Here's the next chapter! Enjoy! I do not own Mockingjay, any direct quotes will be in italics.

Ch. 30

I see her standing there, by herself, across the room. The first day of school was always confusing, where were your friends, was it a good teacher, but I could tell for Katniss Everdeen that it was harder. She stands awkwardly as she waits for the seats to fill up so she can take the one in the back that no one sits close to. I wish she knew how I felt about her.

One of my friends looks at me strangely and I enter back into their useless conversation. What was it that held me back from going to talk to her? Was it my friends? They shouldn't stop me; after all they had no idea how much my heart yearned for her and how much I needed her. How long would it be until I finally worked up the courage?

"Peeta, Peeta, wake up. There's breakfast." I jerk awake surprised that I actually got some sleep. It was hard having to sleep out side even with the sleeping bag that they gave me to keep me warm, but I guess after the night without sleep, my body needed it.

Katniss was the one to shake me awake, I'm surprised to see that she had the courage to do it. She has slowly beginning to warm up to me again as I begin to figure out who I was and where I came from. The dream I had last night could've been a memory, but I couldn't be sure.

I was young in my dream and so was she; her face did not show the sorrow that it does now. Maybe her dad was still alive; maybe it was before I had given her the bread. Is it true that I had loved her since the young age of five?

"I've loved you since kindergarten. Real or not real?" These are my first words to her in the morning, I had so much I needed answered that there was rarely time for chitchat.

"That's what you told me. It would make since, you giving me the bread, the way you dropped your eyes when I tried to thank you. I never noticed, not even when you flat out told the whole country. I'm sorry for that, for not believing." She says. The others are all standing around the small morning fire; I think we're going to go shoot footage today. Someone even said we would be going on a slightly dangerous street. I had learned that with Squad 451, there wasn't much fighting.

"You thought I was lying so you lied too, real or not real?" Her eyes drop to the ground as I ask this. It happens a lot, she must have been avoiding the answers to these questions for a long time.

"Yeah, I played along for the Games, but not all of it was fake Peeta. I almost died for you. I'm not heartless." She says. Believe it or not she has gotten a lot less defensive with the answers, realizing that I really had no clue.

"I know you're not heartless." I say. She turns around and walks to the rest of the squad. I begin to compose myself before we have to go out.

Boggs talks to us about what we'll be doing today, even handing me back my gun. Being sure to tell me that there are only blanks inside. I can't really pay attention to him or anyone though because all I can see is Pollux. There is something different about him, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

He reminded me of the people in the Capitol that would come in with sorry eyes and give me my food. They never intimidated me though because I knew somehow that they were in the same place as me. I figured out late into my time in the Capitol that they were avoxes and that was the reason for their lack of words.

That's when it clicks; the reason why he reminds me of them is because he is one. The way he swallows. It takes so much more effort than anyone else here. He has no tongue to assist him in doing it. I wonder how he finally became free of the Capitol's grip. Once you were an Avox you were usually summoned to a life of slavery in the Capitol. He truly is brave for coming back here.

"You're an Avox, aren't you? I can tell by the way you swallow. There were two Avoxes with me in prison." They were punished; I shiver as I remember the night they were killed. Did that really happen? "Darius and Lavinia, but the guards mostly called them the redheads." I see Katniss in the corner of my eye shiver. "They'd been our servants in the Training Center, so they arrested them, too. I watched them being tortured to death. She was lucky. They used too much voltage and her heart stopped right off. It took days to finish him off. Beating, cutting off parts. They kept asking him questions, but he couldn't speak, he just made horrible animal sounds. They didn't want information, you know? They wanted me to see it."

I really didn't know how long it had actually taken them, I had lost track of time when it happened, but it seemed like days.

All the others looked stunned as if the words I say are cold hearted, not the people that caused me to have such memories. I wait for them to say something, anything, but they all seem too shocked to say something. It's like they wouldn't think anybody could possibly do such cruel things. They had forgotten what they had done to me.

"Real or not real?" silence, only the dying fire crackling a little bit. "Real or not real?!" I demand.

"Real." Boggs speaks up, "At least, to the best of my knowledge…real."

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