The Hunger Games: Staying True. (Completed)

Chapter Twenty Five; Stinging Truths. [Edited]

"Tell me something good."

We've been walking for hours. Marched through more than one barrier. I don't know if Crimson actually knows which way she's heading, or if any of them have actually figured out that the arena is Panem, but it's not like I'm going to offer my navigation skills so that we can march quicker towards my own death.

Peeta's words make me glance sidelong at him. He's sweating lightly - We all are, the sun is high in the sky, and we've been walking since dawn. The small streams we've come across keep us well watered, but my belly is rumbling with hunger and my wound still smarts something fierce.

"Something good?" I frown.

"Yeah." He nods, gulps from his water bottle. Bends low over his knees at the crest of the hill we've just climbed. Crimson and her friends are a few yards ahead, debating something. Probably which direction to take back to District 13, which I know is north east from here, but they're pointing towards the south.

Idiots.

"Uh, like what?" I'm trying to listen in, but Peeta's staring at me, and he's always been a distraction.

"Something about you, anything."

I huff, "You first then."

"I've got the world's worst singing voice." He says, and I cut him a smile.

"That's not good."

"Well, it is, because it's so awful it's funny."

"Wow." I huff a small laugh, "Okay then. I like reading."

"You like... to read?" His eyebrows inch upward on his forehead.

"Yes." I nod. Then roll my eyes when he continues to stare. "Okay, I love it. Like... Really, really love it. My father built me a library when I told him I liked the characters better than real people."

Peeta laughs, head tipped back. "Emerald Casteel is a secret nerd."

I bang my elbow into his ribs, and he laughs harder. Crimson snaps at him to shut up, but when I bear my teeth at her in a feral snarl, she simply looks away, completely nonplussed.

"My mother locked the library." I tell him then, quieter. "Barred it and chained it shut. Right after my father died. It was the cruelest thing she'd ever done. I cried for days. Alden tried to get her to open it, but she wouldn't."

"Your mother is a cruel bitch." Peeta murmurs, and I give him a smile that's all too grateful for the words. She is, and I'm glad he thinks so. He takes my hand and gives my fingers a squeeze. "When we get out of here, I'm going to your house and marching straight past your mother, then I'm hacking the doors of that library open."

My chest heaves, because despite how violent and brutal and menacing the words are... It's the sweetest thing someone's ever offered to do for me. It felt like she was ripping out my soul the day she made me watch the servants wrapping the chains around the handles. How fitting it would be to have Peeta break those chains.

Or better yet, I'll take an ax to them myself.

"You're a real gentlemen." I squeeze his fingers back, smiling again.

"Not in the bedroom." He smirks.

"Pig." I curse at  him, wrenching my hand free. Peeta laughs again, hand on his quivering stomach at the look on my face. Shaking my head, I turn back to Crimson and her lot.

"You guys lost?" I call.

"Fuck off." Crimson throws back at me.

Peeta and I grin at each other.