Peeta is in his cell, or a room that's been made to look like his cell. He's alone, or someone has painted themselves to look just like the walls.
He closes his eyes. He thinks he might be dying. He's so weak. He can't remember when he last ate. He can't remember yesterday. He longs for home.
He thinks of the bakery. With his eyes still closed, he can picture their small apartment above the bakery perfectly. He had his bed on the couch, until his older brother got married, and moved into the general store family's household. The apartment always smelled like bread, yeast, and flour. He loved those smells.
His mother woke everyone up, slamming the crockery around, making breakfast in her usual, angry manner. They rose hours before the dawn, got the bread started, and then he and his brothers would go back to sleep while the dough was rising, until they had to go to school.
His stomach is growling like a caged beast at the memory of all that bread.
Peeta's house in the Victors' Village wasn't like that. He had liked it fine, but it hadn't felt like home. His mom hadn't spoken to him until the Quarter Quell announcement, she was so mad that he didn't invite them all to live with him. There are just some things even time can't mend, and he wasn't about to survive the Hunger Games just to be subject to his mother's temper again.
But he had enjoyed the quiet. The smells of paint, turpentine, and sugar filled his house. He woke up before dawn out of habit. He would make a cup of tea and sit on the porch, watching the sun rise. Sometimes he would see Katniss, leaving for a hunt.
The thought of Katniss makes his heart and head pound. His blood feels hot in his veins, and he's barraged with images of Katniss mutilating him in the arena, whispering in Snow's ear, giving him the best ideas on how to torture him, telling him to kill everyone in 12, because Peeta will hate that.
He doesn't realize he's screaming, punching and clawing and biting at himself, anything to stop these thoughts, to stop the awful, pervasive fear of the Katniss-mutt.
Two Peacekeepers open his cell door. They inject him with something and lower him, almost gently, to his bed.
"We're supposed to just leave the doors unlocked?" asks one.
"President Snow reckons he's had enough fun with the victors. He wants to give the others…"
But Peeta doesn't hear the end of that sentence. He's gone from the world.
Katniss is agitated over the rescue. He can tell she might get herself in trouble if she won't calm down, and asks if she wants to wake up when the rescue is over, but she turns the offer down. She'll need something to do though, on that they both agree. So, he goes to Plutarch. He needs Capitol advice on how best to distract the Capitol.
He finds Plutarch in Command. He's out of breath from running the whole way. He gets the Gamemaker out in the hall with him and leans against the wall, arms crossed.
"Do you think a propo from Katniss might distract Snow, and the security people?"
Plutarch thinks. He looks at the door closed between him and Command. "Certainly, if she has something interesting to say. You think she can be riveting?" He looks back at Haymitch, eyebrows raised.
Haymitch wishes he didn't sound so disbelieving, it wouldn't help if Katniss was nervous, and she picks up on that stuff quickly.
"Why don't we assemble the team and see? Can't hurt, right?"
Plutarch is frowning. He looks down at his toes before replying. "You know who could distract them?"
Haymitch sees in Plutarch's face that he won't like who gets suggested. He thinks for one wild second, Plutarch means him. Haymitch's secrets are well-known, and no one cares about people dead in the Seam 25 years ago, or an alcoholic victor. Then he gets it.
"Absolutely not. Don't even suggest it."
Plutarch's demeanor changes at once. He uncrosses his arms, stands up straight, and smiles.
"Tell Katniss to get ready. I'll assemble the team. Let's see what she has to say."
Haymitch knows Plutarch has some trick up his sleeve, the smooth shite, but there's no time. They'll be reaching Capitol airspace soon.
He runs all the way back to the hospital, slowing when he reaches that floor, not wanting to appear breathing heavily, and sound anxious in front of Finnick and Katniss. The two were clearly hanging on by a thread.
Everyone ready, they head aboveground. Haymitch might get spoiled for fresh air. The stuff is almost intoxicating.
Katniss talks about Peeta. He thinks it's sweet, but he can tell Plutarch is losing patience. All right, maybe a love story isn't going to draw in Snow, or the people high up enough to protect him and the Capitol from the unpleasant truth. But Katniss has lots of good stories. She just needs to be asked the right question. He doesn't like the way Plutarch's eyes keep drifting to where Finnick is standing, watching Katniss with a faraway look.
Katniss finishes. Cressida looks at him, so he looks to Plutarch, who is holding his forefinger to his lips in thought.
"Haymitch, Finnick," he says, beckoning them over. "Come here."
He tries not to show any outward sign of irritation as he walks over. He doesn't want Katniss to think it's directed at her.
"I thought she was good. Let's just try," he says softly, once they're all three together.
"What did you think, Finnick?"
Finnick looks at him, then at Plutarch, feeling the tension and not understanding the cause.
"It's never going to distract Snow. He knows all that, he doesn't care."
Plutarch nods. "That sounds true to me. What about you, Haymitch?"
Haymitch can't think of anything to say.
Plutarch continues. "I bet you know a lot of secrets, Mr. Odair."
Finnick's face goes white.
"You leave him alone, Heavensbee."
Plutarch holds up a staying hand, watching Finnick.
"Haymitch doesn't want you to be hurt. Neither do I. But if we're doing this, we need to do it now. Think about Annie -"
Finnick jumps at the name, or maybe Haymitch's shout.
"Hey!"
But Finnick looks determined.
"I want to do it."
He starts forward, asking if he can have Katniss' seat.
"You don't have to do this," Haymitch says, following him. Finnick's not looking at Haymitch. He's looking at Castor and Cressida.
"Yes, I do," he says. "If it will help her. I'm ready."
Haymitch leaves the line of sight for the camera. He sees Finnick holding tight to that rope, and walks behind Castor. He's got the rope out of frame. Good.
Finnick looks straight into the camera.
"President Snow used to…sell me…my body, that is. I wasn't the only one. If a victor is considered desirable, the president gives them as a reward, or allows people to buy them for an exorbitant amount of money. If you refuse, he kills someone you love." Finnick's four-year-old brother, out on a fishing boat for a reason no one could name, that capsized and killed all the crew. "So you do it," he continues. For his other sisters and brother, so his mom could keep the rest of her babies, for his nieces and nephews. Eventually, for Mags, then Annie.
"I wasn't the only one, but I was the most popular. And perhaps the most defenseless, because the people I loved were so defenseless. To make themselves feel better, my patrons would make presents of money or jewelry, but I found a much more valuable form of payment. Secrets."
Haymitch's heart is breaking, and he's prouder than he's ever been. Finnick Odair is the bravest man he knows.
"And this is where you're going to want to stay tuned, President Snow, because so very many of them were about you. But let's begin with some of the others."
"I feel so dirty when I'm with her."
Haymitch can't help thinking of Finnick as this perfect, unspoilable person, a beautiful man, inside and out. That the Capitol ever made him feel less than that hurts him, deeply.
He remembers Seeder and Chaff in the rooftop garden. How they accepted him immediately as a friend. He had never felt badly with the other victors. And he knows Annie feels the same.
But Finnick has had to hear and see so much of what makes humanity vile, how money means you can do anything, power, too. And he looks at Plutarch, and thinks of him and Coin, parading Katniss around like a puppet, to distract an overexcitable child, and now Finnick, too. Will they ever just be left alone to live their lives?
Finnick has stopped talking, and everyone is staring at him.
"Cut," he says, and stands up. Plutarch gets Finnick's attention, and the two walk away.
He doesn't realize Katniss is beside him until she asks, "Is that what happened to you?"
"No," he says. He thinks of Ember, and his friends, alive, living their lives until the bombing that destroyed them. "My mother and younger brother. My girl." Terra, in the clearing. His brother, laughing, Mama cleaning. "They were all dead two weeks after I was crowned victor. Because of that stunt I pulled with the forcefield." The fire. "Snow had no one to use against me."
"I'm surprised he didn't just kill you."
"Oh no. I was the example." God, it had killed him when Finnick had told him how his name, how his family, were still being used. "The person to hold up to the young Finnicks and Johannas and Cashmeres. Of what could happen to a victor who caused problems." He thinks of his 25 years of isolation, and quiet, and peace from Snow. "But he had no one to use against me."
"Until Peeta and I came along."
Well, they had been a surprise.