Concrete buildings were scattered about the streets of District Nine. Many of whose paint was flaking away as if they had not been maintained for decades. The air was biting and frigid in comparison with Ten, though still warmer than Seven.

  Thankfully, it also lacked the aroma of death. Instead, the atmosphere was a blank slate, smelling of nothing in particular outside of a subtle hint of cement.

  Bellona scraped her nails against her temple as she stalked beside Hazel. It was as if she could ward off an impending migraine.

  They arrived at a blocky home with a solid wood door. “This right?” Hazel asked, raising her hand to knock, but hesitation took over.

  “According to the local regimen.” Bellona surveyed the humble building, “This is it.”

  After several shaky breaths, Hazel’s hand surged forward in a series of rapid knocks.

  What if no one was home?

  A dark notion spread through her as she thought of Dill and Reapers’ fates. And that of their families…

  What if no one was left alive?

  Suddenly, on the other side of the door, there was a hoarse grumble as well as some clunking thuds like furniture sliding about. A clink of a bottle was followed by several locks being undone.

  With another grating sound, a ragged voice called out through a slim crack in the door, “Who’s there?”

  A weary blue eye peered out. Half hidden beneath bush-like white eyebrows that resembled the horned owls of Seven.

  “Mr…um…Fields. It's… Hazel Marlowe.” She swallowed. “I think we both know why I’m here.”

  The lone eye fixed on her, and she swore she saw a hint of water collecting at the corner. With a loud thwack, the door slammed shut between them.

  Hazel sighed and glanced back at Bellona.

  “Maybe we should go,” the Peacekeeper said, relief seeping from her pores.

  Just as Hazel was about to concede, the door swung back open with a gruff, “Come in.”

  An elderly man in an out-of-fashion, fraying suit stood hunched at the threshold.

  “Mr Fields…I…”

  “Come in, I said.”

  Hazel and Bellona began to move, but the man's hand raised, halting them. With a jab of a gnarled finger, he pointed at the Peacekeeper, “Not you.”

  “No deal, sir,” Bellona argued as her eyes steeled. “Where she goes, I go.”

  The look he gave Bellona was so fiery that Hazel could almost feel it singe the hairs on her arms. “No peacekeeper will set foot in this house until I am six feet under.”

  “Marlowe, let's leave.”

  Hazel pleaded, “Bells, please.”

  The guard shook her head, voice softening to a whisper. “The senator gave very specific instructions.”

  “He'll get over it,” Hazel argue-whispered back. Placing her unblemished hand on Bellona’s shoulder, she begged. “Please just wait outside.”

  Bellona's gruff exterior cracked, and with a curse-filled grumble, she conceded.

  Mr. Fields opened the door wider, allowing Hazel to slip in. She cast another what she hoped was a placating grimace at her peacekeeper guard. “Be right out.”

  Bellona suddenly shoved the barrel of her gun in the closing door as she met the old man's eyes. “If she's not or if I get any sense she is in danger, it will be more than one peacekeeper in this house.” Her voice deepened to bedrock. “Forget six feet under. I’ll make it sixty. Am I clear?”

  Even Hazel shivered at Bellona’s tone. Mr. Fields watched the peacekeeper with disdain tinged with a hint of respect. “Crystal.” He bit out as he pushed her gun barrel from his door frame, flinging the door shut once again.

  Hazel swallowed as he relocked five separate dead bolts. Grumbling, he meandered to his fridge, peering inside. It was painfully barren.

  “Would you like some tea?” His tone had lightened, though he didn't look at her. He moved to a small kitchen with a copper kettle, filling it with water and setting it on the stove.

  “No, thank you, Mr. Fields. I don't mean to take up a lot of your...”

  He swatted the air around him. “Miss. Call me Cress. Mr. Fields was my father. God rest his soul.”

  Hazel paused, as did her pulse, for a handful of seconds. “Cress?”

  This was who Mayor Shepherd told her to find? What were the odds he was the grandfather of Grace?

  She ran a hand through her hair. She knew better.

  There were no odds. No coincidences.

  “And no need to bother with apologies with me.”

  A lick of blush colored her cheeks. She had been more than a little harsh with Grace in her last day on earth.

  Pulling the metallic disc from her pocket, she turned it over in her hand. “I understand. I know ‘I’m sorry’ doesn’t change anything.” She walked across the small house to the kitchen. “I am, though.”

  Setting the currency on the counter between them, she exhaled. The man's face fell as his eyes met the trinket she had been carrying for over six months. “As am I.”

  Cress picked up the coin, petting and examining it like it was the finest of jewels. Or made of pure gold. “She did it for me, you know.”

  “Did what, Sir?”

  “Sold her life to those barbarians.”

  “How do you know?” Hazel asked.

  He pointed his bearded chin toward a pile of coin bags stockpiled in the corner of the living room. There were so many that Hazel realized the man had a small fortune.

  “Because they didn't string me up after the games. Instead, they bring me a new bag of those every week.” The man kissed the coin before placing it in his pocket. “Would trade it all, you know. Just to have her back. My Gracie…”

  So Heath had been right. Grace had agreed to help Augustus.

  Hazel's eyes burned as she watched him. “You haven't spent them?”

  “And I never will. I will not spend money earned with my granddaughter's blood. She may have made mistakes, much like her grand-dad, I suppose. But she was all that I had left.” His worn face wrinkled further as he squinted, “Ironic, isn’t it. To be starving yet surrounded by money you won't spend.” He ran a hand through his long white hair, mumbling to himself. “Like a man dying of thirst in the middle of the ocean.”

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  Water water everywhere, nor a drop to drink.

  Hazel sucked in a sharp inhale opening her mouth to ask him more. But suddenly, a shrill screaming burst through the air. The kettle was ready. The sound broke Cress from his reverie.

  “You sure you don't want tea?” He asked, wiping at his eyes.

  “You’ve convinced me.” Hazel wrung her hands. “There is something else I want to ask you.”

  The man hummed in response, awaiting her question as he began to set out two chipped teacups.

  “What do you know of Mayor Shepherd from District Ten?”

  Cress halted his fussing over a couple of bags of Capitol-rationed black tea. His stare surged to meet hers. “Who’s asking?”

  “I am asking for myself.”

  The old man's eyes darted to the door and the windows and then back to her, suspicion clouding his irises.

  She cleared her throat, desperately trying to remember what Mayor Shepherd had told her. “And the good south wind still blew behind, But no…”

  “… sweet bird did follow.” Cress’s eyes widened as he finished the phrase. “And who told you to tell me that? Garth or was it Oren?”

  It was Hazel's turn to look on in shock.

  Oren?

  She had only thought he had contacts with Ten.

  He glanced up at her. “My money's on Starling. Word on the street, Shepherd is due to hang.”

  “Mayor Shepherd has recently been pardoned.”

  “You're kidding.”

  “Not in the kidding kind of mood right now.”

  He hummed, holding out one of the cups to her. “I see. You wouldn't have had something to do with his sudden turn of fate, would you?”

  Hazel didn't answer; instead, she took the steaming beverage from him, wincing as she took a sip of the too-hot, bitter tea. The man before her nodded at her lack of answer as if she had given him one.

  A creeping sense of dread gnawed at her. “Have you been in contact with my stepfather recently?”

  “No.” It came out as a near whisper. He scrutinized the bandage around her hand with a sorrowful grimace. “Well…not since the Reaping.”

  A rush of relief filled her.

  “If you know my stepfather and District Ten’s mayor... then you must know our new Gamemaker.”

  Cress sighed and drank from the cup without flinching, as if his tongue was made of fire-tested steel. “The fact you are even asking me that tells me you know why my Grace was selected.”

  “And my stepdad?”

  “I've many business partners.”

  “And what kind of business are you in, Mr. Fields?”

  His mustached lip curled. “I'm what you might call a mechanical engineer. At least I was before the war. Now, I mostly spend my days fixing farm equipment.”

  “What does a mechanical engineer want with Seven and Ten?”

  “Best you stay ignorant lest you be liable for what you know. Considering your...” He shot another suspicious glare at the door. “… connections. Besides, it's in the past.” He ran a finger over his pocket. “Cost was far too great.”

  “It certainly was.”

  Cress examined her with a softer expression, and each of them took a sip of the acrid tea. Despite the acidity, the heat was slightly soothing as it slid down her throat.

  “Can I ask you one more thing?”

  The man nodded, tapping his fingers against his cup.

  Hazel dug into her bag until she found what she was searching for. Placing the tape player on the counter, she asked, “Anyway you can get this screen working?”

  Cress frowned down at the thing as her voice dropped to a murmur. “Mayor Shepherd told me to bring it to you.”

  “The fact you were asking me tells me it is either quite secret or quite important.” He scanned the still solidly bolted front door again.

  “It's both.”

  “What do you need it for, Miss?”

  “Best you stay ignorant, Sir.” Hazel slid it closer to him. “Lest you be liable for what you know.”

  A small crooked smile broke across the older man's face. “Alright. But only because you brought me her coin. I'm done with all the rest of it. Permanently.” He fished out a pair of spectacles and perched them on the bridge of his nose, turning the player over several times in his calloused hands. “And also maybe because you are growing on me.”

  Hazel smiled back. “Thank you, Sir.”

  “Miss Hazel, call me Cress.” Retrieving a leather satchel of tools from a rickety drawer, he spread it out on the counter. They were dainty and intricate and completely foreign. She had never seen such delicate instruments in District Seven.

  “How do you know so much about electronics? I mean, since you work on farm equipment and all.”

  “There are quite a bit of electronics that go into farming equipment my dear. But like a true engineer, I often ended up tinkering with all kinds of things. Before my demotion, I worked on drones during the war. Even figured out how to sabotage some of them. I was bolder back then.” He chuckled darkly to himself, peering over the rim of his glasses. “Much like you, I would wager.”

  The man was growing on her as well. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I’m sure you don’t.” He lifted the lid off the player. A frown formed between the white bush brows as he toyed with its inner workings. “You know, it's quite unfortunate having your own technology turned against you.”

  The meaning behind his words settled like stones in her stomach. No wonder they’d taken his granddaughter. She was sure Augustus considered it justified punishment.

  Within a few minutes, the older man let out a satisfied sigh. “There you go.”

  He pushed a button, and the screen burst to life. Instead of grayscale, there was a deep blue black that projected an image up into the air. It was like a three-dimensional play button. Ready to broadcast an image.

  “You wanna pop in your tape? Give it a go?”

  “Nice try,” Hazel reprimanded, rolling her eyes.

  He moaned as he straightened, a crackling sound of joints realigning filled the space. “Figured it was worth a shot.”

  With the confidence of a man who had done it hundreds of times before he replaced the small screws and secured them once again hiding the inner wiring of the little device.

  Cress wrapped the player in a cloth and returned it to her. “Be gentle with it. It's practically an antique.” He let out a self-satisfied chuckle, “like me, I guess.”

  Hazel bit back a laugh but smiled at the man, “Thank you again, you have no idea what this means to me.”

  His diluted blue eyes met hers. “I have a feeling that I do, even if you won't let me see what you are looking to witness.” He tapped his pocket with the clinking Jingle. “You best be on your way before I've got Peacekeepers coming out of my eyes.”

  Hazel tucked the player away. Just as she was about to walk toward the door, she turned back to the man. “Spend it.”

  “What?”

  “Cress.” She eyed the bags in the corner. “Spend it. She wanted you to have it. She did it for you.” Hazel's lip quivered as she remembered the young girl who bled to death in her arms. “She told me as much. The thing that kept her going was that you would be taken care of.”

  The man said nothing, but bright tears collected along the rims of his eyes as he strode to the door and began to undo the series of complicated locks.

  Before the last bolt gave way, he halted. Still facing the door, he recited:

  “Like one that on a lonesome road doth walk in fear and dread,

  And having once turn'd round, walks on,

  And turns no more his head.

  Because he knows a frightful fiend doth close behind him tread.”

  Hazel frowned at the man's back.

  “I’m the last person who needs to tell someone else how to live, but if you want to keep living, do keep that in mind. But the fiends don’t always look the way they should. Some smile. Some pull out chairs. Others eat at your table. Or drink from your cups. Meanwhile, you won’t taste the poison till it’s too late.”

  He rested his hand on the door, pausing one last time.

  “I hope you make it out, Miss Marlowe. Someone ought to.”

  With that, he whipped the door open. Outside, a sour-faced Bellona was still steaming. Hazel joined her in the cold.

  Cress gave her a solid glare for good measure before settling a much softer scowl on Hazel, and with a short acknowledging nod, he closed the door.

  “All done with adventures for the night?” Bellona asked.

  “Yes, ma'am.”

  The two worked their way back to the train station as Hazel listened to her peacekeeper's numerous gripes about District Nine and the sheer disrespect of the people. She also lamented the local guards' leniency.

  Hazel listened, mostly. More than once, her hand found its way into her bag. She stroked the cassette player almost as if making sure it was still there. Tapping a rhythm against it, she tried to decide when would be the best time to attempt to watch the tape again. While also repeating Cress’s words in her mind.

  They were rounding the last corner when a voice called out ahead of them. “Ahem.”

  Standing in front of the train station doors with a perturbed expression, hands folded behind him, was Snow. Leo hovered nearby, flanked by a few guards and Sable. “I thought I told you to get some rest?”

  Bellona snapped upright. “Sir… we were just—”

  “It’s my fault.” Hazel didn’t let her voice shake. She yanked her hand free from her bag and stood straighter, clutching the strap as casually as she could manage.

  “I don’t doubt that.” Snow’s gaze landed on her knuckles, then drifted to the bulging strap over her shoulder.

  He strode toward the two. Each step he took forward brought cold air with it, though his breath came warm. She couldn’t decide which temperature unnerved her more.

  “Sir, I can explain,” Bellona started, but Snow lifted a hand as if bored with the noise.

  Bellona glanced sideways at Hazel. Her glower could maim. It said, I warned you, mixed with enjoy your funeral.

  Sable didn’t say a word, though his eyes dimmed with disappointment. Leo stayed back, watching Bellona and Hazel the way someone might watch a dog about to bolt into traffic.

  Snow leaned in until his mouth hovered just beside her cheek. His rose-sweet cologne coated her throat like maple syrup.

  “This seems awfully dramatic.” Hazel eyed him, leaning slightly backward.

  “Funny.” Then she felt it. His hand was slipping into her bag. “We seem to share a flair for it, don’t we?”

  Hazel’s fingers dove after his, desperate. She tried to beat him to it, but she was slow. Far too slow.

  His gloved hand latched onto her wrist, dragging it out into the winter air.

  “What do we have here?”