I wrap my arms around his neck, feel his arms hesitate before they embrace me. Not as steady as they once were, but still warm and strong. A thousand moments surge through me. All the times these arms were my only refuge from the world. Perhaps not fully appreciated then, but so sweet in my memory, and now gone for ever.

there's plenty of blame to go around.

Not like this. He wanted it to be real.

And suddenly, it's as if there's no one in the world but these two, crashing through space to reach each other. They collide, enfold, lose their balance, and slam against a wall, where they stay. Clinging into one being. Indivisible.

Of course you are. The tributes were necessary to the Games, too. Until they weren't," I say. "And then we were very disposable - right, Plutarch?

If you'd been taken by the Capital and hijacked and then tried to kill Peeta, is this the way he would be treating you?

The glue of mutual need that bonded us so tightly together for all those years is melting away. Dark patches, not light, show in the spaces between us.