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   I only have a few minutes to eat a small meal of hot grain before my prep team whisks me back to my room and they and Caroline slip me into a white shirt, my blue blazer – which has been cleaned entirely – and pressed trousers, the outfit I’d come to the Capitol in. Then I’m taken back down the hall into the sitting room, where our interview would take place. It had been rearranged so there was one chair for Kaius and another long couch for the five of us to sit on.

   Kaius is already there and he congratulates me again on winning. “Nervous for the interview?” he asks me.

   Out of honestly, I nod. One slip up, and, if what Simon told me was true and the Capitol really was pissed off at us – me in particular – for what we did back in the arena, and we would be dead.

   Kaius leaves me and I am soon in the arms of Louis, Niall, Zayn and Liam. Louis wears a white, button-up shirt and black trousers. Niall is dressed like him, but his shirt is dark blue. Zayn is in a black suit, and Liam is in a white shirt and black formal vest over it. We barely have a second to speak when we’re told to sit on the couch, and someone is counting down the seconds until we’re broadcasted live on TV.

   Kaius is jaunty as per usual and acts accordingly to how we speak, getting choked up at the right moments, and laughing when we joked around. But, soon enough, we’re at the part of the interview where everything we say matters.

   “So, Harry,” Kaius begins, “What was running through your mind when you took the arrow and told the others your plan to die as one, hmm? I know that’s definitely something that grabbed our attention!”

   Every eye in the room was locked on me. I took a pause and bit down on my bottom lip before something willed me to take in a breath. It was another moment in my life where my heart was pounding, ready to leap from my chest.

   “I don’t know,” I told him. My voice was quiet, like back when I’d told Katy my age after I’d first been chosen. “I’ve gotten so close to these boys – so close I even killed Taylor to defend them – so I guess I just wasn’t thinking.”

   “Boys,” Kaius asks again to the others sitting beside me on the couch, “anything to add?”

   “Harry was definitely thinking,” Liam said. Before I could debate whether or not these words would be our death, he continued. “He was thinking of us and how he knew not just one of us could return home. It’s all of us, or none of us. He kept saying we’re just five boys who want to go in one direction; home.”

   A few more minutes pass and Kaius ends the broadcast, and soon everyone’s chattering and hugging and thanking and congratulating. I find my feet carrying me to Simon, whose expression was as dull as ever. “Good enough?” I asked.

   “Perfect.”

   And the five of us are told to go back to our rooms to get anything belonging to us if anything and we are then driven in a car with blacked out windows back to the train station. We say our final goodbyes to the Capitol people, whom we’ll see in a few months for the second round of our victory ceremonies before the Twenty-Sixth Annual Hunger Games would begin; the Capitol’s way of showing us the Hunger Games will never leave.

   The escorts – like Katy – will be accompanying us back to our districts. The moment we leave we eat a large meal, which lasts a little after we’re through the tunnel going through the mountains, and, just like that, Louis, Liam, Niall and I are saying good-bye to the first blazing boy; Zayn.

   “See you next year, buddy,” Niall purred, giving him a hug. The rest of us wished similar goodbyes. I nearly cried when I saw him return to the arms of his family and friends on the platform, and then we left him.

   This continued for the next couple hours. Soon enough, we reached District Four, and Louis, the last one on the train with me, got ready to return.

   “You saved my life, Harry,” he spoke. I could see familiar crystal tears forming in the corners of his eyes as he wrapped me in another hug. “Keep singing to the mockingjays blazing boy. Maybe I’ll hear you.”

   “I’ll miss you, Lou,” I said back. I could feel the tears choking me viciously. “I couldn’t have won without you.”

   As we pulled away from the platform in District Four, I retreated to my bedroom on the train, where I let tears go. I couldn’t wait to see him, and Liam, and Niall, and Zayn again. But, I was definitely looking forward to, once again, seeing District Twelve.

   The train makes a brief stop for fuel, and I’m allowed out for air. But, just as I’m out, I’m back in and we’re moving again, and the excitement of returning home rushes through every vein in my body.

   I sleep again, and Katy awakens me and tells me to get dressed. Then I eat and soon enough, the minute I finish consuming a Capitol breakfast, we pull into the station which is full of bright lights and cameras waiting to capture images of my reunion with my family and friends.

   I make sure tears fill my eyes – real tears – as the doors open and an image of me in front with Katy and Simon at my sides, but back of me is captured on camera forever. And there, I bolt, running into the arms of my mum, Robin, Gemma, and Ed.

End of Book One

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