Something small and quiet, like a match being struck, lights up the gloom inside of me.

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.

My lips are just forming his name when his fingers lock around my throat.

But I don't know what to him about the aftermath of killing a person. About how they never leave you.

It's to the Capitol's advantage to have us divided among ourselves. Another tool to cause misery in our district. A way to plant hatred between the starving workers [of the Seam] and those who can generally count on supper and thereby ensure we will never trust one another.

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.

I thought he wanted it, anyway," I say. "Not like this," Haymitch says. "He wanted it to be real.