Positioned on my dresser, that white-as-snow rose is a personal message to me. It speaks of unfinished business. It whispers, I can find you. I can reach you. Perhaps I am watching you now.

Tuck in your tail, little duck.

And then, if you make it to bedtime, you feel the joy of cheating death out of one more day," she said. "Do you see?

It starts at midnight.

Peeta and I had adjoining cells in the capitol. We're very familiar with each other's screams.

When I ask Plutarch about his absence, he just shakes his head and says, "He couldnt face it." "Haymitch? Not able to face something? Wanted a day off, more likely," I say. "I think his actual words were 'I couldn't face it without a bottle,'" says Plutarch.

But in my head I can hear Haymitch's smug, if slightly exasperated, words: "Yes, that's what I'm looking for, sweetheart.