Chapter 2

I wake up screaming.

The sun is up, and it has been up since quite a while ago. I sit in my bed and look out of the window. Spring is in full bloom, and the sight of flowers does nothing to make the nightmares go away. They do nothing to fill the void in my chest. Part of me wishes to just stay in bed and not get up ever again, but Greasy Sae will not have any of it. I can hear her rummaging downstairs. I can smell soup.

And I can't deny that I'm hungry.

When I get to the kitchen, I can see Haymitch passed out on my table, the bottle at his hand, as usual. It's a strange sight, him in my kitchen, but I suppose Greasy Sae can't be everywhere at once and so has dragged him here for a very late breakfast.

I don't mind. If anyone understands the hollow space in my chest, it is him. We are too much alike, Haymitch and I. Our pasts are too similar, our crimes much the same, without our actual noticing. We unwittingly defied the Capitol, and we paid dearly for it.

There are moments, such as these, when I consider joining Haymitch and just get myself drunk and into oblivion. The bottle is between my reach, but then the look Greasy Sae gives me tells me that if I dare make a move for it, she'll chop me up before Haymitch can get his knife.

"Sit down and stay put," she tells me, and minutes later she sets a bowl in front of me and one in front of Haymitch. "Wake up, Haymitch, get some food in you." He only grunts, so Greasy Sae gives him a good elbow to the ribs. He sits up and stares blankly into his bowl, then he looks up at me. "Eat! There's bread, too, if you want it."

Bread. Of course. Even though we haven't spoken or seen each other for over a week, Peeta still brings me bread every day. Today's selection looks a lot like District 11 bread. Peeta has been learning about bread in other districts, and he's getting quite good at it, even I have to admit that. He drew pictures of each type of bread in our book. It was quite touching to see the picture of this very bread: his imagined view of me receiving the loaf at the Hunger Games. I cried looking at that image, for I remembered Rue, and remembering Rue made me remember Prim.

Well, everything reminds me of her.

"You do know you're going to have to talk to him at some point, right?" Greasy Sae says, planting herself in front of me. "Otherwise I think he might go mad."

"Mad… from not talking to me?" I'm still angry for what he said about Prim. "Yeah, right. Peeta could make rocks talk to him. He doesn't need me."

"Has he spoken to you lately?" she asks Haymitch, but he just grunts again and concentrates on eating his soup. "See? He's not being very sociable lately. Whatever you two fought about it hurt him, too."

I'm about to protest when I realise she didn't just say it hurt him.

"You have to realise, Katniss, that you are not the only one suffering here."

Greasy Sae has never spoken to me like this, but even she can't understand.

"He spoke about Prim," I say, gritting my teeth. "He said some things he shouldn't have said."

"So did you."

For a moment, both Greasy Sae and I are surprised. In those three words, Haymitch has sounded more sobre and awake than… well, ever. He ignores us and keeps eating. Since I have nothing better to do, I eat as well, and Greasy Sae eventually leaves to tend to her business, whatever it is. Haymitch and I stay in silence. Eventually I make him some tea and we continue sitting in silence until I cannot take it anymore. Haymitch will understand, I know he will.

"He said my father had taken Prim."

He looks at me over the rim of his cup, his eyes not really expressive. Then he shrugs.

"What, you think he's right?"

"I do not think your father would have wanted his daughter to die, so no." I knew he'd understand. "I also do not think you can compare what happened to you with what happened to him."

"What?" Why is he saying that?

"I heard you that night. Well, you were screaming and I had to tend to my geese, didn't I? I have to say, he took it much better than I would have." At my questioning look, he goes on. "Argh… he left your house, went into his kitchen, stuffed a mouthful of bread in his mouth and screamed." His words stun me, as this is something that sounds more like something I would do, not Peeta. "Yeah, he screamed, and he cried, because what you said is true. His family did not care about him like yours cares for you, but it doesn't change the fact that losing them hurts him." Haymitch then gulps down his tea, as I just sit there not knowing what to do or say. "You can't compare what happened to you with what happened to him. You lost your sister, yes, and that's very tragic, no one is taking anything from that. But Peeta was tortured, saw people get tortured and killed in front of him so he would betray you. He had his memory hijacked, and all because he loved you. His only crime has been to love you so much that his need to protect you was greater than his self-preservation."

x-x-x

Haymitch's words eat at me. And they eat at me because, deep down, I know he's right. Peeta went through a lot, and what I said to him only makes light of his suffering. While I am still angry about what he said about Prim and my father, I also feel awfully guilty for what I said to him. Maybe if I hadn't been so angry I would have seen what I was doing to him.

And all that after he had come to help me, as he has done time and again, time and again. I am a horrible person, of that I am sure. Snow knew it, Coin knew it… even Gale knew it. Otherwise he wouldn't have told Peeta that I'd make a selfish choice when it came to love. No, not love, necessity. And then, who knows me better than Gale?

Gale… I haven't thought of him very much in ages. Sure, some things remind me of him, and at the back of my mind, he is always there. Part of me thinks that I could get over his involvement in Prim's death, but the other part fears the proximity to him. Deep down, Gale has a hot burning fire that can consume everything around him. I understand, because so do I. When Cinna made me the girl on fire, he was reflecting something deep within me, something he recognized even though I didn't.

No, Gale and I would probably consume one another. And there is also the fact that we both failed each other when we most needed it. When he was taken captive, he asked me to shoot him. I did not. And after I shot Coin, I begged him to shoot me. He didn't.

Whatever we had before my first reaping… that is a life I can no longer go back to, no matter how much I could wish for it. It's gone forever.

We do talk sometimes. He calls me and tells me about his new life, the things he is doing, the people he meets… Hazelle and the children moved in with him, as the memories of District 12 proved too painful for them to return… like my mother. But talking to Gale is not enough to bring back what we had. He has changed, and I have changed. All in all, I do not think I could be comfortable anywhere else but here… if comfortable is what I am.

No. Haymitch and I are too much alike for that.

x-x-x

The nightmares are unbearable tonight. I wake up screaming my head off, and I'm in darkness. My eyes are wide open, but I cannot see anything. I cannot see my own hands. There's no moonlight seeping in from the window, no stars shining, no street lamps lighting the way… nothing. I'm not even sure that I'm awake, for I feel things in the shadows, things that cannot be real.

I hear mutts calling, hissing my name again and again, hunting me down. I have to run, I have to run now! Throwing the covers aside, I jump out of bed in just my nightgown, I yank the door open and run down the stairs in the dark. The house is quiet mostly, except for the hissing that continues to ring in my ears. I have to keep running, somewhere they can't catch me! Somewhere they…

And I'm outside before I know it, running past the quiet village, which is also in the dark. But I see them all, I see the dead, staring at me out of blank eyes, their charred bodies moving slowly and clumsily towards me. They are all there, pointing fingers at me, saying things I cannot understand. My breathing will not let me hear them. But I cannot stop running, now they are also chasing me, and soon the mutts and bodies will catch up with me.

As I run past the meadow, I can feel hands trying to grab me, and I cry desperately for help, trying to get away. How can this be? I am awake!

"Help!" I scream. "Help!"

In a second I'm under the fence, running into the dark woods, not sure which way I am going. Where can I hide? Where can I go that they won't find me?

Suddenly I feel surrounded, and the only way I can go is up. I climb the nearest tree, barefoot, and when I reach a sturdy fork, I sit there, hugging the trunk tightly. I can't calm down, my breathing is ragged and quick. Sweat is covering me, and the world is spinning, alive with the voices of people I now cannot see.

"Stop!" I cry. "Please, stop!"

"You killed us…" I hear distinctly. "You are responsible for our deaths! You burned our village!"

"No! I didn't! It wasn't me! It was the Capitol who burned you down!"

"It's your fault!"

I cover my ears as best as I can without losing my balance. I'm crying so much now, shaking so badly, I'm afraid I might fall, break my neck or something. Perhaps that would be better.

"You left us to die!"

"You let me go to the Hunger Games!" I cry back, knowing full well there was nothing they could have done to prevent it. "Me and how many others!"

"And yet," his voice is calm and close, so familiar and alien at the same time, "there was a time when you, Katniss Everdeen, voted to have another Hunger Games, to send innocent children from the Capitol to kill each other."

"I did it for Prim!"

"That doesn't change the fact that you were condemning 23 children to death. Children!"

"I did it for Prim!" I'm trying to convince this strange apparition of Snow, but he just looks at me in the eyes. How did he get so close to me? He is so close that I can smell his bloody breath and the white rose I had placed on his lapel. "Get away from me!"

"You are as bad as the rest of us, Katniss Everdeen, and you will pay for it."

"Help!" I scream. But who can help me? Who is left?

"There's no one to help you, Katniss Everdeen, your fire has burned to the end. All your loved ones have deserted you, you have no one left!"

"No! Peeta! Help!"

The scream gets stuck in my sore throat. My eyes are wide open, my cheeks streaming with tears. The roof of my room is blurry, and the night sounds are faint in my ears as I shake. The only thing I can certainly hear is his voice, whispering in my ear, calling me back.

"I'm here," he says, and his arms around me, my back pressed against his chest, are more real than anything else I've felt in my life.