I can't help comparing what I have with Gale to what I'm pretending to have with Peeta. How I never question Gale's motives while I do nothing but doubt the latter's. It's not a fair comparison really. Gale and I were thrown together by a mutual need to survive. Peeta and I know the other's survival means our own death. How do you sidestep that?

Then I get it, what it means. At least, for me. District 12 only has three existing victors to choose from. Two male. One female... I am going back into the arena.

I look coolly in to the blue eyes of the person who is now my greatest opponent, the person who would keep me alive at his own expense. And I promise myself I will defeat his plan.

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.

All the times these arms were my only refuge from the world. Perhaps not fully appreciated then, but so sweet in my memory, and now gone forever.

I'm sick of people lying to me for my own good. Because really it's mostly for their own good.

I'm unaware that my feet are moving to the table until I'm inches from the holograph. My hand reaches in and cups a rapidly blinking green light. Someone joins me, his body tense. Finnick, of course. Because only a victor would see what I see so immediately. The arena. Laced with pods controlled by Gamemakers. Finnick's fingers caress a steady red glow over a doorway. "Ladies and gentlemen..." His voice is quiet, but mine rings through the room. "Let the Seventy-sixth Hunger Games begin!