Author's Note-Thank you so much for your patience with me and this particular story. While I have not met my original goal of writing the entire thing before updating again, thanks to Baroness Kika's "Finish Your Fic" challenge, I made a huge dent in it and feel comfortable enough with my vision for it, as well as my other WIPs, to post Chapter 2 and not have much longer than a few week wait to have Chapter 3 ready.

A million thanks to my beautiful geniuses, ILoveRynMar, streetlightlove and Pookieh for their help and encouragement with this story. I love them more than they know.

Rated M for sexual situations and violence. THG belongs to Suzanne Collins.

The second the radio starts to play a Keith Urban song, Peeta reaches for it and quickly pushes buttons until he lands on a classic rock station. The raspy voice of John Fogarty fills the bakery, and Peeta feels the tension leave his shoulders as he returns to work creating an army of little fondant roses that will adorn the edges of each layer of Madge and Gale's wedding cake.

He can't hear country music without thinking of Katniss and of that night; she's already dominated his thoughts for the majority of the last few weeks leading up to this wedding. His nerves are frayed at the thought of finally seeing her again after all these years.

It's going to be a busy weekend; much of tomorrow will be spent baking and assembling both the main cake as well as the groom's cake that Madge gleefully commissioned—a large devil's food and chocolate mousse concoction fashioned to resemble a buck in a nod to Gale's love for hunting. She also ordered an assortment of rolls for the rehearsal dinner—which is being held at the inn, but she reminded him with a wink that there would be a riot without Mellarks' breads on the tables. She should be by any minute to grab the trays.

His father has been nagging him that he needs to still be able to enjoy himself as part of the wedding's festivities. But in truth, staying busy keeps his mind off Katniss. He's not entirely sure how he'll react when he lays eyes on her. He's dismayed to find that his anger toward her has not vacillated with time, as his friends and family—particularly his mother—repeatedly assured him it would. His heart still aches painfully at the thought of what he lost when she left him behind. Every time he decorates a wedding cake he finds himself lamenting what his own might have looked like. He definitely would have proposed to Katniss by now—marrying her was the one thing he had always known he wanted.

Peeta finishes with the last of the tiny pink sugary buds and covers them with a plastic dome, sliding them onto the shelf above the prep table. He washes his hands and walks through the swinging door to the front of the bakery. Business has been slow all day, which suits him just fine. There had been a flurry of foot traffic early, mostly teenagers grabbing iced coffees and donuts to take down to the beach with them, and Peeta had watched them with a twinge of nostalgia, remembering the days when he and his friends did the same. Katniss was often working as a lifeguard, but on her breaks he'd sneak away from them and the two of them would spend her precious free time tangled up in each other in the back of his Jeep.

But since that morning rush he's been able to complete his tasks in relative solitude, just a few stragglers here and there. He closed up an over ago, and he just needed to finish up the prep work for the cake before he heads back to his parents and gets ready for the cocktail reception that at the inn. He begins pulling what's left of the day's scones out of their display case when there is a rapping on the door. He glances up and smiles at the sight of the pretty blonde standing in the doorway outside the shop. He signals that the door is still unlocked and she pulls it open.

"Oh my god, Peeta!" Madge squeals, rushing across the threshold and crossing the floor in three quick strides. He brushes the crumbs from his hands and steps around the counter, bracing himself as she grabs him in a surprisingly tight embrace.

"Hi, Madge, good to see you," he murmurs against her hair, her head barely skimming his chin until she releases him and studies him critically.

"You look the same."

"We saw each other at Christmas at your parents' holiday party." He laughs. "Am I supposed to change that much in eight months?"

She arches a perfectly groomed eyebrow at him. "It wasn't a criticism! I mean you always look the same. That's a good thing, I think."

"If you can get your foot out of your mouth, I took a rack of macarons out of the oven just for you about an hour ago. They're almost cool. I know they're your favorite."

"Are they raspberry?" she squeals. He nods. "What are you trying to do to me? Do you want me not to fit into my dress on Saturday?"

"Oh please." He laughs again, returning to his place behind the counter and she takes a seat on one of the stools at the far end, leaning to watch him as he gets the last of the scones into a container. "One or two little pastries aren't going to kill you."

"When Gale and I get back from Italy, I'm going to be ten pounds heavier by choice. I'm going to eat everything in sight after counting calories for so long," she giggles, leaning on the counter. "So how have things been this summer? Is it strange to be back here?"

He shrugs. "My dad appreciates the help with everything, so you know, it's not so bad." He pauses. "Okay, it's a little strange maybe—at least living with my parents is. I'm anxious to check in to the hotel tonight to kind of be a grown-up again for a couple of days. I was actually just finishing up here and heading home to shower and get ready."

She nods empathetically and leans forward on the counter. "Just so you know, I made sure your hotel room was as far away from hers as I could."

"So she really is here." His voice is barely audible as waves of conflicting emotions wash over him. A tiny part of him expected her to back out at the very last minute.

Madge nods again. "She came over on Daddy's yacht with us." He frowns and turns to rearrange the scones again, trying to hide his reaction. "You didn't think she'd miss this. Gale means the world to her. She would never let him get married without being by his side."

"Still jealous of her, huh?" Peeta recognizes the slight edge to Madge's voice as she speaks of Katniss, but his own irrational envy of Gale bubbles in the pit of his stomach. I was never enough for her to come back to. For him, she comes back, he thinks bitterly.

Madge tosses her blonde locks over her shoulder. "I am not jealous of her," she insists. "I always liked Katniss, right up until she broke your heart. That's the only reason I'm not her biggest fan now. Besides, you're one to talk. Like you've never resented Gale for how close he is to her."

"Gale and Katniss have always had a bond that I never could have breached. Besides, she's not mine to worry about anymore," he replies curtly, dismissing her accusation. He hesitates and wipes absently at a dusting of powdered sugar that spilled on the counter. "Ah, so, how did she seem?"

Madge's eyes flash, an amalgam of doubt and thoughtfulness. "She seemed fine. Kept to herself, didn't really join the crowd, but that was always Katniss, wasn't it?" She fiddles with the diamond solitaire encircling her ring finger. "It's been awhile, Peeta. Time heals a lot of wounds, but I just don't know if you can ever get past the kind of pain she caused you, leaving you like that, not a word…" She trails off and shakes her head.

Peeta rubs at his temples, closing his eyes briefly. Six years later, and the agony still feels fresh; he replays their last night together in his head almost as much as he relives the desperation of those first days when it became apparent that she had gone, had left him behind without a single word…

"You sure you don't want me to come inside?" he whispered, brushing her slightly snarled hair back over her shoulder. It had a tendency to get knotty when they fell asleep wound around each other in the back of his Jeep as they had again last evening. Since her mother's death, she could only sleep nightmare-free in his arms. It hadn't been easy to sneak out each evening, but Dillon had been agreed to cover for him—Peeta could deny Katniss nothing, and if risking getting grounded helped her get a few hours of sleep, he'd take that chance every time.

Her grey eyes were glassy and moist as she stared through the windshield at her house. "I'll be okay," she replied dully, unblinking.

He reached over and affectionately tucked her bra strap back into position on her shoulder, sliding it beneath the wider strap of her tank top. She shivered at his touch.

And then he made the mistake of letting his eyes wander to her lips, and then he started thinking about what she had done to him last night. She had been insatiable; Katniss wasn't nearly as pure as people thought, at least not when she was alone with him. In the two years they had been dating, she had steadily become more comfortable with her body—and she had definitely gotten accustomed to how to handle his.

And handled him she had. His cock throbbed as he recalled her mouth engulfing it, the hot, wet suction creating an exquisite tension that seized his balls faster than usual. She had sucked with reckless abandon, swirling her tongue and encouraging him to match her movements with his thrusts. She had swallowed every last drop when he came, then after he went down on her and he had time to recover a bit, she had urged him into the backseat where she straddled him and rode him to completion a second time. They had dozed off sometime after midnight, but it hadn't been more than an hour before she had roused him again, the moonlight allowing him to enjoy the sight of the perfect curve of her spine down to the cleft of her bare ass as she parted her lips and coaxed him to fuck her mouth once more. And finally, as the sun peeked over the dunes, casting the sand in a hazy orange glow, she had writhed beneath him, their mouths and bodies fused together a fourth time, her nails digging little half-crescent grooves into his broad shoulders as they simultaneously shuddered in ecstasy.

He shifted in the driver's seat, discreetly trying to adjust the crotch of his shorts now that the memory had made him fully erect, but Katniss was still frozen, staring numbly at the little bungalow. He could see a little constellation of his love bites speckling the slope of her neck.

"Katniss?" he asked gently, placing a hand on her shoulder, and she jumped, her body jolting off the passenger seat. "Hey, easy. It's just me."

"I hate this place now," she whispered, her voice broken. "I don't even want to go inside anymore."

"I know." He leaned across the console and pressed a kiss to her temple. "I wish I could take you away from here."

She flinched and her eyes closed finally, blinking several times. "So do I." She reached for the door handle then stopped. "I know you'd do anything for me, Peeta. You don't know how grateful I'll always be for that." She placed her hands on his cheeks and drew his mouth to hers, possessing it in a lingering, needy kiss that left him panting and his cock throbbing for her. "I'll see you later."

He shifted the car into reverse but didn't immediately back down the driveway. He watched her trudge towards the small house, the tall grasses brushing her bare legs as she crossed the overgrown lawn and hesitated on the front stoop. She turned and gave him a sad smile before turning the key in the lock and disappearing inside before he could call out that he loved her—they never ended a conversation without one saying it to the other. He reached into the console for his phone and texted her the three words instead.

The day passed quickly for Peeta—after his morning shift at the bakery, he drove to the high school where he spent three hours assisting his old football coach, working with the two boys who were vying to take over his position as quarterback come fall. He knew the coach was not pleased with the efforts of either kid; Peeta's cleats would be hard to fill.

He returned home around six to an empty house. Figuring his parents might have stayed at the bakery to do the books or inventory and that Dillon could be just about anywhere—or with anyone, really—he fixed himself a bowl of clam chowder and sat down at the table, sprinkling the milky white soup with some oyster crackers and tapped out a text to Katniss, telling her he was back from practice and wondering if she wanted to go catch a movie.

Ten minutes passed, and she had not answered him yet. He tried to recall if she was scheduled to work at Sae's that night—she hadn't said much that morning. Maybe she was at work, though. Sae was a nice enough lady, but she was a stickler for rules and frowned down upon her staff using their cell phones while on the clock.

Thinking nothing of it, he went upstairs, showered and settled on his bed, flipping idly through the channels on the small television he had bought to take to school with him. He must have nodded off because before he knew it, he was rubbing the sleep from his eyes and squinting at the muted green digits glowing faintly in the darkened room. 12:07

He fumbled for his phone on the nightstand and checked his messages. One from Finnick and two from Dillon. But nothing from Katniss.

His fingers moved deftly over the screen, composing another text, this time asking her to give him a call if she was still awake. He loved it when the last thing he heard before he drifted off to sleep was her voice whispering that she loved him in his ear.

But her call never came.

The next day the first thing he did when he woke up was to call Katniss. She was typically up by six on days when she had to work at the beach, and it was already six-thirty. Lifeguards reported at seven.

An uneasy feeling settled in the pit of his stomach when her phone went right to voicemail. She didn't usually turn it off when she was on duty—he knew she and her fellow guards used them to keep in constant communication up and down the beach.

He reluctantly called Gale Hawthorne. He answered on the third ring and informed Peeta he hadn't heard from Katniss since yesterday. Gale offered no further information and hung up rather abruptly. Peeta frowned but didn't dwell on it—he knew wasn't Gale's favorite person.

He jumped in his Jeep and sped to the Everdeens' little bungalow. Neither Mr. Everdeen's truck—he never kept his cruiser at his residence—nor Katniss's Camry were in the driveway. Only Mrs. Everdeen's Highlander sat there, the bright orange 'for sale' sign still visible on the front windshield.

Leaving his Jeep idling by the garage, he hesitated before reaching underneath the lip of a massive urn just beside the front door and felt around for the spare key. His fingers probed nothing but cold stone. The key was gone. And when he peered into the narrow windows that flanked the front door, he realized so was Katniss. From what he could see, the house was completely empty—there was nothing visible in the foyer and the part of the kitchen he could see straight ahead was stark and the familiar round oak table where he had had so many meals with the Everdeens was gone.

The letter came a few days later, addressed to him in her familiar, neat handwriting. His hand trembled as he ripped open the envelope and tore the single sheet of paper from its confines. His eyes scanned the brief note—Katniss never was one for words, and this was no exception.

He read the letter so many times that within hours that he didn't even need to glance at the paper to recall every single word on the page.

Dear Peeta,

You can call me a coward for ending things like this. And I am. My father has resigned from the force and wants a clean break from the island and all the bad memories. There's nothing left for me in Panem so I'm going with him and Prim. I know you'll be fine when you get to Tennessee, and you'll do great things and be successful and forget all about me. It's better this way.

I will always love you. Always.

Katniss

The always had been underscored three times and the 'K' in Katniss had been smeared, likely from tears, he assumed. It took days for the reality of the situation to fully settle in: Katniss had left him. She had dumped him—said he wasn't enough to keep her there.

At first he was despondent. His father had tried to be sympathetic, encouraging him to take a break from the bakery and spend some time with his friends, but Peeta preferred to sulk alone. He spent hours in the cove in solitude, tormenting himself with the memories of Katniss. When he closed his eyes, he could sense her—smell her, feel her, taste her—she was still everywhere, and he dialed her cell phone repeatedly, hoping each time that she'd pick up and sob to him that she'd made a terrible mistake.

She never answered. Pleading text messages were ignored as well. She was cutting him out of her life completely. The heartless response raised a profound sadness in him that quickly melted into anger. His mother fueled this stage of his grieving process—adding in her two cents any chance she got that Katniss was never good enough for him, that she didn't deserve him, that he'd find a nice girl to settle down with some day and he would forget all about her.

The thought turned his stomach. He didn't want to forget her. He knew however much vitriol and animosity he would muster over the years at Katniss Everdeen, she would always have a stranglehold on his heart.

But he also didn't know if he could ever forgive her for ripping that heart out of his chest and squeezing the life out of it…

"I'm still trying," he replies dryly, pushing down the thoughts of her. "I'll go get the breads for you." Madge nods but reaches out, rubbing her thumb over the knuckles of his hand.

"It's one weekend, Peeta. And then she'll be gone."

"I think what bothers me the most is other than that letter, she never spoke to me again," he says softly. "How can you claim to love someone as much as she did and never give them a second glance, another word?" He considers her last words to him: I'll see you later. At the time, of course, he hadn't known those final four words were a lie. Katniss had never been a good liar, and the irony was not lost on him that the one time she managed to fool him was the last time he'd set eyes on her.

He shakes his head. "I know her mom's death really messed her up, but that's what I was supposed to be there for. I always told her that I'd be there for her no matter what. And she promised me the same."

"Stop, Peeta. Stop beating yourself up over this. You can't try to get inside her head and figure out what the hell she was thinking. Cause she probably wasn't thinking." She lowers her voice and softens her tone. "It's been six years. You've moved on."

He sighs. Has he? Can he really ever?

Sheriff Haymitch Abernathy rubs roughly at his temples and throws the file down on his cluttered desk. Closing his eyes, he feels the telltale signs of a migraine coming on. At least, that's the cover story he uses at work. The addict in him knows it's really withdrawal that has been seizing him in its torturous grasp the past few weeks. It's been twenty-six days since he's had a drop of alcohol. Twenty-six long…fucking…torturous days.

He rummages in his top drawer for the bottle of Excedrin that he keeps handy and pops off the child-safe lid with alarming ease. Tossing four capsules in his mouth—twice the recommended dose but who's counting—he washes them down with a swig of tepid coffee, making a face as the bitter dredges from the bottom of the cup assault his tongue.

Haymitch had always prided himself on keeping his drinking under wraps. He has perfected the art of knowing just when to stop to keep from crossing the threshold into full-blown drunkenness, and thus, he spends most of his days with a pleasant buzz of bourbon coursing through his veins, but he is always fully functional and does his job exceptionally well. He is a damn good cop.

But the night he was called to the Everdeen house and laid eyes on Jack's seventeen-year-old daughter rocking and sobbing, and his own awful, long-repressed memories came flooding back like a rogue wave. He was no longer in the Everdeen kitchen, standing over the lifeless, nude corpse of his boss's wife; he was in his childhood kitchen and it was his mother lying in a pool of her own blood, the light fast leaving her eyes. His younger brother lay several feet away, a gaping wound obliterating most of his face. But these two dead bodies were hardly the work of an intruder.

The sickening thwack of the butt of the shotgun connecting with his father's skull still echoes in his mind nearly thirty-four years later. And some days, Haymitch wonders why he even put up a fight, why he didn't let his father just finish the job he started that horrific evening. Once his entire family was wheeled away in cold white body bags, he had to endure a particularly grueling interrogation from a less-than-sympathetic detective before it was decided Haymitch indeed acted in self-defense and no charges were filed.

It did little to assuage the profound guilt he felt that he couldn't protect his mother and brother when they had needed him most. His father had repeatedly threatened to kill her—Haymitch had just figured his old man was full of shit and liked to see his wife cower and submit to him.

Nothing quelled the pain crippling him, but the full liquor cabinet that his father inadvertently bequeathed to him certainly eased it for a few hours.

Two weeks later, he was once again standing by a freshly dug hole in the cemetery, staring numbly as a gleaming mahogany casket containing the body of his sixteen-year-old girlfriend was lowered into the damp earth. The accident had been her fault, but only Haymitch knew that had he not been too drunk to drive, Maysilee wouldn't have had to drive herself home. It was truly his fault that she was dead.

He had nothing left.

As soon as the check from his parents' modest life insurance policies came through, he packed some clothes in a suitcase, grabbed his guitar and moved across the country, settling on the coast of North Carolina with his only living relative, his mother's estranged sister. She was newly divorced and reluctantly agreed to let him live there and finish high school until he turned eighteen and could be on his own.

The drinking began almost immediately. It was the only way he could escape the demons that plagued him each night when he laid down and closed his eyes and saw nothing but pools of crimson and crumpled steel. He wasn't particular at first; whatever he could discreetly pilfer from his aunt's stash. Fortunately for Haymitch, she was not much of a drinker, but her ex-husband had been, and he had left behind a treasure trove of booze. By the time he had drained the last bottle, he had managed to secure himself a good fake ID and combined with the face he'd always looked older than his actual age.

Getting through his senior year of high school and four years of college sucked. But once he arrived at the North Carolina Police Academy, he knew he had found his calling. It was there he met Jack Everdeen and forged a friendship that endures to this day, even if Jack is no longer his boss. Now, Haymitch is the one to whom the other cops on Panem Island answer. At least, he still is for the next year until November elections when the citizens can choose to finally vote him out of office—and he's heard the whispers that some of them are considering just that.

The threat of losing the only thing that brings him even a modicum of joy anymore finally drove him to an AA meeting on the mainland, three towns over, almost a month ago. For four weeks, he's smiled politely and half-listened to a roomful of strangers profess their pledges and share their stories while he reels through mundane things to pass the hour, things like connecting the pinpoint holes on the ceiling tiles to make lewd dot-to-dots in his head or counting the number of times the words "God," "Jesus" or "Lord" appear on the various bulletin boards in the basement of the church where the meetings are held. Haymitch has never had a particular fondness for churches; agnostics usually don't.

A quick glance at the clock brings him some relief. Just three more hours and he can head home to his one-bedroom bungalow. He's got two additional officers on duty this weekend as a result of the island's swell in visitors—and likely some potential debauchery—with all the festivities revolving around the Undersee-Hawthorne nuptials. He'll gladly skip the cocktail hour tonight; Richard Undersee has never concealed his aversion to him, and while Haymitch is obligated to attend Saturday's ceremony and reception to maintain political niceties, he doesn't have to enjoy it. Fuck, he can't even take advantage of the open bar.

With a growl of disgust, he picks up the report he was faxed earlier this afternoon. The mainland is not his jurisdiction, but given the circumstances of how the body surfaced, the yacht's destination for his neck of the woods, the memo asked Haymitch to be prepared for a possible connection to one of the wedding guests.

He skims the first document for the details. Apparently, the body surfaced shortly after the yacht departed. Haymitch digs at his temples again and contemplates the timing. Coincidence? Had the body been in the water, and the start of the massive boat's engine coaxed it up? Was it weighed down and something jarred it loose? He continues reading.

Oh.

Oh. Fuck.

Not a coincidence. No possible way.

Particulars leap from the page in grotesque forensic terms: ligature marks on wrists and ankles...suspected hyperventilation and hypoxia….likely deceased for several days… Nothing will be certain until the county coroner can complete an autopsy.

Had the death occurred on Panem Island, the timeliness of such a task would be an uncertainty itself. They have no such position. Most counties in North Carolina do not; in fact, when a suspicious death occurs on Panem Island, the mortician—a heavy set, pie-faced man by the name of Heavensbee—is the go-to for an autopsy. There exists no stipulation that a professional licensed physician conduct it.

This caused quite the dilemma when Lilly Everdeen was murdered. Jack Everdeen had railed and ranted that Heavensbee was not adequately trained to examine the body carefully enough to comb for the minutiae of evidence that could yield any clues. He had paid an independent medical examiner from the mainland to complete Lilly's autopsy.

Haymitch has read that file so many times he can recite the findings verbatim.

He sighs and returns to the report, his stomach churning again as he rereads those few sentences, stark, blunt words that cannot disguise the horror that befell this young woman. The theory, which the autopsy has the authority to affirm, is that this girl was hogtied under the yacht and tethered within reach of the propeller. When the yacht's engine was started, the blades on the powerful fan severed the main rope, releasing the corpse and the body bobbed to the surface. Fortunately—and it's pathetic to have to use such a term—the victim likely drowned in her first few minutes beneath the huge vessel.

Haymitch flips to the next page, bracing himself for the photos that he anticipates will lie beneath the report. Bodies that have spent a significant amount of time submerged are always bloated and distorted, and no matter how beautiful or ugly or anywhere in between this woman was in life, she's going to be grotesque in death. It will make identification an even more laborious process.

He's long since ceased letting the myriad of manners in which a corpse can appear post-mortem affect him, but it's the vivid, vibrant snapshots of the victim that usually accompanied that of the lifeless body always evoked a profound sadness. Again, the lack of identification on this victim will mean the absence of such a personal connection to her, and Haymitch is morbidly grateful for that this afternoon.

He's unprepared for these images, however. Gagging back the coffee swirling in his stomach, he can't fathom how this girl—woman, god, it's impossible to tell—is going to be identified at all by loved ones. His gut pitches violently again, and the bile rises into his throat as he studies the shredded ribbons of the girl's face. It appears the propeller reached her face before it could cleanly sever the first rope. What he can see of her flesh is mottled green and pallid, like some kind of marine delicacy that spoiled. She doesn't even resemble a human.

The lack of identity on the victim will make investigating this crime an arduous task for the detectives assigned to it. Haymitch's eyes shift to Lilly Everdeen's case file, the unmistakable green sticker on tab in the upper left hand corner mocking him, an indicator that the case remains open and unsolved. Cold. Ice cold.

He knows the feeling.

The island hasn't changed that much, Katniss thinks as she walks along the beach, the lazily setting sun an orange ball of fire above the sea. A few more restaurants, maybe and a really large Harris Teeter that likely gives the Food Lion and Winn-Dixie equal anxiety over being run out of business, but for the most part, it looks strangely untouched by the six years that truthfully have felt more like an eternity as they've dragged past.

She's a sadist for allowing her feet to bring her here, but the mounting mass of tension in the pit of her stomach needs to be quelled after finding that newspaper in her room. She knows the anxiety is worse at the prospect of seeing Peeta at the cocktail reception that Madge's mother is throwing that evening to welcome all the guests to the inn. Not that it still won't affect her being in the same room as him and seeing his handsome face and those impossibly blue eyes that never failed to make her weak in the knees.

She hopes the little cave at the far end of the beach is unoccupied at this early hour. She is not so naïve to know other people, especially horny teenagers, don't use it for the exact same reasons she and Peeta did in high school. A familiar twinge tugs at her gut as she remembers the clumsy kisses, the heated touches and the fevered passion they shared on so many nights when they were young and didn't have a care in the world. The private place always had a calming effect on her so in spite of the memories she knows it will draw out, it's her best chance to cease her eddying nerves.

The tide is beginning to rise, so Katniss pauses to remove her sneakers and socks, stuffing them inside the shoes and slinging them over her shoulder. She kicks at the foamy water as it breaks and rolls gently onto the sand, causing her toes to tingle as she walks.

As she reaches the pier, she starts to become aware of low mumbles and muffled cries of desire. She stops in her tracks and realizes, squinting into the setting sun, that there is a couple tangled together near the rocks of the jetty.

Katniss frowns. In order to reach the little cave, she would have to go under the pier and pass the lovers. She remembers, achingly, what it is like to be young and in love and so wrapped up in another person that the world around you kind of disappears, so she is reluctant to continue walking, lest she disrupt the amorous pair.

The girl throws back her head, rising up from where she is grinding on the lap of her paramour, and Katniss frowns. She squints again. Shit. She's not a girl. She's a twenty-three-year-old woman, just like Katniss. It's Delly Cartwright. Katniss does not recognize the dark-haired man who is clearly having his way with her. She glances away hastily when the guy pulls aside one cup of Delly's bikini top and lowers his mouth to her breast.

Katniss turns and quickly takes off in the opposite direction. Delly Cartwright is the last person she wants to get caught interrupting mid-coitus. Katniss always had the strong suspicion that Delly never liked her, and she assumed that the disdain stemmed from simple jealousy. Delly had always wanted Peeta Mellark.

And Katniss had always him.

And then she had let him go.

The rush of the waves is loud enough to muffle her passionate cries, so Delly doesn't hold back as Marvel bites down on her nipple. Pain melts to pleasure when his tongue rushes to soothe it. She keens again and reflexively her torso angles up and her neck tilts back. God he is so good at this; all the stereotypes about the bad boys are true, she thinks with a wicked grin. As she opens her eyes, a flash of orange startles her.

"Shit, did you see someone?" she asks him.

"What? No. Why the fuck are you stopping?"

"I thought I saw someone." She frowns, shifting her body to crane her neck.

"Who the fuck cares, Delly?" He thrusts again, nipping her breast roughly, and she meets his movements with her own.

"Um, maybe because we shouldn't be doing this?" she retorts, biting back a scream as he grips her hips and slams her down on his cock harder.

"Shut up, Delly. Just enjoy the ride."

Katniss finishes retying her sneakers, double-knotting the laces as had become her custom from all those years with Peeta, who taught her the trick in first grade when her shoes inevitably came untied every day at recess, and she climbs the short flight of stairs leading off the beach to the road behind the strip mall. Shit. In her haste to get away from Delly Cartwright and her boyfriend, she had ascended the beach right by the row of shops that included Mellarks'.

She knows it's a stupid idea, but the bakery-slash-deli should have closed by now so she deduces it's safe enough to stroll down the sidewalk and take a peek inside. She spent so many hours in there, watching Peeta and his dad nimbly work dough or shape pastries and ice cakes. Her cheeks flush at the memory of how many times she had teasingly distracted Peeta with her lips on his neck while he tried to cut elaborately shaped cookies and how often she wound up pressed against the large counter in the rear of the bakery, Peeta between her legs in one way or another.

Her stomach tightens into a knot as the door at the far end of the strip mall swings open and Peeta steps out, turning around to fit a key into the lock. She holds her breath and tries to be inconspicuous, glancing into the window of a frozen yogurt shop that used to be a dry cleaners. But as he pivots to start towards the parking lot, he catches sight of her, and the animosity in his blue eyes is clear even at a good thirty feet away. Her heart seizes, clenching as if gripped in an icy fist.

Might as well get the awkwardness over with now. She braces herself and squares her shoulders, though her feet are leaden and her stomach's contents are a hurricane as she trudges towards him.

The six years have done nothing but work to his advantage. Peeta was always impossibly good-looking, but now his features are even more chiseled and his shoulders even broader under the familiar Mellarks' polo, his biceps bulging below the short sleeves. His hair is a bit shorter, the messy curls no longer brushing his shirt collar, and his skin is bronzed and clear. He's breathtaking.

"Hi," Katniss says quietly, scuffing the toe of her sneaker against the curb and dropping her gaze to his lips.

"Oh, hey," he replies flatly, but just as softly, not meeting her eyes directly. "I heard you were back."

He couldn't sound less enthusiastic. "I, uh, didn't realize you still worked here," she stammers, unable to suppress the crimson that heats her cheeks at being caught idling around outside Mellarks. "Gale, uh, told me that you were teaching at the high school."

"Yeah." He nods. "I am. But this summer, Dad has needed my help now that my mom is sick again."

Grace Mellark never liked Katniss. She was certain of it. Peeta's mother was an icy woman, one who rarely showed any affection to her husband or her sons and even less warmth towards interlopers. She always greeted Katniss with a cool sneer and on more than one occasion, Katniss heard her mumbling under her breath about 'trash.' She knew the disdain wasn't just contained to her, however. Once when Katniss joined the Mellarks for dinner, she sat dumbfounded while Mrs. Mellark slung insult after insult at Peeta's eldest brother, Graham's, new girlfriend, who happened to be Japanese-American.

The girl dumped Graham a week later.

Still, this is Peeta's mother, the woman who birthed him, and for that, Katniss has to owe the brittle woman some modicum of gratitude. And, sympathy, if she really is ill.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know your mom was sick," she says quietly.

"I wouldn't expect you to know," he replies. "This is her second bout with it." That's all he says, and she hesitates; it's not really her place to expect any details into his personal life anymore.

Still, she can't stop herself from asking, "Is she going to be okay?"

Peeta shrugs. "She's undergoing her chemo now."

She doesn't know what to say to that. "You look good," she says, worrying the inside of her bottom lip with her teeth shyly, glancing at him. He scratches the back of his neck and gives her a tight, weak smile, giving only a slight glimpse of his perfect white teeth. The strained effort it takes him to be cordial to her saddens her even more.

"Thanks," he replies.

"Look, Peeta," she begins, nervously playing with the end of her braid, "I know it's been awhile—" She has been rehearsing this apology for six years. She has rewritten the words more times than she would like to admit, steeled herself to bare her soul to him and let the chips fall where they may, but he interrupts her before she can utter another syllable.

"I'm with someone now, Katniss," he blurts out. His tone isn't cold per se, but it is clipped, and the words fall brusquely from his lips.

Katniss sucks in a breath and tries to ignore the painful clawing sensation in her gut. "That's…great," she supplies lamely. His eyes finally meet hers, and she has to look away quickly.

"Uh, yeah. Thanks."

Her heart aches painfully standing across from this man who knew her so well for so many years, who had loved her since they were children—how many times had he told her that?—who now seems content to be total strangers.

She deserves it, she knows. She doesn't deserve him. She told herself that time and time again when they were dating that she didn't deserve him. She had her chance, and it's too late. She hopes whoever this someone is that he is seeing now appreciates him for the amazing person he is. "She must be a lucky girl," she says softly, but he shrugs.

"Are you, uh, seeing anyone?" he asks haltingly, rubbing at the back of his neck.

"No," she replies quietly, shaking her head. "I, um, I have no one." The truth behind the words is so raw that she feels the bile rising in her throat, acidic and harsh. She shoves her hands in the pockets of her cut-offs and shifts her weight on the balls of her feet.

He continues to evade her eyes. "I need to go. I need to get ready for Madge and Gale's thing. I guess I'll see you there."

"It was good seeing you, Peeta," she says softly. He purses his lips imperceptibly but does not reply. Nausea pitches violently in her churning stomach, and she turns to leave, the tears pricking at the corners of her eyes at the sheer indifference in his demeanor. She breaks into a run, racing away from the strip mall as fast as her legs will carry her. She hears his car door slam and a moment later, the same Jeep she used to ride shotgun in and lay sprawled across the backseat of cruises past her, Peeta's eyes straight ahead on the stop sign at the end of the plaza.

Her stomach still twists painfully as she slows to a jog when she reaches the road, thinking about the way Peeta looked at her back then versus the venomous way he glared at her now. She is not used to seeing him stare at her with anything other than adoration.

She knows she hurt him. She's not so heartless that she didn't consider his feelings when she left, that he would be devastated by her abandonment. Given the fact that at seventeen, he had already been casually joking about engagement rings and the names of future babies, she knows had her mother never been murdered and her life hadn't gone to shit, there is a better than good chance Panem Island would be celebrating their wedding rather than Gale's and Madge's, if they hadn't already done so. These were things that she wanted with him and no one else, things that she no longer wants without him.

It seems like a pretty fitting purgatory for her to be alone for the rest of her miserable life.

It is also exactly why she could not bear to say goodbye to him in person, choosing rather to take the cowardly way out and leave him a note when she moved away with her father and sister. She wanted her last vision of him to be the lingering kiss goodnight he placed on her lips when she exited his car after they had made love in the dunes and he had driven her home. She never would have had the courage to leave him if she had anything but a happy memory to cling to.

She had managed to go nearly three months without a word to him. She saw his text messages come in and listened to every pleading voicemail—sometimes four or five times—and she steeled herself to ignore them. It would be easier for him to forget her if she cut off all communication.

But then the nightmares changed. Horrible visions that plagued her after her mother's death shifted to terrifying images of Peeta in the same lifeless pose as her mother had been. She was haunted by a myriad of awful violent scenarios that all ended the same: with Peeta dead and her sitting up in bed, gasping for breath and her heart racing. After three months of terror, she had to call him. At the very least, she just wanted to hear his voice, even if it was only for him to hang up on her seconds later. The depth of his anger towards her was affirmed when not a single phone call she made or text message she finally had the courage to send was returned. He was shutting her out just as she had initially done to him.

The inn finally looms before her and she yearns for the soothing spray of the shower. She resumes her jog to reach the front steps quickly and mounts the stairs to her room on the second floor.

As she strips and steps into the tub, drawing the curtain closed and letting the hot needles of water prick at her back, she closes her eyes and tries to conjure up an image of Peeta and his new girlfriend. She never expected him to stay single and pine for her forever. It was one of the biggest reasons she let him go—so he could move on and find happiness with someone who wasn't scarred and damaged and likely never to be normal again. She just preferred not to think of some other woman splayed out underneath him, his lips on her flesh and his hands on her breasts. The thought makes her physically ill.

Gale hadn't mentioned a girlfriend. In fact, he had told her that Peeta was attending the wedding alone—no 'plus one.' Unless this was something very, very recent, her best friend has been keeping this revelation from her.

She's ashamed to admit she can't blame him for doing so.

She likely never would have had the strength to come back to this hellhole and face Peeta no matter how much she loves Gale.

When she steps out of the shower, she wraps the white towel around her, cocooning herself in the plush warmth, and doesn't bother to wring out her hair before she pads to the gift basket on the dresser and grabs the monogrammed wine cork.

Might as well start now, she thinks dryly as she pops the cork and sips the Pinot Noir liberally right from the bottle. Liquid courage may be her only hope to get through the next four hours.

So...no death in this chapter...it was there, and then it got moved to Chapter 3, so you get a two-for-one next time.

Thanks for reading; given how different this is from my other work and how much I hope to write in this genre one day—thrillers are a genre of which I have been a fan since I was ten and sneak reading Christopher Pike and Stephen King—I'd love to hear your thoughts.