Chapter 12: Make Me Forget

Fortunately, Haymitch and Peeta agree with me - we don't put any pressure on Emilia and Den today. This could very well be the last in their young lives, and it almost certainly will be the very last day when they won't be in mortal danger - in every moment of every day.

So at breakfast, we just tell them that they are free to do whatever they want. There will be no training, no mentoring, no prepping or styling or interviews. "If you want to talk, we're here," I assure them over a cup of tea. Den scowls at me, and Emilia looks at me with her gray Seam eyes, but as usual I can't read what she thinks or feels.

Haymitch, Peeta and I have a final strategy meeting, on the roof of the building. I haven't been here since that last night before the 74th Hunger Games, when I found Peeta here. It was night then, and I didn't think I'd live to see another. And while I was only concerned with my own survival, I found that Peeta's primary objective was not letting go of who he was.

He was always worth ten of me. I think that moment was the first time I realized just how different the two of us are.

Of course, there was also something else, something he didn't tell me. He wasn't being completely honest with me. His primary concern wasn't really preventing the Hunger Games from destroying who he was, turning him into a monster. It was making sure that I would survive.

The roof garden looks so different now, in the brilliant sunlight. We're so high up, most of the air pollution stays lower, so the air up here is almost fresh.

"So we need to discuss the current situation," Haymitch says.

"What situation?" I ask. "I mean, we all know how crap the situation is, don't we?"

"It's worse than you think," Haymitch says bleakly. "We have next to nothing from the sponsors. Den doesn't come across as particularly heartwarming, and besides, that Sarr boy from District 10 is the one who draws in the Hunk funding this year." I nod. Sarr looks like something of a demi-god, and the women are going mad over him. If he wins, and remembering just how much sponsors can help you in the Hunger Games he just might, he could even give Finnick serious competition as the most desirable Victor. "And Emilia..." Haymitch sighs. "With that 2, there is just nothing to work with. Nothing at all. Without boring you with the details: We're pretty much broke. So we need to work out a plan on how to deal with the situation in the best way that we can."

"We all know that they're dead," Peeta says, and it's a shock to hear him say it. Peeta, who is always so optimistic and seeing the best in everyone. But he looks stern and serious now - and his eyes are hollow.

"Don't say it," I snap. "If we give up on them, they have nothing left. Nothing!"

Haymitch sends me an annoyed look. "Okay, so I know this is pretty cruel and heartless, but it needs to be done, so I'll just say it. I honestly don't think Emilia stands a chance, and I think we should pool all the sponsor money into parachutes for Den. It makes no sense to waste money on someone who most likely won't even last a day. We don't have much, but if we spend it in the first few days, we can probably be able to buy a couple of sponsor gifts. If we wait too long, we won't be able to afford anything at all, so it's a question of timing as well."

"I can't believe we are just giving up on Emilia," I hiss. "I won't do it."

"It's what Haymitch did to me," Peeta points out, and I shudder.

"Yes, and it was wrong!"

"Not, it wasn't. It was the sensible choice." Haytmich is serious now.

"We really need to maximize our chances here. Getting them both out of that arena just isn't going to happen." I can't believe what Peeta is saying - or rather, that it's Peeta who's saying it. Does he even remember the words I whispered to him yesterday, as he was pounding into me in the shower?

I take a deep breath. "Look, why don't we just wait and see what happens at the Cornucopia tomorrow, and don't make any hasty decisions right now? We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Perhaps one of them will go down at the Cornucopia anyway, and then there's nothing left to fight about." I cringe when I hear myself saying that - I sound about as callous as Peeta just did.

After working out some more practical and less deadly details, Haymitch goes down to the bar. I can understand how staying sober today isn't really an option for him.

I'm still mad at Peeta. "How could you say that you're willing to sacrifice Emilia for Den, like it was nothing? Like her life doesn't matter?" I yell, as soon as we are alone. "You're starting to sound like the career victors!"

Almost as soon as the words are out of my mouth, I regret them. He seems to shrink in front of me, he won't meet my eyes, but I think he might be close to tears. I want him to react, though, I want him to get angry and yell at me, because I feel so terrible and helpless and frustrated all at once, and I need to pick a fight just to get some kind of outlet for my feelings. And poor Peeta is the only one I can pick a fight with.

"Perhaps you're right," he finally says, and now I can definitely see the tears. His reaction completely defuses my trying to pick a fight, and I feel, not for the first time, how I'm not worthy of him. What he deserves is a nice, pretty merchant girl, free of traumas and nightmares and without a complicated history. Instead he's stuck with me, a formerly starving Seam girl who has so many issues I don't even know where to begin to list them.

Instinctively, I reach for him, pull him into my embrace. I don't know who's comforting whom, as I've started crying, too. "How are we going to get through this?" I whisper.

"I don't know."

"Do you think it gets easier? In time?" I think of Haymitch. Is mentoring easier for him now than it was in the beginning?

Peeta shakes his head. "No, I don't think it gets any easier."

Judging from Haymitch's liquor problem, I'm afraid Peeta is right.

The last dinner is a subdued affair. Neither Den nor Emilia say a word. I don't know what they have been up to all day, probably just hiding in their rooms. It's all I can do to keep myself together, I can't break down in front of them.

Over dessert, I finally give them the only advice I can, knowing it will never be enough.

"There is only one piece of advice that I can give you, and that's to run. Don't try to take anything at the Cornucopia - it's much more likely to get you killed right away than it is to get you something that will help keeping you alive in the long run." Den looks down at his plate, but Emilia is looking at me with those gray eyes of hers. Seam eyes, like mine. "Promise me," I insist.

She shrugs.

As Emilia is the only one who at least pretends to pay attention, I direct my next advice to her. "You said you had a talent for running. Well, running might just be the only thing that will keep you alive." I'm frustrated now, frustrated by the impossible situation we're all in and our tributes' lack of interest. I raise my voice, looking at both of them now. "Promise me! Promise me you'll try!" I won't let them worm out of making this promise, even if I can't hold them to it.

"Okay," Den mutters. I suddenly remember that he's 17 - just one year younger than I am. It seems like there's a lifetime of experience between us.

I look back at Emilia and lift my eyebrows questioningly.

"Okay," she answers.

"You need to find a source of water, and you need to try to get high up if the arena allows it, to get an overview and to make it easier to spot anyone coming to get you. The longer the distance between you and the Cornucopia is, the safer you'll be."

Haymitch shoots me a dirty look. Okay, so I know I'm just reusing his advice from when Peeta and I were in the Hunger Games.

"What she's trying to say is, in short: Stay alive," he says, dryly. He lifts up his glass, which doesn't contain water, and drains it. "I wish you the best of luck with that."

That night, as we go to bed, I just need something to help me forget. I can't do slow and soft and loving sex tonight. If there are any secret messages to be told now, I let my body do the talking. I take his breath away by practically throwing his body down on the bed, ripping open his trousers without bothering to pull them down his legs. All I do is freeing his cock from his clothes, taking it into my mouth. He seems stunned at my sudden agressiveness, but doesn't question it. His pupils dilate as I meet his eyes above his belly, and I can feel him growing hard in my mouth, more quickly than I ever thought possible. But despite it all, Peeta has the body of a teenage boy. Underneath the scars, the prosthetic, the traumas, the nightmares, is a horny 18-year-old - who loves me.

I need to hold on to that.

Tonight, I need to hold on to him, to cling to him to save whatever is left of my sanity. I can't imagine I'll get any sleep, knowing what will - or could - happen in the arena tomorrow. No one understands, except Peeta and Haymitch. Haymitch drowns himself in liquor. I need to drown myself in Peeta. I need to use his body to allow myself to forget, and I offer my own body to him to help him forget.

He nods in acceptance.

I've already set the stage with my actions, and he follows my lead. His hands shoot up, pulling my face up from his cock to his face, nearly assaulting my mouth with his tongue while ripping the dress I had to wear for this last dinner open- I can hear the fabric tearing and know Cinna's work is ruined forever, baring my breasts. He forces my body down on his, not bothering to remove my dress, just pushing the skirt up over my waist, ripping off my panties. I've never seen this Peeta before - he's been dark and angry before, but not like this. I tear his shirt open, suddenly desperate to feel his skin against mine. His kiss is crushing my lips, I can barely breathe, and I feel the full power of his strong baker's arms for the first time. It would be scary if I wasn't already hurting so much, and if I wasn't already so turned on.

"It's okay if you use me," I tell him as our mouths part, my eyes just a few inches above his own as we are lying on bed, one of his hands working on my right breast. I arch my back and moan loudly as he pinches a nipple, just a little bit too hard.

"You can use me as well," he grunts back, and there's no need to tell him that I'm already doing it, because we both know what we are doing here.

"I love you." I hold his gaze, I need to say it now, tonight, before we go any further.

His eyes soften for a few seconds. "I love you, too." Then the smile in them is gone. With a swift moment, he turns us around in bed, so that his body is on top of mine, crushing me with his much larger weight. "You need to let me know if I'm hurting you, alright?" he says to me, and I bring his mouth down to mine for another kiss, but he surprises me by turning me over, so that I'm lying down on my belly. I frown, not really understanding what he's doing. "Get up on your knees," he says, it's more of a command, really. I take a deep, shaky breath, but obey. Unsure, I look at him over my shoulder. The remains of my dress are around my waist, he is shirtless, his trousers and boxers still down by his knees. He tries to move, but gets stuck in his clothing and swiftly remove them, so he's finally naked. His cock is huge and hard up against his stomach. He meets my eyes, as his hands capture my hips.

He reaches a hand between my legs, testing my readiness. He grunts when he finds the wetness there, but he doesn't seem satisified, because he immediately starts working on my clit, so hard it's almost hurting. I'm sure I'll be bruised in the morning, and I try not to think about how uncomfortable it would be to have a bruise on there. His stimulating me in this position is a whole new experience, and I can't believe how much it increases the sensation of him rubbing me just where I love to be touched by him. I distantly think that surely the whole floor must hear my moans, but I couldn't care less. In a few hours, an unknown number of children will be murdered. At least we are still alive, and this is a way to remind ourselves of just that.

With a grunt, he moves his cock in position between my legs, and for one moment I'm not sure what he means, just where he intends to penetrate me. I open my mouth to say a warning, that I think he's too big for that, that other thing I heard the some girls talk about at school before - how you could have sex with boys and still be a virgin, they claimed. He's holding me tightly, I can't move, and for a moment I panic. But then I feel his cock entering me, there's no resistance because he's been there before, inside me. I quickly lost count of the number of the times we've had sex, although I tried to keep track of it at first. I arch my back, and he rams into me, my head hitting the headboard of the bed from the force of his entry. He lets out a low, strangled scream as he hits the very bottom of me, and I'm stunned by how deeply he's penetrating me. There is both pleasure and pain, and I don't know which one wins out, so I keep very still. Thankfully, so does he. One of his hands goes around my hip, and two fingers return to my clit again, working me relentlessly.

Okay, so there's definitely more pleasure.

"Say it, Katniss," he groans, and in my hazy state I can hardly understand his words, let alone what he means.

"What?"

"What do you want me to do to you?"

"Take me, Peeta. Make me forget. Just take me hard."

And he does. He starts pounding into me with more force than I've ever experienced from him. The position doesn't really allow me to do much, especially when he's controlling the movements of my hips with his hands, so I quickly give up any pretense of control or participation and just allow myself to be thoroughly fucked from behind.

There's a desperation to him that I haven't experienced before, and even though I know why it is so and hate the reason for it, his almost losing control like this also surprisingly hot. He's in so deep, he keeps ramming into my cervix from a new and strange angle and it hurts, not too bad but it's uncomfortable, but it would seem all my mouth and throat are able to do is moan and gasp loudly. He's picking up speed now, I can hear from his familiar sounds that he must be close, and I think there is no way I'll follow him, with the depth of this penetration and the lack of clitoral stimulation there is just now way. But then, surprisingly, I feel something building up in me, a wave I'm completely unprepared for. It's so sudden and overwhelming all I can do is scream, a sound I've never heard coming from my throat before, and it must've triggered his release as well, because there is no mistaking the sounds he's making and how he's moving behind me now, filling me up with his seed.

We both slump down in bed, panting, his body covering mine. He's so heavy, I can hardly breathe, yet it feels good. His mouth is close to my ear, his cock still inside me. We don't say anything, because there is nothing left to say. We just lie there, together, panting. At last I have to give in to the feeling of losing my breath, his weight crushing down on me is just too much for me to handle, and I squirm, silently asking him to move. He slips out of me and rolls down on his back, I feel his seed spilling out of me to cover the insides of my thighs as he rolls me with him. I'm lying with my head on his shoulder. I kiss his jaw absentmindedly while he's stroking my hair, over and over again. It's so soothing, he somehow manages to make me feel safe even in and the desperate situation we're in.

Before I know it, I'm asleep.

It's the first day of the 76th Hunger Games. We're not allowed to meet our tributes on this last, fateful morning - from now on, the only way we can communicate with them is through parachutes. But our funds are precariously low, and there is no way of knowing if they will actually understand what we try to tell them with our gifts, anyway.

I remember what it felt like for me, only two years ago, in these last few hours. The fear, the helplessness, the determination that I knew, deep inside, probably wouldn't help me much. I wonder what the arena is like? The arena in the Quarter Quell, shaped like a clock with different mortal dangers appearing in different sections of the arena every hour, will be hard to top. The Quarter Quells are supposed to be the most spectacular games, something really special - but still, that was last year. This year, there is new sponsor and commercial money to be made, and the hungry crowd of the Capitol - and to a certain extent also some of the districts - must be satisfied.

We go to the Victors' Control Room early to find our places. This is where we will spend an unknown amount of time over the next days or weeks, depending on how our tributes fare and how long the games last. We thought we were there early, anyway, but it turns out almost all of the others have already arrived. Only the District 6 victors still haven't showed up, which isn't very surprising, given that all three of them are morphling addicts. You'd almost think that the addiction was contagious, but Haymitch once told me that it started out with Chevy Anderson, the very first District 6 Victor who's now in his sixties, and then the two others - Maeve and Mitt - followed his example, one by one. Having been mentored by Haymitch, I find it kind of hard to believe that seeing your mentor's addiction would encourage you to do the same - but if morphling helps with nightmares, it might explain a thing or two. I know that coming from District 6, the district specializing in transportation, means easy access to drugs. Parcels disappearing on-route from factories in other districts, never arriving in the Capitol.

Where just a few days ago there was socializing between Victors from different districts, many of them friends, there is now an eerie silence, hushed voices and scanning looks. We used to be united - but now we keep to our own.

There is a knot in my stomach that just won't go away. What is the arena like? What dangers are lurking there? Will Emilia and Den survive the usual blood bath at the Cornucopia? Do they follow our advice and run? Or do the fall for the temptation to try to get something, something to help them survive - a knife? Some water purifying tablets? A sleeping bag? I sincerely hope they don't, because it will more than likely kill them. But what if the arena is staged so that you really need some items from the Cornucopia to survive? What if our well-meaning advice will actually kill them?

We'll know soon enough.

And then the 76th Hunger Games begin, with pompous orchestral music as we get the first view of the Arena, an aerial shot. I gasp as I see it, and there are several muffled cries of surprise and shock coming from other Victors in the room, too.

It's a city in ruins. Blackened by fire, many of the buildings are torn down. It must've been massively expensive to build it, it's such an intricate and large location. And it's not a real city that was set on fire - it was all built. Feeling the vomit rise in my esophagus, I see the Justice Building of District 12. I can mostly just recognize it from the very distinctive bell tower, as the rest of it is all in ruins. The buildings around the square are all scorched black, in various states of ruin, but there is no mistaking what they are. The shops around the square have been replicated down to the smallest detail, and then they have been set on fire.

I can even see the Mellarks' bakery.

But it's not all District 12. I guess that would give our tributes too great of an advantage. And it would be intimidating to viewers from District 12 only.

I remember several of the buildings and places from our Victory Tour eighteen months ago.

The great cathedral in District 1, the guilded roof full of holes from what I can only imagine is bombs, one of the two main towers is in ruins.

The bridge from District 4, the pride of the district, twisted and fallen into a dried out river.

The largest power plant from District 5, still on fire.

I don't recognize all the districts, as I don't know many of them very well and most of the Victory Tour is thankfully a haze to me, but I'm sure they are all represented. There is something to scare everyone.

I know Snow is standing behind me, on the walkway along the wall of the control room, staring down at us. I can feel his eyes in my back. I know this isn't just a warning to me, it's a warning to everyone. To Victors and the populations of the districts alike: This is what will happen to you if you oppose us.

Peeta's hand finds mine as we look at the ruined city on the huge main screen in front of us. From the corner of my eye, I see Haymitch clenching his jaw, his eyes cold as stone.

And then the tributes emerge from their glass tubes. They stand on their platforms, their eyes blinking against the strong light, trying to focus. They have sixty seconds to take it all in. To see where they are, to see the cornucopia, get some kind of idea of the items there, what they would like to go for, where to run and hide.

Where will they find food in these ruins? Where will they find water? The river is dried out. Panic is rising in me. If we had gotten an arena like this one, I surely would've died. I was used to surviving the forest, and the arena gave me an advantage over most of the other tributes. This arena is difficult for everyone, but it's advantageous for the tributes coming from the more populous districts, who have grown up in larger towns or cities.

I scan the tributes, as they stand there on their platforms, waiting for sixty seconds countdown to finish. Not more, but certainly not less. I know how those sixty seconds feel like an eternity, and how important it is to keep your nerves in check. After the sixty seconds are up, there is no time for uncertainty, for hesitation.

Are they going to follow our advice?

The Victors' Control Room is deathly quiet. Everyone in this room knows just how important these first minutes are. The Careers have surely already formed an alliance, which effectively makes it very hard for anyone from the other districts to get access to any good weapons, food or equipment.

There is lots of food in front of the cornucopia, which isn't promising. This usually means that food in the arena is otherwise scarce, or very hard to find. The usual assortment of weapons is there. But there is also... my breath catches.

Dammit. There's a well there.

This doesn't look good.

The camera focuses on the face of Twitch, the boy tribute from District 1 for a moment, as he sees the well - and he smiles a devilish grin. He has no doubt understood what I've already figured out: That the Careers will seize control of the well - and the very presence of it here, by the Cornucopia, almost certainly means that there are few other sources of water in the arena. Perhaps this is even the only one. This is how they will draw the other tributes out, provoking confrontations - and give the careers the upper hand, from the very beginning.

And then they run.