I wake to the smell of liquor and burning wood. I blink the haze from my eyes, the reminder of yesterday coming back at a painfully slow pace.

The bombs. The bodies. 

Rye.

And then I recall the vague outline of a man with a beard before he hit me over the head. 

I jerk up so quickly that the restraints I don't know are binding my hands catch, slamming me back against the ground I'm tied against. My arms are above my head, the rope tethered to a stake. I stare up at it, feeling my breath come faster and faster. 

"Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty," one of the men call and I flinch at his jagged voice. Everything in me flinches and I slow my breathing that suddenly wants to come in sharp quick gasps.

I swivel my head until I see him-a burly man donned in dirty rags for a shirt and pants. His grey hair is thin, but impossibly messy and I wonder when he last used a brush. Or if he's ever been introduced to one. His beady black eyes stare into me.

I feel fear tighten its grip around my throat. "What do you want?" I hiss.

The man smirks, bringing a bottle to his discolored lips. "Well, aren't you prickly." 

"What do you want?" I repeat. I'm not supposed to be here. By this time, the Peacekeepers could be long gone which will make getting Rye back insurmountably harder. The truth of it settles like a rock in my chest.

The man makes a clicking noise with his tongue before standing up, moving his way closer to me. I try to shift away but I'm tied and can do nothing at his approach. He kneels down next to me.

"Girly, I'm just the cook. And if you've ever watched a program, you know they never tell the cook much of anything."

I narrow my eyes at him, trying to squash my mounting panic. Does he think this is funny? Does this man find a bound woman amusing to him? I pull on the bindings again, but I think it's spurred more by fear than by actual courage. My courage is somewhere back at my broken home, buried in ash and the charred bodies of my people.

The man sighs heavily before lifting the liquor again. At the last second, he holds it out to me and I give him a disgusted look. 

He just shrugs and brings it back to him. "Suit yourself."

I watch him numbly as he takes a large swallow. "Who are you?" I ask.

The man snickers, clasping his hand as he looks at me. In that smile, I catch the black outline of rotting teeth. "Hate to break it to you, lass, but you don't seem to be in much of a position to be asking the questions."

He's right, but I don't care much for that reminder. I take a shaky breath.

"Now don't go frettin' much. The others will be along shortly."

My eyes widen. "Others?"

"They're out hunting," he clarifies, taking another swig. "Some probably went to scope out the bombings. A bit overly friendly with them, weren't you?"

He knows. This ghoulish man with a bottle seemingly glued to his lips has seen the ash on me and knows. Maybe that's what they want with me but I'm not very eager to venture guesses. I'm about to ask something else, about what he's seen exactly, but a crunching from the trees stops me. "Ah, here they come." The man lowers himself to me until my vision is just beady black eyes and gangly teeth. "You'll do best to behave; the rest aren't as nice as me." 

I try not to swallow audibly, attempting to see out of the corner of my eye as the woods part and the sound of footsteps grows. I want to count how many sets there are but they dissolve into each other until its more like a sounding drum than anything else.

The cook instantly stands and moves away, leaving me behind.

Coward, I think, just as the first men crosses my vision. They're all uniformed in the same rags. Boots fit their feet and it's the only decent piece they have on themselves. Strapped to their waists are an assortment of weapons; blades, scythes, one even has an axe that's tip flashes me a silvery grin.

I count seven of them, each one looking at me, a few smiling, revealing more of those hideous teeth.

"Was she any trouble for you, Bitnee?" A different voice chimes and someone suddenly stands over me, his feet by my head. I can tell instantly that he's the superior, by the way the others' chins turn downward. His eyes are hard, the blackness cut from obsidian, his sallow cheeks dusted in stubble. I wonder how many of my hands it would take to wrap around his neck; it's so large, muscle splitting from there and winding its way down his arms in ropes. But the first thing I see is the morbid scar running straight through his face.

The cook, Bitnee, mutters no.

The man takes a breath and for once, it doesn't reek of alcohol. He leans over me just enough for his short black hair to sift on his broad shoulders. I also notice he's the only one that doesn't wear rags, but clean clothing. 

His eyes leave mine for a moment and fall to his belt where he pulls out a small knife. 

I stifle my sudden scream, smothering it until it dies in my throat. 

"This is how it's going to work, Kid," he drawls, his voice so deep it sounds like it's echoing through a long cave. "We're going to play a little game. I'm going to ask you a question and if the answer to that question isn't found . . . sufficient, you're going to regret it. Quickly. Understood?"

I stare at him. Mom once told me about a little game she played with herself, one that helped her with her nightmares. One that made it easier to move forward. 

"I thought you didn't like games," I'd murmured to her, wrapping my arms around her waist like I could help, somehow. Help her with the game. Help her win.

Mom ran a hand through my hair. "There are worse games to play, Willow." she'd said.

Now I wonder if this man's game is one of them.

"All right then," he takes my silence as aquescience. "Now, what is a young girl like you doing roaming the woods? Didn't your folks ever teach you to be smart?"

My voice quivers as I eye the knife, leering above me in wait. "My parents are gone." Not a lie. "So I left."

He smiles and my chest tightens. Then he lowers the knife and in one quick motion, a line of red decorates my arm, growing and growing until it becomes a red river of pain.

I purse my lips to keep from screaming.

"Now then, let's try that again.  Exactly what were you doing in the woods just after the fire up North?"

At this rate, I'll die in an hour. I know I have to give up information. There's no other choice if I hope to live long enough to save Rye.

"It wasn't a fire," I spit through my clenched teeth. "It was a bombing."

The man shifts the knife to the other hand, staring at the collecting red. "You see how this works?" He asks, eyes falling back to me. "That answer was much more specific, so I won't use my friend here. Are you saying that the city there is gone?"

"Yes."

"Who bombed it?" 

I grind my teeth so hard, I feel like my jawbones will snap. "Peacekeepers," I breathe.

I feel somewhat victorious when his face momentarily blanches. "Peacekeepers," he repeats the name, rolling it over his tongue as if it's familiar; foreign. Something that is but shouldn't be.

"I saw them," I keep going, the knife's smile enveloping my vision. "In a truck headed Southeast. I-.....I was the only one I know of that made it out." The lie comes out naturally and I wonder why it feels right to cover for Leif. But it wouldn't make me feel better to see him tied down next to me, branded with the slicing tip of this blade, too. My blood is decorative enough.

The man above smirks. "So you were tracking them?"

Tracking is a bit of a stretch for me. I don't have the eye for it. Or the patience. At least, with this, there is no direct bluff. "No."

Another flash and I see red. This time, I do scream.

"Not good enough," says the man, crouching down on his calves. "You see, if you wanted to avoid the peacekeepers, especially after they just desecrated your town, you wouldn't be headed in the same direction they went. Now tell me; why are you tracking the peacekeepers?"

I let out a sharp hiss when he almost brings down the knife again. Sweat gathers along my hairline and pools beneath my underarms. "They have someone. Someone they shouldn't."

"And who's that?"

"My....friend." Protect Rye.

"And who is your friend?"

I swallow my rising panic as my little brother's face surfaces in my mind. "Someone at the pique of nineteen who likes baking and cooking and painting sunsets."

I don't feel the blade this time, even as it cuts deep into my arm, bathing it in crimson. No, I feel it a few moments later, lancing up my shoulder like fire.

"Who. Is. Your. Friend?" The stranger drawls, slowly. "There has to be something important you're hiding if they'd take him."

I try to think through the pain. When I was younger, I'd play my own kind of game, picturing a smaller version of me in a similar situation, toying with the answer my captors ask for. I practiced it for defense, but now it's no longer a game. And when it's not a game, it becomes hard to think like you would during one.

Now I can only think of living. Of getting out of this cruel man's grasp, and closer to Rye. I won't tell him that he's my brother. I will cut all ties if I have to. But I have to give them something. Anything-

"Me," I say. "They wanted me."

I can practically see the light spark in those black eyes. "And what's so important about you?"

"I'm the daughter of Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark."

The knife falters for a moment. His eyes pinch and I wonder if he's searching for the recognition. He's well past his fifties so he would recall her face, flying from banners, plastered over the screens during the Uprising. He'd remember.

And he would know I'm not lying.

A chuckle erupts from him. Disbelieving. Maybe even gleeful. "So why did they take your friend instead?"

I take in a slow breath, suddenly feeling as if I have the upper end. I can't explain how grateful I am to my parents for living in a secluded town. In a place the world wouldn't know where to find them. Not many know the the Girl on Fire has two children. And when they do, they don't find her in Rye, save for the eyes. No, they find her in me. 

"They thought he was my brother," I say. 

He licks his lips. "Do you have a brother?"

My voice rings with truth, spurred by the same mantra: protect Rye.

"No." 

A moment of silence passes and I'm suddenly terrified he will call me on it. But then he laughs again and the sound is like nails on a chalkboard. "Stelves!" He barks suddenly and I hear a man stumble forward, into my line of vision. "Yes, sir!"

The man eyes me again, like I'm a prize he's just won. "How much do you think the daughter of the Mockingjay would go in the Capitol?"

I feel the blood drain from my face.

The man named Stelves shake his head, but I don't look away as they guess my price. "More than I can calculate," Stelves says.

At his man's words, the stranger's eyes spark again, and this time, they ignite.