I shove Peeta away from me and rush from the couch, desperately racing toward the bathroom. I just barely make it the toilet when my lunch reappears. My eyes are burning and my mouth is tainted with the taste. I can't move for a several seconds until I hear Peeta's rushing footsteps barreling down the hall in my direction. I kick the door shut in time to keep him out, locking it to make sure it stays that way. I can't think. I can't even feel. I know there's many things I should be feeling. Betrayal, rage, disgust but none of it comes. He stands on the other side of the door knocking, begging me to let him in. From the desperation in his voice, it's fair to say he realizes the jig is up. All of the pieces of the puzzle are coming together and it hits me all at once like a brute force. It finally makes sense. That day I first met Eta and Atlas in town, the day I walked away feeling for that brief moment happy. For making a real step toward rebuilding my life into something slightly normal. When I still had very little hope that Peeta would ever come back to me.

He saw me smile and he wasn't the root of it. Someone else was. The way he looked at that stand, at Atlas. He didn't see me making new friends, he saw a threat. The original parts of Peeta that live inside of him, the parts that still love me fiercely panicked at the thought of losing me. The new side of him knew only one way to handle that. I feel the fury coming on but I have nowhere to aim my anger. How can I possibly blame him? He's a victim of circumstance, one I've always felt was my fault. I should have never left him in the arena that day. I was uncomfortable separating from him, I never wanted to and they never would have taken him if I had just been my stubborn self and refused. He would've been safe with me in District 13 if I had stayed. This is my fault. The monster inside him was spawned thanks to my abandonment.

I lay on the bathroom floor for a while, curled up in a shell. I don't cry hard but the tears never stop. Eventually I can't hear him calling my name anymore but somehow I know he still is, still on the other side of the door wanting to make it all better. It's so hard not to let him. I resurface just long enough to hear his heavy sigh from the other side of the barricade,

"Please... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Just come out and talk to me please."

His pleading pulls at my heart strings but I'm letting my head win out this time, my heart hasn't served me too well when it came to the boy with the bread. I peel myself off the bathroom floor quietly as I can manage, looking toward the window on the far side wall. I count my blessings that getting myself around undetected is something of an art of mine. Each step makes less sound than a raindrop hitting the ground until I'm inching the window open inch by inch. I get it to an appropriate point when I duck through, straddling the window pane and looking toward the door between him and I one last time. I had closed it and locked it in more than one way, at least for now. This is how things have to be. My feet plant safely onto the earthy dirt of the flower bed below the window. I hop from it onto the cool grass and skip my way over to the street. I know I should try to get to Haymitch's as quickly as I can before Peeta figures out he's been had but I can't will myself to move any faster than the sluggish zombie like shuffle I do down the middle of the street. I'm thankful now that I live in such a pristine and upkept neighborhood as I didn't get the opportunity to grab shoes on my way out the window. The gravel is smooth, clean of debris or rocks and slightly warm as I walk, giving me a small sensation to focus on.

I expect Hazel to open the door to greet me but it's Gale that's standing in front of me. He doesn't say a word for a few seconds, looking me over like he's not sure I'm really there. I don't know what I expected him to do after the last words between us but he appears to be both heart broken and relieved to see me. I hadn't even considered how I must look right now. Hair a frizzy mess, face mopped with tears, eyes sunken and puffy. He pulls me into his arms without further hesitation and holds me so tightly, like I had just come home from war. His proud chest quivers against mine as his breathing strobes and a faint sob escapes from his lips. The sound of his woe floods right into my ear. No matter how angry he's made me, hearing this sound come out of my strong friend cuts me deeply. Reluctantly, I return his embrace, wrapping myself around him and letting us fuse into one sopping emotional mess. I can't tell which part of our dilemma that's brought him to tears but I can tell he knows I've learned the truth.

He guides me into the house and sits me on the couch, gingerly stroking my hair as he walks to the kitchen. Before I can wonder what he's doing, he comes back with a cup of mint tea and sits down beside me. Neither of us know what to say for the first few minutes until he finally breaks the silence,

"Do you want to talk about it?"

I would probably rather talk about almost anything else but whether I needed to talk was another matter entirely. I shrug my shoulders and take a sip from the mug I'm clutching with both hands.

"He didn't hurt you, did he?"

He questions sternly. I can tell he's getting mad just thinking of it so I immediately shake my head. Just the opposite really but he obviously doesn't need to know that. He decides to let me be the strong silent type I am and fills in the blanks that I wasn't willing to hear before. He had dropped by Eta and Atlas' house the day after the incident intent on questioning Atlas about the encounter and he managed to get more answers than I did. When I ask him what he says to earn such trust, he simply responds,

"You'll see."

Atlas told him the whole story, the whole crazy story. Atlas had been tearing down shop later than normal that night while Eta was at home preparing some clams for dinner. He'd been walking past the edge of the Seam, right near where my old house used to be when he'd heard a noise drifting out from the trees. Atlas had thought it sounded like game, an opportunity. He usually kept a small hatchet with him so he decided to take it on alone and perhaps get something to show off to his hunting mentor, me. He just barely made it into the trees before he felt the first impact hit, which sent him to the ground with a violent thud. He didn't see it coming, he didn't even see a face. At first I can't imagine how that's possible. How can we even be sure it was Peeta? Gale breaks from his tale to look at me and explains,

"Katniss, he said he saw the tree attack him. The tree."

To some, that might sound like utter nonsense but I understand right away. Poor Atlas, no wonder he was so embarrassed to explain what he saw to me. He probably assumed he was going crazy. Compared to Peeta, Atlas is a mountain but what Peeta lacks in stature he makes up for in strength. Coupled with his mastery of camouflage and the element of surprise, it's easy to imagine him overpowering Atlas. His face matted in colors of oak, coated with bits of bark. I can only imagine the intricacy. The morning I woke up with him in his house, his arms around me, didn't realize for a second he'd left me there alone to carry on his actions. Then he came back to envelop me, probably freshly showered and exhausted from things too dark for me to know. That first night I slept in his arms again and never feared for myself. Little did I know he was taking that rage inside of him out on an innocent party. Once again, the guilt falls back to me. For every bruise on poor Atlas' body, for every drop of blood lost.

Atlas doesn't recall much after the first few blows besides that they hurt like hell, only the pressure of the impact and feeling less pain at each hit. His mind had forced him to check out to endure the rest of it. He remembered most the warm oozing of fresh blood down the side of his face. After having the sense beat out of him, Atlas managed to pull together the strength he didn't use to fight and drag himself to the edge where the trees and the town meet before passing out from weakness and blood loss. He must've been lying there for hours when Gale had been walking through to head to the woods. He'd noticed something large crumbled by the trees. He wasn't sure what it could've been at first, but he was concerned by the size of it. He took a few cautious steps closer and noticed the small traces of blood on the ground. He dropped his gear and ran to Atlas' aid. He wasn't conscious enough to reply, but he surely wasn't dead, definitely not past help. Gale carried Atlas discreetly as he could manage back to Eta at their house. After consoling her for several minutes, Gale was the one who had told her to seek me out. He'd left Atlas in as good a position as he could knowing we were coming shortly to help him. He'd rushed back to the neighborhood intent on accompanying us. He was worried for our safety if he could find a man such as Atlas helplessly beaten on the ground.

When he saw me scrambling out of my house with my mother's medical supplies and Eta trailing my heels, he noticed Peeta from his front window, also watching us. He didn't look himself. Peeta in his nature is often overly helpful and caring. In any other circumstance, he'd have come rushing out to lend a hand and demand to know what happened. I know this, and Gale did too but he didn't move an inch. He watched meticulously from the window as we vanished down the street. He didn't seem to be observing us in curiosity but something more calculated, more sinister than that. Gale had dealt with Peeta's darkness a lot when we brought him back to 13 and he knew it better than I would've ever given him credit for. It was later on that same night he noticed Peeta heading toward my house when he couldn't take it anymore. Gale knew something was off and he frankly didn't know what Peeta would be capable of doing to anyone, especially me. He'd already almost killed me twice, I was lucky enough to have someone looking out for me each time and Gale wasn't going to let it happen on his watch. No matter what ambiguous place we were in. He wanted to tell me everything right then and there that night on the lawn but Haymitch told him it was better to wait it out. I would eventually figure it out for myself and that was the only way I'd truly believe it. He stares at me hoping I'll say something but I am sunken in defeat. Gale places a hand on my shoulder and sighs,

"I'm sorry...I tried to tell you."

All I can do is nod, rubbing my temples to ward away the oncoming headache from all this information. I should've known. Even after the war has been long since over, President Snow is still laughing in my face at the carnage his work has befallen on me. I realize now how desperately I ignored the truth because two facts are undeniably evident in the wake of the madness. I'm in love with Peeta. No lights, no camera, no audience. Absolutely no motivation other than whatever it is that binds one person to another. The irony is palpable. But above feelings, above anything else fact still remained. He could've killed Atlas if he wanted to. As much as I want to focus on the good, the fact that he didn't kill him, there was no denying that he was working in tandem with his darkness. He knowingly hid it from me, he didn't lie to my face because I never thought to ask. Having this information now felt like a time bomb strapped around my chest. It could explode any time and the truth would be out. Eta and Atlas wouldn't understand his sickness, the uninvited evil that resided in him against his will. What would they do to him? Call the authorities? Have him sent to the officials to face judgment for his crime? Simply kill him? The possibilities swimming around in my head sicken me until my stomach turns.

"If you knew it was him, why didn't you tell Atlas?"

I hadn't spoken for several minutes and the sound of my own voice felt unfamiliar to me in those few silent moments. Gale has an internal struggle with his own answer to that. He probably contemplated it deeply before reaching the decision to stay silent.

"Because I don't know what they'd do to him. And I don't know what that would do to you."

Of course he selflessly made the choice to protect me both from Peeta himself and the possibility of Peeta being taken away.

"I love you, Katnip. I'll always do what's best for you. Even if it sucks for me."

Even if my heart will always belong to someone else now. He knows, that much is certain, maybe even before I did. If Finnick knew before I did where my heart truly belonged, Gale probably did too. He knows me better than anyone. I wonder how long that's been weighing on him. How long he's grappled with the thought that our love would never exist. He'd given up so much to protect me and I'd fallen in love with the guy that attempted to kill me on more than one occasion. Yet another thing to lay on my conscience. Great. For the first time since leaving my house, a thought surfaces and the fears creeps up my entire body inch by inch until I'm consumed. Peeta is dangerous, obviously not to be toyed with. And I just left him the way that I did. I stopped fearing for how deeply it must be hurting him and focus more on what that hurt might be turning into. What does the wild uncaged monster due when the only thing he loves walks away from him?

I had created another bomb.