My feet can't get to the living room fast enough. A scream like that can only mean one thing.
It's like one of those nightmares where the scary thing is coming, but you can't seem to move. The tilting world distorts the living room, but the screen is clear as day.
Peeta is on the leafy jungle floor of the arena. Unmoving. Lifeless. Katniss is sprawled over his chest, screaming his name. She shakes him, slaps him, her fingers grope for any signs of breath. Nothing. Her panic intensifies my fear, making everything strangely sharp.
My voice sounds distant, like it's not my own, but I'm pretty sure I'm yelling. "What happened? What happened?"
"He ran into the damn force field." My wife's face is very pale, but her voice is harder than a rock.
I've been preparing myself for this moment for months, a year actually. But I expected a fight. A valiantly noble sacrifice. Anything but this.
Katniss has gone from frantic to hysterical. "He's not breathing!" she shrieks. "He's not breathing!"
This makes no sense. How'd this happen so quickly? Peeta is dead, really dead. Caesar Flickerman and Claudius Templesmith are saying something, but not one word transfers to my brain.
Finnick Odair is pushing Katniss aside now. He runs his hands down my son's spine and along his shoulders. When he blocks off Peeta's nose, Katniss loses it. She tries to push the District Four tribute off of my son's body, but he's ready with a fist.
What's he doing? They were allies. Could this be a false alliance, like that of my wife's brother? Is our family doomed to fall into these dangerous, backstabbing arena bonds? It seems the odds are truly not in our favor.
Once she pulls herself together, Katniss nocks and arrow and aims it at Finnick. Go. Let it go! Shoot him! But her arrow never finds its mark.
And suddenly, like when the individual ingredients suddenly become dough, I understand what Finnick is trying to do. I've only seen it done one other time. A fourth year teacher once performed this on a kid whose heart had failed. I find myself as engrossed as Katniss, coming so close to the screen I could touch it. My eyes will Finnick on because I don't trust my voice.
Twelve's only currently alive tribute watches, stricken, like everything depends on this boy's life. Which, for her, maybe it does. Can Odair really bring people back from the dead? Can he pull Peeta back?
"Please Peeta," Katniss begs. "Please wake up. Please wake up, Peeta." If only it were that simple. But she's heaving now, practically hyperventilating. "Please, Peeta." She says it over and over as Finnick continues his rhythmic dance from my son's mouth to his heart.
But it's not working. Surely it's pointless now. I'm so glad I went to the Victor's Village, already figured out my feelings, said goodbye in the primitive way that I could. My hands find the note in my pocket, clutching it. My last piece of Peeta.
Katniss is an accurate display of the emotions currently coursing through my icy veins. He's dead. My son is dead.
I hear a faint voice, like it's coming from a cave. It enters my conscience without registering. Luckily, the words are repeated several times. "He coughed, he coughed! He just coughed!"
What? The camera gets tighter on Peeta's face. The eyes are moving behind their still closed lids.
Katniss flings down her weapons and dives for him, feeling clumsily for a pulse. Her hand brushes away the hair from Peeta's forehead. "Peeta?" Her voice is so desperate, so hopelessly hopeful.
And then his eyes flutter open, the pale lashes catching the sunlight. Good lord. He's alive.
"Holy shit," my wife mutters.
"Careful," Peeta whispers hoarsely. "There's a force field up there."
At this, Katniss makes a choked sound, partly sobbing, partly laughing.
"Must be a lot stronger than the one on the Training Center roof." Peeta's talking, so he must be alright. Sounds okay other than a bit throaty. "I'm alright though. Just a little shaken."
The whole things so insane that I laugh. Because he just died. Literally was gone. Couldn't have been farther from "alright". And yet, those words just left his mouth.
Katniss seems to agree with me. "You were dead," she sobs. "Your heart stopped!" She makes that noise again, the strangled one.
"Well, it seems to be working now," Peeta says. "It's alright, Katniss."
But she's trembling, her body racked with sobs that are wrenched from deep under her ribs. How awful that must have been for her. Worse than it was even for me. She was sitting right there, so useless to the boy that she - well, I'm not quite sure how to describe their relationship. Anyhow, she was completely dependent on an almost stranger to bring him back.
"Katniss?" Peeta's eyes fill with concern because her sobs keep coming. She clings to him, kissing him, needing confirmation that he's actually breathing.
"It's okay." Finnick notices Peeta's quizzical expression. "It's just her hormones from the baby."
Could that be causing this sudden burst of emotion that's so not Katniss? She doesn't sob like this, she doesn't tremble, and certainly she doesn't cling. But she did just witness Peeta dying and if she's supposed to be in love, a bit of emotion is in order. Still, this seems like a very dramatic show if it's only an act. No, there's no way that she's pretending here. Those tears, the way she's shivering like a leaf. She's even putting a hand to her mouth in an effort to stop the noises coming from her mouth.
Finnick is staring from one "star-crossed lover" to the other. Probably he's thinking the same thing. This kind reaction isn't acted. It's lived. Which means, one way or another, Katniss cares about my son so deeply that his death brought out her most overwrought feelings, her most vulnerable side. As for the baby - I'm still not sure if it even exists. Maybe it's the hormones, maybe not. I don't have enough information to even begin to make a guess.
"How are you?" Odair asks Peeta. "Do you think you can move on?"
"No." Katniss is still crying. "He has to rest."
Mag, the old woman, hands her a piece of moss to wipe her nose on, which is running nonstop. Mopping the tears off her face and blowing her nose, the girl tries to get a grip. She has to untangle herself from Peeta to wash her face, but she doesn't go far. After a moment, her hands reach for his neck. I worry that we're in for a romantic burst right here in front of the Four tributes, but she just pulls out a golden disk that's hanging on a rope.
"Is this your token?"
"Yes. Do you mind that I used your mockingjay? I wanted us to match." Peeta is still ashen faced, but his voice is a little stronger now.
"No, of course I don't mind." The tears seemed to have stopped at last and she can smile at him. There's something more familiar about the smile. A bit false.
"So, you want to make camp here, then?" Finnick pulls them back to the pressing topic at hand.
"I don't think that's an option," my son says. "Staying here. With no water. No protection. I feel all right, really. If we could just go slowly." He doesn't look all right, but he does have a point. They really need a safer spot to stay.
"Slowly would be better than not at all," says Finnick, helping Peeta to his feet. Once there, my son stumbles a little. Katniss catches and steadies him, holding on for just a little longer than what's necessary. They both look pretty bad. Peeta died and Katniss had a huge meltdown. What a way to start off these Games.
Now that the immediate danger has passed, I collapse on the couch. It's okay. He's okay. She's okay. For now, at least, they're not dead. But my son was. His heart had no beat. I wonder how it felt, even for a minute, to be really gone. Not like I'll ever be able to ask him because the permanent death will be in the coming weeks. This was only a preview, but I can see now how truly awful that day will be. There's no preparing for it, no bracing yourself.
"He was dead," I whisper. "He was dead. He was dead. He was dead."
My wife takes a few deep breaths before joining me.
"You okay?"
She nods, her teeth clenched. A muscle in her jaw twitches. "Fine," she says through the teeth. "Just watched my son die. What's for dinner?"
"He's okay." I find myself comforting myself as much as I am her. "Peeta's fine. You heard him."
On the screen, Katniss is talking animatedly about the force field. "... it's like when the fence around District Twelve is on, only much, much quieter," she's saying. All the other victors listen, cocking their heads. "There! Can't you hear it? It's coming right from where Peeta got shocked."
Where Peeta died would be more accurate, but she clearly is avoiding that definition.
"I don't hear it, either," Finnick tells her. "But if you do, then by all means, take the lead."
Yeah, because after what happened to Peeta, Finnick isn't in any hurry to hit that force field. Who would revive him?
"That's weird," Katniss tips her head theatrically. "I can only hear it out of my left ear."
"The one the doctors reconstructed?" Peeta confirms.
"Yeah. Maybe they did a better job than they thought." Katniss pauses, thinking. "You know, sometimes I do hear funny things on that side. Things you wouldn't ordinarily think have a sound. Like insect wings. Or snow hitting the ground."
Somewhere, in the Capitol, a group of surgeons are being interrogated. Because Katniss can apparently hear like a bat. Maybe the Capitol will eat this, but I don't believe her. She may have been able to know that force field was there, but it's not her left ear that picked it up.
See, that was a show. Clearly over acted, played. Like she had a script or something. It just makes her panic attack seem much more realistic. Katniss really isn't that great of an actress - there is no way that she was making up those feelings.
So what does that mean? Katniss Everdeen must, in some way, feel very strongly for Peeta. I'm not saying she's in love with him or that the whole star-crossed lovers thing is true because I know it's not. But whatever happened when Peeta was dead broke the barrier hiding Katniss's true emotions. Her breakdown was no act, no over-exaggeration.
Those were real feelings brought on by grief, terror, and relief. This makes the Games a lot more interesting. And a whole lot more dangerous.