A/N: Thank you to everyone still reading this story, even after my negligence. You have no idea how much I appreciate it! :D

Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games.

Chapter Twenty Six

Peeta's bed in the cell wasn't very comfortable. Not that he expected it to be. Why would the women be hospitable to him? Not that it could be called a bed anyway, it was more just a mattress on the floor that was covered in dirt and dried semen. Peeta pulled his knees up to his chest, trying not to sit on any of the questioning stains.

He couldn't remember the last time he had a peaceful night sleep. The tracker jacker venom left his head racked with confused emotions and an awful needling pain in the back of his head. His body was aching and he felt severely ill. He didn't know how much longer he was going to be able to handle this. Each new dosage brought a bout of head busting agony. Each time Peeta was sure was going to be his last.

In some way, death felt like it would be a release. It would free him of this hell. But when thoughts like these came to him, he quickly dismissed them. Peeta knew he had to be strong for Katniss. She needed him to be strong, so he would be strong. No matter what Jackson and Harper or any of the other women threw at him.

The door to the cell opened. Peeta internally groaned, pressing his forehead against his knee. What did they want now?

"Food's up!" Jackson declared. She strut into the cell and kicked the door shut behind him. Urgh, the food. It looked like vomit of someone who had been eating something green and tasted like chocolate with salt. Peeta didn't know who did the cooking in the Compound but whoever it was needed either a lesson in cooking or to be fired.

"Wow, you look like shit," Jackson said, a dirty smirk on her face. If Peeta's hands weren't tied behind his back, he would probably have fantasied about smacking it right off her face. Somehow the dream seemed pointless when he was basically defenseless. "Sorry, what was that?"

Peeta narrowed his eyes irritably. The cloth around his mouth was wrapped painfully tight around his mouth, preventing any form of speech. Jackson loved the silence thing and would constantly joke about it. It was like she was getting crazier by the hour.

Jackson hooked her finger into the gag, practically molesting the inside of his mouth with it. She cackled like a witch and finally pulled the fabric down. Peeta hated being treated like a child but every day, at the exact same time, Jackson would come in and spoon feed him like a baby. Of course, she found it very amusing. Probably because of its degrading values.

The first few days, Peeta sealed his lips shut and refused to let her feed him. After that he accepted the food and then spit it out onto the floor. But after a week, when the hunger began to set it and he felt himself getting weaker and thinner, he just let Jackson get on with it.

Although the choo-choo train jokes eventually got old.

"Watching you eat never gets old," Jackson teased. "Do you like it when I feed you?" She pushed her fingers through his hair and pulled his head forward and back to make it look like he was agreeing with her. "'Yes Jackson, I love it when you feed me and that's why wrap my lips around the spoon so slowly. Because I wish to seduce you.'"

Just for that, Peeta took the next bit of food into his mouth, turned his face and spat it out at the wall. When it nailed the concrete, he looked back at Jackson with a dark expression.

His tormentor tsked. "Damn, I thought we were past this," she sighed. Jackson shook her head. "You'd think you'd have learned by now. Every time you misbehave, you lose your food." Looking her captive dead in the eyes, Jackson tipped the bowl onto the floor, letting all the food fall out. "Unless you wish to degrade yourself and eat like an animal, of course."

Peeta looked at the food with disinterest. He had spent years being starved by the slave drivers and his mother. He could live off a morsel of food for days. The only annoying thing was that once the food was out of the equation, the gag went back on.

Jackson kept smirking as she readjusted the gag material. "I was thinking," she said, "Maybe we could christen this mattress."

Uh-huh, sure, when pigs sprout wings and start to fly.

"There's time before your next experiment," Jackson continued regardless of Peeta's disgusted expression. She knotted the fabric at the back of his neck and kissed his lips. Peeta turned his head away, always feeling vulgar when the woman tried to kiss him.

"Jackson!" Harper's voice was faint but loud enough so it could be heard in the cell. "Jackson, you're needed!"

"Goddamn it," Jackson cursed. She straightened up and scruffed Peeta's hair. "To be continued my little prisoner."

Peeta was glad to see her leave but hated the darkness that consumed him when the door of his cell shut again, cutting him off from the rest of the world.

~xXx~

Getting through each District was difficult. Katniss knew that as long as she kept her cool and made sure her uniform was presented correctly, no one would question them passing through. But there was always that increasing worry that someone was going to notice that Cato and Thresh were extremely bulky for the women they were pretending to be.

"Does anyone here know how to make coffee?"

They had just climbed over the District 11 fence and were walking through the forest to get to 10. Katniss wasn't sure why she asked, although she did know that Peeta said that she could buy him one. But what if she couldn't buy one? What if the country fell apart because of this rebellion? Things as trivial as coffee stops won't exist anymore.

"Why do you want to make coffee?" asked Glimmer. Despite the fact she wasn't a pimp, the girl still gave Katniss an unsettling feeling in her stomach. She knew it was unfair to pre-judge anyone on lies she had been fed beforehand but once the impression was there, it was difficult to get rid of.

Katniss shrugged. "Just because."

"Are you imagining the mornings you'll have with Loverboy when this is all over?" Clove grinned. "The morning afters were you'll sneak out of bed to make him coffee because there is no way in hell you'll ever make him lift a finger ever again?"

Katniss hadn't really thought about it before but Clove was right. Well, not entirely. Peeta and her weren't going to share a bed. Maybe an apartment or something as friends but not a bed . . . But still, ultimately, right. Katniss didn't want to ever make Peeta work ever again. Not after what he's been through. She didn't mind doing housework, she did it for her mother and Prim when they hid the fact they didn't have a slave. But common housework didn't hold a candle to the hardship the slaves in the Capitol endure.

"No," Katniss said, "I just want to know."

But Clove was persistant. "Just imagine it Kat. You wake up and see him there, lying beside you, safe, here, with you. The sun is streaming through the blinds and your skin is still ruddy from the passionate love making from the previous night." Katniss opened her mouth to protest but Clove put her hand over her lips to stop her. "You have the burning desire to do something for him, because of all the things he has done for you. So you go into the kitchen and make him a cup of coffee, remembering the awesome advice your pal Clove gave you on the walk to District 10."

"You're going to tell me?" asked Katniss.

"Sure, why wouldn't I? It's not like you're asking me to recite the history of American politics, I can easily describe how to make coffee," Clove replied. She proceeded to explain the dynamics and process of coffee making, the grinding of the beans, the use of the machine, or the simple hot water pouring for instant. Katniss listened intently, commiting every detail to memory.

"Thank you," she said when she finished.

Clove nodded. "Make sure you tell me what Loverboy thinks."

"I will," Katniss agreed. Except the world Clove had described, with the waking up and the sunshine and the ruddy skin, it all seemed so far away. So impossibly out of reach.

The silence afterward didn't last long, as Rue had a question for Glimmer. "Are you and Marvel together?" she asked.

Glimmer smiled, her eyes glued to Marvel's back. The three boys were walking ahead, Cato having insisted that the men take the lead in case they got attacked (this statement had earned him a smack from his finacee). "Yes, we are," she answered. "It's one of the reasons we rebelled together."

"How did you meet?" Cashmere asked.

"My mother gave me him for my fifth birthday," Glimmer explained.

"Fifth?" Katniss asked. "Aren't slaves supposed to be given to older girls when they come of age?"

Glimmer shrugged. "My mother wanted me to learn early," she said. "I suppose she didn't realize because I'd known him all my life that I'd fall in love with him."

Katniss found this ridiculous. Giving a child a slave. What could a girl of five years do with a slave? No wonder Glimmer befriended him instead of shunning him. The simplicity of a child's mind would never understand the extent the women believed the male's evil reached.

"Guys, we found something!" Cato's voice called. The five of them caught up with the boys, who were huddled below an extremely tall tree. When they reached them, Cato pointed up. Katniss followed his hand, her eyes sliding up to a branch very high up, so high that what they wanted to see was very small.

It was yellow and in the shape of an oval. Little dots moved around it, some flying, others crawling. A bee hive? Wasp's nest?

"We have those back home," Rue piped up. "They're tracker jacker nests."

"Tracker jackers?" Cashmere asked.

"Mutated wasps," Katniss clarified. "They're very dangerous. I think we should leave them alone and move on."

Glimmer shook her head. "We could somehow use them as a weapon," she said.

Clove looked at her incredulously. "How?" she demanded. "If we go within five feet of those things they'll attack. They're extremely territorial."

"One of the boys could climb up and get the branch down, I don't know. Find a way to extract their venom and use it to poison any attackers," Glimmer explained.

Cato was quick to dismiss that idea. "I am not going anywhere near them fuckers. I'm not having their venom in my system again," he said. Katniss felt her stomach churn. She knew the dangers of the tracker jackers, the pain a sting can cause. She couldn't imagine what Cato went through when he suffered from his hijack. She couldn't imagine what Peeta was going through probably right that second.

"As I said," Katniss said, "we should move on."

"Come on, I'm on to something here!" Glimmer insisted. She went to the base of the tree but Marvel lurched forward and grabbed her elbow.

"Glim, don't," he said, his voice bodering on firm order.

"Don't tell me what to do Marvel," Glimmer hissed. Her anger faded and she grinned. "I'll be fine." She leaned forward and pecked Marvel's cheek, before finding a foothold and beginning to climb the tree.

"Sparkles, don't be an idiot!" Clove yelled.

"Shut up or they'll attack!" Glimmer snapped. She continued up the tree while the others watched helplessly. No one could go after her because they didn't want to risk being stung. No one was as stupid as Glimmer was currently being. "I'm almost there."

Glimmer reached the branch in which the nest hung from. She perched herself on it and even waved at the others on the ground. Katniss bit her lip, chewing on it recklessly while her heart pounded in her chest. Glimmer was being extremely negligent. What did she plan to do once she got the nest? How was she thinking to extract the venom?

"Glimmer, please come down," Marvel weakly pleaded.

"No, I'm almost there!" Glimmer replied, inching along the branch to get to the nest. Her pale hand was just reaching out when they heard it.

A crack.

Before anyone could react, the branch snapped. Glimmer fell to the ground with a high pitched scream along with the tracker jacker nest. The nest exploded on impact and everyone scattered. Katniss had never ran so fast before in her entire life. She saw Thresh scoop up Rue out of the corner of her eye, Cato stopping Marvel from running back as Glimmer's screams grew louder, Clove way ahead, running like a champion sprinter, and Cashmere struggling to keep up.

Katniss grabbed Cashmere's hand, yelping as a wasp nabbed her neck. The pain was blinding but she kept running. She dragged Cashmere along behind her, cursing everytime she tripped on a branch or a log.

They finally reached a lake and everyone jumped in. Underwater, Katniss could feel the venom working through her system. It was forcing its way to her brain and she knew once that happened, she would shut down.

Marvel was still trying to get back. Cato held him under the water, hand over his mouth, as the wasps passed over. Katniss understood why, despite its seeming cruelty. They couldn't lose anyone else. It was obvious that Glimmer was dead. There was no way she could make it out of the thick of a tracker jacker swarm like that one alive.

Katniss pushed out of the water, gasping the fresh air and letting her lungs fill up with its sweet nectar. The venom was getting close to her brain and she got out of the water before it struck. Clove and Rue were already out of it. Cashmere was lying flat on her back on the bank, her eyes fluttering as she went under. Katniss felt her own body slowing down, her limbs getting heavier, and she fell to the ground with a wet thump, the water still up to her shins.

Her eyes blurred, taking in the sight of Thresh and Cato carrying an unconscious Marvel out of the water. The last thing she saw before she passed out completely was a Mockingjay, singing on a branch not far from the lake.

A/N: Please R&R with your thoughts! (: