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Katniss followed her guards through the sterile gray corridor toward Command, her steps uncharacteristically heavy. Her body still felt sluggish from her extended stay in the hospital; apparently, the removal of a spleen only bought her a week of rest before she was expected back in front of the cameras. She swayed slightly under the overhead lights. The illumination outside Command was always harsher than anywhere else in District 13—artificial, blinding, a poor imitation of daylight. After months underground, her eyes watered as she tried to adjust.
She missed the sun. The real sun, the warmth against her skin and the breeze whispering through the trees. Autumn should be ending now. In only a few weeks, snow would blanket Panem. She did not want to imagine the soldiers on the front lines shivering in their coats.
One of her guards tapped his card against the panel and the door slid open with a hiss.
Katniss recoiled. Peeta sat at the table.
The last time she had seen him, his eyes had burned with fury as he spat that he should’ve fed the bread to the pigs. Now he stared ahead with a neutral expression, but her heart thudded painfully, as if she were once again that starving girl in the rain outside the bakery. She folded her arms against her stomach, trying to brace herself, but almost instantly one hand drifted upward to her throat. The imprint of his hands was long gone, but her skin remembered.
She could not meet his eyes. She could not bear to see anger and hatred again or worse, fear.
A sharp snicker cut through her thoughts. Katniss flinched, only to realize it came from Johanna, sprawled lazily in her chair. “Relax, brainless,” Johanna drawled. “He’s shackled. See?” She gestured at Peeta’s arms, both bound to the chair with thick restraints long enoigh for him to put his hands on the table.
Relief swept through Katniss, sharp and immediate. But just as quickly came anger, hot in her chest. Dark purple marks circled his wrists. What difference did it make that they had rescued him if he was still chained like in the Capitol?
“Sit down, sweetheart.” Haymitch muttered beside her.
She obeyed, lowering herself into a chair two seats to the right of Peeta, not directly in front of him. Only then did she allow herself to glance around the room.
President Coin was conspicuously absent, Boggs appeared to be leading the meeting instead, his face as steady and unreadable as always. Gale leaned against the wall to her right, arms crossed, watching everything with narrowed eyes. On Peeta’s side, Johanna leaned close to whisper something in his ear while Finnick sat just beside her, his hands busy with the knots of his rope. He looked stronger than the hollow man he had been, the one who had wandered the halls half-dressed and crying for Annie. Now that she was back, he seemed anchored again.
Around them, a few soldiers she didn’t recognize filled in the empty spaces, their presence heavy but silent.
They have to wait for a few more people to file in before the meeting begins. Katniss kept her head bowed, eyes fixed on her lap, working to steady her breathing the way the head doctor had taught her. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Slow, even. Still, her heart beat too hard against her ribs, painful and erratic, as if her body didn’t believe the lie she was trying to tell it.
In front of her, the faint rattle of metal drew her attention. Peeta kept tugging at his shackles unconsciously. They were short—too short for him to so much as touch his own face—but long enough that his hands rested comfortably on the table. The small, repetitive sound made her chest ache.
She risked a glance from the corner of her eye. He was frowning, his brows drawn tight, as Johanna leaned close to him, whispering furiously into his ear. Katniss blinked. She hadn’t known Johanna spoke to him. Johanna was her roommate, the one who siphoned her morphling when Katniss was in the hospital, the one who made no effort to tell her this quiet alliance, this constant stream of words passed between them.
But then again, Katniss had never asked about Peeta. Never even thought Johanna would want to talk to Peeta. But whyever not though? It was only natural Johanna would talk to him, they had been in the Capitol together. Johanna even told her they were intimately familiar with each other’s screams.
Katniss’s frown deepened as Johanna slapped Peeta’s shoulder, tipping her head back in laughter. Why could he laugh with Johanna when he would not even look at Katniss? Oh, right. He believed she was out to kill him. Probably thought she would kill Johanna, too, if given the chance.
The scrape of chairs interrupted her thoughts as Plutarch and Fulvia finally entered. At once the meeting was called to order. Boggs shifted forward, taking control, while Plutarch launched into his announcements with the usual gleam of satisfaction. Annie and Finnick’s wedding had been approved. The budget was not something Plutarch was happy with but it would be enough for fifty people to attend. The words rolled on, but they skimmed over Katniss as though she were made of glass. Dresses, music, food—it all blurred, meaningless, when she could not unclench her hands from her lap.
Her eyes betrayed her anyway, sliding back to the boy chained across the table. To the ridiculous pink shoelace looped around his right wrist. She couldn’t look away. Where had he gotten it? Who had given it to him? One of the nurses? She doubted Johanna owned anything pink.
And yet it was there, tied in a neat little bow against the angry bruise of the shackle.
The sharp crack of raised voices startled Katniss out of her spiraling thoughts.
“No. Absolutely not!” Peeta’s voice rang, firm, cutting.
Almost immediately Gale’s voice shot back. “Are you crazy? He tried to kill her!”
Her head jerked up. Across the table, Plutarch exhaled through his nose, slow and weary, as if his nerves were fraying thread by thread. “It’s one dance,” he said, tone strained. But Gale was already pushing forward, his words spilling out hot and fast.
Katniss’s eyes darted to Haymitch. He sat with his shoulders slumped, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. Finally, he muttered, “The doctor says Peeta’s making leaps and bounds in his recovery. But putting him in the same room with the object of his fear is already pushing it. What do you think will happen if you force them to dance?”
Gale snorted. “Object of fear? He tried to kill Katniss!”
Haymitch’s head snapped up, eyes narrowing into a glare. “His fear is like a phobia. It doesn’t have to make sense. It’s irrational but it is real.”
Another snort, another roll of Gale’s eyes. But before he could speak again, Peeta’s voice cut through, steady and cold. “It’s like some of the miners who survive a collapse. They’re terrified of going back in. You wouldn’t know, though. You’re the one who buried thousands of people in a mountain, not the other way around.”
The room went still.
Every gaze shifted, the air charged, brittle as glass. Katniss could hardly breathe.
Peeta’s eyes were locked on Gale’s, sharp and glittering cruelly, something she would never have associated with him before the Capitol broke him apart. That glint frightened her more than his shackles ever could.
And then, as if the knife hadn’t already sunk deep enough, he twisted it. “Tell me, Gale. Was your plan inspired by how your father died? Buried in the mines?”
It was so cruel, so deliberate, and it hit like an arrow straight to the heart. Because it was true, wasn’t it? That was exactly what Gale had done at the Nut—buried men, women, rebels, innocents, monsters alike. Only a hundred or so had survived. The rest died in the dark.
It was a cruel jab, but it was true, and the truth cut sharper than any lie. Peeta had wanted to hurt Gale, and he had chosen the one wound that would never heal.
The silence stretched taut, unbearable—until Johanna let out a long, low whistle. “Damn,” she said, grinning like she was watching a spectacle, “you almost look hot there, Lover Boy. If you weren’t a kid, I’d fuck you.”
Katniss’s head whipped toward her so fast she thought she’d snapped something in her neck.
“Don’t be weird, Johanna,” Haymitch grumbled.
Johanna only shrugged, unbothered. “Not gonna lie, I like this Peeta better. Way better than that saccharine-sweet one who was always trying to die for love.” Her voice dripped with disgust, as though even the memory of it soured her tongue. Her gaze dropped to Peeta’s hand, and she tipped her chin toward the pencil clutched tightly in his right fist. “What are you gonna do, stab yourself in the ear with that?”
Katniss jolted, half-rising, a fierce urge to snatch the pencil away overtaking her. But before she could, Haymitch’s hand clamped down hard on her arm.
She turned her glare on him, furious. But he was already glaring back, shaking his head once in warning. Katniss tried to hold her ground, to intimidate him the way she had intimidated traders in the Hob when she was only a girl. Most people always looked away. But Haymitch was immune to her tricks. Her glare only met a wall.
With effort, she forced herself back down into her chair, her fists clenched against her thighs.
Peeta let out a sigh, lowering the pencil. “I did that once, Jo.”
Johanna barked a short laugh. “Yeah, and I got tortured for your shit.”
Peeta’s eyes dropped to the table, his voice quiet, almost shy. “I’m sorry.”
“Eh.” She clicked her tongue, ruffling his hair like a mischievous sibling. “No problem. You did kill the fucker who tortured me.”
“And I got tortured for it,” Peeta replied with a faint, crooked smile.
That sent Johanna into cackles, loud and sharp.
The casual way they spoke of torture twisted something deep in Katniss’s stomach. She had to force herself to swallow the bile rising in her throat. Already her mind had slipped, unbidden to the way Snow had taken Peeta apart piece by piece, broken him, then put him back together all wrong. The thought alone made her want to crawl into one of the narrow air vents, or wedge herself into some forgotten storeroom where no one could see her shaking.
And yet here they were, laughing about it. As if cruelty could be dissected with ease, as if torment were a story to share over meetings.
Her hands curled into fists at her sides. Every muscle in her body screamed to lash out, to rage at them, to order them to stop speaking, to shut up before the sound of their voices split her open.
Instead, she sat still, her silence stretched thin and hollow.
“Settle down,” Plutarch said in his pleasant voice, cutting through their strange banter. He straightened the papers in front of him. “The Capitol hasn’t seen Peeta since the last broadcast. The people need to know he’s alive, that he’s with the revolution.”
“So film him doing Finnick’s cake,” Haymitch said without missing a beat. “He already agreed to make it.”
But Plutarch shook his head. “Better for morale if they see Katniss with him.”
“Of course you’d want that. Another perfect tableau for your grand production. You don’t care if it kills me, so long as the picture looks good. You’ll crop out the bruises, edit out the shaking hands, splice me into whatever story you need. Isn’t that what you’ve always done?”
Plutarch tried to protest, but Peeta’s voice only grew harsher, slicing through the room.
“You were born a Gamemaker, and you’ll die one. Doesn’t matter if it’s an arena or a war, you only care about the spectacle. You pretend this is about freedom, about justice, but it’s just another board for you to move your pieces on. We’re not people to you. We’re pawns. Me, the Victors, the districts—it’s all just your latest game. And when it’s over, when bodies are piled high enough to prop up your victory, you’ll pat yourself on the back for winning. That’s all you’ve ever wanted.”
He leaned forward, eyes burning with that cruel, hijacked clarity.
“You don’t need me in your little scene with Katniss. Just cut it together, Plutarch. That’s what you’re good at—making lies look like truth. Go ahead, edit me in. It’ll be your masterpiece. Another illusion to keep the world applauding while you play the puppeter. Do the video-slicing thing you said the Capitol did,” Peeta continued, his voice sharp. “Make it look like she’s there when she’s not. Like something’s real when it isn’t.””
For once, Plutarch had no words.
Katniss blinked at him, confused. Video-slicing? What videos?
Peeta’s eyes darted between her and Gale, brows knitting. “Those aren’t real, right? Or… are they?”
The weight of his stare made her stomach churn.
Johanna muttered under her breath, “It’s probably real.”
“Johanna!” Haymitch barked.
Johanna lifted her hands in surrender, smirking. “Relax, it could have been, we wouldn’t know for sure.”
But the way Peeta looked at her—and then at Gale—made Katniss’s skin crawl. It was too sharp, too questioning, as though he were piecing together something she couldn’t see. She dropped her gaze quickly, preferring the safety of her own hands in her lap.
The moment broke when Finnick leaned forward. “Will it really be okay if you make our wedding cake?”
“Sure,” Peeta said. He tore the paper he’d been doodling on and passed it across the table to Johanna. “For you.”
For you. The words jarred through Katniss, unexpected and sharp. Her hand slipped into her pocket, closing around the cold round pearl she kept hidden there, safe.
Johanna frowned down at the page. “You drew me a forest? Just because I’m from District Seven you think I like trees?”
Peeta frowned at her, his brows drawn together as if trying to solve a puzzle. “Don’t you like the trees? I mean… the woods?”
Johanna tossed a paper onto the middle of the table with a careless flick of her wrist. “The only thing I want trees for is to cut them down with my axe.”
Peeta’s eyes flicked to the paper. His voice was quiet, almost hesitant. “Your favorite color is… green?”
Johanna snorted, but Katniss’s head shot up. His confused eyes were already fixed on her, waiting. Searching.
She wanted to say yes. To tell him that green had always been her favorite—the color of the woods that had kept her alive, the moss under her feet, the leaves that had sheltered her, the dappled light that reminded her of freedom. But when she opened her mouth, nothing came. Only a hard lump lodged in her throat. What if she spoke, and her words triggered him again, like last time? What if she lost him all over again?
Peeta looked back down at the paper, his fingers reaching for it. “Sorry, Johanna. I’ll take this back.”
But Johanna was quicker, snatching it out of reach. “You already gave it to me. It’s mine now.” She said as she gently press the paper on the table trying to remove wrinkles off it as if it is her greatest treasure.Peeta only smiled at her, a quiet understanding in his expression, as though he had expected as much.
Then he turned to Boggs and Plutarch. “Can I leave now? I have therapy with Doctor Mills.”
Plutarch leaned forward, hands steepled. “We can move that appointment.”
Peeta shook his head. “From what I gather, I’m only here about the cake. And I’d rather discuss that with Annie and Finnick. You don’t really need me here.”
Plutarch sighed, the sound long and weary. “I really do hope you’ll think about the dance. Just one dance—for the revolution.”
Peeta didn’t even answer.
Johanna pushed back her chair and rose. Finnick followed as one of the guards remove the shackles from Peeta’s arms.
“How long do you think it’ll take them to stop your heart this time?” Johanna asked, her voice edged with mockery, though her eyes held something darker.
The words cut through Katniss like a blade. She shook so violently that the pearl slipped from her hand and hit the ground with a sharp clink.
“No!” The cry tore from her throat. She dropped to her hands and knees, scrambling for it. But the pearl rolled away, taunting her.
She swatted at legs in her way, crawling under the table, desperate.
“Watch it, Brainless!” Johanna cursed, nearly tripping.
“What is it, Katniss?” Finnick called after her, his voice tinged with concern, but she barely heard him. All she saw was the pearl, rolling farther, farther—
Her heart slammed against her ribs when she spotted a vent not far ahead. Panic seized her. If the pearl slipped into that grate, it would be gone forever, just like the one who gave it to her.
She hadn’t realized she was crying until a bruised arm stretched out, steady and sure, and caught the pearl before it could disappear.
“Thank you!” she gasped, reaching for it. Her eyes lifted and collided with the clearest blue she had ever known.
Peeta stared back at her, confusion flickering across his face. Katniss’s first instinct was to pull away. To retreat before she triggered his fear, his anger.
But he only said, softly, “Here.”
He set the pearl in her palm. His fingers brushed against her skin, and the contact jolted through her like lightning. She saw him jump, too, startled by it, before he rose back to his feet.
Katniss curled her fingers tight around the pearl, cradling it to her chest, protecting it the way she had been unable to protect its giver.
She watched as Peeta walked out with Finnick and Johanna, the latter rolling her eyes and making gagging noises while Finnick leaned in, whispering something that made the corner of Peeta’s mouth twitch in amusement.
Someone’s hand appeared in front of her, offering to help her up. Katniss ignored it, pushing herself upright on her own. She turned to find Gale standing there, frowning at her.
But she brushed past him and fixed her eyes on Haymitch instead. “What did Johanna mean?” she demanded, her voice harsh. “About the doctor stopping Peeta’s heart?”
Haymitch looked away, waving off her concern with a dismissive flick of his hand. “Johanna’s just exaggerating.”
Katniss stepped near him, his nose almost touching his, her eyes boring into his profile. He refused to meet her gaze. That only made the fear in her chest burn hotter, sharper, tangled with rage. “What are they doing to him?” she whispered, horror threading through her voice.
It wasn’t Haymitch who answered, but Plutarch. “The doctors are trying everything they can to reverse the hijacking. They inject him with morphling, then they show him the real footage of the Games.”
Katniss’s head snapped back to Haymitch. Her voice broke. “Even mentioning my name makes him react violently. Why would you show him that?”
Haymitch exhaled, long and tired, as if the weight of her question pressed him down. “There are difficulties, yes. But the treatment is working.”
“Working?” Katniss shouted, springing to her feet. “Is it worth it if it stops his heart, Haymitch?”
“It doesn’t stop his heart!” Haymitch roared back, rising to face her. “Johanna was exaggerating.”
“She wouldn’t say that if it didn’t happen!” Katniss’s voice cracked.
Now they were inches apart, shouting into each other’s faces, the air between them thick with fury.
“You promised to keep him safe! What are you doing then, Haymitch?”
His mouth curled in a bitter snarl. “What do you suddenly care, sweetheart? You never cared before.”
Her chest heaved. “Obviously because you’re doing such a lousy job of protecting him again!”
“I am his guardian now! We are doing the best we can!”
“Well, I am his wife! I should probably take over his care from you!”
The words ripped out before she could stop them. Haymitch froze, staring at her as if she’d grown another head. He knew it wasn’t true. But everyone in Panem believed it—the toasting in the District, the baby that had never been. To the world, she was Peeta’s wife, his next of kin. She could claim responsibility for him if she demanded it.
Her side throbbed sharply, reminding her she had probably pulled at her stitches with all that shouting. She clutched her ribs, lowering her gaze. Would Thirteen even acknowledge her? She was only seventeen, still shuttled back and forth from the medical bay. But her mother was skilled, resourceful—between the two of them, they could make sure Peeta was cared for.
Haymitch waved a hand at the others, dismissing them with a brusque “Goodbye,” and yanked Katniss out the door despite Plutarch’s complaints that they weren’t finished. He hauled her down the corridor, ignoring her protests, until he pushed her into a storage closet—the very kind of place she herself hid in when she didn’t want the world to see her.
She shoved his hands away and glared at him. He only lifted his palms in mock surrender.
“Well?” she demanded, arms crossed tightly over her chest.
“I can’t discuss Peeta’s medical condition, or his treatment,” Haymitch said flatly.
Katniss gave a harsh, humorless laugh. “Don’t bother. Everyone knows what happened to Peeta.”
“No.” Haymitch’s voice sharpened. “People know he was hijacked and tortured. But they don’t even know what being hijacked means least of all his treatment. And I’m not about to start telling every random person who asks.”
“I’m not a random person!” Katniss’s shout ricocheted off the walls of the small room.
Haymitch studied her, eyes narrowed. Then, to her shock, he smiled faintly, as if amused. “Sweetheart, you haven’t talked to the boy since that first time. You don’t ask about him. You don’t even think about him. ‘Peeta’s dead. That’s not Peeta.’ Those were your words to me. What changed?”
The air caught in her throat, choking her. Because he was right. She had written Peeta off as lost, as something too painful to bear. Every time he looked at her with hatred and fear, she had told herself it wasn’t him—it couldn’t be him. It was easier that way.
But today…
Today, she saw him.
He remembered her favorite color. It was her woods he drew that he thought Johanna would like. Maybe he hadn’t realized it, but she knew. She felt it. Somewhere inside, he was still reaching for her.
And she wanted to reach back.
It was impossible to forget him. She had tried to bury him beneath thoughts of the war, of Snow, of Gale, of everything that demanded her attention. But no matter how fiercely she pushed him away, Peeta was always there. Every thought seemed to lead back to him, as if her mind itself were stitched to his. Even in silence, even in anger, he lingered—always at the edges of her consciousness, waiting. A ghost she could never exorcise, a presence she could not shake.
“I just wanted to help,” was all she could say.
Haymitch pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes closing. “Why now?” he asked quietly.
Katniss opened her mouth but no words came. She couldn’t explain the ache in her chest, the way it had split open at the sight of Peeta today. Instead she whispered, voice cracking, “Because I saw him still there, Haymitch. Peeta is still there.”
She was crying now.
Haymitch’s gaze hardened. “And what happens when he calls you ugly again? Or when he shouts that you’re a mutt? Or when he tries to hurt you again?”
A sob clawed up her throat. She bit her fist to keep it down, tasting salt and blood.
“What we’re doing isn’t easy, sweetheart,” Haymitch went on, softer but no less grim. “I’ve lost count of how many times he’s tried to punch me in the face. How many times Delly’s come out of his room crying because Peeta called her a traitor for defending you. What happens then, huh? You gonna go crawling back to Gale? You gonna run to the Capitol?”
She shook her head violently, swallowing the hard lump in her throat. “I won’t,” she whispered. “I promise. I won’t. Please, Haymitch. I just want to help.”
He studied her for a long moment. She wanted to flinch away from the disappointment and doubt she saw in his eyes, but then he gave a single slow nod. Relief sagged her shoulders.
“About Peeta’s treatment…” Haymitch began. “Unlike what Johanna said, Peeta’s heart doesn’t stop. But sometimes he gets so agitated his heart rate spikes. They have no choice but to sedate him.”
“Why does he need to watch the Games if it makes him so agitated?”
“Because he doesn’t know which memories are real or not,” Haymitch said, “and the only way to correct that is for him to see the true footage. But there are so many memories we don’t even know if they were tampered with.”
“Like what?” she asked, her voice thin.
Haymitch’s eyes flickered. “Did you kiss Gale in Twelve?”
Katniss’s stomach knotted. She gulped and gave a small, guilty nod.
He just nodded back. “Did Gale ever scale your house to sleep in your room?”
“No!” she said immediately, vehemently. “Never. How can you even think—”
“That’s what Peeta’s been talking about. Video editing. Splicing. Snow showed him footage of Gale sneaking into your house. Gale kissing you in your room. Gale—” Haymitch hesitated, then finished bluntly. “Gale fucking you.”
“It’s not true!” Katniss shouted, her whole body trembling.
“Well, we don’t know that, sweetheart. And it’s hard for Peeta to know, too.”
Katniss’s anger burned so hot she felt dizzy. She pressed the pearl to her cheek, its cool surface the only anchor she had left. “I could tell him,” she whispered. “I could tell him which ones are real or not real.”
Haymitch sighed, and then—to her shock—pulled her into a hug. She stiffened; she wasn’t used to any kind of physical affection from her mentor. But after a heartbeat, she sagged against him, exhausted.
“I know this is hard, sweetheart,” he murmured. “Especially for you. I know the urge to run is easier. But we promised each other we’d save him. Let’s do that now, okay?”
She nodded against his chest, unable to speak, certain that if she opened her mouth she would burst into tears. She was so tired of crying. So tired of feeling helpless.
But for the first time in a long time, she felt like she might actually be moving toward Peeta instead of away form him.
Like Haymitch had warned her, being present during the treatments was not easy. It was brutal. It was watching Peeta’s eyes lock on her with distrust, with fear so sharp it seemed to pierce her skin. The urge to flee, to be anywhere but in the same room with him, gnawed at her every second. Sometimes, when his gaze darkened, she could almost see the pitch-black void of his hijacked stare, the memory of his hands tightening around her throat. It was hard to remember that his eyes were blue, not bottomless pits meant to consume her.
There were moments she wanted to spit back every acidic word he hurled at her, especially the lies. But it was harder still when he accused her of things she had really done. He said she abandoned him after the first Games. He was convinced she had chosen Gale. And how could she explain? How could she tell him the truth—that it wasn’t Gale, not entirely—that she hadn’t reached out because she didn’t know how, because she was drowning herself? She couldn’t find the words to make him believe her.
The worst was that he was kind, almost gentle, with everyone else. Delly came every other day to sit with him, and in her company Peeta was content, sometimes even happy. Katniss listened from behind the mirror and felt her chest hollow out. Delly could speak of their childhood, of games they played, favorite teachers, the little quirks that came with knowing someone for years. Katniss had nothing like that. She’d known Peeta barely a year. She didn’t know his brothers’ names, or his favorite thing to bake.
What she did know was shallow: that he double-knotted his laces, that he never took sugar in his tea. But Delly knew why—because his mother beat him if his laces wore out too fast, and because the bakery hoarded sugar for sales, never for him. Katniss hadn’t known. She had never bothered to ask.
Every time Peeta laughed with Delly, something bitter twisted inside her. She even resented the girl, though Delly never said a cruel word about her.
She hated that she herself had never thought to sneak him paint, the way Johanna had, earning a disciplinary hearing for her trouble. Johanna had thought of it. Katniss had not.
Now, Peeta lay sprawled on the sterile floor of his white room, his hospital gown smeared with streaks of green, his hands coated in pigment. With his fingers, he painted pine trees along the wall, shaping them carefully, one stroke at a time.
“It was the view of the woods through his bedroom window,” Delly had told her once. “Above the bakery.”
Katniss couldn’t look away.
Then, suddenly, Peeta spoke. His voice was soft, distracted, as if talking to the tree he was shaping.
“Your favorite color is green.”
Her breath caught. His eyes flicked to the mirror—he knew she was there. Her hand trembled as she pressed the button to answer. “Yes,” she whispered. “Green like the woods.”
And then—his mouth curved, just slightly. The barest lift of one corner. But it was a smile. The first real one she had seen since they separated in the arena.
“Yours is orange,” she said quickly, before she lost the courage.
He looked back at the mirror, brow furrowing, uncertain.
“Not like Effie’s wig,” she added, her voice urgent, her throat tight. “A softer orange. Like the sunset.”
His mouth parted, a breath escaping as if he’d stumbled onto something fragile and precious. His face lit up, achingly familiar, and the sight made her eyes sting. She wanted to cry.
Peeta reached for a tube of paint, squeezed orange onto the white tile. With his fingers, he began to shape the light itself. Katniss stood transfixed as, over the next hours, he painted a sunset above his forest, warm gold spilling through the branches, streaks of fire and soft light bending into the clouds.
She had always known he was a good painter. He’d once given Prim a picture of her with Lady and Buttercup, so lifelike it was more beautiful than any Capitol camera could have captured. But most of what she’d seen of his work after that had been terrible—bloody, grotesque scenes from the arena, images she wanted burned from her mind, but which Peeta had insisted on immortalizing. She had told him so once, harshly, too harshly. He had never shown her his work again.
But this—this was different. The way his fingers moved, the way he blended the orange into the green, how the clouds seemed to hold light and shadow, how the leaves seemed to sway though they stood still—it was beautiful. So real she could almost hear the wind moving through it. So alive it made her chest ache.
It was the first time in a long time she saw not the broken boy, not the weapon the Capitol tried to forge, but Peeta. Her Peeta.
After that day, the doctors seemed more comfortable letting her stay in the room longer. A few days later, Peeta didn’t even flinch when she entered. The tension that usually pulled his body taut, the distrust in his eyes, had dulled just enough that they allowed her to sit beside him as he worked.
He was painting again—adding a stream and a deer to the mural. His hospital gown was speckled with paint, his hands stained in a dozen shades. She sat a full arm’s length away. But he wasn’t spitting angry words at her this time. Or worse, cowering in fear. For once, they shared the same space without fear, without venom.
Then he turned to her. “Do you want to try?”
She blinked. “Try what?”
Peeta gestured to the tubes of paint spread around them. “Paint. Do you want to try to paint?”
She shook her head immediately. “I don’t know how. I’ll just ruin it.”
His mouth twitched into the faintest smile. “It’s not going to be ruined. It’s not as if we’re going to sell it. It’s just… color. Something to fight the dullness down here.”
That made her hesitate. Dullness. He was right, everything in 13 was sterile, colorless, lifeless. Maybe that was why she found herself nodding.
She dipped her fingers into a smudge of brown and began to shape what she hoped resembled a squirrel. It came out clumsy and too large, its head too round, its legs uneven, looming absurdly over the trees.
Peeta laughed softly, not unkindly. “That’s… a very big squirrel.”
She frowned, but he was already moving closer, still careful to keep some distance. “Here,” he said, his tone gentle as he dipped his finger in gray and traced the squirrel’s tail, adding texture until it almost looked real.
“My favorite thing to paint,” Peeta said after a moment, “was scenery. Real or not real?”
Katniss turned to him, unsure. “I don’t know…” she admitted, suddenly ashamed . “I only ever saw the ones from the Games.”
For a moment, his expression fell. “Oh.” Then he shrugged as if it didn’t matter, though the disappointment flickered in his eyes before he turned back to the wall.
Katniss’s chest tightened. She regretted then that she had never asked more. Never cared to know. Surely not all his paintings were of the Games, right? Prim still has the small painting of he did of her sister with Buttercup and Lady, resting on her sister’s bedside table.
She didn’t know his favorite bread to bake. Or if he liked sweets more than savory things. She knew he never took sugar in his tea—but did he even like sweets at all? She didn’t know or is it because his mother will beat him if he took sugar for himself.
Back then, she had been too confused—too afraid. She didn’t want to know him because she already knew she’d like him too much. He was kind and gentle and good and she had always been weak for good, gentle people. That was why she’d allied with Rue. Why she couldn’t bear to see Peeta as anything more than what he already was to her: a complication she couldn’t afford to have but couldn't bear to lose.
But now… now she regretted it with every breath.
Because she realized she had never really known Peeta Mellark.
She didn’t know the boy who laughed with Delly as they drew chalk girls and chalk boys on the sidewalk.
She didn’t know if he truly enjoyed wrestling, or if he only joined because his brothers did—because it was what the Mellark boys were expected to do. She didn’t even know his brother’s names.
Did he get along with them? Did they ever defend him from their mother’s temper? Did they ever love him the way he deserved to be loved?
She knew none of it.
And worse, she had never wanted to. Never intended to.
A wave of inadequacy crashed over her so suddenly that it nearly knocked the air from her lungs. This boy—this boy who had always loved her, who had held her together even as she fell apart, who was willing to die for her—she didn’t even know him.
The boy Snow had destroyed just because he loved her.
Her breaths quickened, shallow and uneven. She tried to steady herself, but her hands trembled uncontrollably, so she balled them into fists against her knees. Her chest hurt. It was as if the air had turned to glass and every breath cut her from the inside.
She couldn’t do this.
She couldn’t sit beside him, pretending she was worthy of being loved by someone like Peeta Mellark. He shouldn’t love her again. He shouldn’t have to. Because she didn’t even know if she was capable of loving anyone but Prim.
Maybe he was finally free now. Free of the unreasonable, consuming feelings he’d carried for her since childhood. Feelings that his father had kindled in a five-year-old boy because his own love for Katniss’s mother had ended in heartbreak.
Peeta deserved someone gentle. Someone good. Someone who would want to know him—not because of guilt, or shared trauma, but because they wanted to. Someone who do not have to be coaxed to ask about his favorite color, his favorite bread, his childhood games. Not someone who could not love him, not even if her life depended on it.
He was free now, she thought desperately. Free of her. Free of the unfathomable hold she’d had on him.
And she had no right to be here, trying to trap him again.
Katniss stumbled to her feet, her legs weak and shaking. She almost slipped on the tiled floor as she flee the room, she pushed open the door, it slammed against the wall with a sharp bang that startled the doctors in the observation room.
She needed to get out. She needed to hide.
But before she could take another step, a hand closed firmly around her wrist.
“Katniss,” Haymitch said, his voice low but steady. “You promised to try.”
She shook her head, unable to meet his eyes. “I can’t,” she rasped, her voice barely a whisper. She tried to pull away, to tear her hand free, when Peeta’s voice came from the still-open door behind her.
“Don’t worry, old drunk,” Peeta said. “This is actually the most familiar thing I’ve seen since I got here. Katniss Everdeen… walking away from me.”
She froze.
Her breath hitched, and the sound that tore from her throat was closer to a sob. Her hand flew to her mouth as if she could keep it in. But the look on Peeta’s face—disappointment, yes, but also weary resignation—undid her completely.
Because he was right.
She had always run from him. From what he made her feel. From what she couldn’t bear to face.
She wanted to turn around, to shout that he didn’t understand—that it was easy for him to say such things when his memories were fractured and mercifully blurred. That he didn’t remember how hard it had been for both of them. That he could start over, clean, unburdened.
But she didn’t.
Because there was no easy way to live after being broken. No easy way to heal from being tortured until your mind cracked open and all the light spilled out.
So she ran again.
She crawled into one of the air vents—just big enough to hold her hunched figure—and pressed her forehead to the cold metal. The pearl she kept tucked in her pocket found its way to her lips, and she rolled it between her fingers as her chest heaved. She tried not to cry, but the grief came anyway, deep and suffocating.
She mourned again for the boy with the bread, the boy who only wanted not to be a piece of their Games but was torn to pieces all the same.
And for the cruel truth that she might never know him again.
Surprisingly, Haymitch didn’t berate her for turning her back on her promise to help Peeta recover.
Katniss didn’t know whether to be grateful or insulted. Grateful, because she couldn’t have explained why it was so hard to see Peeta like that when she knows what happened to him was her fault. Or insulted, because Haymitch almost seemed to have expected it. Maybe he knew she wouldn’t change her mind. Maybe he understood that sometimes surviving meant retreating.
So she threw herself into training.
For hours, she and Johanna practiced scaling walls, leaping over obstacles, throwing knives, assembling and disassembling guns. The physical strain was merciless, but that was the point. Johanna always pushed harder, faster, rougher—her smirk daring Katniss to fall behind and Katniss refused.
Finnick’s wedding was in a month. Deployment would follow soon after.
She had to be ready. She had to pass training. She had to make it to the Capitol.
Because if she killed Snow, everyone else would finally be safe.
Prim could finish her medical training.
Peeta would never have to fear him again.
So she had to kill Snow.
Katniss sat on the edge of her bed, braiding her still-damp hair as Johanna emerged from the bathroom. She never bathed anymore, just used a sponge to wash herself down. It was a miracle she even did that. Katniss didn’t blame her; if she’d been electrocuted in a tub for hours and nearly drowned in between shocks, she’d avoid water too.
Johanna flicked the taped drawing of the woods besides bed. “Bye,” she said simply.
Katniss looked up. “Where are you going?”
Johanna paused at the door, pulling her boots on. “Gonna sit with Peeta,” she said. “He used to recite cake recipes to me when we were in the Capitol. Now I read him the medicine pamphlets they leave in his room. One of these days he might get annoyed enough to wake up and snatch the damn thing from my hands. Who knows?”
Katniss gave a small nod, still half-distracted. “Right.”
The door banged shut behind Johanna. The sound echoed for a long moment.
Katniss stared at the drawing, envious that Peeta gave her one. Prim has a similar one of Lady and Buttercup in the Meadow that she keeps in between her medical books so Katniss will not see it. Finnick mentioned Annie has one of the sea as well. Maybe Delly has one of the Merchant Square they used to lived in. Sweet Delly who tied a pink shoe lace on Peeta’s wrist as good luck even though it was the only thing from home she was able to save.
Johanna’s words play back in her mind.
He might finally wake up.
Wake up?
Her braid slipped through her fingers. He shouldn’t be asleep at this hour.
A cold dread spread through her chest as she stood abruptly, heading for the hospital wing.
In the corridor, she passed Delly. The girl’s eyes were red-rimmed and unfocused, her lips pressed tight as she brushed past without even seeing Katniss.
That was when Katniss knew something was wrong.
She broke into a run.
Inside the observation room, two doctors hovered over a console, their murmured voices quick and tense. Haymitch sat slouched in a chair, his face buried in his hands, his shoulders slumped so low he looked like he might slide right off the seat.
None of them saw her enter.
Peeta was lying flat on the bed, utterly still. A transparent mask covered half his face. His chest was obscured by wires and tubes snaking into machines that beeped and blinked in patterns that sounded to her like the countdown in the Cornucopia that announced your doom.
For a moment, her brain refused to register what she was seeing. He looked—
He looked like he was dead.
Her hand flew to her mouth as her breath caught painfully in her throat. She needed to see his chest rise, to feel his pulse under her hand… to make sure—she needed to feel him.
But before she could move closer, Haymitch was suddenly there, blocking her view.
“You can’t be here, sweetheart,” he said quietly.
Her voice broke. “What happened?”
“It’s confidential,” he said, his hand closing around her arm.
“Don’t do that—don’t you do that!” She tried to push him away, but the room had gone blurry. She could barely see through the tears burning her eyes. “Tell me what happened!”
Haymitch pulled her into a rough embrace, his voice low against her hair. “Shh, sweetheart. It’s all right. He’s in good hands. We’re doing everything we can to get him back.”
She clung to him, her body shaking, her tears soaking into his shirt. For a long time she couldn’t stop sobbing—ugly, heaving sounds she couldn’t swallow down anymore.
Finally, she looked up, her eyes red and desperate. “What happened?” she whispered.
Haymitch sighed heavily, like the words themselves hurt to say. “His heart gave out,” he said. “They resuscitated him, but… his body’s undergone some extreme trauma. He’s not ready to wake up yet.”
She blinked at him, uncomprehending. “Why? How long has he—how long?”
Haymitch looked away. “Same time you walked out, sweetheart. He had an episode and his heart gave out not five minutes after.”
The room tilted. Katniss bit the inside of her cheek so hard she tasted blood, but it didn’t stop the tears from spilling again. Her fault. It was her fault.
It was always her fault.
“Let me see him,” she pleaded, voice hoarse. “Please, Haymitch, let me see him.”
Haymitch shook his head. “No, Katniss.”
She pummels Haymitch’s chest with weak, frantic punches—it’s all she can manage through the shaking. He doesn’t stop her, not at first. Then his hands close around her wrists, firm but not cruel.
“It was a mistake,” he says quietly, voice rough. “A mistake to let you be part of his treatment. You’re still not better yourself. You can’t help him if you’re breaking down too. You have to get better first but we both know you will not subject yourself to head treatment, not when in a little more than a month, you’ll be off to the Capitol, and Peeta will be left alone here again. We can’t have that happen twice, sweetheart. I don’t think his heart could take another episode like that.”
Katniss looks up at him, eyes red, breath trembling. “Please let me see him. I promise I won’t—”
“You already promised me that,” Haymitch cuts in, his tone final. “I’m sorry. I can’t risk it again.”
Something in her snaps. She pushes him away, shouting at him—angry words that dissolve into sobs halfway through—until her strength leaves her body and she slides down against the cold wall, utterly spent. There’s no fight left in her. No argument that can make her sound less selfish, less dangerous to Peeta. She promised to help him heal and left him anyway. She couldn’t even trust herself to say she wouldn’t do it again.
In every difficult moment, her instinct was always to run. To protect herself.
She buries her face in her hands. “Then tell me,” she whispers hoarsely. “Tell me how he’s doing. His progress. Something.”
Haymitch shakes his head. “I can’t do that, sweetheart. But I can tell you when he wakes up. For now, focus on your training. Do whatever it is you need to do in the Capitol.”
He helps her stand. His hand is gentle on her elbow as he walks her back toward her quarters, saying nothing more.
The silence feels heavier than anger ever could.
When he leaves, she doesn’t even wait for his footsteps to stop echoing in the corridor. She slips out, barefoot, and walks through the winding halls until she reaches the compartment her mother and sister share.
“Prim,” she says softly. Then louder, desperate. “Prim!”
Her sister turns, freshly bathed, hair loose and damp around her shoulders. For a moment, Katniss just stares. Prim looks older, more composed, her eyes carry a kind of worry that no thirteen-year-old should know.
Katniss gathers her in her arms. The scent is clean and sharp, she smells like the generic soap that Thirteen provides, not the faint smell of pine and lavender soap that their mother makes from what she could bring from the woods. But she’s still warm. Still Prim.
“Are you okay, Katniss?” Prim asks, pulling back to look at her.
Katniss shakes her head. “I saw Peeta today.”
Sadness flickers across Prim’s face, immediate and understanding.
“Haymitch won’t let me see him,” Katniss adds.
“I argued with him about that,” Prim says softly, taking her sister’s hands in hers. “I told him I believe you’re stronger together.”
Katniss lets out a choked laugh that turns into a hiccup. “He doesn’t trust me with Peeta.”
Prim pulls her into another hug, and Katniss clings to her, shaking. It should not be like this—she was supposed to protect Prim, she was supposed to comfort her not the other way around. But lately, it feels like she’s been letting everyone down: Panem, her sister, even the boy who once loved her enough to die for her.
After that night, she does what Haymitch asked. She listens. She stays away from the hospital. But she also stops going to training.
Gale notices first, of course. He doesn’t ask gently. He never does. His tone is all frustration and confusion, but she can’t bear to face his disappointment, not after everything that’s already unraveling inside her. Since his argument with Peeta during the meeting, he’s been colder, harsher. He pushes everyone harder in training, spends most of his time with Beetee in the labs. When he talks to her now, it’s to rant about Peeta, as if he expects her to take his side. But she can’t. Not after the Nut.
If it weren’t for Boggs, who insisted on leaving a single exit, every man, woman, and child in that mountain would have been buried alive.
Only Johanna seems unchanged. Smug, even. Every time she returns from visiting Peeta, she wears the faintest smirk.
“He’s awake now,” Johanna tells her one night, sitting on Katniss’s bed like she owns it. “The doctors are running every test they can on his heart. Poor guy’s got the heart of an eighty-year-old by now, given how often it’s failed him.” She grins darkly. “I told them we should just get him a replacement. That way he’ll stay not in love with you, brainless. That’s better, right?”
The words sting more than Katniss expects.
Peeta is only seventeen. Seventeen—and his heart is already breaking under the weight of everything Snow did to him. Everything she let happen.
That night, Katniss curls up on her narrow bed, the air in the room heavy and stale. She takes out the pearl and holds it in her hand. It catches the dim light like a small, captured star.
She can’t throw it away.
She presses it to her chest, eyes squeezed shut, and cries until sleep takes her — mourning, once again, the boy with the bread who loved her so deeply, the boy she will never fully know.
Annie and Finnick’s wedding was a resounding success. For once, laughter echoed through the grey concrete halls of Thirteen, softening its edges. Katniss danced with Prim, her sister’s hands warm and sure in hers, their movements clumsy but filled with joy. Plutarch looked on approvingly, the corners of his mouth tugged almost affectionately.
The enormous cake commanded the center of the room and Katniss couldn’t stop staring at it. It was a masterpiece—sugar cresting in waves, the light reflecting as though real sunlight played upon it. Tiny sea creatures scattered between the layers: shells, fish, and a pair of dolphins arcing together. Little boats, no larger than her thumb, littered the pier of fondant. Peeta had crafted a paradise he had only glimpsed briefly once in his life.
Peeta Mellark really outdid himself.
Her chest ached at the sight of it. The instinct to protect the cake—his creation—was almost overwhelming. She wanted to push Finnick’s hand away when he lifted the knife to cut it, wanted to snarl at him to stop, to keep it untouched, perfect. But she didn’t. Peeta would have wanted it to be shared, not merely admired. Still, when the first slice was taken, she felt something splinter inside her.
She looked toward the double doors leading to the kitchen—tightly closed. Her stomach twisted. She hoped Peeta saw the awe in everyone’s faces when the cake was wheeled in. He should be here, being praised, being thanked, not hidden away.
Prim gushed beside her as they shared a slice, and Katniss smiled for her sake. But the sweetness in her mouth tasted like ash.
Not even three days later, a district-wide meeting was called.
As usual, Katniss stood just to the right of President Coin, a calculated placement so that the cameras would catch her profile behind the older woman, the Mockingjay eternally at her side. The lights were harsh, the air thick with artificial cheer.
She nearly froze when she saw Peeta. He was standing only three people away from her. The shot would be perfect—Coin centered, and the star-crossed lovers balanced on either side of her.
She leaned toward Haymitch. “Is he healthy enough to be here?” she whispered.
Haymitch’s nod was slow, his mouth drawn tight. “He’s fine,” he muttered, though the frown on his face deepened.
Katniss barely heard Coin’s speech. She saw Plutarch, lips moving soundlessly, mouthing the words along like a ventriloquist. Katniss tried to keep her posture steady, her gaze front and center but her eyes flicked toward Peeta again and again.
He looked… well. Or at least, better. Still thin, but not hollowed out. The shadows under his eyes had faded; there was color in his cheeks. Her prep team must have worked on him because he looked almost healthy.
And then Coin said it. “The Mockingjay will be leading the assault on the Capitol. Let us do our best to support her as she guides Panem into a new dawn.”
Katniss straightened automatically with that old instinct to perform. But before she could fix her expression into something suitably solemn, a sharp, unmistakable sound cut through the room.
Peeta chuckled.
It was loud. Startlingly loud. The microphone caught it perfectly, carrying the sound over the hall.
Katniss’s head whipped toward him. He was smiling—that same pleasant, polite smile he used to wear on interviews — but there was something behind it now, something dangerous and glinting in his eyes.
A murmur spread through the crowd below, whispers rising like a tide.
She remembered Prim saying that Peeta had been allowed in the kitchen and the mess hall, that people actually seemed happier when he started baking some of the bread served during the day. Why they were letting him slave away in those kitchens when he’d only just woken from a coma was beyond her. Every instinct in her screamed to march straight to Haymitch and demand that he let Peeta rest, let him recover like a normal person.
But Prim had reassured her gently that it was part of his therapy much like the painting. It was better for him to be among people, to be reminded of the world outside his own head.
Peeta stepped forward. The cameras turned, catching him fully.
“So that’s where we are now?” he said, voice soft but carrying. “You’re just going to ship a seventeen-year-old girl to the Capitol—the most dangerous place in Panem?”
Coin blinked, clearly not expecting this. She turned slightly toward Plutarch, who was too busy signaling the camera crew to make sure everything is being captured and broadcasted. Katniss was startled to see that there are holograms of different Rebel leaders being show on the balcony. All of them are focused on Peeta now. This is probably the first time they saw him since the interview with Ceasar. But no, she remembers Prim saying that they filmed him baking in the kitchens. She’s not sure, she never really follows Plutarch’s propos even though most of them heavily features her.
Katniss’s pulse hammered. What was he doing?
Coin’s leadership instinct took over. Her back straightened, chin lifted. “The Mockingjay is instrumental to our efforts,” she said crisply. “She will be entirely safe.”
Peeta’s gaze shifted—not to her, but directly to Coin.
The president didn’t know what she was facing. Everyone underestimated Peeta. They always had. They saw kindness and mistook it for weakness. But Peeta Mellark had always known how to use words like arrows — quiet, steady, and deadly accurate.
He smiled faintly. “No,” he said, voice calm as ever. “I think Katniss Everdeen has served your purpose. It’s time for her to die.”
The hall erupted—curses, gasps, shouts—a wall of sound crashing down around her.
Katniss stood frozen, her heart splitting between disbelief and grief. The cameras were still rolling. The world was still watching.
“District Thirteen cherishes the Mockingjay,” President Coin said, her voice calm, the faintest smile tugging at her lips. “She is our symbol of hope.”
Peeta’s reply came swift and cutting. “That’s not true, though.”
The room fell silent. Even the sound of the recording machines seemed to stutter.
“You got her to accept being the Mockingjay because she wanted me and the others rescued,” he said, his voice steady, too clear, too sharp. “You’ve been sending her to dangerous places because if she refused, you’d turn away the survivors of District Twelve. Her compliance has always been conditional. You didn’t take us in out of the goodness of your heart, President Coin—it was always a transaction. And now the last thing left to do was make a martyr out of the Mockingjay. I’m sure you’ll find a way to make her death beautiful too.”
The crowd below erupted.
Shouts rose from the gallery—angry, overlapping, desperate. Katniss could hear the distinct accent of the Twelve natives cutting through the noise.
“It’s true! Everything here’s an exchange!” one voice cried.
“We saved you!” someone else shouted back.
“Aye, and you never let us forget it!” another retorted.
From the gallery screens, Commander Paylor’s brow was furrowed, her gaze fixed on Coin with clear distrust. Beside her, the projected images of General Lyme and the rebel leaders from Districts Four, Seven, and Eleven exchanged silent looks — evaluating, measuring.
Katniss could feel it in the air — the fragile unity of the rebellion cracking like ice underfoot.
Even Effie, high above in the gallery, had abandoned her usual poise. “What does he mean, Plutarch? What does he mean?” she shrilled, her singsong Capitol voice slicing through the din. Plutarch looked ready to faint. Finnick pushed her gently aside, muttering, “Not now, Effie.”
Haymitch was already at Peeta’s side, gripping his arm, trying to pull him away as Johanna leaned close, whispering furiously in Haymitch’s ear. Peeta blinked at her, detached, distant.
Katniss didn’t think. She just moved—pushing Finnick’s steadying hand off her shoulder and rushing after them.
By the time she caught up, they were inside one of Thirteen’s windowless conference rooms. She barely slipped through the door before it slammed shut.
“What the fuck were you doing in there?” Haymitch snarled, his face red with fury.
Peeta didn’t flinch. “My head doctor said I shouldn’t censor my thoughts,” he said evenly. “So I said what I thought was true.”
Johanna let out a low, delighted cackle. “Can’t even be mad about that,” she said.
Katniss’s anger flared. She strode toward them, careful to keep her tone measured, her movements deliberate. “It was dangerous, Peeta! Accusing Coin like that—with her soldiers surrounding us—they could’ve hurt you!”
Peeta looked up at her. His expression was closed, unreadable. “Who says they’re not hurting me now?”
Her breath caught.
She turned to Haymitch, eyes wide with horror, but he only frowned. “No one’s hurting you, Peeta,” he said softly, as if to reassure him.
“The only thing Thirteen does differently from the Capitol,” Peeta said quietly, “is that I’m not being tortured in the traditional sense. But I’m still locked in a cell. Still being watched. Still being experimented on.” His eyes lifted, dark and hollow. “I don’t see the difference, really.”
Katniss’s stomach twisted. She looked at Haymitch with hatred. He had promised her Peeta was being treated well. Promised he was safe. But if Peeta believed this—if this was what he lived every day—then her mentor’s assurances meant nothing.
Before she could speak, Johanna drawled, “You still got it, lover boy. Even with your brain scrambled.”
Peeta frowned. “Got what?”
“The ability to move people,” Johanna said, her tone mocking. “To stir hearts and start chaos.”
Haymitch snorted. “You mean incite a mob. He did the same thing during the Quarter Quell—had those soft Capitolites throwing eggs at government buildings, refusing to go to work and writing petitions to stop the Games.”
The three older victors laughed—not from humor, but from bitter memory.
Peeta’s mouth twitched. “But they didn’t stop the Games.”
“No,” Haymitch said, his voice low, “but for the first time in seventy-five years, the Capitol wanted to.”
That silenced them.
For a moment, the room was still—only the hum of the ventilation filling the air.
Then Finnick spoke. “Do you think Coin will still send Katniss to the Capitol after this?”
Haymitch exhaled heavily and sank into a chair. “It’s already volatile out there. Every leader heard what Peeta said. Sending her now would be political suicide.”
“I need to go,” Katniss said sharply. “I was promised I’d be the one to kill Snow.”
Haymitch rolled his eyes. “Why does it have to be you? Why not let the trained soldiers handle it? You haven’t even finished your combat training.”
“You know why!” she shouted, her voice breaking. “After what he’s done, I have to kill him myself!”
Peeta huffed, the sound sharp and cruel. “Oh, just let her be,” he snapped. “The girl wants so much to die—let her.”
Katniss froze. The venom in his tone was like a slap.
“Shut up, Peeta,” Johanna snapped, but he wasn’t finished.
“You know how she is—everything needs to be about her! The districts rose against almost a century of tyranny, and somehow it’s her fault! District 12 is bombed to ash, and she makes it about herself!” He took a step forward, breath ragged, eyes bright with a feverish light.
“I was tortured and she still has to make a scene every time. Running off, disappearing, making everyone go into a panic!”
Finnick reached for him, voice low and careful. “Peeta, hey — calm down—”
But Peeta only shouted louder, cutting him off, his words cracking with something halfway between pain and hatred. “She can’t help it! Everything needs to be about her! Just—just let her be!”
The silence that followed was sharp enough to draw blood.
He shoved Haymitch away and stormed out, the door slamming so hard it echoed down the hall.
Johanna snorted and followed after him, muttering, “Gods, I hate kids.”
The room fell silent.
Katniss didn’t move. She just sat there, eyes unfocused, tears beginning to spill.
“Does he really think I’m that selfish?” she whispered.
Finnick’s voice was gentle. “He’s not himself, Katniss. He wanted to hurt you, that’s all. He’s not well yet. He didn’t mean it.”
But Haymitch didn’t soften. “Yes,” he said quietly. “He does.”
And then he left too.
Katniss broke. The sobs came soundless at first, her shoulders shaking as Finnick gathered her close. He held her as she cried, his hand steady against her back, whispering comfort she barely heard.
All she could hear were Peeta’s words echoing in her mind—over and over—until they drowned out everything else.
That she was selfish. That she makes everything about her.
And maybe she was selfish. The thought clung to her like ash, impossible to wipe clean. Because even when Coin and the other rebel leaders ordered her to remain in Thirteen during the final assault on the Capitol, she disobeyed, slipping onto a cargo craft like a thief in the night.
She told herself it was for Peeta, for Prim, for the rebellion.
But she knew better. It was for herself.
For the quiet, festering vengeance she need to accomplish.
For the chance to see Snow afraid—just once—afraid the way she had been, trembling and hunted and helpless.
For the hollow, guilty thrill of knowing she could be the architect of Snow’s downfall, just as he had been of hers.
She crafted a lie, and people died for it. Her whole squad—good people, brave people, people with families who waited for them in bunkers and districts and safehouses. People like Finnick, who should have had his happy ending with Annie instead of being swallowed by the dark beneath the Capitol.
If she had just stayed… maybe Coin wouldn’t have sent Peeta, barely recovered and still trembling under the weight of hallucinations and his medical strains, into the Capitol. Maybe she could have stopped Coin from sending Prim—her Prim—into the front line like a piece on a board she was willing to sacrifice.
Peeta was right. She was selfish. And her selfishness left graves in its wake.
So she didn’t know why he stopped her. Why he caught her wrist that night when the nightlock pill was already cold against her tongue. Why he pulled her back from the only punishment she knew how to give herself.
She didn’t know why he bothered saving someone who had destroyed so much.