What Did They Do To You?
As I run down the corridor of Thirteen, my heart races with anticipation, fear, and a hunger I've never quite had before.
It's all a blur as the doctors direct me to the room he's currently in.
I don't even pay attention to the fact that Johanna looks like a skinny, bald rat, or that Finnick and Annie are currently embracing each other with passion.
All my thoughts are on him.
Questions race through my head.
What happened to him there?
What did they do to him to make him say those things on tv?
What did they do to him to make him look the way he did?
Everything in my brain comes to a halt as I see him through the tiny glass window of the door to his room.
I can only see the back of his head, but already I can see the difference the Capitol made on him.
The skin on his neck is sickly pale.
His blonde hair is dulled.
The shape of his neck is alarmingly thin.
I open the door to his room.
His posture suddenly tenses at the sound.
I make my way around the hospital bed he is sitting on and the sight before me is nothing I could have ever prepared for.
The sickly pale yellow of his skin is the first thing I gasp at.
The his arms are so thin.
All the muscle he built up as a baker is gone.
They're so small.
His hands, normally soft but calloused, are dry and cracking.
Dry blood coats his knuckles.
I chance a glance at his face and almost burst into tears.
His cheekbones, normally accompanied by the warm smile on his lips are hollowed.
The skin on his collarbone cleaves to the bone.
He looks so thin.
So helpless.
So vulnerable.
What strikes me most though, are his eyes.
The eyes I'm so fond of.
The eyes that only look at me with love in them.
The eyes that I fell in love with are now bloodshot from days of sleepless nights.
They look on me with fear and worry, almost as if he's more concerned with my health and well-being than his.
I reach out to touch the skin on his face.
It's so dry.
All I want to do is wrap him in my arms and never let him go.
He reaches out to wipe a tear I hadn't know had fallen.
I'm so focused on the damage on his face that I almost the miss the small whisper he uttered.
"Katniss", he croaked. "Peeta", I let out with a sob.
Before I know it he is in my arms, clutching on to me as if his life depended on it.
I hear a strangled cry from him and I feel the wetness of his tears on my shirt.
"You're here. You're safe. I'm here." I whisper over and over again.
As his body still racks with sobs, I can only imagine what the Capitol must have done to him to make him feel like this.
Peeta is supposed to be the one who offers a shoulder to cry on.
Peeta is the one who is so good with comfort and words.
As his body stops shaking from the cries, we lay down on his bed together, just holding each other.
He curls up into my side, resting his head on my chest.
As his breathing evens out I mutter under my breath, "What did they do to you?"
