Chapter 6

"How did you know she would be here?" Katniss' voice calls out, waking me with a start. I close my eyes against the reality of this new unreal world that I keep waking up in and try to will myself home. What do I need, the Wizard of Oz?

I feel the bed shift under her slight weight and open my eyes to see her leaning over me, none of the hesitant sympathy from earlier visible in her face.

"How did you know what happened in the forest?" she demanded. And that's when I feel the blade at my throat.

"Are you some kind of spy?" she asks, angling her body across mine, holding me to the bed. "And I want the truth this time."

"Any other time, waking up to a girl on top of me…" The blade bites a little more into the sensitive skin of my neck and I swallow. Okay, so now's not the time for jokes.

"Shut up and tell me the truth." In the dimmed light of the bedroom, her eyes have taken on a slivery glint, giving her a predatory look and I find myself breathing hard for an altogether different reason.

"You wouldn't believe…."

"You know, I was ready to write you off as crazy," she cut in. "Or at least pretending to be for the Games. But something is going on here. Something weird. And I want to know what it is."

I try to shift away from her, but her left hand shoots out, trapping me, and I realize, unless I want one or both of us to get hurt, I really am pinned. Have to say, this is first time I haven't completely enjoyed it. Surprise attacks kind of take away from the pleasure…sometimes….

"I can't think with you on top of me like this," I say, derailing that train of thought before it goes any further.

She eases back, cautiously, with the knife still pointed at me, her eyes tracking my every movement and I remember that this is the girl who fed her family by hunting for years. I sit up slowly, keeping my hands up, nice and visible. The alarm clock by the bed, just numbers floating in the air, show it is now four in the morning. Great, Effie Trinket will be here to tell us about our 'big, big, day' in a couple hours.

"Now tell me how you knew."

I shrug. What's the use of lying? "I read it in a book."

Katniss frowns. "What book? Something here? Has someone been watching me and Gale?"

"No, well, yeah, probably, seems like they have cameras everywhere, but that's not what I meant. All of this," I spread my hands to encompass the room and everything else. "Your world, it's not real. Not really. It's part of a book."

"A book," Katniss says flatly, the words dripping with incredulity.

"Yeah, a critically-acclaimed, actually-not-badly-written young adult book. All of the people here are well, kind of not real either. Not the best news in the world, but that's what's going on."

I risk looking at her and sure enough, she's looking at me like I'm crazy. "And so what does that make you?"

"I'm an actor. The book got made into a movie and I was in it. My real name's Josh. Josh Hutcherson."

Her eyes search mine before she shakes her head. "Either you're the craziest person I've ever met or the best liar. I'm not sure which."

I give her a faint smile. "Well, I am an actor, so it's possible I'm both."

That earns me a smile and some of the tension dissipates from the room. The knife is no longer pointed at me, just resting lightly in her lap. I can see it now, just one of the steak knives from the dining room, but a sharp and shiny dagger in the right hands.

"If this is an act, then it's a good one. I just don't see how you could know…"she starts then trails off.

No, no, no. She's going back to thinking this is some kind of trick and she can't. With sudden clarity, I realize I need her to know what's going on, that as the lead character, she might just be my ticket out of here. If I can get her to believe me maybe that will trigger something that will send me home.

"Listen," I say taking hold of her now empty hand. "I need your help."

"You need help alright, just not mine," she says, pulling her hand out of my grip. "I've got to go." She makes to get up but I grab her hand again, pulling her back down on the bed.

"Hey," she yells, leveling the knife at my chest.

I show her my hands again. "Look, you're the one who said there was something weird going on. You can feel that everything that's happened since the reaping is…off. You have to feel that."

"All I've wanted to do since the reaping is protect my sister," she yells. "And you're trying to convince me that she isn't real. I was there the day she was born, Peeta…Josh…whoever. I know what's real. This is real. The Games are real. What you're talking about…that's not real."

She gets up again and I let her go, but when she gets to the door I can't help calling out. "If what I'm saying isn't true then how did I know about the red-haired girl? How do I know about the conversation you had with Gale the morning of the reaping? When you talked about running? How about the day you got that goat for Prim's birthday? The goat she named Lady, the one who licked her cheek that first night?"

Katniss slowly turns away from the door to look at me. "How do you know those things? Have you been…following me?"

"Yeah, I've been tramping through the forest after you without you or Gale ever noticing."

"Then you've been recording us. Getting evidence for the Peacekeepers," she counters, her voice shaking a little.

"You mean the same people who buy your squirrels in the Hob?" I say softly, less sarcastic. I remind myself that this is her life, the only life she's known. I walk over to her, standing close enough to touch and I try to make my words kind. "I know because this is a book."

I take her chin in my palm and tilt her face up toward mine. "You have to believe me."

She snatches her face out of my grasp and shakes her head. "No." It is an emphatic whisper, full of emotion. A complete denial of everything I've said. She steps away from me.

I close my eyes, resigned to this defeat. The air moves around me as the door opens and then she's gone. A few seconds later I hear a door slam in the distance.