7

"Peeta!" she shouted the moment she spotted his blond hair, the back of his head so familiar to her from having spent entire classes of Biology glaring at it because he had forced some bread or some cake on her.

She was only vaguely aware that the friendly demons were taking out the two guards because Peeta whirled around toward her, blue eyes widening in surprise. He didn't say anything and he didn't have to. He looked mostly unhurt. There was a bruise on his face but it was old and fading.

She was so relieved.

"Katniss!" Haymitch called out in a warning tone.

Maybe there was a third brainwashed demon or something, she didn't care. She didn't even care about the gibberish their telepath friends were trying to push in her head because…

The relief.

It was so potent her throat closed and a sob escaped her.

That moment they stood there staring at each other felt like it lasted a thousand years but, actually, she knew it couldn't have been more than a handful of seconds. Not long enough for Haymitch to reach them.

She tossed herself at the boy, hugging him tight.

"You scared me to death!" she scolded him. "What the hell were you thinking?"

This was exactly why she hadn't wanted more relationships of any kind, more complications. People made her care about them and then they died or they locked themselves up in their head and a cloud of meds or they fell in a hell portal and got abducted by telepathic demons. And she ended up sick with worry and hurting and…

"I missed you." she mumbled against his neck before she could stop herself.

Peeta's hands tentatively touched her sides, moved up… She drew back a little, her cheeks flushing crimson because she intended to kiss him, audience or not, but before she could make the move, his hands closed on her throat.

She didn't understand at first.

And then he started squeezing and she just couldn't breathe anymore.

"Peeta!" she tried to croak out but it didn't come out right.

She tried to push him away – and she should have been able to with her superior strength but she also didn't want to hurt him and… His features were distorted into a sneering hateful mask that didn't belong on his face. She tried to touch his cheek, to grab his wrist, to…

Suddenly the boy collapsed, taking her with him, and Haymitch stood there, one of the brainwashed demon's baton in his hand. Peeta was out cold and she still had troubles prying his hands away from her throat. Haymitch had to help.

"What did we say about discretion, sweetheart?" he snapped. "You've betrayed our position."

She was too shocked to say anything so she just sat there while Haymitch crouched in front of her and probed at her throat. Bobbin was clearly annoyed but he and the other demons moved to the next cellblock. There was a telepathic burst of joy so she figured he had found the shamans.

Haymitch frowned. "Can you breathe alright?"

She could barely swallow but she nodded anyway, reaching for Peeta's arm. The boy was slumped on the floor, on his stomach, out cold. She pushed Haymitch's hands away from her neck and started searching the back of Peeta's head for a wound…

"I was careful." he grumbled. "Give me some credit. He's gonna have a headache but not another concussion." He sighed. "Stop those tears, sweetheart. We've got him, alright? We kill that Peacekeeper, he's gonna be right as rain."

He didn't look right as rain. He had lost weight since she had last seen him the previous afternoon – three months ago for him – and there was the bruise on his face and that look in his eyes when he had attacked her…

"Promise?" she croaked. It sounded too easy. Break the spell and you get your boyfriend back… She was never that lucky.

And the fact that killing the Peacekeeper would break the mind control thing was pure speculation, they didn't know for sure.

Haymitch hesitated. "If it doesn't work, Effie's gonna know what to do." She opened her mouth to argue and he lifted a hand. "And if Effie's not in any state to do anything, Cinna can fix it. We ain't short of magical allies, Katniss, the boy will be fine. We'll fix him eventually. I promise you."

That wasn't the exact same as promising Peeta would be alright right away.

She caressed the side of the boy's face while Haymitch stood up and went to check on their allies. She only vaguely listened as he discussed with Bobbin and the shamans that were now the de facto leaders.

The urgency was clear though.

The Peacekeeper would know what they were up to so they needed to hurry.

It was hard to force herself not to protest when they tied Peeta up. It was decided their two demon friends would take him with the shamans back to the clans – and keep him safe during the battle – while Bobbin stayed with them to go fight the Peacekeeper.

Haymitch nudged her onward once they had seen the shamans back to the sewers.

Not too soon either because they stumbled upon a group of five brainwashed demons clearly sent to intercept them.

Katniss tried not to be lethal when she took them out but she was irrationally angry now and her throat hurt and she really wanted to stick an arrow in that Peacekeeper's eye.

She had her limits.

Turning her boyfriend against her – was Peeta her boyfriend? they hadn't discussed that – was her limit.

°O°O°O°O°

Stalking up the castle corridors next to his Slayer felt like Haymitch was walking with a lit up powder keg.

He and Bobbin the not-so-friendly telepath demon didn't have time to do anything when they encountered a squad clearly sent to stop their progression because Katniss bulldozered them, barely holding back enough to leave the brainwashed demons alive at the end of the short fight. A few of them might wake up missing limbs.

She was furious.

More than furious, he thought, she was terrified sick for her boyfriend.

And he got that.

He hadn't been lying. He would do everything to fix Peeta and he was eighty percent confident killing the Peacekeeper would be enough to sever the mental brainwashing but there would be consequences. There were always consequences to stuff like that. That was magic for you.

He hadn't expected to find the boy turned. He had thought, at worst, they would have kept him in a cell as a pressure point to use on Effie. That was…

A problem for later.

Right now, the real problem was his Slayer spiraling into a lethal ball of fury, which might turn out to be a good thing or a bad thing depending on points of view.

The shamans must have rejoined the clans outside because the castle kept shaking on its foundation and given the clamor they could hear… They might not win the battle if the Peacekeeper didn't get taken out but they would certainly shake things up enough that it would take him a while to recover – which wouldn't help any if they got annihilated in the process.

Katniss stormed ahead but it was Haymitch who guided them, relying on his distant knowledge about medieval times from his Watcher training days. There was a story about a Slayer and an enchanted castle, he was pretty sure. He vaguely remembered being forced to do a research paper on that and bitching to Mags about it. The knowledge about castles in addition to the limited intel the demons had been able to give him came in handy though.

He managed to get them to a sort of balcony that overlooked what was clearly the castle's main room. They crouched behind the stone railing, peeking over it to get an idea of what waited feet below – the drop would be doable for Katniss but for him and Bobbin, it would be tricky, they might need to find stairs.

Brainwashed demons were rushing to the main room from at least four different entrances, armed to the teeth, cramming themselves there like a crowd at a concert… They were abandoning the castle's defense, he figured, to surround the dais where… What was that?

The Peacekeeper didn't look at all like the rest of the telepathic demons. But, then again, it had been alive for thousands of years according to Paylor. The demon was fat. There was no other word for it. Fat and huge because he probably didn't move much, he was the brain of the whole hive after all, his grayish color made him look like a particularly bloated corpse. Haymitch doubted he could move by himself, let alone fight, which would come to their advantage.

The demon wasn't all that caught his eyes and made his breath stick in his throat though.

Effie was right next to him, floating in the air on her back, trapped in a pale golden bubble from which small tendrils of light trickled to the Peacekeeper…

Her magic.

He was siphoning her magic.

It was one thing to know about it, it was entirely another to see it.

It felt so… wrong. The violation was so deep and intimate… Magic was part of her and this…

She looked terrible.

She looked dead.

She was chalk white, her lips were almost colorless, her eyes were closed… Her limbs were lax like they always were in sleep, her blond hair floated around her like it would have underwater… Her clothes were dirty and torn, proof if it was needed that she had given that demon one hell of a fight…

The gold of the magic bubble was nowhere near its usual hues. It was pale too, fading…

She looked dead or close to be.

Katniss coiled on herself and he knew, he just knew that she was readying herself for the jump. He grabbed her arm before she could do something stupid.

There were more than thirty demons down there, without counting the Peacekeeper who might or might not have more magic tricks in his bag than the mind control thing and who might or might not turn them into members of his army if they got too close. They didn't need her to go down and fight, they needed her to take him out with a well-placed shot.

'My magic protects him.'

He startled. Badly.

Both Katniss and Bobbin stared at him worriedly.

His gaze might have gone a little vacant and, he figured, they must have been scared he was turning on them.

"Effie." he mouthed to Katniss and the girl relaxed a fraction.

He didn't.

The state she was in, he had thought she was unconscious at the very least.

'Princess' he thought back, hoping she would get the relief and all the other complicated feelings through the telepathic spell she had no business casting when she was in this state. How had she even known he was there?

'You have Peeta.'

It was not a question. Maybe she could see what the Peacekeeper could see – which was worrying because it meant the demon might know what she knew and…

Effie cut that train of thoughts off even if he hadn't been directing it at her: 'I shielded my mind but I always kept an eye on Peeta.' He wondered if this was a variation of the telepathic walkie-talkie spell or if she was just too tired to be subtle and not pry. 'Yes.' she said and it didn't really answer the question but it told him he better be careful what he was thinking about. 'I was saving just enough strength to contact you in case you came after us.'

'In case?' he scoffed. 'You thought I wouldn't?'

What he got through the telepathic link was uncertainty and fear.

'I cannot maintain the spell long.' Her voice whispered in his mind, tired and frail. 'I am almost empty.'

'Of power?' He licked his lips, staring at Katniss' face without really seeing it. The girl was waiting but she looked impatient.

'Power faded days ago. The magic is feeding on my life force now.' she informed him and that was bad. Really bad. Potential coma bad. That meant what the demon was sucking out of her wasn't just magic, it was… It was her life. 'I have just enough strength left to talk to you. I have a plan.'

Of course she did.

It was so utterly silent in that place aside from the clinging of weapons and armors… It made his skin itch. Or maybe it was the fact that he didn't like the resigned tone in which Effie was talking.

'I've got a plan too. Kill that demon and get you and the kid home.' he argued because he could feel he wasn't going to like hers.

'How long has it been?' she asked. 'Out there.'

'Little more than an hour.' He rubbed his face. 'We had to go back to the house. I came after you as soon as I could, sweetheart.'

'Did you stop Snow?'

The question hung between them.

His lack of answer was answer enough.

His priority hadn't been Snow.

His priority hadn't been duty.

His priority was very screwed.

He had the vague feeling she would have been nodding sadly if she could have.

'I will expel what little magic I have left.' she informed him suddenly. 'He thinks my mind is gone, he does not expect it. The blast should knock a few demons out. It will leave him vulnerable so Katniss can shoot him. The other demons… I am not certain they will come back to themselves immediately. You should sneak out and let the shamans handle the rest.'

'We're also gonna need to get you out.' he pointed out.

There was a long silence in his head and, for a second, he was scared the spell had broken.

Katniss was still impatiently staring at him, so was Bobbin.

'I want you to take Peeta and Katniss back home. Do not bother with my body.' she finally said.

He grew cold.

An inner cold.

It washed over him in a great wave of panic. 'What do you mean your body?' The panic was replaced by a feeling that didn't belong to him. It was calming and it took him a while to identify it. Serenity, acceptance… 'Fuck, no, Effie. I didn't come all this way to watch you die.'

'I have known it would end this way for a few weeks.' Her voice was a caress in his mind. 'It is the safest option.'

'Fuck the safest option. You ain't sacrificing yourself again. I'm tired of watching you try to kill yourself today. I'm jumping down there and cutting him to pieces myself if…' he growled.

'I love you.'

The words echoed in his head, so powerful and warm he could do nothing but crouch there like an idiot, staring at Katniss and feeling… a lot of conflicted things. The words terrified him. The words were bad in a lot of ways because they always came hand in hand with grief. The words…

He was silent too long.

Sadness washed over him, bottomless, it filled his mouth, his chest… It tasted like her skin.

'I thought so.'

Her voice was a regretful brush in his mind.

'Effie.' he panicked, now was really not the time for that talk he didn't want to have. He had made it clear he cared about her, hadn't he? Fuck, he had gone to hell for her. Why did she have to drop that bomb on him now when… 'Effie, it's not that…'

'It is alright. I knew it was most likely only on my side. I know you care about me. We are friends, a team, aren't we? I just wanted you to know.' she answered.

'No.' he countered. 'Sweetheart, that's…'

'Goodbye, Haymitch.'

'No!' he thought but he felt the spell disconnect with a pop and then…

Then there was a blast of golden light that bathed the whole castle and tossed them all toward the nearest wall...

Soooo Peeta is brainwashed and is there ANYONE here on board with Effie's plan? This being said can we all give a commune scream of Haymitch! since he only had cricket noises to give to what might be her last love declaration? THAT MAN. Katniss wants to kiss things though, that might come in handy XD

One chapter left in this episode! I hope you enjoyed this! Let me know your thoughts!