No. Not Primrose Everdeen. Not my sister.
"Do we have any volunteers?" Effie says. The crowd is silent. No one will volunteer for Prim. She walks up to the stage surrounded by Peacekeepers. Effie holds back tears as she finishes the rest of the reaping. I start to cry.
"And now for the boys," she says. Effie picks out a name and comes back to the microphone. "Finn Dayvale," she says.
Prim is led into a room but they won't let me see her. I am her mentor so I will have plenty of time to say goodbye, they say. My mother is the only one who came to say goodbye. None of her friends showed up.
When we board the train I go straight to her.
"Katniss!" she says and she runs to me and starts to cry.
"Shhh Prim. It will be ok. You will be ok," I say as I try to calm her down.
"They're going to kill me! They are going to kill me!" she repeats.
"No, no, they won't. I won't let that happen Prim," I say.
Peeta finds me with her and he comes over with Daisy. Finn had been in the same room but I hadn't even noticed. All I can see is dozens of ways Prim might die. We all sit down like Peeta and I did two years ago and talked.
"I know Prim but I don't know you Finn," Peeta says. "What are your skills?"
Finn just looks at his shoes and says, "I am smart and I am good with a knife."
That's when I recognized him. He is the butcher's son. He must be good with a knife if that's what he and his father do for a living.
"That's good," Peeta says. "It's good that you know your way around a weapon."
"What is Prim good at?" Finn asks.
Prim answers before anyone else can. "Nothing. I can't use any weapon. I can't even climb a tree." I can't even deny it. Prim can't even hunt with me because she tries to heal the animals I shoot. She would never be able to kill someone.
"You are smart Prim. You could outsmart them," I say. She just nods her head.
"Like you did in your first Games?" Finn asks.
"Maybe not like that," I answer. "But maybe she can outsmart the tributes."
Prim gets up and walks out of the car and heads to her room. We sit there for a while until Daisy starts to cry and I take her back to our room to put her down for a nap. Prim doesn't come out until dinner and even then, she barely speaks.