I hear the air raid sirens start ringing as I fasten the bridle on my horse. I glance at the other soldiers as I walk around my slightly startled horse to a sawed off stump, using it to hop onto the warm elk hide I use as a horse blanket, pulling on his reins, I turn to the comrades, dipping my head. 

"Are you sure about this Catnip?" my informal general, Gale asks from his mount. I look at him and then the other twenty or so people on horses.

"They are coming for our home," I say. "Most of us come from twelve. Many have loved ones still there. What honor do we have among us if we don't try to rescue some of them?" I turn my horse so I am facing the troops. "You all know your positions, the coordinates?" There is a resounding grumble of agreement and I turn my horse so it is facing the direction of the boundary fence, a hundred yards ahead through the thick undergrowth we hide in. "Lets go then?"

"You heard her," Gale says. " No time to lose. The hovercrafts will be here within five minutes." I kick to my horse and he shoots forward. 

I set myself close to his body, keeping clear of hanging branches. The clatter behind me starts slowing down and I watch as a few of the cavalry loop their ropes to the top of the fence posts. Their horses whinny as they are forced to back up, pulling down the disrepaired fence so many of us escaped under. I watch it fall and look at the others as the crashing sound rumbles around us. The air raid sirens continue to wail around us and the groups of soldiers start to break off in their desired directions. Gale looks at me and then my weapon slung on my shoulder. 

"You 100% sure about this?" He asks and I nod.

"We need to save who we can and send a message," I say. "The people will fight back." He nods slowly and I hear the roar overhead as the aircrafts start screaming above us. "Come on. It's time to land an offensive." I kick my horse, making him rear before he lurches forward, running through the ashen ground of the coal miner's houses.

The people of the seam, the people I grew up a part of, scramble out from their homes around us. I watch as the bombs start to drop, shaking the ground. I turn my horse towards the cover of the meadow, keeping to the trees so I might get a shot off on the circling hovercraft. People scream out as the bombs continue to fall and my horse shuffles his feet a little as we wait in the shadows.

"Easy, Duke," I hush him, keeping close to his neck again. "Keep steady boy. I want to make sure I'm not wasting my arrow." I study  the pattern the flight is taking and sit up a little, taking a deep breath. My flingers flex in the rope and I reach back, pulling my bow from it's blaceon my back and having it at the ready for my shot. "Now, Duke!" 

He lurches forward and starts running out into the open. I sit up and pull an arrow from my quiver, stringing it and preparing to pull it back, looking for the fan I need to lodge it in. I halt my horse's movements and he screeches to a stop on the cobblestones. I take a deep breath and pull back, aiming my arrow as Duke stands still as a statue. For a split second I see the vent.

My arrow flies up, through the sky, causing a cracking and creaking sound in the machine above me. I pull back and pat my horse, watching for a moment as the smoke starts to come from the engine of the machine and it begins it's inevitable decent. I put my bow back on my shoulder and yank on my horse's reins , turning him around to dash off as I see more and more hovercrafts start spouting smoke from my soldiers' efforts. 

I start dashing away, hearing the squealing of the machines starting to crash into the ground behind me. The ground shakes and Hear the sound of metal scraping the ground. My horse stumbles as the uneven ground continues to rumble and I feel us go down as one of the wrecked machines explode all too close. I hear the wooden weapon strapped to my back crack and break under my weight as I roll across the ground. I groan from the impact and sit try to get up, feeling shrapnel digging into my skin. Duke screams from beside me, struggling to get free from the debris his reins are tangled in. I feel hands on my arm and I shake my head as I continue to try to reorient myself.

"Are you okay?" I hear the owner, a young man, say as he tries to pull me up from the rubble. I glance at him and the rising smoke around us. Fires burn and crackle on the houses of the merchant houses and I feel myself. I look around, trying to get my bearings the young man supports me. I kneel on the ground and groan, pulling a large piece of metal from my arm. It hangs limply at my side as I try to put my hands beneath me. I glance at the shrapnel scattered around us. I pull the bow from my shoulder and toss the ruined weapon to the side. Thankfully, despite the metal and glass covering my arms and legs, my leather armor protected my vital organs just fine.  "You're bleeding." I shake my head and claw my hand into his shoulder, pulling myself up.

"I'll live," I say. "But we need to get out of here." I stop talking a moment, gasping, trying to catch my breath. I point at the wreckage of the just moments before flying airship. It has fuel leaking out the side and I can hear the metal crunching beneath internal flames. "That thing is going to blow any minute. We need to move." I look at my horse and nod in that direction, gasping. "Get me to my horse."

With the help of the man, I stumble to the black horse and reach for his ropes, groaning. I grab onto the buckle and pull it open, letting the ropes fall away. I wrap my arms around the horses, neck, swaying a little, dizzy from the blast. No doubt, I have a concussion.

"Grip onto his mane," The man says and I glance at him, his blue eyes shining with fear and a little worry. "I'll lift you up." I look down on the ground and with a little bit of a struggle, I reach my injured arm up and grip into the long, loose braids of my horse's hair. 

I feel his arms reach around my middle and with a little bit of flailing from me, I manage to get back up onto the large horse. He grunts as he heaves himself up onto the horse behind me. He reaches around where I had slumped forward onto the horse's neck and rests me against his chest. I tangle my fingers into Duke's mane and glance at the wreckage.

"Home Duke," I choke out. "Quick as you can, boy." He steps back a couple steps and I turn to the man, realizing as I look at his face that he's just a terrified teenage boy, no older than I am. "Hold onto me. He's gonna be fast." I let go of the mane with my injured hand and grip onto his hand looped around me. Duke starts forward and I try to hold on with my legs as the horse runs across the wreaked ground. I feel the ground shaking around us as the hovercraft finally blows behind us.

"Holy Shit!" The boy gasps. "That was close." I glance back at the flames behind us, pulling the horse to a slow just inside the safety of the forest. The flames engulf the district, leaving everything I had known growing up a raging inferno. I feel a tear slipping from my eye and the boy holding me upright seems to tremble a little. I look at him and shake my head.

"I'm so sorry," I say quietly. He shakes his head, looking back.

"It's okay," He says. "There was nothing left for me back there." He glances at me and brushes my tangled, loose hair from my face. "As long as I could save you." I look at him and get off him a little. "Careful. You don't need to hurt yourself worse." I look at his face clearly for the first time and shake my head. 

He has those same piercing blue eyes from all those years ago, looking at me in that same worried way as when I had come to him to say goodbye. His face has aged, lost the roundness of youth and turned into that of a mature young man. I blink a moment, feeling my horse sway a little. I feel my shaky breath tremble as I look for the first time in seven years at the baker's son who saved my life. Protected me from his mother's wrath as I ran away with those table scraps that last day I lived in District 12.

"Oh my God," I whisper and he chuckles. "I thought you were dead." He shakes his head and smiles at me, that telltale chipped tooth from a stray elbow when he used to play wrestle as a child with the school kids still noticeable.

"Unconscious for a few days," Peeta says. "But no, I didn't." I feel my arms trembling and he carefully holds onto me. "Good to know it wasn't all for nothing, seeing as there were enough rumors you were dead too, Katniss." I feel more tears welling up in my eyes and he just holds on tighter. "Pleasantries can be saved for later, once your wounds and mine have been treated." I notice all the cuts and scrapes across his arms and I nod, looking back forward.

"Yeah, I suppose so," I say, my chest feeling tight and fluttery, unresolved feelings from all those years ago yanked back to the surface. I shove them back down and click to my horse, making him start to walk home, through the dense undergrowth. 

Peeta's hand rests firmly on my belly and I intertwine my hand with his as we ride home. We have a lot to discuss. We left things very, very unfinished back then, both of us possibly starting to have some of those adult feelings that puberty loves to bring. I know I mourned that for years, thinking it just the foolish dream of a teenage girl. Never knowing if the boy I thought had died to save me felt the same way. 

For now, even as the questions float around us, I'm just happy to feel his heart beating next to mine as we ride to the secret hideaway of the rebel camp.