"Here we go," Katniss exhales as she steps onto the elevator.
She thinks of her family and Gale. Wishing with all her heart she wasn't reaped for this. She didn't want this. She and Gale were planning a future together. Since she was reaped to go into the 75th annual 'Hunger Games', and it was Gales' last year being entered in, they were going to move out to the forests to hunt and have a family.
But Peeta ruined every last bit of that daydream.
"I can't let him get away with saying that about me."
Haymitch and Effie say that she's over-reacting. That he made her look "desirable" and "loving". It did all but make her look like either of those. She had a choice on what to do. She could leave it be, or take action.
Well, she's never been known to turn down a challenge.
If Peeta wanted to play games, she would show him how to play.
This is the 75th 'Hunger Games' after all. It's full of games. No, really. It consists of three gaming rounds now. The first round is paintball, second is go-karting, and the final round to choose a winner is a cook-off. In the first round, a total of 12 people will be eliminated, with the rest of the 12 moving on to the next round. In go-karting, a total of 6 people will lose the race, and that leaves the final 6 to move on into the final round.
It wasn't always like this. Katniss wished it wasn't all fun and games. Back from the very 1st games through the 25th games, it was a complete bloodbath. Districts would turn against one another, allies vs allies, siblings vs siblings. Everything changed once the presidents' grand-daughter was chosen for the 21st games. Then all the rules had to be changed so he didn't lose his 'precious girl'.
"Hey, Katniss!" screams Peeta from across the arena.
This makes everyone around her look at her and start laughing. Katniss was not going to take this. She was going to do everything in her power to execute Peeta.
She had three main ideas on how to do it, one for each round of the games. Before she said her goodbyes to Cinna and stepped onto the elevator, she was able to get ahold on Peeta's paintball gun and rig it to explode within the first 10 minutes of the games. Finding the gun was easy. Since all the games have to be played fairly now, each district had the same guns, armor, and ammo. All the supplies was on the same floor with them so each person could get an idea on how to use them. It was putting the timer and explosives into Peeta's gun that was the problem. It took her over an hour of messing around with it to finally get it all together.
If he were to somehow survive the explosion in the first round, and moves on to the second, Katniss will mess with the breaking system in his kart. In the finale, if he somehow once again slips by her trap, she was going to poison him.
She didn't know how she was getting the stuff to do the job, but she will surely find a way.
She broke her death glare from Peeta to look up at the countdown and around the field. The field was mostly open, with a few old broken down cars and buses scattered around. She turns around without stepping off her tower and sees there's a forest behind her. Perfect.
5..
4..
3..
2..
1..
And they're off. Katniss dashes for the forest for cover. Peeta runs off the other way.
"Shit," Katniss whispers. "I have to keep an eye on him".
As Katniss looks around the field, bright colors are landing on just about every possible spot. She climbs the closest tree to get a better look. It looks like a color run just happened near the area of the small towers she was just standing on. Bright blues, greens, pinks, and purples are covering the bases of the towers, cars, buses, and trees. Katniss quickly glances up at the clock.
It's only been seven minutes into the 'Hunger Games', and there are already eight people out. Four more and this round is over. And three more minutes until Peeta's gun goes off.
Sprinting through the open field to where Peeta ran to, she watches two more people get struck by bright blue and green paintballs.
Two more people left to get eliminated from this round. And only one minute left until the timer is up.
As Katniss sprints as fast as she can for the bus where she last saw Peeta, she starts to smell smoke.
"Peeta's gun is smoking!" exclaims the girl from district five.
Katniss turns around just in time to watch Peeta run around from the side of the bus. She watched his face with satisfactory as his gun exploded in his arms.
Screams were coming from every direction possible. Looks of true horror are staring at the spot where Peeta was just standing. But it's all smoke now.
As Katniss watches her victory emerge, she looks closer into the smoke to see his body.
But, there was no body.
Instead, he comes from around the complete other side of the bus, covered in ash from the bomb. There's only from what it looks like burn marks on his body. Otherwise, he is unharmed.
"What the hell just happened?" Peeta heaves out as he sprints toward Katniss for support. "I could have died!"
"That was the point," answers Katniss. "You were supposed to die."
"Well how would you even know? Are you trying to say that was your idea!" Peeta is getting frustrated now. Watching Katniss face, the girl he told the country he had loved, tell him exactly what happened.
"No, not at all. I just thought it would be a fun twist to this part of the games," her voice dripping with sarcasm.
As the radio from the control room shrieked to life, it indicated that the paintball round was officially over. Peeta was still alive, and Katniss was planning her next move.
As everyone was congratulating Peeta on surviving, they all started to wonder if the Capital had turned on them. It wouldn't be the first time they've 'forgotten' about the country they are supposed to watch and care for.
Going up to their rooms, Peeta got even more sympathy that Katniss couldn't stand to listen too. She stormed up to her room, changed her fancy window, as she calls it, and starts thinking of ways to tinker with Peeta's kart.
After about six minutes of slow and hard thinking, Katniss gave into her tired eyes, and fell asleep.
"Rise and shine! It's time to show the world who Katniss Everdeen is!" Effie was standing at the foot of the bed slowly pulling the warm covers off of Katniss. She quickly reaches down to pull the sheets back up to her chin. She wasn't ready for round two. She had given into sleep the night before and had no idea what she was going to do.
"Now that's no way to start the morning off," Effie insists. "Haymitch is already at the table. He is wanting to talk to both you and Peeta. And if Haymitch is already at the table, then that means you are very late."
Katniss grunts loudly as to show Effie she was not happy with that comment.
About ten minutes later she emerges from her room, she hears Haymitch's good morning sweetheart from across the room.
"I wanted to talk about what happened yesterday in the field," Haymitch says as Katniss finally get seated at the table.
"We don't know who did the damage to Peetas' gun, but we have all reason to believe the capital is ready to turn against the players. We want to make sure you both look over your karts today very thoroughly today. We don't want another mishap of yesterday. That is all".
"Wait," Katniss questions. "You seriously got me out of bed, to tell me to look over our karts".
"Yes".
"Well, thanks for the morning announcement but if you don't mind, I will be taking my breakfast to bed with me".
Katniss finally made it back to her room. Back to being alone to hatch out another plan.
A few hours go by when she finally came out of her room to get ready for her plan. She finally thought it through so Peeta wouldn't notice. She was going to cut the brake lines. When she looked into the kart, she noticed that they were tucked away so nicely that he wouldn't notice a little separation in the line.
At that moment, Peeta came walking around.
"Hello, Katniss."
"Hi."
Are you taking Haymitch's advice?"
"Yep".
"That's cool. Did you really mean what you said yesterday? About wanting me to be dead?"
"Yes. I did. You made me look weak. And I will not let that go".
"Well, alright. Nice talk. I will see you on the track".
"Bye".
Finally. Back to her plan. She only has 20 minutes until they were supposed to be with their costumer. She found the line, which took longer than she thought, and was ready for the Avox to come get her ready.
All prepped and ready to win this round, Katniss steps onto the elevator, and waves back at Cinna.
The track was unusually bright. A huge pitch black track stretches out in front of them. She looks around with the 11 contestants left and sees that on the back of each kart was their district number and that they were all in order. With ones in the front and twelves in the back.
"Everyone, start your engines," roars the loud speaker as it comes to life.
Everyone steps down into their little go-kart and turns the key. Peeta gives a hesitant look toward Katniss, to which she returns a murderous glare.
The lights have one red, three yellows, and one green. Katniss watches with glee and each one lights up slowly one by one. Once that light hit green, everyone's tires squealed on the black track and everyone was gone.
Katniss steps on the gas and gets to sixth place as quickly as she could with Peeta in fifth place. This round was only one lap, so if she wanted to watch Peeta crash into the wall, she has to stay right behind him.
The track was absolutely huge and the race was beginning to drag on and on. She couldn't believe this was still going on.
They had made their way up to fourth and third place with Katniss behind Peeta. The boy from district eight didn't make it all the way to where they are now. The boy from district three and the girl from district 11, Rue, Katniss thought, were the two people in front of them.
"I knew Rue could do it," Katniss smiles to herself. She had always thought Rue had some fight in her.
The finish line was finally in sight and Katniss let's a sigh of relief. Finally her plan will be put into motion, and neither one of them had lost their spot.
As the boy from three and Rue cross the finish line, Peeta and Katniss follow close behind. Katniss smears an evil grin across her face, as she watches Peeta, filled with glee, cross the finish line with the winner's jitters.
The feeling of glee and the jitters quickly fade away as Peeta tries to slam on the breaks that don't work.
"Somebody help me!" Peeta screams.
"Hopefully those are your precious last words," Katniss whispers to herself.
Once again, Katniss hears the screams of the people around her as Peeta crashes into the wall. People run over to his limp body and pull him out of the kart.
Katniss is almost jumping up and down with excitement. She holds back as best as she could so no one suspects that this was her doing.
As she approaches the wreck, she notices there are three medics on the site and are performing CPR on Peeta. They start to look worried, when after two minutes of trying, Peeta hasn't shown any sign of coming back.
Katniss turns toward the finish line, ecstatic that she finally won.
But she, in fact, lost again.
With a heaving breath, Peeta jumps up into a sitting position and everyone starts cheering for him being a trooper with everything that has happened to him.
"You have got to be shitting me," Katniss almost screams at the top of her lungs. That's when she remembered, no matter how pissed off she was, she could not let everyone know that this was her doing.
"Katniss!" Peeta shouts as he starts sprinting towards her.
"What did I do to deserve your presence?" Katniss' snarky comment had made Peeta step back a little bit.
"I uh.. I just wanted to ask if this was you're doing again."
"Would you like the truth or a lie?"
"The truth would be nice."
"Then in that case, yes. Yes it was me."
"Why are you doing this?"
"Would you believe me if I say I already told you once?"
Before Peeta even gave Katniss an answer, Katniss walked briskly away, trying to avoid any more interactions with the other players. She didn't make it very far.
"Hi Katniss!" little Rue ran up behind her to walk with her.
"It's a terrible thing that's happened to Peeta. I wonder who is doing this to him," it wasn't a question, more like a statement left to be unanswered.
Since it was only Rue that followed her away, she didn't mind the company. But, Katniss did not want to talk about this subject.
"I don't know," short answers will hopefully get Rue off of this subject.
"I'm worried for him. At least it's not my problem."
"Yeah. Hey so congrats on second place today. I'm glad you made it this far."
"Me too. I'm hoping to win this all for my family back home."
"That's sweet, Rue."
"I like to think of it that way."
"Well, there's Haymitch. I should probably get going." Katniss didn't want to leave though. Rue was her only acquaintance here and could talk to her all day. She was sure though that Haymitch was ready to give both of them a lecture.
"Ok, hopefully we can talk later!"
As she waved bye to Rue, she noticed they walked closer to Haymitch and Effie than she thought.
"I am so glad you're safe sweetheart," Haymitch speaks up so she would hear him.
"Once Peeta gets here, we can go back to our rooms and have some dinner."
Finally Peeta showed up to the little group, with his 'followers'.
"Peeta! Let's get a move on!" Haymitch is getting aggravated now.
"Ok guys, I'll talk to you later," Peeta says bye to everyone that's following him.
"Let's get out of here," Katniss says with an annoyed tone.
Back in the room, they were given supper and talked about the choices of meals they will be preparing in the next day's big cook-off finale. They were given a choice of pre-made recipe or they can use a recipe from where they grew up.
Since Peeta grew up in a Bakery, his choice was easy. He chose his mother's homemade cake. Katniss had a harder time deciding, but finally gave in to her craving for her mother's dumplings.
Peeta was still giving Katniss weird, untrustworthy looks. He figured for a cook-off though, she couldn't do much to hurt him.
Katniss knows what Peeta is thinking. How was she going to hurt him this time? What could she possibly do? Well she knew what she was going to do. She managed to sneak into the health department to get some poison to somehow get into his cake recipe.
They sit down for breakfast and Haymitch and Effie go through the almost same rules that they did the day before.
"Make sure you go over every ingredient."
"Make sure you know who you are stationed by."
"Make sure your recipe hasn't been altered in anyway."
"Make sure you have the correct recipe, in that case."
"Yes, yes we get it. Be safe, be precautionary. Can we just go?" Katniss butts into the rules, hoping this will give them the clue that she wants to go.
It did. For once.
"Alright, alright I guess we will go get you both ready," Effie was not too pleased with Katniss' manners.
Katniss quickly stands up from the table and has to stop herself from sprinting back to her room. When she finally gets back, she reaches for the hiding place where she put the poison, and clutches to it as if her life depended on it. She noticed that for this round, the only thing they can look at is the recipe card.
"Damn it," Katniss cusses to herself. Now she has to figure out a way to get Peeta the poison, without being suspicious. She finally settled on talking to him before the competition and convincing him it was a family tradition and he should use it in the recipe, and it will surely help him win.
Once again, they were escorted to their make-up phase. Katniss talks to Cinna as if nothing is wrong. She will surely miss him when they have to leave. She steps onto the elevator, turns and waves at Cinna, and slowly gets pushed up into the kitchen.
She looks around and notices there is not order of the districts this time. It was just six tables in a circle loaded with the ingredients they needed for their recipe. The only contestants left for the finale were the girl from one, the boys from three and four, little Rue from 11, Peeta and herself. They were the last two to make a whole team of a district.
Like normal, they couldn't step off the elevator before the timer went off. The timer was like the timer in the first game. Right in the middle of the circle of tables was the huge kitchen sink. Above it was the timer hanging from the ceiling.
"You have two hours to finish your recipes," shouts the static of the loud speaker.
5..
4..
3..
2..
1..
"Peeta!" Katniss shout as he runs to the sink for water.
"Can I help you with something?" he questions why she's around him. Double checking his surroundings to make sure there wasn't a bomb anywhere.
"I'm not here to hurt you. I'm here to say that I'm sorry."
"Why would you want to do that?"
"Because I realize that what I did was wrong. I bring you a peace offering."
"What is it?"
"It's my mom's little secret ingredient. I promise it will help you win the cook-off."
"Really?"
"Really."
"Ok. I'll add it to the flour. Thank you."
"You're welcome."
Katniss ran back to her table and starts working on her recipe. Knowing that her plan won't kick in until the end during the taste testing, she can actually worry about her own recipe. She secretly hoped this would turn out just like her mom's version.
A hour and a half went by and Peeta was the last one working on his cake. Everyone is watching him closely to make sure he doesn't explode at the end of the cook-off.
"Done!" he shouts as he puts the last flower on his cake.
The timer stops and everyone looks around. The Capital doesn't trust us, so we have to try own recipes, and the judges will watch the expressions we make to come and try out the recipes.
Everyone takes a bite of their recipes happy with the way they ended up.
All of a sudden Peeta's face turns bright red. He grabs his chest as foam starts forming in his mouth. His eyes go big and are no longer white. They were as red as the flowers that dotted his cake. He looks around as people start to give him worried looks, not knowing whether to go over to him or not. He stumbles around the table trying to get help from anybody.
Katniss does not know what she gave him, but whatever it was it was working.
He stops his gaze on Katniss. Now knowing that she did this. Whatever he had given him before but it was NOT her family's secret ingredient. He didn't get very close to her before he falls to the floor. That's when people start to heads toward him. When they tried to pick him up to have him sit up, his arm bent in a way it should not. He wailed in agony and forced himself to sit up. What Katniss saw then was gruesome.
It looks as if he was being eaten from the inside. His cheeks were hollow and his eyes were sinking in. The spot where the girl from one had grabbed him on his arm was severely bruised. The skin was rotting away to show the muscle. There surprisingly wasn't any blood.
He kept his dead eyes on Katniss as the poison finally took his life away, and left the already rotting corpse.
Katniss waits to cheer until she knew he was gone. When she finally knew that she had victory, her smile was huge. It stretched from ear to ear. Peeta's dead eyes were staring at her. As if his spiritless body knew it was her. But she didn't care. She had finally won. He finally learned his lesson. He will not make the same one again.
Everyone with sad faces walked back to their table and waited for the judges. When the judges walked in, they were followed by some poorly dressed men that most likely came in to get Peeta's limp body. As the judges walked around to each table, they avoided Peeta's cake, knowing there was something wrong with it.
When everyone got a little taste of everyone's recipes. They declared a winner.
The winner is Katniss.
Everyone congratulated her for the win. Little Rue even gave her a hug. She walked back to Haymitch and Effie. Effie was almost in tears. Both sad and happy. Haymitch was just disappointed as if he knew what happened.
On the train back to district 12, Katniss knew she was going to be cheered and congratulated. She also knew that she was finally going to start the life with Gale that she always dreamed of. The only difference is that she now lives in the victors' village.
As she stepped off the train, roars of cheers and loud claps invited her off the platform. She saw her love, Gale, with her little sister on his shoulders. Gale ran up to her and Prim was almost jumping off of his shoulders. When she finally got down, she smothered her big sister with the biggest hug.
"I'm glad you're back!" Prim excitedly says to her sister.
"I'm glad to be back too. And we even get to move to a new house," Katniss answers her very giddy sister.
"Welcome home, Katnip," Gale welcomes Katniss back home. Her nickname he gave her makes her smile big.
"Hey you. How would you like to move in with me?"
"Me? You want me to move in with you? The winner of the hunger games? To what do I owe the honor?"
"Haha, very funny Gale."
"Come on, let's go home."
With her sister by her side and her love holding her hand, they walk to their new life. Katniss knew she was going to be happy now. No more distractions will stop her from doing what she wants to do.