Something flickers across his bloodshot eyes. Pain.

What do you think?" I whisper to Peeta. "About the fire?" "I'll rip off your cape if you'll rip off mine," he says through gritted teeth.

Because it doesn't matter anymore, and because I'm so desperately lonely I can't stand it.

We're supposed to be making up this stuff, playing at being in love, not actually being in love.

"Katniss," Gale says softly. I recognize that voice. It's the same one he uses to approach wounded animals before he delivers a deathblow. I Instinctively raise my hand to block his words but he catches it and holds on tightly. "Don't," I whisper. But Gale is not one to keep secrets from me. "Katniss, there is no District Twelve."

If my holding out those berries was an act of temporary insanity, then those people will embrace insanity too.

I'm not flailing now, as my muscles are rigid with the tension of holding myself together.