Cold. Bright. Too Cold. Too Bright.

Shivering against the cold I instinctively reach to pull up the collar of my hunting jacket but startle my fingers gasp soft fur instead of the worn leather. My eye immediately dart down my length of my body, but even as they take in the fur-trimmed satin teal cloak wrapped around me, my brain can't seem to process the site. Where is my father jacket? my brain demands.

Grappling with my confusion, I run a hand down the silky front of the garment but gasp when the skin of my wrists begin to tingle and sting wherever the fur at my cuffs touches me. Instinctively I begin yank at the offending fur, but soon as the delicate skin of my palms touches it I feel as if I've grasped a hot coal. I yelp and yank my hand away and finding it red and blistered. Reaching up with my uninjured hand I begin racking at a button at my neck that seems responsible for keeping the garment attached to my body. The intensity of burning sensation begins to grow, not just at my wrists but around my neck as well and soon my movements become frantic. I've just about worked the button from its when suddenly the air around me is filled with a strained and tortured scream.

"KATNISS!"

My burning skin forgotten, my head snaps up. The brightness that was offending moments before now completely floods my senses. My head swings instinctively into my shoulder and a hand comes up to shield my eyes. My eyes gradually adjust and to my surprise, I find that source of the illumination light, but color. Surrounding me are vibrant, almost shimmering, shades of pink, yellow and orange. The gaudy and painfully bright shades cover nearly every vertical surface of the builds that surrounds me. A breath catches in my throat, I would know this garish collection of buildings anywhere; I'm in the heart begins pounding painfully in my chest as my eyes gaze dart the landscape.

Suddenly a whisper catches on the cold breeze. "More like a sunset," it calls out to me.

I'd know the voice anywhere. "Peeta!" I scream. But even as my voice echoes of the buildings surrounding me, the burning of my skin intensifies. That which started at my neck and wrist now reach down my chest and up to my elbows. I groan out in pain but try to ignore it as I begin spinning in circles trying to recall the direction Peeta's voice came from. I find the streets eerily devoid of life and the pain makes concentrating on my task impossible. A growl of frustration just leaves my throat when another, all too familiar voice echoes down the street again.

"Katniss!" it pleads.

There is no confusion as to which way the sound came from this time. Instantly my feet take off in the direction of the cry.

"PRIM!" I shriek.

As I run the cloak wraps around my legs constricting my movements igniting my skin even further, but I push through the searing pain. As I run, Peeta's voice calls out again.

"Help me Katniss! Please!" he begs.

As before, the direction of his voice is undeterminable. "Where are you?" I beg as tears begin to stream down my face, but streets are silent in return. I run for what feels like forever, winding down one empty street after another until suddenly I find myself at the edge of the city center, the president's mansion looming over a vacant square. My feet skid to a stop and I instinctively know that I have reached my destination.

I quickly dash behind the corner of the nearest building and try to slow my heavy breathing. With breath normalizing a bit, I slide down to crouch and peek around the corner of the buildings bright yellow façade. Across the empty cobblestone square and behind a large ornate gate is the perfectly manicured lawn of the presidential mansion. In the middle of the lawn is a small garden of white roses and nestled in it a large steel plate. I recognize it at once. It is exactly like the transport plates used to bring tributes into the arena.

Giving the vacant square a warily glance, I cautiously begin crossing the square towards the lawn. I've only taken a few steps when the pedestal grinds to life. My first instinct is to run back to my hiding spot, but with Peeta and Prim's voice still fresh in my mind I push myself forward, but cautiously and on hunter's feet. I've made it about halfway across the square when the "tribute" finally appears on the pedestal. It's Peeta and he is strapped to a hospital bed. I know immediately that person on the plate is not the Peeta that was sent back to Thirteen to kill me, but my Peeta. The Peeta with the bread. The Peeta with the pearl. Peeta my friend.

"PEETA!" his name comes out in a strangled cry.

His eyes shoot to mine and they are afraid, frantic. My heart jumps into my throat and my cautiousness of moments ago is forgotten as I sprint out across the square towards him.

"Katniss...Katniss...please! I need help!" Prim's scream echoes from my right.

My feet come to a halt about 10 feet from the gate of the mansion and my head snaps in the direction of her scream. About a 100 years away I find Prim kneeling next to a little girl in a lemon yellow coat. She has her hands pressing a bloodied cloth to the girls head but her eyes aren't on her task they are instead lifted skyward. I don't need to look up to see what she's staring at, I know what's coming. Fear and horror pulse through me.

A deeply anguished cry suddenly come from Peeta and my head whip back in his direction. The vignette in the yard has changed, Peeta has joined by the one and only President Snow. In Snow's hand, I spot a syringe full of neon green tracker jacket venom poised and ready to be plunged into Peeta's bicep. My breath catches in my throat and my eyes dart from Peeta, to Prim, up to the slowly descending parachutes, and back to Peeta again.

President Snow grins at me with his snake smile and shakes his head. "You can't save either of them," he hisses and in one smooth motion jabs the needle into Peeta's arm and depresses the tracker jacker venom into his vein.I gasp and my stomach turn threats to spill its contents onto the cobblestones under my feet.

"No!" I scream but it's too late.

One look at Peeta's face and I can see he is already gone. He's pleading eyes are replaced with murderous ones. He begins screaming hateful things at me and straining against the bed restraints trying desperately free himself so that he can kill me.

Tears fill my eyes and my heart wrenches, but I shake my head against a sob.

"Peeta's gone, I have to save Prim," I whisper aloud to myself, but somewhere deep in my brain, I know my old Peeta has been gone for a long time and that I can't save Prim either because this isn't real.

My head spins as reality and nightmares war against each other for purchase in my consciousness. Though I know it's futile, I blindly stumble towards Prim. A snapshot from reality fills my field of vision. As if frozen in time I see Prim, her long blonde braid over one shoulder, kneeling amongst the broken bloody bodies of Capitol children, her face still turned up to the sky.

I know what comes next but I can't keep the strangled desperate cry that tears out of my throat. "Prim! RUN PRIM!"

And now I'm running towards her. I run fast as my feet can carry me but it seems no matter how fast I run Prim never gets closer. Then suddenly I'm aware that the fur of cloak that was scorching me earlier has now burst into flames. Flames lick and climb, working work their way up my body toward my face but I ignore, I continue running.

"Prim... Prim please... please run" I desperately plead, but even as the words leave my mouth, I see a little gray parachute land gently on the ground directly in front of her.

Suddenly everything goes red, orange and yellow and Prim's form is wrapped in fire. In hot, scorching, killing fire. I open my mouth to call out to her but fire fills it, stealing my breath. My words. My soul. Soon my whole body is ablaze and as I fall to my knees in agony I hear President Snow's laugh on the hot wind, "Ladies and gentleman... Katniss Everdeen, the girl who was on fire..."

A loud boom rattles the very floor of my room and shakes me awake. I shoot straight up in bed, my eyes wide but the fiery nightmare still threatens to me. Tears fall hot and desperate down my face as I try to grasp onto reality. One my hands frantically reaches out across the expanse of my bed for Peeta but it only finds rumpled cold sheets. As the room slowly comes into focus reality seeps in. There are no arms for me to find refuge in. Peeta's asleep three houses away, probably fighting his own nightmares of me as a mutt.

Reaching shaky hands down, I tug at the blankets that I kicked off and pull them to my chin before sinking back against my pillow. I take a long shaky breath, I try to focus on the rain tapping against my bedroom window, but it's no use. All I can think of is the image of my sister turning to ash. Renewed tears squeeze between my closed eyelids as a familiar feeling fear and desperation claim me once again. My terror is brought to a whole new level when lightning flashes and a boom of thunder so loud shakes the house, rattling the windows in their frames.

A surge of panic so intense drives me out of my bed, down the stairs and sprinting barefooted down the stone path of Victors Village before my brain can even register what I'm doing. Slowly the fingers of the ice cold rain that pummels me, working it's into my subconscious and my feet stutter to a stop. Taking a few deep breaths, my expelled air comes out in misty clouds as I fight for some control over my racing heart. I've nearly convinced myself to head home when a clap of thunder shakes the earth under my feet. Any control I had reigned in disappears in an instant and my terror goes into overdrive.

Feet sliding on the rain-slicked stones, I run down the path and up Peeta's walkway. Reaching his steps I hastily clamor up them, but my foot slips about halfway up and I stumble, landing on my hands and knees. Sharp pain shoots through my right knee and down my leg, but the pain doesn't deter me. I curse under my breath and limp, albeit more cautiously, up to the landing. It's only when my hand touches the coolness of doorknob that I stop. I can't make myself turn it.

Taking a shaky breath, I reluctantly drop my hand to my side and slump down to the ground. Sobbing softly, I rest my forehead against the wet surface. I so desperately want to go inside. I want to, as I had done so many carelessly times before, slip into Peeta's bed and his comforting embrace. I want to be warmed by him, made to feel safe by him, but that isn't reality. What it is…it's proof of my selfishness. Of me wanting to take what I need from Peeta. Me, once again, not considering his feeling, his needs or his thin hold on sanity.

Peeta's return to Twelve a year ago has done nothing but good things from simple presents brought with it a sense of peace that I needed to begin the task of trying to live again after Prim's death. Our relationship, whatever it was before the rebellion, of course, doesn't look the same, how could it? With his highjacking and the deep scares, we both carry from the rebellion and our times in the arenas, neither of us is who we were before. It has been the healing power to time, and of course Peeta's persistence, that has helped us develop a new connection. It started slow, as most things that endure do, with silent breakfasts a few times a week. Slowly things morphed into walks around Victors Village in the afternoons, then to working together in the garden next to my house caring for the primroses, he planted for Prim and our small vegetable garden. Eventually, it turned into most evenings spent together, sometimes Haymitch joining us, to work on our memory book. Time has knitted back together into a new configuration, and this new connection doesn't include much touching. Yet in spite of the hours we've spent together in the last 6 months, we physically touch very little. Outside of accidental brush of a hand or necessary contact, I keep my distance from him. It was early on it became clear to me that my physical proximity makes his hijack episodes occur with more frequency and intensity.

Peeta is healing, and thanks to his diligent focus on his therapy he is far from the raving madman he was in Thirteen a year ago. His progress has slowly chipped away at the mutt the Capitol made and I know that these days there more than enough of the old Peeta inside of him that if I go to him he won't turn me away. It is this reality that has carried me to his door tonight, but I also this that keeps me from him. Holding me would have consequences for him that I can't begin to imagine.

Bringing my fingertips to the door I rub slow circles in the raindrops and I weep. Sobs escape me for what has been done to us, for our dead family and friends, for Peeta and the personal hell in his head, but selfishly, I mostly weep for the loss of the safe harbor I used to find in his arms. I'm useless. I'm selfish.

I don't know how long I sit being drenched by the rain as I wallow in self-pity, but when a light from the hallway suddenly cascades through the doors sidelight I'm instantly alert. Sitting up straight, I angrily swipe at the tears mixed with rain on my face as I focus on the sounds beyond the heavy door. My hunter's senses aren't needed to identify Peeta's heavy approaching footfalls. I'm frozen only momentarily as I consider staying right here, waiting for him to open his door to me, but then I remember my selfish nature and choose to put Peeta first.

Lumbering to my feet, I move on cold stiff legs down the front stairs. I've barely hidden in the bushes at the bottom of the stoop when the door opens and the warm light cascades down the stairs and onto the wet ground around me. Gazing branches of an ornamental spruce, I watch as he steps out into the downpour and looks around. My breath catches as his eyes sweep to my hiding place, but he quickly looks away. He gives the yard one last curious look, before turning and heading back inside. I stay crouched and shivering in the bush long after he's turned out the light in the hallway. When I'm certain he isn't returning, slowly detangle myself from the branches. Wrapping my arms around my middle I begin making my way towards home. The rain has stopped now, and the sun has begun to push its way into the valleys around me. I bask in the oranges of the coming sunrise and thinking of nothing but Peeta.

I stay crouched and shivering in the bush long after he's turned out the light in the hallway and his steps have disappeared into the mammoth house. I wait until I'm certain he isn't returning before slowly detangle myself from the branches. Wrapping my arms around my trembling middle I begin making my way towards home. The rain has stopped now, and the sun has begun to push its way into the valleys around me. I bask in the oranges of the coming sunrise and thinking of nothing but Peeta.