Here is Part Two! Be sure to review. I forget to update when I don't get little reminders in my inbox! Enjoy.

Rekindling

Part Two (The Arsonist)

Chapter Six

Our bedroom was completely silent as Peeta and I got dressed to do whatever the hell it was that we were going out to do. The bathroom mirrors were foggy from the steam of the shower. When I told Peeta it probably wasn't necessary to take a shower, he replied with something along the lines of wanting to be clean when he died. Since his comment, I hadn't said anything else to him. I was standing in front of my dresser, fishing around my sock drawer for a belt to wear around my pants. The backpacks Haymitch had given us had water and fire repellent clothing in it, which we were getting dressed in.

It felt like time was moving incredibly fast as I slid my belt through the belt loops of my pants. I was trying to go slow, wanting to take forever getting ready so that we wouldn't have to leave. When I glanced up and over my shoulder at Peeta, he was just looking over at me from his spot across the room. He pulled a clean cotton t-shirt on over his head, opting out on the t-shirt that was provided by Haymitch. Apparently, he wanted to be comfortable on our journey too.

He was zipping up the black and red jacket given to him when he finally said something.

"I hate to say it under the circumstances, but you look crazy sexy getting ready for battle," Peeta said to me, coming over and zipping up my jacket as well.

"Well, enjoy it while it lasts," I said, half smiling when he looked up at me.

He leaned forward and kissed my forehead, going back to his nightstand after. I kept my eyes on him as I brushed and braided my hair.

"You know what makes this even worse?" Peeta asked me after I was done doing my hair.

"That Caesar Flickerman is behind it?" I guessed, going over and sitting down next to him on the edge of the bed.

"I'll believe he's behind it when I see him," Peeta replied, shaking his head at the idea. I knew how he was feeling, I didn't believe it either. I nodded my head for him to continue.

"What makes it worse?" I asked.

"That we have no idea what we are doing," Peeta answered. "In the Games we knew to find water and hide, but now… this could take an hour for all we know."

"I hope it takes an hour," I said, although I was doubtful. "At least it'd be over."

Peeta ran his hands through his hair, squeezing his forehead in frustration. I brushed my hand over his back, rubbing his shoulder.

"I just don't believe that Caesar Flickerman has the guts, do you?" Peeta asked me.

"If you asked me yesterday, my answer would have been no, but you saw the papers," I replied.

"Let's hope Effie is wrong," he said. "I don't want to be the one to kill him."

His words caused tears to spring to my eyes. Everything in this moment, right here as the sky grew dark outside, made what we were about to do so real. We were going to be back on the hunt, killing anyone who even remotely seemed like a threat. Peeta told me that I was crazy that night I found out about the Peacekeepers, when I said we were back in the Games, but I knew that we were. The fire that we had started with the berries was starting up again, rekindling after everyone thought it was doused with water.

We sat staring at the wood floor of our bedroom until we knew we had to leave. Peeta reached into the drawer of his nightstand after we stood up from our bed and fished something out of it. He threw whatever it was over to me and I caught it when I saw it catch a ray of light as it soared through the air. When I opened my hand to see what it was, I was staring down at my mockingjay pin.

"I thought I got rid of this," I said, flipping it over in my hand a few times.

"You tried," Peeta said, stepping toward our bedroom door. "Come on."

At the moment, Rosemarie and Rye were doing a good job at keeping themselves entertained. Haymitch was pacing from one end of the family room to another, and when he saw us, he looked away, focusing on the floor. Peeta set our backpacks by the front door while I knelt down next to Rosemarie.

"Why are you dressed like that?" Rosemarie asked me, poking at my confining jacket. She was used to seeing me in my evergreen pants and black t-shirts.

I grabbed her hand and brushed my thumb over her soft skin. She looked up into my eyes and squeezed my hand back. Peeta stood by Haymitch when he stopped pacing and watched us.

"Mommy and Daddy are… we're uh… we're going to a costume party," I said, forcing a smile while I lied.

"When will you be home?" she asked me, blinking innocently.

I hugged her instead of answering and squeezed my eyes shut to keep myself together. She twirled my braid around her finger as she hugged me too. Peeta, across the room, took the glass from Haymitch's hand and chugged it. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand after and handed the empty glass back over to Haymitch, who peered in it in hopes of finding some leftovers.

"I want you to have this," I said to Rosemarie, holding out my mockingjay pin to show her. "It's part of my costume."

"Don't you need it?" Rosemarie asked as I pinned it onto her shirt.

"Not anymore," I said, adjusting her shirt so that it was wrinkle free and resting right on her. "It's yours now."

"We can share it when you get back," Rosemarie told me.

I smiled at her and nodded, knowing that if I said anything else, I'd lose it. I scooped Rye up from next to her and kissed him on his chubby baby cheeks before Peeta finally made his way over. I left Peeta to say goodbye to the kids when the phone rang in the kitchen. I took the phone off of the hook, walked over to the pantry and shut the door behind me.

"Hello?"

"It's Gale."

"We're about to leave," I said to him, turning canned goods so that their labels were all visible on the shelf in front of me.

"I'm still here with Paylor. I will be here until I convince her to get you guys backup, I promise."

"Sounds like you're going to be there for a while," I said, laughing just a little bit, which caused my throat to choke with emotion.

"She'll cave, trust me," Gale said. "I'm coming to twelve by the morning to make sure all of you are okay."

I didn't have anything to say to that, so continued fixing the canned goods. Everything just seemed so unbelievable at the moment. When he heard silence on my end, he sighed, and I said what needed to be said.

"Gale, if anything happens to me and Peeta…"

"No," Gale said strongly, anger reviving up in his voice. "Don't say stuff like that."

"I'm only being realistic," I said back, rubbing my hand over my throat so that maybe I'd make it through the conversation without crying. "You have to find someone to take care of Rosemarie and Rye… my mom maybe, or whoever can support them."

"Katniss…"

"Gale! Just promise you'll find someone to take care of them."

I heard a crash on the other side of the phone and a grunt that belonged to Gale. His frustrated breathing huffed in my ear and then another crash. He probably broke a few things when he threw them, by the sounds of it.

"I'll do it," Gale said to me. "If anything happens to you two, I'll take care of them. You're all the family I have left."

"Fine," I said, quickly and quiet. "Then I should go."

"You should," he replied.

"Bye," I said.

"See you later."

With no goodbye and an assumption to see me again, Gale hung up the phone. I was left with the buzzing sound of his line as I stood in the dim pantry. When I came out and put the phone back, Peeta was standing with Haymitch waiting for me.

"Was that Gale?" Peeta asked.

"Yes. He's still with Paylor."

Haymitch cupped his hands over his ears and walked over to the front door. Peeta squeezed my hand in his as we both took what we assumed to be our last look at our kids. Peeta handed me over my backpack after he slung his over his shoulders and I heaved mine against my back. I took my bow from its spot leaning up against the wall and made sure my arrows were secured in the sheath over my arm. Peeta held onto the club that Haymitch had subtly hinted at taking, and once we were ready we turned to Haymitch.

"Have fun at that costume party," Haymitch said.

"Sure will, Haymitch," Peeta said, with an almost light tone.

"The kids should go to bed soon," I told him.

"Whenever they clonk out, I'll turn off the lights," Haymitch said.

I nodded and refrained from glancing back at the kids. Peeta opened the front door and stepped out on the porch, leaving me in the house.

"Go on now, sweetheart," Haymitch said, giving me a soft tap on the shoulder.

I joined Peeta on the front porch where we stood looking out at the street in front of the victor houses after Haymitch shut and locked the door behind us. Peeta had the map that Gale sent over to us in his hands and he was looking at it intently.

"We're going around back and sliding through the fence out of the district boundaries, right? So no one from town sees us?" Peeta asked me.

"That's the plan," I said, wanting to sigh, but my chest was so tight with fear that I could only just take in a small breath of night air.

Peeta stepped off of the porch and started walking toward the back. I followed a few steps behind him and he waited for me once we were at the fence a good distance away from our house. I could just make out the orange glow of the lights in our house before I slung my leg over one of the barbed wires of the fence that once was buzzing with electricity. Peeta grabbed my arm to steady me as I pulled my other leg out of District 12's boundaries.

Now that we were out of District 12, our trek to find Caesar Flickerman and his gang of once powerful people had started. We had to walk the entire perimeter of the district since we decided not to cut through town where there could be witnesses. Between the fence of District 12 and 11, was a buffer zone of sorts that was a good three miles in width of just woods.

If we kept walking and stopped once we did a one-eighty from the fence behind our house, we'd be just past the fence that I used to slip under to go hunting with Gale. Unfortunately for us, we were headed that way, but it would take us a few hours since we didn't have the luxury of cutting through town.

There was no sign of people in the woods as Peeta and I walked just a few feet away from the fence, keeping it visible to ensure that we were going the right way, but staying far enough away from it so that no one on the other side could see us.

Peeta was carrying his club with one hand as the majority of its weight rested on his shoulder. It rocked back and forth on his shoulder with every step he took, since he wasn't gripping it sturdily, instead just had his wrist slung over the end so that it wouldn't tip over. My bow, however, hadn't left its upright position since we made our way through the fence. Every hoot of an owl, every crunch of leaves that didn't seem to belong to us had me jerking left and right, front and back, ready to shoot my arrow through whatever danger it could be.

After about an hour and a half of walking, Peeta finally stopped and turned back to look at me. With the two of us no longer walking, it was even quieter. I made a mental note to tell Peeta not to be so loud when we started up again.

"We'll take a break," he said.

I nodded, not wanting to add noise by saying anything, and followed his lead when he sat down on the forest floor, his back pressed up against a thick tree. He sifted through his backpack and pulled out his night goggles, which he hadn't put on when we left since he wanted to get used to the dark, and set them over his eyes. He studied the map that he got out from his jacket pocket while I drank water.

I handed him over my water bottle after a few sips and he took it from me, keeping his eyes on the map as he drank from it. I wasn't hungry, but knew that with our luck, I finally would be when we were in the middle of doing something like killing someone, so I ate half a pack of crackers and handed the other half to Peeta.

Peeta tucked the map back into his jacket and I listened to the crunching sound of the crackers as he ate them. He shoved the wrapper in an outside pocket of his backpack when he was done and put his arm around me, as if to have at least a second of normalcy at the edge of the woods holding the people wanting to kill us.

"Should we keep going?" I asked him in a whisper that I pressed against his ear.

"In a second," he whispered back.

He waited a minute, maybe two, before pulling his arm out from behind me. When we stood, he went around to my backpack and got my night goggles out as well, handing them over to me after he zipped my backpack shut. I tugged them over my head and blinked a few times to get used to the green hue the goggles gave off when they lit the way for our eyes.

"We have maybe two hours before we get to where you and Gale used to hunt," Peeta said to me, just updating me on the distance we had traveled since we left the house.

I nodded at him, and he took the lead again, creating more noise than I knew we should. I didn't want to draw any attention to us, if for some reason someone was near, so let him go on without saying anything to him. I made sure to be extra quiet for the both of us.

My backpack was starting to wear on me as we continued our hike around the district. It was so obvious now that we were finally out doing something crazy like this, that it had been so long since we were young and in shape. After two kids and no magical Capitol medicine to rejuvenate me over the years, my body had taken a beating.

Peeta slowed ahead of me and I came to a stop just a few inches away from him.

"I'm going to go take a look at the fence," Peeta explained. "The woods are getting thick over here and we can't see where we're at in terms of the district perimeter."

"I'll stay here while you go. The less noise the better," I whispered.

"Are you sure you'll be okay?" he asked.

I nodded, squeezing his arm for reassurance. He took a few steps away from me until he was hidden behind the trees, and I rotated around in a circle with my bow pointed out in front of me as I waited for him to come back. It had only been about five minutes since he left when I heard the snap of a twig in the opposite direction he had gone in.

I instantly pulled the string of my bow back and held my hand to my cheek to steady myself. I didn't hear the sound again, but then there was the hollow hoot of an owl above me and a white flash behind the trees in front of me. I let my arrow fly from my bow and watched as it sunk into the chest of a Peacekeeper impersonator.

But even as relief flooded my body at the sight of the man falling to the ground yards in front of me, I found myself forming Peeta's name on my lips, feeling danger still around. His name never found its way to the air, though, as a hand that definitely was not his laid over my mouth.

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unknownbyhim22