CLEMENTINE STIRRED to voices—low, muffled, like wind caught in hollows.

       Her eyes blinked open to near-darkness.

       For a breathless second, she thought it was still night, the black velvet of the hideout pressing in on her like the underside of a blanket. But no—the air was too warm. Still and thick with the scent of damp wood and crushed moss. The hour, if she had to guess, was somewhere past midday. The light didn't reach down here. Not in this strange, earthen hole Thatcher had called their second home. And yet... voices. Someone speaking just outside the little room.

      She lay motionless, cheek pressed against something scratchy, probably an old woolen blanket, tossed over a scatter of dried leaves and dirt-streaked moss. Her mother had thrown it down after they arrived that morning, voice hoarse and shaking as she ordered Clem and Thatcher to rest. "Rest while you can," she'd said. "We'll need our strength." Clementine hadn't meant to fall asleep again. Not really. She'd just meant to close her eyes, to stop the world from spinning so hard. And now, who knew how long she'd been out?

       Her limbs were leaden with fatigue. Sleep hadn't refreshed her. It wrapped around her like vines, pulling her deeper into the mud of her exhaustion. Her body ached in places she didn't know could ache: her calves from the run, her shoulders from the pack, her throat from yelling. And something deeper too. A marrow-deep weariness. A bone-sigh. The kind that followed fear you couldn't outrun.

       The room she was in, if it could even be called that, was more like a hollow carved into the roots of the earth. The walls were roughly packed dirt, some slanting at odd angles, stitched through with stubborn roots like veins under skin. The air held the musty chill of long-forgotten places. The floor was strewn with the forest—crumbling leaves, bits of bark, clumps of moss tracked in from boots that had stumbled in too fast, too early. Dust clung to every corner. Spiderwebs shimmered faintly in the dimness, stretched between crooked stones. Insects skittered if she shifted even slightly. A crushed mushroom gave off the faintest, sour rot.

       A splintered wooden crate sat in one corner, holding a few cans of food Thatcher must've dug out from his sack. A dented metal cup stood abandoned next to it, half-filled with stream water gone tepid and cloudy. Someone had tried to sweep the worst of the grime to one side, but it had only stirred up the dust. Her nose itched from it now.

       Clementine sat up slowly, her red curls a frizzy halo around her head, sticking out in half-slept chaos. She raked her fingers through the mess, groaning. Her joints popped as she stretched her legs out. Beneath her, the old blanket had grown warm where she'd laid, and damp at the edges where it soaked up moisture from the floor. She swallowed thickly, her throat dry and sour. Her limbs were stiff. Her back ached from the uneven stone. She blinked and slowly pushed herself upright, her curls falling forward like a curtain. Her hands brushed the floor beneath her, and she winced.

        Dust. Dried pine needles. Pebbles. She was pretty sure she'd slept on a spider.

        The voices outside the room continued—a soft, serious murmur. Probably Thatcher and Mama. Maybe one of the others who had trailed them here from the village. There had been so many, she could hardly remember who they'd run with, who they'd passed, who had vanished behind them as they fled into the trees. Faces blurred by panic, voices overlapping in terror. Her heart clenched.

        She didn't want to think about it. Not yet.

        She didn't even want to think about them, the Peacekeepers. The way they'd marched through the streets like hounds off the leash. The yelling. The clatter. The screaming that rose behind shuttered windows as doors were kicked in. She didn't want to think about the neighbors who hadn't escaped in time. About the house she'd grown up in, left behind in such a rush she couldn't even remember locking the back door. The Friggans had abandoned their life in the space of thirty minutes and followed a crowd into the woods like ghosts in reverse—fleeing not from death but from what came after it. And now she was here. In a half-buried hole in the middle of the woods, her legs still aching from the run, the air too still, the silence unnatural.

       She didn't even bring her comb.

       Clementine pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes, scrubbing hard.

       What happened? she thought. What the hell happened back there? What is happening to Seven now?

        And—terrifyingly—what happens next?

        She didn't want to ask it aloud. Not yet. Not before she steadied her breath, not before she wiped the sleep from her bones and stood on legs that remembered how to run.

        She pulled the blanket around her shoulders. It smelled like smoke and earth and her mother's hurried embrace. The floor creaked as she rose. Beyond the makeshift curtain of burlap Thatcher had hung over the entryway, the voices dipped lower—still talking, still thinking. She moved toward them, barefoot, silent.

        Clementine hovered at the edge of the makeshift doorway, still wrapped in the itchy blanket like some tattered forest ghost. The hideout smelled the way the earth probably smelled when it was first cracked open—damp and fungal, laced with the bitter tang of old roots and trapped dust. Somewhere in the upper corners of the dirt-packed room, moisture dripped steadily, slowly carving paths through the soil, feeding mosses and slick gray mold that clung stubbornly to the stone floor and the rough, buckled walls. The place had clearly been abandoned a long time, if it had ever truly been used at all. Someone—likely Thatcher—had tried to sweep out the worst of the muck, but the scent of rot still hung like a second ceiling.

        She scratched her cheek as she stepped forward, and a fine brush of something soft drifted across her skin; spiderwebs. Unused, undisturbed. They clung to the air above her, invisible until her movement stirred them. Her curls caught in the threads, and she gave an irritated little growl as she untangled them with one hand.

        A low voice rumbled through the silence, muffled at first. Then another, familiar. Warm. It had a slightly rasped edge, the kind of voice that carried easily over the wind but dipped soft in close company. Thatcher. He was saying something she couldn't quite catch, something in his usual, matter-of-fact tone that grew animated in bursts when he got excited. She knew that voice well. Her brother always sounded like a bark covered in velvet—rough but somehow still soothing. A storyteller's voice. A big-brother voice.

        But there were others. One wasn't Mama's—definitely not. She paused, blinked. Listened again.

        A laugh. Male, loud, and familiar in a way that tugged a smile from the corner of her mouth before her brain even caught up.

      Cedric?

      And then—a quieter, lilting voice. Soft, a little breathy. The voice that used to hum while they stitched patchworks for school projects, or when they plucked pine needles to braid into chains. A voice that once cried on her shoulder when they lost the spelling bee to Johanna in third grade.

       Eppie.

       Clementine felt her heart giving a strange, tired little leap.

       She pushed the threadbare curtain aside.

       The larger chamber, the heart of the hideout, was dimly lit by the few lanterns Thatcher had managed to rig from scavenged pieces. One sputtered now in the corner, flame licking sideways every time someone laughed. The walls here bowed inward, slick with moisture, and the ground dipped oddly in the center, where someone had spread out a mildew-bitten rug in an attempt to tame the space. Huge roots poked out from the walls like the gnarled fingers of an ancient tree-giant, curling and twisting through the dirt like they'd grown stubborn with age. One root served as a crude bench. A metal pot hung over a tiny, flickering fire, its contents bubbling softly.

        Thatcher was sitting cross-legged near the flame, a mug cupped in his hands. His dark hair had gone wild from the morning's madness, sticking up at odd angles like it was still running for its life. His coat was streaked with mud, and his face looked older somehow—tired at the corners, but alive. His grin cracked open as soon as he saw her.

       "Well, look who finally crawled outta the land of nod," he called, lifting his mug in a mock salute. "Thought we were gonna have to drag you back to reality with a towline."

        Cedric laughed, tipping his head back. He sat beside Thatcher, long legs stretched out, boots caked in forest grime. His face was ruddy from the cold, and a scar she didn't remember ran along the side of his neck like a whip of tree bark. "She always was the sleeper," he added. "Remember that time she slept through the thunderstorm that broke the barn window?"

         Clementine groaned, rolling her eyes, though the corners of her mouth betrayed her. "Y'all are lucky I'm too tired to curse you out proper."

       "You sure managed plenty of that this morning," Thatcher smirked.

      "God, that was panic, not sass," Clementine grumbled, stepping in fully now. She pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders and took a long look around the room. Her eyes landed on the girl sitting just a few feet from Cedric, curled up beside a crate of supplies by the fireplace.

        Apple-sweet Holmes was sitting near the fire with her knees tucked close to her chest, the faint flicker of flame painting warm streaks across her dark, freckled skin. Her hair was braided back in neat rows, glinting softly where the firelight caught the edges. There was a calmness about her posture, a quiet gravity, like someone who'd grown used to listening before speaking—but Clementine knew better. Apple-sweet could talk up a storm when she wanted to, and her laugh, when it came, was loud and full and the exact kind of sound you wanted around in times like this.

        She was the same age as Clementine, twenty-one, and had been beside her for nearly every year of school since the first grade. They'd sat side by side at splintered desks with uneven legs, scribbled notes on the backs of worksheets, shared stale honeybread under the cedar trees at recess, and once even plotted to run away to District Four just to "swim in real water." Johanna had been with them then, back when the three of them were more bark than bite, tumbling through childhood with scraped knees and pine-stained fingers. More like Eppie watching the other two running around like two wild cats as she demurely laughs and watches them while sewing patchwork stuff.

        Her full name had been the subject of every classroom snicker, every new teacher's double-take. Apple-sweet. A name that sounded like it belonged in some Capitol perfume bottle, not in the sweet-mouthed, whip-smart girl who could split firewood faster than most boys in their year. The teasing had started early: mocking sing-songs, cruel playground rhymes. But Apple-sweet never cried. She just smiled that tight little smile of hers, shrugged, and eventually introduced herself as "Eppie" with such conviction that even the teachers followed suit.

     "Eppie," Clementine breathed.

       The girl looked up. Her braids tucked behind her ears, a small cut on her chin, dirt smeared across one cheek. Her skin glowed warm in the firelight, her expression softening into a relieved smile.

      "Clem, dear," she said, standing at once.

        They crossed the space in two strides and collided in a fierce, bone-deep hug. Eppie's arms wrapped tight around her ribs, and Clementine buried her face in the braids that smelled faintly of cedarwood and ash.

      "Glad you're okay," Clementine mumbled.

      "I didn't know if you got out. I didn't know anything," Eppie whispered into her shoulder. "Everything was screaming and I just ran. Cedric said he saw you in the trees, but I didn't see you until now and—" Her voice cracked.

      "I'm okay. You're okay. We're all okay," Clementine said, though she wasn't sure if it was true.

        They pulled apart, and Clementine wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.

      "You still talk in your sleep, by the way," Thatcher called from his spot by the fire.

      "Oh shut up," she snapped, though there was no heat behind it.

        Cedric gave another low chuckle. "It's like the old days. When school let out for winter and we all ended up at your house for soup and firewood and dumb ghost stories."

      "Except now almost all the scary stories are real," Eppie said quietly.

        A silence settled then. Just for a moment. The wind sighed somewhere above them. Something, a pinecone or a critter, dropped softly on the roof.

       Clementine sat beside Eppie on the edge of the root-bench, their shoulders touching. Her fingers twitched nervously against the blanket wrapped around her shoulders. The hush that had fallen over the group was the kind that made you want to scream, just to remind yourself you had a voice. The fire behind Eppie snapped quietly, throwing up tiny sparks that flicked across the ceiling like the eyes of insects. The shadows it cast moved in slow, liquid shapes—monsters or memories, depending on how tired your mind was.

        Clementine looked at Eppie, who was sitting very still, staring into the flames like they were the only solid thing in the world. "Eppie," she said softly, her voice rough with sleep and dread, "do you know anything? About the district. About... all of it. Did the Peacekeepers stop the Purge? Are the houses okay? Is it really true—" her voice caught in her throat "—what they said? That they shot the victors? All of them?"

         Eppie didn't look at her right away. Her dark eyes stayed locked on the flames for several long seconds, and her expression twisted faintly—as if she were watching something burn in that tiny fire, something only she could see.

        Then she exhaled, slow and heavy, and turned toward Clementine. "I don't know if it's all true. But... it's bad, Clem. Real bad."

       Clementine's heart thudded painfully in her chest.

       Cedric shifted on the root-bench, his broad shoulders sagging as if the weight of his story physically pressed down on him. He rubbed the back of his neck, his face drawn and pale beneath the flickering firelight.

      "I'll tell it," he said, glancing at Eppie, who just nodded, hugging her knees closer to her chest.

     "We were at my family's place, and its near the edge of the meadows, right?" Cedric began, his voice low, like he didn't want it to echo in this underground chamber. "It was early, barely even light. I was outside, chopping kindling when I heard the alarms. At first, I thought—" he shook his head. "I don't know what I thought. But then I saw them. Peacekeepers. Dozens of 'em. Moving in lines like wolves on a hunt. Guns drawn. Marching down the rows of houses."

        Clementine could feel her breath start to quicken.

      "They dragged people out, Clem," Cedric said, voice rough. "I saw the old Rekler couple pulled from their home. Screaming. Master Rekler's blind, but they didn't care. They knocked him down, stomped on his hand when he reached for his cane. Then I saw little Reedy Bellows running—he's, what, nine? A Peacekeeper fucking cracked him in the back with the butt of his gun. Thankfully he's still alive and managed to scamper away."

     "Holy cow," Clementine whispered, pressing a hand to her mouth.

       Eppie shuddered. "They didn't spare any of them... the victors, and those who stand against what they are doing. Children, women, elderly folks—everyone."

        Cedric continued, his eyes dark with memory. "Mama shoved me out the back door with the younger ones. I grabbed Eppie from the fence row and we ran. Across the meadows, up toward the hills. We weren't the only ones. Dozens of folks out there, all fleeing. I saw Petyr Highmore and his aunt, and the Breen sisters with their baby brother on Annalise's back. There was Old Ferra Montell, too. That woman's nearly seventy and still ran like she had fire on her heels."

       "They set some of the houses on fire," Eppie added, her voice a near-whisper. "Not all of them. Just... a warning, I think. Just enough to make us run."

       "We hid in a ravine, under the unkempt logs," Cedric said. "We heard shots. Saw smoke curling up from the village. The Peacekeepers kept moving, searching. But not after us. They weren't chasing—they were... hunting."

        Thatcher, silent until now, finally muttered, "Ah, yes. Purge wasn't about chasing. It was aaaaall about scaring."

        Eppie nodded grimly. "They wanted to make sure no one questioned them ever again. Make sure no one even dreamed of rebellion."

        Clementine's fingers trembled against her knees. "But... the victors? What about them?"

        Cedric looked at her then. His mouth opened, but no sound came out at first. He swallowed hard.

       "I don't know for certain," he said. "But... there were whispers. People saying they were rounded up. Not all of them were home. Some were at the Capitol. But the ones that were... I heard they were executed. In front of their own people. No trial. No reason."

       "Its like they were sending a message," Eppie murmured.

        The silence that followed was suffocating. Behind them, the fire popped once, loudly, and all of them jumped.

         Clementine could barely breathe. Her hands had gone cold. The idea of District Seven without its victors, without its history, its symbols, its pride, felt like someone had scooped the marrow from her bones. It left her hollow.

        She stared into the fire, like Eppie had done, searching for something in the flames. A reason. A path. Anything.

       "They want us afraid," she whispered, mostly to herself. "They want us so scared we forget we ever had a voice."

       Cedric looked at her, his eyes flat but kind. "Then we don't forget."

       No one spoke for a long time. But the fire kept burning, and outside, the forest held its breath. Clementine blinked slowly, her eyes still locked on the fire as if it might answer all the questions running wild in her mind. But a new one rose—louder than the rest. It scratched the back of her throat and made her chest tighten.

     "Wait..." she murmured, frowning. "Where's Mama?"

       Her voice cut into the room like a blade.

       Thatcher's head snapped toward her. Eppie straightened. Even Cedric, who had just started adding another branch to the fire, paused with his hand outstretched.

       Clementine sat up straighter now, her spine prickling. "I—I haven't seen her. Not since we got here. This morning. Or... or whenever that was. She was with us, right? She—she came in with us, I know she did."

       The words spilled from her lips like water breaking through a dam, rising in pitch with every syllable. "Where is she?"

       Thatcher opened his mouth, then closed it. He ran a hand through his hair, his face suddenly crumpling with something between guilt and confusion.

      "She was behind us," he said slowly. "When I greeted Ced and Eppie right there on the mossy steps, just a few moments before you woke up—god damn it, she was right behind me, Clem. She was right there."

      "Wait, did she go out again?" Eppie asked softly, eyes already scanning the low walls of the hideout like the answer might be hiding in a shadow.

      "She wouldn't just go wandering off!" Clementine said, her voice louder now, shrill with panic. "She wouldn't leave without telling someone, Thatcher. She was tired—remember? She always had those headaches since last winter too. She wouldn't just—"

      "I know, I know," Thatcher said quickly, rising to his feet. "I'll check around. Maybe she's with the other families—maybe she went to help someone."

       But Clementine was already scrambling up, her blanket falling into a heap on the floor. Her bare feet landed on the cold moss and the faint crunch of dried leaves made her wince. The air in the hideout suddenly felt thinner. Tighter.

      "No," she said. "She wouldn't leave us. Not after what happened. Not after the Purge."

        The fire snapped again behind them, sending long shadows clawing across the damp walls. Clementine glanced toward the passage leading to the outer crevices of the hideout—the rough-hewn tunnel Thatcher and Cedric had cleared out earlier. The one that led toward the hill's back slope and, beyond that, to the other hidden clearings.

       "I'll go with you," Cedric said, already grabbing a coat from the nail near the door. "There's a few hollows nearby. If she wandered off to help someone, she could've taken shelter there."

       "I'm going too," Clementine said, already shoving her arms into the too-big jacket Thatcher had thrown at her earlier.

         Eppie stood as well. "We'll search together, yeah."

       "I'm going too," Clementine said, throwing off the blanket, already halfway across the room. Her feet hit the cold mossy floor with a faint crunch.

        But before she could take another step, Thatcher stepped in front of her, blocking the way. His face was stern now—older, somehow. Like he'd aged ten years since that morning.

       "No," he said firmly. "Fucking hell. What are you thinking about, Clementine? You're staying here."

        Clementine blinked. "What the fuck, Thatch?"

        Thatcher folded his arms. "Please, Clem, it's the boys' job."

        Clementine's jaw dropped. "Fucking hell, Thatch. But the woman is my mama too, are you kidding me?!"

       "I'm absolutely not kidding," he said. "You stay with Eppie. You help keep this place steady in case people come through, or if Mama comes back on her own. You need to be here."

       "I can fight, Thatcher. You know I can. I would've won a Hunger Games episode if I was ever thrown into that goddamn dumb arena."

       "Fuck, Clem, this isn't about fighting," he said. "It's about surviving."

       "And I'm not some dainty little girl you need to tuck away and protect," she growled. "I'm fucking twenty-one, Thatch."

       "I know that," he snapped. "But just this once—listen to me."

         He stepped forward, and his face softened. His eyes—so much like Mama's—searched hers. "Please. Just this once. Let me go. Let me find her."

        Clementine's hands curled into fists at her sides, tears brimmed out of her doe eyes. "You're such a goddamn stupid fucking shabby mule and I bet no girl would ever want to marry a man so hellishly controlling."

      "Heh, I've been called worse," he said, a faint smile tugging at his mouth.

        Then he leaned in, dropping his voice low so only she could hear it.

      "Stay put, Pine-cone."

        Clementine froze.

        Pine-cone.

        The dumb little name he'd made up when they were tiny, when she used to get all scrunched up and pouty like one. His favorite to tease her.

        Thatcher pressed a kiss to her forehead, rough and sudden. "Cmon, sissy. We'll be fine."

        And with that, he turned, rifle in hand, nodding at Cedric. The two of them slipped out into the pale tunnel light, the hideout's secret doorway.

       Clementine stood rooted there, heart thundering, fists trembling. Behind her, Eppie came to stand quietly at her side. No one said a word for a moment. Clementine exhaled through her nose, furious tears hot behind her eyes. Pinecone. As if that made it easier.

      But still... she didn't move.

      Not yet.

        The hours slithered by like wounded serpents, heavy and slow, wrapping the hideout in a breathless coil of tension. It was hard to tell whether it was midday or dusk now—here in the bowels of the old escape house, the forest's sunless hush blurred time into a syrupy, endless drag. Every tick of Clementine's anxious thoughts scraped against the stone and moss-slick walls like dry leaves in the wind.

         The room had settled into a heavy, watchful silence since the lads had gone out—Thatcher, Cedric, and two others Clementine barely recognized had slipped away, promising to scout the edges of the outer district and maybe, maybe, return with news. News about the Peacekeepers. News about who had survived. News about what the Victor's Purge was truly doing to District Seven.

         But that had been... hours ago. At least, Clementine thought it was. Time inside the hideout felt hollow, suspended in damp stillness. She sat near the fire pit, knees drawn to her chest, elbows resting atop them. Her red curls had finally fallen from the makeshift braid she'd tied in the morning, and now they clung to her temples in wild tendrils, sweat-slick and frizzed. Her eyes flicked toward the sealed door every few minutes, but no shadow darkened it. No footsteps. Just the dull crack of the fire devouring one log at a time.

       Eppie sat beside her in a similar posture, hands folded in her lap, head slightly bowed. The firelight danced across the planes of her face, catching the soft shine of her braids and making her dark skin glow gold at the edges. She'd been quiet for a long time now—far too long for someone who usually had a sharp quip or story to spill—but Clementine knew the look in her eyes. That distant stillness. That was fear. Not the screaming, flailing sort, but the old kind. The kind that knew hiding was survival.

       Neither of them spoke for a while. Not really. Words felt heavy, and the quiet somehow sacred. But after a long silence, Clementine cleared her throat, the sound almost too loud in the hush. "Hey," she said, voice scratchy and low, "Eppie..."

      "Yeah?"

      "You think Ced's dad and the kids made it out?"

        Eppie looked up, her brown eyes reflecting firelight like melted amber. She didn't answer right away. She just pressed her lips together, the firelight flickering across the curve of her cheekbone. "I don't know," she murmured eventually. "Pa... he's quick in the mind although his health condition had been dropping quiet low lately. He grabbed the little ones and told me to go. He said they'd find the caves with the others." She paused. "Tobe had the croup just days ago. Could barely run without coughing."

         Clementine swallowed, a knot forming in her throat. She didn't have any siblings that small, but of course she remembered Tobe. A little thing with wild tufts of hair and a habit of tugging her skirts whenever she visited the Boulangers' house. "They'll make it," she said, without knowing if she meant it.

        Eppie spoke softly, not looking at the other girl. "There are caves near the west ridge. We used to play there, remember? Before the war drills... before the Quell." She gave a hollow smile. "They're deep. Safe. At least, we hope. He promised he'd take them there."

       Clementine exhaled through her nose and stared at the fire again. "I hope they're okay," she said. "I hope everyone's okay. I just... I keep thinking about how we ran. Left everything. The photos. My books. Mama's precious spoons. I didn't even grab my boots, Eppie. These are my old school shoes from like... four years ago."

       They both glanced down. Clementine's old scuffed shoes, the ones she used to walk to class in rain or shine, were still on her feet. Mud-caked now, the seams frayed, but still intact. Somehow.

       The fire crackled. Outside, the woods breathed. Somewhere, an owl hooted. But still, no footsteps returned. No sign of Thatcher or Cedric. Just that unbearable, endless waiting.

        Eppie leaned her head gently on Clementine's shoulder. "You always hated waiting," she murmured.

        Clementine chuckled once, without joy. "I still do."

        They sat like that for a while, quiet and uncertain, two shadows in the half-dark, huddled close together but each alone in their own spiraling fear. The fire snapped every now and then, spitting embers that floated up into the black like dying stars. The walls around them were stone and root, speckled with mold and the stains of long-forgotten water damage. It had the feel of a place not meant to hold life for long—but they had no choice.

      "Do you think," Eppie said softly after a while, "they'll come back safe?"

      "The boys?" Clementine asked, already knowing.

        Eppie nodded.

     "They better," Clementine said. Her voice cracked. "They'd better."

        And then there was silence again, save for the rhythmic patter of dripping water from somewhere deep in the passageways. Clementine hugged her knees tighter. Her fingers were cold. Her hair was still a tangled mess from sleep and panic, and there was dirt smudged on her cheek. Eppie reached over and brushed it away, a small gesture, tender.

       "They'll come back," Eppie said, but she didn't sound certain. Just hopeful.

         And Clementine nodded because she had to believe it too. It was the only thing they had left—hope, flickering like the last logs on the fire.

         A sudden creak tore through the silence like a blade.

        The heavy wooden door of the hideout groaned open against the forest-soaked hinges, and both girls screamed. One high-pitched and startled, the other a rough gasp caught between fear and fury. Clementine lunged to her feet, heartbeat snapping like a broken drum. She grabbed the first thing her hand found: the fire iron, long and blackened with soot, and pointed it toward the dark opening with both hands, arms shaking, teeth clenched.

        Eppie stood too, nearly knocking over the battered stool behind her, eyes wide as the firelight flickered hard across her face.

       The door yawned open wider. A silhouette stepped into the threshold, barely outlined against the wall of tangled green beyond. Sweat burst across Clementine's neck, her back, her palms. For a second, the world held its breath, a moment frozen in the eerie quiet that followed their screams. Her hands gripped the iron so tight her knuckles went white.

        And then..."What on earth's gotten into you two?" came a voice. Familiar. Sharp. Bone-deep familiar.

        Clementine blinked.

      "Mama?" Her voice cracked.

        The silhouette moved forward into the glow of the hearth, and there she was—leaning slightly as she shut the door behind her, a scarf wrapped around her curls, boots muddied and dress damp from forest dew. Clementine's arms went slack. The fireplace poker clattered to the dusty floor with a dull, empty clang.

       "Oh my god," she breathed, dragging a hand through her tangled hair. "You scared the hell out of us, Mama." Her voice tumbled out in a mess of half-sobs and curses. "Don't ever—dammit—don't do that."

        Eppie's shoulders dropped. She rubbed her face as if wiping the panic away, then shook her head, letting out a shuddering breath. "We thought—you—we didn't know what was coming in."

        Mama just blinked at them, expression turning puzzled. "Didn't think I'd be gone so long. I just went down to the fern banks. The caves. Thought maybe you two were hungry and I could bring back word on the situation. Heard there was a fresh boil of potatoes going." She dropped her bag to the floor with a soft thump, then moved toward the fire, brushing the cold off her hands. "Well, it turns out word's better than food."

         She looked up at them, her face shifting with a mix of relief and something unreadable.

       "They say it's cooling down. District's still shaken, sure, but the Peacekeepers've mostly cleared the inner sectors. Took out the worst of the threats early in the morning, or so the whisper says. You know how it is—one order from Snow and they do all the butchering before dawn. Most families are creeping back to their homes by now. We could go back before nightfall, they say. Maybe not sleep easy, but at least sleep in our own beds."

         Her voice was calm. Too calm. The kind of calm that knew chaos and was pretending not to.

         Clementine narrowed her eyes. She could still feel the adrenaline buzzing in her bones, could feel the cool sweat drying on her temples. "And you just walked back? By yourself?"

         Mama shrugged, a faint defiance in her posture. "I've lived through worse than an afternoon in the woods."

       "But you could've—" Clementine stopped herself, then groaned and bent to pick up the fire iron, placing it back against the hearth with shaking hands. "We thought you'd been taken. Or hurt. Or—hell, Mama, what were you thinking?"

         Eppie sat back down, rubbing her arms.

         Mama finally lowered herself onto one of the upturned crates beside the fire. Her expression softened—just barely. "I wasn't thinking, Clem. I was hoping. Hoping to bring back something other than silence. And I did."

         She reached out and touched Clementine's wrist. "I came back. That's what matters."

         Clementine nodded. Her throat ached with exhaustion. But then Mama's gaze drifted over her shoulder, frowning.

        "Where are the boys?"

         Clementine closed her eyes. The weariness hit again, heavier this time.

        "Gone," she muttered. "They left. Just about an hour ago, looking for you. Thought you were with the folks at the caves, and that maybe you needed help."

          Mama's lips pressed into a thin line. "Hell's sake, we should've crossed paths!"

        "Yeah," Clementine said with a tired laugh that didn't feel like laughter. "Real helpful. Fucking helpful."

         She slumped down beside Eppie again, the fire crackling low between them all. Outside, the woods whispered as the sun began to dim behind layers of green. Inside, three hearts beat with the quiet, terrible knowledge that while part of the nightmare might be over... it wasn't done yet.

          Mama had only just settled on the edge of the upturned crate by the fire, but already she was pushing herself up again, boots creaking on the moss-veined floorboards. Her jaw had set into that tight, purposeful line Clementine knew too well—the same one she wore when the taxes were due and the cupboards were near-empty, or when the winter came too early and the youngest cousins down the road needed wool scraps from her sewing bin. But this time, the worry in her face wasn't masked with grit. It spread across her like an age-old bruise, etching her brows, hollowing her cheeks. She looked like she'd aged years in the past day. Clementine hated it.

        "I'll go back out," Mama said. "Try the slope trail, and if they doubled back near the alder grove, I might still catch them before dark."

        Clementine spun around from the fire in a flash, rising so quickly the blanket tumbled from her lap. Her voice came out sharp and low, all hiss and heat. "No. Mama. Just—no. You're not going anywhere."

        Mama's brows rose, eyes already searching for her shawl, but Clementine stormed ahead, hands flailing slightly, like an angry kitten puffed full of fear.

       "You're not going back out there alone," she snapped, chest rising and falling in ragged, tired fury. "Thatcher and Cedric could be halfway to Twelve for all we know, and you want to go tramping after them in the woods again? What if you get lost? What if you fall? What if—what if the Peacekeepers come back?" Her voice cracked.

         Eppie stood too, arms still wrapped around herself. "Maybe—maybe we should all go?" she said gently, uncertainty dripping from her voice like rainwater from the leaves above. "Just take the packs. Just in case. We could look together—"

       "No," Mama interrupted, firm. "Someone needs to stay and keep watch. You both know that. It can't just be Eppie in here while our things—our maps, our food, our water—all our stuff sits out like an invitation. You think the others from the caves wouldn't take it if they were desperate? It's not their fault if they do. But it's ours if we leave it open."

       "I don't care about the damn stuff—!" Clementine snapped.

       "Well, I do!" Mama barked back, louder now. Her voice bounced against the stone walls. "I care about everything. The boys, the packs, you two. And I'm going, Clementine." She reached for the door.

         Eppie's hands closed around Clementine's arm like vines, grounding her. "Clem," she whispered. "It's okay. Let her, just let her—"

       "No!" Clementine's voice broke.

         And then the door slammed open.

         A flurry of boots, leaves, and frustrated shouts burst through the entryway. Two shadowed shapes, big with breathless fury and covered in forest mud, barreled into the hideout.

       "Where the hell is she?" Thatcher barked, eyes scanning, wild. "We looked everywhere. The stream, the caves, the gorge path... She's fucking not seen anywhere—"

       "I told you we should've circled back again—" Cedric added, wiping sweat from his brow, his hand visibly trembling.

       "Thatch, shush, she's here," Clementine said.

         Her voice was flat, almost surreal, dead. Her arm still half-held by Eppie, her breath still ragged from shouting, but her eyes were locked on the boys.

       "She's right here."

         She gestured behind her—and both men froze like statues thawed too fast. For a moment, nothing but the fire crackled.

         Thatcher let out a long, guttural sigh and leaned heavily against the doorframe. "Thank God," he muttered.

         Cedric's eyes softened as well, and he stepped forward. "We thought—we thought maybe you got taken again. We were about to double back toward the mills."

         Mama exhaled in something between relief and a growl. "I was about to go look for you, fools."

         Clementine scoffed and crossed her arms, her anger melting into something bone-tired and bitter. "So glad we all wasted that energy."

        Eppie let go of Clementine's arm and stepped forward quietly. She didn't say anything—just moved to Cedric and wrapped her arms around his waist. He pulled her into him without hesitation, pressing his cheek to the top of her braids, his chest still heaving from the run.

        They sat around the fire again, all five of them, the shadows of their hunched figures dancing long and crooked against the moss-mottled walls. The crackling flame was the only sound for a while, save for the distant rustle of wind through the trees outside and the occasional drip of old water from somewhere deep in the hideout's stonework. Dust floated thick in the air, lazy and golden in the firelight. The silence was suffocating. Grief always came in aftershocks.

        Then Thatcher spoke.

      "They really shot them," he muttered hoarsely, like the words were smoke scratching their way up from the back of his throat. "All the ones who were left. The victors."

        He didn't look up. His hands were clasped tight between his knees, dirt still caked beneath his nails. The firelight glinted off his eyes, made them look glassy.

        Cedric looked away, jaw tightening. He went on, voice strained, cracking at the edges. "We saw... I mean, we heard it first. The people in the caves said it happened early, just after dawn. All three of them. Executed. Publicly. Like... like criminals. Like animals."

        Eppie gasped softly beside him, her fingers tightening around his arm. She was trembling. Clementine's stomach twisted.

       "Who?" Mama asked, voice low and bracing, though she already knew.

         Cedric looked at her, then back at the floor. "Sarn," he said first. "He—they dragged him right out of his house, still in that stupid blue and white pajamas. They didn't even blink. His wife screamed the whole time. Then they shot her too for running over to shield him...as if that'll help."

        Clementine sucked in a breath. Quiet, broad-shouldered, kind in a weathered sort of way, Sarn won the Games back then when she's about three or four. He'd once given her a carved bird toy when she was eight, without even saying a word. She'd kept it until the wings snapped off.

        Thatcher nodded once, almost imperceptibly.

      "They shot Farrow in front of the whole north circle," he said, his voice low and raw, his throat dry as dust. "He tried to talk them down. Said it was madness, that they had no right. Said we'd already paid. They shot him in the chest. Just dropped him. Like he was no one."

        A long, shuddering silence fell across the room like a heavy curtain. Cedric sighed. "They even took old Teera... She was already sick. They dragged her out of the infirmary and put a bullet through her temple."

        Eppie whimpered and buried her face into Cedric's shoulder. "Ced, stop," she whispered. "Please just—stop for a second."

        Cedric wrapped his arms around her and held her close, his hand stroking the back of her head. But the words hung in the air like smoke, impossible to unsay, impossible to breathe.

        Thatcher's voice came at last, low and bitter. "Fucking hell, it is a real purge. Truly a real one. We haven't seen anything like it since... since before we were born. The kind of thing they whispered about in old stories. And... darn it, we thought we'd never see it again!"

        "After the war," Mama murmured, eyes hollow. "We thought we were past all this."

         Cedric nodded slowly. "The others said dozens of folks were gunned down just trying to stop it. People who tried to protect the victors. Others who shouted. A few who just ran. Shot like wild dogs."

         Names floated up in that dim, broken room like ghosts. Old Mr. Rafferty, who sold scrap metal near the mill. The twins who'd run errands for the Healers. A girl from school who Clementine vaguely remembered crying before her last Reaping day. People who had nothing to do with anything except that they'd stood up, or they'd looked afraid, or they hadn't run fast enough.

         Eppie was weeping now, soft and quiet, and Cedric kept murmuring something into her hair that Clementine couldn't hear. Mama reached for the kettle beside the fire, but her hands shook so bad she spilled half the water.

         Clementine didn't cry. She couldn't. Her fists balled on her knees, nails biting into her palms. The grief was a hot stone in her gut, the kind that didn't dissolve—it just sat there, grinding. All she could see in her mind were flashes: Sarn's silent smile. The victors' houses in the Village. The way the light used to filter through the trees in the morning when the world still made a little bit of sense.

       "They literally murdered them," she said flatly, more to herself than to anyone else. "And then they murdered the people who gave a damn."

         No one replied. They just sat in that firelit gloom, five figures clinging to one another like flotsam in a storm. Outside, the wind whispered through the trees, the forest mourning its own. And in the flickering dark, Clementine stared at the fire like it could give her answers, or burn the memory clean. The fire in the corner had burned down to a soft smolder, barely lighting the mold-speckled walls anymore. In that flickering haze, Mama's face looked like it had been carved from granite—stern, cold, worn through. Her hands, rough and scarred from a lifetime of work, were clasped together like she was holding herself still so she wouldn't come apart.

         She looked up from the floor, from the memory of all the names they'd just lost, and said in a voice as steady as a sharpened axe:

       "Well. That's it then. The pride of District Seven is gone."

         Her words landed with the weight of a tree splitting down the middle.

       "No one ever counted us like the Careers," she went on, staring into the ashes, "but we had fighters. Real ones. Victors who didn't win with luxury or sponsors, but grit. That was ours. And now... they've wiped it clean."

        Thatcher let out a sharp breath and spat a curse under it, "Fucking shit-eatin' bastards, cockless cowards, scum-suckin' leech—"

      "Thatcher Friggan," Mama snapped, her tone enough to make his mouth clamp shut mid-word. She shot him a warning look that could have splintered bark. He rubbed a hand over his mouth and mumbled something unintelligible. Maybe an apology. Maybe just more fury without shape.

         Cedric looked over at him, his jaw tightening.

       "She's right," he said quietly. "They took them all. Sarn, Teera, Farrow. It's like they're tryin' to erase the record itself. As if Seven never fought back."

         He shook his head slowly. Then added, almost as an afterthought, "We might still have Johanna though."

         Thatcher looked over at him, eyes narrowing slightly. "If she ain't dead."

         Clementine stiffened where she sat. Her breath hitched, but she said nothing.

       "Well, we didn't see her name anywhere," Cedric said. "No body. No victor's announcement either. That Quell ended like a cut cord. Just snapped off. One minute we were watchin' her, the next... static. Then silence."

       "She's in the Capitol," Thatcher muttered. "Or dead in that damn arena. Either way, they don't want us knowin'. You saw how fast they scrambled to clean it up. It stirred the fucking purge, whatever they are doing there"

       "She might be alive," Cedric insisted, voice rising just slightly. "She's smart. She's fast. She made it further than anyone else from here ever did, twice. Saw the way she led 'em all through the blood rain yesterday?"

       "She had fake-killed that girl from Twelve, that's what I heard since the news screamed that Everdeen escaped," Thatcher countered, "and that's the exact victor Snow wanted to be dead. I can brew a conspiracy theory that they are all somehow trying to protest against Snow, but failed. They all might've been thrown in a hole somewhere. Or worse."

         Clementine sat very still beside the fire. Her hands were limp in her lap. Her knees pulled up to her chest. She hadn't blinked in a while.

         Johanna.

         The name alone was like a strike to the chest. It echoed in the hollow of her ribs, heavy and sharp.

         They were kids together, once. Johanna with her sly eyes and tree-climbing limbs. That sarcastic grin always curling like a challenge at the corner of her mouth. Clementine remembered running after her down the damp forest trails, laughing until their voices hoarse. Remembered the way Johanna used to walk with her arms crossed, always like she was bracing against something even then.

         Now, what? Dead? Alive? Disappeared like all the others?

         Something in Clementine crumpled.

         The tears came before she could stop them. Slow, hot at first, then rushing fast. Stinging, silent, steady. She tried to turn her face away, to hide it in the crook of her arm, but Eppie saw. Eppie always did.

       "Oh, Clem," Eppie murmured, reaching over and pulling her into a side hug, rubbing her hand gently up and down Clementine's back. "It's alright."

       "It's not," Clementine choked out. "It's not alright. She's out there and—and—we're here, and I don't even know what happened to her."

        Her voice broke on the last word.

        Outside, the forest sighed.

        The trees, once full of light and life, stood solemn and dark beneath the dying sun. The wind filtered through the leaves like breath through broken lungs—quiet, steady, and mourning. Within the hideout, the five of them sat in silence, each tucked in the corners of their own sadness. The fire had burned down to its coals now, casting soft orange glows that danced on the moss-streaked walls, shadows stretching like reaching fingers toward the past.

         No one spoke. There were no words left. Just the silence of survivors.

        Clementine stared into the embers, her face streaked with the salt of dried tears, her lips parted in quiet breath. Somewhere inside her chest, the ache pulsed with every memory she dared not recall. But memories have a way of blooming, even in the dark, and suddenly, she was there again—not in the root-stitched hideout, but in another life entirely.

        It was late spring, maybe three years ago. The sun had lingered long into the evening, painting the woods with gold. Clementine remembered laughter. Her own, tangled with Eppie's. With Johanna's. They were younger then—barefoot, knees dirty, sweat on their brows. They'd raced across the log bridges near Alder Hollow, daring one another to leap over creek beds and balance on narrow stones. Eppie had slipped and screamed. Johanna had caught her by the arm and then pretended to almost let her fall, laughing that high, chaotic laugh that always sounded half-wild, half-free.

       "Gotta be quicker than that, Eppie!" Johanna had called, eyes alight, red scratches on her arms from a thornbush she refused to complain about.

        And later that night—by a fire not unlike this one—they'd laid on their backs in the clearing, naming shapes in the stars. Eppie swore she saw a rabbit. Johanna said it looked more like a middle finger with a string of pearls adorning it. Clementine didn't say anything at all. She'd just watched them—those two girls who felt more like home than her own bed ever did.

        They'd laughed so hard that night she'd cried. She remembered that.

        Now, she cried again—but for different reasons.

        Eppie's hand was in hers, but it didn't feel like enough. Cedric sat close, his chin on his wife's shoulder, eyes hollow. Mama was still, unmoving by the fire. Thatcher stood off to the side, arms crossed, the muscle in his jaw twitching like he was biting back tears he'd never let fall.

        Clementine shut her eyes.

        She saw Johanna again—not the victor, not the name they whispered about with trembling voices now—but her best friend, hair tangled from the wind, cursing as she tried to drag a fallen branch twice her size back to the cottage. Her hardened face smeared with sap and stubbornness.

       "Seven's made of tough girls," she once sung, hands on her hips, cocky as ever. "And we don't break easy."

        Clementine pressed her fist against her lips, stifling the sob that rose again. But tonight... she felt like something had shattered. And she didn't know how they would ever put it back together again.

         FREYA'S NOTES!   I actually took this writing class recently, and there was an entire section dedicated to writing fear and tension. The whole point of it was that it's not just about throwing in a scary setting or making characters scream and shake. It's more like.... about control. about what's held back. Think about the silence before the scream. The way a character's thoughts spiral in quiet panic, how the air suddenly feels too tight, how the smallest sound can feel like a gunshot in the stillness... It's the slow, creeping dread that crawls under the reader's skin—not just the jump scare. And that's exactly the main element of 'fear' I wanna input in this book.

       AM I DOING GREAT, MY DEAR PEEPS?

      Anyways, here's a little spoiler so that the readers won't run away yet. What if I told you that Clementine would run away from her District dressed as a Peacekeeper (which is illegal)? What if I told you that she's emotionally deciding that she would go to The Capitol herself to save Johanna?