Katniss wakes, and Snow is watching her.

As it should be, her brain thinks drowsily, and then she sits up.

Half-propped upright, arms braced beneath her, the weave of Snow's rug rough against her fingertips, she looks at Snow. There he sits, just as real as the night before: hands behind his back, tied to a copper pipe, staring at her. His expression is curious. Has he watched her wake up before, during the Games? Did he watch her sleep last night? Perhaps: he does not look well-rested.

'Good morning, Miss Everdeen,' he says.

She indulges a moment of stillness and wariness, checking if he is real, letting her dreams fall away from her. But he is real, and alive, and watching her with blue eyes that, she thinks, want to kill her.

Satisfied that she is awake and the world around her is real, Katniss drags back the sleeping bag. Drawing her gun, she edges towards Snow and then bends to check the cuffs, her heart making her neck visibly pulse. The cuffs are secure. She is safe.

Snow inclines his head to look up at her and she meets his eyes with distaste. His scent creeps inside her. The roses are almost gone and the blood is less, but it is still there, leisurely filling her. He now smells more of sweat, like a real human body. She inhales him like the hunter she is. Here he is. Him. Her enemy. Once her predator, now her prey.

'Am I still restrained to your satisfaction?' he asks, obviously amusing himself.

She does not answer. Talking to Snow is a trap. Anything with Snow is a trap. She turns away from him. Then she pulls on her boots and wriggles her toes inside the leather, then walks through Snow's apartment to the bathroom. The cracked mirror reflects her, a tired girl, her braid untidy, and the grim, cracked tile. The bristles of his toothbrush are bent with use. She opens the mirrored cabinet and reveals a few more secrets. Bottles and boxes of medication, old and faded. Tweezers and a small pair of scissors. A hairbrush wound with bright white hairs. There is a razor, its single blade decorated with a few short, grey-white bristles. She picks this up and holds it to her face, studying the tiny curve of cut hairs, and she tries to force herself to reconcile President Snow with the idea of a real human being.

She uses his bathroom, though finds the toilet doesn't flush. There is a bucket to enable such a purpose, but she decides not to bother. He didn't respect her home; she will not respect his.

Rejoining Snow, who is still tied to the pipe, she regards him coolly. 'Do you have water here?'

'There is a rainwater tank,' he says. 'It's not fit for drinking. For washing, it suffices. There is no heat. If you desire clean water, there are bottles on the countertop.'

The bottles are not sealed. This is water he has prepared.

She hefts one in her hand. 'Poison?'

He looks a little annoyed. 'Miss Everdeen, setting aside the fact that I don't want to kill you, I am currently tied to a pipe. What would be the use in watching you die of poison and then dying of thirst myself?'

Katniss is skeptical. He would have been quite content to watch her kill Coin and then die right after. He was tied to a pillar, then; a little grander than a pipe. How sad for him that Coin robbed him of that ending.

She uncaps the bottle, walks to him, then thrusts it in front of his mouth. 'Drink.'

There is some exasperation in his features. He does not like that she does not trust him, and Katniss wonders what plan he is trying to assemble. But, obediently, he opens his mouth and allows her to messily pour some water inside. She watches him swallow. He used to take antidotes to his poison, of course, but he's been tied up all night and she is confident he hasn't taken anything.

'Satisfied?' he says. Drops of water cling to his beard.

She despises this man. She would like to kill him, but that is a pleasure denied her.

A claw of hatred and savagery clutches inside her and Katniss upends the bottle. She watches with immense pleasure as Snow shuts his eyes on instinct against the water cascading over him, the bottle glugging, and Snow tries and fails to move his head away and gasps and coughs. Then Katniss stops pouring and smiles down at him.

There is an unpleasant moment as Snow breathes heavily, blinking water from his eyes, and Katniss watches the drops meander down his face. A petty cruelty.

She has so many cruelties stored inside her.

'That was unnecessary,' he says, as she pours herself a cup of water from what remains of the bottle. 'And disrespectful.'

She scoffs. 'As if you ever respected me.' She fetches her toothbrush, squeezes on some paste, dips it into the clean water, then attacks her teeth with it.

Snow's expression is strange to her. Water soaks the collar of his blazer. 'I always respected you, Miss Everdeen.'

She laughs despite herself and sprays toothpaste over the room. 'Oh sure,' she says around the brush. 'Parading me around in wedding dresses. Shoving me in the Quarter Quell. Torturing me. So much respect.'

'I didn't torture you,' Snow says gently. 'I challenged you.'

She wants to spit toothpaste into his face, but that seems too childish. She spits instead into the kitchen sink. 'Consider this hike a challenge, too,' she says. 'We leave as soon as possible.' She glances him over. 'You'll need more appropriate clothes.'

'I have suitable clothes for hiking in the bedroom,' he says. 'There is a backpack already prepared in the hall with supplies, in case I ever needed to leave quickly.'

'You're being very cooperative,' she says.

His smile is peculiar. 'I am content to go with you, Miss Everdeen. I have nothing else in my schedule.' The smile sharpens. 'Besides, you lack for company. Not Abernathy, not Mellark, nor Hawthorne saw fit to accompany you. That seems unchivalrous of them.'

She will not allow him to bait her like this. She takes a steadying breath. 'Haymitch has other duties. And Gale is fighting in the rebellion elsewhere.'

That glittering smile. 'And Mr Mellark?'

'Peeta has had enough of war,' she says, and she is surprised by how quiet and forthright her voice sounds.

Snow nods with strange understanding. 'But you, Miss Everdeen, have not yet had your fill of blood.'

She wants to contradict him, but she is unsure if he's wrong. Is that why she's out here? Did the war scramble things inside her so badly that she can't ever go back to regular life? Or is it something worse? Was there always some biting viciousness inside her, and she would truly rather hunt and kill a man she hates than be a wife and mother?

'I'm going to untie you now,' she says, unholstering her gun. 'Stand up.'

It is a struggle for him. There is soreness and old age stiffening his limbs, and not having use of his hands impedes his ability to straighten. She offers no assistance.

'Truth be told, I assumed Mr Hawthorne had been killed,' says Snow as he works his way to his feet. 'I never saw him on the camera. He never visited you.'

'You're being too obvious,' she snaps back. 'Peeta. Gale. Haymitch. You want to pull at my social ties and isolate me? Be more subtle.'

'Miss Everdeen,' he says, smiling widely, upright again. 'I have no need to be subtle. I am only telling you what you already know. And I have no need to isolate you, either.' Those blue eyes flash. 'You are already isolated.'

Katniss has nothing to say to this. She gestures the gun barrel to tell him to turn, and then she undoes the zip-ties and pockets them. She immediately puts distance between them, the gun trained on his face, and Snow turns back to her. He rubs his wrists, gaze faintly interested in the ligature marks, and Katniss looks too. She frowns. They are ringed in thin bruises the color of fresh Spring violets, and they are scabbed.

'You tried to get loose?' she says accusatorily.

'No,' he says. 'I'm old. I bruise easily.'

She scoffs. 'And I bet you've never been zip-tied to a pipe before.'

He looks at her strangely. 'I have, actually.' His expression shifts into something more normal, more affable. 'Miss Everdeen, would you mind if I used the bathroom?'

'Yes, I mind,' she snaps on instinct.

A tiny smile touches his mouth. 'I would appreciate it, before we hit the open road. I would also like to freshen up, if that's acceptable.'

She rolls her eyes. 'Fine. Hurry up.'

Gun still raised, she follows him through to the bathroom. She suddenly feels a stab of embarrassment that she didn't use the bucket flush. There is something uncomfortable she didn't intend about subjecting President Snow to the scent and sight of her piss. But Snow passes no comment. Perhaps he assumes that she didn't know how the system worked.

Snow moves to shut the door and Katniss jerks the gun higher. 'No. You stay where I can see you.'

He hesitates. An emotion she has never seen in him animates his face and body: awkwardness, embarrassment, hesitation.

'I do not want you to watch me urinate, Miss Everdeen.'

'I didn't particularly appreciate the entire nation watching me shitting in the woods during the Games,' she snaps. 'We don't always get want we want in life.'

Snow gives her a wearied look. 'The editors cut those parts.'

It is one of the most surreal parts of her life to watch the shifts of Snow's arms from the back and, a moment later, hear his urine hitting the toilet. This was not something she prepared herself for. In her mind, meeting and travelling with Snow was contained by the images of him at her desk, or in that greenhouse. Smiling, chiding, threatening: barely human and content to be. But now she has an entire human body to attach to her mental impressions of President Snow. Is it to be hundreds of miles of this? Listening to one another eat and drink and piss and shit in between trying to kill each other? It is not what she had in mind.

Snow washes his hands, then picks up his toothbrush, and Katniss makes a noise of exasperation.

'No. Come on. We're losing daylight.'

'Are you going to shoot me for brushing my teeth?' says Snow, and she watches, enraged, as he squeezes toothpaste onto the brush. She could do it. She could kill him right now. She could dim those satisfied blue lights and turn him into a pile of dead meat. Would he rot more quickly than normal men? Or would he remain exactly as he is forever?

Snow smiles at her around his toothbrush, then turns back to the mirror. Katniss thinks that no human on earth has ever hated someone as much as she hates him.

Next, he reaches for the hairbrush, and Katniss has had enough.

'No,' she shouts, and her voice is hoarse. 'That's enough. We have to get moving.'

Snow turns to her, considering her eyes, considering the angry curve of her mouth. He does not consider the gun; he is totally unconcerned by it. If she shot him, he would think it was a merry joke.

'As you wish, Miss Everdeen,' he says at last.

'You said you had hiking clothes? Get changed. Hurry up.'

He seems amused more than anything. She watches intently as he returns to the bedroom and goes through the wardrobe and drawers. She waits for sudden movement, waits for a gun muzzle. Anything that would give her an excuse to pull the trigger. Put him down. Drive him into the earth. Leave him to rot.

Snow does nothing of the sort. He lays a loose shirt, a sweater, and a thermal coat onto the bed, alongside a pair of waterproof trousers, socks, hat, and gloves. He extracts a pair of good, hard boots from the back of the wardrobe. Then he pauses.

'Get changed,' she repeats, her gun raised high.

'Miss Everdeen,' he says delicately, 'would you mind looking the other way?'

She stares. 'Do you think I'm stupid?'

'No,' he says slowly. 'I promise I am not going to hurt you. But I do not wish to undress in front of you.'

'I didn't much enjoy being constantly stripped naked by stylists and strangers,' she snaps. 'Get dressed.'

Something twitches in Snow's jaw, but he does not argue further. He removes his blazer first, then unbuttons his shirt. She doesn't know why he's so bothered. He wears a long-sleeved undershirt beneath that gives him plenty of modesty, although it does entertain her to see President Snow so intimately undressed. There are, she notices with amusement, visible sweat stains beneath the underarms, and she wrinkles her nose as more of his scent wafts over her. He pulls on the new shirt, then undoes his pants. She snorts with open derision as he reveals long-johns beneath. She imagines it must be cold for an old man in this airy apartment. Having slept outside for two days, she doesn't much notice the chill.

He puts on the waterpoof pants, shirt, and sweater, then struggles with the boots, positioning his feet on the bed to tie the laces, and a tiny part of her almost wants to offer to help. He does not look like a President anymore. In sweater and waterproofs, he looks like any old man she might have seen at the Hob. Just a man. Nothing more.

Pulling on the coat, Snow offers her a polite smile. 'Is this suitable?'

It is eerie. The President is gone. Before her stands a pleasant old man, hair untidy, clothes ill-fitting. There is nothing familiar to her about this man at all, save the smile that haunts her dreams.

'It's fine,' she says, uncomfortable. 'Come on.'

She directs him back to the hall, and by the door she sees what must be his emergency pack. She empties it onto the floor. It's much akin to her own, only there are more electronic devices she doesn't recognize.

'No tent?' she says.

'I couldn't find one. There should have been camping supplies in the cache, but much was missing. Plundered during the war, perhaps.'

'Fine. I have a tent.' She kicks away everything extraneous: cooking supplies, his weapons, navigational tools. In the end, all that remains are some packets of dry food, water, medical supplies, and a change of clothing.

'You might want to keep that,' says Snow, pointing at some weird tool she doesn't recognize. 'It's a water purifier. Quicker than boiling, and safer, too.'

She picks up a kind of packet with a thick, filtered straw, then tosses it back into the pile.

'I would also appreciate keeping the toothbrush, comb, razor, and scissors,' he says.

The toothbrush and comb she allows, not the scissors or razor. 'I'm not letting you have anything you could use as a weapon.'

This seems to bother him. 'Allow the scissors, at least. They are beard scissors. The blade is tiny. One would hardly notice being stabbed with them.' His brow furrows. 'I appreciate being able to keep my appearance tidy.'

Katniss picks up the scissors, considers them, then walks to the open window and tosses them outside. They glitter in the cold sun as they plummet. 'You are going to be insufferable on the road.' She assesses his pack. 'There's space remaining. Do you have more of these food packets?'

'I do,' says Snow and steps towards her. Katniss jumps and yanks the gun level with his face. Snow pauses, considering her. 'I was going to fetch more of the dehydrated meals from the kitchen.' His head tilts, ever so slightly. 'Are you alright, Miss Everdeen? Do I really put you this much on edge?'

Her laugh is one of shock and outrage. 'You tried to kill me! Over and over again, for years! Of course you put me on edge!'

Snow pauses. He is giving something serious thought. 'That is true,' he says at last. 'But I am not trying to kill you now. Is there something else frightening you?' He pauses briefly. 'Coin? Or is someone you love in danger?'

'Shut up and get the food,' she snaps.

Snow does as instructed, moving slowly and carefully, and she is angry to think this is more for her benefit than for his. Keeping her calm. Reassuring her. Or, she thinks, he is lulling me into a false sense of security, and the moment I let my guard down he'll attack me.

She makes Snow fill the pack until it's almost too heavy for him to carry, but he says nothing to complain.

'That's it,' she says. 'We're good. We leave now; we're burning daylight.'

'One moment, please,' he says, and she watches, infuriated, as he wanders over to one of his piles of books and starts running his finger over the spines, reading titles. There is an elegancy and delicacy to the way he touches them. She wonders what it would feel like if he wrapped his fingers around her throat and choked her. That's what Peeta did to her. Snow, acting through Peeta, crushing the life from her.

'What are you doing?' she spits.

'Choosing a book. There will be precious little entertainment on the road. Ah.' Delighted, he pulls out a thick volume, then holds it aloft. 'You might enjoy this one, too.'

She doesn't bother to read the title; it's some woman's name, Anna something.

'You think I'd let you bring a book? Anything else? A radio, gramophone, television? A four-poster bed?'

Snow offers a small, amused smile. 'No, just a book.'

She shakes her head. 'You're not on vacation. Leave it.'

He does not drop the book and he smiles one of those treacherous smiles. 'Miss Everdeen—'

'Leave it.' Her voice breaks with anger and Snow, considering her, lays it back down again.

'May I at least pack my photographs? Or, singular photograph now. I imagine we won't be coming back here.'

Katniss thinks about shooting a bullet neatly through his palm. It's not like he needs two hands.

'I don't have a single picture of my dead sister,' she says flatly. 'Join the club.' Then she pulls out the zip-ties, and Snow is unable or unwilling to cover his exhaustion.

'Really, Miss Everdeen? I am to hike hundreds of miles with my hands tied?'

'Yes,' she says simply, and she makes him turn around to restrain his wrists again behind his back. She does not like to touch the bruised skin. It looks diseased to her, and she does not like to feel his cool skin against her. But she ties his wrists once again, shuddering as her fingertip grazes the scabs.

There is one more thing to do. She goes through her own pack and extracts her rope, then begins to knot it. Finnick taught her to do this. Wonderful Finnick. Dead now. One more body on Snow's pile.

'And what is that for?' he asks, as she ties the length of rope.

'I don't want you running off.' She examines the knot. 'This worked great with goats. I'm sure it'll work for you.'

She steps forwards and, for the first time, he steps away from her. There is something dark in his expression.

She holds up the rope. 'Come on. We don't have all day.'

'I am not going to run away,' he says.

'Well, I can't trust you.'

Still, he eyes the rope. His eyes rise to hers. 'It would be degrading.'

'What do you know about degradation?' she snaps. 'I was set on fire. I crawled through sewers. I had to kiss Peeta and hold his hand and pretend to be in love on television for you. You don't like a bit of rope? Cry me a river.'

'I promise you, Miss Everdeen, that I will not run away. I wouldn't survive three days out there without you. I am content to let you restrain me if you are concerned for your safety. But to be led around on a leash?' He shakes his head. 'I am not a dog.'

She grins her wolf's teeth. 'You want to talk about dogs? They cut out the eyes of my dead friend and put them in the faces of mutant dogs, and then had the dogs try to kill me. You want me to cut out your eyes?'

He considers her. 'You are not capable of that, Miss Everdeen. Not yet, at least.'

She holds out the rope. 'Are you going to let me tie you, or are you going to make me beat you first?'

Snow only looks tired. He considers the rope for a long time. Then he nods. A quiet acquiescence.

'As you wish, Miss Everdeen.'

In the cool early dawn, the landscape outside the apartment building offers blankets of blue-toned mountains to the west. It is good, fresh air, untainted by the coal scents that hung so heavily about District 12. Katniss thinks of how often she and Gale would discuss going to live in the woods, to be free. Prim would still be alive, if she had. And now Gale is a soldier, and the person she has to protect is not her little sister but the man responsible for every terrible thing that has ever happened in her life.

Katniss tries not to dwell on concepts of fair and unfair, but even she must admit that this is a little cruel.

They set off north. Katniss insists that Snow walk in front where she can see him, and the rope connects his bound hands with hers. The road is hard-going. Snow is old and slow, and his wrists bound behind his back lessen his balance and make him slower. Katniss goes ahead to tug on the rope at times to tell him to speed up, but this only makes him stumble. She had estimated a month of travel to reach the base; at this rate, it will be two at least.

Katniss decides to follow an ancient road north until the map tells her it splits, thirty miles from now. There isn't much of the tarmac left on this highway and much of the texture underfoot is packed earth broken weeds. It would be easy for Katniss to walk alone, but Snow is an absolute burden.

When he trips yet again on a rock, almost yanking the rope from her hands, Katniss pulls it back and nearly drags him to the ground.

'You're doing this on purpose,' she says, infuriated with him. 'You think if you annoy me enough, I'll let you walk free.'

Snow's voice comes taut. 'Miss Everdeen, I assure you that I am not. We agreed not to lie to each other. It is simply… inconvenient to walk with one's hands bound behind one's back, and tied to a rope. I am also out of practice at cross-country hiking.'

'We're not even off the road yet. Wait until we get into the woods.'

'Do you really intend to keep this up for the three hundred miles it will take to reach your rebel base?'

Katniss smiles sharply. 'I didn't say it was three hundred miles. Keep moving.'

Hours pass mostly in silence, punctuated by Snow's stumbling and Katniss' chastisements, but also by Snow's occasional attempts to make conversation. He comments on the flora. He asks after her friends. He makes queries as to the shape of the political landscape that he hasn't been able to ascertain from the brief glimpses of television his limited electricity allows, or his hacked airwaves. She ignores all of them, and eventually he stops trying. Good. They will walk in sullen silence for one month (two? Three?) until they reach Haymitch and the rebel base.

And then what?

Interrogation. Torture.

Snow's final fate ought to bring her a sick, shimmery happiness, but it does not. If it makes her feel anything, it makes her feel cold. She wonders what they will do to him. Will they want her to help cut him up? Would she be able to do it? Could she be as evil as he is?

These thoughts are interrupted by a particularly troublesome rock that catches Snow's foot.

He stumbles.

He falls.

The crash is loud.

For a moment, he does not move. She is vaguely, briefly concerned that he has been knocked out, but then he shifts and she reinterprets his stillness as humiliation.

'Get up,' she snarls.

He tries. It is pitiful. His feet scrabble against the dirt, but he cannot find balance with his hands tied behind his back. Slowly, very slowly, he turns onto his side, swings his legs around, and manages to get to a kneeling position. It would be trivial for Katniss to leap to her feet from here, but Snow pauses, breathing distressed and stertorous. It takes some time for him to push himself to his feet.

Katniss does not think the humiliation in his features is an act of theater.

She closes her eyes for a brief moment. She thinks of Mags, in the Quarter Quell. Too old to be useful. Too frail. Killing herself to give Katniss a chance to live. And she was probably in better shape than Snow.

'Fine,' she snaps. She stalks over to him and undoes the rope, then the zip-ties. There is blood on them. She pretends she does not see it. 'But if you try to run, I will shoot you. Do you understand? With a bullet or an arrow, I'm not bothered. I will shoot you.'

Snow rubs his wrists again, but a twisting lip indicates his smile. 'Thank you, Miss Everdeen. I promise I will not run away. After all, where would I go?'

They make much better progress. Snow's movements are irritatingly slow by her own swift standards, but he can stride out much better without the compromised balance of his cuffed hands, and his legs are longer than hers. He immediately seems in much better spirits, which irritates Katniss, but is also reassuring. It does not seem like the cheer of planning her murder; it just seems like he's happy to be unencumbered.

The hours continue to pass and the more comfortable Katniss gets, the more troubled she is. To be in the forest and the wilds is normal, natural, right. This is where she belongs, creature of hare and wolf, fur and teeth, padding out across the landscape. But Snow does not belong here. This strange, tall ghost that walks in front of her, yet who is so much more solid than a ghost could ever be. Too alive to be the corpse he should be. As he walks ahead, she studies him in a vague, idle, confused kind of way. His hair gleams white, short enough now that she can see the pale skin above his collar. His hair is still thick and rich, and she wonders if that's natural or some Capitol cosmetic procedure. No old men she knew in District 12 had hair like this. Like a crop of thick, spun silver.

His shoulders, too, are still broad and his figure good, not hunched at all, and from the back he could be ten years younger than he actually is. How old is he? That's another question that Capitol medicine obscures. The richest citizens there can easily clear one hundred. Not so in the Districts. One of her grandfathers was dead at sixty, the other before fifty. And yet Snow lives on, bright and vital, persisting into the light of the morning. Another unfairness she ought not to think on. So many people are dead, and yet he endures. What cruelty.

Snow turns his head to half-look at her. 'Do you mind if I stop for a drink?'

'Yes, I mind. Keep going.' He stops anyway and slings off his pack, and Katniss pulls out her knife. 'I said I mind. We're not stopping.'

Snow watches her, interested and amused, not yet opening his pack. 'It's very important to you that you feel in control, isn't is, Miss Everdeen? Are you not able to feel this way at home? Does Mr Mellark make all the decisions for you?'

'No, he doesn't,' Katniss snaps, and she raises the knife. 'You do what I say, or I hurt you. Do you not understand that?'

Snow does not move. He is still considering her. Considering what she is capable of. 'Pain does not bother me, Miss Everdeen.'

'Then thirst shouldn't bother you either,' she says. 'Put the pack back on. That's an order.'

He smiles. Something about her entertains him, and she does not like it. There is no meekness to him, none of the mouselike deference she had shown when their roles were reversed and Katniss was the prey. She still remembers her most confident words: Why don't you just kill me now?

The way he looked at her then had haunted her nightmares. The smile, the subtle shift of his emotions, somehow irritated and surprised and pleased and impressed with her.

He still seems to feel these things.

The sun is a little past high noon when they come across a long-abandoned picnic area, the wood of the tables rotten, and Katniss decides to stop for lunch.

'We'll rest here,' she says. 'Not for long. We eat, we move on. I want to get to better terrain before nightfall. It's too open up here.'

Snow bows his head, acquiescing, and sinks down onto one of the benches. He drops his pack onto the ground. She can see that the weight is difficult for him.

'Is it hostile wildlife you're concerned about, or is Coin hunting us?'

'I'm not telling you anything,' she says. It's a good question, though. Does Coin know they have the documents? Would she have inferred their discovery of Snow's escape? Will she send out hovercrafts to patrol the eastern skies?

It is hard to think so. The air is huge and wild and empty. Katniss feels on some deep, atavistic instinct that she and Snow are the only human beings for miles and miles. Just them, and their mutual hatred.

Well, she has her hatred, at least. Snow mostly seems amused.

They have not passed anything edible, neither flora nor fauna, which means they will have to break into their supplies. This isn't encouraging, especially on the first day of the trip, but there is no choice. The benefit of the huge, ancient road is the clear path it cuts through the swath of the landscape, but the tarmac doesn't seem to be favored ground for anything edible. If it continues like this, they will need to break off into the woods much sooner than expected. If they exhaust their preserved supplies, they'll starve. Katniss does not want to die starving at the side of President Snow. Maybe she could kill and eat him.

She walks to Snow's pack, glaring at him when she has to get close, then rifles through and pulls out one of the dehydrated meals. The instructions tell her to add boiling water but she has no patience for building a fire, so she makes do with cold water from her canteen. This produces a semi-congealed powdery mess. She spoons heaped mouthfuls between her teeth and chews the unpleasant texture, and she does not sit. Going at such a slow rate has not tired her, and she has no wish to show vulnerability. Snow reaches for the pack too and Katniss wipes her mouth with the back of her hand.

'What the fuck do you think you're doing?'

He looks at her in amused surprise. 'I was going to have some lunch.'

'You can have whatever I don't finish of this.'

He regards her for a moment. What is the emotion behind his eyes? Resentment?

No. Disappointment.

Well, he can be as disappointed in his scrap lunch all that he likes. Katniss knows starvation like the glove knows the hand that fills it. Let him suffer the horrible inconveniences of mortality for a change.

But something grates at her. That is not the kind of disappointment he is showing.

He is disappointed in her.

This amuses her. What did he expect? Charity and succor from the girl whose life he ruined? The girl he tortured, degraded, and terrorized for years? The girl he made a victim? Let him feel disappointment, too. She is the product of his evil and he has consequences to enjoy.

He watches her eat in a way she ought to find more off-putting than she does. Pale, sky-blue eyes tracking the motion of spoon from packet to mouth. It's not because he's hungry. He just wants to watch her. That's what he always does.

She eats two thirds of the packet, then shoves the leftovers to Snow, keeping the spoon. 'Here.'

'May I have some cutlery?'

She stares in revulsion. 'Do you think I want your spit on my spoon? Use your hands.'

Snow looks away from her, then. He so rarely does. His eyes seem drawn to her by some strange gravity. But now he surveys the horizon, his face blank, and the light breeze disturbs his hair. Then he quirks his eyebrows, as though reaching a conclusion in a private debate, and dips his fingers into the packet. She watches him, studying the move of his mouth like he's an exotic animal. When the packet is empty, he sets it aside and tries to clean greasy fingers on the cuffs of his trousers, but the waterproof material doesn't do much, so he settles with the bottom of his sweater.

'Do you think this is justice?' he says suddenly.

Katniss blinks. 'What?'

'Tormenting me. Hurting me. Degrading me. Is this what you consider justice?' He speaks pleasantly, curiously. He is not challenging her. He is only searching for knowledge, like a blind caterpillar feeling out a leaf.

Katniss thinks of the time she was a child and she ate rotten tomatoes from trash cans. She thinks of when she picked maggots off chicken scraps. She thinks of the Hunger Games and trying to trick her starving body into feeling full by chewing mint leaves.

'Yes,' she says at last. 'Yes, I think this is justice.'

He gives her a pleasant smile. 'Really? I think this is sadism. And I don't think sadism suits you, Miss Everdeen.'

Katniss pauses. She considers Snow, sat before her in all his wry pride. Then she pulls her bow from its sheath, grips it as she has a million times, and brings it down hard across Snow's face.

He is thrown to the side and one hand rises on instinct to clutch his temple.

'That was sadism,' she says, and replaces her bow. 'This was just lunch.' She hauls on her pack, barely looking at him. 'Come on. We have a long way to go today.'

For a moment, she catches Snow's eyes. There is a red mark on his temple and a little blood in its midst, and his eyes are like blue gas flames. And then there is nothing in his face and he is perfectly calm and still, and he pulls his pack on too and they set out on the road once more.

Katniss demands that Snow walk faster, and he tries, but it doesn't take long for him to slow again. His breathing is heavy. Whereas Katniss has been climbing and running the forest outside District 12 every day for the past two years, Snow has barely left his apartment. The bicycle rotor cannot provide that much exercise. And he is old.

'Miss Everdeen,' he says at last, and his voice is heavy. 'Could I please drink some water?'

She barks a laugh. 'What, feeling dehydrated? I went days without water in the Hunger Games. I'm sure you can last a few hours.'

She can hear the dry swallow of his mouth. 'You were in better shape than I am.'

'Yeah, I was a sixteen-year-old girl,' she snaps. 'Is that why you choose kids for the Games? Because we're more robust? Gives you better entertainment?'

His breathing is ragged. 'That is one of many considerations.'

He falls silent, for which Katniss is grateful. He does so like to hear the sound of himself speak. She remembers their last conversation in the greenhouse. She had said so little. And yet he was the first person she really spoke with after Prim's death. Somehow, he managed to drag a piece of human interaction out of her when no one else could. What spurred that? Pure desire for vengeance against Coin? Perhaps. Perhaps it was something else.

They keep walking at their agonizing pace, and then Snow slows to a halt. Katniss thinks about hitting him again.

'What now?'

Snow's expression is slightly guarded. 'If you wouldn't mind, Miss Everdeen, I need to relieve myself.'

She pulls a face of disgust. 'You can hold it.'

He is diplomatic. 'No, Miss Everdeen, I cannot. I am an old man. These things get more difficult as you age.'

She shrugs, pointedly still walking. 'Not my problem.'

He does not move. 'Miss Everdeen.' She stops despite herself. His tone sends an ancient, childlike fear through her: exactly the way he spoke to her in the study, so long ago. Don't lie. 'It is true that I am at a significant disadvantage to you in terms of combat, and I have no wish to fight you. But whatever resentments you harbor for me, I am not going to allow you to make me soil myself. So, if you don't mind.' He indicates a nearby tree, and without waiting for her consent he shrugs off his pack and walks towards it.

Katniss draws her bow and an arrow, and she watches him. He must have some plan. This is the moment he has planned to kill her. He has smuggled something in his clothing. She should have made him remove his underwear; he could have easily stashed some small gun inside. She curses her naivety and notches the arrow, her heart panicking, ready once again to kill him. Ready to put a hole in his smiling face.

Then she hears the sound of urine hitting the tree. She starts to feel very stupid.

There is the sound of a zipper, and then Snow turns again to face her. He stares pointedly at her drawn bow and notched arrow.

'Is everything alright, Miss Everdeen?'

'I was just making sure you didn't have a weapon.'

He stares at her, then his gaze flicks slightly to the side. Katniss is uncomfortably aware of the stupid, inadvertent innuendo in her comment, and lowers her bow.

'Come on,' she says quickly. 'Let's keep moving.'

They continue beneath the late afternoon sky, and it is almost pleasantly warm. The trees grow sparser as they drop into a valley, though they're big and heavy-leaved, and alongside the laurel oaks Katniss recognizes the textured, rumpled bark of hickory trees. Her father taught her these things. It's nice to remember him in this way, through the names of the trees, rather than as a red, wet explosion in her nightmares.

By the time the sky starts to dim, Snow is really struggling. His breathing is extremely rough, a grating wheeze, and he is no longer keeping to a straight line. Katniss watches his back as they walk, considering things. Could she kill him doing this? The rebellion needs Snow alive, after all. But if he can barely survive one day of hiking, how could she possibly hope to get him there anyway?

She keeps weighing up the possibility that it is all an act. Snow does love his theater. But she always comes to dismiss that possibility. He has his pride; or, he had his pride. She is taking that from him, along with his dignity, strip by slow strip. He would not choose to show her such humiliating weakness unless he was unable to cover it up.

The road dips, and to the side is a pleasant bower of thicket. Katniss pauses, considering the thicket, considering the sky. She could keep going for another hour, perhaps. But this is a fine spot, and they might not find better. And Snow seems to be in genuine difficulty.

He hears her stop and stops too, and Katniss points to the thicket.

'We'll camp here for the night.'

He turns to face her, and Katniss is unable to stop her mouth falling open. The skin of his temple has already bruised a lively pink, and there is purple eating at the edges. It is vibrant and horrible. The mark will get worse; his old skin bruises so readily. His chest rises and falls rapidly. His face is exhausted. His mouth is open and panting like a dog.

Katniss does not like this.

Something comes to her from long, long ago. Something she said in battle.

I killed Cato... and he killed Thresh... and he killed Clove... and she tried to kill me. It just goes around and around, and who wins?

Is this justice, that she's making go around? Who is winning? It's certainly not Snow. Is she still the Victor?

She drops her eyes from his face, then thinks better of it and forces herself to look at him. 'You can have a drink. I'll set up the tent.'

There is naked relief in his features, and he doesn't have a quip for her as he collapses onto the seat made by the raised tarmac against the side of the road.

She sets up the tent and notes how small it is. There's no way they'll both fit in it, not comfortably, and she has no wish to make Snow her bedfellow. Someone will have to sleep outside.

Next, she gathers kindling and tinder for the fire. The days have been nice and bright and dry, so it's easy to assemble a suitable pile of leaves and twigs and sticks, which she arranges over a log in a pyramid.

Snow watches her as she works. She spares him one glance. He no longer looks so wrecked; indeed, he almost looks fully restored to health, if it wasn't for the massive bruise seeping over his face. Gazing at her seems to recharge him. He watches her put together the fire with interest.

'You're good at that,' he observes. 'I saw you do it in the Games, of course. You haven't lost your touch.'

'Basic survival skills,' she said. 'I've have died of starvation without them. I wouldn't have even made it to the Games.'

She rifles through their packs and selects a dehydrated salmon meal, then sets up her saucepan in the fire and heats the food. Snow watches this, too. His eyes are always on her hands, watching her balance her knife against her knuckles, shift the pan in her palm, nimbly reposition the kindling to keep the fire going. The night air is growing cool, but the fire keeps the temperature comfortable.

When the meal is heated, Katniss spoons half of the mixture out onto her plate. Then she pauses. She is not really considering anything; she knows what decision she has made. She does not enjoy humiliating a defenseless old man. Whatever came before, whatever he has done, it does not justify her ugly vindictiveness.

She hands the saucepan and the other half of the food to Snow, along with the spoon. He looks at her in surprise, then takes it.

'Thank you, Miss Everdeen.' He turns the food over. 'May I ask what prompted this sudden change of heart?'

She pauses, her fork poised over the plate. 'You're my prisoner,' she says with careful intent. 'I have a duty of care towards you.' She takes one bite and slowly chews and swallows. 'Just because you treated everyone like dirt, that doesn't justify me doing the same.'

She can feel Snow's eyes on her, but she refuses to meet them. 'I understand, Miss Everdeen.' He almost sounds impressed with her.

They eat in silence. She hates herself a little bit for not being able to be crueler to him. He deserves wrath, fire, earthquakes, broken bones, eyes eaten out by birds. There is nothing he does not deserve.

But she hates herself less for not being able to be so cruel. She doesn't have it in her. Snow is right, as ever: sadism doesn't suit her.

Snow seems either too tired or hungry to talk, which is a relief, and Katniss cannot think of anything she wants to say to him. Hundreds of miles of silence between here and the base. She can manage that; she prefers it.

But once they have both scraped out the last bits of the food and Katniss has rudely licked her dish clean (which Snow studies, but does not mimic), the atmosphere feels a little better. Breaking bread, Katniss thinks. But she and Snow have already done that. He came into her house and ate Peeta's cookies.

That was so rude.

'Miss Everdeen,' says Snow at last. 'May I enquire as to the sleeping arrangements?'

She glances at the tent and shrugs. 'One takes the tent. One takes the sleeping bag. I'll take the bag. If any wild animals come upon us, I trust myself to protect us more than you.'

Snow looks over the tent. 'The nights will be cold.'

'I've been cold many times. And we have a fire, and it's March.' She rolls her eyes. 'I'm not sharing a tent with you.'

'I didn't mean to suggest that,' says Snow delicately. 'But you should be careful. Cold can kill easily out here.'

She snorts with laughter and stares into the fire. 'President Snow is concerned about me. Very funny.'

'I am,' he says. 'If nothing else, I will certainly die out here without you. Our provisions will not last until we get to civilization, and I cannot hunt.' She can hear him smile. 'Also, I am not President anymore. Just "Snow" is fine. Unless you wish to call me by my forename.'

It takes her a moment to remember what that is. Then it comes to her. Coriolanus.

Derisive laughter shakes her, which she thinks expresses disgust, but Snow chuckles too. She drops the laughter from her mouth. She has no wish for them to laugh together.

She looks at him. By the light of the fire, in a wool sweater, looking tired and in disarray, she cannot see a single trace of the President she knew. Gone, his immaculate sheen; gone, his perfection. He's just an old man sitting with her by a fire.

This makes it hard to muster the violent desire to kill him.

'It something the matter?'

He is tilting his head at her. He can sense her discomfort.

'I was just thinking about killing you,' she answers honestly. 'Doesn't seem fair, now you're so pathetic.'

'Did it seem fair when I was tied to a pillar for a public execution?'

'Yes,' she says immediately. 'You had a trial. Everything was done the correct way. You deserved to die, and you were going to die. I just got to have the pleasure of killing you.' She flicks her eyebrows. 'Or I would have, if I hadn't listened to you and shot Coin instead.' This raises an important question. 'Did you know?' she says. 'Did you know she'd survive?'

'I did not. I know she didn't trust you, but Coin…' He smiles to himself. 'Coin might have recognized your instability and your danger, but she had no grasp of just how… improvisational you could be.' He says this word like it delights him. 'It was unfortunate that your arrow didn't kill her. On the other hand,' he reasons, 'if she had died, then they wouldn't have transferred me to somewhere staffed with moronic, bribable guards while Coin recovered. It is likely I would never have escaped. So many possibilities.' He raises two old, whorled fingers. 'Two Presidents. One dies, two die…' He puts one finger down, then the second, then raises them both. 'Both live.' He curls the fingers into his fist. 'And one Katniss Everdeen.' His smile is extremely pleased. 'How oddly things work themselves out, hm?'

The sound of the fire fills the dark, and somewhere Katniss hears the call of a fox. The air smells like burning wood and fresh bark.

Katniss buries another thick stick into the depths of the fire, then rubs her hands. 'We should sleep. More of the same tomorrow. And the day after that, and the day after that.'

She says this to frighten him, or disquiet him, or bore him. To her surprise, Snow's expression is one of delighted anticipation.

'Excellent.' He stands with difficulty, hands above his knees. 'It has been pleasant to get out of the apartment building. Are you sure you won't take the tent?'

She nods. 'I'm sure.'

He inclines his head in that not-quite-a-nod, the concessionary gesture that indicates his willingness to submit to her rule of law. Then he bends to untie his boots, which Katniss watches abstractly. His fingers have an interesting nimbleness, working the rope of the laces with grace. There is an agility to him and there is a meticulousness in his movements that is peculiar to her. She has never been meticulous in anything.

There is something truly absurd about seeing President Snow in socks, which are already a little darkened by a day of sweaty hiking, and Katniss shakes her head. Somehow, she had not anticipated that tracking down the ex-President and escorting him to the rebel base would involve getting quite so intimately acquainted with him.

He turns to the tent and Katniss holds up a hand.

'Wait a moment.'

He tarries, watching her go through her pockets. His face falls a little when she pulls out the zip-ties again.

'I'm not having you stabbing me in my sleep.' She pauses. 'Or raping me.'

His expression shifts: waves of fury and hurt rushing past, then the cool rock of disdain beneath. 'Do not accuse me of that, Miss Everdeen.'

Interesting, she thinks. But what she says is, 'Whatever. Give me your wrists.'

His gaze lingers, cool and closed, something of resentful loathing lurking inside him. But then he turns his back and crosses his wrists for her, and she binds them yet again. Then she unzips the tent for him, and Snow bends and sits inside with some difficulty.

'Goodnight, Miss Everdeen,' he says, before she zips up the tent again.

It is better to be alone. The night is quieter than those in District 12. She is in the depths of nowhere, bounded by forest and expanse. So few humans have come this way. She and Snow set a poor precedent. Is he human at all? Alas, yes: that much she knows. He sweats and eats and drinks, and he bleeds when she beats him.

She had wanted to be his hunter, and now she has become his shepherd. This does not please her. It does not anger her, either. She had the chance to kill Coin robbed from her, and she lost the chance to kill Snow. Does she still want to? Does she want to put an old man in the ground?

She does not know.

Katniss rolls out her sleeping bag beside the fire, and she slides inside and watches the turmoil of wood giving their way to flames. Her face and chest are warm, but her feet are growing cold without motion or daylight. She misses the tent already.

Above are the stars. Where is the Big Lynx? There it is: the body and the tail, and then the other six stars that make its legs. And there is the big bright star that marks the Little Lynx, small beside its companion, ever at its side, shimmering in the dark.