He held it up to the camera.
“No,” Miel rasped. “You know the odds.”
Lira looked at the sky—the fake stars, the hidden cameras in every shadow. “Then we give them nothing.”
But on Reaping Day, Lira had done it anyway. Twenty-three slips of paper with her name. Twenty-three chances to be plucked from the crowd and thrown into the 74th annual Hunger Games—a televised slaughter where twenty-four children fight until one remains.
She threw the rebar into the river.
Lira looked at Asher. Asher looked at Lira.
Her district partner, a quiet boy named Ren, whispered, “Stick with me. We watch each other’s backs.”