Chapter Three: Crazy Katniss Plays With the Capitol's Things
The Peacekeepers shove me down the hallway leading to the exit of the Justice Building and then turn to manhandle Tulip through the doorway to Katniss's room. Like they have to use the unnecessary force.
I only manage to make it a couple steps down the hall before I collapse onto one of the benches, dropping my head into my hands.
That could be the last time I see her. That could be the last time I talk to her. That could be the last time I touch her. That could be the last time I do anything with Katniss Everdeen.
I could lose her.
That's enough to knock the wind out of me.
There's a loud clatter from down the hall as the Peacekeepers move to rip the door to Katniss's room open again. I can hear Tulip hurriedly answering something Katniss said, and the slamming door shuts off whatever Katniss would say in respond. Roughly, the two Peacekeepers shove Tulip down the hall towards me.
On shaking legs, she staggers to the bench and deflates next to me. We're both visibly upset.
"Gale, I'm…" she chokes out. "I'm so sorry." There are tears burning at the corners of her eyes.
All I can bring myself to say is, "She volunteered."
She makes a distressed noise and jumps to her feet. "But why? Why did she have to volunteer for me? It's all my fault—"
"It's not your fault," I force out in a strained voice. "It's mine. She did it for me… so that I wouldn't lose you."
Tulip chokes on her own tears. "Gale, don't say that—"
"It'll be my fault," I say. There's real pain in my voice. "It'll be my fault if she dies… I won't be able to live with myself."
"She has a chance, though," Tulip says softly. "You can't think like that yet."
I lose control of my mouth as I say, "That's the exact same thing that Katniss said to me. She told me she has a chance of winning." The thought of her face when she said that brings an unwarranted smile to my face, and I am filled with revulsion at myself.
I drop my head back against the wall, and I hear Tulip sit down next to me. There's silence for a long time.
"She asked me to take care of you," she says quietly. I let out a groan, but she continues anyway. "She also asked me to help take care of her family."
I immediately start in. "Tulip, you don't—"
"It's the least I could do," she insists. "Katniss saved my life today. I would have been the first to die in the Games. At least we know Katniss has a chance."
"Of course she has a chance," I say grudgingly. "She's going to kick as much Capitol ass as possible."
Despite the fact that that statement was really treasonous, Tulip and I both smile a bit. At this point, I'm beyond controlling my anger at the Capitol. Self-control is the furthest thing from my mind.
"Katniss also told me to tell you that there's a present for you in the forge," Tulip says. She gives me a significant look like I'm supposed to understand that.
"That forge?"
"Oh, you know what she means!" Tulip says, rolling her eyes.
It takes me a second, but then I get it. The forest. There's a present waiting for me in the forest.
"Dammit all, Katniss," I sigh. I glance up at the clock on the wall across from me, and it seems we have about twenty minutes before the tribute train pulls out of the station. I give another heavy sigh and stand up. "Let's go."
Tulip stands up, and I take her hand, mostly because I need something to hold on to. Something needs to be there to keep my steady.
We leave the Justice Building in complete silence, but there's still quite a bustle going on in the square. All around, Capitol officials and District Twelve citizens alike watch us with pitying glances. They're sorry for my loss. They're sorry that Tulip has to live with the guilt.
I shrug off their pitying stares and head towards the Meadow. Once we're out of sight of all the people in the square, I turn to Tulip.
"We've got time before the train leaves, so I'm going to go see what Katniss left me in the forest," I say quietly. My voice sounds deflated. "If I were you, I'd go find your family. They'll want to see you."
Tulip nods numbly. "I'll see you later, okay?" I nod, and she wanders off towards the merchant's strip so that her parents can revel in their daughter's safety. I'm left feeling empty.
I don't even bother to check and see if there are any Peacekeepers watching before I slip under the fence because I know they're all either swarming at the Justice Building or they're already at the train station. None of them will notice the lone figure slipping through the trees.
It doesn't take my long to find the hallow tree where we stash our weapons. Everything looks like it normally does, so I plunge my hand into the hole in the tree. I grab my bow and arrows first to clear more space, and then I go back in for hers.
That's when I notice that her quiver is unusually heavy. This must be where my "present" is. I close my hands around all the arrows and pull them out.
Sure enough, down in the bottom of the quiver, there are three fancy Peacekeeper knives. They're nicely tied together around the handles, and it seems oddly like Katniss (ignoring the fact that she has no idea how she's stealing these knives).
I smile slightly, shaking my head, and pocket one of the knives.
Thanks for the present, Catnip.
/
A few minutes later, when we arrive at the District Twelve train station, Peacekeepers converge around the vehicle and escort us onto the platform. The train sitting on the other side sticks out like a sore thumb against the coal-covered, ragged scenery of our district. It registers somewhere deep in my chest that this fancy train is going to be the thing that steals me away from my home, but at least I'll spend my last few days.
Dough Boy and I are given a moment to say goodbye to all the people that came to watch us get carted off to our deaths. It's mostly Capitol cameras and officials in the small area around the platform, but there are some District Twelve citizens.
I don't bother to look for Prim and mother because I know they could never handle coming to see me leave, but I'm surprised when I don't see Gale's face in the crowd. Maybe it would be too hard for him, too…
While I'm distracted by thinking about Gale's feelings, a hand gently touches my shoulder. I turn around to see that Pillsbury Peeta .
"We have to get on the train now," he says.
I nod numbly and follow him to the train's doors. The split second after we step through the threshold, the automatic doors slide shut behind us, and I feel painfully cut off from my home. I turn back around, looking through the window on the door, and I try to take in as much of the District as I can before I leave.
I let my eyes run over the gray-blue sky. The dirt and gravel roads. The green of the trees just beyond the fence.
Then, I notice someone pushing their way to the platform. My heart fills with a strange sort of satisfaction as Gale appears in front of the rest of the crowd. He looks thoroughly disappointed as he notices that we're no longer on the platform, but I pound on the glass once, and he catches sight of me.
Carefully, he reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket and holds something out so that only I can see. A flash of silver catches the sunlight, and I realize that it's a Peacekeeper knife. A smile appears on my face, and I find myself satisfied with leaving him such a frustrating present.
I look back up at him, and he rolls his eyes. He mouths, "You have a serious problem," to me. At first, I think he's saying, "You are a delirious goblin," but eventually I get it through my unstable and insane brain that Gale would never say that.
I offer him one final smile, hoping that he knows how much his friendship has meant to me over these past few years, and Gale manages to conjure a look of amusement. Then, the train gives a jolt, and I find myself panicking more than I panicked when Gale was dragged out of my room in the Justice Building. A million things that I still want to say to him flood in my mind, and I press my palm against the glass, trying to reach him one last time.
He looks at me seriously and mouths, "Katniss, I'll miss you. Be careful. You'll be back soon. Just remember, I—"
The train explodes forward, and Gale's last words to me are cut off once again. I throw myself at the window, desperately screaming his name and pounding on the glass like it'll get the train to stop. Faster than I thought possible, the train station starts to grow smaller and smaller, and the little tiny dot that Gale has become lowers his hand from his final wave.
I give the window one more weak pound, and then Effie comes up tentatively behind me. She gently touches my arm. "Come along, dear," she says. "It's time to meet Haymitch and have dinner."
When she talks about Haymitch, she sounds less than pleased, and, frankly, so am I. I already know he's a drunk, so what's the point in meeting him.
I sigh and turn to follow Effie, and I feel my last words to Gale wither and die unspoken on my tongue.
/
"Holy shit."
That's my first reaction to the tribute train.
Effie lets out a loud scoff and clutches her chest. "Katniss, what an unladylike thing to say!"
"It's fitting," I reply under my breath.
This individual room is probably worth more than my life. Hell, the chandelier alone is probably worth enough to buy me as a child slave in the black market. Everything is shinier and more lush than anything I've ever seen in my life. There are crystal chandeliers hanging just in this tiny space. The bar, fully stocked with all sorts of food, is probably bigger than my entire house. The chairs and mahogany table ooze wealth.
Effie totters into the room. "Peeta, where on earth did Haymitch go?" she asks, hands on her hips.
Peeta spins around in one of the plush blue chairs like a child. "He wandered off in that direction, muttering about how he needed more to drink," he says, pointing towards the door at the rear of the car.
Effie makes a frustrated noise and stomps towards the door, muttering, "The bar car again?" I wait until I can't hear her pointed shoes clicking anymore until I sit down in the furthest seat from Peeta.
Apparently he doesn't take the hint that I don't want to talk because he breaks the silence after only about a minute. "Katniss, why did you volunteer for that girl?" he asks quietly.
I look down at my hands, drawing out the silence until it becomes unbearable. "I said when I got up on stage that I don't like to watch my friends suffer," I say in a hard, unfriendly voice.
But Doughy Peeta lets out a sigh. "Katniss, you've plotting to kill Tulip every day during lunch for the past month. It doesn't seem like you're friends."
"So?" I blurt angrily, still staring down at my hands. How does Peeta know that I've been angry at Tulip? Has it been that obvious?
"Oh," Peeta says, like he suddenly understands everything. "It wasn't about Tulip at all, was it? You only volunteered because she's your friend's girlfriend, huh?"
I bristle, and it probably tells him that he's right. I spin my chair so that I'm facing away from him because I find myself oddly creeped out for a moment. This Peeta guy seems to know an awful lot about my life…
We sit in silence.
Peeta breaks it again. "Katniss, that's a beautiful thing you did for your friend. You're incredibly brave."
I don't respond.
Luckily, Effie comes stomping back into the compartment before Pillsbury Peeta can say anything else. I spin my chair back around to see that she's not accompanied by Haymitch, and she looks really irked.
She forces a pleasant smile onto her face and sits down at the fancy dinner table, beckoning us over. "Haymitch will… not be joining us for dinner," she says, choosing her words carefully. "He has retired to his room already."
That's just a polite way of saying "Haymitch is too drunk to be around people, especially people whose lives count on his sobriety."
Peeta and I both take a seat at the table, not next to each other, thankfully. We are served an extravagant dinner, and, since I haven't eaten much in a while, I gobble everything that is set in front of me. My whole "I-must-starve-myself-in-order-to-make-Gale-come-h unting-again" thing is pointless now, so the smartest thing I can do while in the Capitol is to gain as many pounds as possible.
So I disregard all manners.
Effie ignores me throughout the dinner because she's disgusted at my behavior, but I'm really okay with that. She contents herself with talking to Peeta because he appears to be pacing himself nicely.
Whatever. I don't care if Effie disapproves of my wild eating. I'm starving, and they don't call them the Hunger Games for no reason.
/
A long time later, Effie and Peeta are discussing what it's like to be a baker over slices of chocolate cake when the door to the car opens, and our unfortunate mentor staggers in, sloshing alcohol out of the bottle he's holding.
"I missed dinner?" he asks, slurring his words.
"Yes, you did," Effie replies contemptuously. She doesn't even look at him.
Haymitch stares around the room for a couple seconds through clouded eyes and then promptly vomits all over the expensive carpet.
Effie lets out a long shriek and flees the room, leaving me and Peeta to deal with the mess at hand.
/
I sit at home, unwilling to talk to anyone. It was hard enough getting all the pitying stares as I walked away from the train platform, and now I have to endure them from my own family.
In a few weeks, I could lose my hunting partner.
No, that sounded too unfeeling. She means more to me than that. She's my best friend. She and Prim are like younger sisters to me. It would kill me to lose her- especially in the Hunger Games. I'm comforted by the fact that she left with us on good terms, but I still wish she hadn't gone at all.
By tomorrow evening, she'll be in the Capitol. They'll take her, dress her up as a coal miner, and parade her around like a pig raised for slaughter. And I will have to watch. Because I am a lowly citizen of Panem, I will be forced to watch my best friend, hundreds and hundreds of miles away, be shipped off to her possible death.
I close my eyes and tell myself that she'll be okay. She has a fighting chance- she told me that. She'll win.
She has to. For the sake of my sanity, she has to.
/
Haymitch collapses into his puddle of vomit.
"Oh my god," I groan. He sits up, his whole front covered in the mess.
Peeta goes over to him. "Come on, Haymitch," he says, somewhat exasperatedly. "Let's get you to your room and clean you up a bit." I grudgingly help Pillsbury Peeta haul Haymitch to his feet. The stench is almost unbearable, and my unreasonably large dinner threatens to make a reappearance. But we make it to Haymitch's room nonetheless. Peeta throws his limp body unceremoniously into the bathtub and turns on the cold water full blast.
"You know, as much as I'd like to strip my mentor naked and scrub the vomit from his chest hair, I think I might…" My voice trails off.
"I'll take it from here," Peeta says. "You can just go to your room, okay?"
I nod and leave the room with a second glance. When I get in my room, I find an immense closet. There's a large round rotating machine with endless amounts of clothes on it. All you have to do is type in a request on this little keypad, and the machine spins around and sends clothes to the front.
After several minutes of messing around with that, I select a fluffy robe and then pad across the room to a set of double doors that lead to my bathroom. The bathroom itself, I think, is almost as large as our house back in District 12. There's all this porcelain and gold-plating and marble and steel. The tub has at least five different taps. I turn them all on to see what they do. I press some buttons lined up along the wall, and they start giving off different scents. I end up picking orange because it reminds me of something back home, I just can't decide what…
As the tub is filling, I happen across a speaker system by the door. I hit the red call button, and a voice with the Capitol accent comes out of the speaker. "Yes, Ms. Everdeen, how may we assist you?"
"Who is this?"
"This is the kitchen, Ms. Everdeen. I believe you paged us."
"Oh, in that case," I say, "I'll take a piece of chocolate cake." As an afterthought, I add, "With at least three of the biggest steak knives you can find." I'm not sure why I ask for those. It just slipped out of my mouth.
If that request seemed at all strange to the man on the phone, he doesn't react to it. "Of course, Ms. Everdeen."
I go back into my bathroom and get in the tub. It's filled with luxurious bubbles and delicious scents. The water is warmer than even our measly fires at home can heat our tepid water. I sink into with a sigh. A few minutes later, a Capitol attendant comes in with my cake and steak knives. I toss two of the knives onto the ground and use the other one to start eating my chocolate molten lava cake while I soak.
Someone knocks on my door, and I have to haul myself out of the tub. "Just a sec," I call as I throw on my robe, collect my cake, and head for the door. When I open it, I find Dough Boy on the other side.
"Yeah?" I say, helping myself to another bite of cake.
"Oh…sorry," he says, nothing my robe. "I'll just…go."
"No, no," I say. "Come in. I'm glad you came." He seems slightly uncomfortable with me in just a fluffy robe, but I don't mind. He'll probably be dead soon anyway…who cares what he sees? He sits down on my bed, and I offer him some cake, which he politely declines. We chatter idly until I finish my cake, and then he leaves.
I continue to find fun, exciting gadgets all over my room, and content myself with clapping my lights off and on for a couple minutes. I peek out my window, and I notice that the sky's dark. I'm not the least bit tired, so I continue to wander around my room. I start feeling really jittery and lonely, so I call Peeta.
"Hey, Peeta."
"What?" he groans. I wander over to my closet to select pajamas.
"Hey, is your closet like mine?" I ask. "Because-"
"What?" groans Pillsbury Peeta again. "Katniss…it's nearly midnight."
"Is it really?"
"Yeah…goodnight, Katniss."
"Goodnight."
I click around my closet for a while, but everything it offers me is pink. I end up going to bed in my underwear.
I dream that I'm back at home, and I'm with Gale, and we're happy with each other again. We hunt like usual and hang out at our regular meeting spot. The dream makes me happy…but also sad. Before I can savor the glimmer of happiness, the dream rapidly changes and suddenly, I'm in the arena and Peeta's stabbing me to death with my other two steak knives.
/
I wake up disoriented. I sit up slowly. There's something thick and sticky on my face. My hand reaches up to touch the fluffy substance, and it comes away bright pink. I hold it up to my tongue. Tastes sugary and sweet. How'd that get on my face? And what is it?
Then my sluggish mind processes where I am. I'm sitting in the hallway of the train right outside my bedroom door. Why am I asleep in the hallway?
Then, I find the source of the pink stuff on my face. There's partially eaten chocolate cake in my lap. It's frosted with happy, pink icing. There's a large butcher's knife sticking out of the top.
There's something very wrong with me.
I stand and try to open my door before someone sees me. It's locked from the inside, so I can't get in. It takes me another thirty minutes to find a Capitol attendant and get my door unlocked. Luckily, the attendant doesn't react to my appearance. I am standing, locked out of my room, wearing nothing but my underwear, with a half-eaten cake and a steak knife and pink frosting on my face and in my hair.
I go immediately to my crazy closet for something to wear. I put on the first things I can grab. I end up wearing turquoise skinny jeans, a pink sleeveless shirt, and a lemon-yellow leather jacket. I pin on Madge's pin for good luck. When I enter the dining cart, Peeta, Haymitch, and Effie are eating breakfast. Peeta snickers when he sees what I'm wearing, but I conveniently do not care.
I am served a huge platter of food with ham, eggs, and fried potatoes. I am given a tureen of fruit on ice and a basket of rolls. There's a glass of orange juice and a thick brown liquid at my seat. I start cramming food into my mouth.
Peeta sends me a look and says, "How can you eat so much food?"
"I haven't eaten in four days," I bark. I take a sip of the brown liquid. It tastes amazing. Is that…chocolate? The Capitol attendant that brought me my cake and steak knives comes in, and I ask him if I can have some coffee.
Pillsbury Peeta snorts. "Like you need coffee."
"Shut up, Dough Boy," I hiss. There's a long, drawn-out silence.
Peeta breaks the silence by turning to Haymitch. "So, you're supposed to give us advice."
Haymitch doesn't glance up until Peeta repeats it. He laughs bitterly and takes a swig from his hip flask. "Here's some advice: Stay alive."
"Ha ha, very funny," Peeta says. "I think that's enough for you." He plucks the flask out of Haymitch's hand. A fire lights in Haymitch's eyes, and he nails Peeta hard in the face with his fist. Suddenly, I'm whipping a knife out of my leather jacket that I didn't know existed.
"Where did you get that knife?" shrieks Effie.
I stab the knives into the wood table between Haymitch's hand and a new alcohol glass. "Let's start with something easy," I growl quietly. "How do you find shelter? Find water?"
Haymitch laughs again. I am hit by the smell of alcohol, and I cringe a little. "So I've got a pair of fighters this year, have I?" He laughs at me again, and I have to cross my arms over my chest. "Can you hit anything besides a placemat with that knife?" he asks me.
Without responding, I chuck my knife at the wall behind Haymitch's head, and it lodges in the wall. It sticks in the seam between two boards, so I look even better than I am.
"Any advice now?" I ask sharply.
Haymitch pauses. "Accept the probability of your imminent death, and know, in your heart, that there's nothing I can do to save you."
I whip out another knife, this time from my belt, and point it at his jugular. "Any real advice?"
But I am distracted before he can say anything. We're approaching the Capitol.
/
Pillsbury Dough Boy Peeta stands at the window, waving like there's no tomorrow. He looks ridiculous, but, as I watch the blur of colors that are really Capitol citizens rush by outside my window, I realize that he's smart for doing that.
I join Peeta at the window and wave at the crazy Capitol people. This must look amazing to them. Two tributes waving next to each other, ready to face the Games.
I'll put on a good show, I think to myself, but just to get back home.
/
When I go hunting later, no one is there to yell at me for being late.
Thinking about that makes me sick. If only we could go back to yesterday when yelling at me for my tardiness would be in the forefront of her mind instead of strategies for winning the Games. I wouldn't even care that she'd be yelling at me— at least I'd be able to hear her voice.
At least she'd still be here.
Beyond being lonely for her company, I realize just how much more effective we are together as a team than we are separate. It's so incredibly different hunting without her in ways that I never thought about. I never stopped to think about how much we did as a team without speaking or even thinking.
Standing out there in the silent forest all by myself, I've never felt so alone.
A/N: Thanks to everyone that's reviewed so far! Please continue to give us feedback! What did you think of this chapter?
