The Hunger Games: Book Four - How it Might Have Been ... Gale.

Page Twelve

Peeta 

My worst nightmare had come true - they'd found my family. Worse than that, they were going after them, and usin me as a tool to their destruction. I'd screamed at Katniss to run, to run far away from our old house that we were sure we were safe in. We should have known they'd come back. The Capitol never dies.

The man in the black mask had come into my cell 2 days ago, holding a quill, parchment, and a knife. A knife I had expected, but a quill and parchment? That form of letter writing was centuries old, and no one used it anymore. Not since the old Capitol used to send out letters, important ones, to make announcements such as Tessarae 'shortages' and warnings to people that they had been seen hunting. Nothing had ever come of these letters - both Gale and Katniss were living proof of that - but when the black-masked man entered my cell and forced me to write those 9 measly words, I knew that this was more than a miniscule announcement.

The black-masked man had sliced me with the knife every time I'd halted, the feather that was my pen shaking in my hand, not out of nervousness or fear, but out of anger. He didn't tell me who I was writing this for, but I'd known. 'Unfinished business.'

Now I am sitting in my dark cell, the moisture creeping down the walls and drops of old condesation dripping like a clock. My hands are begining to heal, and I know they will be laced with little criss-cross white scars because of the knife. But I know now that reluctance to write the letter would only have been a spur to kill me faster. They don't want me anymore. I'm bait. Bait for my wife.

My wife who is living with Gale Hawthorne.

I figured it out yesterday. I'd asked my captur over and over who the letter was for, and the only response I'd gotten was black silence. Once the letter was written he'd gotten up and left without a word, handing the parchment to a man outside my cell. Before the door was closed on me again, I heard their conversation.

"Complete. Send to District Two," the black-masked man had said. District Two. Katniss had fled, like I'd told her to. But she had fled to an old love, to the worst possible place I can imagine. 

And if she thinks I'm dead, but a body now, whats to stop her from rekindling an old romance?

It wouldn't be the first time Katniss Everdeen had made a bad decision.