DISCLAIMER: HG characters do not belong to me.

Chapter 35-The Break Up

It took Gale's group five days to find the Jay Killers. They had to send out multiple tracking locators, since the tracking locators could only go so far they had to move to a different location each day to cover more ground. On day five the trackers finally picked up movement.

The images showed the group was much larger than Gale originally thought. He was under the impression the group went from 35 members down to 21, from the images he was looking at, it looked like there were 50 men. He wondered how the Capitol could have been so mistaken.

This concerned him, for there were currently 30 of them versus 50 Jay Killers. He was not expecting to be outnumbered by 20 people. He decided to watch by surveillance for three days to observe and monitor their daily routine before making a move on them.

Gale knew the leader of the group was named Geffen, he also knew that was not his real name. The real identity of the man was unknown, but Gale knew that from the beginning, he had established himself as the leader. From the images, Gale saw he looked to be in his early 50's. From the images he could also see that they slept in tents, and appeared to be have quite a few guns along with other weapons such as knives. It appeared not a whole lot went on during the day, some went off to hunt for food, sometimes they came back with food, and sometimes they didn't. They also practiced mock fighting and practiced knife throwing. Some of them spent quite a bit of time in their tents-Geffen especially.

The group was very far north of the Comanche tribe, Gale knew another tribe was not far from here, and he hoped that when they made their move, that the tribe who occupied this area didn't become involved. The goal was to capture and send back, the last thing he wanted was innocent people dying. He had seen enough of that in his lifetime.

He decided they would surround the perimeter of the militia's camp two hours before dawn and let off tear gas to get them to scatter. His plan was that if they were awoken from sleep and disoriented, it would be the least violent way to take them.

He informed his team of 29 the plan. They were all in agreement and felt the plan was a good one. The next morning, they left the hovercraft at 3:30 am and hiked 30 minutes to the Jay Killers camp. Once they reached the outskirts of the camp Gale had them all assemble into a circle.

"Remember, don't shoot unless it is absolutely necessary" Gale said in a low voice. His team nodded and then put on their gas masks. They all split off in groups of two in different directions. After 5 minutes Gale let off a signal by flashing two quick beams of light into the air, letting his team know to approach the tents slowly. Each group approached a tent, threw a tear gas canister in and waited.

As expected, some of the men came running out of their tents with their hands covering their faces, coughing uncontrollably. Those men were easy for the soldiers to grab and quickly restrain. Some of them however, came out with their guns and began shooting. Gale heard gun shots erupting around him as chaos began to ensue. The gunfire had awoken the men in the tents his group hadn't reached yet, those men came out guns ready. Some of the men started to run away into the woods, Gale signaled to some of his squad members to follow after them while he continued to shoot, his gas mask now off. Suddenly, he heard a familiar voice cry out in pain. Gale ran to one of his squad members he saw on the ground, the soldier grabbing his side in pain for he was shot. Gale applied pressure to the wound while he looked around trying to find another squad member to help. Finally, he saw Abraham running toward him yelling, "Commander—too many of them are heading into the woods."

"Here-stay with Bradbury, keep applying pressure to the wound" Gale said to Abraham as he got up and ran to the other members of his team. He saw that a group of 20 men were detained, with about 10 lying dead on the ground. Gale didn't see Geffen anywhere, for he guessed he ran off with the others. Gale took out his flame thrower and shot a flame into the air, signaling the others to come back. Luckily, only 5 of his soldiers were injured, with Bradbury having the most severe injury. He radioed for Woodard to bring the hovercraft to them. Gale got the injured soldiers on the hovercraft to be transported to District 9 immediately. Woodard was then to return back here. While waiting for the hovercraft to return, the team began searching the tents. One of the squad members yelled to Gale, "Commander—you need to come see this."

Gale walked over to the one of the tents in the center of the camp. Gale immediately recognized the tent as Geffen's. Gale walked into the tent and almost gasped, he wasn't expecting what he saw before him.

On the ground tied up and gagged were two Native females. Both appeared to have been beaten and Gale assumed more than just beatings occurred. It would explain why Geffen was seen in his tent a lot. He wondered how long the group had these two women and how they even got them in the first place.

Gale tried to reach out to remove the objects from their mouths and to try to communicate to them that they were safe, but when he tried they both recoiled from him with a mixture of fear and hatred in their eyes. He decided to have female soldiers go into the tent. Gale currently had 8 females in the group. Two of them went into the tent and came out about 10 minutes later and informed Gale that they were able to get the two Native women untied, ungagged, and provided them some water and food. They told Gale the two women were currently just sitting the tent, not seeming to want to come out. Gale wished Katniss was here, he thought maybe if she was here she could communicate with them somewhat.

All 20 men that his squad had captured were currently sitting on the ground, all were tied up with brand new technology that used a laser. The laser didn't hurt, but it prevented movement. All the men were immobile lying on the ground with their hands tied behind their backs and their feet were bound by the laser as well.

Gale questioned the men and asked how long the women had been with them. After a long uncomfortable silence one of them finally said, "About a week, we captured them while traveling by the river."

Gale asked other questions that went unanswered.

When the hovercraft got back Gale had radioed to the Capitol informing them he had 20 people to bring back. He was instructed to have the hovercraft bring the men to Panem's main military base in the Capitol immediately. Gale had all 20 men and 8 of his soldiers go on the hovercraft back to the Capitol while he and the remaining soldiers stayed back at the camp.

They sent out tracking locators to find the men who had run off. Gale figured they could not have gone too far. The group set up camp-prepared to stay there for the day for it was already late morning. The squad buried the dead militia men. Gale and his group looked through their belongings along with the belongings of the captured men, trying to gather information about some of them. They didn't find much, for most of them didn't have many personal belongings, some of them had personal photos, some had nothing on them at all beyond the clothes on their backs. Gale did find two flyers that were in one of the men's bags, one contained a picture of President Paylor, her head in the center of a bullseye. Below the words 'Panem's enemy-hit the target and get our country back' were written at the bottom. Another flyer had a picture of Katniss in her mockingjay outfit with the words, 'She started an unwanted rebellion, leaving Panem in ruin, now it is time to rise up and finish what was intended in the arena.'

Gale took both pieces of paper and tore them up, ripping them to shreds, sickened by what he saw. Obviously this was the propaganda these militia groups were using to attract members to the group.

The two Native women would still not come out of the tent, Gale figured it was best to leave them alone. He would continue to have the two female soldiers go in and check on them and bring food and water.

The tracking locators came back and the squad was able to see that two groups of men were found, each in different directions. The images showed one of the groups had men that were injured and that they were currently resting and were about 3 hours away. The other group was continuing to move, and at a quick pace getting further and further away. Gale decided to send a group to retrieve the men that were closer to camp. He figured he would have to wait until the hovercraft returned to find the other group.

He didn't see Geffen in any of the images that came back, and that concerned him more than anything.


The next morning when Katniss woke, she had Spencer call the President's office, President Paylor accepted Katniss's call and said, "What can I help you with this morning Katniss?"

"I need permission to make a personal phone call here at the main base before we leave today."

"It can't wait? You just came from District 4, where you could have made as many personal calls as you wanted." Katniss could hear the annoyance in Paylor's voice.

"No, it can't wait. It will just be one call-I promise."

Katniss heard Paylor sigh on the other end of the line and then say, "Fine, one call and then you and the others need to leave. I would appreciate in the future that you call only when absolutely necessary."

"Sure, thanks President Paylor-I appreciate this exception."

"Goodbye Katniss" and then she heard the line click.

Katniss informed Spencer she had gotten permission to make the call, Spencer took her into Gale's office and showed her how to dial out and closed the door behind him, giving her privacy.

Taking a deep breath, Katniss picked up the phone and called her house in the Victor's Village, it was still pretty early so she hoped Peeta would be there before leaving to go to the bakery. After a couple of rings he answered, "Hello?"

"Hi Peeta, it's me." Katniss tried to say in a cheery voice.

"Katniss! Are you alright?"

"Yes-I am fine Peeta, everything is good here."

"It is so good to hear your voice, I miss you each and every day."

Katniss closed her eyes, not wanting to respond to that. She wished this wasn't so hard, she was never very good with words and that made what she was about to do so much worse.

"Katniss? Are you still there?" Peeta asked when Katniss didn't respond.

"I'm here. Peeta—there's something I need to tell you, I don't know how to say it."

"What is it? What's wrong?"

"Peeta—I have a made a decision that you are not going to like, I—I have decided, I won't be returning to District 12. Once my work is finished in the wild territory I will be moving to District 4. I will be living with my mother."

She heard silence on the line knowing Peeta was trying to comprehend what she just told him. After a few minutes he said, "I could come with you to District 4, I could have Delly take over for me at the bakery while I am gone."

"No Peeta, I am sorry, but I need to be on my own for a while, I need to figure things out."

"What kinds of things?" Peeta's voice rose in response.

"What I want out of life. I am so sorry, I know this is not what you were expecting."

"Is this because of Gale?"

"Gale?" Katniss asked in confusion.

"Yes, Katniss-Gale. He loves you, he always has. Now that the two of you have reunited all of the sudden I get a phone call from you saying you are breaking things off and that you need to figure things out. What I am supposed to think? There is only one person who could have that kind of effect on you."

Katniss couldn't deny that Gale was a factor in this decision, but not for the reason Peeta thought.

"Peeta, I had made this decision before I even saw Gale again. I should have told you the last time we talked, but I was too afraid of hurting you."

"Do you still have feelings for him?" Katniss sensed anger in Peeta's voice. She knew she couldn't lie to him.

"Yes. But we are not together. He is off in another part of the wild territory with his squad and besides he is engaged. We didn't even become friends again until the day we went our separate ways. I swear to you nothing has happened, and nothing will. Gale deserves happiness with the woman he is with, I won't interfere. But, I still have feelings, I always have. I think you've always known that."

"I have, but you said you loved me. I thought that was enough." Peeta's voice no longer had anger in it and was now full of sadness.

"I do love you, but I don't know if love is enough anymore. I am so sorry Peeta, Haymitch told me once I never deserved you. He was right, in ways you cannot imagine."

"So that's it then, what we had, everything we've been through is over?"

Katniss didn't know how to respond, while she couldn't be with Peeta right now, she didn't know what the future held. What if she tried to date other people and found the grass wasn't greener?

"I am not saying goodbye forever, just for now. I hope you can understand that."

Peeta snickered and said, "I knew you weren't happy. I had hoped my love was enough, obviously it wasn't."

"Peeta—" Katniss tried to say more but he cut her off saying, "Tell me if this true or false—did Gale say to me once that you would choose the person you couldn't live without?"

"True, he said it when we were hiding in Tigris's basement."

"Maybe now you can finally figure out which one of us it is."

Katniss resented his comment, it reminded her of how she resented it when she heard it back in Tigris's basement. It made it sound as if she could not live without a man. While she wanted to tell him she resented the comment she knew she had to try make things right.

"I still care about you; that will never change."

"I wish I could say I was okay with this, but I can't, you know I can't."

"I know, I'm sorry. I am so very, very sorry." Katniss voice started to crack.

"Goodbye Katniss" and before she could respond she heard the line click.

She burst into tears while the line started beeping for she had not put the receiver back.