Peeta's POV
The other squad includes of Finnick and Annie? But who's watching Briar? I knew we should have imposed and had one of our families watch her. I was about to speak but another voice interrupts me, "Commander Mellark, we need to move on if we want to continue on with this mission." A soilder says, I look over at Katniss and I can see worry and concern in her eyes. I nod at the soldier and we resume our march deeper into the capitol.
The capitol looks 100% different than it did during our time here during the Victory Tour and the Games. All of the color is gone, everything is a dull color and that gravely reminds me of back in the hallways and rooms of District 13. The only color there is is from the few and scarce citizens roaming these streets. There are many buildings that are somewhat burnt from whatever and some look untouched. We've been walking for at least two hours now and there has been no sign of the capitol and their peacekeepers or some sort of warning of them wanting to attack us. I say a silent 'thank you' for that, but that all seems weird, wouldn't they want us out of here and do what they can to drive us out of the capitol? Unless they had a big plan or something planned up ahead? They want us to come deeper in the capitol so that way they can launch their attack on us. I shake that thought out of my head.
At some point during the walk Katniss and I link hands. Annie, Finnick, Gale, Katniss and I don't talk. There's just nothing to say, and we all know that at any moment something could blow up. Then BAM!We're all dead.
The squad leader from Finnick and Annie's group takes over and leads us his way through the capitol. Some capitol citizens are still in their homes praying for their safety, some even look out their windows at us and stare. We're not in any disguises to help us blend in so the capitol has to know were here. The squad leader tells us we must stop for the night for safety reasons, some of us will go into underground rooms, some will be hiding away with capitol families that are loyal to the rebellion cause, and some of us will be housed in shops. Katniss, Finnick, Annie, Gale, and I walk cautiously down the streets to our housing arrangement, which is an old food store whose owner is loyal to the rebel cause.
We all try our best to lay low and not get recognized, the last thing we want is to be noticed by some capitol spy and give away our hiding place so they can launch an attack on us. When we arrive in the shop, Gale offers to go inside first, to make sure this isn't a type of trap. He was in the shop for at least fifteen minutes, I was starting getting a little concerned, but once Gale comes back and retrieved us, we let our guard down a little and thought this could be a safe house for a while.
"Hello, I have your room ready. So sorry it's small, but it's better than being on the those capitol streets with all of these peacekeepers searching for you guys. But it's really a huge honor housing you guys and keeping you guys safe." An old lady said. I'm assuming she's the owner, she has gray hair thats tied up in a bun and brown eyes. Surprisingly she doesn't have a strong capitol accent or whole lot of makeup on, even though you can tell she is wearing some makeup. "Follow me." She said and lead us behind her front desk. The lady was old and plump, in the capitol, it was a bad thing to be fat, but back home in District 12, being fat is quite an accomplishment, it means you have had enough to eat.
The lady pulled a book on a bookshelf that was behind her desk. The room wasn't big, it was actually small like she said, the walls were made out of wood. Or old wood that is about to fall down at moments notice. There were cobwebs in the corners like this place has been vacant for years. "There's some food in the corner and some water. I know it's not much, but that's all I could afford." The lady says while getting us some blankets and pillows for the night. "The walls are sound proof, but don't make much noise to be safe. I'll retrieve you all in the later hours of the morning so you can meet up with the rest of your group and continue your march." She says and starts to walk out, "Oh, before you leave tomorrow, you probably want to wear these." She throws a plastic bag at us.
When she leaves, she closes the bookshelf and now we are all alone. With the door closed, it started to smell musty and moldy. The plastic bag contained capitol clothing and wigs, she probably wanted us to fit in so we wouldn't stand out and attract the unwanted capitol attention. We divided the food evenly, it wasn't much, but it was better than going to bed with an empty stomach. We laid down the few pillows and blankets we were provided. We all tried to get some sleep right away because we don't know the next time we will get any sleep.
I don't bother trying to fall asleep, because I know nightmares will consume me returning to the place which played a part on starting my nightmares. I have my arms around Katniss, holding her close to me, which is our normal sleep posistion. I can feel her shake a little, "Katniss," I say whispering in her ear trying not to wake the others up as well. She's shaking, I'm not sure if she's cold or if she was having a nightmare. "Katniss, it was just a dream." I tell her.
She turns around so she is facing me, her gray eyes are shimmering with tears, "No it wasn't Peeta." She says and her voice cracks. I push a lose piece of her brown curly hair behind her ears. "It was real. This place reminds me of the place I was kept during the hijacking. Some small room. It brings back too many bad memories." She says and I wipe a few stray tears that fall on her face. "I don't think I can sleep anymore. I have the worst feeling about being in the capitol. There is just too many lives at risk right now. Too many lives that I'm responsible for if they die."
I'm not sure on what to do, I can't tell her it was just a dream, because for her, it wasn't just a dream. "I'll stay up with you." I tell her and kiss her forehead. That's the only thing I could think that could possibly offer some sort of comfort to her. She relaxes into my arms.
"I love you Peeta." She mumbles into my chest. "And Briar too." She quietly adds probably hoping I don't hear that part.
"I love you too, and Briar." I reply back.
"Do you think Briar will be okay?" She asks me. "We don't even know who is watching her. We were told Finnick and Annie were watching her, but they were never told about it. Who knows where she could possibly be."
I pull Katniss closer to me, she rests her head on my chest, I guarantee that she's listening to my heart beat. She always tells me that calms her down, assures her that I'm alive. "I don't know who is watching her. But I guarantee if the rebels find out that Briar is missing or dead, Coin will be a suspect on her disaperence and I'm sure that is the last thing she wants is to have the rebels question her authority and honesty." I explain.
"I don't know what I will if she does die. Or something bad happens to her." Katniss says softly and her voice cracks in the middle of the sentence.
I take my hands and put them on her face, making her look up to me. I can see her beautiful gray eyes, the same ones I saw during our first Games in the cave, the gray eyes I saw when she would trade squirrels with my dad, the gray eyes I fell in the love with the time we made eye contact, and the beautiful gray eyes our daughter now has. "Then we'll do everything we can so nothing bad does happen to her." I say and kiss her neck lightly.
At some point last night Katniss and I must have fell asleep because I wake up from the lady giving us our wake up call. "Where do we meet up with the rest of our squads?" Finnick asks. I shrug, not really knowing myself where to go.
"I don't know." I say honestly,"I guess we could start by just putting on these capitol clothes." I suggest and everyone starts dressing themselves up. After trading clothes and wigs several times, we all finally could pass as a capitol citizen. We need some makeup on to pass, but for right now, this should be good.
"This feels funny." Annie states and starts to fix her wig. "Why do we even have to do this?" She asks probably not listening to the lady last night giving us the reasoning behind all of this.
"To disguise ourselves, we don't want the capitol to know we are here." Finnick replies simply and patiently. It still surprises me that out of all the women in the capitol Finnick could have had, he chose Annie. I don't get it. But I guess that's how people see Katniss and me. I don't know how I feel in love with her. But she's perfect to me, her scars and everything is perfectly beautiful. We sit in silence for a few seconds before Katniss speaks up.
"But what about the others? They won't be disguised." Katniss points out.
"I don't know." I say, "But Katniss, you're the one who will kill President Snow, the others are probably just distractions." I point out.
We don't say anything until the lady comes and gets us again, "The coast is clear, please be safe and win this war for the sake of the future generations. For the sake of Briar." She says leading us out of our hiding place and out into her shop. I can look out the window and the streets are definitely more crowded today than yesterday for whatever reason.
"We will try." Katniss says, "And thank you so much for everything. We will see that you will receive some sort of an award for helping us through this time." The lady looks back at us with her caring old eyes.
"Thank you. Bless you all." She tells us before we all walk out of the door. Unlike yesterday, there are actually a lot of capitol citizens out and about today, I don't know if that is a good or bad thing yet.
"We need to split up first. There are two routes from here leading to President Snow's house, and they must be guarded in some way, so if one group fails, hopefully the other gets through." Finnick starts, "And I know you guys don't want to hear this, but Katniss, it's too dangerous to go with Peeta, everyone would be looking for the two of you. It will be you, Gale, and I will go one way and Peeta and Annie the other." What? So Katniss and I will be split up into different groups? I'm not letting this happen, because last time I let her out of my sight on something like this during the Quell. And how she promised me she would be safe and not get hurt. And well, we all know what happened.
"No," I'm impose, "I'm not letting Katniss out of my sight."
Finnick sighs, "It's too suspicious for the both of you to be together..."
"Suspicious?" I interrupt, "How would it be suspicious? We're dressed in these ridiculous outfits, no one can recognize it."
"If you trust me and want Briar to stay safe from the reaping bowls, we need to split up like that and we need to move now if we want to move at a comfortable pace." Finnick replies calmly. I have no choice, do I? I don't. I want Briar to stay safe from the reaping bowls and any other possible children we have in the future, like any good parent would want. But we're not good parents because right now, we don't even know where our daughter is or whose care she is in.
"Just be safe." Katniss says as she hugs me tight. I pull away but only to give her a kiss, a passionate one. But decide not to go to far because of everyone watching us.
"Don't do anything you don't have to do." I remind her as she walks off with Finnick and Gale, not knowing if that could have been the last kiss we shared forever.
Katniss' POV
Finnick, Gale, and I walk through the crowds of the capitol citizens, no one has recognized us yet. "Did you hear that?" Gale asks stopping us. I stand still focusing on a possible sound that we could have heard. All I can hear is the blabber from the talking of the capitol citizens around me.
"I don't hear anything." Finnick says back. We stand still trying to listen to the sound Gale was talking about.
The sound was faint from when I could hear it. I don't know how Gale could have heard it when he did. "It's barking?" I ask unsure if I was hearing the same sound as Gale was.
"Are they sending something after us?" Finnick asks confused.
"Probably, they want to protect Snow. Don't they?" I say in a reply to Finnick.
"We need to get out of here." Gale says and tries to get away.
I grab his arm and pull him back, "No, they want us to run. That way they can identify us from the rest of them." I say matter-of-factly. Gale lets out a breath I didn't know he was holding and he agrees with me.
The walk to President Snow's mansion takes longer than I originally thought. We made several stops along the way into some shops looking for some guns, a few people looked at us weird and each time they did, I held my breath that they didn't realize who we were. From a distance, you could see President Snow's mansion, it's taller than any of the buildings near it. When we learned about the capitol in school, our textbooks said they based President Snow's mansion off of the 'White House', the place where the president in the country before ours lived in.
The closer we got to Snow's mansion, the more peacekeepers we could see. Peacekeepers swarmed the perimeters of the mansion and also the nearby streets. Finnick, Gale, and I looked down and tried to avoid eye contact with any peacekeeper that passed us. "We need to make it in through another entrance." Finnick says, Gale and I look at him confused. "We can't just go through the gates, look at all of that security." He says pointing at the peacekeepers. "We could try going underneath the ground. The under ground passage ways lead to the training center which gives us access to Snow's mansion."
I look at Gale. His reasoning's and plans do make sense, but is it foolproof? "Where could we get underground from?" I ask. Still not sure of this plan. I don't think we could make it. But then again, if we don't make it, hopefully Annie and Peeta got through and will manage to kill Snow.
"Simple." Finnick replies pointing at a draining thing from the road. "We just need to make sure we enter during a large crowd."
Gale opens his mouth, I'm assuming to object, because if I know Gale, he has to be the one giving orders and being right. And not someone else. We hear dogs barking, and it keeps getting closer. The three of us stand there, still in our capitol dress up attire, listening for the dog's barks again. It's not until we spot them that we make up our mind on going through with Finnick's plan. "Come on, we have to go now." Finnick says while lifting the cover to the sewer. "Katniss go first then Gale. I'll try and make sure that they don't get under." He says.
"No Finnick come on, we all have to go." I shout back. There are no stairs or a ladder from the top of the street to down underground where the suege is. I drop down, the drop isn't far, ten feet maybe.I can hardly see anything at all. Instead of waiting for Gale and Finnick, I start to run. I don't know where the training center suege would be, but I keep running knowing eventually I'll find it. The farther I get away from the entrance we used, the lesser light I recieve. I can hear water dripping and hitting something, I'm not sure what though. The stench has a horrendous smell. I strip the clothes off I got from the lady.
"Katniss, wait up. You need us to guide you there! You don't the right way to go!" Gale shouts, I can hear his voice echo, I don't know if those dogs are behind us or not. Or even if they're after us. I decided to slow down and got back to Finnick and Gale. I can hear their footsteps coming closer. The sewer is comepletly dark, the only light I have is from the light above where we entered underground.
I hear more dogs barking and screaming. I run to the entrance and startled to what I find. I see dogs attacking Finnick, "Katniss run!" Finnick says as best as he could trying to fight off the dogs. I'm still stunned at the sight I'm staring at right now, and I can't get my feet to carry me away from them. I feel Gale lift me up and start to run away from the dogs.
"No! No! Put me down!" I scream and kick at Gale trying to find a way for him to release me from his grasp. "We can't leave Finnick!" The farther I get away from the entrance we used, the lesser light I receive Gale doesn't let go of me until the sounds of dogs barking are completely gone.
Once Gale put me down, I can feel the tears already welled up in my eyes, I fight the urge on crying but managed to let a few tears escape. "Katniss, we have to keep going. It's what Finnick would have wanted." Gale says. I stop, I can't go on. I turn around and pull Gale into a hug. I hug him tight and cry into his chest.
"Is he dead?" I ask, it probably was a dumb question. Of course he's dead. After those dogs attacking him. "I mean he could fight off those dogs easily. He's strong and..." I don't know what else to say. He's good looking, but that wouldn't help him fight off the dogs.
"Katniss, these weren't dogs, they were mutations I'm pretty sure." He says. I pull away from his chest and look at him in the eyes, "He is dead, but we must keep going if we want to end this war." He tells me.
I nod my head. "Do you think Annie and Peeta are safe?" I ask Gale. Annie. I completely forgot about her. How can I tell her that her husband got brutally murdered in front of mine and Gale's eyes? She's already in a poor mental state with Finnick, I could only imagine her without him.
"I don't know." Gale says honestly, "But we need to keep moving on and find the training center to kill Snow in case they don't." He says. I'm surprised that I agree to keep moving on. Peeta is okay. I tell myself he is because I can't afford to think otherwise.