"Because you're just alike," mutters Taeyeon. I ignore it though because this really isn't the time for me to be insulting Soonkyu, which is my first impulse.

 

I let Taeyeon doze off while his clothes dry out, but by late afternoon, I don't dare wait any longer. I gently shake his shoulder. "Taeyeon, we've got to go now."

 

"Go?" He seems confused. "Go where?"

 

"Away from here. Downstream maybe. Somewhere we can hide you until you're stronger," I say. I help him dress, leaving his feet bare so we can walk in the water, and pull him upright. His face drains of color the moment he puts weight on his leg. "Come on. You can do this."

 

But he can't. Not for long anyway. We make it about fifty yards downstream, with him propped up by my shoulder, and I can tell he's going to black out. I sit him on the bank, push his head between his knees, and pat his back awkwardly as I survey the area. Of course, I'd love to get him up in a tree, but that's not going to happen. It could be worse though. Some of the rocks form small cavelike structures. I set my sights on one about twenty yards above the stream. When Taeyeon's able to stand, I half-guide, half-carry him up to the cave. Really, I'd like to look around for a better place, but this one will have to do because my ally is shot. Paper white, panting, and, even though it's only just cooling off, he's shivering.

 

I cover the floor of the cave with a layer of pine needles, unroll my sleeping bag, and tuck him into it. I get a couple of pills and some water into him when he's not noticing, but he refuses to eat even the fruit. Then he just lies there, his eyes trained on my face as I build a sort of blind out of vines to conceal the mouth of the cave. The result is unsatisfactory. An animal might not question it, but a human would see hands had manufactured it quickly enough. I tear it down in frustration.

 

"Tiffany," he says. I go over to him and brush the hair back from his eyes. "Thanks for finding me."

 

"You would have found me if you could," I say. His forehead's burning up. Like the medicine's having no effect at all. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I'm scared he's going to die.

 

"Yes. Look, if I don't make it back  - " he begins.

 

"Don't talk like that. I didn't drain all that pus for nothing," I say.

 

"I know. But just in case I don't  - " he tries to continue.

 

"No, Taeyeon, I don't even want to discuss it," I say, placing my fingers on his lips to quiet him.

 

"But I  - " he insists.

 

Impulsively, I lean forward and kiss him, stopping his words. This is probably overdue anyway since he's right, we are supposed to be madly in love. It's the first time I've ever kissed a boy, which should make some sort of impression I guess, but all I can register is how unnaturally hot his lips are from the fever. I break away and pull the edge of the sleeping bag up around him. "You're not going to die. I forbid it. All right?"

 

"All right," he whispers.

 

I step out in the cool evening air just as the parachute floats down from the sky. My fingers quickly undo the tie, hoping for some real medicine to treat Taeyeon's leg. Instead I find a pot of hot broth.

 

Soonkyu couldn't be sending me a clearer message. One kiss equals one pot of broth. I can almost hear his snarl. "You're supposed to be in love, sweetheart. The boy's dying. Give me something I can work with!"

 

And he's right. If I want to keep Taeyeon alive, I've got to give the audience something more to care about. Star-crossed lovers desperate to get home together. Two hearts beating as one. Romance.

 

Never having been in love, this is going to be a real trick. I think of my parents. The way my father never failed to bring her gifts from the woods. The way my mother's face would light up at the sound of his boots at the door. The way she almost stopped living when he died.

 

"Taeyeon!" I say, trying for the special tone that my mother used only with my father. He's dozed off again, but I kiss him awake, which seems to startle him. Then he smiles as if he'd be happy to lie there gazing at me forever. He's great at this stuff.

 

I hold up the pot. "Taeyeon, look what Soonkyu has sent you."

 

Getting the broth into Taeyeon takes an hour of coaxing, begging, threatening, and yes, kissing, but finally, sip by sip, he empties the pot. I let him drift off to sleep then and attend to my own needs, wolfing down a supper of groosling and roots while I watch the daily report in the sky. No new casualties. Still, Taeyeon and I have given the audience a fairly interesting day. Hopefully, the Gamemakers will allow us a peaceful night.

 

I automatically look around for a good tree to nest in before I realize that's over. At least for a while. I can't very well leave Taeyeon unguarded on the ground. I left the scene of his last hiding place on the bank of the stream untouched  -  how could I conceal it?  -  and we're a scant fifty yards downstream. I put on my glasses, place my weapons in readiness, and settle down to keep watch.

 

The temperature drops rapidly and soon I'm chilled to the bone. Eventually, I give in and slide into the sleeping bag with Taeyeon. It's toasty warm and I snuggle down gratefully until I realize it's more than warm, it's overly hot because the bag is reflecting back his fever. I check his forehead and find it burning and dry. I don't know what to do. Leave him in the bag and hope the excessive heat breaks the fever? Take him out and hope the night air cools him off? I end up just dampening a strip of bandage and placing it on his forehead. It seems weak, but I'm afraid to do anything too drastic.

 

I spend the night half-sitting, half-lying next to Taeyeon, refreshing the bandage, and trying not to dwell on the fact that by teaming up with him, I've made myself far more vulnerable than when I was alone. Tethered to the ground, on guard, with a very sick person to take care of. But I knew he was injured. And still I came after him. I'm just going to have to trust that whatever instinct sent me to find him was a good one.

 

When the sky turns rosy, I notice the sheen of sweat on Taeyeon's lip and discover the fever has broken. He's not back to normal, but it's come down a few degrees. Last night, when I was gathering vines, I came upon a bush of Joy's berries. I strip off the fruit and mash it up in the broth pot with cold water.

 

Taeyeon's struggling to get up when I reach the cave. "I woke up and you were gone," he says. "I was worried about you."

 

I have to laugh as I ease him back down. "You were worried about me? Have you taken a look at yourself lately?"

 

"I thought Chanyeol and Krystal might have found you. They like to hunt at night," he says, still serious.

 

"Krystal? Which one is that?" I ask.

 

"The girl from District Two. She's still alive, right?" he says.

 

"Yes, there's just them and us and Kai and Foxface," I say. "That's what I nicknamed the girl from Five. How do you feel?"

 

"Better than yesterday. This is an enormous improvement over the mud," he says. "Clean clothes and medicine and a sleeping bag. and you."

 

Oh, right, the whole romance thing. I reach out to touch his cheek and he catches my hand and presses it against his lips. I remember my father doing this very thing to my mother and I wonder where Taeyeon picked it up. Surely not from his father and the witch.

 

"No more kisses for you until you've eaten," I say.

 

We get him propped up against the wall and he obediently swallows the spoonfuls of the berry mush I feed him. He refuses the groosling again, though.

 

"You didn't sleep," Taeyeon says.

 

"I'm all right," I say. But the truth is, I'm exhausted.

 

"Sleep now. I'll keep watch. I'll wake you if anything happens," he says. I hesitate. "Tiffany, you can't stay up forever."

 

He's got a point there. I'll have to sleep eventually. And probably better to do it now when he seems relatively alert and we have daylight on our side. "All right," I say. "But just for a few hours. Then you wake me."

 

It's too warm for the sleeping bag now. I smooth it out on the cave floor and lie down, one hand on my loaded bow in case I have to shoot at a moment's notice. Taeyeon sits beside me, leaning against the wall, his bad leg stretched out before him, his eyes trained on the world outside. "Go to sleep," he says softly. His hand brushes the loose strands of my hair off my forehead. Unlike the staged kisses and caresses so far, this gesture seems natural and comforting. I don't want him to stop and he doesn't. He's still my hair when I fall asleep.

 

Too long. I sleep too long. I know from the moment I open my eyes that we're into the afternoon. Taeyeon's right beside me, his position unchanged. I sit up, feeling somehow defensive but better rested than I've been in days.

 

"Taeyeon, you were supposed to wake me after a couple of hours," I say.

 

"For what? Nothing's going on here," he says. "Besides I like watching you sleep. You don't scowl. Improves your looks a lot."

 

This, of course, brings on a scowl that makes him grin. That's when I notice how dry his lips are. I test his cheek. Hot as a coal stove. He claims he's been drinking, but the containers still feel full to me. I give him more fever pills and stand over him while he drinks first one, then a second quart of water. Then I tend to his minor wounds, the burns, the stings, which are showing improvement. I steel myself and unwrap the leg.

 

My heart drops into my stomach. It's worse, much worse. There's no more pus in evidence, but the swelling has increased and the tight shiny skin is inflamed. Then I see the red streaks starting to crawl up his leg. Blood poisoning. Unchecked, it will kill him for sure. My chewed-up leaves and ointment won't make a dent in it. We'll need strong anti-infection drugs from the Capitol. I can't imagine the cost of such potent medicine. If Soonkyu pooled every donation from every sponsor, would he have enough? I doubt it. Gifts go up in price the longer the Games continue. What buys a full meal on day one buys a cracker on day twelve. And the kind of medicine Taeyeon needs would have been at a premium from the beginning.

 

"Well, there's more swelling, but the pus is gone," I say in an unsteady voice.

 

"I know what blood poisoning is, Tiffany," says Taeyeon. "Even if my mother isn't a healer."

 

"You're just going to have to outlast the others, Taeyeon. They'll cure it back at the Capitol when we win," I say.

 

"Yes, that's a good plan," he says. But I feel this is mostly for my benefit.

 

"You have to eat. Keep your strength up. I'm going to make you soup," I say.

 

"Don't light a fire," he says. "It's not worth it."

 

"We'll see," I say. As I take the pot down to the stream, I'm struck by how brutally hot it is. I swear the Gamemakers are progressively ratcheting up the temperature in the daytime and sending it plummeting at night. The heat of the sun-baked stones by the stream gives me an idea though. Maybe I won't need to light a fire.

 

I settle down on a big flat rock halfway between the stream and the cave. After purifying half a pot of water, I place it in direct sunlight and add several egg-size hot stones to the water. I'm the first to admit I'm not much of a cook. But since soup mainly involves tossing everything in a pot and waiting, it's one of my better dishes. I mince groosling until it's practically mush and mash some of Joy's roots. Fortunately, they've both been roasted already so they mostly need to be heated up. Already, between the sunlight and the rocks, the water's warm. I put in the meat and roots, swap in fresh rocks, and go find something green to spice it up a little. Before long, I discover a tuft of chives growing at the base of some rocks. Perfect. I chop them very fine and add them to the pot, switch out the rocks again, put on the lid, and let the whole thing stew.

 

I've seen very few signs of game around, but I don't feel comfortable leaving Taeyeon alone while I hunt, so I rig half a dozen snares and hope I get lucky. I wonder about the other tributes, how they're managing now that their main source of food has been blown up. At least three of them, Chanyeol, Krystal, and Foxface, had been relying on it. Probably not Kai though. I've got a feeling he must share some of Joy's knowledge on how to feed yourself from the earth. Are they fighting each other? Looking for us? Maybe one of them has located us and is just waiting for the right moment to attack. The idea sends me back to the cave.

 

Taeyeon's stretched out on top of the sleeping bag in the shade of the rocks. Although he brightens a bit when I come in, it's clear he feels miserable. I put cool cloths on his head, but they warm up almost as soon as they touch his skin.

 

"Do you want anything?" I ask.

 

"No," he says. "Thank you. Wait, yes. Tell me a story."

 

"A story? What about?" I say. I'm not much for storytelling. It's kind of like singing. But once in a while, Seohyun wheedles one out of me.

 

"Something happy. Tell me about the happiest day you can remember," says Taeyeon.

 

Something between a sigh and a huff of exasperation leaves my mouth. A happy story? This will require a lot more effort than the soup. I rack my brains for good memories. Most of them involve Yuri and me out hunting and somehow I don't think these will play well with either Taeyeon or the audience. That leaves Seohyun.

 

"Did I ever tell you about how I got Seohyun's goat?" I ask. Taeyeon shakes his head, and looks at me expectantly. So I begin. But carefully. Because my words are going out all over Panem. And while people have no doubt put two and two together that I hunt illegally, I don't want to hurt Yuri or Greasy Sae or the butcher or even the Peacekeepers back home who are my customers by publicly announcing they'd breaking the law, too.

 

Here's the real story of how I got the money for Seohyun's goat, Lady. It was a Friday evening, the day before Seohyun's tenth birthday in late May. As soon as school ended, Yuri and I hit the woods, because I wanted to get enough to trade for a present for Seohyun. Maybe some new cloth for a dress or a hairbrush. Our snares had done well enough and the woods were flush with greens, but this was really no more than our average Friday-night haul. I was disappointed as we headed back, even though Yuri said we'd be sure to do better tomorrow. We were resting a moment by a stream when we saw him. A young buck, probably a yearling by his size. His antlers were just growing in, still small and coated in velvet. Poised to run but unsure of us, unfamiliar with humans. Beautiful.

 

Less beautiful perhaps when the two arrows caught him, one in the neck, the other in the chest. Yuri and I had shot at the same time. The buck tried to run but stumbled, and Yuri's knife slit his throat before he knew what had happened. Momentarily, I'd felt a pang at killing something so fresh and innocent. And then my stomach rumbled at the thought of all that fresh and innocent meat.

 

A deer! Yuri and I have only brought down three in all. The first one, a doe that had injured her leg somehow, almost didn't count. But we knew from that experience not to go dragging the carcass into the Hob. It had caused chaos with people bidding on parts and actually trying to hack off pieces themselves. Greasy Sae had intervened and sent us with our deer to the butcher, but not before it'd been badly damaged, hunks of meat taken, the hide riddled with holes. Although everybody paid up fairly, it had lowered the value of the kill.

 

This time, we waited until dark fell and slipped under a hole in the fence close to the butcher. Even though we were known hunters, it wouldn't have been good to go carrying a 150-pound deer through the streets of District 12 in daylight like we were rubbing it in the officials' faces.

 

The butcher, a short, chunky woman named Hyorin, came to the back door when we knocked. You don't haggle with Hyorin. She gives you one price, which you can take or leave, but it's a fair price. We took her offer on the deer and she threw in a couple of venison steaks we could pick up after the butchering. Even with the money divided in two, neither Yuri nor I had held so much at one time in our lives. We decided to keep it a secret and surprise our families with the meat and money at the end of the next day.

 

This is where I really got the money for the goat, but I tell Taeyeon I sold an old silver locket of my mother's. That can't hurt anyone. Then I pick up the story in the late afternoon of Seohyun's birthday.

 

Yuri and I went to the market on the square so that I could buy dress materials. As I was running my fingers over a length of thick blue cotton cloth, something caught my eye. There's an old man who keeps a small herd of goats on the other side of the Seam. I don't know his real name, everyone just calls him the Goat Man. His joints are swollen and twisted in painful angles, and he's got a hacking cough that proves he spent years in the mines. But he's lucky. Somewhere along the way he saved up enough for these goats and now has something to do in his old age besides slowly starve to death. He's filthy and impatient, but the goats are clean and their milk is rich if you can afford it.

 

One of the goats, a white one with black patches, was lying down in a cart. It was easy to see why. Something, probably a dog, had mauled her shoulder and infection had set in. It was bad, the Goat Man had to hold her up to milk her. But I thought I knew someone who could fix it.

 

"Yuri," I whispered. "I want that goat for Seohyun."

 

Owning a nanny goat can change your life in District 12. The animals can live off almost anything, the Meadow's a perfect feeding place, and they can give four quarts of milk a day. To drink, to make into cheese, to sell. It's not even against the law.

 

"She's hurt pretty bad," said Yuri. "We better take a closer look."

 

We went over and bought a cup of milk to share, then stood over the goat as if idly curious.

 

"Let her be," said the man.

 

"Just looking," said Yuri.

 

"Well, look fast. She goes to the butcher soon. Hardly anyone will buy her milk, and then they only pay half price," said the man.

 

"What's the butcher giving for her?" I asked.

 

The man shrugged. "Hang around and see." I turned and saw Hyorin coming across the square toward us. "Lucky thing you showed up," said the Goat Man when she arrived. "Girl's got her eye on your goat."

 

"Not if she's spoken for," I said carelessly.

 

Hyorin looked me up and down then frowned at the goat. "She's not. Look at that shoulder. Bet you half the carcass will be too rotten for even sausage."

 

"What?" said the Goat Man. "We had a deal."

 

"We had a deal on an animal with a few teeth marks. Not that thing. Sell her to the girl if she's stupid enough to take her," said Hyorin. As she marched off, I caught her wink.

 

The Goat Man was mad, but he still wanted that goal off his hands. It took us half an hour to agree on the price. Quite a crowd had gathered by then to hand out opinions. It was an excellent deal if the goat lived; I'd been robbed if she died. People took sides in the argument, but I took the goat.

 

Yuri offered to carry her. I think he wanted to see the look on Seohyun's face as much as I did. In a moment of complete giddiness, I bought a pink ribbon and tied it around her neck. Then we hurried back to my house.

 

You should have seen Seohyun's reaction when we walked in with that goat. Remember this is a girl who wept to save that awful old cat, Dubu. She was so excited she started crying and laughing all at once. My mother was less sure, seeing the injury, but the pair of them went to work on it, grinding up herbs and coaxing brews down the animal's throat.