Chapter 1: We Need a Trainer

"On the seventy-fifth anniversary, as a reminder that even the strongest cannot overcome the power of the Capitol, the male and female tributes are to be Reaped from their existing pools of Victors in each district!"

After these words, I can't hear anything. Next to me, on our couch, I can see my husband, Gale's, lips moving soundlessly even as I know he is screaming invective and abuse at the elderly, smirking President on our television screen.

I rise in a sort of catatonic state, and then I am running out our mansion in the Victors' Village. I only get as far as the Green before I collapse in tears. In the near distance, the gates of the Village, and the yawning expanse beyond that gives a direct sightline to the fence and the forest beyond, mocks me.

Back to the arena. Back into that place of hell where I was sent a year ago with my lover and my best friend. Where I fought to the death. Where I married, in a hurried ceremony while shivering in a cave.

The happily ever after, all I had fought to achieve, all rendered moot and pointless now.

A chill in the air sends goosebumps up my flesh, and it starts me enough back into the real world to hear the wails coming from the Hawthorne mansion, where my little siblings-in-law are screaming for their brother and his wife as my mother-in-law hopelessly tries to console them. From the Everdeen mansion, there are choked gasps of "No!" coming from Mother, and I think I hear Primrose crying.

Not even Reaped a second time, and I can already hear the anguish that will be visited upon all those I love if I fail to return a second time. If Gale fails to return a second time.

I jerk sharply as the inspiration strikes me. Unless….

I pelt for Haymitch's house, huddled in its darkened corner at the back of the Village, near the graveyard where every District 12 tribute saved for four have been buried. When I burst inside, the man is predictably popping the cork on a fresh bottle of gin.

"Ah, there she is. Finally did the math."

Yes. I have done the math. The odds are hopeless for me. Lucy Gray Baird, our first Victor who triumphed sixty-five years ago, has been dead for likely that same amount of time, which means I am the only living female Victor from District 12.

The only question I will have left to ponder is whether I will be sent back into a contained combat zone with my mentor or my husband. My mentor or my husband!

I frown, internally bristling. What blasphemy just went through my mind? There's no scenario on Earth in which I would kill Haymitch or Gale. But one of them will be going back into the arena with me, and that's a fact. Perhaps the men will even decide amongst themselves who it will be.

…. It will be Gale. I can fight it with everything I have, but Gale will go back in with me to protect me, his bride and wife. He'll volunteer in Haymitch's place, if he has to. Last year, he hadn't needed to take such a step to prove his love to me; Effie had simply Reaped him naturally.

I sit down across from Haymitch. "I came to drink."

He doesn't stop him, studying me as I take a long pull straight from the bottle.

Yet I don't need the whiskey to help me forego beating around the bush. I get straight to the point. "Gale has to survive. We both owe him that." Haymitch nods glumly. "You didn't want to make a choice between us last year, and in the end you didn't have to. You'll need to make a choice now."

It's quite easy, really. Haymitch can choose to let Gale live, even if it means his death. He could even go to the grave with a cleaner conscience knowing he spared one of his kids while working to make damn sure the other comes out the Victor. Not that that will happen, of course. Not after how unhappy Gale's and my dual Victory made Snow. Our Victory Tour this winter wasn't received much better.

It pains me to think these thoughts, let alone voicing them. Essentially telling Haymitch to feed himself to the wolves. Do I want Haymitch to die? No. I don't. He's dreadful, of course, but Haymitch is my family now.

"OK…. If Effie calls his name at the Reaping, I'll…. I'll volunteer in his place."

"Haymitch, thank you….!"

"But if Effie calls my name first and Gale volunteers, there's literally nothing I can do!"

He's right. This game plan I've foisted on him only works if Effie draws my husband's name first. Everything is contingent on that. And if it doesn't happen, well….

The Capitol will titillate at the opportunity to possibly see a husband turn on his wife. Or vice versa.

"…. And then what?" Haymitch is searching my eyes. "I go back in with you and work my damndest to propel you to the Crown again?"

He can try. As wily as the man is, he most likely will fail. I shake my head. "The Capitol hates me so much, I'm as good as dead now. Gale still might have a chance. Please, Haymitch – say you'll help me!"

He nods, pained.

I don't know how much I drink, or even how long I sit there, but eventually I am stumbling my way back to our house. Gale opens the door, takes one look at me and gathers me into his arms. Over his shoulder, I can see that both of our families have gathered here. Our mothers are murmuring in low tones in the kitchen; the children are holding each other and weeping on the couch.

"I was wrong. We should have left when you said," Gale rumbles.

I draw back and kiss him tragically. My husband's flinty orbs scan me, my face.

"It's not too late!"

I shake my head. "Yeah, it is."

Gale draws back, looking horrified. "So what do we do, Catnip?"

I feel my jaw harden with determination. "We have to act like Careers. One of us is going to be Victor again. Which means we have to train."

"How?" Gale gawps at me in disbelief. "Train like Careers?!" The thought disgusts him. If there's one thing my husband hates more than the Capitol, it's the trained combatants from One and Two who gladly play its sick game. "I don't see a trainer anywhere, honey – do you?"

"No," I agree. There's a pause before I qualify:

"…. But I think I know where we can get one."

I knock on the door of the Bakery's back loading dock in Town early the next morning. When a moptop of blonde hair and a pair of piercing blue eyes answer, I freeze, my mouth oddly going dry.

Peeta Mellark and I were classmates in school, though we never spoke at all. Until recently, we only interacted once and it was years ago. I can still feel, smell the burnt bread that he threw me that day in the rain when we were eleven, a good eight years ago now.

Peeta Mellark has always done something to me. Affected me, in a way I can't explain – and that was before a truly awkward hug we shared when he said goodbye to me last year in the Justice Building. He gave me cookies.

I take a deep breath. "Hi….."

"Katniss…." he breathes, blinking. "Hello…. What can I do for you?"

Like last night with Haymitch, I get right to the point. "Train Gale and Haymitch and me for the Quell."

Peeta lets out an awkward little laugh. "Train you? Why? What makes you think….?"

"…. That you can? You're a wrestler." I oddly flush. "I…. I watched you sometimes, during the school matches." It's true – I've never been one for sports, but I did attend the championship bout during our last term in which Peeta came in second…. and he only lost to his own brother.

A flick of those blue eyes – eyes as blue as a summer sky – as Peeta seems to appraise me. "You watched me, huh?"

My face turns even redder, and I wonder if he is actually…. flirting with me?! He must know I'm married – he saw Gale and I exchange vows live on TV, same as everyone else in Panem.

"What can I teach you that the attendants in the Training Center can't?"

I swallow hard. "Teach us how to pin an opponent. If…. if we're trapped in a hold, show us how to get out of one."

Peeta smiles. I could be reading too much into it, for I feel the need to explicitly warn him, "But if you take any liberties with your hands, my husband will pound you."

Peeta just laughs. "That I can believe."

So begins days of a grueling exercise regimen. Peeta makes the hike up Victors' Hill every morning to take Gale, Haymitch and me through basic drills. He serves as our personal trainer and wrestling coach.

On the face of it, wrestling doesn't appear all that different from the way Gale and I get when we fool around in pain. Except in the moves Peeta is demonstrating, there is no tenor of love or lust. It is cool, clinical.

Peeta slaps his chest in an inviting way, goading me. "If an enemy can't get a grip on you, they can't pin you. So come on: grab me!"

My face is filled with far more color than is appropriate, especially for a married woman. "Wh-where?" I spluttered, flustered, wanting to be tasteful, especially with my husband watching.

If Peeta is as aware as I am how we are being scrutinized by Gale, he doesn't acknowledge it when he replies, "Wherever you want." Gale clears his throat really loudly.

I turn back to the Baker's son, my face twisting into a frown at his cheek and I angrily bull-rush him. Then the world is spinning and I am flat on my back on the ground, pinned and with no range of motion as a man who is not my husband is straddling me.

I gulp, dazed. "Whoa…." is all I manage to utter.

Peeta swings off of me with a smirk even as Gale is already halfway to us, ready to intervene and defend his wife's honor if need be.

Eventually, Gale's and my whole family – the whole Village – gets in on the act. Haymitch teaches knife-throwing seminars and hand-to-hand combat, even though he can't hit the broad side of a barn with a blade. Mother cooks us healthy meals. Prim takes us through holistic healing practices, even demonstrating how to reset dislocated joints while also showing us which herbs are safe to eat. Gale teaches hunting. One day after a wrestling class, I take the men – including Peeta, who tags along even though he doesn't have to be there – out to the lake by my father's hunting cabin where my parents once honeymooned. I teach them how to swim.

The sight of Gale shirtless arouses me. Disconcertingly, the sight of a shirtless Peeta Mellark also arouses me, and I have to banish such lustful thoughts. Why am I staring at him and thinking like this? I have a husband!

Even Effie Trinket helps, sending us videotapes of previous Games winners, which we watch in the evenings as a cool-down. We learn how our possible competition fights. Our escort even forwards us a clipping from a Capitol newspaper: a poll of the citizenry on who will be the Victor of Victors has the District 12 champions at or near the top of favorites.

The day of the Reaping dawns hot and sultry. Peacekeepers enter the Village, guns drawn, at mid-morning. Gale and I huddle near each other as we are forced out onto our front porch, of the house where we have lived as man and wife for just under a year. Down the street, a similar posse is corralling Haymitch. Across the way, both of our families are huddled on their own stoops, teary and grief-stricken. Some of the white-plated guards menace Mother and Mama Hazelle and the children.

At my side, Gale looks like he wants to start a fight right then and there, and I silently implore him to be quiet using only my eyes.

Haymitch, Gale and I are then lined up on the Green in order of seniority and conveyed under heavy guard to the Square. We three Victors mount the stage – my husband and my mentor on one side, me all alone on the other. Between us, flanked by two glass Reaping bowls – both nearly empty – Effie Trinket lacks her usual verve.

"Welcome…. Welcome! On this, the seventy-fifth anniversary, the Third Quarter Quell, of the Hunger Games. As always… ladies first." Effie crosses to the rightmost bowl containing only a single slip of paper that everyone knows already has my name on it. "The female tribute from District 12….. Katniss Everdeen." A beat, and then she clumsily tacks on the end, "Hawthorne. Katniss Everdeen Hawthorne."

A single trail blazes down my cheek at the sound of my married name, and I glance to the boys. Haymitch nods to me stoically.

"Wonderful!" Effie squeaks. "And now for the men."

She crosses to the leftmost bowl. I don't have time to squeeze my eyes shut and pray to the sky that he be spared, please let him be spared.

"The male tribute from District 12….. Haymitch Abernathy."

I glance up in horror.

"I volunteer as tribute!" Gale deadpans. To get to me, take his place beside me, he has to walk past Haymitch, who catches his arm.

"No – I can't let you do that!"

"Stand down, old man, cause you can't stop me."

"Gale –"

"Let go."

Haymitch does, and Gale crosses to me, takes me in his arms and kisses me deeply. I return it passionately and we lose ourselves in the embrace, ignoring Effie even as she announces our names.

"Well, all that remains….."

As Gale and I break apart, I am just in time to see it. Standing near our families, Peeta Mellark is the first to display the three-fingered salute. Touched, I copy it back to him, and Gale follows my lead. The whole district is saying farewell to us, in the most respectful way they know how.

I feel the Head Peacekeeper roughly grab my arm. In the crowd, I hear Primrose cry, "Katniss!"

"I have to say goodbye!"

"New plan," Thread grunts. "Straight to the train!"

"Katniss!"

Struggling against Thread's iron grip as he drags me back into the Justice Building, I panic, only able to let out a squeaky "Goodbye!" before I am being yanked, along with my husband, around the corner.