"Tell me about it."

I snap my face to his, and in that instant he must see some wild wave of fear in my eyes, because he rushes to retract, a garbled "You don't have to —", but I find the words at the tip of my tongue, and for once, I don't feel the need to swallow them down.

"District 12 was never silent," I interrupt, and Peeta quietens. He pulls my thumb towards him slightly till he's clasping my palm softly.

"There was always the dull thudding of the mines. Especially in the Seam - it was an ever-steady staccato. The sounds of the mines were always just there, as normal as the huffing of breath or beating of your heart that you never really escape.

But when Finnick, in those final moments of the 75th Games, hurled his trident at the sky, and a blaze of lighting travelled up the golden wire tied to it, our screens suddenly cut to black. And the District emptied of sound."

I look over to Peeta, but immediately avert my gaze. He's looking right at me, and the way his blue eyes shine remind me too much of the way Prim's eyes had peered at me, wide and confused, when the screen had darkened.

"It was silent. No slap of Peacekeeper boots against pavement as they finished their rounds to check home viewings; no gaggle of kids racing down lanes as they made their way back from the Square. And no mines. No dull thudding. No whirring. No chugging. Nothing."

I swallow once, roughly. "So I told Prim to go pack a bag, and she did."

I can hear how small my voice sounds when I say her name aloud. It's an odd, familiar feeling, the way my lips move to say her name, the way it sounds when spoken. I clear my throat and shake my head.

"Gale came round not long after. He was excited, unbelievably so, jumping up and down, bloody-hell-this, Finnick-and-his-trident-that. I pulled him inside and asked him why he wasn't in the mines."

I remember the way his face had soured when I'd asked, annoyed that I wasn't sharing in his fervour.

"The Peacekeepers sent some of us home, told us the Capitol wanted as many people watching the Games as possible before it winds up," he'd said.

I trace my finger along the grain of Peeta's table.

"The mines were never quiet. Never. It was the one exemption to Hunger Games viewing. So why were they silent? It meant no Peacekeepers were there making people work. It meant everyone - not one or two, or a group, or half of the workers - everyone had been sent home. And the Capitol had never stopped production before.

Something was happening. Something big - Capitol big. Those mines were their money and power. They wouldn't have stopped them unless they didn't need that control anymore. They wouldn't have stopped them unless they needed people out. And people out of the mines meant that everyone in District Twelve was in the city.

Prim had come out of our back room with mum by then. I told her to go to the fence, to collect the Hawthorne's on the way, and that we'd meet them there soon."

My voice catches again, and I cough to try and rid myself of the lump in my throat. Prim had had a large duffle strapped across her shoulder, and it had sat around her small torso oddly. The hessian had hugged her frame, and I remember having the realisation it was because the bag was half empty. My chest had tightened, in sadness and fear and anger.

"I packed my own bag. And then I left too."

I don't tell Peeta how I'd let my hand trail across the cracked wood of the dining table where I'd sat with Dad poring over ratty pages of plant books, nor how I'd brushed across the threadbare back of the couch I'd sat on countless nights to watch one of Prim's many evening talent shows. I don't tell him that I still remember the exact pitch of the door when it clicked shut behind me, or the way my feet instinctively skirted the squeak in the porch, or how, once on the street, I didn't look back.

Gale had been in front of me, a frantic energy buzzing through him.

"Let's go," he'd said, voice hollow, but I'd shaken my head.

"We've got to get everyone out."

Gale's eyes had flashed, and for a moment, I remember thinking he was going to protest, but the look passed as soon as it came, and he'd nodded curtly.

"You take the east Seam, I'll take the West on my way to Ma's."

He'd turned, foot outstretched to start running down the road, but I'd grabbed his wrist.

"What about the town?"

"What?" He'd snapped, flummoxed.

"Who will take the town?"

Gale had shrugged himself free of my grip and began jogging backwards. His face was steely.

"I'll take the West and herd everyone to the meadow. You go east."

I'd opened my mouth to interject, but he had already turned, sprinting away.

"So Gale and I started doing the rounds, knocking on people's doors to let them know something was happening. We didn't know what, we just knew that something wasn't right. And most of the Seam folk felt it too.

At the eastern edge of the Seam, I knocked on a door and told an elderly man that Gale was in the meadow, taking people into the woods, and that we were leaving now. The man nodded and simply walked out the door. He didn't have anything to take except the clothes on his back."

I remember turning back to look down the road I'd just come up. Families were spilling out of shacks onto the road, skinny bodies with skinny bags, a hurried parade to the meadow. The sun was still hanging high in the sky, pulsing with a sticky afternoon heat. I'd made better time than I'd thought I would. So instead of turning towards the meadow, I kept on, further east, into Town.

"When I made it to the Merchant houses, the first door I knocked at was slammed shut in my face. The second just laughed. The third told me in no uncertain terms to fuck back off to my other seam sluts."

I let out a dry, empty laugh. Peeta doesn't even crack a grin.

"But the fourth door I rapped against opened to Delly Cartwright," I say. "She believed me. She took the houses in the Square, and together we made our way to the meadow, into the woods."

I pause, remembering what had happened in between. Peeta catches me.

"You didn't leave with Delly."

My eyes snap to his.

"What?"

"You didn't leave with Delly though, did you? I remember those first days in Thirteen, Katniss. There was great fuss about how Gale had been so forward-thinking. Not one person he led out had a scratch on them from the bombing. There were a grand total of two people in the hospital wing from Twelve when I arrived. One had a broken arm from tripping over in the woods. And the other was you, Katniss. They told me you'd been burned."

I close my eyes. I still remember that heat. The way is scalded my back; the acrid smell of my hair smouldering.

After Delly's, I'd thumped against the Undersee's door. Madge had opened it, and though I'd rattled off my spiel, she'd smiled softly and said, "Thank you Katniss. But I can't leave Mama."

Over her shoulder, Mayor Undersee was standing further down the hall. His arms had been wrapped around his waist tightly, his mouth twisted in a pained grimace.

When Delly and I later reconvened to head to the meadow, fifty or so families were following us. There was the grocer, and the florist, and the butcher. Peeta's mother had refused to come, and his father had remained with her, but his brother was amongst the small crowd.

When we'd passed the Undersee's though, there'd be a slam and a shattering wail.

"Let me in. Papa, let me in."

I'd sent Delly on and circled back to find Madge, outside, pushing against her door with a scrunched face. The curtains on the window to the left of the door were drawn, and Mayor Undersee and his wife stood, stooped, inside. He had caught my eye and smiled a pained grin; pleading.

"Katniss, Katniss, please," Madge had cried. Her breath was coming out in ragged spurts, and spittle had lined the creases of her lips. She'd slapped the door with both hands, banging her head desperately against the wood.

"Help me break it, Katniss," she'd screeched, leaning back and barging the door with her shoulder, once, twice, three times. With a pained cry she'd moved over to the window, rearing her elbow back to strike the glass.

"Madge," I'd snapped, catching her arm and swivelling her to face me. I'd clasped her cheeks between my hands, and her tears had weaved their way over and under my fingers. There'd been a low rumble; a discordant whine from somewhere in the not-too-far distance.

"This is what your dad wants, Madge. Give it to him."

Her face had crumpled and a guttural pain gurgled at the back of her throat. I'd gripped her face tighter and shook her once, stiffly.

"This is your goodbye, Madge. You have a goodbye. Use it."

Her wet eyes had met mine unwillingly, and she'd tilted her head ever so slightly in a defeated nod. Limply, she'd turned to the window again, this time laying her palm flat against the glass. The Mayor and his wife had done the same on the other side, and for a moment, it seemed like the only sounds in the whole of Twelve were the rattling sobs of the Undersee family.

We made it to the edge of the Square when the first bomb hit, a blazing fire ball of orange and white and black. Cobblestone flying and glass shattering, shrapnel whizzing through the air, onyx metal hunks screaming through our District.

Sometimes when I walk through the Town nowadays, I can still hear the screams of the merchants that stayed. I can still see those few figures that managed to stumble from their doorways - scorched bodies, bubbling. I can still hear the whirring hovercraft, jets of black, can feel the heat of the raining fire, can hear the sizzling of my clothes, the blistering of my skin as the edges of the fireball licked at Madge and I as we sprinted away.

"Katniss?"

I snap my eyes open. Peeta is peering at me, concerned.

"Sorry," I say, sniffing and shaking my head quickly. "Uh, yeah. Madge and I got caught up, we were a bit behind Delly."

I swallow. There's an itchiness in my chest, this odd duality of relief and discomfort at having shared something I hadn't before. Despite my earlier indignation - my need for Peeta to understand that I don't find reading through the evidence of the Rebellion any easier than he does - I feel suddenly contrite. Who am I to cry foul to a Hunger Games Victor - someone whose loved ones didn't have the fortune to live through the bombings as I did.

"I'm sorry. I know you lost your parents in the bombings. I know I have no right to get, uh, worked up, say, about this. I mean, it's just a memory - I'm sitting here, fine today. It's not a big deal."

Peeta frowns.

"You don't see yourself as others do, do you?"

A soft, involuntary scoff trickles from me. "And how is that?"

Peeta scrunches his lips and tilts his head side to side, as if searching for the right words.

"I mean, you sit here and you tell me this story, but at every chance you're downplaying the role you played. You talk about how Gale led people from the meadow, and how Delly corralled the merchants, and of course, without them half of the folk who escaped wouldn't have, but at the end of the day it was you, Katniss, who instigated the escape. You were the one who picked up on the fact that something wasn't right. You were the one who decided to go house to house - including those in Town, no less. And I know you were in the hospital for a fortnight in Thirteen after you arrived - that's how you and Jo met. I don't think it's you trying to be humble or modest - it's almost as though you don't think you played all that big a role. You could've been the one furthest into the woods by the time the bombs started, but you weren't; you were the very last."

I shift uncomfortably, and let out another small, dismissive scoff.

"You're reading into things, Peeta."

"No. I don't think I am," he says.

A pregnant silence lingers over the table. Peeta's voice is soft when he speaks. "You don't have to pretend that your experience was any less than it was. You don't have to pretend it wasn't horrific just because you made it out alive."

His lips crack slightly, a small smile. "Neither of us have a monopoly on suffering, hey? Doesn't mean we're not entitled to feel the suffering that's ours."

My days slip into weeks. Evidence and Leader meetings and documents and Town Halls and folders.

Gale reverts to his habit of popping round for dinner and staying the night, and despite myself, I can't help but feel grateful for him. Reading the evidence is like reliving the very worst part of my life, but coming home to see Gale squatting on the steps of my porch - knees around his ears and a toothy grin on his face - reminds me of the few small sparks of light that I still have from before.

One Tuesday, two things are waiting for me on my porch: Gale, and a small wicker basket of cheese buns. I find myself grinning wildly.

"How the hell did you manage to get cheese buns on a Tuesday?"

Gale's eyes widen, and he points to the basket.

"These?"

"Yes, genius, those!" I laugh, swiping them from where they rest on the doormat. I fiddle with my keys and glance over at him.

He still irritates me. He relishes late weekend mornings, preferring the warmth of my bed's quilt to an early morning foray into the woods. He'll plead to spend a day in the Square, doing nothing but meandering around, popping into shops and buying things we could either make or hunt ourselves. He pulls me into hugs that, while I return, always last a few moments longer than needed. But the cheese buns remind me that he's still my Gale - the one who knows me better than myself.

"Thank you," I say.

For a moment he looks slightly confused, but the expression melts in an instant. "You're welcome, Catnip."

When I'm not in the woods or being pulled into some room of the Justice Building, I'm with Peeta, trudging through evidence.

Some of the documents are easy to swallow. One is a twenty page booklet on the specs of Thirteen's cafeteria. Another is a detailed brief on the pros and cons of airing a propo at six o'clock in the evening.

Other documents make my skin itchy, or my eyes water. Some make me retch again. Most send me running till my fingers are numb and my muscles are ablaze.

Sometimes, Peeta calls me. Sometimes, I call him.

"Katniss?"

"Yeah?"

"Have you read the green folder?"

"Yeah. Want me to come round?"

Sometimes he'll murmur a soft no, and instead we'll talk about the weather, or how the bakery's doing. One day, we laugh over how Haymitch had walked through town that morning none the wiser to the hole in the arse of his pants where one of his geese had nibbled through the fabric.

Other times he'll say yes. I'll make my way to the Village - sometimes in the dim light of dawn, or in the dead of night, swaddled in scarves and a thick jacket - and we'll stoke a fire and drink tea in silence, the presence of each other enough to calm the other.

Peeta comes to my house, once. He arrives on my stoop, unannounced, eyes rimmed a violent red. We sit on my too-small couch, and before I can say anything he grabs my forearms and pulls me to his chest. Our thighs are squashed together, and our torsos angled oddly, but he holds me tight and I squeeze him back, clutching the fabric of his shirt as his back starts to quiver, then shake, then rack with heaving, silent sobs.

Winter arrives, and with it the first snow of the season. On slightly warmer days, Peeta and I pull on woollen jumpers and fleece pants and trudge through powder in the woods. We find bald rocks or small beds of pine needles not yet covered by snow, and we sit watching for flickers of life in the cold, passing lukewarm coffee and cheese buns between us. We don't talk about evidence when we're beyond the fence.

When we both make it to the document entitled '75th Games Extraction', we decide to go through it together, over lunch. Peeta cooks a roast, and when I enter his house I'm hit by the heavy, rich scent of grilled meat. We read about how Thirteen organised hovercrafts to be ready, about how Peeta was plucked from the arena, about how they had a 'hierarchy' of people to rescue - how they deemed some people more important than others. Peeta's hand sometimes strays to my own, squeezing it abruptly; so forceful that his nails dig into my skin. When we finish and go to eat, Peeta piles my plate high.

"You need to eat more," he says.

"I eat," I hedge.

Peeta frowns. "Not enough. At least not for all the moving about you do. How far do you run?"

I don't reply, but my silence answers for me. Likely too much.

"I don't know how to spend my days when I'm not moving," I say instead. "I don't know how to slow. How to be slow. The slowness is so loud. It's so empty, and when I'm empty I can't help but be filled by memories."

Peeta looks at me for a moment before rising from the table.

"Follow me," he says, moving toward the side of the house, past the stairs, past the bathroom to a door I haven't seen before, slightly recessed into the wall. He opens it to reveal a small room draped in tatty sheets. There is colour everywhere. Splatters along the floors in vibrant shades of royal blue and obnoxious pinks. Warm sunsets are stretched over canvasses. Sketches of tridents and blades and caves and what looks like pools of blood are etched into paper tacked to the walls. There's a watercolour of the meadow in the far corner, gauzy and soft. Another canvas is a dark maroon, with blacks and browns and reds, telling a story I'm sure only Peeta understands.

"I guess this is my running," he shrugs, waving his hand in front of the canvases scattered around the room. It's a casual gesture, near dismissive, but I can see by the set of his shoulders how sacred this room is to him. How significant him showing me these images is.

I grasp his hand and for several minutes we stand together, still, filling our minds with shape and colour in a bid to keep them from emptying.

We finish our piles on a Monday.

Madge promises us a one-day reprieve before dumping another pile onto us, and I find myself, for the first time in a long time, grateful for a Tuesday. The prospect of having a day without evidence buoys me, slightly, and I even find myself more tolerant of the usual drudgery of the Town Hall. Haymitch seems to notice, sending me a questioning look by way of a raised brow, but he doesn't push for details.

Instead, before we part ways afterwards, he pauses.

"You heading to Peeta's this afternoon?" He asks.

I nod.

"I'm heading over now to catch some lunch with him if you want to come earlier?"

I look over to him, expecting a teasing smirk, but his face is open and earnest.

"Um, no," I splutter. "Why would I come?"

Sure, Peeta and I have shared meals, but always as part of the trial preparation. Even our excursions to the woods - where we don't talk about evidence or the past - are a part of the prep; we wouldn't be making those forays if we didn't need to escape reality for a few hours.

Haymitch shrugs, jiggling the key out of the lock and pocketing it. "To see your friend?"

I scoff darkly, "Peeta is not my friend."

Haymitch chuckles. His eyebrows quirk in an amused expression.

"What is he then, sweetheart? A client? An acquaintance? Sure you've only really chatted as part of the trial prep, but you sure as hell have known each other a lot longer."

I scratch at my elbow, uncomfortable. Haymitch notices and softens.

"'Friend' is just a word, girl. It's not gonna bite ya."

I scoff; a half-laugh, half-sneer hybrid that does nothing to hide my embarrassment at my reaction and discomfort.

"I've got a meeting with Paylor in any case. I might catch the end of lunch though if I'm running okay for time?"

Haymitch nods and turns for the exit, a knowing grin on his face. He and I both know that - regardless of time - I won't be making an appearance at lunch.

I slink through the halls, my cheeks red and hot, my fingers fidgety. Paylor's projection is already beaming onto the far wall when I arrive for our meeting. It's a week out from the Winter Festival, and I'm unsure if she finds more pleasure from overseeing an event that will bring the District joy, or watching me stumble through its organisation.

"Are you okay, Katniss?"

I flush even more and nod, stammering an unconvincing, "Yes, of course, why wouldn't I be? Let's get into it."

Paylor doesn't press, and we launch into confirming contracts and vendors. The budget afforded to the event is paltry - after all, a one-night faux winter wonderland doesn't generate the same number of jobs that investing in the Pharmaceuticals would - but if there's anything I'm skilled at, it's making a dime stretch. We talk schedules and safety protocols and staffing, and the whole time those six letters bounce through my brain.

Friend.

That afternoon, Peeta boils a kettle for tea and we sit down in front of his television. It's wide, and near-flat, with no antennas.

"Madge said we ought to catch the back end of the Prosecution's presser today," he mutters. Although his tone is less than joyful, I can see by the set of his shoulders and the casual way he's sprawled across the couch that he too is relieved by our momentary reprieve from combing through evidence - even if it is only for a day.

He clicks through a few channels before landing on a stream of the Justice building. Plutarch, Enobaria, Brutus and Gale are sat at a long table, fielding questions. They don't talk about anything radical; "We're committed to justice" this, "We have begun a scrupulous review of the evidence" that. I tune out. Eventually, everyone leaves bar Gale, and the questioning shifts to queries about Twelve's business enterprises and the progress of Pharmaceuticals.

"Gale is a lucky man."

I glance over at Peeta, surprised at the suddenness of the statement, and let out a brief chuckle. Only he doesn't join me - there's no sarcastic mirth in his expression.

"Are you serious?" I frown.

I glance back to the screen and the small crowd of reporters that crowd Gale, shouting questions with long-letter drug names at him. He answers each with a placid nod and articulate response while the clattering clicks and flashes of cameras sound every other second.

It looks like hell. How could Peeta think that qualifies Gale as lucky? "I sure as hell don't envy him."

A bewildered chuckle escapes Peeta.

"You don't envy him?"

I shrug, "I reckon it'd be like pulling teeth some days. It'd be a tough job."

Peeta frowns. "Don't say that about yourself."

My face pulls in confusion.

"Say what? That I wouldn't want his job?"

He shakes his head. "That Gale has a tough job. You're not a job. He's lucky to have you."

I bark a sharp laugh. "Gale doesn't have me. I thought you meant he was lucky to have his role as part of Twelve's industry development!"

Peeta's frown doesn't lift from his face.

"You and Gale aren't together?"

My eyes crinkle, and I find myself scoffing, stumbling around in search of words that can convey with enough vehemence how not together we are. "No, no, no. Not in the slightest. We're friends."

He peers at me, dubious. "Really?"

"No!" I say, a little louder and more forceful than necessary. "Where the hell did you get that idea?"

He levels me with a look.

"You're not serious? Come on, Katniss, it's not all that wild an assumption. The pair of you have been tied at the hip for the past six years or so."

I feel my nose scrunch, indignant.

"Well, you're wrong." The slight petulant whine in my tone doesn't escape me, and I shudder internally.

"Doesn't he live with you though?"

"No!" I exclaim.

Peeta's eyebrows rise in doubt.

"Well, he stays most nights, and he has some of his stuff at mine, but he doesn't live with me."

"Okay," Peeta drawls, scepticism lacing his tone, "So you don't, say, share a bed then?"

My cheeks flush a violent red.

"Well, uh, sometimes yes, but not always! And there's always a pillow wall between us. Always."

Peeta's doubt dissolves in an instant, replaced by a goofy grin.

"A pillow wall?" He titters.

I nod earnestly.

"Always a pillow wall."

We turn back to watching the screen as Gale wraps up his interview. I don't stay any longer than I have to; as soon as the channel cuts to the next program I'm scurrying to pluck my coat off the rack. Peeta watches me, silent.

"Well, uh. I'll see you tomorrow then, yeah?" I stammer. I don't know why I'm frazzled, on edge, but I am; ridiculously so.

Peeta nods.

"See you," he says.

I'm halfway down the hall when he calls out.

"I stand by what I said, pillow wall or not. Gale's a lucky man."

At night, I dream of Thirteen.

Once, when passing in the halls, Peeta had asked how I was going. Usually we traded silent nods when we crossed paths, but this time, he'd grabbed my wrist suddenly and had blurted "Howareyou?" in an almost violent rush. I remember looking between his hand on my arm and his face in surprise. He'd followed my eyes and a light blush had flowered over his cheeks, as though he was just as shocked by his actions.

"Um, yeah I'm okay, I guess," I'd nervously chuckled.

I remember thinking how odd that chuckle had sounded. He'd grinned, though.

"And Prim? Gale?"

I'd scoffed lightly, and he'd smiled apologetically. "As good as can be."

He had stepped backwards then and his smile had grown smaller, wistful. "Gale's lucky," he'd said.

Gale was lucky; he'd just been plucked out as a Commander by the upper echelon of Thirteen. Not that the role wasn't deserved - he'd led a chunk of Twelve through the woods to safety - but there was no denying that Coin and her cronies had taken a particular favour to him that had resulted in him being bustled into many a high-level meeting.

I'd smiled, proud. "He's doing well for himself."

Madge calls me the following morning.

"Katniss?"

"Mmm?" I mumble, rubbing my eyes. It's only ten, but I've been awake for hours.

Madge had organised a meeting for eleven today, cutting short my usual day-long Wednesday ritual. Instead, I'd risen at three to slip out to the woods. I'd watched the dawn crack while perched on the escarpment, and then had run - no, sprinted - for the next three hours, pushing myself faster and faster as if to cram a day's exhaustion into one hundred and eighty short minutes.

"I've got more evidence for everyone," she says.

"I know," I grumble. "You mentioned that the other day."

"This batch is mostly focussed on Peeta. Some about the 74th Games, some on his role as the Mockingjay."

There's a pause over the line.

"I just wanted to give you the heads up, for the sessions," she says softly.

When I meet the team in the Justice Building, there's a small plate of raisin rolls in the centre of the table - no doubt leftovers from the Bakery yesterday. Madge hands us another pile of folders and spends half hour walking us through the headline points. Opposite her, Johanna dissects her bun, picking out raisins one-by-one before tossing them into her mouth and starting the mining process again. When Beetee asks questions, he talks with his hand, a bun clenched in his fist.

Later, when I leave for Peeta's, my stomach is curdling. I don't know if the nausea is from the slightly sour smell of the buns, or Madge's parting words.

"The first document is a recap of the 74th Games from Thirteen's archives. It recounts the arena setting, the tributes, and the details of casualties. Most importantly though, it tells us that Thirteen wasn't in the dark. They knew what was going on, and by the 74th Games they had the capacity to stop them. They just didn't."

By my sixteenth year of viewing the Hunger Games, I was quite skilled at paying as little attention as I had to. I still watched them, of course; they were mandatory, and it wasn't all that uncommon for Peacekeepers to randomly stop folk in the Square or in the Seam and ask them what District's tribute had died the night prior. Most kids though learned early how to watch the Games without watching them; a cognitive dissonance that allowed you to see the blood and guts and gore on the screen without necessarily comprehending them - without making the neural connection that that blood was your school friend's, or those guts were your neighbours.

The 74th Games though were different. I couldn't help but see everything. Every word, every bruise, every wound or cut or stab. Peeta wasn't a friend, or a neighbour, or family, but was still an integral part of my life. He was oddly mine; the boy who saved my life. My boy with the bread.

Peeta could've gravitated to the Career Pack; he sure as hell had the training scores to, and had succeeded in wooing the Capitol audiences through his interviews. When that gong went though he sprinted straight across the field to the little girl from Eleven. They'd snagged a backpack each and disappeared into the woods.

It was a source of intrigue for the commentators throughout the Games. Peeta Mellark, the strapping young boy from Twelve, paired with the spindly little Rue of Eleven. But as the tributes fell one by one, their duo persisted.

In the end, there were three; Peeta, Rue, and the boy from Two, Cato.

I'd been in the Square watching, as was half the District; there'd been a power outage, so most televisions weren't working. The Gamemakers released mutts into the arena - gigantic wolf-like beasts with thick matted fur and razor teeth. The three had made it to the centre of the arena, seeking shelter atop the Cornucopia. I remember the way the snarls of the mutts had rumbled over the crowd, the way Cato's roar cackled through the speakers when he charged Peeta atop the metal structure. I remember how still the Square was, silent, while the screen showcased a flurry of darkened shapes; a punch, an eye-gouge, a black bruise already forming, nails against skin, bloody pockmarks, bloody eyes, bloody nose, crooked bones. I remember the way Twelve let out a collective gasp when Cato overshot his balance and fell, suddenly, from view. And I remember the way the screen seemed to freeze when, at the last second, his hand had shot up above his body, flailing to the left and grasping Rue; his grubby fingers tense, the skin of his knuckles stretched taut as he locked onto her ankle.

It wasn't a quick death. It was drawn out, ugly.

As soon as Rue started to tip, Peeta was sliding off the Cornucopia, batting at mutts and trying to pull them away from her. The mutts paid him no mind though. They didn't touch him. They'd been set and programmed to only kill two; the Games, after all, needed a Victor.

When the gongs had finally sounded, Peeta had been plucked up by the hovercraft in a crumpled heap, covered in the blood of his friend.

I remember the silence of the Square as we watched him rise out of the arena. Flickerman's cheery voice had boomed over the speakers, congratulating Panem's new Victor. But Twelve didn't cheer. Our shoulders relaxed, and soft, grateful smiles graced our faces, but we didn't clap. We didn't celebrate wildly. I remember seeing the glint of tears roll down the cheeks of people beside me.

Our District's tribute had won the 74th Hunger Games, but as we watched the sobbing form lift through the air, we knew that we had lost the Peeta Mellark of before.