36

So…cold.

Prim couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. She didn't have enough energy to shiver. "P…eet…a…?"

No response.

Their fire was out. Darkness hovered like death's blanket. It took every ounce of energy for Prim to open her eyes. Beneath the icy moonlight, she made out Peeta's face. Pale. Bluish. Frozen.

Her eyes shut of her own accord. She wouldn't mind dying just now. Anything to get away from this cold.

Hot. Sweat. Too much to breathe.

Prim's eyes flew open and her body screamed for attention. Daylight. The sun hung overhead, too close and too hot. From beside her, Peeta groaned. Sweat plastered the hair to his head. She pushed away from him, trying to get cooler.

This made no sense. Wasn't she freezing last night? She glanced at the river. The water line was lower, but no longer frozen. Water. Cool, clear, refreshing.

She crawled toward it as Peeta groaned and rolled over. She plunged her hands below the water's surface, but withdrew them with a hiss. "It's hot! The water is…scalding!"

Only then did she notice the steam coming off the top.

Peeta crouched beside her. "Looks like the Gamemakers have come out to play."

"What do we do?" Prim scratched an itch on her left hand. She knew these parts of the Games. It almost always happened when the numbers thinned and tributes had a higher chance of hiding from one another. People were bored and the Gamemakers were impatient.

"Well, our bottle is filled with water right now, so we're good."

For now. That wouldn't be long enough. Both her hands now itched and she rubbed them against the rough material of her pants. How she hated burns! "I think we'd be able to fill the bottle without touching the water. Then it would cool as we walked."

Peeta grabbed her arm. "What's wrong with your hands?"

"I burned them in the water." Sweat built in every crease of her body. They needed to get moving and find some shade, or a cave.

"These aren't burns. Trust me, I'm a baker's son. I know burns. Besides, your hands wouldn't itch right after being burned."

At the word itch, Prim's skin prickled and she pulled it away from him long enough to scratch the now-red surface. "Then…what's wrong with me?" The itching increased. Oh no, had she been infected with something? Was it going to spread to the rest of her body and kill her?

"I think the water's poisoned." At Peeta's word poisoned, a cannon goes off. Prim screamed and then clapped her hands over her mouth. "And now I'm willing to bet someone just drank it."

"Peeta, what do we do?" One bottle of water wouldn't be enough. "I bet the lake isn't poisoned. I bet they're trying to make us all go there." She wasn't ready. She wasn't ready for the show-down, they only just escaped.

Peeta stood and took off his coat. "We'll die in the forest, if we must. We won't go meet Cato and Clove."

Yes, but what if Rue and Thresh and Marvel did? Prim's family would be slaughtered. She hated the idea of them all fighting to the death. But this was the Hunger Games. Everyone would die eventually. Prim wouldn't be a part of it.

Ah, but you already have, a nasty voice whispered in her mind. When you killed the boy from 10.

"No!" Prim slapped her hand on the ground. Peeta stilled. Her cheeks warmed.

"You mean…you want to go back to the cornucopia?"

She shook her head and stood up. "No, never mind. I just…I…"—she looked up at him and her chin quivered—"I'm afraid I'm going crazy, Peeta. And that…I'm a monster."

He gave her a hug, which would have been comforting had they both not been covered in sweat. It was just hot. Too hot. "You're not a monster, Prim."

It was easy for him to say, but he didn't know what she did.

"Let's go find some food, okay?"

She nodded and helped him gather the supplies. She'd tell him if they survived. She'd tell him she killed the boy from 10. But if they died in the Games—which was the more probable outcome—then she wouldn't have to tell anyone.

The problem was…the whole world already knew. They all saw it on TV. But Peeta's opinion was the only one that mattered to Prim anymore.

They trekked through the woods as quietly as possible, which wasn't very quiet in the end. The heat grew and grew, the farther into the day they got. All the berry plants were dried up, no juice left in any of the berries. They wilted further as the day went on, the sun burning up even the coolest shadows.

Peeta and Prim drank half their tiny water supply before mid-afternoon. "We have to find a cave," Peeta rasped.

Prim only nodded and trudged after him. Grass and moss turned brown and crunchy. Prim kept her eyes half shut because the heat burned into her skull. Peeta shed his shirt. Prim wanted to shed her own clothing, but not even the hottest temperatures would convince her to show her underclothes to the rich Capitol viewers.

"Here, this might work."

Prim looked up at Peeta's voice. The rock cropping they stood before was the same one in which Marvel had spared Prim's life. She hid here from the fire. Marvel could very well be in there right now.

Prim didn't care.

In fact, she almost hoped he was.

Peeta entered cautiously, then called her in after him. No Marvel. Her heart sank, but despite the sadness there was finally relief from the heat!

"I wonder who died," Peeta mused.

Prim didn't want to think about it, but when night fell, bringing back the icy chill and torment, the anthem blared and revealed Vixenette's sly smile.

"So she's gone now."

"She should have known better," Prim spat. Vixenette was smarter than that. It contradicted her cunning for her to die by the water, but I suppose since she was a scavenger, even her sharp wits would deceive her for the sake of hunger and thirst.

Then again, she might not have died by the water at all.

"Only seven of us left." The number still sounded like a lot, especially because Prim dearly cared for four of the seven.

Her breath fogged in front of her again and Peeta rose from his spot in the cave. "We need to get out and make a fire again. We'll freeze faster in here. This time, let's dig some burrows in the ground. That should help us stay warm enough."

Prim's joints popped as she stood, her feet already numb. "It feels colder than last time."

"I think it probably is." They exited the cave. "I wanted to wait for the heat to subside before we started working, but the Gamemakers are changing the temperatures like a lightswitch. No time in between."

Prim pulled her coat tight around her. Oh what she wouldn't give for the days' heat again! And for some water. And food.

Her tongue rubbed light sandpaper against the roof of her mouth, but she didn't bring it up to Peeta. He was doing all he could for her and, if there was a way to gather food then he would have found it.

They located a good spot with fallen tree trunks and a lot of dead leaves for insulation, but just as Peeta struck a light into the kindling his spine jolted up straight. "Did you hear that?"

Prim's heart startled like a loosed bird. She shook her head, but then a noise reached her ear. A high-pitched, animal yap.

A growl.

One. Two. A pack. "Coyotes?"

Peeta shook his head. "No. Wolves. And I'm willing to bet they're not your normal every-day wolves, either."

.

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To be continued...

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How would you live if you knew the day you'd die? Parvin Blackwater believes she has wasted her life. At only seventeen, she has one year left according to the Clock by her bedside. In a last-ditch effort to make a difference, she tries to rescue Radicals from the government's crooked justice system. But when the authorities find out about her illegal activity, they cast her through the Wall - her people's death sentence. What she finds on the other side about the world, about eternity, and about herself changes Parvin forever and might just save her people. But her clock is running out.