Well. This is the chapter. THE chapter, the one that I may end up dying for. Aghhh.

Chapter 7: War

I wake up and look around, sensing something is wrong. Johanna, Beetee, Effie and Anna are still asleep, but when I sit up the bed creaks and Finnick opens his eyes. He looks up and me, and for just a moment we lock eyes. He can feel it too. Something is defidently wrong.

Quietly we stand up. We swerve in and out of the others and peek out the windows. That is where we find what is wrong. Two other flying machines are keeping a perfect pace with us. I study it carefully and it only takes a moment for me to realize what is happening. I stare for a full minute. Right then, President Snow looks out the window and right into my eyes.

***

When I woke up I felt tension in the air. There was no noise. I get up and look around. Nothing LOOKS wrong. I get up and get out of my room. I look out the window in the hallway and I am filled with horror. For outside, looking up from his helicopter with a malicious smile I have come to hate, is President Snow. And he was climbing onto our ship.

I pull the fire alarm, hoping that Haymitch, wherever he was, would hear it, and get help.

***

The fire alarm goes off. Somebody must have pulled it to wake everyone up. Wake up they do. They wake up and try to make since of the situation, but I can tell it's not working. Anna gets up and looks around for Finnick.

I can hear Katniss at that moment. I swear I hear her. It was a long and mournful cry for me. I realize she thinks I'm on that ship.

I don't care what Haymitch says, I run to her as fast as I can. I twist through halls until I come to my favorite place on the ship, her room.

Except she's not there.

***

Haymitch comes to my room quickly, for this I am glad.

I've been shouting through the window for Peeta, hoping that he can hear me and know that hope is on its way. But it's not. Because Haymitch drags me away without a word. He drags me away from my last chance of getting to Peeta.

"Listen Katniss," he says, very soberly. There was no beer or liquor on the ship, so he couldn't drink. "you are in severe danger. You need to hide. Trust no one. Only your mother, Prim, and me. I don't care what they say they are not on your side. I'm gonna be here for you sweetheart," he says, and for once I know he means it. But the next thing he says betrays it all. " Peeta will be here for you too. Now hide," he says, and starts to run away and then pulls me into a hug, seems to debate something, then says "I love you." Then runs away faster than I ever thought he could run.

***

I want to run, but I'm frozen. Haymitch said to run... but I know that Peeta is looking for me, no matter where he is.

I stay right where I am. It was a big mistake. Soon men are surrounding me with guns and everything around me hurts.

It doesn't take me long to realize that I am surrounded and about to be taken away. The only thing that terrifies me is that before I know it someone's gun is pointed at me and he's pulling the trigger. A sound I never thought I would hear is made. It's the kind of noise you make when you really know your greatest love is about to die. Except the sound is not coming from who I expected it to.

In what seems to take an eternity, Haymitch steps in front of me and screams a long, piercing battle scream, daring anybody to touch me. Then the man pulls the trigger.

***

Katniss isn't going to run. Damn it. I quickly turn around, and see big men with big guns pointing their weapons, at my sweet little fighter. Katniss. I love her like a father, I really do. I start to run faster and I see the man about to pull the trigger. I run in front of Katniss and scream.

"Haymitch! Haymitch NOOO!" She gives a murderous yell.

I try to spill out one last sentence, and explain why I have to do this, but then my world goes black forever.

***

When I finally find Katniss Haymitch is laying down next to her with his head in her lap. I could barely breath. Everything looked a little bit blurry, and I realized it was tears. I tried to tell myself that at least Katniss was okay, but I can't fool myself.

Effie, Anna, Finnick, and Johanna are standing behind her silently. I don't think she even realizes they're there.

Finally she stops crying. I hear her near silent whispers. "It's my fault, all my fault."

I can't take it another second. I go over and put my hand on her shoulder. She looks up. I want her to jump up and hug me, but instead she slaps me real hard across the face.

I was stunned. She talked furiously.

"How could you? How could you do this to me? You were alive the whole time? YOU AND ALL THE OTHERS?! Peeta how could you?!"

I was silent. She was silent. The dead soldiers littering the floor were silent. Everyone and everything... silent. Silence can hit you even harder than words sometimes. I hated it.

Then she pulls me in and gives me a big hug. I would rather she kiss me, but anything besides a slap was good.

"Why?" she whispered.

"To make you stronger. He said we needed to..." my voice trailed off when I tried to mention Haymitch. For a long time we just sat there holding each other.

When we finally broke apart, it was only because President Snow walked into the room.

He was holding a knife.

***

Snow has a crazed look in his eyes.

I don't know why but I find myself standing over Haymitch.

"Don't you touch any of us. Not even those not breathing. If you do the whole country will be against you. You know it's true," I say, sounding braver than I feel.

"They are already against me. The world is against me, they kicked me out. I would have died if I had not resigned, but I swore on my life I would kill you and your little pet, this boy with the blond hair. I swore I would. I will die here killing you if I must. But you will die. You are no threat to me, SWEETHEART."

The pain I feel is as bad... maybe worse, than when I found out Peeta had been on board all along. I run as fast as I possibly can at him, and when Peeta sees he's raised his knife, He grabs me and squeezes my arm, but the scream I let out when he grabs me comes from the heart. It comes from way below my chest in the pits of my heart, where all the sadness and sorrow in your life wells up. It came from the place where Haymitch now rests. It came from the place where the hunger games still took place. It came from my mouth, a loud, terrifying scream.

President Snow was completely, downright, Unfazed. He laughed at me.

I hated him. Hate, my teacher had told me once, meant that you really truly wanted somebody to die. When I said that I hated Effie and Finnick, and sometimes Haymitch, I never meant it. But when I said I hated President Snow I meant it from the place as deep as where my scream had come from.

I filled with such hate that I was able to break free from Peeta. I jumped on top of Snow and pounded him in the face. I worked him and beat him even as he cut me with his knife. I got my hand on the blade and tugged as hard as I could. I did not feel the pain of the cut it gave me, only the contempt of the feeling of getting it away from him. I grabbed his hair and was about to hit his head on the ground when he lunged forward, grabbed my neck and knocked me against the wall.

I could not breathe. The last thing I saw was Snow as he fell with the others on top of him, Effie holding his knife.

Some say that when you're knocked out you don't dream, but I know now that that's not true, because since fainting only happens because you're a step too close to death, you see your loved ones telling you goodbye for the last time, then sending you back down until it was time for you.

Haymitch and Rue came to greet me with smiles on their faces. No words were exchanged, just motions. We hugged, and then they pointed to what must be my body, where I needed to return.

That's when I came to. I looked up and saw Peeta above me pushing my hair out of the way.

He held me as I cried and I could not have been more terrified. Snow was dead he said. Heroic Effie had stabbed him. It shocked me that she had so much courage she had always hidden, and I was relieved she was okay. When he finished telling me the story, I cried more, and at some point, with Peeta still at my side, I cried myself to sleep. I was so relieved everything was okay. At long last, the miserable Hunger Games may be over. It was a whole new war.

But now there was a chance that it could be won.

Ok. Give my cousin full credit for that chapter. BUT IT MAKES THE STORY GOOD! You know it does… don't you EVEN deny it.

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