"Start with Uri," Delly suggests. The shudder wracks my body, wrists jerking against the restraints and tears slipping down my cheeks. Her hand lifts, but I whimper, clenching my fists against clawing for her. rake claw scrape tear She withdraws it slowly, but the sympathy shining from her eyes prods the whisper to a manic scream. Grinding my teeth together, I fight against the bile.
For about a week and a half now, I've spent my time strapped to this bed, alternately shrieking, thrashing, threatening, and weeping. A parade of jumpsuited strangers filters through, feeding me, studying me, monitoring me. Dr. Aurelius tried several times in the first few days to talk to me, but his constant reassurances that I am "completely safe," send the whisper into a frenzy of rage and he's given up even approaching me anymore, though I'm sure he's perched permanently behind the mirror.
Three days ago, Delly cautiously peeked around the door. The whisper immediately pitched to a panic, my wrath and terror pairing with my frantic need to warn her of the danger until I lost myself in howling, writhing grief. But she stayed. The whisper screamed its fury and I fought to reach her, to tear her, to claw her. But she stayed. Tears creeping down her face, she stayed. Hands trembling at her mouth, she stayed.
The next day she knocked, but waited out of sight. "Peeta?" Her voice was calm and gentle, no fear and no accusation. "Can I come in?"
Pulling deep breaths and forcing my mind to focus on the divots in the ceiling, I clenched my teeth together until I could speak without screaming. "Give me a second," I responded, my voice trembling.
After a few minutes, I'd called her in and she'd come around the door, beaming her sunny smile and radiating joy to see me. At first, we'd just sat quietly, her glow of happiness so foreign to my past few months that I spent a good chunk of time trying to control my breathing, sobbing gasps catching in my throat and tears working down my face. Once I trusted myself to speak, we'd made small talk, skirting around anything of importance, but her presence like a healing balm to my shattered mind. She doesn't expect anything, doesn't hide anything, doesn't threaten anything. The whisper is a low grumble, angry and resentful but not bloodthirsty. After about fifteen minutes, she'd stood up to leave, but promised to return the next day.
Yesterday, she'd stayed longer. We'd talked about the awful food, the terrible jumpsuits, the windowless rooms. She'd spoken about meeting new friends in school, about an interest in working with the district's science division, about how welcoming the district has been to the newcomers. I tried to ask her questions about District 13, but the whisper raged against the idea and I quickly retreated to an interest in the kitchens instead.
Just before she left, she smiled and clenched her hands together to keep from patting my arm. "It's so good to see you, Peeta," she'd said, and her bright blue eyes had brimmed with tears. "I missed you so much. Especially after…" she'd cut herself off, eyes flying to mine regretfully.
Locking my jaw and clenching my fists, I'd fought against the waves of grief and loss. But I'd stayed in control of myself. Meeting her eyes, I'd risked saying, "I miss them, too." The cold emptiness in my stomach yawned wide, but I didn't spiral into it. "I wish I'd been able to tell them…" but I had to stop, the whisper clawing at me.
"I'll come tomorrow," she promised. "You can tell me what you wanted to say to them. Rest up, practice it in your head. See if you can do it. I'll come and listen, and you can say it."
So I had. And today, when she knocked, and gave me time to regain control before coming in, she'd sat quietly and waited until I was ready to begin. My thoughts are a tangled jumble, regret and fear fighting with anger and hurt. I worked all night to sort out my own thoughts from those of the whisper, but speaking the words means focusing on them and my mind jitters and skips when I try to. Taking Delly's advice, I take a deep breath and close my eyes.
"I wish I could tell Uri I love him," I begin haltingly. But my voice strengthens as I think of my brother, of our complicated relationship, but also how much I miss him. "I worry he doesn't know. I don't want him to think I don't understand why he treated me like he did. That I don't know who he really is. I want him to know I love him, and I always will."
A tiny piece of darkness breaks away from my heart and I imagine it glowing as it floats up and away, carrying my message to my brother, wherever he is. A slow tear creeps down my cheek and I open my eyes to see Delly, eyelashes sparkling with tears, biting her lip and hands clenched in her lap. "I'm sorry," I apologize quickly. "Is this too hard to hear?"
She shakes her head, tears scattering in glittering droplets. "Next your mom?" she asks.
Nodding slowly, I focus on the blanket spread across my stomach. My fingers pick and worry at the threads, constantly in motion. "I want to tell my mother… I want to tell her…" my breath catches and I swallow hard. "I want her to know she deserves our love. She helped me learn to be kind, to be patient, to have compassion. She taught me to understand people are fighting battles every day and need our help. I wouldn't be who I am…" But here, I lose my words. "Who I was," I amend in a cracked whisper.
"Oh, Peeta," Delly trembles.
My hands shake, the restraints rattling and jangling. I stare down at my hands, and I don't recognize them. They've done things I'd never have imagined possible. And all the treasured things they'll never do again. They'll never hug my father again. They'll never hold Jasper's children. They'll never tuck a loose hair into her braid –
I jerk backwards, my breath a hissing gasp, staring wide-eyed into Delly's alarmed gaze. The whisper blares its siren wail and I feel my control slipping. My hands strain to reach my head, it feels like it will fly apart if I don't hold it together. I thrash against the bed, crying out for help, and Delly, terrified, leaps away as the orderlies rush in. My terror turns into fury and I spit and scream, hauling against the manacles and pulling to free myself, shrieking my threats and swearing vengeance until I lose myself completely and I'm nothing but rage and hunger and fire.
I worry Delly won't visit me again, will be scared off or forbidden. But the knock and soft voice calling from outside arrive just after lunch. I invite her in almost immediately, only needing a few deep breaths and a couple sharp tugs against the restraints. Her smile lights the room as she enters, bright blue gaze concerned, but not disgusted or reproachful. I tremble a little with the relief of it, and I feel my own lips curve up ever so slightly, the foreign expression feeling strange and brittle.
She takes a seat next to the bed, hands folded in her lap, lips pressed together to wait for me to be ready to talk. I meet her gaze and nod, not quite able to speak but wanting her to know how glad I am she came back. After a minute, I thank her for coming to see me and she shrugs it off, her hands clamped together to keep from reaching out to pat my arm. I remember her hands, I realize. Constantly reaching out, always ready to help, always ready to pull you in closer, include you. The idea that's been buzzing in the back of my head clicks into certainty and I meet her eyes with resolve.
"Delly, I need a favor."
"Of course," she replies, immediately and predictably. "What do you need?"
"I want to talk to F-Finnick," I curse myself for stumbling over the name and her bright gaze clouds over with worry.
"Oh, I don't know," she says hesitantly. "Do you think you - you really want that already?"
"I'm positive," I say, directing my words to the mirror. "Please," I turn back to Delly. "Yesterday, when I was talking to you… I thought – I thought of-" I break off, unable to approach the thought without enraging the whisper. "I thought of something that surprised me," I finish lamely.
Delly's grin flashes. "You don't say," she smirks mischievously and I feel the answering tug at my lips as my belly thrums with the unexpected lightness. I can't remember the last time I smiled.
"I think, if you come too, I think I have some questions I want to ask him." Delly's calm acceptance of everything that seems so unthinkable to me, her bright outlook despite what's happened, her solid and deep friendship stretching back to when we were small, all these make me think I can face a conversation that causes a jittery nausea when I consider it. "What's the worst that can happen?" I appeal to the silent mirror.
It takes three days. Three days of enduring Dr. Aurelius chattering at me about "safe words" and "calming techniques." This man has never lived above ground, has never been outside an armed and barricaded wall without protection. Has never even known real hunger. How he thinks he can help me deal with my splintered and shrieking mind is beyond my understanding.
But he's good practice. I work on listening to him while combating the whisper's howling demands for his destruction. I find ways to keep my hands from clawing toward his eyes, practice isolating my focus to an innocuous thought when the rage threatens to consume me. I harden my resolve until I can keep a calm façade while he ignites my fury with his reassurances that these people can keep me safe. The danger is here, the threat is within. And they have no idea.
Finally, Delly arrives in my room, all aflutter with anxiety. She perches on her seat, hands clasped together to keep from stroking my arm. "Peeta," she begins earnestly. "I'm so impressed you are doing this. So proud of how far you've come."
"I'm just talking to someone, Delly," I shrug. It's starting to make me feel anxious, how much everyone is making of this conversation. As though I'm a pet that deserves praise for not chewing a visitor's shoes to pieces.
"I know," she nods, "but do you remember, that day you talked to me about Uri?" She meets my eyes, her own blue gaze glowing with pride. "You were worried it was too awful for me to hear. You were concerned about me. You're in there, Peeta. You're fighting to come back." Her voice shreds into a whisper, her eyes darting to the mirror. "I'm sorry," she murmurs.
"Don't be," I tell her, my breath catching in my throat. I close my eyes against the roiling chaos her words stirred up, but I cling to the thought. An echo bounces forward from deep in my memory, one that my mind skitters away from and I can't get a good look at it. You have to find a way back. You have to remember what's real. Whose words are those?
But there's no time to worry about it. Dr. Aurelius enters, clipboard in hand, and smiles at Delly. "Hello, dear," he greets her and she smiles back, resting her hand on his wrist as she says hello. "Peeta," he turns to me, still smiling, but earnestness practically sweating off him. "Remember, you can ask him to leave at any time, you can ask for any help you need." I squirm a bit, feeling like an idiot, but I meet Delly's eyes and she mouths his words in perfect timing, "And remember, you are completely safe." I duck my head to hide the quiver at my lips, and Aurelius nods proudly, a job well done.
But the lightness floods out of me in the next second when the door swings open and Finnick walks slowly into the room. He is looking behind him, his hand not letting go of something until the last second. "It's fine," he says into the hall. "Don't worry."
His voice sends a shudder through my legs and I grip the sides of the bed when he turns his familiar sea green eyes to mine. Memories flash through my mind, him pulling me from the pedestal into the clawing seawater, thrusting his trident at me while we battled the monkeys, scheming with Johanna to leave me in the arena. But his eyes hold mine. He looks into me with untold depths of sorrow, seeing straight through me, and the layers of heartbreak in his gaze hush the rising fury of the whisper.
"Hello, Peeta," he says, his voice low and steady, but without the tone of condescension as though approaching a wild animal. "I'm glad you wanted to talk to me. I've missed you."
I can't quite breathe properly, the struggle claiming all my focus. From over his shoulder, Delly nods her encouragement. "Finnick," is all I can manage. He waits patiently, hands clasped loosely in front of him, head very slightly to the side. He looks well, healthy. And then it hits me. Annie is outside, he has been reunited with her. His patience is from experience, he deals with this all the time. He loves her even though she fights this battle too.
The discordant idea jars loose my original thought, the reason I wanted to see him. I can't reconcile this man with the bottomless compassion to love a mad girl, with the murderous schemer in my mind. And if that memory is not real…
"Finnick." My voice is stronger. "Thank you for coming to see me. I'm sorry I'm so – this." I take a steadying breath and start again. "I wanted to ask you something. About the arena."
"Of course. I'd love to help." His words are calm, but his eyes are wary. This, more than anything, works its way through the screaming fog beginning to cloud my thinking.
"I'll try not to upset her," I assure him, and he relaxes slightly, nodding gratefully. Delly raises clasped hands to her trembling lips, pride shining from her teary gaze. Keeping her in my line of sight, I pull strength from her. "You saved me when I hit the force field. Brought me back to life."
He nods. "Your heart stopped and you weren't breathing. I used a life-saving technique we use on drowning victims in my district." His lips quirk up. "They don't usually smell as much like roasted meat."
I feel an answering tug at the corners of my mouth. "Why?"
He meets my gaze steadily and answers calmly. "We were all there to protect you. You were needed for our plan to work."
Dr. Aurelius gasps and shoots him a reproachful look, his alarmed gaze darting to me. I feel the tingle of the rage building behind my eyes, but I fight it. I concentrate on the trembling, red-haired girl who must be outside the door. "Why did you need me?" I choke out.
He pauses, considering, but I know he is debating how much to tell me, not how to lie. Finally, he puffs out a little resigned sigh and shrugs. "We needed her. And Katniss wouldn't be able to go on if you were killed."
His words crash and echo inside my head, the image of warm gray eyes holding mine while my heart bangs against my ribs. My voice, "No one really needs me." And then hers, "I do. I need you." The whisper rages into a shrieking torrent of bloodthirst and I'm lost, the madness igniting deep within and I scream and thrash and writhe until the fury is all that I am.