I don't own any of this! All belongs to the lovely Suzanne Collins! Happy reading!

Chapter 2.

Someone once told me that you don't need your words to say how you feel. A look, a touch, an action can speak louder than any sentence. Oh, how this is true. Here in this nightmarish pandemonium, not a word is spoken, and yet full conversations pass through Darius and I. Our fingers slowly forming meanings, our eyes make our points for us.

We talk, just talk. About home, about who we used to be. And it helps. It calms me down. He tells me about his family, I tell him about mine. He tells me they're all dead. I tell him mine are too. Darius say's he's worried about Katniss. I tell him I am worried about Peeta.

The room we are in is entirely made of cement. The door even, is a thin sheeting of the stuff. It slides open on wheels, with a small, bite sized window that someone looks in every few hours. It is perfectly square, with one light bulb. Darius and I are both sitting with our backs pressed up against separate walls.

We have been told that they will fetch us when it's our turn. Our turn for a whipping? Our turn for a talking to? Our turn to die. So when the screams start I do nothing but examine my finger nails, emotionless.

Time passes slowly, our talking cut off by the screams. And all I can think about is blue, sorrowful eyes. Eyes that are searching for help. Eyes that must have looked so similar to mine when my life fell apart. How anguished, how fearful I felt. Yes, the more I think about it, the more I am driven to help him.

But I can't. Not when "my turn" is just around the corner.

So when my time is up, the face appears in our window, and the cement door slides open. A Peacekeeper enters with a small camera and two sets of uniforms.

He throws the sets of clothes at us. After all, it isn't proper to serve half naked. Darius and I take the uniforms, they're all black with the capitol seal on them. I feel an urgent need to burn them.

I guess we're supposed to change right here and now because the Peacekeeper just stares at us expectantly. He sighs and turns his back when Darius gives an impatient huff. Weird. We change as quickly as we can, and when we're finished Darius clears his throat.

The Peacekeeper flips and nods at the remaining camera in his hand. "The boss wants it taped. Your going to be the one who shows the whole city."

He walks closer to me, his arm outstretched towards mine. Thinking he's giving it to me, I reach out to take it from him when his other hand shoots out and grips my elbow, yanking me forward.

With a shriek I start to pull away, but the giant brute of a man drops the camera and uses his open hand to capture my other side.

"You're mighty good lookin' for a traitor." He purrs. Darius seems to shuffle uncomfortably on his feet, wanting to help me but afraid for himself with such a large man. Once you adopt the Avox attitude, it's hard to change your ways.

I grind my teeth as he pulls me closer to him, his fingers swiping my hair. His breath reeking, he whispers something into my ear.

"What did you say your name was again?"

Oh. He's making fun. When I say nothing, he breaks into a grin.

"What was that sweet cakes? Don't think I can hear you. What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?"

The peacekeeper bursts into a wheezy laugh as I yank myself away from him, rubbing where his fingers left marks. He's slapping his knee now and guffawing at himself. He's disgusting. He picks up the camera and shoves it back into my arms.

He gestures us to follow him out, still laughing. "You two won't give me much trouble will ya? Don't need any backup security to keep you from running?" Darius grumbles at him but starts to follow after.

The peacekeeper leads us out of our cement hell and down a separate hallway that I hadn't seen last night. It's narrower, with wooden floors that creek as you walk.

This is strange. You almost never see real wood in the capitol. Everything is usually manmade. It feels nice on my bare feet.

"You two will be getting used to this, running errands and such for loyal people like me." Big guy says, jamming a thumb at himself. "In between your sessions, of course."

My eyes widen as I drink this in. Sessions. Meaning...torture sessions? And they still expect us to serve. Of course, this is what the Capitol thinks I deserve. This is what we deserve for serving rebels; this is what Peeta deserves to have on his conscious.

There are multiple doorways in this ancient hall, I counted ten on each side. Our guide leads us through one on the left. Inside there is is a small rectangular room, I almost give a sigh of relief when I realize it's heated.

On the left wall, there is all sorts of electrical plugs with beeping noises and lights emanating from it. The right wall isn't really a wall. It's made of glass. You can see what's on the other side, which is another cement room but more filthy. And in it is a single wooden chair with leather straps on its arms. Sitting in the chair is Peeta Mellark.

His arms are bound by the straps and his head is down, shoulders hunched, defeated. What looks like a spotlight is lighting him up, so that the four men and one woman that are sitting at the desks on our side of the glass get a good view.

Apparently, Capitol officials actually enjoy watching people being tortured. Most capitol citizens aren't like this. They don't enjoy this. But then I have to stop myself, because they do enjoy the Hunger Games, and what's the difference really? It's surprising how quickly I have start to separate myself from Capitol citizens, saying they, instead of we.

As we enter, they give the Peacekeeper a silent nod, and all but one goes back to watching. The woman gets up and walks over to me. She tells me I will be entering the room holding the rebel, and I will be capturing every word, every look or emotion that Peeta feels.

A feeling of dread seeps into me. I don't think I could watch anything happen without wrenching all over the place. Not in person. Besides, why am I taping it? Shouldn't an actual camera man take care of it? But then, what decent person would actually take the job, and better yet, who would without telling anyone. That has to be it. Make the Avox do the dirty work; we wouldn't want any rumors spreading around now would we? Ha.

The woman has blond hair pulled back into bun; she's dressed in a tight black business skirt. Torture must be all in a day's work for her. She points to a small door near the corner of the glass wall. I realize that I'm scared, frightened. But when I pause to enter the cement cage, the peacekeeper raises an eyebrow at me and pulls his hand into a fist.

I swallow and shake. I count how many steps I have to take to reach the door, trying to keep my sanity. Once I'm inside, Peeta raises his head. His eyes settle on me, but then he closes them, and I can see the muscles in his jaw tighten and jump. His head falls back onto his chest. I glance at the glass wall, but instead I only see a reflection of myself. Oh, its an observing glass. Only they can see out of it.

A voice echoes through a speaker, the woman is telling me that I'm to stand silently in the corner of the room, flip on the hand held camera and record. Once I do as I'm told, things start to happen. I expected chainsaws, darts, knives, lighter fluid, anything but a hole in the right side wall containing a television. It's a micro thin, flat screen T.V. held by a robotic arm as it's lowered to Peeta's eye level. As it extends itself towards him it makes a small whirring noise and Peeta looks up. He does nothing when he sees it. But I do catch a glimpse of confusion in his eyes. When he hears me push the recording button he turns his head to view me in my corner. But I only pull the camera up to my eye and start documenting. If they see us interacting in any way, it will get us both punished.

The television screen turns itself on, and Peeta's head turns back in it's direction. It only shows a blue screen, a tiny hum of a machine working fills the deadly quiet room. Minutes pass and nothing happens, so I just keep recording. I'm startled when Peeta says something.

"So this is it? What are you going to do, televise me to death?"

What a stupid thing to say, is he trying to get himself killed? Shut up! I scream at him in my head. Don't say anything! Peeta is beginning to look so angry though, he must be having trouble keeping his tongue. But I can practically hear Snow's sneer to Peeta's comment, 'Is that a challenge?'

Suddenly, the television screen bursts into life. And on it is the blond haired woman from the other side of the glass. All you see is a close up of her face, her cheek bones are high and round, giving her an intensely fake look. She smiles huge horse teeth at him.

"Hello Peeta." She says. He just stares. This doesn't seem to bother her though because she moves right along with the conversation.

"Peeta, do you know where you are?" Her voice is chipper and overly happy; it's even an extent for the Capitol accent.

"Hell." He responds roughly.

"Well, we're sorry you feel that way. But you are actually in a Capitol owned polygraphic facility! And we have very big plans for you today!" Ugh, she makes me sick. So I turn the camera so I can only see Peeta's responses, I can't bear to look at her face. But I can't stop my ears from hearing, so their conversation continues.

"First we will go through a series of questions. We expect that you will answer all questions honestly, and if you can't seem to remember the answers we have certain tactics to help you with your re-examination. Am I crystal clear?" Peeta is silent, but then slightly nods.

"Splendid! Now, we will start with the simplest of questions. Question number one, at what age did you enter your first games?" Peeta pauses, as if he's trying to figure out why they would ask a question they already know.

"Sixteen." When he says it, a little light flashes from the top of the television screen. Its a light blue color and it shines in it's face and tiny dots are displayed over his facial features, drinking him in. It makes a small noise, and then a microscopic dial on the screen replays his words. You can hear it repeat his answer and save into a file bank. They are storing his every word. I know this because my first job after becoming an Avox was to sort through old files on the Capitol network of people who were alive and put it into the "recently deceased" file. I had become accustomed to the sounds the machine had made.

Next, the straps around Peeta's wrists start to vibrate and create a rhythmatic beeping. On the bottom of the television screen begins to show the up and down figures of a heart rate monitor. Oh, he's hooked up to a lie detector. Does Peeta know what those are?

"Fantastic! Now, on to question two. What was the name of the Head Gamemaker of the 74th Games?"

"Seneca Crane." Whir, beep, saved.

"Question three, what is the name of the Everdeen family's eldest daughter?"

Peeta sighs and crosses his arms over his chest. "Katniss."

"The name of District Three's male tribute in the Quarter Quell?"

"Beetee."

"The female tribute?"

"Wiress."

"Correct! At this point Mr. Mellark, we will be asking you questions about yourself. Think you can handle it?"

"Myself?" He asks staring up at her.

"Of course, on the very few things we don't know about you, we would love for you to fill in the gaps!"

It's suddenly very quiet as Peeta is suppressed into deep thought. His foot begins to tap on the ground.

"Are you still with us, Mr. Mellark?"

"You don't know anything about me."

At this point, I have to see her face, maybe I could catch a slip up, something that would get her punished. I swerve the camera so it also shows her face.

The woman raises her eyebrows at this. She smiles and seems genuinely pleased at his comment.

"On the contrary, we know you quite well Mr. Mellark."

"No, you know what you see on the interviews, or on the television screen. You don't really know me."

"You'd be surprised, Peeta. We have very detailed files on you, on your family as well. Actually, we also have files on all of your school friends."

On the television screen appears thumbnail photos of blonde haired children, their names labeled beneath them.

"We have records of all school grades and co-curriculars," as she says this, copies of report cards materialize. "We know everything Peeta. We know your favorite subjects and hobbies, which friends you favorite, details on your brothers and parents." A photo of two young adult males appear, both blond, one holding the other one in a headlock.

"We have all of your medical files, including your height and weight throughout your life. Including DNA samples and fingerprints of all your fingers and toes, your I.Q. and intellect... "

It seems as she says things, photos of what she is summarizing appear, and it is reminding me of lectures or informational documentaries I had seen while I was still in school.

"Of course, we know all about your love for Katniss, and how very real it is. But we've recently tried to look past the "Peeta who is in love with Katniss" and focus more on what makes you, you. For example, your favorite foods, which different scenarios in your life have upset and pleased you, how you greet people you don't know, which games you like to play, your hobbies..." Paintings show up on the screen. "We know your character Peeta."

At this point, photos of him, his family, and friends show up on screen. Peeta sitting at a cafeteria lunch table surrounded by blonde haired children, him playing soccer with his brothers, and the last one is a particularly invading photograph of his family eating dinner at a kitchen table. But the strange thing is all these photographs are at an awkward angle. As if someone had gone through great lengths to take these photos unnoticed. They practically scream "SPY".

"You are what we call an individual. Your hopes and dreams are not strangers to us. Our most prized file on you is a graph of your mental stability."

The capitol cares about individuality? This is so false and distorted from the truth, I almost forget to laugh.

"My mental stability?" Peeta asks.

"Your mental stability is, in a way, the way you perceive dark situations with a positive attitude, or how you handle things. If we threw certain situations your way, how would you deal with it? Some people have different stages where they just throw their hands up into the air and give up. But you, we've found, have a very high level of stability. You're reasonable and strong, you take things lightly, and you don't like to give up on things. So you see Peeta, we do know you."

"And mental stability is the most important block of information you have on me." Peeta mulls over quietly. He's confused with this whole thing, expecting to be tortured, he's being complimented.

"Did I properly respond to your comment?" Scary woman asks.

"These files you have on me, you have them on Katniss too, no doubt."

"Mmmhh, yes, if not more detailed."

"If you have such detailed files on people, including everyone they know, eventually you'd have files on all of Panem."

The woman laughs. "Now that, young man is a Capitol secret, my lips are sealed."

Peeta is twittling his thumbs. I can tell his resolve is disappearing. He knows he's been spied on. For quite some time it looks like too.

Peeta looks up at her. "These next questions...what happens if I can't answer them?"

Her smile drops, and her eyes show anger. "This."

Out from the same hole the television came from, a second robotic arm is whirring. It's gripping a sharp, rotating disk, similar to a saw, and its hurtling directly towards his face.