A/N: Sorry for the wait guys! Here's chapter ten! :D

Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games!

Chapter Ten

The last time Peeta had seen Auntie Mya, she had been on the television, on the news, dressed in orange with her hands cuffed together. His mother had been a part of the same news story as well. She had no remorse towards what she had done, she even told the reporters so. When Mya was asked if she regretted her occupation, the woman replied with a bone chilling response:

"I don't regret anything. Every body I sold, every life I spent, it all was worth the money I was given. And I would do it again if given the oppurtunity."

These were her last words.

"Cato! Cato, stop it!" Enobaria was yelling this over and over again while Brutus held the career back. Mya stayed where she was at the back of the room, her face a mask of complete amusement. Clove had Peeta held back at the oppisote side of Mya, snapping her fingers in front of his eyes and making sure he didn't pass out. Peeta was almost completely sure that Cato was going to kill Mya. Maybe rip her apart with his bare hands.

"Why is she here?!" Cato yelled at his mentors.

"She's an avox!" Enobaria snapped. "Every floor has one!"

"Why her?!"

Peeta was beginning to hyperventilate in a panic. Clove started shaking his shoulders, yelling at him to hold himself together. He couldn't though. He glanced past her and found Mya staring him right in the eye. Could you really blame him for starting to scream? Everything was coming back to him, everything that woman done to him. It was too much seeing her standing across from him, only a couple of strides away.

"Oh my god shut your boyfriend up Hadley!" Brutus roared.

Cato truned around and saw the state Peeta was in. Clove jumped out of the way as he made his way over to the boy and cupped his cheeks. As soon as his hands came in contact with his face, the baker stopped screaming and stared wide-eyed at the career. "Peeta?" he whispered. "Peeta, are you okay?"

"It's Mya, Cato, how can I be alright?" he croaked.

"She is not allowed near him!" Cato said, pointing threateningly at Mya. The woman was smiling, enjoying the drama. "If she goes anywhere near him I'm going to snap her neck, alright?!"

"She won't go anywhere near him, we'll make sure of it," Clove said. Herself, Enobaria, and Brutus had no idea why the avox terrified Peeta so much but decided it was best not to question it. As they parted ways, Clove grabbed Auntie Mya's arm and dragged her out of the room. Never once did the woman's eyes leave Peeta and never once did the smile leave her face.

Peeta himself was going through a couple crisis. He suddenly felt faint, his eyes rolling behind his head, and his body going completely limp so that he slid down the wall. Cato caught him before he hit the floor and hauled him back up. "Peeta, you're okay, she's not here any more."

"She's still on the floor though!" exclaimed Peeta, turning around and frantically jabbing at the elevator buttons. "She'll kill me, she will. She never got caught selling people until my father made a report! She's gonna kill me in my sleep!"

"Peeta," Cato said. The baker ignored him, continueing to stab the buttons on the wall in a panic. "Peeta." With a cry of frustration, he whacked the elevator doors, wanting to know why they wouldn't open. "Peeta, listen to me!"

"Auntie Mya's come back for me!" Peeta yelled, turning around and shaking Cato by the shoulders. "She's come back to kill me!" Heart broken from seeing the boy so afraid, the career sighed and pulled him into a hug. "Oh god Cato, why is she here?"

"I don't know," Cato replied, pressing a gentle kiss to the top of Peeta's head and softly stroking his hair. "She can't hurt you, she's just a server now. She can't even speak anymore, what harm can she really do? Plus, I'm going to be right here with you, okay? I won't leave your side when we're up here. If she gets too close I'll snap her in two, how does that sound?"

"Good," Peeta mumbled.

"Good. Now come on, we could all do with some rest."

The District 2 floor's room was an acceptionally large room with three blue painted walls, the entire fourth being taken up by a window. Peeta found his feet taking him there first, stopping only when his face was inches away from the glass. Past his own ghostly reflection, the floor overlooking the streets of the Capitol. By now it was dark, the sky pitch black and stars were glittering in the sky. The only things keeping the city alight was the flaring balls of lumionous light bursting from the streetlights and artifical bulbs inside the numerous buildings that lines the streets.

Citizens dressed up in their crazy, eccentric outfits strutted around chatting, laughing, singing and joking. They looked so at ease, so happy, Peeta wondered what it must be like to live like them. Without the fear of death or starvation. To have everything they need at the flick of a switch or the press of a button. How could they live their lives so easily with the knowledge that there were people out there in their own country dying every day from the lack of food and shelter when they had all . . . this?

"It's captivating and disgusting at the same time," he said quietly.

Cato sat down on the bed that was pushed up against the closest wall and sighed. "I know," he said. "Even just looking at it makes you question everything."

Peeta turned from the window and looked at Cato. He'd taken his gladiator headdress off, so his hair was scruffed up and slightly messy. Peeta felt an urge to smooth it down for him. Of course, he didn't. His non-existant courage wasn't strong enough for something like that. Noticing him looking, the career flashed him a bright smile. Peeta felt warm inside and blushed, ducking his head and scratching his neck.

"You have no idea how cute you are," Cato chuckled.

This did nothing to decrease the blush.

"Oh look, they've provided clothes," said Peeta, trying to difuse his pink tinted cheeks quickly before he turned into a tomato. He pulled open a drawer at the top of the giant chest that resided against by the door. "At least it's not some of the crazy stuff that they wear." He pawed through the various fabrics inside the drawer, looking for something to put on for bed. There was still a part of him that was hyper-aware of the fact that Mya was still on the floor but there was also a part of him that was trying to silence it. It had been a year, the woman couldn't touch him, there was no reason to be frightened.

Cato appeared by his side, also scrutinzing the clothing provided. "Is there anything here that isn't silk?" he asked.

"I hope so," Peeta replied. "I don't wear silk."

The career laughed. "Neither do I." He reached in and pulled something out. A white t-shirt made out of cotton. "Here, you wear that."

"What about you?" Peeta took the shirt hesitantly, the fabric balled up in his hands.

"There's bound to be something else in here," replied Cato, opening up another drawer and hoking through it. "You go on and get ready, I'll keep looking." Peeta nodded and went into the ensuite bathroom. He pushed the door closed, not noticing when it didn't shut properly. He started at his reflection, wondering what is was about himself that had attracted Cato's attention. What it was that made the career want to chose him as his partner. This also led him on to wonder what made President Snow think that people would be interested in him as well. There was nothing he could see but a pale, boring baker's boy.

Cato glanced over his shoulder momentarily to check if Peeta was alright. He'd left the door to the bathroom lying half open, a shaft of light pouring out from inside. Peeta stood by the sink, looking at himself curiously in the mirror. His head was tilted to one side, his sapphire eyes wide, the angle at which his head was in causing his hair to brush his shoulders. Cato tried to decipher the look the boy was giving himself in the mirror but couldn't quite do so.

He wondered what President Snow had wanted with him. What could the president possibly need from the boy? There was nothing Peeta could give him, right? And then there was this Mya woman to contend with. It was too much of a concidence for the woman who tried to sell Peeta off just last year being their avox. Cato was open to concidences, small ones. Not one of this porportion. Something else was at work here.

Peeta unbuttoned his shirt to change into the white sleep shirt and Cato tried to force his eyes away somewhere else. He wasn't a pervert, he had no reason to be, but there was something about the baker from 12 that brought out the worst in him. Not the worst in the angry, violent sense-his alter-egoed mood drop that would occur every so often because of his bi-polar. No, this was his more needy and sexual side that craved to have the boy in the bathroom in a deeper, more intense way.

Unable to resist, he stole glances out of the corner of his eye as he pretended to still be searching for a sleep shirt. Peeta wasn't heavily muscled like most of the boys he'd dated in District 2, but was lean and stocky which had always been the type of body structure that made Cato salivate with want. Because it was the type of body he could easily overpower and force into submission. Of course, this was something he had to be careful with. He wanted Peeta to trust him, not believe he was some physcho who just wanted to crush him in bed.

When the baker emerged from the bathroom, he had also taken off his jeans so he was standing uncertainly by the door in baby blue boxers. He was holding his weight laboriously against the cane but showed no discomfort from it on his face. Cato tried not to stare at his state of undress for too long as to not make the boy uncomfortable but it was very difficult not to let his eyes wander.

"Did you find anything?" asked Peeta.

Confused, Cato frowned. "What?"

"To sleep in? Did you find anything to sleep in?"

"Oh . . . Oh! Yeah, right, of course. Uh . . . not yet." He dove back into his rummaging, finally finding a black shirt that could serve as a sleep shirt. Not shy in the slightest, he stood up and started fiddling with the clasps on the gladiator clothes Watt and Jena had put Clove and himself in. When he finally got the heavy armour off, he cracked his neck and quickly discarded his shirt.

Peeta, who had been sitting on the bed fiddling with Cato's headdress, found his eyes widening in surprise when the career took his shirt off without abandon. His first instinct was to slap his hand over his eyes, which he did. But he found himself parting his fingers out of curiousity to peer at him as he put the black shirt on. Cato laughed when he saw the boy's reaction to his changing.

"I don't look that bad that you have to cover your eyes do I?" he asked.

"Consider it a form of privacy," Peeta replied shyly.

"Is that why I can see your eyes through the spaces between your fingers?" Cato asked.

Horrified at being caught, Peeta snapped his fingers shut again and held them together tightly. Cato chuckled and kissed the top of Peeta's head. The younger blond refused to move his hands away from his eyes, not wanting to face him after being caught staring like a peeping tom. "You're not even going to look at me now?" Cato asked with amusement.

"No," mumbled Peeta.

Unable to resist, Cato sat down beside him and turned his head towards him. Still not removing his hand, Peeta didn't see when Cato leaned forward and wasn't prepared for it. He kissed him softly at first, as if to just taste the boy's lips, before getting addicted and needing more. When he descended again, he was hungry and demanding, wanting to kiss him breathless. Peeta gasped in shock, his mouth parting in surprise. His gasp dissolved into a moan when Cato gently nipped his bottom lip and the hand that had been covering his eyes moved and pushed back into the career's hair.

Cato smiled at his eagerness, guiding him back to sit against the headboard of the bed. Peeta whimpered at the loss of his lips against his when Cato pulled back, only to hit his head off the back of the headboard when the older blond's mouth descended to his neck. A moan pushed past his swollen lips as he sucked on the soft skin under his jaw.

"Cato," he said in a hushed whisper, his eyes squeezing shut as he tried to handle the pleasure the career was bestowing upon him. It was beginning to get a bit too intense for him to digest right that moment.

"Hmm?"

"I'm tired, can we go to sleep?"

When Cato sat up with a curious frown on his face, he saw that Peeta wasn't telling him to stop out of the fact that he wasn't enjoying himself. That much was obvious from the boy's flushed cheeks and heavy panting. Maybe everything that had happened tonight with Auntie Mya and such, he just wasn't in the right frame of mind.

"Sure," he said.

Both of them lay down on the bed, Cato's body cocooned around Peeta's, almost as if protecting him. His arms were securely wrapped around the baker's waist, his forehead resting on his shoulder. Once the duvet was covering them, Peeta wiggled around to get comfortable, unaware of how his backside was rubbing against Cato's crotch. The career bit his lip, fighting the moan that was bubbling up in his throat. He controlled his breathing and focused hard on it until the boy settled down.

He had no idea, the effect he could have on people.

~xXx~

The first thing Peeta noticed when he woke up was that his throat was dry as sandpaper. Something hard was pressed against his lower back and he realized with a jolt that it was Cato. He had left him high and dry earlier, not letting the kissing session go any further, even though Cato had expressed his obvious desire to do so. He felt awful.

Slipping out of bed quietly as to not wake up Cato, Peeta padded out of the bedroom in search of the small kitchen compartment he'd barely noticed when he was screaming like a pansy after seeing Mya. He rubbed his eyes tiredly as he walked, trying to call up the memory of which way he had to go to get to the kitchen. The entire floor was dark, the lights on their lowest settings, and the sky outside was still dull black so he mustn't have been asleep too long.

There was a flash of red out of the corner of his eye as he reached a turn in a corridor. Something heavy suddenly bashed into him, knocking him into the wall. Before he could assess what had happened, a hand took a hold of his neck, squeezing painfully and making all air rush out. Peeta gasped in horror as Auntie Mya's face emerged from the darkness. Her pale, porcelin skin still gleamed ominously in the darkness, just like he remembered, her glaring eyes sending a chill down his spine. She hadn't changed at all.

She stood there glaring at him for a considerable amount of minutes. Peeta was struggling to breathe, his hands scrabbling at hers single hand that was preventing him from breathing. Her grip was like iron, never wavering no matter how hard she tightened her fingers around his neck. Finally, she moved. She pulled a marker out of her pocket and uncapped it with her teeth.

Peeta watched her hand as it flew across the whiteboard bolted to the wall. He couldn't breathe, his lungs constricting as he grappled for breath. Her non writing hand was holding onto his neck so tight he started thinking this was his end.

'You haven't changed,' her curly writing hand writing stated. 'That's annoying. I was hoping you'd be ugly or something, maybe scarred for your life. So, what? I lose my tongue and you're still good looking? Bagged a career and all? That's not luck, that's just rude.'

He couldn't respond, his throat was too dry and scratchy from her strangling him.

'Be warned Mellark, I still know Mr. Woods. Mr. Woods still remembers you and still wouldn't mind having you. You watch your step or I might just have to kidnap you in your sleep and get my money from your still awaiting cilent. If you do as I say though, I might just leave you be.' Her mouth curled into a smile. 'Any responses?' She handed him the marker, guiding his hand to rest against the board.

'What do I have to do?' he wrote.

Auntie Mya's grin widened. She wiped the board with her sleeve. 'Snow put me on your floor on purpose. He knew that if I delievered his messages to you then you'd most defintely listen. Before he makes you do anything drastic, he wants you to up the auntie with your relationship with that hunk from 2.'

Peeta glared at her but she continued regardless.

'A great deal of the Capitol's attention is captured by sex. You and your boyfriend need to be more sexual toward each other. Kiss in public, let him grab your ass, whatever, just stop being such a pussy and let him do what it's obvious he wants to do. Never mind what I did to you, you can't dwell on that you coward.' She wiped the board again. 'There's a tribute party tomorrow to let the Capitol audience get to know the people going into the Games. A lot of t.v watchers are going to be there. It's a great oppurtunity to win them over.'

Peeta snatched the marker from her, still gasping for air, and wrote, 'Why do you care about all this?'

Mya smirked, her hand loosening it's hold on him. She wiped the board clean slowly. She took a step forward so her body pressed his flush against the wall. Her breath tickled his face and his heartbeat increased in a panic. 'Because, my dear sweet Peeta,' she wrote, 'it's your fault I can't talk anymore. It's your fault I can't kiss anymore. It's your fault that I am the way I am now. I'm a bitter woman Mellark and I want revenge. Nice to see you still need a cane. Let me see.'

She hooked the marker into the collar of his shirt by the lid and pushed his boxer shorts up his leg to examine the scar. Peeta stiffened in fear at the feeling of her fingernails dancing along his skin. Auntie Mya was always too touchy feely, even when she wasn't trying to be. She traced the lining of the scar with an amused smirk on her face. She grabbed the marker again.

'I'm glad to see you've got a reminder of me,' she scribbled. 'How sweet. Remember what I said Mellark, Tribute party tomorrow. Do something big. Don't let Snow down. He hates to be disappointed.' Then she did something surprising.

She kissed him.

She had no tongue to shove down his throat like she used to do last year when he was kidnapped. Her lips still had the same burning effect on Peeta's mouth though that had him struggling to get away from her. When she pulled back, she let go of his neck and let him slide to the floor. When he looked at her fearfully, she simply winked before strutting away down the hall.

Leaving Peeta on the cold steel floor, completely tramuatized.

A/N: Heh, heh, Mya's a bitch, ain't she?

Preview: Chapter Eleven

"I know what you have to do," Cato murmered into his ear. Peeta took a shuddering breath and shut his eyes in horror. "Just follow my lead, okay?" He was about to ask what he was talking about when his hands slid down his shoulder blades to rest on the small of his back. "If you feel a tingling sensation down below, it's okay, standard reaction. You ready?"

Please R&R! :D :D

I got a tumblr! Follow me and I'll follow you back! : / hg4ever . tumblr . com . / no spaces :)