The Hunger Games - Peeta Mellark (1)

}15{ - Little Rue

She stood in the abandoned warehouse in nothing more than her schoolgirl uniform and a pair of strap sandals.

Her hair is pulled back into a ponytail with pieces out framing her face.

She doesn't have to think about where she is.

A hand pushes her ponytail out of the way onto one shoulder.

She knows what's about to happen, but some panic alarm goes off in her head and she's whipping around.

She holds her hands out to stop it.

Crack.

Livia snapped awake as her fingers flew to her face, where the soft, faded scar was sprawled across her nose.

She lied still for a while waiting for the next onslaught of imagery, but eventually she accepted that the poison must have finally worked its way out of her system- leaving her body wracked and feeble.

She was still lying on her side, locked in the fetal position.

She moved her hand to her eyes to find them sound, untouched by ants that never existed.

Simply stretching out her limbs required an enormous effort.

So many parts of her hurt, it didn't seem worthwhile taking inventory of them.

Very, very slowly she managed to sit up.

She was in a shallow hole, not filled with the humming orange bubbles of her hallucination but with old, dead leaves.

Her clothing was damp, but she didn't know whether pond water, dew, rain, or sweat was the cause.

For a long time, all she could do was take tiny sips from her bottle and watch a beetle crawl up the side of a honeysuckle bush.

How long had she been out?

It was morning when she lost reason.

Now it was afternoon.

But the stiffness in her joints suggested more than a day had passed, even two possibly.

If so, she would have no way of knowing which tributes survived that tracker jacker attack.

Not Glimmer or Lacey.

But Marvel, Cato, Peeta- did they die from the stings?

Certainly if they lived, their last days must have been as horrid as her own.

A foul, rotten taste pervaded her mouth, and the water had little effect on it.

Livia dragged herself over to the honeysuckle bush and plucked a flower.

She gently pulled the stamen through the blossom and set the drop of nectar on her tongue.

The sweetness spread through her mouth, down her throat, warming her veins with memories of summer, and her home woods.

Livia knew she had to get some strength back in her body.

She was very dehydrated again and her water supply was dangerously low.