Peeta and I spend the first few weeks home from the Tour sneaking around. I bring him out to the woods, although never on Sundays. We can talk out there - about the rebellion, about Prim, about family. I take him to the Hob, and while we get awkward stares, folks are happy to trade for one of the freshly baked loaves Peeta hammers out every morning from sheer habit. He never takes much in return. He wouldn't take anything if he could get away with it. No one here is looking for charity, though.

While the days aren't so bad, night has become exponentially worse. Most mornings my mother will find me asleep on the floor of the kitchen, phone receiver in hand. Those nights I do manage to stay in bed I wake screaming in terror. Peeta always shows up, but my mother never lets him inside.

Their relationship is curious. In a way she's almost maternal to him. Peeta's family never came up to the Village and she feels a sense of duty to look after him. She invites him to dinner. She sends him home with leftovers. She mends his clothes. But she's still uncomfortable with us. She keeps reminding me we are just kids, but I haven't felt like a child since I spit the boy from District 9's blood on the forest floor.

Sunday mornings I hunt with Gale while Peeta sees his family. The first few hunts are awkward. Little is said between us. Gale is still reeling with thoughts of revolution, still angry with my unexplained rejection. This morning, though, seems thing to have fallen back into place.

"Saw some turkeys on the way here. Crossed right in front of me like they owned the place," Gale says as he approaches our meeting place.

"How rude of them," I joke, and he smiles. The animals have been more brazen. With us hunting only once a week, and Gale spending most of his time in the mines, they've forgotten they are prey.

We move wordlessly through the woods tracking a doe. The snow is still on the ground and there isn't enough sustenance out here for the whole herd. We walked by a deer carcass earlier – picked by scavengers but obviously starved to death. One less mouth to feed will be a mercy I tell myself as we move forward with a soundless tread. When we crest the hill, I spy the doe and nock my arrow. Raising it I exhale, but when I let the arrow fly I jolt backward with a scream.

I see the arrow soar and pierce Marvel's neck. Blood spurts out and he makes a horrible drowning sound, gargling and spitting as he falls. Eyes fixed on me. I feel myself losing control, hyperventilating. I look around frantically, but nothing makes sense. Where did he come from? Where are the others? Not real. Not real. Not real, I tell myself.

"Hey, hey! You're safe, you're here with me," a voice breaks into my waking nightmare, giving me something to grab a hold of. Gale's face comes into focus and I start to shake. He wraps his arms around me, and the reality of the woods is pushes its way in. My pants are soaked from the snow. My bag is on the ground, contents exposed. I stare at them – my utility knife, a length of coiled rope, a smooth, white rock. Gale collects the items and places them back in my bag. He doesn't take the stone at first, not realizing it was with me, but I quickly pick it up and shove it in with my other belongings.

"Want a stick or a pine cone to throw in there too?" he tries to jest playfully, but my cheeks burn. Like me, Gale has never seen the need for frivolous things. Everything I own has a purpose. I grabbed the rock for Peeta. We have a contest going on who can find the most perfect stone in the district. This one I got at the lake. Unlike the others we've found, it's smooth from years of erosion in the water. Peeta sees beauty in everything, so I'm trying to force myself to stop and look. To find something lovely in the ordinary. But in this moment, under Gale's scrutinous eye, it feels foolish.

I missed the doe. I'm frustrated with myself. Gale says it's not a big deal, that we got enough off the snare lines. Still, it's a light load. I don't see how he can possibly feed his family with the little we've recovered today. In the past I've tried to offer him some of the food and supplies the Capitol sends, but he refuses. He won't even accept a dinner invitation. I know he wants to earn what he has, but it's always been a team effort, and since the Games that's changed.

We walk back through the Seam in silence. I'm still off kilter from the incident in the woods. We pass my old house, but I don't look at it. Gale notices my hesitancy. It remains vacant. Technically the house in Victor's Village is mine, and my mother will be expected to move back here when I turn eighteen. I don't know what I'm doing, but my feet lead me to the front door. I stare at the wood grain.

"Do you want to go inside?" Gale asks.

"No," I reply, but my hand twists the knob and I walk into the kitchen, leaving the door ajar. Gale follows silently, closing the door behind him. Everything here looks the same. The table is worn from years of family meals. Notches climb the door frame showing Prim and my height over the years. There's a large gap where you'd think we both must have had a growth spurt, but the absence of notches just shows when my dad died. When my mom retreated into her mind. When caring how much your daughters grew was tucked away behind grief and sadness. Still, it feels like home. It feels like my old life.

My fingers trace the doors of the cabinets, and I feel Gale's eyes follow me. "I miss you being here. Being close," he says so quietly I barely catch it.

"I miss how things used to be," I reply. It's not a lie. I miss when everything was simpler; when my biggest concern was putting food on the table and not the fate of a nation. Gale misinterprets what I'm saying, and steps closer. "Are we ever going to be friends again?" I ask, and he pauses. I can tell he's presenting and discarding different responses in his head. Friends was not the word he wanted to hear from me. "I should go home," I state as I step past him toward the door. I pause at the threshold. "Come to dinner. If you want."

Gale doesn't show. Peeta doesn't normally eat with us on Sundays. He's too full from eating with his family. Sometimes he will show up with some kind of confection and leave it in our kitchen. Tonight, it's just us. Prim is alive with stories. She's almost on winter break from school, and she's telling us how one of her friends from Town ordered a sled. Prim has always made friends easily. She's likable and genuinely kind. It's hard for people not to love her. The divide that gapes between Seam and Town has never been insurmountable to her the way it is to most of us.

We go to bed with full bellies. My mother and sister settle in quickly, and the house stills with even, slow breathing. I stare at my ceiling until my eyes grow heavy.

I'm sinking. I'm in the lake, but the night is dark and the water is translucent and cloudy. Moonbeams penetrate the surface, but all it tells me is how far from air I am. I'm pinned to the floor, a heavy stone pressing on my chest. I watch fish swim above me, but they have sharp teeth and greedy eyes. My chest burns with want of air. I can't feel my fingertips, and the bitterness sinks into my bones. The water turns red, and I realize I'm bleeding. A boat glides across the surface, and a body is dropped off in a sack. It sinks down next to me. Prim. Cold. Pale. I try to reach her, but the stone grows heavier, pressing me down, pushing me into the murky lake floor that teems with leeches and grass.

I come to gasping for air. I can't scream without air. It's a silent nightmare. My body is drenched with sweat and I throw the blankets off me. The icy night air chills my body and I go to wash up in the bathroom. I creep downstairs and find the fire out. My mother was the last up; she must have forgotten to stoke the stove before bed. I get some kindling and light a small fire, adding some larger logs once the flames are robust enough. I'm moving mechanically, although I don't feel totally present. I feel like I'm at the bottom of the lake.

Before I know what I'm doing, I open the front door to my house. I'm barefoot and wearing nothing but a nightshirt. The frozen air bites at my skin, and on silent feet I run across my lawn. Peeta's door is unlocked. I open it quietly and creep inside. The fire in his living room burns with a lively crackle, his house inviting and warm. I haven't spent much time here. My mother doesn't like us alone. I follow the stairs to the master bedroom, but I find it empty. Peeta lives in a smaller bedroom down the hall. In the same room that I sleep in at my house.

The air in his room is colder from the slightly cracked window on the far wall. Peeta is asleep on his stomach, his bare back rising and falling with a regular, slow tempo. I lift the covers and crawl inside next to him. He sleepily wraps his arms around me, then wakes, realizing I'm in his bed.

"Hey," he whispers softly, pulling me into him. He slides his hand up my shirt and scratches my back slowly with his calloused hands. "You aren't supposed to be here."

"I drowned," I breathe, and he presses his mouth to forehead.

"Nope, you're all dry. You'd be soaked if you drowned," he replies. He's trying to force me out of my dream. Make me see reality. Think logically. "And your lips would be blue," he says, kissing them gently. I start to warm up. He slides his legs around mine, and shivers slightly. "Kat, your feet are frozen." He sits in bed, looking down at me. "Did you walk here barefoot?" I avoid his stern look. "Well then," he says, before diving under the covers.

I laugh and kick. "Peeta stop!" I can hardly breathe. His body is hot from sleep, and his hands wrap around my feet, rubbing warmth into them. I melt into the bed. He breathes under the covers and my whole body comes back to life. I tell myself I'm not drowning. I'm in Peeta's bed. When he finally emerges, satisfied that my feet aren't going to fall off, he curls into me, pressing his chest into my back.

"You should go home," he breathes into my hair.

"How long until you get up to bake?" I ask.

"Mmm… Two or three hours," he guesses, looking out his window at the sky.

"Then sleep with me for two or three hours," I beg softly.

Peeta rolls on his back and his head falls back on his pillow. I rest my head on his chest and listen to the steady thud until I drift into a dreamless sleep, absent cold water and my sister's body in a sack. I dream of nothingness.