What Peeta can do so much better than the rest of us. He can use words. He obliterated the rest of the field at both interviews. And maybe it’s because of that underlying goodness that he can move a crowd – no, a country – to his side with the turn of a simple sentence.
“There’s still time. You should sleep.”
Unresisting, he lies back down, but just stares at the needle on one of the dials as it twitches from side to side. Slowly, as I would with a wounded animal, my hand stretches out and brushes a wave of hair from his forehead. He freezes at my touch, but doesn’t recoil. So I continue to gently smooth back his hair. It’s the first time I have voluntarily touched him since the last arena.
“You’re still trying to protect me. Real or not real,” he whispers.
“Real,” I answer. It seems to require more explanation.
“Because that’s what you and I do. Protect each other.”After a minute or so, he drifts off to sleep.
