ll I can think about, every day, every waking minute since they drew Prim's name at the reaping, is how afraid I am.

I raise my left arm and twist my neck down to rip off the pill on my sleeve. Instead my teeth sink into flesh. I yank my head back in confusion to find myself looking into Peeta’s eyes, only now they hold my gaze. Blood runs from the teeth marks on the hand he clamped over my nightlock. “Let me go!” I snarl at him, trying to wrest my arm from his grasp. “I can’t,” he says.

I've asked you fifty questions and still have no sense of your life, your family, what you care about. They want to know about you, Katniss." "But I don't want them to! They're already taking my future! They can't have the things that mattered to time in the past!" I say.

I flee what I can't fight. What can only do me harm.

It's more complicated than that. I know them. They're not evil or cruel. They're not even smart. Hurting them, it's like hurting children.

My voice, at first rough and breaking on the high notes, warms up into something splendid. A voice that would make the mockingjays fall silent and then tumble over themselves to join in.

I look at Peeta and he gives me a sad smile. I hear Haymitch's voice. "You could do a lot worse." At this moment, it's impossible to imagine how I could do any better. The gift...it is perfect. So when I rise up on my tiptoe to kiss him, it doesn't seem forced at all.