I almost jump up and down like a little school girl with happiness. Even my highest hope didn't not reach this high of a level. I never expected this much good luck. My mind is zooming forward toward what could possibly happen when Katniss finds me. Or if she finds me. Is she so mad at me for joining the careers that she won't even come looking for me. I close my eyes, breathing deeply. In and out. In and out. This usually calls me down. And it does. She will come for me. And if she doesn't... In out. In out. If she doesn't come by tomorrow night, I will go looking for her.
Even with my hurt leg, I will find her. She cannot just ignore the new rule. But, she probably won't come until tomorrow when it's light out. So I flutter my eyes closed, and fall asleep. When I wake, it's almost morning. I didn't sleep at all! I must be so excited that I will see Katniss again. I will talk to her. I will go home with her. I smile myself back to sleep, willing myself to get more rest. I dream of happiness. We have won. We are back home. Our families are safe. Safe and sound.
But then the reaping comes. The reaping. Prim is chosen again. But Katniss can't volunteer. No one does. We watch the games. She survives until the final four. But then a fire erupts at her end of the jungle and she burns to death. Her screams pierce my ears. Katniss has my arm in her hands, and she's shaking up and down. "Make it stop! Make it stop!" she runs away, trodding on my foot as she goes.
My eyes fly open, and I am looking up at Katniss. Katniss! Katniss! I hear her whispering my name. "Peeta! Peeta!" but then she stops. She has been walking along the river bank, and now begins to splash into the water.
"You here to finish me off, sweetheart?" the words fly out of my mouth before I can stop them. She spins around so fast, I'm surprised she doesn't slip. She looks straight at my face with those beautiful grey eyes. But then continues to scan the ground around me.
"Peeta? Where are you?"
I try to say, "Right here," but my voice catches in my throat.
"Peeta?" she continues to walk down the bank, and her boot almost descends on my face.
"Well, don't step on me," I say, panicking. I look up at her as she gasps, putting a hand to her mouth. And I start laughing. Just plain laughing. I guess I'm just so relieved that she came to find me. And it is kind of funny.
"Close your eyes again," she says, waving a pointed finger at my concealed face. I close both my mouth and my eyes for a few seconds. I feel her lean next to me. "I guess all those hours of decorating cakes paid off," she says, and I open my eyes to look at her.
"Yes, frosting," I say jokingly. "The final defense of the dying." I can hear my voice, all cracked and broken. I haven't talked in about 3 days. It has taken its toll.
"You're not going to die," she tells me.
"Says who?"
"Says me. We're on the same team now, you know."
"So I heard," I say. "Nice of you to find what's left of me."
"Did Cato cut you?" she asks me, handing me her water bottle.
I take a sip and say, "Left leg. Up high."
"Let's get you in the stream," she says. "wash you off so I can see what wounds you've got."
"Lean down for a minute first," I say, almost laughing in my head at what I'm going to say next. "Need to tell you something." she leans over, putting her right ear to my mouth, and I say, "Remember, we're madly in love, so it's all right to kiss me anytime you feel like it."
Her head goes up so fast, I'm surprised she doesn't get a kink in her neck. But then she starts laughing.
"Thanks. I'll keep that in mind." she starts to drag me to the stream, and the pain is agonizing. I don't remember my leg hurting so badly. Ever in my life. I try to stop the cries from leaving my mouth but they escape my lips in sharp sounds. I feel tears escape my eyes and flee down my face. Katniss has gotten me about two feet from the shore line when she stops.
"Look, Peeta, I'm going I roll you into the stream. It's very shallow here, okay?" Katniss says.
"Excellent," I say, trying to brace myself as much as I can. I getting my teeth, waiting for the agony.
"On three," she says. "One, two, three!" she says, rolling me. Sharp, piercing pain erupts throughout my body. Not just the stab wound, but the stings and the burns resonate pain around my body like echoing pangs of agony. She rolls me completely around, until I'm facing the sun again, and then stops. "Okay, change of plans," Katniss says. "I'm not going to put you all the way in."
"No more rolling?" I ask hopefully.
"That's all done." I sigh in relief. "Let's get you cleaned up. Keep an eye on the woods for me okay?" She begins to bathe me. She extracts 3 water bottles from her orangish-brownish pack, one of them being a water skin. How'd she get so many? Were they all in her pack? No I don't think so. I look at one of the water bottles and a pang hits me.
That one looks extremely familiar. I close my eyes, thinking back. Oh yes, that was Marvels water bottle. Did Katniss kill him? I shudder at the thought. Well, we are in the hunger games. What else would I expect her to do. Cower in a corner and wait for the pain.
No. Like my mother said, she's a fighter. She puts both water bottles in the stream, and dunks the water skin in as well. When the water skin is filled, she dumps it over me and puts it back into the river. She picks up Marvels water bottle and dumps it over me too. After a while of continuing this, she unzips my jacket, which was previously covered in mud. Then she takes of my shirt.
My undershirt is practically a part of me now, considering she can barely take it off of me. She has to use her knife to cut it and rip it off. She washes my body with the water, and I feel my stomach flutter at her touch. I smile, but it disappears almost instantly. Pain begins to rack my body again. She examines my torso, her nails tickling my chest. Then she pulls me up so that I am leaning on a rock, facing her. I sit there, just staring at her face as she tends to my wounds. She turns to her bag, and pulls out a jar of some kind of cream. She rubs them on my burns, and I sigh in relief.
Where did she get that? Right now, I don't care. I'm just happy she's here. She then looks at my stings from whatever those bee-like things were. They have swollen to the size of what I assume is a plum. She takes out the stingers, and my mind screams in pain but I only wince on the outside, portraying a strong man, not a helpless boy.
But I don't think it will matter what I portray, seeing as I just sitting here, a damsel in distress, as Katniss saves me. She takes out leaves from her pack as well, and puts them in her mouth. That's odd. What are those for? Before I can ask, however, she has stuck them on my stings. It feels so good. I look back up at her face, and see her frowning. She turns to her pack yet again and I see her pull out a first aid kit that I am sure was at the Careers main camp. I see it now, as Marvel picks it up and inserts it into his pack, joking about if he gets an arrow wound from that "fire girl." even the memory makes me mad.
Katniss takes out a couple pills and hands them to me. "Shallow these." and I do. "You must be hungry."
"Not really. It's funny, I haven't been hungry for days," I say truthfully. I see her face fall, as if I have given her the wrong answer.
She extracts this meat like thing from her pack that must have been a bird and says, "Here, eat this." My stomach jolts uncontrollably and I just don't feel hungry. I crinkle my nose and turn my head in the opposite direction. "Peeta, we need to get some food in you," she says. "It'll just come right back up," I say.
And as I tell her this, I feel an overwhelming exhaustion come over me, and I need desperately to sleep. I barley even notice as she is setting some bits of dried apples into my hand. I try to eat them, for Katniss's sake, but the overwhelming tiredness is seeping into my veins.
I stuff the fruit into my mouth, and say, "Thanks. I'm much better, really. Can I sleep now, Katniss?"
"Soon. I need to look at your leg first." She scoots down to my lower body, and takes off my boots, socks, and pants. I don't feel the slightest bit embarrassed. I don't know why, but I don't really care. Maybe it's because I am at the end of my life. I look down at Katniss's face and see its color vanish, leaving a white exterior.
Now I know my wound must be bad. She's a hunter. She's used to seeing this kind of stuff. If it makes even her turn white, and now green, then I am on my death bed. "Pretty awful, huh?" I ask, trying to lighten the mood.
"So-so," she answers, shrugging her shoulders.
"You should see some of the people they bring my mother from the mines." Oh that's right, her mother is a healer. My father has talked about it on endless occasion.
"First thing is to clean it well," Katniss says with confidence. She continues to wash me down with water bottle after water bottle, until finally she says, "Why don't we give it some air and then..."
"And then you'll patch it up?" I ask, realizing that she probably flees the house whenever someone brings her mother a patient.
"That's right. In the meantime," she reaches back into the depths of her bag, "you eat these." She pulls out a few dried halves of pears. I chew them slowly and continue to watch her face as she looks back into the first aid kit. After a few minutes, she turns back to me and says, "We're going to have to experiment some."
She grabs the Leaves that she used to put on my stings and sticks them into her mouth again. Once she applies them to my leg, a green puss begins to ooze out. It almost looks like jello, a rare delicacy that my father bought for us once on a very special occasion. I look at Katniss's face and, seeing that it's a very delicate shade of green, decide to make a joke of what I was going to say.
"Katniss?" I say, getting her attention. And then I mouth the words, "How about that kiss?" She bursts out laughing, and I can see her face return back to normal. Glad I have made her feel better, I say, "Something wrong?" in an innocent, young boy's voice.
"I...I'm no good at this," she stammers, glancing back at my oozing leg. "I'm not my mother. I have no idea what I'm doing and I hate pus. Euh!" she says, washing my leg with more water. She lets out another groan as she puts another layer of leaves on.
"How do you hunt?" I ask, amused and honestly curious.
"Trust me. Killing things is much easier than this. Although for all I know, I am killing you."
"Can you speed it up a little?" I ask, trying to keep the mood light.
"No. Shut up and eat your pears." She continues to apply the leaves to my leg as puss saps out of it. I can see her face growing greener and greener in the light that bounces through the trees.
"What's next, Dr. Everdeen?" I ask sarcastically.
"Maybe I'll put some of the burn ointment on it. I think it helps with infection anyway. And wrap it up?" she concludes with a questionable tone, and I feel even sorrier for her. She has no idea what she is doing. She reaches over and grabs the orange backpack, tossing it at me. "Here, cover yourself with this and I'll wash your shorts."
"Oh, I don't care if you see me," I say, honestly.
"You're just like the rest of my family. I care, all right?" She turns her back to me, facing the stream. I struggle to take my undershorts of quickly, but it is difficult to get them over my swollen up leg. I look down at it the cut and see a glimmer of whiteness that must be my bone. I shiver and throw my undershorts into the river in front of Katniss.
"You know, you're kind of squeamish for such a lethal person," I say with a little laugh.
"I wish I'd let you give Haymitch a shower after all." She turns to me, her nose wrinkled.
"What's he sent you so far?" she asks.
"Nothing," I say, nonplussed by this. Then I realize, where else would she have gotten that cream? "Why, did you get something?" She shrugs, looking down at her feet.
"Burn medicine. Oh, and some bread."
"I always knew you were his favorite," I say quietly.
"Please, he can't stand being in the same room with me," she retorts back.
"Because you're just alike," I mutter. The overwhelming exhaustion engulfs me once more, and my eyelids flutter closed. I am wandering in a desert, alone. No one is there to help me. I try to get to a water pump that keeps jumping off to a farther place, but I am never able to get to it. I feel a shake on my shoulder and open my eyes to blinding light.
I hear an angel calling me, saying, "Peeta, we've got to go now." I turn my head and see that it's just Katniss. Who is an angel in my mind.
"Go? Go where?" I ask. Why does she want us to move? It perfectly fine being here, I've been here for a few days now and no one has found me but her.
"Away from here. Downstream maybe. Somewhere we can hide you until you're stronger," she tells me. She helps me up and we begin to walk, more like limp, downstream. I try to walk through the pain but every time I take a step, a blinding flash resonates through my eyes, making me go momentarily blind. I feel my face go white as I continue on. "Come on," Katniss says, urging me on. "You can do this."
But I can't. After fifty yards of hobbling, she sets me gently on the ground and puts my head between my knees and pats my back. It is so obvious now that she doesn't know what she's doing in terms of medical attention. She continues to pat my back, and after a while asks, "You ready to go?"
I'm not entirely strong enough but I gather my wits and stand up. She tries as much as she can to help me up to a cave that she has found about twenty yards away. About half way there, I begin to shiver frantically, even though sweat pours down my face. But we continue on.
Once in the cave, I lean against the wall as Katniss puts a layer of pine needles on the floor, and extracts a sleeping bag from her pack. She tucks me into the bag and goes to the entrance of the cave. I gaze at the back of her head. She attempts to make a sort of curtain out of vines and leaves from the forest and in frustration, rips it down.
"Katniss," I say and she walks over to me, brushing the hair out of my eyes. "Thanks for finding me."
"You would have found me if you could." It's true, I would. Suddenly, I feel like a corpse. An all but dead body that has a heart that has only a number of beats.
"Yes," I say. I have to tell her something before it's too late. I have to tell her how much I love her. How much I care about her. How much I would suffer if she died. "Look, if I don't make it back-"
"Don't talk like that. I didn't drain all that puss for nothing," she says, interrupting me. I try to continue.
"I know. But just in case I don't-"
"No, Peeta," she says, putting a finger to my lips. "I don't even want to discuss it.
"But I-" and just then, Katniss Everdeen leans forward and puts her lips against mine, kissing me. Katniss Everdeen. Kissing. Me. I never though those four words would be in the same sentence. It always happened in a dream. A silly kind of dream, that I thought would never come true. But it did. And it's happening right now. This all occurs in one second, speeding through my mind. She breaks away from me, saying,
"You're not going to die. I forbid it. All right?"
"All right," I whisper, closing my eyes to delve into dreams, hoping when I wake up, this will not be a dream. I feel a pressure in my lips once more and look up, startled to see Katniss's face so close to mine. But this I lay back down, smiling as I gaze into her beautiful face. "Look what Haymitch has sent you."