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"I was running up the stairs going to find Thommy. He always managed to find trouble when he shouldn't and I needed to make sure he was far away from that right now. This was the worst night for Cato to throw a fuck party. Loud music blasted. The smoke and colored lights warped the upstairs den into a scene from the underworld making it hard to see more than three feet in front of you. People were fucking on every available surface in all forms of dress. I was not a fan of these kinds of parties that had become so popular this year.
There was only one rule ay a fuck party: if you want to get fucked step inside the house; if you don't, then don't fucking come in. Naturally everyone my age demanded to be there. Drugs, booze, sex toys, ropes, and all the other shit eighteen year olds loved to play with were provided for the guests. Girls moved in packs. They attacked men, tied them up, force fed them Viagra and took turns riding them for hours. Guys would wait behind the front door and tackle the first girl they wanted to the floor to have their way with them. It didn't matter if you weren't interested. I yelled for my brothers, Thommy...really anybody who could control the crowd. My screams were drowned out by all the moaning and pleasure filled cries from the moshpit of bodies on the floor who humped to the music. Vodka and semen were in small pools around the room. I had to avert my eyes to stop from gagging at the girl who was being screwed by four guys at one time.
"EVERYBODY NEEDS TO FUCKING GET OUT OF HERE NOW!" I yelled at the crowd. Nobody paid me any attention except two girls who were coming towards me with smiles on their faces and cum on their chins. Uh, ew no thank you.
I turned away from them maneuvering my way quickly out of the room and going towards Damien's bedroom. I opened the door and started to cough from the thick smoke that billowed out of the room. I looked in the room and saw a fire burning in the middle of Damien's floor. A few girls were laughing as they threw piles of hash onto it. Damien was sprinkling something into a bottle of absinthe in the far corner of the room and shaking it up.
"DAMIEN! These people need to get the fuck out of here!" I said to him. "Dad called. Mom's on her way here and she's on a bender."
"All the more reason for me to go and hide out with Thresh in a coat closet in the servants wing. He's such an innocent! I am finally screwing him tonight, Peet," Damien said to me on a laugh. He was clearly high. "Damien! Did you not hear me? Mom is coming to the beach house and she is on a bender!"
"Dude, why are you worrying? Grab some pussy and go hideout somewhere on the beach. Let her beat the shit out of other people's kids for a change," Damien said as he walked around the hash fire and threw his arm around my neck leading me away from the room.
"Loosen up, little bro! Just stay out of the she-devil's way and you'll be fine!" He said as he slid down the stair banister and turned left for the servants quarters.
I barreled into the next set of rooms, Cato's. He was having a threesome with Clove and Glimmer. Glimmer was getting fucked in the ass by Cato while she ate out Clove. I averted my eyes fast, "CATO! Mom's gonna be here in a few minutes! Get your friends fucking out of here or someone's going to get hurt tonight!" Cato continued fucking Glimmer and just gave me the finger. I didn't even bother trying to convince him further. Mom would probably be happy if she found Cato fucking the Mayor's daughter. She'd find a way to use it to her advantage. Probably would whip out a mobile and start filming right there. As I was leaving, I heard Clove.
"Peeta! Tell Thommy I'll meet him on the beach after I finish." Clove yelled at me as I left the room.
Where the fuck was Thommy? He wasn't answering his cell chip and he wasn't upstairs near the bedrooms. I checked my rooms as well but all I found was a gangbang on my floor. Lovely. Still no sign of Thommy. I moved towards my parents' quarters. I saw green light coming from underneath my mother's 'office' door. Oh fuck.
"Thommy! I banged on the door! Thommy, get the fuck out of there! Now! " I yelled over the music. While I was screaming, I felt a blunt object hit the side of my face hard.
"Ow Fuck!" I said holding onto my cheek. I looked up at my attacker and went cold. It was my mother back from her party on a bender holding a handgun.
"Step away from the door you little shit." She said kicking me in the leg to get me out of the way. She opened the locked door by scratching her metallic fingernails on the wood. The door slid open and revealed a very high Marvel, Caleb, and Thommy messing around in my mom's meth lab. My heart started pounding fast.
"You think it's funny to play around in my things you little shits!" My mom screamed in a rage.
"Mom put the gun down. Please, I'll fix everything. Just put the gun down," I said to her calmly.
"Don't you tell me to put down the gun you little cunt licker!" She said pointing the gun at me. Of the room full of guys only Thommy, who had grown up with me, understood the danger of the situation.
"I'm so sorry Mrs. Mellark. I had no idea this was your area. We found it open. I will pay for any damage I may have caused," He said slowly and remorsefully. He was trying to get my mother to see reason. Unfortunately there's no reasoning with a crazy person.
"Yeah, lighten up Edith. We were just having some fun," Marvel said laughingly
"Lighten up? You want me to lighten up?" She said in a sickeningly sweet voice.
"NO PROBLEM!" My mother screamed at the top of her lungs.
Before I knew what was happening, she shot off her hand gun at large containers of her meth ingredients. The chemicals started spilling onto the floor. She threw the gun at the wall as she ran screaming that she was going to call the police. I watched the entire thing happen in slow motion. The gun flew through the air and hit the wall causing another bullet to shoot off. The bullet hit something with a large symbol on it that read WARNING FLAMMABLE.
A giant boom shot through the air and I was thrown backwards against the wall from the force of the blast. I blacked out and blinked awake to the sound of people screaming. There was a ton of smoke and the smell of burning flesh had me coughing and gagging at the same time. I could hear people screaming as they ran naked out of the house. The sirens of the fire department were blaring loudly in the distance. When I was able to focus on the scene in front of me, a terrifying sight lay before me. I could see outside, the Meth lab had exploded taking a large chunk of house with it. There was tons of rubble strewn around me.
"Thommy! Thommy! Where the fuck are you?! Thommy!" I heard Clove screaming angrily in the distance. "Its not funny, Thommy! Where the fuck are you?! Answer me!"
"Pee…ta.. Pee..taa… Heeelppp." I saw Thommy lying on the floor a few feet in front of me. There was a wall on top of him and there was a pool of blood around his upper body. I couldn't see his lower body. I tried getting up to run over to Thommy only to find that I was incapable of standing. I was covered in chemicals and they were burning my skin, but nothing was as bad as the excruciating pain in my legs.
The burning flesh smell was coming from me. My leg was covered in blood and chemicals were burning me to the bone. The pain was unbearable.
"Peeta! Peeta!" I heard someone calling my name in the distance. I crawled closer to Thommy and grabbed a hold of his hand. I tried calling back to it but didn't know if I was heard.
"I'll pull you out Thommy." I said crawling to him over my own excruciating pain.
"Get… Clove" Thommy cried to me. I only noticed now that he was spitting blood as he talked.
"CLOVE!" I stopped to cough violently. "CLOVE! Over here." I yelled with the last of my strength. I didn't know how much longer I could stay conscious.
"PEETA! Peeta! Is that you?" I heard Damien yell and rubble being thrown from the direction of the stairs. I must have blacked out again because the next thing I knew Damien is pulling my upper arms towards the stairs. I can see Thommy from a new angle now and noticed the wall had impaled him to the floor. I like out a cry at seeing my best friend like that.
"Don't you fucking dare die, Thommy! They can fix you! Stop it! Thommy!" Clove was screaming at him. Soot blackened her face as she rapidly ordered up paramedics to the second floor.
"Clove, Stop…look after Peeta…" Thommy whispered to her. His eyes shut. "Love you guys." I reached out but couldn't touch him Damien moving me away from him and towards the stairs. I watched his head fall the few last inches to the floor.
"No! Thommy! Thommy! No! NO! Damien! Let go! Fuck! Damien, Let go! Thommy! " I screamed. Damien wouldn't put me down instead I felt him shaking me.
"Peeta! Peeta! Wake up love it was a horrible nightmare." I was still thrashing around trying to make Damien let go. My eyes blinked open rapidly and I had a hard time catching my breathe. My leg was burning and I was in so much pain. I reached down to see only my prosthetic. I felt a cool hand on my face. I looked up and saw Katniss hovering over me. She had a mix of love and sadness in her eyes as she looked at me.
"I'm sorry honey. I just went to use the bathroom and get a glass of water. Shh, love. I'm here now. It was a nightmare." Her hands caressed my face and I felt her thumbs wipe tears off my cheeks. I hadn't even realized I'd been crying. I tried to sit up and realized I had sweat through my shirt.
"Kat, I can't breathe," I cried to her. My heart wouldn't stop pounding in my chest and I felt my lungs hurting from the inability to get enough air. My hands were numb and they wouldn't stop shaking.
"Shhh Peeta. Take a slow deep breathe. You're having a panic attack. You need to calm down. I'm here, baby. I'm right here," Katniss continued to say to me calmly.
She had me mimic her style of breathing taking in large breaths and holding each for a few seconds and then letting it out. When I calmed down enough, I sat up and hugged her as close as I could. I buried my head in her and breath her in chasing away the horrible flashback. It was like going through it all over again.
"I relived it...all of it, everything that happened that night. It was horrible." I said to her weakly.
"Do you want to talk about it?" She said to me quietly rubbing her hands on my back.
I just nodded. "Its about time I told you about the horrors of this place...about my 'accident' "
Katniss's POV
I listened in silence as Peeta told me all the details of his nightmare that corresponded to the real life events of two years ago. The night he lost his leg and apparently much more then anyone was willing to talk about.
"So when Damien got me to the bottom of the stairs, I was still screaming for Thomm. He was my best friend and I couldn't just leave him like that. I only started to quiet down when I saw Thresh and Rue mourning inside the rubble. That's when I realized there had been more casualties. The Meth lab was located directly on top of the kitchens and part of the servants wing. Evangeline, she was our chef, had practically adopted Thresh and Rue. When the room exploded, the top floor crashed down into the kitchen and Evangeline's room. She didn't stand a chance. She was crushed instantly. Of everyone who died that night, I always felt the worst about her death. She was an innocent bystander to our disgusting, perverted, entitled ways. I passed out to the sounds of Rue's shrieking cries. She was fourteen." He took in another deep breath trying to keep a new round of tears at bay.
"When I woke up, I was in the hospital. I was covered in bandages. They told me they couldn't fix my leg because of all the chemicals that had infected my bones. They said they had to amputate because if they didn't the chemicals would poison my blood stream. I had to stay in the hospital for six weeks on blood detox."
I ran my hand over his bare leg. We had removed his prosthetic when he woke up and calmed down enough. I lightly caressed him there trying to soothe the once horrible wound and the psychological pain I now knew went with it.
"I was lucky I only lost my leg. Marvel, Caleb and Evangeline died immediately in the explosion. Thommy had to suffer for longer. Of course, my mother managed to get out without a scratch."
" Peeta, I don't understand. Your mother is responsible for that horrible night. She caused the explosion. She's the reason four people died that night. She's the reason you lost your leg! How did she not have to pay for her actions?"
"Simple, love. She made sure no one was going to accuse her. I was too doped up on drugs to try to press charges against her or even testify if someone else had. By the time I had gained any semblance of consciousness, they had managed to hide the story. They wrote it off as a summer house party gone bad while the parents were away. The families of the dead couldn't sue since the lab had been locked and their sons trespassed. Cato was blackmailed by my mother should he try to say anything. Turned out he had gotGlimmer pregnant that night and the mayor, Glimmers father, insisted they get married. He didn't want his future son in law in jail so he made sure the family got off easy and buried the real story. Glimmer had already married Cato by the time she lost the baby so the deal was done. As for Damien, my mother decided it best to make it so he couldn't help anyone not even himself. She got him addicted to the heavy drugs and continued to pay for his habit. He's been useless for the past two years. He hasn't seen my mother since. The guilt hit him the hardest because he feels that out of everyone he had the best chance of saying anything in the beginning."
"I would think Clove had the best chance," I pointed out
"My mother had Clove locked away in a psych hospital for six months so she couldn't press charges. She claimed Clove had gone crazy seeing Thommy's body split in half. My mother happened to be Clove's mother's best friend. She was made Clove's legal guardian when her parents passed so Edith had that power. By putting her in a mental institution it also ruined Clove's chances of ever being taken as a sane witness."
"That's a pretty extreme thing to do to your goddaughter. From what you described of Clove, she doesn't seem like the type to fall over in grief because one of her friends died, I said gently. I felt like I was still missing something.
"That's because they weren't friends. Clove is Thommy's older sister. Their parents died when they were young and Clove raised him. He was the only person in the world she cared about and everyone knew it. Their relationship was very much like yours and Prim's," I felt sick at the thought of having to watch Prim die. It would be enough to destroy me. I suddenly felt horrible for Clove.
"That's the reason she has been helping us so much. Thommy made her promise to look after me right before he died. She's also helping because Clove hates my mother more than anyone on this earth. She correctly blames my mother for Thommy's death. My mother kill Thommy and justice was never served. No one but the select few of us know my mother is a murderer. It's why I trusted Clove with this court case. Clove would rather die than see Edith Mellark found not guilty. Vengeance has become her only reason to live."
"That's why she's picking us up herself tomorrow. She doesn't want to risk us not being there to testify so she's doing it herself," I said finally understanding all the pieces. Peeta just nodded at me. "Peeta, this case is about so much more than I ever thought. I'm not letting you go into that courtroom alone. I'm coming inside with you."
"Kat, no, we talked about this. You're going to wait where it's safe in a pre-specified room. If you need to testify, you can do it in the building strong room." Peeta said back to me quickly.
"I'm not leaving you. We're sticking together. We're not arguing about this." Peeta tried to open his mouth to object. "No! No arguments. I'm coming in with you." I had placed my hand over Peeta's mouth to keep him quiet. He was looking at me with raised eyebrows and a 'do you think you're being reasonable?' look in his eyes.
I couldn't help myself. I had to smile at the look on his face. "Thank you for trusting me with this. I know how hard it was for you to relive it. I'm so sorry about everything that happened that night. I wish I could take away your pain," I said bringing my hand once again to his face.
"You did, Katniss. You don't even realize it. I was in a black hole when you found me. You forced me out of the darkness one shy smile at a time. I didn't have anything to live for before I found you. I love you so much, you gave me a life again," He said to me. His lips sought mine in a hungry kiss.
He ran his hands over my belly and we felt the baby kick. Peeta smiled against my lips "I guess we woke her. Oops. Sorry Peanut!" Peeta said he then bent down and kissed my stomach right where the baby kicked.
"It's not going to be much longer now you know." I said as I ran my fingers through his hair.
"I just need you to stay in there a few more weeks princess until I can get all this sorted out and get your mommy back into her house, okay?" Peeta said to the baby before taking me in his arms and lying back down with me.
"I love you, Peeta," I said as I felt him cuddle me from behind. He sighed.
"You're my entire world, Kat. I'm terrified of you being in front of all those people tomorrow. Please, please don't leave my sight, okay?" I nodded in confirmation. I knew he was trying really hard not to fight with me about going into court with him.
"You know Peeta, you're being very understanding about tomorrow." I said coyly as I turned over and snaked my hand down his abs. "So…accommodating." I slipped my hands into his pants and he let out an incredulous laugh.
"Kat! Really here?" He asked me. I could feel him starting to get hard beneath my curling fingers.
"I can't help myself with you," I said as I nibbled on his ear. With a moan of acceptance, I felt Peeta rip off his pants and my underwear. I was on my side and he quickly entered me from behind, filling me completely. I groaned out loud as we moved against each other. Peeta showered my neck with his mouth as his fingers rubbed my clit in tandem to his movement.
"I love you Kat. So. Much." He moaned into my ear. I whimpered and cried out as he drove me to my release. I felt his climax follow after mine. We sat in the dark holding onto each other like lifelines. The house was filled with nightmares, but in this bed, wrapped in each other's arms our love was able to keep them at bay.
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