Catching Fire

Peeta and I sit on the damp sand, facing away from each other, my right shoulder and hip
pressed against his. After a while I rest my head against his shoulder. Feel his hand caress my hair.

“Katniss,” he says softly, “it's no use pretending we don't know what the other one is trying to do.” No, I guess there isn't, but it's no fun discussing it, either. Well, not for us, anyway. The Capitol viewers will be glued to their sets so they don't miss one wretched word.
“I don't know what kind of deal you think you've made with Haymitch, but you should know he made me promises as well.” Of course, I know this, too. He told Peeta they could keep me alive so that he wouldn't be suspicious. “So I think we can assume he was lying to one of us.”

This gets my attention. A double deal. A double promise. With only Haymitch knowing
which one is real. I raise my head, meet Peeta's eyes. “Why are you saying this now?”
“Because I don't want you forgetting how different our circumstances are. If you die, and I 
live, there's no life for me at all back in District Twelve. You're my whole life,” he says. “I
would never be happy again.” I start to object but he puts a finger to my lips. “It's different
for you. I'm not saying it wouldn't be hard. But there are other people who'd make your life
worth living.”

Peeta pulls the chain with the gold disk from around his neck. He holds it in the moonlight
so I can clearly see the mockingjay. Then his thumb slides along a catch I didn't notice before
and the disk pops open. It's not solid, as I had thought, but a locket. And within the locket are
photos. On the right side, my mother and Prim, laughing. And on the left, Gale. Actually smiling.

There is nothing in the world that could break me faster at this moment than these three
faces. After what I heard this afternoon ... it is the perfect weapon.
“Your family needs you, Katniss,” Peeta says.
My family. My mother. My sister. And my pretend cousin Gale. But Peeta's intention is
clear. That Gale really is my family, or will be one day, if I live. That I'll marry him. So
Peeta's giving me his life and Gale at the same time. To let me know I shouldn't ever have doubts about it.

Everything. That's what Peeta wants me to take from him.
I wait for him to mention the baby, to play to the cameras, but he doesn't. And that's how I
know that none of this is part of the Games. That he is telling me the truth about what he
feels.

“No one really needs me,” he says, and there's no self-pity in his voice. It's true his family
doesn't need him. They will mourn him, as will a handful of friends. But they will get on.
Even Haymitch, with the help of a lot of white liquor, will get on. I realize only one person 
will be damaged beyond repair if Peeta dies. Me.
“I do,” I say. “I need you.” He looks upset, takes a deep breath as if to begin a long
argument, and that's no good, no good at all, because he'll start going on about Prim and my
mother and everything and I'll just get confused. So before he can talk, I stop his lips with a
kiss.

I feel that thing again. The thing I only felt once before. In the cave last year, when I was
trying to get Haymitch to send us food. I kissed Peeta about a thousand times during those
Games and after. But there was only one kiss that made me feel something stir deep inside.
Only one that made me want more. But my head wound started bleeding and he made me lie
down.This time, there is nothing but us to interrupt us. And after a few attempts, Peeta gives up
on talking. The sensation inside me grows warmer and spreads out from my chest, down
through my body, out along my arms and legs, to the tips of my being. Instead of satisfying
me, the kisses have the opposite effect, of making my need greater. I thought I was something
of an expert on hunger, but this is an entirely new kind.

It's the first crack of the lightning storm—the bolt hitting the tree at midnight—that brings
us to our senses. It rouses Finnick as well. He sits up with a sharp cry. I see his fingers
digging into the sand as he reassures himself that whatever nightmare he inhabited wasn't real.

“I can't sleep anymore,” he says. “One of you should rest.” Only then does he seem to
notice our expressions, the way we're wrapped around each other. “Or both of you. I can
watch alone.”

Peeta won't let him, though. “It's too dangerous,” he says. “I'm not tired. You lie down,
Katniss.” I don't object because I do need to sleep if I'm to be of any use keeping him alive. I
let him lead me over to where the others are. He puts the chain with the locket around my
neck, then rests his hand over the spot where our baby would be. “You're going to make a 
great mother, you know,” he says. He kisses me one last time and goes back to Finnick.