I don't know how much time has passed since they captured me. I remember the Capitol picking my limp body from the ground and incarcerating me in this cell. The cell that grew to be my greatest nightmare come to life. It's small and completely empty except for a poor excuse of a mattress and an appalling toilet. They didn't torture me at first, rather just questioned me about Katniss, the rebellion, the Quarter Quell. As if I'd know.
In retrospect, it is obvious that there was some great plan in motion neither Katniss nor I knew about. I shudder when her name forms in my mind and I can feel memories lurking into my consciousness. Memories of her sneering at me as I lie in a cave, half-dead, starved, and she wiggles food in front of me. My hand cupping her face gently in a dim room, she whispers "Stay with me." Her gleeful laugh as the tracker jackers she released pursue and sting me, over and over again. No, no, that's wrong.
I wrap my arms around myself and try to breathe, deep, even gulps of air. This happens a lot now, and I fear that whatever they are doing to me when they take me to that sterile, horrible room at the end of the corridor, it's slowly draining my sanity. As sick as it may seem, I have the yearning wish for them to beat the life out of me again as they did after the first interview. Until then, they had treated me well. But after the interview it went from beatings to downright torment, physical and mental in equal measure. Watching Darius and Lavinia getting tortured and killed was almost too much. I screamed my head off and pounded my hands bloody on the security glass, the walls, everything.
After it, I thought that I had hit rock bottom. End of the line. That there was no lower I could sink. But I was wrong, so wrong. The doctors patched me up and the real horrors started. Every couple of days, they would take me to the room at the end of the corridor and sit me down in the chair that haunts both my waking hours and my nightmares. They inject me with something and show me videos of Katniss in all kinds of varieties. I didn't notice anything odd in the beginning. But as they went on, things seemed… Different than I remembered.
I don't know what is real anymore. Sometimes I think that I remember her smile and the gentle way she touched me. Sometimes she is a cruel and heartless creature who was always bent on killing me. A mutt. She's a… No. I feel like crying. Who is this girl in my memories? I can't forget about Katniss. I can't, I can't, I mustn't. By now I have realized that the Capitol is changing me into one of their muttations, a soulless killing machine that hates the woman he once loved more than anything in his life. The last interview they made me do seems ages ago, although it could only be days just as well. I'm sure they won't make me do any more of them, since I've been trying so hard to fight what they are doing to me that I managed to warn District 13 about the bombing. They have other plans now. Drug me, change me, make me go on a rampage and kill Katniss.
This is it, then. I know what I have to do, before they take my last ounce of sanity from me. Pure tranquillity settles over me like a warm blanket. I have protected Katniss as best as I could since the day our names were reaped, maybe even before then. The only way I can protect her now is to prevent the Capitol from turning me into a brainwashed assassin. By ending my own life. I have to die.
Good. It's been a long time coming. I shouldn't even be alive anymore, I should have died a hundred deaths in the two Hunger Games. When the agonizing fever rolled over me from blood poisoning. When it seemed like all my blood had drained from the tear in my leg. When my heart stopped after hitting the force field.
Curious, stripped of all fear in the wake of my suicide plan, I examine my cell. And then I see it, a chink in the armor, a flaw in the Capitol's system. The small shelf they use to deliver what little food I get through a shutter. Its edges are sharp. I'm sure that if I muster enough strength, I could drive it into the back of my neck.
Just as I'm contemplating the best way to face my spine against the edge, I hear muffled sounds from the back of the corridor. I don't pay them much attention at first, but they seem to get closer, louder with time. A scream and then – gunfire? Two terrified-looking guards pass my cell without bothering to glance at me, another bursts from the door further along the corridor.
"Intruders! They're after the boy!" More clattering, glass getting smashed, screams.
"Where's the rest of the squad? The doctors?", one of the guards asks.
"Dead. All dead. They have a woman with them – she…", but his answer is cut off as the door bursts open and I press myself up against the glass to see who comes through, my heart soars, hoping it's Katniss – Katniss who came to rescue me. But at the same time I feel terror. She'll get hurt – no, she'll hurt me. No, wrong. Not real. But it isn't Katniss who walks through the door.
The woman the guard talked about in a fearful voice is nothing like Katniss, but I hear my breath catch at the sight of her. Long, almost white hair shimmers in the electric light. Her beautiful, pale face wears an expression of outrage as her eyes – grey and piercing – swiftly scan the cells lining the walkway.
Everything about her is white, the long billowing cloak that flows down the left side of her body asymmetrically, the light but clearly armored long-sleeved jacket, the military-grade pants – even her boots. Only the sword in her right hand isn't white, but a flash of silver that shoots up with blurred speed, and the unlucky Peacekeeper nearest to her hits the ground, blood gushing from the deadly wound in his neck. The other two raise their guns, terror in their eyes as if they are facing an angry angel of death. Their attempt is futile. Before they can fire even a single shot, two well-aimed bullets fly past the woman in white and the Peacekeepers are torn from their feet, moving no more. Suddenly I realize what the guard had said: They're after the boy. Me.
"That's the last of them, Ma'am.", a woman's voice says. A sharpshooter, judging by the long barrel of her sniper rifle as I see her come into view. She's dressed in black and her eyes are covered by goggles, making it impossible to read her expression. I think she looks stern. By her side is a man in similar clothing, but his rifle looks more as if made for closer combat. Blood streaks his face from a wound on his temple, but his dark eyes dance with amusement. His black hair is damp and sweaty, sticking to his forehead and his chiselled features.
"Didn't think you'd make it in here, Hawkie. Confined spaces, guerrilla-like fights, close combat. You fold like a cheap suit when something comes too close.", the man says jokingly. The woman snorts.
"Shut your big mouth, Waltz. I can put a bullet through anything, no matter how close it gets.", she retorts. I almost laugh at the cynical tone in her voice, but the woman in white captures my attention.
"Did you fry the surveillance system before we entered, Hawkie?", she asks as she walks across the corridor, taking in the terrified faces turned to her.
"Of course, Ma'am.", the woman named Hawkie answers at once.
"It makes me sick what they did here.", the woman in white – I decide to nickname her Blue Jay for now, since her voice is musical and feathery – says.
"Not just you, Ma'am.", mutters Waltz.
"Sedate the two girls. We'll drop them off where the rebels will pick them up quickly. Be gentle to them, they have been through a lot.", Blue Jay says. As her two guards move to the cells, I can hear Johanna screaming and Annie pleading. I wonder why she didn't tell them to sedate me, why she singles me out.
For a moment, I feel overwhelmed by terror that she's planning to torture me too, just like the Capitol, for some twisted reason. She said "the rebels", as if she wasn't a part of them. Who is this woman, this beautiful, fierce creature with the gentle voice? Weakly, I back up to the walls of my cell when I see her walk down the hallway and turn her eyes to me. She types a code into a console and my cell door hisses open, but she doesn't enter. Only looks at me with her piercing, grey eyes.
"I'm not going to hurt you, Peeta.", she says softly. Her perfect oval face is rich with emotion, not like the doctors who were sinister and detached.
"May I come in?" I give a tiny nod, and she takes a few steps into my cell, still watching me. It's hard to guess the expression she wears, but it seems familiar… Something I haven't seen in ages. Something I have almost forgotten in this forsaken place. Compassion.
"Who are you?", I croak.
"My name is Aurora. I am the leader of several small but precise Capitol-defying task forces across Panem. And I came to rescue you." Aurora speaks slowly, carefully. But I still don't understand.
"The rebels… Will you take me to District 13?" She shakes her head.
"I'm not with the rebels. At least not in the way you think. I support the rebellion, but I…" It seems as if she weighs her words. "…digress from their methods."
"Ma'am, we don't have much time left. Capitol reinforcements will be here in eight minutes.", I hear Hawkie call. Aurora nods, but she doesn't look anxious or stressed. She just walks over to me with soundless steps and crouches down next to my pitiful form.
"I will help you remember.", she simply says. The syringe she pulls out from under her cloak terrifies me at first and I press up against the wall. Memories of doctors drugging me threaten to bury me alive. But Aurora holds up a hand and locks her gaze with mine.
"This is a dose of morphling. It will put you to sleep for a few hours, so I can get you out of here safely. When you wake up, you will be lying on a field bed inside my hovercraft." Her voice sounds reassuring and I relax for a moment, before she pushes the syringe into my arm and presses down on the plunger.
Numbness spreads through my limbs and mind. Hawkie and Waltz gently lift me onto a stretcher and I'm being carried out of my cell. The last thing I feel is a warm, soft hand grabbing mine and Aurora's voice somewhere above me.
"You will see her again. I promise."