Chapter Five

"Tell me this, then, since you must know it by now. If you really did love me, then why did you never tell me?"

I blink. My eyes feel sticky behind my eyelids, gluey and watery. My mouth tastes like dust and - something sweet, I don't know ... late season blackberries, maybe, tart and sweet.

"Because I didn't, really. I didn't understand what love actually was. What I thought was love was just - attraction. Fascination. You were so different. But it couldn't possibly be love because I never even talked to you. Then - when I finally did - they confused me. They changed you, they made you - otherworldly, mystical - some sort of symbol and object of desire."

My eyes dart around until I see her, sitting near me in the shadows. It's true, I realize - her form is the same, the drip of her hair over one bare shoulder. But she looks plain, now; ordinary. It's all that energy and grace - drained, sapped away from her body. I see it now.

"Good. Very good, son. Now - who did that? Who changed her?"

I gasp, again looking around for the source of a voice. It's so dim in here. Everyone is in the shadows, and so very still. "Lots of people - including me. I helped them. Because I thought myself to be in love with her, I made her - more lovable to the audience. And also to me. Yes, that is my fault. If I had been smarter, I would have seen the trap. But she - she did not have to burn everything down. She had everything. Everything. Me or Gale - or both of us - in the palm of her hand. The adoration of an entire country. The loyalty of District 12. She could have taken Panem from Snow, if she wanted. But - she -."

"Tell me."

The light has changed, and when I look back up, I see her, standing in the trees, looking back at me. I feel a jolt of alarm - remembering the girl with the arrow aimed at my heart. But she looks - incredibly normal. Small, solid, compact - strangely real. All the images in my head are contrasting ones - a goddess made of flames, a wolf with slobbering jaw - and they rise up to contradict her; but they cannot withstand the complete and utter realness of her.

I take a deep breath. She can't be here - as I am not really here - so I can't hurt her. And, thus, she should not be able to hurt me.

"Don't you see? Don't you understand? When Snow asked you to prove that you loved me, he knew that the command itself would make it impossible for you to follow. All you needed to do was to - love me."

There is laughter, then, and it belies my belief that I could not be hurt - here in this imaginary place, inside my head. And anger rises ….

"I'm curious about the mutt," says Dr. Aurelius.

Outside the window, snow falls like thick ashes. I stare, closer and closer, until the snow flakes crowd the entire sky. There is nothing shiny about them, unfortunately. I am weary of being in this place and there is nothing more satisfying than to be able to wink it out of existence for awhile. That's getting harder to do.

"What about the mutt?" I ask warily.

"I'm curious about what she looked like to you when you described her as a mutt."

I tear my eyes away from the window and look at him, frowning. "But - she was the mutt. It looked like her. There weren't …" I frown. "I mean, I don't remember …"

"There were a few times you said that 'the mutt existed before the Capitol.' And, 'you haven't seen it in its true form, yet.' What did you mean by these statements?"

The question puts my teeth on edge, and I find myself starting to breathe a little heavier. Trying not to let it show, I close my eyes, as if in concentration. What I see behind my eyelids, I can't quite find the words to describe. I shake my head. "I'm not sure. Why? Is it important?"

"I believe so. We still have not tapped into the details of your torture. We still don't know how they turned your feelings about Katniss Everdeen into a murderous fixation."

I swallow. "And it's important to know that, why?"

He doesn't say anything, just looks at his notes.

"What if I can't remember?" I ask, falling back on the excuse that has become a bit of a crutch for me. "I was told the tracker jacker venom causes some memory loss, and probably more permanently - with large dosages."

"We haven't even begun psychotherapy - which you should have been doing from the outset, I must add. Medical treatment by throwing darts - not the best strategy, but what do I know, right? There are ways of recalling buried memories, and I don't think yours are even all that far below the surface."

Awesome. "I've told you - and them and everyone really - all that I know."

But as I say the words, it is writhing around in my mind, struggling to break free. And Dr. Aurelius shakes his head. "It doesn't quite account for what you said. Try to think about that, OK?"

Once he leaves, I try not to think about it. I squint at the snow again. I really must be damaged, I think to myself - I'm actually trying to spin myself back into that world of swirling confusion, where my delusions and fears and hopes all seem real - and they all make me feel real. I suppose there are any number of good reasons for all this talking and poking around my head. But I don't really care. I don't want to know why I did certain things … or felt certain things. I think - I believe - that I've been given a gift and it is to take an eraser to my past - wiping out memories and - even more importantly - the emotions with which they are associated. Sad - perhaps - if one felt that way about it. But I can start over again, more cautiously - without her. And after all that has happened, that has got to be for the best.

After I'm re-dressed in prison garb, my face scrubbed of makeup, I'm returned to my cell, where, I notice, my stack of cards have been cleared away. But the chamber pot hasn't, and the rancid smell of urine and shit has filled the cell.

After a while, there is that incessant clanging sound and a group of Peacekeepers, their visors down so that their eyes are covered, come into the room, running their heavy sticks across the bars. They've got another prisoner with them - a slender girl with reddish-brown hair. I'm just trying to remember where I've seen her before, when Johanna cries out, "Annie?"

Annie Cresta … The girl whose voice tormented Finnick in the arena. I hear the crash of a cell door down the row - maybe at the far end of the room. The Peacekeepers come back down to the end of the row. Then they stop.

"Mellark - up against the wall, put your hands up."

I lick my dry lips.

Two of them hold my arms and legs as I'm stunned by some kind of electric charge from a baton held by a third. My muscles collapse, but I'm held up against the wall, powerless to even try to kick or wiggle in protest when I'm punched - in the gut until my breath almost stops. In my shoulders, until I think I hear something pop. In my face, the back of my head hitting the brick wall behind me until my ears ring. I'm helpless to even shout, to cry out or scream.

Just before I pass out, they let go of me, and I fall at once to the floor. My fingers clutch the cement. On their way out, someone kicks the chamber pot and the waste splashes around me and pools all over the floor. I hold my breath and don't move my head, hoping they think I've blacked out. Their laughter echoes around the cell, recedes; the steel door of the cell shuts behind them. Still, I hold my position, trying not to retch.

"Peeta?" Johanna's voice, low, but frightened. "Peeta?"

I push off the floor, but get no further, as the world spins dramatically. I take in a deep breath - which is a huge mistake, as I do nearly pass out now from the smell. "I …" I say, then start coughing uncontrollably. "I…."

I try shorter breaths and that helps. I push myself over to the low bed and sit down on it, but carefully. I yank the soiled t-shirt off of me and scrub off my face and neck with a clean section of it. It comes off brown, yellow and a little red. I throw the shirt away from me. I collapse on the lumpy mattress. The light on the ceiling becomes five or six lights.

"Peeta?"

"I'm fine," I croak.

"Nice stench," she says sarcastically, but with relief. "What did you do, anyway?"

"What they told me to do."

There's a long pause. "What was that?"

"Told Panem that Katniss and I had nothing to do with the rebellion blowing out the arena. Called for a cease fire."

"Oh."

"What the fuck does it matter? Katniss and I had nothing to do with it. And no one is going to pay attention to me calling for a cease fire."

"You'd be surprised how much the people here, even the people in the districts - might. You've got a way with words. But I guess … with you, it's always going to be that girl first, isn't it?"

I close my eyes, and the colors from the lights dance around the inside of my eyelids. "Yes," I say bluntly. "I don't know what's going on out there. I don't know who took her, where she is, what they want from her, what they plan to do. Nothing. I only know Katniss. So, yeah."

Fuck, I think. The spinning won't stop.

"So, why'd they hit you?"

"I don't know."

Johanna is quiet for a long time, then she shouts, "Annie! Annie! What the hell are you doing here?"

"Johanna?"

"Yeah, it's me, and Peeta Mellark."

"Where's … Finnick?"

"Safe," says Johanna, without elaboration. "Why are you here?"

"I don't know."

"That's your answer, Lover Boy. They're going to use Annie as bait for Finnick, and you - bait for Katniss. That means they won't kill you right away. So that's good news!"

"Shit," I reply, realizing that she's right. And it won't be my last time on camera, either. The next time Katniss sees me, I'll be beaten and bruised. And if Katniss has one weakness, it is her pity for the wounded. They probably do know that. "Do they really not know where - wherever they went? Or is that all just part of the game?"

"I don't know. For us? - I'm not sure that it matters."

The screams are so strange – they come in feminine choruses. Or in shrill, bird-like shrieks that cut across the normal birdsong, sounding alarm. Or in my own voice, hoarse and unfamiliar as my personality is ground down and down and down. Or in the little girl's cries for her sister. Or her sister's answering call: Prim! Prim!

Something deep and primal, the shriek that occurs at the rip of separation. I can feel my knees collapsing in on me, just as they did on the day of the Reaping when her voice echoed around the square.

One morning, I see a blond girl enter the room behind my breakfast tray, and at first I'm expecting to see Delly again, but instead it's Primrose Everdeen, her mother's touch in the complicated braid. She wears a white medic outfit, so I go through the whole range of emotions - annoyance, aggravation, fear, confusion - before settling on the calm feeling that I somehow still associate with her. I know she is Katniss' sister. But I also know she is Prim.

And this might be the first moment they begin to separate in my mind, Katniss and the mutt. Just a little.

"Prim!" I say. "I - didn't know you were alive," I finish awkwardly.

She comes over and sits down next to me. "Hi, Peeta," she says. "It's good to see you again."

I'm startled; she seems sincere, despite the fact that I tried to kill her sister just days ago. "Did your mother make it, too?"

"Yes, she's here, too. We're both working here - in the medical ward. I'd like to help you, Peeta, if I can."

I narrow my eyes at her, suspicious now. But she reaches over and releases both my hands from their restraints. She removes the tubes from my arms. I'm still restrained at the waist, and she doesn't remove that, but I stare at her delicate face in surprise, then rub my arms.

"Why?" I ask her.

I don't think that I would trust her if she gave some bullshit answer about it being the right thing to do, or that I'm worth saving, or altering, or whatever. "Because you saved my life," she says, simply. "If you hadn't warned us of the bombing, I wouldn't be here now. I got to safety just in time."

"What bombing?" I ask.

"When the Capitol sent bombers here, to silence Katniss, you warned us, so we had time to fully evacuate. No one was hurt - except for you. Besides, we were friends once, Peeta, whether you remember or not. I hope we will be friends again."

I have no memory of any of this, and I stare at my breakfast tray, sullenly. "What - does that depend on something? Like - me changing my mind about - about Katniss?"

She shakes her head. "No, it only depends on if you want to be friends with me, once you get to know me better. Now, eat breakfast, and we'll talk about some ideas that we've had."

I start to eat the tasteless porridge and applesauce that is on the tray in front of me, but I can't stop looking at her. She seems kind. She seems trusting. I haven't run into anyone like this in a very long time. I've almost finished, when I have a sudden thought. "You and me - we were reaped together, yes?"

She smiles a little. "Yes, I guess that's true. But I didn't go into the arena with you."

Yes - Katniss went instead. I don't remember exactly how, but there can be only one way that she could have. She volunteered to take her sister's place. But why? To save Prim? To hunt me? To rejoin the Capitol? To fight the Capitol? All equally possible, though I know which explanation is the most likely. She has been stalking me since I was a child.

"So …" I push away my tray. "What is it that you want to - try on me?"

She smiles gently. "I want you to know that we won't do this without your consent. We don't know how or if it will work. You understand what happened to you in the Capitol?"

"Sort of. They injected me with tracker jacker venom," I say automatically - I've been told this often enough. "And they showed me tapes of Katniss - in the arena, in the Capitol - and made me - afraid."

She stares at me with unblinking eyes. "Do you believe that? You don't sound convinced."

I shrug.

"Fair enough," she smiles. "But just try to remember, when you have what feels like irrational terror or fear over the little things - that that might be a memory or an association that they altered with fear conditioning. I understand – that there are things about Katniss that you had cause to resent, even before they took you. I know there was a part of you that was already mad at her. And that's OK. You don't have to get rid of that. We just want to help you have full access to your memories again - to be able to remember things without fear."

I swallow and find that my throat is dry.

"I know you don't like watching the tapes of the games..."

"No. No … they don't do any good."

"Yes, well our idea is to try to - hijack you back, Peeta. We'll give you a special dosage of morphling while you watch certain parts of the tapes - parts we think were altered."

"Not morphling. No."

"It will be specially formulated and injected not to sedate you, but to - calm you. And hopefully, that will eventually help you to be able to watch the tapes without fear."

I want to argue with her. I want to shout at the one-way window, where there is no doubt a curious audience all holding their collective breath. But - I don't want to anger or frighten Prim. This, for some reason, is very important. So, I close my eyes and control the breaths that are starting to grow shallow. And I nod my assent.

"When?" I whisper, anxiously. "Today?"

She lifts her hand and, after a very small hesitation, reaches out and wipes my damp hair off my forehead.

"Not if you don't want to," she says.