"Not us. We're too popular to make public examples of."

But there are other examples to be made. Examples to the other victors, and examples to themselves. But the games that Finnick's been forced to play have always been ones with private losses: his parents, killed after the first and last time he'd lost control and let his instincts take over his sense with one of his patrons, and the rest of his family, killed in retribution for breaking the rules when he'd mentored Annie. But that's known only to him and Annie, and those of the victors who could put it together.

In public, they were just tragic fishing accidents, common enough in Four to be believable. He doesn't expect Katniss to know it, to know the depths of the games that he's entangled in, the fact that the person he is in the Capitol is nothing more than another game, and another, and another, so many that sometimes it's easy to forget where the games end.

Annie reminds him, when she can. When she's there, not home in Four while he's stuck in the Capitol's nets.

"We play the games that are just for us, the ones nobody knows the rules to until it's too late."

He says it quietly, almost to the flowers he's picked, and he can feel his neck burning.