"Peeta. This is your home. None of your family has been heard of since the bombing. Twelve is gone. And you're calling for a ceasefire? There's no one left to hear you." The hollowness in my chest intensifies and I roll over on the bed, clamping the pillow down over my head and hunching my body over itself. Shut up Katniss, please. Don't… make me think about this. It's not my choice! I don't even know what I'm saying half the time, it's like I'm Snow's puppet, doing as he likes at even the slightest twitch of the strings. Please, just… don't.
I rock back and forth, the duvet lying wrinkled on the floor. Tears stain the mattress and though I beg myself to stop crying, to hold myself together, they keep on coming. I bite down on my tongue as the sobs come, thick and heavy and pathetic. Calmness takes over as I sniff and open my eyes, taking in the cool darkness.
The door is pushed open gently and a female Peacekeeper steps in- the only one I've ever seen. She removes her helmet and her long blonde hair falls in waves over her shoulders, gently unfurling itself from where it was wrapped up on top of her head. "Come on, you're wanted for another broadcast." Her voice is sweet but gruff, like it was once girly but she's trained it to be tough. "Looks like you're having a better time than the other prisoners, I can say that much. I'm Eva, I'll be your… personal guard, from this moment on. First few months on the job, surprised they trust me with something as big as this, but there we are."
"You don't question what they're doing, you don't… object to this?" I extend my arms, motioning to the maze of underground tunnels. As we walk, I realise that this is the first time I do so without having to be dragged, without being cuffed.
She turns to face me, a carefully shaped eyebrow raised. "It's acceptable. It's better than what they had in the old days, before the fights and all that what broke out across the land. Back then it were two to a room, a toilet in the corner and a tiny barred window in the wall. And then even before then, you was hung from these chains in the wall, danglin' in mid-air by yer wrists or yer ankles, dependin' on your crime. Here, you got heating, a TV and a desk, the freedom to draw and entertain yerself.
"And it's not a bad life compared to the other two. I mean that one… Enobaria? She's living the cushy life, even better off than you I'd wager. Room like our headquarters, possibly even better. But that other one, the girl. Johanna, is it? You ought to see her. You know that tiled room you had? It's like that in there, but without the toilet. Poor girl…"
Her accent shines through as she talks, the controlled manner she displayed in my room vanishing and then coming back depending on her mood. I've decided that it's passion, knowledge, that makes her natural voice shine through the practiced Capitol accent. I wonder where she's from.
We step out of the lift and she opens the door to the prep room. "I'll be here later to escort you back down. Security reasons, and all that." Two senior officials march down the corridor, talking quietly and hurriedly- but in their haste not quietly enough.
"Missiles, yes. Almost all of the districts are rallying against us."
"But they'll kill hundreds of people… perhaps everyone in Thirteen- including the girl."
"I think that's what Snow wants if I'm honest with you, Jenkins."
"When for, immediately?"
"No, Snow said to wait. The middle of the night- the element of surprise. Even if we don't kill everyone, the facilities will be severely damaged."
My stomach flips as I step into the prep room, pretending not to have heard. Perspiration drips down my face as the prep team grab my arms and I let them bustle me about. My body adheres to their command as they scrub away at my skin, polishing my artificial leg again. But for all their scrubbing the scars still remain, my hands still stained with the fiery watercolours.
They rub makeup into my skin and fix it with powder, but as I catch sight of myself in the mirror I realise just how terrible I look. My skin is pale, even with the makeup over it. My eyes sit in hollows in my head, surrounded by the dark circles of many sleepless nights.
I'm drawn away from the mirror and guided back up the corridor by armed Peacekeepers. We enter the lift and emerge in lush surroundings. My feet sink into the deep-pile carpet as I tread forward, walking carefully towards the President, who sits at his large mahogany desk in the centre of the room. I chuckle, remembering Effie's reaction on the train when Katniss attacked Haymitch with her knife.
Katniss.
Thirteen.
Missiles.
"Ah! Mr Mellark!" A broad smile snakes across his lips, his mouth opening in a cold grin. "Now, you are to just explain the outlines of a few things, there'll be a map, just talk about the state in the districts. You've seen the Capitol reports and the propos that Thirteen have been airing in the districts- just talk about what you've seen!" He speaks warmly, shaking my hand and then resting his hand on my back as he guides me onto a stage at one end of the huge room. "You're a natural with words, as I recall your interviews with Caesar before the games and since you've been here have been just... swell. I'm sure you'll do just fine today, too."
On the stage stands a podium, a camera sits expectantly on the stone tiles before it whilst a techno-buff I know fromt he studio adjusts a projector on the ceiling to show a map of Panem on the plain white screen behind. A second man hauls a chair over from one side and puts it beside the map. "You will sit there," Snow points to the chair, slightly elevated with a metal rung to rest my feet on, "And I will stand here. I will introduce the programme, talk about the state of things, and you will use the map to back up what I say. All okay?"
His eyebrows arch comically as he studies my nervous face, the sheer agony of the bruises upon bruises on my ribs and stomach making me wince with every breath. I nod and step onto the stage to examine the map, reminding myself of the location of each of the districts. It's difficult to believe that this is one of the only occupiable nations on the entire planet, the lone area worth living in. I place my hand over district Twelve and the projected image shines onto my skin, so that the entire district is mapped out on the back of my hand. My home, so far away from the Capitol. The Capitol, so far away from Katniss in Thirteen.