Chapter Twelve
Now it's Prim's turn to be mad - although not at me - and I have never seen her so furious. It's the first time I've ever seen her with an expression on her face that makes her look exactly like her sister. But I feel strangely relaxed. I'm slightly ashamed by my outburst, yes, but I can see it now - at something of a remove. Look at myself from a distance and critique my behavior. Like before, it feels almost as if a poison has left my body by the expulsion of all those venomous words, and I am somehow the better for it. I'm vaguely aware that I owe Katniss an apology - but I'm keenly aware that my opportunities for such a thing will be even more limited than they were before. Thank goodness.
"Oh," I say, in the unusual position of trying to calm someone else down. "It was my fault, too. And I don't know what I was thinking, saying all that stuff. I guess I just - I wanted to -." I shake my head. "I know what you're going to say."
"What?" Prim asks me.
"That I should try to watch the second arena - if I really want to know what happened."
"What scares you so much about it?"
"I don't know - just that last time they tried to show it to me, I couldn't handle it. I literally had a heart attack." I shudder. "The whole thing seemed frightening - like the water would drown me, or the moon would burn me. I'm guessing they made me watch it when they put the venom in me, and it's all like a horrible - nightmare. Where everything wants to hurt you, even the air, or the - the fish - or the sand."
"Why do you think that they made that arena so scary for you?"
"Hmm, good question. I guess - 'just for the hell of it' isn't a good enough answer?"
She shakes her head.
"So I wouldn't want to remember it, then. At least, not the way it really happened."
"Probably," she says.
"I would still have a hard time believing it, Prim," I tell her. "I know how those tapes can be edited."
She purses her lips at me, but says nothing. It's like she's asking if I trust her and daring me to deny it. She - like Delly - is better at this than Molina. The problem with Molina - besides a fundamental lack of empathy - is that he just has no experience outside this hole. He's spent his life treating an entire community of soldiers who have never been to battle.
I find myself desperately analyzing myself and my motivations for Prim - to justify it to her so i can justify it to myself. "So - even if I did see things that tell me that Katniss is not my enemy - that the rebellion didn't abandon me - how could I ever really believe it?"
"Because you are living your life based on memories that the Capitol manufactured for you. You'll never get answers to your questions if you are basing them on these memories. You have to get back the real ones - or at least know what they should be. It's the only thing that's fair to yourself and the people around you."
After a long silence - where I gradually become aware that she has reached a line with me; that she is determined that the only way forward from here means watching that damn tape; that she will not leave this room without my consent - I slowly nod. "OK," I say, my mouth dry.
But it never happens.
After a couple of days, I'm visited by Plutarch Heavensbee, a man I vaguely remember meeting once. He starts out immediately by referencing something I can't remember.
"Mr. Mellark! It's been awhile since you honored us with an original work in the tribute center," he says with a gentle laugh.
I shrug. I don't understand him, but don't press him for more information.
"So - I'm very happy to read reports that my medical team has made such excellent progress with you," he says next.
His words hang in the air, as if waiting to be followed by an expression of gratitude on my part. The beauty - the silver lining - of what has happened to me is that I no longer feel the need to spout niceties I don't believe in.
"Here's the thing," he finally continues. "We've reached a turning point in the war where every last show of strength for our side is helpful in ending it quickly as possible. We now have all the victors from the Quell here -."
"ALL of the victors?"
He just chuckles at the interruption. "-and all of them have been on screen, broadcast to the districts. Except you."
"It would be hard to prep me to look acceptable for the cameras," I respond.
He looks at me for a moment. "It's very important that we show the rebels that you are working for us now. Important for the cause. Important for you - considering the unfortunate things the Capitol made you say."
I shrug. I look behind him at the one-way glass, willing for someone from my medical team - Prim, Haymitch, even Molina - to come in and help me formulate reasonable objections. But I'm on my own. I could argue that I know that Katniss bargained for my safety with her cooperation - he might not know that I know it - but it would feel even more hypocritical on my part to use her in my defense. "Whatever," I say, finally.
"So, this will be very simple. We're going to have you join the new recruits in basic training for a couple of days and we'll film you looking as if you're preparing to go fight in the Capitol."
More lies. More editing.
"Whatever," I say again.
What Prim or Delly think of this latest turn of events, no one actually says. Somewhere behind the scenes, this has been discussed and they have fallen into agreement with it. So, I am fitted with one of the ghastly District 13 uniforms and, more surprisingly still, sent up to the outside workout area without either shackles or ankle monitor - though accompanied by guards.
I'm in a group of kids - young ones like Drew, who is one of several kids from home in the basic training group, though the rest are from the Seam and I don't know them as well. There are, as usual, a lot of stares, but, at first, I don't talk to anyone, and they don't talk to me. I jog around until I'm exhausted, then wander over to the fence to lean against it. Do a handful of sit-ups, push-ups … attempt a pull-up, but my arms are still just too weak. That's day one.
The next day starts with someone putting a huge gun in my hand and me promptly handing it back. "No."
The basic training instructor looks at me in exasperation. "Soldier Mellark, I've got a camp to run, don't waste my time."
"I won't. I just won't take this."
He tries to stare me down, but I don't even blink when I look at him. They didn't give us these things in the arena, and for good reason. These are for wholescale, mindless killing. For faceless, nameless deaths. The weapon of the Peacekeepers; the instrument of oppression of the Capitol.
I sit down on a bench and shrug at the trainer when he yells at me; but there are cameramen here, so we all know he hasn't got any real authority over me. After a while, someone is sent for Plutarch, and he himself shows up and - after a long discussion - he takes me for a long walk where he says that all I have to do is learn how to load and unload it; they'll get that on camera, and that will look good enough.
It's about this time that I suspect that something else is going on. There's no reason they can't just show me in a uniform - even a still shot of me, or a short video of me walking around. I can't imagine anyone would put an unstable maniac on any actual squadron. So, what's the point of all this?
I spend the rest of the week in these types of negotiations. While the fourteen-year old boys around me grow more responsive to commands, more confident with their shooting abilities, knife work, grenades, etc., I resist participation until Plutarch persuades me to just thrust a knife in a dummy here or practice ducking behind a barricade there.
The only good thing about any of this is that it accelerates my physical conditioning, and gets me out into the sun - when there is sun - almost every day.
After a week, my time in basic is abruptly over. There's a special announcement scheduled the evening of my last day and I'm allowed to accompany the medics and the other hospital patients to the big auditorium, and there finally see President Coin in person, for the first time.
As she makes her speech about the exciting new developments - that 13, finally, will be joining with the district rebels in the final push of the war to take the Capitol, with the first troops moving out tomorrow - I'm distracted by the sight of a thin girl in a wheelchair, her face half covered with bandages. People murmur unhappily when I leave my place in the middle of the speech and walk over to her.
"Aster?" I ask, touching her golden hair. I kneel down next to her chair.
She turns to me, and I can see the right half of her face, and one blue eye. "Hey, Peeta," she says dully.
I smile at her. "You're alive."
She gives a short, mirthless laugh. "Mostly."
I pat her hand. "When this is over," I say reassuringly, "maybe you can get a Capitol surgeon."
This brings a smile, even if it's a slight one. "Yeah … maybe," she says softly.
I've seen the way you look at her.
This memory of her voice startles me as I straighten up and realize that everyone is applauding the end of Coin's speech. Of course, it was not a memory I had forgotten. I just hadn't thought about it for some time.
When I go to bed that night, I actually feel oddly … good? It's a weird feeling. Being outside without shackles has helped. Making one of the kids in basic training laugh. Reaching out to Aster. Morphling use has been minimal. I feel like I'm finally making some strides in the direction of being released from the hospital and maybe assigned my own room, with some privacy, some sense of personal agency. Then, after the war is over, I'll figure something else out.
No camera crews come to get me the next day. No one comes to walk with me outside. No one comes to take me down to lunch. I nap off and on - try to steel myself up for the Quarter Quell videos I'm still expecting to watch by trying to remember anything real I can from those games. I have a vague memory of the final moments of the arena - when I ran through the jungle from the Peacekeepers. I've watched myself describe the moments before that - killing Brutus, watching Chaff die, running haphazardly into the jungle when the wire was cut with time running out.
Tick, tock. This is a clock.
I'll see you at midnight.
I touch my fingertips to my lips and feel her kiss. Memory lingers there for a while, and I try not just to feel it but to see it - her face up against mine. Her eyes are closed and the sweat from the jungle is in beads on her dark cheeks. Her hair is damp and loose.
I'll see you at midnight.
A promise she didn't keep, but I know - I do know - that that was not her fault. It was Brutus and Enobaria's fault - attacking us before the plan was in place. Had we been told beforehand, perhaps things could have been different. Maybe, as Haymitch has said, there was no good way to tell us - that covers would have been blown, that not even the main participants - Finnick and Mags, Johanna and Blight, the Morphlings, Chaff and Seeder, Beetee and Wiress - knew everything. Everyone knew there would be a meeting place, but only some people were told it was a tree, only some people were told how they would know the day and time, only some people knew the means. The most they all knew was that they all had to protect each other - and in particular me and Katniss - for a couple of days until the arrangements could be made. To stay alive, by keeping each other alive.
It must have seemed wildly successful to Plutarch, who usually oversees games with just one winner - when a full quarter of this year's participants are still alive.
I shake my head on these thoughts. I'm trying to concentrate on one thing - on one person. The person everyone insists that I love - and that if I only just remember that….
I'll see you at midnight.
Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Wear a necklace of rope
Side by side with me.
I can't go back past this, yet. The salty taste of her lips on mine and the promise whispered in the dark. There's nothing beyond that.
"Peeta."
I jerk out of a half-sleep and am startled to see him there: Haymitch, looking tired and pale in his 13 uniform that fits him about as easily as one of Effie's wigs would. "Hey," I say.
A few weeks ago, there would have been ugly words and the strain against my restraints and the rush of drugs. But I find I have forgiven him even for not telling me about my cousins. He, too, is damaged, and that is not his fault.
"They tell me you're doing a lot better."
"I'm doing a little better," I agree cautiously. I wish I could express to him how actually happy I am to see him again. But it is not in me - and he'd hate to hear it, anyway.
He takes his old seat next to the wall and gives a long sigh.
"What have you been up to?" I ask him.
He shrugs. "The usual. Meetings, meetings, meetings. Plutarch, Beetee, Coin. What do we do with the Mockingjay now? Who will we invite to the party celebrating Snow's defeat? Important stuff."
"What's going on? Why are you here?" I ask sharply. Something's obviously wrong.
"War's started."
"I know - I was at the big speech yesterday."
"Katniss shipped out today."
I blink. I realize that I don't know how I feel about this, but I know it is not indifferent. I see Haymitch looks worried, that he is in need of comfort. I think also of Prim - how worried she will be.
"Did she - choose to go? Or -?" I'm not sure what I'm asking. Was she forced - again - to go to the Capitol?
He nods and looks at me with his penetrating gray eyes. "Oh, it was her decision. She could not be talked out of it. She wants to be involved - when Snow is defeated."
"I guess I would want that, too, if I was in any shape for it," I say slowly.
"She doesn't expect to come back. I don't think she intends to come back."
"What do you mean?" I'm getting frustrated by Haymitch's terse little phrases. "Back to 13? Or - back at all? Did she tell you that?"
"Not in so many words - it's a hint here and there."
I look away from him. "Don't try to tell me it's because of me. I may have my problems understanding Katniss, but I'm fairly sure that she wouldn't throw her life away because some half-deranged boy was - rude to her."
"How things work between you two I can't explain, but you've felt responsible for each other for years. She didn't protect you in the Quell - and the only hope she had that she could be forgiven for it was for you to be brought back safely. Ever since you came back - changed - she has been running away from here, running into danger. I asked her if she was going to say goodbye to you."
"She didn't," I say with a frown. "Why would she? Last she saw me, I was accusing her of two-timing me - or Gale. Or both of us, I guess."
"Yeah, I know. But she thought about it anyway. Look, she may have a hard time handling whatever is going on with you, but she does know it's not entirely your fault. Anyway - I thought you should know. That she's gone. She's in a low-risk squad; once she decided she was going to the Capitol, Plutarch put together a 'propo unit,' for lack of a better term. The rebellion is going to be taking the Capitol streets on two fronts, and she's part of a squad filming footage of the rear guard to encourage the Capitol citizens to surrender."
"Thanks for telling me," I say, after waiting a moment for more information.
He shrugs. "Also, if you're up for it some time, you should visit Johanna. She was in training for the war and suffered another set-back. She's back in the hospital."
"They were going to send her to the Capitol?" I ask in amazement. "She has no business going back there. You have no idea what they put her through."
"Her idea - but yeah. It didn't go well. You might want to make arrangements to visit Annie some time, too - Finnick shipped out, as well."
"Haymitch," I say, again finding myself in the unusual position of offering comfort I am in no real position to give. "She'll be OK. She's a survivor. Anyway, from what I remember about going into the arena with the intent of dying on purpose … it's actually a bit harder than you think it's going to be."