"Is Peeta coming for dinner tonight?" my wife asks the Sunday morning after the Harvest Festival.
"He said he was." I glance at the clock. The bread should be done by now.
"Then I'll get some stuff for dinner." She pulls on her coat. When the door is opened, the house drops twenty degrees as the rush of frigid air swirls into the hall.
"We're low on cinnamon," I call after her, wishing she'd close the door.
"I'll see if I can pick some up."
Things have been pretty quiet since the Harvest Festival. Now that the Victory Tour is over, the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games are officially behind us. For obvious reasons, these Games felt a whole lot longer than they usually do. But now, finally, we're in a brief period of calm. The children of the districts are safe until the weather thaws out. I can almost believe that Peeta will be okay. He's been much happier since coming home from the tour, and while his eyes occasionally hold a haunted look, he could be the same boy I left on reaping day.
The snug comfort of the bakery is wonderful now that the weather has gotten so cold. The black mottled snow lies hard packed around the houses and streets of Twelve and I expect we'll get more soon. Winter has always been a difficult season for our district. More people dropping from starvation, a general sense of hopelessness. Even if we do have food every month from the Capitol now, the days are short and with darkness comes despair. Nothing good happens when the light goes away.
I'm used to spending long hours in the bakery by myself. I've always prefered solitude to multitudes of people. But it seems the quieter it is around me these days, the louder my fears. According to my wife, the tension is growing. Winter may smother the fire a bit, but come spring… could things really ignite? Right now, the Capitol is supplying us with food. But when the weather defrosts and our days as the winning district dwindle, will we really detonate the words and point our aggression towards the President? My wife thinks so, but then again, it's what she's hoping for. I don't see how she doesn't worry night and day what will happen to our family should the rebellion break out. Peeta is one of the most recognizable faces in Panem now. Surely he'll be punished first if we start any kind of resistance here. Is she really willing to take that risk, to pin all that on our son? And the older boys. What will happen to them? They could easily get killed in an uprising or riots. The possibilities are never ending.
By noon, I'm drowning in anxiety, my thoughts bubbling up around me like water. Rising higher and higher until my breath is ripped from my chest. There can't be a rebellion. It's too dangerous. I can't guarantee my family's safety. In the vague world beyond my mind, I hear someone calling me. I surface from the raging waters of despair and realize it's my wife. I leave the kitchen, searching for her voice.
"There you are," she pants. Her face is flushed and she's short of breath. There's something in her eyes that I don't see very often. Fear.
Something dreadful has happened. Everything I've been worried about crashes over me. What could have possibly scared my wife who's so past being frightened of anything? I grab her arm, shaking it a little. "What's happened? What's going on?"
"It's - it's the Head," she pants. "The Head Peacekeeper."
"Cray?"
"No, they've got a new one. I don't know when he got here or where he came from. But it's not pretty out there."
"Out where?" I need to know. "Are our children safe?"
"They didn't show up with a dead turkey, did they?"
"Just tell me what's going on!" I'm beginning to panic, fingers of terror clutching at my chest.
"They're going to whip him," she says at last. "Dragged him to the square. He showed up with a turkey and they're making him confess now. They'll whip him senseless."
My heart stops and so does my ability to breathe. Before Cray took over the district, whipping used to be common practice. I remember the sound and all that it implied. As kids, we used to run and hide until the moans stopped and we were sure the victim had been carried away. A sick feeling washes over me, but I have to ask. "Who is it?"
"The Hawthorne boy," she says breathlessly. My wife is very pale, almost green. I've never seen her like this. "Katniss's cousin."
"He's not -" I start to say, but quickly stop. She doesn't know that, of course. To cover up my blunder, I say the other thing that's on my tongue. "He's still a boy!"
"He works in the mines, so he's of age," she reminds me. "And poaching carries such severe penalties."
I want to tell her that he's been hunting all his life. That we've eaten his and Katniss's kills. That they used to provide us with all our game before Peeta won. But I just pull on my coat and make for the door.
"Where are you going?" she asks.
"To the square."
She takes my arm, holding me back. "No, stay here. There's nothing good coming for him. Nothing we can do."
How strange this is. For her to be the one holding me back. Usually, I'm the one who wishes to stay, who knows there's nothing to be done.
"I just need to see for myself. I won't be long."
The cold nearly knocks the wind out of me. I hasten to the square, arriving just as the first lash comes down on the back of Gale Hawthorne. He cries out, blood already rushing from the place where the whip sliced his flesh. The turkey that incriminated poor Gale is nailed to the same post that he's bound to. The man standing over him must be the new Head Peacekeeper. His chiseled jaw is clenched with concentration as he brings the whip down again. The crowd is thick enough to hide me from sight, which is good because I probably look horrified.
"How many lashes?" I croak to the woman standing next to me.
She shakes her head. "Didn't say. Thread just tied him up as soon as he pleaded guilty."
"Thread?"
"The new Head."
In no time at all, Gale's back is raw and bloody, as are the stones beneath him. With each lash, he gives out another strangled, helpless cry of pain. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. After about twenty lashes, a redheaded Peacekeeper steps forward.
"That's enough," he says, grabbing the Head's arm. Instead of lowering the whip, Thread brings the butt of it down on the man's head. He crumples to the ground and the Head Peacekeeper delivers another blow.
Another ten lashes and Gale goes quiet. I think he's unconscious. All that can be heard is the whistling of the whip and the intake of breath as it makes contact. Every time it comes down, a spray of scarlet follows, speckling Thread's white uniform. Gale's flesh is so mutilated, so ripped apart, that it's nauseating. This is way past a "corrective punishment".
I find myself wishing someone would help him. Step forward and force Thresh to stop. But when someone does make a stand, it's the last person I want.
"NO!" Katniss rushes forward, throwing herself in front of the Head Peacekeeper. She takes the lash meant for Gale to her face. "Stop it! You'll kill him!" she's shrieking.
If she's here, so is Peeta. I look around for him, silently willing my son to stay hidden. There's nothing any of us can do now and Katniss has just made things ten times worse.
Haymitch strides out into the open now, stumbling on the Peacekeeper whom Thread bashed earlier. He inspects Katniss, then angrily addresses Thread about photo shoots and wedding dresses. I'm barely listening because I've just spotted the blonde curls in the crowd. I move over and grab his arm.
"Peeta, stay here," I hiss in a low voice. "You'll only get yourself in trouble."
He starts, looking at me like I've appeared from nowhere, which I guess I have. "Dad, let go!" He tries to wrest his arm from my grip.
"I don't care if she blew up the blasted Justice Building!" Haymitch is snarling in the middle of the square. "Look at her cheek! Think that will be camera ready in a week?"
"Peeta, you'll only make it worse for them. Stay here," I plead.
My son's face is angry as he twists his arm. "They'll hurt her!" he whispers harshly. "Let me go, Dad! This isn't your fight!" He rips his arm from my grasp and pushes through the crowd without a second glance at me.
"He was poaching," Thread says in the middle. "What business is it of hers, anyway?"
Peeta reaches Katniss, taking her arm. "He's her cousin," he says firmly. "And she's my fiancée. So if you want to get to him, expect to go through both of us."
My brain is foggy. Surely Thread will pull out his gun and shoot them all down right here, right now. I was just trying to protect him, to keep him from the cruelty of this new Head. But it doesn't seem to matter because as he stands defiantly before Thread, he's publicly announcing his willingness to confront authority. My son's making himself a target.
There's dead silence in the square. Peeta's face is set in rigid lines of determination. Katniss cups her cheek as blood trickles down her pale face. Haymitch stands between Thread and them. If a shot is fired, it will go through him first.
Finally, a female Peacekeeper steps forward now, interrupting the tension. "I believe, for a first offence, the required number of lashes has been dispensed, sir. Unless your sentence is death, which we would carry out by firing squad."
Thread considers this. "Is that the standard protocol here?"
"Yes, sir."
"Very well," the Head Peacekeeper barks. "Get your cousin out of here, then. And if he comes to, remind him that the next time he poaches off the Capitol's land I'll assemble that firing squad personally."
If he comes to. As the crowd begins to disperse, I gulp in as much air as my lungs will hold. Peeta's okay. He wasn't shot and neither was anyone else. Katniss looks very wobbly as she grapples with the ropes that bind Gale. Peeta gently moves her aside and cuts the ropes with a knife someone passed him. The woman at the clothing stall sells them her wooden countertop and they use it as a stretcher, hoisting Gale facedown onto it's rough surface.
The square is emptying quickly as people disappear into their homes. Shamefully, I follow their retreat. Peeta's okay now and he's right. This isn't my fight.
Back home, my wife waits anxiously by the front door. The moment I walk in, she pounces. "I'll only be a minute?" she says, mocking my earlier words. "You leave me here to just wait and wonder whether you got yourself killed?"
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean for you to worry," I tell her heavily, hanging up my coat.
"Didn't mean for me to worry? They just whipped an eighteen-year-old for the first time in years and then you disappear into the square? What the hell happened?"
I've never seen her this worked up.
"Well, you could have come and seen that everything was okay. Well, no it wasn't. Gale's pretty beat up. Peeta and the others are carrying him to Katniss's mother now."
"Peeta? He was there?"
"Of course he was. Katniss stepped forward to defend Gale and got a lash to the face, so of course his next move was to shield her."
"Stupid girl," she mutters. "Why can't she hold her tongue for once? And Peeta, too. They could have both been killed."
"It look like it for a moment. Why didn't you come?" I ask her. "You never stay back."
"What did I care?" my wife waves her hand dismissively, but her voice is much higher than usual. "Just a whipping."
"Fine," I tell her. I'm not in the mood to force out the reason. Peeta's words still ring in my ears. I should have stayed. Made sure Thread didn't come back or follow them. I turn towards the kitchen, dragging myself back down the hallway.
"My brother was whipped once." It comes out barely above a whisper. My wife has her back turned to me. "Broke curfew. I was sick and the home refused to give me medicine. My brother snuck out to the apothecary, hoping to trade the few coins he'd saved from working in the mines for some kind of relief. He was older than I was and couldn't stand to see me suffer. They caught him. Twenty lashes was his punishment. They made me watch. They made us all watch as the whip sliced open his flesh again and again. Because he tried to help me. I was only fourteen."
In the dark hallway, I swallow hard. No wonder she couldn't stand to see Gale whipped. Her brother must have been around his age.
"Afterwards, I went to the apothecary myself and begged them to heal his back. The lashes left deep trenches in his skin and we were so malnourished as it was. The man was busy but he sent his daughter to help. Katniss's mother. She arranged his ragged skin and he was able to go back to the mines within a few weeks. That was the year that he -" her voice catches, "the day that he was reaped."
I remember that day. It was overcast and the clouds were heavy with moisture. When they called his name, he'd walked bravely up those stairs and shook hands with the girl who'd also been reaped. I knew my wife, then. She didn't cry, but her face had gone very, very pale. I remember the way her eyes followed him into the Justice Building. As they swung shut, it began to rain. The clouds were crying the tears she'd withheld.
"That was the year that it rained," I whisper. "I remember thinking the droplets were the cloud's tears."
"He knew he wasn't coming home," my wife says in choked voice. "He knew. He tried to be strong, for me. I got time to say goodbye. He hugged me. Promised that he - that he loved me and that he'd be back." Her voice breaks and I know she's crying. "But he didn't come back. He broke his promise and left me at the home alone. It was so cold without him there in the bed and I remember refusing to eat for a long time. Hoping that I could join him on the other side. I'd come into our little room that had just one window that he'd always open to let more air in. I would almost expect him to be there, still black from the mines, but smiling. But no one was there but that old grey spider in the corner. The home didn't even seem to miss him and we had no parents to mourn him. It was just me. It wasn't his fault. He'd never fought before. He was barely eighteen and hadn't worked in the mines for more than four months. In training, he made an alliance with the Careers. But - but they never intended to keep it."
It's true. Her brother had spent the days of training tagging along with the pack, trying to get into their group. They'd finally made a temporary alliance. And then, as soon as the gong sounded, they'd turned on him. Backstabbed and put a knife through his heart. He wasn't Career material. It turned out their "alliance" was a plan to eliminate a weak tribute.
I know now why my wife was so curt at Peeta's farewell. It brought back too many memories. Her brother's goodbye. His promise to return. The loneliness of the home. So dark, so cold. She was just a little girl with no family left at all. And now, that little girl stands before me. Sure, she's grown up, but nothing's changed. She doesn't trust promises or people.
"They took the one person I had left," she sobs. "He was all I had. And I bet he'd be so disappointed if he saw who I am today. He always tried to keep us honest. Only broke rules when it was absolutely necessary."
"He wouldn't be disappointed," I tell her, moving closer tentatively. "He'd be proud that you never gave up. His is proud, actually. Because he's watching us. I know he is."
"I don't know. Maybe he is."
And when she finally lets me put my arms around her, she lets the heartache overcome the anger for the first time. My shirt is wet with her tears when she finally pulls away.