A/N: I am so sorry for the long wait guys! I'm just juggling so many stories at once I can barely keep up! I hope this chapter makes up for it!

Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games.

Chapter Eighteen

"I want to learn about Capitol punishment."

Madge looked astonished, her reading glasses slipping down her nose. She had been doing some paperwork in an office of the Justice Building. District 12 had went quiet, the citizens having been ordered to go home, law abiders and peacekeepers patrolling the streets, ready to shoot anyone who came out of the building, slave or otherwise.

"Why in the world would you want to learn about Capitol punishment?" she demanded to know.

"Because I want to know what they're going to do to him when they get him to the Capitol," Katniss said. "Because I'm sick of being kept in the dark."

Madge put her pen down and took her glasses off. "Do you think you could handle it?" she asked.

Katniss paused, wondering if she would be able to handle it. It had to be bad, if Madge had to ask that question. But the want to know what was going to happen to Peeta when Jackson and Harper got him to the Capitol overweighted the worry about whether her frame of mind was strong enough to control her emotions over what the Capitol did to punish slaves. "Yes, I can handle it," she said. "Just tell me what they're going to do."

"Take a seat."

Katniss slipped into the chair oppisote Madge, both of them seperated only by the giant mahogany desk. It hadn't even been 24 hours since Peeta had taken her place to be taken to the Capitol and Katniss was already past wanting him back to physically needing him back. "Spare no detail. I don't want you walking around eggshells to save my sanity. I am not a child. Tell me everything."

"Think of it this way," Madge said. "If a slave broke a single egg on a farm in District 10, they would be tied to a tree trunk and whipped twenty times for their insolence. A single egg. Imagine what would happen those who dropped an entire carton. How many eggs are there in a carton, Katniss?"

"Um, six in a normal carton, nine in a jumbo," Katniss answered, already apalled with what she had been told. Was a single egg really worth the whipping of an innocent person where there could have been a simple apology instead?

"What is six multiplied by twenty?" Madge enquired. "Oh, while you're at it, multiple nine by twenty as well."

Maths being her best subject, Katniss answered almost instantly. "One hundred and twenty. And one hundred and eighty."

"Can you believe that? For a single carton of eggs that you can buy at a corner shop for less than two dollars?" Madge asked. "One hundred and eighty slashes across a slave's back for nine eggs. Nine eggs. Just think of it. If a slave can get whipped for something as simple as a single carton of eggs then what do you think they'd get for something worse?"

Katniss' mind went immediately to what Peeta had told her. About what had happened to him when he had defended a fellow friend in the compound. "They duct taped his mouth shut once because he talked too much. He was too defiant. They didn't hurt him. That's not as worse as whipping, is it?"

Madge shook her head. "No, as a matter of fact it isn't. But, as I'm lead to believe, sometimes when a slave is beaten too much, they die. Which I'm sure they can't afford to do with Mr. Mellark."

Eyebrows etched into a frown, Katniss asked, "And why is that?"

"Oh surely he's told you about his illness and it's value to Jackson and Harper?" Madge asked. "I believe it's called . . . hijack?"

Katniss remembered it well. Of how Jackson found the mental illness fascinating and experimented on anyone who had it, in Peeta's case, making it worse. "Yes, he told me."

"Now why would they risk killing someone who they needed for their experimentations? It would be stupid. Even then, even when he stood up to those guards, I persume that they couldn't risk killing him. So they duct taped him instead. Doesn't affect his physcial abilities or his ability to still obtain the hijack in his mind."

"Why is everyone so goddamn curious about hijack?! It's a mental illness not a medical miracle," Katniss said. "Surely it's not that fascinating."

Madge brushed a strand of hair behind her ear and sighed. "Honestly? I think Jackson likes him maybe a bit more than she should," she said. Katniss clenched her jaw and chewed the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood. The comment annoyed her. "And you never want to catch the attention of a slave driver. Especially a Capitol one. If you catch the attention of a Capitol Slave driver then they could literally do anything. Do you, I wonder, know what Jackson specalizes in in the Compound, Katniss?"

Katniss shook her head. "No, I don't."

"P&P," Madge said. "The sector to teach how to pleasure a woman. How to make her have an orgasm and such." Katniss suddenly felt very sick as her stomach churned at the very thought of it. "Jackson was a teacher. Can you imagine? A teacher who taught such a topic having the hots for one of her pupils? I doubt that isn't also another way they punished him for comitting such acts as speaking out. And with duct tape on his mouth? Oh, she'd have some fun."

Katniss wasn't enjoying listening to this but she had to remember that she did say spare no detail. That was what Madge was doing. She was being blindingly blunt. "You're saying they enjoys watching them in pain?"

"You mean masochists? Oh yeah, the lot of them are," Madge replied. "Pain is their middle name. They get off on it. It makes them horny and they love it."

Katniss' hand flew to her mouth as she gagged. She didn't know why it made her feel so sick. Maybe it was the thought of such a horrible thing happening to Peeta was what made her ill but she suddenly felt horrified. Madge looked sympatheic, her eyes gleaming sadly.

"You did say to spare no detail," she pointed out.

Katniss nodded gravelly. "I know," she choked. "Keep going."

"Kat-"

"Keep going."

Shaking her head, Madge stood up and moved to the giant book shelf that was against the far wall. Her fingers danced across the leather spines like thin spiders scurrying across their web to catch their prey. Katniss suddenly found herself wondering what the blonde girl's story was. Why she was so intent on freeing the slaves. Why she was determined to fight and risk her life for males, something that she was very probably raised against her entire life.

"They keep records in the Justice Buildings," Madge explained, interuppting Katniss' reverie. "Of slave's progress, their punishments, etc. etc. I think I remember seeing Mellark here somewhere . . . ah-ha!" She pulled out a thick red leather bound book full of yellowing, dog eared pages. Sitting back down, she opened it up and started flicking through the pages.

"How many Mellarks is there?" Katniss asked in wonder as the girl moved quickly through hundreds upon hundreds of papers.

"This is the entire Mellark family tree," Madge explained. "Most recent ones to the back." She pulled out four piles of paper from the very back of the book. The first pile was made up of about twenty pages, the top one being a fact file type of thing. An old photo was clipped to the corner of a man with weathered skin and hollow blue eyes. "That's Peeta's father, Tom Mellark. He worked in the compound until he was fifteen. That's when Geraldeine Gown took him." Madge handed Katniss a much more well kempt photo than the one of Tom. It was glossy and straight edged, the smiling woman in the picture youthful and pretty.

But there was something else Katniss saw deep in the woman's dark brown gaze. A malice that always resided in the eyes of the women of Panem. The need to hurt, the spill blood, the want to screw and molest and beat and hurt the vulnerable ones in their lives. Because they live on it, they enjoy it-as Madge said, they get off on it. Geraldeine Gown's smile was only a deception towards the hateful witch that brewed deep down inside.

"They had a son, Wayne Mellark." Madge pushed forward the second pile of papers. This pile consisted of over forty pages. "Who Geraldeine immediately had shipped off to the compound. Wayne worked in the compound for many years, being upgraded to P&P by the time he was twenty. He died at the age of twenty five."

Katniss took a look at the boy in the picture. He looked about thirteen, the blond of his hair dark, almost caramel, and the brown of his eyes obviously taken from his mother. He wasn't smiling. Why would he? He obviously didn't have a reason to. "What happened him?" she asked.

"The trainer he was assigned to work with had recently taught a poorly looked after slave how to-I'm sorry, excuse the term-fuck. Because of their lack of interest in taking care of him, he contracted an STD which he then passed on to the trainer who passed it on to Wayne. He spent a year suffering with it before he died," Madge explained.

"That's horrible!" Katniss exclaimed.

Madge shrugged helplessly, not knowing what else to do. She pushed forward the third pile of papers. "Geraldeine was still determined to get a little girl though so she tried again with Tom and once again gave birth to a boy. Ryean Mellark." Ryean was the spitting image of his mother, chocolate brown eyes shining from the flashback of the camera, his ashy hair short and curled around his neck. "Of course, this wouldn't do and she sent him off to the compound as well."

"Is Ryean still alive?" asked Katniss.

The cobalt blue of Madge's eyes darkened with sadness. "No," she said. "He's not."

"What happened him?"

Madge's voice had lowered into a quiet whisper. "He wasn't good enough. He was too afraid. They killed him when he was ten for cowardice. A bullet through the brain. At least that was something, short and painless."

Katniss could barely keep down the bile she felt rising in her throat. "When he was ten?"

Madge nodded. "Yes. When he was ten." No longer wanting to talk about Ryean, she rose her voice to it's normal pitch and moved on. "Oh but Geraldeine still wanted a girl, oh yes she did. So she tried again. And she gave birth to the third Mellark boy." She pushed forward the fourth pile.

Peeta.

His pile of papers had over a hundred in it, all neatly stacked and forming a tall skyscraper-like tower on the desk. Katniss couldn't believe the amount, compared to his brothers' and father's piles. She was immediately curious as to why he had so many.

"Geraldeine sent Peeta away to the compound until he was five," Madge explained, taking three papers off the top of the hundred. She handed them to Katniss. Clipped to the front was a picture of a cherubic little boy with radiant golden hair, bright blue eyes and chubby cheeks tinted with pink. "But for some reason that isn't mentioned, she took him back. She took him back for five or six years, raising him in their little bakery in District 5." Katniss' heart fluttered at the mention of the bakery where Peeta had saved her life. "But then he burnt bread by mistake, and she sent him back to the compound once more."

Katniss watched as Madge moved Peeta's siblings' piles out of the way so she could divide his into sets of five. She pointed at the three in Katniss' hands. "That was Peeta when Geraldeine took him back to 5." She took them from Katniss and handed her another pile. At the front of this one there was another photo, of an older little boy who's cheekbones were more defined, who's hair was buzzed short and who had a cut down his right cheek. "And that's him when he was returned."

"What happened his hair?" Katniss asked, her fingers stroking the sad face on the picture sorrowfully.

"The compound buzzed it all off. Routine for if a customer isn't pleased with what they had bought," Madge explained. Katniss remembered how Peeta's long locks curled around his eyes and the nape of his neck, in dire need of a cut. He probably never wanted to cut his hair again, after having it all buzzed off at one point. "And that cut on his cheek? His mom did that to him with a rolling pin."

Katniss could almost feel the rolling pin being smacked across her face, tearing open a giant gash on her face and making it bleed. Never would her mom have ever laid a finger on herself or Prim in such a horrid way.

"This," Madge said, pointing at the second pile on the desk, "is the notes on his progress in daily routine. Nothing interesting there, all pretty standard stuff." Her finger landed on the third pile. "His mother took him back again."

"What?!" Katniss exclaimed.

"Yup," Madge replied. "When he was thirteen his mom returned and took him back again. She had him for two years before she dumped him back at the compound, no longer having a use for him." She slid forward the third pile and Katniss' heart tore apart at the once again buzzed bald boy. Instead of a small cut on his cheek, there was a dark, angry bruise under his eye and his lip was split. "She wasn't stable and beat the living daylights out of him before giving him back."

Staring at the photo, Katniss couldn't help but feel like she was invading in Peeta's privacy. But he never spoke to her about any of this. If she had of knew, maybe she could have helped him in some way. Madge took the photo from her trembling hands and put it down on the table before continueing, knowing that now that she had started it, she had to finish it.

She gestured to the fourth pile. "Upgraded to P&P five months after he was returned by his mother. Weirdly enough that is when he was duct taped for defending his friend." Katniss felt sick as she stared at the second tallest pile in the bunch. "Has all his details on what he's been taught, ways he's been taught, ways he's been punished while in the sector and how far he was in learning before he was purchased by Miss Trinket, your aunt."

Katniss found it difficult to swallow because her mouth was rough as sandpaper. "How far was he in learning?" she found herself asking.

"Top of the class," Madge answered. "He knew it all. But I have a feeling that's because it also states somewhere in there that Jackson spent extra time teaching him."

Katniss' eyes slid to the fifth and final pile. "What's that?" she asked.

Madge paused, her eyes also falling on the biggest pile of them all. "Medical and experimental records," she replied. "It's a day by day history of Jackson's experiments and how they worked . . . or most of the time . . . didn't."

Before she even realized what she was doing, Katniss had snatched a load of papers from the giant pile and was flicking through them, reading everything at breakneck speed.

Medical History: Hijack

Scientist Conducting Experiments: Jackson Lament

Name of paitent: Peeta Mellark

Age experiments began: Three months old

Age experiments ended: Sixteen years old

Serum in use: Tracker Jacker Venom

Successful: ?

Tests incompleted:

Katniss' heart stopped at the one test that was still left incompleted. Her mind was still whirling from trying to absorb the fact that they had been experimenting on him since he was three months old but the explanation for the one test they had left had her feeling dizzy.

"Katniss?" Madge asked. "What's wrong?"

"Look," Katniss said shakily turning the page around. "Tests incompleted: Mind control."

Madge's eyes widened. "No," she whispered.

Katniss nodded, holding back tears. "They're going to try and turn him into one of them."

A/N: Please R&R! :D :D