Chapter 4 Part 2 (Katniss' POV)
As I'm walking down the stairs to go answer the door Peeta and I's kiss runs through my mind and I feel my lips with the tips of my fingers. There's something special about the kisses Peeta and I have because they leave my lips tingling for the longest time. I open the door and see Haymitch in one of the chairs that sits on the porch. I expect him to greet me with the normal "Hey sweetheart," but he gives me the cold shoulder and I think I know why. "You're coming with us right?" I ask, sort of like an invitation. I don't know where he will stay because my mom isn't expecting his arrival, but I refuse to leave him here all by himself. The attackers know my association with him and if Peeta and I are gone, he's the first person they will go after. Haymitch gives me this grin that has hints of sadness in it and I do something I've never done before, I embrace him like he is a child that needs love because in reality, he is. Snow killed his entire family; he's been alone a majority of his life. A part of me wishes he would just break down and cry into my arms so he could release all the pain he is feeling, but he would never let Snow have that vulnerable part of him. "Are you packed Haymitch?" Peeta asks from behind, startling me at first. Haymitch picks up his suitcase from underneath the chair, waving it to Peeta like both of them already knew he was going. Peeta has both of our suitcases held tightly in his grasp because they contain important pieces of our lives inside them.
We all start walking towards the train station and I realize that I am not the only one looking back. I say my last goodbye to a home I hardly knew, a home I had hardly any memories with because I know it might not be here if we ever come back to District 12. It seemed harder for Peeta because he had to grasp the thought of never seeing his beloved family's bakery ever again that he rebuilt. Peeta stops for a moment and looks down at the ground and he looks like he is about to have a flashback, a painful one that involves the burning of the bakery and my teeth being covered in blood. Before he begins to shudder from the horrifying scenes playing in his head, Haymitch puts his arm around Peeta and encourages him to walk forward. I slip my hand down the inside of his arm and into his hand, entwining our fingers. We've come to realize that the best way to help Peeta through these flashbacks was to show him comfort and affection, something he never had as a child.
When we arrive on the train it is late and we decide to just go straight to sleep. Peeta and I decide to sleep in the same bed, as usual. I slip under the covers and get comfortable in his arms. His heart beat is the melody that brings me to fall asleep and then I hear Prim's gentle voice begin to sing a tune so familiar that I want to sing along. But now I am in the woods and the woods only bring danger. "Are you coming, are you coming to the tree," Prim continues to sing, but each time she says that single line her voice gets louder. The comforting feeling her angelic whisper gave me a moment ago disappears when she begins screaming, "ARE YOU COMING, ARE YOU COMING TO THE TREE." I run through the woods trying to follow her screams, trying to figure out where she is. Once I feel like I am about to reach her I hear another voice screaming my name and it is Rue's. With both of them screaming at the same time, I can't panic, I can't give up. I have to find them.
As I am running I feel as though someone is following me and when I turn around my fears become true. I see Cato transformed into a mutt. I know it's him because I can see all his memories playing through his eyes like a movie. I see his father who looks exactly like him, his mother telling him it will be okay as she lay in a hospital bed with IVs in her arms and visions of Clove with blood spilling from her mouth. I shake my head and come back to reality. He's done this to distract me while he rips apart my insides with his teeth that are as sharp as knives. I hear Rue's scream once more until it is cut short and a drip of blood lands on my forehead causing me to look up. I see Rue hung by the neck at the top of the tree. When I look back at Cato he is about to attack, but I jet for the tree and begin to climb. I climb with every bit of energy I have left in me, making it impossible for Cato's mutt paws to catch up. I grab each branch like I did the grass when Clove was on top of me with a knife to my throat; weak, but determined; determined to live. I hear Prim again. Her voice that was once a painful scream has become a scared whimper. My eyes are directed to the branch across the one Rue is hung from and I see Prim with a rope around her neck.
White rose vines begin to grow through the tree, tying my hands up so I can't go any further. I try to break free, but every time I move a sharp thorn inches its way out of the vine and into my hand. The pain is extreme, but bearable when it comes to saving Prim. I break free from the rose vines and climb up the tree as Mockingjay's start to attack my neck just as the other birds did Maysilee Donner's in The Second Quarter Quell. By the time I get to Snow he releases Prim and her blood drips as thick as Rue's. I pull out a knife from my back pocket and shove it in Snow's neck, but he pushes me off the branch and I fall. I fall and fall and fall. I continue to fall until the sight of Rue and Prim's dangling bodies disappear. I finally hit concrete and find myself underneath Gale. I think that I am safe, until I realize that he has a knife to my throat. "Want to blow lover boy one last kiss?" he says looking to Peeta who is tied up by the arms and legs, waiting to be hung just like Prim and Rue. "But Gale," I say with tears in my eyes as he stabs me in the chest with the knife and cuts out my heart, feeding it to the mutts. I don't feel the pain. I only feel every bit of love I ever had escaping me. Gale's face transforms into a mutt as the blood drips from my chest, a mutt with breath that smells of bloody roses. "Oh my dear Ms. Everdeen, I thought we had agreed not to lie to each other," but this is not Gale's voice.
Once Snow's face comes to light in the Mutts eyes, mine spring open. I am shaking and it is hard to breathe, but I am awake. It was only a nightmare. Peeta has me wrapped in his arms and when he sees my eyes open he gives a sigh of relief. "I'm sorry I couldn't wake you," he says wiping the sweat and tears from my face with the blanket. "It's fine," I say softly. I can still feel my body shaking uncontrollably in fear of not only my nightmare, but also the fact that the train has stopped. "Why did we stop?" I say propping myself up against the backboard of the bed, alerting myself for a possible attack coming from outside. "Because someone has made train hopping a new hobby," Peeta says with a grin as the door to our room opens slowly. Everything inside me stirs; I haven't felt this happy in a while. Without second guessing I jump from my bed and run into his arms. He is here and alive, I keep repeating in my head. Cinna is here and alive.