I still haven't found a beta and have made peace with the fact that I never will. I am going to try and write this story alone and hopefully the quality doesn't randomly decline, but I will do my best. Thank you so much for all the reviews and private messages, they helped me keep working and convinced me that I can't just give up because too many people are still interested.
Chapter 5
Minx
I awake to morning light. To my surprise Peeta has rolled over some time in the night. He is already awake and looking at me. For a second I swear I could feel him stroking my hair, but decide it must have been one of the orange blossoms breaking loose and drifting down my hair.
"What is your name." He asks. His voice quivers as if he is afraid.
"Katniss." I whisper to him.
He gives a faint smile at my answer and for once I feel pleasantly pleased with myself.
The door swings open and I jump up to see who it is. For a lingering moment I understand how warm I was next to the boy. It is the servant, who more importantly is carrying a tray full of food. I haven't eaten since the day before yesterday.
He sets the tray down on a table and walks across the room to open the curtains. The room has few windows and all of them are too high to catch much light. Drawing back the curtains only changes the room from black to sooty gray.
"Good morning, Master Peeta." The man says with a smile that reminds me of a man cringing with an ache. "Did you have a good sleep?"
Peeta's head bobs up and down. No one would believe he had slept well in years. He looks like Lazarus after rising from the grave.
"Well that's nice." The servant says politely. "I brought food for you to break your fast," he nods in the direction of the tray on the side table, "but first let's get you to the chamber pot."
My eyes follow the white sheet as the servant tugs them down off Peeta's body. I see his legs and want to scream. No, I want to vomit. No, I want to scream and vomit. He doesn't have two legs. Where his right one should be there is a mangled stump that ends above where his knee should be. The skin on his deformity is a mottled quilt of black and blue, dotted with weeping wounds full of blood and puss. The stench of the infection reaches my nose and my body heaves with a gag. No one seems to notice.
Peeta wraps his arms around the servant's neck and the man places one arm around his waist and another under the knee of Peeta's spindly 'good' leg. The man walks out of the room carrying the Peeta the way a bridegroom carries his new bride.
"Was she kind to you?" I hear the servant ask as he walks down the hall outside the room.
With a morbid fascination I look down at the bed where he lay. The sheets are covered with a slurry of blood and filth. I jump out of the bed like a frightened cat. My eyes jerk down to the dress I wore last night. It too is stained. The marks occurring around me knees and lower leg. I think about how I held him close last night, how could I not notice an entire limb was missing from him?
Panic wells up inside me. I think of the man who once walked through my village. He claimed to have walked the whole of the silk road. According to him the heathens of the far east had a practice of burying the wives of their deceased husbands alive so that they might join them in the afterlife. Is this why they brought me here, for a similar purpose?
Terror fills me up until I am shaking.
No change occurred in me last night. I am still a wild creature. And when a wild creature cannot fight it runs. I am going to flee this place.
"Think Katniss, you need a plan." The voice inside my head tells me. It is right I can't go sprinting away in broad daylight when I could be spotted so easily. I need to leave at night. Think Katniss, make a list, what do you need?
Food. I haven't eaten and I will need my strength if I am going to make it home tonight. My house must be over ten miles away I think, but there is no way for me to be sure.
I look to the tray in the corner of the room, just sitting there tempting me. Three slices of brown bread sit next to a bowl of clear broth. Would they notice if one went missing?
I think of how I can position the remaining two slices to conceal I have taken one. There is no way I can think of that would hide it. I'll solve this problem later. What else do I need?
Light. I will be walking the hallways alone and will need to be able to see to find my way out. By the corner of the bed where Peeta sleeps there is a candelabra. I reach my hand to the back of it and remove the smallest candle. Who would even notice it went missing? I then search the room until I find stone and flint above the fireplace on the mantle. I now have a way to light the candle.
My eyes gaze down at my dress. I have no pockets to conceal my stolen goods. I decide to stash them inside my pillow case. Who would ever think to look there? There is nothing else I can think of except for a pair of shoes, but I doubt I will find a pair in here.
I stuff the smallest piece of bread in my mouth and am swallowing the crumbs when the servant and Peeta return to the room. I blush with guilt feeling like I have been caught red-handed. The man does not even look at me. Instead his eyes focus on the unmade bed.
The man sticks his head out of the door and screams down the hall, "Oi! Alma you forgot the bed!"
Peeta looks even smaller than I remember him being as the man screams. As if the loud noise crumples him in some way.
A gray haired woman appears in the doorway. Her eyebrows are raised up to near her hairline. Her lips are pursed as if she is suffering from the antics of a small child. She glances at the bed and then leans out into the hallway like a sapling swaying in the wind.
"Girls." She calls in a stern voice.
I race to the bed and snatch my pillow. They can't find what I intend to steal. I am holding the pillow to my chest the same way a child clutches a favorite toy when they are scared. Dozens of girls descend on the room and start stripping away the bedding. In a matter of minutes the bed sheets have been changed and the girls are filing out of the room.
The servant takes Peeta to the bed and lays him down. He takes care to plump the pillows and arrange the sheets on top of him.
"That's better." the man comments, "Now let's try and get some food in you. You need to keep your strength– Hey," The man's flinty eyes lock down on me, "have you taken some of the bread?!"
I clutch the pillow tighter and feel my heart beat against my chest like the wings of a caged bird. I can't even look at him. Who else could have taken it, of course it was me.
"Haymitch," I look up. It is Peeta, sometimes I forget he can even speak. "Haymitch, Katniss needs to eat too."
Haymitch's jaw twitches and he looks to Peeta. The boy's face is so gray and mottled I wonder how he even can be concerned with anything that has to do with me. He should be looking after his own health. Never the less his concern for my well being is plain. His blue eyes gaze upon me like he truly is worried they would let me starve.
Haymitch puts on a smile from ear to ear, though it is so unconvincing he might as well have had it painted on his face like a pantomime. "Just so," he says as he looks at Peeta, "I will make sure she gets something to eat after you finish your food."
Haymitch props Peeta up into a sitting position using the bed's pillows and then fetches the tray of food. Spoonful by spoonful Haymitch coaxes the broth into Peeta. Every bite is a challenge and Peeta refuses often, but the old man is equally as stubborn. I decide Haymitch has the personality of a summer storm, all gentle showers and harsh thunder cracks.
When it comes time to eat the bread Peeta refuses and all the wheedling in the world won't change it. Even Haymitch must admit defeat, "Maybe tomorrow." He says in an almost cheery way. As if everyone in the room didn't know that if he isn't eating today he most definitely won't be eating tomorrow.
The man picks up the tray and heads for the door. He places the little plate with bread on the table on his way out. "You can have that now. If you want." He says to me. His shoulders are stooped like a defeated man returning from battle.
I leap from where I am standing and snatch up the bread. I cannot help it. Where I am from food is too scarce to be picky. I must look like a wolf to Peeta as I shove one bite in after another, not even bothering to chew most of them.
When I turn to look at him again his mouth is open and his eyes are wide with concern. "Did they feed you where you are from?" He asks.
"No, I fed myself."
"Are you a farm girl?"
"No, I lived off of the woods." I don't want to tell him any more details. I am still planning on leaving tonight and I feel it is best if he does not get to know me very well.
"How?"
What a question to ask, 'how'. What should I tell him? Should I say I did it by stealing eggs from wild bird's nest. By catching frogs and frying them up. By never turning down any option of food, because to do so would have been suicidal.
"By shooting wild game with my bow." I say.
The corners of his mouth twitch up into a soft smile. He seems almost pleased with the idea. "Where is your bow now?"
I look away from him, "They took it and broke it."
"That's terrible of them." I sense he is trying to say it with conviction, but it comes out in a groggy voice. I can tell he has more questions, but his frail body will only allow so much strain. Maybe I should tell him to lie back and get some rest? Maybe I should say that I honestly wouldn't mind if he spent the whole day sleeping in my presence.
We don't speak any more. Soon his faint snores echo through the room, each exhale haunted by a ragged crackled caused by whatever coats his lungs.
I sit on the edge of the bed and watch the sun trace across the top of the high windows. By my estimation it is one o'clock when he wakes and starts to cough up blood.
He is either to weak or unwilling to cover his mouth and blood and spit dribble down his chin. The white bedding is now flecked with drops of red.
He looks to me, his eyes wide in his agony. "What do you want me to do?" I want to scream at him. How many times have I seen an animal foam and bleed at the mouth after I have shot it? "You're dying." I want to tell him. "You're dying and there is nothing I can do to help you."
His coughing and struggling increases rapidly. He is breathing in and out blood, not air.
The door flies open. It is Haymitch.
"How long has he been like this?" He screams. I swear if he was closer he would have hit me.
Haymitch runs to Peeta's side. He takes a cloth and cleans off Peeta's mouth as he says soothing words to calm him. "There, there. I am here now." He looks to me with eyes like arrows as if to say, 'unlike her.'
"I am here. Shh. Shh. Breath in and out out. In and out." Haymitch starts drawing out his own breaths as if to give Peeta an example.
Slowly the coughing stops and Peeta reclines against the pillows.
"There. There." Haymitch says as he finishes cleaning the last of the blood off Peeta's face. "It was just a little fit. It's over now. It's all over. Lie back and try and get some rest. I'll go fetch you some water." As he stands up to leave the room he gives me one last dirty look.
What does he want from me? Does he know that healing is not in my nature?
"It may not be in Haymitch's nature either." A small voice tells me.
I ignore it. I couldn't do it. I have been running from things like this my whole life. Old, tired, half-staved dogs like me don't learn new tricks. I look at the boy. He is so weak and vulnerable. I am a monster for being so weak, for not being able to help others. I realize it is fine if I leave, I can't do anything for him any way.
Haymitch returns with a tin cup of water. Peeta looks at the cup and tries to push it away. Haymitch gathers up Peeta's hands to keep him from fighting.
"None of that now," He says gently, "you need to drink."
He lifts the cup and Peeta takes a reluctant swallow.
"No, you need to have more than that." Haymitch says with a smile. Is a grin this man's form of weeping?
Peeta takes another sip, not even half a mouthful of water. Haymitch lifts the cup again, but Peeta turns his face away.
"Just a bit more." Haymitch coaxes.
Peeta purses his lips and turns his head further away.
"You can lead a horse to water, Haymitch, but you can't make it drink." I think to myself.
Haymitch sets the cup on the side table, "Maybe we will try again later. When you have your supper."
Haymitch moves faster than I have ever seen him as he walks towards the door. When he is in the hall I hear a something heavy hit the floor accompanied by dozens of other chimes and crashes, like pottery smashing.
"Mr. Abernathy." Alma calls, her voice is as high strung as ever.
"Shove it!" He yells after her.
Peeta dozes in and out of sleep over the next few hours and I do something unusual. Pray. I don't say a rosary for his soul or beg God to miraculously heal him. Instead I ask the divine to keep Peeta from coughing up blood again. Begging him to let it not happen until I am safely gone, because I don't think I can deal with it again.
Haymitch returns like he said with Peeta's supper and manages to get him to eat a few more spoonfuls of broth and drink a little more water. Haymitch does not insist he eat more when Peeta starts to refuse. He simply takes the food away and leaves me the leftover bread on the table like before. Even the faithful servant has given up.
I take the bread, but do not eat it. I will be splitting it with Prim tonight. My feet move quickly to the bed and I wonder how discreet I need to be about stuffing a slice of bread inside my pillow. I decide I do not need to try very hard to conceal my actions. This was the wrong choice for the first time in hours Peeta seems lucid. His eyes tracing the outline of the crumbs that still coat my fingers when I with draw them from the pillow case.
"I feel you should know I'll do my very best to try and keep you fed." He tells me.
I give him a smile. How could I tell him that I will be feeding myself again very soon. My hand reaches into the pillow and I break off a small piece of the slice and eat it in front of him. As if I want to show him his words have given me the confidence to eat.
I reach in again and break off another piece. "Do you want some?" I ask.
"Not right now, maybe in the morning." He tells me and for a moment I wonder if he might be happy.
I give him a weak smile. It will be too late in the morning.
He rolls over away from me like he did last night. I hope he falls asleep quickly, it is dark now and I wish to be gone.
To my chagrin he does not fall asleep, instead he starts coughing and retching again.
No blood. No blood. No blood. I chant within myself as I peak across him. I want to sigh with relief when I see that his lips and mouth are clean. He should exhaust himself soon, I reason with myself.
He doesn't fall asleep soon though, instead he keeps hacking, heaving, and shivering. This will never do. I move beside him and and tug the covers over him. "It's just because you are tired of seeing his spine bulging out every time he coughs." I tell myself.
I brace my back against the headboard and place one arm on his corner of the bed so that I might lean over him. My fingers are cautious as they begin to stroke his hair. Again and again I run them over his head. It reminds me of what my mother use to do when I was very little, before I despised her.
His breathing softens and the taught muscles in his face relax. I dip my head down. "Go to sleep." I whisper in his ear.
Minutes drag on as I run my fingers through his hair and search for any sign of wakefulness. When drool starts to escape the corner of his mouth I know I can be sure he is asleep. One finger at a time I withdraw my hand. I pull back from him and climb out of bed. My eyes stay focused on his face as I blindly search inside my pillow for my supplies. He doesn't even stir when the stone and the flint accidently knock together causing a clatter.
I decide to leave the bread inside the pillow case, at some point I must have sat on it and it has now become flattened. I regret the candle being so small, for now it seems impossible to find as I run my hand up and down the length of the pillow again and again. Eventually, I find it. Now I have everything I need.
Once more I look to Peeta. He looks so peaceful I almost regret leaving him. "He'll most likely be dead in the morning." I try reasoning with myself.
My feet don't even feel like they are touching the ground as I move towards the door. I try and keep my hands from shaking as move the door handle. I step out into the hall and a cold draft catches me. My eyes glance one last time into the sliver opening of the room awash with its orange glow. For a moment I think Peeta's eyes are open. No, his eyes are closed. I am only imagining things. I shut the door.
The darkness in the hall feels like the worst I have ever faced. It feels like it is suffocating me and so powerful it is dissolving my body.
I don't dare light the candle yet. I can still hear phantom like voices somewhere else in the hallway, though where they come from I could only guess. I place my hand against the wall. I plan to follow it until I am far enough away.
I don't make it two steps before my foot comes down on something sharp. It is the pottery that Haymitch had smashed earlier today. Despite my plan I know that I will need light if I am even going to attempt this part of the hallway safely.
I squat down and place the candle upright on the floor. My hands strike the stone and flint together. A shower of orange sparks lights up the darkness, but nothing catches. I try again. This time I have success the candle glows blue then red. I have light.
I hold my candle to the the ground and walk on my tip toes around the thousands of scattered shards. There are so many I am glad I did not try and do it with out any light. My feet would have been ground to a bloody pulp. Besides, I now can remember where I am going. There is a corning up ahead that I need to round in order to find a staircase that I need.
I turn the bend and out of the darkness a face is illuminated.
I am slammed up against a wall before I even have time to react. One hand clutches my throat while a forearm bars me from escape, pinning me to the wall. It is Haymitch.
"Minx! You foul minx!" He hisses at me. "Where do you think you're going?"
I try to answer, but he clamps down on my wind pipe and only a faint rasp escapes me.
"You were leaving. Weren't you?"
I try to shake my head, but he suddenly pushes harder making the bones in my neck grind up against the stone behind me.
"Don't you dare lie to me. I saw you pilfering off supplies with my own eyes. You're scared of him aren't you?"
I manage to give my head a tiny little shake. Stars are appearing in my vision from lack of air.
My answer only serves to enrage him. "I said not to lie to me! Don't deny it. It's as plain as day the way you cringe and shudder when you look at him. You selfish little girl, as if you are anyone to judge." His voice breaks. "Where were you when he was but a boy of two and ten when his father took him hunting? Was it you who searched the woods for hours when he didn't come back? Were you there as he lay in a ditch for three long days. His leg crushed and a straining horse on top of him. Where you there all those long nights when the cold seeped into his lungs and rotted them?"
A stray tear runs down his face, "Was it you who held him down as he screamed and writhed away? Were you the one they told, 'hold him better Haymitch, the cut won't be clean if he keeps carrying on like this'?" He pauses to wipe his nose on the corner of his shirt. "No it wasn't you. You weren't there."
He tightens his grip even further and I except that I am going to die at the hands of this man. To my surprise he releases slightly.
"But yet you bring him some comfort. Some joy." He draws in closer and I can smell his curdled breath. "I asked him this morning if you were kind to him last nigh. He answered yes and that you brought him some comfort." He pauses and spits on the floor in disgust. "And God knows he has not known enough of that. I want you to go back to that room. Do you understand?"
I nod my head. My eyes are bulging with terror.
"Good." He says then his hand cinches up against my throat again, "And if I ever catch you stealing away in the night again I'll cut off your feet, followed by your nose. So that you may know what it is like to go through life crippled, and ugly, and despised by all."
He slams me up against the wall one final time and releases me.
"Get." He whispers and I run.
I haven't sprinted like this since I thought I saw a bear in the woods when I was ten. Broken potter be damned I will my feet to keep going even as I feel the bottom of my soles being scraped away.
I am behind the bedroom door and heaving from want of air before I know it. Is this room a tomb or a sanctuary? Or is it somehow a place where heaven combines with hell.
Everything is just as I left it. Peeta is still sleeping. The fire still crackling.
I climb into bed and curl up.
Slowly I relax and close my eyes. It is alright now. Or as alright as it possibly could be. I take a deep breath trying to sooth my frayed nerves. I should sleep now.
"You left." Peeta suddenly whispers.
"Only for a moment." I answer him.
"Were you trying to leave me?" His voice is broken and panicked.
I move closer to him and place my body next to his. "No, there was just something I had to do."
"Like what?" He says and I can feel his body tense.
I stroke his hair. "Doesn't matter I am here now. And I promise I will never leave you."
He snuggles closer and mutters something about that being nice. I keep stroking his hair. "Yes I will never leave you, because I can't." I want to tell him. "Don't worry. For whatever horrors this house holds we are now in this together whether I am willing or not."
Author's Note: So this is the next chapter I have and would like you all to know I am going to try and have some stuff related to the story up on the Hunger Games tumblr hooked to my profile so that I can keep anyone interested in my progress in the loop :)
Oh and in case you are interested my face claims are as follows: A young Olivia Hussey is my Katniss.
Peeta is too ethereal in my mind to ever have someone be him.
And Haymitch is Woody Harrelson.
Please Review they mean so much to me.