Chapter 21- "Black Mail Object"
Ashton came back to me, everyday, he woke me- shared a little and then I was left to my thoughts. The first few times he drew me a picture of our past together. He said we struggled some, him being a Peacekeeper from the Capitol- me being a victor in District 8. He said we've been secretly together for four years. I believed these things easily..
But he told me I had no family. He said I lost them all when I was young... yet I know, I remember- a little girl, she is pale, blonde, blue eyed. And a boy. A toddler- I longed for him, I ached. I don't know why- but I wanted to have him, in my arms. It took days, of pounding headaches, to figure out just one thing.. Jack. His name was Jack- I was sure.
I hadn't the courage to say it though, Ashton flatly told me I've never had siblings or been about children- he said I lived alone, I lived in an abandoned weapons factory, where we used to meet- and I remember those, sorta, hazily. He's there, I think.. but whenever I try to make the connections my brains denies me- I am forced to think of the gold in his eyes- that is how my mind works.
I heal, slowly. Everyday it gets a little easier- but I don't feel completely certain all the time. Like... my mind isn't whole- just being patched up. I am missing things.. hell I'm missing a lot of things. But I know Ashton is trying, I love him so dearly, it is so hard to focus, the aching love in my heart swells whenever I see his eyes... my mind just reacts to them.
Sometimes he's closed off though. Sometimes, I say things and he nearly flinches. Like when I make a small comment on a day in the attic or maybe I tell him how much I am missing. He looks pained by it, by my forgetfulness.
Forgetfulness or not, my body quickly healed. In a few weeks time, and a few extra surgeries. I was as good as perfect. My shoulder moving around freely, the spot where I was impaled completely gone, scar free, and quickly gaining weight.
At first I was surprised. Because something in my mind tells me I've never really put on weight so quickly, but I started paying attention to the food the nurse was feeding me- it was full of unneeded proteins, vitamins, and it came in big quantities that I didn't mind too much because I was always hungry now a days.
Even as I was healed- she still forced pills down my throat every night. But always after my first ones, which I take when Ashton is with me. These ones are always in the middle of the night, and she's so clinical then.
Ashton started walking me around the room first, to just make sure I still remember how to walk (of course I do). But he never trust me in my opinions. Snow does though, he seems kind. To have saved me and then treat me so special. He comes sometimes with his favorite general Jason.
Jason tells me tales about me in the Games, he tells me what a good killer I was. He tells me how smart and quick witted I am. He tells me of these... plans I have made and ended up killing off half the children there.
It takes me a few tries and a few days to remember the Games, with intense headache pains- but I remember. Sort of. The arenas are vague, but the pain stands out. The screams echo in my thoughts, and the plans come back full force.
Winding around in my mind, the plans click into place easily- pointing out to me the advantages of them, the whole prospect of the idea.
Snow was pleased I recalled these things, and he reminded me of something- of a promise I once made to him. That to keep my Ashton, I must join his side of the war and become a general.
It sounds familiar. Ashton says he remembers it completely, he told me of how we came to decide this. How I told him I would accept it- and that is the night he purposed to me.
I recalled the marry me memory, and it was re-winded to the point of a riot, to gun fire- and I saw the blonde girl, she called out my name, and then her head was blown off by a gun.
I flinched at the memory, I began to sob- emotions that were buried deep in me reacted to this memory. Strongly maybe more then needed. I could not even manage a word to the three men around me. The nurse shooed them away and began to coddle me until I feel asleep, on drugs.
The next morning, I was surprised when Ashton took my hand and led me out of my room. I have never left it, and he was smiling very brightly- he pulled me down this starch white hall, with no doors. I looked around and around- trying to see if I knew the place.
I didn't.
He stopped at a point to the wall. Stared at it- and with a jump from me the white spot lifted to reveal a room beyond. I examined the strange wall when he tugged me in.
This room wasn't empty. There was a vanity, full of makeup, a bath with piles of fragrances around it, and a chair with clothes thrown over the side of it.
Ashton kissed me, told me to take a seat and a stylist would be with me- I tried to ask a question- but instead he pulled something out of his pocket.
"Ashton.." My mind instantly began to pound at the sight of the thing in his palm.
He sighed. "You do not remember?" This is a statement he says so often I begin to feel ashamed.
I shrugged, fighting the creeping blush in my cheeks. He shook his head sadly, and then took my wrist, clasping around it the strange bracelet. "I gave it to you before your first Game. It is a reminder, that I am always with you."
I stare at the bracelet. I jiggle it around and yes I remember this. But just barely.
Ashton lowers himself and kisses my left finger, which is strangely bare, and then he kisses the inside of my wrist, just below the bracelet. Those golden eyes lift to me, to reassure me, but for some reason every memory connecting to this bracelet has no golden eyes, or eyes at all.
Just notes, just letters. And another boy. One I don't know- I don't think. I only saw a flash of him in my mind. He wasn't very handsome, but he had light brown hair, hard green eyes, and as I push my memory to capture more of him- an emotion of contempt forms in me- and I see his face, only just, and it has scars running down it, from nails.
Anymore effort and my head would explode so I suddenly slouch, the hand Ashton doesn't hold lifts to my temple- massaging it.
Ashton frowns. "Darling, don't try too hard. You'll remember in time, I promise." His hand lift and his fingertips glide across my forehead, before he pushes away my hand and leans down slightly to kiss my temple, then my lips. "Stop fretting." He tells me.
I sigh in frustration but hide my irritation with him, how can he think this is so easy to just stop fretting? Instead I drop my wrist with the bracelet, and I look around the room we are in again. "What am I doing here?"
"You are going to go back into society, love." He murmurs, meaningfully. "You are to join Peeta, do you remember him? Blonde, stocky, talkative? He's been out only a little while, so he's still slightly ill."
I don't remember this boy, Peeta, so I shrug. "What I am I going to do?"
"The Capitol wants your support. They want you to call a ceasefire with Peeta."
I instantly recoil from the idea. My mind doesn't accept it.
"What?" I snap, loudly. My eyebrows knitting together. "Why? Why would anyone call that? It would just mean we lay down a fight that the Capitol use to their advantage. It would mean no one would trust each other! Everything will be worse. What-"
He covers my mouth with a hand, my heart beats a fraction faster then it should. My anger pumps full force. I have no idea why, or why so sudden but I was angry.
"I know, we know. But we must test the rebels strength and determination. We must try to stop this, for the citizens for-"
"For a chance to make us seem nicer." I instantly jump in for him, in a hard voice. Yet I understood. The Capitol is not viewed in the best light- it's mine and Peeta's job to do this, at least a little.
He looks pleased that I mentioned me and the Capitol as an 'us'. But otherwise he told me that Snow will be talking to me and Peeta after stylist come and prepare me for going on television, then also said I'd do great because I've been on T.V loads of times and he left.
It was only a few minutes before a man I don't know came and began to dress me. He wouldn't meet my gaze, but he continued to work. He washed me, bathed me in sweet smelling things, shaved my legs and all the other body hair I had. I didn't complain because I new that somewhere, deep down, I wasn't... allowed? to. I don't know I just sat there, like a good girl, and he worked quickly.
He paused only when I was seated again, in a robe, and he was looking at my hair.
"What is it?" I ask, as his fingers ran though the short, stubby strings.
"It is so short." He murmurs, tightly. I frown now.
"Is that bad?"
He shakes his head. "No, no of course not. It is just.. you used to have such fine, long, wavy hair. Now your glorious mane in gone. It is a pity, a sadness in my stylist world."
I stare at my reflection. How different do I look? I was not shown any videos- they had told me that they didn't want the videos to be the memory rather then me remembering things- but what could I have changed?
My weight. My hair. Did I change outwardly? Is that why Ashton gets pained sometimes when I talk? Are they not words that old Keera would say?
The stylist moves on now, he puts jell in my hair to make it flow better, fringes hanging over the forehead. He tells me he won't put make up on me, because natural beauty is better, and that he doesn't want me to be unrecognizable. That only increases the thought of me changing into something I'm not.
Once he has finished he makes me stand, disrobe and he pauses- instantly. Staring at me.
I flush, at the expression on his face of disbelief and confusion. "What?" I snap, but my voice is quiet.
I move to grab the robe again, to hide, but he stalls my hand. "You are heavier." He says, in an ominous way. My hands wrap around my body to try to obscure myself.
I glance at the mirror to my left, and I have gained more then I thought. My arms are rounder, softer looking. My body isn't toned, ready for a fight or sprint. It is pudgy. My breasts are bigger, my thighs have little pinches of fat now. And my stomach rounded, just at the bottom of it. It swoops low slightly, and outwards.
The stylist clears his throat. I look back up at him and he looked anywhere but at me. So what? I was become more healthy. Maybe I was just growing into my adult body, maybe I was becoming a full woman. I wasn't ashamed to be judged by this stylist.
I tilted my chin up. "Are you going to dress me or not?"
He nods, but then mumbles something about needing a different dress- takes the one off the chair and shuffles out of the room.
Once he was gone I leaned forward and snatched the robe- hiding in the warmth.
…..
"But, sir-" The stylist begins, Snow waves a harsh hand.
He is glaring. "You mean to tell me you believe in your silly theory?" Snow snarls.
"Of course, I know what a pregnant woman looks like!" The stylist insists, and Snow hisses under his breath. He looks around the empty hall they are in.
"You are mistaken." Snow says, without missing a beat. When he very well knows he is not. Keera is pregnant. The nurse knew that instantly, she told Snow the first night he was there. The baby is his back up plan, the baby will be a black mail object he could never over use or that will never lose it's importance.
But the stylist continues to argue with his boss. He tells Snow over and over again, he urges something be done. When finally Snow order a few guards to 'take care' of this mad man. It was done easily, quickly- no blood had even dropped to the floor.
Snow sighed at the irritation the stylist made in his plans and he marched himself to Keera's room carrying a new dress one that will hide most of the evidence. She may be clueless to this sort of thing, she may not recall having sex with her passed lover, but he knows some people, now, may notice her symptoms.
She may start noticing soon, as will Ashton, as will Jason. But he wanted to stall this discovery as long as possible. He didn't want to chance a problem with the child. Or the child to stir some memory in Keera that may just ruin this whole thing. Her mind was like a house of cards, one wrong move, and it could go tumbling down- the truth could come rushing back.
When he emerges into her room, she is standing before the mirror staring at herself, arms wrapped firmly around the robe she was swathed in.
Snow walks over to her, and she snaps her gaze up to him as soon as the door is shut. "Where is that man?" She demands, and Snow nearly snarls at her to shut up.
But instead he takes a soft voice and approaches her from behind. "He is back at home, with his family- where he belongs. I told him I could handle it from here. I thought maybe we could talk before you go on stage. I'm sure you have questions.."
She relaxes when the man stand just behind her, her eyes flicker from the green in them to him in the mirror across them. His hand lifts to her shoulder and she nods. "Yes, I have a few."
"Tell me, as you dress." He hands her the dark blue dress, and she takes it as he steps back and she disrobes.
Snow frowns taking in her body, noting every little notion to the baby growing in her. She can only be almost three months along. He recalls her being very sick sometimes, randomly vomiting. The nurse assures them all it is a cause of the drugs, but Snow knows it is morning sickness. He was told when the nurse told Keera that she hasn't been having her menstruating as a result of weight gain, trauma, and the confused hormones in her head.
Mood swings were shoved aside as her forgetfulness frustration.
He doesn't know how long it will be until her stomach has bulge enough to make it impossible to deny or to when the child will start moving in her, making her know just instantly.
She's eighteen now, and still her body is not fully complete for something like this. Having been starved her whole life, and her natural slender body, it won't seem like an easy pregnancy.
But soon she is covered again, and Snow relaxes because it just looks like she has become slightly rounder, like any Capitol woman.
"You look lovely." He comments and Keera smiles brightly.
She has obvious questions, about what to say, what to do, who Peeta is, and Snow answers them easily- telling her what to say, how to act. He tells her Peeta was a good friend, as he had already told Peeta she was his. Keera is slightly satisfied by this and then he takes her to the car that will drive her to town center.
He takes another with Jason and a few other generals. They murmur things together, discussing more tactics to poison Peeta, what else to tell Keera she used to be, and such things that Snow would usually indulge in but he is lost in thoughts.
When he is walking backstage he spots Peeta and Caesar talking, Keera is standing aside with Ashton.
"Ah, Peeta!" Snow exclaims and the boy jumps, looking to Snow in uncertainty. "Have you seen Keera yet?"
His blue eyes snap over to the blonde and Keera stares back, something crosses her face. And her mind clicks- hardly- but she feels warmth for Peeta then, she feels the friendship Snow told her was there, just by those blue eyes.
Peeta recalls her. As the strong willed girl, that he had been in the Games with. He knows the bruises on her back and shoulder, he suspects things with her and the prison boy- but sees her cling to his Peacekeeper- and he likes her, generally.
"Yes." He says, his voice not shaking. She smiles at him and he smiles back.
"Good." Snow says, and then he waves Caesar who knows what to say, to the stage, and then he tells Ashton to say goodbye- he kisses Keera then walks to the generals. Snow tell the two what he expects, they agree immediately, Keera willing, Peeta uncertain and fearful.
As they walk away to the stage, Snow watched them. Peeta is a work in progress, and Keera is his masterpiece. But he watches the way she stumbles a little in her gait, something she would never do-the old Keera- and he knows that the baby is something that effects her. A burden already, feeding off the weight she collects for it. She starved it the first week, she fell from a tree, she was nearly stabbed straight through with an awl, and she died once before they restarted her heart... the baby survived all that. The baby was a product of her, Keera, his plan maker. And that rebel, Caleb. A natural leader, a passionate man.
Snow pondered slightly, was Caleb's anger at Keera's distorted mind and new lover something to fear? Was it the off chance Keera would remember the worst threat? Or was it this baby?
Then Snow laughed, because that's ridiculous. Caleb can't touch him here, Keera would not remember after so long, and a baby? A baby was nothing but a black mail object.
A/N: I've been hinting at this for a long time now. The nurse thing of course was a hint, and you know little things like- with the bugs, they tried to rip through her close by her lower abdomen, because they sensed it or whatever, not a big hint. And I made comments slightly hinting, I made the awl miss the baby.. erm I don't know just seemed obvious to me. Lol sorry if I shocked you- but really they had sex RIGHT before the Game, convient time no? Oh well, who wants to know more about our little Keera/Caleb? I do! Review, for a quicker update! Thanks for reading, sorry for typos. -Taryn(: