The Hunger Games

Which is pointless, of course.” In the light from below, I can see his face now, the awkward way he holds his bandaged hands. “I really am sorry about your hands.”
    “It doesn’t matter, Katniss,” he says. “I’ve never been a contender in these Games anyway.”
    “That’s no way to be thinking,” I say.
    “Why not? It’s true. My best hope is to not disgrace myself and . . .” He hesitates.
    “And what?” I say.
    “I don’t know how to say it exactly. Only . . . I want to die as myself. Does that make any sense?” he asks. I shake my head. How could he die as anyone but himself? “I don’t want them to change me in there. Turn me into some kind of monster that I’m not.”
    I bite my lip, feeling inferior. While I’ve been ruminating on the availability of trees, Peeta has been struggling with how to maintain his identity. His purity of self. “Do you mean you won’t kill anyone?” I ask.
    “No, when the time comes, I’m sure I’ll kill just like everybody else. I can’t go down without a fight. Only I keep wishing I could think of a way to . . . to show the Capitol they don’t own me. That I’m more than just a piece in their Games,” says Peeta.
    “But you’re not,” I say. “None of us are. That’s how the Games work.”
    “Okay, but within that framework, there’s still you, there’s still me,” he insists. “Don’t you see?”
    “A little. Only . . . no offense, but who cares, Peeta?” I say.
    “I do. I mean, what else am I allowed to care about at this point?” he asks angrily. He’s locked those blue eyes on mine now, demanding an answer.
    I take a step back. “Care about what Haymitch said. About staying alive.”
    Peeta smiles at me, sad and mocking. “Okay. Thanks for the tip, sweetheart.”
    It’s like a slap in the face. His use of Haymitch’s patronizing endearment. “Look, if you want to spend the last hours of your life planning some noble death in the arena, that’s your choice. I want to spend mine in District Twelve.”
    “Wouldn’t surprise me if you do,” says Peeta. “Give my mother my best when you make it back, will you?”
    “Count on it,” I say. Then I turn and leave the roof.
    I spend the rest of the night slipping in and out of a doze, imagining the cutting remarks I will make to Peeta Mellark in the morning. Peeta Mellark. We will see how high and mighty he is when he’s faced with life and death. He’ll probably turn into one of those raging beast tributes, the kind who tries to eat someone’s heart after they’ve killed them. There was a guy like that a few years ago from District 6 called Titus. He went completely savage and the Gamemakers had to have him stunned with electric guns to collect the bodies of the players he’d killed before he ate them. There are no rules in the arena, but cannibalism doesn’t play well with the Capitol audience, so they tried to head it off. There was some speculation that the avalanche that finally took Titus out was specifically engineered to ensure the victor was not a lunatic.
    I don’t see Peeta in the morning. Cinna comes to me before dawn, gives me a simple shift to wear, and guides me to the roof. My final dressing and preparations will be done in the catacombs under the arena itself. A hovercraft appears out of thin air, just like the one did in the woods the day I saw the redheaded Avox girl captured, and a ladder drops down. I place my hands and feet on the lower rungs and instantly it’s as if I’m frozen. Some sort of current glues me to the ladder while I’m lifted safely inside.
    I expect the ladder to release me then, but I’m still stuck when a woman in a white coat approaches me carrying a syringe. “This is just your tracker, Katniss. The stiller you are, the more efficiently I can place it,” she says.
    Still? I’m a statue. But that doesn’t prevent me from feeling the sharp stab of pain as the needle inserts the metal tracking device deep under the skin on the inside of my forearm. Now the Gamemakers will always be able to trace my whereabouts in the arena. Wouldn’t want to lose a tribute.
    As soon as the tracker’s in place, the ladder releases me. The woman disappears and Cinna is retrieved from the roof. An Avox boy comes in and directs us to a room where breakfast has been laid out. Despite the tension in my stomach, I eat as much as I can, although none of the delectable food makes any impression on me. I’m so nervous, I could be eating coal