And it’s all my fault, Gale. Because of what I did in the arena. If I had just killed myself with those berries, none of this would’ve happened. Peeta could have come home and lived, and everyone else would have been safe, too.” “Safe to do what?” he says in a gentler tone. “Starve? Work like slaves? Send their kids to the reaping? You haven’t hurt people – you’ve given them an opportunity. They just have to be brave enough to take it.

Today I might lose both of them. I try to imagine a world where both Gale's and Peeta's voices have ceased. Hands stilled. Eyes unblinking. I'm standing over their bodies, having a last look, leaving the room where they lie. But when I open the door to step out into the world, there's only a tremendous void. A pale grey nothingness that is all my future holds.

Most rats read. Our frustration is, we cannot hold a pen to write.

I have not wept since the death of my parents," said Luxa quietly. "But I am thought to be unnatural in this respect.

If he wants me broken, then I will have to be whole.

This is no place for a girl on fire.

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