The hatred I feel for him, for the phantom girl, for everything, is so real and immediate it chokes me. Gale is mine. I am his. Anything else is unthinkable. Why did it take him being whipped within an inch of his life to see it?

"If I could grow wings, I could fly. Only people can't grow wings," he say's. "Real or not real?" "Real," I say. "But people don't need wings to survive." "Mockingjays do."

Peeta smiles and douses Haymitch's knife in white liquor from a bottle on the floor. He wipes the blade clean on his shirt tail and slices the bread. Peeta keeps all of us in fresh baked goods. I hunt. He bakes. Haymitch drinks. We have our own ways to stay busy, to keep thought of our time as contestants in the Hunger Games at bay.

if i win and you die, i dont have a home to go back to. you are my life.

My lips are just forming his name when his fingers lock around my throat.

The damage, the fatigue, the imperfections. That's how they recognize me; Why I belong to them.

I don't want to cry. Everyone will make note of my tears and I'll be marked as an easy target. A weakling. I will give no one that satisfaction.