Chapter Three
Left behind.
It's the visceral power of the words, which have snaked down and lodged themselves inside me, that the morons in 13 do not understand. It doesn't matter that it was Snow who said them; he was only drawing them out from where they have lived ever since Katniss Everdeen turned away from me, on train tracks in the middle of nowhere. Oh, they took other forms - harsher, perhaps, but it all comes down to the same thing. Ignored.
Discarded.
"Peeta!"
I pivot on the disk and see her - her silhouette against the bright sky. It is as it always was. I turn to her in hope only to see the arrow pointed at me, her arm drawing back the string.
I hear the water splashing at my feet, and vaguely I see it shimmering all around me. I feel unbalanced and dizzy as everything around me writhes, silver and shining.
Beep. Beep.
"His vitals are rising!"
My heart stops.
Some period of great and peaceful fuzziness follows. It is colorless and quiet, and incredibly restful. Then I blink and the bright room keeps changing. 1, 2, 3 ...
"She was trying to save me."
"She was trying to kill me."
"What are the Hunger Games?"
I look up and see the blond boy perched in a tree and the leaves dazzle all around him, reflecting the sun. I am anxious for him and also surprised - I never climbed trees. "You should get down, boy," I tell him. "It's not safe."
"You never answered my question."
I shake my head. "I answered you - several times."
"If you answered me, I wouldn't have to ask."
"If you didn't ask me, I wouldn't have to answer."
At this he laughs - and vanishes. And I hear … it's the same pattern, so of course I hear … the footsteps approaching. I bend down on one knee and stretch my hand out. And I count to myself. This time, I think. This time. 1, 2, 3 ….
"...What did you do?" I ask Dr. Molina, the nondescript chief psychiatrist of District 13.
"You had an episode when we were attempting to show you some footage from the Quell."
Oh, yes, this. They are attempting to recreate the Capitol's mind-control techniques, and once again I must relive the arenas on film. "I don't need to rewatch the Quell," I tell him. I perfectly remember the snakes in the trees, the monsters bubbling out of the sand. I remember a sky with stars falling around me, and a burning sensation - a sizzle of electricity igniting my skin the first time she tried to kill me.
I remember being in her thrall one night, and that it was only Finnick Odair waking up just in time that saved me from the violation.
"You gave me drugs - to make me see the videos differently," I add. I shiver, remembering the injections. The shiny cloud of terror that followed me like a death mist. Only there was no running from this one.
"No, that is what the Capitol did," says Molina. He has no patience for me - and for a psychiatrist he's strangely uninterested in anything that I say. "Mr. Mellark, your venom levels are now minute. There is no reason that you should not be able to view the raw footage of the Quell and see what is actually happening."
("You can't - you can't look at that Game - and not see how she feels about you.")
Idiot. Everything can be manipulated. Everything is up for interpretation. Raw and "unedited," the arena shows the truth, anyway. That I was the sacrificial tribute. That she was the Girl on Fire, and I was her accessory. That I admitted, not just to her, but to the entire country, my longest-held secrets, and she gave me nothing back but lies. In fact, it looks even more damning than it felt at the time. I see it, so clearly, now that I have been enlightened. The look on her face when she is forced to kiss me. The exasperation at having to tend to me, when she could have been out in the arena, climbing trees and felling her opponents with her arrows.
If my heart can't take it - well. It never was up for much.
("You can't be mad at Katniss. Not for this.")
Haymitch.
When and how he appeared in Molina's place I don't know. I just turn my head - and at first I do register him as one would a dream. For one thing, he doesn't look like the Haymitch I remember, at least not much. He's thin and yellow, his gray 13 uniform loose and baggy on him everywhere except for at his throat. He keeps fingering his collar, as if it is choking him.
His appearance brings a confusing jolt of elation, but it doesn't last long. Immediately, rage and fear course through me as if dispensed through the tubes in my arms. I take a few deep breaths, try to control my heart rate, because once it starts making the machines beep, they knock me out. But saliva rises to my mouth and I can actually feel my nostrils flare.
"Peeta," he says, voice heavy with ... pity? It doesn't sit well on him.
"Get out," I say, thinly. I'm really rather proud of myself when the words don't come out in a raw-throated shout. But he still winces.
"Look, boy -" he begins, and that is a more familiar tone, oh, yes. The tone that signals his exasperation with me - that I just didn't understand, that it just wasn't worth telling me.
"Get out! I don't want to hear it! I don't want to talk to you! I don't want to see you!"
"So, it's not just Katniss," he muses.
I can almost hear the machines whir, as they prepare to sound the alarm. "Don't say her fucking name! How could you - how could you - send me in to die, then leave me behind for them to - to …!
"To what?" he asks slowly.
That's all they want to know, isn't it? To live vicariously through my memories the beatings and humiliation, the surgical application of pain, the forced witness of the suffering of the helpless people around me. Entertainment for them. Just like when I was a Tribute. I look up at the ceiling and breathe, breathe. "I have nothing to say to you, Haymitch. Now or ever."
.
.
"Do the nightmares ever go away?"
"You're alive to have them."
.
.
It takes two days of talks to finalize my interview with Caesar. During that time, I'm still treated with consideration - if you ignore the fact that I'm jailed without having committed a crime, without the opportunity to talk to anyone - without being able to send any word to my family about where I am now. Twice during that time, they come in for Johanna, though. I can't see what is happening to her, but I hear the blows land on her body, her defiant yells gradually evolving into screams and then cold whimpers. It's horrifying, but I can hardly just set out to betray the thing - whatever it is - she is taking such abuse to protect. So, when I'm told to go on camera to denounce the Rebellion, I balk.
When they counter with more threats to District 12, I swallow my fear and refuse to meet their bluff.
It's Katniss' fate which, as usual, unwinds me. Snow handles this discussion himself.
"Miss Everdeen is in a very precarious position here, son. Everyone watching has just seen her destroy an arena and run away with people now identified as traitors."
We've been over this list before. Finnick, Beetee, even Plutarch Heavensbee, the Head Gamemaker himself. That one must really hurt.
And Haymitch, apparently even Haymitch. Of the extent of his involvement, I can only guess. But there is no escaping the fact that he sent Finnick, Johanna and Beetee to us in the arena, which means he had foreknowledge of something going down, and was in deep enough to be included in the escape plans. Whenever I think of myself begging him to let me go into the arena instead of him, I am overcome by a sense of betrayal that I can't quite keep at bay.
"It's open to interpretation," I say stubbornly.
"Yes - mine," he says, with an unpleasant smile. "But - I might be willing to let you plead her case."
My breath catches. "What do you mean?"
"Why don't we schedule an interview with Flickerman - you'd be comfortable in that setting, wouldn't you? He'll ask about the end of the game and you give your interpretation. Make sure it is clear that Katniss Everdeen was captured by the Rebellion and is not working for them. And then - demand a cease fire. If you are successful, it will be easier to spare Miss Everdeen the fate of traitors. In fact, enough sympathy for her would practically guarantee her - not only safety, but a place in the Capitol, after."
Cease fire? As if we really are at war. I try to hold my expression steady. So, the uprisings are still taking place, perhaps have even spread. Well, what is my calling for a cease fire really going to do, anyway? Everyone will just assume that I am acting under duress. It seems like the Capitol would know this - and there must be some other game Snow is playing here.
But I nod and agree.
I'm allowed to wait in the office while things are set in motion. I'm even sent a cold drink - lemonade, I think, though I can barely taste it.
When the door opens again, I am shocked to see Portia.
I stumble to my feet and am about to ask her a thousand questions, but I just go to her and give her a hug. When I can see her face, I see she's been crying. Her eyes are fearful and red. When I start to speak, she hushes me.
"Have they hurt you?" she asks, touching the bruise on my face I got on the first night.
"Not much, really," I say. "Are you here to … prep me?" I ask.
"Yes, the girls are on the way with your outfit and makeup."
I sit down again, shaking my head. Of all the bizarre things I never thought to hear again. "I don't even know what's going on," I say.
"Better that way," she murmurs.
I look at her sharply. It seems like a million years ago now, but really is only a week or so since the night of the tribute interviews, when Cinna turned Katniss into a Mockingjay, live on television. I haven't heard him mentioned, and now I do not dare to ask. But I was fearful for Portia then, and I am doubly so now.
When Calla, Julia and Antonia arrive, there is a long, strained silence, and we all look at each other. Portia stirs and breaks the silence. "The girls have been advised against conversation," she says.
I smile at them. "Probably for the best," I agree.
After the girls perform their ritualistic magic on my hair, nails and skin, I watch them depart for what I assume will be the last time - but then, that's been the case so often, so who really knows? As dire as my circumstances are now, they've been even worse before. I've left two arenas alive, despite all historical precedent.
Portia dresses me in a very formal suit with a white jacket, so that I do not look like a prisoner at all, but a Victor - a well-groomed mutt who half belongs to the Capitol, and half to the Districts. There is no mirror in the room, but Portia holds up a small hand mirror so I can look myself over. The games were so short this time, I really look no different than I did on the night of the last interviews. But I touch my fingers to my lips, thinking of Katniss. About how she planned to sacrifice herself for me. I wonder if she knows where I am, and how she's dealing with it, whether or not she does know. I wonder where she is - how far away she might be, how safe she is from the Capitol. I suppose as long as they need me to say whatever they want me to say, they'll keep that information tantalizingly away from me.
"Any advice?" I ask Portia.
She blinks and looks up at me as if she's coming out of her own reverie. Her eyes look distant and sad. "You know how to handle Caesar," she says softly. "Start with the truth. You and I know that Katniss had nothing to do with what happened in the arena - you can make the audience believe that, too - no problem. As for the rest of it …." She pauses and licks her lips. I've never seen her this nervous before. "Speak the truth about that, too. I know how much you abhor violence."
I try to think of a response to this, but the door opens on some Peacekeepers and instead I give Portia an effusive good-bye. I always assume any given time will be the last time with Portia. She's too precious to me to leave without a farewell.
But I do think about her words as I wind my way through the series of corridors that lead back to the elevators. She's right. It's not just the physical act of ending another person's life. Which, now that I've finally committed the act - even in defense of myself and Chaff - I can't think about without feeling sick. The thought of widespread slaughter - especially in Katniss' name - is unbearable. If there's anything to be learned from the pageant of death that is the Hunger Games, it is that using violence as oppression only breeds resentment and, eventually, violent defiance - which is met with violent oppression. An inescapable circle. But the history of Panem - the Capitol's own version of it - holds an even darker lesson. That we as a species - the last thousands of the race that once numbered millions, if not more - are prone to retaliatory violence, all the way down to the very brink of extinction. And it could be happening again now.
Does it matter that the Capitol is in the wrong, if there is no one left to tally a moral winner?
I'm not sure. But I could never incite violence, anyway. For better or worse, that is why the rebellion chose the Girl on Fire. From the very beginning. My job has always been to soften her image; let the audience gasp at her fiery costumes and then remind them all that she's just a girl, with every right and reason to live. And, in asserting her humanity, cast doubts in the audience on the morality of the Games.
Same here. Same as always. But trickier this time.
It's really no surprise to me when I'm taken up the elevator to the 12th floor of the tribute center. Abandoned now, this place where I spent such intimate time with Katniss is so awash in memories, I nearly choke on them.
They've pulled two of the chairs into the center of the sitting room and place a few lights and two cameras around it. While we wait for Caesar to arrive, one of the studio personnel hands me a script, which I read, and almost snort out loud.
"No one will believe me if I use these answers," I say.
The glory and stability of Panem must be preserved through rigorous defense of the Capitol.
"That's just a blueprint, Mr. Mellark," says Snow, entering the room with a wan and wary-looking Caesar Flickerman in tow. "But what would you suggest?"
"I don't know, precisely - things tend to come to me spontaneously. But if I say this, it will sound like I've been drugged or brainwashed." I pause to congratulate myself on being so forthright, even to President Snow, though I imagine I might pay for it later. "Not even the Capitol audience will believe this. It doesn't sound like me."
"We're not airing live, so anything can be re-shot or edited, if need be," says Caesar, in a soft, wavery kind of voice not really like his own, at all. He's probably been having a bad time of it since the catastrophic night of the Quarter Quell interviews. But Caesar is more aware than anyone how well I do unscripted.
I swallow. "All these questions about the end of the Quell - I can walk through them. I've seen that tape three times, now. I know what to say. But as far as the cease fire … I'll ask for that, of course. I don't want to see the districts wipe themselves out. But it would make no sense to the districts for a tribute to say these things about the Capitol. It just won't. It didn't do a lot of good on the Victory Tour," I add. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if watching Katniss and I puppet-talk our way through the Capitol's provided speeches actually inflamed the rebels the more.
Snow eyes me for a long time. I try to maintain my poise, but it gets harder with every passing moment, and I can start to feel myself sweat. Finally, he nods and turns to go. But I burst out, not able to help myself, before he vanishes:
"Wherever she is, will she actually see this?"
He turns around. "Why don't you ask your friend, Miss Mason, that question? She's holding on to that information rather tightly. But - believe me. Almost the whole object of this exercise is to make sure Katniss Everdeen sees exactly where you are."