Peeta was in front of her in moments, his words muffled, but she could make out that they'd been ones of reassurance.
To scream and cry wasn't enough to express what she felt.
Her insides shriveled and her throat burned like hot coals.
She remembered the nights she shivered just to keep warm- the days in the arena when she was sure she'd die of dehydration.
Her throat grew dry.
She had barely made it out- she still lingered there whenever she closed her eyes.
To go into the hunger games, well, a person went in and a new one returned in their place.
Life's meaning, it's futile purpose- the dreams and goals you'd once had- gone.
What was left was the terror that
filled her nights and then the grief her days.
She slightly returned back to reality, after Peeta had cleaned the glass and bandaged her sliced up arms.
Neither spoke the rest of the night and when she awoke Peeta was gone.
Livia let Snow's words sink into her head and suddenly she was glad she'd won only last year.
Otherwise she'd had known all the other victors, not just because she'd seen them on television but because they were guests at every Games.
Even if they weren't mentoring like Haymitch always had to, most returned to the Capitol each year for the event- She'd had thought a lot of them as friends.
Whereas the only 'friends' she'd have to worry about killing would be either Peeta or Haymitch.
She sprung upwards at that thought.
There was no situation in which she would ever kill Peeta or Haymitch, but one of them would be in the arena with her- if she was picked.
Whoever was picked first, the other would have the option of volunteering to take his place and Livia already knew what would happen.
Peeta will ask Haymitch to let him go into the arena with Livia no matter what- for her sake- to protect her.
Livia found herself heading towards Haymitch's house.
He sat alone at the kitchen table, a half-emptied bottle of white liquor in one fist, his knife in the other.
Drunk as a skunk.
"Ah, there she is. All tuckered out. Finally did the math, did you, sweetheart? And now you're here to ask me... what?" Her quizzed.
Livia didn't answer.
The window was wide open and the wind cut through her just as if she were outside.
"I'll admit, it was easier for the boy. He was here before I could snap the seal on a bottle. Begging me for another chance to go in. But what can you say?", He started, mimicking Livia's voice, "'Take his place, Haymitch, because all things being equal, I'd rather Peeta had a crack at the rest of his life than you?'"
Livia bit her lip because once he'd said it, she was afraid that was what she wanted.
For Peeta to live, even if it meant Haymitch's death.
But- she didn't.
He was dreadful, of course, but Haymitch was family now.
