Unexpectedly, Rue throws her arms around me. I only hesitate a moment before I hug her back. “You be careful,” she says to me. “You, too,” I say. I turn and head back to the stream, feeling somehow worried. About Rue being killed, about Rue not being killed and the two of us being left for last, about leaving Rue alone, about leaving Prim alone back home. No, Prim has my mother and Gale and a baker who has promised she won’t go hungry. Rue has only me.
