As always, huge props to the splendid EStrunk for all her beta help

And to all reviewers, old and new- thank y'all so much for your response! I've been walking on cloud nine all week thanks to you guys.

Chapter 25.

It takes me a minute to realize that the cameras are going down, that the reporter is snapping orders, her former ditziness vanished now that she's off the air. I guess the interview's over.

The awe is fading just enough for my thoughts to clear. I'm able to turn from Mareen to the situation around it. To how I was kept prisoner and Catiline set this whole thing up. Because there's no doubt in my mind that it was set up. Slowly, piece by piece, I look at what happened and realize that my work isn't done yet. I need to do one more thing before I can allow myself to grieve.

I go up to the interviewer and tap her on the shoulder. The glare she shoots at me says quite plainly that she doesn't want me there, but I jump in before she can shoo me away.

"I need to speak to Catiline."

She laughs. "You think I can get you permission to talk to him? I'm not that important, girl."

"He gave you that script. Made you ask me those questions." My voice is still calm. I'm not looking for a fight. "He picked you especially to make things harder for me. But whether you talk to him or not doesn't really matter, now." I look up at the ceiling, and address the hidden cameras I know the room is laced with. "You know I'm asking for you. I'd like to speak with you about our deal."

The woman is gaping at me as if I'm insane. I raise my eyebrows at her. "Pass it on if you can. And in the meantime, I'd like some privacy."

She huffs and spends an extra five minutes sweeping around the room, deliberately knocking things over and making as much noise as she can. But when I just sit there and refuse to let it faze me, she finally stomps out, slamming the door behind her.

Almost as soon as she's gone, the door bursts open, but it's Bren who storms in, not Catiline. His look is desperate, afraid, and it's clear from the way he's watching me that he's afraid I've gone over the edge—that the insanity that's hovered at the edges of my mind for over a year might finally have won out. I give him a nod, but my composure stays steady, and I don't meet his eyes. If I look either right or left, I'm going to break down, and I can't do that. Not when Mareen would have wanted me to do this one last thing. "Bren. Sit down."

He does, still watching me like I'm a bomb that might go off any second. His voice has a compassionate note to it that I haven't heard since before the Games began. "Liv? Are you . . . how are you feeling?"

I grimace. My sister just died. How does he think I'm feeling? But I can't let the grief take over. Not because of some misplaced sense of pride or even a desire to fight the Capitol by reacting differently than they expect. No, I need to live up to the standards Mareen set, and that means being strong when it's called for. But it also means being honest.

"I've been better," I admit. "But there's something I need to do. I'm speaking to Catiline."

Bren opens his mouth, but I speak up before he can try to talk me out of it. "Tell me something. I was trapped in a room without the TVs right up until my interviews, so I didn't see. Could Catiline have made this . . ." My voice chokes off. No! I've got to make it through this! I swallow and keep going. "Did he make this happen?"

"Liv, even if he did, you can't go looking for revenge with Kev—"

"It's not about revenge," I say honestly. "Nor about trying to spite him. I just want to make sure I have my facts straight. He was supposed to protect them. Could he have prevented this?"

I accidentally meet his gaze for a second, and he lowers his eyes before I can. I nod, breathing deeply, forcing myself to stay steady. I'm not reassuring myself that I can do this. I am promising Mareen that I will.

"Do you want me to leave?"

I realize that I've shut my eyes, jerk them open to look at Bren. "What?"

"You just . . . things are complicated enough between you and Catiline without adding me to the mix. If you think you'd do better without me there. . . ."

"No, I—I want you to stay." To be honest, now that he's here, I don't think I can do this without Bren to watch my back. At the same time, though. . . . "But if you could—I need you to let me do the talking here, alright? No matter what he or I say, I want you to stay out of it."

"Liv. . . ." He looks at me, and I realize that he already knows what I'm going to do. I shake my head and close my eyes again. I don't want to think about this. I'm afraid I'll lose my nerve, shatter like glass, if I don't keep holding myself together.

At last, at long last, the door opens again, and this time it really is Catiline who glides inside.

Emotions I can't even name jolt through me like electricity. It's worse than when I watched Destiny kill an innocent kid. Worse than when Ames died. Worse even than when I found Dad. But funnily enough, whatever these feelings are, they're not the blazing, out of control fury and grief I felt then. Those are there, of course, but they're . . . focused. Maybe that's what I'm feeling; my whole array of emotions, grief and love and hatred and triumph have been drawn together by the same utter determination that drove Mareen to stand on a broken leg and fight.

This man killed my sister, and suddenly I know quite simply that there is no power in heaven or earth that will keep me from bringing him down. Not out of vengeance or even justice, but because I will never allow him to hurt another innocent child. I. Will. Not. Allow. It.

He watches me for a moment, eyes glittering, nightmarish face not giving anything away, and then his lips stretch into a mocking smile and he sweeps across the floor, settles into a chair. On the surface, his look is politely curious, but underneath I can sense the malice, the delight at my grief combined with . . . is that fury? Perhaps I'm imagining it—but no, there's a tightness to his sculpted face that definitely wasn't there before. Mareen. Dead tributes aren't supposed to win, not by anyone's definition. Even mine.

He waits for me to speak, and I think about holding out just because of that. Then I remember that I'm done with these Games. My voice is quiet, strong, surprising even me. "The deal's off."

He doesn't look surprised. "I told you from the beginning that one would die," he says. I can pick out the faint traces of mockery and loathing under his cool tone. "Did I make a mistake? Pick the wrong one? Was poor Mareen your favorite?"

"Stop pretending," I say, refusing to let my voice tremble. "Mareen's death was her choice. You didn't 'pick' anything." Deep breath. Make sure he knows that I mean it. "But she showed me the only way to fight you. No compromise. No deals. You murder children, Catiline. And I'll be damned before I keep playing your Game."

He sneers at me. "Idealist? You are full of surprises, Caldwell. But if we're going to talk about murder, what about your brother? Letting him die because of this will be your choice. The blood will be on your hands."

Kev.

The name stabs at me, accusing. The instinct that he's my brother, that I have to save him, screams at me, no matter that I know the truth. I swallow. Help me, Mareen.

"You and I both know that's a lie," I whisper. I feel Bren shift next to me, but keep looking at Catiline. His eyebrows pull together ever so slightly. I make myself continue, my voice strengthening as I go.

"I don't know why I didn't see it before. You said before that I had to surrender to you, or it would seem as if I, a mere victor, had beaten you. But our 'deal' . . . what does that prove? That a victor who had fought you could then force you to bargain? No, there's only one answer the Capitol has when someone defies you. Annihilation."

Catiline's face is perfectly still. He doesn't twitch, doesn't blink. If it weren't for the faint rise and fall of his chest, I'd think he was stone.

"So now I'm left wondering . . . why did you come to me? Why make that pretense at all? And the only answer that makes sense is because I was still struggling. Because, if I thought my siblings had no chance, the punishment wouldn't be enough—there would be no tension on my part, no real fear. So you upped the ante. You forced me to finally surrender my last scrap of dignity for a promise that you'd keep one of them alive. And then, you planned to go back on your word, so that I'd be left with nothing. No siblings. No hope. No fight. A fitting punishment for someone like me, one so complete not even Snow could claim I had beaten you."

I wait again, see if Catiline's going to comment. When he doesn't, I make myself keep going.

"Maybe you thought they'd both die here, and Mareen stopped you. Or maybe you really thought only one would die and just wanted to draw it out. Doesn't matter. You knew something like this would happen, and you decided to make it worse. You sequestered me off somewhere so I wouldn't be able to watch as the Careers laid their plans and my siblings were herded into danger. When they died, I would be taken by complete surprise. You arranged that I would be on-camera while it happened, so that all of Panem would see my downfall. You couldn't even give Mareen a fast death—I'm not stupid, I know those flames moved slower for her than they did for that kid before. You were toying with me, intentionally causing me pain, and if that's your whole goal. . . ."

Forgive me, Kev.

"You're not going to let him survive. You never were. So tell me: why should I do anything you say?"

The pain twists, digging deeper, but what I don't expect is the extraordinary sense of relief that I've said it. That I've given up the Games, given up my focus on survival. That maybe, just maybe, I can win.

I also don't expect the expression of pure fury that fills Catiline's face. As I stare, it starts to . . . change. His eyes brighten, the black irises somehow widening until they cover his eyes, darker than the lightless hole my brother is in. Veins stand out in his face, blue, a delicate lace network, some horrible side effect of his surgeries, I'd guess, or maybe an intentional alteration. His lips part, breathing picking up, and I half expect him to breathe fire. If I thought he's nightmarish normally, he looks like a demon given life now.

Part of me is afraid. Part of me realizes that it means I'm right.

"You think you have nothing left to lose, don't you?" he asks and somehow, in an instant, his patrician face is back to normal, emotions concealed beneath his sly mask, irises normal size, glittering like black diamonds. "You think that death is the worst that can happen to him, little Livy? No. I'll make you a promise."

He leans in, so close that I can smell the balsam fragrance on his breath. "He will live. He will be the victor. And I will ensure that it destroys him like it did you."

I barely notice the dress Petronius puts me in until he spins me around and forces me to stare at the mirror. Black, down to my knees, with a large red splotch across the front. There's a dark sash as wide as my palm wide looped across my chest and stomach, forming an X shape over the scarlet, almost like the markings on the back of a—

"Black widow?" I ask, touching the glass.

"I thought it was appropriate!" Petronius chirps. "The poison theme combined with you being the hidden killer, the one they don't see until it's far too late!"

I stare at myself, watching as he places the victor's crown on my short hair. A black widow. "Yes. Appropriate."

He pecks me on the cheek, then expertly uses his finger to repair the smudged make-up. "Now don't forget, the audience already loves you! Just this one interview with Caesar, and then it's back home to rest for a bit before the victory tour!"

I can barely summon up the energy to nod. An Avox shows up five minutes later, and I follow, not thinking and not wanting to.

I walk onto the stage, shake Caesar's hand, and take my seat. I don't know where I pull up the energy, because everything in me seems so lifeless right now, but I somehow plaster that over-confident smirk onto my face, project that same jaunty attitude that first started to win me fans in the Games.

It's a bit like the shock I went into after my first kill. I know I'm making answers to Caesar's questions, and they must be good ones with the way he's alternating between laughter and seriousness. But none of the questions penetrate through my dead emotions into my head. They go straight from my ears to my mouth without being processed by my brain.

Until he mentions Ames.

"So tell me," Caesar asks. "With that little girl, the one you were so sweet to. . . I think all of us here at home were wondering one thing: was it real? Or did you play her just as much as you did the others?"

I stare at him for a second, and then something stirs under all the numbness, works its way past the fog.

Hatred.

The Capitol did this. Yes, I'm a murderer. I'm not going to lie to myself any longer, pretend that I was some sweet, innocent little victim. I'm not going to try to get out of holding myself responsible. But if it wasn't me who survived, it would have been one of the others. And the end would be the same for them. Sitting here, pretending to be thrilled that they're the lone survivor, having to relive the horror and guilt every day for the rest of their lives.

If I hadn't been the one to survive, it would have been Ames. And she would have been just as broken as I am now.

I don't know what it is that makes me want to be honest. Maybe that I know the Capitol will never understand, no matter what I say. Maybe Ames herself—maybe that gift she had of bringing out the best in people is still lingering here. Maybe I'm just too tired to come up with something else. Whatever the reason, I clear my throat, look away from the everything. For a second, all I see is that innocent girl.

"Ames was a good kid," I say. "An amazing one, more selfless and innocent than I'd have believed possible." I hesitate, and realize that I haven't quite answered Caesar's question. He's waiting for me to finish. "Too innocent. I respected her, and the alliance was genuine. But she was too good a person. She didn't deserve to survive the Games."

The threat is too strong, too real, for my mind to truly process until Catiline has nodded to both of us and glided from the room. Then I turn to Bren. I realize that I'm shaking, the pain and grief finally allowed to break past now that the last push of adrenaline and necessity is gone.

"I don't know what to hope for any more."

The confession is startling. Two hours ago, all I wanted was for Mareen or Kev to survive. Winning, losing, the cost of it, were all meaningless. But Mareen won and died, believing that that was better than survival. And then Catiline threatened to make Kev survive—and turn his victory into a living hell. Can I really mean that I want to follow Mareen's example, give my life for it if I have to, when it's not just my life any more, but my own brother's?

Logic says that nothing I do will change anything, that Catiline's declared open war on me now, but the thoughts won't leave me alone. Can I save him? Could I ever have? And how would I save him anyway; help him survive?

Or help him win?

Bren carefully takes my hand in his. Again, I'm surprised by the quiet pity in his eyes, and even more that it doesn't bother me. Normally I'd be spitting nails at seeing him look at me like that. "Come on," he says. "Let's get back to the mentors' room."

I nod and he leads me by the hand out the door, into the elevators, and down the hall, back into that metal room. Sanderson's the only one there, and as soon as we walk in, he mutters something about needing to check on the sponsors, scurries out before we make it through the door.

The room is the same as ever. Metal chairs. Metal table with its list of gifts and prices. Four TV screens, but when I look at them, I notice that one of them is black. Hers is black. Of course it is. She's gone.

I sit down, and I realize that the trembling hasn't stopped, that it's increasing, moving from my limbs to my heart, my lungs. I feel like there's a scalpel inside my chest, slashing up and down, making me choke and spasm.

"Liv? Are you—"

"I'm . . . fine . . ." I manage, some last vestige of foolish pride not wanting Bren to see me break down. But then I hear the anthem being played, and I look up and see Kev with his new allies, watching the roof of the cave where the faces always shine. I know what I'll see. But it doesn't make it any easier when the face of District 4 girl reflects off the black stone, and then . . . hers.

Kev's face crumples. Thirteen years old, but his look holds the anguish of a grown man, and I realize that he wasn't sure. That he'd been clinging on to the hope that the sound of her cannon was actually the Career boy's, that she was still out there somewhere. But now he knows. He knows she's gone, and she's never coming back.

"Mareen!"

His shout goes straight through my heart, pierces the last barriers. Before I know what I'm doing, I've seized Bren's hand and then he's picked me up, holds me to him as if I'm no bigger than a child, and all I can do is sob into his shoulder.

She might have won, but she's gone, Mareen is gone, and all her hopes and dreams, all her imperfections and flaws, everything that made her her have been extinguished. Her spunk, her flirty smile, her fearsome temper—gone. All gone. I forget the Games, forget Catiline, forget my new determination to win. My beautiful sister is dead, and all I can do is mourn, but even that won't help because I can't reach her, can't do what I really want and bring her back, talk to her just one more time. She's dead, and it doesn't matter how close Bren holds me.

I'm alone.