Chapter 53: Wiress Strickland

Mrs. Everdeen's POV

Beetee hands me the key that he recovers under the doormat and I insert it into the lock. With a creak, the door to the mansion of Wiress Strickland in the District 3 Victors' Village swings open. The place is dark and musty after more than a year without use. There is a thick collection of dust on all the furniture, their outlines becoming clearer once I flick on the lights.

"You're right; there's not much left," I call back to my…. my colleague.

Though is that really the word for what Beetee is to me now? I feel a shade of pink color my cheeks that I've never displayed since I lost Glen in the mines more than seven summers ago. Ever since that night we kissed in his office, I have felt the trace of Beetee's lips lingering on mine. Ever since we went back to my apartment and had sex I've felt the urge between my legs to know the love of this man again. A man who is at least fifteen years older than me.

It's insane! On the face of it. To some degree it feels worse knowing I slept with someone who is a friend of my daughter's. Beetee might not be a peer of Katniss, but the Games do have a certain way of forging friendships (though most ended in tragedy) that are strong. The Games between the Victors did this in particular, especially amongst those who were rebelling.

The age difference between Beetee and I, and his relationship with Katniss, should alone be stopping me from doing something rash, like kissing him again, as I've now done often since that charged moment in his office. But if Katniss were ever to learn that I made love with the man who seems to believe (quite logically) that he is responsible for my baby girl's death… well, I know my eldest won't take it well. I remember Beetee saying how he doesn't think Katniss has extended blame for the bombings from Gale to him, though logically, she should. My colleague seems to think Katniss will make that intellectual leap eventually. And when she does, and if she were to ever find out that Beetee and I have even casually been seeing each other outside of work…. I shudder to imagine it.

Since the night we kissed and shagged, Beetee and I have been having fun together. He took me to the picture house in the Capitol last week. We spent much of the movie alone in the darkened theater kissing with tongue, some heavy petting. Gentlemanly, he didn't try to take advantage of me and fuck me.

I glance back to where Beetee has yet to wheel himself past the front stoop, while he stares at something off to his right. I drink him in. He is fine enough to look at – not classically attractive like Glen was, but they say beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. And right now, I have to admit, I like what I see very much. He is rational, analytical, as I am. We both hold a passion for science. We respect and celebrate each other's intellect as equals. Glen had smarts, in a street, common sense sort of way, but he wasn't cerebral. With Beetee and I, there is mutual respect and a support of one another in our work.

Could we extend that into building and sharing a life together? My heart hums at the thought. Once upon a time, I thought I could never love someone again the way I loved Glen, but now…. Perhaps I have healed enough that I am ready. It's a testament perhaps to my eldest girl as much as it is to me, considering only two years ago, I was still in a deep depression over my husband's death and quite ill.

"Beetee?" I murmur softly. I drift over to him, kneeling beside his wheelchair. He doesn't even turn his head. "What's wrong?" I follow his gaze to where he is staring across the street and further back down the green. To the mansion in a back corner of the Village.

"That was Xander's place right there," he nods to it. "He lived here alone for twenty years before I arrived."

I spot another house about five doors down, kiddy-cornered across the way to the porch we now sit on. The door to that place has been kicked in. "And there?"

"Mine," he mumbles, running a hand over his face. "The Peacekeepers probably broke in and ransacked the place after the force field blew, looking for clues."

Tenderly, I cup his cheek and force him to look at me. "Would you like to search there when we're done at Wiress's?"

He morosely shakes his head. "No. If there's little to salvage here, there won't be even so much as a battery or a lug wrench to find in my place."

Before I can think better of it, I lean in and kiss his lips quickly, softly. He holds it, the faintest hint of a smile gracing his mouth. "I'm sorry."

He shifts in his chair, powering the wheels forward with his hands. "Let's go inside."

We start in the kitchen first. Pulling open all the drawers, I can see only one has been consolidated to hold proper kitchenware. The rest are stuffed with springs and nodes and a thousand other tinkering delights for which I have no name. Behind me, I can feel Beetee smiling sadly.

"She was just as into building and designing as I was. Wiress never cooked much for herself. I usually had to do it and bring it over. One time, she almost got motor oil mixed into the marinara sauce of my baked ziti – my mother's recipe."

I turn back to him, smiling brightly. "I would have liked to have met your mother. And Wiress." His face just turns an adorable shade of red and he looks down.

Beetee asks that I pack much of the tinkering odds and ends into a duffel bag we brought with us when traveling into Latier (the new state name of District 3) from the Capitol. We briefly look into the sitting room, where the fancy flatscreen TV when Primrose and I lived with Katniss sits, but find nothing of value. We move on upstairs into what must have been Beetee's district partner's bedroom. In the bedside table, I find….

"Her design blueprints?" Several notebooks with reams of paper coming out of the binding, every inch of each loose-leaf sheet covered with scribbles and sketches of prototypes. Wiress wasn't a bad drawer on the whole – almost as good as Peeta, or at least from the little of his talent Katty told me about while living in the Village.

Wheeling up next to me, Beetee nods. "She'd spend hours focusing on one invention or another. We'll probably find prototypes for some up in the attic."

"The attic?" I glance down to him.

He shrugs. "It was the only spare room in the mansions where we could store things or just be alone to do the hobbies we wanted. It was either that or commandeering the Telephone Room in the basement, and none of us were about to find any reason to go in there."

I remember seeing Katniss's telephone room when we were given a tour of the house upon moving in.

"When I first came home, I asked about building a workshop in the backyard, to do my own tinkering. The Capitol said No. Same after Wiress won. We made do with what was given. I'm sure Peeta probably stores his art studio up in his attic. That's also the only place in the entire house that isn't bugged."

At the bottom drawer of the nightstand, I find that it's been sealed with a padlock. Beetee gently nudges me aside. "Here, let me." He rolls the dial calmly. "She never knew I knew the combination…" he mutters almost sheepishly before popping the thing off.

When I pull open the bottom drawer, it is empty, except for a single knife. I hold it to the light, and the blade shimmers. I feel a shudder go through me and nearly drop the thing in horror.

Beetee just watches me. "She took that from her first Cornucopia and kept it close while going through the fruit orchards of the arena. She only used if for defense, never for attack, at least up until the end. Much of the time, she was cutting trees and manipulating them for her other, more intricate weapons.

I wait for Beetee to elaborate, on what traps she set, how she pulled it off, but he doesn't. I know I watched Wiress's Games live for the first time a long time ago, back after I was first married. And I know the girls watched it for their classes in school, but I don't remember it. I carefully pass Beetee the knife. It should go to him, and he pockets it cautiously.

We continue up into the attic. Beetee waits for me at the bottom of the ladder as I go up alone, a lantern lit to see. By now, outside, it is growing dark, yet I can still see maybe a dozen to fifteen prototypes of inventions Wiress was working on. We'll have to hurry. The evening train will be departing for the Capitol soon, and my… my friend and I need to catch it.

With great effort, I manage to lug each and every invention of Wiress's down the ladder, down the stairs, out of the mansion and into the trunk of our rental car. When the trunk fills up, the rest of the inventions are loaded into the backseat.

I wait faithfully by the idling engine while Beetee stands in the entryway, giving Wiress's empty home one last look. He closes the door behind him and wheels down the side ramp. I turn and climb into the passenger seat, a moment later hearing the hydraulics of the accessible car's driver side door as it lifts, followed by the ramp extending. Beetee wheels in and his chair clicks into place behind the dash.

For a moment, it is quiet. Then, with surprising strength, Beetee unfastens my seatbelt and tugs me across the console into his lap so that I am now straddling him.

"Beetee, what….?" I gasp.

He doesn't let me finish, dragging my face down to his as he kisses me passionately, roughly. His tongue quickly parts my lips and swims into my mouth, and I moan, giving in, my lashes fluttering closed over my Merchant blue eyes as I mold myself to him and kiss him back. Beetee's arms sweep up my lower back, playing with the ties at the bodice of my dress. Rather boldly, I yank my bodice down past my breasts, which are already hardening in the moonlight, and touch my nipples. Breaking the kiss with a gasp to come up for air, I bring Beetee's face close to my boob and let him take my own nipple in his mouth, while I furiously rock against the head of his clothed erection.

Encircling him, returning the embrace, my fingernails dig into the fabric of Beetee's backrest (the only part of the seat installed to make room for wheeling his wheelchair) as my lover pushes the skirts of my dress up past my hips. My one hand dips between our joined pelvises to feverishly unbuckle and free him; I can feel my panties being slid down my thighs, and once I free him, Beetee shoves himself inside me, ramming me into the steering wheel. I yelp with happy pleasure as he takes me.

HONK. The horn on the steering wheel beeps and it pierces the still night of the Village and our idling car, but Beetee doesn't stop pumping his hips. He thrusts up into me, and with every slam, I'm bashed back into the horn, so that it soon joins the cacophony and chorus of my groans and his grunts as we fuck.

"Urgggg….. Hmmmm…. Mmmm….. Huhhh…. UHHHH! Yesss….." I am croaking out babble, and don't care if he just keeps screwing me like this….

When Beetee roughly kisses me, I melt into it, soft and compliant, feeling tongue dance around mine. My toes curl.

"Hmmmmm-MMMMMMM!" In the next second, I am screaming my release around his plundering lips, and after a few more jerks of his hips, Beetee follows up into me.

I sag against him, his mouth in my glistening breasts, slick with sweat.

"Move in with me," I gasp, pant out without thinking. I feel Beetee's face lift from the valley of my breasts to lock eyes with me. "When we get back to the Capitol, move in with me."

My heart howls and clenches when I see his face fall. "Belle…. I would love nothing more. But…"

"But what?" I caress his face, dip my lips to his and kiss him again. "Honey, talk to me."

"I've been meaning to tell you…. Annie's offered me a post at the new hospital she's established on Victors' Island, off Odair's coast. She needs someone experienced to help staff it and bring Capitol medical technology. I've decided to take the position and move out there."

My eyes fill with tears. "So you're leaving me?"

"I don't want to!" he protests. "But Annie's expecting Finnick's baby, and she's going to need help. Her hands are full lending assistance to the orphanage there enough as it is."

I gnaw on my bottom lip, making a decision. I kiss Beetee softly again, wrapping my arms around him. Resting my head on his chest, I whisper, exhilarated: "Then I'm coming with you."

I feel Beetee's chin nod against the top of my head, and lifting my face to his with a finger, we kiss again chastely. "I'll talk to Annie about her hiring you as the Head Nurse. Healer, or whatever."

I shake my head, beaming radiantly. "I don't care what my title is, so long as I'm with you." And leaning in, I kiss him deeply.

We barely make the 7:00 train out of Latier in time, loaded down with all our treasures but buoyant at being in love and together, ready to go with each other wherever life takes us.