Chapter Ten

For in this world
I say there dwells a spirit and she lives
Hidden even from the gods, and of her face
Zeus has not dreamed. She is consuming, fierce,
Beautiful and withheld. She layeth waste
The gardens of men's flesh-and I am She.

Selene. Anna Hempstead Branch

"It's about time, don't you think, Katniss?"

There was a hitch in Katniss' stride, but she didn't say the first words that popped into her head. This matter of Prim's burgeoning love life was not comfortable territory for her; always, she had to measure her words, her reactions. She liked the boy - she did - a tall and handsome boy from District Eleven who had run off in trouble after attempting to stop a Peacekeeper from whipping his grandmother. He was gentle, but there was a fire in his dark eyes (like there was a fire in everyone here, and sometimes Katniss wanted to tell them to calm down, settle down - she had removed Prim from trouble, and these people all seemed to want to walk deliberately back into it). He seemed innocent enough, as well. He had been thirteen when he had fled his home, and he was actually just eighteen now, two years younger than Prim.

"Katniss?"

"Time," Katniss told her sister, "is a relative thing. It's not so much about the right time as the right person, don't you think?"

"I don't know," said Prim.

"No more do I," Katniss sighed. "You have more experience with boys than I do, now."

"That doesn't have to be," Prim said. "You know that -."

Katniss stopped. "No, Prim. I'm happy for you - or, I'm trying to be. But there is no one here for me."

"How do you know if you don't -."

"I just know."

They stood in silence for a moment. It was dark and they couldn't see each other's expressions.

"I just want you to be sure," Katniss said, at last, "that you are careful. Kisses are one thing. Getting pregnant - I'd strongly advise against it."

She could hear the blush in Prim's voice. "Katniss …."

"Someone has to say it."

"What do you think mom would think?"

Katniss sighed to herself and started walking again. She tried not to take it personally, but, every once in awhile, this still came up - Prim's longing for their mother's advice. Not that Katniss didn't sometimes agree. Something like this - where her own experience was so lacking - was a perfect example.

There were others to consult now - older men and women whom they had joined in this strange little band of refugees. By following the direction of the red-haired boy and girl, Katniss and Prim had accidentally joined in on a pilgrimage route to Thirteen. Rumor throughout the Districts had peopled Thirteen and it had taken on a somewhat mystical quality for them: a city outside the influence of the Capitol. So, if they managed to escape, they made for it. Katniss had pitied their delusions, and then she had been proven wrong.

She still held herself somewhat aloof from them. A lifetime of keeping people at a distance, followed by eight years of near-solitary existence - this was not easy to break, nor did she feel the impulse. And she was worried - worried about their half-baked plans to form a new rebellion, to approach Thirteen. And some of them were from the Capitol, and she was especially wary of these. Except maybe one or two.

"I don't know what mom would think, Prim. And you are an adult now, so what really matters is what you think."

"I don't know, Katniss. When I'm with him, I feel … I feel like nothing else matters. Have you never felt that way - even with Gale?"

"Gale?" Katniss laughed awkwardly. "No. Anyway, I was a kid last time I saw him."

"You were sixteen and he was eighteen. That's not all that young for District Twelve. Didn't you …?"

"No - oh - did you really think so? Well, to be honest, that's what Gale thought, too. That's what we argued about before we left. I didn't handle that well. Nor did he."

"Did you kiss him?"

Katniss paused on the answer. "Yes - once. Right before we left. Like I said - I didn't handle it well. What you describe - I didn't feel it. Maybe I would have - one day - once everything smoothed over. But I don't know. I doubt it."

"I miss him."

Katniss smiled. "I do, too, sometimes. Before he thought kissing was a good idea, he was good company. And - I think I'd trust his judgement around these people more than my own."

"Katniss."

Both girls started as a figure shifted in the darkness and moved to intercept their path. They were getting close to the meeting spot.

"Hey, Cinna," she replied.

At some point during the kiss, Katniss felt Peeta's hand brush her cheek as he gently pushed her hair away, and a strange (vaguely frightening but mostly delicious) tingling sensation washed over her. She shuddered and sighed against his mouth as she pulled away. For a moment they looked at each other, intimate strangers - and Katniss felt blurry and off-kilter. Memories came at her in dizzy waves - a white-headed boy with a bruised face; a bruising wrestler, broad-shouldered and calm in the ring; a sleeping man, moon-tail face, drugged and passive, mumbling her name in his sleep.

"I should have waited for you," he had murmured. "I knew I should have waited."

She knew him, but didn't know him. His lips fitted against hers as if that had been their sole design. But when she pulled away, all the things she didn't know or understand about him came back to throw all her doubts into sharp relief. Who was he, really?

Then he smiled and she knew that it didn't matter. This was both the beginning and the end. She was allowed to feel this onslaught of emotions because they were there to be felt - and she did not need to analyze them, because time was unlikely to permit it.

She hunted around for the right words. "I liked that," she finally said.

"So did I," he replied. "I … don't understand it. But so did I."

She straightened up and started patting her mussy hair. She must look absolutely dreadful, but he was gazing at her as if she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. "I don't really understand it, either, but then - I don't have a whole lot of experience in this - area."

"And this isn't the most ideal time to gain it," he replied, with a touch of irony.

"No," she agreed. "And yet - here we are."

"I wish …" he began. Then he stopped. "It doesn't matter, now."

"Tell me."

"Why is it so important for you to know?"

She bit her lip and turned away. "Because I'm trying to understand what it is you are doing to me."

"What do you mean?"

"I should have left you," she said, "to your own devices. The stakes are too high - the odds are too narrow. Sorry, I -."

"Don't be. I agree with you. But sometimes we can only be true to our own natures. Perhaps it is not in you to abandon the wounded."

"No - only the whole. Is that what you mean?"

He sighed and pushed himself up so that he was sitting straighter against the tree. "Don't beat yourself up about that. You did what you felt you had to do, and who can truly blame you? Everything that followed - every repercussion - was on the rest of us. I can't remember much about what we talked about when you first found me - if I acted resentful at all, know that I don't have any right to it. You didn't know how I felt about you, so you are not responsible for how I reacted to your disappearance. I made bad decisions - and the rest of what happened to me is the Capitol's fault, anyway, or Cray's, or - or - just life's."

She squinted at him. "I side-tracked myself, before. I was trying to understand what kind of information you had - on Cray. I take it that it's more than you just covering for his relationship with Melly."

Peeta let out a breath. "Yes. Like I said, I know some specifics about what he did to get himself sent to Twelve. And a couple of other things. He - when he has information on the Merchants, he shakes them down for goods. He … assaulted someone from the Capitol - during a Reaping, no less. And - speaking of Reapings - he has occasionally tried to rig them."

"What?"

Peeta nodded, but looked away from her. "Yeah - when he's resisted by people he tries to shake down, or by people who make too much of a stink - he punishes their families, or threatens to. There's less of that since Theoph came, maybe."

"But that's - but that's …."

"I know. It's murder." The word - seditious, rebellious - lingered in the air for a moment. "But it all is, Katniss. And the blood is on all of our hands. It takes a while to fully incorporate that knowledge - to actually feel it. But it is. … There's something else, too - something that would make you showing up in District Twelve extremely uncomfortable for Cray."

She shook her head. "Haymitch said something like that, too. What do you mean? I have nothing to do with him."

"When I said before that you were thought to be murdered - I mean, someone was actually accused of your murder. And sent to the Capitol for punishment."

Her eyes widened. "Not - Gale."

"No," Peeta said. "Although … Cray told Melly it was Gale, and so I've thought it for ages. In fact, he said Gale confessed to it before he disappeared. But - that clearly was a lie. I guess - Gale ran off just like you did? Is he with you?"

"No," she said. "I didn't even know that he had left the District, not for sure. Last communication I had from him was actually here - he left me a token, which I thought meant he would be joining me. But he never did."

"When was that?"

"A couple weeks after I left."

He closed his eyes. "I'm trying to remember. There was the Reaping - and we were all taken up with the Games. No one could remember the last time they had seen him - just that, there was a huge blow-up at the Hob, not long after the search parties found your bloody dresses. He and Darius actually came to blows. Darius accused Gale and Gale said something about Darius stalking you, or something - at least, that's what people said; you know how these things get blown up out of proportion. Then, suddenly, Darius was arrested for the murder and sent off to the Capitol."

"Whoa," said Katniss. "On what proof? Gale was jealous of Darius, I guess, but Darius and I only ever talked at the Hob. He never followed me or had anything else to do with me."

"So - when Cray told Melly it was actually Gale, he said he had Darius accused instead, because Darius knew too much about him. I don't know what worse information Darius had on Cray than what Melly knew - unless it was something that could really get him in trouble with the Capitol … I always thought that maybe he just said that to keep Melly in line - and by extension, me, I guess. He definitely didn't like my father. But - who knows for sure?"

A chill went up Katniss spine. She had always loathed Cray, known him to be corrupt in every way - but this was bone dead serious. She started to feel agitated for her mother and Haymitch, whom she had left in his general proximity. And Gale - what had Gale accidentally stumbled into?

"He needs to be stopped," she said, her voice colder and deeper than normal.

"I agree, but -."

Katniss closed her eyes and let her sudden rage burn silently within her. "They're coming," she said. "District Thirteen - and the Rebellion. They're just waiting …." She choked on her words and fell silent.

"District Thirteen? So - that's true? It still exists?"

She nodded. "What else do you know? Do you know about Snow?"

"That he's dying? Yeah, I've heard that, too. So? What will change?"

"Not enough," she said tightly. "Not enough. But they have to succeed. Once Snow dies, they are coming to take Twelve, first - and from there, everything else. All the Districts - one by one."

"What? But - the people. In Twelve. They'll be caught in the crossfire - and for nothing. It's true - Snow's death won't be enough. For the past five years, at least, he's been a propped-up figurehead, anyway. His son will take over, and put off a vote until everybody agrees not to vote - and nothing will change. Even in Twelve - how many people would actually join with a rebellion? Most of them will run and hide behind the Peacekeeper's guns - and, it's not that I don't wish it was different - but who could blame them? They've done nothing since the day they turned twelve years old to just desperately preserve their own lives."

She licked her lips and tasted him on them. Two fires warred within her. Here was this boy, suddenly igniting her with a desire to finally, finally give herself over to joy. To indulge the other fire would be to risk this. Because she would die, if she returned to Twelve to fight.

But that was what she must do. Gale had been right. The Capitol's fingerprints had been on everything, manipulating their lives, controlling everything - Reaping or no Reaping.

"Don't you - of all people - want to kill Cray? Cray - and all of them?"

He swallowed. "If getting rid of Cray would have solved the problems in Twelve, I would have done it years ago, and damn the consequences. But Cray is a tiny cog in an entire …."

She stood up and paced around. "But you have to start - somewhere." When she looked back down at him, she found him staring intently at her. "Don't you?"

"Yes," he said softly. "Yes. If you can do it without sinking to their level. And without sacrificing people who have no say in the matter."

She caught her breath. "You said it, Peeta. The blood is already all over our hands. How much further have we to sink?"

"Then - we have to go back."

"Not we. Just me."

"Why? Why not me?"

"I just pieced you back together. I can keep you safe. You're not a fighter."

"Neither are they. Besides which - how do you even know? I may not have killed Cray, but I have certainly defied him. Do you know what happened to Gale's family after he left? Much the same as happened to your mother - abandonment, disgrace. One of the Hawthorne kids turned to theft and I took the punishment for him - he'd be dead, most likely, if I hadn't gone to the stocks for stealing bread from my own family. I may look broken to you - fragile - and maybe in some ways I am, but I am not a coward."

"But I just found you."

"I know," he said. "And believe me, I wish it hadn't happened too late. But this isn't your fight and I'm not letting you fight it alone."

"You're not strong enough," she pointed out. "Your leg is broken and you have just barely beat back infection. I felt the fever still on your lips."

"So give me a second before you march back into Twelve."

She stared down at him, wondering why she found every argument he made so compelling. She couldn't let him worm into her like that. Physical attraction, aside. He was right - it was too late for the rest. To become … fond of each other … was not an option. She needed to stay the course, and he couldn't stop her - but he didn't need to know that. "OK, OK. There's a cave - a little further up, in the hills. That was the second place we stayed, Prim and I. It's another day's journey from here, but the farther the better, and it's pretty well concealed. You can finish your recovery there."

It was also known to the rebels, this place, as was the concrete house by the lake. She had left them instructions on their maps - the signposts back to Twelve. She could leave Peeta there hidden and well-supplied with food, and they would find him there, if she never returned.

She kept her expression steady. "Are you ready to move?" she asked him.

"Yes," he said.

She helped him up and steadied him against her. He looked at her and she smiled and tilted up her face in an invitation. He blinked a couple of times, then bent shakily down to kiss her.

"I think I feel the fever on yours," he whispered.

"Yes," she said. "Oh - yes."