Chapter 1—Rye's announcement

"Try and stop me, then. You can't beat me into submission anymore, woman."

Peeta watched his brother, Rye, and his mother, Marigold, face off against each other in the bakery's kitchen. The bakery was closed for the day, and Peeta had finished his clean up. He could have left. He certainly didn't want to be there. But Rye had told him ahead of time what he intended to do and asked him to stay. So there Peeta was, watching his mother realize that she no longer had any real control over Rye.

Mrs. Mellark looked shocked at her son's words. Her mouth hung open in disbelief before turning into an ugly slash of tight anger. "Maybe you didn't hear me, you worthless piece of shit. I. Said. No!"

"Maybe you didn't hear me. I'm doing this," said Rye. His voice was quiet but firm. "And you can't do a damn thing about it." Rye leaned against the doorway with his arms folded across his chest.

Mrs. Mellark yelled, "How dare you speak to me that way? I will not stand quietly by while my son brings shame to this family!"

'Shame', thought Peeta, she doesn't know the meaning of the word. The abuse the Mellark boys had suffered over the years at the hands of their mother was common knowledge.

"A musician—" here she spat on the floor Peeta had just mopped-"is no better than a BUM! You might as well move to the Seam and join the mines!" Peeta tuned out her words and instead started thinking about painting this scene. He thought about how he would juxtapose the furious tension in his mother's body with the calm, satisfied look of Rye's posture. His mother's face was the exact same color as the raspberry jam they used in some of their better pastries.

All three Mellark boys had a talent. Bannock, the oldest, carved wooden figurines. Rye played guitar. Peeta could draw and paint. Mrs. Mellark thought it was all effeminate nonsense. Still, she largely tolerated the boys' hobbies as long as they didn't let their grades slip, miss their shifts at the bakery, or talk about it to anyone lest the whole District think she was raising a bunch of, in her words, "candyasses."

Rye had just turned 18, though, and his birthday present to himself was to tell his mother that he had started a band. Mrs. Mellark, mostly out of habit, told him no. Now that Rye had pointed out that her permission was no longer required, she had become unhinged. Peeta wondered if it was going to come to blows.

Peeta knew that it wasn't Rye's decision to form a band that had Mrs. Mellark so upset. No, what had their mother all lathered up was Rye's defiance. Rye could have told her anything—he wanted to be a Peacekeeper, he wanted to apprentice with the butcher, he wanted to be a teacher—it wouldn't have mattered. Marigold would have still said no. This confrontation would have happened one way or another.

Rye kept his cool until Mrs. Mellark announced she would withhold his pay. Then he allowed some of his own frustration show.

"You don't pay me now!" he yelled. "How about I just move out and you can hire a full-time apprentice to replace me?"

Mrs. Mellark didn't have any argument against that. They all knew that the cost of room and board for Rye was a fraction of the cost of hiring a full-time apprentice.

Mrs. Mellark finally understood that she'd lost this round to Rye, so she turned on Peeta. "What are you looking at, you worthless, lazy boy? Why are you just standing there like some useless lump? Do you think this is funny?"

Peeta just shrugged at her. It didn't matter what he said, didn't matter that his work was finished, that he'd done nothing wrong. Marigold was going to have her piece of flesh and since she couldn't get it from Rye, she'd get it somewhere else. And right now, Peeta was the only other target within reach.

Years of abuse at her hands had taught him that it was better to just let her vent than to argue or hide. Otherwise, her rage would simmer for hours, or even days, only to erupt in violence. She didn't hit him very often anymore. At nearly 16 years of age, Peeta was almost as large as Rye. The larger he got, the less Marigold smacked him around.

But when she did hit him, she did it dirty-quietly, without warning, rolling pin in hand. Only after she'd gotten a good blow or two on him would she screech out her rationalizations for the punishment— "and THAT'S for not feeding the pigs on time/making too much noise/not sweeping the floor properly." The last beating had been about a month ago and the bruises on his upper back and shoulders still hadn't quite faded.

So, Peeta just stood there and pretended to pay attention while she raged on about his incompetence, his stupidity, how he was just like his worthless father. Her words rolled off of him. Mostly.

After a while, Marigold ran out of steam. She said she was sick of the sight of them and she was sending them to bed without supper. Rye really wanted to put up a fight about it—he was an adult now, she couldn't just send him to his room—but he also wanted to get Peeta out of her line of fire.

The brothers went upstairs to their bedroom and closed the door.