What do you think?" I whisper to Peeta. "About the fire?" "I'll rip off your cape if you'll rip off mine," he says through gritted teeth.

That was the one thing I had going for me. Taking care of your family.

I mourn my old life here. We barely scraped by, but I knew where I fit in, I knew what my place was in the tightly interwoven fabric that was our life. I wish I could go back to it because, in retrospect, it seems so secure compared to now, when I am so rich and famous and so hated by the authorities in the capitol.

They erase my face with a layer of pale makeup and draw my features back out.

We hand the meat over to Greasy Sae in the kitchen. She likes District 13 well enough, even though she thinks the cooks are somewhat lacking in imagination. But a woman who came up with a palatable wild dog and rhubarb stew is bound to feel as if her hands are tied here.

I can almost hear Haymitch groaning as I team up with this wispy child. But I want her. Because she's a survivor, and I trust her, and why not admit it? She reminds me of Prim.

I'm almost there, almost to the barricade, when I thinks she hears me. Because for just a moment, she catches sight of me, her lips form my name. And that's when the rest of the parachutes go off.