A/N: I'm sorry for the long wait guys, I have no excuse for neglecting this story. Vitural cookies to anyone still reading!
Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games.
Chapter Nineteen
"Your hair was always fascinating."
Jackson was behind him somewhere, her fingers playing with a strand of his hair. If Peeta wanted to slap her hand away, he couldn't because of the straps pining him down completely. Arms, wrists, chest, waist, thighs, shins and ankles. Jackson and Harper certainly didn't skimp out on making sure he couldn't move. He was too exhausted to care about the woman's consistant fiddling with his hair anyway so it didn't really matter in hindsight.
"We buzzed it twice and yet it still grows back fuller than the last time."
Now would have been the perfect time for a smart ass response, but because of the strap pulled tight arcross his mouth, talking back was impossible. The strap pinned his head back against the rest at the top of the seat, very likely one to ensure the idea to keep all possible limbs pinned which-obviously-included his head. What damage he could actually do with his head, Peeta had no idea, but apparently Jackson and Harper thought it was nessecary.
Speak of the devil, Harper reappeared with a black object in her hand. He recognized it almost instantly as the hair buzzer. No. Not now. He'd been keeping his hair successfully long since his last buzzing and was almost positive that if he ever lost it again, his luck on it growing back as healthy as it had done the previous two times was thin. Not that he needed his hair, there were worse things to worry about, but still the very thought of having it buzzed again would set it all in stone. He was back in the compound and he wasn't going to be able to leave for a very, very long time.
Peeta trusted Katniss though. He trusted her to do the right thing and to fight on the right side. Of course she would. She had the ability to speak out and to raise the rebellion that needed to be rose against the leaders of the Capitol. Every particle of his faith rested on Katniss' shoulders and not for one moment did he rethink that placement of trust. He knew that-eventually-she would do it. No matter how long it took . . . she would win in the end. Even if he had to be stuck in hell for the rest of his life waiting on her to do so, he'd always believe that she would get there in the end.
Even if he didn't survive to see it.
There was that small pause though. On the train when Jackson had given him his first dose of tracker jacker venom. There was the slightest shadow of a doubt that Katniss wasn't who she claimed to be. But the thing about small doses of the venom was, that when it was worked out of your system, the reality would ram into you like a brick wall and all the truths would rush back into you mind like a stream of experiences and memories.
That's why they had never given him small doses.
"Give me that." Jackson reached across and took the buzzer from Harper's hand, switching it on and purposely resting her hand by his ear so that the soft buzzing vibrated close to the side of his face, knowing for a fact that it was going to set his nerves on fire. "So, what do you think pretty boy? Should we do it, huh? Shave off all this beautiful hair again?"
She laughed evilly when he snapped a muffled response at her. It was so infuriating being unable to answer her. It was like the duct tape all over again. Only difference being that the strap was cutting into the corners of his mouth and stung every time he tried to speak. He felt the urge to inch away from the buzzer but that would only amuse the sickos further so Peeta sat there, stock still, not wanting to give them the fun of wincing, of flinching, of showing fear because that just made it worse.
"I don't know Jackson. Won't do no harm if we didn't buzz it," Harper replied, rummanging through a small metal box. "That's not what we're doing."
Then what are you doing? Peeta thought.
Jackson had been absent mindedly twiddling with a lock of hair and when Harper spoke, she whined. "But it would be so much fun." She tugged on the lock, hard enough for it to hurt, and held the buzzer tauntingly close to the root. Jackson and her bloody sadistic mind. The metal grazed some of the hair and thin strands fluttered off, being cut free and floating off and hanging there, almost teasingly, in suspended air.
Harper shot Jackson a withering look, setting the box down on a metal table and mixing some narcotics together into a beaker. "Calm down, tiger," she warned.
"Just a bit?" Jackson pouted.
Rolling her eyes, Harper picked a small circle remote off the table and pressed it. Immediately, the buzzer switched off. Peeta relaxed in the knowledge that his hair and, more importantly, his freedom from the compound was still hanging in the balance. Jackson, however, swore under her breath and threw the buzzer to the floor. The buzzer broke-well, Peeta thought it broke, judging by the smash, since he couldn't really turn his head to look.
"You need to answer a couple of true or false questions," Harper said. It wasn't a request, it was a statement. An order. Peeta supposed it was better than other things they could have been doing to him at that very moment . . . However, the reason they needed answers to any true or false questions, he wasn't sure. His eyes flicked down to the strap across his mouth, looking back up at Harper inquizzitively. Harper also looked at it, a sly smile creeping onto her face. "Nod for true, shake for false."
Damn it, there were his hopes for the removal of the strap dashed.
"True or false, your mom collected you when you were five?"
Pause. Peeta nodded.
"She returned you for insolence?"
Another nod.
"Your brother was shot."
Gritted teeth. Nod.
"Through the head."
Gritted teeth and clenched jaw. Nod.
"You were eight years old."
What was she trying to prove?! Peeta nodded.
"They shot him before your eyes."
Peeta screwed his eyes shut and nodded. He remembered the day clearly. As if it happened the day before. They'd dragged him off his floor and held him in the torture room on the T floor. He remembered being terrified, praying that he hadn't done something to deserve the regulation 40 lashes across his back. He wasn't sure if he would have been able to handle it again. Instead, the T leader back then-Jeminia Lock-came in holding Ryean by the scruff of his neck. He looked thin. His cheekbones prominant and his eyes deep set into his face. The P&P floor had changed him.
Peeta remembered crying, screaming for them to let him go as Jeminia pushed his brother to his knees and held the Luger to his head. He screamed until his throat was hoarse but no-one listened. Instead, Jeminia rolled her eyes and sneered about how weak Ryean was before pressing down on the trigger and sending the bullet through his big brother's brain.
There was no reason for them to have brought their captive's eight year old brother to watch his death other than the simple fact that they enjoyed his pain. Because they wanted to watch the little boy crumble. And it worked. He was haunted with the image of the bullet blasting through Ryean's skull for months afterwards, his vision blurred with splodges of blood and the faraway screaming that he began to speculate was his own.
And then Jackson upped his dosage of tracker jacker venom and everything went haywire in his mind. Had Jeminia shot Ryean, or had he shot himself because he cracked under the pressure? Was he really shot or did he die of natural causes? Was he even there at all and the whole shooting had been a nightmare? Everything would shuffle and realine itself into understanding before deciding to jumble up again just to confuse him.
It always made Jackson laugh.
"You never met your other brother, the oldest of the cursed Mellark gene pool," Harper continued.
Peeta nodded, internally threatening himself to stay strong and not break down. He had never known his brothers that well, why were they doing this to him?
"He died of an incurable STD transferred from Elodie in P&P twenty five years ago."
Peeta nodded once more, becoming dizzy from having to repeat the action so often. There was rage bubbling up deep inside him but he did whatever he could to quell it down. Because if he lost his cool, all he would be capable of doing would be thrashing against the bindings pinning him to the chair, which would probably just amuse both Harper and Jackson. He wondered why all the women in the Capitol and onwards were so sadistic in that way.
Harper nodded and jotted some notes down onto her clipboard. "General memory is fine," she said to Jackson. "At least that's some good news."
Some good news? What was the bad news?
Jackson shrugged and tapped her pen against the side of the chair, beating out a small tune that rang out against the metal of the seat and echoed in the empty interrogation room. "I'd say he's fine to continue with the experiments," she said. "I mean, it's not like he's severely ill or anything and he seems to be in a fine physical condition."
Harper bit the inside of her cheek, hesitating. "I don't know Jacks," she said. "Something tells me it's different this time."
"Different?" Jackson scoffed. "Nothing's different." She turned around and looked him in the eyes, eyebrows raised. "You're not different, are you?" When she recieved a withering glare in return of the question, she scowled and resisted the urge to leave a print of her hand across his perfect face. "See? Still doesn't answer questions."
"He answered my questions," Harper said quietly, a smile threatening to crop up on her face.
"Oh don't start that load of bull," Jackson snapped. "The only reason he answers you is because you're too nicey nicey. I spent weeks with him in P&P showing him the ropes, that's very likely why he hates me so much and doesn't answer me!"
Peeta didn't like the way they talked about him as if he wasn't even there. They seemed to have a habit of doing it. It was like they had grown accustomed to talking about him like that without him being there that they now just did it out of tradition and mindless habit. It was unnerving, to say the least.
Somehow, Harper and Jackson's arguement ended with Jackson in a huff and leaning against the wall with her arms folded while Harper went through some files and papers. "By the way," the latter said casually, "you owe me a new hair buzzer."
"Screw you," Jackson huffed.
Peeta had always wondered about Jackson and Harper's connection with each other. They weren't co-workers, he knew that much. He'd never seen Harper after being transferred to P&P with Jackson prior to Miss Trinket having bought him. They seemed close, almost like sisters, but he knew that was impossible as well because Jackson had used to tell stories about how hard it was being an only child and that was why she became a Capitol Slave Driver. To become friends with the other women and have fun torturing the men, the 'scum.'
"I've got about 300ml of venom in here," Harper explained to no-one in particular, either speaking out loud or expecting Jackson to be listening. "I'm not ready for testing yet so if you dare inject him with any of it Jacks I will have to report you."
Jackson snorted. "Oooh, I'm terrified."
Harper threw a look at the blonde woman over her shoulder. "You should be," she said gravelly. When she turned back, Jackson pulled a face behind the red head's back and silently sneered at her. Sometimes, Jackson could be so juvenile it was horrifying to think that she was the woman in charge of teaching males how to have proper sex and make a woman orgasm successfully.
Harper glanced at him out of the corner of her eye every now and then, as if she expected him to have a sudden outburst of strength and be able to rip free of his bindings. "Was so many straps nessecary?" she asked. The question was quite shocking, coming from Harper. Normally with the slave drivers, more was more. More smacks, more weapons, more lashes and, like now, more straps. Jackson picked up on this too and gave Harper a funny look.
"Well, yeah," she said. "We can't risk him escaping . . ."
"Yeah, but a head strap? What the hell can anyone do with their head?" Harper asked.
"Uh, headbutting," Jackson answered, her tone conveying how this should have been clearly obvious.
"Okay then," Harper said, "what about the thigh straps? If your shins and your knees are bound there's not really that much the thigh ones can do but spread your legs open more. I've never heard of thigh butting before, might I add."
"I don't see the problem in your statement." Jackson was seriously confused by this point and, honestly, so was Peeta. "A lot of it is just for funzies, you know. Harp . . . are . . . are you okay?"
Harper nodded and went back to shuffling through her papers. "Oh yes, I'm fine. Just haven't been well recently, you know? It's been messing with my head. I think I might have a cold or something."
Not fully accepting the answer but having no choice to without sufficent evidence, Jackson moved on. "So if you're not ready for experimenting, when will we begin?" she asked.
"Um," Harper bit her lip, "maybe tomorrow. Depending on whether I get the paperwork completed or not. Remember what I said: don't touch the venom."
Jackson held up her hands in surrender. "Okay, I understand."
"I cannot express how dangerous it would be if you used it too early in words, Jacks. It would be hazardous for his health, our wellbeing and your bloody head," Harper warned. "Am I clear?"
Jackson nodded like a compliant puppy. "Crystal," she said with an evil smirk.
Peeta didn't like the look of that smirk.
Harper sighed and ran a hand through her copper hair. "Okay, okay, I know you get it. I'm just under a lot of pressure," she said. "Look at all of the bloody forms I have to refill! I'm going to lose my mind by the end of the day!"
"Why don't you go lie down? Have 40 winks?" Jackson suggested, planting a hand on Harper's lower back and guiding her out the door. "I'm sure the forms can wait until later. Plus, you can't be so disoreintated around the elders and go around asking about extra straps. Then it won't be my head in danger, it'll be yours."
Harper nodded. "You're right. Fine, I'll go rest. Promise you'll be alright until I get back?"
"You know me Harp, always able to hold the ranks," Jackson replied with a wink.
The red head nodded and disappeared out the door.
Almost immediately, Jackson moved to the table where Harper previously stood and moved the papers out of the way. Peeta watched in worried curiousity as she re-opened the metal box and took out the vial of familar blue liquid. His heart plummented at the sight of it. How could Harper have been so dumb as to believe that Jackson wouldn't mess about in her absence?
"Now, I'm no Harper with this sort of thing," the blonde woman said conversationally as she shook up the vial of venom and mixed it in a beaker with a similar liquid that was a lime green colour, "but I know how to get what I want out of this stuff."
There was a small voice at the back of Peeta's head that whispered fearfully, "Maybe she's changed, maybe her wants are different now." He scolded the stupid hopeful voice. Of course Jackson hadn't changed. And she always wanted the same thing. What would any MEA sufferer want?
Sex.
"Harp has been experimenting, trying to mix the different sorts of venom to create a serum for the final test that needs completeing," Jackson explained, as if there were no danger in telling him their plans. "Which is fine, she can work away with that. But I'm not missing out on my chances of getting a good fuck when I want one."
"See?" The voice of reason said to the hopeful whisper of a voice that had thought otherwise. "Stop being ridiculous and pull yourself together."
There were voices in his head. This wasn't good.
When the mixture in the beaker turned a dark turqouise colour, Jackson pulled open a drawer behind her and pulled out a syringe. Peeta's heart stopped at the sight of the needle before speeding up, sending his nerves into a frenzy of fear that had him wishing the strap was away from his mouth so that he could breathe properly.
"Now, I don't know how this works, Harper's the expert at mixing venoms so we'll just have to see how this turns out," she said as she sucked the liquid up into her syringe.
As she approached him again, Peeta lost all his care for what she thought of it and began to struggling to get out of the chair. As earlier predicted, this just made her smile, and she placed a feather soft kiss on his strap covered lips that made him recoil back in disgust. She gently pressed the tip of the needle into the artery in his neck, getting her sick fill out of feeling him tense underneath her.
"Sssh, it's okay," she said in a voice so gentle it was sickening. "You know I'm not going to hurt you." She pushed down on the plunger and watched in amusement as his eyes clouded up and the usual conflicted look flashed in them. "I'm Jackson, I'm your friend." Her smile faded very quickly as he screwed his eyes shut and shook his head, not wanting to believe. Why was he so damn strong? He wasn't like that before!
Keep it together for Katniss, Peeta thought desperately in his mind as the tracker jacker venom began to pound its way into his mind like an unwanted house guest. Keep it together for Katniss. His head ached as he fought the venom to the bitter end, feeling it pull him under it's spell of confusion slowly, like Jackson was slowly pushing him under water and he knew she wasn't going to let him up for air. Keep it together for Katniss.
His eyes snapped open and his vision was tinted with darkness, a clear sign that he was nearly gone. Jackson stood over him, her face twisted in a diabolical grin as she watched him get dragged under.
Keep it together for Katniss.
He shut his eyes.
For Katniss.
The venom took him.
I'll always love you Katniss.
A/N: Hmm, do I detect a disturbance in the force? What's up with Harper? I'd love to hear what you think is wrong!
Oh, and just an TFI: MEA is morbid erotic addiction. Pretty much a fancy word for sex addict (:
Please R&R! :D