Chapter Two

I wake up, my hand stretched across the bed. Empty.

I stretch, which has become a painful process. My skin is too tight. My bones feel like they're trying to escape from my body. Dr. Aurelius informed me that once my skin grafts started to heal, they would begin to itch. Whatever I do, I'm not supposed to scratch them. My body looks like a quilt of skins, stitched together like some sort of experiment. Which it is. I feel like I should be in a dish, under a microscope. The thought alone makes me want to itch. I clench my fists, and realize that I've opened up cuts on them that I made last night. Or the night before. I don't know anymore.

I hear a noise downstairs. I tense, which hurts. I make my way silently downstairs. The feeling is familiar; stalking my prey.

I hear the clatter of dishes. Peeta. It must be. Is he ever going to just leave me alone?

"Good morning, Katniss." He says, with a small smile. "How are you?"

He's looks weary. He's wearing the same clothes as yesterday, which means he must've spend the night over my house. I don't know how to feel about this.

I stare back, not responding. I'm sure Sae told him that I don't talk anymore. He seems to accept this and begins wiping his hands on his apron.

I feel something trickle and realize I must be digging my nails into my fists again. I try to hide them behind my back but it's too late. Peeta notices the movement.

"Let me see them." He says calmly, walking over slowly.

I hesitate. Will he have some sort of reaction to the blood? I don't think I can handle one of his flashbacks at the moment. I'm not strong enough.

"Please," he says tiredly, "I promise, I'm okay."

I grimace and open my hands, palms up, and show him the gouges. My fingernails are caked with blood.

"Katniss," he sighs, with a tinge of pain in his voice. "Come here."

He leads me over to the kitchen sink. He turns on the faucet and waits for me to clean the cuts. Instead, with the water running, I look out of the window above it. Is it spring already? The trees are starting to bud again.

How long have I been home?

I can hear the birds chirping. I want to go outside, and smell the fresh air. Everything looks new again. Wildflowers are starting to bloom in the backyard, and the bees are buzzing around, happily pollinating each one. A feeling of warmth starts to spread through my body; one that I haven't felt in so long. I see a bird land on one of the branches of an oak tree. It chirps happily. My mouth starts to curve into a smile when I see its wings. Wings with white stripes.

A mockingjay.

I'm start to gasp for air. My heart begins beating so fiercely I think it's trying to escape my ribcage. Every pore in my body is screaming in agony.

It starts to sing a four note song. It's all too familiar.

I hear her scream.

"Katniss!"

I beg my mind to lose consciousness, submerge itself as it does so often. But I can't. Her cries are still echoing in my brain.

I run towards her voice. She stands there, on the tips of her toes, arms stretched out slightly, as if she's about to fly. But it's too late. Her eyes are wide with fear and filled with tears as she looks down and sees the spear piercing her stomach. She falls into my arms, and the blood on my hands is no longer mine, but hers. Her eyes become glassy and I feel her body release its last breath. I feel myself falling backwards into nothingness. I'm gone.

"Sing."

Her voice starts to fade.

I stir, and rub my eyes. Someone bandaged my hands while I was sleeping. It was probably him. I feel my stomach clench. I wonder how he got these on in the first place. I hope I wasn't thrashing too much.

"How are you feeling?"

Peeta's sitting in my chair, hands folded, looking at me with concern. I'm too numb to be surprised. I sit up, and wait for him to speak.

I stare. He stares back. This continues for a few minutes.

"You scared me," He says. I can tell he's trying to keep a steady voice, but it shakes a little at the end.

He looks at me, hoping I'll respond. He knows better. His face shows so much concern that it's making me uncomfortable. Instead, I resort to staring at his eyelashes, which at the moment are almost white with the sun reflecting off of them.

"You were out for two days," he continues. "I called Dr. Aurelius and he said he's sending over new medicine for you. He thought the other pills were working."

They would be, if I were taking them I think to myself. A bubble of laughter escapes my lips and Peeta looks at me with furrowed brows. I wonder if he finally realizes that I'm crazy yet.

"He also asked me to check on your grafts, to see if you were taking care of them."

I look down at my arms with a twinge of guilt. It's true that I haven't been putting my ointments on them. But I haven't been scratching either. It's good enough for me.

I look back up and see Peeta looking at me like I'm a child. I suddenly feel itchy. I pull my sleeves down, hoping that he didn't get a good look at them.

He stands up, and plops on the bed next to me.

He holds his hand out, and I place my arm in it. Carefully, he rolls my sleeves back up and observes the damage. The skin is so tight on my arms that they feel ready to burst. He pulls a tube of ointment out of his pocket and squeezes some onto his fingers. It smells like mint. He starts with my wrist, spreading the medicine up higher and higher. He pauses, stroking the large indent where Johanna dug the tracker out of my skin. Goosebumps start to rise on my arms and we both look up at each other.

"This is from the last night of the Quarter Quell?" he asks quietly.

I nod. I remember thinking that Johanna was trying to kill me.

"They told me that you left me there on purpose. That you knew about the whole rebellion and I was never supposed to make it out alive." He looks away, eyes strained in concentration. I assume he's talking about his torturers in the Capitol. He's no longer in the room anymore. He's somewhere far away, trying to make sense of his memories.

"It's not true though, at least I don't think," He continues, "You were calling my name, right? I remember that. Why would you call for me if you didn't care about me?"

He looks back, eyes boring into mine, trying so fiercely to understand what happened. Without thinking, he places both of his hands on either side of my face. I jerk away and spring up at the contact.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to…" He trails off, hands still outreached in the air, covered in the pink ointment. His eyes are filled with shame.

I feel something lurch in my stomach and I almost want to tell him that it's not his fault. But it is. If he had just never confessed his love for me, none of this would have ever happened. I would have killed him. I would be living with my mother and Prim in Victor's Village, not alone and mentally unstable with the ghosts of a rebellion. I start to clench my fists again and look down to see the blood spotting the bandages.

"Katniss..." Peeta seems to have picked up on my brewing anger.

He starts to walk towards me, hands out in front of him, as if to show me that he's not going to hurt me. I start to laugh manically at the fact that he believes that I could possibly hurt any more. I don't believe that it's humanly possible to feel any more pain that what I feel now. With every step he takes forward, I match him with one backward. He starts to open his mouth to say something else, but I turn and bolt out of the room and through the front door as fast as I can.

This is my first time outside since I saw Peeta planting the primrose bushes. I'm running without a real sense of purpose. I'm back in the arena, running from Cato, my tracker jacker stings causing hallucinations. There's a door in the middle of the forest. I open it and fling myself through, tripping over a branch. I lay there, on a bed of leaves, waiting for someone to find me. It's only a matter of time. I'm shivering, my teeth chattering.

I look up and see the anthem playing. The faces of the dead flash before my eyes, each one pulling me deeper into the darkness. Glimmer, Rue, Clove, Cato, Foxface. I try to close my eyes but I only see more faces. Cinna, Finnick, I've killed them all. Prim. I hear a scream from a distance, and it sounds like wounded prey. I come to realize that it's my own.

I open my eyes and Peeta's face in hanging in the sky. I've killed him. I beg myself to let the numbness take over, but it never happens. I see each face; feel each stab of pain, and my body tremors with each new wave. I feel a pair of hands around my face, someone has finally found me. I stop screaming, and realize that it's finally over. I'll be the next face in the sky. I feel fingers shoving something in my mouth, choking it down with water. I feel the darkness wash over me and accept my death with a final smile.