This chapter contains some sexual threat.

Snow likes games. After the cruelty of their drinking game, they try for less combative entertainments to pass the time on the road. It proves difficult to find common ground. Snow likes intellectual games and psychological games, but Katniss is hopeless at the former. Guess the famous book: well, it's something she's never heard of because they owned no books until they moved to the Victors' Village. This seems to dispirit Snow. Psychological games are better. She never thought herself particularly gifted at psychology, but she can fall into an easy rhythm with Snow, and she gets some satisfaction from untangling the mystery of him.

They try twenty questions for a bit, but Snow is too good at figuring out her mind and he insists on picking objects that she doesn't know ('How on earth am I supposed to know what a "transistor" is?' 'They are common items, Miss Everdeen, found in all kinds of electronics, especially radios.' 'You think I had a radio growing up?'). Finally, they settle on two truths and a lie, which amuses them both. And it's good to keep their minds occupied and away from the growing cold and the rain and the scant animals and their diminishing supplies.

'At the Capitol University,' says Snow, on what might be their fiftieth round as they walk a battered ancient highway, 'I took elective classes in philosophy, anatomy, and technical drawing.'

She thinks this over as they walk, passing clumps of crabgrass sprouting from the cracks in the concrete. It is a cold, wet, dreary day, and she has not been properly dry in too long. 'Technical drawing.' She cannot imagine Snow as someone artistically inclined.

'Incorrect. Philosophy.' In response to her skeptical look, he says, 'I have read a lot of philosophy. I had already read most of the books on the syllabus so it didn't seem a worthwhile use of my time.'

'I bet your teachers hated you.'

Snow smiles. 'Not at all. Believe it or not, I can be very charming when I want to be.'

She rolls her eyes at that. Yes, he is a man capable of charm, but he has never tried to charm her. He has always been honest about his monstrosity. 'Did you have a lot of girlfriends at university?'

'No,' he answers shortly. 'Your turn, Miss Everdeen.'

She thinks about her go. She is at a disadvantage. While she knows lots of his public life, which is beamed from television screens and printed in their scant history books, she knows nothing of his private life. He, on the other hand, has watched and recorded both her private and public life. He even seems to know the thoughts that live only inside her head. But she has found that the more prosaic and detailed questions elude him.

'Two truths and a lie. I like hot chocolate. I like coffee with cream. I like black tea.'

'Hm.' He considers this like it's a philosophical problem, devised just for him. 'You have a sweet tooth. I remember at the first Victors' party how you ate almost nothing but cake. I must hope you like black tea, as I make it for you more days than not.' His eyebrows twitch. 'It is coffee with cream you dislike.'

'Correct.' She cracks a smile at the sight of the quiet satisfaction he takes in figuring this out.

'So you dislike coffee. I love coffee. I am sure I could find a way that you would enjoy it.' A barely-suppressed grin brightens his face. 'A caramel mocha, perhaps. With whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles.'

With annoyance, she feels her stomach growl. Fortunately, Snow either doesn't hear this or pretends not to. 'You're unlikely to find one of those out here.'

'Who knows? Perhaps there will be a café or salon just around the next crop of trees.' He smiles back at her and she must invest real effort into not smiling back. He likes games and he likes play: this much she knows. 'Alright, my turn.' This time, she can spot the cruelty in his smile before it even forms. She lets out a sigh. She wishes he would play the game without these little barbs. 'In my network of cameras in District 12, I witnessed the following: a shouting match between you and Mr Mellark, you avoiding a conversation with Mr Hawthorne, and you crying alone in the forest.'

Sick violation twists inside her. Are all of those things that happened? Are they things Snow witnessed? How intimately did he watch her teenage years? Certainly she has cried in the forest, and had her tiffs with Peeta and Gale. She is not even sure which one is the lie.

'Trick question. You saw them all,' she answers, refusing to look at him. 'You're not playing the game right.'

'Incorrect on one count, Miss Everdeen, and correct on the other. I saw none of them. And yet now I know that all three occurred.'

He looks so absolutely delighted with his cleverness that she almost feels sorry for him.

In response, she marshals her own jab. She does not know why the subject of Peeta in particular seems to rankle him, but she will indulge it if she can. It's satisfying to use Peeta as a weapon against him for a change.

'Peeta makes freshly baked bread with blackcurrants, because he knows they are my favorite. Peeta brings me breakfast in bed when I feel lazy. Peeta gives the best back massages I have ever had.'

Snow's expression is completely impenetrable as he considers this one, and that is how she knows she has pricked something in him.

'The bread with blackcurrants is a lie,' he answers.

'Nope. They were all true.'

'Now you are cheating.' There is genuine annoyance in his voice, and she laughs at him. Tit for tat. He smiles back at her mirth. Perhaps this is what he means by fellowship.

The mood between them is almost jovial, and it might almost shape up to a pleasant day between them, if not for the rain. And then the hovercraft blocking the road decloaks.

The effect is overwhelming. One moment there is nothing: empty road, crowding trees, clouds scrolling an enormous sky. And then there is a shimmer, a hum, and then a colossus of metal and engines and guns swells into view. They freeze in place. The hovercraft is parked and silent, filling the whole road with its bulk, and as it vibrates into visibility two men emerge down its ramp, guns drawn.

Katniss thinks rapidly. It's Coin's craft; she can see the crest. Should she draw her own gun? Too dangerous: there are two barrels trained on them. Should they run? No time. What should they do?

Snow will know what to do.

She looks to him on instinct, little more than a helpless child, and at first she does not understand. He is not readying himself for flight or battle; rather, he is shifting his stance. He makes himself look less threatening, older even, back slightly hunched, expression confused. And then she understands. She relaxes her own body into an adolescent slouch and starts to chew her lip, looking for all the world like a nervous teenager. The President and the mockingjay? Oh no, not them. There must be some mistake.

She wishes Snow hadn't trimmed his beard so well.

'Both of you, halt,' calls one of the men, the taller of the two. He has a long, unpleasant face, and the tone of his voice is weird. Not commanding or stern, almost jocular. A drawl. Like a scolding teacher too lazy to care for the students' disobedience.

Snow speaks before she has a chance. 'What is the problem, sir?' His voice is modified: light and confused, oddly accented. It's a remarkable facsimile of the kind of deep rural accents you'd hear on those in 12 who once lived illegally beyond the fence. He certainly sounds nothing like the President.

The men stop a dozen feet away, each pointing a gun at them. The one who spoke has a casual, sickly smile. The other, shorter man looks nervous.

The taller, smiling man regards them both. 'Identify yourselves.'

Snow answers in that weaker, accented voice. 'I am Jon Rivers. This is my granddaughter, Lisbeth.'

'You have papers to corroborate that?' The smiling man shifts his gun.

Snow laughs. He is very good at sounding like a confused, pleasant old man. 'In the hills of District 12? No one has official papers out here, sir. I haven't seen a government official in, oh, five years at least. What brings you boys so far out in the boondocks?'

The smiling man widens his eyes and his smile grows bigger and crueler. 'I'll ask the fucking questions.' His eyes turn to Katniss. 'You answer now, Lisbeth. What are you doing out here?'

'Going to visit grandmama,' says Katniss. She sounds scared, but that's okay. It's okay for a young girl to be scared of two strange men with guns. She's suddenly thankful for the slight body a life of malnutrition granted her. Perhaps she could pass for fifteen, sixteen. 'She lives in the hills.'

'What's your grandmother's name? No,' says the man sharply, as Snow starts to speak. 'I want the little girl to answer.'

Katniss cannot think of a single name. Prim. Primrose. 'Rose,' she answers, after just the tiniest pause.

The smiling man looks back at Snow. 'And why aren't you with your wife right now?'

'I'm escorting my granddaughter,' says Snow, still smiling, still wholesome and confused. 'It's very dangerous out here, as you boys ought to know! Bears and wildcats. I wouldn't let a girl walk this far by herself.'

'And what do you do all the way out here? I'm sure you know hunting is illegal.' He tilts his head at Katniss. 'I see the little girl has a bow and arrow.'

'You can hunt squirrels,' says Katniss — which isn't true insofar as the letter of the law is concerned, but no Peacekeeper would bat an eye at a catch of squirrels. 'No one gets mad if you kill squirrels.'

'And the two of you are just living off squirrels in the middle of nowhere?'

'We have a farm in the hills,' says Snow politely. 'It was all government approved, back in the day.'

'I'm sure it was,' drawls the smiling man. 'That would have been under President Snow's reign, right?' His eyes flash. 'You look like him.'

'I've often been told,' Snow laughs. 'It's less flattering to hear these days.'

Katniss doesn't think the smiling man is buying a single word of this, though the other seems more convinced. Snow's performance is immaculate. She notices that the shorter man has lowered his gun barrel very slightly. If she was very, very quick, could she make a run for it? She doubts it.

The smiling man scratches his face. He is very at ease. 'Well, this has been fun, but we've been sitting on our asses out here for days and I'm bored.' His eyes rest first on Snow, then Katniss. 'Coriolanus Snow. Katniss Everdeen.'

'Are you sure?' mutters the other Peacekeeper. 'They could be anyone.'

'I'd know her face anywhere,' the smiling one replies. 'I jerked off to that first Victory tour a hundred times. That yellow dress.' He makes a disgusting, lip-smacking sound. 'You tie up the old man first. I trust him less.'

Katniss tries to have a plan. She tries have a brilliant idea as the shorter man advances on Snow, zip-ties in hand. Once they are bound, everything will be so much harder. She could shoot the smiling man, and then perhaps Snow could tackle the shorter one? But the smiler has his barrel trained on her with his lazy smile like he knows exactly what she's planning, and so in the end Katniss does nothing but stand there helpless and stupid as Snow offers his wrists to be bound.

When Snow next speaks, he has lost the accent and the feigned posture. 'Is it money that Coin has given you?'

'Of course,' says the smiler. 'We'd hardly trawl around these forsaken hills for free, would we?'

'You're not experienced Peacekeepers,' Snow remarks as zip-ties are once again looped around his scabbed wrists. 'You barely know how to hold your gun. So she must have enticed you into this somehow. If it's money you want, I can arrange for you to receive far more than whatever Coin has promised.'

'Personally, I'm in it for the fame,' says the smiler, and he bears a big mouth of big teeth.

'Not much fame in catching a dying old man,' muses Snow. The other man advances on Katniss and, shaking, she extends her own wrists to be bound. 'Why not keep the mockingjay and let me go?'

'This begging is unbecoming,' says the smiler.

'I am simply asking questions,' says Snow, and his smile is honey-sweet.

The smiler gestures with his gun, telling them to board the craft. Katniss stares at Snow. Would he really sell her out like this? Of course he would. He hates her, he wants to kill her. Has she forgotten that? Snow slowly walks up the ramp, pantomiming a frailty she knows to be false, and she follows suit. Inside the craft is small, bigger than Snow's escape vehicle, but not roomy. Four seats are set in two paired rows, facing each other. It's cramped with four bodies inside.

'How about,' says the smiler, 'you tell us where your money is and we'll think about letting you go.' He grabs Katniss' shoulders and forces her onto a seat. Snow sits opposite of his own accord as though he is perfectly comfortable in his surrounds. The shorter man chews his lip and holds his gun wrong.

'That hardly seems a promising scenario,' smiles Snow.

'It's promising for me,' says the smiler. 'How much money you got? What's your sad old life worth?'

'Millions,' says Snow. 'Tens of millions, perhaps. I confess I have not kept track of the price of gold these past few years.'

The smiling man does not look like he is seriously entertaining this proposition. 'Tempting. But I think I like the idea of a lifetime of fame for catching Mister President Snow more. And as for her…' His eyes, which are a blue quite unlike Snow's, settle on Katniss. 'I think you and I don't see eye to eye on many things, Mister President, but I think we can both agree that you can't put a price on that pussy.'

Katniss feels hatred and disgust contort her face. Snow's expression remains cheerful and serene. And yet she thinks she notices a slight twitch in his right forefinger.

The smiling man advances on her. Katniss notices that the other man looks nervous. Her body stiffens as the smiling man reaches out for her braid. He runs his hands up and down its heft in an almost masturbatory motion, then tugs free the band. She grinds her teeth like she could make bonemeal as he shakes out the plaits and arranges her messy hair loose around her face.

'There we go!' says the smiler. 'Much better.' He rubs her damaged split ends between his thumb and forefinger. 'You're all greasy! We'll have to clean you up.' And then he tosses her hair band out of the open door.

Katniss decides very quickly that she doesn't really care about being raped. If the smiling man is raping her then that means he doesn't have a gun trained on them, and that means there's an opportunity for Snow to do something. Rape is a distraction.

Her eyes flick to Snow. He is doing something with his wrists, something with the zip-ties, rubbing them somehow, and when her eyes meet his they burn with meaning. He glances pointedly at the smiling man and, somehow, she understands.

'Do you rape a lot of girls you kidnap, or just the famous ones?' she says. Her voice sounds surer than she feels.

'Most of the girls take it quite willingly when they see the size of my dick,' says the smiler, and Katniss has to fight the urge to laugh.

She looks at the shorter man. 'What about your friend? Does he get to join in or do you need him to watch to get it up?'

The smiler bursts into laughter. 'You are getting me worked up, girl,' he says, but her distraction is proving effective. Now the shorter man is staring at her too and his gun is hanging uselessly to the floor. Out of the corner of her eye, Katniss can see that Snow is doing something to the zip-ties with his teeth.

'I'm a virgin, you know,' she says, trying to think of anything to hold their attention. 'You'll work that out soon enough once you get started, I'm sure. I thought it might interest you to know.'

More sick, soulless laughter from the smiler. He gets saliva on her face. 'Wow, listen to you. You really are fucked up! I guess I should've known that the girl who tried to kill Coin would have a few screws loose.'

The other man cracks a weak, interested smile. Does he think she's insane enough to consent? Does that make it okay for him to entertain this idea? She is revolted.

Snow raises his zip-tied wrists above his head and Katniss forces herself to keep her eyes locked on the smiling man. She speaks quickly and loudly, covering the noises of Snow's limbs shifting.

'Does the other guy get your seconds, or will you go at the same time? I don't mind which. I think I'd prefer the latter, actually. It depends what he's packing, I suppose. Tell me, do you—'

Snow yanks down his hands and the zip-ties make a soft crack, and then his hands are free. What happens next happens very fast. He reaches forth and takes the shorter man's gun like picking a flower, like it was always his to begin with. The smiling man barely has time to turn around before there is a pop and a round, red hole appears in his forehead. He drops to the floor.

The other man stares at his dead friend and then at his empty hands, as though he cannot believe the reality he now inhabits. His eyes are round like goose eggs when he looks to Snow.

'No, please, don't—'

Katniss doesn't even see Snow work the trigger. There is another pop and then the man falls, first to his knees, then to the floor, and then his body rolls comically and horribly down the open ramp. It comes to rest on its back. The bullet hole winks wetly at the sun.

Snow stands, holding the gun on the corpse of the smiling man. He is not smiling any longer. Snow advances and toes the corpse with his boot.

'Vulgar,' he mutters. Then he raises his boot and places it on the man's cheek, one quick motion, and he grinds his heel as though putting out a tobacco butt. When he removes the boot, a mud-thick rubber imprint has been left on the man's face. Snow's expression has something unrecognizable in it.

And then he goes straight to Katniss. He takes her knife from her belt, and for a moment Katniss is sure he is about to slit her throat with it. But he does not. He cuts carefully through the plastic of the zip-ties, and then her wrists are free. He offer her back the knife. 'Are you alright, Miss Everdeen?'

She nods once and accepts the blade. She cannot find words. Then Snow stands sharply and, with an intent she cannot place, he strides out of the hovercraft door, past the dead man, and he picks up something in the road. When he returns to her, his hand offers her the hair band.

She takes it with trembling fingers.

'They didn't call in this incident, so we should be safe from Coin's knowledge for now,' says Snow. 'No doubt in time someone will check in with this vessel, and when they get no response they will come to investigate. Then they will likely conclude that we were responsible for the deaths. We need to be far away from here before that happens. But I would like to check the systems before we leave. See if there is any useful information for us.'

Katniss does not react. From anxiety and a faint, nauseous disgust, her hands go to her braid and she begins to re-plait it. She wants to cut off the ends that the man rubbed.

Snow settles himself into the pilot seat of the hovercraft and hits switches with a rapidity that she cannot follow.

'Ah,' he says. 'They have correctly identified the area in which were have been travelling. But they seem to think that we are heading towards some spot to the southwest of District 13. I assume that is not the location of your rebel base?'

Katniss does not answer. The adrenaline flooding her body is starting to cool. Her left hand, just her left, is still trembling.

'Not much else to learn,' says Snow. 'Clearly Coin isn't stupid enough to give much information to a pair of amateurs. What I wouldn't give to commandeer this vehicle.' He rubs his hands over the armrests with a strange affection. 'HK49 class. I loved these when I was a Peacekeeper. It does not speak highly of Coin's resources that she is purposing such old vehicles, and that's good news for us. I never flew much, I wasn't a pilot. But I could get this creature into the air and we could sail on the thermals to your rebel base.' He releases a great sigh. 'Alas, such craft are tracked and we cannot compromise our position.' He turns and smiles at her, then his smile shrinks a little. 'Miss Everdeen? Are you sure you're alright?'

'You killed them,' she says at last.

Snow glances at the corpses as though he had forgotten they were there. 'Yes, I did. They would have taken us to Coin and she would have killed us.' He looks nonplussed. 'They were Coin's men, Miss Everdeen. They had to die.'

'Maybe the quieter one could have lived,' she says. Her eyes drop to the dead body lying in the sun. Blood wanders leisurely down the ramp.

Snow shakes his head and there is no warmth, no mercy. 'I saw a window of opportunity and I took it. There is no scenario in which we would have all four escaped this alive.'

'Would you have done it?' she says, her voice quiet and hoarse. 'Would you have sold me to them and escaped?'

Snow stops what he is doing at the console. His expression fades through hurt and offence and concern, and there is an intensity to it that Katniss struggles to hold. 'Of course not, Miss Everdeen. I was only trying to get some sort of advantage.' He shakes his head, an expression of disgusted confusion buzzing through him. 'I would never have allowed them to touch you.'

'Because I'm your precious mockingjay?' she whispers.

His eyes are the soft, pale blue of comfrey flowers. His efficient bloodlust is gone. 'That is just a title,' he says. His voice rolls out like distant, kindly thunder. 'But precious, yes.'

Nothing is quite making sense to her right now. She looks again to the dead body at her feet. The blood is dripping from his forehead and settling in the crease of his lips like he's been eating berries.

Snow leaves the pilot's seat and starts opening and closing compartments. How knows where everything is, like he knows so many strange, secret things.

'Not much in the way of food,' he says, sweeping packets of jerky into his backpack. He tosses Katniss a bar of something and she catches it on instinct. Chocolate-Flavored Protein Bar the blocky, governmental letters read. 'We're running low on supplies. We should keep moving as much as possible to put distance between us and this craft. Shame to let good meat go to waste.' He pushes the head of the smiling man's corpse with his boot. Casually he asks, 'I don't suppose you know how to field dress a human being?'

Katniss stares at her. These words make the least sense of anything so far. 'What?'

His tone is light and conversational. 'I've only done it a couple of times, and not with skill. You are the experienced hunter here. What do you think?'

Her eyes fall again to the corpse, and then she forces them back to Snow. 'You… you think we should cannibalize them?'

'Why not? You've killed and eaten plenty of animals.'

It takes a while for words to form. She thinks she must be in shock. 'Yeah. I eat animals. They're people.'

'People are animals,' he responds pleasantly. Then he briefly evaluates her: her pallid, sweating face; her staring eyes. 'No matter. We will find game on the road. Come. Leave the weapons; they'll be tagged. We should get moving. There's that creek at the bottom of the valley. If we follow that, we won't leave tracks.'

Katniss hesitates, then walks carefully after him. Terror wracks her. She follows Snow between the trees, down a bank, and into the woods. He strides ahead, confident and calm, and she stares at his back in horror.

Two men dead. Killed as easily as picking flowers. And he feels nothing.

Would the men have done it? Raped her and killed them both, or sold them to Coin? She is not sure. Do men deserve to die for that?

Yes, says a voice in her head. And then the voice speaks again and it is unmistakably Snow's: These things happen in war.

Almost as unnerving is the ease with which Snow disarmed her. He took the gun with absolute casualness, like he took Peeta's cookie from its plate all those years ago. She barely noticed. Could he have done that to her gun? Was she ever the one in control here? Did she forfeit her life to him the moment she freed him from that rope?

Neither speaks as they walk, and then the rain begins. They pull up their hoods and continue to stalk through the trees, damp leaves making less and less noise underfoot as the ground gets wetter. They reach the creek and Snow strides into it, then turns north. She joins him and her feet are plunged into freezing water. Her sore foot flowers with pain, but Snow barely seems to react. No one will be able to track them through this. She walks after him and she wonders how many men he has shot before. He said he had been a Peacekeeper himself; clearly he has killed people with more intimacy than pushing buttons at a desk. This is new to her. This is terrifying.

President Snow is a murderer. She always knew this. But he's a killer, too.

Like her.

They walk until it is almost too dark to see the trees in front of them. Katniss is considering getting out the flashlight as she dodges the pines, but then they come to a piece of flat ground and Snow stops abruptly.

'This will do,' he announces. He breathes heavily with exertion. 'We've put a dozen miles between us and the craft.' He glances around the damp patch of forest he has chosen for their campsite. 'No fire tonight. We don't want anyone to see the smoke.'

Together, they erect the tent. She stretches the canvas, he assembles the frame. She studies his hands more than usual. Aged and whorled, old but sure. Hands that have killed people, not abstractly, but directly and with blood.

She is afraid of him for the first time in weeks.

There is a moment of hesitation before they enter the tent. The rain is a thick drizzle, persistent and pattering, and Snow waits beside her for some time. He is waiting for permission, waiting for her consent. She watches him through the gloom, the fat rain drops traversing his nose, and then she nods once. He mirrors her nod, ever the gentleman, then removes his shoes and stoops inside. Katniss sighs in exasperation and then follows suit. It's not the first time she has slept next to a murderer.

They sit inside the tent, flashlight on low, and Snow pulls the jerky out of the packs. He gives her a packet and then they sit together, knees unavoidably touching, chewing in exhausted silence.

It is Katniss who speaks first. 'The zip-ties,' she said. 'You know how to get out of them.'

A smile that is less cruel and more mischievous rumples Snow's mouth as he chews. 'Mm.'

'You could have got out of my zip-ties any time you wanted.'

He chews and swallows. 'Well, Miss Everdeen, you had the good sense to bind my wrists behind my back, which makes it much more challenging, especially for a man of my age. But yes, I probably could have got free.'

'That was deceptive of you.'

He frowns. He does not like to be accused of lying to her. 'No, Miss Everdeen. I never would have freed myself, unless there was some emergency. As I told you when we first set out on this journey, if you want me bound them I am content to be so. I do not want you to be afraid of me.'

She stares at him for a long time. 'Well,' she says at last, 'I am.'

His eyes glimmer. 'Did I frighten you when I shot those men?'

'Yes. I've seen a lot of killing, but you were…' She gropes for the correct word. 'Efficient.'

Snow's smile cuts into her. 'I killed them to protect you, Miss Everdeen.' His eyes widen. 'I would have killed them even if there was a way out of that situation. The tall one, at least. He was uncouth.' His eyes are without remorse. 'Had you not been present, I would have enjoyed killing him in a more gradual fashion.'

A long, low shiver not born from cold skips along her body.

'Besides,' continues Snow, 'you have given me much liberty. You are well aware that I had plenty of opportunities to hurt you, if I wanted to. You are not stupid. You have been so free with me because you know, deep down, that I do not want to hurt you. Because you trust me.'

'I do not trust you,' she says immediately.

Snow's smile is soft and strange. 'Miss Everdeen, we promised not to lie to each other.'

The rain hits the tent. She is too damp and too cold, and the warmth of Snow's body is the most pleasant physical sensation she can feel right now. She lets out a long sigh. 'I don't understand you,' she says simply. 'You terrorized me for years. I don't understand why you care.'

A smile she does not like inflects his mouth. 'I would not say my goal was to terrorize you. I wanted to neutralize the threat you posed, through forcing your surrender, or disempowering you, or bringing you over to my side.'

'I would never have joined you.'

He considers her. 'Wouldn't you? Indulge me a scenario. If the rebels had failed to rescue you from the Quell, and if you had emerged as the Victor, what would you have done? If I had offered you a seat at my side, would you have declined it and returned to District 12? Hiding in the Victors' Village while the country rioted and burned?' His eyes are the blue of sunlight underwater. 'Had you become my successor — my heir — then you could have changed the things you so despised about my reign.'

She absorbs this hypothesis with reluctance and, to her shame, a grain of excitement. To replace Snow? To be the one sitting on the white throne, commanding a country? To make things better? To kill her enemies? It is not without its delicious, repugnant appeal.

And then she lets the image fade.

'No,' she says. 'I would not have accepted that. Never.'

Snow's head tilts. There is something in her that he does not understand, and he does not like that. 'A pity,' he says at last. 'You would have been so fantastic.'

She shakes her head. 'You're wrong.' She lacks the strength to argue with him after this particular day. Her hands go to her braid and she fingers the band like she fingers the string of her bow. She wants to scrub her hair clean after its earlier manhandling, but that is not an option out on the road. 'I want to cut this off,' she mutters.

Snow's eyes get ever-so-slightly wider. 'Oh, no, Miss Everdeen. You —' And then, sharply, he cuts himself off. When he resumes, he speaks with careful precision. 'It is your hair and your body. You can do with it as you wish.' He pauses briefly. 'I am sorry that man touched you. I should have killed him before that point.'

She continues to run her fingers over the band, not loosing her hair, wanting to keep herself as tightly wound as the braid itself. 'You really didn't like how he treated me, did you?'

'It was disrespectful.'

Katniss' fingers become fists, clutching her braid, staring at Snow, feeling the tightness in her heart and stomach grow. She ensures her voice is a featureless plain. 'Because you were jealous? Because you want to fuck me?'

His expression flutters with calamity. And then his face becomes so tightly closed that he seems a man incapable of feeling. Abruptly he stands, stooping, unzips the tent, and steps out into the rain. He promptly zips the tent behind him.

Katniss sits still in rain-spattered silence. It is nice to be alone for a change. There is a cold feeling inside her, like ice and jelly, but it doesn't really have anything to do with Snow. Very few people have touched her in the past few years. Peeta, Snow… And that is it. Hands on her shoulders, fingers in her hair… the memories cling to her, sticky and gross, and she wants nothing more than a long, hot shower.

But she has no hot water and no soap.

Katniss draws her knife and strokes the blade with her thumb, not with love or with elegance, but with flat curiosity. She tests it against her hair.

Prim used to braid her hair sometimes in the mornings, just as Katniss braided Prim's.

Sighing, she lets the knife drop and replaces it in its sheath. She will keep her hair, and try better to safeguard it from the hands of strange men.

And, she thinks, looking morosely at the tent flap, there is something else I have to safeguard.

When she unzips the tent, she can just about see Snow sitting beneath a tree a few feet away, taking weak shelter from the rain beneath its branches. In the dim light and with him in his mud-streaked, unbecoming clothes, and with his hood pulled tight around his face, he looks like the tramps in the worse parts of the Seam. The kind of men too old and too broken to work, that people who couldn't spare charity simply tried to ignore and hope they died quietly.

'Get in here,' she says.

Snow's face, glazed with rain, regards her with stony impassivity. Then he nods once and does as he is bade.

He removes and stashes his raincoat and sits beside her. Katniss rather feels he is avoiding her eyes. Extremely unusual behavior for him to curtail his staring.

'Why did you ask me that?' he says at last, and then he looks at her. There is an age and weakness to his eyes that is not normally there, a defeat, a death.

'I don't know. Because you're always making disparaging comments about my boyfriend and telling me that you like me, and you stare at me all the time. And you were furious when that man touched me.' She opens her mouth again, then waits a long time for the words to crawl into her mouth. 'And that man today upset me.'

'I promise you,' he says carefully, 'my interest in you has never been sexual. You know I am a truthful man.' Some of the feeble misery in his eyes clears. 'I think very highly of you, Miss Everdeen.'

What a strange man he is. A man of horrible majesty and of canine devotion. And affection, yes. Such peculiar, infinite affection for her, the girl he tried to kill again and again.

Releasing a huge exhalation, Katniss tugs free her band and starts to unwind her braid. Snow seems to relax a little more, too.

'Would you mind if I removed my waterproofs? I do not want to get you and the sleeping bag wet.'

She shrugs. 'Sure. It's fine.'

Not staring, only watching with absent curiosity, Katniss sees him unbutton, unzip, then slide his waterproof trousers from his hips. He wears those long johns beneath which give him plenty of coverage, but she cannot help but note the more intimate way the cotton grips his legs. It makes his age show the clearer. He allows her to see him vulnerable in this way. A concession, perhaps. A way of showing her he does not pose a danger.

Once they are ready to rest they settle themselves once again, him on his back, her on her side, this time facing him rather than away. She wants to keep an eye on him, as impossible as that might be in the darkness once the light is out. The fear has abated. How hard it is to reconcile the man who so efficiently made holes in the skulls of those two Peacekeepers with this old man, shuffling underneath the sleeping bag. He tucks it around his shoulder and rests his head on the bedroll. His beard is a little rougher once again, in need of a trim, but no doubt he'll restore it to its neat and orderly shape in the morning. His fastidiousness is almost funny to her.

Snow turns a carefully blank face to her. 'Is there anything I've done to particularly trouble you, Miss Everdeen?'

'You're a killer,' she says simply. 'That's new information to me.'

'So are you.' A little smile returns to his face.

'Not willingly. I kill animals, yes. But not people. Even if they deserve it, killing people always upset me.'

'That is what makes us different,' says Snow. 'Killing is a crucible. It can wreak great trauma on people, as it does for most of the Victors. But it can change some people for the better. Make them more interesting, more productive. I think for you it was a little of both.'

'Was that one of your plans for the Games?' she asks, tired and bitter. 'Hope that one day they would produce someone interesting enough to succeed you?'

His smile is almost nostalgic. 'Sometimes I might have hoped that, on my more optimistic days. But no. The Games are an ugly tool, little more. Killing warps most people.'

'Did it warp you?' She is surprised at the straightforwardness of her question. 'I mean, were you ever… well, normal?'

Snow's eyes drift away. They flick from side to side, as though studying something in the ceiling of the tent. Whatever it is he can see, she cannot.

'I do not think I was ever like other people,' he answers at last. 'I have always had a strangeness in me. An ambition, a hunger.' He takes a long breath. 'Darker urges.'

She gazes into him. 'Such as?'

He shakes his head. 'I do not wish to discuss such things with you, Miss Everdeen. You know enough of what I am like.' He pauses again, then resumes somewhat haltingly. 'When we were at war, I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed the game of it. How much I enjoyed playing with you. It was indescribable.'

She frowns hard. 'I didn't enjoy it.' She fixes him with her hardest stare. 'Your playing with me was horrific. I did not enjoy being your toy.'

'You weren't a toy,' says Snow quickly. 'You were a rival. A chess partner.'

'No, Snow, I wasn't.' He looks at her and her eyes fill with their old, crackling hatred. 'You sat at a fancy desk and pushed a button and dropped bombs on District 13. I huddled underground for days in fear for my life and the life of my family, and of everybody else. We were not playing chess.'

'I agree it was an uneven game,' says Snow. 'And cruel. It was deeply cruel to you. But please know I never saw you as a toy. I always thought you were superb.'

She shudders, though she cannot tell if her reaction is disgust or some weird sense of honor. There is no denying there is some thrill in being lauded so tremendously by someone so powerful. Or who used to be so powerful.

Now she is the one with the power over him.

'Well,' she says at last, 'that really doesn't take the edge off watching so many people die for me.'

'No, I am sure it doesn't,' says Snow. 'I don't regret it. I regret almost nothing I have ever done. To have the courage of one's convictions… yes, that has always been important to me.'

'I regret every life I've ever taken,' says Katniss. 'Even if it was the right thing to do in the situation… I still hate it.'

Snow makes a low, indecipherable noise in the back of his throat. There is something pleasured to it. 'I do avoid killing, as hard as that might be for you to believe, but… killing people is a singular experience.' His wild blue eyes meet hers. 'Those two men were the first people I've killed in years.'

Disgust curls her lip. 'Did you enjoy it?'

Snow considers this, his eyes away from hers, but when they lock onto her again they are filled with savage joy. 'Yes, Miss Everdeen. I loved it.'