Part 4: The silver-eyed gypsy dancer, Katniss Everdeen.
The rhythmic sound of water droplets hitting the grounds keeps me distracted. I count the seconds between each droplet to busy my mind, to avoid thinking. One. Two. Three. There're twenty-one of them. A shadow passes outside my cell, darkening momentarily my surroundings. Four. Five. Six. A faint lament can be heard from a distant cell, probably someone beaten harshly. Seven. Eight. Nine. I keep my eyes open despite the fatigue, if only to avoid the blue irises that will haunt me if I close them. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. The full moon outside gives a blue glint to my nightgown, worn since last night and already a little torn on the front. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. I try not to think about my friends in the Court of Miracles: Finnick, Annie, Cinna, Gale, Hazelle, the kids… No, I can't think about them. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. A small "psst" interrupts the relative silence. I ignore it. Nineteen. Twenty. Twenty-one. Another droplet falls.
"Brainless, are you awake?" a female voice rises, if only loud enough for me to hear. I flinch in my spot. That nickname rings a bell, like a distant memory that I can't recall right now.
"Who's it?" I ask to the night in a hushed tone.
"Johanna" the voice answers. "I'm in the cell right next to you."
"Johanna?" The name is familiar but I feel so numb that it takes me a moment before I remember. "Johanna Mason?"
"How many other 'Johannas' do you now, brainless?" she mocks me.
"How…? They caught you?" I ask dumbly. Johanna laughs at me trough the wall.
"Someone's very perceptive today" she quips. "Wait… Did they hit your head or something? How bad was it?"
Johanna Mason is a gypsy girl as I am; just a couple of years older than me. As myself, she lost her parents in the Great Fire over a decade ago and had to find a way to make a living, to survive. So she became a pickpocket. I don't like stealing but I can't find in myself to judge her. I could have been her if it weren't for Hazelle giving me shelter and Cinna's dresses that make my street dancing profitable enough to survive.
Johanna and I have never been friends. More than once we fought over meaningless things, disagreeing on how to handle most things. But we respect each other. We know how difficult life has been for the other one. That, however, does not mean that Johanna Mason has ever go easy on me. So, for her to ask me about my well being…
Suddenly, it hits me all at once. Where I am. What happened to Peeta. What the Minister tried to do to me. What he threaten to do to my people. My words choke on my throat and tears cloud my eyes. An oppressive pain fills my chest, making it hard to breathe. My head pounds and I feel the urge to throw up.
"Katniss, don't!" Johanna speaks through the fog in my mind, her voice a little louder than my inner voice telling that this is all my fault. "Don't let it get to you! It will be harder after! Stay strong! Stay with me! Talk to me!" she practically shouts.
I nod, even though she can't see me through the wall, and I focus on the droplets, their choreographed dance soothing. My breathing evens out and the chest pain fades slowly. Eventually, I find my voice. "I'm here. I'm fine."
"Hang on a second" she says. Less than a minute after, the shadow of the peacekeeper making rounds passes by my door in the other direction. A moment later, Johanna speaks again: "They're like a clock. It's annoying, but useful."
"Johanna, our people don't know about the minister plan to burn the Court of Miracles" I tell her, still anxious. "I don't think they even know they've been found."
"They're smart, they're survivors. You don't need to worry about them, Katniss" she replies. "Besides, everybody will be at the square tomorrow."
"What for? Watch me die?" I ask bitterly. It is what Minister Snow promised me: death and eternal damnation. He did not say how, but I'm sure it will be the cruelest punishment he can give me. Maybe a slow, torturous death will be his message, his cautionary tale for all Panem citizens and the gypsies.
"Do you really not see the effect you have on people, brainless? He's sending you to death because he's scared shitless of you power, of your influence" she explains. I gawk at the darkness, unable to formulate a response to her tirade. "He sent the whole Peacekeeper force to haunt you down because of your little stand off."
"Because I bruise his ego" I retort.
"Because you moved people, you gave them hope that they could stand up for themselves" she refutes. "And I'm not only talking about our people. All of Panem is oppress by that schmuck. They all hate him. You've ignited them, Katniss".
"I didn't mean for all this to happen, Johanna, I just wanted to help that poor girl" I sob.
"I know. That is exactly the point!" she says cryptically. "Katniss, when you're up there tomorrow, don't let them deter you. What more can they do?"
The silence weights between us for a moment before she speaks again:
"Besides, you have nothing more to lose."
That stops me. Because she is right. The fire took my family. Minister Snow took my husband and my liberty. And he will soon take my life. But, right there, before my life ends he will not own me.
It's with that thought that I walk to the square at noon, flanked by two peacekeepers. As Johanna predicted, the place is packed, as if all of Panem had come to see my execution. Snow reads my alleged crimes and I am declared guilty, despite my innocence. His snake-like eyes are fixated on me with an intensity that speaks of hellfire.
"Katniss Everdeen, by the power invested upon me from above I sentence you to the gallows!" the minister shouts.
There's not a sound in the square when then lead me to death, like the people around me were holding their breaths in expectation. The peacekeeper fixes the noose around my neck and I swallow thickly. The façade of strength I have try to portray slips, a dull ache sets in my lower abdomen and bile raises to my throat.
"Do you have any last words?" the peacekeeper asks me. I remember Johanna's words. My death is near, but I can't stop that. Neither they can punish me further nor I can protect those I love anymore.
I look at Minister Snow first, thinking of exposing him on his persecution for my people, on his lecherous offer the day before. But then I look at the people of Panem, olive-skin and fair alike, always observing quietly while one of us suffers. Suddenly my anger turns to them, to us, to me. We all have let this drag on too long. I've let this drag on too long.
"I am tired of being a slave, a slave of starvation, of persecution, of the twisted motives of mad men. You can't stay there, standing still while our children suffer. Stand up for yourself, Panem, and fight!"
"Enough! Hang her already!" shouts Snow. I turn to him, alight in an immense rage that has been dormant for years, which can no longer be tamed: "If we burned, you burn with us!" I growl.
And the whole square roars in response.
It all happens in matter of a minute, so it's difficult to pin point what happens first. All I know is that all of the sudden, the crowd moves at a frenetic pace and turns against the peacekeepers taking their weapons. The peacekeeper next to me falls to the ground with a knife in his neck and a river of blood oozing from the wound.
I freeze at the sight of him, dead, the red of his blood just as bright as Peeta's. I see him before me instead, bending over and falling to the ground, his skin ashen in pain. I scream and step away from the corpse and I almost fall over the stage the gallows are settled in.
In the crowd I spot the unmistakable scarred face of Rue, filled with urgency. "Follow me. Hurry! There's no time!"
I jump from the stage and Rue wastes no time in cutting the bindings on my hands. "We need to reach the cathedral. Inside Notre Dame you would be protected by the law of sanctuary" she explains hastily while tugging my arm.
All around us, people run and fight the few peacekeepers that remain armed, an incessant cacophony of cries for help and shouts of victory and defeat. But Rue is incredibly agile, dodging without difficulties the moving bodies with the grace of a flying bird. We reach for one of the sides of the cathedral, but there are no doors near us.
"We will have to climb. I doubt we can reach the main entrance" she screams over the noise of the fighting crowd. She points at some sort of a balcony adorn by gargoyles as our destiny. I remember climbing trees when I was younger, but never churches. I look behind me, the crowd closing on us and more peacekeepers reaching the square, and I realize there's no much choice.
I brace myself and climb the wall but I barely manage to reach a window shield when a knife flies near my head and I duck. That, however, does not protect me from the stone that falls over my head. Bright spots cloud my vision and I fight hard to stay steady.
I must fall at some point, but it's hard to pay attention to what it's happening around me with the throbbing pain on the back of my head. Rue grabs me and with unnatural force carries me to the top of the balcony. I can barely keep myself awake by now but I am aware of being lifted over her head.
"Sanctuary! Sanctuary! Sanctuary!" I hear her scream at the square, but her voice sounds far away. The crowd roars again and that is the last thing I know before I lose consciousness.
—·—
"I think she is waking up" a soft voice says. I open my eyes slowly to see the dark bright eyes of Rue staring down at me. She smiles when she sees me awake and I try to smile back, but it probably looks more like a grimace.
"Well, finally! Or were you planning on sleeping during your entire rebellion?" asks a man to my right. I have never met him or seen him up close for that matter, but his grumpy scowl and grey eyes are unmistakable. I try to sit up when I realize I am in the presence of the Archdeacon Haymitch Abernathy, but the back of my head throbs and I am force to lie down again.
"Easy there, sweetheart, you have a concussion and you better stay down for a few hours at least" the Archdeacon explains. I nod dumbly, but even that hurts. Rue brings me a glass of water and makes me drink little sips.
"If you have everything cover, Rue, I think I should head out. We need to find a way out of the Cathedral for you two that won't alert the peacekeepers. She won't be safe here for long" the Archdeacon stands up and heads to the door.
"She can stay here and be safe. She has sanctuary law to protect her. That's what you said!" Rue looks at the Archdeacon notoriously upset.
"Snow has no respect for the law unless it is to fulfill his desires, Rue. I bet my tunic he's at this moment at the Court of Parliament, asking Senator Coin to remove Katniss' right to sanctuary so he can persecute her again."
Rue hangs her head and nods. The Archdeacon looks at me in deep thought.
"There are ways to move in the city without being spotted, right?" he asks me.
"Yes, tunnels" I explain. "But I don't know of any of them connected to Notre Dame, your grace."
"But others might know" he seems to think at loud. "Like the so called King of Truants, Finnick Odair."
"Yes, nobody knows the tunnels like Finnick" I supply. "Do you know him, your grace?"
"I knew his grandmother, Mags" he smiles. "Sweet old lady. She was a very close friend of my mother."
"Was your mother also a gypsy, your grace?" I dare to ask. He nods.
"You are among friends now, Katniss" he says before disappearing through the door.
I scowl at the closed door. Friends? Rue, maybe, but him? I don't even know him. He might be a gypsy, but he must deny his heritage, otherwise he would not have such a position of power. And why would he be an ally now? Why would he observe for years his people suffer under Minister Snow's persecution?
I look at Rue, her skin as dark as my own, her eyes dark but not quite the typical grey of my people. I realized that even though I completely trust her, I don't know much about her. She could be, as the Archdeacon, a cross between Panem citizen and gypsy, or maybe a foreign.
"How do you know the Archdeacon?" I ask her. Rue looks at me, a little startled by the question.
"I didn't until yesterday" she says, "when he came to set me free". She points at some shackles tied to the bedpost. "Then, he told me about the strong possibility of you being sentence to death and Sanctuary law."
"Why were you tied to the bed? What is this place?" I look around the small, dark room. I know we are in the cathedral of Notre Dame, but I've never even been inside this place, therefore I'm clueless about our whereabouts. And the room is barely furnished. There's a small window, mostly cover by an old drape, a table with two chairs, a bookcase and the bed I am currently lying on.
"This is my dormitory" she explains. "The master tied me to the bed, because he needed to punish me over my sinful behavior in the Festival of Fools…"
"Who is this master?"
"Master Snow, of course. He is my… He is in charge of me, of my salvation."
A beat passes. I look at the ceiling trying to make sense of her words.
"Rue, are you related to Coriolanus Snow?" I ask her. She furrows her brow but shakes her head after a moment.
"No, I don't think so. My parents abandoned me when I was a baby, so the master took upon himself the responsibility of saving my soul. He claims is a difficult endeavor since there's evil in my blood" she looks ate her hand, glaring at her caramel skin.
"Your dark skin does not make you evil!" I shout and my head spins again. Rue throws at me a look of panic. I hold her hand and squeeze it for reassurance. "And you did not deserve more punishment after all the things he put you through in the city square."
Rue shakes her head at me, a blush tainting her cheeks. "I did deserve it. I kept on misbehaving after the punishment" she explains. I must not be good at concealing my confusion because she sighs and looks away.
"I like you" she mutters while looking at the floor. "And he said that it was a sin to do so".
"Because of my skin color" I finish for her.
"Because you're a woman" she corrects me.
Her words confuse me at first, but then hit me with force. The implication behind it it's not completely unfamiliar, but it's generally frown upon that a person might be romantically interested in someone of their same gender, especially between Panem citizens. In our gypsy colony, however, people seem to be less judgmental, even if it is equally confusing for them.
I think about Johanna Mason, still on a cell in the Justice Building. There were rumors about her. But nobody would dare to tell anything to Johanna. She's strong, fearless and dauntless. Rue, on the other hand, seems to live in a restricted world, consisting only on the minister teachings. And she's quiet, soft and fearful.
I think about her saving me in the square, using Sanctuary law to protect me. They are proof that there is a brave side in this girl, a longing for justice that comes from love.
"I am also an orphan. My parents and little sister died in the great fire, like many of my people did and some merchants. I loved my father so much. He had a beautiful voice and he taught me songs and dances that latter help me to survive."
"My father also taught me about God and Jesus" I tell her. "He told me Jesus was a rebel at the time, that He preach about love, about rejecting the oppression his people was suffering."
"He taught about loving thy brother" I continue, "and I don't remember Him making exceptions for that rule." Rue finally looks up at me. "Minister Snow might have the scriptures at the tip of his tongue at all times, but he does not live by those scriptures. He only follows silly ancient rules, not the main meaning of His message."
I grab her hand again and I smile "Love."
"It's not my place to judge you, Rue, and neither is the minister's. Only God can do that."
"Have you ever loved someone?" she suddenly asks me.
"Yes, I have. I still love him, even though he's most likely dead." The tears threaten to spill from my eyes, but I don't let them fall. "Snow stabbed him and blame his dead upon me, the person who would have given anything to save him. He was so kind and gentle." My voice finally cracks and I stop talking, knowing I won't be able to stop the tears anymore.
"Nobody could love a monster like me" she mutters. I sigh. It's hard to compete with years of abuse and rooted misconceptions about herself as she has. It angers me to know that she does not see the beautiful person she is, the underlying implication of a scar making her evil.
"Imagine a beautiful crystal vase cracked and filled with dry, withering flowers. Next to it, there's a plain pot but filled with the most beautiful and fragrant flowers, with all the colors you can imagine." Rue looks at me, her eyes bright as if imagining the beauty of the flowers. "Look not at the face, young girl, look at the heart" I sing from the old song my father used to sing to my sister and I.
I motion Rue to climb to bed next to me and let her curl against me. I continue to sing until her breathing deepens and I know she's asleep. I stare at the ceiling a long time, thinking of all the people I had love and lost, before sleeps finally claims me as well.
—·—
The sound of footsteps wakes me from a restless sleep. I sit up slowly and try to make sense of my surroundings. The events of the previous days filters through my mind as the first rays of the sun do so through the small window in Rue's chamber. I look down on her, peacefully asleep despite the growing sound of footsteps.
"Rue! Rue!" I whisper loudly on her ear. "Wake up! Someone is coming!"
Rue barely has stir from sleep when the door opens with a bang. The peacekeeper drags her from my side on the bed by her hair and she screams in fear while he pushes her up a wall, restraining her movement.
"I knew I would find you like this, gypsy whore!" Minister Snow growls at me. I try to cover myself with the small blanket but he tears it away from my grasp and sneers at me. "There is nowhere to hide anymore, Katniss! You will pay for all you have done!"
I try to run away from his touch but he pins me easily enough because of the residual pain in the back of my head that slows me. I hear the peacekeeper laugh, while Rue continues to scream: "No, master! Don't harm her! Master!"
His hands grope all over my body and I suddenly feel like throwing up. My heart pounds loudly in my ears and I can no longer hear clearly, just bits of the noise around me. "You will be mine! And then I'll burn you at the stake!" He spits at me while squeezing my flesh to the point of hurt.
I trash around trying to free myself from his grasp, while he tears my clothes aside. I think of Peeta in that moment, his touch soft and electric, so very different from the cold and rough hands that are trying to subdue me, to own me despite my protest. Tears of pain and despair cloud my vision and my voice dies on my throat when one of his hands chokes me.
But then, as fast as he was on me, the pressure of his body leaves mine. I sit up to see him lifted by an angered Rue, that throws him against the window, dragging the old black drapes with him and letting the sun enter the room. She holds up a knife that she must have taken from the peacekeeper, now lying unconscious in the ground.
"How dare you lift a hand against the one who has fed you and clothe you, worthless creature?" Snow shouts, but his voice sounds out of breathe and he can barely stand. Rue falters at his words, dropping the knife to the floor and chokes back a sob, like it has just hit her how violent her outburst was.
"You were trying to hurt her" she mumbles. "Your were trying to impose yourself to her! And in sacred ground!"
"The Court of Parliament has agreed to remove her right to sanctuary" Minister Snow gloats. "We'll be finally free of her enchantment. She is a witch and a whore, Rue. Look what she made you do to Peacekeeper Marvel!" he points at the blonde, still unconscious peacekeeper.
"You were not arresting her" she cries again and the minister scowls at her.
"And who are you to judge me?" he spits at Rue, still poised against the window. "You are nothing but a worthless, half-human beast! You probably don't even have a soul, just like that filthy gypsy!"
Rue looses herself in that moment and charges against him, their tangled bodies breaking through the window and falling to a small balcony flanked by gargoyles. I scream and grab the knife, fearing for Rue in the hands of this vicious man.
I watch them struggle, not knowing what to do, until the minister gets the upper hand by pinning Rue's body to the balustrade and hovering over her like a bird of prey. I trip with the black drapes and the idea hits me. I grab the nearest drape and throw it over the Minister's head. Rue grabs the hem of the fabric tightening it against him, smothering him. The minister trashes around for a moment and then stumbles out of Rue's grasps.
Still clad on the drapes, the minister stumbles around the small balcony, while Rue tries to steps away from him, fear notorious on her face. A loud whimper escapes her and gets the minister's attention, who bends trying to grab her. Rue swats at him and he trips over the fabric, losing his footing and falling over the balustrade, to the façade of Notre Dame's cathedral.
We both gasp at the space where Minister Snow stood only seconds ago, rooted in our places, not noticing that a new menace has stand up and it's ready to pounce.
I see the blonde peacekeeper charge at her, his sword in hand, and I act without thinking. I throw the knife at him, aiming for his heart but missing but several inches. I watch the blade dig in the flesh of his neck, and as the red of his blood oozes from the wound I watch him fall to his knees and to the ground. Dead.
I turn to Rue in panic, still not believing what I have just done, taking a man's life, but the sight of her stops me on my tracks. The sword of the peacekeeper is firmly planted on her abdomen and I choke back a scream of fear. I run towards her, while she plugs the blade from her body, and I manage to catch her before she falls to the ground also.
"There is a mob outside the cathedral" she mumbles. "We need to leave, Katniss. We need to get you out of here" she looks at me in desperation, pleading with me. I hastily grab the linen of the bed and press it to her stomach.
"How? They would see us! And they must know the minister is dead!" I cry, while trying to make a knot to keep the linen in place, but my hands are wet with her blood already.
"We'll look for the Archdeacon. He'll help us" she tells me, while pushing me towards the door. I nod and practically drag her down the narrow stairs following Rue's instructions. Her voice gets smaller and her breath ragged and I can't quiet the growing concern for her. She's seriously wounded and she won't be able to travel too far like this. She needs a medic or a healer, but in our current circumstances I don't know how to get her to one.
As we reach the bottom of the stairs I lose my hold on her and she falls like a feather to the ground. I try to pull her to stand, but she won't budge anymore. Instead she grabs my arm, her bright, dark eyes pleading with me. "It's my time" she whispers.
I feel panic again, my throat closing and my hands sweating. I shake my head and try to apply more pressure to the wound, but her blood has soaked right through the linen. Suddenly my vision blurs and I don't understand what is happening until I feel Rue's long and slim fingers wiping my cheeks of the tears that fall down on them.
"Would you sing for me again?" she asks. I nod, choking back a sob. I try to hide the trembling on my voice while I intone a lullaby my father used to sing for my sister and I when we would have a bad dream.
Deep in the meadow, under the willow
A bed of grass, a soft green pillow
Lay down your head, and close your sleepy eyes
And when you awake, the sun will rise.
I let go of the linen, giving up on trying to stop the bleeding. I reach for her head instead and let her rest on my lap. I brush her dark hair back and keep singing, encouraged by her sweet smile. She closes her eyes at some point but I keep on, in case she can still listen.
Here it's safe, here it's warm
Here the daisies guard you from harm
Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true
Here is the place where I love you.
When the song is over, I met silence. Rue's eyes are closed and her chest no longer moves with her breathing. It hits me then that I have lost yet another person.
No longer caring about running or hiding, my screams echo in the emptiness of the tall room while I cling to Rue's dead body.
—·—
I don't know how much time passes by the time his touch awakens me. I look at him, startled, his grey eyes hard while he checks for the pulse in Rue's neck. "What happened?" is all he asks me while trying to take her corpse away from my grasp. But I just hold her tighter against me in response.
After a moment, he sighs and holds me by the shoulder, shaking me a little. "Enough, Katniss! You need to leave now! Or they will also charge you with the deaths of Snow and Rue!"
I hear a loud thump from outside and I jump. "What is happening?" I ask, my voice rough after my screams. The Archdeacon smirks at me.
"Your king, Finnick Odair, has took upon himself to distract the peacekeeper force out of the cathedral. Originally to allow you to scape through the tunnels" the Archdeacon explains. "If you ask me I think he is aiming higher, though. It looks like a very organized uprising out there. And the lifeless body of Minister Snow falling from Notre Dame only spurred them on."
I gawk at him. An uprising? I never though I would see the day the quiet Panem would stand up for itself and recover the power from the corrupt politicians that run it.
"Come on, sweetheart, they are waiting for you!" he says cryptically. I move to stand, but before leaving I go to grab some of the flowers lying at the feet of a near sculpture of the Virgin Mary and put her over Rue's body, covering the wet stain over her clothes and linen. Like this, all cover in flowers, she looks like she was sleeping, a small smile drawn in her lips.
The Archdeacon says nothing of my display, only nudges me out of the room, through a series of passages and dark corridors until we reach the confessionary. Opening the door for the priest, he lifts the seat and makes me climb the small whole that leads to the sewers. We walk in silence the entire path, until we see lights on the way ahead of us.
But the Archdeacon does not seem unfazed by this. If anything he seams to expect it. When we are close enough to see the people waiting for us, I am taken a back, convinced my eyes must be deceiving me. Because the people I am seeing are ghosts.
"Katniss! Oh, God Bless, you're alive!" he cries at the sight of me. I am left standing there, confused, while he crushes me to his chest and kisses the crown of my head over and over. I inhale the scent of him, the musk and cinnamon; I stare at his blonde curls and then gaze at the haunting blue eyes I thought I would never see again.
"Peeta? How…?" my mouth is dry, words escaping me, and suddenly my hands won't stop roaming through the expands of his upper body, felling the thick muscle, the warm so very him. "How are you alive?"
"Your mother patched me up" he beams at me. And that's when I met a different set of blue eyes, a lighter shade of blue I have not seen in over a decade.
"Mommy?" I whimper. She nods and holds me close to her chest, while I sob to her shirt.
"My beautiful Katniss! I though I had lost you! I though you had died like your father and sister! I though I was alone in the world!" she sobs to my hair. She pulls away a little and looks into my eyes: "I went away, after the fire. I could not stand the sight of Panem after losing all of you. But then I heard about your bravery. I knew it was my courageous girl. And I knew I had to find you."
"She return to the Court of Miracles and found me lying on the floor where Snow left me" Peeta explains. "We had to hide after your rescue! At least until we could find a way to get you out of the cathedral safely."
"We'll leave Panem together. I have a house in a near city, only two days of travel away. You will be safe there, my sweet girl" my mother brushes my hair out of my face and wipes the tears of my face.
I smile sadly at her and Peeta. "It won't work. They will come after me. They think I am a murderer."
"They won't. I'll make sure they think you are dead. Go and live a happy life, sweetheart" the Archdeacon intervenes.
I turn to the Archdeacon to thank him. "Thank you so much for your help, your grace"
"Please call me Haymitch" he laughs. "We are in a sewer. Who cares about titles in here?"
I hear Peeta laugh behind me but I scowl at this. I might be a gypsy but I have my manners. "Are you leaving the city with us, Archdeacon?" I ask him, thinking of the uprising taking place over our heads.
"This is more than just an uprising" he says, as if he could read my thoughts. "It's a rebellion. And my people need me to be here, to help them in anyway I can."
"The cathedral is sacred ground and it can be use to protect those injured" he explains. "I am needed here".
Something about the way he speaks tells me that the Archdeacon and I are more similar than what anyone would think just by looking at us, and that it goes beyond the grey eyes and olive skin. Something about his words calls to me and suddenly I feel guilty, because I know I won't be able to leave Panem like this.
I turn to Peeta and my mother again, both of them watching me curiously, waiting for me to go with them, to leave behind all the pain and insanity. But I can't do it.
"I can't leave my people to fend for themselves" I look at them. Peeta's eyes shine in the brightest blue I have ever seen. I hold my hand out to him, silently asking him to forgo the safest, smartest choice and take the most difficult path. "Stay with me?" I plea.
He smiles, a radiant grin that could compete in warmth with the sunshine of a glorious summer day, and takes my hand in his, squeezing reassuringly before kissing my lips and whispering to them: "Always."
THE END.