Gale? No that can't be right, I must be imagining things. It couldn't be him, it isn't him. I would kill myself if it were him.
But sure enough, there comes Gale walking up the stairs. Effie greets him and he stands beside me as I try to hold tears from rolling down my pale face. How is this possible? How is it that us, of all people, are going into the most deadly games devised?
Effie presents Gale and myself as the tributes of District 12 for the 74th Hunger Games and we are then quickly ushered off of the stage and into the Justice building and then into separate rooms where our families can come and visit us one last time. Mum and Prim come in, Delly and Madge too. Madge gave me a pin, she said it is a token of district 12 and symbolizes good luck. I don't get many visitors, so while I wait to be transported into the train that will take me to the Capitol, I take a good look at the pin. It's made of pure gold and has a bit of weight to it. It's a circle with a Mockingjay in the middle, perched on an arrow. It might just be the most beautiful things I have ever seen. I pin it on the collar of my dress as a Peacekeeper comes to take me to the train
As I step out of the doors of the Justice building, lights from cameras blind my sight. I sheild my eyes with my hands and look around for Gale. I see him a little over to the left so I run up to him and he holds me in a firm embrace. Then he whispers in my ear "We will win. I promise"
I can't help myself but I start to cry. Why is humanity so cruel? How can they put us through this? Gale notices how upset I am and kisses away the tears, then plants his lips on mine. It feels as thought it has been years since I felt these lips, but in fact it has only been a few hours.
Gale wraps his arm around me protectively as we walk into the train. When we get inside our Mentor, Haymitch Abbernathy, is sitting drunk on one of the love seats.
He motions for us to sit on the couch across from him, and we do so.
"So" He asks twirling his cup in his hand "What skills do you have"
Gale abruptly says "Katniss and I can shoot arrows, set snares and spear fairly well. We also are handy with knives"
"Oh, so you two know each other?" Haymitch asks as he takes a swig from his glass
"Um, yah we're hunting partners" I say, but as soon as I do I regret it. What of there are cameras in here?
"Really? Effie, we might actually have victors this year" Haymitch yells at Effie across the room. I guess he doesn't care
Effie's startled and spills her drink all over he skirt "You fool! Look what you made me do!"
"Oh, go change into some other horrendous outfit!" Haymitch chuckles as he waves the shrieking woman off
"So what's our strategy?" Gale asks Haymitch
"Stay alive" Haymitch says as he pours himself another drink
"Really? We never considered that" I bark, suddenly losing my patience for this man
"Well you sure are dumber than a pole, but everyone is 12 is so..." Haymitch smirks
"Yeah, and you're higher than helium so I guess we're on the same page now" Gale spits
"See, this boy knows what he's talking about, whereas you just say every arrogant thing that pops into your mind" Haymitch says
"Normally I'd ignore you, but you two are fighters. So this is my plan, when you are training do not, I repeat do not pick up arrows or set snares. But you still need to show the other tributes you're nothing to play with" Haymitch continues
"If we want to impress them, shouldn't we use the things we're best at?" Gale asks tiredly
"No. Because you can bet that the arrows will be at the cornucopia, and the careers' will make sure you never get those weapons" Haymitch grumbles
"So we should show them all our skills with knives and spears?" I ask
"Yes! It's like talking to a child!" Haymitch says under his breath as he stands up
"Oh, dinner is ready" Effie squeaks interrupting us
"Good, I'm starving" Haymitch says as he walks over to the table
Gale immediately digs in, gorging himself with food. But I just sit there staring at my plate feeling guilty.
"Hey sweetheart, you'd better start eating if you want to get some fat on you before the games" Haymitch says harshly. I don't ignore his comment, I dig into my food. After the word 'sweetheart', Gale glares at Haymitch the entire dinner
Too soon it is time for bed. Effie shows me to my room and I have a shower. How can a train have hot running water and 1/3 of district 12 doesn't? I brush my hair and get into my pajama's. A long red, silk top with little shorts underneath.
I fall fast asleep quickly. But about 2 short hours later I wake up, from my dreams. They weren't exactly dreams though, they were nightmares. I rub my arm and realize I'm sweating. I get out of bed and pour myself a glass of water. I dry off and lay on top of my covers. I roll around for a bit until I decide, I'm not going to fall asleep any time soon.
Suddenly I feel my legs get out bed at walk myself to my door. I feel my hands turn the knob and push the door. I feel my legs walk down the hall and stop at Gale's door. I feel my hands turn his knob and push on his door. As soon as I step in the room, Gale sits up. He was obviously awake before because he was sitting on the edge of his bed.
"Katniss" He whispers almost inaudibly
"Gale, I-I couldn't sleep the dreams they"re-" I start to say, but I get cut off because I begin to cry
"They're haunting, I know. You can sleep here if you like" Gale says while walks towards me
"Sure" I say. I crawl into his bed, he wraps his arms around me, pulling myself close to him. His pillow smells of pine and the woods and his warm breath on my neck feels so nice. I turn over and lightly kiss his lips and he kisses me back. I nuzzle my face into his neck and he burrows his face in my hair.
At 8:30 Gale wakes up and slowly slides out from me. He puts water in the tub to avoid waking me up. After ten minutes he gets out of the tub and dries off.
I am is still sleeping when he walks back into the room, so he puts his lips against mine to wake me up. I bite his lip and open my eyes. Then I say, "Why are you so wet with water?"
"I had a bath," he replies
"Ok" I get up and walk back into my room and get changed into a short white dress that hugs all my curves tightly and is a tad too short.
Once we reach the Capitol I am given to my prep team, and they spend the next few hours getting me ready for the opening ceremonies. It goes by quickly and soon I am laying in my bed in District 12's apartment, slowly falling asleep.
When I get up stretch my arms and legs out and walk into the bathroom across the room. I have a long hot shower, calming me of my nerves. I put on some clothes, a blue halter (that's too revealing for my likings) and a pair of short denim shorts. I decide to leave my hair down and walk out of my room and into the dining room. Haymitch, Effie and Gale were already there and eating.
"What took you so long princess?" Haymitch asked me as I pull out my chair
I ignore his comment and dig into the food
45 minutes later the intercom sounds and asks all the tributes to meet in the greeting hall immediately.
I was a little upset that I didn't have time to change, after all I only put this on for Gale, as embarrassing as that sounds.
Gale and I walk into a big room with chairs and couches placed in a circle. Some of the tributes are already there. Districts, 1,2,4,5,8,9 and 11.
I sit down and a small girl whom I remember name's is Rue comes and sits on my left and her district partner's, Thresh's, right. Gale sits beside Thresh and the district 1 girl sits beside him. I don't like how she's looking at him with that ugly fake smile. Districts 4,6,8 girls also all sit on Gale's side.
As I sit down Cato starts doing his cocky walk towards me and sits down on the love seat with me and wraps his arm around me. The district 1 boy sits beside him and the District 2 girl sits down beside him then the other districts sit beside her. I want to get up and away from Cato, but all the tributes have filled all the seats up already. The district 1 chick starts talking to Gale and he tries to ignore her and talk to Thresh but thresh is mostly noticing what Cato is saying to me.
"So what are your talents?" He says seductively, leaning in close
I try to move over and talk to Rue, but Cato reaches over my chest and pulls my shoulder in towards him. He looks me in the eyes and I notice how blue and icy his are. He leans his face into the crook of my neck and start to graze his nose over the skin and occasionally planting small love bites. I struggle to push him away, but he's far too strong.
Gale starts to notice what Cato's doing and begins to clench his fists, trying not to cause a scene.
"I really like your shirt it looks good on you" Cato says while he brushes away my hair that I strategically put in front to cover up as much skin as possible
I elbow Rue, to get her to start talking to me, so Cato will stop antagonizing me.
"Oh! Uh, so...uh, Katniss what is it like in District 12?" Rue says, stumbling over her words
I then began explaining things like the mining and then I noticed the little discussion going on with the far too flirtatious District 1 girl and Gale, so I then began to include Gale in the conversation.
After a little while of talking about the medical situation I felt something warm going up the inside of my right thigh, I looked down and saw Cato's muscular hand grasping my thigh a little too high up. I quickly elbowed him in the gut, when the District 1 boy, I think his name was Marvel, asks me if I had a boyfriend back home.
"Well..." I look over at Gale who is staring intently at me, obviously trying to tell me what to say "Yes. But we haven't been dating for very long"
"Well, I bet he's not too happy about seeing that little romance between you and your District partner" He gives me a wink and I feel myself blushing a little.
"Yeah, but I don't really care what he thinks" I look over at Gale and he looks as though he's going to boil over with rage. But I don't really understand why.
After a little while Seneca crane came into the room and started giving us instructions for tomorrow. He explained things like what time training started at and went till and stuff like that.
I was glad when it was over for I wanted to get as far away as possible from Cato.
The next morning was the first day of training. All of the tributes dress in the same outfit. Well, all the girls are wearing the same outfit and the boys are wearing their own. The boy's are loose dark blue T-shirts, light grey pants and black boots. The girls' are very tight black T-shirts with a low V neck that reveals too much, tight on your butt grey pants and light brown ankle height boots.
After a long, boring talk by the head trainer we make our way to the training stations. I started at edible plants. It's pretty simple, but it covers all the basics. I get it done fairly quickly, so I look around to find another station that peaks my interests.
I spot a knife throwing station so I walk over there. I throw the knife and it hit is just 1 inch away from the centre. Not bad. Then I hear some snickers, I turn around and see the district 2 girl and both district 1 kids behind me. "Would you like to try?" I say to the district 1 girl. She accepts and throws the knife, and she completely misses. "Nice" I say in the cockiest way I can.
Then it's lunch time for lunch. I sit down, then Gale comes up beside me and introduces me to Thresh and Rue. I saw Thresh lifting weights with Gale and I also saw Rue climbing stuff. She seems extremely sweet.
"So Catnip, what stations did you visit?" Gale asks as he chomp down on a turkey sandwich
"I went to edible plants and stuff" I mumble, while Gale gives me look "I also went to knives throwing, I had better aim than the District 1 girl"
"That's a big accomplishment, the girl can't even pick up a spear" Thresh grumbles under his breath. Wonder what his problem is?
A half hour later it is time to do some more training. Everyone lines up to do agility course. Everyone goes. Clove got 0:50 seconds, Rue got 0:55, Gale got 1:03 and Thresh got 1:07. Now it's my turn. I hear the careers snickering and saying things behind me. I quickly go, jumping from landing to landing avoiding the trainers swings. "0:43" The head trainer yells "That's the highest record yet!"
I walk past the careers and give them one of my cocky looks. Afterwards I decide to try swords. I weakly stab the dummy in the stomach when someone comes up behind me and wraps his body around me. He puts his hands over mine, that are gripping the sword and he leans close to my neck and says "You're stance is all wrong"
My eyes widen when I hear his voice "There are instructors who can help me with my stance. Please get off me Cato"
"The instructors don't know anything, but I do so let me help you and we can have some fun. If you really want some fun come to my room tonight" He whispers, while playfully nipping at my ear
"I said get off" I say sternly
"I don't want to" Cato answers while he begins to suck on the skin on the side of my neck
"I'm warning you"
"And if I don't listen what will you do?" He says as he releases his hand from mine and slowly drags it down my arm
What would I do? I have no physical power over him and if I tried anything he could easily break my neck.
"Punish me?" He says as his hand suddenly is on my stomach and is rapidly going downwards. My eyes open even wider than they were before as his hand almost touches-
"She said get off" A little voice behind us says. A voice that could only belong to Rue
Hi guys! So, I decided to redo this story, since it wasn't very good before! I have already done the first chapter and I just finished this one(obviously) and I will soon start on the third chapter. Right now the story isn't very good and is poorly written, but if you liked my first two chapter or any of my other stories than you will enjoy the rest of my story after it is done being rewritten. I can assure you that if you read the next chapter it will be a turn off and you won't review/follow/favorite so I would recommend you not to. So please review this chapter and the third chapter will be revised VERY soon!