She froze, standing stock still at his touch. Her eyes revealed her terror and her confusion and Peeta wanted to curse at his stupidity, even as the warmth of her face touched his palm.
He didn't know exactly what they did to traitors during their reconditioning but he'd heard rumours at school and overheard Bran and Rye, laughing at the punishments meted out to the hapless fools who'd dared to challenge the power of Panem. Becoming an Avox wasn't a reward, like being a Hunger Games victor, it was simply death deferred. Because the price of escaping an immediate end meant giving up your identity, having your name and your history obliterated as though you had never existed. And while Peeta didn't know what the failure for complying was, for expressing the least bit of personality, he knew enough about the world he lived in to know that treating her like this, of asking about her past, put her life in danger. For this Avox, his sympathy wasn't a kindness, it was tantamount to calling the peacekeepers and having her shot on sight.
"I'm sorry," he said, backing slowly away. "I spoke out of turn."
The Avox looked at him expressionlessly. She must think I'm a spy, testing her loyalty. Stupid, Peeta, stupid.
"I won't bother you again," he promised, before turning and fleeing to the safety of his bedroom and leaving the Avox to her own devices.
Soon, it was as though she'd always been there. Days turned to weeks and Peeta tried his hardest to ignore her as she slipped round the periphery of his life but it was hard. His eyes were drawn to her and he'd find himself standing, watching, as she went about her work like a silent red shadow. At night, he'd find his mind wandering to her, thinking about her sleeping just down the hall. And the dreams – he blushed, thinking of the fragments of his fantasies that lingered, even in his waking moments.
He'd like to lay the blame for his fantasies to his age and his inexperience, but he knew that wasn't why he'd chosen to reach the near-freakish age of sixteen still a virgin. His brothers had both thrown off that unfashionable burden years ago, and indulged their tastes at Avox brothels and sex-mutt shops. But despite their teasing – Bran had even unearthed a thick, old-fashioned book called a Bible, and made noises about Peeta's fear of sin – he just wasn't comfortable exploiting another person – or mutt – that way.
He just kept his head down and dreamt of the day until he'd be old enough to leave. He'd turn eighteen in less than two years. 561 days and counting.
Tonight, he was enduring the family's weekly dinner – a pretense that his mother liked to enforce with a view of collecting anecdotes that she could trot out to her superiors as proof of the Mellark family's unity and wholesomeness. Of course, if the government ever reviewed the cameras they had installed in all of the private homes, they'd know the truth. Or, as Peeta sometimes suspected in his rare cynical moments, Snow already knew the truth but the deception pleased him and suited the government's purpose.
He played with a piece of fish, drawing it through the thick sauce in a complicated pattern, trying to get up the will to eat it. He'd never liked the taste but his mother insisted on paying a premium for seafood, insisting that only the stuff imported from District Four met her discerning palette.
Up and down and loop-de-loop. The tines scrapped obnoxiously against the china and his mother glared in his direction.
"Honestly, anyone would think you'd been raised in the districts," his mother carped, pointing a well-manicured nail down the table in his direction.
Peeta didn't think he'd been doing anything especially grievous but experience told him the safest policy with his mother was a pre-emptive apology. "I'm sorry. I'll do better."
His mother scoffed but since her cutlery was still in her hands and not flying through the air towards his head, he figured habit and not a more overt malice were behind her criticism. Grateful for small mercies, he ducked his head and applied his efforts to the rest of his plate, letting the conversation flow over him.
"And at the last planning meeting, Seneca said that my work on the muttations was the best he'd seen since he took over three years ago," Rye boasted. "Mark my words, you'll see my work in the arena this year! I can't wait to see what the career bait thinks. I'll bet they piss their ragged little pants. If they're even alive, of course."
"I'm so proud of you," his mother gushed, her anger at her youngest forgotten. "Crane had better watch his back if he knows what's good for him. I'm sure I'll be talking about my son, the gamemaker, before long and Crane will be nothing but a name and date on a future arena."
"Well, I have goals," Rye remarked maliciously. "Unlike some people in this family, I'm not content to just drift along, playing with crayons and making arts and crafts." Peeta's lack of enthusiasm for a concrete plan for his post-school career was another bone of contention with his family, and yet another way he fell short. The counsellors had been stymied. They'd given him a battery of tests and while his verbal skills were advanced, his only other marketable skill seemed to be his drawing and there was no way he was going into muttation design or aesthetic reconditioning, no matter what his teachers suggested.
Bran laughed at his brother's dig, sending a spray of masticated food towards the table. It was disgusting and Peeta couldn't help but notice his mother's silence. No reprimand for her favourites, as usual.
"Every family has its burden," his mother remarked. "But it's what I get for being sentimental. What was I thinking, having a third? I should have terminated the minute the fetus refused to cooperate for the gender scan. But I'm soft that way. After two boys, I wanted a girl. We could have coordinated our outfits and looked like sisters. Now I'm burdened with a useless dreamer and my body is nothing but a ruined husk. It took them two hours to remove the stretch marks and the incision has never faded completely! Every time I look at my body, I could just cry!"
Peeta'd heard variations on this litany his whole life – although at least tonight, she refrained from criticizing her husband's paltry sexual abilities, perhaps on account of him sitting across the table from her, albeit in a drug induced stupor, so on the whole, he felt he'd gotten off lightly. He stabbed the remaining fillet and shoved it whole into his mouth. He chewed awkwardly, gagging at the taste, but swallowed it down. "I'm done. May I be excused?"
His mother's eyes regarded him with cold distaste but she didn't object. She snapped her fingers and the Avox glided forward. "Clear my son's plate," she ordered. Wordlessly, the slave obeyed. She stopped beside him and Peeta could smell the clean, faintly chemical smell of her skin as she reached past him. He forced himself not to look at her face but he couldn't help watch her hands as they collected his plate and silverware. There was a deep burn on her hand, just starting to scab, and he wondered if she'd gotten it preparing the dinner he'd just forced down.
His mother's voice interrupted his guilt. "I thought you were leaving? Or were you so busy ogling our Avox that you forgot to leave?"
Peeta refused to be cowed. "I have homework. And I wasn't ogling." Except that he had been, after a fashion, and his mother and brothers knew it. God knows what they'd make with that material. They never hesitated to exploit a weakness and his tangled feelings for the red-garbed slave were a weakness indeed.
Bran smirked. "Oh Peeta, I know you're frustrated. After all, we do share a wall," his brother said with mock sympathy, his fisted hand ghosting up and down in an unmistakable gesture. "But I don't think even the Avox would want to sleep with you. Even tongueless traitors have standards."
His crude insult infuriated Peeta and made him forget himself. "Don't talk about her that way!"
"Her?" His mother laughed, a light musical trill that Peeta always dreaded. "It, Peeta. It. The Avox isn't a person anymore. It's a possession. A tool. A slave. A traitor to be punished. It does what it's told or it is terminated." Her voice was so light, so superficial, it made her statement even more chilling. Because Peeta knew she meant every word. "I don't care what any of you do with it, frankly, as long as it's there when I need it and I can show it off to my friends next week at the reaping party. Do you understand?"
Peeta understood perfectly. Looking at his family one by one, he wondered what it would be like to be have someone, anyone, who actually cared for him. Because his own family certainly didn't. Bran and Rye were laughing at his humiliation. His father was humming to himself, too stoned to object or even know where he was. His mother was cutting her fish into equally sized morsels, her chemically frozen face impassive. The Avox retreated to the kitchen, his dirty dish still in her hands and Peeta could only flee in hot, angry silence to his room.
Once there, he snatched up a sketch pad but he was too angry to draw. The pencil tore through the smooth cotton paper, leaving a jagged, angry line. Everything he touched was ruined! Finally, he retreated to the bathroom where at least if he did cry, it would be muffled by the water.
When would he learn? Give them nothing! Show them nothing! He punched the buttons in his shower with random fury, not caring whether he smelled of roses or lemongrass, as long as he could wash some of his hurt and his frustration away. He leaned against the cool tiles, letting the scalding water wash over him, and tried to remind himself that tomorrow, there would only be 560 days to go. It didn't help. Nothing helped.
Finally, when his skin was soft and pruned and he was so tired he could barely keep his eyes open, he clambered out and dried off, before pulling on a soft pair of sleeping pants. He walked slowly back to his bed, his feet dragging on the smooth floor.
But when he saw what was waiting for him on his bed, he stopped short in amazement -
