"Rabbit?" he asked as I quietly slipped through the door, crouching on hunter's feet. His face was scrunched up as he carefully frosted the roses of a cake, smears of flour across his cheeks.
"You guessed it," I replied, smiling a little. We had repaired each other, piece by piece. I set aside the skinned rabbits, for a moment wishing I had Gale to skin them with. "It feels weird not having to dodge the Peacekeepers bringing kill in anymore."
He wiped the flour and icing off of his forehead. "The Capitol was only trying to protect you, back then."
I paused. "Trying to protect us? From what? Peeta, we were starving!" I looked over at him, as he slowly, painstakingly carving intricate patterns into the cake.
"There was plenty of plants in the district itself," he replied.
My muscles tensed. "You can't survive on plants. There wasn't enough to feed my mother, Prim and I, or the Hawthornes."
He didn't even bother to look up. "I'm just saying. The Capitol made those rules to protect people."
What bothered me was how casually he kept repeating it. How casually he kept defending the Capitol. Did he not remember the fight against them? Did he not share the rage for the utter control Snow and his totalitarian ways believed they had to have?
"Guess you should have called for a ceasefire over that," I muttered, clenching my fists.
For once, he looked up. His blue eyes had long since lost the hazed, foggy glow the hijacking had left him with, but now, they burned with a fierce sharpness. "Are you saying you don't have any problem with all of the people — all the people that you, yes, you — killed during the rebellion?"
I was speechless. "Don't talk to me about the people I killed!" I screamed. "Don't tell me about that! You didn't lose Prim! You didn't lose the one person you were sure you loved!"
Peeta slammed down the frosting tip. "My family was killed in those bombs! My family, Katniss! You had people to come home to, I had nothing!"
"You had me!" I shrieked. I swept off the recipes he had stacked on the counter, scattering the papers to the floor.
"No, I didn't have you," he growled, stepping towards me. "I had all the memories that Snow had hijacked. You don't know what I went through! The abuse. You don't know, Katniss! It wasn't my fault! I wouldn't have been hijacked if it was up to me. It was you who left me in the arena! You left me there. To die. You left me there to be finished off!"
I stared back. "I didn't know about the rebel plans! I was concerned about proving to Snow that I loved you, Peeta. I wouldn't have left you there if I had a choice. And I didn't have a choice."
"Your dear rebels," he replied, slamming his palm against the countertop. "Guess they weren't your friends, then, were they?"
"The rebels rescued you!" I hollered. It was all I could do to resist from injuring him right on the spot.
"Did they, Katniss? Because I'm not the same person I was back then. I wanted to fight for you. I thought you were something more, something beautiful! But, instead, you are manipulative and mean, and dark, and a killer. You are a murderer."
The faces of those I had watched come to their ends flood my mind. "That time is over now! Panem is different now! I'm different now! My only goal was to keep you alive!"
"Well, I'm alive. Did you want to hurt me beyond repair in the process?" He ripped off his apron, raking his nails across his palms. "Why did you hurt me?"
I stood there, the anger, the fire, burning through me. The dandelion that Peeta had handed to me, those days ago, just wood to the fire. The bread he had tossed me, just another thing to burn. The fire is devouring what I felt for Peeta, devouring the relationship, the healing we had rebuilt. As Panem burned, so did we. But as Panem rebuilt, the fire caught again. Fire never stops.
"I can't believe you defended the Capitol," I said after a while. "This whole year, I have suffered more loss then I would ever wish to feel my entire life. I can't believe you would defend the people who killed my sister. The bombs that shattered my little duck. The bombs that burned the one person I know I loved."
Peeta says nothing for a while, just looks around the room, not bothering to meet my intense gaze. "I hate you. Real or not real?" He finally asks.
"Real," I reply. "Real."