Into the Woods

Chapter Seventeen

I nearly trip over myself trying to run from the room. I yank the door open, my socks sliding as I try to hold the ground. Part or my brain tells me to look back, see if he was really there, but a bigger part of me can't bear to do that. I don't look back. I wasn't dreaming. Wasn't imagining. He was really there. And I never want to see him again.

I fly down the hallway and into the living room, braking as I near the couch. I look down and see Gale, sound asleep, and suddenly hesitate waking him. What will I tell him? Do I tell him the truth and risk his anger? Gale will want to act, that is for sure. I'd want to as well if anyone hurt him. But I'm not sure we can risk that…We don't know enough about these men…or the entire safe house network. Is it possible they are all in contact? No, it is best not to upset things here. So do I lie and risk our friendship? We've both lied to each other before, but I still can't help but feel that it is wrong. I walk as quietly as possible and sit down by his face, trying my hardest not to wake him, and I work over my ruminations.

My heart is beating a hundred times a minute and I think for a moment my chest might explode. I try to take calm breaths and tell myself I'm not in any danger…he was just watching from outside a window…but I can't help but feel violated. I want to take a shower, scrape off my skin…I'm not sure how I'm going to get through tomorrow having to look at him. The tears are coming now, great. I'm about to try and get up, so that I don't wake Gale. As I rise to leave, Gale reaches out to me. I nearly scream he frightens me so much. I fall back to the ground.

"Christ, Gale!" I say harshly, but quietly, "you scared me half to death!"

But he sees the tears and doesn't bother with the apology. "Katniss, what's wrong?" I'm beginning to feel bad about how often I hear this.

I try not to cry, but I don't know what to say, and with nothing to say, the tears pour out of my eyes. I don't know what to tell him. Gale sits up on the couch and guides me next to him. I curl up in a little ball, tucking my knees under my chin, like I always do when I feel unsafe. He wraps his arms around me and I bury myself in his chest, trying to muffle the sound of my sobs. Gale holds me, for minutes, and I keep waiting for him to ask me what happened. And he doesn't. And then I realize that he's probably waiting for me to be ready to tell him. And I'm grateful. Maybe I have misjudged his anger. I take Gale's hand in my own and start to focus on it. I place mine up to his. My entire hand almost fits in his palm. When did his hands get so big? He has such capable, strong hands. Mine are nothing next to his. I look over all the little scars, I used to know every single one. The jagged white line down his index finger where he cut himself when I taught him how to make arrows. I remember him cursing and me laughing…The textured scar of the three puncture wounds down by the pinky side of his palm. He got those from a very unhappy raccoon caught in one of his snares after I suggested he design some that trapped the animal alive. I thought it was more civil to kill the animal quickly rather than let it suffer. They were designed to kill instantaneously, but this didn't always happen. So he designed his new cages, and trapped the raccoon, very alive and very angry, and when he tried to pull it out to wring its neck, the creature was ready for him. It snarled and took him by surprise and sank its teeth into his hand. And if that wasn't bad enough, my mother had to give him rabies shots after. Right in his stomach. Gale killed a lot of raccoons in the following weeks, I think hoping he'd hit the one that bit him. And he never designed another live snare again. He just improved upon the killing techniques of his old ones. It was better that way, he told me, I had to agree….There is the pink burn on the top of his three middle fingers from when he tried to do laundry for his mother when she was very ill. He had no idea what he was doing though, and seared the top of his hand on the boiling pot. Luckily, all the clothes turned out okay because, if they hadn't, there would have been no way Gale would have been able to pay…..