assess the sins she's paid for {open}

[rosebud]

wearing
Rosebud stood with the other young men and women in her age group in the town square of Panem. This year, however, Rye would not be standing in the group in front of her. No, her brother's last reaping had been for the 71st Games, and those were long over. This year Rosebud Crocus Greenwood had been left with no other choice but to sign up for four more tesserae since her elder brother was no longer able to support the family on tesserae and hunting alone. He had to work in the mines for meager pay meant for only himself to use. On his sundays he began taking his sister to the woods to try and teach her to be semi-decent in at least setting snares. But she was only able to skin animals, not kill them herself.

That morning, before heading off to the square, Rye had stopped her and given her a necklace. "I used to wear it in the woods for good luck. Maybe if you wear it today you won't be chosen." It was a simple silver chain, wrapped around and holding in place a rock she'd seen once or twice in her brief attempts at hunting. She wore it over the volume of the ruffle of the neck on her dress.

Ladies were drawn first as usual in Twelve. Rose stood with baited breath, hand wrapped around the stone of the necklace. Not anyone she knew…anyone by someone she knew. She didn't want to see a friend or family member die in the arena…especially twelve-year-old Villa, who wore the dress Rose herself had four years ago. She only had one slip among thousands.

"Rosebud Greenwood!"

Her world froze, then cracked. It was her. She was the tribute. The girl whipped around and stood on tiptoe to look for Rye, to gain some sort of help or assurance that she had heard wrong. But he, along with her parents and little sister Sara, all had grave faces. Rose gulped and forced herself to walk shakily up onto the stage, eyes wide and knees knocking together.

She was going to die.