As the doors began to shut, I felt myself moving. I didn't intend to, but almost instinctually and with no hesitation, I flung myself into the chamber and into Cato's arms, which enveloped me tightly against his broad chest.

"Rose!" Seneca hissed in disbelief and clawed at my cloak in a desperate attempt to pull me back to safety and my senses, but it was too late. The doors slid shut, and my fate was sealed. From within the glass chute, Seneca's face screamed at me with noiseless urgency, but I all I could hear was the blaring countdown.

TEN!

Cato was shocked. "What have you done?" he managed, gaping in confusion. Of all the ways our dalliance had played out in my head, this was not something I had planned. What the fuck was I thinking? I was seconds away from being shunted into an arena of death with no physical training whatsoever and no protection against the other Tributes, none of whom would think twice before slitting my throat if it meant survival and returning to their families.

NINE!

"This could save us!" I sputtered. There was no way Coriolanus Snow was going to let his only daughter die.

EIGHT!

Cato's expression did not change. I could tell he was furious, but he was conserving his energy for the battle ahead. He knew I hadn't thought this through.

SEVEN!

"I can't lose you, Cato," I whispered, trying to sound brave. But not even I, a professional diplomat of the Capitol's upper echelons, could maintain composure as the severity of the situation began to filter into my lust-addled, hormonal brain.

"You've fucked my chances, Rose," he whispered back, "Now I'll be looking out for you instead of fighting to come back to you."

Suddenly, my stomach dropped and I felt the air in the chute turn warm. I hadn't thought about the position I had put him in and immediately regretted my immature decision. Outside the glass, Seneca was still yelling, furiously tapping on his electronic tablet, trying to stop the chute from activating when the countdown drew to an end.

THREE!

TWO!

ONE!

X

The warmed air was sucked upwards, and the chute's mechanical gears jolted awake. The portal above them split open, and buttery, yellow sunlight poured into the hole. Their eyes hadn't adjusted to the sudden brightness yet when the platform beneath their feet began to creak upwards, and they were pushed out, still desperately holding each other, into the 74th Annual Hunger Games.

There was a collective gasp from the audience. 25 competitors? The excitement was too much to bear. All around the Capitol, televisions screens switched on as word got around that under strange circumstances there were 25 competitors in this year's Hunger Games. And one of them was the President's daughter!

Somewhere in a penthouse at the San Moritz Hotel, the Capitol higher society gathered for a Hunger Games screening party were shocked. "Is that Rose?" Mr. Guarnieri asked in a bemused tone to his slave companion, a young slender boy fitted with a gold collar around his neck. The boy glanced at the screen briefly and continued fanning the fat, bulbous oligarch. "I believe so," he said robotically. His monotone demeanor was due to Guarnieri who had had his mental faculties clipped to suit his expectations of servility. The boy's expressions were muted. But even medical intervention could not suppress the glimmer of excitement flashing behind the slave boy's eyes. Deep within the husk of his personality, he knew these were strange and interesting circumstances.

The journalist who had hounded Rose earlier with questions about an alleged ménage à trois with the baker boy and the blonde bombshell was sitting, slack jawed, in a pub, trying to drown his gloom in honeyed ale. He was disappointed for having gotten so close to the elusive Roseline Snow and been unable to get a juicy story to sell to the tabloids. Then, the ancient television mounted above the bar crackled to life and he saw Rose on the screen in the arms of the Career boy, and his spirits lifted. Maybe this would be a good year after all. Hiccupping slightly, he began to write.

Back at Rose's apartment, Kendra was silently packing away Bauble's things when the screens in the walls lit up with images of a terrified Rose and news headline banners whooshing underneath. Kendra felt herself go limp. She had only just come to terms with losing a friend, and now felt as if she might lose another. Defeated and alone, the pint-sized seamstress began to sob into a coppery lamé dress that Bauble would not be needing anymore. Or ever again.