LITMIR.BIZ

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Let’s skip ahead to this plan of yours,” he says.

      I take a deep breath. “We run away.”

      “What?” he asks. This has actually caught him off guard.

      “We take to the woods and make a run for it,” I say. His face is impossible to read. Will he laugh at me, dismiss this as foolishness? I rise in agitation, preparing for an argument. “You said yourself you thought that we could do it! That morning of the reaping. You said—”

      He steps in and I feel myself lifted off the ground. The room spins, and I have to lock my arms around Gale’s neck to brace myself. He’s laughing, happy.

      “Hey!” I protest, but I’m laughing, too.

      Gale sets me down but doesn’t release his hold on me. “Okay, let’s run away,” he says.

      “Really? You don’t think I’m mad? You’ll go with me?” Some of the crushing weight begins to lift as it transfers to Gale’s shoulders.

      “I do think you’re mad and I’ll still go with you,” he says. He means it. Not only means it but welcomes it. “We can do it. I know we can. Let’s get out of here and never come back!”

      “You’re sure?” I say. “Because it’s going to be hard, with the kids and all. I don’t want to get five miles into the woods and have you—”

      “I’m sure. I’m completely, entirely, one hundred percent sure.” He tilts his forehead down to rest against mine and pulls me closer. His skin, his whole being, radiates heat from being so near the fire, and I close my eyes, soaking in his warmth. I breathe in the smell of snow-dampened leather and smoke and apples, the smell of all those wintry days we shared before the Games. I don’t try to move away. Why should I, anyway? His voice drops to a whisper. “I love you.”

      That’s why.

      I never see these things coming. They happen too fast. One second you’re proposing an escape plan and the next … you’re expected to deal with something like this. I come up with what must be the worst possible response. “I know.”

      It sounds terrible. Like I assume he couldn’t help loving me but that I don’t feel anything in return. Gale starts to draw away, but I grab hold of him. “I know! And you … you know what you are to me.” It’s not enough. He breaks my grip. “Gale, I can’t think about anyone that way now. All I can think about, every day, every waking minute since they drew Prim’s name at the reaping, is how afraid I am. And there doesn’t seem to be room for anything else. If we could get somewhere safe, maybe I could be different. I don’t know.”

      I can see him swallowing his disappointment. “So, we’ll go. We’ll find out.” He turns back to the fire, where the chestnuts are beginning to burn. He flips them out onto the hearth. “My mother’s going to take some convincing.”

      I guess he’s still going, anyway. But the happiness has fled, leaving an all-too-familiar strain in its place. “Mine, too. I’ll just have to make her see reason. Take her for a long walk. Make sure she understands we won’t survive the alternative.”

      “She’ll understand. I watched a lot of the Games with her and Prim. She won’t say no to you,” says Gale.

      “I hope not.” The temperature in the house seems to have dropped twenty degrees in a matter of seconds. “Haymitch will be the real challenge.”

      “Haymitch?” Gale abandons the chestnuts. “You’re not asking him to come with us?”

      “I have to, Gale. I can’t leave him and Peeta because they’d—” His scowl cuts me off. “What?”

      “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how large our party was,” he snaps at me.

      “They’d torture them to death, trying to find out where I was,” I say.

      “What about Peeta’s family? They’ll never come. In fact, they probably couldn’t wait to inform on us. Which I’m sure he’s smart enough to realize. What if he decides to stay?” he asks.

      I try to sound indifferent, but my voice cracks. “Then he stays.”

      “You’d leave him behind?” Gale asks.

      “To save Prim and my mother, yes,” I answer. “I mean, no! I’ll get him to come.”

      “And me, would you leave me?” Gale’s expression is rock hard now. “Just if, for instance, I can’t convince my mother to drag three young kids into the wilderness in winter.”

      “Hazelle won’t refuse. She’ll see sense,” I say.

      “Suppose she doesn’t, Katniss. What then?” he demands.

      “Then you have to force her, Gale. Do you think I’m making this stuff up?” My voice is rising in anger as well.

      “No. I don’t know. Maybe the president’s just manipulating you. I mean, he’s throwing your wedding. You saw how the Capitol crowd reacted. I don’t think he can afford to kill you. Or Peeta. How’s he going to get out of that one?” says Gale.

      “Well, with an uprising in District Eight, I doubt he’s spending much time choosing my wedding cake!” I shout.

      The instant the words are out of my mouth I want to reclaim them. Their effect on Gale is immediate—the flush on his cheeks, the brightness of his gray eyes. “There’s an uprising in Eight?” he says in a hushed voice.

      I try to backpedal. To defuse him, as I tried to defuse the districts. “I don’t know if it’s really an uprising. There’s unrest. People in the streets—” I say.

      Gale grabs my shoulders. “What did you see?”

      “Nothing! In person. I just heard something.” As usual, it’s too little, too late. I give up and tell him. “I saw something on the mayor’s television. I wasn’t supposed to. There was a crowd, and fires, and the Peacekeepers were gunning people down but they were fighting back … ” I bite my lip and struggle to continue describing the scene. Instead I say aloud the words that have been eating me up inside. “And it’s my fault, Gale. Because of what I did in the arena. If I had just killed myself with those berries, none of this would’ve happened. Peeta could have come home and lived, and everyone else would have been safe, too.”

      “Safe to do what?” he says in a gentler tone. “Starve? Work like slaves? Send their kids to the reaping? You haven’t hurt people—you’ve given them an opportunity. They just have to be brave enough to take it. There’s already been talk in the mines. People who want to fight. Don’t you see? It’s happening! It’s finally happening! If there’s an uprising in District Eight, why not here? Why not everywhere? This could be it, the thing we’ve been—”

      “Stop it! You don’t know what you’re saying. The Peacekeepers outside of Twelve, they’re not like Darius, or even Cray! The lives of district people—they mean less than nothing to them!” I say.

      “That’s why we have to join the fight!” he answers harshly.

      “No! We have to leave here before they kill us and a lot of other people, too!” I’m yelling again, but I can’t understand why he’s doing this. Why doesn’t he see what’s so undeniable?

      Gale pushes me roughly away from him. “You leave, then. I’d never go in a million years.”

      “You were happy enough to go before. I don’t see how an uprising in District Eight does anything but make it more important that we leave. You’re just mad about—” No, I can’t throw Peeta in his face. “What about your family?”

      “What about the other families, Katniss? The ones who can’t run away? Don’t you see? It can’t be about just saving us anymore. Not if the rebellion’s begun!” Gale shakes his head, not hiding his disgust with me. “You could do so much.” He throws Cinna’s gloves at my feet. “I changed my mind. I don’t want anything they made in the Capitol.” And he’s gone.

      I look down at the gloves. Anything they made in the Capitol?

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