CHAPTER ONE
Red
Girl on fire, they're calling her. Katniss Everdeen, with a cloak of scarlet flames streaming down her back. And even though Peeta's dressed in the same burning coal costume, no one's naming him boy on fire. That tells him all he needs to know about his chances in this game. Who deserves to return to Twelve and who doesn't.
She's beautiful during her interview, flushed and nervous, dressed in a diamond-bright gown that reflects the stage lights back into the eyes of the audience, dazzling them. Luminous, unearthly, all the colors of fire refracted in the facets of the thousand gems Cinna has draped her in. Peeta watches her intrigue the Capitol people, capture their interest, and then he steps forward and wins them for her, whether she likes it or not.
Days later, he paints himself into the landscape. He's always been good at disappearing when he needs to. Good at making himself look like something he isn't (popular Peeta Mellark, everyone's friend, a happy baker's boy). Now he uses mud and grass and berries to melt into the bank, a hundred shades of dirt all over him. Everywhere except the wound on his leg, and Peeta doesn't need to look to know what color that is.
In the cave they trade stories and kisses, shy touches pressed back and forth in the shadows. Until he wakes from a sleep syrup haze to find Katniss hurt. Blood trickling down her face, so thick and bright he could paint with it.
At the Cornucopia Cato dies a drawn-out death, while Peeta watches the life seeping out of him, slowed only by the makeshift tourniquet that will lose him a leg. Then the announcement, the nightlock berries, and her, the love he swore to die for: Katniss Everdeen, the girl on fire, though to him she'll always be the girl in the red plaid dress.