My eyes are blinded as a bright video appears on the wall in front of me.
Katniss.
She's sitting in the tree, it's early in the morning. The camera pans over to a small Rue, standing in a nearby tree. She points upwards, above Katniss' head, motioning towards the Tracker Jacker nest. Katniss leans up with her knife, looking down at mine and the careers sleeping bodies, before beginning to cut the branch above us.
"She was going to kill you." Katniss continues cutting. "She wanted you dead." Cutting. "She was about to take your life Peeta." Snap. The branch falls to the ground, shattering on the forest floor, Tracker Jackers flying everywhere.
My body begins to burn as the venom trails through my veins. I feel a pained scream erupt from my scarred throat, echoing the dark room. The next video appears on the wall.
The fog is pouring down the jungle, coming towards us quickly. Katniss grabs my arm, lifting me and leading me out of the camp. I see Finnick and Mags go the opposite way, not to far, but far enough. We run for a few meters before I trip over a root. Katniss looks down at me, trying to lift me up again. We go until the welts burn deeper and our nerves feel like exploding. She looks down at me, a look of hatred in her eyes. They morph into something else, not human.
I scream again as she turns into one of the wolf mutts from the last arena, tearing my throat open and ending my life.
"She's not even human Peeta. She just wants you dead. That's her mission. To kill your family. Then destroy your home. Then kill you." The voice echoes in my head.
"She's a mutt." I shake my head.
"No.... Katniss..." I moan, my body going limp. But I'm jolted upright by a painful tearing in my blood. My eyes blink rapidly, trying to bring myself back to reality. This isn't real. She's human. She doesn't want me dead. The bombing was the Capitol.
My body jolts as electricity races through my veins, followed closely by the burning venom.
"She is a mutt Peeta." I hear the voice again, then my vision goes black.
~~~~~~~~~~~
"Peeta...Peeta..." The voice echoes around the darkness. My body spins around, trying to locate her.
"Up here Peeta," she says, making me look upwards. "Over here Peeta," I look around frantically, my anxiety growing more and more. Then it becomes dead silent. The only sound is my heavy breathing. My torso freezes and I feel goosebumps arise on my arms.
The silence is then broken by the sound of loud growls as a muttation leaps out at me, knocking me to my back. She stands over me, staring into my eyes. Hers look familiar, the deep grey of the Seam in 12. She studies me for a moment before sinking her teeth in my shoulder, ripping me apart.
"AAHHHH!!!!" I scream, my eyes flying open and my hands thrashing the blankets to the side. The images flash behind my eyelids and the growls and voices echo around my head. I feel my hands shoot up to cover my ears, and screams violently departing my lungs.
I can faintly hear Johanna on the other side of the wall. chanting for me to keep myself together. But it's so hard. It's so hard to hold on to reality and not to just give in to the darkness that wants to take over. I feel it growing inside of me; the rage and fear battling inside my head.
"Peeta it's okay! Fight back! You can fight back! Don't let him win Peeta!" Johanna yells. The flashes continue for a while longer but then they suddenly cease.
I begin to breathe in short pants, slowly pulling my hands away from my ears, I cringe at my bloody fingertips. I gently touch the scars at the top of my cheekbone, right where it connects to my ear, flinching as pain radiates through the area.
I lay back down, bringing my breaths back to a normal pace and warding off sleep for a solid hour or so when I begin to hear the yelling and banging outside of the cell.
"Leave him alone! He doesn't know anything and he's proven it! If you need someone to blame and torture, use me! Just leave Peeta out of this!" It's Johanna. She's trying to protect me? Why? Why does she even care about what happens to me?
Peacekeepers swing the door to my cell open and I'm blinded by the light as they set a pile of clothes on a chair. "Put those on." One of them snaps. He closes the door and I walk hesitantly towards the chair.
I pull my clothes off gingerly, trying not to touch the burns and welts that litter my skin, but my nervous hands object, making it painful to just remove my clothes. I put the fine, capitol material over my torso and pull up the pants to match, slipping the black dress shoes over my feet. I shuffle backwards, tripping and landing on my back. I hear the door open and I am blinded by the light as the Peacekeepers cuff my hands, leading me out of the cell. I look back, seeing Johanna through a window in her cell door.
The Peacekeepers shove me into a room where an unfamiliar woman waits. She sits me down, styling my greasy hair back and covering my ruined face with awful smelling cream. She finishes and leaves the room, only to be replaced by one of Snows' henchmen. He glares down at me before speaking.
"Watch this." His voice is sharp as he starts a video on the wall.
The screen flashes with images of the war and some videos of Katniss, which make me cringe.
"She is being used as a way to stir the pot, so to speak, to get the rebels to want to fight back. She doesn't really know a thing about the war," Snows' voice plays behind the videos of bombings and death in the districts. "She will destroy our species Peeta. You must understand that and convince her to make this rebellion end." Seal of Panem. Black screen.
I blink a few times, trying to understand everything. I take in the words Snow said, flinching as the videos of Katniss flicker behind my eyes.
I'm pulled out of the room and down a flight of familiar stairs. That's when I finally understand.
I'm being interviewed again.
The Peacekeepers shove me forward on the stage, towards a familiar Caesar Flickerman. He smiles, shaking my hand and sitting me down next to him.
We exchange empty introductions, before he dives right in to business.
"So, Peeta, I suspect you've heard the rumors about the videos Miss Katniss Everdeen has been filming for the districts, what do you think about it?" He says. I feel my blood burn, and I breathe in painfully.
"They're obviously using her. To whip up the rebels," I say, trying to shake the tremor in my hands. "I doubt she really even knows what's going on in the war. What's really at stake."
"Is there anything you'd like to tell her?" Caesar asks. I nod.
"There is," I say, looking directly into the camera, trying to imagine it as her grey eyes. "Don't be stupid Katniss. Think about yourself. All they've done is turn you into their own personal weapon that could be the end of our race." I sigh. "If you have any real influence on the districts, use it to put the brakes on this. Use it to stop the war before it's too late. Ask yourself if you really trust the people you work with. Do you even know what's going on? If not..... find out." The crowd goes silent as Caesar shakes my hand, and I'm shuffled off of the stage.
Peacekeepers lead me back up the stairs and into a hallway. I clench my eyebrows together as they shove me ahead, knocking me to the ground. One of them leans over me, slamming his fist into my face. He gets a few kicks and punches before he's pulled up by his buddy, leaving me to suffer on the concrete for a moment before pulling me up and pushing me into the musky cell.
"Peeta! Peeta what happened?" Johanna asks through the wall. I cough a few times, blood spurting out of my mouth.
"They interviewed me again." I say, my voice hoarse. I chuckle lightly.
"What did they want to know?"
"About the Propos Katniss has been filming. They wanted to know what I thought about it and wanted me to get her to stop helping them."
"She can't Peeta... She has to keep going..."
"NO! She's going to kill all of us, Johanna! If she really cared about either one of us, we wouldn't be here now would we? We would be in District 13 with the rest of them! She could care less if we live or die." I yell at her. She's silent and I sigh angrily. "Well it's true." I state, ripping the uncomfortable silk clothes from my body, flinching as they rub my wounds.
She just wants us dead, and she could care less about either of us. She could care less about the entire country, as long as she's alive.
And I hate her.