Tada! Another chapter! Remember to comment opinions and suggestions!

(side note: The idea to focus on Peeta getting Hijacked came from a lovely guest comment! Thanks Whoever you are!)

Hope you enjoy! Thanks for reading!

Best Wishes,

Apromptdisregarded.

I have to reach him him.

I couldn't care less about my injuries, at this point. I could be broken and bloody, I could have severed limbs, or my mind could be racked with illness. It doesn't matter anymore. Peeta's the only real medicine I've ever required, and he's screaming his head off upstairs.

A glass of water left standing on the coffee table shivers and ripples with each vibration, as his sounds erupt through the house. I hear flesh hitting plaster walls and I feel my arms tense, my complexion melt into a grimace.

Glass is breaking. I think it's the lamp on our side table.

"Real or not real!? Real or not real!?" He's wailing the words.

I the only one who can answer him. I'm the single individual who can help him at a time like this.

I'm reminded of the wild mutts, the ones who tore me to shreds in the woods. The saliva that built up at the corners of their jaws. Pitch-black pupils that blended with the dark of night and seemed to be only cavernous holes in their heads. These animals that crippled me. I may have been the one who ran to the woods that night, but it is because of their damage that I'm left unable to reach Peeta now.

Although, It's my fault he's up there in the first place.

"Peeta! Peeta please! Not real! Not real!" I'm gasping now, yelling from the living room, knowing my words may not even reach him. My cheeks are wet, and I wonder why I didn't notice my tears before.

But he only screams harder, louder. The Victor's Village is racked with his cries, but me and Haymitch are the only ones who can hear him. And Haymitch is probably too drunk to care anyway. I'm the only one left. Peeta needs my hands on his face, I need to whisper the words not real to him a thousand times over, until the poison Snow planted in him long ago finally recedes. I've done it before, and I know it's the only way, I'm the only way, to calm the smoke clouding his mind. I can't help him if I'm not with him.

So I sit up.

Agony.

Our house is a chorus of screams. Mine and Peeta's howls blend together, into a horrifying quartet of ceaseless suffering.

I force myself to stand and, favoring my good leg, limp toward the stairs, using the table and leaning on the wall heavily as a guide. I feel my face screwed in a look of total pain, can see black spots swirl in my vision, and sense vomit gurgling up the back of my throat, but it doesn't matter anymore. I'm numb to everything, fighting my primal instinct to stay alive, while I focus my thoughts on an entirely different goal.

Peeta.

I know I've torn stitches because warmth begins to flow down my arm, and my white shirt is sticking to my abdomen, slowly turning red at the area of my wound.

I hope the mess doesn't unhinge Peeta further; I know blood can be an occasional trigger for him.

Adrenaline must be quaking in my system, because while I can see bite marks and cuts reopening, and my ankle twisting inwardly on itself, I scarcely feel any of these sensations. I make my way halfway up the stairs before I'm forced to use my hands on the steps as well, like a monkey, because I think I might fall over if I don't.

I know he locked the door behind him, but we keep an extra key to the bedroom hidden away in case of situations like these. It's location alters every month, but right now it's wedged in the small gap between the wall and our hallway light. I use my better arm to yank it free, then lean my worse side on the wall, while dragging myself toward the cream-colored door that marks our place of rest.

I leave a long smear of blood on the wall as I go.

My hands are shaking vigorously by the time I reach the door handle, and I fumble with the key for a few moments before inserting it through the hole, and turning it with quivering fingers. I'm putting so much pressure on the door that when I push it open, I fall forward, but catch myself on the ground with my hands.

Then I see him.

The room has been darkened severely, due to the side-table lamp shattered on the floor. He's only a shadow on the floor in the corner, just to the left of our bed, but the moans he's emitting signify that he's there. His hands are locked over his ears, his face screwed up in a perpetual look of pain;

He's struggling to hold on.

"Peeta" I release involuntarily.

At my words he grows stiff, but I can see a split-second of relief surge through him, before he's driven back into the world of the hijacked.

"Kat..niss," he forces out through clenched teeth. "ple...ase…leave..."

I rise and move toward him with caution.

"No."

His neck jerks awkwardly to the side.

"You're not going to hurt me Peeta."

I crouch down and hold his face in my hands. Salty tears run through my fingers.

"Not real. It's not real."

Then I lean forward and kiss him. His face is red and he winces as my lips make contact with his. But I can feel his tense body release.

"Not real."

Our breath intertwines in a cloud of heat and the words "Not real," over and over.

"Not real."

He's repeating the phrase with me now.

"Not real."

We touch our foreheads together and hold them there.

"Not real."

I can feel him coming back to me; his arms are growing softer, stronger, each time we say it.

"Not real."

I shift my eyes down to the side for a single moment.

On the ground, in the dark, I can make out a pool of dark liquid growing around us.

Blood.

"Not real.

It's the last one I make out before the whole world goes black.

Muahaha! What a cliffhanger! don't worry, I'll update ASAP.

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Thank you!

Best Wishes,

Apromptdisregarded.