When the door is slamming shut... [Mason and Kyanite - JB]

Reaping day is usually the most horrid every to have to deal with. Death is something that I've come close to so many times in the last two years of my life. I've been broken and beaten and heart broken. I'm surprised that I'm even able to stay standing up. So much disappointment and sickness has taken over my body but somewhere, somehow in the midst of it all, there is just a tiny flicker of hope each time I look down at my stomach and realize that there is a growing life inside of me. There is someone going to come and greet me and one day call me mommy. She will be my eternal light in my life, but first...

I have to survive the next couple hours.

With Matthew beside me for most of the morning, I've not wanted to leave his side. It's his last year and my second to last. I'm almost eighteen, but after Mira is born, I'll still have to endure the last reaping and her first birthday. What a horrible day it will be next time. What if I am reaped next time? Will I be able to go off an win the games or will Matthew be forced to care for our infant daughter alone? Would anyone save me and him and our daughter from that fate...

"Mason Hammerfell." I jerk my head upward at the mention of the boys name. Somehow, it clicks within my memories. Memories of the career gym and the pregames. Of those other times when he was nothing but a complete SOB to me and even taunted the life that grew inside of my stomach. That smirk on his face still haunts me. His hands that once wrapped around my neck still invades my mind on the bleakest of nights in the middle of my dreams.

Death is natural, but the games are not.

... and he has just been sentenced to a possible death.

"Mason..." I whisper out from the line of girls that are whispering around me and pointing to the man who is taking the stage, overjoyed and overfilled with both confidence and vigor. I have no doubt in my mind that he's going to be a force to be reconed with if only he keeps his mind steady and doesn't act out of harsh brutalility and as much as I want to go and grab Matthew up and never let him go, there's something that's pulling me toward the justice center and as I enter, they direct me to the door where he's being held.

My feet stop dead in their tracks. My hand just inches away from the barrier hiding Mason behind it. Do I knock? Do I just enter? Would he even want to see me considering we have nothing but hate for each other?

Then again, this might just be the last time I ever see him.

Or the beginning of something greater and I don't want him to come back and turn the other cheek and think I am nothing but a horrible person and begrudge me the right to ever get to know him. I know how precious life can be... and I'm not going to waste it.

"Mason..." I question as I knock on the door and slide it open with a whistling noise to the metal hinges. "Mason... it's Kyanite. Please, hear me out, okay? I just want to make peace with you, okay?"