"Oh, my dear Miss Everdeen. I thought we had agreed not to lie to each other."
We did agree.
I see my sister and her last word just barely forming in her lips. Katniss. And the bombs went off. Primrose Everdeen was thirteen years old when she died. She erupted into flames. I feel the heat radiating on my skin and when I open my eyes I release the bow string and as it hits Coin directly in the heart, I can hear a cannon go off in my head. The Hunger Games are over.
I turn my head to my shoulder, and bite down on hard flesh. When I look up, Peeta's blue eyes stare back at me, his hand over the violet pill. Cinna's last gift.
"Let me go!"
His words are hushed and gentle. "I can't"
The guards are dragging me away. I'm screaming. Kicking. Biting. Fighting. Crying.
And I scream my last distress call. I scream to the one person who was supposed to always have my back.
"GALE!"
I jolt upright, and find myself hyperventilating. I feel Peeta shift next to me.
"Katniss?" he whispers. I turn and look at him, meeting his eyes. "Another nightmare?" I simply nod and he sits up and wraps his arms around me, gently rubbing my back. My breathing starts to calm down and he pulls me back down onto the bed, and positions me so my head is on his chest. I listen to the steadiness of his heartbeat, trying to match my breath with it, as he combs at my hair with his gentle fingers.
My name is Katniss Mellark. I was in the Hunger Games. I survived. I was at war. I survived. I watched my friends and family rise and fall like the winter wheat. I am married to Peeta Mellark. I have two beautiful children. I love them. I have nightmares every night. I am the Mockingjay.
Thinking of real life calms me. Even if real life is horrible, it calms me. I hold Peeta's hands that are rested on my stomach and I drift back off to sleep.
When I wake up it is morning. Peeta isn't here. He's downstairs, baking bread for our breakfast. I yawn and sit up, slipping into my bathrobe and then walk over the window. Pulling the curtains back, I am welcomed by a ray of sunlight. I push open the windows and inhale the morning breeze that blew in the sweet air from the Meadow.
Mine and Peeta's house is no longer in the Victor's Village. I couldn't stay there. It reminded me to much of the Hunger Games. President Snow's roses still seem to lurk in the upstairs room. Our new home was built over the ruins of Madge Undersee's house, right at the border that separated the square from the Seam. I overlook the Meadow and look beyond at the evergreen trees in the woods.
It's almost as if I could smell the apple wood smoke, and the skin that smelled of oranges.
"Happy Hunger Games!" Gale says in his high pitched voice that was supposed to mimic Effie Trinket. The berry flies into the air. "And may the odds…"
I catch the berry on my tongue, still remembering its sweet juice explode in my mouth before I finish the line and say, "be ever in your favor!"
And we would laugh, curse, and speak free about our thoughts on the Capitol, the reapings, and the Hunger Games. About how outrageous the Capitol people were, about how people at the age of 12 have to take out tesserae, and how every year twenty three children were killed in the outdoor arena for Capitol entertainment. It all seems like yesterday.
"We could do it you know? Live on our own. You and I, we could make it," he says to me.
"Mother?"
I didn't even hear her come. The silence just sneaks up on me, but then I hear her sing song voice, and know it's alright. My black haired, blue-gray eyed daughter, wrapped up in my father's hunting jacket, with a bow and quiver on her shoulder. Her game bag is bulging, so she must have risen early, and had gone hunting before dawn.
I smile and walk over to her, taking her hands in mine. "Good morning Rina."
Rina Lavinia Mellark. Peeta agreed to name her after the red headed Avox I had met so long ago. She died because of me. Maybe if I had come to her aid she would still be here. I could have hid her in the woods. But it didn't matter now.
Rina smiles at me. "Good morning to you too," she says. "Father's downstairs with Jay, baking. He wanted me to come see if you were hungry. I just got back."
"What time did you head out?"
Rina shrugs. "About four, I think. I had to go rouse Aaron up. You know how he is in the mornings," she says, rolling her eyes. "Then we did a quick stop at the Hawthorne's and I gave Posy some berries. Then Aaron and I went and traded in the market. Which reminds me"- Rina pulls out two bottles of white liquor out of her hunting bag. –"Gotta give these to Uncle Haymitch later."
Haymitch Abernathy isn't related to Peeta or me. But I guess we have to give him props for keeping as alive those years in Games and in the war.
"Yeah, he's running low. He wasn't in a great mood when I last saw him," I frown. Rina gives out a chuckle and sticks the bottles back in her bag. I take her hands. "I need to shower and change. How about you go downstairs and help your brother and father in the kitchen?"
Rina nods and I kiss her between the eyes. Then she's gone like she wasn't there to begin with. But the faint scent of the woods she brought it remains in the air.
I'm in the woods again, several weeks after my homecoming. The past few weeks had been busy of course, with ceremonies, banquets, photo shoots. There was also helping my mother and Prim move into our new house in the Victor's Village. But now I am in the woods. It's warm out so I don't need my hunting jacket, but my hunting boots are on, and my old clothes. My game bag is full of food. It wasn't scarce anymore. It felt good seeing Prim go to bed every night on a full stomach.
I just sat there. Waiting. It felt like eternity, when it had only been a few hours. Reality hurt. I hated reality. What the Games had done. I remember thinking, "He hates me, and he wants nothing to do with me." My best friend. The one person I could tell anything too. The one who knows me the best. He hates me and has left me. Just like everything else from my past.
There I sat, with tears streaming down my face, a large lump in my throat forming. I have to get out of these woods. There are too many memories. I wipe my eyes and pull my bag over my shoulder and look up. There he is, right there. Ten feet away from me. He's probably been there for hours, just watching me. I should be mad. But, I remember dropping everything, and running into his arms, letting out this strange sound, mixed between a laugh and a sob. There we stood for the longest time, until I started to hiccup and he let go so I could sip some water.
I had hopes that things would go back to normal. We did what we always did. Ate, hunted, fished, and gathered. We even talked about the town. Not about the Games, or the mines. Just about other things. When we walked back, I was so happy. We walked side by side, and we listened to each other.
He has his game bag slung over his shoulder and I know he's headed for the Hob. I should get home though. Prim and my mother would need me there tonight. I open my mouth to tell him when he cupped my face into his hands and he kissed me. His lips were warm, and I remember my fingers begining curling on his chest, when he pulled away.
"I had to do that. At least once," Gale had said. And then like Rina, he was suddenly gone.
I dry my hair in a towel and braid it back wet, before I slip into some clothes. I hear their laughter downstairs, and I step down into the kitchen. Jayden Cinna Mellark sits on his stool with flour in his hair and all over his face, while his sister stands next to him laughing. Peeta pulls out a warm loaf of bread from the oven and sets it on the table.
"Mommy!" my five year old son says aloud. He jumps up, and toddles over to me, his blond curls bouncing as he races into my arms. I grin and lift him up as he jumps and steal a kiss on his nose.
"There's my little Mockingjay," I smile at him. He grins and as Peeta walks over to me, he jumps out of my arms to chase old Buttercup around the kitchen.
"Morning Katniss," he says. He kisses me gently.
"Morning yourself," I smile, kissing his cheek.
He smiles and leads me to a stool next to Rina, and as Jayden scrambles by, I scoop him up and prop him up next to me as Peeta slices up the bread. My boy with the bread.