Power
Katniss sat in the chair to which she was bound. The activity of the other room had ceased hours ago but no one had come to release her. She'd had to endure everything, alone. She'd had to watch as that woman manipulated Peeta into selling his soul in exchange for a week.
It hurt.
She was the reason he'd faltered. He'd given up everything, from his family to the intangible quality of his morals to spare her what? A few less sexual encounters than she might have had otherwise? She was groggy again. The bracelet having overmedicated her once more during the stresses of watching the man who was her husband turn into something she knew he'd hate. He'd won her a week of freedom, one he could share with her but would he even be himself by the time that week came?
She'd watched as he'd brutalized the silver haired woman. Snow had asked him to hit her and Katniss watched as it broke him. After that, he hadn't been able to hold back. All of his pain, all of his frustrations and fears poured out of him in a physical display that would never leave Katniss's mind. Why hadn't she just agreed to speak with him? If she had, could she have convinced him?
After Snow's daughter finished with him, she seemed to barely make it out of the room on her own. Even from where she sat, Katniss could see the small drips of blood that trailed after her as she limped out. She'd let him hurt her. Katniss knew first hand, that woman could have protected herself but she'd chosen not to. Finnick had told her how she trained for the games. Katniss had felt the strength and skill behind that woman's lighting reflexes and practiced moves. She'd knowingly chosen to let him bruise and bloody her. It was something that Katniss couldn't even begin to understand. What makes a person do something like that? If she'd asked, Peeta would have simply had sex with her but she'd pushed him purposely, manipulated him into that response.
After the woman left Peeta alone, that was when Katniss truly wanted to die. She'd had to watch as he sat on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands just rocking back and forth. She'd wanted to go to him, comfort him but here she sat as he suffered alone. She'd had to listen to the erratic sounds of this breathing for over an hour before he finally screamed and tore the room apart. One lamp shattered on the one-way mirror right where Katniss sat. Shortly after, avoxes began to appear in the room to clean up his rage. He'd screamed at them to leave and when they didn't, he'd grabbed one, a frail looking older man. When the man dumbly refused to leave or stop his task, Peeta had almost hit him.
Katniss had seen the realization of what he was about to do and who he was about to do it to when his features contorted into unmasked pain and revulsion. That's when he'd let the man go and run from the room to what had to be the bathroom. He hadn't come back out.
Katniss heard the door she'd been dragged through hours ago slide open and slide shut once more. She didn't react when the limping figure entered her line of sight.
"You're a monster."
Though she didn't move with the grace and fluidity that Katniss had come to expect from the President's daughter, her laugh remained that same.
"Yes. Yes I am. But you didn't need to see the monster today if you had simply done as I asked."
Katniss didn't have a reply. She'd just spent the last hours telling herself the same thing.
Snow's daughter moved to carefully sit on the low, narrow table that ran the length of the viewing glass wall. Once down, she leaned gingerly against the glass before sighing. Katniss couldn't help but notice the damage Peeta had done to this woman. Her neck was a mass of bruises as were her upper arms where he'd held her so tightly that the vessels beneath her delicate skin had burst. She would have a black eye if it were left untreated. Katniss could only imagine what her mid section or her legs looked like but the white dress covered in black embroidered roses covered those areas from view.
"He's remarkably strong." The simple comment made Katniss finch. Both women, one bound, the other bruised sat in complete silence. Her very presence made Katniss want to retch. Miss Snow wasn't looking at her but staring at the wall behind. She didn't wear her normal cold mask of icy fury. It was blank, weary looking even. Katniss wondered if she'd been so injured by her husband that the woman couldn't maintain her normal bravado at the moment.
"Why do you do this?" Katniss knew she'd asked a similar question before and she didn't know why she thought she'd get a different answer today but the silence of the room was suffocating her.
Snow's daughter looked at her blankly for a few moments before answering.
"Power." She stated simply, the tone of her voice was one the bound woman had not heard from her before. Snow then went back to staring at the same spot on the wall once more. Katniss was about to ask for her to elaborate on the overly simplified response when the door to Peeta's now reconstructed room reopened. He slowly walked into it and wearily looked around at everything that had been replaced. His face was red, his eyes puffy.
Snow's daughter turned her head and looked into the room at the sound of his return. She watched him for a moment before speaking again. "We need to do something about that leg of his." The comment drew Katniss's attention away from her husband and to her torturer. "We can do far better than that peg leg but my father liked the idea of providing him with an antiquated version. I've convinced him he'd be more profitable if he as physically capable and more resembling a whole man. He'll be entering surgery tomorrow and when he comes out… new man." She stopped looking at him and back at the wall. "Would you like to see him before he goes under, the surgery itself will take most of the week?" Katniss didn't hesitate.
"Yes." She saw Snow nod though Katniss was looking at her husband once more. He was looking at the bed that had been freshly made after his escape to the bathroom. He touched it for a moment with the tips of his fingers before pulling his hand back as though the silken bedspread had burned him. He backed away from it before turning and walking to the far side of the room. He stopped about mid way and picked something black up off of the floor. One of Snow's combs. He turned the delicate piece over in his hands several times. She could see his fingers tracing the intricate patterns of its design. He kept hold of it as he finished his trek to the far side of the room. There he sat down and rested against the wall. He didn't let go of the comb.
"This will not break him Miss Everdeen." She said quietly as she gingerly stood from her seat against the wall. "Will you be disobeying me again?"
"No." Katniss breathed out while shaking her head for added emphasis, her eyes still on the man in the other room.
"Good. Because if you do, the next punishment will break him and then I'll move onto your next lover."
"Gale." She just said the name though Snow treated it like a question.
"He's safe and mostly unharmed. See to it he stays that way Miss Everdeen." Katniss absently wondered why she hadn't threatened Prim as the battered woman left the room. She heard as a second person entered on the heals of her enemy's exit. Katniss heard the door close and didn't look away from Peeta as Finnick began to release her from her bonds.
"I should have listened to you." She said quietly.
"Shhh." He attempted to sooth.
"If I had listened…"
"You couldn't have known, not really known anyway. You were born to test the boundaries Katniss; it's in your nature. I saw that when I watched you in the games. See it as a sign that they haven't broken you yet." He'd freed her wrists and was now working on the manacles around her ankles. "He's still alive, you're still alive, let that be enough for now." When he'd unfastened the last of the ties she stood up and moved to the glass. She'd been right. It was so much worse to be on the other side, powerless to help. She'd rather be raped a thousand times, completely coherent than endure this hell again.
"We have to go Kat." She felt the warm hand on her arm, gently pulling her away. She let it. She didn't have any fight left in her today. She let her fingers linger on the glass for as long as she could. The moment she lost contact was the moment she looked away. She left the room without a backward glance. She'd seen enough.
OoOoO
LavenderBrownFan: Go team Haymitch! If I do write another fan fic, and a HG ones at that, it would definitely have to be Haymitch centered. I like the idea of Effie too, such an uptight character would be fun to play with using gruff to-the-point Haymitch as a foil. The only other fic that I'd say had this mature feel that I've read is "Life After Death" by Alexabee. It's better written than mine, is a Gale/Katniss and very dark and very good. I actually cried while reading it and I'm a pretty cold fish when it comes to human characters (animal stories make me bawl though).
Loli-pop0394: Mwahahaha, yeah it's all kinds of evil. But there is method to my madness, like I've said before, everything has a purpose, this included. Well, according to this chapter, you should be getting your K/P interaction soon enough.
ElsterBird: Bad ass Peeta (broken ass Peeta) Yeah, she's got some messed up methods. Best explanation for why Fin and Jo can see each other is that they've already been broken in and are 'predictable' whereas they are trying to get there with Peeta and Kat. Allowing freedom to see one another would probably hinder that end goal.
enginette: Thank you, thank you. Pissed off, uncontrolled Peeta…
catie8: No mistake by traveling, then you got to come home to lots o' updates! Thank you, thank you!
MaidenAlice: Erotic book section. lol I was going for just adult fiction, seems I crossed a line though. lol I'll keep pumping out chapters, you'll never have to wait for too long.
DandelionOnFire: I love seeing new people on the review board! I'm glad you finally had a chance to check it out. And no, this is not going to be rainbows and ponies. There are plenty of good writers on this site that have written countless ones of those. When I didn't come across one like this, that's when I knew I'd be writing one. I hope I've shown you the Panem you've wanted to see and experience (vicariously of course). When you said I had to guts to write this, I kept hearing "you've got moxie kid". I was pretty sure the number of reviews I received wouldn't be ginormous due to the content and that's ok. I have some great folks reading and reviewing so I'm plenty happy with the feedback I've received thus far. I'm happy you've found my writing style easy to read and engaging, always nice to hear. I'll appreciate any review given whether general or detailed. Heck, I even like the ones that just say 'can't wait for more'. (LOVE detailed ones though lol) The more detailed a review the more I can asses whether my ideas are really reaching people. Sometimes things get lost in the travel from my brain to my fingertips, you guys are the ones that tell me if it has or not. Peeta's transformation is something I've wanted to do the entire time. I wanted to do an experience-based change in him rather than a chemical one (hijacking). This is my attempt at that.
Lauren: You know you wont' have to wait for long. I don't think I've gone longer than 24 hours between updates yet. I hope I keep it up till this behemoth is complete.
Carla: Mega review! I love that you don't hate her. I can't explain why but I love it. I love that you caught on to what I was doing in the first few lines instead of when you got the last few or the AN! This was another chapter where I had the idea outlined and it always ended with the woman behind the glass. I like that her masochism has caught your eye… but I'll say no more to that. Yeah, Peeta is changing more quickly than anyone at this point. A lot of Katniss's changes occurred before I started the story since she'd been going through this for a couple of months but keep in mind, Peeta has had more than the last week (about the timeline of the story so far). He's suspected that she was sleeping with Gale for about a month and a half, he didn't know why exactly but he's been dealing with that for a while. I see his character as more rigid (morally) than Katniss's or Gale's and because of that, I'd think that once he started to crack, it would happen more quickly (the taller we stand the farther we have to fall). At least that's been what I've been trying to convey. I doubt everyone would get that (due to my lack of writing ability) without these review responses but that's why I'm enjoying this venue for writing. I can make up for my deficiencies through conversation.