Another hour ticks by. Blearily my mind turns it all over again. Drifting in and out of consciousness I half think and half dream of Annie and Eoghan as they face the gymnasium. I see Eoghan lifting weights as though they are as light as a feather. Annie attacks a dummy with a knife showing ferocity equal to a wild cat. It is going to be alright. The other tributes stop to watch them, amazed by them. They are untouchable. Everyone knows that they will win. That Eoghan will win. That Annie will win. I struggle to work out which- I can't quite find the answer.

I turn over to face the wall, drawing the covers tighter around me.

Loud footsteps race down endless passages. Shaking hands stab people in the darkness. Water dribbles down cave walls. The burning of the ice. The coolness of the water. The taste of blood in my mouth.

Light begins to glow through the gap in the curtains. It must be morning. I should get up. I need to tell Eoghan and Annie their strategy. I think about moving but I can't and I swept under again.

A victor stands before President Snow but somehow I can't make out their face. I try to get a better look, leaning forward in my seat but no matter where I turn someone blocks my way. I look down at the programme in my hand but all I see is a picture of myself smiling up at me. I get to my feet, rushing towards the stage. I have to see who has won.

But I never reach the stage. Instead I am back in the gymnasium. I walk over to the closest station but there are no tridents. I know I can't win without one. I look hopelessly around, wondering if I should ask someone.

"What's wrong?" Eoghan is stood by my side.

"We can't win," I tell him. "There are no tridents. We can't win."

When I turn towards the Gamemakers I see President Snow is stood watching us, a glass of deep red blood in his hand. He drinks from the glass then begins to laugh as the it dribbles down his chin and stains the front of his shirt.

"You can't have them!" I shout up at him. "You can't have them!"

But to my left I see Annie slowly walking towards him. I call to her to stop but she is completely unreachable. She glides towards the President like a sleep walker, her arms stretched out to embrace him.

"You can't win." Snow echoes, "You can't win because I command you to lose."

I awake with a gasp.

I glance at the clock. It's quarter to ten. Fifteen minutes until their training begins. Shit.

I scramble out of bed, dragging on last night's clothes as I fight to reach the door. I can't miss this as well. I can't keep letting them down all the time.

I run towards the dining room and arrive just as they are all getting up from the table.

"Please don't tell me you are going to try getting sponsors looking like that?" Eoghan says. He smiles and I know he has forgiven me from last night. My chest feels a little lighter.

"No, but I am going to tell you your strategy."

"Maybe you should learn to do up buttons straight before you start advising on strategy," he adds gesturing towards me.

I look down and sure enough the shirt front hangs lower on one side where three buttons have been missed at the top. "Strangely I thought saving your life was more important but, you know, if you'd prefer the buttons to be straight then…" I playfully go to adjust my shirt, moving deliberately very slowly so he has to wait.

"You should probably save that for later," Annie says quietly, glancing towards the clock. "We only have ten minutes."

Right. Yeah… this is no time to joke around. I've got to get my head straight.

I glance across at Mags, waiting to see what she has to say. Part of me hopes she will bail me out, tell me she has already come up with the winning strategy.

"I've told them what to expect today but I knew you had an idea of how you wanted to play this so I've left the strategy up to you." She gives me a look that says 'this had better be good'.

I turn back towards Annie and Eoghan; glancing first to one and then the other as I fumble through the only plan my groggy mind has managed to come up with. "The main thing during the next three days is to assert yourselves as part of the career alliance. By all means move round to all the different stations but try and keep your skills hidden as much as you can. Try not to stand out. I want you to be mysterious. The less they know, the less they can use against you."

Eoghan nods, "Right."

I turn back to Mags, trying to gage her reaction but her expression is unreadable.

Augustus launches into the room, "It's time!" He excitedly ushers Annie and Eoghan out of the room. Annie cringes nervously as she leaves.

I wish I could go with her down to gymnasium but mentors aren't allowed. Instead the closest I can get to the pair of them is the gallery that runs all the way around the top of the gymnasium offering a bird's eye view of the training. It is only open until the end of the morning on the third day then is locked up for the individual training sessions. It is difficult to tell exactly what is going on as you can't hear anything but it at least it gives some sense of the other tributes styles. Hopefully I will be able to add some more notes to my book.

As soon as the door clicks shut behind them I turn to Mags. "So…?"

"I hope you know what you are doing," is all she says gently.

"I wish I did."

She looks at me with a sad smile. I don't have to tell her about President Snow or staying up most of the night worrying or how much they both mean to me. She knows. "Come here." She draws me into a tight hug.

It's the kind of hug that my mother used to give me after I woke from terrible nightmares, the kind of hug my father gave me after I returned from the Games when he thought I had slipped too far away. A lump rises in my throat. I miss them so much. I never dreamed I would have to face something like this again without them as back up.

"This is big, Mags," I whisper. "But I am trying my best."

"I know you are. You are doing great."

"I'm going to do everything I can."

"I know. You would never let yourself do anything less." Slowly she pulls back. I wish I could hold her a moment longer. I wish I could give in to it all, just for a moment, but if I do that now I will never pull myself back. Better the occasional burst of anger than to let myslef break. I'll be no use to anyone if I do. She pats my shoulder. "You go down to the gallery. I'll face the press and potential sponsors today."

"Thank you. Try and… try and keep them safe."

"I'll do all I can."

"Then I can't ask for anything more." I grin at her. I honestly don't know what I would do if she wasn't here.

I take a step towards the elevator then stop, remembering what Eoghan said. I turn back to quickly glance in the mirror. There are dark bags under my eyes, my hair is matted and hangs limply around my face. There is a stain down the front of my shirt which is still buttoned wrong. I look a mess. Any prep team would despair if they saw me now.

"Maybe I should…"

"Yeah, maybe," Mags agrees.

I hurriedly head back to my room to have the shower that I never quite managed last night. It is no good showing the other mentors how much this means to me. I need to be the same golden boy I have always been. They are not going to use this against me, not when I already have Snow on my back.

Just over half an hour later I push open the door to the gallery. A few people are milling about on this side but no one I am really friendly with so I begin to walk, glancing down through the darkened windows to look at the tributes below. I get about a third of the way around when I find Johanna leant up against the window, picking her nails.

"That boy of yours seems to think he is something special."

"He is."

She frowns at me, "Got yourself a boyfriend?"

"Ha-ha, very funny."

I lean close to the glass, looking down on the twenty four tributes as they negotiate the different stations. It is some time before I find Eoghan. He is stood talking to the boy from District 1 next to the sword combat area. They are stood very casually for a pair that will be fighting each other to the death in a week's time. I guess Eoghan has wasted no time forming the alliance. Good. At least that part is going to plan.

It takes me even longer to find Annie but eventually I spot her on the climbing wall, carefully moving upwards as a trainer offers her direction from below.

"I had to ask after all that talk in interviews about 'settling down'. Thought you'd gone mad" Johanna continues. "Although, after last night's performance, I was sure you were referring to Snow. You looked so cosy together," she tries very hard to sound like she is joking but she can't hide her true feelings, somehow they always shine through.

"It's not like that," I tell her.

"Of course it isn't." she sneers. She turns slowly away from me so I can only see her back, her fingers tracing circles on the glass.

"Jo…"

There is an awkward silence that I don't quite know how to fill so I turn back to the gymnasium. The boy from District 2 is tearing apart one of the training dummies with his bare hands, a number of trainers look across at him with concern. Rather than making him look tough it is making him look insane. I still can't quite figure him out.

"I don't know how you could stand it up there." The sound of Johanna's voice startles me. "How could you just stand next to him as if it is the most normal thing in the world- as if you supported him? I swear I would have pushed him off that balcony if it had been me. He killed Jessie. He killed your parents!"

"I know… I know."

"You shouldn't have gone. You're free. He can't touch you anymore. You're free. You're meant to tell him to go screw himself, not share his fucking balcony."

"I know."

"Jeez, Finnick. What's wrong with you?"

I wasn't going to tell her but if there is one person who is going to understand exactly what I am going through it is Johanna. I move round so I am facing her and I lean against the window as well, moving my hand up to the glass.

"Look- That's my best friend," I jab my finger against the glass pointing towards Eoghan. "And she's my... my…" As I watch Annie jump down from the wall I suddenly don't know how I am meant to explain what she is to me.

"Your what?" Johanna asks, a little too quickly.

"My… other best friend."

"I see," she says shortly.

"That's why I stood with Snow."

"But… why?"

"I can't tell you why- not here."

She nods blankly. "Both of them."

"Yes."

"Shit."

"Yeah."

Both us look down on the training room again. Annie has moved on to the long range weapons and is selecting a bow from the racks. Eoghan is still stood with the boy from District 1. I am yet to see him train with anything- I suppose I did ask him to be mysterious, I just didn't realise he would be quite this mysterious.

I seek out the girl from District 2. I am surprised to see her at the edible plants station. Careers don't usually bother with the survival skills. Really there is no point when you have all the supplies from the cornucopia. Surely this must be part of some elaborate strategy that has been worked out for her? Maybe she wants to hide her true skills but I don't see what good that would do. Maybe I'll have to have words with Enobaria- she if she will shed some light on her strange tributes.

"You can't help them now; you know that, don't you?" Johanna suddenly says.

"I'll try my best."

"Snow won't save them. You should just tell him to go stuff himself."

I shake my head. "I can't. He thinks I'm working for some rebel group. He could have me killed."

"Jeez, Finnick. Are you completely brainless? He would have left you alone. You'll have to kill him now."

I force myself to laugh. "I wish it was that easy."

"Sure it is, just give him a good kick."

Eoghan finally moves away from the boy from District 1 and goes to join the girl from 2 by the edible plants station but she doesn't even acknowledge him.

"How did you manage last year?"

She shakes her head, "You just have to get on with it. Like in the arena. You just have to know, for better or worse, it is going to end sometime. You put all you have into it and just hope… You'll probably get destroyed by it but you hope you won't- or at least not in a serious way."

"Just mildly destroyed, eh?"

"Yeah. That's the best you can hope for now."