Next Chapter! I know some of you have been curious about Gale's Games, so I put in a part of it in this chapter. Oh, and someone asked for more Galeniss so there is a bit of that too. Enjoy!
"I like it. It's the perfect touch of rebellion." Haymitch replies. Rebellion? Well, I guess it is sort of rebellious to present tributes holding hands, but I still don't like it. Fine, maybe it's because I'm jealous that now everyone will think that they're together or something, but I still don't see how it's going to help her win.
I'm still internally brooding over this when Effie turns off the television. I know Katniss catches onto my mood, but it's probably a good guess that she thinks the cause is that I think that it was a bad idea to present them together. She would never pick up that it's also because I'm jealous, which I guess is for the best because that would only complicate things for her.
"Alright kids, off to bed. The grown-ups have some talking to do." Haymitch orders. I'm about to get up off the couch when I realize that means I stay. Great. I was hoping that Katniss could explain to me why the hell she's helping Peeta tonight, but I guess that will have to wait. Well, at least if I have to stay I can tell them exactly why I think Cinna's idea was fucking horrible.
They say goodnight and leave, Katniss looking like she wants to tell me something but instead gives me a weak smile. Once I hear their doors shut, I waste no time getting to the point.
"Are you nuts? How the hell is holding hands going to help!" I seethe.
"Kid what's your problem? This is going to get a shit ton of sponsors. That's what your goal is anyway right?" Haymitch retorts.
"They are the talk of the city! Everyone is curious about them because they looked like they're friends." Effie adds.
"Yes, it made quite an impression." Cinna adds quietly. I glare because I'm still pissed at him, but I'm beginning to see the point they're making. I remember back to the roof before dinner, how Cinna said that he wanted to help them make an impression. How he curiously said that he wanted our district because we deserve it. Is he honestly trying to help our district win?
"Alright so it gets sponsors." I grudgingly admit, but then point out,"So what? It's not like both of them can win."
"True. But presenting them as friends will get the initial attention she needs to win. It's only helping her kid." Haymitch explains. I'm sort of amazed that he's blatantly saying that Katniss will be the tribute winning, but no one seems the least bit surprised. I thought Portia might care seeing as she's Peeta's stylist, but she appears as unfazed as the rest of them so maybe she saw it coming. After all, it's not a secret that Katniss and I are close; it wouldn't take a genius to realize that I would want her to win. I really doubt anyone here aside from Haymitch even knows the half of what I'm willing to do to help her though. Which reminds me-my first appointment tomorrow is right after their training begins, so I should probably try to get some sleep. Besides, I don't really want to talk about this anymore anyway.
"Fine." I let out as a huff. "I'm going to bed."
I stalk off to my room and slam the door shut. Before going to bed though, I do my ritual of taking a blazing hot shower which calms me down a little and makes me feel a lot cleaner. When I have appointments, I always feel like their Capitol grim and sweat and all their other disgusting things stick to me and it makes me feel uncomfortable, and I discovered early on that the burning water helps me. I'm sure a normal shower would do the job physically, but to mentally take away the feeling, only having my skin red and a bit raw works. It's almost like I can believe that it actually burned away-it helps me sleep better. Well, slightly better because the nightmares still come.
I don't think I've had a full night's sleep since before I got reaped last year. Every time I have a nightmare I wake up in terror and most of the time I scream. My family ignored it, but I felt guilty for their exhaustion and dark eye circles because they were being awakened in the dead of night by me. So I decided that it wasn't fair to them; just because I couldn't sleep well didn't mean that the rest of them couldn't. So despite my mother's protests, I dragged a bed into the basement and my mother and siblings sleep upstairs where my screams will be muffled by two floors if they are heard at all. But being here I worry, because there isn't a basement I can hide in to not disturb the others. Haymitch deals with his nightmares by drinking himself into oblivion, but I don't know what all the more sober victors do. I should probably find out tomorrow and pray that my nightmares aren't too horrible tonight.
Fat chance of that. Katniss is aware of my nightmares, but she doesn't know the extent of it. I really don't want to let her hear me scream, especially since she needs all the sleep she can get this week. So I try to stay awake as long as I can, but utter exhaustion eventually takes over me and I slide into unconsciousness unwillingly. Of course my nightmares would feature my Games, like usual.
I survey around my target area for my snares with a slight limp, trying mostly in vain not to show the pain I still feel on my face for the cameras. I got attacked by a large bear-like muttation yesterday. I managed to kill it before it did any fatal damage, but not before it grabbed hold of my left thigh and sunk its sharp teeth in, leaving a gaping bloody bite mark the size of my hand in my leg. My wound caused me incredible agony, but I somehow managed to bring my knife to its chest and stopped its heart with three consecutive stabs before it rolled over dead. Dripping blood, I crawled over to a nearby bush for some cover before collapsing to the ground. I allowed myself a few minutes to let the relief of being alive take over me before I glanced at my thigh.
The bite was causing sharp shoots of pain to pass through my body with every slight movement, effectively taking over my complete concentration. It would be extremely difficult to focus on anything except the pain as it was, but once I actually forced myself to see the cause of my throbbing I wished I hadn't. It's a miracle that I couldn't see bone, and what was left of my skin around the raw red flesh were simply strips of skin hanging on. All I knew about medicine was what I had learned from Mrs. Everdeen, which is very little since Katniss couldn't handle it too well and pulled me out to the woods with her every time a wounded person made their way into her house. But I had been stitched up myself before by Mrs. Everdeen a few years back, and I know that my current wound will require stitches if I want to live. But I don't have a needle or thread, and I'm not sure I would have the willpower to do it to myself in any case. So for now I try to sit up and hold my mostly clean t-shirt to stop the blood until I can come up with a better solution.
After what seems like hours but was probably only about ten minutes, a parachute glides its way down and lands a few feet from me. I open it quickly, and to my relief find not only a needle and thread but some sort of liquid which I'm assuming is disinfectant, all wrapped up in a large white bandage. This disinfectant stuff must have been really expensive, so I'm sort of surprised to get it. Do I really have that many sponsors? Well, now that I have no excuse not to help my wound, I grit my teeth and sloppily stitch my scraps of skin together, making sure to use a generous amount of the disinfectant as I go. It fucking hurt like hell and I really didn't want to do this to myself, but I had to. After I was finally done and bandaged up, I rolled myself into the bush for a pitiful amount of cover and rested, knowing I still wouldn't be able to move easily.
That was yesterday. This morning I looked at my wound and to my surprise it was healing nicely into a scab already. Must have been some kind of miracle medicine, but it still hurts like hell. But it's not undoable to move around, so I need to get moving on these Games. I don't want it to be a repeat of yesterday's slow day and have another mutt or something sent after me for entertainment. And one way to mostly guarantee that is a cannon or two as horrible as that sounds.
I'm setting up snares near the Career base in hopes to ensnare someone. My plan is to hide in one of the nearby trees, and when they trigger my snare and are helplessly dangling there, I would quickly make them a booming cannon. After setting up three snares, I shakily and painfully made my way up a birch tree several yards away and sit down on a branch about thirty feet up to wait for my prey. God, I hated using the word prey for humans, even if they are Careers. But I had to come home a Victor, so I tried not to show that it bothered me-looking like I hated killing would not get me sponsors. After waiting a few minutes, I was rewarded with a scream and quickly made my way down the tree to see who had been caught in my trap. Like I wanted, it was a Career; one of the girls, I think from District 4. But as I was silently walking over with my knife in hand, I heard another scream from behind me and my panic rose. This voice I recognized-Katniss.
I whip my head around and see her in another Career's grasp, with his knife at her throat and her attempting in vain to pull his hand away from her. The Career boy was laughing as well as the girl in my snare behind me.
"So what are you going to do, 12?" the boy holding Katniss snickered, "You kill her; I kill your precious girlfriend." he smiled menacingly at me and pushed the knife even closer to Katniss's neck. I falter, dropping my own knife in surrender. They know that they have me caught, and I have a feeling that this will be the death of me. But I refuse to be the cause of Katniss's death. The Careers begin laughing at me again, and I lock eyes with Katniss. To my surprise, she's angry.
"What are you doing? You promised me you would win any means necessary!" she yells, no longer struggling in the Career's grasp.
"I'm not going to let you die!" I shout back bewildered. I feel arms come around me, holding me in place so that I have to watch. I struggle, but I can't seem to move. In response to my statement, she gives me a serious and knowing look, a sad glint in her eyes.
"You can't save me, Gale."
With that, she closes her eyes in defeat as the knife begins to cut her.
"No!" I scream, waking myself from my nightmare. I sit up and clench at my sheets, trying in vain to calm down my breathing enough so that I'm not gasping for air. My head is spinning in agony and despair, and the horrible line keeps repeating itself. You can't save me, Gale.
Fuck that was a horrible nightmare. It played on my biggest fear at the moment, and made me watch it play out with stunning clarity. I've always wanted to keep her safe. Ever since we became hunting partners, I helped her not starve. My desire to save her grew last year when Snow threatened to kill her if I didn't agree to being sold to Capitolites. But now especially, when it's so dangerous for her. She's going into the Games, and I have this desperate need to save her. So much so that I am willing to do anything at all, no matter the consequences to myself to do it. I love her, and I don't believe that I can live without her ever again. Seeing her like that, helpless to save her from death is my worst nightmare. And her telling me I can't save her just made it worse. My heart is still going a mile a minute, my breath catching every time I repeat the line to myself.
"You can't save me."
"You can't save me, Gale."
"You can't save me."
No. I have to save you. I will save you if it's the last thing I do. Seconds later the door busts open. It's Katniss, and she's panting, a worried expression plastered on her face.
"Gale! What's wrong? I heard you screaming." she frantically asks as she comes over to my bed. Shit, this is exactly what I was trying to avoid. Now I'm taking sleep away from her, taking away even that advantage in the Games. You can't save me, Gale. No, push away that thought. It's only going to make it worse.
"It was just a nightmare." I tell her, attempting to not let her see that my breathing is still uneven. But having hunter's senses, she picks up on it anyway.
"It must have been a really bad one. You've been screaming for the past few minutes." she informs me with concern, sitting down on the edge of my bed and placing her hand on top of mine. "What was it about?"
I really hate to feel vulnerable and actually talk about my fears. But this is Katniss-the only person in Panem I can be myself with. Plus her stubbornness will shine through and she will refuse to go back to bed until I comply.
"I was in the arena. I had that Career girl in my snare but then you were there being held with a knife to you by another boy, and he said that he would kill you if I killed the girl. So I put my knife down but they were going to make me watch them…kill you. I couldn't do it. I woke up before they could." I say, not telling her the worst part. You can't save me. I glance up at her and she gives me a look of compassion and understanding.
"Watching was bad. When I watched you in the Games last year, I felt so helpless." she confesses to me, "I..I couldn't save you. That was the worst part; I couldn't do anything." she continues, and in the moonlight I see a tear beginning to run down her face. I cup her cheek in my palm and wipe the tear away with my thumb, staring into her worried grey eyes so much like my own.
"I'm safe. And you're going to be safe too. Promise." I declare, and pull her to me. She readily comes, curling up on the bed next to me, and we stay like that for a long time in silence. We hold each other and will ourselves to believe my promise. My fear ebbs every few minutes inside my head, and I fight it internally. It almost seems to be mocking me now.
"You can't save me."
I think of the time that you twisted your knee in the woods and I helped you then, carrying you all the way home. It was barely a year after we met but I couldn't leave you there. I couldn't just not help you. I saved you.
"You can't save me, Gale."
Snow threatened to kill you if I didn't do appointments last year. I would never let him kill you for something I did or didn't do. Even if I'm too chicken to actually tell you what I have to do or that I'm keeping him from killing you because of me in the first place. I saved you then.
"You can't save me."
I think of your too near in the future Games, how if I can't save you I might as well die too. I won't live without you, so both of us have to live-for us, for our families. There is no other option.
"You can't save me."
No. I can save you. I will. I think forcefully as I push away the fear as hard as I can while subconsciously pulling Katniss in even tighter as I do so, wishing I stay just like this forever. Where we're both safe and together-like it should be.
Oh and btw, a lot of you are asking about Peeta. I promise I'm going to get there eventually and it will answer all your questions, but its still chapters away. All in good time people-I have it figured out, no worries!
