Hello! I had no idea we were getting so close to the end of the book! Now, I seem to have lost my copy of the hunger games, so my apologies if these next few chapters are a little off from what the book says. Please enjoy!
Peeta's POV
I woke up, my head feeling clearer than it had in days. I sat up and felt no dizziness, no pain. Well, actually, there was a small pain in my arm. I looked down to see a needle sticking out of my shoulder. So she went to the feast after all, I thought.
I looked over at Katniss and my heart nearly stopped. She was lying facedown in a pool of blood. I quickly rolled her over and looked at her face. There was a huge gash in her forehead, and the rest of it was stained with blood from the wound. She still
had a pulse though, so I got to work.
I took one of the water bottles and poured it on a cloth from her pack. Slowly, I washed the blood off her face and cleaned the wound. I then took some bandages from the medical kit and wrapped them around her head, securing them with medical tape.
My stomach growled, and I realized that all I had eaten for the last few days was a handful of mushed up berries flavored with sleep syrup. A side effect of sleep syrup is that some people find that it sharpens their hunger once they wake up. Starving,
I began digging through the packs. I found some groosling and began devouring the fatty, delicious meat. As I was licking my fingers clean, I realized that the groosling May have needed to last longer. Oh, well. It was already gone.
I checked on Katniss again. She was sleeping peacefully, and I wondered what had gone on at the feast. Just then, as if it was answering my thoughts, the anthem began to play. I peeked out through a hole in the rocks. Clove has been the only death. I
looked back at Katniss. Had she fought with Clove? Is that why she had that wound? Did she kill her with the arrow? She was missing a few when she came back.
Katniss begins to stir. She whispers something about home. "Katniss?" I ask. She sits up, and then immediately winces, pressing her hand to her forehead. "What happened?" She asks weakly. "Well I woke up and you were lying there in a very scary pool of
blood," I answered. "You're all better?" She whispered. "Whatever you Shot into my arm did the trick," I assured.
"Peeta," she says, "Clove is..." "Yeah," I say. "I saw it in the sky. Did you get her?" "No," she says. "Thresh broke her skull with a rock."
An image of Clove, lying at the cornucopia, eyes still as glass, blood trickling down her face comes to me. I push it out of my mind.
"Well, good thing he didnt get you," I said. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Katniss wince again. "No, he did," she said. "Only..."
I look at her, and she takes a deep breath. "After I woke up from the tracker jackers, Rue and I teamed up. She had been treating me while I was unconscious. We shared everything with each other. That's how I knew about the leaves, and the berries. Then
we came up with a plan. The Careers had activated the bombs that surround the Cornucopia. Rue lit a signal fire in the woods, and once the Careers had left, I blew up their supplies. The blast hit my ear though. I cant hear anything from my left side.
But then, they found her first."
Katniss stops talking and blinks back tears. "Thresh didn't kill me because he didn't want to be in my debt. Like you and the bread. And how I can never stop owing you for that." "I don't understand," I said, realizing how stupid that makes me sound.
"You wouldn't. You weren't poor," Katniss says. That stung. I was about to snap something at her when she asks "Why did you do it?"
"Do what?" I ask stupidly. "Give me the bread." I think back to that rainy day and put my hand on my cheek, remembering how my mother had struck me. "You know why," I say.
I think about who's left in the games. Katniss, Me, Cato, Thresh, And Foxface. "Our biggest threats are Cato and Thresh," I remark. Katniss starts tearing up again. "What's wrong?" I ask. "I want to go home, Peeta," she whispers.
Later, as we scavenge the rest of the food from the packs, Katniss asks, "So what's on the far side of the Cornucopia where Thresh is?" The first day of the games comes back to me. "A field," I say, remembering the tall grasses. "No one really wanted
to go in it. Maybe some of the plants are wheat." "I bet some of the plants are wheat," Katniss says. "I bet Thresh knows which ones too."
She's silent for a while, and I know she's thinking of something. "Well," she finally says, "I guess knocking you out was a real stroke of luck." A stroke of luck? That's what she thought of it as? "No, it wasn't!" I protested. "I don't want you risking
your life for me!"
The thought of what would have happened if Thresh hadn't been there, or if he had killed Katniss himself, overwhelms me. She wouldn't be here. I would soon follow her. A world without Katniss...it would destroy her family. Her friends. And me.
"Well, maybe you're not the only one who cares about what would happen!" She snaps back. "Maybe you're not the only one who...who..."
She trails off, and I look at her. Had I been to harsh with her? "Who what?" I ask cautiously. "That's...exactly the thing Haymitch told me to avoid," she says, avoiding my eyes. That's obviously made up. Haymitch would want her to
spill her guts right now. But I wouldn't force her to.
"Then I'll just have to fill it in myself," I say, and before I know it, we're kissing. It's our first kiss that I'm fully aware of myself for, and I know I'll never forget it. Her hairs matted, her skin is dirty, and she's broken and bruised,
but she looks more beautiful than anyone I've ever seen. She wraps her arms around me, and I respond with more passion. Slowly, I break away because her wound is bleeding through the bandage. But if it wasn't for that cut, I could have kissed her
all night.
Gale's POV
Sitting on a hill in the woods, I try and shake the image out of my mind. Katniss and Peeta, in the cave. She doesn't care about him, I try and tell myself. But I can't deny the fact that their kiss seemed more than staged. She risked her life for
him. He took care of her. I know Katniss well enough to tell when she's lying. Haymitch didn't tell her not to talk about her feelings. She really cares about Peeta.
Angry, I chuck rocks into a stream. Little minnows scatter as each stone breaks the surface. I should have volunteered, I thought. I should be there with her in the cave. I should be taking care of her. I should have been at the feast, watching her back. Having
to work in the mines gave me enough to do to ignore most of the games. But late in the games, work is often canceled, and now only hunting can take my mind off things. But not completely, because I don't want to be alone in the woods. I want Katniss
next to me, bow and arrows, ready to hunt. I'd been in the woods by myself until I was fourteen, when I first met Katniss. I never wanted to be in the woods alone again. But even if she returned, the woods would never be the same. I would never be
able to hunt the same way with her, talk the same way with her. She'd be living with Peeta, and I'd never be as important to her as him.
Stupid games, I thought as I began unloading my traps. I was slowly donating less and less to the collection tin. The tin was for Katniss, Not Katniss and Peeta. But only a few coins had gone to Katniss so far. The only thing for Katniss
we had bought for was a small portion of the burn medicen. The rest had come from Capitol sponsors. But everything else we contributed, the sleep syrup, food for them, small amounts of the medicine, had all been used for Peeta. Have you forgotten who we are? I
want to scream every time I enter the hob and see people donating for Katniss and Peeta. Peeta's never done anything for us. It's always been Katniss. Katniss supplies fresh game for everyone. Katniss trades greens and fish. Peeta only sells
to the rich. His family won't sell their beautiful cakes to any starving citizen. They'll barely give out fresh bread for a squirrel. If Katniss owned that bakery, she'd give out fresh goods to every starving person who came her way. Because she knows
what it's like to starve. Peeta came from a privileged background, never had to take out tesserae, never had to worry about where his next meal would come from. He wasn't part of the Hob. Yet all the merchants seemed to forget that. They forgot that
our fellow hunterneeded help, and were instead helping an outsider who never bothered to give us a second glance.
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