Chapter 7

I cannot sleep the entire night. My eyelids refuse to get heavy, and all I can do is bawl. Peeta is holding me tightly; sniffling, comforting me.

"Why?" I weep. "Why our kids?"

"I don't know, Katniss," Peeta answers me in a quivering voice, "but it'll be okay. If they get reaped we'll just volunteer. We'll take their place."

He's right. There is no way for our children to be sent into the arena. They either reap us or we volunteer for them. It's simple. But what happens to the children who don't have a parent to fill their spot? I don't care who I have killed or what I have done, but I'll never sink so low as to kill a child. I wonder if Peeta is thinking the same thing, but I'm not going to ask. I am going to try my hardest to cherish probably the last night we will ever spend together.

"I love you," I whisper to him.

"I love you too," he answers, and he finds my hand. Then we lie there, for the rest of the night, eyes open, fingers entwined.

The sun rises high in the sky on this dreadful morning. I have to force myself to get up, knowing that if I'm not in the town square by two o'clock, the peacekeepers, assuming there will be some, will come and kill me anyway. Maybe they should kill me, I think, but I rule that thought out knowing that then there would be no one to go in for Rose.

I open the closet to retrieve my family's reaping clothes. I see the dress I wore when I was sixteen. I'll just wear it again, for old time's sake, I think bitterly, and when I pull it from the hanger, a smaller dress falls to the ground. Prim's. When I see it, I am not sad. I am livid. I pick it off of the floor and throw it back in the closet. The Capitol took my sister away from me, and they cannot have my children.

I storm out the door with the simple dress adorning my body, wearing my hair in the braid I always wear. It is not time to go to the town square yet, and I'm not going there. I pass all of the little shops with their shades shut and curtains closed. Maybe everyone is upset because of the reaping. Maybe they feel sympathy for my family.

I reach the place where the tall fence surrounding district twelve used to stand and cross into the woods. I hike for miles, and then I see our spot, the old rock ledge. It is no longer a dream. Today is reaping day. Only, today Gale will not be here to sound off about the Capitol with me. No. He's off at two, probably with a family of his own. I wonder if he is dreading the reaping just as much as I am. I wonder if he's even thinking about me. I'm not going to cry this time, though. I just stand there and study the boulder. Making a note of it in my memory, for this will be the last time I see it.

I don't exactly know how to say goodbye to a rock, but in my heart I know it is much more than that. It is where I spent many days with my best friend. It is the place I hunted to keep my family alive. It is my favorite place in the world. So I say goodbye to it in the most honorable manner I can. I hold the three middle fingers of my left hand to my lips, and then back at it.

"Thank you," I say almost silently.

It is probably two o'clock by now. I'm hoping Peeta has gotten the children ready. He probably knows that I couldn't bear to do it. I emerge from the woods, and sure enough there is a crowd of people waiting in the town square.

One more time, I think.

I take my spot in the roped off section, where I find Peeta, Haymitch, and the children. No one says anything. There is nothing to say. It seems like an eternity passes while we are waiting, but finally a young, chipper twenty-three-year-old walks onto the stage wearing a dress made completely of silver senquins that is entirely too revealing. Cornelias.

"Hello everyone!" she gushes.

Everyone already hates her. I know I do.

"I know all of you are probably a little upset at the Capitol right now," she fumbles over her words. "I mean I would be to, but rules are rules," she says, putting a big, fake frown on her face.

All of District twelve stares at the girl like she is an idiot.

"I hate it. I really do," she tries to persuade us, but we know that she could care less. This does not affect her in the slightest way. I can't believe how naive we've been. Winning the war… it was all an illusion. We will never be free of this living Hell. The Capitol will win and the districts will lose surely until the end of time.

"Umm, okay. Shall we get started?"

Silence

"All right. Ladies first," she says.

Usually at a reaping my heart is pounding and I feel anxiety but not this one. I know I am going back into the arena one way or the other so why should I be nervous? She lifts one card out of the bowl with her silver manicured nails. The other is left lying there alone.

"And the female tribute from district 12 is…" she pauses for dramatic effect, "Katniss Everdeen!" she squeals as if I have won a raffle.

No one claps. No one does anything except pierce the brainless girl with their eyes. I exit the roped off area and climb the stairs slowly to the stage for the third time now. As I'm mounting it, I think of all the children who are probably being reaped this very moment, the ones whose parents are dead, sick, or even too stubborn to volunteer. I'm thinking of the innocent ones who will be put into a death tournament with vicious adults. None of them have ever even seen a Hunger Games, how on earth will they handle this? I won't dare tell my children, but this will be my third and final Hunger Games. I have no intention of returning home.

I reach the top and look over the audience. Then I look beyond, to the mountains of my district.

I'll see you soon, Dad.

I can hear Cornelias's annoying voice buzzing in one of my ears, but I cannot make out any words she is saying. I don't care what she has to say.

Please shut up. Please shut up.

And finally, she does, but to my horror I hear a new voice and it's coming from the audience.

"I volunteer as tribute."