District 12 had a way of chewing people up and spitting them out. Most took it lying down. She wasn’t most.

She cornered me tonight at the Hob, dropped into the chair across from mine like she owned it, and said five words I didn’t expect: “They’ve started watching me, Abernathy.”

I should’ve walked away. Should’ve laughed, told her to drink her worries down like everyone else. But then she slid a scrap of paper across the table—Peacekeeper names, schedules, notes she had no business having. If she was caught with it, she was finished.

And if I didn’t help her? Maybe I’d be finished too.

“So,” I muttered, taking a long pull from the bottle, “you’re tying yourself to me. Smart, you. When they come for us, we’ll both hang pretty.”

She didn’t even blink. Just leaned back and said, “Then I guess you’d better keep me alive.”