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Rekindling

Chapter Ten

The shack filled up with smoke fast. I had barely made any progress on the door with my knife when I started to suffocate. I had to fall to the ground and try to get oxygen from the crack underneath the door within a minute of the place catching fire. The shack shook harshly following a loud bang on the door, and I looked up from the floor to see the door knob being broken from its place. A cloud of white, snow like material sprinkled down on me after the door flung open.

Puffs of smoke made their way out of the opened doorway and I reached for air, crawling forward as the white foam kept falling around me. Peeta ushered me out of the shack, leaving the place to burn once I was no longer inside. I guess Haymitch knew that my old girl-on-fire persona couldn't stay in the past and packed Peeta's backpack with a fire extinguisher. No wonder his was heavier than mine.

I sat on the ground and watched the place burn, breathing in fresh air. Peeta rested his hands on his knees and threw up all over his boots. The side of his face turned to me was completely covered in blood and his jacket was ripped all over the place.

Since it had been a few minutes since I came from the shack, and there was no one running to kill me, I took the opportunity to look around the camp. I saw the people I had shot from the tree with arrows sticking out of their bodies, but others laid dead too. Some seemed to be sleeping, since I couldn't see a single wound on them, but then the pool of blood they were lying on top of indicated that something somewhere was fatal.

Peeta took his jacket off and pressed it against his face. His hands were visibly shaking and he turned to look at me once he had the gash on his head covered. On his other cheek, it was clear that someone had punched him hard. There was a purple bruise already forming and his skin was swollen around his eye.

"How many are left?" I asked Peeta.

He looked around the camp for a little bit, his mouth moving as he counted to himself. He tugged a piece of paper from his pant pocket and counted some more. He must have been keeping a tally going, because once he was done looking at the paper, he answered.

"Just three," Peeta said. "But we need to get away from here… before they ambush us."

I stood up since I agreed with him, but when I turned around, I stepped on someone. I felt the cushion of their skin under my foot, and looked down to see Cato's brother lying at my feet. His soft blonde hair was red with blood, and I dropped down next to him to shake him.

"Katniss, he's dead," Peeta said, reaching for my arm.

I pulled my arm away from Peeta and pressed my hand on the man's neck, trying to feel a pulse. When I felt nothing, I started to panic. His body was still warm, so it had only been minutes since he died, but there was always a chance for him to get up. I saw Peeta dead once, no heartbeat at all, so I knew I could save him.

"Peeta, please, we have to help him!" I said, shaking the man who had dragged me into the shack to temporary safety. "He's good."

Peeta pulled me up from the ground and started walking me away from the dead body. He wouldn't let me look back each time I strained my neck to get a look at the camp littered with our enemies.

"We need to get away from here," Peeta said, tugging me along the pathway leading out of the camp.

I kept protesting as Peeta started making his way back the way we came. Even with his head bleeding, his body aching from the blows he endured and his psyche messed up from the killings; he dealt with me with patience. If I were him, I would have yelled at me to shut up about the guy already, but he didn't say anything at all until we were at the stream.

"That's not Cato's brother," Peeta said when we stood at the edge of the stream.

I still wouldn't let up on begging to go back for him. Maybe I was so hung up on his death because I wished Cato hadn't died the way he did, or at all for that matter.

"What?" I asked, confused. "How do you know?"

"Because," Peeta said, sitting down on the ground so that he could slide into the stream. I sat down next to him and he grabbed my hand. "Cato had sisters."

His words terrified me as we both sat on the wet ground. They terrified me because I knew he would know since he spent a few days in the Games being buddy-buddy with the Careers. It terrified me too, because I had so stupidly believed that that man was there to help me and Peeta, when in reality, he was just looking to kill me.

Peeta didn't say anything more, he just scooted closer to the stream and we both jumped in, letting the water wash the blood from our skin and clothes. The cold temperature cooled my hot skin and washed the smoke out of my hair. Peeta's hand was still holding mine as we surfaced, and I had to tread water since my backpack was somewhere in the woods, near the tree or the bush or the shack.

The sky was starting to brighten with the approach of morning, and a soft hue of purple rimmed the sky where it hovered over the trees. I could see the brightened area of the sky where the sun would rise from in a few hours. It was hard to believe we accomplished all of what we did in just a night's time. At the thought of everything being almost over, I started crying.

Peeta had to hold me up in the water because I couldn't tread water and cry, and I pressed my face against the strap of his backpack that rested on his shoulder. I was glad that we were in the stream, because maybe if the three remaining Peacekeeper impersonators heard me crying, they still wouldn't be able to find us among the rocks poking up from under the water.

After a few minutes, I moved away from Peeta, wiping at my face.

"We should get moving," he said.

I nodded and swam next to him as we made our way to the other side of the stream, where we jumped from hours earlier when we were being chased by that Peacekeeper. We pulled ourselves up to the other side and laid there for a few minutes to catch our breath.

Peeta's chest moved up and down heavily and he reached up to his head again, feeling the cut. I could tell he was starting to come back and forth into reality and his thoughts, because his face was stuck in a grimace that told me he was remembering something.

"We should put a bandage on that," I whispered to him, sitting up.

"We don't have anything," Peeta said to me. "Your backpack had the medical supplies."

"Then we need to get home," I said, helping him up from the ground.

With my injured leg, and Peeta's head injury, I had to lead us through the woods, and Peeta had to walk us. I was leaning most of my weight on him as we walked, but I told him which way to go when his head hurt so much he couldn't think. Peeta could only last so long carrying me under his arm as I wrapped my arm over his shoulder to get a grip on him, so we had to take breaks every couple of minutes. By the rate we were going, it looked like we wouldn't be home until tomorrow this time.

We were resting again about an hour after we left the stream when a buzzing noise of something mechanical caught our attention. I looked into the sky to see if I could tell where the noise was coming from and Peeta walked around a little bit to follow the noise. When he stopped, starring fearfully at something in the sky, I followed his gaze.

Hovering just above us was a silver parachute. Peeta started backing away from me when I grabbed the parachute from the air. He bumped up against a tree when he couldn't go any further and his eyes were creased under a worried expression.

"Katniss," Peeta started, looking around the sky nervously, like maybe he was expecting a trackerjacker hive to fall at his feet, or come face to face with a mutt. "What's going on?"

"I don't know," I said, twisting the top of the container that the parachute delivered.

"Someone's watching us," Peeta said, keeping his eyes on the sky as his fear escalated.

His hands gripped into the tree behind him and the blood coming from his forehead dripped down his cheek. He touched it as if just realizing it was there and panic started to take him.

"No, Peeta," I said, going over to him. "No one is watching us. This isn't the Games."

"Yes, it is. You're going to kill me," Peeta said while nodding his head. His eyes were wild and he was shaking. "Cato! She's here! I found her!"

His scream caused the wildlife around us to stir. Birds flew off their branches and I could hear the leaves ruffling on the ground from animals running away from the noise. I cupped my hand over his mouth, hoping that no one was around to hear him because I couldn't take fighting off three killers and convincing my husband he wasn't in the Games at the same time. If people came after me dressed in the Peacekeeper uniform, Peeta would go insane. He'd think for sure we were playing in the Game designed by the Gamemakers. He wiggled underneath by grasp and tried to push my hand away from him.

"This is not the time for this!" I said to him, pissed at Haymitch for sending the parachute when he knew what it would do to Peeta.

I was, of course, assuming the parachute was from Haymitch, since parachutes came from mentors, and that was basically still his job.

"Who am I?" I asked him.

I slowly let go of his mouth so that he could respond, but he just looked at me, terrified. This was the most out of it I had seen Peeta in a while, and I had to repeat the question.

"Who am I?" I asked him again.

"Katniss Everdeen," Peeta whispered.

"No. I'm Katniss Mellark," I told him. "Your wife."

His eyes scanned my face, maybe to see if I was lying or looked like I was about to kill him. The look of terror left his face for one of confusion, since I'm sure he was wondering why he would marry his enemy.

"President Snow…" he started.

"Is dead. You're in District Twelve now."

"Someone sent the parachute," Peeta said to me. "Who?"

"Haymitch, probably," I replied.

"Haymitch wants to kill me," Peeta told me.

"No he does—"

"He does!" Peeta exclaimed, trying to move away from me.

I pushed Peeta back against the tree and shouted to him to stay put. He was going to give our spot away for sure if he kept shouting the way he was. The look in his eyes was still there, and I couldn't think of anything to say to convince him of his life today. He looked so confused and so angry at me that for a second it didn't even seem like Peeta standing in front of me.

"Look at the package," Peeta said to me, grumbling. "See who it's from."

"Don't move."

I stayed close to him as I pulled the piece of paper out of the container, finding nothing else but the note. Typed on a thin strip of paper were two words that made my heart drop into my stomach.

Get Home -H

Peeta peered over at the note, but I pulled it away from his view. He couldn't freak out about Haymitch sending the note, but I needed him to snap out of his confusion if I wanted to go home. I wouldn't leave him here, either, since alone in the woods I knew he'd probably kill himself.

"Peeta we need to go home," I said calmly.

"Home?" Peeta repeated, as if not believing he and I had one together.

"Yes, to the kids."

"Kids?"

"Peeta!" I whined, not knowing what to do. "Just snap out of this!"

"Out of what?"

I wanted to hit him, honestly, I did, but I knew he'd think I was killing him, so I did the opposite of that. I grabbed him and kissed him, pushing him up against the tree. When I felt his arm snake around my waist, I knew that I had him. I kissed him for just a little bit longer, hoping that when I pulled away he'd be fully aware of his reality.

"Katniss?" he whispered, his face calm as he looked me in the eye. "What are you doing?"

"Oh, hell, Peeta," I said, yanking him from the tree and walking fast.

"What?" he asked, jogging slightly to keep up with me.

"You just went all Crazy Peeta on me," I said. "Haymitch sent us a parachute."

"What did he send?"

Peeta skipped the apology for losing his grip on reality, and I handed him over the paper that Haymitch sent. He read it and looked over at me, saying nothing before picking up his pace, sprinting forward. I followed him, even though my leg was burning like crazy and even though my stomach hurt at the thought of what we would find when we got home. We didn't bother traveling around the perimeter of District 12 to get home; instead, when we got to the fence I used to cut through to go hunting, we slipped through it and ran as fast as we could through town.

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unknownbyhim22