My name is Katniss Everdeen. Why am I not dead? I should be dead.

The berries. I realize the answer to who I am lies in that handful of poisonous fruit. If I held them out to save Peeta because I knew I would be shunned if I came back without him, then I am despicable. If I held them out because I loved him, I am still self-centered, although forgivable. But if I held them out to defy the capitol, I am someone of worth. The trouble is, I don't know exactly what was going on inside me at that moment.

Haymich finally drops the good-natured act. "you know who else, Katniss. You know who stepped up first." Of course I do. Gale.

You don’t forget the face of the person who was your last hope.

His dad said even the cavemen had geniuses among them. Somebody had thought up the wheel.

Buttercup, miserable even with Prim’s constant attention, huddles in the cube and exhales cat breath in my face.

The hatred I feel for him, for the phantom girl, for everything, is so real and immediate it chokes me. Gale is mine. I am his. Anything else is unthinkable. Why did it take him being whipped within an inch of his life to see it?