Despite what I feel for Peeta, this is when I accept deep down that he'll never come back to me. Or i'll never go back to him. I'll die for my trouble. And he'll die insane and hating me.

By the way, I know about the kiss." Then the door clicks shut behind him.

Look how we take your children and sacrifice them and there’s nothing you can do. If you lift a finger, we will destroy every last one of you. Just as we did in District Thirteen.

Sometimes, when I clean a kill, I feed Buttercup the entrails. He has stopped hissing at me. Entrails. No hissing. This is the closest we will ever come to love.

But just before they cut back to the main newscaster, I see the unmistakable flash of that same mockingjay's wing. The reporter has simply been incorporated into the old footage. She's not in District 13 at all. Which begs the question, What is?

Let the Seventy-forth Hunger Games begin, Cato, I think. Let them begin for real.

You never know. Say the arena's actually a giant cake-" "Say we move on," I broke in.