The president sends everyone off to get to work, so Gale wheels me back to the hospital with Peeta by my side. We laugh a little about the cover-up. Gale says no one wanted to look bad by admitting they couldn't control us. Peeta is kinder, saying they probably didn't want to jeopardize the chance of taking us out again now that they've gotten some decent footage. Both things are probably true. Gale has to go meet Beetee down in Special Weaponry, so it's just Peeta and I.
"So, what do you want to do?" ask Peeta.
I shrug my shoulders.
"Okay. Lets do that." Peeta then shrugs his shoulders.
We both let out a laugh.
"But really. What do you want to do?" he ask still smiling
"I don't know. There really isn't anything to do here." I answer. Except be miserable. I think.
Peeta seems to have read my thoughts.
"Well, maybe we can go outside to the woods. Remember, Coin said you can hunt. It's better than sitting here and thinking about everything."
I hate it how well he can do that. Know what I am thinking and feeling. I don't like people knowing how I feel. But Peeta knows me to well to NOT follow my thoughts. I guess it is the same with Gale. How we are a team when we hunt. How we know what the other will do next. But it is different with Peeta. Gale knows how I work when I hunt animals. Peeta knows how I am when I am forced to kill people and hunting animals. I think Peeta knows me better than anyone. Even Gale.
I nod my head excitedly. I hate it down here. I hate being underground.
When we make it to the guard, they give us tracking devices and Peeta a communicuff. I guess they figured Peeta would keep it on unlike me. They're probably right. I'm surprised they let us go, since we aren't scheduled for training and we are still technically a hospital patient. But they did. I have my bow with me, just for protection.
Peeta and I ditch the tracking devices and I lead him toward the small lake Gale and I found. We sit down, take off our shoes and role up our pant legs, then stick our feet in the cool water. I lean my head on his shoulder. I see him smile. We just sit there in comfortable silence for about five minutes. Just looking at the forest and the lake and listing to the birds. Enjoying one an others company. There are lots of Mockingjay's flying around I notice.
"What do you think we'd be doing right now if we were home?" Peeta ask, breaking the silence.
" I don't know," I say. " If our old peacekeepers were back, I'd probably be hunting."
He nods. "I'd probably be backing cheese buns."
I smile. He knows I love those. "You know what you'd be baking?"
"Yes. Because I know they are your favorite. " I can hear the smile in his voice.
"That they are." I respond.
"I bet I can guess what Haymitch would be doing." He says.
We both say, "Drinking." simultaneously and laugh.
I hunt, Peeta bakes, Haymitch drinks. That's what we did to keep busy. To keep our minds off the horrors we have witnessed.
"How did all this happen?" I suddenly ask.
Peeta lets out a sigh. "I don't know. Everything just seemed to spring up over night."
I nod. "Can you believe just two years ago, we had never been in the games. We were never threatened by the President. We still had our homes." I say with grief in my voice. Two years. That's all it took for our lives to be flipped upside down.
"I still had my family." Peeta says quietly.
I wrap my arms around him and say, "I'm so sorry Peeta."
He buries is head in my neck. "It's not your fault, Katniss. It's Snow." He says spitting the last word out.
"It is my fault Peeta. If I hadn't shot my arrow at that stupid forcefield, your family and the rest of District 12 would still be alive. If I had just eaten those berries, if I would have just died like I was suppose to," Peeta cuts me off.
"Don't you ever say that Katniss." He looks me right in the eye, holding my arms. "It's because of you that our country stands a chance at ending the games. You gave the District's hope. All this destruction is not you fault." He knows I don't believe him.
"Katniss, if you had died, where do you think I would be?" He ask. I can tell he is trying to hold back tears. This is probably bringing up a nightmare of his. Where I am dead. I have them to. Of him dying and there being nothing I can do.
"Off with some other girl. A girl way better than me." I say. When I was planning on dying in the Quell, that's what I wanted for Peeta. He deserves someone better than me. Someone who can give him the children I know he wants. Someone not broken.
"No! Katniss, you are the only person I have ever and will ever love. If you had died, I would have too. I meant every word I said on the beach." He says. The beach. Where I realized that the only person that would be damaged beyond repair if he died, was me.
"You deserve a lot better than me." I say sadly.
"There is no one better than you." He responds.
We both lean in and as our lips touch, I feel the hunger I have only ever felt twice before. The hunger I have only experienced with Peeta. We deepen the kiss and I feel like I am floating. It's only Peeta and I. There is no war. There are no games. Just us.
We are forced to pull away from lack of air.
"Haymitch will always be right. I could live a hundred lifetimes and never deserve you." I whisper.
"Haymitch will always be wrong. Because I don't deserve you." Peeta responds.
Eventually, we are wanted back, so Peeta and I walk hand and hand through the forest. When we reach the my hospital room, I collapse on my bed and Peeta follows.
It seems like I've only shut my eyes for a few minutes, but when I open them, I flinch at the sight of Haymitch sitting a couple of feet from my bed. Waiting. Possibly for several hours if the clock is right. I look over to Peeta and notice he is still sleeping.I think about waking him up to be a witness, but I'm going to have to face Haymitch sooner or later.
Haymitch leans forward and dangles something on a thin white wire in front of my nose. It's hard to focus on, but I'm pretty sure what it is. He drops it to the sheets. "That is your earpiece. I will give you exactly one more chance to wear it. If you remove it from your ear again, I'll have you fitted with this." He holds up some sort of metal headgear that I instantly name the head shackle. "It's an alternative audio unit that locks around your skull and under your chin until it's opened with a key. And I'll have the only key. If for some reason you're clever enough to disable it"—Haymitch dumps the head shackle on the bed and whips out a tiny silver chip—"I'll authorize them to surgically implant this transmitter into your ear so that I may speak to you twenty-four hours a day."
Haymitch in my head full-time. Horrifying. "I'll keep the earpiece in," I mutter.
"Excuse me?" he says.
"I'll keep the earpiece in!" I say, loud enough to wake up half the hospital and unfortunately Peeta.
"What's wrong?!" He shoots up.
"Nothing. Sweetheart here is just being loud." Haymitch answers.
"Oh." Peeta sighs. "What were you guys talking about?" He ask rubbing his eye.
"That if I don't keep my earpiece in next time, he will shackle that to my head. " I say pointing to the headshackle. " And If I can get that off, he will authorize to put a transmitter in my ear." I glare at Haymitch. "So I wanted to make sure he heard me when I said I keep the freaking earpiece in."
"You sure? Because I'm equally happy with any of the three options," he tells me.
"I'm sure," I say. I scrunch up the earpiece wire protectively in my fist and fling the head shackle back in his face with my free hand, but he catches it easily. Probably was expecting me to throw it. Peeta smiles. "Anything else?"
Haymitch rises to go. "While I was waiting...I ate your lunch."
My eyes take in the empty stew bowl and tray on my bed table. "I'm going to report you," I mumble into my pillow.
"You do that, sweetheart." He goes out, safe in the knowledge that I'm not the reporting kind.
"Here we can split mine." Peeta says, dumping half his stew into my now empty bowl.
"Thanks." I say.
I want to go back to sleep, but I'm restless. Images from yesterday begin to flood into the present. The bombing, the fiery plane crashes, the faces of the wounded who no longer exist. I imagine death from all sides. The last moment before seeing a shell hit the ground, feeling the wing blown from my plane and the dizzying nosedive into oblivion, the warehouse roof falling down at me while I'm pinned helplessly to my cot. Things I saw, in person or on the tape. Things I caused with a pull of my bowstring. Things I will never be able to erase from my memory.
At dinner, the nurse brings Peeta's tray to my bed so we can watch the newest propo together on television. The rebels air the "Because you know who they are and what they do" propo that Messalla edited. The footage is intercut with short studio clips of Gale, Boggs, and Cressida describing the incident. It's hard to watch mine and Peeta's reception in the hospital in 8 since I know what's coming. When the bombs rain down on the roof, I bury my face in my pillow, looking up again at a brief clip of us at the end, after all the victims are dead.
At least Peeta doesn't applaud or act all happy when it's done. He just says, "People should know that happened. And now they do."
"Let's turn it off, Peeta, before they run it again," I urge him. But as Peeta's hand moves toward the remote control, I cry, "Wait!" The Capitol is introducing a special segment and something about it looks familiar. Yes, it's Caesar Flickerman. And I can guess who his guest will be.
Finnick's physical transformation shocks me. The healthy, clear-eyed boy I saw a few days ago has lost at least twenty pounds and developed a nervous tremor in his hands. They've still got him groomed. But underneath the paint that cannot cover the bags under his eyes, and the fine clothes that cannot conceal the pain he feels when he moves, is a person badly damaged.
My mind reels, trying to make sense of it. I just saw him! Four—no, five—I think it was five days ago. How has he deteriorated so rapidly? What could they possibly have done to him in such a short time? Then it hits me. I replay in my mind as much as I can of his first interview with Caesar, searching for anything that would place it in time. There is nothing. They could have taped that interview a day or two after I blew up the arena, then done whatever they wanted to do to him ever since. "Finnick." I whisper. Peeta must be thinking the same thing as me, because of the look of disbelief on his face.
Caesar and Finnick have a few empty exchanges before Caesar asks him about rumors that we are taping propos for the districts. "They're using them, obviously," says Finnick. "To whip up the rebels. I doubt they really know what's going on in the war. What's at stake."
"Is there anything you'd like to tell them?" asks Caesar.
"There is," says Finnick. He looks directly into the camera, right into our eyes. "Don't be a fools. Think for yourself. They've turned you two into a weapon that could be instrumental in the destruction of humanity. You've already lost your child, how much more of these losses will you take? If you've got any real influence, use it to put the brakes on this thing before even more people die. Use it to stop the war before it's too late. Ask yourself, do you really trust the people you're working with? Do you really know what's going on? And if you don't...then you need to find out.
Black screen. Seal of Panem. Show over.
Peeta presses the button on the remote that kills the power. In a minute, people will be here to do damage control on Finnick's condition and the words that came out of his mouth. I will need to repudiate them. But the truth is, I don't trust the rebels or Plutarch or Coin. I'm not confident that they tell us the truth. I won't be able to conceal this. Footsteps are approaching.
Peeta grips me hard by the arms. "We didn't see it."
"What?" I ask.
"We didn't see Finnick. Only the propo on Eight. Then we turned the set off because the images upset us. Got it?" he asks. I nod. "Finish your dinner." I pull myself together enough so that when Plutarch and Fulvia enter, I have a mouthful of bread and cabbage. Peeta is talking about how well Gale came across on camera, which is weird for me. We congratulate them on the propo. Make it clear it was so powerful, we tuned out right afterward. They look relieved. They believe us.
No one mentions Finnick.
I hope you guys liked the chapter! Please vote and comment how you think I am doing! 5 votes for another chapter! Also, do you think my chapters are too long? Please be honest! All rights go to Suzanne Collins!
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Other books:
Under the Willow--After Mockingjay
Mockingjay-Prim survives
Evening Primrose--Prim's POV--
The Hunger Games quotes
Caged Mockingjay
The Hunger Games trilogy one shots
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