come back to the hospital, alright?" She pressed a button and closed the door, locking Rini in. "Welcome to Thirteen."

The elevator shuddered to life and she grabbed onto the wall for balance, swallowing back nausea. The floors zoomed by and then she was suddenly standing still again. Her head was spinning and before she could move to open the doors, they opened and a man walked in.

"Is this your floor?" He asked, his hand hovering in front of the panel of buttons. Upon closer inspection Rini saw that he wasn't a man, he looked to be around her age. His gray eyes flickered to her hospital gown and then back to her face.

"I didn't break out of the hospital, I swear," Rini finally spoke, opening her hand and smoothing out the crumpled piece of paper. "Can you tell me where this is?"

The boy cocked his head to the side and read the apartment number, nodding. "You go left off the elevator. All the doors are labeled, you'll see it."

The concrete platform she stepped onto was cold on her feet and she shivered, looking out at the open center of the district. The way it was structured reminded her of the viewing center in the Capitol. Only instead of tiers for viewing balconies there were entire floors of apartments. The elevator doors screeched closed behind her and hummed to life, and the boy disappeared to another floor.

People gave her curious glances as she walked along the platforms, making her want to run back to the hospital and hide. She sincerely hoped that she would be given something other than a gown to wear in her time living in Thirteen. Everyone was wearing identical clothes and everywhere she looked it was the same drab gray color. The complete opposite from the Capitol.

The door to apartment N-34 slid open and Leona emerged, a smile on her lips. It was an expression that had been forced for the longest time that Rini had known the woman, but now it finally looked natural.

"They told me you would be discharged today," she said softly, holding her in a gentle embrace. "I would have come and gotten you myself, but I had all the kids with me. It's right in the middle of our sit down time."

Renata furrowed her brow in confusion when Leona released her, following her inside the apartment. It wasn't much bigger than her hospital room had been. "Sit down time?"

"It's all a part of the schedule. They run a tight ship here," The older woman murmured and pulled up her sleeve to show her the typed words on her wrist. "It varies a little every day, but sit down time is always at the end of the day. Polom, Aria? Look who's here."

The children looked up and smiled at Renata, their sweet faces turning her into a puddle. Leona must have given them a talking to before she had shown up, worried that they would overwhelm her. Vic, the youngest, was snoozing on the built in bench in the wall. They all looked so different from the last time she had seen them.

"I missed you," She whispered, going over and kissing the tops of their heads.

Vic had had a nightmare.

Rini laid awake, staring up at the grey concrete ceiling of their apartment, listening to Leona's muffled words of comfort from below her. She hadn't been asleep anyway. Plus, it wasn't too long ago that Renata had been waking up every night, blinded by fear from her own nightmares. She turned over in her bed, listening to the sounds of Vic's small sniffles as he began to calm down. A wave of familiarity washed over her suddenly. The hushed voices, the dark, the cramped space- Whenever there had been a particularly bad storm back home, Cecil and Leona would gather all the kids into their room and they would wait it out together. Was this what they were doing? Waiting out another storm?

A month had passed and no one knew anything about the people that were left behind. She had a feeling that they wouldn't hear anything until the Capitol desired them to. She was afraid for them, deep in her bones. Their disobedience was enough to have them publicly executed. Tears welled in her eyes and she turned her face into her pillow, letting them soak into the pillow. Snow had to have something bigger planned for them.

Through her tears, she felt a tiny nudge in her stomach. She stayed still and waited for it to happen again, her heart pounding. After a moment, it happened again and she moved her hand to cover the tiny swell of her stomach. "It's okay," she whispered.

The doctors had said it had been a close call. With everything that she had gone through in the arena: the trauma, dehydration, malnutrition, she should have lost the baby.

"That one is a tough. They're a survivor, just like their mother."

They were nothing stronger than flutters, but it was enough to reassure her that her baby was still alive. Finnick's baby. She curled into herself, forming a protective cocoon for her stomach. "It's okay," she said again, her voice barely a whisper. "We're going to be okay."

They were safe from the Capitol's clutches, but with Finnick held captive she felt as though a piece of her was there with him. How long would it take for them to break him and the other victors? And if they did, would Snow then bring the hammer down on everyone in District Thirteen? How long were they safe? She swallowed back her fear for the sake of her sanity and closed her eyes, counting the small flutters in her stomach as they happened until they gradually stopped and she was asleep.

Well hello there! Happy New Year! If you're reading this and have never heard of Renata before, perhaps it would be of help to go and read the three other stories that precede this one! If you know Rini, then welcome back! I hope you were able to wait patiently and are happy with the start of this one! I'm very excited to explore the events of Mockingjay (and after) and incorporate Rini's story into it! Please leave me a review and let me know what you thought of it, I appreciate every single one!

-Kelsey xx