"Peeta, wake up."
Katniss' voice is so sweet and soft that I caught myself smiling even before opening my eyes. I asked Katniss to marry me because I wanted our love to last forever, to wake up like this every day for the rest of my life. Now that I know how little time I have left, these little moments fill me with pure joy and sadness.
"Come on Peeta. I know you're not sleeping anymore, open your eyes." Katniss starts to tickle me, and I can't hold still. She sees a reaction from me, and that encourages her to do it more.
"Okay, okay! You win!" I say out of breath because I can't stop laughing. We sit up straight, and I notice that she has been up for a while. "You had a nightmare didn't you?"
"Yeah, I woke up a couple of hours ago." The nightmares are something common in Katniss life, but she doesn't like to talk about them. That's a part of her life she doesn't let me in. "I got to met our producer. Her name is Lavinia."
Right before we left the train, Haymitch warned us about the producers. The trick the game so the Capitol can have a better show. The tributes with the potential to win get great help from them, but the ones who don't are better off alone.
"And what did she say?"
Katniss opens her mouth to say something but stops it. "What?" I mouth to her. She points to her ear, where the earpiece was implanted.
"She seems nice, friendly. Just like Haymitch told us." She has a worried look on her face.
"That's good," I say, so we need to be even more careful from now on.
"I also talked with Effie about the deals to sell our story. It got me thinking. Maybe they could help our families."
Katniss body language is completely different when she talks about the deals. In front of other people, she puts an image of being tough and independent, a person that would do the impossible to keep her family safe, which is true, but that's someone she had to become to survive. In moments like this, when is just us two she can allow herself to be just a sixteen-year-old girl, afraid of what will happen to her family.
"I agree, I think we should do it." I lean in closer to Katniss and give her a reassuring smile. "I want everyone to know that I, Peeta Mellark, got to love the most amazing girl in the world and that she loved me back, and while it lasted, I was the happiest man alive."
"Are you sure? They'll have to investigate things, about our lives." It's no secret on 12 that my mother is a horrible woman. More than once parents of kids from the Seam came to the bakery to complain that she beat their children for going through our garbage hoping to find food. She would always laugh and tell them that if they stop wasting money on white liquor, they could feed their kids.
In my mother's mind, everyone from the Seam is either a drunk or a whore. It only got worse when she found out that I was going out with Katniss. She would beat me screaming that I was a worthless idiot to go after a girl from the Seam. After the rumours that Katniss was cheating on me with Gale started, she would laugh at me and tell me someone saw them in an alley kissing or that they were probably having sex every time they went out to hunt.
"It'll help Prim, and my mother will finally have the version of me she always wanted. One that doesn't talk back, never grows up and she can put it on her shelf." I just hope my dad and my brothers will forgive me for this.
Katniss gives a sad smile and hugs me tight. "That woman will never know how lucky she is to have a son like you, and that's her loss," she whispers in my ear, and I have to fight back the tears coming up.
We still have a couple of hours until is time to go to training, so I take my time in the shower. Katniss is with Effie starting to separate the deals that'll help our families the most. As I was expecting, a voice comes up on my ear, "Hi Peeta, good morning. I'm Lavinia, your producer."
"Hi Lavinia, Katniss told me about you."
"You two are making everybody in the Capitol believe in love again," her voice is friendly, and she doesn't have that affected Capitol accent like Effie does. I wonder if the producers practice a generic accent so the tributes can relate to them.
"We never thought people would be so interest in us, we're just an ordinary couple," I say.
"Now that's not true, you volunteered for the Hunger Games to be with Katniss. That's definitely not ordinary. You must love her a lot," she says.
"I do, she's the best thing in my life."
"True love. That's a rare thing to find," she says, there's a sad tone on her voice. "Most people can spend years, even get married to someone only to find out that it wasn't real. That's why I'm rooting for you two, that you can enjoy every last second you have together."
Lavinia leaves, telling me that she has to go meet the other producers at the gymnasium. After I get dressed, I make my way to the dining room where the Avoxes serve breakfast. I'm the last one there, but no one seems to mind. Katniss and Effie eat in silence and without lifting their heads of their plates. I'm trying to figure out what's going on when I look at Haymitch and need to control myself not to gasp.
He looks horrible, his face is pale, his clothes are drenched in sweat, and he looks like hasn't slept in days. Thinking about it, I don't think I saw him have a drink once since that time on the train, that's by far the longest I have seen him sober. Is he trying to go through this games without drinking?
"Are you going to spend the whole morning standing there, boy?" he says, his voice is raspy and tired. I decide not to comment on it. I sit on the empty chair beside Katniss and fill my plate with scrambled eggs and sausages.
It's almost ten, Haymitch pushes his plate of barely touched food aside. "Alright, so far you two are stealing the media's attention, which is great. But our real advantage is that the other tributes think you're just a pair of dumb kids in love. No one knows that you can fight, so keep that for yourselves until your private sessions the day after tomorrow."
"That shouldn't be a problem," Katniss says, "we weren't planning on showing off anyway."
"Just try to remember that after spending three hours in a room with the careers," Haymitch chuckles.
"They're that bad?" I ask.
"Yes, the Careers can get horribly arrogant, but keep in mind that they're just children, like you," Effie says. Behind all of her makeup she carries a tired expression on her eyes, maybe I misjudged her all those years she worked as the escort. Maybe the children that died took a toll on her too. But, if they do, then she and Haymitch deal with it in completely different ways. "Now we should be going to the elevator, you don't want to be late on your big, big, big day!"
The training room is located below ground level. The elevator's doors open and I'm overwhelmed by the size of the gymnasium. The guys on my wrestling team would never believe this. Back at our school, the gym is a makeshift court that doubles as anything we want to play, which is mostly basketball and wrestling because we don't have any equipment. But this is a whole other level.
The gymnasium is filled with obstacle courses, stations to train with several different weapons, to do hand-to-hand combat and to learn survival skills. Above us, there's a balcony with around fifteen men and women sitting down watching us. "I think those are the producers," I say to Katniss.
"I wonder with one is Lavinia," she responds.
It's not ten yet, so the elevators are coming up and down with tributes. A young woman, maybe in her twenties calls us to form a circle around a small stage. Her haircut is one of the oddest I've seen so far in the Capitol. Half of her head is shaved, and that part is covered in tattoos of green vines.
"Hi everybody, good morning," she says when the tributes gather around the stage. We're a tense group, some of the younger kids have swollen eyes from crying and a hopeless look on their faces. She looks at them, and gives a sympathetic nod before continuing, "I'm Cressida Troilus, and my team and I will film you guys while you're training."
Two men come forward and stand by her side. "This is my assistant Messalla," she points to a slim young man with a shaved head and several sets of earrings, he gives us an embarrassed wave. "And this is Castor, the best cameraman in Panem. Say hello, Castor."
"Hello, Castor." He says this in such a serious tone and in a deep voice that makes us chuckle. He's a burly man with sandy hair, and a red beard, he has the same camera that covers his body like insect shells that I saw back on 12.
"Most of the time we'll film you from a distance, so you won't even notice us, but a couple of times we'll have to ask you to do something for us like throw a spear a certain way or ask you a few questions," she says.
We were expecting something like that to happen. The week before the actual games, they show footage of the tributes training to make people excited, and in the arena, they show sound clips of the interviews with the tributes to enhance the drama. This is our chance to bring more sponsors to our side. Maybe with a little extra help, some food, or the right weapon, we can get far on the games, and Katniss can go home.
Cressida leaves the stage, and a tall, athletic woman stands in her place. After getting an approval signal from Cressida who looks at her from a small screen on her hand, she starts to explain the training schedule. There are four compulsory exercises, and the rest is up to us to decide if we want to learn it, or not. Engaging in any combative exercise with another tribute is forbidden, but I don't think there are any repercussions for that. While she lists the available stations, I notice the tribute from District 2, Cato Thrasea staring at us.
He's sizing us up. Katniss and I gained a lot of media attention since we volunteered, attention that would've gone to Cato because he's the son on another victor. He's at least a foot taller than me, and a lot heavier. But I'm here to do whatever it takes to make sure Katniss goes home, and some psycho from District 2 isn't going to stop me. He notices me staring back at him and gives me a condescending smile.
The trainer releases us and Katniss pulls me for the knot-tying station, the farthest from the careers as possible. "Are you trying to start a fight?" she says, in a low voice.
"I don't like the way he was staring."
We both look back, Cato is on the weapon's station practicing with a sword. The way he moves makes the sword look like an extension of his arm. "I don't like it either, but remember what Haymitch said?" she asks.
"Yeah, I know," I say, feeling embarrassed for not keeping my head on the strategy like I'm supposed to. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be," she says, as she leans in and wraps her arms around me, making my tension go away. "Don't forget that you're the nice one of this relationship."
The trainer at the knot-tying station greets us with a broad smile. I guess there isn't a massive search for this type of lessons in the Hunger Games. As soon as he realizes that Katniss knows how to make snares, he teaches us one called spring spear trap, that, according to him, can seriously injure a person's legs. We work on that for almost an hour until both of us mastered. It's a lot harder than I thought, how Katniss and Gale manage to feed their families every day with things like this amazes me.
The next station is for first aid, Haymitch told us to go there as soon as possible because it tends to get crowded. The little girl from 11 is there. I think her name is Rue. She's twelve, but she looks about ten-years-old. She has big, bright, dark, eyes and satiny brown skin. Katniss decides to ignore her, but every once in a while I catch her looking at Rue.
The trainer shows us how to make simple bandages and how to immobilize broken arms and legs. Then she teaches us about medicinal plants that we can use, most of them we already know because Katniss gets them in the woods for her mother, and I spent several hours drawing them on the family's plant book. But Rue seems to have some difficulty memorizing some of them.
"I know more about plants that you can eat," she says embarrassed.
"You only really need to know three," Katniss says. She sits on the floor with Rue holding three branches of common plants that could help out in different situations and starts to explain about them in great detail.
"Playing mommy and daddy, 12?" Marvel, the career from District 1 shouts at us from the weapons station. He doesn't wait for my response, instead, he goes back to throw spears laughing at his own joke.
The careers are showing off to scare us. There's a clear entitlement in them, as if the other districts are here just to warm them up before the real game starts. Cressida and the film crew also seem to pay most attention to them, that only seem to bust their egos even more.
Lunchtime comes, and we are commanded to go eat in a dining room outside the gymnasium. Food is arranged on carts around the room, and you have to serve yourself before sitting on a table. The careers sit together, grabbing more tables than they need, which forces some kids to sit on the floor. They laugh and talk loud about the other tributes lack of skill during the training. Kids that never had a proper meal in their lives, that are too young or too small to pose a threat to them.
"Tell me something pleasant, before I steal a bow and six arrows," Katniss whispers in my ear.
I scan the room trying to find something that isn't depressing, but that's not an easy task. The food is terrible, most tributes sit alone, with an empty look in their eyes and the inevitable fact that most of this kids will be dead in less than two weeks weights on us like a ton of bricks. But, way across the room, I see Cressida sitting on the floor with the small, red-headed boy from District 5.
"What is she doing?" I say, and Katniss looks at the same direction. The camera crew is filming the Career's table, and Cressida doesn't seem to pay any attention to them. We can't hear what they're saying, but she seems to do most of the talking, while he nods meekly. She gets up and grabs a bowl of what I think are peanuts from the food cart and sits again in front of him.
She takes a peanut, throws it in the air and catches with her mouth. She then puts a handful of peanuts on the boy's hand and encourages him to try it. He throws one, and it lands on his shaggy hair, making him laugh. They keep on until he manages to catch one. She claps her hands for him, and he bows down theatrically. I know it's her job to do these things, so people from the Capitol believe that the Districts are glad to be here, but I can't help to think that maybe there's some kindness on her too.
On the second day, I'm exhausted. Katniss and I spent most of the night going over the deals Effie set up for us. We're planning on signing the ones that'll give our families royalties. Effie explained to us that this way even Prim and my brothers' grandchildren will get monthly checks from the sales.
We decide to start with the camouflage station, something I was dying to try. The instructor shows us how to combine mud, clay and berry juices to make a paste that covers your skin. I add some texture to make my arm to look like the bark of a tree with sunlight coming from the leaves, like the ones on the woods around District 12.
Sneaking out of school to go to the woods with Katniss is one of my favourite things to do. In the summer we would swim on the lake and lay on the grass watching the clouds form familiar shapes. In the fall we would stay inside the old cabin, light up the fireplace, snuggle together and talk for hours. I'm lost on the work and the memories when I notice Katniss hasn't done a single thing.
"You're going to just watch me this whole time?"
"I like watching you. You get so intense. It's like you forget there are people around you," she says.
"You should try it."
"This is more your area, Peeta," she says, backing away.
"I can't believe it, Katniss Everdeen, doesn't want to get her pretty hands dirty?" I say with a smile because that's the absolute truth. Ever since the prep team did her nails, she keeps staring at them when she thinks I'm not looking. "You're such a girl!"
"Shut up," she says, her face turning red.
I'm having a laughing fit when she grabs a handful of mud and smears all over my cheek and hair. She starts to laugh at me, and I want to act mad, but I'm madder at myself for not thinking of this first. I grab another bowl of mud, but she already has one in her hand. "I'm so going to get you."
"I want to see you try," she says with a smirk.
Less than a minute later our clothes, hairs and faces are smeared with mud, Katniss and I are breathless from laughing. The station is a mess, but the instructor doesn't seem to mind since he's laughing too.
"Is this a bad time to ask you a few questions?" Cressida and her crew stand outside the station, all three of them seem to be suppressing their smiles.
"Not at all," I say. We drop the bowls on the table, and the five of us sit on the floor, Katniss and I on one side, Cressida and her crew on the other.
"How long have you been together?" Cressida asks.
"Since we were twelve." Katniss answers. The camera crew looks surprised. Most people are when they find out.
"Yeah, we were pretty young, but when you know, you know," I say, putting my arms around Katniss. Out of the corners of my eyes, I notice across the gymnasium, Cato staring at us again.
"Hold on, I need to change the battery," Castor says, removing the back part of the camera. "Sorry about that."
Cressida lets out a disappointed sigh. "So, that's a cool paint job," she says, pointing at the part of the camouflage that wasn't smeared on the mud fight.
"Thanks, I like to draw, so I guess this came naturally for me."
"It must be hard to find art supplies on 12, I heard is hard to even buy coal there," Messalla says, that awards him with an angry stare from Cressida.
"We learn to make the most of what we have on 12." Are these guys trying to get us into trouble?
"Sorry about Messalla, we just spent three weeks on District 11, shooting second unit for a movie, and now he's having re-adapting issues," Cressida says.
"How was it?" Katniss asks. We don't get to learn a lot about the other districts in our school, just things like the process of mining coal. The only thing I know about 11 is that they produce all the food the Capitol and the richer districts consume.
Cressida looks at a distance, at Rue shooting a slingshot at the weapon station, she looks even smaller around the careers. "11 was something we'll never forget," she says.
"Okay, we can go on now," Castor says, back with the camera pointed at our faces.
"Alright," Cressida sits up straight and continues, "so who you two met?"
The day is almost over, and I'm ready to go back to go back to our floor and get out of this clothes, maybe I can convince Katniss to shower with me again. Just thinking about that night after the Chariot Ride makes me grin like an idiot.
"Going back upstairs to fuck your girl again, 12?" Cato's voice echoes in the gymnasium.
Katniss holds my hand tight and keeps walking toward the elevator. "Let's just go," she says.
Haymitch was right, the careers have a way to get under your skin. Still, I don't want to mess with our strategy and start a fight. So I content myself on keep walking and not bothering to look back. He deals with that by throwing a 200-pound metal ball that passes over our heads and lands right in front of us.
"That caught your attention now, 12?" he and the other careers start to laugh.
"Yeah, it helped me to figure you out Cato." I can't help myself so I say it. "You're scared."
"What?" he starts to laugh again, in an even more condescending and arrogant way than before. "Me? Scared of a body count district? Mark my words 12, when we get to the arena I'm going to hunt you down, kill you and have my way with your girl right in the middle of the-" Katniss grabs one of the knives at a table next to her and throws it at Cato. The knife hits the dummy right behind him, that falls on the ground making a loud noise amplified by the fact that the whole room is staring at us, in dead silence.
"You talk too much. Did you knew that?" she says, "come on, Peeta."
We enter the elevator, before the door closes I can see Cato staring at us, his eyes full of anger, and Cressida with the film crew behind him, all smiling from ear to ear.
A/N: So, what do you guys think about the 'cameo'? I always thought that it was kinda weird that after the Chariot Ride, the next time the tributes appear on tv was on the interview, that's almost four days, which I think is a lot considering that the Hunger Games is the biggest event in the country.
BTW, speaking in the Hunger Games, the countdown for the 74th Hunger Games has officially started! Only two more chapters to go and you get to find out the new arena! I think you'll like it, but Katniss surely won't!