The snow starts to fall for the first time in weeks. I'm not used to the excruciatingly long, cold, brutal winter here in 12, but it's all worth it to see Madge. I had promised her last night to bring her some game that I knew I would catch today. We were supposed to meet on the north side of the Hob to complete our deal as always: a small catch for a looped-armed walk in the cold. We talk about everything some days, and other days, nothing at all. Just her company is enough to keep me content with the robotic life I'm living. She and Gale have been my only companions since Bree left me.

Oddly enough, I am looking forward to our walk today. I want to tell Madge more about District 1, which she is always so fascinated to hear about. At the same time, I just want to see her. She's cute. Could probably pass for a rather plain District 1 girl. But she exudes this sort of quiet strength that one can't help but be drawn to. She listens and I speak mostly, but from what I do know about her, she is sixteen years old. Her favorite color is sky blue. She's Mayor Undersee's daughter, she likes strawberries, and has a newfound, secret fondness for quail and squirrel meat. She's shy, and likes to listen. And she likes Gale. A lot.

I stroll quickly from the south to the north side of the Hob, but am lost in the crowded square between the Hob and the Justice Building. I get a faint glance of a boy about my age on the platform of the Justice Building, and move my way through the crowd because I recognize his leather satchel sitting at the feet of the Peacekeeper holding a whip over the boy. Because I have the same small satchel tossed over my shoulder, which I throw to the ground. Because the boy is my friend.

I realize this in the split second that, as I continue to angrily shove people in the crowd aside, I see the whip fly over the new Peacekeeper's head. I am sprinting to the front now, as the leather tip of the whip angrily tears strip by strip of flesh off of Gale's bare back. I don't know how to stop this. Gale may be a pain sometimes, but he's always been my friend, the man of action in my plan for the Rebellion. And if it were me being whipped—which it very likely may have been—he would've intervened and tried to help me.

I am literally frozen as I stand at the very front of the hushed crowd now. Gale's screams are everywhere around me; no, they aren't just around me. They are in me, resonating throughout my body and mind, and I feel his pain. I feel the whip slashing the smooth skin off of my back, the crimson blood streaming from my body. I feel what I did to Rue. I feel what the other innocent tributes I had killed in the arena had felt. I feel the pain of the entire nation of Panem, and in this exact moment, I know that the Rebellion Gale and I had planned for so long is right. That it needs to come to fruition even sooner than planned.

My eyes search everywhere for Madge so that I can tell her about my new resolve. When I finally catch sight of her in the distance, standing beside her father, her eyes grow wide. I make my way over to her and her to me. Wordlessly, we wrap our arms around each other. This is the only comfort we can give each other. My only solace in this time of chaos is in my friend Madge's arms. Her silent sobs quake softly through the canvas-y material of my jacket, her face buried into my shirt and hands balled in fists around the fabric. I've never seen her so torn up, so distraught, but I will tell you that it is the most upsetting, unnerving thing I have ever seen. She looks up at me, tears streaming down her pale but frost-bitten cheeks, basically begging for me to take her away from the scene. I agree with her silently as she takes my hand.

We leave after about fifteen or twenty lashes, her clammy palm gripping mine firmly, and we run off to my house in the Seam. I lead her inside the humble shack, taking care to lock the door just in case of potential eavesdroppers.

She crumples silently to the splintered hard-wood floor, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed over bent knees. I sit beside her. "What would your dad do if he knew you were here in the Seam?" I whisper ever-so-softly, even though everyone is out watching the lashing.

Madge closes her eyes and tilts her head up towards the ceiling. "I don't know. He'd hate it. He wants me to marry a merchant."

"He doesn't have a clue about me, about where you disappear every day during lunch?"

"No."

"Not even an idea?"

"No," she repeats, a tear streaming down her face.

I scoot closer to her. "What about…?" She knows I mean Gale, but I can't bring myself to say his name after all we had seen today.

"No one but you," she affirms, but then continues. "And I think Katniss… But he loves her, not me." Madge says curtly.

"What makes you so sure?"

She looks at me firmly now, eyes narrowing. A painfully familiar tone is in her voice, one I recognize well because it's the one I use to tell myself a harsh truth. "Don't play dumb, Marvel. I've seen the way he looks at her. I know." The tears drip down her face slowly, leaving a trail of unrequited love seen only from those beautiful eyes. Something that I wish I could be as much at peace with as her. This is why I like Madge. She's got this side to her that no one but me knows about. She doesn't bullshit around anything. I know this isn't the real reason why she's crying though.

I hold her hand. "He'll be okay. Don't worry. Everything will be okay," I say as she leans her head on my shoulder. Then I start to sing, because I don't know what else to do. At first, my voice comes out rusty and cracks, which Madge ignores, but after a while, I hear something I've never heard in myself before. I realize that I've never heard myself sing. My voice grows louder as I sing the only words from an old Rebellion folk song I knew from when I was a child:

And The Mockingjay, The Mockingjay;

It's song was long gone

When it flew away.

But someday soon, we will cry to the moon

To sing and tell all of the song

Of the Mockingjay…

The uninhibited beauty of each note I sing fills the small cabin and echoes off of the walls. And then something completely unexpected happens.

A black and white Mockingjay lands outside the window facing me and repeats the same melody I had just sang.

There might still be some hope left for Panem after all.