Katniss. It's not her name, it's a force. It's a compulsion. Something buried deep inside him has been switched on remotely. To kill. Destroy. It's different than at the fateful propo shoot, this time he can see it from the outside for what it is. They (he doesn't know what, just that they are mutts) are coming to kill her, and he is expected to assist. "Katniss! Get out of here!" he screams.
"Why? What's making that sound?" she's already alarmed. Her bow is drawn and pointed at his head but he doesn't care. She needs to be able to protect herself, especially from him. He curses them for letting him remain close. He is in control now, but he has no idea how long that will last. The smallest thing could set him off, and he has no way of predicting when or if some booby trap in his brain may hand the keys to his body over to Mutt Peeta. And Snow.
"I don't know. Only that it has to kill you. Run! Get out! Go!" Panic and adrenaline flood his system.
"Whatever it is, it's after me. It might be a good time to split up," she says. It's a ridiculous notion. To sacrifice herself when she's the thing holding them together, compelling them. She has no idea, he thinks, still.
"But we're your guard," says Jackson.
"And your crew," adds Cressida.
"I'm not leaving you," Gale says.
It's settled. Where she goes, they go. No one is surprised but her.
…
A horrible gurgling scream echoes through the tunnels and fills the air. He shudders as he recognizes it. "Avoxes. That's what Darius sounded like when they tortured him."
"The mutts must have found them," says Cressida.
"So they're not just after Katniss," says Leeg 1.
"They'll probably kill anyone. It's just that they won't stop until they get to her," says Gale. He speaks with an air of authority about it. Possibly his hunting instincts, possibly he has some intel Peeta would not be privy to.
"Let me go on alone. Lead them off. I'll transfer the Holo to Jackson. The rest of you can finish the mission." Again. She's never going to get anyone to agree to that, so she should just give it up. But he understands her impulse for self-sacrifice. It's a game they play. Which one of them can die for the other first.
"No one's going to agree to that!" Jackson echoes his thoughts, exasperated.
"We're wasting time!" says Finnick.
"Listen," Peeta whispers. The Avoxes voices have been silenced. The whisper of the mutts is louder. Closer. Behind them, and below them. The discussion of splitting up is over.
…
A strong smell wafts up from below, and it's not sewage. Katniss gags and Jackson reflexively orders everyone to put their masks on, but Katniss waves them off. It's something that is clearly designed to unnerve her alone. He recognizes it. The smell of roses. But not just any roses. Snow's roses. He knows it because he's been near it before. Many times. It was impossible to be within ten feet of Snow without knowing that smell for the rest of your life.
Katniss manages to shake it off and leads them out into the Transfer, an underground road that delivery trucks use. She darts out into the street, hunting pods as surely as she hunted anything back in the forests of Twelve. One pod goes down. They skirt something else called the Meat Grinder, but just like in the woods, sometimes there are wild surprises. Messalla gets caught in one and it's a horrible image. He shuts everything down but his survival brain, like he had to sometimes during his time with Snow. Nothing matters but getting them out. They're all dumbstruck with the horror of Messalla, frozen in space, his flesh falling off his bones.
"Can't help him!" Peeta yells, and starts shoving at them indiscriminately. "Can't!" He manages once more. He glances back at Jackson and Leeg One as they make their stand at the intersection. They're not coming. He makes a note to grieve for them later. He can't now. They wade through sewage, flee Peacekeepers and the freakish white lizard rosemutts. Gale blows a bridge. The smell of mixed sewage and Snow's cloying roses is overwhelming and nauseating. But he manages to hold on to his faculties, just long enough to get her to safety. He owes her that.
He's behind her, moving her forward. She's still in shock. Her hunting reflexes are still on, because as he lifts her up (somehow, despite the cuffs) onto the ladder and before he forces her hands to take the rungs she takes out a mutt. "Climb!" He orders. Once she's moving, she regains the use of her limbs. They can't move fast enough. They finally reach the top and she pulls him and Cressida up through the hatch. She starts to descend again, hearing the screams from below. Someone yells hoarsely at her to climb. She emerges again, but she won't leave the hatch even after Gale climbs out of it.
"Someone's still alive," she wails.
"No Katniss. They're not coming," says Gale. "Only the mutts are."
She pauses for a second, her face frozen in horror and grief. She brings the Holo cube to her lips and whispers to it softly, dropping it into the hatch. Everything explodes. Including the fragile grip he has on his mind, as he realizes that Finnick is gone. They're all gone. He drops back against the nearest wall. His vision spins. The world has gone silent after the blast. They're moving on, but he can't. He can't move. He can't risk it. He's slipping too fast. And he's literally slipping down the wall, his legs unable to support him any longer. He buries his face in his hands.
"Peeta," she says. He hears her through a wall of heat but he can't answer.
"Peeta?" she's more forceful now, a tinge of desperation in her voice.
"Leave me," he whispers. "I can't hang on." He can't even see her anymore, he's pushing his words out through the concrete in his throat.
"Yes. You can!" She says. She has more faith in him than he does at this point. For the tiniest moment he wonders at her, at how far they've come in just a few days. Only to lose everything now, here.
"I'm losing it. I'll go mad. Like them." He's a mutt. He's going to die here, a mutt. He hears nothing. Good. Maybe she has come to her senses and gone. Then he feels it. Her lips. Firm and strong and present. Begging him. He shudders hard, the memories he tried to hold back earlier roaring up through him like a fireball through a tunnel. The heated, desperate contact of her mouth sends him back to another place, another dangerous situation, another time she had put her lips on his. The heat of the beach, the heat of their half-naked bodies pressed up against each other, the heat of the kiss that he had wished would never end.
Her hands slide up his arms to hold his hands tightly to her chest. Their faces are so close he can feel her breath still, on his lips. He can smell her. "Don't let him take you from me," she says.
Snow. Don't let Snow take him from her. Her fingers burn into his where they meet, her touch is like a brand, claiming him. Refusing to let him go, to let him give in to what Snow has done to him. "No. I don't want to…," he says weakly.
Her hands tighten even more, until the pain of the pressure brings Little Peeta back into focus. She says the words, the real words that had echoed through his mind a million times when he had tried to keep her memory with him, when Snow tried to take her away from him. He hungers to hear them, he hungers for her. He fights off his mutt self, who is gnashing teeth and howling at him. Demanding that he see her as a threat. But he doesn't listen.
"Stay with me," she says.
His vision clears, and he sees her face in front of him like it's the only home he's ever had. There's only one answer he can give her.
"Always," he says.
