Together - Peeta Mellark

06

Olivia wakes up and gets dressed, it's a wonder she managed to fall asleep last night. Nervous, she walks inside the dining room. "So one last hint, when that horn goes off, run away! Whatever you do, don't go for whatever is in the cornucopia!" Arthur says. Both teenagers nod and try to eat something but it won't work. Olivia's mom hugs her daughter one last time.

"Goodbye for now." Jane says trying to control the tears for now. Olivia can't say anything, her voice would shake showing her mom how scared she is. They walk away and go to the roof where the aircraft is already there. Olivia gets inside and sits down.

A woman walks up to her. "This is your tracker." She says pushing it into her arm with a needle. The aircraft flies up, bringing them to their destination. The whole way it's silent, everyone is nervous. They arrive and get underground into their rooms.

Olivia gets inside and sees Brian standing there. "Hi beautiful little girl." He says smiling weakly. She walks up to him and hugs him. He hugs her back. They pull away and look at each other. He helps her put on her jacket. "Now listen to me, you're one of the bravest girls I've ever met, you can do this." He says. Olivia nods.

"20 seconds." The voice of the control pannel says. Olivia walks to the tube and stands inside. "10 seconds." It adds.

"You can do this." Brian says. The tube closes and moves upwards. The fifteen seconds of pure horror are killing but she gets up there. Olivia looks around getting herself pulled back together by the bright light. She sees Aaron 4 people to her left and Peeta maybe 8 to her right. The cornucopia in the middle is huge and holds many supplies. There are trees surrounding the place and a river not far away.

The horn goes off and everyone starts running. Peeta runs into the woods, away from everything. Olivia runs towards it, completely ignoring Arthur's hint. She gets a backpack and two knifes before running off, but there is something odd. She turns around and sees Aaron falling to the ground, a knife in his chest. Anger starts boiling into Olivia and she throws one of her knifes straight into the girl's head who killed Aaron. Olivia starts running to the forest.

She saw Peeta running this way before. They encounter each other and continue running away from everything behind them. They keep running for about fifteen more minutes before both collapsing to the ground. "She killed him! She killed Aaron!" Olivia screams. She knew he wasn't gonna make it, but she wouldn't have thought he died in the first minutes. Tears fill her eyes and for the first time she looks weak in front of Panem.

"And what did you do about the fact that someone killed him?" Peeta asks shaking himself. What he just witnessed was traumatizing.

"I killed her. I threw a knife into her ugly face." Olivia replied. She looked up at Peeta, shocked from herself and breathes heavily. "I killed her." She mumbles. "I killed someone." She adds. Panic taking over. Peeta notices the panic into her eyes.

He grabs onto her shoulders and tilts up her head so she looks at him. "Listen to me okay." His voice calm and soft. "Breathe..." he says in the same tone. He repeats the word a couple of times before Olivia had calmed down. He smiles at her weakly. "We all knew it was going to happen, at least you showed someone that they can't mess with you." Peeta says.

"Peeta." She says before he stands up. "Thank you." She adds. He smiles at her and grabs her hand pulling her up as well. They look around and start walking again, away from the cornucopia. After half an hour they stop and sit down onto a log. "Let's see what this stupid backpack has." She says.

Olivia opens the bag and takes out some robes, matches, an empty water bottle, two extra knifes and a pack of crackers. "Guess you did a really good job getting the bag." Peeta says putting it all back into the bag. "Now we need shelter for tonight." He adds.

Olivia looks around and up. "Do you know how to climb trees?" She asks, he shakes his head confused.
"Maybe we would be safer above the ground." She adds still looking at the trees. That's when they hear it, the sounds of the canons. Olivia count them. When the last one sounded she looks at Peeta. "11." She says softly.

They get up again and start walking, hoping to find some sort of shelter on their way. "Olivia, I can make that tree." Peeta says pointing at one with a lot of branches and things to climb into it. She nods and they both make their way up. They tie the robes around their bodies to tie them against the trees so they won't fall out of it. Olivia sits two branches higher up. The sun starts to set.

"First thing tomorrow is finding water." She says. He nods and the song starts playing, rejecting the logo of Panem onto one of the sides of the couple. They look at all the eleven fallen tributes. Olivia gasps when Aaron's picture pops up. Peeta notices and feels bad for her. The logo disappears and silence takes over. They hear voices underneath them and bend over slightly to see.

The careers walk around laughing at some things. When they pass without noticing Olivia and Peeta she scoffs. "They act like we're in some sort of paradise." Olivia says totally mad.

"Guess for them we are. They're the hunters, we're the prey." Peeta replies.

"Well, they need to watch out or I'll figure something out." Olivia replies, soon both fall asleep in their first night in the Games. Everyone in Panem looks at the recap while nothing interesting happens.

"They survived the first day." Arthur says to Haymitch and Jane who sit together.

"Aaron didn't." Jane replies softly.

"There was no way he was gonna make it anyway, now we know that you're daughter is a beast." Arthur says.

"Peeta and Olivia seem to need each other. There's no way if one of them dies, the other will move on." Jane replies nodding at the screen.

"You may be right." Haymitch says earning confused looks from both mentors of district nine. "Peeta told Panem about someone he liked... that may be Olivia." Haymitch says.

"But if he likes her, and she obviously likes him, then we can make this work." Arthur replies smiling.

"No! Their children and it will be hard enough already! Stop acting like they're your puppets!"
Jane says before storming off.

"How will we do it?" Arthur asks.

"We can sell them as star crossed lovers, doomed love or something. We can tell people Peeta was talking about Olivia and Olivia told you about Peeta, if Panem believes it, it may be enough." Haymitch replies.

"If they make it out, they will kill us you know that right?" Arthur says smiling softly.

"Ow I know, and it's worth it if it means we keep them alive. They've grown attached to me." Haymitch says.