When I wake, I am in a pristine hospital room in Thirteen. My cuts have been cleaned and stitched and a team of doctors stands by. At my awakening they rush forward to check my pulse- again- and flash lights into my eyes. I brush them away and turn, looking for someone, anyone I know.
I see someone coming down the corridor towards me- Haymitch and… Katniss! I push the doctors aside and leap from the bed, still shaky on my feet from being knocked out for so long. As I run towards her I am overcome with… an emotion. It's something I've never felt before, something that doesn't have a name in my mind.
I run down the ward towards her. Her hair hangs in a limp braid down the side of her head, much shorter than it used to be. She runs towards me now, her boots squeaking on the white linoleum. Her face widens in a grin and she's right in front of me, her hands outstretched to embrace me. I raise my hands too, higher than hers. As she throws herself into me, I wrap my hands around her throat.
My thumbs find a hollow in her neck and I press down on it, grinning in delight as she gargles in desperation. She coughs and splutters as my hands grip tighter and people grab me from all sides, trying to pull me off her. Haymitch catches Katniss as she falls to the floor, unconscious.
He looks up at me in disgust as I stare at my hands, mystified at the power they have. A fist collides with my head and my eyes roll back and then slide closed. I fall to the floor and feel my knees shatter at they hit the hard floor. As I fall onto my side, a smile stretches itself onto my lips. "Get him out of here." Haymitch says, shifting under the weight of Katniss on top of him.
There's a tiny part of me that's very confused, conflicted. I wanted to see her, I wanted to. So why this? Why did I try to kill her... did I kill her?
It seems all people want to do is 'get me out' of wherever it is I might be. I groan as I come around, strapped to a bed. Where is Katniss? Is she alive, dead? I'm confused about what is real and what isn't anymore, my head throbbing in the spot where someone punched me and knocked me out. Do I want her to be alive? Do I want her dead?
A doctor- someone from Thirteen, that I don't know, presses gently on the bruises on my ribs and asks me how they feel. My only reply is 'better' and then I go back to staring at the plain white ceiling.
The medics wheel me into a smaller white room with a small bathroom off to one side of it and release the restraints on my head and legs. A one-way window sits in the wall opposite me, a chair sitting against the wall at the end of my bed. I realise that from this moment onwards I will be constantly watched, under surveillance 24/7.
The medics leave the room and something tells me they're standing on the other side of the window, watching me along with how many others. As I lie in silence counting the ripples in the plaster on the ceiling until the door swings open and someone walks in. I raise my head to look at who it is and my face breaks into a smile as someone from District Twelve saunters in. Someone I recognise, from a long while ago.
She grins when she sees me and stands awkwardly beside the bed, her back to the window. "Peeta? It's Delly. From home."
"Delly?" The fogginess surrounding her in my memory clears and suddenly everything is so clear. "Delly. It's you."
"Yes!" I can tell she is relieved, genuinely happy that I know who she is. "How do you feel?"
I feel the opportunity, the urge to learn, to know. "Awful. Where are we? What's happened?"
"Well… we're in District Thirteen. We live here now." I know this has all been set up by Thirteen, Delly carefully instructed on what she can and can't say, but I want- I need- to know more.
"That's what those people have been saying. But it makes no sense. Why aren't we home?" I know full well why we aren't home- the Capitol destroyed home. I just want to see how much Thirteen is willing to tell me.
She bites her lip for a moment, hesitates before she speaks like she's waiting for some sort of instruction. "There was… an accident. I miss home badly, too. I was only just thinking about those chalk drawings we used to do on the paving stones. Yours were so wonderful. Remember when you made each one a different animal?"
"Yeah. Pigs and cats and things. You said… about an accident?" Droplets of sweat appear on her forehead and I know I've reached taboo, things that can't be spoken about either in the district or just around me.
"It was bad. No one… could stay." She shifts her weight from one foot to the other and clicks her fingers. "But I know you're going to like it here, Peeta. The people have been really nice to us. There's always food and clean clothes, and school's much more interesting."
I already know the answer to my next question, I know it will hurt me- and yet I ask it anyway. "Why hasn't my family come to see me?" I know the answer already. I've seen it in the propos. And it's her fault. I just need to know for sure.
Tears prick at her eyes as the forms the words, thinks about the unavoidable. "They can't. A lot of people didn't get out of Twelve. So we'll need to make a new life here. I'm sure they could use a good baker. Do you remember when your father used to let us make dough boys and girls?"
I've had enough of pretending, of her changing the subject. "There was a fire." It comes out in a rush, a loud sentence blurted out rather suddenly.
"Yes." Her voice is barely audible, her whisper like the rustling of leaves in autumn. It's almost a whisper, a slight squeak.
"Twelve burned down, didn't it? Because of her." Anger escapes me now, inhuman rage taking over my body once more. I fight against the restraints and I'm suddenly thankful that they're there, for Delly's sake. "Because of Katniss!" I can't control my body as it shakes and quivers and I rock back and forth, trying to loosen the straps.
"Oh, no, Peeta. It wasn't her fault." She's backing away, heading back towards the door as I battle to escape from the strips of fabric holding me to the bed.
"Did she tell you that?" I hiss through my teeth, seething. The door opens and Delly shuffles backwards across the soft floor to the safety of the corridor outside.
"She didn't have to. I was-"
"Because she's lying! She's a liar! You can't believe anything she says! She's some kind of mutt the Capitol created to use against us!" I don't even know where the last bit came from, a haunting thought that crossed my mind and escaped my fiery lips. Like the jabberyjays, or the monkeys, or the wolves.
"No, Peeta. She's not a-"
"Don't trust her Delly," I urge, frantically. "I did, and she tried to kill me. She killed my friends, my family. Don't even go near her! She's a mutt!" Despite my previous uncertainty, I start to believe my own words. The more I say it the more sense it makes, the truer it becomes. A hand reaches into the room and snatches Delly from view. The door swings shut and I'm alone again- but for whoever is on the other side of the glass.
I continue to yell, hoping everyone in the district- no, in all of Panem- can hear me. "She's a mutt! She's a stinking mutt! Kill her! I hate her! Don't trust her!" Any words that come to mind I scream into the silence, hoping someone, somewhere hears them and takes note.