3.

Katniss dreamt and her dreams were red.

Rivers of blood and Prim's screams of agony and an acute pain that started in her chest and spread to her extremities.

°O°O°O°O°

Haymitch dreamt and his dreams were grey.

Pearly ghosts who accused him of failing them and a downpour of ashes and an acute pain that started in his chest and spread to his extremities.

°O°O°O°O°

Prim dreamt and her dreams were white.

A thick coat of loneliness and screams without sound and an acute pain that started in her chest and spread to her extremities.

°O°O°O°O°

Effie dreamt and her dreams were black.

Veins pulsing dark beneath her skin and raw power under her fingertips and an acute pain that started in her chest and spread to her extremities.

°O°O°O°O°

Effie felt restless.

She was sitting cross-legged in Haymitch's living-room with a stash of books, having fled the library and the occasional chatter of Peeta and Prim. The girl had been subdued ever since Haymitch had dropped her home after seeing her mother off earlier that morning. He had also given her back her borrowed car with many mutters about it being too small and not speedy enough and a lot of adjectives that, as she pointed out, hinted he felt he had something to prove with the size of his vehicle, which she knew for a fact he didn't. He and Katniss had gone back out on the bike to take care of the legal side of things – because he couldn't just take the girls in and call it a day, there were papers to sign and lawyers to consult even with Aster Everdeen's agreement.

She and Peeta had been researching all morning with fervor but she was starting to think that if there ever was a single mention of the Careers in all the books in his library, it was well hidden. Even her faithful IPad hadn't given results and she had never felt so betrayed by technology before.

But, more than that, she was on edge.

Was it talking about Slayer dreams that had triggered nightmares? She didn't remember the dreams but she knew they had been bad, not Slayer dreams bad but bad nonetheless. She had woken up hungry and aching. And not for food.

For a while she had been confused because she had equaled the sensation with arousal and something like that had never happened to her – certainly not after a nightmare and not without at least a little stimulation. Saying she hadn't been frustrated to see her pleasure time cut short the previous night – all the more so when she had been about to finish – would have been a lie but frustration was nothing new and she could deal with it like a grown woman. That hadn't been it. The aching, the hunger, the humming of her whole body… It had taken her a moment of lying in bed, short of breath and staring at the ceiling to realize it was her magic.

Her power, as her mother was fond of reminding her and contrary to Haymitch's preposterous beliefs, was weak. She had a good grip on it because of that and never before had it felt like a living thing. It was a tool for her to use, just like Katniss' bow or Haymitch's knife, just like her fists and feet when she actually tried to apply her training. She knew for powerful witches magic had a will of its own, it could consume and burn you if you weren't careful but that had never been a problem for her.

Until that morning.

Her skin felt raw, her mind was jumbled, her mouth parched, she was hungry and aching and she wanted to do more, more, more…

She heard the roar of the bike coming down the street and stopping in front of the house but she remained focused on skimming through an old Watcher's journal about a Greek Slayer, trying to find a hint of the Careers. The time frame could fit around the time the vampires had been sired.

"We've got burgers from Sae's!" Haymitch bellowed before the front door was even close. He must have been hungry, it was well past lunch time and it was good he remembered to feed the children. She had forgotten. "You… What the fuck?"

Effie winced and stopped herself from rocking on herself, wriggling her hands this way and that. She listened to the noises of hungry children stomping to the kitchen, the low rumble of voices and, then, predictably, looked up to see Haymitch leaning against the living-room's doorframe. He glanced at the flying feather duster in the air, the mop passing itself and the gleaming polish smearing itself on top of wooden furniture. Compared to the vacuum cleaners running by themselves at different points in the house and the scrubbing brushes and buckets taking care of the different bathrooms, the living-room was positively tame.

"Channeling your inner Mickey Mouse?" he deadpanned. "Only seen that cartoon once but if I remember right, didn't end that well for him."

"Your house needed a good cleaning spree." she lied.

The truth was the hum under her skin had started to become painful and she had needed an outlet to her magic that wasn't firing fireballs or covering something in frost. She had found the cleaning spell and she had used it but it hadn't been supposed to take this scale. It should only have tackled one room at a time.

And it shouldn't have left her wanting more.

He studied her for a long minute, annoyance and concern battling on his face.

"You look terrible." he commented at last.

"Why, thank you." she huffed. "You do not actually look smashing either."

He hadn't drunk in a while – he couldn't exactly take care of Katniss and Prim's guardianship business with whiskey on his breath – and it showed. His eyes were bloodshot and his fingers didn't appear to be able to keep still.

A bit like hers.

She wondered if he was itching for a drink as much as she was for another spell.

He didn't seem to be able to meet her gaze. His eyes kept flickering left and right, fixing on something for a second, staring at the air, and then coming back on her.

"Get rid of that Fantasia stuff and come eat." he ordered.

"Burgers?" she sniffed disdainfully, stretching out the moment because if her magic wasn't supplying the cleaning spell she was actually afraid it would burn her inside out.

She gave up on the Watcher journal and waved her hand, making a spellbook appear in front of her with a poof without even thinking about it. Haymitch didn't startle but his frown deepened. She didn't usually use magic that casually. She knew a cloaking spell against evil existed and if she could just cast it on both their houses, they would be safe from vampires, demons and anything with evil intentions. She could probably add a few more layers of wards too. That should keep her magic happy. It would take a lot out of her but she could probably do it if someone helped lending their own power, maybe Haymitch since he was at least a little used to magic. She would have asked Peeta but he was still a bit young.

"I got you a salad 'cause I know you like your rabbit food and I'm nice like that." he grumbled. "Come on. Whatever you're doing can wait."

"I think you will find it is called healthy food, actually." she retorted.

And there was no escaping the healthy food, it seemed. Not even for more magic.

She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and tried to ignore the dark pull of the Hellmouth under her feet. Use me, it whispered in her mind without words, abuse me, I am yours to command, yours to wield… She muttered the right spell and buckets, broom, vacuum cleaners, mops and dusters clattered on the floor everywhere around the house. Another spell and they put themselves away.

Immediately, her skin felt too tight, her power buzzing under her skin.

Haymitch's hand hovered in front of her face and she took it by reflex, letting him pull her to her feet.

"You're good?" he asked, a little worried.

"Positively peachy." she lied. "Famished. How did it go with the lawyer?"

As predicted, with Mrs Everdeen having signed the right papers – with relief, apparently – and the Council's discreet nudge in the right place, there had been no trouble. Haymitch was now the legal – if temporary – guardian of two young girls. She almost congratulated him but he looked so lost and so tired she didn't dare, not even to tease.

Everyone in the kitchen was subdued. Peeta was the only one trying to keep up a cheerful front. Katniss was glowering at her fries, Prim looked sad, the ugly ginger cat was perched on the counter glaring at everyone and Haymitch didn't look any happier than the others.

She had been worried about having to hide the fact she wasn't hungry but she shouldn't have bothered.

Nobody ate much more than two mouthfuls.

°O°O°O°O°

Katniss was restless.

She was sitting at the library table, a pile of books it seemed they had consulted a thousand times already opened in front of her, already knowing they would find no mention of the Careers. Her grey eyes kept drifting to Prim who had curled up in an armchair in the corner with a book that had nothing to do with demons, vampires or hell portals – she had wanted to help them research but both she and Haymitch had put their foot down on the idea.

She was on edge.

She couldn't stop thinking something bad was going to happen. To Prim specifically. There was a lump in her throat and it left her short of breath to even phantom the thought of her sister getting hurt or worse.

Haymitch and Effie were no help. Haymitch had spent the whole afternoon staring at nothing, sometimes startling for no reason, sometimes disappearing in the bathroom for entirely too long. As for Effie, she had been even more annoying than usual, using her powers for no good reason Katniss could see. She had made herself tea levitating everything and making the water boil with a flick of her wrist, she made books poof in front of her, she had used her magic to freshen up the house – or whatever she called it – making it look as if the coat of paint on the walls was new…

Katniss had kept waiting for Haymitch to snap at her but he was lost in his own world and she wasn't even sure he had noticed the changes.

It was Katniss who had told her to stop or go home, frustrated and angry. It was certainly nice to have a clean house but she was still freaked out by the casual display of magic. She had grown to know Effie enough to trust her but not to the amount of blind trust she had in Haymitch or, for that matter, in Peeta. And she was still not entirely convinced magic could be good.

Which was why she startled when Effie came strutting back in the room with enough energy to make everyone uncomfortable, her phone still in her hand.

"Caesar said the Council has no clue where the Careers could be." the woman announced. "They might be on their way or they might already be here, there is simply no way to know."

Haymitch dragged his eyes away from the upper floor of the library. Katniss glanced again but she couldn't see what was so fascinating about the second floor pathway, only that it was empty and that, thanks to Effie's spells, it was now devoid of any speck of dust.

"Flickerman?" the Watcher hesitated with a frown. "Thought you were reporting straight to Coin."

"I am." Effie confirmed. "But I trust Caesar's information a lot more than I trust President Coin's. He would never double-cross me."

"Never's a strong word." Haymitch scoffed, looking her up and down with a lazy sweep of his eyes. "Bit old for you, ain't he?"

Peeta hid his smile behind his hand but Katniss wasn't really interested in watching them bicker or flirt or whatever they called it. Her gaze darted to her sister again, making sure Prim was still breathing and alright. The girl had been out of sort since they had said goodbye to their mother that morning. Katniss couldn't pretend she didn't care but she had been forced to carry the family for too long and her feelings toward her mother were very complicated. There was a lot of resentment there, she supposed, and not worrying about her accidentally taking too much meds would be a relief.

"Do not be insulting." Effie snapped. "He was my Watcher."

That got her attention and Katniss turned her head toward the witch, studying her. She had felt a strange kinship the previous day when Effie had revealed that she had been a Potential. She could have been a Slayer. Well, she would have had to be dead for Katniss to stand there but…

"Caesar Flickerman was your Watcher?" Haymitch repeated, disbelief and a touch of something Katniss hesitated to call respect in his voice. He tilted his head to the side, watching her with a calculating expression on his face. "They really must have thought you could be it, then. He's kind of a Watcher legend."

"No more than Mags or anyone who has actually mentored a Slayer before." Effie argued, her cheeks flushing a little. "No more than you for that matter. And I assure you it only took a couple of days for both of us to realize I would be a dismal Slayer." She waved her hand. "The point is…"

"Still no lead." Haymitch sighed, rubbing his eyes. He checked his watch. "We should make it a long patrol tonight. Cemeteries, downtown, the woods and the Hellmouth. Maybe hit Ripper's at some point, she might have information."

It wasn't really a suggestion. Haymitch didn't do suggestions when it came to patrolling, he just expected Katniss to follow his instructions. The thing was though… The simple thought of letting Prim out of her sight left her with her stomach in knots.

"I'm not patrolling tonight." she declared.

Everyone's head turned in her direction, staring at her as if she had just professed the most stupid thing ever, but it was Haymitch who scoffed first. "Like hell you ain't. Now ain't the time to go soft, sweetheart. If the Careers are here, we need to know."

Katniss glared at him. "I'm not leaving Prim here alone."

There was a very long silence. Effie and Haymitch exchanged an unreadable look, Peeta was frowning at her and Prim pouted.

"I'm alright to stay here." her sister offered. "I'll stay inside and watch TV. I know the rules."

"What if demons attack the house while we're gone? Almost everyone knows Haymitch lives here." she retorted. "Demons don't need to be asked to come in, Prim."

"You're the one who said the two of you'd be safer living with me." her Watcher countered. "Bit late to change your mind now."

"I can stay with Prim." Peeta offered. Katniss turned to look at him and he shrugged. "I can't hold off an army of demons but I can probably distract them long enough for her to get out and run. Not that anything is going to happen." He added the last part hastily with a reassuring look for Prim. "We can watch a movie and order a pizza."

"You had burgers for lunch." Effie clucked her tongue. "Healthy food would not be amiss tonight."

"I can cook but I'm pretty sure Haymitch's cupboards are empty." he joked.

"Then, you'd be wrong." her Watcher grumbled. "I started stocking up when Katniss started coming to the house every day."

"Candy bars are not healthy food." Effie argued.

"There is more than candy bars." Haymitch retorted. "Give me some credit. I can feed kids." He shot Effie a nasty look. "You can find something healthy to eat."

Katniss felt the decision slip out of her hands.

"It's not just Prim." she snapped. "What if something happens to Peeta while I'm gone? Or…"

"Look." Haymitch snapped. "Anything can happen to any of us. We knew that last night. We all chose to stay."

He glanced at Effie. It was brief and the other Watcher didn't seem to notice but…

"No, you bullied me into staying." Katniss argued. "Peeta can't hold off a demon. What if something happens?"

Haymitch's face closed off, his eyes darted up to the second floor again and back, his jaw clenching… "Effie can stay with your sister. She's strong enough to hold off a demon or two."

"I am not staying." the witch argued. She was fidgety like Katniss had rarely seen her. "I want to go out on patrol and burn some vampires." She looked shocked at what had come out of her own mouth and stood there, startled for a moment, before licking her lips, hiding behind a dazzling smile and a dismissive wave of her hand. "You stay. I will go with Katniss."

"I'm not staying home and sending the two of you out there when there might be a master vampire's spawns on the loose." he sneered. "I won't bury you."

"You're most likely gonna bury me." Katniss nastily shot back.

He flinched. A whole body flinch.

So did Prim for that matter.

"Alright." Peeta cut in, still frowning. "Look, I know I don't have superpowers or magic but Haymitch doesn't either. I can keep your sister safe. You should go."

"I can tour the cemeteries and the downtown area." Effie suggested. "You and Katniss can go to the Hellmouth."

Haymitch pursed his lips and tossed Katniss a strange look. "No. The kid's right. I don't have magic powers. You stay with her. I'll take the bike and ride to the Hellmouth."

"On your own?" Effie huffed. "Certainly not."

Haymitch stood up, a sneer on his face. "Wasn't asking for your permission."

As if his getting to his feet had been the final say, everyone else started to move. Peeta pushed away from the table to walk closer to Prim, already asking her what she was in the mood for, Effie started towards the door and Haymitch headed straight for the weapons trunk in the corner…

Everything was unraveling around Katniss.

Separating felt like the worst idea ever.

"What if you die?" she blurted out, loud enough to cover everyone else's voices. She wasn't sure who she was talking to, just that the fear was too strong to be ignored. It was painful. She couldn't move, she couldn't breathe, she couldn't…

It was Haymitch who answered her, without even looking at her. "Never been that lucky. Get a move on."

Getting a move on when Effie was coming on patrol was never that easy. Haymitch's bike had roared away into the night long before the witch was ready to go out – although she did take only fifteen minutes to change and, for once, her outfit did include pants and squared heels boots. When she slipped behind the wheel, the woman looked both impatient and apprehensive.

Katniss was only apprehensive.

She was clutching her bow in her hands so tight that her knuckles turned white. Everything in her screamed she shouldn't leave her sister or Peeta or Haymitch.

"What did he mean?" she asked right when Effie parked next to the cemetery. They hadn't exchanged a word the whole ride. "What did he mean when he said he's never been that lucky?"

"He buried a lot of people, darling. It takes a toll." Effie shook her head and got out of the car, already walking toward the cemetery as if she simply couldn't wait.

There was a distinct shift to their dynamic that night. Usually, when she came with Katniss – and more often than not with Haymitch – on patrol, Effie was happy to take a step back and be there as backup rather than full on fighter. That night, however, Katniss barely had time to shoot an arrow or two. Effie was setting vampires on fire left and right when she wasn't staking them with stalagmite that seemed to appear right in her palm at the decisive moment. At some point, they stumbled upon a group of ugly looking demons with retractable spikes along their forearms – that Effie identified as Polgara demons – and instead of doing the clever thing and let Katniss handle them, she simply unleashed such an amount of magic that Katniss' hair started to frizzle. After that, she seemed to glow for a while, coming back to her usually chatty self even if she was standing on a pile of demon ash.

Katniss, for her part, might have commented on her weird behavior if she hadn't been so busy chewing on her fingernails and worrying about her sister, Peeta and Haymitch.

The dread was impossible to ignore and it was a relief when they finally decided to call it a night and go home.

°O°O°O°O°

Haymitch shouldn't have been riding that bike.

He was restless. On edge.

That wasn't good when you were trying to steer a heavy piece of metal down narrow country roads. And that was without mentioning the gulps of liquor he had regularly downed all afternoon.

He should have borrowed Peeta's truck, at the very least. Yeah. That would have been the clever thing to do.

But the clever thing to do had flown out the window that morning when he had woken up drenched in sweat from the nightmares.

He was used to nightmares, that wasn't the problem. The problem was that the ghosts who haunted his mind usually vanished in daylight. They hadn't today. They had stayed with him. And it hurt, it hurt so much it was a dull ache that took roots in his chest and spread to the rest of his body.

He leaned forward a little, unconsciously increasing the speed of the bike, hoping that maybe he could outrace them. Stupid, of course. They were shackled to him, his ghosts. Never to fade. He didn't deserve the peace.

He was almost glad when the bright lights of The Capitol appeared around a bend in the road. Around the Hellmouth, there was almost always the guarantee of a fight. The big windows glittered in the night, when he rushed past straight toward the meadow he could hear the faint murmur of classical music over the roar of the bike. The hotel was full of tourists, no doubt, easy preys for the monsters that roamed in the night.

He ditched the bike not too far from The Capitol's parking lot and headed to the woods, deciding to circle back toward the old burned tree standing guard in the middle of the meadow. He wasn't alone when he wandered on the uneven path, though.

Eight ghosts walked with him.

Sometimes, it felt like he was physically carrying their combined weight.

His mother, first and foremost, her face never quite clear – the memories he had of her were almost all fake, moments he had invented from staring too long at the old pictures in Mag's study.

His brother second, Hayden always bounced rather than walked, true to how he had been in life – sometimes he wore his baby brother's face and sometimes it was the demon's bumpy ridges and fangs.

Mabel third. Always by his side even when she glared and accused him of having gotten her killed. Then came his personal guards, the failures he could never forgive himself for.

Maysilee. Always silent. Always with her throat torn out.

Alina. Quiet and accusative. The smell of almond always tickling his nose when she was around.

Cecelia. Her big terrified eyes, glassy and empty from death, exactly like when he had found her body in that graveyard, cold and hard in the first light of dawn.

Johanna. Johanna and her sneer, the grease stains on her hands from always tinkering with that damned bike, acidic comments on her lips.

And then, of course, Annie. The only one who never looked at him with hatred or resentment. She had been too kind for that in life and she was still too kind for it in death. Annie followed him like she had always done, aloof and never quite there.

He didn't find the fight he was itching for in the woods, which was a little weird because it usually had at least a vampire or two – or some demon – attracted to the Hellmouth. He circled back to the meadow, disappointed and clutching his stake, determined to ignore the army of ghosts trailing behind him.

The Hellmouth was looming, taunting him.

Maysilee's ghost flickered and, next thing he knew, she was twitching on the ground, on the very same spot she had died. He clenched his jaw, walked onward toward the tree until he could lay a hand on the old burned bark…

There was nothing there.

No one trying out a ritual. No Careers. He couldn't even feel the telling prickle at his nape that would have warned him he was being watched.

There was nothing there.

Nothing but a broken man, one dead boy and seven girls who had fallen too young.

His feet were heavy when he dragged them back to his bike, his grey eyes automatically coming to rest on the hotel's lights in the distance. The bike creaked under his weight when he straddled it. He slipped the helmet on with mechanical moves. His gloved hands found the worn out handles. His gaze found Jo's angry face.

"I'm sorry." he whispered even though it never helped to talk to them.

Talking to them didn't make them go away.

Although, to be fair, they never had followed him outside before, not like this. They felt so real they looked almost solid. He was afraid to reach out and touch them, afraid he would actually feel something.

He drove too fast on the way back to the house. He was reckless. A little too slow to take the turns. A little too eager to break his neck.

He only remembered once he passed the Village's gates that he had wanted to stop at Ripper's but he didn't have enough energy to spare right then. All he wanted was his bedroom and a bottle. To drown the ghosts out of his mind.

They scared him, those ghosts.

That was the truth he didn't want to admit. Guilt and regret, he could handle, he was used to it. Self-loathing and hatred, he had them in spades. But those ghosts, that day… He couldn't shake the feeling they were coming for him. To drag him to hell. To…

They scared him shitless.

He must have taken longer on patrol than he had thought because Effie's pink car was already back in her lane and there was no light on over at her house. Peeta's truck was still parked in the street though and it was the boy who greeted him when he pushed the front door open.

"Katniss and Prim went to bed." the boy told him, after he had made sure Haymitch was alright.

"You're staying?" he asked, rubbing his face, slouching a little because Maysilee had found her usual spot on the couch and his mother was standing next to the window, watching the street and hugging herself with a distressed expression on her face he was pretty sure was a real memory and Mabel was sitting at the bottom of the stairs, nervously toying with her dark hair… Johanna was perched on the railing of the first floor and Annie… Annie was drifting like she was prone to do. Hayden never came into the house. He couldn't. Not anymore. Not since he had been turned. The only place he appeared was Haymitch's bedroom when he woke up from a nightmare.

"If it's okay?" Peeta hesitated. "I mean… I know you have a lot on your plate and I don't want to add to that. It's just… I got in trouble for leaving the house in the middle of the night again. It's better if I just… sleep over somewhere else tonight. But I can go to Effie. She said I…"

"You're welcomed to stay, kid. Told you before." he cut him off, a bit too harshly. "The girls are sharing, I think. You can have the other guestroom. Make yourself at home."

He left the boy with that and hauled his tired body up the stairs.

Johanna watched him pass, her brown eyes soulless, a threatening sneer on her lips.

Mabel was standing in front of his room, her mouth moving without sound.

He's coming, she was saying. Run. He's coming.

Her last words.

A prophecy of sort.

He crashed on the bed, grabbed the bottle he kept on his nightstand and tried to give himself some liquid courage.

Because Snow was coming. Haymitch could feel it in his bones.

There's something veeeeery wrong with our gang... What do you think is going on? Let me know your thoughts!