I get back to the Hob just in time to see that somebody's set it on fire. The new peacekeepers. I look around in shock as I hear somebody yelling my name. "Willow!"

I ignore them, some things are more important. "Ripper!" I say, seeing the old woman who sells liquor.

"My eye!" She cries, and looking at it, I see it's burned pretty badly. I purse my lips and try to think of some sort of solution.

Grabbing a cloth from a part of the hob that wasn't up in flames, I ran up to a tap, Ripper following behind me. I soak the cloth then hold it to Ripper's eye.

That's when I hear a yell coming from the direction of the square. "Here, hold this on," I tell Ripper, and she lifts a shaking hand up to do it. "I'll be right back," I say. But I know I won't. And she knows too.

I look round to see who yelled my name and see Austin, who looks at me and says. "You need to come to the square."

I don't want to listen to him, but just looking at the severity on his face, I know I must.

By the time we get to the square, a crowd has gathered, but as we push our way through it, I see the unimaginable.

A person that I do not know is wearing the head peacekeeper's outfit. But that's not what I'm looking at.

I'm looking at Gale, tied to a post by the wrists whilst this peacekeeper, unknown but still hated, is lashing whip stroke after whip stroke at him.

"No!" I yell instinctively, running at the whipping post and posing myself in front of Gale. The peacekeeper, however, has other ideas, and as he tries bring the whip down and I stop it, he grunts and forcefully gets the top of my cheek with the whip.

The pain instantly rips through me but I force myself to get up and stand between the whip and Gale again. "Willow... go," he tries to tell me. I don't listen.

"Move," the new head peacekeeper tells me. I don't. "You want another?" He asks me, raising the whip threateningly.

I stand my ground. "Go ahead."

But instead of the whip, he pulls out a gun.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa," Haymitch suddenly comes running in, Katniss at his side. She stands behind me whilst my mentor tries to convince him.

"Get out of my way!" He now trains the gun on Haymitch.

"No, you don't wanna shoot her!"

"How about I shoot all three of you?"

"Look, Commander, you're new here," Haymitch struggles to find the words. "Trust me, I'm trying to help you. I'm Haymitch. You recognise her? Willow Hawthorne, darling of the Capitol?"

The 'Commander' puts the gun down slowly. "She interfered with a peacekeeper."

"I never said she was smart," Haymitch laughs. "Look, you already got a couple of lashes in, right?"

"That's not good enough, she's an agitator!" He shouts. "And what's he to her, anyway?"

"He's her brother," suddenly Austin has shoved his way through to join us here. The gun is now at him. "And I'm her fiancé."

Haymitch shoves Austin behind him and continues to talk. "Look, you sure Snow wants three dead Victors here? Cause that's what we're looking at. It's bad enough that you marked up her face on the eve of the big wedding. Let it go, let it go and we will, too."

The gun is lowered once again as he steps forward, snarling into Haymitch's face. "Alright, okay, but next time, it's the firing squad."

"Excellent idea," Haymitch doesn't move a muscle.

"I don't care who she is," he then turns around, addressing all of Twelve. "CLEAR THE SQAURE! YOU'RE ALL UNDER CURFEW! ANYBODY OUT AFTER DARK, WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT!" He turns back to Haymitch and says in a low tone. "Get him outta here."

Me, Austin, Katniss and Haymitch all undo Gale from the post and place him on a wooden stretcher. I want to tell Austin that he can go, and that we'll take care of it from here, but something in me just can't.

"We need to get him to your mother," Haymitch says to Katniss.

"Okay," Katniss says, and we all start to move towards the Seam. Then suddenly I remember.

"No!" I shout. "Katniss' mother and Prim are at mine, they came over this morning, we need to go to the Victor's Village!"

And so we do, we arrive at my house in fifteen minutes and Gale's not holding up well. Austin manages to pry the door open. "It's Gale!"

"Get him here!" I hear Mrs Everdeen shout. When I see inside, her and Prim are hurrying to get all the cooking pots off the table. My mother is sitting there, and she looks so shocked when she hears her eldest's name.

Austin, Haymitch and a couple more people who work with him in the mines volunteered to help lift Gale onto the table and lay him there. I wince at his grunts of pain but it's slightly better once Haymitch's humour gets involved. "New peacekeeper, not entirely peaceful."

Prim, meanwhile, has my face in her hands, inspecting my wound that seems so tiny compared to Gale's injuries. "Missed your eye, doesn't need stitches."

"Make a snow coat," Mrs Everdeen orders as she pulls out a tub of vials and bottles of medicine.

"Austin, you get the snow, I'll grind the herbs," Prim says, heading over to our stock of medicinal plants. I watch Austin head out the door to get Gale some snow.

My mother is now crying as she watches Gale toss and turn around in pain. I go over to her.

"He'll be alright, mum," I say. "I promise."

She purses her lips but nods slightly.

I shake my head. "I should've been there," I mutter. "Then maybe I would be the one suffering instead of him."

My mother gasps and looks up. "Oh no, Willow, don't say that!" She says, looking me straight in the eye and cupping my face with her hands.

"It's not like I don't deserve it," I say sheepishly

"No, Willow, you don't," my mother says stoutly.

"I-I tried to step in front of it," I say, gesturing to under my eye.

"I see," my mother says. "But Mrs Everdeen will be able to fix it. You'll be fine, Willow, just... don't think you deserve any of this. You don't. I promise that."

I sigh, nodding only because she won't dack down until I pretend to agree.

But deep down, a part of me is moved by the fact that she doesn't think I'm a terrible person.

Meanwhile, Mrs Everdeen pours some sort of medicine over his back and he makes a horrible sound. "What is that, it's hurting him!" Katniss exclaims in shock.

"He needs morphling," her mother answers, putting down the bottle. I notice Haymitch trying to pour some into a mug and I pull it away from him.

Mrs Everdeen has opened a dusty box that stays at the back of our cupboard. I never knew what had been in it before. She gets a small vial and a syringe and tries to fill it, but her hands are shaking so much it's impossible.

"Mom, I'll do it," Prim offers, and Mrs Everdeen hands the syringe and morphling to her. "Hold him, please," she asks us as she comes over with the needle filled. Katniss and I hold his arms and she injects him slowly. "That's better," she murmured quietly.

I looked at her as she looked to me. And then suddenly, something changes. I don't see the young, feeble little girl that I volunteered for at the reaping. I see a brave and strong young woman, becoming a better healer and doctor every day.

☘︎☘︎☘︎

That night, as Katniss stayed sat beside Gale and the rest of my family went to sleep, Rory and I sat outside, not speaking at all.

"He'll be alright," Rory finally says to me.

I look at him and realise how much I've missed of seeing him grow up. He's three years younger than me, so it's not exactly like we're joined at the hip, but I suddenly think that I've missed him.

"Austin's been trying to help me shoot," he says to break the silence.

"Austin?" I ask, frowning. "A, why is he even speaking to you? And B, he can't shoot any better that you can!"

"Actually, he can," Rory corrects me. "It's just knives and stuff, but he apparently learned a few things training for the games, and now he's passing them onto me."

I roll my eyes.

"You know, we could do with your help some of the time!" Rory goes on. "Because even if we don't say it, we both know that you're the best person to talk to."

"I'm not helping Austin," I say decidedly. "And my speciality is axes, Rory."

"Yeah, but I'm not going to pretend like I haven't seen you throw a knife before," Rory tries to convince me. "It's just your aim that's good, your eye for accuracy is better than any of us."

I pretend not to act flattered and say ironically. "So you and Austin've been spending some quality time together?"

He nods. "I decided that if you were going to marry the guy, I might as well try to get along with him."

I look at him, straight in the eyes. Eyes that are not unlike my own. "I didn't want to marry him, you understand that, right?" I think this place should be safe enough to not be bugged, and even so, who would hear us? Snow already knows what I think. Or he's guessed.

"You never wanted to go into the games, either," my little brother points out.

I can't really respond to this, so we sit in silence for a second before he speaks again.

"I'm sorry," he mutters. "I hate this as much as you do."

"Hate what?" I ask, my brows knitting together.

"Life."

He stands up and walks back inside, the snow crunching under his boots.