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Seam
Prim screams when Kindle Brow gets killed. Our tributes never last long, probably because our only living victor, and thus our only mentor, is Haymitch Abernathy. I've only ever seen him a handful of times, but he's always been drunk and cranky. We watched two days ago as Sorrel Forrester died of dehydration. He passed out a few yards from the river and moaned until he died, even when he lost consciousness. We probably don't have many sponsors for District 12, but there had to be enough money for a sip of water. Haymitch was probably passed out right along with him. This is the first year in a long time that both our tributes haven't died in the bloodbath, so you'd think he'd pay attention. In fact, Kindle came in ninth.
But ninth still means you're dead.
Kindle's death was particularly gruesome. Her strategy was to hide as long as she possibly could and she even taught herself how to climb a tree. She ate berries and found the river and watched from the top branches of a large tree as the Career pack danced right by her, chuckling to themselves about the expression on the face of the girl they had just killed. Caesar Flickerman and Claudius Templesmith likened her behavior to that of the girl from Five, but anyone could see that Kindle's behavior was fueled by fear and the need for self-preservation. Foxface, or so I decided to call the District 5 girl, had a strategy. I could see it in her eyes.
Kindle was chased out of her tree by fireballs that burned her leg and she sunk into the river for comfort. A parachute of medicine was just falling for her when the Career pack came upon her, the big brutal boy from Two surprisingly quick as he chased her down. The others chanted around them as he killed her, spending upwards of an hour teasing her and making her grovel for mercy before beating her and slitting her throat so blood bubbled in her mouth. The boy from One took her backpack and the medicine after the cannon boomed and then they took off so the big metal hand could grab her lifeless body.
Prim is shaking as Caesar Flickerman and Claudius Templesmith enter our screen, the Games in a corner so we don't miss any of the action. I mute it and take her into my arms, rocking her back and forth. I didn't really know either Kindle or Sorrel, and neither did Prim to my knowledge, but watching the Games is hard on anyone, even if you don't know the tributes personally.
"Shh," I say, continuing to rock her on our couch, the television muted so we don't have to hear Caesar Flickerman and Claudius Templesmith talk about what a shame it is that Kindle didn't outlast one more person, specifically the tiny girl from Eleven who reminds me so much of Prim.
"It's such a shame," says Caesar Flickerman, the words appearing on the screen since I've turned the volume off. "I was so excited! We haven't been to District 12 for an interview in years!"
"Maybe next year." Claudius Templesmith laughs, his face distorted with some sort of awful pleasure. "They do seem to produce their victors during Quarter Quells."
There will be two houses in the Seam with their curtains drawn tonight and every night for the remainder of the Games, but the rest of the district should return to normal functioning soon. No one is ever silly enough to hope for a victor. We're down to the top eight, so the remainder of the Games will be fairly predictable – a feast that the Gamemakers will hope turns into a bloodbath and then they'll send in muttations if it's not going quickly enough. The Capitol will want to end it soon and then our power will be cut and I can get back to hunting.
Until then, we'll be rationing. The Games can't go on much longer or we'll be out of food.
"Did he have to hit her that last time?" Prim asks, looking up at me with watery eyes. I don't respond and just kiss her forehead. Again, she bursts into tears.
Our mother sits at the kitchen table. The little girl from Eleven has been humming tunes to the Mockingjays for the past few days. Up until then our mother had been doing very well, but once the birds came on screen I knew we lost her. She started mumbling incoherently for a moment and then sat down at the table, her head in her hands. Now she's staring at the wall, completely lost. I try my very hardest not to hate her.
But, it's hard when I have Prim sobbing in my lap to think anything positive of my mother, so I don't waste much time digging through my head for the thoughts I won't find. Instead I send Prim to bed. It's late, despite the sunlight of the arena, and she doesn't need to watch the rest of the viewing.
Throughout the night, she wakes up three times with nightmares and, to be honest, I don't get much sleep either. The little girl from Eleven is affecting me too, although not to the extent of my mother, who doesn't move from the table even to go to bed. Her humming reminds me of my father's beautiful voice and how he often hummed to them too out beyond the fence. But more than anything, little Rue reminds me of Prim, and that is hard enough to swallow. They physically look nothing alike but there is something about her that is so like Prim. I just can't place it.
My sister cries in her sleep and I wipe her cheeks so the tears will be gone when she wakes up, but more just keep flowing.
The next morning is Sunday and there is a bulletin on our door telling us that there will be a mandatory viewing session tonight. Apparently after I went to bed there was an announcement for a feast at daybreak in the arena, which is late afternoon here. So I resolve to make the day good for Prim, terrified of what this feast will bring. I take her to the meadow. We pick dandelions to make a salad and Prim relaxes enough to make a crown of wildflowers. She insists on putting it on my head and, because she's finally smiling, I relent.
She takes my hand on the walk back and squeezes tightly, a matching wildflower crown to mine lopsided on her head. We walk in silence back to our house and when I see that our mother hasn't moved, I groan loud enough for Prim to startle. Checking the time quickly, I see that Prim still has time to get to the Hawthornes before they head to the square and I can't be sure she'll get there in time if she waits for me and our mother.
"Why don't you go walk with Rory and Hazelle?" I ask, trying to stay calm for her benefit.
"Are you gonna come?"
It's an innocent enough question on her half, asking because she's worried that our mother and I won't make it to the square in time and be punished for it. She doesn't know that when she asks it my mind goes elsewhere, to warm wet lips and my name being called as I run as far as I can away from them.
I shake it out of my head. I can't afford to think about Gale right now.
"I'll meet you in the square once I get her ready," I say, pushing her toward the door. "Hurry before they leave."
She turns and reluctantly walks out the door, heading down the road and I watch her until she takes a corner and is out of sight. Then I turn to my mother, a fire boiling in me when I see her still sitting at the table, not having moved since last night.
She has medicines now to fix this, but random events can trigger her to lose herself. I don't understand why she doesn't take the medicines for the entirety of the Games. Something always triggers her. Last year, it was the boy from One who was adept at a bow and arrow. This year, it was the birds.
"Mother?" I say, setting down the dandelion stems and walking toward her. "Mother, we have to go to the viewing."
I didn't expect her to respond, so I'm not too disappointed when she doesn't.
"Mother, listen to me." I'm not a patient person, so my voice grows tense with each passing second. "It's mandatory. We have to go."
She blinks.
It takes me half an hour to get her into a state of enough coherency to move and now we're barely going to arrive to the square on time. I shuffle her along like Prim herding Lady to graze in the meadow. The streets of the Seam are dead, everyone already in the square for the mandatory viewing and I hurry my mother a little faster. We arrive just in time, but my mother still hasn't fully come back and Darius lets us through without making it a spectacle.
We stand in the back because it is too late to try and find Prim. She is fine with Hazelle and I can picture her clutching Rory's hand for comfort. I just wish it was mine holding hers, my body shielding her from the recap of Kindle's death and the bloodbath that's likely to ensue in mere moments.
As Kindle Brow is teased and beaten by the boy from Two for the second time, I feel eyes on me. I turn to my left to see a group of Seam girls crying. I turn to my right. A pair of bright blue eyes stares back at me and I quickly look back toward the screen.
I can't afford to think about Peeta Mellark either.
Of all the people that could have found me that night it had to be the baker's son who coaxed me out and walked me home before curfew hit. As if I don't owe him enough already. And maybe that's what he was trying to get at, the fact that I haven't thanked him for the bread yet. At least I said thank you before he left, but I know that will never be enough. How do you properly repay someone when you owe him your life?
When I turn away from the recap, he's still looking at me. He must not have come in much before us because he and his older brother stand toward the back, both with aprons on and covered in bits of dough. I let my eyes linger up to his face, thinking perhaps I'll find some sort of answer to his persistent gaze, but I don't. He merely smiles and offers something of a small wave.
I don't wave back to Peeta Mellark.
My first real conversation with Madge Undersee was asking what his name was over lunch when we were twelve. At the time, I didn't even know the name of the boy who saved my life and I hadn't had it in me to thank him. I lifted the dandelion the following day and then proceeded to watch him for the remaining weeks of school. I thought about him during the break, wondering just how you thank someone for saving you, and by the time school started again at the end of the Games, I needed to know what the youngest Mellark was called.
So, on the first day of school, instead of sitting outside on the rock I had been eating lunch on since my father died because I was trying to avoid the rest of the students, I sat next to Madge Undersee. She was just as much of an outcast as I had become and welcomed her lunch buddy without many words. So, it took a few weeks, but I finally plucked up the nerve to ask.
"Oh, Peeta?" she'd said, when I pointed him out while trying to be as nonchalant as possible. I'm not sure it worked. "He's my cousin's best friend. Probably the nicest kid I know. His parents own the bakery."
It took me a while to accept that Peeta was just that nice of a person that he would burn bread purposefully to throw to me, knowing his mother would give him a beating. But, I have noticed him staring at me since that day. He probably wants me to thank him – even nice people like recognition, right? – but I can't.
So, I don't.
And he keeps staring at me.
I don't know what to do. I can't tell Prim. That part of our lives is not something I want to remind my little sister about, especially now that we're doing well most of the time. I don't even entertain the idea of talking to Gale. Not anymore at least.
But, if there's anything I've learned from watching him, Peeta Mellark is the guy that offers his seat if there are none left, the guy that goes out of his way to talk to Madge if she's standing alone despite her lack of social status, and the guy that would burn bread to throw to a Seam girl without telling a single soul about it so they could all have a good laugh. And now he's the guy that walks some poor Seam girl home so she doesn't get caught out after curfew by one of the imported Peacekeepers.
It infuriates me.
No one is that good – besides maybe Prim. I've been trying to find some ulterior motive for him throwing the bread, for walking me home, but nothing comes to me. I thought that, perhaps, if he had thrown the bread for another reason besides being nice it would be easier to pay off the debt. If he was conniving, then surely I didn't need to worry about payback. In fact, I wish he had told the entire school about it because then I wouldn't feel like I owe him anything.
I turn back to the screen and let out a frustrating breath as Claudius Templesmith alerts those in the arena of a feast and the coverage speeds up to present time. The sun is just rising in the arena and there are backpacks arranged by district number. Most of the eight are ready to risk it, including the little girl who hums with the birds, who looks hungry and exhausted and desperate.
I wish Prim was near me. I don't want her to see this alone.
We are forced to stay and watch an hour of chaos. Foxface was hiding in the Cornucopia and grabs her backpack first, confusing everyone including her fellow tributes, all of us watching, and Caesar and Claudius, who continue talking about her even as the little girl from Eleven makes her run for it and gets caught by the girl from Two.
The girl from Two has a mouth on her though and it gets her into trouble when the boy from Eleven grabs her and smashes her head against the Cornucopia. The main screen splits into two so we can see that her district partner is coming and too late to save her. And I almost think Rue will make it out alive until the boy from One, the same kid who took Kindle's supplies and medicine, throws a spear into her stomach.
Why am I not near Prim right now? I look ahead of me, searching for Gale over the crowds but I can't even see him amongst the other tall dark-haired heads.
Three cannons ring – one for the girl from Two, one for Rue, and one for the girl from Four, who meets her end when the brutal boy from Two has a near panic attack at the sight of his district partner's body, the first dead of the original Career pack. He breaks her neck swiftly at least and the two from One stealthily wander into the woods away from him to strategize.
As soon as we're dismissed I head to the exit to keep an eye for Prim, ready to be waiting for when they finally make it out. When she sees me she pushes through a family of merchants, who today are lenient with her rude behavior, and launches herself into my arms. Hazelle takes my mother's hand as I hug Prim to me, not realizing how much I needed to feel her in my arms after watching that.
"How are you?" I ask, pulling away to look at her.
She has always been an old soul, but there's something different in her eyes. She bites her lip and lets out a breath. "If Kindle or Sorrel couldn't win," she tells me quietly. "I wanted it to be Rue, the girl from Eleven."
Of course she did, but that was never going to happen. The youngest victor in history was Finnick Odair, from District 4, and he was fourteen, strong, and powerful with a trident. Rue might have had her slingshot, but when up against a boy five times her size?
I hug Prim tighter to me.
Once Prim dislodges herself from my arms, which don't want to lose her so quickly, I feel a hand on my shoulder and know who it belongs to without looking up. But I don't want to deal with Gale right now, so I don't. I stand up and cross my arms and walk away, behind Prim and Rory who are talking in low somber tones.
Gale, however, has other ideas. He takes my wrist and pulls me back once we cross over into the Seam and lets the others get a little farther ahead before he speaks.
"How long are you gonna run from me, Catnip?" he asks.
It's been a few weeks, throughout the training and first weeks of the Games, since I've spoken to Gale and I've been doing just fine not thinking about him and what he's done. He moves his hand down my wrist to my fingers and I yank it away, finally daring to look up into his face. The expression is one I haven't seen before, laced with frustration and sadness.
"Can we talk, please?"
What is there to talk about? To be honest, I don't really want to bring it up ever again. I would rather forget everything that happened between us and go back to before the reaping. Everything was simpler then and uncomplicated, which is what I like. Good hunting partners are hard to find and Gale is dead set on ruining everything.
It started right after the reaping.
As soon as the doors shut behind Kindle, Sorrel, and Effie Trinket, I found Prim in the crowd and held her as she sobbed tears of joy. She had been so scared and so sure her name would be called. Once she calmed down, I took her hand and led her through the crowds in search of the Hawthornes and then our mother. I wanted to congratulate Gale because, even though he still had Rory, Vick, and Posy to worry about, at least he never had to worry about himself again.
When we found the Hawthornes, a smile came on my face. Gale had Posy hoisted up in his arms. I had never seen Hazelle look so happy. I almost didn't want to interrupt, but before I could pull Prim away Gale spotted me and motioned for us to join them. He set Posy on the ground so he could approach, opening his arms to engulf me. I tensed but didn't pull away, deciding to give Gale this moment because even if we had never really hugged before, surviving the reaping is a good enough reason to hug anyone.
"Come celebrate with me tonight," Gale said as he let go of me. "Please?"
While Gale was my hunting partner and someone I considered to be my best friend, we had never hung out outside the woods. Gale had his friends, like Thom and Bristel, and I had Prim. I had never been invited to these get togethers before, nor had I ever really cared to – I had Prim to take care of and no time to be stupid.
But Gale was free and he'd be going down into the mines before long and our hunts together would be far less frequent so I told him yes. Prim and I found our mother, ate a dinner made out of the fish Gale and I had caught that day, and then left our mother to rest while we walked to the Hawthornes. Prim was going to play with Rory while I went to whatever this was with Gale.
I had figured that there would be some sort of party going on in the meadow when we arrived, maybe a few fiddles and some dancing and just overall cheer, but no one was there when we arrived. The meadow was quiet with not a single soul anywhere near it.
"Where is everyone?"
Gale turned to me and looked confused before realization dawned on his face and he shook his head. "Oh, did you think I was bringing you to a party?" I nodded. "Oh, no. It's just me and you."
I felt my guard go up, as if I was some sort of prey. Why would Gale want to spend his first night of freedom with me and not his family?
He rubbed the back of his neck and looked nervous although I didn't know why.
"So, uh," Gale said. "You looked really pretty today."
"Well, yeah, had to look my best just in case I had a ticket to the Capitol," I said.
His teeth clenched. "Don't talk like that."
We sat quietly for a few moments after that and to break the silence I started talking about the snare lines, suggesting that I take it over once he headed into the mines in the coming weeks. That way he wouldn't have to worry about it. I also mentioned that I could take Rory with me if he wanted, teach him the ropes since Prim would be absolutely useless beyond the fence. I noticed that Gale's fists were clenching and he looked frustrated, but I figured it was because he wanted Rory to stay innocent as long as possible, much like I wanted for Prim.
But, just as I was finishing my itinerary of Rory's first day with me, he leaned over, took my face in his hands, and kissed me.
It caught me completely off-guard. You would think after all the time I had spent with Gale the past four years, I would have been able to see it coming, wouldn't have been so surprised by his lips. But I had never kissed anyone before and therefore didn't know what it felt like to have someone moving his mouth against my own, how my lips would react and try to copy his movements in a sloppy unpracticed way.
I think I could have continued it, the pure physicality of kissing him, if he didn't pull away, look into my eyes, and open his mouth.
"I think I'm falling in love with you," he said.
And that's when I ran, my subconscious leading me to the stage of the Justice Building, to Town, because I knew it was the one place Gale would never follow. And, of course, that's when Peeta Mellark found me, pathetically trying to hide from Gale and wishing the previous seconds, minutes, hours away.
Everything was going fine until the reaping, although I guess I can see the progression a bit better in hindsight. No wonder Gale was mentioning such absurd things like leaving the district and having kids that day before the reaping, considering what he had in mind for after.
"Katniss, will you at least say something?"
The use of my real name stuns me out of my memories and I look up from my shoes into his face, which is staring at me as if he's waiting for me to reply.
"What did you say?"
He growls in the back of his throat, his jaw tensing as he stares at me. "I wasn't lying the other day," he says, running a hand through his hair. "I–"
"Don't," I say, cutting him off. "Don't say it."
Gale's mouth drops in disbelief and his eyes rage with the heat of a flame. "What else do you want me to say?"
"I don't want you to say anything."
He puts his hands on my shoulders and I immediately turn my head, afraid he's going to try and kiss me like he did the day of the reaping. The action seems to fuel his growing displeasure because I can feel his fingers dig into my shoulders.
"Can you at least mull the situation over a little," he says. "It's not like this is easy putting myself on the line to get trampled on by you."
My voice comes out small and quivery. "I didn't ask you to do this."
"And I'm not asking you to run to the Justice Building and sign the marriage papers right now," he says, the frustration dropping from his face and giving way to a hopefulness that I'm not ready to crush. He moves his left hand from my shoulder to my cheek. "I just want to know if you would be okay trying this, seeing where we could go."
I shake my head and the hopefulness burns into a rage. "You're not even considering it!" he shouts. "What are you gonna do when Prim ages out? When she moves away? You're gonna live with your mother?"
"I don't know."
He does make a valid point. Living with my mother for the rest of my life is less than desirable. But you only get assigned a house in the Seam if you're a miner, or the widow of a miner if you can show that you have something to provide the district, which is how Hazelle and my mother were allowed to keep the homes we live in. I've told Gale I have no desire to work in the mines that killed my father. I have a hard enough time going into them during the annual school trips that I know I'd never survive going down there every day. Being Gale's wife would allow me to live with him and not my mother and still do my illegal hunting.
"It's not even that much different than what we do already," Gale continues, his voice growing louder with each word. "Hell, half the Seam has bets going on when you get knocked up. Everyone already expects this of us."
"And since when have you done anything because of what people say?" I sneer back.
His face is so close to mine I can feel the heat from his reddening cheeks, but I don't fear that he'll kiss me like I did before.
"I'm going to work in the mines to protect my family. That is an expectation of anyone in the Seam and something that you will be expected to do too unless you find something else." He pulls back and smirks in a righteous way. "But considering you can't sew worth a damn and everyone in the Seam knows that you sure as hell aren't going to follow your mother's footsteps that doesn't leave much options for housewifery, Catnip."
Something shifts in his voice. "I could take care of you," he says, his voice dripping with a plea I've never heard before come from his lips. "I'm doing you a favor asking you to do this. You wouldn't have to work in the mines. It's not that different than what we do now. We could still hunt and we'd have enough for our family."
He keeps insisting it isn't, but it is different from what we do. As a girlfriend we would kiss and it would have meaning. Ultimately Gale would want to get married and I may not know much about what goes on in a married bed, but I do know that it doesn't take long for the girls who get married to start coming to my mother with round bellies and then a kid on their hip and another round belly not too many months later.
Gale wants that. I see how he is with Posy and his brothers. He all but said it just now, with one slip of the tongue.
"Family?"
Family. Marriage. Children.
"You don't see it," he says, putting his hand on my chin and pulling my face to look at him. "How you are with Prim and Posy and the boys."
"It doesn't matter," I tell him. "I'm not having children."
"Not now," he says.
"Not ever!" I hiss. "Not here."
His eyes flicker to the left where I know the fence is holding us in, electrified for a few more days until it goes dead at the end of the Games. For a moment I think about the possibility and give in to Gale's imagination. Of anyone here, Gale and I would be the ones who could do it, living off the land and using my shack by the lake as our home. But even living beyond the fence isn't safe for raising children. Not only could they be killed in the wild, but the Capitol hovercrafts could spot us, cut out their tongues or worse. We could all end up like the couple Gale and I saw out beyond the fence that time - the two we couldn't save.
And besides I couldn't take Prim into the woods. She's not of the sort.
I shake my head.
"So, you're going to be alone for the rest of your life because you don't want kids," he says, his voice sounding as if he's trying to wrap his head around the idea. I can see the gears working in his head, trying to plan another argument, a new way to see reason, so I put on the steeliest look I can muster. I'm not an animal to be outthought.
He pulls back and shakes his head, his jaw clenched and his eyes looking anywhere but me. "Fine. I'm going to need time."
Then he's gone.
I kick the ground with the toe of my shoe. I know I'm not capable of love, at least not the love Gale insists he has for me. The only person I'm certain I love is Prim and that is a very different sort of love. And, even if I could love Gale the way he loves me, I don't believe I could ever love someone so much that I'd be willing to risk having a child. That's not fair to Gale to deny him that. He has no shortage of girls who would love to be his wife.
Somehow, I make it home after dark, my thoughts scattered and a pain in my chest. Gale had looked so defeated and I know that it's my fault that he's feeling so miserable. But, I tell myself that it's for the best that he forgets about me and can begin to find a girl who will love him back.
Prim jumps up from the couch when I open the front door.
"Where were you? You and Gale disappeared and – oh, Katniss, what happened?" I must look just as bad as I feel because she wraps her arms around me, resting her head on my shoulder. "Are you okay?"
"I will be," I say, unsure of my own words. "I just..I hurt Gale's feelings."
"Oh, Katniss, why would you do that?"
She's so innocent and I want to keep her that way forever.
"Because I had to," I tell her, resting my head on hers as we sit on the floor against the wall. "But it'll be okay."
I think the lie is for both of us.
Notes:
Kindle Brow: Kindle gives the imagery of the flame. Fireballs hit her right before her death. Brow is a mining term. It is the low place in the roof of a mine that gives insufficient headroom. Haymitch sends her medicine, paralleling him sending Katniss medicine, but without circumstances of Katniss and Peeta's duo his aid doesn't help his tribute.
Sorrel Forrester: Sorrel is an herb, which is most often used in soups, sauces, and salads. The leaves have a sharp taste due to oxalic acid, a poison. Sorrel soup is an Eastern European dish made from water, sorrel leaves, and salt. Sorrel ironically dies of dehydration.
I mirrored the style in which Katniss remembers the kiss here to the way she remembers it in Catching Fire during her meeting with President Snow.
Thank you so much for all the support. All of the follows, favorites, and reviews mean so much. As for updating, I will be updating once a week, on Tuesdays, for the time being while I try to write a few chapters ahead. I am back at school now so I don't want to get too ahead of myself by posting too often and then having you all wait forever for an update.
If you want to follow me on Tumblr I'm over there at dracoisalooker76 as well.
Back to Peeta in Chapter 3.
