I'm really sorry for the long wait, I had no internet connection over the holidays and so couldn't update. I should have the chapters coming out more quickly now that I've had time to plan ahead a bit more.
Again, thank you for the reviews I really, really appreciate them. Keep them coming, please.
Prim's POV
Nothing much had happened in the Games that day. Katniss was fine. She was made for wandering around in the woods like that. Surviving. And she didn't break her promises. At least, that was how I tried to ease my anxienty. I was less than succesful.
Gale was every bit as worried as I was. I knew that. I knew it from the tight, tense way he talked. I knew it from the way he never stopped frowning. It fed my own concern, but I didn't tell him that. I didn't need to make him feel any worse. And anyways, I couldn't have stood it if he tried to falsely reassure me.
We had pooled together our sponsor money and given it to some Capitol representatives. They would pass it on to Haymitch, who was in the Capitol mentoring Katniss.
And Peeta. Right.
Presently, Gale and I were discussing what Haymitch should send her. We had both tried talking about other, more comforting things, but both our thoughts kept drifting back to her.
"A bow." Gale looked up. The last subject change had been him trying to teach me more edible plants to pick and sell.
"What?"
"A bow. He should get her a bow. It's the only thing she could win with."
"He can't afford it. Weapons are ridiculously expensive. They mix up the odds too much. He should get her wire, to set up snares."
"Wire. Mmm, yes. Or maybe water."
"Water? She can find that in the arena."
"Yes, but the Gamemakers will make that difficult. Water is essential. No-one can survive without it. Therefore, they'll want to use the Tribute's need for it to... mix things up a bit." Kill more people. I watched Gale's face twist in disgust. I wished he could control those emotions better. If the Peacekeepers caught him expressing them, it would be taken out on Katniss.
Not to mention what they would do to him.
"That's... a good point."
"I suppose... as long as Haymitch sees it like that... otherwise, it doesn't really help."
"But if he gives her water, it'll run out eventually."
"Hopefully the Games will have finished by then."
"And she'll be the winner."
"And she'll be the winner."
Gale's POV
"And she'll be the winner." The hope in Prim's voice as she said that nearly made my take a step back. This is how they do it. This is how they keep us in line. They give us hope, enough to stop us acting with the desperation of someone who knows their cause is lost, but not enough to make us think we can win against them. He knew the trap, and yet he couldn't manage to fight his way out of it. After Katniss either won or died, they had said, but he couldn't bear the wait. He wanted to act now. He forced himself to stop thinking about that. It had chaffed him constantly for the last few days, but going over it wouldn't help anything. He would just have to learn patience.
If only Katniss had run away with him. No. What about Prim? But he still wished... if they had...
If onlys accomplished nothing. They were best shut out.
He could feel Prim's eyes on him.
"And she'll be the winner," he replied, like a small prayer. Not that he prayed. If God had existed he would have smited the Capitol years ago. What was the use in praying to someone who wasn't real?
He got up apbruptly, muttering "woods." Prim raised a quesionting eyebrow, but otherwise said nothing. He got up, walked out the door and onto the street. A pair of Peacekeepers were patroling. He tried to ignore them. Best not to do something really stupid that would get both him and Katniss into trouble. And Prim, probably. The Capitol liked nothing as much as it liked disproportion responses.
"Gale Hawthorne. State your business." It's my business. Not yours. He didn't recognise them. New peacekeepers were bad news.
"I was on my way home from a friend's."
"I see. Primrose Everdeen, perhaps?"
"That would be her, yes."
"You were talking to her, I suppose."
"I was." How could they just come up to me and poke into every moment of my life?
"Nothing treasonous, I hope?"
"O-of course not."
"Indeed." He took a small device out of his coat pocket and pressed Play. My voice rang out, clear as day. I froze.
"I do too. And I hate them. I hate them from taking her away from us. I want, no, I need to do something, anything, to show them."
"So… so do I. I.. I… I can't… I can't stand i-it any more. It's my fault. She… she did it for me. But if not for them, she would never have had reason to volunteer in the first place. I hate them."
They stopped it. That was all they needed. Damning evidence.
It had been recorded for a long time, I was sure of it, but none of the previous Peacekeepers had wanted to do anything about it.
"There's more." More? Why would they possibly need more? But they proceeded to play out all the conversations I had had with Prim after that one. All the anti-Capitol statements we had made. All the things we had thought we had said in privacy.
Even our conversation from the forest. How had they recorded that?
"Come with me. I will escort you to the Justice Building." I said nothing. Anything I could have said would just have been digging myself in deeper.
"Officer. Apprehend Primrose." I had failed her. I had failed Katniss. How could I have been so stupid? So utterly idiotic?
I had no idea.
And so the plot actually starts moving. Yes, my dear readers, plot. Believe it or not, such a thing really does exist in this fanfic of mine.