A noise outside startles me, and I jerk my head up - right into the table leg behind me. I stifle a groan and try to hold still; if that was someone outside that I heard then I don't want to alert them to my presence here any more than I already have. I gingerly feel around my scalp to make sure I haven't broken the skin, but it feels like I haven't.
I stay still and quiet for another several minutes as my head gradually clears from the fog of sleep and hysteria and the blow I just gave myself. I listen carefully for any further noise or any other sign I've been discovered, but everything is quiet now. I don't know how long I've been here, but I know what the Seam sounds like in the middle of the night. It's far past midnight now.
Slowly and carefully this time, I drag myself out from under the old table and haul myself up to my feet. My crying fit has left me achy, as have the many hours spent on the floor, but my legs hold me and my balance is good so I decide I'm okay to leave.
Still wary of the noise I thought I heard earlier, I slip out the bedroom window and stay hidden from the road. After our run-in with the new Head Peacekeeper today, it probably wouldn't end well for me if I was caught sneaking around the district in the middle of the night. I wince when I land on the ground as my head throbs, but it doesn't feel like I did and significant damage, and luckily any bruise will be under my hair so the only one who may notice it is Peeta.
Peeta.
Now that I'm thinking more clearly, I feel ashamed for running away like I did. I left Peeta all alone to deal with President Snow's death sentence on our families. Not only will Peeta have to mentor his own child in the Games, but most likely any nieces or nephews he has as well. Of course, I won't ever have nieces or nephews. Prim will die in a few short months.
No, that can't happen. There has to be something else we can do.
I quickly run through our options in my head. The idea of trying to train Prim to survive the Games is immediately discarded; if she can't kill a rabbit then she's not going to kill people.
Maybe we can run away to the woods, like Gale always wanted to? I remember how he used to talk about it, a lifetime ago, back when I had a handle on my problems. I thought he was nuts, that the Capitol would catch us in a day, that he was wasting energy daydreaming that could be better spent gathering food. All of that is still true. It's a sign of exactly how desperate I am now that I'm even considering it.
Of course, this will have to be a larger group than Gale's daydreams of just the two of us. My whole family, and Gale's. Maybe Haymitch too, they'd torture him to death trying to find us if we left him behind.
But then, Peeta's family would also be arrested and tortured after we vanished, and I know none of them would come. His mother would never consider it, his father and Barlee would never go against her, and Rye wouldn't go against them all. Would Peeta abandon them to their fate to run with us? Okay, dumb question, but is it right for me to ask that of him? To condemn the four of them to save Prim?
Maybe we should focus instead on more active resistance? Maybe we could even start our own uprising, right here in District 12?
I have to scoff at myself. Hide in the woods for the day or two it takes the Capitol to find us, or start an uprising that will be squashed in an hour? I can't even tell which of those ideas is more absurd. But at this point I'd be willing to try both at the same time. All I know for sure is what absolutely can not happen. I won't let Prim die, and I won't let my child die. But in order to do anything I first need to talk to Peeta.
I take a few deep breaths to center myself and begin making my way home. It feels like every joint in my body is protesting my recent actions, but years of ingrained habit keep my steps silent as I sneak through back yards and garden beds, keeping away from the roads as I pick my way through the Seam and into town. Amazingly there seems to be something going on in the town square, I can see lights shining from there and hear the distant sounds of some kind of machinery, and it makes me even more careful to stay as far away from it as possible. I have no idea what's happening over there, but I am absolutely sure that I want nothing to do with it.
Finally the light and noise from the square fades as I reach the relative safety of the Victor's Village. I can see as I approach that my house is entirely dark, while there is still light coming from my mother's house. All of a sudden I dread what I'll find there. Will Peeta hate me more for running off? He would have every right to. How is Gale? Was my mother able to save him? Surely we got to him in time?
Inside, the only light is coming from the kitchen, so I head there. Gale is still lying on the table, seemingly asleep. His back is covered in bandages, some of which have already started to bleed through. And keeping vigil in a chair set near the head of the table is Peeta.
His back is to me as I enter the room. His hair is a mess, as if he's been running his hands through it all night. I don't know if he hears me come in. He doesn't stir until I move one of the chairs to sit down next to him. "Hey," he says weakly as he looks up.
"Hey," I reply.
My voice is ragged, my throat still sore from earlier. When he hears it, Peeta gets up and gets me a glass of water. "Have you eaten?" Peeta asks me as I take small sips. I shake my head. He turns and walks over to a pot of stew I hadn't realized was warming on the stove. He serves out a bowl and brings it over to me. "I know you lost most of your dinner," he offers as explanation. I wordlessly accept the bowl from him. It hurts to swallow at first, but after I've eaten a few bites I realize how hungry I really am, and quickly finish off the bowl and my water. Peeta immediately refills them both.
His kindness is too much for me. "I'm sorry I ran off like that," I finally say.
Peeta just shakes his head. "You have nothing to apologize for. I'm sorry I chased you away."
What? "What?"
"Katniss, I can't tell you how sorry I am for how I talked to you before. It was completely inexcusable. I'll understand if you can never forgive me."
Oh. "It's all right, Peeta."
"No, it's not," he insists. "I should never have yelled at you like that."
"And I should have thought of protecting the baby before I ran out there," I say. "You were right, it didn't even occur to me. You were right to point that out to me."
"I still shouldn't have treated you the way that I did. I'm so sorry."
Peeta can be as stubborn as I am sometimes. "Peeta, it's okay to get into a fight every once in a while. Everyone does. We have before, remember that night on the train when we were deciding to have this baby?"
"Not like that," he says emphatically. "I accused you of not caring about our baby. You, of all people! You love and protect people more fiercely than anyone I've ever seen. It's one of the things I've always admired about you. Heck, it's a big reason why I'm still alive at all. For me to say that to you…" Peeta trails off and shakes his head again.
I reach out and take his hand, partly to interrupt his self-recrimination and partly because being this close to him without touching him feels intolerable. "Peeta, you were angry, and scared, and instead of trying to calm you down I made things worse by yelling back at you, because I was angry and scared. We were both wrong, and we both apologized, and I had already forgiven you hours ago."
Peeta is silent for a long moment, like he's looking for something on my face. He doesn't look away as he speaks. "Katniss, I've seen marriages where people treat each other badly. I never wanted to be a part of that, and I especially don't want to do that to you. That's the last thing I want."
I finally see where this is coming from now. "Peeta, there's a pretty big difference between getting into an argument in a stressful moment and beating your kids with a rolling pin." Peeta doesn't answer me, instead he turns away and returns his gaze to the floor in front of him. I slide over closer to him and lay my head on his shoulder. "As far as I'm concerned you had every right to say what you said to me. I didn't give a thought to the baby in that moment and I'm lucky neither of us were hurt. And to whatever extent you regret the way you said it, I forgive you for that. Now you have to forgive yourself."
Peeta considers my words for several moments. "I should never have accused you of endangering the baby," he says.
"I should never have endangered the baby," I reply. "What's done is done, we can only try to learn from it."
Peeta shakes his head. He moves his arm from between us and drops it over my shoulders, pulling me tighter against his side. "I'm lucky you're so smart. Thank you for forgiving me."
If I was really so smart, I'd know what to do now that our deal with President Snow is off. But I'm not ready to confront that reality just yet, so instead I ask about Gale.
Peeta tells me about what he saw of the treatment. How my mother and Prim carefully cleaned his back, how there were so many lash marks that his whole back was essentially one huge wound, how they carefully arranged what shredded skin could be saved in such a way that it had the best chance of knitting back together. Maybe it's just as well that I wasn't here for any of that.
"Has he been awake at all?" I ask. It would actually be a mercy if he hadn't. Barely conscious, in pain, thrashing around… it would only make treating him that much harder.
"He started to wake up, but your mom knocked him out again."
I do a quick mental inventory of what herbs my mother has. "With what?"
"Madge came by with half a dozen vials of something called morphling. It's a powerful pain killer from the Capitol, according to your mom. Knocked Gale out cold.
"Where did Madge get it?"
"She said they were her mother's." With all the time I've spent with Madge lately, I've never met her mother. I know she gets fierce headaches that force her to stay in bed for days. If her headache medicine is this powerful, no wonder she isn't up and about very much.
"And now you're what, babysitting?"
Peeta shrugs. "Hazelle had to go home to the other the kids. Your mother and Prim were tired out after they finally finished treating Gale. I just thought he shouldn't be alone, in case he woke up. I don't know that he'd consider me a friendly face, necessarily, but at least this way your mom and Prim can get some sleep."
And now I have yet another reason to feel guilty. "It should have been me. If Hazelle can't be here, it should be me he sees when he wakes. If I hadn't run away…"
"Hey," Peeta cuts me off. I turn to face him, and actually bump him with my chin because we're so close. "You're here now. You'll be here when he wakes."
I nod reluctantly. It'll have to do, I guess. I look back to Peeta's eyes, startlingly blue from this close, even in the dim light. "Will you stay here with me?"
"Always."
We watch Gale silently for a while I build up my nerve, but finally I decide there's no use delaying the inevitable. "We should talk about our real problem now."
"And what's that?" Peeta asks.
"Snow."
Peeta pulls away form me so he can turn to face me. I reluctantly do the same. I'd rather have the comfort of his embrace than have to look him in the face for this. "Oh, you weren't here-" he begins before I cut him off.
"I was here long enough," I say, and in my ears it sounds much harsher than I intended. "I talked to him when I answered the telephone, and he told me-" That's as far as I get before my throat closes up again and I can't force anymore words out.
"Oh, Katniss…" Peeta says, pulling me close to him once again. I turn my face into his neck and gratefully accept the embrace. I close my eyes so I can concentrate on the scent of his skin and the feeling of his arms holding me close.
I think I may cry, but I try to force the words once again, as if I can't do anything about them until I can actually say them, but I only get as far as, "He told me… he told me…" before I once again lose the power of speech.
Peeta interrupts my halting attempts at completing the sentence. "Katniss, please just listen to me for a minute, all right?" I nod against his shoulder. "I picked up the phone after you dropped it. Snow told me, well, I imagine the same thing he told you."
Prim. I can finally form the word in my mind, even if I still can't speak it aloud. I feel like my heart may stop beating at any moment and I can feel another crying fit coming on, but I grip Peeta tighter and hold myself together.
I'm so distracted by my impending breakdown that I almost miss what Peeta says next. "I talked him out of it."
What? I shove myself away from Peeta so I can look him in the face once more, and furiously wipe the gathering moisture from my eyes when I find my vision is blurry. "Can, can you say that again? I- I was thinking about something else and didn't hear you correctly…"
"Katniss, it's all right." He takes my hands from where I've planted them against his chest and holds them. "Prim is still safe. She won't be reaped this year."
Now I know I'm dreaming. "But- But- How-?"
"Do you remember what you said back when we first made this deal? That Snow would rather have our family alive and under threat than to kill them and have nothing left to threaten us with?" That sounds like far too smart a point to have come from me. I think maybe Peeta is giving me credit for something he came up with himself, but I don't say anything. "Once I pointed out to him that he was better off with us scared but not desperate, he agreed with me that it wasn't either of us who broke the agreement."
It almost sounds like Peeta threatened the President, but at the moment I couldn't care less about that. "S-So, you're saying…" I still can't let myself believe what I'm hearing yet.
"Prim is safe," he confirms. "She won't be reaped this year. She won't be reaped any year."
"What about…?"
Peeta gently lays a hand over my stomach. "The baby too. They're both safe, Katniss."
I can't believe it. How could that be so? But I see the truth in his eyes, and the sob that's been lodged in my throat finally escapes. I throw my arms around his neck and try to pull us together as closely as possible. I end up straddling his lap, with our bodies pressed together, burying my sobs in the crook of his neck and shoulder to try to muffle the sound so I don't wake up Mom and Prim. I don't even know what I'm feeling right now. Joy? Relief? Fear? Gratitude? Shame?
No, not shame. While I was wallowing around on the floor, thinking only of myself and my fear and my sorrow, coming up with ridiculous fantasies like starting an uprising or hiding away in the woods, Peeta was here, warming another dinner for me, keeping watch over Gale, and saving our families' lives. Shame isn't a strong enough word for what I feel.
Peeta tries to calm me down, rubbing up and down my back and whispering calmly in my ear to reassure me that my sister and my child are safe, but his concern and his care only make me cry more.
Just as I'm finally getting a handle on myself, I hear Gale speak from behind me. His voice is slurred, from sleep and presumably from the medicine. "She okay?" he asks.
"She will be," Peeta says softly. "She's had a bad time of it tonight. You almost got her best friend killed. Not to mention Prim and Rory reaped."
I almost wince at his mention of Rory, knowing how Gale will take it. His family is as important to him as Prim is to me, even if he shows it differently. But Peeta's not wrong, I was assuming Rory's imminent reaping myself earlier.
When Gale doesn't reply after a moment, Peeta says, "Are you in a lot of pain? Mrs. Everdeen measured out another dose of morphling before she went to bed, if you want it."
"S'okay," Gale says. "M'sleepy."
"That's your last dose still working," Peeta explains.
"Did you really go hunting?" I ask. I don't turn around and I can't keep my voice steady, but I need to know.
Gale is quiet for a long time. It takes a while for my question to penetrate his drug-dulled brain. Finally he says, "I really fucked up, didn't I?"
I almost want to roll my eyes. "Yeah. You did." I slowly disentangle myself from Peeta, lifting myself off of him and returning to my chair. By the time I turn around to face Gale, he's fallen asleep again.
I have a brief, irrational desire to wake him up again, but Peeta grabs my arm. "Just…let him be for now. He needs to sleep off the morphling before he'll be coherent anyway."
I let out a breath, force myself to relax. Peeta's right, of course. I don't have any idea what to say to Gale right now anyway. But then that's been true pretty much since we came home from the Games.
"You should go lay down," Peeta says. "There's no reason both of us have to sit up here."
I shake my head. "Not without you."
Peeta just nods, and tucks me back into his side. "Pretty sure you saying that in the arena is how we got into this mess." Despite everything that's happened tonight, Peeta still manages to drag a smile out of me.
We don't move again the rest of the night.
…..
It's Gale's grunt as he tries to move that wakes me. I lift my head off of Peeta's shoulder, and wince at the stiffness of my neck. I look forward to sleeping in a bed again one of these days, instead of on floors and in kitchen chairs. The groan Peeta makes next to me as he stretches his back suggests he's feeling the same.
The sun is up, but based on the light coming through the windows it's still very early morning. It must be early, if neither of the healers upstairs have come to check on their patient yet. Gale's eyes are bleary as they flit around the room, trying to focus. He's still in a haze of painkillers, and given how long ago he was dosed those must be some really powerful drugs. The blooms of blood where his bandages are bleeding through have grown since I dozed off. They almost make me feel guilty for how little sympathy I have for Gale right now.
Gale tries to push himself up again, resulting in another grunt of pain.
"Stop moving, Gale," I tell him. "You're only going to reopen your back."
Apparently he's awake and aware enough to listen to me, because he stops his efforts, which results in another grunt of pain as he settles back down on the table. His eyes struggle for a bit before they finally manage to focus on me. "Hey, Catnip."
With everything that's going on, the normalcy of the greeting almost makes me laugh out loud. We may as well be at our rock in the woods on a Sunday morning. "Hey, Gale," I say.
"Y'two look like hell," he says.
I belatedly realize we're still in the same clothes we wore to dinner last night, which are stained with Gale's blood. "You've looked better, yourself," I say.
"How are you feeling?" Peeta asks, rubbing his eyes. "Do you want more morphling?"
"No." Gale tries to shake his head, and winces. "I'm okay."
Part of me wants to lay into Gale like I never have before, to tear him apart for what he almost did to all our families. But at the same time, it hurts to see my friend in this condition. Beaten, weak, in pain.
It's Peeta who speaks. "Gale, we should talk, before the others get up."
"About what?" Gale says.
"Katniss told you about our deal with the reapings, right?" Peeta asks.
"Yeah," Gale says. His bleary gaze shifts over to me. "But she left some parts out."
"That's not important right now," Peeta says. "The important thing is what's changed now that you broke the agreement."
"Changed?" I blurt out, turning to Peeta in alarm. "But last night you said…"
Peeta turns to face me, and takes my hands in his. I immediately feel calmer. "I only said Prim and the baby were safe," he says. "We didn't really go over all the other details."
"My family," Gale says. "You sacrificed my family to protect them."
The accusation rankles me. I turn my attention back to Gale and am about to speak up in Peeta's defense, but Peeta speaks first. "Not all of your family. Just you."
I'm stunned for a moment. It makes sense now that Snow would demand some punishment from us, that he wouldn't just agree not to hurt Prim out of the goodness of his heart. But my relief that she was safe was so overwhelming that I didn't think past that until now. At the same time, hearing Peeta speak so matter-of-factly about Gale's condemnation brings me up short. I sometimes forget that even if it's not in his nature, at times Peeta can be as hard and pragmatic as I am. He survived the Games too, after all.
"Rory, Vick, and Posy are still safe," Peeta explains. "But since you were the one who broke the rules, you're no longer protected. You're over 18 so it's not going to affect you immediately, but if you ever have a kid you should expect them to be reaped when they're twelve years old."
The silence is heavy after that pronouncement. It's eventually Gale who breaks it. "And you worked this out with the Capitol somehow? Bargaining with them over my family's lives?"
"President Snow called here on the telephone yesterday," I tell Gale. "He wanted to personally deliver the news that Prim would be reaped this year after you broke the deal."
That punches a hole in Gale's indignation. He knows what Prim means to me. He has three younger siblings of his own he's responsible for.
"We were able to talk him down some," Peeta says, "but we weren't going to get away without losing something." Peeta is being very generous by saying we; while he was here convincing President Snow to spare our families, I was busy running away and having a breakdown.
"How do you do that?" Gale asks. "What do you have that Snow wants enough to actually make these deals? He can't be that invested in your family planning."
I panic for a moment, knowing we can't tell Gale anything about the uprisings and not knowing what to say. But Peeta answers without hesitation. "We're in a bit of a standoff. He thinks we showed up the Capitol by making them let us both live; that's why he's threatening our families now, to ensure we don't embarrass them again. As long as they're under threat then we'll be on our best behavior. But he knows that if he goes too far - if he puts Prim or Rory into the Games and makes us mentor them, for instance - then he doesn't know what crazy thing Katniss might do to try to protect them, the way she came up with that stunt with the nightlock berries to protect me. So, standoff."
That's so close to being the truth without actually being the truth that I almost want to stand up and applaud. If I didn't know that Peeta would never lie to me then I wouldn't trust a single word that comes out of his mouth. But he's giving me too much credit again - Peeta's stunt in his tribute interview was at least as subversive as my stunt with the nightlock. I may act against the Capitol in moments of desperation, but Peeta's words could talk a fish out of the water.
Gale's eyes are wide as he processes Peeta's words. "Y- You're in a standoff? With the President of Panem?"
It sometimes doesn't occur to me how insane my life has become. A year ago having any kind of dealings directly with the Capitol would have been the most dangerous thing I'd ever done. Having any kind of dealings with President Snow would have been utterly unimaginable. Yet here we are. Human beings are amazingly adaptable creatures.
Peeta shrugs in response to Gale's question. "Life of a Victor."
Gale is quiet for a long moment. "You know, I should really be mad at you, bargaining with my family's lives like that. You have no right. But after how stupid I was yesterday, maybe I don't have that right either."
"Gale, what were you thinking yesterday?" I finally ask the question I've needed answered since I first saw that turkey. "I don't care how angry you were, you knew what was at stake."
"I wasn't thinking, obviously," Gale says bitterly. He lets out a breath. "I just needed to get outside their control for a while."
I snort. I can remember when I used to think slipping under the fence meant escaping the Capitol's control. Now I can't believe I was ever that naive. "And that was worth putting Prim and Rory into the Quarter Quell this year? Your hour or two of freedom?" Gale visibly crumples, which is really saying something considering he's already too beaten and drugged to lift himself off the table. "You think I don't miss the woods? You think I don't miss the only piece of my father I have left? But keeping Prim safe is more important than that. Dammit, Gale, you've always been better at snares than I am. How could you fall into President Snow's trap so easily?"
"I just couldn't handle it anymore!" he says, as forcefully as he can mange. "Every minute I stayed inside the district I felt like I was suffocating, even more than in the mines. The Capitol took everything from me - they took my father in that explosion, they took away my own life and forced me underground, they took you away to the Games, and now they've taken you away again. The Capitol controls everything, and I just needed to be outside of their control, just for a little while. I needed to feel that again."
I shouldn't be surprised anymore at his continued insistence that I'm some thing to be taken away, and that I'd been taken away from him of all people rather than my sister, or my husband, or even my mother.
"Once I got out there and was able to calm down some, I realized the risk I was taking," he continues. "I only took down the one turkey and came straight back. Went to sell it to Cray and, well…" he trails off.
"Romulus Thread was waiting for you," I finish for him.
"Is that his name?" Gale says. "Where the hell did he come from?"
Briefly Peeta and I recount what we know about Romulus Thread. Gale is stupefied once again. "You confronted a Peacekeeper like that? You threatened a Peacekeeper?"
The questions make me feel defensive. "He would have killed you otherwise."
"He might have killed you," Gale says. "All of you," he adds with a glance toward Peeta.
"Probably will if we ever try it again," Peeta says, echoing my own thoughts from yesterday. "But are you really surprised? I mean, you were at the reaping. You've seen how she is, when someone she loves is in danger."
Someone I love. That's what it comes down to. Of course I love Gale, even if there have been times lately when I haven't liked him very much. Even if I don't love him in the way he wants me to. The desperation I felt yesterday when I saw Gale tied to that whipping post, was it all that different than the desperation that made me go to the feast in the arena? The desperation that made me volunteer at the reaping? The desperation that drove me to visit the woods and the Hob on my own for the first time? Or for that matter, the desperation that led me to make this crazy deal with President Snow?
I can hear movement upstairs now. "Mom's up. She should be down soon to check on you."
"I take it they don't know about any of this?" Gale asks. He knows I would never burden Prim with this, or trust my mother with it.
"They know enough to protect Prim," Peeta explains. "They know she can never go out past the fence and never sign up for tesserae. They don't know the rest."
"Why would Prim sign up for tesserae?" Gale asks, bewildered, before he seems to get it and his face hardens. "You're planning for your own deaths."
"Wouldn't be much of a plan if it didn't take account for one of the most likely outcomes," Peeta says. "Learned that from Haymitch last year."
I suddenly feel the need to go over to Haymitch's house and explain to him exactly what I think of that advice. The idea upsets me more than it should, really, considering this was all almost a year ago now and Peeta is sitting right beside me, alive and healthy. But weren't we just talking about how I feel desperate when people I love are in danger? "Haymitch? The man whose only advice was 'Stay Alive'? He was coaching you on how to plan around your own death?"
Peeta just shrugs. "I wasn't the one we were trying to keep alive."
Oh. It's so easy to forget now, how Peeta was planning to die for me when I was still trying to kill him. It's no wonder Peeta tried so hard to convince me to let him die, both before the feast and after Cato died. That was his plan all along.
I don't get to contemplate this any longer though because my mother is coming down the stairs. She heads straight for the kitchen and seems surprised to find us all awake. "Gale, how are you feeling?"
"I'm okay, considering," he says.
I know what my mother usually asks in these situations. "He's been awake for at least half an hour now, and he's been okay. Clear-headed."
"Any issues overnight?" she asks as she begins examining the state of Gale's bandages.
"At one point he woke up for like a minute or two, but he dropped right off again," Peeta answers her. "Said he was feeling okay and didn't need any more morphling, so I never gave him that extra dose you measured out last night."
"Is that still the case, Gale?" she asks.
"Yeah, I'm fine," he says. "As long as I don't move."
"Okay." She nods to herself. "Morphling is very powerful, I'd like to give you as little as possible, so as long as you're feeling okay we'll hold off for now. We'll keep you awake long enough to eat something and then give you another dose later this morning. Now, let me get a look at how your wound is setting up."
Mom begins peeling bloody layers of bandage off of Gale's back, and I immediately get up and turn my back. I can her Peeta chuckling behind me, amused by my discomfort. Then his arms wrap around me from behind, offering me comfort even as he mocks me. Even my mother lets out a sigh. "Really Katniss, for how comfortable you are with animal carcasses…"
"Gale's not an animal," I say testily. The next sentence sticks in my throat a little. "Or a carcass."
"No, he's not, and we're doing our best to keep him that way," my mother says more kindly, though the implication disturbs me.
"Could he have…" I can't even finish the sentence, but my meaning is clear.
"You lost a lot of blood," she says, addressing Gale directly now. "The morphling kept you from going into shock yesterday, so you should be out of the woods now as long as your wound clots up enough to prevent further blood loss and we keep it clean enough to prevent infection."
She and Gale continue talking about his injury and the long recovery ahead of him, but I tune them out and wander into the living room; I've already heard more of the gory details than I'm comfortable with. Gale really was almost killed yesterday. Finding out about my pregnancy disturbed him so much that he almost got all our families condemned and himself beaten to death.
Is this my fault? For not telling him sooner, for letting him find out like this? I could have told him when I met him at his house right after the Victory Tour. Or when I first got a positive test. Or anytime in the weeks since. If not entirely my fault, I at least could have prevented it. I at least could have tried.
"Hey," Peeta's voice breaks me from my thoughts. "I don't know how, but I can practically hear you blaming yourself for this somehow."
I should talk about this with Peeta, but I don't want to do where my mother or Gale might overhear. Luckily a distraction arrives in the form of Prim coming down the stairs. The fact that she's here and still safe overwhelms me and I run to her and clutch her in a tight hug, even before she gets to the bottom, even though the extra height makes her a head taller than me.
"Katniss?" she asks, bewildered by my exuberance. I still hold on to her for another few moments before awkwardly stepping back.
"Sorry. I'm just so glad to see you safe."
She rolls her eyes as she steps around me into the kitchen. "Katniss, I've treated lots of patients even worse off than Gale. You don't have to worry about me."
That's not what I meant, but I'm not about to explain, so I don't say anything as Prim joins my mother in finishing off Gale's new bandage. They talk briefly about his treatment, and most of it goes right over my head, but I notice their interaction is subtly different than I'm used to. Mom is treating Prim more like a colleague, or perhaps an apprentice, and not just the helper she's been for the last several years. At one point Prim contradicts our mother, suggesting a different medicine than the one Mom recommended, and Mom agrees that it would be better, that she'll switch to it the next time she changes Gale's bandage.
Peeta says I have to trust Prim more, and while I tried to dismiss the idea several weeks ago, now I can see what he was talking about. Prim is growing up, growing into her own, and for a moment I almost regret it because soon she'll have her own life apart from just being my baby sister. Of course, I'm the one who left her behind when I moved out of the house to begin my own life apart from just being her sister, so I guess I really have no right to complain. I'm so incredibly proud of the woman she's growing into, and also sorry that she's no longer a child I can protect from the dangers of the world.
To the extent that I was ever able to do that.
After they've finished the last touches of Gale's bandage, Prim looks at the clock readout on one of the Capitol appliances and says, "Oh, I have to get going."
"Take some rolls," my mother says. "You can eat them on the way."
"Where are you off to?" I ask.
Prim looks at me like I'm really losing it now. "School," she says.
I almost laugh. The idea of something as mundane and ordinary as school strikes me as unimaginably absurd compared to everything else that's been going on in the last 12 or 14 hours. Then again, I was the one who came home through everyone's yards to avoid the possibility of Peacekeeper attention, and Prim not showing up at school would be an excellent way to attract Peacekeeper attention.
But the idea of Prim walking on her own to the school, walking alone through a district where Romulus Thread is the new Head Peacekeeper and Gale was almost killed yesterday, terrifies me. "We'll walk with you."
"I can find my way to school on my own," Prim says testily. "I've been doing it ever since you stopped going last fall."
"Let us walk with you today, Prim," Peeta says, his voice serious. We exchange a quick look, and I can see we're both thinking the same thing. We don't know for sure that Prim is at risk from this new Head Peacekeeper just for being my sister, but we certainly don't know for sure that she's not.
Prim turns her annoyance onto Peeta, and the two exchange a look for several moments. They're something passing between them, like how Peeta and I can communicate without talking, like Haymitch and I do sometimes. Somehow Peeta has developed this rapport with my baby sister.
Finally Prim lets out a huff. "Fine, you can walk me to school today."
Peeta just nods. I pull her into a quick one-armed hug. "Thanks, Prim." A year ago I could have comfortably tucked her into my side; now she's tall enough that our shoulders bump against each other.
Prim grabs her satchel of books and the three of us head outside. Unlike our normal practice, Peeta and I do not hold hands. By unspoken agreement, we walk on either side of Prim, guarding her from all angles. My eyes are scanning all around us as we walk, and I can see Peeta doing the same although less subtly. Peeta never learned to scan his surroundings while holding still to avoid spooking his prey like I did. His head darts around to all different angles even as he maintains a pleasant conversation with Prim about something Lady did last week.
Thinking on how Peeta was able to convince Prim to let us walk with her today, I again think about just after the Victory Tour when Peeta pulled Prim aside and told her far more about our current dangers than I was comfortable with. I still don't know exactly how much he shared with her, but it could only have been that conversation he was reminding her of with the look they shared earlier. Peeta said that Prim knowing to keep herself safe was worth the price of scaring her, rather than maintaining her happy innocence and risk her unknowingly endangering herself. Well, this morning seems to be a ringing endorsement of his position - Prim was all ready to fight her paranoid overprotective older sister, but Peeta's subtle reminder was enough to earn her acquiescence.
As we get closer to town, I begin to hear the machinery noises I remember from last night. I exchange a glance with Peeta. With everything going through my mind, it didn't occur to me how out of place the low mechanical roar feels here in District 12. The only reason it's more familiar to Peeta and me is because we've been to the Capitol, and have spent days and days riding that train. Whatever is making that sound, it must have been sent by the Capitol, and that means it can't be anything good.
I consider skirting around the edges of town like I did last night, but Peeta directs us toward the square. He want to see what's going on.
Once the square comes into view, I wish we had avoided it. It's being transformed before our eyes.
A huge banner bearing the seal of Panem hangs from the Justice Building. The old wooden whipping post is gone, replaced by a new one of gleaming metal that stands at one end of a line of stockades that runs down the middle of the square. At the other end of the line is a raised platform, its dark purpose still unclear.
And there are Peacekeepers everywhere. Supervising the workers. Patrolling the streets. Ensconced in machine-gun nests on the rooftops all around us. All of them in gleaming white uniforms, like Thread's yesterday, rather than the less polished look I'm used to seeing here in Twelve. All of them carrying guns, not the batons that were more common before yesterday. And among them not a single face I recognize.
"Thread works fast," Peeta comments quietly.
"This had to have been planned," I whisper back. "There's no way this just happened." Peeta just nods. Prim is silent.
It's obvious we should avoid the square today, but before we can turn and leave one of the Peacekeepers on guard by the nearest stockade notices us. "You there! What are you doing here?" He motions to one of his companions and they both walk over to confront us.
I immediately inch myself backwards and place my hand on Prim's shoulder, ready to yank her to the ground or to one side. At the same time, Peeta has slid himself forward just enough to stand in front of her. Both of us are reverting to instincts from the arena, because both of us recognize that we're being hunted again. Peeta holds his hands out to his sides, which is partly to show that he's not holding or hiding anything, but I've lived with a wrestler long enough to recognize that he's also keeping his hands and arms free to move.
Of course, trying to wrestle with two armed men would be almost suicidally dangerous. But so was trying to fight Cato while suffering from tracker jacker stings. So was going to the feast. So was volunteering at the reaping.
The Peacekeepers approach us with their guns drawn, but not aimed at us yet. "Where are you going?" one of them asks.
"We're just walking my sister to school," I say as steadily as I can. Prim holds up her satchel, to reiterate the point. I can feel her trembling under my hand. She's never been confronted by Peacekeepers before, not like this, not in Twelve.
The two Peacekeepers exchange a look. Almost imperceptibly, I see them adjusting the hold on their guns. I grip Prim's shoulder even harder, ready to act in an instant. The one who has been doing the speaking says, "The school has been closed until further notice."
I'm floored. The Capitol never closes the school. Attendance at school is more mandatory than the mines. If someone misses a mine shift all that happens is they don't get paid, and the rest of their crew has to work extra hard to fill their quota for the day. If someone misses school they send Peacekeepers to find out why, and if the reason isn't good enough then the parents and the child could be punished.
Once again, while my mind is reeling, Peeta is covering for us. "Oh, I'm sorry, we didn't know. Was there an announcement? We must have missed it, out in the Victors Village."
"Residents were informed via loudspeaker this morning," the Peacekeeper says.
Peeta shakes his head. "We didn't hear anything in the Village."
Now the second Peacekeeper speaks up. "We have no record of any students living in the Victor's Village."
Oh. I never think of it, it's a detail almost totally irrelevant to our lives, but technically my mother and Prim have no right to my Victor's house. That drafty, abandoned house in the Seam where I collapsed last night is still their official residence. If something were to happen to me - which is looking like an increasing possibility lately - they'd have to move back there.
But there's nothing wrong with them staying with me either, so I freely offer the explanation to the Peacekeepers. "My family stays at my house in the Village."
Again they exchange a look.
"We'll update our records," says one.
"What's in the bag?" asks the other.
I'm so disconcerted that I don't even realize what bag he means; my free hand goes to my hip where my game bag normally rests, but of course I'm not carrying it right now.
"B-books," Prim stammers out, and I suddenly remember her satchel.
"It's Prim's school bag," Peeta explains.
"Give it here," the Peacekeeper demands, reaching out his free hand expectantly. His partner again shifts his grip on his gun, ready for us to make any sudden moves.
Prim manages to hold the bag out to the man, thought her arm is unsteady. The Peacekeeper rifles through the bag, looking for - what, secret rebel plans amongst her notes on coal byproducts? Some kind of weapon hidden in her math text?
Finally, he grunts, "It's clean," at his companion, apparently satisfied that there's nothing seditious about Prim's school supplies, and shoves the bag back at her. "You folks should head home. We'll make sure our future announcements are conveyed to you in the Village."
I want to immediately turn and flee. I also don't want to turn my back on these men at all. Peeta, of course, smiles and gives them a respectful nod. "We'll do that. Thank you, Officers," he says, as if they just gave us directions to the florist's. Then he turns his back on them, now completely shielding Prim and me behind his taller, stockier frame. "Ladies?" he says, gesturing toward the road behind me.
I use my hand on Prim's shoulder to pull her around so she walks ahead of me on our way back out of town. We're just far enough away that I'm starting to relax slightly when we hear a noise from some streets away. At first I take no notice of it, but Peeta's steps halt behind me, so I stop and follow his gaze.
Even in the spring sunshine I can see the orange glow, and the smoke billowing up into the sky. Of course Peeta would immediately recognize the sound of a fire. Now that I know what to listen for, I recognize the rush of air being sucked in to feed the flames, the roar that had blended in with the construction noises until I knew where it was coming from. From the location and the size of the blaze, I know that can only be the Hob. Part of the lifeline I've used to support my family since my father died, destroyed. Because the Capitol doesn't want people to have lifelines.
Then, an even more horrible thought. "Peeta!" I gasp. "You don't think anyone was still in there?" I think of all my friends and trading partners who work there. Ripper who supplied Haymitch with white liquor, Greasy Sae who would buy any meat we got our hands on for her soup, Digger Malone the spice vendor, Addie Mondail the tanner - did the Peacekeepers lock them up inside that old warehouse and let them burn?
"I doubt it," Peeta tries to reassure me. "With all these new Peacekeepers crawling all over everything? I think they'd all be laying low for now."
I hope he's right. Part of me wants to go and check on the people I know. And Hazelle! What must she be going through, unable to come and see Gale. I think I could make it down to the Seam without being stopped again, stealing through yards and back alleys like I did last night. But it was also just last night that Peeta pointed out to me that it's not just my safety I have to worry about now.
"We shouldn't linger," Peeta says, and he's right. We get moving once again, retreating to the relative safety of the Victor's Village.
Not that anyplace in Panem is truly safe.
…..
An update! And this one took less than six years!
This chapter ran a little long, but that's where the story had a natural stopping point, so waddaya gonna do?
Before you criticize Gale too harshly here, I will point out that his reasons for escaping the district here are pretty similar to the reasons Katniss gives for when she goes out to the lake even after Gale's whipping in Catching Fire. That wasn't even intentional on my part; I was re-reading that section of CF recently and was struck by how similar it was to what I had already written for this scene.
BTW, in reviewing this story now that I'm getting back into it, I realized for the first time that Coming Home and Homecoming are both names of chapters in this story. I am a true creative genius.
Next chapter: Some visitors from the Capitol, some news from the districts, and an announcement is made.
Preview quote from Chapter 19:
"I really should have seen that coming."
