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Masked Royalty 6

I wake up with extreme difficulty, which was rare. I barely got much sleep last or less sleep than usual. After Haymitch shared the world of secrets to me, my mind couldn't stop tinkering all the possibilities, thoughts and questions that were well expected to be there after sinking in all the information.

To fully understand this situation, here are a few details of the past and the recently known present.

The whole kingdom thought me dead. Or so I thought

Snow had the highest rank of all survivors of my father's party and was therefore announced king by the laws of the book.

We suspect that he had planned the murders of my family and the other people who were in line for the thrown. Yes, not only my parents were murdered, so were every relative and advisers' higher than Snow.

There had always been a rebellion team hiding behind the shadows in every district.

And they had a plan on how to put the true heir of the land sitting on the throne.

I am Katniss Lilliana Everdeen, rightful princess of Panem.

I have turned sixteen earlier this year, therefore making me of legal age to finally rule my kingdom.

I will seek revenge on him.

We have a plan

And it's going to take action.

Haymitch had some planning to do and had to be gone for a few days to attend a secret meeting with District Twelve's head of rebellion. And just like that I was as alone. For my safety I'm not allowed to attend the frequent meetings and am only allowed to witness the really really important ones which are probably going to rarely occur.

I hate how this position makes me fragile and delicate. Like anything and anyone can break me. But on the other side I am freakishly psyched to be able to kil… do something to Snow.

These thoughts go through my mind as I take a well needed shower. I let those thoughts temporarily drain away with the water, the warmth blooming where the droplets hit my skin. I have always enjoyed showers. I could easily forget my worries or could think of a solution for them.

When I'm finished with my shower I slip on some jeans and shirt. I comb through my shoulder length hair, missing the now invisible length it used to have. Before me moved to Twelve, my hair had reached my waist and was usually in a braid, but for the sake of our "secret" I had to change my appearance from time to time. There was once a time where I allowed Hay to dye my hair blonde. I hated it. I forced Haymitch to dye it back to its natural brown color after a few days.

I tie my hair into a half ponytail and make myself some breakfast downstairs.

While eating my bacon I can't help but stare at the fake guitar case on top of the fire place. All I wanted was to grab the bow and the quiver of arrows that we had in our weapon stock and run off to the surrounding woods and shoot some arrows, but today's a school day so I ended up grabbing my messenger bag and extra cash in our little cash stock and run down the hill to shoot some numbers. Yay!

By the time I've reached the school the warning bell let out. I hurriedly ran to my locker and barter my homework books for my class ones and rush up to first period. I had dodged most of the students who were in their way to their classrooms and have made it to the top of the stairs when I remember that my first class was English since we only had homeroom on Mondays.

I inwardly groan when I recall the note on my schedule stating that the first English lesson was at the library, which was on the ground floor in a different building. Shit. I had only managed to turn halfway when had realized that my bag strap had managed to push itself out of my shoulder without me noticing. And that was a millisecond too late to realize that it was on the floor, fifty milliseconds too late to realize my feet were tangled in it, and a second too late to realize that I tripped and was about to make a huge head first fall down the first flight of stairs under me.

And more importantly I was around a minute too late to realize that someone was behind me.

Right now I was inside the nurse's office with an icepack at hand. And no, it wasn't for me.

Well you see most of you would have thought that I fell towards complete injury when I tripped or that somebody had saved me but no, none of the above. I wasn't as close to that lucky.

As you recall, I am not clumsy. As a matter of fact I am pretty agile. So when I tripped and was about to fall I had managed to swing my legs over my head in a full front flip and land safely on the little isle in between the two flights of stairs… whatever you call it. And that was when I heard a low groan and mind you my voice wasn't that deep. I had looked up and saw no other than Peeta bending to hold the railings on one hand and inspecting his jaw with the other.

So that's the story, I ended up kicking Peeta's chin, accidentally, to how I ended up at the nurse's office slowly pressing the icepack to his swollen red jaw. The nurse had to go to the library to inform the teacher about the accident since we both had the same class and I also had a rather deep wound on my knee for hitting it on the edge of one of the stairs while landing. I had managed to clean and cover it up before attending to Peeta's injury.

I had just finished saying sorry a million times when he laughed, "It really is no big deal."

I stare at him, "I kicked you in the jaw!"

"It was my fault for not being able to catch you, yeah that totally backfired," he shook his head at himself. "You were about to catch me?" I ask staring at him. This boy wanted to save me and I ended up hitting him, I'm so messed up.

"Yeah, I mean, you were about to fall. What else was I suppose to do, watch you get hurt?" he reasons. "Oh. Thank you," I say sincerely. He laughs at me.

"Stop laughing!" I annoyingly grab a fold of his face with one hand and press the icepack to his chin. I gently press as my free hand now moves to cup his cheek to avoid his squirming. He stayed still after I did that so I held onto his cheek for forcefully avoiding his constant stare at my face or him tensing up as I leaned closer to get a better angle at his mangled jaw.

Peeta, Peeta Mellark. I had just realized that I didn't know his full name up until earlier when he informed the nurse who he was. The name doesn't ring a bell; not even the tiniest memory concerning the name enters. All I can recall was the bread and I'm pretty sure that's not it.

"What's next ?" he says when I stop pressing the pack and tilting his face from side to side to give the bruise a once over.

"Oh please I'm hardly a doctor," I continue my gentle pressure as I inform him some minor inferences, "It will leave a mark and will probably hurt like hell," I say as I look up to see those eyes of his so much more alive up close, that was when I noticed how close I was leaning into him when I was treating his bruise.

"Hey Katy?" he asks out of the blue. I momentarily stop the healing, "Yeah?" I stare at his expression; his eyebrows were furrowed together like his was thinking of something deep.

He shakes his head like he was dismissing his idea, "Thank you." He flashed me a convincing grin showing off his straight white teeth. I knew that he wasn't thinking about saying thank you to me but I decided to let it slide. "Well I kind of have to do this since I'm the one that caused it right?" I let out a little chuckle.

"So, where were you from before you moved?" he asked, starting a conversation.

"Well, I lived in District Two before here," I say.

"How do you like it so far, District Twelve I mean," he takes the ice from my hand and starts doing it himself. I try to get the pack back but he swats my hand away, "You're right about not being a doctor." He laughs as he gently presses the pack himself.

I scowl at him and he just smiles at me in return. "You forgot to answer my question," Peeta reminds me. "Oh, I don't really know much of the District. I haven't exactly explored yet," I pick at the loose threads of the hospital bed's linens.

"How about I show you around some time?" My eyes immediately shot up to meet his as I was actually surprised at his suggestion. "I mean only if you want to," he scratched the back of his neck. "That would be great," I say still shocked he even thought about helping me.]

He gives me a much happier smile as he stands up and offers his hand. I let him help me stand even though I was more than capable of doing so myself. He leads me to the front of the clinic just in time with the nurse entering the room. "Thank you Miss Lydia, we'll be on our way to second period now." Peeta smiles at the nurse who nods in return. Peeta and I didn't have any classes together until lunch so he showed me to second period before the bell rang and he hurriedly made his way to his class, waving goodbye and shouting after me, "See you at lunch!"

I nod and wave back as I entered the room. Peeta Mellark isn't that bad, he isn't bad at all.