Rating change to M because Gale has a potty mouth.
"Haymitch!" I shout, banging into his manor and immediately clamping a hand over my nose against the stench, a foul mixture of stale liquor and unwashed clothes. "Damn it!" I curse as I put my foot through an old take-away box with some moldy looking chicken strips inside. I finally make my way through the sea of detritus to the couch where Haymitch is sprawled out in a drunken coma surrounded by a ring of discarded drink bottles and half-eaten snack foods.
I lean down next to his pungent, unshaven face. "Wake up!" I yell into his ear.
Haymitch springs off the couch like some sort of demonic, foul-smelling jack-in-the-box. "Who'dere," he slurs, brandishing a knife at me.
"Woah!" I cry, leaping back from the couch and into a pile of salt and vinegar potato chips. "Watch it!"
"Peeta Mellark?" He groans and falls back into the pillows sending up a poof of white feathers. "What in the hell did you go and wake me up for?"
"What in the hell did you try and carve me up like a Christmas ham for?" I retort. "Put the knife down and listen to me. Katniss is missing!"
Haymitch slings an arm over his forehead and grimaces. "The ice queen with the braid? Did you check the freezer?"
"Haymitch!" I shout, yanking the filthy blanket off him. He opens one eye blearily.
"Can't you just tie a bell around her neck or something? I'm trying to get my beauty sleep here."
"Yeah, and a fat lot of good it's doing you," I say, eyeing his soiled undershirt and mop of greasy hair.
Haymitch grumbles an indistinguishable string of profanity into his grimy pillow.
"Come on Haymitch, I don't know what to do!" I moan, my anxiety for Katniss overcoming my annoyance at Haymitch's insufferable personality. "I thought I was being so careful and making sure no one saw us together—but Dorna Mills found out, she knows that I'm—that I'm in love with her…"
"You're in love with Dorna Mills?" says Haymitch, not missing a beat. "This is more serious than I thought."
"This isn't a joke, Haymitch!" I cry. "Look, I know that love obviously doesn't mean anything to you—"
"Shut your damn mouth, boy!" roars Haymitch so loudly that I take a step back in surprise. Somehow I have managed to strike a nerve. He is breathing heavily, his nostrils flared, knife still clenched in his fist; I don't think I've ever seen Haymitch so worked up in his entire life. Suddenly I feel ashamed of myself for speaking so callously, I mean, what do I really know about Haymitch's past anyway? I suppose a broken heart is as good an excuse for becoming a cantankerous, drunken old man as any.
"I—I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that," I apologize, and I watch as the vein that is standing out on his forehead slowly recedes and his breathing returns to normal.
"I'm just so worried about her," I continue, my voice cracking involuntarily. "I wouldn't have asked you, only I don't know who else I can trust."
Haymitch screws up his eyes and massages his forehead. "You trust no one kid, you understand me," he says in an uncharacteristically serious tone. Then he fixes me with long appraising stare. "So you're in love, eh?"
"I am. Have been basically forever, actually." I know I must sound incredibly naïve to him, but I don't care.
Haymitch rubs his hand over the prickly stubble on his chin and gives his head a little shake as if he hopes his hangover will fall out his ear. "All right, boy, guess you better find me some pants so we can go get your girl."
When Katniss didn't show up for school the morning after my altercation with Dorna, I immediately knew something was wrong. My classes passed in a blur of anxious rumination on what could possibly be running through Katniss' head and what kind of impulsive, dangerous thing she might do as a result of it. Does she think Dorna will out us immediately? I don't think so. If I know Dorna, she's going to savor this feeling of power, the knowledge that our fate is in her perfectly manicured hands, and she will dangle that fact over our heads like the sword of Damocles until the time is just right and then—bam!—we won't even know what hit us.
But I'm pretty sure that the reason Katniss ran is not because she's scared of Dorna. No, the idea of Katniss being afraid of a vain, designer-jeans-wearing, Capitol-loving mean girl like Dorna is laughable. Katniss ran because she's in too deep, because she's revealed too much, because she's let me so far into her life that it's starting to get too hard to push me out the door. That's why Katniss is afraid.
I knew that I couldn't leave school early due to the fact that Peacekeepers have been keeping strict tabs on attendance, so I just had to grit my teeth and watch the minutes until the final bell tick by on the clock. At lunch I picked at my food in a way that earned me concerned inquiries from both Anselm and Delly, but as much as I wished I could share my burden with them, I knew that it was too dangerous. It's not that I don't trust the two of them, I do—we've been friends since we were little kids, practically grew up together. I remember Delly and I building forts out of old delivery boxes in the bakery storage room and swearing those solemn oaths to eternal friendship that at the time seemed so utterly binding and unbreakable. Friends forever. But we're not kids anymore, and the biggest worries in our life are no longer whether or not we'll be forced to eat our broccoli at lunchtime. No, if the other shoe drops with Dorna and this…relationship, or whatever it is that I have with Katniss, goes public, I don't want my friends to have to deal with the backlash. The less they know the better.
Speaking of Dorna…I noticed her whispering to none other than Aldo in the far corner of the cafeteria. The scene struck me right away as odd. I knew, of course, that Aldo had been sweet on Dorna for years, that was no secret, but until now I'd never seen Dorna give him the time of day. Even from my spot on the other side of the cafeteria I could see that Dorna was laying it on thick, she kept touching him lightly on the arm and then laughing uproariously at Aldo's non-existent sense of humor, flipping her hair coquettishly. Aldo had an expression on his face like he couldn't quite believe his good luck and kept nodding sycophantically at everything Dorna said. She had him in her grasp, he would do anything she said, she owned him, and the thought made me uneasy.
When the clock finally struck three, I was out of the schoolyard and on my way to Haymitch's before the bell had even stopped chiming.
And now here I am, plodding towards town with a grumbling Haymitch Abernathy in my wake, unable to stop thinking about all the terrible things the Capitol might do to a girl who has dared to defy class boundaries, the very division that polarizes Panem and keeps the districts under their thumb. Our friendship is the sort of rebel action that the Capitol fears above anything else, a sign that perhaps the divide between Merchant and Seam is not so wide after all. And the Capitol is right to be afraid, because what will happen if the districts finally stop fighting each other and realize who the real enemy is?
Since the execution of Mr. Julian, public disciplinary actions have become the main event in Victory Square. Hardly a day goes by where someone from the Seam is not being punished by whipping for whatever minor infraction he or she has supposedly committed against the Capitol. There have been five more executions: four by hanging and one by firing squad. There is little to no investigation into the crimes for which they are accused—by law, two Merchant witnesses are enough to condemn a Seam citizen to death. There are no trials. There is no justice. The only thing there really is, is carnage.
These days it is nearly impossible to avoid witnessing the violence. Capitol technicians arrived a few weeks ago and erected enormous screens throughout town, which broadcast a constant stream of punitive actions against Seam not only from District 12, but from across Panem. Our personal televisions, which were already programmed to turn on when the Capitol made important announcements, now spring to life several times a day with blatant propaganda about the Capitol's duty to protect the law-abiding citizens of Panem from the threat of Seam hooliganism.
As Haymitch and I near the square I realize that there must be another execution scheduled for this afternoon because there is a noisy crowd gathered around the justice building. I start to feel sick to my stomach and am just about to suggest to Haymitch that we turn left and skirt around the square, when I hear it. It's Katniss.
When I think back to this moment later I can't remember exactly what I was thinking when I first heard Katniss' agonized scream, only that somehow I find myself on that stage just seconds later, blood pounding in my ears, eyes locked on the grisly scene before me. She is lying prostrate across a wooden beam, wrists bound, and a brawny Peacekeeper who I don't recognize is poised over her broken figure with a whip, preparing to strike once again. Katniss' back already looks so bloody and mangled that I'm almost afraid I'll pass out before I can reach her, but I bite down on the side of my cheek to help me focus and without thinking, I let out an anguished roar of, "NO!" and throw myself in front of her just as the whip comes slicing down.
For a split second I feel nothing, and then the full impact of the blow hits me with a pain so intense that I see stars. "Stop it!" I gasp, pain rippling out from the wound in white-hot waves. "You'll kill her!"
The screens that are broadcasting the punishment go black with a slight pop and a flash as if someone has pulled the fuse on them in a hurry.
"What do you think you're doing, boy!" shouts the Peacekeeper, pulling me up roughly by my collar. The stage seems to tilt violently, and I stumble. I look up, and even in my delirious state I can see what an alarming visage the man has, with his dark hooded eyes and a scar the runs from the top of his grizzled eyebrow down to the bottom of his lip.
"You—have—to—stop!" I pant, feeling my eye begin to swell up. The pain is excruciating, and I can only imagine what it must feel like to Katniss, multiplied by at least twenty.
"Oh, yeah? Says who?" He lifts a muscled arm and strikes me across the face so hard that I crumple to my knees.
"Says me!" shouts Haymitch, striding on to the stage with the exaggerated, pompous swagger of the Merchant elite. "The name's Haymitch Abernathy. Perhaps you've heard of me."
The Peacekeeper's tough, authoritarian manner falters—even Peacekeepers are trumped by the status of the name Abernathy. "I beg your pardon Sir, but this boy interrupted the punishment of a confessed criminal."
"And what crime did she commit?" scoffs Haymitch, twirling an expensive looking ring on his finger as if he's so important that this sort of petty conversation bores him.
"Poaching!" says the Peacekeeper vehemently. "Poaching on Capitol land, punishment's thirty lashes."
"Poaching?" cries Haymitch in disbelief. "Hardly. This girl's in my hire, she shot that turkey on my private estate and I sent her to the butcher's with it."
"Is that—is that so?" says the Peacekeeper nervously, beads of sweat forming above his upper lip.
"It is so. Lucky the boy was here to stop you before you killed my best markswoman. And speaking of the boy," he says, jerking his head towards me. "I'm sure Lady Greer will not be so happy when she finds out you've messed up her favorite grandson's pretty little face."
The effect of Haymitch's words is immediate. The Peacekeeper lowers the whip and begins stuttering his apologies to Haymitch, and the crowd, realizing that the show is clearly over, begins to dissipate. I fling myself towards Katniss, blinking blood out of my eyes, and begin tearing at the bindings on her wrists. Oh God, oh God, oh God. Please don't let her die!
"Someone get a board or something!" I shout hysterically. "We've got to get her out of here."
A bitter January wind is biting through the square and Katniss begins to shiver. I run my hands over her arms furiously to warm her up, but I know that I can't try to cover her from the chill with those raw wounds across her back. I'm glad that Haymitch springs into action because I feel like I've been reduced to a useless, hysterical mess. A Seam woman runs to find a board from her market stall and gives it to us with instructions not to say anything about where we got it, and a group of miner's help Haymitch to lift Katniss onto it. She groans in pain at the motion and I squeeze her hand desperately.
What was she thinking sneaking into the forest like that? She must have been so upset after last night at Gran's that she took off to her refuge first thing this morning. My mind suddenly flies back to this afternoon at lunch when I saw Aldo and Dorna conspiring in the cafeteria and the realization of what they have done hits me like a second blow from the whip. Aldo and Dorna know that Katniss is a regular poacher—both of their families used to buy her game. They must have alerted the authorities to her transgressions, gotten them to increase their vigilance at the fence. I feel my blood beginning to boil, but another moan from Katniss pulls me back to the situation at hand. I'll deal with Aldo and Dorna later, right now I have to focus on Katniss.
A spindly little Seam girl hurries over—I think I recognize her from school—Lindy, Lacey, something like that. "Oh my god!" she says with wide eyes. "Can I do something to help?"
"Do you know the Everdeens?" asks Haymitch sharply.
She nods her head.
"Go tell her mother that we're coming, Katniss will need immediate medical attention."
The girl squares her shoulders bravely and scurries off in the direction of the Seam.
A few moments later we burst into the Everdeen residence—we have made good time because Katniss is so light. Haymitch disappears immediately, presumably because his buzz is wearing off and this is something he's not equipped to deal with sober. Mrs. Everdeen meets us at the door, a starchy white apron tied over her faded housedress and a look of clinical concentration on her face.
"Leevy just told me what happened, I've sent Prim off for some medicinal herbs," she says pragmatically. "Bring her inside and lay her on the table."
This is the first time I've ever met Mrs. Everdeen, and though Katniss had described her as distant since the death of her father, I am still surprised by how dispassionate she is at the sight of her eldest daughter writhing on the sterile sheet that has been spread over the kitchen table. It is only when I look closely that I can see the shadow of dismay that flits across Mrs. Everdeen's face as she holds a slightly trembling hand up to Katniss' cheek ever so briefly, then snaps immediately back into healer mode. I suppose that everyone has their own coping methods.
"Can you save her?" I ask desperately, unable to hide my own grief so easily.
Mrs. Everdeen doesn't respond to my question, she just pours a kettle of boiling water into a bowl and begins cleaning the wounds with a steady, practiced hand.
"You're the Mellark boy aren't you?" she says, a strange closed expression on her face. "I wasn't aware that you knew my daughter."
I don't answer her either, just swallow hard as Katniss hisses in pain and arches her back against the sting of the antiseptic. Mrs. Everdeen places a roll of gauze between Katniss' teeth and she bites down hard.
"You've got to save her," I whisper.
Just then the door flies open and a distraught, snow-caked Gale flies into the room. He must have just gotten off work in the mines because he is still wearing his gray jumpsuit and his face is covered in a layer of coal dust.
"I came as soon as I heard," he chokes, rushing over to the table and balking when he sees the deep, angry red welts across Katniss' back.
"You keep your grimy fingers away from here, Gale Hawthorne, you hear?" admonishes Mrs. Everdeen. "These wounds have got to stay clean!"
Gale jumps away from Katniss in alarm and it is only then that he notices me standing off to the side of the table, my face swelling rapidly.
"You," he says dangerously, stepping around the table. "I should have been there protecting her!" he shouts, glaring at the welt across my face. "That should have been me!"
Katniss' mother puts a hand on Gale's shoulder. "Calm down Gale, dear. Katniss needs her rest…"
But Gale is too angry to hear reason. He takes a threatening step towards me, but I hold my ground, looking him straight in the eye. "This is your fault," he accuses. "I told her a hundred times it was a mistake to hang around you, but you—you seduced her with your fucking wide-eyed, boy next door bullshit. 'He's good,' she kept telling me. Yeah? Well look what your goodness got her now! She could have fucking died!"
"Gale, language," says Mrs. Everdeen, shocked.
I stand up straight and keep my head held high, but I don't try to deny anything Gale has said. He's right. He's right about everything. "I know," I say in a small voice.
"You know? You fucking know?" Gale's eyes are practically bulging out of their sockets.
"Look, Gale," I say wearily. "There's nothing you can say that could make me feel any worse than I already do. So just beat the shit out of me, ok?" I throw my arms open wide to show that I'm not going to defend myself. "I'm begging you to."
Gale falters for a second and does not throw the punch is winding up for. I suppose my words must be baffling to him, or perhaps he can see that I'm dying inside.
Suddenly the door bursts open once again and a blast of icy wind sweeps the room.
"Here are the herbs you asked for mom!" says a rosy-cheeked Prim, hurriedly shedding her snow boots and rushing to her mother's side. "Greasy Sae wouldn't take any money for them. She heard what happened."
Prim shrugs off her too-big winter coat that has patches on both arms and latches on to her sister's hand, tears welling up in her eyes. "Oh Katniss," she whispers.
She stands there for a few minutes stroking Katniss' arm and whispering comforting words into her ear before she finally looks up and notices Gale and I facing off in the corner.
"Gale, what are you doing?" she demands. Then her gaze shoots up to my mangled face and her eyes widen. "Oh my God, Mr. Mellark! What happened to you?"
"It's nothing," I mumble as Prim flits over and begins to inspect my face with precocious medical professionalism. She hands me a snowball wrapped in a sterile white cloth. "You've got to keep snow on that and make sure the wound stays clean," she instructs me. "If bacteria gets in there you're going to be at risk for blood poisoning."
Her words make me wonder what would kill me faster: a blood infection or the festering guilt in my soul. I think I'll take the blood infection.
"Now are you going to tell me what happened?" she asks, and the trembling in her bottom lip reminds me that she's not a nurse at all, she's a little girl who's terrified that her beloved big sister might be at death's door. My eyes flicker to Gale, who is still staring daggers at me.
"Don't worry about me Prim. It's nothing," I repeat.
I hear Mrs. Everdeen's voice pipe up from across the room. "He stepped in front of the whip, Prim," she says quietly. "He may have saved your sister's life."
Prims lip is trembling violently now and when she opens her mouth to speak the only thing that comes out is an anguished sob. She launches herself at me and clamps her arms around my middle, her hot tears soaking into the front of my pullover.
Gale looks mutinous. Does he think I'm enjoying this? That I'm basking in the glory of being a hero? I am in agony knowing that it was my selfishness, my…desire for Katniss that drove her to recklessness and nothing will make me forget that. I press the snow against my cheek so hard that it brings tears to my eyes in an attempt to make the physical pain match what I'm feeling in the pit of my stomach. It doesn't even come close.
There is a knock at the door and everyone in the room freezes.
"Everyone stay calm," I say, making my way towards the entryway.
I open the door tentatively, half expecting a battalion of Peacekeeper to charge in and arrest us, but it is not Peacekeepers. It's Delly Cartwright.
"Delly?" I say incredulously. "What are you doing here?"
Delly is bundled up against the bitterly cold night, twisting one of her curly blond locks nervously. I hardly recognize her without her one-hundred-watt smile and sunny disposition. Her blue-green eyes flit up to the raw stripe across my cheek and she winces before unexpectedly shoving a few small vials of liquid into my hands.
"Here. Give this to—to Katniss. It's for my migraines—really strong stuff."
I gape at her, knowing without looking that the vials contain morphling, a heavily controlled substance that is difficult to find outside the Capitol and nearly impossible to afford. Delly is from old money like Gran and Haymitch, so she's always had the best of everything, including medical care.
"Delly," I breathe, weighing the vials in my hand, so tempted to take them. "You know I can't accept this—"
"No, Peeta! You have to," she insists, swatting my hand away as I offer it back to her. "Look, I—I've seen the way you look at her. And I guess I always hoped someday you'd look at me that way… but Peeta, you're a good person, you deserve to be happy." She falters, choking back the tears that threaten to spill over her freckled cheeks. "I don't care if she's Seam, you know? She makes you happy."
My heart clenches. Good old Delly, considerate through and through. Perhaps in another world, a world without Katniss, I could have grown to love Delly Cartwright—Delly with her indefatigable optimism and genuine love for people, even the insufferable ones—yes, a boy could do far worse than Delly. With difficulty I think back to our disastrous first date a year ago and all the inadvertent pain I probably caused her. I had taken her to the soda shop and we had sat on high stools, our knees just barely grazing, sipping on chocolate milk shakes. She was wearing a pretty violet dress with a floral pattern and I had tried valiantly to pay attention as she chattered on about school, and the spring dance, and how lovely our teacher Miss Ana looked at her wedding last Saturday.
I was trying so hard to forget about Katniss, to move on, and after all, it wasn't really so hard to like a sweet girl like Delly, was it? In fact, if I thought about it rationally, Delly should be far easier to fall in love with than Katniss anyway. Where Katniss was guarded and aloof, Delly was open and communicative, where Katniss was surly and distant, Delly was friendly and accessible. The list went on and on. So when I took Delly home that evening and she leaned up against the white picket fence, her eyes closed, I kissed her. I wanted so badly to feel something, that fire that ignited in my belly every time Katniss so much as looked at me, but all I felt was Delly's soft, wet lips on mine and the tickle of her curls against my cheeks.
I upbraided myself for days about the kiss. I felt manipulative, dirty, for leading Delly on like that when I knew that there was only ever one pair of lips I wanted to kiss. When I finally broke down and told her that I didn't think we should go on another date, she had just sighed and said, "There's someone else, isn't there?" I nodded slowly, and she didn't seem surprised. "I thought so." There had been a long, pregnant pause and then I began rambling on about how much she meant to me, how I had never wanted to hurt her, how I hoped we could still be friends, and Delly, true to form, had assured me that it was ok, that she understood. But the look of sadness and betrayal in her eyes when she turned to leave had spoken otherwise.
I am brought swiftly down to reality again by Delly's voice. "You should go back inside now," she says softly. "Katniss needs you." Then she reaches up tentatively to kiss me on the cheek and I can feel the tears on the ends of her eyelashes. "Goodbye Peeta."
She is halfway down the garden path when my throat finally begins to work and I call after her. "Someday someone will deserve you Delly, and when you find him, I want to be first in line to shake his hand."
I close the door gently and hand the morphling to Mrs. Everdeen. She gasps audibly when she sees what it is, but she doesn't ask questions, just takes a sterile needle out of a package and carefully injects Katniss with a dose of it. The effect is almost immediate and we all breathe a collective sigh of relief as we see the lines in Katniss' forehead smooth out and her clenched fists relax against the hard wood of the table.
"You should all get some sleep," says Mrs. Everdeen wearily, looking at Gale, Prim and I. "There's nothing we can do for her right now."
"I'm staying right here," says Gale stubbornly as if we should just try and stop him. Mrs. Everdeen sighs resignedly and takes Prim by the hand to lead her to bed, while I dutifully relegate the spot next to Katniss to Gale and retreat to a chair by the fire. Gale is the best friend here, not me. I'm just the one who nearly got her killed.
The hours pass slowly and I slip in and out of consciousness, the anguished sounds that escape Katniss' lips are like tongues of fire lapping at my heart, sending waves of fear undulating through my body.
"You need to stop blaming yourself," comes a familiar voice from the shadows and I nearly jump out of my chair. Haymitch. I must have drifted off to sleep for a moment and not noticed his reentry.
"I'll stop blaming myself when it isn't my fault," I say sullenly.
"It's not your fault," says Haymitch. "Listen boy, I don't claim to know our little Miss Everdeen all that well, but what I do know is that the girl doesn't do things she doesn't want to do. Too stubborn." I open my mouth to protest, but he cuts me off. "Believe me, if she had wanted to tell you to take a hike, she would have done it long ago, but she didn't."
I don't respond. Somewhere deep down I know Haymitch is probably right, but right now no amount of reason is going to draw me out of the pit of self-loathing that I have exiled myself to. I look over at Haymitch's profile, shadowed in the dim light of the dying fire. He has a strong chin, aquiline nose and deep blue eyes. I suppose he must have been handsome at some point in his life, those sort of rakish, effortless good looks that girls go crazy for. It makes me wonder what happened to him.
"What was her name?" I murmur into the darkened room. "Your girl," I clarify.
Haymitch stiffens and then takes a long pull from his hip flask. He is silent for some time and then, finally: "Rosa," he says gruffly. "Her name was Rosa."
"What happened to her?"
Haymitch takes another swig from his flask and swivels around slowly in his chair so that he's facing me. "Lynched," he says abruptly, and the firelight reflected in his eyes burns like tamed but not yet extinguished rage. "We were just a little older than you are. She was Seam, I was Merchant. I wanted to marry her, but my family wouldn't hear of it. On the day I told them I didn't care, that I was running away with her, a gang of angry Merchants stormed her house. They tore her from her bed and hung my Rosa from a tree." Haymitch's voice cracks and he slams his fist down on the arm of his chair so hard that I'm afraid he'll wake Mrs. Everdeen and Prim in the other room. "She was pregnant," he chokes.
I feel the information soaking in slowly, like blood into a bandage, and I begin to shake as if my body is physically unable to accept Haymitch's words. Shifting my gaze to the center of the room I see that Gale has fallen asleep with his head on the table, his tall lanky frame bent almost double, his hand entwined with hers. I feel a pang seeing it, but it is quickly replaced by the thought of Katniss, shrouded in her white, threadbare pajamas, dangling from the end of a rope. It's better this way. Gale can make her happy, keep her safe, not that she really needs anybody's protection.
I decide to slip out while everyone is still asleep, it will be easier that way. I take one last long look at Katniss, her face pale against a bed of wavy, chestnut tresses, and she moans slightly in her restless slumber. Wrenching my stinging eyes away from her I turn to Haymitch, who is staring into the dying embers of the fire. "Well, I guess I'll be off then. Mother will be furious that I didn't come home, and she'll have heard the rumors of course—"
"Are you bloody kidding me, boy?" interrupts Haymitch, standing up suddenly. "You can't go home, you idiot."
I freeze mid stride, the back of my neck prickling. "What do you mean?"
Haymitch sighs heavily as if I'm the biggest dunce he's ever met. "You stepped in front of the whip, boy! You threw in your lot with the Seam. Look, I had the family name to protect me after what went down with Rosa. They couldn't touch the Abernathy's, but you're the baker's son for Godsake, And besides that, the object of your puppy-dog affections happens to be the daughter of a well-known rebel leader. Mark my words, boy, you set foot back in town and it'll be like you just willingly gulped down a handful of Nightlock."
The grim prognosis leaves me thunderstruck. I had been so busy worrying about Katniss that I hadn't even begun to think about what sort of repercussions my actions might have had.
"So what—what am I supposed to do?" I stammer.
"You disappear, that's what. I'm taking you and Katniss to a safe house tonight."
"Hold on there," I object. "You can't possibly think of moving her in this condition!"
"We either move tonight or we spend the rest of the hours until daylight fitting the two of you for nooses. You think the Capitol is going to take that stunt you pulled lightly? It was caught live on the national broadcast."
I see his point. In reality, my actions earlier were a visceral reaction born out of my love for Katniss, but the Capitol doesn't know that. To them it looks like a challenge to their policy of segregation, the lynchpin in their ability to tame the masses. Katniss and I made them look foolish.
I think of Bannock, he's just lost dad and now—poof!—I'm going to disappear without a trace. He might never find out what really happened, but he'll hear rumors of course, that I've been captured, tortured…killed. My throat feels like it is closing up, but I force myself to remain calm. Katniss would, if the roles were reversed, she would keep a clear head, work out a plan, see to it that everyone she loved was protected.
"What about my family?" I ask.
"We can't do much," hedges Haymitch. "But we'll put a watch on the bakery. I don't think the Capitol will bother them when it becomes clear they don't know anything."
"Who's we?"
"I can't tell you that here, it's not secure."
"And the Everdeens?" I press. "Where will they go?"
"I arranged for Mrs. Everdeen and Primrose to stay with the Hawthornes. They'll be safe there."
An hour later we have roused Gale, Mrs. Everdeen and Prim and told them to pack their things. Thankfully, they don't ask many questions. Mrs. Everdeen changes Katniss' bandages and we wrap her in several layers of blankets before transferring her back to the board we carried her in on. Outside we slide her onto Prim's old sled. Gale kisses her forehead fervently and Prim whispers something softly into her ear before they reluctantly turn towards the road leading to the Hawthorne residence.
"We'll send for you in the morning, Otilia," says Haymitch to Mrs. Everdeen, and then adds in the most reassuring voice he can muster. "Don't worry, we'll keep her safe."
It's a long journey to the safe house, and I can tell that Haymitch is taking us on a circuitous route to avoid the chance of being tracked. Soon the houses of both the Seam and the town fall away and I realize that we must be on the very edge of the district. We enter into a dense grove of trees, our footsteps falling silently over the snow covered earth, and I finally see a tall, cobbled house emerge out of the darkness, a tendril of smoke snaking out of the chimney.
Haymitch leads us up the path to the heavy wooden doorway and presses a button on an intercom. Then I'm surprised when he purses his lips together and whistles a plaintive four-note melody. There is a crackle on the other end of the intercom and a woman's voice returns the tune.
"A friend with friends," says Haymitch mysteriously, and I hear a lock click inside.
The door opens, and we are greeted by an older, maternal-looking woman who introduces herself as Seeder. Like Katniss, she has the dark complexion and silver-gray eyes that mark her as Seam, but I don't recognize her. She looks at Haymitch questioningly as her eyes flit over my blond hair and blue eyes, but she seems satisfied when Haymitch grunts, "Don't worry, he's one of us. The one I told you about." Her mouth opens in an "O" of realization as she looks between Katniss and I. What has Haymitch been telling her, I wonder vaguely.
Seeder then focuses her attention on Katniss' feverish figure, still strapped to the sled. "Poor dear," she sighs. I lift Katniss up as gently as possible and Seeder leads us up a narrow staircase and down a darkened corridor. "The girl will sleep here," she says gently. "Haymitch, you're down the hall, and you dear…"
"Peeta," I tell her.
"Peeta. Your room's right across the way," she says, but she must see the way I'm looking at Katniss as if I never want to let her go because she adds, "However, I'm sure for tonight you'll both be comfortable enough in here."
Seeder pulls back the sheets and I lower Katniss carefully down onto the bed so that she is lying on her side.
"Call me if there's anything you need," she says softly and closes the door behind her.
There is a bowl of water and a clean cloth on the bedside table, so I begin to gently dab the sheen of sweat off Katniss' face. Her skin is on fire, but her whole body is shivering. I draw the blankets over her, making sure that there is no pressure on her back and push the sweaty tangles of hair off her forehead.
"I'm so sorry," I whisper. And then, because I can't bear it any longer, I reach down and brush my lips lightly over her temple, her closed eyelids, and finally the corner of her slightly parted lips. She stirs at my touch and lets out a small whimper of pain.
I see her parched lips moving and I rush to pour her a glass of water from the pitcher nearby. "Here, drink this," I say, putting my hand behind her neck and tipping the glass up to her lips. She can only manage one small sip.
"Peeta," she rasps. I immediately take her hand in my own and rub small comforting circles with my thumb.
"Shh, it's ok, Katniss. I'm here. I'm right here."
Her eyes flutter open and take a moment to focus on mine. They are filled with tears that still refuse to fall. "Stay," she whispers.
I squeeze her hand in both of mine. "Always."
Author's Note: Haymitch's girl is named for the one and only Rosa Parks, who played an instrumental role in the Civil Rights Movement in the US. The term "A friend with friends" is a password used by conductors bringing escaped slaves to safe houses on the Underground Railroad. Obviously the Underground Railroad and the Civil Rights Movement were happening at very different points in US history, but I have decided to meld aspects of both for the sake of this story. As always, reviews are greatly appreciated. Let me know what you think!