Maybe I'd think that, too, Caesar," says Petta bitterly, "if it weren't for the baby." There. He's done it again.

I look down at our linked fingers as I loosen my grasp, but he regains his grip on me. “No, don’t let go of me,” he says.

What must it be like, I wonder, to live in a world where food appears at the press of a button? How would I spend the hours I now commit to combing the woods for sustenance if it were so easy to come by? What do they do all day, these people in the Capitol, besides decorating their bodies and waiting around for a new shipment of tributes to rill in and die for their entertainment?

I noticed just about every girl, but none of them made a lasting impression but you.

He’s dozed off again, but I kiss him awake, which seems to startle him. Then he smiles as if he’d be happy to lie there gazing at me forever.

its not in my nature to go down without a fight even when things seem insurmountable

My words hang in the air. I look to the screen, hoping to see them recording some wave of reconciliation going through the crowd. Instead I watch myself get shot on television.