Dedication: This chapter is for Akage987. I want to cry for Cinna, too! :(

The Peacekeeper's words are blazing inside my mind. I almost can't believe he's just said something so horrible. I feel my eyes go wide, staring at him.

My fingers? I think in dazed, sickened confusion. What is he talking about? Of course I need my fingers. I need them for everything I do. I need them for being a stylist...

But of course, that's exactly what he means.

He doesn't want me to be able to be a stylist any more.

I feel an icy cold horror clamping down around my heart at that thought, in a grip far tighter and more painful than the sickening pressure of the steel cuffs around my bleeding wrists.

And he wants to make me into an Avox. He doesn't want me to be able to talk, either.

He wants to take away my voice and my fingers!

I'd be completely cut off. Completely trapped. I'd hardly be able to do anything anymore!

And I wouldn't be able to create my designs. It's the same thing I've been afraid of all this time... only worse. Because I wouldn't just be damaged, or wounded, or having to work around some permanently crippling injury. I'd be completely stopped. Completely, utterly unable to create anything at all, ever again in my life.

And now, it's a deliberate, brutal threat. And I have no doubt he would be happy to really do it. He's been getting so very tired of me.

My torturer smiles in cruel satisfaction, seeing my pain. "I thought that would mean something to you," he says. Then, coldly, he switches back to his false gentleness again. "Wouldn't you rather just talk to me, Cinna?" he asks me, pretending to be kind. "This doesn't have to happen, you know. If you'll just answer my questions..."

I almost can't even focus on his words. I'm too sick with horror at what he's threatened me with. I desperately want to stop thinking about it, but I can't. I'm imagining it more clearly with every second that passes. And it's so incredibly horrible. How could I even live? What would this do to me? But of course, I know. And I'm absolutely panicking inside with the knowledge of how horrible it would be.

An Avox with no fingers? I'd go mad.

And all at once, I realize that this game isn't over. I'm still in the arena, and I don't need to lie here panicking.

I need to fight.

"Do it," I say harshly. "The Mockingjay is already in flight, and nothing you can do to me will bring her down."

The Peacekeeper stares at me, and for a moment he actually looks surprised. I don't think this is the answer he was expecting. But then he shakes his head.

"Nice try," he says in a cold, knowing voice. "But you're scared, stylist."

He names my life's passion like it's an insult. I don't think I quite manage to keep the hurt from my eyes. And he's right about the other part of what he said. I am scared. I'm so terrified I can hardly think. But I need to keep focusing. I need to fight this.

Only how can I? It's so horrible! I'm desperately fighting for control as a massive wave of panic threatens to pull me under. If he does this...

Cinna, just hang on, I tell myself in the middle of my rising terror. Somehow I've got to hang on!

And on top of everything else, my burns are still hurting me so badly that I'm almost screaming from the pain. And I'm so exhausted, and so terrified. Of everything! I don't want to be here anymore! I don't want to face any more days of this torture!

I don't want him to turn me into an Avox and cut off my fingers and leave me in agony for the rest of my life, unable to speak, and far worse, unable to create...

How can I fight so many things at once?

I have to. Somehow I have to!

The Peacekeeper's voice breaks into my thoughts. He's gone back to being openly cruel. There's no attempt at any false kindness now.

"Cinna," he says warningly. "You really might want to think about talking to me. Very soon."

Leaving unspoken, this time, his terrible threat:

"Before you're not able to."

And then, after his men do their usual tasks of caring for my body, all three of them finally leave me alone for the night. Only this time, for some reason, they don't turn the light off when they leave.

For some reason?

No. I shake my head a little, shivering with horror. It's far too easy to figure out.

Because now, in spite of my exhaustion, I'm feeling more wide awake than ever.

It's so horrible. I'm so tired, and so scared and still hurting so very badly, and now I don't even know if I'm going to be able to sleep at all.

Which, obviously, is exactly what they wanted.

I'm still lying facedown with the hospital gown pulled aside, with my back exposed and vulnerable. Every slight movement of air across my burns makes me jump, or try to, tensing up with the unimaginable spikes of brutal pain.

But my heart feels even more vulnerable. And the wounds that my torturer has put there are a thousand, million times more painful.

My hands close into fists at my sides. I feel myself running my thumbs across the tops of my fingers, imagining what it would be like if they weren't there. Imagining the agony of knowing that I would never be able to create again in my life.

I feel my hands clenching tighter. I feel them shaking with tension and fear. It's like I'm trying to physically hold on to my fingers, to protect them. But I know there's no way I could, if the Peacekeeper decides to do this. If President Snow lets him. There's no way I'd be able to stop him.

It's such a massively helpless feeling. Now I'm imagining the Peacekeeper's men grabbing my hands, brutally forcing open my tight, panicked fists. Wrenching my fingers open, then holding them flat against the table, no matter how hard I struggle. There would be no way I could fight their strength. No way I could protect myself at all.

Just like there never is.

And then the Peacekeeper would get out one of his knives, maybe that horrible one from the first day, and start cutting me...

But not just cutting me to wound me. Cutting me to permanently rip apart my life.

I barely sleep. There's no way I can stop thinking about the Peacekeeper's threat, not for one second.

I'm so horrified.

How could I live without being a stylist?

It's the most terrifying night I've ever spent in my life.

My next morning is even more terrible. Even before I'm fully awake, I'm remembering the awful threat the Peacekeeper made last night.

My fingers!

Again, I feel them clenching at my sides. Again, I feel the total helplessness and vulnerability of knowing that if he decides to cut my fingers off, there's no way I'll be able to stop him. And no way I'll ever be able to create another style, ever again in my life.

I'm so very scared...

I feel like I'm about four years old.

My eyes close again on their own, and I feel my whole face shaking as if I'm about to cry. It's so terrifying. How could he even say this to me?

I just desperately want to be protected. To curl up and let someone hold me, and reassure me, and tell me that I'm going to be okay.

But of course, that's nowhere near what really happens.

Instead, when I hear the door opening a few minutes later, it's the Peacekeeper and his men coming back to hurt me again.

Of course it is.

They're probably the only people in the world, aside from President Snow, who even know I'm in this room. Maybe the only people who even know I'm still alive.

The Peacekeeper doesn't carry out his threat right away. But he also doesn't tell me he's decided not to do it. He just goes right back to his usual routine of torturing me and questioning me, as if he never said that at all. But I know he remembers. Every once in a while, he looks at me with this horrible expression of cruelty on his face, and I know.

He's still threatening me. He's just doing it without words.

In the evening, the men turn me over onto my back again. My burns have gotten a little better, but I almost jump off the table in agony when they first brush against the stinging, medicated pad that I'm still lying on.

I can't get away from the pain, though. The Peacekeeper puts his hands on my chest and presses me down even harder, driving the pain of that medicine deeply into my burns. He ruthlessly holds me down while his men fasten me back into my restraints.

Then he steps back and just looks at me. I stare back at him in trapped, wild panic, thrashing as hard as I can in my bonds. I can't keep my body still! I'm so frightened by this pain! Even though I know it's useless, I'm still fighting to escape from the agony. But I can't.

Of course I can't.

I know he can see the fear and horror in my eyes. He almost smiles for a second, but then he shakes his head angrily and turns away.

Once again, he doesn't turn the light off when he leaves. Between that and the sharp new pain of the stinging medicine that's pressing against my burns, it's another very long and horrible night.

For the next several days, my torturers attack me as viciously as they can. But it almost doesn't matter, because that's pretty much what they've been doing anyway.

Their faces are hard with anger, though. It's starting to really frighten me.

Every night, they keep leaving the light on. It's making it very hard for me to sleep... and very easy for me to think about how frightened I am.

I guess President Snow still thinks I might break. That must be why he hasn't approved the Peacekeeper's awful plan yet. But how long can it possibly be until Snow changes his mind? How long before he decides I'm really no use at all to him any more, and lets the Peacekeeper go ahead with his attack?

How long before they really do take away my chance to still be a stylist?

I'm waking up every morning more and more terrified. I'm still trying to fight the way I've been fighting. I'm trying to stay calm and collected, and for now, at least outwardly, it's working. But that awful, heart-freezing threat is always hanging over my head, and I'm terrified of it every minute.

I can't stop thinking about what could happen if they do it. I'd lose everything I care about. I wouldn't be able to design clothes anymore, or do anything else I do as a stylist. I couldn't do anyone's hair. I couldn't do makeup. I couldn't even work on a prep team! I couldn't even try to tell anyone else what I had in mind, and see them make their own versions of my ideas, possibly brilliant but not really mine...

I couldn't talk to Katniss.

I couldn't talk to anyone, really, but it's Katniss I'm thinking about now. We have so much joy in talking with each other. Even with all she's been through, even with everything I'm going through now, I think we could still find that joy. But not if I can't talk.

If I can't talk and I have no fingers, I won't be able to communicate. I'll be trapped inside my own mind. There's too much I want to do, to say, to experience, for me to be able to endure that thought. What would I do if I couldn't create, or communicate, or anything?

I know what I'd do. I was right when I first thought it, just after he threatened me that awful day when I was so worn out from fighting the pain of the burns.

I'd go mad.

It's just such an awful fear. I can't stop myself from thinking about it. What if they do it? What if they really cut off my fingers and silence my voice, and leave me defenseless and trapped inside my own mind?

I'd be so hurt. So massively hurt that I almost can't even imagine it. Except I can imagine it clearly. That's why I'm so hurt right now.

And that's why I'm so scared.

I'm terribly scared. I'm even more scared than hurt. Because no matter how bad it is to imagine it, I know it would be a thousand, thousand times worse if they really did it.

I wouldn't know until it's too late just how bad that agony would be. And then I'd be trapped in it forever.

And they really might do it. There's no way I'd be able to stop them, if that's what they decide to do.

So I'm just trapped here thinking about it. Every day. All through everything else they're doing to me. And I'm completely terrified.

Late one evening, as his men put away the drawer of weapons, the Peacekeeper walks to the right front corner of the room. He opens up that little panel on the wall and, just like before, reaches in to do something with the small, unseen controls.

Right away, my attention is completely focused on what he's doing. I hardly notice as his assistants take care of my body.

It's that television again! I think. I'm still exhausted from my day of pain, but suddenly I'm also feeling very alert. He's going to show me something else!

I'm actually sort of hopeful this time. Will I see more of what the rebellion has been doing? Has something else happened that my torturers will want to question me about? Is Panem breaking free of Snow's grasp even more?

I certainly hope so.

The television silently lowers into place. My torturer reaches up and switches it on, just like he did the other two times. When he showed me Katniss in the arena... and Katniss as the Mockingjay.

I expect to see Katniss on the screen this time too. But as the display comes on and I see a familiar figure standing there, my whole body freezes in shock.

It isn't Katniss. It's Portia. And she's standing there live, right now, on a screen framed by the familiar blue borders of the Capitol's evening news.

The regular evening broadcast. And tonight, it seems, Portia has been selected to be the featured story. And my torturer is showing this to me. But why?

Why is he showing me Portia?

My mind doesn't want to answer that question at first. I don't want to think about what the Peacekeeper's reason could be. But I can't quite manage to deny it. Especially when I see that Portia is standing in front of President Snow's mansion, with her prep team standing nervously beside her. Especially when I see that all four of them have their hands behind their backs, standing in a stiff, slightly awkward way that tells me they're being restrained...

Especially when I see the fear that Portia is so carefully hiding in her eyes. And the much more open, though still controlled, looks of near-panic on the faces of her prep team.

And when the camera pulls back, showing the half-circle of armed Peacekeepers who are standing in front of Portia and her team, I can't possibly keep myself from understanding anymore.

My torturer is showing me Portia for the only reason he ever does anything. He's doing it to hurt me.

Because something terrible is about to happen to her.

I'm completely horrified. Why have they arrested Portia? And why in the world is her team involved? Even if someone found out she was part of the rebellion, I know her prep team never had anything to do with it...

I shudder in sick horror. What difference would that make to President Snow? It's just the same as how I needed to make sure my own team was out of danger before I presented the Mockingjay dress.

They didn't have to be involved in anything. They only had to be associated with Portia.

And now, to my greater horror, I'm hearing a cold voice coming from the screen. The camera display switches to another view, showing the puffy face of President Snow.

"Given the unpleasantness that unfortunately took place during our earlier broadcast," the president says, "I have decided that the services of this stylist and her team will no longer be required."

He narrows his eyes, making them look even colder and more snakelike than usual. "In fact," he says with no emotion at all in his voice, "I have decided to make that permanent. Peacekeepers?"

The scene switches back to Portia, her team, and their guards. President Snow's voice continues from offscreen.

"Please do me a favor and eliminate these rebels, immediately."

My breath catches in my throat. It's exactly the order I expected to hear, but I was trying desperately not to believe it. Now I don't have any choice.

Portia!

I'm barely aware of my torturers standing over me. The Peacekeeper has left his spot beneath the television and is standing here with his men. All three of them are staring at my face, but I don't care.

They aren't doing anything to physically hurt me right now. I guess they want me to be able to focus on feeling this deeper pain. As if anything they could do to me could possibly distract me from what I'm seeing on the television screen.

I see Portia's raw agony behind her carefully controlled face as she's forced to watch her prep team being put to death, one by one. It's wrenchingly painful for me too. I know these people. Portia and I were the leaders, but all eight of us - her team and mine included - were one bigger team. We were not just colleagues, but friends. We've worked together so many times. Now we never will again.

Finally it's Portia's turn. I clench my teeth and force myself to keep watching the screen. It's almost unbearably painful, but I would never be able to forgive myself for the rest of my life if I didn't watch now.

Tall and dignified, Portia stands with her head held high. Her worst grief has already happened, with the deaths of her team. Now she is only facing her own death. I can see that it bothers her, but she's facing it with her usual quietly forceful pride.

I flash back through memories of my years of working with Portia. We met when I was a student, just learning to shape my childhood passion for design into something more knowledgeable and grounded. She wasn't one of my teachers, but she took an interest in my work and my studies anyway. Casually, easily, we became friends. Something about her made it impossible for me, young as I was, to ever feel intimidated by her. Portia always treated me as an equal, despite her much greater experience.

After my studies were finished, we naturally found ourselves working as partners. I continued to learn more from her than she knew. She was my mentor, though she never thought of herself that way. And my friend. Always my friend. Now I'm going to have to watch her die, and it's breaking my heart.

This is what Katniss would feel if she lost Gale.

Silent tears are running down my face. For once, I refuse to hold them back. Let my torturers broadcast this on every TV in Panem if they like. My grief for Portia is no secret. My tears can only honor her.

My thoughts are back in the present. Portia is standing on the low marble platform, her arms still pinned behind her. Raising her head just a fraction more, she suddenly gives the camera a very intense look. I stare at her. She's looking straight into my eyes.

Slowly, Portia winks her left eye. Then her right. Then, and it's small but brilliant, she smiles.

My heart almost stops. It's our private signal. Portia and I use that to express approval, congratulations, admiration for a job magnificently done, in public places where we don't want to discuss our work out loud. No one else knows. Not even our prep teams knew about it. No one but me can tell that she's giving me a thunderous round of applause.

I stare, feeling my eyes go wide, not breathing until my body takes over and makes me draw in air. Even then, I hardly notice it. I'm too stunned by the impact of what Portia is saying to me.

This means she believes I am still alive. She believes I am defiant and unbroken. That I am being tortured and interrogated, and that I am still resisting. She is so proud for me. Portia is telling me that she knows I am strong, she knows I can do this, and she won't give up on me.

She isn't speaking, but she's speaking anyway.

Awesome job, Cinna.

I still don't make a sound. But my last sight of her is obscured by my suddenly blinding flow of tears.

After the broadcast is over, my torturers return the television to its place in the ceiling and leave me alone for the night. The light is still on, just the way it always is these days. I'm staring up at the white ceiling above my table, horrified and miserable.

I can feel the lines of my tears slowly drying on my face, and how they're still wet where they've run down along both sides of my neck to soak into the pad behind my shoulders. It's about the only physical sensation I'm able to really focus on. I'm still in a lot of pain from all the wounds of my torture, but how can I even think about that right now? And how can I possibly care?

I'm fighting so hard to handle my grief at Portia's death. It's almost impossible for me to accept that she's really been killed. Just like that.

No... not just killed. Murdered.

Portia and her prep team have just been murdered, right in front of my eyes.

I'm grieving for all of them, but it's Portia who was my dearest friend. How can I help it if it's her death that's the most painful for me?

Portia! My friend!

My eyes squeeze shut in total misery.

And then, a brief flash of memory brings me one more stab of despairing pain. Maybe it's a small thing, but it doesn't feel small right now.

Before the Quarter Quell, Katniss told me she'd forgotten to say goodbye to Portia. I promised I would tell her. Now I never will, even if I survive myself. Because Portia is dead.

Portia is dead.

I feel my tears almost starting to spill over again at that thought, but I restrain them. There's no point in crying again right now. And just like any tribute in any arena, it won't do for me to show too much weakness. Not if I want to survive.

And speaking of surviving...

I feel one more kind of hopelessness threatening to overwhelm me.

I don't know anymore if I'm even going to be able to do that. Because I'm not sure if my torturers are going to let me.

The message they're sending me is more and more clear.

The nightlock. The terrible threats they've made to me. And now, forcing me to watch Portia's execution.

It's perfectly clear what they're trying to say.

"We are getting so tired of you. And as a stylist, you're expendable. We don't need you for anything, if you're not going to give us the information we want."

It's a terribly frightening message. Because I still so very desperately want to live. And it's starting to look like they have no intention of letting me do that.

I could really die here. They could really kill me after all, no matter how hard I'm fighting to live. And it could be very, very soon.

If they don't do something worse to me instead...

It's chilling me to the core. I feel so frozen.

"We don't need you for anything..."

It's so terrible.

I realize I'm just lying here shivering, feeling like I'm going to freeze to death.

I feel so very, very cold.

Author's Note: I mentioned once before that I was changing the timing of a couple of canon events. This is one of them. In my version, Portia and her team were executed the night Peeta warned District 13 about the bombing, rather than the night he and Johanna and Annie were rescued. That difference may not seem important to my story's plotline so far, but it will be. You'll see!