The Hunger Games

message on television that it’s mandatory to watch. But here there would be no shortage. Ever.
    Peeta and I walk to a railing at the edge of the roof. I look straight down the side of the building to the street, which is buzzing with people. You can hear their cars, an occasional shout, and a strange metallic tinkling. In District 12, we’d all be thinking about bed right now.
    “I asked Cinna why they let us up here. Weren’t they worried that some of the tributes might decide to jump right over the side?” says Peeta.
    “What’d he say?” I ask.
    “You can’t,” says Peeta. He holds out his hand into seemingly empty space. There’s a sharp zap and he jerks it back. “Some kind of electric field throws you back on the roof.”
    “Always worried about our safety,” I say. Even though Cinna has shown Peeta the roof, I wonder if we’re supposed to be up here now, so late and alone. I’ve never seen tributes on the Training Center roof before. But that doesn’t mean we’re not being taped. “Do you think they’re watching us now?”
    “Maybe,” he admits. “Come see the garden.”
    On the other side of the dome, they’ve built a garden with flower beds and potted trees. From the branches hang hundreds of wind chimes, which account for the tinkling I heard. Here in the garden, on this windy night, it’s enough to drown out two people who are trying not to be heard. Peeta looks at me expectantly.
    I pretend to examine a blossom. “We were hunting in the woods one day. Hidden, waiting for game,” I whisper.
    “You and your father?” he whispers back.
    “No, my friend Gale. Suddenly all the birds stopped singing at once. Except one. As if it were giving a warning call. And then we saw her. I’m sure it was the same girl. A boy was with her. Their clothes were tattered. They had dark circles under their eyes from no sleep. They were running as if their lives depended on it,” I say.
    For a moment I’m silent, as I remember how the sight of this strange pair, clearly not from District 12, fleeing through the woods immobilized us. Later, we wondered if we could have helped them escape. Perhaps we might have. Concealed them. If we’d moved quickly. Gale and I were taken by surprise, yes, but we’re both hunters. We know how animals look at bay. We knew the pair was in trouble as soon as we saw them. But we only watched.
    “The hovercraft appeared out of nowhere,” I continue to Peeta. “I mean, one moment the sky was empty and the next it was there. It didn’t make a sound, but they saw it. A net dropped down on the girl and carried her up, fast, so fast like the elevator. They shot some sort of spear through the boy. It was attached to a cable and they hauled him up as well. But I’m certain he was dead. We heard the girl scream once. The boy’s name, I think. Then it was gone, the hovercraft. Vanished into thin air. And the birds began to sing again, as if nothing had happened.”
    “Did they see you?” Peeta asked.
    “I don’t know. We were under a shelf of rock,” I reply. But I do know. There was a moment, after the birdcall, but before the hovercraft, where the girl had seen us. She’d locked eyes with me and called out for help. But neither Gale or I had responded.
    “You’re shivering,” says Peeta.
    The wind and the story have blown all the warmth from my body. The girl’s scream. Had it been her last?
    Peeta takes off his jacket and wraps it around my shoulders. I start to take a step back, but then I let him, deciding for a moment to accept both his jacket and his kindness. A friend would do that, right?
    “They were from here?” he asks, and he secures a button at my neck.
    I nod. They’d had that Capitol look about them. The boy and the girl.
    “Where do you suppose they were going?” he asks.
    “I don’t know that,” I say. District 12 is pretty much the end of the line. Beyond us, there’s only wilderness. If you don’t count the ruins of District 13 that still smolder from the toxic bombs. They show it on television occasionally, just to remind us. “Or why they would leave here.” Haymitch had called the Avoxes traitors. Against what? It could only be the Capitol. But they had everything here. No cause to rebel.
    “I’d leave here,” Peeta blurts out. Then he looks around nervously. It was loud enough to hear above the chimes. He laughs. “I’d go home now if they let me. But you have to admit, the food’s prime.”
    He’s covered again. If