She was screaming.
Everyone she loved had left her at some point – her father, for good; her mother, temporarily; and even her cat wandered off from time to time and wasn't seen for days. But now it was her sister. The one person she could always rely on to be there couldn't be.
It was their fault.
She'd never hated the Capitol before. She'd certainly never liked it, but it was all she'd known. How could you hate something if you didn't know any different?
But now, now she understood the others tone of hatred when they spoke of it, in hushed tones as though it was something to be feared.
It was though, speak too loudly and something terrible could happen to you, to your family.
She hated the Capitol.
Because now she was seeing something different.
She was seeing a life without her sister, a life that could soon become reality.
And it was their fault.
So she understood when they spoke in hushed tones but she still didn't understand why they were hushed. She wanted to proclaim her hatred to the whole world – it wasn't like she had anything else to lose.
Her mother had been lost a long time, her father only slightly longer.
Her cat had always been lost – it had found her, not the other way around.
Katniss was lost now. Even if by some miracle she came back, she wouldn't be the same. Katniss, her Katniss, the Katniss that sang her to sleep and teased her about her ducktail and hunted and knew pain but could still wipe it from her eyes when her little sister needed her, would be gone. The pain would stay in her eyes, even when her sister needed her.
Because that was what the Capitol did.
It stripped them down to their raw emotions – hunger and pain and fear. The emotions were overwhelming and impossible to control and made control easier – control for the Capitol.
Those emotions had to go somewhere – into the Hunger Games.
Katniss, into the Hunger Games.
Her hatred burned.
But she would not let them win.
The emotions would not overpower her.
She would not be controlled.