"I want to talk to Finnick again."
Dr. Aurelius pauses his busy fiddling. He has spent the last few days bombarding me with help. Ever since I tried the morphling therapy, he has been relentless in his quest to make me feel safe. Right now, he is fussing over a report of my sleep observance, trying to piece together the screams and mutterings into a key that will unlock my madness. At my blurted request he looks up sharply.
"Now, Peeta, I don't know," he hesitates. "You are, of course, perfectly safe, and it would not present any kind of danger, but I worry that it might become a setback to the excellent progress you've made so far."
"I know, and thank you," I reply, willing to talk my way around his reluctance. "The thing is," I lower my gaze to my clenched hands, though I keep careful watch through my thick eyelashes. "I think it would make me feel safer, more secure, if I could know I can talk to him without losing control." Have I always been so manipulative? lies tricks false liar
He brightens predictably. "Well, now," he harrumphs, "I suppose that would be quite a success for you, wouldn't it? I suppose we could gather all kinds of data about your reactions if we had another interaction to study." He might as well have a thought bubble floating over his head he's so transparent.
It's only been one day since I asked and a jumpsuit is here, asking me if I'd like extra restraints. I refuse, I've gone over this conversation in my head multiple times and I'm able to make it all the way through without losing it. I do ask her to unbandage my wrists, though, even if they're so close to healed the metal doesn't bite anymore. There's still enough sting to remind me to focus.
Just a few minutes later, the door opens again and I grit my teeth when he enters. We're alone this time, in the room anyway. I'm sure the mirror is holding back hordes of observers, pens eagerly trembling over hungry clipboards. vultures predators snakes grabbing
Finnick stands in the middle of the room and waits for me to speak first. He is more relaxed this time, though still wary. I study him carefully, from the bronze curls to the ocean colored eyes, down to the slightly nervous fidget in his leg as he waits through my appraisal. He is here because he was part of a rebel plot to overthrow the Capitol. He was to rescue Katniss from the arena, but not me. They left me for the soldiers. There is enough evidence for me to believe this is true.
"Hello, Finnick, thank you for coming again." I try not to taste the bitterness in my words. I feel so angry all the time.
"I'm glad to see you, Peeta," he responds in a measured voice. "Believe it or not, you actually look a lot better. Do you feel better?"
"Yes, thank you," I answer stiffly. The whisper pricks at me, raging against my tolerance for this person who left me to be captured. "How is Annie?" I ask, surprising myself.
"She's better too," he says. "Thanks. One day at a time, much like you I imagine."
My hands spasm in clenching flails, impatient with this chatter. "They never questioned her," I say abruptly. "She didn't go through any of this. She never screamed."
Finnick watches me steadily, but his sea-green gaze holds a smolder. "Maybe not," he allows mildly. "But she suffers. And I don't like to see her unhappy. I will do whatever I have to do to protect her. From anything I see as a threat."
His words are meant to caution me, but they make a funny, ringing echo in my head, as if reverberating from my own thoughts. protect her I shake my head to clear it as the whisper snaps against the gentler murmur. The tremor in my hands intensifies, but I fight to form the question. "Did I – was I like that?" I don't know how to ask without igniting a firestorm in response. "Before?"
Finnick's glance darts to the mirror, but he tips his head thoughtfully, considering how to proceed. "Do you remember why you were in the Quarter Quell?" he asks nonchalantly.
"They reaped victors, right?" I ask. "Wait, that doesn't make sense." I pause in confusion. Survivors go home as victors, they live their lives out in peace and wealth.
"No, you're right," he nods. "For the Quarter Quell they changed the rules. The only names in the balls were those of past victors. That's why I was there again, why you were there again. Why…" but he cuts himself off when I feel my eyes widen and my jaw clench. "But that's not what I mean," he continues. "I mean, do you remember that Haymitch was the one who was reaped, not you."
"Yes," I answer readily, "I do remember that." I feel pleased to have a memory corroborated. It's clear in my head, how anguished he looked when his name was drawn.
"So why were you in the arena?" Finnick asks, his sharp gaze drilling into mine.
My mind slips off the question, I can't get a grip on it. Was I not in the arena the second time? Was Haymitch not reaped? A murky pool of half-formed thoughts spark and glitter, but nothing surfaces to help me answer this simple question. Finnick sees me struggle, watches patiently while I try to make dissenting facts fit together. The whisper, antagonized by my increasing anxiety, adds its shriek to the din in my head. I begin to shake and I squeeze my eyes shut against the scraping darkness fighting to pull me under its power.
Finnick's voice is a gentle murmur. "You volunteered, Peeta. You volunteered to go in again."
I lift my eyes to his, and he holds my gaze steadily. I can feel a cold, expanding void in my belly as I anticipate his answer to my question. "Why?" I whisper fearfully.
"To protect her."
A tremor shakes my body and I clench my teeth together, the trembling threatening to shake loose my control. The whisper rages at me to scream, to tear and claw and voice its fury, but I hunch myself tight, I dig into the recesses of my mind and I hold on. My eyes wheel around the room, flitting from machines where they control me, to the mirror where they pry and spy, to the restraints keeping me helpless and cowed, to Finnick who watches me, peeling back the layers of resistance and denial, laying bare what must be the truth.
I shudder and gasp, letting the thought work its way through my system until I'm back in control. Maybe not completely in control, but I'm not a wailing mess. Not on the outside anyway. It's a while before I trust myself to speak, but Finnick waits patiently. Occasionally his eyes flick to the mirror, and I notice he has an earpiece tucked beneath those bronze curls. But he gives small, tight, almost unnoticeable shakes of his head and I guess he's refusing requests, or perhaps demands. It quiets the riotous paranoia that rakes through my every thought.
Finally, I meet his eyes, and I croak the one word question again. "Why?"
He shrugs and shakes his head. "Honestly, I couldn't figure it out myself," he says. "From the first Games it was obvious, you were ass over teakettle for her," he seems not to notice the tremor that threatens to shake my molars loose, "but it didn't really ring true that she reciprocated your feelings. It just always seemed forced, you know?" I'm frozen, locked in rigid palsy as his words play havoc with my mind. He sweeps on, "During the tour, it was the worst. She looked like a wooden puppet on strings. A lot of people bought it, they wanted it to be true so much, but a lot of us figured it for strategy." He turns his eyes back to me, watching me thoughtfully, measuring the effect his words are having on me. I'm sweating and shaking, fists gripping handfuls of the bedding, and jaw clenched to keep in the screams. But I'm keeping them in.
"Do you want me to go on?" he asks gently. I fight the tension in my shoulders holding my neck rigid and manage a jerky nod. He reaches for my clenched fist, but withdraws his hand to his lap without touching me, darting a glance at the mirror. "Ok," he says softly. "Ok. So, you two finished the tour and returned home. But weird rumors were drifting through the nation. Rumors that your district was being punished, that other districts were rising up against the Capitol. That this was blossoming into something that was going to explode into something huge. And then, they announced the Quarter Quell." He pauses, eyes dark and angry. I picture a crashing wave in a green jungle, all the power of the sea rising behind it.
"Rumor became fact, whispers became plans," he says slowly. "You only have one female victor in your district, and it was decided she was needed to be the face of the rebellion. So she needed to be rescued from the arena. She already had a romanticized image and the public, hungry for a symbol, had latched onto her story. Your story." He pauses and gauges my condition again. I'm trembling, but hanging on. "Plans were already in motion when her name was being pulled from the ball. And then, when Haymitch's name was drawn, you volunteered to go in his place. You loved her that much, Peeta. You always have. It's who you are."
I feel a hot tear track down my clenched jaw and my tenuous grasp on control slips dangerously. Images sparkle and crash against one another. Too many and too dissonant. My heart pounds a frantic rhythm against my ribs and I become aware of a heavy, deep emptiness in my chest. Like a hole where something is missing. I gasp for breath.
"I'm sorry, Peeta," Finnick's voice echoes through the tangle of my mind to glimmer like a lifeline back to reality. I clutch at it, clawing my way back to control. "That was too much. They said it was too much." He hangs his head remorsefully, but then he returns his gaze to mine. "But you deserve to know," he says defiantly. "You would be furious with me for not telling you if you only knew it." The corners of his finely chiseled lips quirk at this conundrum. The small detail of that quick, lopsided smile flashes in my mind. It's familiar, and warm, and helps to ground me again.
"I don't understand," I say shakily. "You said it yourself, she didn't love me. Why did I love her so much if she didn't love me back? She tried to kill me in the arena, she left me there to let the Capitol capture me. She must have known what would happen to me after she left. How could I love her so much when she was so indifferent to me?"
"No, Peeta," Finnick shakes his head firmly. "I was wrong. I didn't know it until too late, but I was wrong." His face is animated with his need to convince me. "You didn't see her when your heart stopped. She was devastated. Wrecked. And when I brought you back," he smiles faintly. "Well, she was definitely not indifferent."
"It doesn't make sense," I protest. "How could she leave me, then?"
"She had no choice! She was knocked unconscious when the force field blew, do you remember that part? The whole arena came apart, and the rebels pulled her out of there. I wanted to get you too, but we were all useless. Paralyzed." He stares at me as I hang on his words, trying to hear even a shred of something I recognize. "I'm so sorry, Peeta." His voice shakes with guilt. "She didn't know. But I did." He swallows hard. "I tried to protect you both, but I just couldn't do it. I'm so sorry." His whisper scrapes into silence and I notice his hands are shaking.
Some instinct from deep in my heart fights its way to the surface. A need to comfort. "Don't worry, Finnick," I offer. "I don't remember anything you need to apologize for. Freebie."
His eyes dart up to me. "You sounded like yourself just then," he says quietly. "I miss you."
"Me too," I say with an attempt at a shrug. "What about her?" I ask. "Does she miss me?"
He shakes his head dolefully. "She had to leave," he says somberly. "She couldn't even stay here it was so bad." This is odd to me, though. If she cares so much, why did she leave again? It bangs around in my head, trying to find something to match up to, to make sense with. It only finds the fury of the whisper though, a chanting rage demanding to be slaked.
I veer away from it. "It must have been awful for you," I say softly. "Not knowing what was happening with Annie."
Finnick flinches, but nods slowly.
"They didn't hurt her," I assure him. "I think they knew she didn't have anything for them." A thought bubbles up to knock against this. "Though, they figured out pretty soon I didn't know anything either," I say, puzzled. "They just kept hurting me for no reason."
Finnick shakes his head again. "They had a reason," he counters. "They wanted Katniss to know you were being hurt." A dark hole opens in my belly and his words echo hollowly. He continues, oblivious. "They knew you didn't have any information, they just wanted to break Katniss."
A swirl of despair spins up from my chest, tinting with fury as it whirls through my blood. I hear Finnick's voice from the past as if from a huge distance, telling me he saved my life for her. Thread telling me they kept me alive for her. Finnick now telling me I endured hell because of her.
The whisper can no longer be contained. Its rage shrieks free of my control and I tear apart, shattering into jagged shards of wrath and despair and howling, crashing pain.