We have to move on.

Katniss stands and helps me up. Once she moves away I can feel the loss of control dawning upon me once again, but this time I have a strong hold on my sanity. Katniss made me remember a strong memory I once cherished, and now it's something I can hold onto when the bad things take over my mind. It takes intense concentration to keep it all away. They find another ladder that is the way aboveground, I go up last, trying not to think of the people we've left behind that are already starting to haunt me.

We end up in someone's utility room, the door opens and a Capitol lady stands in the doorway, her eyes widen in alarm as she turns to call for someone. Almost immediately, an arrow pierces her chest and she falls to the ground. Blood leaks into her silky exotic bird robe, I look away as we pass by her, trying not to dig the cuffs into my shuddering wrists. They're already bursting with so much pain, I didn't notice how bloody they've gotten, maybe I should focus on that.

"How long do you think we have before they figure out some of us could've survived?" Katniss asks.

"I think they could be here anytime," Gale answers. "They knew we were heading for the streets. Probably the explosion will throw them for a few minutes, then they'll start looking for our exit point."

While they start discussing our next plan of action, I move over to the velvet sofa set only a few feet away, and sit down. The madness keeps swarming through my brain, but this time I fight back.

My heart is thumping so hard in my chest. I just stare down at the sparkly white carpet, all of the events that just occurred are already coming back, flashing over over my eyes like it keeps happening right in front of me again and again. My hands find a flat velvet pillow that matches the couch, and my teeth clamp down onto the soft fabric, clenching away at all of the human feelings that I pushed away while escaping the tunnel. After everything we just went through to get here, I know these certain feelings are real. They feel too real, and with the fake ones being there as well, it's almost too easy to spot the difference.

"Let's check the closets." Katniss says.

They decide that the best thing to do is to find somewhere to rest for a little bit, but first we have to disguise ourselves, so that we can walk through the busy streets without being recognizable. We aren't going straight to Snow's mansion, mainly because our team isn't in the best shape right now. I'm on the verge of madness, Pollux is brutally weeping in the corner, Gale has a major wound on his neck, and Cressida looks sickly pale as she speaks to Katniss, who has a motivated grimace full of pure hatred.

We're a little shaken up. There's only five of us left, we've lost over half of our team, and we're all in mortifying shock from the mutation attack, we just need a break, but we can't stay here. They'll search the tunnels and eventually find out that some of us escaped, they'll figure out where we went, and that would lead them here. It worked out for them last time.

The Capitol streets are swarming with evacuating people, we've all had our faces flashed across TV screen and plastered on posters that hang just about everywhere. Not even just that, but Katniss and I are known by pretty much every citizen in the country.

After looking through the many closets in this apartment, we gather up lots of long coats and cloaks that might be able to conceal our weapons and hopefully our identities.

When my bloodied wrists are revealed, Katniss immediately jams her hand into the pocket she stored the key to my handcuffs in.

"No. Don't. They help hold me together." I say, backing away.

"You might need your hands," Gale says.

"When I feel myself slipping, I dig my wrists into them, and the pain helps me focus," I tell them. They leave them alone and don't say another word in protest.

We help each other rub makeup all over our faces, Cressida gives me and Katniss scarves to wrap around our mouths and noses, then we put on sunglasses to cover our eyes.

Before we leave, we stuff our pockets with as much food and supplies from the apartment as we can.

"Stay together," Katniss says at the front door.

We scurry down the street with all of the other Capitol citizens, who murmur at each other worriedly in their ridiculous accents. We even pass a large group of peacekeepers, but luckily they didn't really notice us. After a few blocks, sirens start ringing all around us. I begin to wonder if we will even make it to Snow's mansion before getting caught.

"Cressida?" Katniss whispers worriedly.

"There's one place. It's not ideal. But we can try it," Cressida says.

We anxiously walk a couple more blocks, turn into a gate, walk through a garden, out another gate, then we're on a some kind of back street with what looks like a bunch of abandoned stores. There's barely anyone here, and the people who are don't even glance at us.

Cressida leads us into one of the stores, it looks like it sells furry Capitol clothing, specializing in undergarments. It's dark, I wonder if anyone is even here. The door chimes, and we're hit with a strong smell of pelts. It's dark, I didn't even notice the silhouette of a hunched person in the corner. When we walk over to the figure it's revealed to be a woman. A woman who has had lots of surgery done to her face. It's stretched and pulled in many different directions all tipped with long whiskers to make her look very literally like a feline.

Cressida pulls off her wig,

"Tigris, we need help," she says.

The name matches the look, I wonder if that was always her name. Tigris squints at us, thinking.

"Plutarch said you could be trusted," Cressida adds.

I have a feeling that it's better that Plutarch and Coin don't know that we're alive and where we're located, but I have a feeling that there no other options. Maybe Tigris won't even let us stay, she's still looking at us with distrust, but she probably can't recognize the rest of us with our disguises still on. She keeping glancing at the old TV in the corner that provides the only light in here. Katniss yanks down her scarf and wig, then steps into the television glow.

Tigris makes an odd purring noise, then slides off her stool. She disappears behind racks of furry clothes, then rummages around back there for a little bit before her hand reappears to wave us forward.

We pause, pondering with uncertainty, until Katniss goes ahead and we follow. We push through the furs and find a slid back panel at the base of the wall. It is the entrance to a stone stairway leading to a hidden basement.

There is no discussion on whether we should trust this woman or not, we are too tired and scarred to think of anything else besides a break. At least that's what's it's like for me. I've managed to block all of the tingling emotions, but now I am empty, my mind is completely and exhaustingly blank.

Katniss stops before we enter the hidden passageway.

"Did Snow ban you from the Games?" She asks Tigris. Tigris only whips her tail.

"Because I'm going to kill him you know." Katniss adds. Still no response from Tigris, but I notice something similar to a smile spread upon her face as I duck down through the doorway.

I didn't know Tigris was involved with the Games; she must have been a stylist. I bet after the many surgeries leading to her feline inspired look, Snow thought she took it too far and banned her. I didn't know that taking it too far existed in the Capitol, after seeing the types of things they wear.

We make our way down to the shallow yet wide cellar full stocked with piles of unused pelts and furs. Tigris seals the door then moves around the clothing racks to hide it. We are officially hidden. No one should find us here.

We all help Gale by making him a decent bed out of the pelts, removing his weapons, and helping him onto his back.

While Cressida and Pollux make each of us our own little beds out of the pelts, Katniss tends to Gale's neck wound as best she can, while I huddle into the corner to take a look at my wrists.

It's all dented and broken skin, with blood rapidly dripping down from them. I didn't know the cuffs were that sharp. Except they aren't, the state of crazed insanity I was in somehow gave me some enhanced amount of strength I didn't know I had.

Katniss appears in front of me, looking up from my wrists with such concern, her eyes are begging. I let her clean them, but the cuffs stay on. She moves them back as she rinses my wrists under the small faucet at the end of the cellar.

After she washes away the blood, I grit my teeth as she smears on antiseptic on the cuts then bandages them up under the cuffs. This resurfaces a memory I'm not sure had been so clear before. I'm brought all the way back to my first Games, by a lake, with Katniss tending to a different wound with the same focused look she's giving them now. She starts muttering at me under her breath.

"You've got to keep them clean, otherwise the infection could spread and—"

"I know what blood poisoning is, Katniss," I say. "Even if my mother isn't a healer."

A sad and distant look in her eyes tell me that she remembers.

"You said that same thing to me in the first Hunger Games. Real or not real?" She asks.

"Real." This new memory discovery triggers another one.

"And you risked your life getting the medicine that saved me?" I ask her.

"Real," she tells me. "You were the reason I was alive to do it."

"Was I?" I close my eyes, trying to bring back some memory of myself saving Katniss Everdeen's life, but it isn't coming. It had to be before we teamed up, what was before we teamed up? I remember a fuming Cato with his deadly sword swinging around at me, eventually slicing open my left leg. That was the wound she was trying to treat. Wasn't it something to do with Tracker Jackers? Or did that happen after we teamed up?

I rub my forehead with the tips of my fingers and sigh in exasperation. It's so tiring to just try and remember something, it sucks up all of my strength, and it leaves me with such painful headaches, unsatisfied memories, and irritated feelings. My muscles are sore just from tightening them so much, and my feet hurt from all of the walking and running. I'm so exhausted, but how can I sleep? How can I sleep with all the pain and guilt?

There hasn't been a single day since the reaping that I have ever slept soundly or felt safe in any waking moment. We're so close, it's almost over, but how can I live with myself afterwards?

I can feel my eyelids droop and my limbs slump. Katniss is still staring at me with concern.

"I'm so tired, Katniss." I say.

"Go to sleep," she tells me.

I shake my head, I still have that abiding fear and strong distrust with myself after killing Mitchell. What if I wake up in hysterics and kill someone else?

"Chain me to the railing first."

"Peeta..."

"Just do it, I won't go to sleep unless I'm restrained."

She sighs and unlocks the cuffs, then locks them up again through the stair supports. I try to lie down onto my newly-made pelt bed, but it's hard with my arms hanging above my head. It's not a problem for long though, because the exhaustion and fatigue knock me out fast.

Will I ever encounter another moment in my slumber where I feel peaceful and at ease? How could I of all people live on after all the other lives were lost? I can't live on for my own life, but maybe I can for theirs. We can't undo their deaths, but maybe we can make them mean something in the end. Maybe I can make my own life, that was never really mine since the beginning, mean something in the end. The war isn't over yet until Snow is dead, and I'll do whatever I can to make that happen. Maybe this will be my last stop, my last break before it's all over.