Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to present the victors of the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark! I give you – the tributes of District Twelve!
Is the person who won in twenty-five in here?” I ask. “I don’t think so. Whoever it was must be dead by now, and Effie only sent me victors we might have to face.
No mutt is good. All are meant to damage you. Some take your life, like the monkeys. Others your reason, like the tracker jackers. However, the true atrocities, the most frightening, incorporate a perverse psychological twist designed to terrify the victim. The sight of the wolf mutts with the dead tributes’ eyes. The sound of the jabberjays replicating Prim’s tortured screams. The smell of Snow’s.
As badly as I have hurt him, he won’t expose me in front of the cameras. Won’t condemn me with a halfhearted kiss. He’s still looking out for me. Just as he did in the arena.
And there you have it,” says Peeta, scooping the breads back in the basket. “You certainly know a lot,” I say. “Only about bread,” he says. “Okay, now laugh as if I’ve said something funny.
Then he let go and said, “I had to do that. At least once.” And he was gone.
Y procura no sentirte superior a quienes tuvieron que elegir entre la deshonra y la muerte.
Gale acted as if the kiss had never happened. Maybe he was waiting for me to say something. Or kiss him back. Instead I just pretended it had never happened, either. But it had. Gale had shattered some invisible barrier between us and, with it, any hope I had of resuming our old, uncomplicated friendship. Whatever I pretended, I could never look at his lips in quite the same way.
He wanted you to know that the fence surrounding District Twelve will now have electricity twenty-four hours a day.” “Didn’t it already?” I ask, a little too innocently.
He thought you might be interested in passing this information on to your cousin,” says the woman. “Thank you. I’ll tell him. I’m sure we’ll all sleep a little more soundly now that security has addressed that lapse.
So, Haymitch, what do you think of the Games having one hundred percent more competitors than usual?” asks Caesar. Haymitch shrugs. “I don’t see that it makes much difference. They’ll still be one hundred percent as stupid as usual, so I figure my odds will be roughly the same.” The audience bursts out laughing and Haymitch gives them a half smile. Snarky. Arrogant. Indifferent.
There is no question about it. For reasons completely unfathomable to me, some of the other victors are trying to keep him alive, even if it means sacrificing themselves.
For me, you’re perfect.
It’s not just hunting. They’re armed. They think,” I say. “So do you. And you’ve had more practice. Real practice,” he says. “You know how to kill.” “Not people,” I say. “How different can it be, really?” says Gale grimly. The awful thing is that if I can forget they’re people, it will be no different at all.
The endless dance with hunger had defined his life.
Cato kneels beside Clove, spear in hand, begging her to stay with him.
Beans, cabbage, brown bread. Coriolanus grew to hate the stuff, but it kept them alive, without shame, and without cannibalizing the dead bodies in the streets.
You’re welcome,” he says back stiffly. Haymitch tosses his shirt somewhere into the mess. “Brrr. You two have got a lot of warming up to do before showtime.
Maybe he’s sending you a message, it says. A message. Saying what? Then I know. There’s only one good reason Haymitch could be withholding water from me. Because he knows I’ve almost found it.
As if controlling one element of his world would keep him from ruin. It was a bad habit that blinded him to other things that could harm him.
I’m sorry, Peeta, I think. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you. Save him? More likely I stole his last chance at life, condemned him, by destroying the force field.