The air carries a deep chill and my sleeping bag is snugged up tightly around my chest. My fingers work endlessly at the rope, knots forming and disappearing over and over. My thoughts are with my family, Gale's story having torn a new, gaping hole in my chest. I don't know if he's telling the truth, he may have been perfectly happy to leave them to their demise. But since I can't tell fact from fiction, I choose to believe he tried. The cold makes my hands clumsy and it takes more concentration than usual, a good thing. Katniss and Jackson make low-voiced small talk, but only in small spurts. Mostly Katniss watches me.
Her gray eyes never leave me, but in the dark I can't read her expression. Her words from before echo endlessly against the constant mutter of the whisper's hatred in my head. "I wouldn't be shooting Peeta. It would be just like shooting another of the Capitol's mutts." She'd looked like she wanted to, right then and there. I wonder why she didn't. Does she trust Coin?
Why am I here, really? If I'm expected to kill Katniss, am I really in any position to say I won't? How much control do I actually have over myself? Maybe it was stupid to come, maybe I got cocky because I haven't attacked anyone for a while, thinking I was able to decide what my body will do at any given point. It might be a good idea to talk to someone here, see if anyone else suspects Coin's motives.
I run through the roster of soldiers in my mind. Gale and Finnick, of course, are following Katniss. Bent on destroying Snow and devoted to her. They'll kill me at the first suggestion I may be a threat. Leeg, Mitchell and Homes are just following orders. Will follow any orders, I imagine. Jackson is devoted to Boggs, she'll do anything he asks. So the lynchpin has to be Boggs. He must be privy to what Coin wants. Although, he was as surprised as any of them when I showed up. And as furious. And he seems truly fond of Katniss. Coin is playing him as well.
Katniss stares at me in the dark, her finger curled around the trigger of her weapon. She's ready to fire if I sneeze suddenly. Images from the other arenas flash before me. The tracker jacker nest, finding me in the stream, aiming her final arrow at me the Cornucopia, hauling me through the poisonous fog, leaving me in the jungle. Can all of these things be true? Are any? And does it matter? Now that she sees me as nothing more than an animal.
"These last couple of years must have been exhausting for you," I suggest into the dim light. "Trying to decide whether to kill me or not. Back and forth. Back and forth."
Her mouth tightens predictably, but she doesn't loose whatever venom her instinct tells her too. Instead her voice is surprisingly gentle. "I never wanted to kill you," she offers softly. "Except when I thought you were helping the Careers kill me. After that, I always thought of you as…an ally."
"Ally," I repeat doubtfully. The whisper squeals in protest against the images her words provoke. Nothing in any interaction I have had with her since coming to Thirteen speaks of an alliance between us. I can't trust any of the memories I have of her from before that, she takes too many other forms there. "Friend. Lover. Victor. Enemy. Fiancée. Target. Mutt. Neighbor. Hunter. Tribute. Ally." I run through them out loud. "I'll add it to the list of words I use to try and figure you out."
She watches me wordlessly while I keep my eyes on the rope twisting between my fingers. As if torn from me, I confess, "The problem is, I can't tell what's real anymore, and what's made up." My voice cracks with the despair of my hopelessness. I am so lost.
Finnick's voice drifts out of the darkness. "Then you should ask, Peeta. That's what Annie does."
"Ask who?" I cry desperately. Annie's love was waiting for her with open arms. She could believe anything he told her. No one wanted me back. "Who can I trust?"
"Well, us for starters. We're your squad," Jackson offers.
"You're my guards," I counter. Strangers, sworn to a person I'm certain wishes me destroyed.
"That, too," she agrees. "But you saved a lot of lives in Thirteen. It's not the kind of thing we forget." Her voice is soft, but firm. I hear her conviction.
I cling to the thought. I hope it's true with more frantic desire than I've felt in quite a while. If it's true, if I helped save even one life, I haven't been a total waste. I think of my family, all the families of Twelve, scattered and panicked, because of me. Their homes and lives engulfed in flame while I could do nothing to help. While Gale tried to save them. While I did nothing.
But maybe it's true. Maybe I was of some help to the citizens of Thirteen. And maybe I can be more help to them still. I can stop Coin from whatever she has planned for them. I can start by protecting Katniss from her.
She watches me still, eyes dark in the dim light. Protecting her is the last thing she thinks I'm here for. She hates me, wishes I was dead. And I can't understand, what could she have meant, she thinks of us as allies? None of my thoughts make sense, I can't trust any conclusions or instincts. But maybe I can start over. This has a ring of familiarity to it as well. On the train, for the tour, trying to bridge a chasm between us. Trying to become friends.
"Your favorite color…it's green?"
A tiny shudder runs over her hands. Does she remember, too? "That's right. And yours is orange."
"Orange?" I ask doubtfully. The flare of the color is too harsh for me. Maybe I was wrong about her remembering too.
"Not bright orange. But soft. Like a sunset." Her voice is low, almost reverent. "At least, that's what you told me once."
"Oh," I close my eyes. The violent flame and strident brass fade and my mind's eye is filled with a gentle, glowing coppery tinge. The last gasp of the bright coin of the sun as it slides beneath the horizon, its glory lingering behind in gilded edge clouds and golden streaked skies. Katniss and I stand on the roof of the Training Center, drinking it in. I was more content than I had ever been. "Thank you," I whisper.
Her words rush out, fighting each other to be first, scrambling over each other. "You're a painter," she chokes. "You're a baker. You like to sleep with the windows open. You never take sugar in your tea. And you always double-knot your shoelaces." And then she's gone, the canvas tent swallowing her up as though she had never been.
I'm left alone, reeling in the freezing pre-dawn, my toes going numb in my double-knotted boots.
Once the sun comes up, the camp begins to stir. My hands are clutched in my armpits, my cheeks and the tip of my nose icy and stiff. I haven't been able to sleep, though I pretended to when the next shift of my guards came on, Finnick being particularly worried about me.
After breakfast, the camera crew takes off with Finnick, Gale and Katniss to shoot promo footage. Boggs insists I stay behind, not trusting me with a weapon. I can't say I disagree with him, though I wonder how he'll explain it to Coin. She obviously doesn't care if I'm in the propos, but she'll be angry I wasn't given the chance to snap with a loaded weapon and proximity to Katniss. I wonder if Boggs is beginning to suspect something, or if he's too far in her pocket already.
Leeg and Homes are my guards after the meal, but instead of standing at attention, Leeg pulls up a stool and sits next to me.
"Thank you for talking to me last night," she says in a soft, musical voice. Her crystal blue eyes are flecked with gold that catches the morning sun. "We've never been apart. I feel like half of me is missing. When we were both… when we were both here, they called us Leeg 1 and Leeg 2, to tell us apart. Now, I'm just Leeg." Her jaw moves as she clenches her teeth against tears.
Homes nudges her with his leg, "Actually," he says sheepishly, "you're still Leeg 1. It kind of stuck."
A watery laugh and she smiles up at him. "What I'm trying to say," she continues, shaking her head, "is if I can help you out at all, just let me know."
I consider her, trying to focus against the whisper's demands for me to claw at her eyes. "Do you know if I killed Brutus?" I ask hesitantly. The image of the giant Career at my feet in the jungle, smoking and jerking, has haunted my dreams.
She seems surprised by the question, but she nods. "You did. The last night in the arena. Before you tried to get back to Katniss."
I shudder, but only a small bit, and I don't have to fight for control. "Did I kill Rue?" I whisper.
"Oh, Peeta, no!" she seems horrified. "No, it was the tribute from One, you wouldn't kill her."
I feel a knot of agonizing remorse loosen, deep in my bones. My image of murdering the tiny girl has the odd shimmer of the memories I think are false, but the heavy weight of guilt has the deep ache of reality. "Thank you," I mutter.
Jackson, watching from nearby, steps forward. "We can all help you, Peeta. Ask us what you want to know. We can tell you if what you think is real or not real. It's in our best interest to help you, that's how you know we won't lie."
I watch her for a long moment, but her eyes are open and honest and she's right. The less of a loose cannon I am, the safer her squad is.
"Most of the people from Twelve were killed in the fire," I test.
"Real," she answers. "Less than nine hundred of you made it to Thirteen alive."
I tremble again, then ask the question I've been dreading. "The fire was my fault."
"Not real," she replies firmly. "President Snow destroyed Twelve the way he did Thirteen, to send a message to the rebels."
I feel the hot prickle of tears behind my eyes, the whisper screaming its defiance, and I have to pause to breathe for a few moments. To really accept it as truth. It's information I didn't know before, so there's no solid feeling of truth, but from the easing of the ache in my chest, I can tell I believe it.
Jackson splits the watches up so that Katniss, Gale and Finnick each have a partner member from Thirteen and this way I always have someone to ask if something is real or not real. The smallest details bring back floods of memories, some accompanied by false images I need to sift through, and all accompanied by rage from the whisper. It takes a long time to build the answers into understanding, but my squad is patient.
Gale tells me about life in Twelve, he knew Jasper and Uri and many of the same people I knew. He traded frequently with merchants who were my neighbors and even though he was from the Seam, he knows a lot about all aspects of life in Twelve.
Finnick was a mentor for my first Games, and was with me in the second. He answers my questions about the Capitol and the arenas. He understands Snow and the Gamemakers in a deeply personal way that I can't fathom until he explains how Snow used him after his victory. And how he took his revenge on Snow for that.
Katniss, and my memories of her, are the most problematic. The whisper pitches to an insane shriek when I try to ask anything of substance, and so many questions or answers invoke terrifying images that, even though I know they're false, seem so real that they send me gasping for air and gripping my hands together to keep from flying at her. We end up talking about nonsense like how much she loved the cheese buns I baked, or the dress she wore in Seven that was the exact shade of her eyes.
As she fills in these tiny details, seemingly insignificant, I become aware again of the feeling of a hole in my chest where there used to live a connection to her that reached across distance. Each small detail replaces a missing piece in the picture I used to have of her. I slowly build an image of her as a real, flesh and blood person rather than the image of heroism and hatred I've viewed her as up until now. It's exhausting and I drift into a troubled sleep riddled with conflicting images.
I sleep late the next morning, the deficit from the night before catching up with me. When I wake, the camp is in preparation for a new mission. As I eat a hasty breakfast, Boggs comes to join me.
"Morning, soldier," he rumbles. "I'm glad you got some sleep finally."
"Thank you, sir," I reply, trying to keep the suspicion out of my voice. Why the solicitousness all of a sudden, I wonder?
"Today's mission is a new propo Heavensbee hopes will add some excitement to what we've been giving them so far. It requires the entire squad to enter a deserted city block containing a couple active pods. One pod will simply net the invader, but the other triggers gunfire." I watch him carefully as he regards me, in turn, like a coiled viper. "I need to know your level of capability to handle this kind of situation, Soldier. President Coin has specifically requested that you accompany us, but if I don't feel you are ready for it, I will have no problem tying you up in a sack and leaving you in a tent until we return."
My smile breaks free at this unexpected honesty. The whisper's scream is a humming zing of excited bloodlust and I find it hard to concentrate. Maybe that's why I answer his honesty with my own.
"Can I ask you something, Boggs?" I watch his dark eyes steadily. "Is there any chance I'm here because I'm supposed to kill Katniss?"
Boggs flinches as though stung, his eyes narrowing and lips clamping to a thin line. "Are you trying to kill her?" he demands.
"No, sir," I reply. "That's why I would ask you to keep an especially careful eye on me if we're going into a situation you are uncomfortable with." He stares at me grimly, trying to work out how much to trust me. I press on, feeling my way carefully. "It makes you wonder, though, doesn't it? What the motives are behind it? What someone would have planned that required the disposal of anyone they see as a threat? And what kind of leader that person may be planning to be."
The words hang between us. I can see him running over what he knows of me, comparing it to his own fears. And I see him make his decision. I see the doubts solidify into plans.
"We're moving in ten minutes. Meet with the squad and be ready for orders." His voice is gruff, but has lost the edge of fury.
My eyes are distant as I gather my gear. With a little more time, a little more caution, I may be able to call him an ally. The word rings in my head. Two allies who don't trust me any further than they can throw me.