Disclaimer: Once again ownership is not mine.
Hope you enjoy :)
'There are plenty of ways to die,
but only love can kill you and
keep you alive to feel it.'
-Leo Christopher
That night, Peeta didn't come to my house. He didn't even walk through the gates of Victor's Village. I sat by my window till curfew, hoping he would come by, hoping he would walk into his house, or mine. That he would have forgotten what he had seen or had thought differently, but he didn't. The fact that he did not return to Victor's Village meant one of two things, either he was at the bakery, or he was somewhere else with someone else trying to forget me. I prayed that it was the first. I couldn't take the second idea, the idea of him staying with another person, another girl.
I had to stop thinking about this. I needed sleep because tomorrow would be my turn with Bo and Ocenne and I couldn't let them down. I sunk into my queen size bed, which now felt overly large without Peeta's body next to me, and tried to fall asleep.
I was running. Running through the woods, through the arena, through the rubble. A mutt was chasing me, one that took on the face of past tributes and victors alike. But one face lasted longer than the others, Peeta's. He had a vicious smirk on his face and was chasing me. His body which had taken on the shape of a mutt was transforming. His paws were turning human like, his mechanical leg was there and so were his hands and he was running swiftly behind me, calling my name.
"Katniss…" I was being rocked back and forth and it wasn't until my eyes shot open did I realize I was just stuck in a nightmare. Peeta stood above me, his curls damp. His hands pinned my shoulders down preventing me from snapping a hit at him when I finally woke up. "Katniss, it's okay. It was just a nightmare." His voice was urgent pleading. He was begging me to believe him. But my mind had gone into overdrive. This couldn't be real. Peeta wouldn't sneak out after curfew, he would have been shot on spot.
The scream that escaped my throat seemed to shock us both. The hands that were covering my shoulders were now over my mouth, keeping me from disturbing the people of the house, or sending a peacekeeper here to look for the cause of the noise.
"Shhhh, Katniss it's me, it's really me. Peeta." Still stuck in a state of shock, I bit his hand that covered my mouth. "Ouch," He took his hand off of my mouth and cradled it in his other. "What the hell was that for?"
"I thought you were a part of my dream."
"Well then, I hope that clarified some things for you," Peeta grumbled still holding the hand I had bitten.
"It did thank you," I giggled a little. "I didn't even bite you that hard stop acting like a baby."
"Me never," He winked at me. "It might feel better with a kiss though." He smirked at me and I saw the same face reflected back at me.
"You just woke me up. Maybe if you get lucky I'll give you a kiss." With that, I flopped on my side away from him and closed my eyes. I heard him groan behind me, then mumble something along the lines of me being the death of him. But I could hear him taking off his jacket and unlacing his shoes. I felt the bed shift underneath me and I felt the warmth of somebody next to me. Peeta had laid down next to me. His shoulder pressing into my back. With his presence nearby, I finally slept peacefully through the night.
Walking into town, the air outside was chilly. It wasn't cold, but it had a sting every time you exited the warmth of a building. I walked this journey alone. When I had gotten out of bed this morning Peeta was still sleeping. I had left him a note, asking him to meet up with me after my training with Bo and Ocenne, we had to talk about what he saw. I was dreading this chat, but hopefully, Peeta would understand.
When I got to the training ground just outside of the meadow, I noticed that two people were already there, a boy and a girl, Bo and Ocenne. As I got closer though I noticed that the girl was Ocenne but the boy was somebody else, somebody from the seam. I didn't recognize him, he might have been a neighbor or something from the seam. As I snuck behind the single tree located nearby, I saw the boy lean in close. I saw the twinkle in his eyes. His eyes were blue, much like Peeta's, but his hair was dark. Who is this kid? As he leaning in closer their lips met and I looked away, it felt like I was intruding on their privacy.
"Katniss, I know you're there." Ocenne's voice rang out from the other side of the tree. Stepping out I poisoned myself. Steeling my emotions. Hopefully, she wouldn't think that I was purposefully spying or eavesdropping.
"How did you know I was here?"
"I don't know, guess I could just feel it."
"Well, I guess that will help you out during the games." I cracked a smile at her, one which she returned. I saw her go to open her mouth, but Bo had interrupted her.
"Everdeen, Bell." He gave a slight nod to us in greeting. "What is it now, are the two of you having secret conversations now?"
"Don't be stupid Bo," Ocenne covered, "We just got her. We were just talking about my secret talent of feeling people nearby."
"Secret talent you say. Well, I have a secret talent too," With that, he flashed us a charming smile, "It's called my good looks. I'll be a hit with the sponsors. Right Katniss?"
"Well, they won't hurt. But during the games, people aren't going to spare you in the arena, even if you are the Finnick Odair of district twelve." Everybody knows Finnick, he was the youngest winner of all time. Having won the games at 14, he was now one of the largest sex symbols of the country. People would pay lots of money for just a couple of minutes with him. Not only did he have good looks on his side, he also is excellent with a trident. It's almost like an extension of his arm. This wasn't to say that Bo wasn't talented, he had the physical strength and the aggression needed, but sometimes hand to hand combat was hard to come along.
Today training with me we were going to work on archery, and edible plants. Before I had come into the meadow when I had first woken I had gone into the woods to grab bow and arrows. Despite the two of them having to be in school, we thought better of it. If they enter the games they will either return a corpse or a victor. Neither of those options required continuing your education. Instead, we found it would be a better use of their time if we trained during the day, when everyone was off the streets, rather than after.
"Okay guys, if you didn't already guess, we will be practicing with my bow and arrows, we will also be reviewing edible and poisonous plants." The words sounded robotic on my tongue, but it was the best I could do today with them after everything that had happened last night.
"Just watch what I do and do it. I'll correct you if necessary." Getting into my position, I kept an eye on the two. They seemed to be following along really well. I then grabbed for an arrow, found my target and let the arrow go. It hit straight in the center, Bullseye, of the tree trunk. Bo and Ocenne stood shocked.
"Dang Everdeen, I knew you were good with a bow, but not that good."
"I'll take that as a compliment. Ocenne you go first." Passing off my bow to here I directed her through the steps. First letting her get into position, giving her my corrections, then letting her pull out and arrow, sling it, and let it go. The arrow landed on the tree but ways off of bullseye. She had aimed too high, having over-corrected too much for the force of gravity. "Not bad, with some practice, we could get you closer to the target. Bo your turn." Bo stepped up, he looked confident. Flashing a charming smile at us before reaching for the bow and arrows. He repeated the same things as Ocenne, but with fewer corrections. When he fired the arrow, he had nailed an impressive shot. The arrow lodged into the bark just a little to the right of the bullseye. This was good counting that I had made the bullseye about the size of someone's eye.
"Your praise is not necessary," Bo remarked before I could, "I've seen you and Gale shoot a couple of times." This was odd to hear. Gale and Bo weren't friends, at least I didn't think they were. But thinking of the two now, they were more alike then they were different.
Still in shock, I responded, "Well I guess that's enough bow training for today, although you guys could take turns switching off with the bow on your own times to get better. Let's move on to plants." Plants, that was a safe topic, I didn't have any bad connections to plants. If anything talking about them made me feel closer to my father. Pulling the plant book my father had started out of my bag, I took turns training the two. While one person was with me telling me which plants were toxic and which were not, the other person was with the bow, firing at the tree seeing if they could fix their prior mistakes. When I felt that they were bored of training, I took them back to my house to grab a bite to eat. Opening the door, the smell of fresh bread and squirrel wafted over me.
"Oh you're home, we still have to talk about that…" Peeta cut himself off as he walked into my view, "We have visitors."
"Yeah. I'm sorry I didn't tell you before,we just finished everything we had to do so I thought I'd bring them back for a little treat."
"Of course! Bo, Ocenne, please come sit. The food is almost ready." As Peeta gestured them into the living room, he grabbed my hand and swiftly pulled me into the kitchen behind him.
"Please don't be mad."
"Katniss, I'm not mad. At least not about this. We still have to talk about last night, though." Peeta's voice was rough, low and husky. He was trying to keep the others from hearing. I took that as my opportunity to play my cards.
Stepping just and inch closer I said, "I don't possibly know what you mean." Peeta rolled his eyes at me and took a step back.
"Of course not." With that, he turned his back to me and continued to work on the food. I took this as my sign to leave. Bring three glasses of water with me as a cane to the living room where Bo and Ocenne sat.
"So we have been thinking, and we want to put you both on a new diet plan. If you're going to train like careers might as well eat like them too." The two nodded in response, " We also have the hunger games of other Quarter Quell tributes, we think you should watch them and a few others. You might learn some tricks from them.
"The food is ready," Peeta's voice rang out from inside the kitchen. Walking into the kitchen, Bo and Ocenne's eyes doubled in size, the probably had never seen that much food before. "Now, I know you are all probably going to want to scarf it all down, but when you get on the train, your escort Effie is going to tell you a thing or two about manners. When sitting we don't eat with our hands," Peeta was looking directly at me, " And we only put on our plates what we can eat." I glanced down his stare was playful but if I held it any longer, I was guaranteed to look like a tomato.
Bo, whose mouth was already half full, spoke first, "Why would manners matter that much in the games? They're going to be starving us anyway."
Peeta just looked at him, "Well Bo, for starters, they are going to be stuffing you before the games. Meaning you will be eating in front of the other tributes. Eat politely and you'll be more likely to form and allies."
At Peeta's words, I wanted to make a million comments. "Peeta, you have such a weakness for beautiful things, they could lure you into the Capital and you'd be lost forever." That got a good laugh from the people around me.
"Having an eye for beauty isn't always a weakness. Except, when it comes to you." I was blushing now, Bo and Ocenne were staring at the two of us now. They could probably sense that something was off, our energy was all off.
When we had finally finished eating, we had Bo and Ocenne take the extra food to their families. Standing at the door ,waving goodbye, I could feel Peeta's breath at my ear. "Katniss, we still need to talk about the other night." Sighing I turned to face him.
"Ask away."
"I want to hear your side of the story."
"My side? Well…" I thought back to last night, I had tried so hard to push what happened out of my head, that I had almost forgotten the events. "Well, in the morning Gale and I had gone to the woods. I asked him if he would help me teach the tributes snares and he agreed. He then proceeded to ask me for a catch." As I spoke I put air quotes up to help emphasize my meaning. " I took this as meaning he thought I was a liar or a player, so I stormed out of the woods. Then I saw you and everything was going well until I returned home and Gale was waiting. He then kissed me, and I pushed back. I told him friends do not kiss each other. And also that I was still playing the game."
Peeta sat silent. Intently listening to my story. "What game are you still playing?"
"The same one as you, the tribute game, the victor game."
"Now my question is why did it take so long to push Gale off you while you kissed?"
"Peeta, Gale is a big guy. He's taller than you and a little more forceful. If he wants something he's going to get it. No matter the cost."
"Would you have still pushed him off if it was me there instead of Gale?" Peeta's voice was low, his face was close to mine.
Raising my chin to appear above it all, I said, " If you had acted the way Gale had acted, then yes, without hesitation."
Peeta took a step closer, "What about now Katniss, what do you want to do with me here?" His question was brutal but the feel of his breath on my face was distracting me and I was starting to lean in. Just as our lips should have met though Peeta took a step away from me, causing me to crash directly into the wall. He let out a low laugh. "Katniss, I'm still mad at you. I need some time to process what you said." And with that, he left the house.
I stayed rooted in place, hurt. Not only emotionally but physically. I was agitated that Peeta had not kissed me back, and I was hurt that he had said he was still mad at me. Not only that but my shoulder had also banged into the wall as I fell. Rubbing at it, I ran out the door. Peeta may have won this argument but he wasn't going to win the next one.