It's lovely. If only you could frost someone to death.

They can pump whatever they want into my arm but it takes more than that to keep a person going once she's lost the will to live.

As we trudge back through the woods, we reach a boulder, and both Gale and I turn our heads in the same direction, like a pair of dogs catching a scent on the wind. Cressida notices and asks what lies that way. We admit, without acknowledging each other, it's our old hunting rendez-vous place. She wants to see it, even after we tell her it's nothing really. Nothing but a place where I was happy, I think.

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 side step that?

Instead of satisfying me, the kisses have the opposite effect, of make my need greater. I thought I was something of an expert on hunger, but this is an entirely new kind.

But in school I remember hearing that for the second Quarter Quell, the Capitol demanded that twice the number of tributes be provided for the arena. The teachers didn't go into much more detail, which is surprising, because that was the year District 12's very own Haymitch Abernathy won the crown.

Remember that even in war there is a time for restraint. A time to hold back your sword.