peeta leans down and kisses me once, very gently. “the
count of three,” he says.
we stand, our backs pressed together, our empty hands
locked tight.
“hold them out. i want everyone to see,” he says.
i spread out my fingers, and the dark berries glisten in the
sun. i give peeta’s hand one last squeeze as a signal, as a good-
bye, and we begin counting. “one.” maybe i’m wrong. “two.”
maybe they don’t care if we both die. “three!” it’s too late to
change my mind. i lift my hand to my mouth, taking one last
look at the world. the berries have just passed my lips when
the trumpets begin to blare.
the frantic voice of claudius templesmith shouts above
them. “stop! stop! ladies and gentlemen, i am pleased to
present the victors of the seventy-fourth hunger games, kat-
niss everdeen and peeta mellark! i give you — the tributes of
district twelve!”
339
i spew the berries from my mouth, wiping my tongue with
the end of my shirt to make sure no juice remains. peeta pulls
me to the lake where we both flush our mouths with water
and then collapse into each other’s arms.
“you didn’t swallow any?” i ask him.
he shakes his head. “you?”
“guess i’d be dead by now if i did,” i say. i can see his lips
moving in reply, but i can’t hear him over the roar of the
crowd in the capitol that they’re playing live over the speak-
ers.
the hovercraft materializes overhead and two ladders
drop, only there’s no way i’m letting go of peeta. i keep one
arm around him as i help him up, and we each place a foot on
the first rung of the ladder. the electric current freezes us in
place, and this time i’m glad because i’m not really sure peeta
can hang on for the whole ride. and since my eyes were look-
ing down, i can see that while our muscles are immobile, noth-
ing is preventing the blood from draining out of peeta’s leg.
sure enough, the minute the door closes behind us and the
current stops, he slumps to the floor unconscious.
my fingers are still gripping the back of his jacket so tightly
that when they take him away it tears leaving me with a fistful
340
of black fabric. doctors in sterile white, masked and gloved,
already prepped to operate, go into action. peeta’s so pale and
still on a silver table, tubes and wires springing out of him
every which way, and for a moment i forget we’re out of the
games and i see the doctors as just one more threat, one more
pack of mutts designed to kill him. petrified, i lunge for him,
but i’m caught and thrust back into another room, and a glass
door seals between us. i pound on the glass, screaming my
head off. everyone ignores me except for some capitol atten-
dant who appears behind me and offers me a beverage.
i slump down on the floor, my face against the door, staring
uncomprehendingly at the crystal glass in my hand. icy cold,
filled with orange juice, a straw with a frilly white collar. how
wrong it looks in my bloody, filthy hand with its dirt-caked
nails and scars. my mouth waters at the smell, but i place it
carefully on the floor, not trusting anything so clean and pret-
ty.
through the glass, i see the doctors working feverishly on
peeta, their brows creased in concentration. i see the flow of
liquids, pumping through the tubes, watch a wall of dials and
lights that mean nothing to me. i’m not sure, but i think his
heart stops twice.
it’s like being home again, when they bring in the hopeless-
ly mangled person from the mine explosion, or the woman in
her third day of labor, or the famished child struggling against
pneumonia and my mother and prim, they wear that same
look on their faces. now is the time to run away to the woods,
to hide in the trees until the patient is long gone and in anoth-
341
er part of the seam the hammers make the coffin. but i’m held
here both by the hovercraft walls and the same force that
holds the loved ones of the dying. how often i’ve seen them,
ringed around our kitchen table and i thought, why don’t they
leave?
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