I was screaming, that much I knew. But I couldn't snap out of it. My body was frozen, unrelenting to my mind's desperate attempts to move it. Move.

In the tree with the tracker jackers swarming me. Peeta's rotting leg. The cornucopia glinting in the sunlight. Finnick's screams as they devoured him. Thresh, looming over me with a rock. Rue's eyes staring back in the face of a mutt's. Fire, always fire. Burning hot, swallowing me whole.

Move.

"Katniss! It's okay. You're okay."

His arms tightened around me, but I still couldn't move. Jaw squeezed shut, eyes open in terror, my legs and arms frozen, betraying me, leaving me for the mutts. How was I screaming if my mouth was wired shut?

"Katniss. Look at me."

Peeta climbed on top of me. There was fear in his eyes, and that made me want to hurl myself back into the fire.

I was still screaming. Why couldn't I stop?!

"It's okay." He leaned his head down and pressed his cheek to my chest. "It'll pass. You just have to get through it. Take it one second at a time."

My pointer finger quivered. Slowly, feeling and control spread back through my body like an ancient glacier finally dislodging.

Run. Move.

Every nerve in my body begged me to sprint away, to find safety. High, off the ground, hand wrapped around my bow. My heart hammered so heavily in my throat I was afraid it would burst through the skin.

But there was Peeta.

He never left.

And worst of all, he understood.

I still couldn't say anything, but at least I wasn't screaming anymore.

"I'm working on a painting," he murmured, his breath hot against my ear. It sent a tremor down my spine. "The hardest part was finding the perfect shade of yellow. Who would've thought yellow would be so hard to find? Lemon has too much green. Daffodil is too bright. Wheat doesn't have enough power. But it can't be golden. What kind of yellow is that?"

He wasn't asking me, so I didn't answer. I tried to swallow. I could feel my joints unknitting from each other, sinking into the mattress below. I didn't know how I had any bones left with how they ache from a lifetime of pain.

But there was yellow paint. That was the whole point.

I managed to make a small grunt.

"The yellow," he continued, the sound murmured by my heaving chest. "It's funny. I found the shade I liked best by mixing it with purple. I know what you're thinking, 'That doesn't make sense!' Color theory, of course!'"

I couldn't help but smile. More like a twinge at the corner of my lips. He was funny. Yellow paint could be funny.

"Katniss, you wouldn't believe it. It took away that harsh brassiness but all the same, made it the perfect yellow." He brushed a kiss against my collarbone. "There you go. Your pulse is starting to slow."

I was going to die of a stroke by thirty.

"What did you dream?" I wasn't even sure he heard me; my voice didn't even sound like my own. Hoarse, from screaming. How long did I go on?

He pressed his cheek back into my chest. I still couldn't touch him. But the pressure of his body was the only thing keeping me from completely unraveling cell by cell.
"We were in the meadow," he began. "Prim's meadow. The flowers had just bloomed. You were sitting up on the hill, under the tree. And I was running below."

I already knew the answer, but I asked anyway. "Were we alone?"

He shook his head. "No. We rarely are, at least in my dreams."

I needed water. I needed air. I needed space, yet I also needed him to crawl inside of me and hold me together before I shattered into a thousand shards of glass. I would cut him. I always did.

"I'm sorry," I mouthed.

"There is no reason to be sorry." He squeezed my shaking hand.

"I need to move." I pushed the words out of my mouth before they would smother me. I knew I would hurt his feelings, but he was more resilient than me. And after all, he understood what it was like.

Peeta rolled off of me and I shot up. I felt like a newborn deer, rocketing to the bathroom like it was the first time I'd ever walked.
I couldn't help it - I shut the door behind me. I needed a moment to face myself.

I didn't recognize the woman staring back at me in the mirror. Even wracked with nightmares and terror, I looked like a career.

My eyes had light. My skin was luminous and clear, not baked from hours of hunting and caked with coal dust. My hair was long and thick and actually curled a little. Cinna would've loved it.

The worst enemy of all was my body. What was once sharp, jagged angels that could keep me safe had turned into soft, supple roundness. I despised it.

I had breasts. My hips now sloped out from my waist. I had an ass and thighs and soft arms like a spoiled girl who had never once turned in tessera.

How had I entered hell and crawled back up only to look like this?

Peeta claimed I was healing. That I'd been malnourished my entire life and the changes were good. He was always feeding me like we'd never have food again.

But this girl blinking back at me was a stranger. No, she wasn't a girl, she was a grown woman whose body still ached from the memories belonging to the wounded child buried deep inside.

I felt so grown at sixteen. I was the breadwinner. I stepped up when my mother couldn't. I took care of Prim, I kept them both alive. I had all the responsibilities of an adult and I felt like one.

But, years later, staring at that complete stranger, I knew I was nothing but a child then. I thought I was tough, hardened, calloused to the world.

I had no fucking clue.

I averted my eyes and quickly reached back to plait my hair. It was clinging to the back of my neck with sweat. I would never get used to this body. The breasts, the waist, the hips, all moving when I raised my arms. I'd become exactly who I hated.

But I still couldn't decide why I hated them. Sure, Peeta had turned me into a career. But I would never be from the Capitol. I had my brown hair, my gray eyes, my olive skin, decorated with fading scars instead of tattoos and dye and makeup.

I didn't want those scars to fade. They proved what I had endured. They justified my new, soft body. They reminded me of who I once was, even though we wouldn't recognize each other anymore.

At least my hands were still mine. Roughened palms, long and slender fingers, nails bitten as short as possible. I didn't even mean to do it. But any time they grew at all, I'd wake up the next morning with them down to the quick again.

I assured myself that it was practical, still. But if I was being honest with myself - which I rarely was - I could've had long nails. I wasn't shooting squirrels and digging up roots to eat. I wanted for nothing. Yet still, I bit them.
"Are you okay?" Peeta called.

Peeta. How did he still look the same when I was an alien to myself?

I splashed cold water over my face, letting it drip down my neck. Clean water, straight from the tap. I didn't deserve it.

"I'm okay," I answered. When I left the bathroom, his eyes trailed up and down my body. He loved my new form nearly as much as I hated it. How could I ever keep him from getting me pregnant? I'd never had normal cycles in my life. Maybe one every four months, if I was lucky. During the worst years it would disappear altogether.

Now, I was a regular calendar myself. Damn Peeta. Why did he have to change everything? I didn't deserve it.

"Do you want to share any of those thoughts?" He asked.

My own mind was so loud I didn't know how he couldn't hear my thoughts sucking away all the air between us. "No."

"Alright then." He was filled with limitless patience. It overflowed from him. No matter how I pushed him away or begged for him, he met me with the patience of a saint.

I would've killed Gale already at this point, there was no doubt in my mind. Sometimes I just wish Peeta would kill me in return, though.

I was insufferable. I knew it, but I couldn't stop being that way. Yet he looked at me the same way he did in that cave, like I was an angel of light sent directly from heaven to his arms.

Damn Peeta.

"Come back to bed," he finally murmured, pulling back the covers for me. I slipped in and nestled up against him like we were sharing warmth in the same sleeping bag.

His hand caressed my stomach, my chest, my hips, gripping me to him like I'd be ripped away at any moment. And with our luck, that could happen within the next hour.

So I brushed my lips against his knuckles and pretended to sleep soundly.