I follow Johanna out of the room as a mechanical voice informs us, "eighteen minutes until Launch." I try to read her expression, but she's as blank as a sheet of paper. I guess my mentor learned to control her emotions after enough Capitol visits.

Johanna leads me into a small room with a chair and couch that I didn't know was on the hovercraft. She motions me toward the couch and sits on the edge of the chair, looking serious. I sink into the plush fabric and look at her attentively. Something's coming, I'm sure of it.

"I've already told you that the arena changes you," she said. "You worry about things that weren't worries before, and get scared of what never sought to hurt you before the Games. Sometimes, it just gets to be too much."

Johanna draws in a sharp breath as if fighting for control, her eyes fixed on a memory from another time, another place.

"I was terrified. Part of it was paranoia from being in the Hunger Games, and constantly looking over my shoulder, as if someone was still going to try to come and kill me. Part of it was the new knowledge about how Haymitch Abernathy's family was killed after his act of rebellion in the Games. I thought that what I did, pretending to be weak and a fool, might be against the Gamemaker's wishes. So I did it."

I stay silent, absorbing every word, wondering where this is headed. Johanna begins to tell a story, every single particle of information sticking in my brain.

"It was about a week and a half after I had been crowned victor. I had found out by talking to other ex-tributes about Haymitch and his family. I was appalled by what I heard, but I never told anyone. Not my family, not even my closest friends.

"It got me thinking, that could be me. I wasn't sure what an act of rebellion really was at that time, but I was positive that what I had done, masquerading myself and playing the entire Panem population as fools wasn't acceptable. I had heard rumors about the Capitol citizens, that many weren't happy because of lost bets and the disappointment of me beating out the favorite tribute to win. I was obviously not sorry that I won, but I was scared-scared that what I did was unforgivable.

"I loved them all-my mother and father and two brothers. I know a lot of families fight, but my siblings and I got along very well. One was sixteen, one was ten. I was fourteen, the middle child."

Johanna seems to get teary eyed here, something I didn't know was possible.

"I thought that what the Capitol might do to them was so horrible that I would never allow it. I couldn't let my family go through torture or a painful death. So I took matters into my own hands.

"I had a friend whose parents owned the medicine shop. I pretended like I was merely interested in their work and business and questioned them until I found out which medicines were poisonous.

"When no one was looking, I found a substance that would do. It wouldn't hurt them, just ease their lives forever. I slipped it into my bag, and made up an excuse for why I had to leave her house. On the way home, I used my entire savings to buy a container of orange juice, a delicacy my family could never afford.

"That night, when they were all in bed, I mixed the sweet drink with the poison. I planned on telling them that I had found an orange tree, and handmade the juice. They wouldn't suspect a thing.

"The next morning, I carried out my plan, then placed the evidence so that it would seem like an accident, not sabotage. The Peacekeepers asked hundreds of questions, but I stayed innocent. And so nobody ever suspected a thing."

Nothing sinks in. It's like my mind completely blanked out. I am unable to form any thoughts, or do anything but stare at Johanna. She's crying now.

"I-I never wanted to hurt them," she sniffles. "I was just so scared for them. I couldn't even imagine what the Capitol might do to my family, so I protected them. But I miss them, like you wouldn't believe. They were my whole life, and now...there's no one left I love."

Johanna's looking at me, very determined now, even through her tears.

"You see what I mean?" she asks. "Nothing's the same. You have to fight it. Don't go down the same pathway that I did. Because once they're gone, they're never coming back. Look at me. I'm rich, I'm famous, and I have everything I could ever want. Except my family. The ones who loved me despite all I put them through." Her voice breaks. "They loved me unconditionally."

A sharp voice makes us both jump. Nidea's coming in the room, telling us that the Launch is in seven minutes. I move with robot motions, unable to think or process. Nidea is literally pulling me down the hall because I am so immobilized by the chilling story I was just told.

Johanna never seemed that insane. Sure, she had her weird moments, but doesn't everyone? But the fact that she would...

My thoughts stop abruptly. I must be in a dream. This absolutely cannot be real. Or can it? Because, as much as I hate to admit it, I can see where Johanna came from in her fear of the Capitol hurting her family. The Capitol does crazy things, or so I've been heard. But...to go that far? That seems a little bit too far. Or, you know, way too far.

The mechanical voice tells us it's time for me to enter the small glass tube that will lift me into the arena. But once I am in, I feel claustrophobic. I'm starting to regain my paranoia. I start to feel I will suffocate, and then Johanna comes back into the room. I can't hear anything through the soundproof barrier, but I can read her lips as she whispers, "don't let them change you."

Which is the last thing my brain recognizes before I am lifted into the arena.