Finally, Thread stopped the flogging. He came around to face me, eyeing me with that calculating look as he slung excess blood off of the flogger onto the cell floor. He was standing over a drain. Oh. That's what it's for.

I was breathing heavily; each breath catching because when my lungs filled with air my back expanded and contracted, irritating the shredded flesh. Nevertheless, I locked eyes with Thread.

"A lot of people think of Katniss Everdeen as being the one on fire, but I've always had my eye on you." Thread motioned to another Peacekeeper, who then began to haul an unconscious Johanna back to her cell. "You were the one with words. The mouthpiece." He leaned down closer to me and grabbed me by the throat. "I think you've got a lot more to say. You knowing nothing? I don't buy that for a second."

His hand released my throat. "We're finished here," he announced to the others. Someone released my wrists from the shackles and I immediately collapsed. I felt a guard on each side lifting my upper body so that my feet dragged the ground as they lead me back to my cell. They threw me inside, and I gritted my teeth hard to stifle a scream in pain when I hit the floor.

I think back to Gale, who Thread had beaten in the town square in District 12 before the Quarter Quell. And there's Katniss in front of me again. You need a snow coat, she tells me and turns quickly away. Don't leave me, I plead, reaching out to catch her shoulder and feeling pain rip through the flesh on my shoulders.

The door to my cell closed with the sound of pressurized air, and the Peacekeepers march out of the room. I saw an Avox enter, keeping their head down. He was pulling a hose with him, and he began to wash the blood from the floor. Red rivers swirled into the drain.

Johanna didn't talk to me, watching emotionlessly as they pulled me out each day into the middle of the room and applied various types of pressure to try and get me to cave. She didn't say one word, and part of me wondered if that's why they weren't bothering her. At all.

Between heated questions Thread and the other Peacekeepers would try to persuade me to give up information – information that I didn't have. The first day after the flogging, they used a high-pressured hose to spray burning hot water at my back while I was chained to the wall. The water scorched my mangled flesh, and my arms being stretched up over my head made the newly formed scabs reopen and bleed. I could see lots of red water around my feet.

The second day they plunged my head into ice water. In between demands for answers I was dunked to the point of nearly drowning. My back appreciated the break, but my hands and face suffered the excruciating prickle of frozen water.

By the third day I had not eaten anything and was running low on the energy to fight back. I had been so emotional and so reactive those first two days, feeling some sense of agency in my situation that had been an illusion. Now, as a uniformed soldier dragged me out of my cell, I blinked away spots to see Thread standing over me.

"How does food sound, Mellark?" He barked, and I felt a boot dig into my ribs. When I didn't answer he prodded again. "Come on, songbird, get those vocal chords singing," and then he kicked me hard in the stomach. When I didn't hold back a cry of pain, he smiled. "That's more like it. Get him up."

They dragged me out of the room, down the hall they had brought me through the first day that Thread showed me the video feed. I had a nagging feeling that I should look around and try to get my bearings, but I was so weak that my head hung and I stared at the front of the plain gray shirt they had given me and the red blood that was caked on.

I was set down in a chair, and I looked up finally to see that I was back in the room where I had watched the footage of Katniss blowing out the arena. Several of the screens were showing footage from other districts. I saw Peacekeepers escorting packs of workers, people painting over graffiti, happy Capitol citizens walking through the streets outside of Snow's mansion…it seemed like they were keeping pretty good tabs on everyone as screens flickered to different channels representing places and people all over Panem.

"We're ready," Thread told one of the people who sat in front of a row of buttons and screens. The attendant nodded and spoke into a headset, "Ready when you are."

I noticed a Peacekeeper on my left standing between the door and me. He pulled out a gun and trained it on me. Another positioned himself to my right in the same fashion. "He's not going anywhere," Thread smirked, looking down at my hands. I realized that they were trembling and quickly clenched them into fists to hide it.

The Capitol seal appeared on the largest screen before cutting to President Snow. He smiled at me from what looked like a position at his desk. "Good afternoon, Peeta," he said cheerfully, like we were meeting over tea and cookies. "I've arranged this meeting so that we can discuss how you can keep Ms. Everdeen alive."

I didn't bother to hide my hitching breath. "She's alive?" I hated how pathetic my voice sounded, cracking in a dry throat that hadn't spoken for almost a full day. My eyes flickered to Thread who sneered and nodded.

Snow gave me a sympathetic look. "Yes, and well. We've learned a bit more about her saviors, actually, and it might interest you to know that Ms. Everdeen is in District 13." The relief I had felt at the news that Katniss was alive turned into confusion, but Snow didn't wait for me to respond. "Yes, District 13. You heard me correctly. But she is no safer there than she would be here," he said darkly.

"What do you mean?" I couldn't help myself. I wasn't trying to play brave at this point. I had no idea that 13 still existed, and what kind of people were there.

"I don't want to lie to you, Peeta," Snow said genuinely. "The rebels in District 13 survived, and now they are leading a rebellion against the Capitol. But this is what happens when citizens of Panem are insolent."

Another screen flickered to a new video, a shot that looked familiar. It was a video feed of my home in District 12. Another cut showed my family's bakery. My father was outside, feeding the pigs. The video cut again to the sky where a cloud of Capitol hovercrafts approached, and then I saw it. I saw my family blown to bits.

I don't remember falling from the chair to my knees. I remember staring in disbelief at the screen as it showed fire and blood, some crowds of people fleeing in vain as another bomb dropped and they were destroyed, too. Bricks sprayed like confetti and fire engulfed the lens of the camera and the screen went black.

My face was wet with tears that I didn't remember producing. I don't remember breathing. I don't remember feeling. I was numb.

Snow spoke again. "And that's what will happen to 13, where your wife is now, if you don't urge them to stop this nonsense." The screen showed Katniss, among the wreckage at 12.

I couldn't feel the floor beneath me. I thought about my brothers and my parents. I thought about Katniss's family.

Snow continued. "If Katniss is going to be their Mockingjay, you're going to be our Jabberjay."