3rd person POV (a week after Katniss is announced to be the Mockingjay)
Peeta stands bolt upright when he hears the thud. "Stell!" Peeta runs forwards, only to be caught by a peacekeeper, holding him back as he watches Stell get beaten with gun. It crashes into her body again and again as she lays unconscious, unable to protect herself. "Stell!" Peeta swings out blindly with his fist, catching one of the peacekeepers off guard and being able to break free for a moment.
He rushes forwards, throwing himself between the gun and the girl. The gun makes contact with his cheek and pain shoots through his face as he covers it with his hands.
Snow watches calmly, as the two Victors are beaten, before standing up from his chair. "I believe that is enough for now." He smiles, and the peacekeepers look up at him and nod their head. The gun stops being bashed into the Victors, and slowly, Peeta gets to his feet.
"Carry her." It's a sharp order from one of the guards, and he obliges. She's surprisingly lighter than Peeta would have thought, and his jaw sets as he feels some of her blood seep onto his arm.
"And may I remind you Stellar what happened the last time you refused to comply with what I asked of you?" "You were the perfect little prostitute."
The words keep replaying over and over in Peeta's head. Two other pieces of information that shock him, that he chooses to focus on. In the back of his mind he fears what will happen when he fully acknowledges the fact that his whole family is dead.
So he refuses to think of them. He thinks of Stell instead. Because everything else is too confusing for him right now. But she's here, and he knows what he just heard.
The youngest peacekeeper in the guard looks to Peeta, only eying the younger boy for a moment. He notices how his face is already swelling. Vaguely, he remembers the time last year when his little sister went on and on about how attractive she thought Peeta Mellark was.
Peeta isn't much younger than he is though, only three years. He's only two years younger than the woman in his arms. He glances again, looking her limp form over. Bruises are already forming along her shoulders and face. He can only imagine what her back will look like in the morning, most of the beating having been there.
They reach the cells promptly, and Peeta sets Stell down in her cell before having to return to his own. He decides then, that he'll start asking her questions when she wakes up. If not for curiosity's sake, then just so they both don't go insane.
Finnick's POV (day after Katniss is announced to be the Mockingjay)
I untie the piece of rope for again before starting a new knot.
"We will uphold our end of the agreement, as long as Ms. Everdeen holds up hers." Coins words play over in my head. We had a meeting of sorts last night, where Coin announced Katniss's terms to the entire District, and in return, she was their Mockingjay.
Though I only focus on one term: immunity for all the captured Victors.
Peeta, Johanna, and Stell.
Stell. Who is alive. I know she's alive, I saw her.
"Hey Finnick!" I look up to see Prim standing in the doorway, holding a tray which I assume to be my lunch. By the look on her face, she's been waiting for me to notice her for a few minutes. I smile at her.
"Hi Prim." I pat the spot next to me on my bed and she walks over, handing me my food once I put down my rope.
"Have you seen Mags yet today?" she asks me, folding her hands in her lap. I stare down at the food. It doesn't look appealing, it never does. I poke at what I think to be mashed potatoes with my fork. "Finnick?" I look up at Prim, who sits on the edge of the bed.
"I'm sorry, what?"
"Have you seen Mags today?" she asks again.
"No, not yet." My response is distracted; I can hear that for myself. I scoop some of the food into my mouth, chewing and swallowing without really tasting anything. I'm not sure if the food is just tasteless, or if it's me. "How's your cat?" I look up to the little girl, whose smile broadens even wider. She came rushing in the other day to tell me all about her cat that Katniss had found.
"Oh he's wonderful! They won't let us feed him food from the kitchen, so he goes in and out the window to hunt."
"That makes sense." And it does to me; it seems like a very, District Thirteen type thing to do.
"Did you ever have any pets?" Prim asks. A memory that comes into my head makes me start laughing as I nod.
"I had a bird once, for a while. My older brother, Brom, he caught it and brought it home. We named it Wesley." Prim laughs at the bird's name, and then her eyebrows draw together.
"I didn't know you have a brother." My smile falls instantly and my jaw tightens.
"Yeah. My family, they uh, they didn't want to see me really once I turned sixteen." Because I started being a prostitute but couldn't tell them that. "I would see them around the District sometimes, but they wouldn't look at me."
"Why? Did something happen?" Prim sounds heartbroken, and I put a hand on her shoulder and try to smile.
"It's fine really. And kind of, but," I pause, not really sure if I want to tell Prim, "I'll explain some other time."
"I just don't understand how they could just leave you, they're your family."
"They had their reasons Prim. But like I said, it's fine." The girl takes a deep breath, and then flings her arms around me, being careful not to knock the food that's left out of my lap. At first, I don't move, but then I put down the fork, onto my plate, and wrap my arms around her. My eyes screw shut, and I feel a tear roll down my face.
Stell's POV (Ten days after Katniss is announced to be the Mockingjay)
My hands tighten around the rifle that sits in my lap as I watch the landscape go by in a blur outside the train. My jaw tightens as I listen to the Capital soldiers who surround me, all in white Peacekeeper uniforms. I could shoot them all now, kill at least ten of them, but then I'd be dead within five minutes.
I can't shoot any Capitalite at all right now. The feeling of the patches on my body reminds me of that.
"Now Stell, these, are very important." Snow holds up a single patch, a small, white, square with a red dot in the middle. He holds three of them, all connected by a thin, almost invisible, wire. "These will be on your body. One behind your left knee, one on the back of your neck, and one over your heart." I feel my eyebrows rise.
"That's interesting."
"It is, now, if you should, shall we say, get out of hand, I can simple press a button and you will either be blown to bits, or collapse to the ground in paralysis state. Do you know who the only person that can get you back to normal is?" It's a rhetorical question, I know it is, the answer is obvious, but I answer anyways.
"You."
"Exactly."
"I could just rip it off." I point out.
"Not really, if one is removed before it's deactivated, well, then I'd hate to pick up the pieces."
"Let's move!" I look up when I hear a deep voice, and flinch when they slap me on the shoulder. The head peacekeeper of this legion looks down at me, smirking. "You're out first, and remember, shoot anyone wearing a rebel uniform, and remember your lines."
I stand up stiffly, loading my gun and undoing the safety. Seconds later I'm shoved out of the train car and onto the ground of District One. Peacekeepers surround me from behind, and somewhere among them, one is speaking directly to Snow and telling him my every move, they have cameras on me as well.
"They broke the barrier on the east side of the main city square! That's where we're headed!" I yell out so that everyone can hear me.
"Should we take captives?" a younger peacekeeper calls out to me, just like he's supposed to, and I narrow my eyes at him.
"Shoot anybody who's not wearing white. And make sure they're dead." I give him a tight smile before turning and 'leading' everyone to the east side of the city square. My boots pound against the gravel as I run, my finger resting on the trigger. The square isn't too far away from the train station, located only about a mile away.
My eyes take not of the changes as I run. The way some windows are boarded up, the shattered glass that lines the streets, that before were a pristine white. I see a plume of smoke rising from the gem mines.
When I catch sight of the rebels, I don't even hesitate to shoot. I thought there would be a difference between a warzone and the arena, but there really isn't any. I don't think as I shoot, as I run towards the rebels, as I watch them drop dead. I hear an order shouted out to hit the ground and my body slams into the rubble as a grenade sails over my head.
The smoke, and blood, and the sound of gunfire soon starts to get to my head though, my brain, and I feel myself panicking.
I see the building, glass shattered from the windows. A door falling from the hinges. And suddenly I'm back in the arena.
My arena.
My breathing gets faster and shallower as my heart races. I have to open my mouth in order to get enough oxygen to my lungs. When I hear the sound of something slamming into the ground, I'm off like a bullet.
I shove my body upwards from the ground and start to blindly sprint towards the fallen buildings. It's safe in the rubble; I can hide more so there than in the open or the surrounding forest. The mutations cannot move as quickly between the buildings.
I reach an intersection and turn left immediately; knowing that to the right is where the boy from Seven went. His face had appeared in the sky within a matter of minutes.
"Stell!" I push myself faster as I hear my name, whipping around the next building. My gun continuously slams into my body.
I make a blind turn next, the sound of shattering glass making me want to scream. To scream and never stop.
I'm shoved to the ground by whoever I run into, and they pin me easily. Seeing their rebel uniform makes me snap back to reality.
The buildings change color and the sounds I hear are not as amplified as I had thought.
"It's you." The boy growls at me and I lounge quickly from under him, catching him off guard and just grazing my hand over the gun that he knocked out of my grasp. He slams me back to the ground before I can get a proper hold.
But I can feel it.
"You're a traitor. Support the Games, I lost my brother to those you know."
"I'm sorry to hear that." My voice is harsh, like usual, and his eyes narrow at me. I realize that 'like usual' is not the usual for the public. They're used to the polite, carefree, happy Stell. Not the rude, cold, nightmare-haunted one.
My hand finally secures around the barrel of the rifle, but I don't move.
"I'm fighting for him, to stop the Games." He takes out a pistol, holding it to the side of my head. "What are you fighting for?"
"Myself." I swing my arm and roll my head at the same time. Smashing the barrel of my rifle into his head as the bullet misses mine. He falls to the ground and I roll from under him and stand up. I aim my rifle at his head and do not even wait a second before pressing the trigger.
"Stell? Stell?" I groan as I slowly lift my body off of the cement floor. My head pounds as I look over to see Peeta, his hands wrapped around the iron bars that separate us. "You okay?"
"I've been better, how long was I out?" I glance down at my arms, bruises lining them and I see dried blood on the floor.
"A day, I think." We're both silent for a while before he speaks again. "What was it like?" I look at him, confused, as I rub the back of my head. I try to remember what had happened, but my memory stops just as I met up again with the Capital soldiers I was assigned to.
"Growing up in Four?" I'm not prepared for that question; I was expecting one about going to One, but not of home. But I do welcome the question; I surprise myself when I realize that.
"It's different than anywhere else, obviously. We have three main parts of the District. The shops, the dock workers, and the factories. The wealthiest live in the factory or shop parts."
"Where did you live?" I don't answer him right away; I slowly walk over to the back wall, and slide down so I can lean against it.
"I, I lived near the docks, one of the poorer parts of the District actually. With my parents and my brother. Dad took shifts on one of the secondary fishing rigs and Mum worked the morning shifts at the hatchery."
A comfortable silence goes over us as Peeta processes what I just told him. When he doesn't speak for a while, I decide to. It's better than sitting in silence.
"We have a lot in common you know." I look over at him, the side of my face resting on my knee.
"We do?" he asks, and I can make out the look of confusion on his face.
"Yeah. We were both in the Games, we both won the Games, we're both blonde, both our families are dead, and we're both here right now." I can see a tear go down his face when I mention our families. "Don't cry." My words come out softer than my usual harsh tone, which causes the boy to look over at me. "I'm not going to lie and say it gets easier, because it doesn't. You learn to deal with it, you don't get over it. You never will, but just don't cry over them."
"How did yours…" he trails off.
"How did my family die?" I ask, and slowly see him nod.
"If you don't mind me asking." I wave him off with a shrug.
"I said no. President Snow made me an offer, and I said no. He told me that was fine, that he was sorry I didn't want to accept. A few days later I opened the door to my home to find them. My parents were on the floor, cut up into pieces, their blood covered the room. And my brother-" My throat closes and I cough so that I can continue. "he was handing from the chandelier, a noose around his neck."
Peeta doesn't respond for a long time, because really, what do you to someone who just told you something like that. But he's Peeta, the boy with the golden tongue, so he does come up with something.
"So, you-" he's cut off though, by the door slamming open and peacekeepers filing into the room.
"What the hell?" My head snaps to them. They march forward, opening Peeta's cell and grabbing for him. He reacts as any Victor would, and his fist connects with one of their faces. I don't know why, but he crumples to the ground a moment later. "Peeta!" I push myself up from where I sit and am instantly overcome with a wave dizziness. I watch as another light it turned on to reveal a whipping post on the other side of the room. Two actually, and I continue to yell as Peeta's wrists are each bound to one leaving him kneeling on the ground, his arms spread out. I stagger over to the wall closest to him.
"What do you know about District Thirteen?" The head of the peacekeepers barks the question out at him, but Peeta shakes his head.
"Nothing." I watch his body tense as a peacekeeper behind him bludgeons him with a long piece of hard wood. The sound of the weapon hitting his body seems to echo in the room.
"What do you know about District Thirteen?" the question is repeated, and Peeta gives the same, honest answer. He's hit again, harder this time. "Fine then, what did you know about the plot to break about of the arena?"
"Nothing!" Peeta's words get louder, and he's just hit harder, they smash his arm this time. I don't understand why I see blood start to seep from where they hit him until the little sunlight there is catches on the weapon.
Short, sharp metal spikes stick out from the end of the tool. "You have to have known something, I'd be a good idea to tell us Peeta!"
"I don't know anything!"
And it goes on and on and on. Question after question that Peeta doesn't know the answer too. He tries most things. Telling the truth, that he doesn't know the answers, and then not saying anything at all. I lose track after the twentieth time he's hit.
When they hit him just below his shoulder, for the fifth time, he lets out a cry of pain.
"Stop! Stop hitting him! He doesn't know anything, goddamn it stop!" I'm screaming as I clench my hands over the bars of the cell. Peeta looks up at me, pleading, and I hear myself let out an agonized scream when they cuff him upside the head, and he goes unconscious.
Thanks so much for all the reviews! They mean so much! Please tell me what you think of the chapters! If you have any questions at all too i'll try and get back to you as soon as I can. I hope you enjoyed this one!