I forgot how to feel happy...
Images danced behind his eyes. She is screaming and he is screaming back. Running, the vines tangle his feet, threatening to trip him. His fake leg fails him when it catches on the root of a tree, causing him to tumble to the ground. Katniss! He quickly gets back up. He doesn't feel the pain of the fall, just his own desperation. He hears her call his name. Peeta! Peeta follows the sound, reaching blindly through the jungle. He gains no more than 10 feet before his world catches on fire.
Peeta jolted awake, sweating, sheets tangled around his legs, and his heart pumping fast. His dream was just another reoccuring vision of what happened in the arena that day. A constant reminder of what he failed to do. Peeta buried his face in his hands. Katniss' face comes to mind, her expression on that last night before they were separated. It was a mixture of love, confusion, and sadness. He didn't know how much of that emotion was real and how much was for the audience. He liked to think that her feelings for him were true.
Bam! His cell door shook as his breakfast was rudely shoved through the slot at the bottom of the door, nearly overturning the platter loaded with noodles covered with a rich green sauce and vegetables. No doubt fattening me up for the slaughter, Peeta thought. It doesn't matter anyway. Food is food and who knows whether they will stop feeding me later in the future. He scooped up the noodles with the fork provided and chewed thoughtfully. What had happened in the arena? Why was he here? Where is Katniss? At the thought of Katniss, Peeta groaned, losing his appetite. Tossing the fork aside, he laid down on his cot that provided little comfort since it was covered only by a lumpy mattress and a thin blanket. He had made a promise to himself, to protect Katniss, no matter what. He had sworn to save her life! How could he live in this prison, not knowing whether she was safe or not? His eyes pricked as tears started to collect in them. It doesn't matter if he's cracking, if he's showing weakness. Who was left to watch? Panem? The Games were over for him. Katniss was out of his reach and beyond his care. Peeta curled into a ball, and wept.
He was rudely awakened by hands grabbing his shoulders and shaking him back to reality. Groggily, he opened his eyes to meet the ones belonging to a Peacekeeper.
"Get up," the Peacekeeper said. "Get up. Now."
Another man appeared next to him and helped the Peacekeeper haul Peeta up onto his feet. Peeta, confused and still dazed from his first deep sleep in days, doesn't fight this treatment and allows them to lead him out of his cell and through a confusing maze of hallways. He had no recollection of passing by these doors. When he was first taken here, he was first placed in a hospital for a day or two, and then he woke up in his claustrophobic cell. The two men opened a door and led Peeta in. He's in a room with a desk and two chairs. He's pushed onto the chair facing the desk and kept in place by restraints on his arms and legs. The two men who brought him here leave, closing the door behind them. But, soon after, the door is again reopened and the man that Peeta has daydreamed many times about killing in a violent, skick way, walks in.
"Hello, Peeta," President Snow coolly says. "How are you doing?"
"Well," Peeta spits out.
"I thought you'd be more polite after I saved you from that horrible arena."
"You have just exchanged a prison for a prison."
"But, if I hadn't taken you from that arena, who knows whose hands you might be in."
This made Peeta curious. "Whose hands would I have ended up in? The ones that Katniss is in right now?"
President Snow chuckled. "Oh, Peeta. When are you going to forget about her and start thinking about your own self-preservation?"
"I will remember until the day I die."
"Too bad such a day could be so easily dealt out. I could press a button and end your life, right here, right now. Unless you do what I say."
"I'm not afraid. I have nothing to lose."
"Unless, I told you I could press a button and end your "wife's" life too."
Peeta pulled on his restraints, desperatly wanting nothing more than to wring the President's neck.
"You can't harm her!" he gasped out, "I won't let you!"
"What I do and don't do is up to you." President Snow raises and eyebrow. "Will you cooperate?"
Peeta felt a hopelessness that could have drowned him in a dark pool of melancholy. Instead, he found a something to cling to, to keep him afloat. The hope that he would still have the chance to save Katniss.
"What is it you want me to do?" Peeta choked out.
The president just smiled.