Weaponless, defenseless, I do the only thing I can think of. I run for Taeyeon, to knock him to the ground, to protect his body with mine, even though I know I won't make it in time.

She does, though. Materializing, it seems, from thin air. One moment nowhere, the next reeling in front of Taeyeon. Already bloody, mouth open in a high-pitched scream, pupils enlarged so her eyes seem like black holes.

The insane morphling from District 6 throws up her skeletal arms as if to embrace the monkey, and it sinks its fangs into her chest.

Taeyeon drops the sheath and buries his knife into the monkey's back, stabbing it again and again until it releases its jaw. He kicks the mutt away, bracing for more. I have his arrows now, a loaded bow, and Hyoyeon at my back, breathing hard but not actively engaged.

"Come on, then! Come on!" shouts Taeyeon, panting with rage. But something has happened to the monkeys. They are withdrawing, backing up trees, fading into the jungle, as if some unheard voice calls them away. A Gamemaker's voice, telling them this is enough.

"Get her," I say to Taeyeon. "We'll cover you."

Taeyeon gently lifts up the morphling and carries her the last few yards to the beach while Hyoyeon and I keep our weapons at the ready. But except for the orange carcasses on the ground, the monkeys are gone. Taeyeon lays the morphling on the sand. I cut away the material over her chest, revealing the four deep puncture wounds. Blood slowly trickles from them, making them look far less deadly than they are. The real damage is inside. By the position of the openings, I feel certain the beast ruptured something vital, a lung, maybe even her heart.

She lies on the sand, gasping like a fish out of water. Sagging skin, sickly green, her ribs as prominent as a child's dead of starvation. Surely she could afford food, but turned to the morphling just as Soonkyu turned to drink, I guess. Everything about her speaks of waste - her body, her life, the vacant look in her eyes. I hold one of her twitching hands, unclear whether it moves from the poison that affected our nerves, the shock of the attack, or withdrawal from the drug that was her sustenance. There is nothing we can do. Nothing but stay with her while she dies.

"I'll watch the trees," Hyoyeon says before walking away. I'd like to walk away, too, but she grips my hand so tightly I would have to pry off her fingers, and I don't have the strength for that kind of cruelty. I think of Joy, how maybe I could sing a song or something. But I don't even know the morphling's name, let alone if she likes songs. I just know she's dying.

Taeyeon crouches down on the other side of her and her hair. When he begins to speak in a soft voice, it seems almost nonsensical, but the words aren't for me. "With my paint box at home, I can make every color imaginable. Pink. As pale as a baby's skin. Or as deep as rhubarb. Green like spring grass. Blue that shimmers like ice on water."

The morphling stares into Taeyeon's eyes, hanging on to his words.

"One time, I spent three days mixing paint until I found the right shade for sunlight on white fur. You see, I kept thinking it was yellow, but it was much more than that. Layers of all sorts of color. One by one," says Taeyeon.

The morphling's breathing is slowing into shallow catch-breaths. Her free hand dabbles in the blood on her chest, making the tiny swirling motions she so loved to paint with.

"I haven't figured out a rainbow yet. They come so quickly and leave so soon. I never have enough time to capture them. Just a bit of blue here or purple there. And then they fade away again. Back into the air," says Taeyeon.

The morphling seems mesmerized by Taeyeon's words. Entranced. She lifts up a trembling hand and paints what I think might be a flower on Taeyeon's cheek.

"Thank you," he whispers. "That looks beautiful."

For a moment, the morphling's face lights up in a grin and she makes a small squeaking sound. Then her blood-dappled hand falls back onto her chest, she gives one last huff of air, and the cannon fires. The grip on my hand releases.

Taeyeon carries her out into the water. He returns and sits beside me. The morphling floats out toward the Cornucopia for a while, then the hovercraft appears and a four-pronged claw drops, encases her, carries her into the night sky, and she's gone.

Hyoyeon rejoins us, his fist full of my arrows still wet with monkey blood. He drops them beside me on the sand. "Thought you might want these."

"Thanks," I say. I wade into the water and wash off the gore, from my weapons, my wounds. By the time I return to the jungle to gather some moss to dry them, all the monkeys' bodies have vanished.

"Where did they go?" I ask.

"We don't know exactly. The vines shifted and they were gone," says Hyoyeon.

We stare at the jungle, numb and exhausted. In the quiet, I notice that the spots where the fog droplets touched my skin have scabbed over. They've stopped hurting and begun to itch. Intensely. I try to think of this as a good sign. That they are healing. I glance over at Taeyeon, at Hyoyeon, and see they're both scratching at their damaged faces. Yes, even Hyoyeon's beauty has been marred by this night.

"Don't scratch," I say, wanting badly to scratch myself. But I know it's the advice my mother would give. "You'll only bring infection. Think it's safe to try for the water again?"

We make our way back to the tree Taeyeon was tapping. Hyoyeon and I stand with our weapons poised while he works the spile in, but no threat appears. Taeyeon's found a good vein and the water begins to gush from the spile. We slake our thirst, let the warm water pour over our itching bodies. We fill a handful of shells with drinking water and go back to the beach.

It's still night, though dawn can't be too many hours away. Unless the Gamemakers want it to be. "Why don't you two get some rest?" I say. "I'll watch for a while."

"No, Tiffany, I'd rather," says Hyoyeon. I look in his eyes, at his face, and realize he's barely holding back tears. Momo. The least I can do is give him the privacy to mourn her.

"All right, Hyoyeon, thanks," I say. I lie down on the sand with Taeyeon, who drifts off at once. I stare into the night, thinking of what a difference a day makes. How yesterday morning, Hyoyeon was on my kill list, and now I'm willing to sleep with him as my guard. He saved Taeyeon and let Momo die and I don't know why. Only that I can never settle the balance owed between us. All I can do at the moment is go to sleep and let him grieve in peace. And so I do.

It's midmorning when I open my eyes again. Taeyeon's still out beside me. Above us, a mat of grass suspended on branches shields our faces from the sunlight. I sit up and see that Hyoyeon's hands have not been idle. Two woven bowls are filled with fresh water. A third holds a mess of shellfish.

Hyoyeon sits on the sand, cracking them open with a stone. "They're better fresh," he says, ripping a chunk of flesh from a shell and popping it into his mouth. His eyes are still puffy but I pretend not to notice.

My stomach begins to growl at the smell of food and I reach for one. The sight of my fingernails, caked with blood, stops me. I've been scratching my skin raw in my sleep.

"You know, if you scratch you'll bring on infection," says Hyoyeon.

"That's what I've heard," I say. I go into the saltwater and wash off the blood, trying to decide which I hate more, pain or itching. Fed up, I stomp back onto the beach, turn my face upward, and snap, "Hey, Soonkyu, if you're not too drunk, we could use a little something for our skin."

It's almost funny how quickly the parachute appears above me. I reach up and the tube lands squarely in my open hand. "About time," I say, but I can't keep the scowl on my face. Soonkyu. What I wouldn't give for five minutes of conversation with him.

I plunk down on the sand next to Hyoyeon and screw the lid off the tube. Inside is a thick, dark ointment with a pungent smell, a combination of tar and pine needles. I wrinkle my nose as I squeeze a glob of the medicine onto my palm and begin to massage it into my leg. A sound of pleasure slips out of my mouth as the stuff eradicates my itching. It also stains my scabby skin a ghastly gray-green. As I start on the second leg I toss the tube to Hyoyeon, who eyes me doubtfully.

"It's like you're decomposing," says Hyoyeon. But I guess the itching wins out, because after a minute Hyoyeon begins to treat his own skin, too. Really, the combination of the scabs and the ointment looks hideous. I can't help enjoying his distress.

"Poor Hyoyeon. Is this the first time in your life you haven't looked pretty?" I say.

"It must be. The sensation's completely new. How have you managed it all these years?" he asks.

"Just avoid mirrors. You'll forget about it," I say.

"Not if I keep looking at you," he says.

We slather ourselves down, even taking turns rubbing the ointment into each other's backs where the undershirts don't protect our skin. "I'm going to wake Taeyeon," I say.

"No, wait," says Hyoyeon. "Let's do it together. Put our faces right in front of his."

Well, there's so little opportunity for fun left in my life, I agree. We position ourselves on either side of Taeyeon, lean over until our faces are inches from his nose, and give him a shake. "Taeyeon. Taeyeon, wake up," I say in a soft, singsong voice.

His eyelids flutter open and then he jumps like we've stabbed him. "Aa!"

Hyoyeon and I fall back in the sand, laughing our heads off. Every time we try to stop, we look at Taeyeon's attempt to maintain a disdainful expression and it sets us off again. By the time we pull ourselves together, I'm thinking that maybe Kim Hyoyeon is all right. At least not as vain or self-important as I'd thought. Not so bad at all, really. And just as I've come to this conclusion, a parachute lands next to us with a fresh loaf of bread. Remembering from last year how Soonkyu's gifts are often timed to send a message, I make a note to myself. Be friends with Hyoyeon. You'll get food.

Hyoyeon turns the bread over in his hands, examining the crust. A bit too possessively. It's not necessary. It's got that green tint from seaweed that the bread from District 4 always has. We all know it's his. Maybe he's just realized how precious it is, and that he may never see another loaf again. Maybe some memory of Momo is associated with the crus