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No rights to The Hunger Games.
I lurve you.
I 'm thrust into a room in the Justice Building and Gale is thrust into another. Already, I'm having trouble handling being away from him and not knowing exactly what's happening to him.
But there's a certain immediacy about what's happening to me now. I sit in the room I've been thrown in, small and confining, and wait for visitors. That's the protocol for the Games, or so I'm told. So I wait for my mom and sister and to come and say their goodbyes, because I don't know anyone else who would want to.
The door opens for the first time to let in a visitors and someone is thrown in roughly. I'm about to go off on the Peacekeeper for handling a little girl like Prim so roughly. But on second glance I realize, it's not Prim.
It's the blonde boy I noticed in the crowd. The one who threw me bread a few years back.
The doors slam behind him. For a moment he just gazes at me loftily and I stare back, bemused.
"Has your sister been here yet?" he asks.
I shake my head.
"Good." He approaches me urgently. "She doesn't hunt, does she? Not like you do?"
I shake my head again.
"Listen," he bends down so he's at my eye level. "When she gets here, tell her to come to my family's bakery for food. She can trade it or eat it or whatever she has to do. I hear bread goes for a lot at the Seam."
"Wh—Huh?" I stammer, utterly confused.
"My name is Peeta Mellark. You know me from school. And from . . ." he trails off, and I know he remembers the time he helped save my life as clearly as I do. "You can trust me, can't you?"
I think for a moment, then, hesitantly, I nod.
"Good," he sighs, relieved. "Give this message to your sister, okay? You remember where my family's bakery is?"
I nod again.
"Every day at noon, tell her to look for a bag in the shrubs near the back entrance."
"Okay," I breathe, bewildered.
"Your family will not starve, Katniss," he assures me. "Not if I can do something about it."
With that, he gets up to leave, even before our time is up.
"Hey!" I call after him.
He looks back over his shoulder.
"Why are you doing this for Prim?" I ask.
He looks away, back at the exit.
"It's not for Prim," he says, and I don't if he would've been able to leave me with a more confusing message.
He leaves, and I catch a glimpse of a Peacekeeper gripping onto him to usher him out before the door closes.
My next visitors are less surprising: My mother and Prim. Prim leaps straight into my arms and I wonder whether or not she's stopped crying this whole time.
"It's okay, it's okay," I whisper soothingly.
"No, no it isn't," she sobs into my shoulder.
"Sure it is," I try to smile. "Buck up, Prim. It could be worse."
"How?" she croaks as she leans away from me.
"It could be you going in there," I remind her.
She knows that, but somehow, that doesn't comfort her.
"Listen," I begin, wiping tears off of her damp face. "You know the bakery run by the Mellarks?"
She shakes her head.
"Prim, you have to find it. It's your food source now. With Gale and me leaving, we won't be able to hunt for you. Every day at noon, look in some shrubs for a bag. It's not stealing. One of them is giving it to us."
"Why?" she asks, as confused as I was.
"Don't question a gift, Prim," I advise her, pushing blonde hairs out of her face. "You be good to mom, okay?"
It sounds like a goodbye, so Prim slams back into me and I wrap my arms around her. I repeat that it's okay some more, then gently unlatch her from me to go speak with my mother.
"Take care of her," I tell her.
"Of course." She notes my doubtful expression. "Katniss . . . Katniss, of course I will!"
"Okay," I say. Then I go up to hug her.
"Are you going to try to come back?" she wonders into my ear.
I think for a moment. "I don't know," I decide to say.
Coming back suggests that I kill Gale. I'm never going to be prepared to do that.
"Could you try?"
I don't answer and pull away from the hug.
"Time's up!" a gruff voice informs us, and Prim and my mom are pulled out of the room despite Prim's shrieks of disapproval that make the silence that follows the closing of the doors more prominent.
I sit back down on the couch and wait for the Peacekeepers to drag me away. I don't expect any more goodbyes. I've already gotten more than I expected.
But the door opens again, and someone more unexpected than Peeta comes in.
"Gale?" I gasp.
He closes the door quietly behind him. "We don't have much time."
"Gale, you shouldn't be here."
"I'm aware," he says, approaching me quickly, rummaging in his pocket.
He must have snuck in as the Peacekeepers were guiding my family out. Despite the imminent danger, I stand up and hug him tightly. He puts he free arm around my back, but continues rummaging.
I pull away only because of our short amount of time. "What do you think you're doing?"
"I wanted to see you," he informs me. "And I want to give you something."
He finds what he was digging in his pocket for and holds it out to me.
It's a pin. It's a dull, gold-color and its image is a mockingjay, a failed experimental bird that the Capitol cooked up back in the day, almost enclosed in a circle.
"For a token," he explains as he holds it out to me. "You can where it in the arena."
"Where'd you get it?"
"Madge, a while back. It's yours now."
Instead of thanking him, I ask, "Why?"
"It's obvious we're friends," he explains. "The Capitol probably will try to do something about that. But this is something from me I want you to keep on during this process, okay? Up until you come home."
"As if I'm going home," I scoff.
"You are," he assures me shortly.
And that's when I realize the deeper meaning behind the gift. It's part of him. It's so I remember him.
After he dies.
I promptly slap the pin out of hand. It clatters to the ground.
"No!" I exclaim.
"Katniss . . ."
"No! Stop it!"
"Katniss, just in case," he tries to explain. He's realized I've figured it out. "I mean, there's only one winner, right?"
"So you're not even going to try?" I cry.
"Sure, I guess," he replies unconvincingly, "but people who try end up dead, too."
As I'm considering this, a Peacekeeper barges in.
"Hey! You get out of here!" he barks at Gale.
I'm struck with the urge to cling on to him. I'm suddenly clawing in to his back, willing him not to leave. He clings back, but a man is prying him off of me. Someone collides with Gale's shoulder and he grunts in pain.
I let go and shriek at the Peacekeeper, enraged.
But he's able to force Gale away from me, and the door closes behind them with a sense of finality.
I'm left breathing heavily in the room, truly out of unexpected visitors now. My gaze travels down to the floor where the pin is glinting up at me.
I take it up and pin it to the front of me dress. It's as Gale said. A figurative piece of him in his absence.
But only times like now, temporary absence. As if I'm going to let Gale die in the arena.
I almost convince myself of it.