Her hands were red with blood. "No, no, no," she moaned, pressing her hand to his deep cuts. Before he had been responding with groans, but now no sound escaped from his paled lips.
Waiting was the worst part. Expecting it to happen a knowing that you could do nothing to change the facts - that was painful. Terrifying. Waiting for either his eyes to open or heart to fail.
The tears were streaming down Katniss' face before she heard the cannon.
The deafening boom, shaking the empty arena. Birds taking flight, deers running for shelter.
Katniss never moved.
What was she to be scared of? The Capitol had just taken the very thing she bad spent weeks trying to preserve. And admitted to it.
Peeta.
A claw came, sent from the Capitol, to take him away. How could they? After such an entertaining show, how COULD they? The trust, the small amount if trust Katniss had put into the Capitol to save her lover, failed. They had all failed her.
She wondered how she could have trusted them. But Peeta wasn't dead. He couldn't have been. He was here, speaking to her, minutes before. Or had it been hours? Days?
Tears. Katniss grabbed Peeta's hand, pressing it to her cheek. It was still slightly warm. He had been cold, anyway, from the blood loss. The feeling of his hand pressed against her cheek made her sob harder.
Furtively, Katniss pressed two of her fingers against Peeta's neck.
No pulse.
She lay herself beside him, sobbing, crying in despair. She nestled her head in his chest for the last time ever. She sqeezed his hand for the last time ever. She whispered a small goodbye. Her last chance. Ever.
The claw from the Capitol had stopped mid-way. Perhaps the citizens were enjoying the show too much. Or maybe they couldn't take the dead if the last remaining tribute wouldn't let him go. Katniss could still protect Peeta, even in death.
"Congratulations, Katniss Everdeen, tribute if District Twelve and winner of the Seventy-Fourth annual Hunger Games."
Claudius Templesmith's voice tumbled throught the Arena, finalising her victory, but Katniss' thoughts had blurred. Peeta. He couldn't be dead. He had been so strong. For so long. In the cave, with the water dripping through the cracks. His bright eyes laughing with her. His dazzling smile as he teased her. His smooth fingers as he captured one of her tears. One of those precious tears, which were never shed.
That was then. After the Arena, the tears didn't seem so precious as they were before. In the interviews, tears were the only thing shed from the Victor. No words. Grunts. Silence. A heartbroken Victor with no show left in her.
The capitol pitied her; of course they did. Everybody loved Katniss Everdeen, one of the star-crossed lovers of District Twelve.
Except her. She hated herself. If only she had the guts to pick up the knife and stab herself until the hilt was fully lodged into her chest, Peeta would still be alive and she would be where she belonged. In the grave. Six feet under the ground, body decomposing with the small amount of knowledge that Peeta lived.
But he didn't. He way lying dead in Katniss' arms, the people of the Capitol - the ones who looked after the Games - were trying to drag her away.
She fought them, like they were the enemies, the Careers, now. She clawed at their faces, punched, kicked, blindly shot arrows which never reached their targets. She couldn't let Peeta go. Not now, not ever. She had vowed to protect him when they had allianced, but he was the one who gave up the most for her. The one who had been victorious. The one who had reached true salvation from the Games, from the Districts, from the Capitol.
He claimed he loved her. She could never had been sure. But the way he looked at her; the admiration was unmistakable. At that point, the need for survival was what kept them together. But the only reason Katniss let herself open to him was because they were both supposed to win - the Capitol weren't supposed to wait for Peeta to die. They were supposed to save the pair of them, not tell them what they had based their fight on was all fake. When they did, it seemed only logical for Peeta to let himself go. Katniss' instinct made her try and fight the most.
She had failed.
Survival doesn't matter if you have no reason to survive.
She had Prim. Her mother had already lost to love, but her baby sister was waiting at home, in District 12, watching Katniss turn feral in the arena.
Is that how she wanted to go? Is that the last impression she should leave on the world?
Peeta died to save her. The only logical thought was that Katniss should respect his final request and live.
Her mind wouldn't settle with it, though. People in white jumpsuits were attempting to subdue her, and, out of arrows, Katniss threw herself at them, slashing her knife crazily. Every few moments she would look over her shoulder, see the pool of ruby blood and dagger in his chest and remember why she had to fight - because there couldn't be any more casualities.
This was her only chance.
And with that fleeting thought, Katniss gripped her knife in a shaking hand, turning her back towards her enemy, facing Peeta
And
Digging
Her
Knife
Through
Her
Throat.
She hadn't lived long enough to hear her own cannon shake the Arena and District 12.