So I only say, "So what should we do with our last few days?" "I just want to spend every possible minute of the rest of my life with you," Peeta replies.

Peeta looks me right in the eye and gives my hand what I think is meant to be a reassuring squeeze. Maybe it's just a nervous spasm.

Okay, maybe I don't go around loving everybody I meet, maybe my smiles are hard to come by, but I do care for some people.

Don't want that, do they?” She throws back her head and shouts, “Whole country in rebellion? Wouldn't want anything like that!

but it's not safe and I can feel him slipping away, so I just get out one more sentence. "Stay with me." As the tendrils of sleep syrup pull me down, I hear him whisper a word back but I don't catch it.

Telling a story in a futuristic world gives you this freedom to explore things that bother you in contemporary times.

I can hear him weeping but I don't care. They probably won't even bother to question her, she's so far gone. Gone right off the deep end years ago in her Games. There's a good chance I'm headed in the same direction. Maybe I'm already going crazy and no one has the heart to tell me. I feel crazy enough.