Here's the next chapter! Enjoy! I do not own Mockingjay, any direct quotes will be in italics.
Ch. 43
"To do what?" Asks Cressida. After the talk I had with her the other night I can't really look at her the same way. I knew she was good person, but I didn't know how much hope she would give me. You spend your whole life thinking that some people have no hope left in them and when someone shows you otherwise you become really hopeful and excited and your soul wants to reach out to that person. Cressida was that person for me. She was my hope, but so was Katniss.
She looks at me worried and confused, I held them back, but did I have to?
"I'm not sure exactly. The one thing that I might still be useful as is causing a diversion. You saw what happened to that man who looked like me." My stomach drops again. He was dead—dead—at least if they had the real me to beat up no one else would be killed.
"What if you…" Katniss pauses and looks at me, surveying me. Checking, like she does almost every minute, to see if I was still there. It's a couple of seconds before she finishes her question, "lose control?" She eyes me as if I would do just that right now, proving that I would not be able to go out there. Part of me knew it was what she wanted.
"You mean…" I pause too, still feeling the strain against the wall built in my head. The threatening thoughts about Katniss are still whispered fervently back in the darkest contours of my mind. "Go mutt? Well if I feel that coming on, I'll try to get back here." I knew that was a lie to all of them and myself. The second it got bad enough so I couldn't handle it would be the second I lost control. Besides I don't want to live if the monster still, after all of this, has that power.
"And if Snow gets you again?" Gale asks; a shiver runs coldly through my veins. The very same feeling the tracker jacker venom gave me. I push that thought out of my head almost instantly, "You don't even have a gun."
But I do have the angry Capitol people, I think.
Gale was right; I didn't have a gun. If I get captured there is no way I am killing myself before they begin the torture again. But that's the thing, the rest of them were willing to take this risk so why couldn't I? Katniss gets captured and she's sure to be damaged much more than I was. Gale probably brainwashed to be their soldier. Cressida, shot right there. Pollux, the very same fate.
If they could handle it then so could I.
"I'll have to take my chances," I look around at each of them and stop at Gale before saying, "Like the rest of you." Gale holds my gaze for a long time. I think about our conversation from the last night. I had decided I liked him, and thank fully I think he liked me. There was no more jealousy. There was almost some sort of camaraderie.
I watch as he reaches into the small compartment on his uniform and pulls out the small pill that was lethal, ironically called Nightlock. I never thought I would come face to face with it again. It seems it does not like to be teased.
The small pill lies still in my open hand. I do remember the first time I held the real Nightlock berry like this, I had to accept my death then and I already have now.
"What about you?" I ask Gale, still not letting my hand close around the pill.
"Don't worry. Beetee showed me how to detonate my explosive arrows by hand. If that fails, I've got my knife. And I'll have Katniss," Gale looks at her with a teasing smile and says, "She won't give them the satisfaction of taking my alive." Katniss tries to smile back at him, but I can tell it is hard for her. The probability of that happening was too slim. We could say that we would kill each other for the better, but wouldn't there be that hope that we would survive? Would we really give up that easily? After all, Gale was from the Seam and Katniss and I both Victors. We aren't known to give up our lives so easily. So, why then, did we joke about it?
"Take it Peeta." I can hear it in her voice, the I'd much rather it be at the hands of a pill than at the hands of a trigger pulled by me voice. She closes my hand over the small lethal pill that very well could be the death of me. "No one will be there to help you." She whispers to me quietly.
I take the pill more for Katniss' sake than for mine. If this is what it takes to let me go, then I'll take the pill gladly.
It's strange how only hours ago I had wanted this pill, I had wanted to die. But now, I have something to live for. Not just Katniss, but our country, the rebels. I could see it, a future with out the Games, a future of peace. It was right in front of me, I could almost touch it.
The painting that sits back in District Thirteen shows what I want. I now understand why Delly had so desperately protected it.
Because there is nothing more powerful than a dream that can become the future.
Wow, It didn't actually take me a whole week to update! I actually really like this chapter, and would love love love it if you told me whether you liked it or not and why because I LOVE it when people tell me how they feel about it.
Tomorrow is Katniss' birthday! How will you be celebrating?
Don't forget to REVIEW on the way out! Thanks! ~boywithbreadlover
P.S. Probably won't be back until next Monday because, ugh, life. So please if you need something else to read go read The Hoping Games, link in my last chapter! You won't regret it!