Chapter 1

Moving

"This is the last box ..." Gale says while groans of weariness. "What do you have in here, Catnip? all the books from Quantico library? Weights?"

I look up and see Gale with the man I hired to help me with the move, with a huge unmarked box that I don't know what contains. I've brought it from home along with many others, in fact there are more boxes that space, in this small apartment.

Besides, I think, now this is my new home.

The summer is starting but the temperature is incredibly high, there is a heat wave that has the city of New York in check these days, and I miss my woods already and the fresh wind that blows through the leaves of the trees.

I quickly say goodbye to the moving company while I see Gale has been sitting in the doorway, red and sweaty because of the effort. He is not used to these temperatures, neither.

"C'mon Gale, thought you were a strong man ... And tough" I joke with him. He looks at me with a scowl and rolls his eyes. "It is late, but do you have time for a drink or something before you go?"

If I can find something to eat in this disaster, I think.

"I don't think so, I still have a 4-hour-trip back home and I want to get some rest before starting my shift."

"In that case it's time to say goodbye, and you know I hate it, so better if we do this fast," I say as I approach for a hug.

He gives me a kiss on the cheek, which lasts more than necessary, and turns around to leave, but at the last minute he turns and smiles while saying concerned:

"Don't be a stranger Catnip. And please, don't get into much troubles, ok?"

And with that, he leaves. I go to the window to see how he reaches his car, without looking up. And I see how it moves away. I know, he didn't want to leave me, not after the last month we spent in the woods, where everything went back to how it used to be between us, or at least, as close as possible. No pressure or reproach, just sharing quiet times for hunting and fishing.

Gale is tall, dark and has the typical gray eyes of our area but they are no less fascinating. He is a handsome man and athletic thanks, in part, to his work as a ranger in the Adirondack Mountains. When I really consider it, it is clear that being in the Adirondack Rangers was always his calling and destiny. Also it could have been my destiny, it would have been more than a viable option: stay with him in our little town, but ... I shake my head with determination to take out that thought of my mind. Some time ago I made my choice and it brought me here.

A path I started walking after the death of my father. I still have nightmares, many nights where I only see blood and I feel fear and confusion, while I look desperately for him, until I find him, lying in the snow, part of his body covered by rocks that fell after the landslide and avalanche. His skin was bluish, possibly due to the silver light of the full moon that shone in the sky. In his face a gesture of surprise and eyes open, some empty eyes that did not reflect any light in his gray eyes.

We had gone to spend the weekend at the cabin near the lake. Just him and me, as we used to do to hunt occasionally. My mother pretended to be jealous and upset because we went without her, but the truth was that she loved our father-and-daughter moments.

A blizzard had begun shortly after arriving at the cabin and my father asked me to be tending the fire, while he went to check the snares that he had put just one day before. The cabin was so cozy. The heat and light radiated from the fireplace was warm, and I started to doze on the couch, tired as I was.

Suddenly a loud and continuous noise woke me right away, I could feel and hear that something was coming, as if the mountain was falling ... An avalanche! I abruptly thought ... And again silence. Full silence, no noise from the night. Fear came over me. I slipped on my worn leather boots and grabbed my jacket and beanie as I went out into the darkness screaming my father's name. That feeling, the feeling of loss that began that night, at that very moment, even when I did not know what I had lost, steeped my DNA till today.

The death of my father, changed my life, my mother's and my little sister's Prim. Not only because of the tragic event and the family drama involving the unexpected and cruel death of a father and husband, but by the situation that led.

My mother was blocked, stopped living and I would say that she even stopped breathing. She didn't get up in the morning to prepare breakfast and school stuff. She did not get up to pick us up. She did not get up to buy or to wash the dishes. Even she didn't get up to go to work at the clinic where she was an assistant.

At first the neighbors helped us, me and Prim, who was 4 years younger and was a naive and charming girl of 7 years old. But as the time went by, they began to ask questions and I was afraid to be taken to a shelter and be separated of my sister. She was my whole life and I couldn't allow it. We ceased to accept their charity saying that, although my mother was still depressed and sad, we were not missing anything with the help sent by our family. The reality was that we hardly had anything to survive. My contempt for my mother grew every day, seeing how she was not able to cope with the loss of my father not even for her two daughters. I saw how the love she had for my father changed her into a weak and small self. We not only lost a father but a mother.

That fact convinced me that I didn't want to get married, I didn't want to love,I did not want to become what she became. It was much safer just cared about Prim.

Again, I have started to wander. I come back to my chores because I do not have much time to fix this catastrophe of boxes and stuff everywhere, before I start working. I empty my purse and find my wallet inside. I open it and see my badge "Special Agent Katniss Everdeen". That's me, just graduated from Quantico Academy and assigned to my first destination. I have worked and studied hard to get me into the New York office, near from the Hospital where Prim works.

I'm taking out of the boxes everything that they contain: clothes, toiletries, some cooking pots and pans. Next to the shelf is a box with a pile of books I had in Quantico, all those books and more that I had to learn at the Academy. Once placed, I breath happy. It took me less time than I expected, although it has already started to get dark. I see that there is only one box near the door. I try to lift it, but it is impossible. Now I understand why it had to be load by two people. I'll get some scissors and open it. I don't remember what contains, but due the weight and just as Gale has suggested, there must be more books.

Once I open the box I stare at it. it is true that there are books, but been years since I saw them. These are the books I left behind when I moved to the University thanks to a scholarship from sports that I got for my skill with the bow.

I grab one of Jane Austen, one of those who made us read in English class "Pride and Prejudice". It opens in a sheet and placed there, I found a dry dandelion. Helplessly, it reminds me to a blond guy with broad shoulders and with the most blue eyes that I remember seeing in my life, even more than Prim's.

Peeta Mellark, I think.

And suddenly I become, again, a 11-year-old girl frightened by the death of his father and distraught because she doesn't know what to do to keep her sister beside her without starving.

It was April, and it was pouring rain, in my desperation I approached the center of town, to the Merchants area, to get food, even from the containers. When I got off to the best known bakery around Albany. The owner, a surly woman saw me and threw me like a dog, but exhausted and soaked to the bone as I was, I could barely turn around the corner and fell down under a tree. I remember thinking it would be best to give up and call to Social Services so they took us to a center or at the end, I would kill Prim of hunger. I began to mourn when I heard a noise close to me. The back door of the bakery opened out and I saw a blond boy who was studying in my same class, Peeta. His mother yelling at him because of the burned bread.

He walked toward the container to throw the loaves but he looked at me. I was watching him because of the bread and because of the red weal that stood out on his cheekbone. Then the boy took one look back to the bakery as if checking that the coast was clear, and he threw the loaves of bread in my direction and he sloshed back to the bakery, closing the kitchen door tightly behind me.

Quickly I took the bread and headed home to share them with PrI'm. That was the first time in months I did not sleep with an empty stomach. The next day, I walked to school with the thought of thank Peeta for his action. An unexpected gesture of kindness in my life.

I wanted to say thank you to him, in part, yes, as gratitude. But the other part because I hate owing people. The rain had cleared at night and the sun looked radiant and spring-like. After the classes we shared, I headed to his direction hesitantly because he was with some friends. But Peeta was always surrounded by friends, he was friendly, warm and extremely popular. He had a talent to make people confortable around him. It would not be easy to catch him another time alone. I plucked up courage and continued my path when he looked up and saw that I was staring at him too, but he turned away his head. I stood there, not knowing what to do, I corrected my gaze to the ground, not knowing if I was embarrassed or something else. And then I saw it. The first dandelion of the spring. And I knew what I had to do to keep Prim safe. I would get into the woods and I could fish, hunt and gather berries and wild fruits and even sell them in the local market.

Hope broke through my body and I smiled for the first time since the death of my father, I picked the dandelion, and I kept it in the book that we had just comment in class, I looked back at the blond boy who had given me hope and made my way home, knowing how I would go on.

Just during one of those trips to the woods is where I met Gale and how by a confusion he thought my name was Catnip and not Katniss. And since there, he named me with this affectionate nickname. Between the two of us and his mother, Hazelle, we started a small stall in the local market where we sold our products and guide services. Our small community was quite tourist during summer months and bank holidays, so many people came to spend a few weeks trekking and hiking in the Adirondacks.

I never dared to approach Peeta and thanked him. When we finished school he went to study psychiatry at Harvard and I stayed in the University of Albany and went for biology. Our paths no longer cross again.

Still, I remember him whenever I saw a dandelion or a strong boy blond and blue eyes. I do not understand why but whenever I think of him I feel better.

Thanks for reading this story. As you may know by now, I'm not English nativo speaker, so please, apologize me for all the mistakes. If anyone wants to help me and be my beta for the translation please tell me, I would appreciate it very much.

For my Spanish readers, I'm still working on chapter 21 but it is a hard chapter as it is a turning point. So please be patient and "stay with me?" ;-)

Please Read and Review!

I do not own The hunger Games.