3: New Peacekeeper

Katniss POV

I decide not to tell Prim and mum about what happened at Gale's house. Prim is innocent and happy and me telling her won't help her in any way. And mum.. last time mum had a big shock like that she fell into depression and I'm not willing to risk her doing that again. I wonder if Gale told his family. Gale always preferred brute honesty but I think Prim would prefer to be happy.

Prim comes rushing into the room, plaits bobbing and the back of her shirt untucked, just like on Reaping Day. My little duck still. I can't take away that innocence and happiness. "Katniss!" she says excitedly. "I want to tell you something!" I smile at her and follow Prim up to her room.

Prim's room is done in shades of yellow giving it a bright and happy atmosphere that suits Prim perfectly. "What is it little duck?" I ask affectionately tucking her shirt in at the back.

"I asked Peeta out today!" she says. "And he said yes." I frown slightly. Isn't Prim a little young for boyfriends? I never thought about having a boyfriend when I was Prim's age. Then again at that time we were starving and I was mourning dad and just starting to hunt. I didn't have time for anything like that.

"Peeta Mellark?" I ask. "I didn't know you liked him."

"Well you were away a lot during the Games and hunting afterwards," Prim says. "You didn't see much. I think Peeta knew though because he didn't seem surprised when I asked him out. He was really happy, I wonder if he liked me before.." Prim says trailing off as she thinks about it.

Peeta is quite a nice boy and he does seem good for Prim, but I can feel protective sisterly feelings coming up in me. If Peeta breaks Prim's heart then I don't know what I'll do to him. "Maybe," I say. "He was always bringing you cakes and biscuits from his bakery and that birthday cake he made you was beautiful. But are you sure you're ready for a boyfriend?

"I know!" Prim says. "He's so thoughtful and nice. And yes, I'm ready for a boyfriend. I'm thirteen now, half the girls in my class have boyfriends. Don't worry, we won't do anything inappropriate. I'm not stupid. Holding hands and kissing will be as far as it will go until I'm a decent age. And I'm sure Peeta won't break my heart."

"OK," I say. "If you like him then I'm not going to stop you. Make sure you stay sensible though." I guess it's a bit hypocritical of me to say that Prim isn't ready for a boyfriend yet when I am with Gale, have won the Hunger Games and need to put on an act so I don't stir up rebellion. And when I was her age then I was in the woods, hunting and trading in the Hob.

"Of course," she says. I nod, satisfied and leave Prim's room.

I wonder whether it would be a better decision to go to the woods now with Gale and hunt like I often do, get out all of the stress that built up in the conversation with Snow and realising that Prim has a boyfriend or whether I should go and talk to Peeta. I decide to go hunting with Gale. I'm not really in the mood to talk to anyone else now.

I pull on my dad's old hunting jacket to keep me warm and head across the street to Gale's house. I'm not keen on Victor's Village. It's too perfect, too uniform. It is more comfortable and nicer than at my old house, but the old house has a much more homey feel than this one.

Gale opens the door and when he sees me dressed up for hunting with my bow and arrows on my back he immediately grabs a bow and a quiver of arrows. "Hunting?" he asks me. I nod and we head out to the woods together, passing all of the places we used to go and going through the Seam. It makes me feel good now that there are hardly any starving children that we can see here. There may be underfed people, but not enough to kill.

I duck under the never on electric fence and Gale comes after me. There is not often a lot of game near to the fence because of all the noise that District 12 makes, but if you go about two hundred metres in then hunting becomes a lot easier. I learnt this the hard way of 'if I don't find something to eat I and my family will starve'.

The noises of the forest around me are soothing: leaves rustling, birds singing, just those sounds that the woods have. The little things that make these woods so different in feel to the woods in the arena. That natural feeling. Gale has his bow out and let's an arrow fly into the darkness. I hear a slight thud as something falls to the floor. Probably a bird.

Gale finds his catch and we have fun just shooting instinctively at anything we hear and having a high success rate. I wonder if everybody has a gift like mine, or like Gale with snares. Or maybe it's just years of training. If I had picked up a set of knives instead of a bow that first day I went into the forest, would I be like Clove now?

After about an hour of hunting, Gale and I decide that it's time to go back to the Seam to give away the food. We each pick something to keep for our own families (because game tastes much better than the shop meats) and put the rest in a game bag. When we get nearer to the fence we hear an odd noise though.

It takes a few minutes for my brain to register what it is, but then I realise. The electricity is running through the fence. We won't be able to get back unless it is turned off or we somehow manage to get over the fence. There are two choices now. Choice one is that Gale and I can stay in the forest overnight, usually in our District the electricity will only go on rarely and stay for about a day. Choice two is that we can try and get over.

"Gale?" I ask. "What do you think we should do?"

"We can stay here overnight," Gale suggests. "The electricity will probably go off tomorrow. That's what we always do when the fence is on." He is right, we do normally stay overnight in the woods. But something about today is putting me off that idea, a part of me is doubting that the fence will go off tomorrow. Maybe it's just that I'm paranoid about being trapped in from the arena. I need to relax. Spending the night here will be fine.

"OK," I say. "Shall we stay here?"

"It's as good a place as any?" Gale says, sinking down to sit with his back resting on a tree. I sit with him and rest my head on his shoulder, just like I did so many times in the Games. It's a cold night, so I snuggle into Gale's chest for warmth and he wraps his arms around me.

It just feels right, being here with Gale. It's comfortable and relaxing and warm. I can feel Gale's heartbeat and feel the movement of his chest as he breathes and my breathing starts to synchronise with his. Our bodies feel almost like one, moving together as I lean into him and I sigh, looking up at the stars.

"We should do this more often," I murmur to Gale. "Spend time away from it all. Just us, here together. Not doing anything much, just sitting looking at the stars."

"They're beautiful," he agrees. The full moon provides quite a lot of light for us and it is a cloudless night, so we can see most of the stars. "Apparently there is a constellation called Orion. A hunter," he says. "I can't see it though, can you?" I look up at the stars, trying to find something that would look like a hunter. I shake my head.

After about fifteen minutes, I feel myself falling asleep on Gale. When I wake up, Gale is still underneath me. I shake him awake and take a look at the fence. The electricity is still going through it, making a low buzzing sound. I sigh. I should have trusted my instincts last night and figured out a way to get over the fence.

"It's not going to go off," Gale says. "Normally it takes only a few hours. There must a new peacekeeper- one who actually cares about people hunting in the woods." So far, 12 has been lucky with peacekeepers. The head peacekeeper is Darius Cray, and his reaction to seeing people come out of the woods with game is to head over to the Hob to buy it. I've made quite a few sales to him.

"If we climb a tree we could jump over," I suggest. "If we land right it wouldn't really hurt." The fence is around two and a half metres high. It's not impossible to get over. I go over to a tree and pull myself up to the second branch, which should be high enough. I look down at the ground. It seems a lot higher up now that I'm looking down at it.

"Katniss, are you sure?" Gale asks. "Let me jump first. Then I can catch you."

"No, I'm fine," I say frowning. "I'll jump first, I'm up here now." On the count of three, I think. Three. Two. One. I jump, twisting in midair. The fall is fast and I hit the ground hard, landing back-first. I probably have a few bruises, but it's much better than having a twisted ankle or something like that.

"I'm OK," I call up to Gale, who is sitting on the same branch I did. "You can jump- it's safe!" Gale jumps off the branch and lands on his feet, hissing in pain. Luckily he seems uninjured too. I look down the fence. There are no trees on our side close enough so that we can get back into the forest if we would like to, but there probably are places where the wire has been cut or borrowed under. I'll need to look soon.

We head back to Victors Village quickly, hoping that our absence hadn't been noticed and dropping of our catch to the Seam families on our way. We may be Victors and Victors are generally above the law, but the Capitol hates us enough not to make an exception for us. I say goodbye to Gale and walk into my house.

"Katniss!" Prim says, rushing towards me. "You're safe! We were worried last night.. a new peacekeeper came and when he noticed that the fence wasn't on he turned it on. It probably won't be going off again any time in the near future. We didn't think you would be able to get back.."

"Prim," I cut her off. "I'm fine. Tell me about this new peacekeeper, what happened?"

"His name is Romulus Thread," Prim says. "Apparently District 12 is 'a nest of illegal activity' which he is going to stop. He's brought back punishments such as whipping. He's the head peacekeeper- Darius Cray was demoted." Romulus Thread. I wonder if this was a response to us from Snow, it seems suspicious that it happened so soon after the visit.

Our conversation is interrupted by a knock at the door. Prim gets up to open it and returns holding hands with Peeta. Peeta looks stressed, his blonde hair is messy and he looks tired. "Hi Katniss," he says. "Did you hear about the new peacekeeper? Romulus Thread."

I glare at him slightly. "Prim was just telling me about him, why?"

Peeta shrugs. "I thought you would be interested to know, because you know, you hunt."

"New head peacekeeper, much stricter than Darius Cray. Electric fence running all the time, whipping brought back," I summarise. "Anything else I should know?"

"No, Prim summed it up pretty well," Peeta says.

"Good," I nod. "Peeta, can I have a word with you. In private?" Prim gives me an amused glance and leaves the room. She knows what this is about, she knows that I need to get it out of my system. Prim doesn't mind me being overprotective much, especially after I volunteered for her.

"What do you want to talk to me about?" Peeta asks innocently.

"You and Prim?" I ask. "Do you really love her?"

Peeta pauses. "Yes.. I think so. Katniss, this is probably a bad time to tell you this, but I love you." I stare at him in shock. "I love Prim as well," he adds hurriedly. "But you're the reason I kept coming around. Do you remember when I gave you the bread?" I nod silently. How could I forget? "I did that because I loved you."

I get angry with him. "So you've been lying to Prim?" I ask. "Is she just a tool for you to get to me?" If he's just messing around with Prim to get to me then I will gut him like a fish. No one is going to hurt Prim and get away with it. "Because if you have been then I will.."

"No," he cuts me off. "I do really love Prim. And I know you're with him now," he refers to Gale. "It's just difficult knowing how I feel about you right now. But don't worry about Prim. I have no intention of breaking her heart, I do truly love her. And I won't pressurise her into doing anything she doesn't want."

"I am with Gale now," I tell him. "And we're never going to break up. So move on from me. If you truly love Prim then fine. I've watched you together and you do seem to care for her a lot. I'm off limits, remember that." I hesitate for a second. "Does Gale know about this? Is that why he hates you?"

"Yes," Peeta says grimacing. "Gale knows. I told him after the Reaping and gave him his token and got him to promise to bring you back safely.. Not that he needed much persuading. I'm not really surprised that he dislikes me, I'm not overly keen on him either. He also hates me because I'm a merchant kid, because I have such an easy life," he says sarcastically.

I'm not really in the mood to hear all of Peeta's- probably minor- problems, so I call Prim back into the room. She smiles at me, because Peeta is still alive she knows that I am satisfied with his intentions towards her. Prim finding my protectiveness funny is very useful- if she found it irritating she would have killed me by now.

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I think this is the longest chapter I've written.. Yes, my chapters are short. If you liked/disliked/just have something to say about the story, please leave some feedback in a review.

-MoonOfPluto