A/N: Sorry that it's been two weeks since the last update. Exams are crazy right now. There might be another delay after this update but I wanted to get something else out as soon as I could for you all. I appreciate everyone's support of this story and I appreciate every read, review, follow and favourite so thank you all!
Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games.
Chapter Twelve
I've been to the Mellark Bakery before. My father took me once. Prim was only a baby at the time, perched on his hip and playing with the buttons on his shirt. I don't remember a lot from it. I was only little as well. The only thing I can vaguely recall is eating a pastry that tasted like cheese. It's one of the few memories I have of my dad. When he died, he took a lot of my memory of him with him. I do remember the way there though. It's on the other side of the District; a good few miles away from where I live. The exercise will do me good anyway, even if my good leg begins to ache when I'm nearly there from taking the brunt of my weight. It's a wonder my fingers aren't permanently cramped into claws from clutching the handles of my crutches.
When I arrive at the Merchant sector, I come upon the square; another place I haven't been to in years. Surrounding the square are multiple businesses. The main businesses. I don't know why I've never been down here before. You'd think I'd have been here often. It's basically the centre of the District. My mum is usually the one who goes shopping here and I always hung out with my friends just at the Seam estate.
Thankfully, the bakery is easy to see. It's near enough in the middle of the square. Besides, even if I couldn't see it, the sign saying 'Mellark's' would have given it away easy enough. I'm making my way across the square when I see her. She crosses my vision and I feel an impulse to jump underneath a bush and hide. I'm frozen to the spot, however, as she turns and sees me, blue eyes sparkling with curiosity
Madge doesn't think twice about approaching me. I consider running, except that's impossible because of my broken leg. I also consider climbing behind the shrubs and lying low, even though she already has me in her line of vision. When did she get back? Why didn't I hear that she was coming back?
"So it's true," Madge says, stopping before me and cocking her head. Her golden curls tumble off her shoulder in a waterfall and I try not to seethe with jealously. Gale must have a fetish for blondes or something. Except where Glimmer's hair is limp and lifeless, Madge's has always seemed to have an almost unnatural bounce and volume to it.
"So what's true?" I reply.
"You tried to kill yourself." Madge's eyes trail over me distastefully. "What reason do you have to kill yourself?"
"I didn't try to kill myself," I deny. "Who told you?"
Madge brushed her hair from her face, her crimson red nails making her lips stand out against her pale skin. "Gale told me," she said.
"Gale?! When the hell was this?" I exclaim.
"Yesterday," Madge frowned. "When I got back."
I close a lid on my rage at Gale for a moment to try to do the polite thing. "Oh yeah, you were away back to Spain," I say, pretending I had forgotten. "How are your parents?"
Madge eyes me suspiciously, searching for a motive. When she can't find one, she cautiously says, "Okay. Still sick but I had to come back for Halloween exams . . ." She folds her arms, suddenly authorative, and says, "And don't think I don't know about the games you and Gale have been playing while I've been away. Making each other jealous, the nerve of it! Are you both really that childish?"
I'm taken aback by her reaction. It's not that I didn't think she'd find out about my and Gale's flirting it's just her reaction to it is completely off putting. I thought she'd be mad. I thought she'd need one of her friends to hold her back while she tore off her earrings and tried to start a fight with me. "Aren't you . . . ?"
"What? Mad?" Madge scoffed. "I wouldn't give you the pleasure of it. I know full well that Gale's a player but when he's finished with everyone else it's always me he comes back to."
"Isn't that a bit annoying?" I ask.
Madge sighs. "Very."
Suddenly, I see Madge in a completely different light. I always thought of her as the slag who's been keeping Gale away from me but in truth it's Gale who's at fault. He's the one who always cheats on her when she leaves to be with her parents. And I'm usually the one who he flirts with. Madge isn't the slag . . . I am.
"I'm not interested in Gale anymore," I declare, even if my voice sounds unsure. "He's a complete . . . bell end."
Madge snorts. "That sentence got away from you pretty fast." She places a hand against her forehead and briefly closes her eyes. I see the frustration that washes over her face like a wave and instantly feel guilty. Madge cracks an eye open, sky blue iris narrowed in a confused frown. "Is it true that you've been spending time with Fatboy Mellark?"
"He's not fat and yes, it's true," I say.
"Weird. I believed the suicide thing faster than I believed that." She sits down on a bench by the shrubs and frowns at the ground. "Seems a lot of things have changed since I've been gone. I hear Cato Hadley even asked Fatboy out on a date. Gave him his lettermen jacket or something? What's the world coming to? Did I miss an announcement denouncing the food chain?"
"No," I admit, slipping an arm out my crutch loops one at a time to untangle myself from my schoolbag and throw it by the bench. I sit beside Madge and sigh. "And he's not fat."
Madge gives me a sidelong look. "Then what's happened?"
"Cato was being a douchebag as usual. He asked Peeta out because he wanted help with Chemistry. Thought because Peeta's tutoring me math that it automatically meant that he could mooch off of it," I explain.
"So that's why you're spending time with Fatboy Mellark?" Madge concludes. "For tutoring?"
"It began that way. But he's actually a really cool guy. Better than cool really. I don't really know the word for it," I say, waving if off flippantly. I frown to myself. "He's not fat, either."
"Why do you keep saying that?" Madge demands to know.
"Because he's not," I say.
"Of course he's not, it's just a name," says Madge. "I could have sworn you were the one who gave him it."
"If I was, I was wrong," I reply, looking at the ground shamefully.
Madge gapes at me for a long time. "Well the world truly is ending. Katniss Everdeen just admitted she's wrong. What's next? Gale decides to be celibate?"
"If that happens the world truly is ending," I chuckle.
We laugh.
Madge smiles. It's small but I catch it out of the corner of my eye. "You're alright, Katniss. When you're not being a bitch and trying to steal my boyfriend," she says. "You should try being nice more often. It suits you."
For some reason, her words made me smile. I'm alright. When not being a bitch, that is. "Thanks Madge," I find myself saying. Madge's eyes widen and she mimes her mind blowing. We laugh again. "I should probably get going. It'll be getting dark soon and I want to see if I can get some study time in with Peeta."
Madge nods. "That's fine. I should probably be getting home, too." She helps me stand up and even picks my schoolbag up for me. "I think the bakery is shut for the night but you can go around the side of the building and there should be a door that leads to their flat above. Knock before entering, though. Mrs Mellark is an anal witch."
Anal witch? Ew, that can't be good.
We part ways and I limp my way over to the bakery. There's a huge oak tree around the back that reminds me of the sort I used to climb in the woods. I touch the bark and inhale at the feeling of it against my hand. It's just as I remember it. Sharp and rough and a little springy. If my leg wasn't broken, I'd probably try to climb it.
There's a crash inside the bakery. It's so loud and I nearly fall over out of shock. Now there's screaming. Enraged screaming. Suddenly I feel like a trespasser and I hide behind the tree (don't ask me why, I was just sort of working on autopilot and did the first thing that came into my head). When the side door Madge told me about is thrown open, the screaming becomes louder and more distinct. I can understand what's being said much better now.
"Trust you to go and break your fingers you worthless brat! What use are you to me now if you can't bake?" A feminine voice rages. I press my back against the tree and bite my knuckles until blood is drawn. Is that Peeta's mother? Is she screaming at him? "Feed the burned bread to the pigs and don't bother coming back inside until I'm in bed. I can't stand the sight of you right now!"
The door slams shut again. I hear footsteps getting further away, going further around the back of the building. I peer around the tree and see everything as it had been before. Except there are soft footprints in the grass leading around to the back of the bakery. I follow the footsteps as it begins to rain and come to a halt at the sight of someone standing at a pen of pigs.
It's Peeta. Even if I can only see the back of him I know it's him. I feel the urge to hobble over to him but stay rooted to the spot instead, silently observing him. He's ripping something apart with impressive anger and vigour, throwing it into the pen so it splats in to the mud. That must be the burned bread. His arm lifts and his wipes his arm across his face. Across his eyes. My heart wrenches. Is he crying?
There's a bit of wire loose from the pen. I watch Peeta as he fingers it while the pigs devour the bread. I'm getting wetter by the second and so is he but it seems that neither of us care about that. I'm too transfixed and he's too broken to notice.
Almost as if in slow motion, I watch Peeta unwind the wire from the pen so it is long enough to reach his arm. I step closer, worried about what he's doing, and gasp in horror as he slices through his arm with the sharp end of the wire.
"Peeta!" I shout. My voice is quiet, smothered by the rain and thick air around us. Peeta hears me though. It would be hard not to in the bitter silence that had been the former atmosphere. My presence startles him. The wire falls from his hands and he nearly falls right over the fencing of the pen.
"Katniss!" he exclaims in shock, ice blue eyes wide with mortification. "What are you doing here?"
"I came to see if you wanted to study!" I yell. "What the hell are you doing?!"
"I'm feeding the pigs!"
"By slicing yourself?!"
Peeta falls silent. "You saw that then," he mutters. I run a wet hand through my hair, catching in the tangles of my braid. Then I notice something else. A bruise forming under his eye. Too recent to be given out by Gale. I reach out for him and touch his face with my soaked hands. He flinches, probably because of a mixture of pain and self-consciousness.
"Who did this?" I ask gently. "Was it your mother?"
"You don't know the full story Katniss," Peeta says, knocking my arm away so my hand is forced to leave his face. "I deserved it."
"Did you murder someone?" I ask. Peeta frowns at me and shakes his head. "Then you didn't deserve it." The wire suddenly makes me think of the marks I saw on his arms at Cashmere's party. The marks whose origin he was so blasé and nervous about describing. Both my hands go through my hair in frustration. "Goddamnit Peeta, how long has this been going on?"
"Has what been going on?"
"This! The abuse; the self-harming; even the anorexia!" The word makes Peeta flinch again, like he still hadn't admitted to himself that that was what was wrong with him. "You can't live like this. It isn't living at all!" My eyes fall on his arm. "Oh my god, you're bleeding." I grab his thin arm before he can stop me and look at the cut he's given himself. "That's really deep Peeta. What have you done to yourself?"
"It's not that bad," says Peeta.
I close my eyes at the thought of him giving himself worse than this. "You need stitches," I say. "You're going to have to come back home with me. My mum is a doctor. She knows how to stitch up cuts."
"That's not necessary."
"Do you want to bleed out?" I snap.
Peeta stares at me, his eyes so sad that I know what the true answer is. The answer he just won't bring himself to say. "I can't leave here," he tells me.
"I heard your mother screaming," I say. Peeta winces at the thought. "She doesn't want you in for a while. Plenty of time to come with me and get stitched up." Before Peeta can protest, I've fished my mobile out of my pocket and dialled my mum's number. "Yeah, mum? It's Katniss. Can you come collect me because the rain's really heavy and my cast is getting wet? Oh and by the way, I'm bringing you a patient."
A/N: So yeah, that happened. Just remember that this story is ongoing and will stay that way even if I miss a couple of updating weeks. I only have three weeks of exams left anyway so there won't be that long of a gap anymore! :)
Also, for anyone who read the sample chapter of Kindred-or anyone who is interested anyways-it shall begin regular updating on the 19th of June. I know my profile has been saying the 15th of June but I've altered the details a little.
Thanks for reading! :D