PLEASE READ: I know for a fact that a lot of people subscribed to this story, but now no one is giving me praise, OR flame. I'm actually kind of sad that not as many people are reviewing as they are subscribing. Those of you who DID review, I am eternally grateful. Please read the bottom for further instruction of those who reviewed.
Here we go with chapter 10 (never thought I'd get this far!)
Prim gasped. I didn't faint like most of the people who know me would think I would do. I did feel the hall walls spin with speedy intensity. My eyes bugged out of my skull as Prim asked HOW COULD THIS BE! Well, she didn't yell it like that, but I was. In my head, I was screaming like a banshee from hell over the fact that Bandy at failed to mention this crucial piece of information to me. Why? I can't imagine why he wouldn't want to tell me. That is when I knew I could possibly never love him.
No, it wasn't about Snow (demon-man) being his father; it was more about him two-facing me on this whole up-and-coming war. He should've told me about his second life! That brought a fresh thought to me, why was he telling Prim and not me, his supposed love?
I was spitting lava I was so angry. No one even tried to produce a conversation with me as I grabbed lunch and sat by myself near the entrance. I planned my day: Talk to Haymitch, talk to Gale, eat dinner, talk to Madge, talk to Prim, workout with Peeta, and then I will talk to Bandy. I considered just skipping it all and heading to bed. I finished lunch in silence, not bothering to wonder where Peeta was.
As I was leaving, Prim entered with Bandy and I daren't even look in their general direction. As I stormed out the double doors, I heard Bandy call my name. I sharply turned on the threshold and glared so hard with my red face that the whole cafeteria was a bunch of gaping fish. Then in a deadly hiss I told him to go stick his lunch up his… well you get the picture.
I left in a whirl of fury only to bump into the one person who I was off to search for, Haymitch. He didn't say anything, just took a look at my face and motioned for me to follow him. I did and we ended up on the other side of the not particularly big building. He accessed a room with a key code for a lock on the door. The door slid open to reveal an old-fashioned dean's office: mahogany desk, leather chair, bookshelf, and papers scattered everywhere. Haymitch went over and leaned on the front of the desk facing me.
"Well, sweetheart, what is all the trouble I know you're causing?" Haymitch asked with a bored expression.
I felt all the pent-up rage and tears come spewing forth. I felt my face grow hot with tears trickling down my cheeks. All I could gasp out was, "They-- he-- why does he-- she knows-- he does-- why?"
Haymitch chuckled from my apparent confusion. He knows. I knew it from his face, that smugness he exudes showed it. He was unprepared for what I said next.
"You KNEW! Why in god's name has no one TOLD me! I'm Katniss, THE FREAKIN' face of this REVOLUTION! I should know every secret-- let it be about we're out of cheese, no more toilet paper, or if it be that we have Bandy, PRESIDENT SNOW'S SON!!!!!" My outburst sent Haymitch scrambling.
"Now listen, sweetheart. We didn't really have a choice in telling you- ," Haymitch started.
I cut him off, "You didn't have a CHOICE!" My voice went deadly silent, "You had as much a choice as I had a choice to have the will to live or die in the Games. I want the truth!"
"It goes against regulation. I can't tell you anything," Haymitch mumbled as he saw my rage flourished.
"AGAINST REGULATION! LYING SON OF A-," The door slammed open as I finished off the rest of the sentence.
A frazzled Prim, Bandy, Gale, Finnick, Peeta, Madge, and a few others barged in. Prim and Madge gasped at my language as I rambled off a few other choice words. Bandy smiled, Gale frowned, and Peeta lumbered forward to grab my shoulders. I pushed him away, but his growing strength prevailed and he stood firm. I still struggled as other hands forced me back.
"YOU LIE! TELL ME HAYNITCH! TELL ME THE TRUTH!" I screamed with such intensity that several people covered their ears in pain.
"Stop this, Katniss," Prim said as she came to put a hand on my shoulder.
I saw Prim clearly as my sister as she came forth. As soon as she put her hand on my shoulder, though, the world shifted. The lights dimmed to night, the ceiling spun into the starry sky, everyone disappeared, and I was sitting on the golden cornucopia watching Cato choke Peeta. Cato's hand was closing over my shoulder and I did one thing on instinct: I lashed out. I punched him clear in the nose without hesitation. I watched the blood spurt out between his fingers as he closed his hand gently over his nose. Peeta flipped Cato behind him… protecting him?
The world shifted and I was back in real time. Haymitch had my shoulders in his vice-like grip. I was staring at all the people who had come to inspect when I was yelling at Haymitch. They were all staring back with a seriousness that scared me. I heard Prim crying, and I glanced down. Peeta had knelt next to Prim, who was laying on her back with blood draining from her body and out her nose.
I understood what had just happened: I had a memory lapse and had thought Prim was Cato. Peeta was actually there, but 'Cato' wasn't choking him. I looked up. Gale was staring sort of horrorstruck; he knows I'd never hurt Prim, and doing so out of indignant anger made him believe I couldn't control myself. Bandy looked at me in a startled way that made me feel uneasy.
I look upon Prim's weeping, bloody form, and then Peeta's steady gaze on me. He was the only one who would know what was happening to me. Maybe he didn't know exactly what was happening right now, but he would later when I explained my remembrance. Peeta would save me. He had to.
I guess I had finished the first thing on my list, and could cross it off: talk to Haymitch. Now I had to go find Gale. I was about to leave my room, when I heard a knock by none other than Gale himself. I ushered him in with a dazed expression. After they had escorted Prim to the medical room, everyone else left except Haymitch who led me to my room. I hadn't said anything then and didn't feel like it now with my hazy mind. I can't believe I hit her, I thought.
I accidently said that thought out loud. Gale heard me as he sat down on my bed. He gestured for me to sit beside him. I did with a sigh… and a wary outlook because I didn't need Gale jumping me with a kiss like he had last time he was in my room. Gale appeared far more interested in Prim at the moment, though.
"So, what happened?" Gale started the conversation.
I hesitated with a lie on my tongue, and then thought better than to lie to him about Prim. I began again, "I thought I was in the Games."
He absorbed it before answering, "You were having a memory? Why did you hit Prim?"
"I imagined it was Cato, of course," I said. He looked confused, and I remembered he wasn't there to experience the pain and fear Cato caused to make me remember him every day.
"He was the one who tried to kill Peeta at the end," I explained.
"Oh, the big guy. Yeah, yeah, I remember," Gale said.
I was surprised Gale said it with such lack of emotion. Yeah, the big guy Peeta and I were harmed, frightened, and nearly killed by. By the way, I did kill Cato and wonder every day if it was the right choice, and if instead I had just committed suicide and had it over with would've been easier. I knew then that Gale wouldn't understand what I was going to say because he wasn't there to take it all in first hand. He wouldn't understand that me going though all that hell, might have been a waste if we don't win this war.
Haymitch, Finnick, Bandy, Gale, and all these other high ranking men may think I won't understand anything about the war so then they don't tell me, but they are dead wrong. I have seen death, killed myself, saved lives, given up home, given up my old life, given up my freedom just so the Districts would stay at peace with the Capitol… no matter how crappy that peace was. But, no one would leave it at that: a girl planned to die with her beloved. Or at that: a girl just wanted to marry her beloved without interference.
No, the Capitol, more or less President Snow, had to intervene with the rest of everyone's future by screwing up my suicide and my wedding, just so they can have their precious Games. Well, screw the Capitol for ruining my life, and screw everyone else for how they had to go ahead and have a rebellion now when I could've been just fine with Peeta and my family living in a big house in Victor's Village. As long as my family and friends were safe, I was cool with whatever the Capitol had to do or say about the Games.
Before the Games I wouldn't have been cool with it, just as Gale is now. But, here in the present, after going through the Games and living, I would choose my families safety and more killing Games over this peace-making war.
"Katniss, Cato isn't here," Gale whispered to me.
I looked at his slightly frightened face and asked, "What?"
"You were muttering Cato over and over again. I think you should talk to someone about this."
His look clearly stated he wasn't the one he wanted me to talk to. He was scared now and running away like a skittish kitten. Gale was afraid of me because I was unstable. He knew I was permanently changed from the Games. Gale has had too many unstable people in his life to be able to have or want anymore.
"I think that this is over."
Gale is confused, "What?"
"I know you can't handle me and my… baggage. I have seen things that you can't imagine and done things that could change the most bloodthirsty killer into a peace loving monk. I want you to know that I want you to have a full life. I want you to have a full life with someone who can actually love you without a limit, which I can't."
"You don't love me," it is a statement, and Gale looks accepting of my decision.
"I love you as everything but a boyfriend or a—a husband—or—you know what I mean!"
He laughs at my stutter and leans forward, "I think it goes for me, too. I might have loved you once, but now you are a changed woman... Can I still have one last kiss?"
I nod with a smile. Gale leans nearer, taking my hands in his callous ones. Our lips meet in one thrilled reunion. His hands brush through my hair, down my cheeks, over my sides, rubs back up by back and into my hair once more. I keep my hands steady on his face or neck as our mouths open for the big finale. My face was hot with emotion, as was my body, but I felt all the love Gale and I could've had in that one kiss. If he had stepped up all those years ago, if he had just taken me in his arms for one moment back home, maybe after the first Games we could've been if he tried to voice his thoughts of me more. I couldn't look back in the past now, though.
Our kiss, our more-than-sibling-love, was coming to a close; but a new chapter was opening up before my eyes. I couldn't resist the new life pathway any longer. Gale let the kiss linger, and then leaning back on his hands he gave a smile that told me 'it is all going to be okay'. I wanted so badly to believe that.
"I'll see you at breakfast tomorrow. Don't invite anyone over; I want to talk to you about our plans. I think Haymitch is wrong about not telling you what is going on," Gale said becoming more serious.
"Why don't you tell me now?" I questioned.
"I think you have more pressing matters to attend to," Gale whispers, opening the door wider I see what he was indicating.
I just saw Prim rounding the bend, a towel still pressed firmly to her face. I sigh through my nose and stand up. Gale closed the door behind me and I catch one last glance at the clock. It is dinner time. Gale headed off in the other direction saying something about an urgent meeting. I followed Prim, thinking she was going to the cafeteria. She veered off down another hallway, the one leading to her room.
Prim let herself in and I started after her trying to reach her before the door closed. She hadn't seen me, or at least I thought she hadn't, until the door was slammed behind her… and right in my face. I rested my forehead against the knob as I shift on to my knees. I huffed, exasperated with my acting out. I should've known I was just dreaming it all up with Cato and Peeta.
Then I hear sniffling behind the door. Prim let out a low sob, muffled by her hand, a pillow? I didn't know what she was crying in to; just that she was crying about what I had done was enough for me to lose it. I scamper backwards, stand up, compose myself with a deep breath, and walked myself into the cafeteria with faked dignity.
The urgent meeting Gale talked about must've been important enough to clear the place. I didn't have to wait in line or search for a seat, no one was there. Madge found her way over to my table after a few minutes. This was our time together: silence. Madge and I never really spoke about our life because it wasn't all that interesting. Usually, our lives would've revolved around our families: Madge's drunken mother and nice but greedy father, and my family consisting of a rejuvenating mother and younger sister. It would be untraditional to speak of them now, is how I thought of it.
Besides, we never spoke with words but with actions. She spoke with her actions at dinner by placing her slender fingers over my hand and just consoling me with her kind eyes. I never cried in front of anyone face to face on my own account except for my family, Gale (once or twice over my father), and that's all. Looking into Madge's crystal blue eyes reminded me off the purities of life. I wanted to be young and carefree with my bow in the woods with my father showing me the ropes of hunting. I needed my daddy, but he wasn't there to hug me until the bear ran away, or until the hawk flew off like in the olden days we had together. Madge was here, though, and that was good enough for now.
I let tears that had been upbraided from before slip past my eyelids, past my cheeks, and down until they dripped onto our intertwined hands. Madge leaned forward as I fell into her shoulder. I didn't sob or whimper, but I cried with a never stopping force. Everyone that had been in the cafeteria before, were now long gone, and I felt safe with Madge stroking my hair. Her own golden locks were soft as they fell across my face, swiping at my tears. She stayed there hugging me until I stopped my tear shed and felt well enough to get up on my own.
Madge may not have been there to fight off the woods, the jungle, the ocean, or a bunch of killer hungry kids with me, but she still understood me. She didn't understand my pain but rather understood my essence. Madge got my soul through and through because we were one in the same. She left after I had pleaded for her to get some rest.
I now had the biggest part on my list to complete: talk to Prim. I stepped out of the double doors with my apology at arm. I wouldn't tell her about what it was like in the Games, because I couldn't live knowing I caused her more nightmares than she probably already has. I already arrived at her door. My apology slinked away, and so did my headstrong-self as she opened the door after my feeble knock.
Her baby-face was tearstained like mine still was.
Welp, how was it? I got this out faster than my last chappy. I know it is slower than… a slow thing, but it wraps up a few things before I get into the action. The next chapter will start out slowly, but speed up when we get to Bandy –insert goo-goo eyes—I love that man!
Reviewers: Bookie, Pita-BreaD-RoCkS, Nicole, and Georgia (there were 3 Georgia's names on the reviews for chapter 9, so if there's 3 of you so be it, otherwise 'hi one person that reviews a lot!').
You reviewers get to do something special: I'm soon going to do a drabble story for the Hunger Games and I want ideas. Give me your ideas in a private message or your next review. I'll write your ideas with the exception of me changing the rating of it. But for now you can just give me K to M ratings if you want!
That is all, my little duckies! REVIEW (even if it is crap) or else I won't post the next chapter… ever.
P.L. signing off