Mockingjay - Peeta Mellark (3)

}21{ - Moving Underground

That makes two requests for Peeta's death in less than an hour.

"Don't be ridiculous." Jackson said.

"I just murdered a member of our squad!" Peeta shouted.

"You pushed him off you. You couldn't have known he would trigger the net at that exact spot." Leilani explained, trying to calm him.

"Who cares? He's dead, isn't he?" Tears began to run down Peeta's face, "I didn't know. I've never seen myself like that before. Livia is right. I'm the monster. I'm the mutt. I'm the one Snow has turned into a weapon!"

"It's not your fault, Peeta." Finnick assured.

"You can't take me with you. It's only a matter of time before I kill someone else", Peeta looked around at our conflicted faces, "Maybe you think it's kinder to just dump me somewhere. Let me take my chances. But that's the same thing as handing me over to the Capitol. Do you think you'd be doing me a favor by sending me back to Snow?"

Peeta.

Back in Snow's hands.

Tortured and tormented until no bits of his former self will ever emerge again.

For some reason, the last stanza to 'The Hanging Tree' started running through Livia's head.

The one where the man wants his lover dead rather than have her face the evil that awaited her in the world.

Are you, are you coming to the tree.
Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me. Strange things did happen here, no stranger would it be. If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.

"I'll kill you before that happens", Gale said, "I promise."

Peeta hesitated, as if considering the reliability of this offer, and then shook his head, "It's no good. What if you're not there to do it? I want one of those poison pills like the rest of you have."

Nightlock.

There was one pill back at camp, it was in special slot on the sleeve of Livia's Mockingjay suit.

But there was another in the breast pocket of her uniform.

Interesting that they didn't issue one to Peeta.

Perhaps Coin thought he might take it before he had the opportunity to kill Livia.

It was unclear if Peeta meant he would finish himself off now, to spare them having to murder him, or only if the Capitol took him prisoner again.

In the state he was in, Livia expected it would be sooner rather than later.

It would certainly make things easier on the rest of them.

Not to have to shoot him.

It would certainly simplify the problem of dealing with his homicidal episodes.

Livia didn't know if it was the pods, or the fear, or watching Boggs die, but she felt the arena all around her.

It was as if she had never left, really.