Mockingjay in Peeta's Point of View

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Chapter Two

"I don't know!" I scream at the Doctor, feeling more confused than ever. Every session, he tells me something, or makes me watch a tape of the arena, and then he stings me with his venom, and I can no longer remember if his statement is true or not. He makes me think of new events, remember new things, and he always asks me at the end which is correct. I begin by believing he is planting new memories in my mind, but at the end I think he may just be reminding me of what I already knew. He drags me into the room almost every day, sometimes leaving me a day to rest. The hours I spend in the chair are agonising, after each session the guards drop me in my cell. I pass the others, and the other prisoners always have a new pattern of bruises, but the guards no longer visit me. I'd prefer if they did.

"Tell me about Katniss," Johanna whispers whilst I'm laying on the ground, staring up at the ceiling and panting. This is a routine we had started after the first few sessions with the Doctor; Johanna made me tell her my real memories of Katniss, so that I don't forget.

"I met her as a child. She was … she was wearing one braid instead of two," I frown, rubbing my forehead. "And bread … something about bread. Pigs? I … I don't know." Different memories are running through my mind. Katniss telling me she doesn't love me, that it was all pretend. Katniss pushing Mags into the fog during the Quarter Quell. Katniss singing, something to do with birds. Birds … stopping, falling silent. Katniss with her bow. Are those memories connected? I bring my knees up to my chest and hug them, rocking back and forth gently, shaking me head. No, that's not right. Which memories are the real ones?

"Peeta. You have to concentrate Peeta," Johanna urges me, but I continue shaking my head.

"I can't … I don't know. It hurts." I whimper.

"You have to tell me, Peeta." She sounds almost desperate now, but I don't understand why she's asking. My head hurts, the memories are getting more confused than ever. Katniss Everdeen, the girl on fire, a Victor, a friend, once a fiancée, turned enemy. Enemy? Johanna is calling my name, but I don't answer her, I can't answer her. Enemy. The word bounces around my head, and I don't understand. Had she been an enemy? Had I not been defending her? Did I not love her?

"I don't love you, Peeta. I never loved you. It was for the Games," Katniss sneers at me.

Love, she doesn't love. She cannot love. The doctor had shown me a clip, they had created her in some kind of lab. She's not even technically human.

"Peeta, tell me about Katniss," Johanna practically shouts.

"She's a mutt, a stinking mutt! She tried to kill me!" I snap, shoving my head back so that it slams into the stone wall. "A Mutt created by the Capitol, to kill all of us." I notice a twitch in my hand, and ball it into a fist to make it stop. "It went wrong, she rebelled. Now she's created war, going to kill everyone," my voice is a murmur now, and Johanna doesn't speak again. I curl up on my bed and fall into a fitful sleep, full of nightmares that jolt me awake multiple times in the night.

The guards pull me roughly from my bed, startling me awake. I start shouting and struggling against their tight grips, "I don't want to go! No! I don't want to see the doctor!" One of them lands his fist into my stomach, causing me to double over, the air shooting out of me in a huff. There was a time when one punch wouldn't have affected me much.

"You're not going to see the Doctor, you're going to be on television," the guard tells me, dragging me from the cell. I don't reply to this, and start walking alongside them. At least it's not the medical room we're going to.

They drop me off in the same room as my last interview, but there are three new strangers. I wonder if the last two had requested to not take part. I had made them quite nervous. I shower and allow the Prep Team to do their work, all the while wondering if Portia is alive. I haven't seen her, and nobody has mentioned her at all. It's concerning, and I really hope she hasn't been killed.

The guards escort me to the stage, where the place is buzzing with people rushing around, shouting out things I don't understand. The two guards escorting me are talking between themselves, joking about something.

"Did you hear they're going to bomb District Thirteen tonight?" I tune in to their conversation.

"Quiet! The boy …"

"Oh, don't worry about him. He's been hijacked now, a total lost cause," the guard whispers. This annoys me for some reason. Hijacked, a lost cause, they think I'm in no position to help the people of District Thirteen. Or perhaps think I don't wish to, because that's where Katniss is hiding. The thought of Katniss causes a flux of emotions, makes my hands tremble. She will be dead by the morning, along with the hundreds of other people who have taken refuge. I frown down at my quivering hands.

Today's Interview is not with Caeser Flickerman, but I am escorted to President Snow's podium, where he is waiting for me. Someone makes me sit on the stool beside Snow, clipping a microphone on to my shirt. They turn on a projection of the map of Panem behind me, and they're telling me my lines, what I have to say. Then the cameras are on, my fake foot tapping against the stool, trying to focus on what is being said.

I have to repeat myself about the ceasefire, and read out the lines I've been given, about what damage the war has caused, using the map behind me. Katniss' face suddenly appears on the small television in front of me, standing in front of something that looks familiar. The whole room sets into panic, people shouting orders across the room, other people tapping at computers. I can only focus on the image in front of me. The crumbling building behind Katniss, there's a sign on the floor that I would know anywhere. Mellark Bakery. A lump forms in my throat. Why is the Bakery no longer there? Where's my father and mother? My brothers?

"Peeta, your lines," someone I don't know hisses at me. I try to carry on with what I had been saying, but my hands are trembling again. The screen keeps breaking off into small broadcasts that only last a few seconds, and then back to the President and I. The screen goes blank.

"Get control of that broadcast!" The President shouts, making the people around us move even faster.

The screen flickers back, and the set is still frantic, people shouting everywhere. President Snow jumps up, saying something about the rebels disrupting incriminating information. Then he's turning to me, because he knows I am no longer the person I once was. This makes me angry. He's asking if I have any parting thoughts. The guards, their warning of a bombing. If I say nothing, then hundreds of people will die. "To murder innocent people? It costs you everything you are." Hadn't I said that?

"Katniss … how do you think this will end? What will be left? No one is safe. Not in the Capitol. Not in the districts. And you … in Thirteen," I take a deep breath, my brain screaming at me. Tell them, don't tell them. Let her die, save her. "Dead by morning!" I shout into the camera.

"End it!" Snow shouts. I try to continue.

"Bombs! Tonight, you all have to get out! You need to-" Snow suddenly hits me in the face to shut me up, and I cry out in pain as I fall backwards. I know that the broadcast is dead now, I only have to hope that they listened. For a moment, I allow myself a small smile. Helping the people of District Thirteen, it feels a little like my old self.

"Where is Doctor Tylion?" President Snow is shouting at the guards behind him. "Take him now!" The guards pull me up from the ground, and I don't fight them. There is no use. We leave the panicked set behind us, and they take me to the Medical Room where Doctor Tylion is waiting.

"Well, Peeta. You've certainly upset the President. Lucky for you, he doesn't want you dead." The Doctor already has his syringe in hand.

"Is that really lucky?" I ask wearily, falling down into the chair. The straps go on, the venom goes in, and the torture begins. It seems to last twice as long as our usual sessions, and as they go on, I'm screaming less and less, giving in to the memories. They no longer seem fake, but a map of what my life has been like. The venom wears off, and the Doctor is smiling down at me.

"I think you're ready, Peeta." I frown.

"Ready? Ready for what?" My words are a little slurred and mumbled, as I am still waking from the haze that the venom leaves me in. The Doctor doesn't say anything else, only calls in the guards and have them escort me back to the cell. They mostly have to drag me because I keep stumbling over my own feet, suddenly exhausted and just wanting to lay down somewhere. Anywhere. The Doctor and I have never been in one another's company for so long, and it obviously has an effect.

The guards drop me in my cell, and I don't even bother moving to my bed, the floor seems comfortable enough.

"Peeta, hey Peeta!" Johanna is whispering for me, and I think I mumble something in reply before falling asleep.

When I wake up, everything is in chaos.

"Make sure all the cells are locked!"

"Get a guard on that elevator!"

"Send someone up!"

"Go, go, go!"

I rush to the door of my cell, glancing back and forth as the guards race through the corridor, this way and that. "Johanna," I hiss. "What's going on?"

"I have no idea," she admits through the wall. "Someone said something over the radio, and then they all started running around and shouting at one another." My throat starts tickling and I have to cough hard, trying to get rid of the invasion. "Can you smell that?" Johanna asks through her own coughs. I realise that there is a strange smell in the air, but I'm too busy coughing and trying to keep my eyes open. Moments ago I had been wide awake, but now I feel so suddenly drowsy, my eyelids starting to droop.

"Peeta … what's going on? Are you ..." Johanna's voice drifts off, and I fall to my knees. In front of my cell, a guard falls down and his eyes close, but I do not know whether he is unconscious or dead. I have no time to worry over this matter, because unconsciousness has closed in on my mind.

When I wake I am in a bed, laying in a white room. I frown and blink against the brightness, for a moment fearing that Doctor Tylion will appear at any moment. Instead, a cheerful woman flashes a torch in my eyes, and asks me questions. I blink against the sudden light, but the woman tells me to follow it. A man comes in and take my wrist, pressing down to where my pulse should be. I do not fight him, as I have not fought off anyone for weeks now. It is no use, the guards are always stronger than me. But who are these people?

It doesn't look like the medical rooms in the Capitol, the wires are not trailing into the wall behind me, I can see the door on the other side of the room. Just as I'm about to turn away from the door and to one of the doctors, someone else walks in to the room. I stare in shock and disbelief, amazed and confused as to why they would allow her in here, near me. Seeing her in front of me sets a tremor in my hands and the rage pounds through my head.

I push the doctors away from me, and lunge forward to my feet, moving across the room towards her. The hate is raging inside me, wanting to take her out of this world, or just have her away from me. A mutt, a terrible mutt who betrayed me and everyone, who killed for the sake of killing. She shoots forward with arms open, and I tense my body for the attack she surely plans against me. My hands grasp around her throat, attempting to squeeze the life from her, my face contorted into hate. Nobody moves for a moment, and some part of me thinks it is because they want this too. To kill the Mockingjay.

A man's fist connects with my head, and a blanket of darkness falls over my mind.

I wake again in the same room, feeling dazed and still confused. I try to sit up, but my arms are strapped down to the bed, my legs won't move either. For a moment I am trapped, and I fight against the leather straps, shouting out that they must let me go, although I do not know why. I still do not know where I am. A memory comes to light, creeping to the front of my mind. Katniss' face, smiling at me and looking joyed, my fingers digging into her throat. I lie back and stare up at the plain ceiling, and tears are springing from my eyes, but I don't understand them. I don't understand anything.

Why would I cry for someone I want to kill?

Hours pass by, possibly days, which I spend falling in and out of consciousness, being checked over by Doctors and nurses, slowly fed food. Each time I wake up, my brain does feel somewhat clearer, but I am irritable and twitchy, and all of the memories are still there in my head. My hands seem to constantly fidget when I am awake, sometimes I don't notice, other times I cannot stop them.

The door to my room opens and I tense, alarmed and waiting . A young girl walks into the room, with a blond plait in her hair, and a tentative expression. My brows burrow a little, trying to place her. I recognise her to some degree, but cannot be certain where from. She looks at me and her expression breaks into a smile.

"Peeta? It's Delly. From home." She says.

"Delly?" I ask, trying to remember where I know that name from, sorting through the memories. Two children, always playing together. The boy was me, and the girl was a very cheery blonde girl. "Delly. It's you." I say.

"Yes!" She sounds relieved that I remember. "How do you feel?"

"Awful. Where are we? What's happened?" I ask her, because nobody else will give me any answers that make sense, they just creep around me.

"Well … we're in District Thirteen. We live here now," she tells me.

"That's what those people have been saying. But it makes no sense. Why aren't we home?" Delly chews on her lower lip, looking nervous.

"There was … an accident. I miss home badly, too. I was only just thinking about those chalk drawings we used to do on the paving stones. Yours were so wonderful. Remember when you made each one a different animal?" I do remember that.

"Yeah. Pigs and cats and things," but I want to know about the other things she had said. "You said … about an accident?" What could be so bad that we had to move to District Thirteen?

"It was bad. No one … could stay," she's hesitating, not wanting to tell me the full story. "But I know you're going to like it here, Peeta. The people have been really nice to us. There's always good and clean clothes, and school's much more interesting."

"Why hasn't my family come to see me?" I ask her, thinking of my father and brothers. Do they know I'm in the hospital? Are they okay?

"They can't," Delly says, and I think I see tears in her eyes. "A lot of people didn't get out of Twelve. So we'll need to make a new life here. I'm sure they could use a good baker. Do you remember when your father used to let us make dough girls and boys?" A good baker. My father is a good baker. Mellark Bakery. The thought of that brings up something else, a different memory. Something I had heard in passing.

"There was a fire," I say.

"Yes," I can barely hear Delly.

"Twelve burned down, didn't it? Because of her," the anger sets in again. The Mockingjay. Katniss. She set fire to district Twelve, just like the Capitol wanted her to do. That's what they created her for. "Because of Katniss!" I pull on the restraints, needing to get out again.

"Oh, no, Peeta. It wasn't her fault," Delly is trying to say to me.

"Did she tell you that?" I hiss. Delly, my childhood friend, who was always so kind. She would believe whatever she was told, of course she would.

"She didn't have to. I was -" Delly starts to say, but I have to make her understand.

"Because she's lying! She's a liar! You can't believe anything she says! She's some kind of mutt the Capitol created to use against the rest of us!" I shout at her.

"No, Peeta. She's not a-"

"Don't trust her, Delly," I say frantically, needing her to understand. I have to protect her. "I did, and she tried to kill me. She killed my friends. My family. Don't even go near her! She's a mutt!" Delly disappears and the door shuts behind her, but I don't stop. The thoughts of Katniss have left me with anger and hate that I've never felt before. "A mutt! She's a stinking mutt!" I continue screaming, thinking of my father, of my mother, of Garteh and Lukail, all burning in the bakery because of Katniss.

My screaming only stops when they come in and sedate me.