LUNA WAS ALMOST POSITIVE THE PAIN WOULD NEVER END. Her body ached so greatly that she could barely breathe, and when she did, her ribs popped on the inhale. She had lost feeling in her lower calves, which she was kind of grateful for because nothing was better than pain. She groaned, "I can't feel my legs."

"I haven't been able to feel my legs for weeks," Johanna scoffed from the adjacent cell.

Johanna and Annie were in one cell while Peeta and Luna were in another one. The cells consisted of four white walls, dim lights, and a huge steel door with a smaller door that opened once a day for food. The two rooms shared a wall, and there was a small slot that opened, allowing them to communicate with each other.

In the top corner of the rooms, too high to reach, there was a television. It only played broadcasts by Caesar Flickerman, and during those, Peeta and Luna took turns trying to throw clothes or food at the screen in hopes that it would break or turn off.

"Can we not turn this into a competition over whose life is more miserable right now?" Annie asked. Her once soft and timid voice had grown annoyed and tired. "Because I think it's all of us."

"Peeta, how you doing?" Luna called to him. He had recently been taken out of their room and brought to Hell. That's what they called the room where they were brought to be tortured.

The Mellark boy was lying on the other side of the room on his back, his hands over his face as he took shaky breaths. He responded weakly, "Terrible."

"He can talk, so he's not dead," Johanna concluded after hearing his voice, although he did not sound far from it.

Luna shot her a look through the tiny slot because she was not exactly in the mood for jokes, especially with the state that Peeta was in. "Thank you for pointing that out, Johanna."

"No problem."

Annie kept glancing at the war. Usually, one of them was brought out every day, but Peeta had returned yesterday. Judging by when their food had come, it was past the time the Peacekeepers would normally come to collect one of them. The Cresta woman said, "They haven't come for any of us in a while. I'm worried."

"Don't jinx it," Johanna groaned, but there was no 'jinxing' it. They were coming. They always did.

Luna shook her head and ran a hand through her hair, sliding closer to Peeta so that she could rest a hand on his knee and let him know that she was there. "You know how messed up it is that we're worried that they haven't come to torture us in a while?"

"If you're just not realizing that this is messed up, you're messed up," Johanna informed her, and she was right. Luna did not know why she ever thought that she might have been granted a little bit of mercy from the people who sent children into an arena to fight to death for their entertainment.

Peeta's voice was filled with rage and a need for justice as he muttered, "If I have to see Snow's old, ugly, fat face again..."

"They've even broken Peeta," the Mason woman sighed. Peeta had always been the one to try and look on the bright side, to comfort them when they felt like there was no end. But he didn't have that mindset now.

"Let me out of here!" Annie shrieked all of a sudden, causing all of their eyes to widen. Luna heard the sound of her banging on the door and she repeated, "Let me out!"

Luna crawled over to the slot, trying to get a better view of what was happening. She urged, "Annie, stop!"

"Let me go! Kill me! Please, just make this stop!" the redhead sobbed, and Johanna just moved over to her and grabbed her hands to stop her from banging or hurting herself.

"Annie, it's okay. We're right here," the Geyser girl soothed, speaking as calmly as she could to try to get Annie to take some deep breaths. "I know it's hard, but you just have to push through and have faith that Finnick will come for you.

Johanna just shook her head and shrugged. "There's no point. We're never getting rescued."

"You are not helping," Luna said, glaring at the woman, whose shoulder dropped. She slowly released Annie once she had calmed down and reduced herself to just crying in a ball.

"It's hopeless. She's right," Johanna said the Luna, sliding back over to her original spot with dead eyes. "We'll all go crazy soon."

《 ✽ 》

AT NIGHT TIME, IT WAS NEARLY PITCH BLACK. The only light was from the very small cracks around the door. Luna didn't mind it, really, because she struggled to sleep when there was light anyway. That night, there was a lot of noise outside keeping her awake, and she was relieved when she heard a quiet voice call, "Luna?"

"Yeah?" she responded, glad that someone was awake to talk to her.

She felt Peeta shift closer to her, and with the very small amount of light, she was able to make out the features of his face about half a foot away from hers. He whispered, "I don't want to go crazy."

"You won't. I promise," she assured him. She wouldn't let him. It helped that they were allowed cellmates. Complete isolation might have killed them.

He sighed and shook his head because there was no way that she could make sure that that doesn't happen. "You can't promise that."

"Katniss will come for you, and Finnick will come for Annie," she reminded him. They had people out there who were thinking about them, who were coming for them. "You guys will be fine."

"Why are you talking like you won't be rescued too?" he questioned, his eyebrows furrowing at her use of 'you guys' instead of 'we'.

"Well, you and Annie are probably the priority, especially you with Katniss and all," she reminded him. She knew that he was more likely to be rescued than her if it came down to it. "So, I have a bit more hope for you than I do for me."

There was a short pause before he spoke up again, his voice firmer and more sure than it had been in forever. "Luna, I swear on my life and everyone else's that if I ever get out of here, you're coming with me."

"Thanks, Peeta," she replied with a small smile. She took a deep breath and exhaled, thinking about how amazing it would feel to be free of that place, to be reunited with her family and friends. She told him, "I just want to see my brother again."

"You will," he promised. "You really think they're coming?" he asked hopefully.

She nodded. "I think Katniss isn't doing crap for anyone without the promise of a rescue mission for you."

"Tell me about the plan again," he requested, referring to the plan that they had made before the Games to get him and Katniss out. She and Johanna had explained it to him after a couple of weeks of them being there.

She rolled her eyes playfully, a very small smile making its way onto her face because they had had that conversation so many times. "I've told you a million times."

"Yet you still won't tell me why you were so willing to give your life for me."

"Well, I was giving my life to stop the Games," she reminded him. She had just wanted the Hunger Games to end, and she was prepared to do anything to make sure that happened. "But then, I actually met you. You were kind, like, genuinely kind. And you cared about the people around you, even the ones you'd never met. You were good. You are good, much better than me, anyway. I don't know. I just figured you deserved to live a lot more than I did."

He took in her words for a moment, and his eyes traced the silhouette of her side profile. He inhaled and said, "You're good too, Luna. You act really tough on the outside, and people who don't pay attention to you just kind of assume you're another Victor who lost her humanity in the Games."

"No one pays attention, though," she scoffed, shaking her head. Everyone just remembered her as the girl who hurt her leg surviving the toughest arena yet. No one ever remembered her for her personality, or ever really cared.

"I do."

At his words, Luna turned her head to look at him. Her breath hitched slightly when she saw how he was looking back at her, like she was the only thing that mattered in the world. She knew she must be making things up, but it was nice to imagine someone caring that much about her, just for a moment.