Chapter 7: I Can Kill Too
Townie Flint Avon finds Damien Cartwright huddled up high on a concrete catwalk overlooking one of the coal depot yards. The young son of the district shoemaker is shaking both from cold and fear, and even in the dim lighting, Flint can tell that the little guy – one of the youngest Townies – is crying.
"Flint?" Damien whimpers. "Did you see their faces?"
"See whose faces?" As if he doesn't know.
"At the rumble. Rye and Hawthorne!"
Flint's face falls in sympathy even as he shakes his head. "Don't think about it now," he croons, helping the lad to his feet. "We have to regroup, and find Mist. Mist will know what to do."
Until now, things such as the chain of command have never been considered, but Flint knows who Rye would have wanted to take over in the event of the worst. He just hopes the assumption of command will occur without much trouble. He and Damien narrowly evade a Peacekeeper's squad car as they keep to the shadows, finally meeting up with many of the others in the back alley of the Merchant creamer's.
What they come across is a bitter tug-of-war for power between Mist Berryhill and Ray "Action" Donner, though most of the Townies seem to want to gravitate toward making Mist leader. Action is spouting off about revenge, Flint can see he is salivating to give the order for their men to go after the Seamers. The extremely partisan Townie is filled with unbridled rage where most everyone else save Mist is still in a state of shock.
"We… we can't go after them," Damien meekly tries to talk Action down. "They'll kill us too."
"Are you scared?" Action mocks in disgust.
"N-no…"
"Coulda fooled me! I ain't scared and I wanna blow them Seamers outta the water!"
The crash of glass is heard as someone tosses down a bottle from an upstairs window. "HEY! Clear outta here, ya punks, or I'll call the Peacekeepers!"
"You wanna make something of it?" Action hollers back up at the man, before Mist suddenly grabs him and manhandles him and the rest of their crew into an unlocked warehouse.
Delly Cartwright is crying, wailing about how she wants Rye. Her brother Damien is sobbing quietly. Action is still mouthing off.
"I swear, if I see a Seamer or even a Peacekeeper, I'll…"
"YOU'LL LAUGH!" Mist suddenly bellows, more enraged than anyone has ever heard him, as he turns on a spotlight that bathes the rest of the Townies in an odd glow. Now fully in control and with their attention, the new leader of the Townies speaks: "Now, you all listen: if the Peacekeepers come round asking questions, you know nothing about went down, you understand me?! You play it cool."
"And what if I wanna get even?" Action growls.
"Then get cool! Don't be a crazy boy, Action. We all need to play it cool!"
It takes some doing, especially where Action is concerned, but Mist is eventually able to restore order and calm everyone down. It's the fear that has yet to go away, but at the moment, Mist figures a bit of fear is healthy.
After all, one of their own is still out there.
"Now, first things first: we have to stay out in the open. If we lay low, the Peacekeepers will know something's up. And…"
"HEY!" A higher-pitched voice shouts as a crew-cut figure darts up the street, and most of the Townies suppress groans. But Johanna Mason is undeterred.
"Oh, go wear a skirt!" Action grouses.
"I got scabby knees – listen!" Johanna deadpans.
"Supposing they ask about the rumble?" Damien stammers.
"Supposing they ask where's Peeta and what party's looking for him – with a longbow?" Johanna floats.
That gets Mist's attention, and his eyes narrow. "Hey, you know something?"
Johanna is smug, and very much delighted by attention long overdue. "I figured somebody's gotta infiltrate Seamer territory. I'm very large with shadows, you know…"
"Unless you're breastfeeding a baby, I suggest you lay off the milking," Mist cuts her off. "What do you know?"
"I know plenty!"
"Then SPILL IT!"
"OK! I hear Thom Borden say to the Seamers something about Peeta and Gale Hawthorne's cousin…"
"Yeah?" Mist frowns. He doesn't know what some pretty little cousin of Hawthorne's has to do with it, but…
"… and then I hear Borden say 'If it's the last thing I do, I'm gonna get that Townie!' And he pulls out the bad news!"
"Gee," Damien's lip is quivering.
Mist's brain races. "We gotta find Peeta before the Seamers and the 'Keepers do! He came through for us, so we need to come through for him! Action, Flint, check the school play-yard! Damien, the back alleys, especially the bakery rear loading dock! I'll go up the Hill to ol' Abernathy's; Peeta might've headed there!"
Everyone splits.
"And I'll check the shadows!" Johanna volunteers, even though no one is listening.
No one, that is, except Mist. "Hey!" he calls to her. Once she turns, he graces her with a smile. "You done good, buddy boy!"
Johanna nearly blushes with the vindication. "Thanks…. Daddy-O."
It doesn't take long for Mist to reach Victors' Hill. When Abernathy lets him in, the old Victor tells him that Peeta is here, and safe, down in the Telephone Room that doubles as the basement. The rest of the Townies reconvene at the mansion in twos and threes, returning there as a base by unspoken agreement. If some are concerned that the Seamers might try to invade what has also technically been considered neutral territory, no one comments on it. The possibility is too apocalyptic to even contemplate…
… at least until an olive-toned Seam woman – the laundress, Hazelle Hawthorne – suddenly enters the mansion without knocking, when Haymitch has briefly stepped away into the basement to check on Peeta. Mist and the other Townies exchange wary glances; the lady probably knows by now what happened to her son.
"I'm looking for Peeta Mellark," she announces.
"He ain't here," Action snipes, a little too quickly.
"Then can I speak to Haymitch Abernathy?"
"I don't think you wanna bother with him now. Wasting a Victor's time isn't exactly polite," Mist attempts to head her off.
Hazelle, however, is undeterred, and refuses to be shooed away. No one is exactly sure who of the Townies initiates the first touch, but soon the Merchant boys are toying with Hazelle, taunting her, the lust in their eyes apparent. They finally corner the woman and hold her down, peer-pressuring poor Damien Cartwright into taking a crack at her. But before the Townies can add rape to their rap sheet under murder, a bellow of rage and strong, calloused hands are flinging them back every which way.
Haymitch Abernathy blows through his own living room like a hurricane, breaking up the altercation and even helping a shaken Hazelle Hawthorne to her feet. She can only stare at her would-be assaulters in revulsion and horror.
"Gale was right…. If one of you was lying in the street bleeding… I would walk by and spit on you!" She walks to the front door with more dignity than thought possible before spinning back to the silent group in a blind rage. "Now, I have a message for your little Aryan buddy! You tell him that Katniss won't be coming to meet him! You tell him that Thom Borden found out about him and my niece… and shot her!" She leaves with a snap, and only Haymitch breaks the silence.
"When is enough for you? You make this world lousy!"
"We didn't make it, Haymitch," Action sighs glumly, fatalistically.
"GET OUT!" The Townies vacate the premises. All Haymitch can do is stagger sadly down the stairs, where Peeta is packing a rucksack.
"Can't thank you enough, Haymitch! We'll try to write to you and let you know where we are…"
"Boy…"
"Katty says her father built a cabin out there in the woods, right by a lake… We'll plant crops, and have kids, and we're gonna name them all after you – even the girls!"
"Kid, you don't understand!" With Peeta turned away, Haymitch has no choice but to spin the lad around and punch him in the face. "WAKE UP! Sweetheart isn't coming! There is no Sweetheart!"
Peeta freezes, rubbing the sting along his cheek. "What do you mean?"
Haymitch can barely get the words out. "That was Katniss's aunt, Hazelle, upstairs. She said Thom found out about you and Sweetheart…. and shot her!"
The world is spinning. Peeta is staggering, gasping for breath. "Katniss… Katniss…" He can only whisper her name over and over again before he lets out an anguished cry and tears up the stairs. Haymitch tries to follow, knowing the moment the boy steps out of the Village, he will be at the mercy of Thom or worse, Thread, but the Victor trips on the stair, collapsing in a puddle of his own tears.
"THOM! THOM! COME ON, GET ME TOO, THOM! I'M RIGHT HERE!" Peeta's voice is screaming into the night. He is stumbling, staggering, weeping and beseeching his Seamer enemy to come and get on with it already. "Please… I want you to…" With Katniss dead, what point is there in living? He feels as hopeless as a tribute in the Hunger Games; death would be welcome compared to living without his Katty.
"THOM!"
"Peeta!"
Peeta whirls around, peering into the gloom of an alley. "Who's there?"
"Me, Johanna."
"Get out of here!"
"You have to come with me! We gotta hide!"
"Get outta here, I said! … THOM! DAMN YOU!"
"Peeta…"
"You're a girl, Jo! Be a girl and BEAT IT!" His vehemence is enough to scare her off as he stumbles into the school play-yard, the statues of Haymitch and Lucy Gray Baird partially blotting out the moonlight. "THOM! GET ME TOO! THOM!"
"Peeta!"
Her sweet voice, like that of an angel. He must be hallucinating. Has it really come to that? But then he turns, and coming into a beam of moonlight, he sees her. Perhaps she is a ghost, but her smile is radiant with relief and only for him.
"Katniss…" he whispers her name like a prayer, and then she is running to him, and he is pelting to her. "KATNISS!"
TWANG!
THUNK!
A force drives into Peeta's back, pitching him forward the rest of the way into his wife's arms. They hold each other in a warm embrace before his strength gives out a moment later, and he staggers, Katniss cradling him and whimpering in confusion.
Blood leaking from his mouth, the tip of the arrow firmly embedded in his back, Peeta is shaking as Katniss rocks him in her lap. Her tears fall on his upturned face like sweet rain.
"I… I didn't believe hard enough…"
"Loving is enough!" Katniss insists through her choked tears. Brushing the golden bangs off of his handsome face, she mournfully sings the Meadow Song, ignoring how bodies are now rushing into the school play-yard: "Deep in the meadow, under the willow, lay down your head and close your sleepy eyes… here is the place where I love you…"
Peeta curls into her warmth and finally goes still, his impossibly blue eyes no longer seeing. Lifting her tear-streaked face, Katniss sees a stupefied Thom Borden, a bow hanging limply at his side, staring at what he has wrought. Seamers and Townies are on all sides, before loathing eyes lock and the two gangs start towards each other: the Townies to rip Thom limb from bloody limb, some of the Seamers protecting him while still other Seamers are not sure who to battle or who to shield.
To Katniss, none of it matters a whit. It's all the same cycle of violence in the end. It just goes around and around and who wins? No one.
"Stay back."
The voice of the huntress, the cousin of the Seamers' slain leader, makes everyone freeze. Katniss rises deliberately, crossing over to Thom and she wordlessly holds out a stony hand for the bow. He passes it to her immediately. She studies it for a moment, admiring its craftsmanship while also decrying what its arrows have done.
"How many arrows are left, Thom?" Katniss's voice is disturbingly calm, but no one, not even Thom, dares answer her. "Enough for you?!"
Quick as lightning, she suddenly lunges, wrenching a quiver of arrows off Thom's shoulder and loading one in the notch, aimed at her arranged suitor's temple. Cries of protest and fear go up from all assembled, but Katniss merely spins the arrow's tip from face to guilty face. "And you?! And you?! ALL OF YOU! You all killed him! And my cousin! And Rye! How many arrows left in the quiver, Thom? How many? And still have one tip left for me? You killed my love with your hate! Well, now I can kill too, because I have hate!"
She settles back on Thom again, who flinches, bracing himself. Just as it looks as though the distraught young widow is about to fire…
Katniss drops the bow and arrow with a gut-wrenching cry and sinks to her knees, body wracking and heaving with sobs. Thread and Darius arrive in the interim. One of the Townies starts to move towards Peeta's body, and Katniss flings herself over to him, hissing like an angry cat.
"Don't you TOUCH HIM!" Everyone else keeps a wide berth, letting her grieve. Finally, Damien Cartwright cautiously steps forward and drapes a shawl over Katniss's shoulder; she bristles slightly, but accepts it. And when several Townie boys, Action Donner and Mist Berryhill among them, move in to lift her lover's body, she doesn't interfere.
Between even two of the strongest Townie boys, they stagger under Peeta's weight…
… But then a Seamer, and another, instinctively lurch forward and catch the corpse, as if to help.
A frozen, distrusting tableau for many beats. But finally, at long last, the Townies accept the Seamers as pallbearers in a sort of peace offering. It is blonde-haired children and olive-skinned kids of the coal mines both who make up Peeta Mellark's funeral procession, Katniss – the grieving widow – marching solemnly behind, while Thread and Darius arrest Thom and lead him away.