Chapter 3

The moment the anthem ends, we are taken into custody. I

don’t mean we’re handcuffed or anything, but a group of

Peacekeepers marches us through the front door of the Justice

Building. Maybe tributes have tried to escape in the past. I’ve

never seen that happen though.

Once inside, I’m conducted to a room and left alone. It’s the

richest place I’ve ever been in, with thick, deep carpets and a

velvet couch and chairs. I know velvet because my mother has

a dress with a collar made of the stuff. When I sit on the couch,

I can’t help running my fingers over the fabric repeatedly. It

helps to calm me as I try to prepare for the next hour. The

time allotted for the tributes to say goodbye to their loved

ones. I cannot afford to get upset, to leave this room with 

puffy eyes and a red nose. Crying is not an option. There will 

be more cameras at the train station.

My sister and my mother come first. I reach out to Prim

and she climbs on my lap, her arms around my neck, head

on my shoulder, just like she did when she was a toddler.

My mother sits beside me and wraps her arms around us.

For a few minutes, we say nothing. Then I start telling them

all the things they must remember to do, now that I will not be

there to do them for them.

Prim is not to take any tesserae. They can get by, if

they’re careful, on selling Prim’s goat milk and cheese and the

small apothecary business my mother now runs for the people

in the Seam. Gale will get her the herbs she doesn’t grow 

herself, but she must be very careful to describe them because

he’s not as familiar with them as I am. He’ll also bring them

game — he and I made a pact about this a year or so ago —

and will probably not ask for compensation, but they should

thank him with some kind of trade, like milk or medicine.

I don’t bother suggesting Prim learn to hunt. I tried to teach

her a couple of times and it was disastrous. The woods 

terrified her, and whenever I shot something, she’d get teary 

and talk about how we might be able to heal it if we got it 

home soon enough. But she makes out well with her goat, so 

I concentrate on that.

When I am done with instructions about fuel, and trading,

and staying in school, I turn to my mother and grip her arm,

hard. “Listen to me. Are you listening to me?” She nods,

alarmed by my intensity. She must know what’s coming. 

“You can’t leave again,” I say.

My mother’s eyes find the floor. “I know. I won’t. I couldn’t

help what—”

“Well, you have to help it this time. You can’t clock out and

leave Prim on her own. There’s no me now to keep you both

alive. It doesn’t matter what happens. Whatever you see on

the screen. You have to promise me you’ll fight through it!” 

My voice has risen to a shout. In it is all the anger, all the fear 

I felt at her abandonment.

She pulls her arm from my grasp, moved to anger herself

now. “I was ill. I could have treated myself if I’d had the 

medicine I have now.”

That part about her being ill might be true. I’ve seen her

bring back people suffering from immobilizing sadness since.

Perhaps it is a sickness, but it’s one we can’t afford.

“Then take it. And take care of her!” I say.

“I’ll be all right, Katniss,” says Prim, clasping my face in her

hands. “But you have to take care, too. You’re so fast and

brave. Maybe you can win.”

I can’t win. Prim must know that in her heart. The competition

will be far beyond my abilities. Kids from wealthier districts,

where winning is a huge honor, who’ve been trained

their whole lives for this. Boys who are two to three times my

size. Girls who know twenty different ways to kill you with a

knife. Oh, there’ll be people like me, too. People to weed out

before the real fun begins.

“Maybe,” I say, because I can hardly tell my mother to carry

on if I’ve already given up myself. Besides, it isn’t in my nature

to go down without a fight, even when things seem insurmountable.

“Then we’d be rich as Haymitch.”

“I don’t care if we’re rich. I just want you to come home.

You will try, won’t you? Really, really try?” asks Prim.

“Really, really try. I swear it,” I say. And I know, because of

Prim, I’ll have to. And then the Peacekeeper is at the door, 

signaling our time is up, and we’re all hugging one another so 

hard it hurts and all I’m saying is “I love you. I love you both.” 

And they’re saying it back and then the Peacekeeper orders 

them out and the door closes. I bury my head in one of the 

velvet pillows as if this can block the whole thing out.

Someone else enters the room, and when I look up, I’m 

surprised to see it’s the baker, Peeta Mellark’s father. I can’t 

believe he’s come to visit me. After all, I’ll be trying to kill 

his son soon. But we do know each other a bit, and he knows 

Prim even better. When she sells her goat cheeses at the Hob, 

she puts two of them aside for him and he gives her a generous

amount of bread in return. We always wait to trade with him

when his witch of a wife isn’t around because he’s so much

nicer. I feel certain he would never have hit his son the way

she did over the burned bread. But why has he come to see

me?