Katniss doesn't know why she's holding onto Peeta's arm so tightly. Does she think she can really keep him here if he doesn't want to be? But even after she's aware of her white fingers wrapped around his arm, the way she's creating red bruises in his skin, she can't release him.
"We have to go," she says. "Now!" She feels as if she's shouting, like she's drunk as Haymitch and can't quite hear properly anymore, so everything comes out loud and overly insistent. And Peeta's already agreed, anyway. As if he would have done anything else…
At least not while the crazy girl's still talking, Katniss thinks. Better to go still and quiet until the danger's passed, which Peeta is doing very well. Peeta has excellent survival instincts. And, unlike Katniss, he has been able to survive not only the games and the daily difficulties of life, but has done so without compromising his integrity.
That's why Peeta is more popular. Katniss might be the one people think of when they think of rebellion, but it's Peeta they love. Peeta with his soft voice and his way with words. He'd make the devil nervous.
Katniss has no skills of persuasion. She only has her belief that it's the only option, and her fear. Always the fear. She's the worst kind of coward, always looking out for her own skin. But she doesn't know how to be any other way.
"Sure," Peeta says, carefully. "We can do that."
Katniss nods, only slightly mollified. "It's the only way," she says, as if Peeta is arguing.
"Okay," Peeta says.
Suddenly, irrationally, Katniss is angry. She's angry with Peeta and his soft, hypnotic voice, how he makes everything so easy. It's not like that with Gale. Going up against Gale is like slamming into a wall, then having to climb up it, only to discover once you've reached the top that the wall has risen higher. It's not that Peeta is weak, exactly. Katniss searches frantically for what exactly is wrong with Peeta, what offends her so profoundly about his agreeableness. Certainly he's disagreed with her before. Hasn't he?
Yes, in the Games, she thinks. He didn't want you to go to the Cornucopia to get the medicine... remember? But another memory immediately intrudes: Yes, and remember how nicely you disregarded his opinion by doping him into unconsciousness?
She grits her teeth. It was necessary! I had to do it. I had to…
Maybe, her conscience concedes. But you certainly took the easiest route, didn't you? As opposed to, you know, talking to him or something…
She looks up into Peeta's face. He's not very tall, actually. Maybe only a couple of inches above her. She rather likes that, now that she's aware of it, how she can almost look him directly in the eye. With Gale she'll forever be looking up, straining to catch the lightning flashes of emotion on his face. Gale is as easy to read for Katniss as she is for him. They are alike, so similar they could pass as brother and sister. Both bad liars, their faces open to the world, angry at the world and wanting everyone to know it.
Peeta's different in that way, too. His expression almost always placid, like the surface of an unfamiliar pond: it looks safe, but how deep it is who could say? Maybe it comes from being a baker. Having to smile all day at hungry and haggling customers, always trying to get a penny less when you've already been as accommodating as the bottom line will allow. Or his mother…. That horrible woman. Even now Katniss doesn't like her, knowing she bet against her own son. Money has done nothing to improve her morals and she still talks to Peeta as if he's rather slow in the head.
Katniss tries to imagine what it must have been like for Peeta, living in a house with a violent mother and an indifferent father. You probably couldn't show much of what you were thinking. Probably couldn't let down your guard. If you did, it'd be used against you, wouldn't it? Get you called all kinds of things. Didn't matter if they were true or not, either, not after you got called them enough. You'd start to believe it. Of course you would. When your own mother was calling you worthless... and who would know better than her?
Katniss knows at least this much is true. Because she's been at least peripherally aware of Peeta her whole life. The boy with the bread. The boy whose friends don't come to his house. The screaming harridan out on the Mellark front lawn waving an iron skillet. It had almost been a joke, really.
Had Katniss ever laughed? The sick twist in her gut conjures no specific memories, but tells her that she might have. She can say this much for her own family: they've never thought of her as worthless. She's too good of a shot.
"What're you thinking?" Peeta says. His voice snaps Katniss back into the present.
"Nothing," she says automatically and lets go of Peeta's arm as if it's the most repulsive thing to her. Any idiot could see that she's lying but Peeta doesn't pursue the topic. He just looks at her.
Katniss can't hold his gaze when he is this close, and she looks down. Sees the damage she did to his arm, the angry explosions of color. Does he even feel it? You would never know with him.
"Do you - should I tell my family?" Peeta asks, for the first time looking uncertain. "I don't think they'll want that…"
Katniss doesn't know if he means they won't want to come with them, or won't want to know what happened to their youngest son.
"It's up to you," she says, taking refuge in the vague. "They'll be in danger no matter what." And it's with that realization that she falters in her plan. Taking Gale's family and hers and Peeta is one thing, but who will be left to pay for their defiance? Katniss doesn't much care for Peeta's family or the richer folk in District 12 but that doesn't mean they deserve to be whipped and hanged.
She runs a shaky hand through her hair, pulling loose the braid. "I don't know, I don't know. This all seemed so much simpler with Gale in the woods." When the idea was just the two of them. Running away together.
"I'm sure."
Katniss shoots him a searching glance but it's impossible to tell from his expression if he's being sarcastic or not. Given that Peeta doesn't usually talk to her that way, she decides probably not.
"Do you think this is a bad idea?" she says, the energy that brought her to Peeta waning fast now in the face of logistics.
Peeta shrugs. "I think we're in danger no matter what we do. I'd rather be where you are so..."
Color, not from anger this time, floods Katniss's cheeks. "Stop that," she snaps. Damn him! He says things like that, so casually, out of nowhere. Without expectation of a similar response. What can she possibly want him to do with words like that?
"Sorry," Peeta says, not sounding the least bit so.
"You have to stop that," Katniss repeats, more firmly.
Peeta nods and for the first time he lowers his eyes from Katniss. "I know. I know you don't like it. I'm not trying to… get anything from you. I wasn't thinking. Sorry."
He really does sound sorry this time and now Katniss feels like a bitch. He's just being Peeta. So much of the time he says and behaves in the way people desire him to, and here he is being honest, just himself and how he feels, and Katniss has, once again, flung it back in his face. Told him to stop.
"You're not really in love with me," Katniss says, surprising herself. But she can't stop now. She has to make him understand. "It's just - just what the Games did to us. The adrenaline and how we had to survive. Stressful situations heighten sensation and… and…"
She starts to blush again and stutters to a halt when Peeta raises his eyes back to hers. She's never seen him look this way, his normally languid gaze hard and blank. It's like he's transformed into someone else, a man she has never met. Anyone else would have yelled, but Peeta sounds much worse in his calm voice.
"Please don't tell me how I feel," Peeta says. "I'm aware you don't share a similar sentiment and I will work to stop saying things that upset you. But don't condescend to tell me that I'm confused. I have wanted you since the first day I saw you."
This last statement, so blatant and without doubt, leaves Katniss without words. There's no working around it, no way to misinterpret his intentions. She has heard this before, but that was in the Capitol, where everything seems fake and too spectacular to be true. The idea that any man, let alone someone of such quality as Peeta Mellark, could have ever noticed her is alarming. Truly frightening. She's done nothing. Nothing! She almost got him killed. Would have killed him herself had not the good people of Panem thought she was a hopeless romantic deserving of his love.
"But why?" she says helplessly.
Peeta gives another roll of his shoulders. That scary look is gone, the mask back in place. Was that, Katniss wondered, the real Peeta? Or did that one come out in the Games? It occurs to her, not for the first time, that Peeta can make himself very dangerous indeed when he chooses to. And the danger lies in never knowing you should be worried about him.
"You were nice to me," is all he says.
"That's it?"
"That's it." He glances at the gray sky, as if this conversation is beginning to bore him. "It sounds even more pathetic out loud, doesn't it?"
"No -" Katniss begins to say, but Peeta is already turning. He gives her a half wave.
"Let me know when and where. I'll come running."
Somehow Katniss doesn't doubt that he means that literally.
She watches the back of him as he walks away. He's not a tall man but he's strong and solid, with broad shoulders and a cap of light blond hair. The girls talked about him at school. Not like they did Gale, who is dark and a little sinister to those who don't know him. Attractive in the way all unknown elements are. Gale gives the impression of being an undetonated landmine. It might never go off, or it might go off without even a trigger. Who can say or when? Peeta, on the other hand, he's all light. So transparent.
Or seemingly so.
If she had to choose which one to take with her, Gale or Peeta… could she? Does she have what it takes to play referee between them? The answer to that is obvious, or else she wouldn't have ended up in this mess in the first place. Peeta's not the problem, anyway. He has apparently resigned himself to his affections being unrequited. Katniss finds this depressing. He shouldn't be wasting himself on her.
Gale still fights. Gale will always fight.
Katniss wraps her arms around herself. Peeta is right. No matter what they do they are in danger. They have always been in danger. From hunger. From sudden confiscation of their goods and livelihood. That's the whole point. Keep people in fear, distract them with so much pain and loss that they have no energy for anything else. But not too much. Push people too far into nothingness and they realize they have nothing left to lose. And that is when they are truly a threat.
Except Katniss still does. She has quite a few things left to lose.
Without consciously planning to Katniss's feet begin to move forward. At first at a trot and then she breaks into a run, catching up to Peeta. He hears her coming up behind him and just begins to turn as she slips in the mud and slams into him. He doesn't fall like he did the last time Katniss thought running into a man with a cane was a good idea, but it's a close thing.
His arm instinctively wraps around her waist, holding himself up as much as her, and she throws her arms around his neck. "I'm sorry," she says, not quite sure what she's apologizing for. For being someone she's not, for being who she is, for getting them both dirty in more ways than this.
Peeta's mouth had opened slightly in surprise at her approach and he stares down at her with this wild, distant look in his eyes that makes Katniss both want to pull away and bring him nearer. It only lasts a moment and then Peeta snaps back into himself. His grip around her waist loosens.
"It's fine," he says. The way he sounds, she almost believes him. He never says anything flippantly. He has such power over people in this way, over her. They would love him in the Capitol. He could make a fortune doing anything he wanted. People would pay him for the privilege to watch.
And what's Katniss asking him to do? 'Come run away to the woods with me and Gale and my family and his family! Won't that be fun? Eating bark, never baking bread again, or painting. And you can sleep alone every night for the rest of your life.'
Katniss still has her arms wrapped around Peeta's neck but he's almost gotten free of her. He takes his hands and pulls her arms apart, and for a moment Katniss resists, trying to keep her arms where they are. He smells the same, the same as he did in the Games. He's so warm, not feverish like back then, but so good and solid and warm. Like a kitchen hearth. Safe.
"Katniss," he says, quiet as always but more firmly than he usually speaks to her. "It's fine. You don't have to do this."
"But -" she says, blinking back the blur of tears. She does have to do this. Peeta deserves to have what he wants. She will never be happy. She has known this since her father died. And she could make Peeta happy, if she tried. Maybe. Prim likes her, after all. She must have some good things about her, if people so worthy as her sister and Peeta want to be around her.
Peeta pushes her arms down to her sides. "I don't want this," he says, a trace of the steel she heard before returning to his voice. "Do you understand me?"
She stays frozen where Peeta placed her, her boots sinking into the muddy ground. She feels like a child, the way he's asking her that, like she's done wrong. And she has. She sees that now. She's made what is going wrong with them ten times worse. All she can do is nod at him.
He looks at her a moment longer to see if the message is sinking in. Apparently satisfied with what he sees, he lets her go and turns around. To do what, walk away again? For good? Katniss swallows around the lump in her throat.
"I would," she says, halting Peeta in his steps. She stumbles after him, but this time doesn't touch him. "I really would, Peeta -"
She gasps as Peeta swings around and grabs her by the arm, nearly tearing her to the ground. She's certain he's going to hit her, and he moves so fast there's not much she can do except let it happen. Doesn't matter. She deserves it.
But instead of a blow the next thing Katniss feels is Peeta's lips on hers. Not a nice kiss, either, the kind she would expect from him. The kind they give the cameras for the folks back home. There's force behind it, overwhelming force, and an emotion that at first Katniss thinks is anger. Only this feeling never tips into violence, never hurts her in a way she'd try to fight. Peeta's fingers pull through her hair, turning her face up to his. Katniss thinks she might make a noise, a soft 'oh' of surprise that's lost against the press of Peeta's mouth. This isn't the boy she knows. Soft, safe Peeta. As good and wholesome as the bread he bakes. This is someone who's going to drown her.
Then it's over and she's being pushed away. Before she has a chance to really kiss Peeta back, he is shoving her off him. She trips backwards. Her mouth bruised and red; she's panting. Peeta looks so cool as his eyes settle on her. All she can do is breathe.
"I'm not a nice guy," Peeta says. It takes Katniss a second to cobble the words into a coherent idea in her head.
"What?" she says.
"I said I'm not a nice guy," Peeta says. "I would expect things from you. If you were mine." He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, that mouth that was just on hers, and Katniss can barely look away from it now.
"But you're not mine," Peeta says. "So I don't ask."
He didn't ask just now, either, Katniss thinks, but it's not what she wants to say. It would be too easy to hurt Peeta with this. And she never wants to hurt him. She cannot abide to watch another creature suffer. There is no contradiction in Katniss's mind between herself as a hunter and this sentiment she holds. She worked to become a clean shot, so that no one, animal or man, would feel more pain than was necessary.
"I'm leaving now," Peeta says. "Don't follow me, please."
"I won't," Katniss says swiftly, as if she is somehow bestowing a gracious favor. "I'll leave you alone as much as I can -"
Peeta laughs unpleasantly. "Don't do that, either." And then he's walking away from her.
Katniss remains where she is, as she promised, until Peeta is well out of sight.