Imagine you're in the middle of the desert. You've been there for days; the hot sun beating down harder every day, baking your skin to a red, burning crisp. Your lips are cracked and dry and the back of your throat feels like you've swallowed a spoonful of sand. You're dying and you know it.
Now imagine you're taking your last few breaths. Your chest is heaving and black spots cloud your vision. And suddenly you hear the sound of water pouring. Looking up, you see a jug of water, pouring out onto the sand, just out of your reach. It's the only thing that can save you and you can't have it.
That's what the Capitol did to her and me. She was the water, getting poured out in the sand. Unattainable. Unable to be salvaged. And I was dying of thirst with her right in front of me.
You see, there are other ways to take someone without killing them. Snow knew that. He knew it would hurt more to dangle her in front of me, just out of my reach, than to simply put her to death.
The first time I refused him, he gave a warning. Showed up in my damn living room and smiled that fucking smile of his and gave me a list of "appointments" around the Capitol that I was to attend. Most of them were paid escorts. When I didn't show for the first one, I woke up to her being ripped out of my bed by two Peacekeepers, while another pointed his gun at my head until she was gone. I still hear her screams from that night in my sleep.
She was in a red dress the next time I saw her. Standing near the head of the table with her hands folded in front of her and Snow on her left side. It was a televised Capitol event, and the camera was angled perfectly just to catch her in the shot. He was just dangling her in front of me.
I was stupid. I tried to call their bluff. I was ignorant and still somehow so fucking naive despite just getting out of the Games. I thought if I could just show enough willpower, he'd realize that I wasn't a compliant pawn in his game of chess. But the thing is; I was. We all were.
Highjacking was still a well kept secret back then, along with many other things. So when they dumped her on my doorstep in the middle of the night, I didn't even realize there was anything wrong at first. She was curled up in a ball, shivering and obviously terrified. She had lost weight since they took her. I had just barely laid a hand on her before she snapped.
Her screams were so loud that they woke the entire street. People began flooding out of their homes, squinting into the darkness to try to find the source of the wailing. I was frozen.
I didn't freeze in the arena. Despite the shock and the violence and the bloodshed, I never faltered like I did when she looked at me that night. It wasn't her anymore. Instead of the gaze I had memorized, all I could find was wild fear and confusion. She scrambled away from me; all bones and bruises, and it didn't take long for someone to call on the Peacekeepers.
She still hadn't stopped screaming by the time they showed up to take her away. Insanity was not something that was allowed in everyday Panem. There were institutions to keep that hidden away. So that's where they took her.
Back then, it was still insanity. No one could make sense of the delusions and falsities she would insist had been a reality for her. That's why I scoffed at first, when the doctors in District 13 started trying to "fix" Peeta. Whatever they had done to him, he wasn't just scared of Katniss. He hated her.
But they did. They did fix Peeta. Obviously the whole fucking process sucked for everyone involved, but at the end of everything, he was himself.
After years of telling myself that she was gone, the possibility crept into my mind that she wasn't. If Snow's team had Highjacked her, then maybe she could be brought back. The doctors in Seven wouldn't know anything about the science behind it, but the ones from Thirteen did.
I hated that I was so hopeful already. After agonizing over trying to erase her from my own mind, I was dreaming about bringing myself back into her's. In the right way. With years between then and when she had been taken, it was foolish to feel so optimistic that early. I loathed myself with a paranoid fear that I was setting myself up to fall again. Nevertheless, I still found myself on a train to Twelve. I needed to talk to Peeta. I needed him to help me.
Came up with an idea for Johanna after seeing she got like zero screen time in Part 2. Let me know if you guys are interested in reading more!