Peeta and I wait until the doors of the Training Center have closed behind us to finally relax.
Cinna and Portia are there, pleased with our performance. Even Haymitch has made an appearance this year. Except he's not at our chariot. He's over with the tributes of District 11. I see him nod over in our direction and then they follow him over to greet us.
I know Chaff by sight because I've spent years watching him pass a bottle back and forth with Haymitch on television. He's dark skinned, about six feet tall, and one of his arms ends in a stump because he lost his hand in the Games he won thirty years ago. I'm sure they offered him a replacement, but he didn't take it.
The woman, Seeder, looks almost like she could be from the Seam, with her olive-toned skin and straight black hair streaked with silver. Only her golden-brown eyes mark her as from another district. She must be around sixty, but she still looks strong, and there's no sign she's turned to liquor or morphine or any other chemical form of escape over the years.
Before either of us says a word, she embraces me. I know somehow it must be because of Rue and Thresh, and unable to stop myself, I whisper, "The families?"
"They're alive," she says back faintly, letting go.
Chaff throws his good arm around me and gives me a kiss right on the mouth. I jerk back, startled, while he and Haymitch guffaw. I could taste the alcohol on his lips. Haymitch must have brought down shots to share before we arrived.
That's about all the time we get before the Capitol attendants are firmly directing us toward the elevators. I get the distinct feeling they're not comfortable with the camaraderie among the victors, who couldn't seem to care less.
As I walk toward the elevator, wiping the back of my hand repeatedly on my mouth, and my other hand still linked with Peeta's, someone else is rushing up to our side. The girl pulls off a headdress of leafy branches and tosses it behind her without bothering to look where it falls. One glance and I know that face: Johanna Mason.
She ruffles up her spiky hair and rolls her wide-set brown eyes as I look at her. "Isn't my costume awful? My stylist is the biggest idiot in the Capitol. Our tributes have been trees for forty years under her. Wish I'd gotten Cinna. You look fantastic."
"Yeah, he's been helping me design my own clothing line. You should see what he can do with velvet." Velvet is the only fabric I can think of off the top of my head.
"I have. On your tour. That strapless number you wore in District 2? The deep blue one with diamonds? So gorgeous I wanted to reach through the screen and tear it right off your back," says Johanna.
I bet you did, I think. With a few layers of my flesh.
While we wait for the elevators, Johanna unzips the rest of her tree, letting it drop to the floor, and then kicks it away in disgust. Except for her forest green slippers she doesn't have on a stitch of clothing. "That's better."
We end up on the same elevator with her, and she spends the whole ride to the seventh floor chatting to Peeta about his paintings while the light of his still-glowing costume reflects off her bare breasts.
I toss his hand away as the doors close behind her and he begins to laugh.
"What?" I say, crossing my arms over my chest.
"It's you, Katniss. Can't you see?" Peeta says.
"What's me?" I say.
"Why they're all acting like this. Finnick with his sugar cubes and Chaff kissing you. The whole thing with Johanna stripping down." He tries to suppress his huge grin but does not succeed. "They're playing with you because you're so... you know."
"No, I don't know," I say.
"It's just like when you wouldn't look at me naked in the arena even though I was half dead. You're so... pure," he finally concludes.
"I am not!" I say. "They've seen me practically ripping off your clothes every time there's been a camera around for the past year!"
"Yeah, but I mean, for the Capitol, you're pure. Imagine how many times they undressed Finnick within the ceremonies and over the years? Besides, the victors aren't stupid they know you're just doing it for the shot."
I open my mouth to retort, then close it when I realize, for the Capitol, the sex-crazed, sensual-loving people of this materialistic world, I really am as pure as it gets.
Then I remember recent cravings that have been added to my menu.
"I'm not that pure," I finally say.
Peeta rolls his eyes. "Katniss, you're pure, trust me."
"How do you know? You don't know everything about me."
"I know enough. You're still pure, to them. For me, you're perfect. They're just teasing you."
"No they're laughing at me and so are you!" I say.
Peeta shakes his head.
I grab Peeta's face in my hands and press my mouth to his in a wet, open, jarring kiss that only lasts as long as it takes for one of my hands to slide down his chest and rest against the rigid muscles of his stomach. My fingers are icy against his hot skin, and he jerks away almost immediately.
I stare defiantly up at him. His eyes are on fire. I can see the desire there, and I wonder if beyond my angry, he can see mine, too.
The sound of the elevator door opening distracts me.
We step out and join Effie and Haymitch on the landing. They are looking pleased about something, then Haymitch's face grows hard.
What did I do now? I almost say, but I see he is looking behind me at the entrance to the dining room.
Effie blinks in the same direction, then says brightly, "Looks like they've got you a matched set this year."
I turn around and see the redheaded Avox girl who tended to me last year until the Games began. I notice that the young man beside her, another Avox, also has red hair.
Then a chill runs through me because I know him, too. I don't know him from the Capitol but from years of having easy conversations in the Hob, joking over Greasy Sae's soup, and that last day, watching him lie unconscious in the square while the life bled out of Gale.
Our new Avox is Darius.
Haymitch grips my wrist as if anticipating my next move, but I am as speechless as the Capitol has rendered Darius.
There are things I want to say, to explain to him, but I know that any recognition on my part will only result in further punishment for him.
I twist my wrist from Haymitch's grasp and head down to my old bedroom, locking the door behind me. I sit on the side of my bed, elbows on my knees, forehead on my fists, and watch my glowing suit in the darkness, imagining I am in my old home in District 12.
I imagine what it would be like to have had a simple life.
Eventually Effie knocks on the door to summon me to dinner. I get up and take off my suit, fold it neatly, and set it on the table with my crown. I wash the dark streaks of makeup from my face. I dress in a simple shirt and pants and go down the hall to the dining room.
I am not aware of much at dinner except that Darius and the redheaded Avox girl are our severs.
I push the food around my plate with disgust. My stomach churns at the thought of eating anything.
Effie, Haymitch, Cinna, Portia, and Peeta are all there, talking about the opening ceremonies, I suppose.
The only time I really feel present is when I purposely knock a dish of peas to the floor and, before anyone can stop me, crouch down to clean them up. Darius is right by me when I send the dish over, and we two are briefly side by side, obscured from view, as we scoop up the peas. For just one moment our hands meet. I can feel his skin, rough under the buttery sauce from the dish.
In the tight, desperate clench of our fingers are all the words we will never be able to say.
Then Effie's clucking at me from behind about how "That isn't you job, Katniss!" and he lets go.
We watch the recap of the opening ceremonies.
As soon as the recapping is over, I stand up and thank Cinna and Portia for their amazing work and head off to bed. Effie calls a reminder to meet early for breakfast to work out our training strategy, but even her chirping voice sounds hollow.
Soon after I go to bed, there's a quiet knock on my door.
When I open it Peeta looks relieved to see my face. His hands are clammy and cold sweat clings to his forehead. He told me once most of his nightmares are about losing me.
"Do you want to talk about it?" I say. I move back and let him in, then close and lock the door.
Peeta joins me on the edge of the bed.
I pull him close, marveling how easy it has become to touch him even when there are no cameras to impress.
"What happened?" I say.
Peeta does not say anything for a long while, then he says, "It's stupid."
"Tell me."
"It was a good dream to start…"
"Good how?"
"I was dreaming about what if the Quarter Quell did not happen… if life was back to before." Peeta shifts, like he is embarrassed to admit it. "It takes a while, but we are happy and married, and, there is a little girl..."
I flinch at the suggestion, and Peeta withdraws a little, but I say, "Go on."
"It's stupid," Peeta repeats. "There was a reaping, and she was only a little girl, only five. We thought she would be safe, but... they changed the rules, like for a Quell. She is reaped, put into the Games... and we couldn't do anything except watch..."
He does not finish describing the nightmare. He does not have to. It is a fear I have had since I was a little girl myself. Losing a child to the Hunger Games, knowing the pain that Rue's parents have endured. What my Mother might have felt if I had lost.
I know that he does not expect me to say anything. He knows this fear of mine, and regardless, this Quell has at the very least absolved us from ever having to worry about that exact scenario. Sometimes, just speaking the nightmare out loud releases its power over you.
Before long, we are holding each other to sleep.
Children dominate my nightmares.
First, I watch, frozen and helpless, as Rue get stabbed through the abdomen repeatedly. I re-watch her death in my dreams as if in slow motion. Then I see my sister, my little duckling, being dragged away kicking and screaming by Capitol attendants while my mother kneels in front of our old Seam house.
But, finally, shaking, terrified, I am standing in front of a mirror, staring into my own reflection, my hand resting against my bulging abdomen. Blood stains run along the sides of the mirror, by tiny fingerprints in incomprehensible shapes. There is a shadow in the mirror behind me. I think it is Peeta, but when I turn my head it's President Snow, and his puffy lips are dripping with bloody saliva, hungrily staring at the child inside of me.
When I wake, heart pounding, Peeta is rolled half the bed away. I don't want to disturb his sleep or fill his head with what I have just seen, so I stumble into the bathroom and vomit violently in the sink.
I strip off my sweaty clothes and fall back into bed, partially naked, and somehow find sleep again.