Mockingjay: Peeta's POV

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

My fingers lock around this mutt's throat cutting off her air. Another man barges into the room. I ignore him squeezing tighter. It's the man that brought me here. He brought me to her. He brought me to the mutt that wants to kill me meaning he wants me dead too.

Pain bursts through my head. I fall to the floor. My head throbs as it knocks against something for the umpteenth time in a short time span. My eyelids start getting heavy. They start closing, and I try to fight against it. A few moments later, my eyelids are too heavy, and they slide close in sleep.

~M:PPOV~

When I wake up I don't know how much time has passed. My hand tentatively reaches up to my head pushing against the spot I hit. My left temple is tender.

"Ow," I complain to no one in particular. I remember I'm in some kind of hospital. The doctors are nice. They haven't done anything to me. Maybe they're being forced to work for the rebels. Maybe they're on my side.

"Yes, you're head will be tender for a while," a voice to the right side of me answers.

My eyes shoot open looking for the source of the voice. A woman stands to the side of the bed with a chart in front of her. A doctor. I relax.

"What time is it?" I ask, sitting up.

"Around 10:30," she answers. She doesn't specify if it's the morning or night, but it hardly matters I suppose.

I don't say anything else but observe the room around me. I've been moved to another room now. A mirror sits on one wall. Other than the mirror, this room is the same as the other I was in before. The doctor leaves a short time later having done her evaluation on me. Moments later more doctors arrive along with the first. They take my arms strapping them to the bed.

"What are you doing?" I ask.

"This is just to make sure you don't hurt yourself," a doctor answers.

Hurt myself? They think I'm going to hurt myself. What the fuck makes them think I'm going to hurt myself. As soon as I'm strapped to the bed all the doctors exit the room. I start to tap my fingers on the mattress. Why do the doctors think I'm going to hurt myself? Or is the just their plot to keep me still so Katniss can finish me off. My fingers start twitching on the bed waiting for Katniss to open the door to finish me off.

The door opens minutes later. A girl about my age walks in. She tentatively crosses the room stopping in front of me. I look at her confused.

"Peeta? It's Delly. From home," she says, a smile gracing her features.

"Delly?" I say, my brain finding distant memories about her from my childhood. "Delly. It's you."

"Yes! How do you feel?" Delly says, relieved.

"Awful. Where are we? What's happened?" I ask.

"Well . . . we're in District Thirteen. We live here now," Delly says, waiting for my reaction.

"That's what those people have been saying. But it makes no sense. Why aren't we home?" I ask.

Delly bites her lip, trying to figure out how to answer. "There was . . . an accident. I miss home badly, too. I was only just thinking about those chalk drawings we used to do on the paving stones. Yours were so wonderful. Remember when you made each one a different animal?"

"Yeah," I say, remembering the memory from when I was a young child. "Pigs and cats and things. You said . . . about an accident?" I know she's trying to avoid the question.

A sheen of sweat appears on Delly's forehead. "It was bad. No one . . . could stay. But I know you're going to like it here, Peeta. The people have been really nice to us. There's always food and clean clothes, and school's much more interesting."

"Why hasn't my family come to see me?" I question.

"They can't," Delly says, tears forming in her eyes. "A lot of people didn't get out of Twelve. So we'll need to make a new life here. I'm sure they could use a good baker. Do you remember when your father used to let us make dough girls and boys?"

Why can't my family visit me? Wait, she said a lot of people didn't get out of Twelve. Snow said something like that back in the Capitol. "There was a fire," I hedge.

"Yes," Delly whispers.

"Twelve burned down, didn't it? Because of her," I say angrily. It's all her fault. "Because of Katniss!" I try to pull my arms free of the restraints holding me down.

"Oh, no, Peeta. It wasn't her fault," Delly says.

"Did she tell you that?" I hiss.

The door opens behind Delly, and she starts backing out. "She didn't have to. I was--"

"Because she's lying!" I interrupt her. "She's a liar! You can't believe anything she says! She's some kind of mutt the Capitol created to use against the rest of us!"

"No, Peeta. She's not a--," Delly starts to say.

"Don't trust her, Delly," I plead. "I did, and she tried to kill me. She killed my friends. My family. Don't even go near her! She's a mutt!"

A hand pulls Delly out of the room, and the door swings shut. I continue to yell frantically hoping that Delly or someone will can hear me and listen. Someone has to listen. Someone. Anyone.

"A mutt! She's a stinking mutt!"

No one seems to hear me. I stop yelling and wait for one of the doctors to return to check on me again. But I'm always waiting for that mutt, Katniss, to walk through the door next.  

Edited