Katniss! I hear someone or something hiss. The sound is far off, so I avoid it. I wish to return to my dreamless sleep.

Katniss! I hear again. It's closer this time.

Katniss! By the third time, it sounds less sinister and more like a person. Still, I'm tired and want to continue to sleep. They can wait.

"Katniss, you need to wake up!" I hear someone say in an urgent tone. It sounds like... Peeta! I try my hardest to open my eyes, but it's impossible. My body wants to stay asleep.

Then, I remember. I remember why I'm with Peeta, and I remember Snow. With all of my might, I will my eyes to open.

And they do.

Peeta's hovering over me in a dimly lit room. My body is cold, but I feel strong, warm arms around me. I try to make a noise or sound to tell Peeta that I'm awake, but I can't.

Finally, he looks up at my face and almost bursts into tears. "Thank God, Katniss! I was so worried. I thought you were dead!"

"Not dead, just unconscious," another voice says. Peeta's head snaps in the direction of it. I move slower. I see Snow standing beside a large steel door. "I'm sorry, Agent Everdeen. I'm new to making gases, and I had to ensure it would be strong enough to take out Mr. Mellark."

I reach for my gun, but it's not there.

"You won't be needing that here, Agent Everdeen," Snow says, mocking me.

"Where are we?" Peeta demands. "The FBI is on their way and will find us."

Snow tisks and shakes his head. "This isn't my first abduction, Mr. Mellark, or are you forgetting why you were at my door? I've moved you to a very secret secondary location."

Shit.

"Why?" I finally manage to croak out. My throat feels like sandpaper.

"Why do we do anything?" Snow replies. Then, he slowly says, "For power."

"If you let us go," Peeta says, desperately trying bargain. "We won't tell anyone. We'll lead them away from you."

Snow continues to smirk at us. "Sit tight. We're waiting for a special friend of mine to join us." Snow tilts his head a bit. "It could take a whole for him to arrive. You should have plenty of time to... catch up." Then, Snow slams the metal door shut.

I meet Peeta's eyes and see panic in them. I'm sure I look the same way, but I swallow my fear and tell myself to be strong for him. I clear my throat and sit up, with some assistance from Peeta. "What are we going to do?" He asks once we're both standing.

"Check the door," I instruct him while I scan the room. No windows. No visible cameras. Microphones?

"Locked," he reports back.

I pull Peeta close to me like we're hugging. It throws him off, but his arms are around me a second later. "There could be cameras and microphones. Listen closely," I tell him. "He has my gun, but I never go anywhere without a knife. It's in my belt. I don't think we should use it until we know what we're up against. He could be armed or have an accomplice nearby."

"Okay," Peeta replies. He sounds a little overwhelmed, and I feel sorry for him. This is not what he signed up for. He's just a baker.

"Peeta," I say, drawing his attention from wherever it may be. "He might torture us. Physically or mentally harm us. It'll be hard, and it'll hurt. Think of a happy time or place, and hold onto it for dear life."

"Katniss-"

"I know," I tell him. "I'm scared too." I pull away from the hug and try to give Peeta my most reassuring smile. All of a sudden, he looks twelve again and afraid to venture into the forest without an adult. Fifteen and afraid to sneak out of his house with me. Eighteen and afraid to go to college without his best friend.

I slid down the wall by a corner. Peeta does the same on the adjacent wall, and our feet touch. A nagging feeling hits me, and I have to ask, "When the gas started, did things look weird to you?"

Peeta studies me for a moment. I try to keep my face as neutral as possible. For him. "Yeah," he replies and thinks hard. "The desk was shiny like it was covered in oil. There were large ants on the ground. Then there was you, trying to get to Snow. You fell to the floor, covered in orange bubbles."

"Bubbles?" I repeat. Peeta nods in response. "You saw the bubbles too?"

"Yes."

"Holy shit," I whisper under my breath in disbelief. It wasn't just me.

"What is it?" He asks me.

I look in the eyes, unable to hide my fear any longer. "When my task force was captured, we were gassed too. The room locked and filled with white gas. I remember the walls being shiny. I remember orange bubbles on strange things."

"You think it could be the same gas?"

Fear makes my blood run cold. "Did Snow say he was waiting on a visitor?" Peeta nods. "It's the Justice Killer."

Peeta looks at me life I've lost my mind. "You think two serial killers joined forces and tracked you down?"

"I don't believe in coincidences, Peeta," I bark back. "He was obsessed with me. He kept me alive the longest. What if he's come back for me?"

Peeta's face falls, and he is no longer judging me. "Let's not assume anything until we have more facts, okay?"

I nod in agreement. "Okay. What do we know?" Get ahold of the situation, Katniss.

"We know that we are no longer on Snow's property. Do you know anything about a secondary location?"

I shake my head. "No, but it's safe to assume that this is where he took his victims and killed them."

"It would be secluded," Peeta says. "So no one can hear them scream. It almost feels like we are underground."

"Underground?" I repeat in a worried voice. I'm transported back to my teenage years. More specifically the year my father died. I felt claustrophobic in small areas, and I couldn't even fathom doing into basements or underground.

Peeta senses my worried state and realization washes over him. He remembers the trauma I went through because he went through it with me. He was by my side. He stuck with me. "It's okay, Katniss. The walls are steady, and the ceiling looks strong. I'm here. We're going to be okay."

~Age Eighteen~

The blood from my forehead wound runs down my face and into my eyes no matter how many times I wipe it away. I learned in Anatomy last semester that head wounds tend to bleed more than others. It's dark out, but I know Cato's neighborhood. Madge lives on the same street in a glorious house fit for the mayor of Panem, her father. I've been here several times since her house is a lot nicer than mine. We hang out in their pool in the summers and do homework at the dining table during the school year.

As I run to her house in the dead of night, I can't help but wonder how we even became friends. She was shy, I was shy. I mostly sat alone at lunch and kept to myself in classes. Even Peeta couldn't break me out of my shell when it came to being in public. He used to joke that I was only his friend in public because he forced me to be. That's not true. I'd be friends with Peeta anytime.

I remember the day Madge sat with me at lunch. It was October during our freshman year of high school. She was new to our school, having transferred that year. She could have been popular. She was pretty enough to be and was high when it came to social classes, but she choose to sit next to me, the outcast. It was several weeks before we even said our first words to each other. Then, lunch became our regular meeting spot.

I bang on the door like my life depends on it... because it does. The door is a pearly white with large windows. My blood covers it with every knock, and I can't help the smearing it leaves in its wake.

"It's Katniss!" I yell when I see a light turn on inside. "It's Katniss Everdeen. Help!"

A shadow moves towards the door, timidly. I can't make out which family member it is, but my pleading does the trick. The lock on the door opens, and I see Madge standing before me in a black nightgown with wide eyes and an open mouth. "Katniss?"

"Help me!" I screech in a voice I've never used before. "Cato attacked me."

Madge's face turns from concern to frustration, but it's not at me. She takes my shoulder and leads me inside. She walks me to her dining room table and tells me to sit. I think I'm in shock because I didn't even hear her mother and father come down the stairs.

"What's going on?" Her father asks, looking from me to Madge. In the dark, they can't see how horrifying I really look. It's not until Madge's mother flips on the light that they see me. Both of them gasp. Their hands fly to cover their mouths, and their faces pale.

Madge doesn't miss a beat. Within seconds, she's before me with a bowl of water and a wash cloth. As she raised the cloth to my face, her father calls out, "Wait!"

Madge gives him a dirty look. "Wait for what?"

Mr. Undersee pulls out his own phone and turns it in my direction. "We need to get pictures. We need evidence to get this bastard."

"No!" Madge interrupts and stands before me so her father can't take pictures. She's protecting me. "That's horrible."

Her father recovers a bit and lowers the phone. He explains, "I won't show anyone but the police. Madge, sweetheart, I'm the mayor. I know how low of importance battery and assault cases are."

"We didn't even ask Katniss if she wants to press charges," Madge says and looks at me for an answer.

"It was Cato," is all I can say. It's barely above a whisper.

Mrs. Undersee looks like she might faint. "I'm going to call the police and your mother."

"Thank you," is all I can say.

"Katniss," Madge calls out to me. She resumes her place before me, ready to wipe the blood that's in my eyes away. "Do you consent to letting my dad take photos for evidence? It will help get Cato in a lot of trouble."

I look at her for a second. Madge is so pretty. She was asked to go to prom with several guys, but she declined. She didn't want to go. If she did, she might not have been home to answer the door for me. It's funny how things work like that. Someone up above must have been looking out for me- my father who would have hunted and killed Cato for doing this to me. The odds were in my favor tonight.

I nod and tell her, "Yes."

Something in Peeta's blue eyes calm me. We've been here before, and we got through it. I nod several times and say, "Okay, okay. What do we do now?"

Peeta shrugs his strong shoulders. "We wait."

"We wait," I repeat and feel my heart rate start to calm.

Several moments later, Peeta asks, "Can I ask you something?"

I study the worry lines on his face. There's no way I could say no. "Sure."

"Do you think you would have ever come back?" He asks. Then he clarifies, "To Panem?"

I don't have to think about my answer. "No, there's nothing left for me here. My mother visits, so I have no reason to."

Peeta nods in understanding, but I can see the saddens behind it. He wishes my answer was different. "I told myself that I wouldn't come back either. But when my mom left my dad, it felt like the right thing to do. I graduated, came back, and helped with the bakery."

"You've turned it into something great," I tell him. "I've been meaning to tell you that. I'm really proud of you."

Peeta gives me a small smile. "Thanks, but sometimes I wonder if I was meant to live a different life. When I graduated college, I had lots of offers. Really nice offers. I accepted one. Tried it out for a month, and decided that it wasn't for me."

"At least you tried."

"I know," he says with a sigh. "But it wasn't for me. My heart wasn't in it."

"And your heart is in it now?" I ask.

His smile is enough to answer my question. "Yes, it is."

There's a pause in the conversation, and I get the sense that it's my turn to share something vulnerable about myself. So I tell him, "I wanted to be in the FBI the second I saw the flyer at college." I let out a small laugh. I dreamed so big. "It was hard work, but I needed it. I thought all my hard work had payed off when I was assigned the task force.

"After the abduction, I was... broken," I confess. "But when I was finally put back together again, I knew that I had to get back into the field. I wanted to chase killers again. I wanted to save the world. It's silly."

"It's not silly," Peeta tells me.

I raise my eyebrows at him. "Says the one that's being held captive with me."

"Well," he says dramatically. "I guess it's one way to get you to talk to me again after ten years." He's joking, but it doesn't feel like a joke to me.

"Peeta..." I trail off. My eyes study the smooth, dark concrete below me. I don't know how to respond to that.

He lets out a small, awkward laugh. "It's okay."

"No," I tell him. I meet his gaze. "No, it's not. I shouldn't have been such a coward. I should've talked to you instead of running away."

"Katniss, you were traumatized. I don't blame you for how you reacted."

My eyes find the floor again as I find the words to confess something that I've never said out loud before. "I think about it often. The thing with Cato," I explain. "I think about everything that could have went differently. He could have raped me. He could have killed me. I could have killed him. I could be in jail. Or, I could have said no. I could have had a movie marathon with Madge instead."

"Does it help?" He asks me. "To think about the 'what-ifs?'"

"No," I admit. "Because then my life would be completely different. I would have went to the university with you. I wouldn't be in the FBI."

Peeta hesitates. Then he asks, "What would have happened to us?"

Once again, I meet Peeta's blue eyes. They're serious and steady. "I don't know," and I don't. Would we have found another reason to not be friends? Would I have finally confessed my feelings for him? Would we have dated? Would I have ended up in Panem?

"The job was in Quantico," Peeta confesses.

I give him a confused look. "What job?"

"The one that I tried to like before I came home," he explains. It's his turn to look away. "I picked Quantico because I thought I might be able to find you."

"I had no idea..."

"It was stupid," he says quickly. "It's such a large city. I don't know why I thought I would have been able to find you." He lets out a sarcastic laugh. "I don't even know what I would have done if I found you. Begged you to not hate me?"

"I don't hate you."

Peeta rolls his eyes at me. "Hate me, blame me. Same thing."

"There's no one to blame but Cato," I tell him. It's something my high school therapist and counselor told me over and over again in the weeks after the incident.

Peeta scoffs. His voice grows a little louder. "You blame me, Katniss. You blame me for not answering my phone. You blame me for pushing you away. You blame me for a drunken phone call."

I want to die in that moment. Tears threaten to overflow, and I have to bite my tongue to hold them in. Once I have control over my emotions again, I firmly tell him, "I don't blame you."

~Age Eighteen~

Two deputies and my mother arrive at the same time. My mother was never a nurturer. She never displayed affection and other emotions very well, but something overtook her that night. She ran into the Undersee's house and wrapped her arms around me. I sobbed like I had never sobbed before.

The deputies got statements from all three of the Undersee's while my mother coddled me like a baby. She didn't ask me any questions. Instead, she petted my hair and told me everything was going to be alright. When it was my turn to be questioned, she kept one arm around me.

The deputy took one look at me and defended that I needed medical attention. The gauze and tape that Mrs. Undersee put on my forehead wound wasn't up to par for him. An ambulance came and took him, my mother, and me away.

He didn't ask me any questions while they stitched my forehead back together. I got twenty-two stitches night- my forehead, bottom lip, and eyebrow. The deputy made notes in a tiny notebook the entire time. It was early morning when I was finally released. His partner picked us up in a patrol car and took us to the police station. It was there that I finally recounted the incident.

When I was done, the deputy informed my mother and I that the sheriff had been looking for Cato all night. He wasn't at home, Finnick's party that got busted before it even began, and he wasn't with friends.

What happened next was fate.

In walked Cato Ludwig with his hands behind his back and escorted by two deputies. His face was covered in black, blue, and red splotches. Blood covered the front of his shirt. If I needed twenty-two stitches, then Cato was going to need a hundred.

When he saw me through a glass window, my heart stopped. Cato's face was overtaken with anger. I know that he would have broken that window if he was given the chance. Being in the same building as Cato was horrible, but I wanted him to rot in jail. So, I stuck it out.