-Peeta-

I watch Gale go down as if in slow motion, his arm slipping from around my shoulders, his eyes rolling back in his head as the bullet hits him. Too late, I reach out to grab for him, but my fingers slip off his wrist and he collapses to the floor, hard.

I see the older man up ahead skid to a stop and spin around, his eyes darting from Gale to our pursuers and back again. I know his training must be kicking in; he's ready to leave Gale if it's a hopeless case. But I can tell he doesn't want to.

I turn back to the Peacekeepers, whose shouts of triumph at finally hitting one of their targets continue to echo around the hall. I hold up the gun, even though my arms shake with exhaustion. I put my finger on the trigger, and suddenly I'm not standing in a hallway in a Capitol building shooting at Peacekeepers. I'm back in the Games, and the people running toward me are just an obstacle between me and victory.

I can see red in the corners of my vision and I'm shaking all over now, not just with weariness but with fury. I don't think, I just act.

I fire.

One of them goes down.

I didn't mean to aim for his chest.

But I did.

I killed him.

The gun drops limply to my side. I should have aimed at his legs like before—just to make sure he couldn't follow us, but not enough to kill him. I can hear my own breathing, loud and ragged in my ears.

"Get a hold of yourself," the man with Gale snaps in my ear. I turn to look at him, dazed, as he puts his hands beneath Gale's arms and starts dragging him as quickly as he can down the hall. I go to pick up his feet, but the man glares at me and barks, "We need someone to cover us!"

I'm not sure I can bear to fire this gun again, but if it's a matter between life and death—ours—then I guess I don't have a choice.

I turn and walk backwards, stumbling every few steps, my gun pointed at the Peacekeepers, who aren't running anymore. They advance on us warily, having seen what we are capable of doing. We aren't afraid to kill them. One of us may be wounded—maybe even dead—but that doesn't mean we won't go down without a fight.

"Peeta," one of them says, sending a shock through me. How can he know my name? But of course they do. All of them do. I'm the one they're after. He puts his hands up, like he wants to declare a truce. "We don't have to do it this way. We can just take you back to your room—"

"You mean my prison cell?" I say bitterly, swiveling the gun so that it's aimed at his heart. He stiffens, but he keeps walking slowly toward me. "Stop," I tell him, my finger putting the tiniest bit of pressure on the trigger. He stops, and so do the others.

"No time," the man carrying Gale mutters behind me. "We have to get out of here."

"You go," I say without looking back, my eyes locked on the Peacekeeper's. "Get him out of here."

He makes an annoyed sound. "We're here for you," he growls. "I'm not going to leave you here just to save an expendable life." I don't think he really means that, but it's what he has to say.

I can't resist looking back at him in shock. They're here just for me? Not to blow up Capitol buildings and try to assassinate Snow, but to save my expendable life?

I don't understand. But there's no time to figure it out.

I hear a gunshot and I whip my head around, automatically throwing myself out of the way—I know it's a risky move, that I could be hurling myself right in the path of the bullet, but I just act on instinct. The bullet makes a hole in the wall behind me. I point my gun and fire at the foot of the one whose gun is still raised after shooting. He screams and falls to the ground, clutching the injury.

"Peeta—" the spokesperson of the Peacekeepers says, half pleading and half furious, and then he freezes, pressing a hand to his ear like someone is saying something into his earpiece. Suddenly his expression changes, from surprise to doubt to disbelief. "Yes, sir," he says, and then he motions to the other Peacekeepers.

To my shock, they don't all start firing at me. They lower their guns, slowly and hesitantly, looking confused by the order. I chance a look back at the soldier who stands frozen in the middle of the hall, still gripping Gale under the arms. He looks as astonished as I feel.

Then the group turns and they leave. Just like that.

"I don't understand it," the soldier mutters. "Why are they letting us go?"

I just shake my head, because I don't get it, either. "We should go," I say. "Before they come back with reinforcements or something."

His face turns grim and he nods once, curtly. He lets me take up Gale's feet and we hustle him down the halls, turning corners with as much speed as we can, trying not to jostle him. Gale lets out low moans every now and then, his face glistening with sweat and his blood leaving a trail on the ground behind us.

At least he's not dead. Yet.

"The door's just up ahead," the other man shouts. We pick up the pace—I can barely breathe and my legs feel ready to give out, but his words lend me a little energy, and I manage to keep up with him.

And then there it is—the door to the outside world, a place I haven't been for weeks. My heart jumps just at the sight of it. And then we're through it, and fresh air is filling my lungs, and the wind is rustling my hair, and I'm free.

I'm free.

"Don't stop now!" the man yells. "There are hovercraft waiting for us just at the edge of—"

But I'm not listening anymore. I'm not doing much of anything. I'm vaguely aware of my hands dropping Gale's legs, of my vision blurring into darkness at the corners, and of the rough feeling of the street beneath my knees, then my hands. I think I hear someone shouting at me from above, but it's not important. All that matters now is that I'm free, and I'm so tired, and it hurts everywhere, and I just want to sleep.

So I close my eyes and finally I give up.

-Gale-

The pain comes before complete consciousness. I can feel it in the nightmares that attack my brain—or maybe they aren't nightmares at all, just hallucinations. I hear shouting and I can feel myself moving, I hear the sound of a hovercraft, gunshots, and then something cold beneath my back. And the center of everything is the searing, agonizing pain in my shoulder.

My eyes fly open and I grip the hard floor with my fingers, drawing in a huge, gasping breath, trying to make the pain go away.

Someone leans over me. A doctor. His face looks normal, so maybe he's a rebel, and not from the Capitol. "Just lie still, Gale," he says soothingly. "You're going to be just fine."

I think I remember now. I was shot. The realization makes me shudder, which sends even more pain through my shoulder, making me groan. I fist my hands against the floor and try to concentrate on the sting of my nails digging into my palms, but I barely feel it beneath the bullet wound.

"We have to get it out as soon as possible," the doctor mutters, "or it could get infected."

Hearing him say that makes me feel sick, and it makes the pain worsen, and I have to bite my tongue to keep from crying out.

"We need to get him back to District Thirteen, fast," the doctor says. "I don't have what I need to heal him on this hovercraft."

I shut my eyes and try to breathe evenly as sweat trickles down my face. Someone holds my hand and murmurs things to me, and I let them, even though I don't know who it is. I hold onto their hand so tightly they'll probably have bruises later, but they don't move away, so I keep squeezing.

Everything is just a blur now. I'm only semi-conscious, the pain clouding every thought and every sense. The hovercraft lands. I am lifted onto a stretcher and rushed outside, where people shout at everyone to get out of the way. I see someone else being taken in on a stretcher too, and then another person—how many were wounded in the mission? Did Boggs make it out okay? Did Peeta?

If we didn't get Peeta, I'll have failed this mission. I'll have failed Katniss.

I gasp and grit my teeth as something bumps against my stretcher. I'm being swept through hallways now, people darting out of our way. I hear voices shouting—something like They're back. They take me into a room and slip me onto a table, which hurts so much that I can't keep a little cry from escaping.

This reminds me of when I was whipped raw back in District 12. But this time, there is no Katniss to sit with me, to distract me from the pain. I am alone. The person who held my hand is gone. It's just me and the pain now.

The doctors take off my blood-soaked shirt. One of them shoots something into my arm—something to numb the pain; why didn't they give me that earlier? I wish it would knock me out, but maybe the pain is keeping me awake, or maybe it's not that sort of medication.

"We need to keep you awake for this first part, Gale," one of the doctors tells me. "Can you arch your back for us?"

No, I think, I can't. But the doctor keeps asking and finally I have no choice. I arch my back and swallow down another cry of agony. I turn my head and see one of the doctors—the one from the hovercraft—with a long pair of tweezers. I feel like I'm going to be sick.

Then I hear my name. I turn to look, and I get just the tiniest glance of her before a nurse shuts the door. Katniss? I want to call her back, to demand that she be let in, but my voice has totally deserted me. I will have to deal with this without her.

"Got it," the doctor says triumphantly as a horrible ripple of pain goes through my shoulder, seeming to send a shock through my entire body. "Now we just need to stitch him up and give him some morphling. You're doing great, Gale," he assures me, but I don't feel that way.

I let my body relax back onto the table as a cloud of sleep comes drifting into my brain. I give into it at once, because I don't want to think about anything—the pain, the bullet clutched between the prongs of the tweezers, Katniss's grief when she finds out that I failed to bring Peeta back.

Or, somehow worse, her joy if we did bring him back. Because then she'll be gone, out of my reach forever.

Next chapter is the last! At least, I think so...it's not actually written yet, but I'm pretty sure I'll be able to finish it up in one last chapter. Thank you so much for reading!