The MATRIX: The One

2 - Peeta crosses paths with a Mockingjay

Peeta POV

By the time I see the truck, I know it's too late. I'd just put all my weight on my prosthetic leg, had just stepped off the curb, and now I have nowhere to go but forward in the two seconds of life that remain to me.

Shit.

I guess I'd always known I'd be making an early exit.

I'm just starting to wonder if it's worth it to close my eyes before they get mashed into the grill of the semi when a hand fists in the back of my T-shirt and hauls me backward, out of the way of the horn-blaring truck, and keeps on hauling me as I stumble over the curb and cracked sidewalk. I come to a stop when my back slams into the side of a dumpster in the alley.

"What the— Thanks, um, thanks," I wheeze. Reaction is setting in so I figure I'd better get that out there while I still have the breath for it. I fumble for my pants pocket beneath my flour-dusted apron – shit, I'd forgotten to take it off before leaving the kitchen… again – and palm my inhaler. Just in case.

I glare at the apron I shouldn't be wearing out on the street and sigh. If I'd noticed I earlier and gone back to hang it up, I could have avoided that close call with the truck and personal introduction to the sticky side of this reeking dumpster. But I hadn't and my rescuer deserves a bit more than that half-assed token of appreciation. "You saved my life. I… really… thank you."

"Sure," a woman says tersely. "I guess this makes us even."

I look up at her through my brows, my jaw coming a little loose from its mooring as I take in the lace-up hunter's boots, skin-tight pants, and high-collared tunic. She's dressed in black from head to toe. Even her plaited hair is a hue I'd have to label pitch. I can't see through the shades of her glasses, but I know she's glaring at me. Guy's intuition.

"Um…" What had she just said? "Even?" I think I'd heard that word.

She nods once and then reaches up to pull the glasses down off the bridge of her nose.

I stare into her steely, grey eyes.

I lose my breath completely.

I cough once before I realize I need the inhaler after all. Lifting it up, I take a measured, medicated breath even as I keep staring at her through watery eyes. My lungs burn, but I don't care.

"It's you," I gasp. "Mockingjay."

I'd never known her name, but I remember the word scrawled in permanent marker across the acoustic guitar. Her father's? Her uncle's? I don't know who he'd been, but he'd looked a lot like her. He'd played and she'd sung to the early morning crowds. Sometimes his deeper voice would blend into the music that had filled the subway tunnel to bursting. I'd dropped my lunch money into the guitar case every single morning I'd seen them there on my way to school. Every single morning.

Until—

Scream.

Panic.

Falling.

Lights.

Roar.

Darkness.

Pain.

"You're alive," I breathe.

"Yeah," she agrees. Something flickers in her expression. An apology? "And I need your help. Again."

Now that you've met our intrepid main characters, the chapters get longer and longer. And, in some cases, LONGER.

FYI: I never put ketchup on my feedback because I ADORE IT JUST AS IT IS.