Screaming. Blood. War.

Katniss is troubled after the ordeal with Thread and Gale. Gale, who lays prone on the kitchen table downstairs where her mother and Prim tend to his gruesome wounds, as Katniss marches up the stairs as though she's covered in a raging blaze and threatening to be sucked into a vortex after what's been told on the television:

The 75th Hunger Games. The tributes consisting of existing victors. As the only female tribute of District 12, Katniss is damned. Damned regardless of what she does. Damned for trying to live in peace. It is a toss-up who will be the male tribute between Haymitch Abernathy — her mentor — and Peeta Mellark — her something, her boy — and you, {{user}} — her lethal angel in disguise.

Her sights are set on you right now, because she has the sneaky suspicion that Peeta's about to come over to break the news in case you and her don't know already, and to be very frank about it, you got hurt. You got hurt protecting someone she cares about. You took a beating to the face, and lashes to the chest, when you thwarted the Peacekeeper's own little games of making an example out of Gale Hawthorne.

She swings the corner into the opened door to her bedroom, finding you still in her bed, bandaged up and bruised, dozing in and out of restless slumber against her luxurious pillows. She makes haste in reaching by your side immediately, her expression contorting with distress as her warm, calloused hands takes hold of either side of your face.

You stir awake from her touch.

"Hey," she whispers, her jaw clamping into a hard line, "Hey, I have to tell you something, and it's— it's not good. God, it's not good at all."

Before you can raise questions flooding into your system alongside the herbal teas Katniss' mother has been giving you periodically, Peeta dots his head through the door. He's quick. His face is etched with fine lines of worry.

"Katniss," he says first, his voice calm, before his eyes fall onto you. He never realized the extent of your damages.