I back up against a tree - the same one I've been hiding in for the last three days - and consider climbing up it, but I know it's no use. There's only one other tribute left in the arena and now he's found me. The Capitol is expecting a fight to the death, and the Gamemakers won't be very accommodating if I try to run away from it. I crouch in a defensive position, my attention riveted on the man whose own survival can only be achieved with my death. As he stalks towards me with a certain predatory grace, I can't help but remember how we got to this in the first place...
On the day of the reaping, I had stood there fidgeting with the edges of my clean blue dress, blocking out the inane speech that was the mayor's duty to make before the tributes were chosen. My mind was filled only with anxious thoughts of the forty-two strips of paper with Gale's name on them, the one with my sister Prim's name, not to mention my own twenty. Yet despite all the worry, nightmares, and precautions, I never truly believed the victim of this cruel tradition could be me. So when perky Effie Trinket called out "Katniss Everdeen" across the square, my initial reaction was confusion. Who did she mean? Then people started nudging me forward and it broke over me like an icy wave. I was the female tribute from District 12. In all likelihood, within the next few weeks, I would die.
I lurched numbly to the stage, only kept standing by the reassurance that Prim was safe for another year and that she was watching me right now. I made sure my face was blank of emotion and that my spine was straight and chin was up while I faced the town full of people I might never see again. Only two names could have snapped my attention from my self-pity as Effie trinket pulled a slip of paper from the boys' bowl. As fate would have it, she called one of them:
"Peeta Mellark!"
Not him! I thought desperately. Not the kind boy who once saved my life and my family's! I didn't want to have to fight him for survival. As Peeta took his place beside me, someone stepped forward from the crowd, the only person whose name would have been worse than Peeta's.
"I volunteer," Gale had declared, his grey eyes glinting with stony determination.
Now Gale stands over me and I look up at the man who had confessed his love for me on the way into the Justice building back home, the man who had avoided me since then, the man who had mercilessly tracked down and killed nearly all of the other combatants. I rise, but don't bother to reach for my knife or bow. No matter what happens, I would never be able to kill him, my hunting partner, my best friend, and maybe something more. If I can't win this tournament, I am glad the winner will be him. So instead of fighting, I stand motionless with dignity and resignation as he closes the last of the distance between us.
He grabs my shoulders with and inescapable grip and I brace myself but instead of feeling the sting of a knife in my belly or the impact of a rock against the back of my head, I feel his lips, urgent but surprisingly soft, press against my own. Wrapped in his lean-muscled arms, surrounded by his familiar scent of woodsmoke and the sound of our thrumming hearts beating together, I feel inappropriately at peace. The kiss tastes of unspoken good-byes.
He steps back and draws a long-bladed knife from his belt. I want to close my eyes but at the same time I want to meet death head-on. I leave them open.
"Katniss," Gale says in a hoarse voice, locking me in place with those cool grey eyes that could spot a squirrel from yards away, "Out there, I lived for you. In here, I killed for you. Now I'm going to die for you. Because I need you to stay alive to make this world worth while." Before I can react, he plunges the knife up between his ribs, into his own heart, leaving me the sole survivor – the champion of the Hunger Games.