Chapter 62: Enobaria Gabbro

"Miss Gabbro? …. MISS GABBRO?!"

"WHAT?!" I snap, cutting the power to the circular table saw strong enough to cut through stone itself – a Capitol advancement in technology, of course. I let the earphones slip off my lobes as I spin to glare fiercely at Altur Jenkins, Clerk to the District - State Chief Justice of the Peace in the Justice Building. He is a spindly man with thick glasses, not at all that much to look at, and he's been popping in and out every several months the last couple of years since the Revolution to check up on me. The annoyance I feel whenever I see him somehow makes his little visits seem all the frequenter.

I have to hand the man this much: he doesn't blink or cower away when I verbally bite his head off. "If you're close to having a break, would you please come with me… there's a telephone call for you in the Justice Building…"

I groan and roll my eyes. "Not Aurelius again?" I'd been working with him, on a recommendation from Tree Shrew (that would be Johanna) and apparently Fire Bitch is also a patient of his.

To my surprise, Altur shakes his head. "No. Not Aurelius." A really awkward, unnecessary pause, in which Altur must assume that I can read minds.

"Well?" I demand. "Who is it, then? Because if it's not worth it…"

"Trust me, I think you'll want to take this call," Altur urges. Then he finally is forthcoming on details, when he adds: "It's being patched through from the Justice Building in Everdeen."

I pause. Well, this is news. Fire Bitch has always come off as anti-social to the point of being hormonal, like she is constantly knocked up the way she pretended to be in the Quell but we all knew she really wasn't. Then again, I can be pretty anti-social myself. Even Jo lets few people in, so how she got people to elect her as the Governor of her State, I'll never know. Also, if she isn't sleeping with the head of her security detail, then my name's Effie Trinket.

I don't really want to take to Little Miss 'My In-Love-Face-Resembles-The-Passing-of-a-Kidney-Stone,' but Altur doesn't move. He might look like a human doormat, but once you get to know him, it becomes very clear he isn't one.

….. I like him….. Mostly.

After trying to find an exit from this trap and coming up with none, I warily sigh and follow Altur out of the limestone pit where I've been working for the short walk to the Justice Building here in the State of Rykers.

When submitting an application to Paylor for statehood at the end of Reconstruction, there had been a debate over what to rename ourselves. It was painful to move away from being known as District 2, but others insisted the change was good. A couple years on, I'm still not so sure, but I am at least OK with how we partially named the new state after Polonius, a fellow Two Victor. A sharp pang enters my chest when I think of him now. I wasn't as close to Polo as some of the others, yet still I miss him. He may have been a smart-ass, but he was still from the Fatherland. I was friendly – well, at least as friendly as I can be - with almost all of Two's champions; Maximus was the only one whom I personally did not know; he had passed away before I arrived at the Institute.

Altur gentlemanly holds the door for me, and I actually grin at him in amusement – an expression that shows off my real smile this time. It might still be a little sneering, but the golden fangs the Capitol insisted I cosmetically place in my mouth after my first Games are now gone. I'm intrigued when Altur blushes right down to his chest, leading me to his own personal office. A phone is hanging off its cradle on top of the desk.

"I'll leave you to take the call in private, Miss Gabbro," Altur is annoyingly polite as he leaves me in peace.

I stalk to the receiver and pick it up. "If this is the Fire Bitch, well, sorry, but I can't give you any boy advice. If this is the Walking Bar, no, you can't have more booze shipped from Two, I'm cutting you off."

There is a light pause, followed by a strained, amused chuckle, on the other end of the line. "Sorry on both accounts, Baria."

I blink, nearly dropping the phone. "Peeta?" I register my surprise by actually using the boy's given name. "Whatcha… whatcha calling for?"

"Well, that's a slightly rude way of putting it," Peeta pouts, put out but with the mirth still dancing in his voice. "I believe the proper, grammatically correct question would be, 'To what do I owe the pleasure of your calling?', or 'May I ask why you are calling?'"

If it weren't for the fact that he personally never met the man, I would yell at him to stop acting like Polonius. "Cut it, Lover Boy. I don't need to hear how you've been taking etiquette lessons from Trinket, not like you ever needed them."

"You know, I'll take that as a compliment, but actually, it's my wife who is insistent on adherence to correct grammar."

"So you talk the way your little wifey wants you to? I must say I'm surprised, seeing as how Little Mockingjay was raised in the sticks."

I can hear as well as feel Peeta's frown through the phone. "Katty's half-Merchant on her mother's side, and she prides herself on being a very cultured district lady. Besides, she expects good grammar from her students."

Students? "So she's a…. a teacher?"

I can sense Peeta's smirk. "Part-time. She was nervous at first, but she really connects with the kids, once she opens up. She enjoys it."

I shrug. "More power to her, then." I huff out a breath. "So what's this about, Mellark? I know you didn't burn all those sesterces on a collect call just to shoot the breeze." A thought occurs to me. "If you want to yell at me about how I tried to hunt you down like a dog, go ahead. I'll wait. But just remember: it was just business. Nothing personal."

There is a longer, heavier pause, and I brace myself for the yelling. Maybe Mellark is working himself into an induced mania. Getting into his mutt zone before he takes a whack at me. I was housed two cells down from him in prison below the Training Center; I could frequently hear his screams as he was being tortured.

Except when Peeta next speaks, his voice is still soft, even friendly, and I have to wonder if he was just jerking me around. "I… I hear you're a woman who knows how to get things."

I frown. "I'm not smuggling any more moonshine to Abernathy, so if he put you up to this, tell him thanks, but no thanks."

"I'm not in the market for that."

"So what are you after then? Drugs? An affair? I can't promise my sexual foreplay is any better than what you're probably not getting at home…"

"First of all, no. And second of all….. ewww. Katniss keeps me satisfied just fine."

I lift an eyebrow nearly into my hairline. "Really? So she doesn't keep her knees firmly closed?"

"Ok, we're getting off topic, so let me get right to the point… I hear you're a woman who knows how to get things." He puts greater emphasis on the phrase, as if that will somehow make me better understand just what the hell he's talking about. I should introduce him to Altur; they'd get along great!

"Yes, we've established that, Bread Boy, and I must tell you, I guess that would depend on what it is you want." He's totally hitting me up for sex.

"…. Information," Peeta finally relays. I blink, silently waiting for him to go on. "A while back, Aurelius assigned Katty and I a homework assignment. We're writing a book."

"A book," I repeat dubiously.

"It's actually called a Lexicon," Peeta corrects loftily, and I hold in a snort. "About all the Victors. We do a two-page spread on each one. I sketch and paint a drawing on one side whenever we can't find a photo, and then Katniss writes a little blurb about them on the opposite page. We have all the tapes of the Games, and have been going through each one, but between Katty's teaching and my work at the Bakery, it's been slow-going."

I must admit, I'm a little intrigued. "But what can I give you that Abernathy can't?" He may be a drunken lout, but Haymitch could be one of the wiliest mentors I knew, even when he was plastered. He absorbed intel on our colleagues the way he probably could absorb liquor through his skin.

"I'm hoping a lot," and I hear a rustling of paper through the receiver. "I… I have a list here. If you could get me as much as you can on these folks: journals, census records, anything you might have."

I'm starting to feel a little leery. I know my friends kept private things in their mansions, which now stand empty in untouched Victors' Village, where I now live – alone and undisturbed – at the far side of the state. "You want me to break into my dead friends' houses to go through their things?"

"No…" Another pause. "But if you can…. And even then, only if you have to."

I shake my head. "Fine. What's the list?"

"Uhhhh…. Right. The list….. Magnus Sterlingshire –"

"Well, you've already skipped several," I can't resist pointing out dryly.

"We're on the 26th Games right now. We have all we need on Maximus, Hippolyta, Gunner and Calista."

"Are you sure? Because I have tons of stories about the Headmistress," I offer up, and I am shocked that I mean it.

"Uh…. sure, that sounds great, Baria. We actually found quite a bit in her memoirs – Haymitch ordered it off Euphrates…"

"That service that delivers basically everything now?"

"Yeah, yeah, and Katty girl found a Rachel Maddow segment about her on MeTV." He goes back to his tally, which he reads off like a shopping list. Fire Bitch must just love how he's all domestic. "Magnus Sterlingshire. Telemachus Brown. Androcles Lupton." A really chilling, almost emotional pause, and on the next name, I think I actually hear his voice crack. "Brutus… Lyme Tanner. Polonius Ryker. You, if you want to talk. Ajax Slayte. And…. that's it."

"Be ready for some writer's cramp, Lover Boy. I don't think we'll need to resort to breaking and entering for me to relay to you what you need…." And, for the next five hours, I'm off, spilling my guts like an outlier at the Bloodbath regarding all I know. When we finally finish, the sun is sinking low in the sky, and I actually feel a bit better. Chatting with Lover Boy was cathartic, in its way.

"I can rustle up some more from the others' mansions, should you need it. They've been left undisturbed. Just don't go alerting the fuzz here in the Justice Building or have Beetee hack into the security systems and post the footage on MeTV."

Peeta chuckles. "Sure thing. If it's not too much trouble. And Baria? …. Thanks."

I grin genuinely. Maybe I should hop a train and head out to Everdeen. During the 74th Games, I hated Mellark's guts, for good reason, but now…. maybe now we could actually be friends. Plus, if he ever gets the cold shoulder from Fire Bitch, I actually wouldn't mind going for a roll in the hay with the guy, fourteen years my junior be damned. Soon as I think it, though, I wince, bizarrely hung up on how I know Altur wouldn't like it if I did sleep with Bread Boy.

Friends. Where both cases are concerned, let's just go with friends.

"You're welcome." I hang up, exit the office, and nearly walk right into a curious Altur Jenkins.

"So? How did it go?"

Shocking myself, I run a hand up his bicep to the back of his neck and yank his lips down to mine, kissing him deeply and furiously. When I draw away, I'm smug at how he looks shocked and incredibly thrilled. I smirk, leaning in to whisper along his earlobe. "I'll leave it to your imagination…." And I saunter away, making sure my hips swivel a little. Licking my lips where I can still feel the taste of him there, they upturn into a small smile.

Yeah. I like him... mostly.