6

Haymitch didn't let go of Katniss until the boy and the huge dog chasing them were out of sight and, then again, he only set her free because she elbowed him in his badly scratched chest.

"Stand down!" he ordered her when it was obvious she intended to pursue them. "You hurt that dog, you hurt Peeta."

Katniss was so furious she was almost seething at the mouth. It was possible she might have been worried too. It was hard to tell. Her eyes were still swollen from sleep, her shirt was flapping in the wind and her hair was loose around her face… She looked positively murderous.

"I'm going after them." she hissed. "He's hurt. If this thing catches up…"

He hated it when the kid made sense.

"Get some pants on first." he retorted, turning toward Effie's house. What was left of it. His own house had seen a lot of renovations in its time, Slayer business wasn't conductive to keeping one's home intact.

The witch was still on all four amongst the pile of broken wood and shattered glass.

While Katniss ran back toward his house to get some clothes and, presumably, weapons, he picked up the sword the boy had dropped. The hilt was finely crafted and it was giving out some serious magic vibes that immediately made him wrinkle his nose.

"Be careful with that." Effie warned in a soft voice when he made his way to her. "It is Hypnos' sword."

Haymitch immediately placed the blade down on her front porch, careful not to touch the blade. According to the lore, the sword had been bathed in the river Lethe and a simple scratch was enough to make you forget everything about your life. It might have sounded taunting if it hadn't also left you as vulnerable as an infant with no memory of how to walk, talk or fend for yourself.

"Thought it was a legend." he commented.

"You will find I own a lot of legends." she retorted, pushing herself upright. "Don't! You're barefoot!"

"So are you." he grumbled and kept on walking closer to the gaping hole in her living-room wall.

Prim had caught up with him – and she had had the presence of mind to put on slippers and a dressing gown before rushing out of her bedroom when they had heard the growls and the crashing sounds – and was carefully picking her path amongst the rubble.

"Effie, are you alright?" the girl worried.

"Perfectly fine." the witch lied through her teeth. Her arm was badly bleeding, there were scratches all over her hands and shins and, he was ready to bet, shards of glass stuck under her skin too. "Haymitch, don't." He ignored her protest and picked her up, pretending hard the glass digging in his soles wasn't bothering him one bit. "I do not need…" she raged but let her sentence trail off, mostly because she didn't seem to be able to keep her head up anymore. It lolled against his neck and her hand clenched on his shoulder. "You're hurt…"

He didn't need the reminder.

"I'm fine." he grumbled.

She clearly wasn't.

He carried her to a safer patch of grass on her front yard and sat her down. He couldn't tell what was worse, the blood on her arms, legs and her nosebleed or how pale she had become. It had been a little more than a week since she had ended up in a magical coma and there she was using too much magic again…

"What happened?" he asked, his voice clipped.

Katniss came jogging out of the house at that point, wearing jeans that were so skinny he immediately knew they were part of the loads of clothes Effie kept showering the girls with. She hadn't bothered changing out of the tee-shirt she slept in. The grey fabric was faded and the Lisa Simpson picture was all cracked and he figured she had probably bought it secondhand when money had been tight. She was so not a Lisa Simpson girl and that show was so moronic in the first place that he decided that his first order of business once he would have figured out what the hell Peeta had done, had found the boy, saved his ass and killed him himself, would be to send Effie out with the girl on a shopping outing for better pajamas.

"Here." his Slayer said before Effie could try and answer. She tossed clothes and a pair of boots at his feet. Haymitch started getting dressed, trying not to wince too much when it pulled on the wound on his chest – or to be too embarrassed by the fact he had been wandering in the street wearing only underwear.

"I am unsure." Effie shook her head. "It must be a spell but…"

"I found something!" Prim shouted from the inside of the house. She came back out waving Effie's pink cased IPad. The tablet had a huge cobweb like crack in the middle of the screen but it was still working. "Look! It's something about releasing your inner monster?"

"So he did magic. Fucking great." he spat. He had been hoping the whole thing had been an accident, a case of touching the wrong thing… In a witch's house, it could happen. Hell… In Effie's house, anything could happen. He hadn't seen the whole extent of her enchanted weapons collection but he knew she owned a lot of dangerous stuff. The Hypnos' sword wasn't the worst by far. "What did I say about using fucking magic? Does no one ever listen to me?"

"I do." Prim protested. "Never ever under any circumstances and even more never without you or Effie."

He took a deep calming breath and laid a hand on the youngest girl's shoulder. "That's why you're my favorite."

"So, what do we do?" Katniss pressed, shuffling her weight from one foot to the other, clearly eager to run after the boy. So was he. "You can fix it, right?"

The last part had been aimed at Effie who had been studying the spell detailed on her tablet. Later, he decided, they would have words about password protecting dangerous stuff. The fact that he was the one who had to be giving that lecture was a joke.

Or maybe the joke was that two single adults had to childproof their houses because they were suddenly in charge of teenagers…

"I need to research this." She winced. "The best course of action right now would be for you to find Peeta and protect him. But do not hurt the dog. Anything you do to him, you are actually doing to Peeta."

Katniss stared at her with a blank gaze. "How am I supposed to stop the huge fangy dog from eating him if I can't hurt him?"

"Use your imagination." Haymitch deadpanned. "Prim, go back to bed. Effie, you're on research. Katniss, make sure you've got your phone and get the bike's keys, we're going after them."

The girl shook her head. "Take the bike and circle around in case that beast is causing trouble in town. I'll track him more quickly on foot. I know Peeta, he probably went to the woods so he wouldn't hurt anyone."

And she would be in her element in the woods.

Assuming, Gloss and the other Careers weren't waiting for her there.

"I should come." Effie argued. "I was taken by surprise but if I tap into earth magic I should be able to maintain the freezing spell a little longer. Perhaps…"

"No more magic for you." Haymitch cut her off. "If there's a spell to do, I'll take care of it myself. The boy managed it, can't be that difficult."

She sat up straighter and glared at him. It would have been more impressive if she hadn't been wearing only a light orange top and shorts stained with blood and if it hadn't been so fucking obvious she couldn't stand on her own two feet by herself. She was the only one still sitting.

"I am fine." she snapped. "I know my limits."

"Do you?" he sneered. "Cause from where I stand, sweetheart, it looks like you've almost killed yourself. Again."

She glared harder, her eyes narrowed, her lips pursed, her head slightly tilted… "I do not need you overprotecting me."

He couldn't take it. The blood, the sickly pallor of her skin… She looked half dead. She looked like one of his ghosts. She…

"I ain't being overprotective." he growled, angry for all the wrong reasons. "Couldn't care less if you accidentally offed yourself with one too many abracadabras. Thing is though, we've got a dark ritual around the corner and I can't afford to be down one witch for that Reaping. Fuck knows you won't be much use in a fight without your magic…"

Hurt flashed across her face and then it was gone under a polished expression of polite disinterest.

Someone else would have told him to go fuck himself and he would have been the first to admit he would have deserved it but it was Effie and Effie was too much of a fucking lady for that. She simply jutted her chin in the air and slowly got back to her feet.

He regretted snapping at her the moment he did it and he tried to reach for her, to help but she shrugged him off.

"Princess…" he sighed, more softly.

"We're wasting time." Katniss growled. "I'm going."

"Only hurt him if you cannot avoid it." Effie reminded her. "I will call as soon as I know how to cancel that spell."

Katniss acknowledged that with a nod, shouldered her bow and shot down the street in the direction Peeta had taken earlier.

"We should clean your wounds…" Prim told Effie, a little shyly in the deafening silence following her sister's departure. "I'll get the first aid kit."

"I would offer to heal the scratches on your chest but I wouldn't want to deprive you of a witch for your next important fight." Effie hissed at him, once the girl was gone. "I surmise you will live."

He grabbed her arm and tugged her back before she could storm to his own fucking house like she owned the place.

"You won't if you keep on like that." he muttered. "Be fucking more careful. You might have more power than you think, doesn't mean you're in control yet. You know better than me that it takes time and training. You're being fucking reckless and I can't have that." He paused, his jaw locked, he almost didn't add the rest. "Don't want to bury you."

He left her behind with those parting words, jogging home to snatch a jacket, the keys and a helmet from the hallway table. The bike shot down the street at its usual speed… He was at the end of the lane when he felt the tingling feeling of her magic ripple on him.

First, the torn flesh of his chest mended.

Then, he felt the words she had just whispered far behind him like a fading kiss on his lips.

May the odds be ever in your favor.

A part of him cursed her twice over for doing more magic when he had just told her to cool it. Another part was just grateful enough to admit he might need the good luck spell.

°O°O°O°O°

Peeta was out of breath before he even reached the Village's gates.

He could feel the dog rushing in his wake, knew that if the beast had really wanted to, it could have ended him with a single bite…

But it hadn't yet.

Sometimes fangs grazed the back of his shins, urging him to go faster.

Sometimes there was a menacing snarl.

Did it herd him to the trees that stretched on either side of the slope leading up to the Village or was it a conscious choice ? Was there even a choice? He couldn't lead the beast into town. He could only lure it far away from people and hope that nobody else would get hurt.

Haymitch and Effie were both hurt.

After everything they had done for him, he had caused them to get hurt.

He stumbled on a root that shot out of the ground, rolled down a ditch, sucked in a painful breath of air when his shoulder and his side throbbed in protest… He was losing a lot of blood and he felt light-headed.

Still, he climbed up the other side of the ditch, not daring to glance behind him at the dog that, for some reason, waited for him to be upright again to cross the ditch with a huge graceful leap…

Peeta was running again, hopping every three strides because of the stitch in his side. Or maybe it was the bleeding line the knife had left on the dog's flank.

The beast snarled and lounged and toyed with him in a cruel game that seemed to last hours…

He wasn't even conscious that he was deep in the woods until he realized he was completely lost.

For all he knew, the dog might even be trying to chase him all the way to the Hellmouth…

I don't know who's having the worst night: Haymitch or Peeta? XD

Next time, Katniss will be on the hunt. Now do you think she will catch up fast enough?