Chapter 3: Reading of the Card

Peeta's POV

March has been quite intent in coming in like a lion… and not going out like a lamb. It has rained pretty much every day this month. It didn't help that on this particularly morning we had a particularly hefty order from the Capitol, so that even ten sets of hands working on it and a baby watching us didn't make for light work, as the saying sometimes goes. By the time I got around to delivering our orders to the Victors' Village, the sun is sinking fast over the horizon.

Mom is waiting on the front porch when I come back, towing the wagon behind me. "There you are! Where have you been?"

"It doesn't take five minutes to cross the district and back, you know," I grumble.

"It would if you took the delivery truck!" Mom cuffs me on the ear. "And don't be cute! We have to prepare the yeast for tomorrow's batch! Your brothers and Madge are already working on it!"

I nod, waving her away as I slip an apron over my head, prowling to the back. It annoys me when Mom just follows me around, past where Bannock, aged 16, and Damper, aged 13, are thundering down the stairs, sniping at each other. Injera, my 15-year-old niece, sweeps out of the accounting office cuddling her baby brother, Manannan (we call him Manny for short); she gives me something between a smile and a sympathetic grimace, reminding me so much of her mother, Delly, in that moment.

Finally arriving behind the counter, I ease into the assembly line next to Rye and Leven; on my other side, my sister-in-law, Madge (Leven's wife), nudges me playfully.

Mom still isn't done, though. "Were you spending all your time talking to Katniss Everdeen?"

"N-No," I curse the stammer in my voice. "I had to make the rounds to Haymitch as well. The kids were being rowdy, and Rory Hawthorne offered me a cigar…"

"Oh, don't spin a yarn with me! I know you've been talking to that girl!"

"So what if I have? Prim doesn't exactly have time for a social life with a Healing business and four kids, and old Abernathy is about as warm as a bump on a log." To my left, I hear Rye snicker, which quickly gets Bannock snickering even as he continues taking cheap shots at his little brother every third or fourth mound of dough.

Mom just tsssks, shaking her head. "Peeta Mellark, you damn well know as well as I do it will do no good to get involved with a girl like that…"

"No one's involved with anyone…."

"Uncle Peeta's got himself a girlfriend?" Bannock cranes his neck around his father, eyes gleaming mischievously. "You sly dog! That Everdeen lady is fine! How much does she put out in exchange for bread?"

"Nothing but sesterces, young man, and if you don't stop running your mouth, I'm gonna plant my boot up your ass!" I admonish him.

Bannock lifts his hands in mock surrender. "Touchy, touchy…."

Around us, Mom is still talking. "…..especially considering she's Seam…."

"She is a Victor, Mother, and you would do well to show her the respect that that demands! Do you want to drive our best customers away?"

"Best customers, my….. foot," Damper saves himself in the nick of time at Leven, his dad's, warning glare. "Old Abernathy just melts down our bread back into yeast for liquor…"

"You can't turn bread back into yeast, genius! Are you a baker or not?" Bannock thwaps Damper upside the head, causing his head to reel forward just as Manny – sitting in a pile of flour on the counter - slashes his tiny hand along the countertop and swipes some flour right into his big cousin's face, causing the teenager to sneeze.

"AH-CHOO!"

The loud sneeze startles Manny enough that he tumbles back to lie flat on the counter, so that his body knocks an empty mixing bowl onto the floor and causes it to shatter. Sitting up again, Manny points at Damper. "Cuzzie did it."

Damper's jaw drops. "Manny!"

Despite the fact that she saw the whole thing, Mom rounds on her grandson in a rage. "Clumsy fool! That was our best mixing bowl….!" She actually raises her hand, but Leven gets in the way.

"Stop it! It was an accident!" At his hard glare, Mom backs down. Leven has always been her favorite, and in more recent years, my brother has used this to wield enough power to protect his kids and Injera and Manny from suffering the same beatings we boys did when we were little.

Dad finally emerges from down in the storeroom just as we are loading the unleavened dough into the ovens. His presence gives Mom enough distraction to yell at someone else for a change.

"There you are! Where have you been…?"

"Rearranging the stock. We're starting to dwindle; we'll have to put in a new order from the Capitol to replenish…"

"Do you think we can hold out until the Quarter Quell?" Madge asks.

"No way, my dear – we probably will clear this stock well before the Reaping," Dad shakes his head. "Which reminds me – Delly will have supper on the table soon. Tonight's the Reading of the Card!"

Bannock and Damper look at each other, intrigued if also a little wary. Picking up Manny, Injera can only roll her eyes at them.

"What do you think the twist will be, Uncle Peeta?" Damper asks me, as we all start to file into the dining room. "We've read about the Quells for Hunger Games History class at school…. what are they like?"

"Well, buddy, I've only ever been alive for one myself, and it didn't make that much of a splash to me."

The 3rd Quarter Quell is the only one I've been alive for; I was 17 at the time, not much older than Bannock. Back then, we were fresh off Katniss's Victory in the Games the year before, and actually went into the card reading with more hope than we had felt in years. After all, back when my parents were teens, the Second Quarter Quell was the year our own Haymitch Abernathy won the Crown. If anyone stood to gain another Victor, and consecutive wins to boot, it was District 12.

We all sit around the sprawling table. Delly has clearly outdone herself for supper. We're better off than most District 12 families, save for the Victors, and it helps to have natural foodstuff supplies in our line of work.

"Let's all say grace," Mom commands, and we fold our hands to pray. "Oh, gracious Capitol and almighty Snow, you have blessed us by leading us to a good land, where we need never hunger. We ask you to show your grace on our bounty, for this night and all the nights to come. Amen."

"Amen," we intone. Beside me, Bannock is snickering and hissing to Damper:

"If this is a good land, I'd love to know what a poor land looks like…"

"The arena," Damper quips.

"Boys, hush!" Leven chides, sparing them at least from the glaring daggers Mom is sending her grandsons.

We're still not quite done with the meal when the appointed hour arrives, prompting Dad to switch on the holoTV projector. Delly transfers the device onto the table, where we all watch President DeSantis begin his speech.

DeSantis came to power when his predecessor, Coriolanus Snow, died of old age fifteen years ago, just after Injera was born. He's in his mid-fifties and striking, and I have a feeling his presidency will last just as long as Snow's did.

"Greetings, Panem! This is the centennial of the Hunger Games. In the charter of the Games, it was decreed that every twenty-five years, there would be a Quarter Quell, to remind the districts of the horrors of the Dark Days and to discourage rebellion from ever happening again. Our past Quarter Quells have been significant and honorable…"

DeSantis reads the past twists: On the 25th anniversary, as a reminder that it was the districts' choice to initiate violence, each Reaping was replaced with a special election, and the district citizenry voted on the tributes who would represent it. On the 50th anniversary, as a reminder that two rebels died for every Capitol citizen, the districts sent twice as many tributes. How did Haymitch get out of that alive…?

"Abernathy must have been quite a badass…" Bannock muses.

"Bannock, stop it!" Injera snaps.

"On the 75th anniversary, as a reminder that fathers and grandfathers died needlessly, thus extinguishing future generations, the districts were required to send in tributes over the age of 19," DeSantis is intoning.

I remember hearing Snow read that when I was a teenager. Rye and I were relieved; I was guaranteed safety for another year, and my middle brother was able to sail through his last Reaping free and clear. We all worried for Leven, who was then 20, but he wasn't picked; a 30-something miner was.

However, what makes me feel pain about the last Quell was that Belle Everdeen, Katniss's mother, was chosen for the women. For her first year as a mentor, Katniss had to coach the woman who gave her life. Belle's instinct had been to be a Healer, not a killer, and she was killed in the Bloodbath. When Katniss and Haymitch came home from the Capitol, I made my first delivery to the Village, which included a pair of cheese buns. Accepting them on her front stoop, Katniss had broken down against my shoulder and we'd had our first real conversation; I've been delivering up to Victors' Hill ever since.

"And now we honor our 4th Quarter Quell," DeSantis announces. A pageboy steps forward with a wooden box, and the President plucks out an envelope marked with a 100. Procuring the card, he reads, "On the one-hundredth anniversary, as a reminder that even the strongest cannot overcome the power of the Capitol, the male and female tributes are to be Reaped from their existing pool of Victors…."

Injera, Delly and Madge all gasp. Bannock's jaw has dropped. "Oh, man, it is on!" I want to smack him.

Manny is wriggling around in his sister's lap, shrieking, "Victors! Victors!"

All the blood has drained from my face. I stagger out of my chair, and Damper is the first one to notice that something is wrong.

"Uncle Peeta? Are you OK?"

I shrug him off, DeSantis's words ringing in my ears. Existing pool of Victors…. existing pool of Victors….

District 12 has only had three Victors in the past century. One male, two female… But since Lucy Gray Baird won 90 years ago and has been dead for just as long (she probably wouldn't be alive today even if she hadn't disappeared….), then that means… Katniss is the only living female Victor from District 12.

I don't care that there's a downpour outside. I spring out the door, bound across the porch. My boots barely have time to find purchase in the mud before I am taking off. Behind me, I can hear Mom and Delly screaming at my back:

"Peeta! PEETA!"

But I am running. Running….

I was a wrestler primarily in school. But that doesn't mean I'm not fast. I sprint across the district and up Victors' Hill so quickly, in fact, I probably would have gotten here in the same time it takes the delivery truck. The lights are on in both of the occupied houses; in the one belonging to Haymitch, I hear the sounds of shattering glass and bellows of rage.

Three doors down, the mansion belonging to Katniss and her family swings open with a bang, spilling light out on the lawn of the green. Katniss staggers out, eyes wide and hyperventilating, her breath is coming in rough gasps. Prim appears on the threshold, baby Yarrow at her breast. Behind her, I can hear Rory cursing, the triplets wailing for their Auntie…..

"Katniss!"

Katniss's eyes snap up to me, looking every bit like a deer trapped under her bow, then, with a cry, she launches herself into my arms.

"Oh, Peeta!" She breaks down completely, and I could give a damn that my shoulder is becoming soaked with her tears. I rub her back awkwardly. For the first time in my life, the words people say I have always been so gifted with abandon me; there is nothing I can think to say that can make any of this seem better. As the only living Victors from 12, Katniss and Haymitch have guaranteed tickets to ride back into Hell, barely fulfilling the Twist. Some other district might have just as low numbers, but I can't be certain.

I can feel Prim watching us, biting her lip, though I can see in her eyes that she is grateful to me. Finally, I draw back, holding Katniss by the shoulders. "I came as soon as I heard…"

"You didn't have to…" she croons. "You're soaked!"

"Doesn't matter. I… I was – am – so scared for you." I give her a little shake. "Listen to me: you can win again. You have to come back!"

But Katniss is shaking her head, already defeated. "There'll be Victors in there younger than Haymitch and me, Peeta. I'm not 16 anymore; I'm a 42-year-old spinster who's still barely competent with a bow!" She's heaving out rough sobs, still on the verge of a panic attack. "I'll die, and my family will be cast out of the Village and into the street!"

"I won't let that happen!" I growl. "Worst won't come to worst, but even if…. if it does…." I nearly choke as I think about watching the woman I love run to her death. "Prim and Rory and the kids won't starve. Not on my watch."

Katniss's eyes are shining with tears. "Peeta, I…. I appreciate it, really, I do, but…. you don't have that kind of power."

"Watch me," I clip, determined and obdurate.

She nods, whimpering, before burrowing herself back in my embrace. "Hold me!" she pleads.

And even though we'll catch our death of cold, I do. I do even after I manage to maneuver her back into her warm house and allow her niece and nephews to huddle at her skirts and bawl.

I hold Katniss until she falls asleep, and don't move all that night.