Katniss
We're forced from her body, Katrina's remaining bit fades away, allowing me full control.
"I get it now… I don't know how, but I get it… You invaded my body somehow…"
"Not invaded… Was given…" I whisper to the fading bit of Katrina, "You died that night your mother and stepfather were arrested, only a piece of you stuck behind…"
"You're darker than I remember, before you kind of hurt to look at… Now you're like a candle in a field…"
"My spirit is weak, I've been forcing my way through since you met the Mellark's spending my energy trying to reach out to Peeta… You're leaving just in time…"
"How, clearly I just died, and what are you going back to?"
I look down at the chain attached to my heart, both of them, it's glowing, not faintly, but brighter than the sun. I would make it, "Something I never got the first round… A fight for my life…"
Katrina fades more and more, "I feel… Free… I was ready to die, ready to find peace. I'm done living your life, it was fun for a while, but I kept doing things I wouldn't be caught dead doing."
I smile feeling the pull into the body, my heart started again, "Sorry, that was me… Like, all of it, basically I've spent the last month in control, but thinking I'm you. Which is why you thought you were saying and doing things you'd never do."
She nods, barely visible, "Good luck, Katniss… I don't understand any of this shit, but… I'm happy. Make sure they all stay in prison for a long long time…" her voice is barely an echo as the last part of Katrina's subconscious fades away, hopefully moving on with the rest of her soul.
000
I scramble to my feet, the sun has just risen and I feel renewed… But only just. The drug still has a hold on me, a pretty good one, but now that I'm not forcing my way through a subconscious I'm strong. My spirit revived enough that I can stand and clean myself before Liam wakes up.
"I need to escape…" I whisper, pulling my phone from where Liam hid it and my charger form my purse, glad I could get through to her to bring it. I knew something was up, maybe I'd be a precog after dying? I had to get something out of this.
I pull the urine soaked shorts and underwear form my body, the shirt and bra soaked and crusted with sweat and vomit. I have a change of clothes, but not underwear so before I can clean myself I wash the undergarments in the tub with shampoo and dry them with the hair dryer part way before hanging them on the towel rack to finish.
My skin grows clammy, I'd need more soon or the shakes and the pains would overcome me. I swallowed hard… I needed Liam to survive. Though I was getting stronger spirit wise, my body couldn't survive the withdraw outside a hospital.
This was his plan… and he was succeeding.
000
I hate it, I hate it so much, giving him my arm willingly waiting like an eager child for my drug. I've stashed my phone in my actual underwear now, I could only pray I didn't wet myself though I couldn't have had any fluids left in me after the first round.
When I catch my reflection I don't recognize myself, and not only because I'm in another body. My cheeks are sunken in, as well as my eyes which are blood shot and glassy, dark circles under them. My arms and legs have scratches and open wide scrapes where I've scratched the skin off during a high or low.
It only takes a few seconds for the numbing high to take over me. I sit there and stare, coming out of it already in the car. The phone is still in my underwear, which is perfect for my plan, next rest stop I would make a run for it… Even if it killed me.
I looked over his shoulder the car was almost on E. I had no shoes, but I had ran barefoot before… Though that was in a body I knew how to work. This one had short legs, a round backside, and heavy breasts, all things I'd have to work around.
"Don't try anything funny," he cautions getting out of the car at the gas pump. When he's inside I try the door, pulling the handle slowly.
Child lock… I pull out my cellphone.
9-1-1 I press it to my ear jumping over the center console and escaping through the driver's door. Dashing across the parking lot as fast as my malnourished legs can carry me. It had been five days since I was taken, four of which I spent in a constant high barely able to eat. The few meals I had managed to keep down were well and burned off now.
"911, what do you need, Fire, Police, medical?" she asked in a southern drawl.
"My name is Katn…" I pant, "Katrina DeAuguste… I was taken from my home in Doylestown Pennsylvania by my father Liam. I'm at the BP off route 40 out of Memphis," I see him leaving the station. Our eyes meet.
"Trina!" he roars coming after me. The phone slips from my hands and I run to him, thinking what Katrina would have done if she wasn't beaten to submission. I think of advice Peeta gave me once when we were fourteen.
"If you're going to tackle someone, go for center mass," he smiled and brushed my hair behind my ear as I laid on the ground failing to jump on his back.
My frail shoulder meets his hips, "You don't own me anymore!" I shout drawing as much attention to him, clawing at his face, but I'm weak… Too weak.
He throws me off him, if the someone doesn't step in or the cops don't arrive soon I'll be back in that car and dead for sure, "Stupid child!" his hand finds my wrist pulling me to the car as I kick and scream, no pedestrian or on looker attempting to help.
But I see the cop lights, red and blue cutting through the evening light, six individual cars surround us. Six officers draw their guns but he's quick. Pointing a handgun to my head, "I can't die…" I whisper, "I just found myself, I can't die…"
"Put the gun down!" I hear it click.
"Please… You don't have to do this, you can just let me go…" I beg, feeling fingers intertwine in my hair, pulling my head back. My skin is becoming clammy again, the pain in my abdomen growing intense. I wanted more, I needed it again.
"I'll shoot, I'll blow her brains out right here."
"You don't…" I wince, the pain from my skull and abdomen becoming too much, I had to escape… but how? Suddenly it hit me, and I knew how to get to him, "Daddy," it wasn't hard to make myself sound pathetic, between the beginnings of my withdraw, and general weakness my voice came off like a child's. His grip loosened just enough and I pulled away. Two or three strides, that's all I could get before my foot caught on something and I found myself on the ground scrambling to get away as the gun went off.
"Trina…" it was that moment of hesitation the police were on him, throwing him against the car.
"We need an ambulance!" I look around, trying to pull myself from the ground but I slip in a growing pool of blood. I finally notice the tightness in my lungs, a sharp cough covers my hands with blood, I look down at my shirt, the red staining my white shirt.
No… I won't die again, I refuse… Do you hear me Effie, you're around, I know you are! I doubt she can hear my thoughts, but as unconsciousness takes over me I scream them, over and over.
I will not die!
000
"It shot clean through her left lung, she's lucky, an inch over and the bullet would have pierced her aorta…"
"Will she wake up?"
"We have her in a coma… She was being pumped full of heroin as he said every few hours to build up a dependency. The withdraw in her current state would kill her…"
Lisa… my new mother, because I could never really to back to my mother, she'd never believe me. Hell, no one would…
Peeta might… He has to.
"That being said… We'll need to bring her out of it as soon as possible."
"When can we move her back home?"
"You want a heroin addict, in the middle of a withdraw, in your house?"
"She's my daughter, I'm not leaving Memphis until she can, and when she does she's coming home."
"She'll need a nurse, an IV drip, almost constant supervision."
"Our family friend is a nurse, I've already discussed our options, we'll pay for any medical supplies, and my husband owns a business under our house so I can stay home until she's well…"
At some point I fall asleep again for a long time, but I never leave the body. I'm here to stay, I'm sure of it.
"It shouldn't be long now. She can breathe on her own again…"
It goes quiet for a while before I feel the warmth on my hand, Peeta… I know that feeling anywhere, I felt it during my funeral, but now it's real contact.
"Katrina… Please, just open your eyes, I can't lose you too…" how do I tell him that he never had her? That it was just me…
"You… never… had her…" I whisper. Peeta would try to believe me, he had to. I could convince him. He wasn't gullible, just open minded. I shiver as the medication that kept me under for who knows how long wears off slowly. It's night out, or the curtains are drawn and the lights are off, "On August tenth when we were eleven I spotted a red coat in the flood water outside my house at 791 New Galena Road. I ran to the boy…" my eyes begin to focus, "I pushed on his chest until the water came out and we were best friends ever since…"
"How do you… How do you know that?"
"Because I was there Peeta… You may not believe me right away, but you've felt it…" I cough, the pain from my repaired lung, "I came to you… Every night since I was hit by that car," I reach and find his hand, it's cold and unresponsive, "On Prom night I kissed you, it was weird and kind of felt like I was getting static shocks throughout my… well… Ghost…"
He squeezes my hand lightly, our fingers lacing together, they fit perfectly, "How… Just…" I finally find the strength to turn my head to face him, every joint in my neck stiff, the muscles sore.
"I don't know…" I wince, the pain coming back, all over, I squeeze his hand with all the force I can muster. I bend my knees and straighten them trying to distract from the pain, "Please… make it stop…"
"Want me to get the nurse?"
"Do you believe me?"
"Do you want me to get the nurse?"
I scrunch my face, tears running down my face, "Peeta Mellark, you were named after your great grandfather who passed away a month before you were born," I let go of his hand taking fistfuls of the blanket as whatever painkiller wears off, "Your favorite color is sunset orange, you don't take sugar in your tea, you always double knot your shoelaces…" I look over as he presses a button, "You sleep with the window open… always…" I start growing numb, "Which made it easy for me to sneak in almost every night so you could…" my tongue starts tingling, the medicine taking affect, "Help me with my anxiety…"
"This is impossible…" he whispers, but I'm so far gone from whatever pain killer he's pumped in me.
He's gone when I wake up, having to fly home for school. I can't reach him to see if he believes me… It would be a tacky conversation, "The medicine makes the furniture feel funny…" I whisper as Lisa strokes my hair.
"I'm sorry… They're cutting you back honey…"
"I want to go home…" I think of my room back home, the one that was stripped of my belongings that I had snuck into twice. It would be nice, but… the one in the Mellark's house is where I want to be, after all I did escape there so often.
"I know… Tomorrow… Our flight back is tomorrow," I'm sweating though it's freezing, I seem to always sweat now.
Lisa leaves once visiting hours are over and I turn on the TV, unable to sleep. They tell me this is normal, that I'd find it difficult to sleep both as they wean me off the morphine and as I detox, which apparently I slept through the worst of.
I'm heavily sedated for our flight into Philadelphia, it's my first time on a plane but the morphine lulled me into an uneasy sleep. Lisa wheels me from the terminal to baggage claim where Thomas is already waiting for us, "Katrina…" he bends over and hugs me awkwardly as if he'd break me.
"I can walk…" I assure them as an impatient who seems to be hovering takes the chair practically from under me. I stumble some but Thomas and Lisa are there to support me, "Seems familiar… Just…" I look at the empty seats, when they brought me home the first time, "A little empty…"
"They all wanted to come, but we didn't think you could handle the excitement at first, plus… The boys missed too much school already…"
I look at my nails, bitten to hell, "Sorry…"
"Katrina, don't apologize for another person's wrong's…" Lisa scolds. I just nod, I was safe now.
I'm unable to make it up the stairs by the time we get home, the pain, shakes and nausea that stem from my withdraw forcing me to accept being carried to my room by Thomas, who's extra ginger. Lisa opens the door, "All this… is for me?" There are bouquets of flowers on ever flat surface, but there's only one that matters.
A single dandelion resting on the pillow next to me.
I'm tucked into bed, having worn sweats I don't need to change, "Misses Everdeen will be here soon to run your IV and deliver your medicine," I gulp, could I face my mother?
Prim. How could I forget Prim? My baby sister? Maybe she'd bring her… Last I heard she was recovered from her bout of pneumonia.
"Just… Try to rest, ok? The boys will be home soon…" I nod picking up the single dandelion.
Katniss,
Last spring you told me you wanted to end everything. We sat in the rain for two hours as I talked you 'off the edge' so to speak. When we were heading back to my house you ran from me, your eye spotting a single dandelion in the meadow at Burpee Park. You said nothing but sniffed the weed. When I questioned you, all you told me was, 'Sometimes it's easy to spot the first dandelion of the spring. The first sign that life will start again after the cold dead winter'.
Love,
Peeta
I sniffed the single dandelion and pressed the note to my chest.
"He believes me… or… At least he's trying," I whisper closing my eyes. I don't sleep, I can't sleep… Within minutes I'm heaving into a perfectly placed waste basket.