"It was Gale!"
"It couldn't be!"
Peeta paced the upstairs hallway of his home, the volume of his words more influenced by fear than frustration. Katniss stood at the end of the hall, her back against the corner of the walls. Her skin was sticky with cool sweat mingled with dirt, and her eyes were as wide as a young deer who had narrowly escaped a hideous end. It was as if she was back in the Games. Something was out to kill her, and there were only so many ways she could defend herself. It was as if the Gamemakers were still at work, still torturing entertainment out of her!
"Katniss, you're not thinking straight!" Peeta held out his hands, palms up, in an effort to reason with her. "I can understand Annie being like this, but…not you! What really happened, Katniss?"
"I was attacked! It had Gale's face!" Katniss could barely keep herself from shrieking the words. She looked to the window beside her with wild, paranoid eyes, scanning the bordering forest, now shrouded in a light mist. Both she and her husband had the same thought racing through every fiber of their brains.
"Gale…you know how he disappeared last month?" Peeta cautiously began. "I was told that…he ran off into the wilderness. He just left in the middle of the evening. And…I'm sorry I didn't tell you this, Katniss, but Gale's neighbor, the one who notified me that he went missing…well, she said there was this tall, black figure waiting for him at the edge of town. She described it," Peeta took a deep breath, "…how Annie had described the person in her room."
"So what's that supposed to mean?" Katniss shouted at the windowpane, her gentle hands clenched into fists. "You mean that Annie's ravings have something to do with the physical creature that attacked me? I don't see any parallel there."
"There is a parallel, Katniss." There was a moment of silence as Katniss shook her head, refusing to pull her eyes from the window. Then Peeta added, "Annie saw Finnick. You saw Gale."
"Annie saw her own terrors playing out in her addled mind. I saw a creature that tried to kill me." Katniss took in a deep breath, but even then she couldn't hold back a shudder. That thing was out there somewhere, still hunting her…
"Do you think…you think it was a mutt, maybe?" Peeta's mind raced to find an explanation as he watched terror consume his wife's face.
"What's Annie doing out there?" She exclaimed, her sweat-slickened palm striking the glass pane in front of her in a gesture of panic as she spotted her friend wandering out to the forest.
"I thought she was in her room!" Peeta bounded down the nearby staircase, followed closely by Katniss, who had already grabbed her bow and arrows the moment she'd entered the house. They ran onto the street, turning the corner of their home to find nothing in place of where Annie had been. There was only the small, empty field and towering, forested hills beyond, mist flooding the air.
"Did she go into the forest? Oh, not with that thing out there!" Bow in hand, Katniss sprinted a few steps further, then hesitated, her eyes darting back and forth in an attempt to locate Annie without taking any more risks. The mist had grown thicker, however, and by now it was difficult to even distinguish the tree trunks from one another. It seemed strangely salty, reminding Katniss of the ocean coast, which she had only visited a few times in her life. In District 12, the strange weather seemed alien, and with such limited visibility, her bow would be useless; its advantage at distances nullified.
"We should look for her! She could get into danger!" Peeta came up from behind, placing a gentle hand on Katniss's shoulder. She didn't move; her eyes were wide.
"I…I'm scared."
"You? Scared?! First Gale and now…"
"I suppose I've lost some of that nerve I always had. I hate to admit it." Katniss shook her head. "The idea of that creature out there…it's just too much to bear."
"We've got to find Annie! We'll be okay if we just stick together. Just like we always have." Peeta took his partner's hand and together they eased themselves into the ever thickening mist. Though Katniss hesitated no longer, she became aware of a quiet, yet distinct, repetitive sound…a successive thumping, almost like a drum. It was the sound of her own heartbeat. She hoped Peeta didn't hear it and realize just how scared she was. And he did not hear her.
But a faraway figure, hidden amongst the mist and camouflaged by the dark, thin tree trunks, heard that heartbeat all too well.
