The pain was excruciating. With every dry sob, Jakob felt like he was dying. Each breath was torturous, a heavy reminder that while he was still alive and breathing, he wasn't. Marcus was a child, his voice had not even dropped before a blade was plunged into his stomach by Two. Young tributes weren't rare, but this one had a way of worming himself into his poor mentor's heart, holding a grown man under the illusion that yes, he could win, just look at his muscles.

“I could've saved him! If I worked harder to earn sponsors for him—” This was not a new tangent, he had said the same words over, and over, and over for the last half hour, since the sound of Marcus' cannon sounded. “He was twelve, I should've—” Should've what? he thought to himself; break into the arena and shield the child from the final blows? Perhaps kill the President himself? Perhaps, just maybe, he should've been harsher on Marcus, let him know that he wouldn't win so he wouldn't look at the camera with those big, brown eyes, hoping and pleading for some divine work of fate.

He was sitting on a luxury couch in the safekeeping of the Capitol. Marcus wasn't. "D'you think he was wondering why I didn't save him, why I couldn't get off my arse to hold him?" The words poured out of his mouth like venom. A venom he'd pray he'd soon choke on.