I guess I didn't realize how quickly I cut the nest down, but I guess when you're in as much pain as I was in you feel like it's taking forever. I see myself quickly take the knife, thrown at me by Clove, sawing through the branch. Willow, Rowan and Peeta all wince as a few tracker jackers fly out and find me as the enemy, stinging my neck, my hand...painfully releasing their venom into me. I find it paused as my sixteen year-old self is in the middle of the branch.
It was Peeta who paused it.
"I gotta go, Katniss," he says. "Haymitch and Leo need to tie me down," he winces, pushing the heels of his hands into his eyes. "Get my medication!" he orders loudly, tearing himself from the kids and me, pushing toward the room at the end of the hall. I turn to the kids frantically whose faces are silently asking us what's going on.
"Go! Go, now! Go home, lock the doors!" I order, flying up the stairs to warn the others. I kick the door open. Johanna must see my frantic eyes and she pushes Henry from the chair he's sitting in.
"What the hell is going on?" He is Johanna's son, stubborn, cocky and with a mouth he should never kiss his mother with. But who am I to judge? No matter how many times I scold Willow and Rowan, they continue with the cussing.
"Go!" Johanna calls me back from my thoughts. I feel her run past me, pushing Henry from the door. She continues to push him down the stairs, and into the living room. I run down the hall to find Annie and Finn watching Finnick Sr. on screen, still without a trident.
"Annie! It's Peeta, you guys need to go! Now!" I shout, pulling them both up.
"What's going on?" Finn asks, allowing me to push him and his mother out the door.
"We'll explain later, but you need to go."
Finn looks at me strangely, but he still goes into the living room, towards the door with his shaken mother.
Tragically, Peeta couldn't control himself enough to make it to the farthest room. He now screams for my death, just a few yards away. Henry sits there in shock, not moving an inch.
"Go, Henry!" I shout at him, helping Johanna move him towards the door.
"Katniss! I'm going to kill you! You killed them!" Peeta shouts, getting past Leo, knocking Haymitch to the ground.
"Peeta...," I whisper, stepping a bit closer. He pushes me on the floor, his hands around my neck. As I choke Johanna and Leo try to get him off me, shouting for Henry and Finn to go. Leo and Johanna have to pry his hands away, just in time. I'd have gone unconscious (again) if they hadn't got him off that second. Haymitch, Leo and Johanna pull him into the room downstairs and I take a hairband from around my wrist and pull it into a low, messy bun, frantically searching the box for Peeta's medication. I rub my throat, still gasping.
"Aunt Katniss?" Henry and Finnick both ask.
"What the hell was that?" Henry asks. He starts pacing. "Everybody is killing people, Uncle Peeta is crazy, my mom just chopped off someone's head! What is going on?!"
"Henry, your mom will talk to you. You need to go with the other kids, now," I tell him firmly, my voice hoarse. He reluctantly goes out the door and I'm left alone with Finn.
I turn back to the box and I finally find the bottle, most of the other contents on the floor. Finn takes the bottle from me, examining the title.
"'Hijacking Medication'?" he asks before reading the fine print. "'Use only for patients who have experienced hijacking. Take two tablets to stop the patient from attacking. Caution: Overdose has unknown effect.'?"
I snatch the bottle and run down the hall, followed by Finnick. I'm too exhausted to shoo him out the door.
"I found it!" I say, popping the bottle open and opening the door. I find Peeta still thrashing on the bed, his restraints holding him down. I try to force him the tablets but smashes his head into mine. I clumsily reach for the phone near the bed and dial Delly's number, leaving the room.
"Hello?" I hear her voice on the other end.
"Delly?" I ask in a haste, my head throbbing. "Delly, it's Peeta. He's had an attack, I need you to talk to him."
"Again?! I thought he was over this," she says. "I'll talk to him, put me on the TV."
"Alright. Just a sec," I tell her, hanging up and flying back into the room where Peeta is now calm but his blood is boiling. He screams for my death as I fumble with the remote to get Delly on the TV. When she's on, we all leave, telling Delly to call us when he's calmed down. Before I leave I take a look at Delly's worried face and Peeta's raging expression. Johanna pushes me out the door, her arm around me as we all walk back to the house. When I walk through the door my head is still throbbing and my throat aches.
"Mom!" Willow shouts, rushing over to us, her expression far past worried.
"What was that?" Rowan whispers as he walks over to us. I look for Annie and I find her sitting in a chair, staring at nothing.
"I'm, I'm fine, guys," I tell them before walking over to Annie. "Annie? Are you okay?"
She doesn't respond, but I think it has a lot to do with Finnick. She probably isn't used to talking to Finn about him.
"She's been like this since we left," Finnick tells me, worried about his mother's state.
"It's okay. This used to happen everyday. I don't exactly know how to bring her out of it, she only used to respond to..."
"My dad?" he whispers.
"Your dad. You know, I still remember their wedding, it was probably the best day of the year for me."
"What happened to him?" he asks, sitting down with me on the couch. Johanna and Leo are sitting down as well. All the kids lean in to hear my answer.
A silent tear rolls down my cheek, but I quickly wipe it away and rub my throat again.
"I don't think it's my place to answer that question. It's not anyone's but Annie's place to tell you that. I'm sure it'll come up when we explain everything tomorrow."
He looks down, "I don't think she wants to tell me," he says, taking his mothers hand from her ears, making her blink rapidly and turn to him.
She still doesn't speak.
"I will tell you one thing," I say to him him. "Your father died so that your mother could live, and so that Peeta and I could live. He died so that you could live, even if he didn't know about you."
"I just wish I new what happened."
I see Johanna take Annie's other hand.
"Hey, Annie. We all need you right now."
Annie's silent for another moment.
"I shouldn't have let him." she says, looking Finn in the eye, then setting her sights on me.
"It's not your fault, Annie."
She stands up and grabs a little bottle of pills from her pocket. She gets a glass of water, popping in the pill, gulping and throwing her head back.
"He wouldn't have gone if I told him to stay."
"Gone where?" Finn asks.
"To his death," Annie answers sadly.
"Why won't anyone tell me about him? What did he do after he won the games?"
I gulp.
Finn would never guess what his father was forced to do after he won.
"Can I tell him, Annie?" I ask her gently. "What happened after his games?"
"Finn doesn't know that?" Johanna asks Annie.
"No," she says calmly. "He hardly knows anything."
I look at Rowan and Willow and imagine what would have happened if Peeta and I never grew back together. In fact, I remember Finnick telling Peeta to asks questions, then Jackson coming up with 'Real or Not Real'. If it weren't for Finnick, would Peeta have ever asked me about things he was confused about? And if he was still confused, would he be here today? Or would he have taken matters into his own hands and ended the never ending wondering?
"Yes, Katniss," Annie shakes me from my brief thoughts. "You can tell him."
Everybody sits down as I take a breath to begin telling Finn something he's wondered all his life.
"Um, Finnick was a very...handsome young boy," I start by saying the obvious, hoping to gently tell Finn who his father was forced to be. I hear Johanna lightly chuckle.
"Handsome?" She asks. "Come on, he was, like, the sexiest man alive."
Everybody laughs and I'm glad Johanna's here to lighten the mood.
"Anyway," I continue carefully, trying to make sure all my words are put together nicely. "A lot of people in the Capitol thought he was good-looking, too. So, uh...when he was a little older he would go on trips to see people in the Capitol."
I look at Annie and see her hands over her ears and her eyes squeezed tightly shut. Finn is staring at me, waiting for me to get on with the story. All the kids look curious, but none resemble Finn's face.
"People enjoyed his company...a lot, actually," I clear my throat. "They even paid him for his company...and other things."
"So, what? Was my dad, like, some sort of prostitute?"
Johanna and Leo both look down.
"Yeah, Finn. Something like that."
"What the hell is going on?!" he stands up, he looks slightly angry. "Why? Did he have a pimp or something? Mom," he turns toward Annie, who's still covering her ears. "Mom! Did you know when this was going on? Did you let him just go off to the Capitol to sleep with women?!"
"Finn," Johanna gets up and tries to calm him down. "His 'pimp' was the president, President Snow."
"You mean the president forced him to...and people paid?" Finn asks. I can't imagine finding out that your father was some sort of male prostitute.
"They didn't exactly pay him money," I tell him. Will that make him feel better?
"Then what did they pay him?"
"Secrets," I say. "All kinds of secrets."
"Why didn't he just refuse?" Finn asks. "I mean, Dad was strong, he could've taken on the presidents guards, right?"
"It wasn't like that, Finn," Johanna says. After that everyone is quiet for a moment until the phone rings.
Delly.
I stand to get the phone, but Rowan is already picking up the phone.
"Who is it?" he asks.
"That doesn't concern you, Rowan, now give me the phone."
"No," he says firmly, accepting the call and putting it on speaker.
"Katniss? He's fine, I got him to take his meds and he just needs you to play that game with him."
"Um, okay," I say. "I'll be right over, you can go. This time wasn't that bad."
"Okay. I just asked him the usual questions. Talked to him about his parents, he tells me he's going to get a new leg soon. Do the kids kno-"
I snatch the phone from where Rowan was holding it and hold it to my ear, shutting off speaker, "No. They don't, and I've gotta go, so I'll tell to Peeta call you later, okay?"
"Okay, bye."
They all look at me, Johanna and Leo included.
"How did you guys not tell them?" Johanna asks.
"We didn't feel that it was relevant. Besides, it's not like you told Henry everything, either."
"If Leo was missing a leg, we'd tell him.
"I don't care if he's missing a leg," Henry mutters, causing Leo to slightly frown.
"Henry," Johanna scolds. "Katniss, you two need to move on. Everything you do is to keep them safe from knowing about what happened to you guys. But you have to remember it happened to seventy-three people before you were even reaped."
I don't answer her right away, but when I do you can hear the fire in my voice. I look at Haymitch and the kids and Annie. Everyone is sad, everyone here, in this house has seen someone be murdered. I finally answer, "What happened to Peeta and me," I stare straight at her. "Hasn't happened to anyone else. And we're trying to make sure it doesn't happen to anybody else. Ever."
"What exactly happened that was so terrible, Mom?" Willow asks. For some reason, she sounds angry. I ignore her and turn to leave.
"If I'm not back in ten minutes, call an ambulence."
I run to the house and down the hall to where Peeta calmly waits for me to play Real or Not Real.
"Hey," he smiles, which means his attack wasn't that bad. The tracker jackers must have just brought back too many shiny memories that the venom was able to take over again.
"Hey," I smile back. "Should we start?"
"Yeah," he says. "We have two kids?"
"Real. Willow is seventeen and Rowan is fifteen."
He sits for a moment, silent.
"Is that it?" I ask quietly.
"Yeah, I should be fine. The tracker jackers just kind of...Anyway, Delly was able to clear most of the stuff up. I just had that one question for you."
I start to untie him, taking off the buckles one by one.
"They're all kind of scared," I say. "The kids, I mean. They've never seen you hurt a fly."
"I know," he starts to stand up. "I think my legs are kind of tired, wanna grab my cane?"
I get it from the closet and we both start walking back.
"They know about your leg," his head whips in my direction. "Delly said something on the phone and Rowan put it on speaker, she thought she was talking to me."
"Well, they were going to find out in an hour or so, anyway."
The door is opened before we can reach for the door knob.
"Mom? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, honey, I just went to get your dad."
We walk in and we all sit there.
"What the hell was that?" Finn asks.
So, I worked really hard to get this ready for you guys and I hope you like it! 62 reviews?!
I love you guys so much! Especially those of you who give me feedback on every chapter, you're amazing!
Can we shoot for 70 reviews?
If we can get to 100 by chapter 15 I'll start posting daily for a week! So review, review, review! Btw, you may have to remind about this deal as we near 100!
Also, would anyone be interested in making a new story photo/cover, thing? I'll give you a sneak peak of the next chappie!
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