After spitting out the nightlock, Katniss and Peeta are lifted from the arena together. On the hovercraft, Katniss sees how badly Peeta is still bleeding, and he collapses as soon as the transport current releases them. Doctors rush Peeta into surgery, but Katniss, still reacting as if every stranger is a threat from the Games, tries to reach him and is locked behind glass. She watches helplessly as the medical team works on him and realizes, with new understanding, why loved ones cannot simply walk away from the suffering of someone they might lose.

Katniss is sedated and wakes alone in a sealed, antiseptic room, physically restored and restrained in bed. The redheaded Avox girl brings food, quietly confirms that Peeta survived, and gives Katniss a brief sense of human loyalty inside the Capitol. For an uncertain stretch of time, Katniss is kept weak and unconscious between feedings while Capitol medicine erases her scars and repairs her hearing. Once the restraints and tubes are finally removed, she dresses in her tribute clothes and immediately goes looking for Peeta.

Instead, Katniss is reunited with Effie, Haymitch, and Cinna, who tell her Peeta is alive but that their reunion will be saved for a live public ceremony. Cinna escorts Katniss back to the Training Center, where the prep team feeds and prepares her for the event. Katniss is disturbed by how self-centered the prep team is in discussing the Games, but Cinna's work forces her attention back to the political performance ahead. His new glowing dress makes her look very young and innocent, and he reveals that Haymitch fought off Capitol plans to alter Katniss surgically, suggesting that even her appearance is now part of a larger struggle.

While waiting beneath the stage, Katniss assumes the danger is over, but Haymitch quietly tells her the opposite. Because the Capitol feels mocked by the berry stunt, Katniss is now in serious danger, and her only protection is to convince everyone that she acted from overwhelming love, not defiance. Haymitch says Peeta already understands or already truly feels that love, which leaves Katniss uncertain about both his feelings and her own. As Katniss prepares to face the audience, she realizes the arena has ended but the most dangerous part of the Games may be beginning, because failure now could bring punishment not only on her but on the people she loves back in District 12.