Katniss has a doctor's appointment. Snow insisted. She's losing too much weight. Since Snow ruined her love of the pond she's taken to running laps around his gardens, sometimes all morning. It's hard on her body, but if she runs enough, if she exhausts herself, she feels cleaner. She can outrun the memories of people getting killed, and she can outrun the feeling of Snow's hands on her body, and she can outrun the way her cunt now heats and wets and contracts at his touch. If she's running, she doesn't get hungry, and then she forgets to eat for long periods. Sometimes she loses time.

Snow worries she's growing unwell. He's not wrong.

The medical suite is just down the hall from Snow's bedroom. How convenient for him, should he need medical help. There's something physically wrong with him, of course: his bleeding, his mouth, the way he eats so carefully. But he will not tell her that secret. The suite is like a beautiful hospital, antiseptic smelling and full of strange machines. There is a doctor and a nurse, and here Katniss is subject to all manner of tests. She is weighed, and though the doctor does not read her the weight she is able to see that she has lost a shocking fifteen pounds since she last weighed herself nearly two months ago in District 12. Her bloods are taken and labelled and spirited away, and her mouth is looked inside, and her muscles are pinched, and her reflexes tested, and all manner of other things. She is told to lie on a bed and gel is smeared over her belly, and the doctor examines a screen that she cannot see.

'What are you looking at?' she asks. How unsettling that strangers can read her most intimate parts on cameras and she doesn't even know what is being examined.

'Your uterus,' says the doctor. 'If you stay at this weight and keep putting this level of strain on your body, you risk damaging your fertility.'

Katniss stares at the ceiling. 'Good.' Having children in District 12 would have been bad enough. But having a child here? Raising it among all this blood and wealth? She would rather strangle it in the crib. 'Does Snow want me fertile?' she asks flatly.

'The President wants you well,' answers the doctor evasively.

Katniss thinks, briefly, what it would be like to raise Snow's child. Would it look like him? Would it have the same broiling evil inside it? Would carrying it infect her? She thinks of artificial insemination, the kind of thing they do when the cattle won't breed naturally, and she refuses to think about Snow fucking her.

'There is a slight anomaly in your left ovary,' says the doctor. 'It's probably nothing, but I'd like to check. I'll need to do a transvaginal scan.'

Katniss doesn't know what that means, but when the doctor produces a long, slender metal rod she puts two and two together. She is instructed to pull her knees up and spread them, and she tries to think about killing things as the shaft of metal slides into her.

'Ah, everything is fine,' says the doctor, looking at the screen. 'Just a little lopsided. Nothing to worry about.'

Katniss feels a sharp pain inside her and cries out, and then the rod is gone.

'Sorry,' says the doctor, though he doesn't sound it. 'It can be an unpleasant procedure if you're unaccustomed to penetration.'

Katniss is going to kill Snow, and then she is going to kill this doctor.

'Are you nearly done?' she snaps at him. But he is not nearly done. There are a dozen more tests, and by the end of it Katniss feels as though every inch of her has been examined and catalogued.

And after that comes the psychological assessment. How is her mood? How often has she been depressed? Can she sleep? Does she sleep too much? How much does she eat? What does she eat? What brings her pleasure? Does anything bring her pleasure? Is she afraid that something terrible might happen?

Katniss gives glib responses, yeses and nos and shrugs, but this seems to be enough for the doctor.

'I'm going to prescribe you two sets of medication for now,' he says. 'One set are SSRIs — that stands for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors — and the other are benzodiazepines. The first is for your depression and the second for your anxiety. Now, it's easy to overdose on these, so stick to the dosage stated. We could save you from an overdose, of course, but it would be unpleasant for you. Don't waste your time trying.'

Katniss blinks at that. Suicide is not a serious consideration for her. If she kills herself, Snow will probably kill her mother out of sheer spite. Maybe he'll marry Prim as a replacement. Suicide is a special luxury that she is not allowed.

'I'll have them dropped off in your chambers once they've been dispensed. They should help. We will speak in two weeks to review, and keep meeting regularly to discuss any necessary changes.'

Her body and mind are exhausted and stressed by the end of the ordeal, and she retreats to her chambers to sleep through the afternoon. She's stopped keeping regular hours.

And she dreams.

In Katniss' dream, everyone she has ever killed are strung upside down on hooks like fresh meat for sale in the Hob. Their eyes are still open, looking at her and blinking, more with curiosity than with judgment. Rue is there too, and her father, and the assassin whose name she does not know. The bodies have been bled like cattle, and all that rich blood has collected in an impossible, bottomless pitcher. Katniss sits at a fine, white-tableclothed table and smiles with gratitude as Snow pours her a glass of thick blood.

'Drink up,' he tells her. 'It has all the nutrients a growing girl needs.'

Katniss smiles and nods, and she drinks. She feels her mouth fill and swell with blood, hot and soft all over and inside her, and she swallows again and again until every drop has slid into her mouth.

She sets down the empty cup.

'More?' offers Snow, and she nods. She is beaming with expectation and relish as he pours another glass, filling it right to the brim, and Katniss drinks this, too. Snow looks very pleased with her.

It fills her strangely: not in her stomach, but in her veins, and under her skin, and deep inside her flesh. The more she drinks, the fuller she gets. Her skin burns so pleasurably as she drinks and gulps and gorges, and soon she is spilling blood everywhere… It is running over her chin… It is soaking between her thighs… She is so wet…

Katniss wakes with a low breath, and for a moment she is just confused. Then she convulses with disgust. She has had few erotic dreams in her life, though her nightmares are constant. She sits slowly, drawing her knees to her chest, and she tries to comprehend the unfamiliar, needy heat between her legs. She puts her fingers to her cunt, unsure quite what she will find, and is viscerally repulsed to feel the thick, oily substance clinging there. She's been wet before, of course, but not like this. This is foul. Something has gone wrong in her body. It's like dressing game and realizing you have burst the intestines. It's a mistake. It's rancid. It ruins the meat.

She strips her clothes and falls into the shower, trying to obliterate herself among the hot water. A switch has been thrown in her brain and her body doesn't work properly anymore. She thinks of other Victors and how they deal with the trauma of the Games by turning to alcohol, drugs, sex, suicide… Is what she feels the same as Finnick Odair and those other kids getting raped for money? Do they learn to enjoy it, just so they don't go insane? Or do they all hate it forever, and it's Katniss who is weak and disgusting and uniquely damaged?

Katniss starts to scrub her fingers between her legs, cleaning her syrupy cunt like she's gutting a fish. She despises how her body flickers with interest at her own touch. She is not going to masturbate and debase herself. It has been a long time since she gave herself an orgasm, not since before her wedding, and perhaps it would feel nice to use her body for something other than anxiety. But the fantasies of blood and Snow are anathema to her, and so as soon as she is clean she keeps her fingers well away from her clit and tries to ride it out.

She dresses in a loose blue smock and wanders the mansion barefoot, looking for anything to distract her from the unpleasant arousal slithering through her body. She thinks swimming would help, but her brush with drowning has put her off water. Just one more thing Snow has stolen from her.

And, speaking of...

Sometimes she can go days without seeing Snow; he's often away on business, and the mansion is so huge that it's easy to avoid him. Other times, she seems to be drawn to him with vile inevitability. Today she finds him in one of the dining rooms she wanders through. He is drinking coffee and watching something on a projector: clips of people shouting and burning, clips of people talking flatly behind desks. Snow glances up at her and smiles, just as he did in her dream, and Katniss feels a little clench of arousal. She glares at him, lingering in the doorway. She has no wish to exist in the same air as him and let his vibrations connect with her skin.

Snow turns off the projector. 'How was your doctor's appointment, my dear?'

She watches him from cavernous eyes. 'He touched every part of my body and stuck things in my vagina.'

Snow's smile slips. 'Those were necessary examinations, Katniss, I promise. I wanted you to have a comprehensive check-up. I've been worried about you. Do you know how much weight you've lost?'

Katniss shrugs. 'Fifteen pounds.'

Pain creases his brow. 'It's noticeable. The stylists say you've gone down three dress sizes, and I can feel it when…' He grimaces. 'When I hold you, you feel smaller. And you've also stopped menstruating.'

Katniss' mouth falls open. 'How could you possibly know—'

'My team keeps track of these things,' he says, as though this is an absolutely sane thing to share.

Katniss is furious. She hadn't even noticed how late her period was. How can Snow know these things about her body that she does not even notice herself? It's unconscionable.

'And you trust your team?' she sneers. 'How do you know they don't tell you lies about me? Maybe your doctor and your stylists and your security team all take turns raping me when you're not looking.'

This joke really does not play well with her audience. Snow looks quite perturbed. 'I trust my employees,' he says carefully. 'They were chosen very specifically.' He frowns at her. 'Has anyone been inappropriate with you?'

'Only you.' She offers a leering smile, then comes to sit beside him. She yanks out a chair and sits, her knees to her chest, and forces him to deal with the mess she is becoming.

Snow speaks slowly. 'When you first arrived, I did tell you I wouldn't watch you on the cameras. But perhaps that was too hasty. It might be good for your safety if I kept an eye on you, too.'

'I don't want you to watch me. I hate you watching me.' She thinks of him watching her in the Games, over and over, her screaming and her terror, endlessly looping…

'I'm not asking for permission, Katniss. I am merely letting you know that I might decide to do that. You know I promised to be honest with you.'

Katniss smolders. 'What, you're just going to watch me sleep and get dressed and use the bathroom? There's a camera in my shower, you know. I'm sure that one will give you hours of entertainment.'

'I can refrain from watching the bathroom cameras, if that would make you feel better.' Snow shakes his head at her as though she is the unreasonable one. 'There is a camera in your shower because it would be trivial for an attacker to conceal themselves there if it wasn't monitored. Your last attacker targeted you in a bathroom, if you recall.'

'Of course I recall,' Katniss snaps. 'Do you know who it was yet?'

'Yes,' says Snow simply.

'Are you going to tell me?'

He considers. 'Not yet.'

She rolls her eyes. 'Great. Very useful. That really helps my mental health.'

The bandage has been taken off her arm where the assassin cut her and the stitches have mostly dissolved, but she decides to pick at one of them now.

'Please don't do that,' says Snow softly.

'What, do you find this disgusting?' She plucks at the stitch, loosing the blood, and Snow looks at her hard.

'I don't like to see you hurt yourself, Katniss.'

She rolls her eyes. 'I'd like to see you hurt yourself.'

'Katniss.' He reaches out and grasps her wrist, stopping her picking, and Katniss feels her body quake with erotic revulsion at his touch. 'Stop it. Please.'

She yanks her hand away from him but acquiesces, at least to stop him interfering with her if nothing else. 'You understand that you telling me you don't like something just makes me want to do it more, right?'

Snow looks quite unhappy with her. 'Did the doctor prescribe you any medication?'

Katniss rolls her eyes. 'Yeah. Things to patch me up. Keep me functioning.' She snorts. 'What about doing things to address the root cause of my issues?'

'Such as?'

There is something perverse but oddly pleasurable to Katniss in sitting beside President Snow, the man who is responsible for every evil ever committed in her life, and having a frank discussion about her mental health.

'Well, you, most obviously.'

'In what capacity?' He sounds genuinely curious. 'Is it my touching you?'

'Yes. No. That's part of it. But it's everything. It's being near you, it's being complicit in the things you do, it's being alone, it's being away from my home, it's…' She shrugs her bleeding shoulder. 'It's everything. And it's all you.'

His expression is unreadable. 'You'll get used to me, Katniss. We've only been married for six weeks, after all. Which medications were you prescribed?'

She struggles to recall. Her memory isn't what it used to be and the days are so gray. 'Anti-anxiety meds. Anti-depressants. Lots of antis. Things that exist in opposition to me.'

'You shouldn't think of medication in that way. It is not about erasing you, it is about enabling you to be you more easily.'

Katniss laughs. 'And who the fuck am I?'

Snow's smile is warm and weirdly affectionate. 'You're Katniss.'

She shakes her head at that. 'Maybe I used to be.' She wipes up a bit of blood snaking down her arm. 'Is this really what you wanted? You said trauma was useful. Am I really more useful to you like this? If you have to drug me up to keep me functional, doesn't that mean you've made a mistake somewhere?'

'Not at all.' He is still smiling. 'You have made so much progress. That girl who volunteered for her sister, she was nothing compared to who you are now. And you've been through so much. You're not finished yet; you're still ripening. Do you know what the word vulnerable really means, Katniss?'

'I'm sure you're about to tell me.'

'It means "wound-like". And right now, that's what you are. Raw. Bleeding. A wound. But you will heal and scab and scar, and then you will be fantastic. Think of it: you are already capable of such strength and such violence. I am so impressed by the person you've become. Imagine what you'll be when I've… when you're finished.'

Katniss feels crushingly aware of the gulf between them. Snow might as well be another species. He speaks to her with reverence and charm, as though she is magical to him, and he takes such open, unguarded delight in reaching inside her and strangling her soul.

Katniss shifts in her chair, and she notes with confusion and shame and disgust that her clitoris is swollen again and her clean underwear is sticky. She doesn't even know why. She is going so, so wrong.

'I don't even feel like a person anymore,' she says.

'Perhaps you've become something better. What do you feel like?'

Katniss rests her chin on her knees and she looks at Snow, and she tries to gather the fragments of herself into a coherent whole. 'I feel like a piece of you.'

She is dimly horrified by the fond, loving smile that spreads over Snow's face. 'Wouldn't that be something?' Then his smile reforms into something a little less existentially terrifying. 'We have a party later today I would like you to attend.'

Katniss lets her head fall back in her chair. 'Another party? Is that all you ever do?'

He keeps smiling. 'You might note, Katniss, that our social events are all scheduled in the evenings. I spend my mornings and afternoons engaged in drier work.'

Katniss wants to keep picking at her stitches, but instead she tears at a piece of loose nail on her toe. 'I cannot tell you how meaningless my life feels when all I do is go to parties.'

'In time, I might be able to take you to more explicitly political meetings,' says Snow, 'but in the meantime, these social occasions are not meaningless. On the contrary, some of the most important work I do happens at these events. This particular party is a winter festival celebration, but its primary purpose is to provide a sense of stability. As you're aware, Katniss, Panem is not enjoying its most peaceful years.'

Katniss has no idea what goes on in the Districts now. She doesn't even know what it's like in District 12. She hardly knows what goes on in the Capitol. What she knows is Snow, and what Snow tells her, and the tight texture of the little world he cocoons her in. Is she being prepared for metamorphosis, or to be eaten?

'There have been several rebel attacks recently,' Snow continues. 'Although our marriage achieved a great deal, this conflict is far from concluded. District 11 burns. District 8 is in turmoil. There have been a number of arrests and attacks in the Capitol itself. People are still dying.'

'And your solution is a party?'

Snow smiles indulgently. 'My solutions, Katniss, include an increased military presence in the more tempestuous Districts, mass arrests, executions without trial, air strikes on suspected rebel bases, the abduction of key players' family members, constant surveillance in the Capitol, and many other strategies besides — including a political marriage to an ill-tempered teenager from District 12.' His smile widens. Katniss does not return it. 'And alongside all of that, I also intend to advertise the stability, might, and splendor of the Capitol. Hence our attending a winter festival party at the home of Margarita Litany, one of the most notorious socialites in the city.'

Katniss lets all this wash over her. 'Executions without trial?'

'Indeed.'

She yanks off the piece of toenail and the skin beneath starts to bleed. 'Okay. I'd prefer the party to another execution.'

'I thought you would,' smiles Snow. 'Tell me, do you have many winter festival traditions in District 12?'

Many? No, they did not have many. Everyone was too poor. But even in the darkest years, their family always had a feast. A quail, usually, and if they were very, very lucky Katniss would land a wild turkey. Most of the time turkey meat went straight to the Hob, but for the winter feast it would be just for them, just for her and her mother and sister. A special celebration. One year they had to make do with a pigeon. Bad meat. But it was something. Every year they would hang decorations of berries and pine, and Prim made adorably ugly robins by painting pinecones with blood. Oh, they were hideous things, and they smelled.

'What are you smiling about?'

Katniss snaps out of her reverie. Snow looks so warm and curious.

She parts her chapped lips. 'It's none of your fucking business.'

Snow laughs at her and Katniss thinks about serving him for the winter festival dinner, disemboweled, surrounded by those silly pinecone robins.

'Well, Katniss, in the spirit of the winter festival, I have a gift for you.' He pauses, eyes on her bleeding foot. 'But I cannot give it to you if you keep trying to hurt yourself.'

Katniss massages her knuckles into her eyes. 'Snow,' she says with the tone of trying to explain to Prim why they couldn't keep a bobcat for a pet, 'I don't want gifts. I don't want you to be nice to me. I don't want any of this. Do you think you can dangle presents in front of me to get me to do what you want?'

'No,' he says carefully. Snow is contemplating something. When he speaks, he does so with microscopic specificity. 'Let's make a deal. You are not going to hurt yourself anymore. No picking at your stitches. No biting your nails. No opening that cut on your thigh.'

Katniss' lip curls. So the security team do watch her in the shower, when she likes to open up her skin and soothe herself with the pain and the meagre autonomy she has over her body.

'And in exchange?'

Snow fixes her with a hard stare. 'If you keep hurting yourself, Katniss, I will see to it that every wound you inflict on your own body is also inflicted on the body of your sister.' He gives her the quiet shadow of a smile. 'Is that fair?'

Katniss looks at Snow, and she thinks about pushing him from his chair, shoving him onto the floor, climbing atop him, and sinking her fingers into his face and tearing apart his smile until teeth and gum are all that remain.

'I despise you,' she whispers.

Snow is at absolute ease. 'Do we have a deal?'

Katniss thinks about men breaking into her family's house. Or would they knock politely at the door? They go to Prim's room, and Prim puts aside the book she's reading in confusion. They hold her down, they strip her clothes. They put a neat scalpel to the flesh of her young thigh. Then they take pliers to her fingernails, to make them like Katniss' hands. They'll remake her little sister in her image, and then when she is equally ruined, and if Katniss is no longer of use to Snow, they'll have a replacement ready.

'I don't know if I can stop biting and picking my nails,' Katniss says with desperation. 'It's… a bad habit. I don't even know when I'm doing it.'

'It's a compulsion,' says Snow softly. 'I know. Just try to do it as little as possible, alright?'

'Alright.' Her eyes are hot with angry, ashamed, grieving tears, and she wipes at them and wishes — truly, deeply wishes — that she was dead.

Snow suddenly brightens. 'I think you can have your gift.' He glances up and nods at a servant. Katniss turns and watches the girl leave the room. She hadn't even noticed anyone was there. She has stopped seeing them as people. Will she stop seeing everyone outside of her cage of wealth and power as people? Will her world shrink until only she and Snow are the only real things left?

When the servant returns, she deposits a long, thin box on the table. It is beautifully wrapped in green, with a red ribbon. Did Snow wrap it himself? Did he pick out whatever it is himself, or does he have someone do that for him?

'I don't want it,' Katniss says dully.

'You don't even know what it is yet.' He sounds so happy, like they're having a lovely festival gift-exchange.

'I. Don't. Want. It.' She just wants to run… Keep running… Wear her feet to smooth bone…

'I understand your feelings, Katniss. It's just that I—'

'Don't respect them.'

Snow's smile is small this time. 'It's not as though you respect my feelings either, Katniss.'

Katniss stares. 'You don't have any feelings!' An ocean inside her breaks into white and red waves like blood on snow. She grasps the box and throws it against the wall. 'I don't want this! I hate you! Don't you understand? I hate you! I don't want gifts! I just want…' She takes a painful, fluttering breath. Her heart is going too hard. She is having another anxiety attack. What does she want? She rubs her hands over her face and then peers at Snow between her fingers, seeing his smile, seeing his cold blue eyes, and as she thinks about enucleating him she feels her body quiver with sexual arousal. She drops her hands from her face. Her voice comes out in a rotting monotone. 'It doesn't matter. Sure, I'll go to the party. It's not like I have a choice.' She digs inside herself for her old weapon, the one that Snow hates so much. She can still feel the ghost of that metal rod inside her. 'What shall we do this time? Shall I just hold your hand and kiss you, or maybe you want to put your fingers inside my vagina?'

Snow visibly recoils, leaning away, lengthening the air between them. Katniss smiles. She is so effective at hurting him with this specific little tool.

'I am sure that won't be necessary,' says Snow icily, and then he promptly stands. 'You have a few hours until we need to leave. I will meet you in the foyer at eight.'

He turns to go, and Katniss calls after him, grinning like death. 'Maybe that's not your style,' she calls. 'Maybe you'd prefer if I put your cock in my mouth.'

Snow pauses at the door. He looks back at her. He is appalled.

'I hope the medication helps you, Katniss. Because you are despicable when you are like this.'

'Like what?' She observes herself as though she is a different person, and she opens her knees like she did for the doctor that morning, spreading her calves, exposing herself. For a moment, Snow's eyes drop between her legs to the shadow of her underwear. His expression is rank dread.

And then he leaves.

Katniss smiles to herself. It's such a fun game they play. Although — as she shifts her legs and feels the wet and the stick of her arousal — she isn't certain that she likes how the rules have changed.

She looks across the room to the discarded box, spilled open on the floor like a murdered cat. She slips off her chair and wanders over to whatever it is that glitters inside. Jewelry, of course. She tweaks off the lid with her bleeding toe and stares at the contents.

It's not jewelry.

It's a knife.

It's absolutely beautiful. The handle is jade, carved in the shape of a hare with its long ears curving to fit your palm. The blade is gorgeous, rippling Damascus. She crouches and runs her forefinger along the handle and steel. A real hunting knife, just for her. She could easily kill herself with it. She could kill Snow, too. It's a dangerous gift.

He likes her dangerous.

She lifts it delicately from the box. She lets her fingers curl around the handle and feel its silky heft against her skin. It's not the same as a bow, but it's a wonderful, terrible little weapon. She wants this gift. She really wants to keep it, and she wants to open up flesh with it. An animal… A human being… Snow's face… Her own thighs…

She replaces the knife in the box. She stands, feeling herself breathe in hot, shallow gasps. The fury and grief she felt only moments before have melted into that wretched arousal.

Katniss looks to the servant. 'I shouldn't have this,' she says. 'I might hurt someone. Or myself. Take it away.'

She returns to her chambers, where Katniss is unsurprised to find another choice of three dresses left out for her. She ignores them and goes straight to the shower, her sanctuary, where her fingers go instinctively to the wound on her thigh. Then she remembers Snow's threat, and she clenches her fist in hatred and frustration. She is forbidden from hurting herself.

What about killing herself? Could she do it? Could she, in a moment of weakness, perhaps when drunk, set aside thoughts of her sister's safety and relax into the smooth, sweet transgression of a blade on her body? Snow obviously doesn't think she's capable of going that far. Is he right? Does he know her better than she knows herself?

She is distracted from these thoughts by a new presence in her bathroom. Two white pill bottles smile at her from the sink. She approaches them warily. Their labels whisper the new rules she is to follow: One 2mg tablet to be taken twice daily.

Katniss looks into her reflection, and she has no idea who this abomination is that looks back at her. She does not recognize the too long, too untidy dark hair. She does not recognize the empty pits of eyes that stare back. She does not recognize the wasting body.

She unscrews both bottles and inserts two dry pills into her mouth, then gets into the large shower. She turns to the security camera and for a long time just stands there, cradled in hot, bright water, watching strangers watching her. She slides a hand between her thighs as she makes eye contact with the black fisheye camera, not even knowing why, and then she turns her back to it.

She parts her lips and lets the dry pills fall from her mouth. They clatter silently to the tile, impossible to see or hear over the heavy spray. She nudges them into the drain with her foot, and then she starts to wash the sweat from her body and the arousal from her vulva for the second time that day, and as she does so she chews open the wound on the inside of her cheek with a savagery she's not yet shown. No one needs to know. That's her private wound. All hers, all hers…

Maybe she'll get worse. If Snow wants her well, she'll get sicker. If he wants her whole, she'll keep bleeding. If he wants her to be respectable and refrain from sexually harassing him, well…

Katniss smiles. If Snow wants her traumatized, then let him deal with the consequences.

Katniss chooses from Snow's selection of dresses at random, picking one in shimmering festive green, and she glues on her appliques herself. She files them into vicious points and paints them blood red, and she brushes her hair so it sits in full, gentle waves. When the stylists knock on her door, she barks at them like a rabid dog and throws ornaments until they go away.

She's had enough of them touching her.

Only Snow is allowed to touch her.

And she is allowed to touch Snow.

When she sees him in the foyer, he turns and smiles up at her with undisguised affection. Katniss takes a moment to close her eyes and steady herself, and then she joins him. Snow wears a velvet suit in dark crimson, brightened only by his customary white rose. But today, there is also a second rose: held in one hand, small and budding, and Katniss regards it distrustfully.

Snow looks over her hair with a question. 'A very natural look,' he observes.

'I'm done with the stylists,' she says, taking his arm and smiling at him with her usual derangement. 'I don't want them touching me anymore. You should stop them coming to see me.'

'It is expected for you to showcase the latest fashions, Katniss,' he says. They walk together to the door, arm in arm, like this is normal. Like this is how things should be. The warmth of his body, the smell of the roses, and the low miasma of blood all feed into the itchy heat between Katniss' legs. 'I can hardly sanction you making all your own cosmetic decisions.'

'If they try to touch me again,' she says lightly, 'I'll cut off all my hair. Surely that doesn't count as hurting myself.' She examines her sharpened nails and then gives Snow a vacant look. 'Don't you like my hair like this?'

She can tell he is not entirely happy with her attitude, but he pauses to give her overlong, flowing hair due consideration.

'It looks beautiful,' he says. He extends the rose-bearing hand. 'Since you spurned my other gift, I wanted to give you at least a little token. May I?'

Katniss would much rather he didn't, but she quietly submits herself to the reaching forth of his hand, the pulling aside of her heavy hair, the winding of the thorn and stem into the roots above her right ear. He has touched her hair before: after drowning her, after kissing at their wedding reception, and the very first time they met after the Games.

'What a lovely pin,' he had said.

She does not want to be lovely for him.

Katniss angles her head so that her face presses against his fingers, bringing the cool, rough skin of his knuckles against the anxiety-hot swell of her cheek. He drops his hand as though burned.

Snow's smile is a little forced when he gestures to the door. 'Shall we?'

They don't speak again until they arrive at the party. It's not a long drive, and Katniss would have been satisfied to walk if it wasn't for security concerns that they might both get blown into little bloody pieces on the sidewalk. The house itself is small in comparison to Snow's, but palatial by any other standards. When they step out of the limousine, Katniss looks up at the huge glittering building against the black sky, festooned with fairy lights, and she feels a lively jolt. It looks like an exciting place. She only recoils a little bit when Snow places his palm on her back, and then she leans into it. They are becoming a perfect couple.

Once through the massive doors, guarded by a security team that rivals Snow's, they are greeted by their host. She is a striking woman who might be Snow's age, but it's hard to tell with the amount of surgery she's had done. Dressed in exuberant layers of orange silk, she floats rapidly toward them like some predatory, colorful swan. Up close, Katniss sees she wears an orange wig, heavy aquamarine eyeshadow, and carries a malformed little dog under one arm.

'My darling Coriolanus, I am an absolute wreck. How could you possibly look so dashing?'

Katniss blinks as this strange woman exchanges cheek-kisses with Snow, who seems weirdly unbothered by her, and then Katniss nearly knocks the dog out of the woman's arms as she is subjected to the same treatment.

'Oh, Katniss, it is a delight to finally meet you!' The woman peers into Katniss' eyeballs like they could tell the future. 'My goodness, look how young you are.' She raises an eyebrow at Snow, a question Katniss cannot parse.

'What can I say? I'm a romantic,' says Snow with uncharacteristic sarcasm, and then the woman laughs. Katniss offers an awkward grin. She doesn't understand the joke.

'Well, my dear, I am Margarita, and you are most welcome to my home. We are all in pieces, of course.' She turns and begins to drift down the corridor, shawls and tassels billowing behind her. 'Two of my neighbors dead this week! My goodness! Coriolanus, you really ought to do something about this.'

'I am doing many things, Margarita. If I wasn't, you would be among the dead as well.'

The woman gives an obnoxious but not unmusical laugh. 'I was going to have the Nance family over,' she says, feigning upset. 'But you went and had their son executed.'

'He insulted my wife,' says Snow mildly, and he interlaces his fingers with Katniss.

Margarita looks at him curiously. 'You're really serious about her, aren't you?'

Snow's eyes glitter. 'I am extremely serious about her.'

Katniss doesn't know if she ought to smile at this.

'Well,' continues the woman, 'I shan't have anyone left to invite to my parties if you keep killing my friends.'

'He wasn't your friend, Margarita,' says Snow, as though amusing himself. 'You don't have friends.'

The woman leads them to a large room and turns over her shoulder to give them both a wink. 'Everyone is my friend, Coriolanus.'

Inside the room, Katniss finds that it's a strange, sleepy kind of party with meandering, festive brass music and a piano somewhere that can't be seen through the haze of scented smoke. There is a towering pine tree bedecked with ornaments of crystal and colored glass, and the sweet smell of pine makes Katniss' heart hurt for home. They never decorated trees in District 12, but they would burn a special, big log to have at least one warm evening in the winter. The party is far less formal than the events to which Katniss has become accustomed. Instead of the usual dining tables, everyone is seated on low, plush sofas, or on cushions, or just on the floor. The carpet beneath Katniss' feet feels soft enough to sleep on. The partygoers are lavishly dressed in mostly red and green and gold, many of them laughing, some a little hysterically. Everyone is a bit too drunk and a bit too tightly wound. This is what a party in war time looks like.

Margarita claps her hands. 'Help yourselves to drinks and nibbles.'

As she strides away, Katniss whispers to Snow. 'How do you know her?'

'We went to school together, over sixty years ago. She's absolutely intolerable, of course, but one can develop an affection for the intolerable.'

Katniss smiles at that. Hope springs eternal.

'Hard to imagine you at school,' she says.

'It was a long time ago. I was young once, you know.' He smiles at her, and Katniss glares back.

'Well, now you're old,' she says shortly.

He shakes his head at that. 'Come, Katniss. You should mingle. Speak with some of the other women. Try to make friends.'

Katniss doesn't think she is capable of forming a single sentence that sounds like something a normal human being might say. Her eyes drift over the guests: lots of beautiful women, obviously rich, some with strange surgical alterations that she does not understand.

And then there is a sound: unique and peculiar, one that silences every conversation. It is somehow both familiar and yet something she has never heard before. This sound is huge, loud, and electronic. The sound it reminds her of is quite different: low, brassy, coming from a horn erected in the town square. But there is something similar to the texture of its urgency that makes Katniss know instinctively what it means.

An air raid siren.

At first people think it's a joke. Why would there be sirens in the Capitol?

Snow does not hesitate. He turns to Margarita and shouts over the crowd. 'PANIC ROOM?' His voice is a cannon.

Margarita looks briefly terrified. 'It's… I…' She blinks her wide, aquamarine-eyeshadowed eyes, and then something hardens. 'In the kitchens. Follow me.'

Snow grabs Katniss' arm hard enough to leave a vicious bruise and she sighs as she is dragged along in his wake. Sirens were constant in District 12, until a bomb destroyed the horn. She preferred the quiet. Better to die in your sleep.

The other partygoers start to follow them like frightened ducklings as Snow strides after Margarita, and all the while sirens sing around them and outside and, probably, everywhere in the city. Snow immediately spots the false wall when they reach the kitchens. He seethes impatiently as Margarita enters a code on a digital pad.

'This is all very melodramatic,' says Katniss flatly. She tries to pull her arm away from Snow, but he will not release her.

He is so irritating when he's worried about her.

The wall clicks open and Snow doesn't wait; he pushes in, pulling Katniss like a sack of kittens. They enter into a dark, tight staircase that leads them underground through corner after corner of steep steps, deeper into the earth; like a mine, like a grave. Katniss doesn't like this. They emerge into a low-ceilinged metal box of a room, obviously not designed to accommodate the number of partygoers that are now piling down the stairs behind them, about twenty-five in total. There is a single couch-bed, a simple kitchenette, a table, a television, a first aid station, and an open door showing a cramped shower room and toilet. This is a room built for utility, not the luxury to which the Capitol is accustomed.

'Everyone remain calm,' orders Snow in a voice that hits like a wrecking ball. Everyone is immediately subdued, obeying despite themselves, and Katniss suppresses a smile. They are all so impressed by him. Outside, the sirens continue their warble, in and out, in and out. Then there is a huge, low thud, and the ceiling quivers. Several people scream.

'They're bombing us!' shouts someone unhelpfully.

'That was at least a mile away,' says Snow, his eyes on the ceiling. 'We are extremely secure down here. We are thirty feet below ground, encased in two feet of concrete and steel.'

A fancy tomb this'll make, thinks Katniss.

'The Capitol has impeccable defenses against air raids,' says Snow to the crowd of wide-eyed, terrified Capitol elite. 'We are absolutely safe. All we need to do is wait until it passes. You will all be alright. Isn't that correct, Katniss?'

Katniss blinks. Suddenly, everyone is looking at her.

'Of course,' she stutters, and then she understands her role. 'Like Coriolanus said, we're totally safe down here.' She grasps Snow's arm and smiles up at him. 'Coriolanus always keeps me safe, and I know he'll do the same for the rest of you.'

She smiles lovingly at Snow, and then reassuringly at everyone else. Remarkably, they do look a little calmer.

'And if anyone somehow breaks in,' says Margarita, who is still clutching that ugly little dog, 'Katniss can kill them for us!'

This ought to be a joke, but several people nod as though this is both a reasonable and comforting thing to say.

Lots of people are soon on their pocket phones, trying to call friends, trying to find out what's happening. Snow, too, takes out his tablet to make important, life-saving, death-dealing phone calls — but all soon learn there is no signal to the Capitol network. The partygoers prickle with more terror at this news, but Snow merely shrugs and replaces his tablet in his breast pocket.

'They can't knock out our communications for long. This is a rebel attack; they simply don't have the resources to do any meaningful damage. There is nothing to do but to wait this out.'

Snow lowers himself with some difficulty onto the hard metal floor, back against the wall, as though this is a normal and comfortable situation to be in. Katniss sits beside him. Her role is to be the warm light that illuminates Snow's reliability. The other attendees also try to make themselves comfortable, the couples clinging to one another in fear and love. Katniss swallows her sarcastic comments. She has lived with the fear of death every day of her life, and now these people are getting their first taste of it.

She becomes very aware that everyone else is sitting very close to one another, some of the couples practically in one another's laps for fear, and that she and Snow have a good six inches of space between them. Her jaw firm, she slides herself over so they are pressed together and gives Snow a strained, faux-loving smile. He glances around the room, senses the mood, and places a hand awkwardly on hers.

Katniss feels the warmth of Snow's body against her and she smells the blood beneath the rose perfume, and she feels a low heat go through her body.

Oh, great.

And then the second bomb hits, and everybody starts screaming.

Soon, everywhere smells like frightened bodies. Sometimes someone sobs, sometimes someone gives a little shriek. A few people are crying constantly. Sometimes there is a distant, dull thud, and then there is a louder, muffled sound, and then the ceiling shakes and fine particles of dust snow down on them. Margarita's ugly dog yaps. Katniss looks forward to killing and eating it for sustenance, if it comes to that.

Katniss mostly feels bored. She feels terrified too, but she is so accustomed to feeling terror that it's almost become a part of her. She sits beside Snow and holds his hand, and she tries to make a game of counting how many bombs there might be and where they might be targeting.

'The rebels have a lot more armory than I thought,' she murmurs to Snow.

He presses his mouth to the shell of her ear. Salt smells lick at her: blood-breath and sweat. 'I lied to them. These aren't the rebels. At least, not exactly.' She watches his mouth twitch in displeasure, but he will not elaborate. 'This shall be dealt with, I assure you.'

A bomb hits. The ceiling shakes. Fear rises in Katniss' throat and then falls back again.

'You ever been bombed before?' she asks.

'Yes,' says Snow shortly. He hesitates before elaborating. 'As a child, bombings were frequent in the Capitol. Once, I got caught on the street during a raid and I took refuge in a trashcan. Another boy wasn't quick enough. The shrapnel tore through his flesh like a butterfly wing.'

Katniss stares at him. He is sharing something personal with her, and she is unsure if she wants this private, secret knowledge.

'You know what the worst thing would be about dying like this?' she muses. 'We might be blown into such small pieces that your body and mine would be all mixed up together forever.'

'How romantic of you,' drawls Snow, but Katniss thinks he is not being entirely sarcastic.

'I would rather—'

A colossal crash: the sound of a falling cliff; a weird screech you hear only in your teeth; shaking in the ceiling and the floor, and in the walls, and in your bones. Something crushing down suddenly all around her body, and Katniss thinks: Well, I guess this is how I die.

Everyone is screaming, and they keep screaming, and the fact that they are still screaming is how Katniss knows they are all still alive. She thinks for a moment she has been buried alive, but then she realizes the pressure around her head and shoulders are not fallen rocks but strong, protective arms. Snow has pulled her to his chest and now cradles her head against him. To protect her. She has not been held like this in a long, long time.

It comes to her in a flash. Eight years old. The forest outside District 12. Her father showing her a beautiful fish he caught in the lake. The sudden shudder of a hovercraft above. Her father's arms around her, throwing her to the ground, hiding her in the underbrush, holding her. Safe. Protected.

Snow does not belong in that role. He is a trespasser.

'Let me go,' she mutters against his chest. The ceiling has held, and there is no imminent danger.

Several long moments pass before he acquiesces. He is usually so loth to touch her, but now it seems to cause him real pain to release her.

'That one was closer than I would have liked,' he says, then frowns, then reaches out to shift something in her hair. He smiles at whatever he has neatened. 'Your rose came loose,' he explains.

Katniss clenches her teeth in distaste. 'Your rose,' she corrects. 'You know, if a bomb gets through, your arms aren't going to do much to protect me from the blast.'

'It's better than nothing,' he says softly. 'Sometimes you need only the tiniest advantage to achieve victory. A single pawn. An extra layer of flesh and bone around your skull.'

They look at each other, and Katniss feels only despair. He cares about her. It's sickening.

'I don't want to die underground,' says Katniss says.

'I won't allow it.'

He sounds so certain she almost believes him. Snow, who a month ago would have had her killed at a moment's convenience, is now desperate to keep her alive. And for what purpose? To drown her, and traumatize her, and read her poetry?

Katniss wonders if dying in a blast would be preferable.

Another bomb hits and the lights cut out and someone screams, and by the light of electric tablets they locate torches and click these on. Everyone looks ghoulish in the dim light, and Snow looks like death itself. Katniss remembers the many times their electricity cut out back in District 12. It was normal, it was expected. Poor connections, bad wires. No one took for granted the luxury of a brightly lit, warm, uninterrupted evening.

I ought to be with the rebels, she thinks, and feels an indescribable sadness collapse through her. She should have joined Gale. Perhaps she couldn't have helped dropping bombs, but she could have fought. She could have tried to bring Snow down. Everything could have been different.

But instead she is here, locked in a steel coffin, and Snow's hands are between hers, and she can feel how wet she is with the smell of him.

It takes a long time, but eventually the thuds of the bombs recede. Somewhere is still being bombed, but the threat feels more distant. The terror in the bunker subsides into anxiety, and scattered conversations start up.

'Time to behave a little more presidentially,' Snow whispers into Katniss' ear, and she can't help but smile. There is something amusingly absurd about being the wife of the President. He clears his throat and addresses the room. 'The bombing has moved elsewhere. It is extremely unlikely it will return to our quarter, but we shall remain where it's safe until we are completely certain there is no remaining danger. All we must do now is keep ourselves occupied.' He gives the room a regal smile, and everyone looks a little more encouraged. 'Perhaps a story will pass the time.' Katniss expects that a "story" is the last thing Snow wants to hear, but the frightened faces nod and murmur amongst themselves.

'How did you and Katniss meet?' pipes up a young woman with protruding but beautiful pale eyes.

Snow turns to his wife and smiles with love. 'Perhaps you would like to field this one, my dear.'

Katniss tries to disguise her sigh of annoyance as one of love. Silver speeches were Peeta's forte, not hers. But she's getting better at it. The less of a person she becomes, and the more she fills with Snow, the easier it is to play these roles.

She winds both of her hands around Snow's, stares into his face, and dresses in her most adoring, intense, borderline-crazed soft smile.

'We didn't properly meet until the end of the Hunger Games,' she murmurs, and everyone has to get very quiet to hear her. 'That was the first time we were close. Face to face. I remember how nervous I was. I'd never met the President, of course, and I already thought so highly of him…' She stares into Snow's eyes, and he stares back. She cannot see anything inside him. 'He was giving me my victory crown, and when he put that crown on me, I felt…' Terror. Blood-curdling, existential terror. '…just an absolute surge of love for him. I'm sure you know what I mean.' She stares up at Snow with a radiant, ecstatic smile. 'He inspires that in people.' She can hear an absence of breathing, the silence of rapture. She reaches out to Snow's face and gently tucks some flyaway strands of hair back in place. The texture of his hair is old and rough, not smooth like her own. 'That man made me feel things I cannot explain. I feel those same things every day, every time I look at him.' She lets her hand rest on Snow's face. 'There is nowhere I would rather be than right here, with him. I have never felt so safe. So loved.'

She lifts her chin. She is curious. She wants to experiment. What will this do to her?

Snow has never been so trapped. Thirty feet below ground, encased in steel, an audience watching, he has no choice but to accept his wife's lips with gratitude and joy. Katniss gives him her sweetest kiss, an appalling little gift. As real and lovely a kiss as she can manufacture: lips like goose down, gossamer soft. And Snow kisses her back, as little as he can.

Without surprise, but with a little despair, Katniss feels a plume of arousal bloom among her disgust. She hadn't really expected anything different.

She pulls back from the kiss and studies Snow's expression. The muscles of his face are perfectly still, but his eyes are making rapid, infinitesimal movements over her face like some crazed insect.

'You two are perfect,' croons one of their audience.

Katniss breaks into what looks like a bashful smile, then interlaces her fingers around Snow's knee. She feels the muscles of his leg calcify, and she lets her fingertips spider across Snow's thigh — just for a moment, just to ruin him a little. He is her prisoner.

'Oh, and what did you think of Katniss when you first met?' says someone.

Snow's smile is wire-thin. 'I thought she was quite the unusual girl.'

There are other questions Katniss has to endure. They are all so very stupid, but everyone is so grateful to hear her insipid answers. It reassures them so deeply to see the darling wife of their protector so content and so beloved.

The partygoers start to chat about silly little things: their own relationships, something some celebrity said, a piece of gossip. They're trying to pretend everything is normal, even when the ceiling shakes. Katniss keeps her hand locked in Snow's as their sweat makes their skin slide against each other, she curls around his arm like a snake, and she gives him occasional kisses that make his mouth seize up against her. She is a kaleidoscope of revulsion and anxiety and arousal. She isn't having fun, but she's certainly having something.

Snow is displeased. It takes Katniss a little time to figure out the different shades of Snow's particular discomfort. It is with some surprise and not a little pleasure that she realizes she is not merely annoying him, or teasing him.

She is disturbing him.

This is wonderful.

When it seems like none of the partygoers are paying attention to them, Snow presses his mouth very close to Katniss' ear, taking incredible care to ensure no one will overhear.

'Stop it, Katniss.'

'Stop what?' she says innocently, and before he can answer her she forces another kiss onto him. With queasy pleasure, she observes the way her hatred and her disgust and her arousal all harmonize when she tastes the blood on his lips. 'I'm not showing you up,' she whispers. 'Everyone is loving this. This isn't embarrassing you; it's demonstrating to everyone how much in love we are, and how strong our marriage is, and how we're not afraid of anything the rebels throw at us.'

'It's unnecessary—' he says, and he can't say anything more because Katniss' lips are back again, smothering them both. When she pulls away, she keeps her mouth hovering above his.

'If you want me to stop,' she breathes, 'if you can't cope, if this is too much for you, you can just threaten my family again. Then I'll stop. You have all the power here.'

She smiles at him, a honey-filled buttercup. Snow says nothing. He remains unmoving and viciously, silently angry as Katniss smears another kiss on his lips.

'Katniss.' He looks like he could kill her. 'I am not just asking you to stop for my sake, but for yours. I am more robust than you think. This is going to damage you.'

She gives a silver laugh. 'Kissing you? That's going to damage me? Now, getting bombed into pieces, that would be damaging. Your lips fall pretty short by comparison.'

Snow looks at her with odd pity. 'You don't enjoy this,' he says, 'and forcing yourself upon me is going to do things to you that can't be undone.'

'What, is this not a useful form of trauma to you?' She places a hand on his face and so, so gently strokes his hair, tidying the strands, looking at him with parodic love.

'No, it isn't. You're hurting yourself.' He grips her wrist in his hand, disguising it as affection, holding her still. Katniss inhales the smell of blood as he speaks. 'When you kiss me, I can taste the panic on your lips. I am not speaking metaphorically. I can taste the pheromone in your sweat.'

His words unsettle her. 'That's just because of the bombing,' she says uncertainly.

Snow shakes his head. 'I can always taste it. It makes you taste bitter.'

She doesn't know what to say to this, or to even think about what it means that Snow can taste her. She didn't think that was physically possible. But her thoughts are mercifully interrupted by a low beeping, a familiar and quotidian sound. Katniss watches as Snow removes his tablet from his pocket. He smiles at it approvingly.

'We have communications again,' he announces to the group, and everyone gives big sighs of relief. Snow answers his phone call. It's impossible to usefully eavesdrop — lots of 'yeses' and 'indeeds' and 'excellents' — but he soon hangs up and smiles at the group. 'The raid has concluded. We are safe to leave.'

It is an incredible relief to climb the steps and emerge out of their subterranean prison, and Katniss doesn't even realize she's squeezing Snow's hand the entire time. She needs to go outside: breathe the cold air, feel grass, explain to her body that she's still alive. Snow makes her wait as he says goodbyes and reassures guests, but eventually he lets her drag to the gardens where she takes huge, desperate breaths. Everything looks normal from here: just a pleasant garden, with flowers and neat pathways.

It is not until they are in the limousine, turning into the wide open street, that Katniss sees the damage to the city reveals itself.

'Wow,' she says. The Capitol is dark tonight, the power cut to huge regions, and fires burn in odd places among the black. It looks like some huge creature has taken bites out of the city and spat fire into the holes. 'It's just like home. Some good our marriage did at stopping the rebellion.'

'I told you, these aren't the rebels,' mutters Snow. 'Not exactly. I will try to explain this to you later, once I have a full overview of the situation. Katniss…' He turns to her. 'I promise that our marriage did a lot of good. It saved lives. I know this looks grim to you, but I assure you it is nothing compared to how bad things could have become.' His eyes flicker. 'You've never seen real war. This is child's play.'

She wants to smack him. 'My home has been on fire every day for three years. Even in peace time people starved to death every year. You think I don't know suffering?'

'You don't, says Snow, with offensive casualness.

She laughs in disbelief. 'Are you joking?'

'Which of your traumas do you want to dwell on today?' he says unpleasantly. 'Your dead father? Watching children die? Killing innocents? Watching people starve to death?' He shrugs. 'You are not the sole recipient of such horrors.'

She hates him. She will kill him. She wishes she kept that knife.

In the absence of a blade, she shoves her face against his and gives him one of her most hateful, violent kisses, and Snow tries to lean away from her.

'Katniss, stop it.'

'You want to talk about real suffering?' she hisses. 'I have ways of making you suffer.'

She reaches for him again, with mad violence, and she doesn't know what she intends but a second later the car has halted and Snow is pushing away from her, opening and then slamming the car door in her face. He strides away from the car before Katniss has a chance to even register they've arrived, but she shoves open the door, runs after him, takes the steps up to the mansion two at a time, and then she races up the foyer staircase. She catches him in the upstairs hallway and rounds on him, grinning like a hyena.

Snow looks exhausted. She is wearing him down.

'Go to bed, Katniss.'

He turns from her, long legs putting easy strides between them, but Katniss moves swiftly to catch up.

'Oh, no, you don't get to run away from me. I didn't get to run away.' She speaks rapidly as they move along the corridor, two steps matching each one of this. 'I ran, they set me on fire. I ran, they sent mutt dogs after me. I didn't get to run. So you don't, either.' She breaks into a run herself and gets ahead of him, and though he tries to sidestep she is too quick, sliding her body in front of him. She feels his rotten-meat breath on her face and sees his eyes wide and angry, and she reaches out a hand to his chest. She can feel his heart beat. She has quickened it. 'You haven't earned the right to run away from me.'

He looks on her with worn impatience. 'You're overtired, Katniss. Go to bed.'

Katniss stares, and then she draws back her hand and slaps him. 'I am not a child.'

Snow's face is turned to the side by the force of the blow, but it's not enough to do any damage. He looks back at her slowly, eyes cold and easing into her. Katniss steadies herself. He takes a step toward her and she prepares her muscles to fight. Subconsciously, as she always did in the Games, she prepares her mind to die. Snow reaches for her throat and Katniss grasps his wrist with both her hands, trying to pull his hand away, but she is a malnourished chick against the weight of him.

She waits for the choke to come, but it never does. Snow's hand is on her neck, but he isn't hurting her. His fingers curl around her nape and his thumb touches her face. She stares up at him through wide, storming eyes.

'Go on,' she whispers. 'Hit me. Give me a black eye. Do it.'

'I told you. I don't want to hit you.' He is quiet, soft as April rain.

'I prefer it when you hit me,' she spits. 'It's the most honest you ever are with me.'

'I'm always honest with you,' he says. He sounds like velvet. Indecision flickers over his brow. He is calculating something. 'Do you really want me to hit you?'

'I would prefer you hitting me than being nice to me,' she says, voice thick with hate.

He is still thinking something through, still trying to make sense of something. He speaks slowly, cautiously: 'Perhaps I could hit you, if you'd like that.'

Katniss' face twitches with confusion. Whatever Snow is talking about, it is clear they are having very different conversations. His hand is still on her face and she can smell his skin.

'I don't want that,' she says unsteadily.

Snow drops his hand, still studying her. He is trying to figure her out. 'Would you prefer to hit me?'

'Yes,' she says automatically.

A decision is made. His smile is small, anticipatory, and amused. 'Go on, then.'

He takes a step back from her and draws his arms wide, inviting her. Katniss stares at him. Then she steps forward, readies her fist, and aims it for his stomach. The drop of her shoulder is obvious and Snow easily moves to parry, but Katniss already has her other fist wound back, already has it tensed, and then she lands it hard into Snow's throat.

He collapses back, coughing, blood coming from his mouth, and Katniss smiles with acute relish.

She has only seconds to appreciate her little victory before Snow throws himself at her with such force her frail body collides with the opposite wall, then her world is spinning, then Snow has her wrist in one hand, her elbow in the other, and he is stretching her arm and forcing her down with incredible, painful pressure.

'That was adept of you,' says Snow, his breathing ragged, and he forces her deeper and deeper into the armlock.

At first, the pain is tolerable. She has felt worse: fire, and knives, and explosions. But the pain continues, deeper and hotter, somehow not just in her arm but also in her teeth. She tries to kick out against Snow's legs, but he is out of her range. He stretches her arm a little more and she shouts out in pain.

'Do you want me to stop?' says Snow in that lacquer voice.

Katniss' eyes widen with a blank, primal fury, and her pupils contract, and all the pain inside her is dulled by her desire to kill him. She can take anything he wants to deal to her. Let him damage her. Let him deal with his own messes. She welds her teeth together and shakes her head.

'Alright,' says Snow. 'Then I won't stop.'

He stretches her arm further, and she tolerates it, and then he stretches it more, and she can't. It's fire in her nerves and broken glass between her teeth. It's excruciating. At first she starts screaming, and then she screams more, and then she is still screaming as the color of her pain goes from red to white to a hazy peach. And the pain goes on. Then she cannot scream anymore, and she sobs. They are loud, heaving sobs at first, and then they are chesty and thin as she starts to tire.

This man is evil, she thinks, quite vaguely.

Katniss' eyes roll in agony and then they vaguely settle on the framed picture across the hall, depicting a white waterfall, but in its margins there is a mirrored border that reflects a warped sliver of Snow's expression.

A stranger would see nothing in his face. Katniss can see dazzling pleasure.

She gazes back in muted horror.

The distant voice of a servant drifts to her: 'Sir?'

She tries to look. Snow's head of security, Sulla, stands with two guards and a servant, a private audience to this assault. Sulla is in front, a hand on his gun, unsure what to do. They want to intervene. They are concerned. They are embarrassed.

Help me, she thinks desperately, but she says nothing. She cries and softly wails and wishes she had never been born, but she does not ask for help, and nor does she ask Snow to stop.

And then he releases her.

She falls. The marble floor hits her elbows and her chin as she drops, and her bones vibrate with pain. She pants against the cool tile for a while, trying to remember what it felt like to not be in pain. Then she spits out thick saliva and bile. The rose he gave her lies on the floor, shaken loose of its bedding, and a bit of spit flecks its immaculate petals.

When she recovers enough to countenance standing, Katniss lifts her face and sees a hand extended to her. She raises her eyes higher and sees Snow.

He is so, so happy.

Katniss, exhausted, takes his hand.

But the moment she is on her feet, she sinks her nails into that very hand. She is so glad she decided to sharpen them. With dim pleasure she notes it's the same hand she damaged at the execution, all those weeks ago. She will never let him heal. And then, as he is caught off guard, she throws her skull at Snow's. Her lips batter his, but her teeth are out this time. She catches his lower lip with hers and wrenches it so hard with her incisors that a whole new fresh taste of blood blossoms into her mouth.

He cries out and throws her on instinct, and her skull collides with a chair rail. Her vision sparkles.

They are both spent. Each takes a moment to recover. The servants are muttering something among themselves. Snow's lip is bleeding badly, and though Katniss looks unmarked, the bruise she'll have on her arm in the morning will be glorious.

In time, Snow gives a quiet, strained laugh. 'Well, that was bracing.' He gives Katniss a pleasured smile which she does not return. 'It's healthy to…' He seems to struggle to find an end for that sentence, and then he says: 'It's good to work off some energy.'

Katniss finds her words in between gasps. Her eyes are deep earthen holes. 'There are other ways.'

Snow's smile dims and his bright pleasure darkens. 'And what would those be?'

Katniss can hear the servants watching. Her tongue wets her lips with mercury. She knows the words that will hurt him most perfectly.

'You could fuck me.'

The very air could shatter. Something blasphemous has been uttered. Snow's delight evaporates, leaving only rich contempt.

He takes a step toward her. His voice is an avalanche. 'You are nineteen years old. You are a virgin. And you have no idea what fucking means.'

This is the first time he has said "fuck" in front of her. It makes her heart jolt and sends little scribbles of pleasure around her cunt. But she has no opportunity to offer a rejoinder, because Snow immediately strides away past the guards, who clear a space for him, and Katniss is left to recover herself. She is still panting with pain and fear and confusion.

'Ma'am?' says Sulla, and Katniss looks up at the little group watching her. 'Are you alright?'

She is not about to give Snow the satisfaction of knowing he rattled her. 'I'm fine,' she snaps. The staff aren't her friends; they are the allies of her enemy. 'Stop staring at me.'

They all obey, turning away, going back to their duties. Katniss is left alone, thinking of Snow, trying to decide which of them won this particular skirmish.

Doing as Snow has instructed her and going to bed like a child is the last thing she wants, but as soon as she is back in her chambers the adrenaline ebbs and she feels the exhaustion sink through her. She positions the three mirrors of her vanity so that she can examine the back of her head, and she is disappointed to find that Snow did not draw blood when she cracked the wall. It would be a nasty little victory if she could show him that he damaged her.

She discards her dress and climbs into bed in her slip and underwear, which is grossly wet. She's sort of getting used to it. It's a weird new malignancy she has to carry with her, this compulsive sexual response. She doesn't even understand what provokes it, other than Snow. Snow touching her. Her touching Snow. Snow hurting her, her hurting Snow... Touching and hurting each other, over and over, rewiring her body.

It can't go on forever, she knows. Sooner or later, one of them is going to do something terrible.