The Hunger Games - Peeta Mellark (1)

}22{ - Stormy Confessions

He rubbed some warmth back into her feet and wrapped them in his jacket before tucking the sleeping bag back up around her chin.

"Your boots and socks are still damp and the weather's not helping much." He sighed.

There was a clap of thunder, and Livia saw lightning electrify the sky through an opening in the rocks.

Rain dripped through several holes in the ceiling, but Peeta had built a sort of canopy over Livia's head and upper body by wedging the square of plastic into the rock above her.

"I wonder what brought on this storm? I mean, who's the target?" Peeta quizzed.

"Cato and Thresh", Livia said without thinking, "Foxface will be in her den somewhere, and Kirin- she cut me an then..."

Livia trailed off.

"I know Kirin's dead. I saw it in the sky last night", Peeta muttered, "Did you kill her?"

"No. Thresh broke her skull with a rock." Livia explained.

"Lucky he didn't catch you, too." Peeta jeered.

The memory of the feast returned full-force and Livia felt sick, "He did. But he let me go."

Then, of course, Livia had to tell him.

About things she had kept to herself because he was too sick to ask and she wasn't ready to relive anyway.

Like the explosion and her ear and Rue's dying and Marvel and the bread.

All of which led to what happened with Thresh and how he was paying off a debt of sorts.

"He let you go because he didn't want to owe you anything?" Peeta quizzed.

"I just- sung to her until her last breath. Then I surrounded her in wildflowers", Livia explained, but there was a coldness to her voice, "It wasn't much, but I guess it was something..."

Peeta was desperate to cling to her warmth, deciding on changing the subject.

"Cato and Thresh, huh? I guess I'd be spouting too much hope if I believed that they'd simultaneously destroy eachother." Peeta quipped.

But the thought only upset Livia, "I think we would like Thresh. I think he'd be our friend."

"Then let's hope Cato kills him, so we don't have to." Peeta sighed grimly.

Livia didn't want Cato to kill Thresh at all.

She didn't want anyone else to die.

But it was absolutely not the kind of thing that victors went around saying in the arena.

Despite her best efforts, she could feel tears starting to pool in her eyes.

Peeta looked at her in concern, "What is it? Are you in a lot of pain?"

Livia gave him another answer, because it was equally true but can be taken as a brief moment of weakness instead of a terminal one.

"I want to go home, Peeta." She said plaintively, like a small child.

She missed her brothers.