Hello everyone I'm back earlier than last time! I don't have much to say except that I hope you enjoy this chapter of the story!
Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games.
The camera shakes with each separate landmine that goes off. Each apple triggers a landmine which then triggers more and more until almost all of them have gone off. All that remains of the Careers supplies is small shards of metal strewn all across the field and a large pile of ash.
My sister lies on her back, breathing heavily from the force of the impact. She lies there for about a minute, occasionally having to shield herself from falling debris, then she rolls over on her side to see the damage she caused. Well she got rid of the Careers supplies alright.
She smiles a bit in satisfaction before trying to stand up but after a couple steps she immediately falls back to the ground. That's when I see the extent of her injuries. From the way she swayed on her feet for the few seconds she was standing, I'm pretty sure that she has some form of vertigo and I just have to hope that it's a minor kind that will only last a couple hours at the very least. I also notice that her left ear is bleeding heavily which could also be attributing to her dizziness.
Well that's not good.
I silently plead for her to get away because the camera just showed the Careers on their way back and almost as if she can hear me, she pulls her hood over her head and begins to crawl towards the woods. She slowly makes her way to Rue's copse as the District 3 boy walks over to the ruins. He must have been there guarding the supplies when Katniss shot the arrow, but didn't see her. He is not very good at his job.
As she crawls a few stray mines go off which knocks her flat on face, but she still carries on. She manages to dive under some bushes just as the Careers crash through the trees and to say that Cato is mad is an understatement. I thought that only little kids threw temper tantrums, but seeing Cato makes me realize that teenagers too, can throw fits.
"What the hell happened here Link?" He yells at the District 3 boy who is throwing rocks onto the ruins to see if there are any remaining mines.
"I have no idea," He answers.
"Well who did this?" He growls.
"I didn't see them."
"Why does it matter? We'll see them in the sky tonight," Clove cuts in while pointing at the sky.
"What do you mean?" Asked one of the Careers.
"The person came up to steal from us and blew up in the explosions. The explosions covered the sound of the cannon. Boom, end of story," Clove says to the group.
Cato manages a smile when he hears that the person is supposedly dead. But then goes back to being extremely angry.
He turns around and starts kicking over containers, trying to look for something salvageable. The rest of the Careers join him and as they dig through piles of rubbish, the District 3 boy begins to back away to the woods.
It's smart. He knows that he is not useful to the Careers anymore. I remember Cato's words when they first took on the boy, "We aren't keeping you around for long, kid. Once your job is done, we won't need you anymore. Do you know what we do to people we don't need anymore?" The boy shook his head hesitantly and Cato told him with an evil grin, "We kill 'em"
The District 3 guy turned his head worriedly towards the woods and Cato just chuckled and said, "Don't bother running, we'll just find you and make the process even longer and painful."
I shiver from the memory. I can't help but hope the District 3 boy can get away. I really don't want to witness another brutal murder.
The idea must have just occurred to Cato because he spins around to face the District 3 boy and starts to shout at him. The District 3 boy has only enough time to turn and start to run before Cato comes up behind him and jerks the boy's head to the side.
I quickly bury my face in the pillow next to me on the couch but it is too late. I've already seen it. The way Cato's muscles rippled when he snapped the neck of the poor boy. The way the boy's body slid out of Cato's grasp, and fell to the ground in a heap.
It's suddenly too much. I can't watch this anymore. I have to get away.
My mother watches me as I get up from the couch and walk over to the door. I don't know where I'm going but all I know is that I need to get away from that stupid television.
My feet bring me outside to the dirt road and I begin to walk, without any set destination. The sun is about to set but I just let my feet bring me wherever they want to go. Before I know it I'm at the Hawthorne's home.
This is probably a very bad idea but I can't help longing for the comfort of a home that is not my own. I quickly brush out my hair with my fingers knowing that it must be a huge mess considering I haven't brushed it in, who knows how long.
The dread sets in as soon as my fist knocks on the door. I shouldn't be here. I have no right being here. I messed things up so badly. He doesn't want me here.
Hazelle opens the right as I'm about to turn around and leave.
"What are you doing here, hon?" She asks when she sees me.
I open my mouth to answer but a sob comes out instead. Hazelle steps outside and envelopes me in her arms and I begin to cry. She holds me in her warm embrace for a while before leading me inside and onto the couch. I struggle to wipe all the tears off my cheeks as the embarrassment of the situation begins to sink in.
I just showed up at her front door and immediately burst into tears as soon as she opened the door. The whole thing was so unexpected. I thought that the walk had calmed my mind down at least a little bit but I just broke down as soon as I saw Hazelle. I'm barely aware of what I was even crying about. It was probably all the stress of the day finally becoming too much and pushing me to the breaking point.
I had started off the day watching a boy get murdered by a pack of bloodthirsty teenagers and then I witnessed my sister nearly getting blown up. Then she barely escaped the enraged Careers who killed a poor boy with ease. It was just too much for me to handle.
Hazelle comes into the room from the kitchen holding a warm cup of tea. She hands it to me and I tell her thank you.
We sit quietly as I sip my tea and Hazelle rubs my back gently.
"Have you talked to Rory recently?" She asks, breaking the silence.
"Um...I haven't today," I answer awkwardly, "Why?"
"Well he's seemed really upset today and I just wanted to see if you knew why," She says.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know," I tell her because I genuinely didn't know he was that upset. Now I feel even guiltier.
"You're perfectly fine hon. Just, if you can, could you talk to him? He hasn't talked to anybody today, but he'll probably talk to you.
"I'm not sure that's-" I begin. "Nonsense! He loves you hon, just go talk to him. Please?" She interrupts.
I feel my cheeks heating up at her words. He loves me? I quickly squash any of those thoughts. She meant it in the platonic way. Why am I even thinking about any of this?
"Where is he?" I ask hesitantly, unable to say no to Hazelle.
"He is in his room," She tells me with a smile, "Thank you for doing this, Prim."
"Y-You're welcome," I say, my voice cracking.
As I walk towards the closed bedroom door I worry. This is not good. This is not good at all. He probably hates me. What am I going to say to him?
I reach the door all too quickly. I knock on the door softly and I hear his voice yell for me to come in. The door creaks as I push it open to enter the bedroom. I see him sitting on his bed staring at the wall and I'm about to ask what he's doing when he asks, "What do you want?"
"To make amends?" I try pitifully.
He turns around, "Sorry, thought you were Gale."
I chuckle and he looks at me sadly.
"Why are you here?" He asks softly.
I go over to sit next to him on the bed.
"I want to say I'm sorry."
He stares at me for an agonizing moment before saying, "Prim you don't need to tell me you're sorry. In fact it should be the other way around. I should have known that you would be overwhelmed with Katniss being in the Games and I shouldn't have pushed anything onto you," He says, his gray eyes looking into my blue ones with such sorrow that my heart seems to break for the fiftieth time this year. But still, I can't help thinking that this is going way better than I thought it would. I expected him to throw me out the moment he laid eyes on me, not apologize to me.
"Rory," I tell him gently, "It was my fault for being so unclear about my feelings and I'm really sorry about that. You didn't do anything wrong."
He's about to argue but I cut him off by sliding next to him on the bed and wrapping my arms around him.
"I'm so sorry," I whisper, "I shouldn't have left the room without explaining myself more."
"Prim I-" He starts to say.
"Please let me finish. I promise it won't take long," I say letting go of him but still sitting close.
"I know that if my sister were here and if my mother was feeling better they would both be telling me not to worry about this and that we're both only twelve so we shouldn't be talking about this anyway, but I just want to say that I don't know much about relationship and feelings stuff, but I do know that I need you in my life Rory Hawthorne. And I am asking you to please be my friend and after the Games are over, if you are willing, we could see if we could maybe, just maybe, be a little more than friends."
I take a deep breath and wait for his response. He sits silently for a while contemplating everything I just said.
As I wait I think of my speech. I can't help but be proud of how mature I sounded. I guess all the YA romance novels I read are finally rubbing off on me. I think back to the part where I said I needed him and realize how true that actually is. I mean I could barely even go a day without speaking to him and even then I was thinking of him constantly. It's almost as if I need him to fill up the hole in my life that Katniss used to fill. Immediately after thinking that I'm filled with guilt. My sister is fighting for her life and I'm here replacing her.
"I think I can do that," Rory says, interrupting my thoughts, with a small smile.
"What?" I ask dumbly.
"I can still be your friend. And for the record I wasn't ever not your friend," he answers with a smirk.
"Oh my god, thank you!" I exclaim with a huge grin as I pull him in for another hug. "This conversation went way better than I thought it would," I tell him honestly.
"Probably didn't expect me to forgive you that easy," He responds.
"Well your brother is Gale," I say and we both chuckle.
Right on cue Gale opens the bedroom door and Rory and I scramble away from each other even though we weren't doing anything wrong.
"I'm not interrupting anything am I?" He asks with a knowing smirk.
"We weren't doing anything Gale!" Rory yells angrily but his flushed cheeks just cause Gale to chuckle and walk out of the room.
"I'm sure."
Rory and I spend a few moments just staring at each other in mortification. What did he think we were doing?
"Never speak of this again?" Rory asks, holding out his hand.
"Deal," I say, shaking his hand.
I look out the window and see that it's already dark outside.
"I probably have to get home," I say sadly, not ready to face the reality of the Games again.
"Oh okay, I'll walk with you," He says with a smile.
"Okay."
We walk out of the bedroom and into the main room where Hazelle, Gale and Vick are watching the Games.
"Hey mom I'm going to take Prim home," He tells his mom.
Hazelle looks over the couch at us and smiles.
"I knew you were the trick," She tells me with a wink.
Rory looks at me with a confused expression and I just smile and shake my head.
"Bye Hazelle," I call to her as we walk out the front door.
Once we are outside Rory holds out his hand to me and I grab it. It's almost as if nothing even happened in the first place.
"You know what's funny?" Rory asks me as we walk down the road.
"What?"
"I was stressing so much about talking to you, trying to figure out a time to say I'm sorry when we just settled things in like five minutes. It usually takes other people way longer to do that," He says with a smile.
"That just means we are better than them all," I tell him as I bump my shoulder against his. He chuckles and then we return to a comfortable silence as we walk.
We reach my house too soon and I hug Rory goodbye.
"Thank you," I whisper.
"For what?"
"For forgiving me," I answer.
"It's no problem, really," He says before letting go of me. "And is it okay if we just don't talk about like any of the...stuff that happened until after the Games?"
I smile. This is way more than I could've asked for.
"Of course," I say. "Oh and Rory?"
"Yeah," He asks.
"I'm really happy you're back," I tell him sincerely.
"I wasn't even 'gone' for a day," He says with a chuckle. "But I'm happy you're back too."
We say our goodbyes and Rory heads back to his house while I go inside mine. I find that my mother is already asleep. I probably should check on Katniss but I can't bring myself to break my good mood so I decide to go straight to bed.
I grab Buttercup from where he is laying on my mother's bed, and bring him over to Katniss and I's bed. I lay down and he curls up into my side. Sleep comes fast and all I remember is falling asleep with a smile on my face for the first time in a while.
If you couldn't tell already, I'm not the biggest fan of angst so I try to get everything solved as quick as I can. Sorry for all you angst lovers out there. Again I would like to thank all those who have read, reviewed, followed, and added this story to their favorites because I cannot thank you all enough! Please leave a review if you can! Stay safe and healthy! :)