Chapter One
I desperately reach out for the warm body that is always there laying next to me when I wake from my tortured sleep, the one that always comforts me and reassures me I'm safe. And instead find my hand clutching a pillow. My eyes fly open and I frantically call out for him. Slipping out of bed, I put on my robe and search the spacious house in Victors Village where I now spend my days with him. Finding the house vacant, I run out the door and pass by a familiar place. His door is wide open, beating softly against the door frame as the winter wind plays in his yard.
I pad up the steps to shut the door, when I notice Haymitch out cold, lying on the floor. I shuffle in and drowsily hoist him onto the couch. I pry the empty bottle from his hands and cover him in a blanket. He's pretty out of it, so just to make sure I check his pulse. I find his slow pounding beat and feel safe enough to leave him. As a shut the door behind me, I hear him softly begin to snore, and I am reassured that he is fine.
I head down to Peeta's house in Victors Village. I make my way to the door and jerk the knob. The doors locked, and if Peeta were home, it wouldn't be. He's made a point of allowing anyone who wants in, in, as long as he's home to keep the place safe. Just to make sure he's not home, I walk around the house and peer into the frost covered windows. No lights. No sounds. No Peeta.
I go back to my house, and sit on the porch. After ten minutes I walk into town. As I pass by the ruins of my old home, my old district, my old life before the games, a wave of guilt passes over me. "I did this." I tighten the robe around my waist, and then my eyes catch a blond haired boy staring intently at the now burned down bakery. "Peeta!" I walk toward him, but he doesn't move, his focus doesn't change. I stretch out my hand to grab his, but find a fist clenched so tightly, for so long, that his knuckles are ghostly white, the rest of his hand is a flaming red. He looks down noticing my effort, and meets my hand. We interlock fingers and his grip retightens, turning my hand the same shade, but I refuse to let go.
Peeta shifts his head in my direction, but his eyes stay on the ground. "What," his voice tightens, "what do we do now, Katniss." The way he said my name caught me off guard. I put my hand under his chin and adjust his face so he had to meet my stare. In his eyes, I see what I heard in his voice. Hatred, terror, shame, even guilt and somewhere in there, I see a deep longing. I know he knows what I'm thinking, because his look changes immediately, to something completely unreadable. And he must know notice my pain, because he winces and loosens his grip.
I look down to the spot where he was concentrating just a moment ago, and see something catching the sun. I bend down to examine it, but am stopped by Peeta's tight lock on my hand. He sees what I'm attempting and bends down too so I can reach the object without breaking the bond.
I pick up a small, round, silver piece of metal and dust it off. It's far too deformed from the fires to hold any particular shape, but I can tell by the way Peeta looks at it, he recognizes it. "It's my mothers. My father gave it to her for their tenth wedding anniversary."I hand it to him, and know by the strain in his face he is trying to access something that won't be there. Because of the tracker jacker venom, he won't remember much about this place.
I rise, and slowly he follows. I attempt to meet his eyes again, but he won't for a long time. Finally he mouths the same question he did earlier, the one question I know I can't answer. "What do we do now?" After two years of being back from the capitol, you'd think I would know. His hand moves to my face and brushes some hair behind my ear. I look back at the bakery, then at the sky, at our locked hands, and then back at Peeta. And give the only answer I can. "I don't know."
