Disclaimer: All rights belong to Suzanne Collins and whoever she has sold those rights to.
Chapter 2
It's cold, so cold. The sky is an unrelenting gray. Dark green trees tower above, keeping me from seeing what's beyond. I have to get out, I have to save Prim. I try to leave but the fireplace burns brighter. It glows yellow, orange, red, brighter and brighter until it is alive with flame – it rushes from the mines enveloping everything in its path.
I have to get to safety. I have to get Prim to safety. I start calling her name – there is a figure across the field. I run to her. I will save her. "Prim! Prim!"
But when I reach her, it is not Prim. "Rue! Have you seen Prim?" She turns to me, gracefully. So gracefully. She jumps from tree branch to tree branch like a bird in flight. She whistles four notes and listens intently.
"No, I haven't seen her."
"Rue, you have to help me find her," I say, near tears. "I have to save her."
"Save her?" I whirl around. It is Glimmer, wearing the same gown she wore at her interview with Caesar Flickerman. "Who cares about your sister? We're all going to die anyway." Her voice is grating, like nails on a chalkboard. She slowly twirls her hair with her fingers.
I brush her back impatiently. I can save Rue. I mean Prim. I can save Prim, I know I can.
"Well that's just rude," Rue says in answer to my thoughts. "Look what I have to put up with."
A spear is sticking through her chest. "Oh no Rue! How did that happen?"
"You put it there," she says. "Oh no, it's bleeding." She sounds shocked.
"No! Don't take it out! It'll bleed more!" I panic, pressing the spear down.
She gasps. "Stop killing me! Stop it Katniss!"
"I'm not killing you! The bleeding has to stop!" But my hands are red with blood. I turn for help, Glimmer is there.
Glimmer just laughs – no longer pretty, her body is riddled with tracker jacker bites, a swarm of tracker jackers circle her – as if she is the hive. Tracker jackers move in and out of the holes in her skin. "Sure I'll help!" she starts moving forward, but I jerk Rue away from her.
"No! Stay away!" I scream. The buzz of the tracker jackers are deafening.
I turn in the other direction – there is a boy. "You! Please… will you help me?"
He turns around. It is Marvel, the boy tribute from District 1 with an arrow sticking out of his heart. The air around him is orange – like fire. "I would, but you'll just kill me again." Blood is seeping from the arrow, into his hands too.
My mouth opens in a silent scream. "I had to!"
"You shot me. It really hurt." His voice is matter-of-fact.
"I didn't mean to!" I scramble. "I just need help!"
"Your quiver is empty. I can give this back to you," Marvel says helpfully. He breaks the arrow off and tosses it to me. I watch in horror as it flies in an arc, splattering the ground below with red. I catch it. "You can use it to find Prim."
"I can't find Prim with a bow. I need more."
"What then? You've already killed me, I just can't help anymore," Marvel says. "Do you want my blood?"
As someone moves behind me, I quickly load the arrow into my bow.
"You should really watch what you're doing with that," another voice says coldly. I whirl around. It is Cato, with an arrow through his head. He is bigger than I remember, his arms are suddenly as big as tree branches. He has a maniacal look on his face, eyes and neck veins bulging. "You never know what you might hit."
"Let us help you with that," they say. They start closing in on me – a gruesome triptych.
"No! Stop! Please! Please!" I scream and scream and scream but it's like I'm drowning. The fog is choking and I cannot get out and there's blood – they are shaking me and-
"Katniss! Katniss! Katniss!" Peeta. Peeta will help me. I reach for him.
"Peeta," I whisper.
"Katniss wake up," Peeta says. "Open your eyes. You're safe here, with me."
I try to raise my arms to him, but it is like lead is weighing them down. "Peeta," I say miserably.
"I'm here, Katniss. It was only a dream," he says soothingly.
A dream. It was only a dream.
"I'm sorry," I say hoarsely. I take a deep breath as I come to consciousness, shaking off the effects of the pill Effie gave me. Peeta sits at the side of my bed. He is dressed in a different shirt. One of his hands is on my shoulder, the other is on my hip. As I look down, Peeta starts to pull his hands away.
"Sorry," he says quickly. "You were thrashing. I was trying to wake you."
The loss of warmth is startling. I feel so cold and empty. Just like in the dream. "No," I say grabbing his hands. I feel tears start to well in my eyes but I tamp down the feeling. I am pulling him toward me, I can't help it. I need his warmth. "Will you stay with me? Please?"
"Yeah, of course." His blue eyes are filled with worry, but he is so steady, so solid.
I move to the side to make room for him on the bed. As soon as he gets under the covers, he takes me in his arms. I rest my head on his chest and feel his warmth envelop me. I cannot help but think of the cave, where I first slept in Peeta's arms. I am still in danger but at least there is still somewhere I can run to. For a few stolen moments, there is peace. My breathing slowly evens out.
"I'm sorry I woke you," I mumble at him.
"You didn't," says Peeta, his hand absent-mindedly threading through my hair. "I was awake."
"What time is it?"
"Half past three in the morning," he says softly. "I was going around the train."
"With Haymitch?" I remember Peeta said he was going to talk to Haymitch when he left my compartment last night.
Peeta chuckles. I feel the movement as I lie against him. It makes me lose track of the heartbeat I was so carefully listening to. "No, I left Haymitch three bottles ago. He was trying to get me to draw Effie's breasts and I knew I had to get out of there."
I feel a smile creep across my face. "That sounds horrible." A conversation that is not about death or dying or fighting – it is so normal. It is a wonderful balm to the terrors that plagued my dreams.
"Oh it gets worse. When I said no, he said he'd give me inspiration – let me look at the real thing. He started looking for her – but was too drunk to actually identify her. You know that marble bust in the first compartment?"
"Yeah?"
"It was completely inappropriately groped."
A give a small giggle. "Better an inanimate bust than the real Effie."
Peeta makes a noise of agreement. Peeta knows how to tell jokes and entertain – he did it in interviews and even in the cave with me. That he does not continue his story now is a testament to how tired he is. I move off his chest to look at him – there are circles under his eyes too, but he seems to be fighting sleep. "You should get some rest. Big big day tomorrow," I say, in a weak imitation of Effie.
"Will you sleep?" he asks me. I nod and settle back into his arms. We cling to each other in the darkness as the almost inaudible rhythm of the tracks lulls us to sleep. The arena has changed, but this remains.
I wake up to Effie's familiar knock on my door. We are going to District 8 today and it terrifies me the most. I caught reports on the train, before doors were shut in my face, about uprisings going on here. If my hunch is correct, this will be the ultimate test of our act. Can we rein in an angry population? The speech did alright in District 10 and 9, but they mostly stared at us like weary cattle. Unhappy but passive. It was not a welcoming sight, but I'll take unhappy but passive gladly over a hysterical mob, at least for now.
I move robotically through the welcoming, the brief tour. I'd hate living here – District 8 produces textiles. It is factory after factory with no end in sight. It is so urban and drab, without a single field of green in sight. The air in District 12 isn't very good because of all the coal dust in the air, but at least we have forest lands to combat it. The air in District 8 is unchangingly polluted.
All is still but there is an overabundance of Peacekeepers. Clearly, a crackdown on any dissent is in effect. When we are brought to the square to give our speeches, the crowd is staring at us with hope. As if somehow we can save them from the white faced men who use guns and whips against them and their children.
Pictures of the two fallen tributes are projected on screen. I barely knew them, don't even know their names. The boy died on the first day, likely in the battle at the Cornucopia. The girl died later at the hands of the Careers – and Peeta. I suddenly fear that it is wrong for Peeta to take the lead on the speech today, but it is too late. We are already at the podium.
"Ladies and gentlemen of District 8, I give you the victors of the 74th annual Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark!"
There are cheers and applause but it seems thunderous and angry; it is not the enforced celebratory mood that normally is seen on victory tours. They are chanting my name – with
Peeta starts. "My fellow citizens of Panem. We will not stand here and pretend this is a time for celebration."
There are more cheers. Peeta waits a beat for it to die down before delivering his next line. "We will not stand here and give you meaningless words. What we make here and now is a promise."
The audience is hooked. They are hanging on to Peeta's every word.
"When Katniss and I were in the games, we dreamed of a future together. A future we were afraid we would never have. Thanks to the generosity of the Capitol-" There is silence, it is clear no one was buying that. "-we were able to emerge victorious and make our future not a certain death, but a very real possibility. But it is not just through the Capitol that lives are made better. The Capitol is the foundation that guides us, our beacon of light. It gives us guidance and protection." I hear the booing that is going on in their heads, but it cannot be helped. If we say anything against the Capitol, we are dead. "But past that guidance, our choices are our own. It is us, each citizen of Panem that has the capacity to build better future." This sentence has them excited once more.
"And I promise to join in the effort to build that. It is a feat that takes strength. It is a feat that takes intelligence. However, as mankind often forgets, our strongest asset is not either of these things. In the Hunger Games, Katniss and I went against tough competition…" I watch the crowd carefully as Peeta continues to talk about the fallen District 8 tributes. Some seem moved by the mention of their tributes, but most seem to want Peeta to move on. I remember that this is the district with the most population. Most of them probably had never even seen their tributes until the Games started airing. "Ultimately, what won us the games was not our strength or intelligence, but our love." This is my cue. I reach my hand out to meet Peeta's.
Peeta goes on to talk about how love is a changing force, how it can make the weakest man strong and the strongest man weak. Strength and intelligence do not yield to love – they are intertwined. He motions to me.
"So we stand here before you today to share with you the lesson we learned from the games. We are never in this alone. If you love someone, a father, a mother, a brother, a sister, friend, or neighbor – they are with you. When you build that future, you have to be smart. You cannot forget about them or leave them. You cannot rush in with anger and rage." I try to emphasize that last sentence with all my might. Do not rush in to some crazy uprising you cannot hope to win.
Peeta gives the next part. "When you build that future, you have to be strong. It will take sacrifice and pain…" Peeta continues the speech emphasizing how strong they are to endure hardship, but will come out stronger. "Much like how coal when put under pressure becomes a diamond."
"It is not a time for anger. It is a time for love – because only then will our strength and intelligence have direction, and with that direction, power," I say, linking the speech back to Peeta's words on love.
It is an almost disgustingly cheesy speech, but I hope they can read the subtext. We can't talk to you directly, but do not do anything. You will lose. Be smart. Stay strong.
Peeta ends the speech and we wait with bated breath. There is a smattering of applause. But nothing else.
Peeta and I go through dinner nervous wrecks. We barely speak to the others at the main table, but make a show of sneaking out for a moment alone, and returning for the dancing, dancing almost exclusively with each other.
Back on the train, we head for the bar car. Haymitch starts putting ice, fruit, and alcohol into a blender, and turns it on.
"Did it work?" Peeta asks right away.
"I don't know if it did. Barely anyone clapped," I reply.
"Well for starters, it's a good sign they didn't boo you off the stage," Haymitch says. "So at least we know they didn't completely hate it. And you got some cheers. But we'll have to wait and see."
That night, I let Peeta into my bed again. We manage the darkness as we did in the arena, wrapped in each other's arms, guarding against dangers that can descend at any moment. Nothing else happens, but our arrangement quickly becomes a subject of gossip on the train. I know Effie will want to lecture us, but I don't care.
Things are easier by the time we reach Distrct 1 and 2. We let Effie write those speeches, as the only thing important in these districts is to convince them of our love story. But Haymitch is not satisfied. On our way to the Capitol, he brings up his concerns.
"They don't replay your full speeches when they do recaps of the victory tour. Just clips. That tells us there are things in there they didn't like. Too political. Too dangerous."
"What can we do?"
"Go back to our original line of defense – you're just a couple of outrageously in love kids."
"But we've been doing that," Peeta says. "What else can we do?"
"I don't know boy, but I know that your routine is getting a little old. Capitol citizens have ridiculously short attention spans. The press will turn if they can't find a new story or a better angle, and they've focused a whole lot of time on you." He turns the blender off and pours his concoction in glasses. When not everything falls, he shrugs and drinks straight out of the blender itself.
"Want some?"
I cannot help but make a face. "No thank you," Peeta and I chorus.
What could we do different? What new story could we be? We are tributes, star crossed lovers – our stories have revolved around it. And suddenly it hits me. We do not have to change the story, just make it progress.
"We could get married. A public marriage proposal," I suggest.
"Be serious," Haymitch replies, waving off my suggestion.
"I am being serious. It has to happen eventually, why not now?" I say.
"It does make a statement, I'll give you that," Haymitch says thoughtfully.
Peeta exhales. "Fine. Let's do it. I'll cook something up." He stands up and disappears to his room for a long time. After realizing he isn't going to come out any time soon, I move to knock on his door. Haymitch stops me.
"Leave the boy alone."
"I thought he wanted it anyway."
"Not like this. He wanted it to be real."
That night, on the stage before the Training Center, we bubble our way through a list of questions. Caesar Flickerman, in his twinkling midnight blue suit, his hair, eyelids, and lips still dyed powder blue, flawlessly guides us through the interview. When he asks us about the future, Peeta gets down on one knee, pours out his heart, and begs me to marry him. I, of course, accept. Caesar is beside himself, the Capitol audience is hysterical, shots of crowds around Panem show a country besotted with happiness. The proposal has worked like a charm.
President Snow himself makes a surprise visit to congratulate us. He clasps Peeta's hand and gives him an approving slap on the shoulder. He embraces me, enfolding me in the smell of blood and roses, and plants a puffy kiss on my cheek. When he pulls back, his fingers digging into my arms, his face smiling into mine, I dare to raise my eyebrows. They ask what my lips can't. Did I do it? Was it enough? Was giving everything to you, keeping up the game, promising to marry Peeta enough?
"You've done quite well for yourself, Ms. Everdeen. But your tour ends in District 12, yes?"
I read the subtext of his message. It's not over yet. But now that the end is in sight, I allow myself to feel the tiniest sliver of hope. We just might get out of this alive.
[Around 3 or 4 paragraphs are from chapter 5, catching fire, and some lines are from Catching Fire the movie.]