«What are you trying to do? Provoke him into an attack?» he asks me.

«Of course not. I just want him to leave me alone,» I say.

«Well, he can’t. Not after what the Capitol put him through,» says Haymitch. «Look, Coin may have sent him there hoping he’d kill you, but Peeta doesn’t know that. He doesn’t understand what’s happened to him. So you can’t blame him—»

«I don’t!» I say.

«You do! You’re punishing him over and over for things that are out of his control. Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t have a fully loaded weapon next to you round the clock. But I think it’s time you flipped this little scenario around in your head. If you’d been taken by the Capitol, and hijacked, and then tried to kill Peeta, is this the way he would be treating you?» demands Haymitch.

I fall silent. It isn’t. It isn’t how he would be treating me at all. He would be trying to get me back at any cost. Not shutting me out, abandoning me, greeting me with hostility at every turn.

«You and me, we made a deal to try and save him. Remember?» Haymitch says. When I don’t respond, he disconnects after a curt «Try and remember.»

The autumn day turns from brisk to cold. Most of the squad hunker down in their sleeping bags. Some sleep under the open sky, close to the heater in the center of our camp, while others retreat to their tents. Leeg 1 has finally broken down over her sister’s death, and her muffled sobs reach us through the canvas. I huddle in my tent, thinking over Haymitch’s words. Realizing with shame that my fixation with assassinating Snow has allowed me to ignore a much more difficult problem. Trying to rescue Peeta from the shadowy world the hijacking has stranded him in. I don’t know how to find him, let alone lead him out. I can’t even conceive of a plan. It makes the task of crossing a loaded arena, locating Snow, and putting a bullet through his head look like child’s play.

At midnight, I crawl out of my tent and position myself on a camp stool near the heater to take my watch with Jackson. Boggs told Peeta to sleep out in full view where the rest of us could keep an eye on him. He isn’t sleeping, though. Instead, he sits with his bag pulled up to his chest, clumsily trying to make knots in a short length of rope. I know it well. It’s the one Finnick lent me that night in the bunker. Seeing it in his hands, it’s like Finnick’s echoing what Haymitch just said, that I’ve cast off Peeta. Now might be a good time to begin to remedy that. If I could think of something to say. But I can’t. So I don’t. I just let the sounds of soldiers’ breathing fill the night.

After about an hour, Peeta speaks up. «These last couple of years must have been exhausting for you. Trying to decide whether to kill me or not. Back and forth. Back and forth.»

That seems grossly unfair, and my first impulse is to say something cutting. But I revisit my conversation with Haymitch and try to take the first tentative step in Peeta’s direction. «I never wanted to kill you. Except when I thought you were helping the Careers kill me. After that, I always thought of you as…an ally.» That’s a good safe word. Empty of any emotional obligation, but nonthreatening.

«Ally.» Peeta says the word slowly, tasting it. «Friend. Lover. Victor. Enemy. Fiancée. Target. Mutt. Neighbor. Hunter. Tribute. Ally. I’ll add it to the list of words I use to try to figure you out.» He weaves the rope in and out of his fingers. «The problem is, I can’t tell what’s real anymore, and what’s made up.»

The cessation of rhythmic breathing suggests that either people have woken or have never really been asleep at all. I suspect the latter.

Finnick’s voice rises from a bundle in the shadows. «Then you should ask, Peeta. That’s what Annie does.»

«Ask who?» Peeta says. «Who can I trust?»

«Well, us for starters. We’re your squad,» says Jackson.

«You’re my guards,» he points out.

«That, too,» she says. «But you saved a lot of lives in Thirteen. It’s not the kind of thing we forget.»

In the quiet that follows, I try to imagine not being able to tell illusion from reality. Not knowing if Prim or my mother loved me. If Snow was my enemy. If the person across the heater saved or sacrificed me.

With very little effort, my life rapidly morphs into a nightmare. I suddenly want to tell Peeta everything about who he is, and who I am, and how we ended up here. But I don’t know how to start. Worthless.

I’m worthless.

At a few minutes before four, Peeta turns to me again. «Your favorite color…it’s green?»

«That’s right.» Then I think of something to add. «And yours is orange.»

«Orange?» He seems unconvinced.

«Not bright orange. But soft. Like the sunset,» I say. «At least, that’s what you told me once.»

«Oh.» He closes his eyes briefly, maybe trying to conjure up that sunset, then nods his head. «Thank you.»

But more words tumble out. «You’re a painter. You’re a baker. You like to sleep with the windows open. You never take sugar in your tea. And you always double-knot your shoelaces.»

Then I dive into my tent before I do something stupid like cry.

In the morning, Gale, Finnick, and I go out to shoot some glass off the buildings for the camera crew. When we get back to camp, Peeta’s sitting in a circle with the soldiers from 13, who are armed but talking openly with him. Jackson has devised a game called «Real or Not Real» to help Peeta. He mentions something he thinks happened, and they tell him if it’s true or imagined, usually followed by a brief explanation.

«Most of the people from Twelve were killed in the fire.»

«Real. Less than nine hundred of you made it to Thirteen alive.»

«The fire was my fault.»

«Not real. President Snow destroyed Twelve the way he did Thirteen, to send a message to the rebels.»

This seems like a good idea until I realize that I’ll be the only one who can confirm or deny most of what weighs on him. Jackson breaks us up into watches. She matches up Finnick, Gale, and me each with a soldier from 13. This way Peeta will always have access to someone who knows him more personally. It’s not a steady conversation. Peeta spends a long time considering even small pieces of information, like where people bought their soap back home. Gale fills him in on a lot of stuff about 12; Finnick is the expert on both of Peeta’s Games, as he was a mentor in the first and a tribute in the second. But since Peeta’s greatest confusion centers around me—and not everything can be explained simply—our exchanges are painful and loaded, even though we touch on only the most superficial of details. The color of my dress in 7. My preference for cheese buns. The name of our math teacher when we were little. Reconstructing his memory of me is excruciating. Perhaps it isn’t even possible after what Snow did to him. But it does feel right to help him try.

The next afternoon, we’re notified that the whole squad is needed to stage a fairly complicated propo. Peeta’s been right about one thing: Coin and Plutarch are unhappy with the quality of footage they’re getting from the Star Squad. Very dull. Very uninspiring. The obvious response is that they never let us do anything but playact with our guns. However, this is not about defending ourselves, it’s about coming up with a usable product. So today, a special block has been set aside for filming. It even has a couple of active pods on it. One unleashes a spray of gunfire. The other nets the invader and traps them for either interrogation or execution, depending on the captors’ preference. But it’s still an unimportant residential block with nothing of strategic consequence.

The television crew means to provide a sense of heightened jeopardy by releasing smoke bombs and adding gunfire sound effects. We suit up in heavy protective gear, even the crew, as if we’re heading into the heart of battle. Those of us with specialty weapons are allowed to take them along with our guns. Boggs gives Peeta back his gun, too, although he makes sure to tell him in a loud voice that it’s only loaded with blanks.