A/N: One more!
And really, wasn't he always the one to kill? - pg. 327
If she wins, her people will sing in the streets and her mentor will get drunk off expensive wine and fruity Capitol drinks instead of the white liquor he consumes like it's fire and he's frozen inside, and if she doesn't, they'll shrug and say oh well, she went farther than almost every single tribute from Twelve and that'll be enough for them. But he, oh, if he comes home now with Clove's blood on his hands (and he didn't kill her, but he didn't save her, either, and that's almost as bad), the Victors will sneer at him and how the one year they make an exception for you two to come home, you let an outlier kill her and you didn't even get him back until a few days later and the civilians will cheer the arrival of another year of glory and fortune but not him, never him, because Clove was a quarry-girl and she belonged to them and they loved her for it but he's never been anything other than the Academy and he'll never apologize for it, never, and if he dies, then they'll spit on the ground and say what a damned shame that boy couldn't take down two lovesick weaklings to save his own hide and he'll only be remembered as the boy who couldn't bring them victory when they needed it.
There's no second place in the Games, the trainers liked to say, back when all you had to do to win was be the best, there's only the last to die. And that won't be him. He'd crack open the earth to save himself and damn the consequences. The only person he's ever cared about, the only one he ever loved, is dead, and now he's got nothing left to lose. You wanted a monster for your fairy-tale, so you made one, he thinks, tightening his chokehold and smirking through the blood in his mouth as he watches the desperation slide like ice down the girl's face. It's just too bad you forgot to give him a heart.
