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They were gone.

I sat for a long time after Prim had fled. I wanted to chase after her but I'd known she could run faster than I could. For now I would leave her, and later I'd go to the house and check in. Make sure that she was okay.

There were things I had to do, people I had to tell. Claudia was the one I thought of first, and then Effie.

How was I going to tell Effie? We haven't spoken in weeks, not since I'd left her at a table at a restaurant. I had to see her now, though, and tell her that Katniss was gone. That Finnick was gone. She deserved to hear that from me, and not learn it when she tried to call or go by and see one of them.

I don't remember how I got to the studio. Walked, I thought, but I wasn't sure. All I knew was they let me in and led me to a couch outside of her dressing room. The show woud be done taping soon, they'd told me, getting me a bottle of water.

All I could do was wait, and then break the news to her. News I didn't want to share with anyone, because saying the words would make it real.

I listened to them cheering and laughing in the studio and I almost laugh. This wasn't the right time, I could do this later.

Standing, I turned to leave, I even made it halfway to the door. But I couldn't leave. I had to tell her. No matter how hard it was to admit, Katniss and Finnick were gone. I had to stay.

Dinner had been amazing, no matter what Claudia had said or how much she had stressed during cooking. I'd teased her, of course, making faces after my first bite before pronouncing it not only edible but delicious. There would likely be some sort of revenge later, but I didn't mind. things felt easy between us most of the time, like this was how they should be. It was a feeling that I was learning to trust, perhaps more slowly than I should have, but I knew Claudia had her own reservations and reasons for holding back.

I'd offered to do the dishes, but she'd insisted that I go sit on the couch with a glass of wine. I'd agreed, but as the minutes ticked past, I wondered what was going on. Was something wrong? "Claudia?" I called out, half-ready to charge into her bedroom and deal with whatever was keeping her, my mind immediately going to intruders or city mischief. "Are you okay?"

It's quiet out here usually, at this time of the afternoon. There's a field through the trees to the west where there are cows, and sometimes I can hear them. When it's the school year, there's a bus that rumbles down the road at the end of the drive that leads up to my house, taking the few children who live out this far to their homes. But it's summer, and all I hear is a few birds in the trees.

Just the birds and Claudia. I hear her as the door to my little house closes behind me. I'd gone out to paint, an hour or two out by the side of the house. I keep trying to catch the sun as it filters through the trees at this hour, but it's nothing I could keep my mind on. I heard her laugh at something, and I find that I need to know what. Not because I'm jealous or worried, but because I'm curious. The past few days have been relaxing for us both, and it seems that she's forgetting the things that she's lost so recently and letting herself be happy again.

That makes me happier than I can even explain. She makes me happier than I can explain, and all I can think is that we should have done this earlier. Gotten away and spent some time together. But then, it might not have been right. It might not have worked. I've learned that you can't force things, no matter how hard you might want them to work for you.

I set the easel and box by the door and go up behind her, leaning over the back of the couch to kiss her cheek. "What are you laughing at?"

There are a lot of explanations that I owe people after that past month, but none so much as the one I owe to Claudia. I’ve managed to avoid answering her questions about the texts that I sent her telling her to stay safe, but that’s not something I can do much longer. Her questions have been more pointed, and really, I can’t say it’s unfair. After all, we’d left things with a kiss and then I practically vanished, telling her that things were dangerous.

My suggestion was to meet at a quiet café not far from the bakery. I don’t work there much anymore – mostly just to decorate elaborate cakes for big events – but the place is quiet in the afternoon, the crowds mostly clearing out after lunch. I wonder as I wait if I should have brought something; some sort of gift, flowers, I really have no idea. I’m so very bad at this, my only real relationship one that was faked for viewers and for Snow. Not that I even know what this is, other than that I like her, and she’s become increasingly important to me.

I order a drink that’s half coffee, half chocolate, and settle in with a book to wait. It’s a history of art of France, strange that we’d study it when no one here will acknowledge that France even exists. I’m only paying so much attention, glancing toward the door every few seconds to see if she’s here.

It's been two days since I remember seeing the first reports about the murder int he park. Other than making a note to stay out of that area, and to mention it to the others, I'd not paid much attention. Even hearing that the woman was stabbed repeatedly by a number of different swords didn't make me tie it to home, only that there were some crazy people out there.

But when reports of a band of teenagers with swords and axes start surfacing, I can't help but be reminded of the Games. When there's another death reported in this morning's paper, along with a blurry cell phone photo of four identically-dressed youth holidng what could very well be those weapons my stomach bottoms out. It was taken the day before by some person near the edge of town, and there's been no sign of them since, only the body, also stabbed with swords.

I text everyone, Katniss, Finnick, Prim and Effie first. Tell them to stay safe and that we need to meet at Katniss' house as soon as we can. I send a message to Claudia telling her I'm worried about something, and I'll check in on her later, and for her to be careful. I make an excuse to my boss at the bakery, stuffing the paper in my bag and heading out. It's worth taking a cab, I decide, wanting to be home quickly. I have him drop me off at my house, though, not Katniss', coming via our path in the woods that separate the two places.

All I want is for them to tell me that I'm crazy. That this can't be the Capitol. That this is all a coincidence and those aren't Tributes running around our city. I don't think that they'll be able to.

The days in the training facilities were highly regimented. Every walking moment was spent developing their skills in the hope that they would have the honour of representing District One and triumphing in the Hunger Games. From the many that began the training, the classes winnowed through the years, focusing on those who were best. The best is what they all wanted to be, all they would accept.

Today's exercises had them split into teams of four, picked supposedly randomly, but no one believed that. They were matched to see how they worked with every type of personality, every age. This team up was a successful one, the four having dispatched all but two other people within the simulated forest environment. Their youngest was in the trees, using her agility and lightness to range and find their target.

If the environment suddenly became colder, if the trees changed their shapes not one of the team notices. It was exactly the sort of thing that their trainers would do to keep the team on their toes, especially when they were so far ahead of all the others. What does make them pause is the appearance of someone none of them recognised jogging through the trees. She was too old, and not dressed like the rest of the potential tributes. She started, unsurprising considering the three on the ground all carried metal weapons - swords and an axe. They were only supposed to go for sensors, but this was a new situation, something different.

It was the girl in the trees - Amethyst - who decided things for them all. Calling out, she dropped down onto the woman, stabbing her with the knives she favoured. It only took a moment for the others to join in, a bloodlust they had trained into them rising given the opportunity. When the woman was well and truly dead Amethyst looked to the others with bright eyes. "There's a city out there. Not 1. Is this a test?"

They abandoned the woman where she lay, scouting through the wooded area and the park that lay around it. In the end they decided whatever it was, they didn't trust it. If this was a new test, a new sort of Game, they needed to stick together at least for now. They needed to make a camp, get supplies and then they'd decide how to proceed.

Two weeks have passed since the cornucopia arrived. It took a few days to get rid of it, too, the people I'd called unable to cut it down for scrap. They'd hauled it away eventually but even though I couldn't see it it was in no way forgotten. I'd taken the money they'd given me - more than I'd expected - and put it in an account in Prim's name. If anything happened to me, or to Katniss it would be there to help her.

Now all I had to make sure was that nothing happened to us.

I'd been following the plan we'd set out, that hadn't changed with Finnick's arrival. In fact, that was something I was okay with, his presence around Katniss and Prim's house a relief. We were acting like everything was normal, like the cornucopia hadn't affected us at all, even though it had. The funny thing was that in acting like friends, we were starting to actually figure out how to be friends. Something we'd started before those second games finally coming to fruition. If nothing else that made me happy.

But it was still all pretend. I couldn't sleep that night and had gotten up early, letting myself into the bakery before anyone else. It wasn't my shift but I got things started, the ovens throwing out heat that warmed the whole place and I worked on the designer breads that they offered. It made me smile sometimes, the things they put in bread. There was an artistry to it, and I missed it, spending most of my time with the extravagent cakes people ordered for their weddings and celebrations. There was something simpler that I was making too, a small batch of cheese buns, something I did from time to time. Never many for the shop, I'd leave some for the staff and take the rest home with me.

Today was no exception. I'd left after the rest of the staff arrived but when it was still dark out, the winter days short. I had a bag full of hot rolls and some hot chocolate that was just as fresh, and I was pretty sure that as early as it was Katniss would be awake and on her way back from checking her traps or whatever it was she did when she hunted in the mornings. The lights still off, I settled on the bench on the porch to wait. I knew it wouldn't be long.

It takes hours for the news crews to give up and go home, their chance of getting a good story evaporating as the night starts to set in. The police take longer, eventually locating another mine directly across from the one that was set off. That weighs heavily, knowing that the two tributes from any District were often placed across from each other. I honestly can't remember where we were situated in our first Games, but it still seems like a message. Like someone saying they know I'm here.

When everyone finally clears out it's late, dark except for the moon. My eyes adjust easily. They don't have street lights out this far, just like they'd never used them in Twelve, except in the Square after Thread came. I wait until I'm sure that everyone has cleared out and even then I head off toward my house and not in the direction of Katniss' tree. In case anyone's watching I doesn't want to give away more than I have to. How much have I changed since that first reaping? When I trusted the people around me so easily and didn't think about survival tactics.

A quarter of an hour passes before I head out again, leaving the light and television on inside my house when I go. Not that it'll fool anyone for long, and if there are cameras like in the Arena it won't fool anyone watching, I know. But I have to try to make it safe. The way to Katniss and Prim's house has started to grow over, the path we'd beaten my first few months here disused. That again makes me sad, but I don't have the luxury of that. I need to talk to Katniss, to decide how we're going to keep playing this game. Just when I thought we'd stopped.

I tap at her door and call out her name as I open it. The last thing I want is to end up with an arrow in my shoulder because I scared her.

I know that I have my own house, but there are nights that I don't go home. It isn't far from Katniss or Prim's, I chose that purposely. It's not close like it had been in Victor's Circle either, and I miss that. I miss the security of it, of having her and her family nearby. I miss having Haymitch too, crazy as it might seem some days. They've always had their secrets, their plan and their bond, but they're the people that managed to keep me alive.

It isn't just that. They were more a family than my own. She's more my family than that. She's more to me, even if I've never managed to make her see that outside of the Games. So here we are, something between friends and who knows. But in this place, this strange crazy place she and Prim are all I have.

Sleep isn't something that comes easy to either of us some nights. I've been on the couch, lying there awake, trying to not see the explosions in that sky whenever I close my eyes. It doesn't work, and I get up to ostensibly to get a glass of water, but really to check on Katniss. If I'm not sleeping there's a good chance she's not either, I think as I crack open her door.

She is sleeping, only it's not the good kind. Her sheets tangled into a ball from thrashing, she's making those sounds she makes when the nightmares get to their worst. Before she wakes herself up with it, the low panicked sounds that are so unlike anything else I've ever heard from her. Like the dreams have her cornered, like she's a wounded animal and they're going in for the kill.

It's been two months, but I've always woken her up before. I've stood in the door and called out her name low to try and not wake Prim. Not tonight. Tonight I need her too, padding across the floor to sit on the edge of her bed.

"Hey, Katniss," I say softly, brushing back her hair. If she wakes up and attacks me, it's my own fault I know. "You're having a nightmare."

Something was very, very wrong. I know the second the wire bounces back toward the tree. Finnick sees it too, Beetee the only one who’s so wrapped up in what he’s doing to notice. He can’t see what’s wrong, wrapped up in his winding the wire around the knife I’ve just given him, the knife I wish I had in my hands now.

When Brutus pounces on us I lunge for Beetee, for my knife, but Finnick gets in the way. It’s too late for the tribute from three, but Finnick pushes me, forcing me back and into the woods. “Go,” he hisses before launching himself at the Career.

Finnick saved me, I realise as I tumble through the trees, running and falling in equal measure. I’m not running away, I’m running to Katniss. The attack came too early and I need to find her. I need to make sure she’s safe; to make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid. The trees seem as if they’re trying to trip me and my leg isn’t helping. I stumble again, unsure of where I am and what is going on until I hear her call my name.

I call back with only a second of thought. I know she’ll be panicked, wishing we had never separated. She needs to know I’m alive before she does anything headstrong, before she sacrifices herself in some crazy Katniss gesture. Even if it calls Brutus and Enobaria down on us. It’s close to midnight and I’m sure of what she’ll be thinking. The kind of Katniss-like things that will get her killed.

She can’t die. There’s no going on for me without her. She has to live.

Hearing me call her name might be what keeps her thinking straight. If she knows I’m out here she’ll look for me. I hurl myself toward where I think she’s calling from, only I’m hurt now. There’s blood and I don’t know whose it is and where it came from.

Not far off the buzzing of the insects ceases and I realise that it’s almost midnight. It’s almost time for the lightning to strike. Had Beetee done enough? Would the tree electrocute us? Was she far enough away?

With that thought I know there isn’t enough speed. There’s no way I can make it through this jungle on time, that I can find her. I howl her name, hoping that whatever happens next she’s far enough away to be safe.

The world explodes.

That’s the only way I can think of it. The flash of white, the sparks, the fire that starts raining down. It’s only when the dome is illuminated in flame that I realise it. Too late I see the other game that’s being played. I should have seen it earlier the way the pieces all snap together, but I was so concerned with keeping Katniss alive, with outsmarting her at her own game that I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see the picture, only the details.

I scream when I see the hovercraft, but I’m not sure I make any sound. Is my voice raw from calling for Katniss? Can anyone hear me? The cameras won’t be on, the Districts blacked out. But maybe they have their own fires burning tonight.

Revolution doesn’t mean much without her. I want to get away from the claw, away from the Capitol but I’ve gotten too much of the shock. I can barely control the way my body moves, I’m not even sure I ever made a sound.

I don’t want to be their pawn

That’s the last lucid thought I have. It's the last thing that flashes through my mind as the claw lifts me from the Arena.