Prologue
The fake sun beamed down on Katniss' forehead, but that wasn't what made her sweat. Her arrow was knocked and aimed at the other side of the cornucopia where the vicious brute from Two had Peeta in a headlock. Katniss' and every other pair of eyes in the nation were on Peeta drawing an 'x' on the back of the Career's hand.
"Come on Firegirl!" The Career taunted, "If you shoot me I'm taking Loverboy down with me." To prove his point he tightened his hold on Peeta's neck. Katniss tensed to aim and let her arrow fly.
The Brute saw it too, he threw Peeta on to the roof of the Cornucopia without warning and hurtled himself at Katniss just in time to find himself out of the way of her arrow.
"Katniss!" Peeta screamed, she saw him lose his grip on the Cornucopia and fall to the mutts below. The Career might as well have stabbed her heart with his long sword.
All across the Capitol there are curses and cheers, as long as Cato and Katniss are alive so are their bets. Those who had bet on Peeta still viciously defended him, stating that there has not been a cannon. It was all very short lived, just as the Capitol's tittering began they fell silent as well as the rest of Panem.
In the arena Katniss heard a boom far too loud to be a cannon only a split second before the flash of light. She remembered something slamming into her, losing her footing, and a sensation of falling. Mostly she remembered the heat, much much hotter than any day in the arena she's faced so far, and the pain of hitting the ground. Right before her vision went dark and her memory stopped working she had a chance to remember the body of a heavy blond boy on top of her screaming in pain.