Fire beats roses again.

She's really gone, then. The little girl with the back of her shirt sticking out like a duck tail.

If there's a more helpless feeling than trying to reach someone you love who's trapped underground, I don't know it.

When I ask Plutarch about his absence, he just shakes his head and says, "He couldnt face it." "Haymitch? Not able to face something? Wanted a day off, more likely," I say. "I think his actual words were 'I couldn't face it without a bottle,'" says Plutarch.

There were two Avoxes with me in prison. Darius and Lavinia, but the guards mostly called them the redheads. They'd been our servants in the Training Center, so they arrested them, too. I watched them being tortured to death. She was lucky. They used too much voltage and her heart stopped right off. It took days to finish him off. Beating, cutting off parts. They kept asking him questions, but he couldn't speak, he just made these horrible animals sounds. They didn't want information, you know? They wanted me to see it.

Katniss. I remember about the bread.

But the words are easy and soothing, promising tomorrow will be more hopeful than this awful piece o time we call today.