Here's the next chapter! Enjoy! I do not own Mockingjay, any direct quotes will be in italics.
Ch. 35
Going underground the Capitol is finding what the Capitol really was. A dark, dank place of lies. The whole day is spent with me moving my feet, one slow step in front of the other. I walk from the very back with Gale helping me if I start to go slack. I never thought I would grow to appreciate him.
Pollux, the avox I had discovered earlier, had worked down here for five years and knew the place like the back of his hand. Each one of them had a skill that could help us in one way or another. I was the only one really holding them back.
A rest finally comes after a long day of trudging through the endless tunnels, but when I lay down to sleep I can't find it in me. Something stops me, a smell, the darkness, I'm not sure. It seemed too much like the torture chamber that I lost myself in. I felt like at any moment someone could come in with a syringe and in the end I would have made no progress at all. Katniss would be a to me mutt again. I would be a full on mutt again. I don't want that, I think to myself, it was too lonely.
Even here I'm lonely, but there are people, and they are fighting for me. I feel something, something more than hatred.
So even though I was tired and even though my brain ached for unconsciousness, I could not sleep, not a wink. I was too full of fear. Fear that people should never have. It's long and boring watching people sleep, their chests going up and down, their eyes fluttering every so often. I wonder what they dream of, is it peaceful?
It took me a few minutes to notice that not only Jackson was still awake, but Pollux as well. He sat near to me and I realized that it was cruel to try and have a conversation with an avox, but I felt a connection with him. We had both been ridiculed by the Capitol. We both knew what it felt like to be nothing.
"They really strip you of your dignity." I say this to him and him alone, I'm not sure Jackson even knows I'm awake. "I felt like nothing as I'm sure you did down here. I'm sorry for what they did to you." That's all I say to him and then turn my head away and in the corner of my eye I see him shake his head. I'm not sure what for. For my apology?
It was stupid how people put the blame on themselves for things like death and loss. "I lost my last shred of dignity." "I'm sorry." I could see the slap in the face I had just given him.
"I meant, I know." I say to him, one last thing. This time I see no movement, only him staring straight into the darkness.
I close my eyes, but still sleep doesn't come. I hear Jackson go to wake someone and in return I hear the rushed whisper of Katniss' tired voice answer back. It's not long before I feel her presence near.
"Have you eaten?" she asks me in a hushed whisper. I shake my head, I hadn't felt my empty stomach until she asked, but now it was the only thing on my mind. I hear her open a can and give it to me. It smelled good, too good, and my stomach ached for all of it at that very second.
I sat up and chugged it down, only pausing once for a breath.
"Peeta, when you asked about what happened to Darius and Lavinia, and Boggs told you it was real, you said you thought so. Because there was something shiny about it. What did you mean?" Pure hope leaks through her voice, not hatred, not loss, but hope. She really was beautiful, even in the dark, even with black smudges on her face.
"Oh. I don't know exactly how to explain it." I pause remembering the memories that I knew for sure weren't real, with that shiny tint to them. How was I supposed to explain that? It was as hard as explaining a color to a blind person, or how to walk to the legless, you had to have felt the effects of tracker jacker venom to really know.
"In the beginning, everything was just complete confusion. Now I can sort certain things out. I think there's a pattern emerging. The memories they altered with the tracker jacker venom have this strange quality about them. Like they're too intense or the images aren't stable." Then I remember, Katniss had felt the effects of tracker jacker venom. "You remember what it was like when we were stung?"
Katniss stays silent for a minute, remembering back to the events that must seem almost peaceful now. What I wouldn't give to be back in the caves, at least there I was still me.
"Trees shattered. There were giant colored butterflies. I fell in a pit of orange bubbles," pause, "Shiny orange bubbles." She adds.
"Right. But nothing about Darius or Lavinia was like that. I don't think they'd given me any venom yet." I say.
"Well, that's good, isn't it? If you can separate the two, then you can figure out what's true." She doesn't say it, but I can hear it. Then I could have you back, then you could become Peeta again. But what she doesn't get is that it is nearly as impossible as Prim's name being drawn at the reaping. Possible, but unlikely.
"Yes. And if I could grow wings, I could fly. Only people can't grow wings, real or not real?" It's added for extra measure to show that it won't happen, and if even if it could I would probably be dead before then.
"Real, but people don't need wings to fly." She doesn't look at me, the hope leaking out of her voice with each word. She's tired and lost. I have a feeling she didn't want this huge party with her on her mission to kill Snow. But she's strong and brave, a Mockingjay, wanting to find hope in a Jabberjay.
"Mockingjays do." I whisper. There's one last sip in the soup and I take it, handing the can back to Katniss.
She looks at me hopelessly hopeful. I was wrong about her being the only one wanting to kill me, because as long as there was hope I would not be dying on her watch. She loved me plain and simple, she watched over me almost as much as she did her sister.
"There's still time. You should sleep." I listen to her and lay down, hoping that maybe sleep will come.
She touches my head and begins to smooth my hair and though the monster in me rejects, my body aches for it, so I'm glad she continues.
"You're still trying to protect me. Real or not real?" I say, one final question before I shut my eyes.
"Real. Because that's what you and I do. Protect each other." And that's what I needed, some indication that she did care. And that's finally when my body lets me sleep.
But it isn't long before my body turns back on and through my lips a name whispered with hatred, "Katniss," released in a hiss meant to kill.
This is actually one of my favorite parts in the whole series. Believe it or not it's my favorite book, there's just so emotion in it and Katniss comes to face with a lot of things. I especially like this part because of how Everlark saturated it is. I love the, "Because that's what you and I do. Protect each other." It's Katniss realizing this and Peeta seeing that she really does love him. I really hope I did it justice!
I updated two days in a row! It's a miracle!
Don't forget to REVIEW on the way out! Thanks! ~boywithbreadlover