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The stew feels overly slimy in my mouth during lunch, even more so than in the weeks previous. I can’t tell if my tastebuds are being affected by the crappy morning I’ve had or if the lunch crew screwed up the batch yet again but one way or another, my appetite dies by the time I’ve swallowed spoonful number four.
“Here,” Gale gruffs, shoving his glass of murky water in my direction.
I eye it suspiciously though, before raising an eyebrow at him. “Did you already drink out of it?”
I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone roll their eyes harder in my life. Besides Katniss, of course. Besides the girl with the braid who rolled her eyes at me in her sleep and sometimes scowled the moment she woke up.
Thinking about her only makes it hurt worse. Thinking of her pretty face as she slept and her upturned eyes that never looked as intimidating as she believed and her self-conscious laughter that filled the small moments when we didn’t have to play pretend for a nearby camera, only serves in further suppressing my appetite.
I try to hold onto the image of her, on-screen, sitting opposite Caesar Flickerman, looking entirely bored out of her mind and absolutely furious and completely healthy.
That image is all I have right now to keep me going. That image represents just about the last shred of sanity I still have left inside, after two hunger games, a lost limb, the destruction of my home, the death of my entire family in one fell swoop and a now raging war.
She’s okay, I chant to myself silently. She’s unharmed and she’ll stay that way until we can rescue her out of the Capitol in time.
I have no immediate idea of when that’s happening. No guarantees that it even ever will. But I can’t bear to let myself consider — even in the privacy of my mind, even just to myself and no one else — any alternative outcome.
She has to be alright. There’s no other option.
Gale fixes me now with an irate glare before murmuring, “you think we’re close enough to share germs now, Mellark?”
But wit has always been my native tongue and with no family here in Thirteen and no one in the world besides Delly and Finnick — I will not so much as speak to Haymitch, even if my life depends on it — to really be myself around, there’s little self-control left inside me. “So I take it you didn’t like the friendship bracelet I made you.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” he immediately shoots back, shoveling his bowl of stew into his mouth while still speaking. “I’m wearing it right now as an anklet.”
“I can’t wait for you give me mine.” After an entire childhood sharing a single room with two obnoxious brothers I don’t miss a beat before replying either.
“I’ll drop it by your door tonight.”
“I’ll be waiting on baited breath-“
“Okay!” Delly exclaims from her spot on my other side, looking unusually aggravated by our exchange. “Can you two just stop for one single meal?”
The entire table falls silent then. Finnick shoots me a small smirk, indicating he was enjoying the entertainment our exchange provided. Haymitch on the other end of the table, as far from me as he can get, even chuckles lifelessly.
His black eye, bruised ribs and broken nose though make such an action rather difficult. And it’s cruel, it’s uncharacteristic, it’s something downright reminiscent of my mother, but I can’t stop myself from feeling a hint of satisfaction at his discomfort.
And after the way he betrayed me and Katniss with lies about the rebellion, after those same lies left me and her in the dark and ultimately resulted in her capture by Snow, I am satisfied that he’s in pain. I’m even more satisfied that I’m the only who put him in pain, on the hovercraft. Evidently I’m a whole lot stronger than my mentor ever gave me credit for. And, when properly motivated, a lot more violent.
I am, after all, my mother’s son.
I must not be as subtle as I think because Gale effortlessly follows my line of thinking. He raises his brows in a dismissive gesture towards Haymitch, as if saying you deserve it, before pushing his water glass back in my vicinity again.
“Drink this while you eat the stew, Mellark,” he says in a flat voice. “It helps wash down the slime.”
“Thanks but I’m not hungry.” I wave off the suggestion, preparing to stand from the table and head towards my scheduled District Thirteen class. The stamp on my arm tells me it’s supposed to begin twenty minutes from now.
“If you don’t eat, you won’t get stronger. No matter how hard you train,” Gale states, his voice rather matter-of-fact. I almost want to argue his point, just to rile him up. I suppose after a lifetime as the youngest sibling and never being allowed to stir the pot without receiving harsh consequences, being a pest is ingrained deep inside the core of my being. Being the youngest must vexatious a core personality trait.
But then again, are you even still a sibling if both your brothers are dead and burned to ash? There’s a word for when you lose both your parents — orphan — but no one ever invented the word for losing your siblings. As if such a reality wasn’t plausible. As if no one ever lost their siblings.
The thought of my brothers immediately sobers me and I accept Gale’s offer willingly this time, gulping the water down in under three seconds.
“That’s not how he told you to drink it,” Posy Hawthorne, Gale’s baby sister says, her eyes growing big with worry. She glances at my bowl of stew, sitting before me, still nearly untouched. Her tiny dark eyebrows knit together as she imagines me going hungry without the ability to wash the bowl down with water now.
And she looks so much like Katniss did when we were kids that it’s almost painful to meet her frightened face. But I force myself to. I force myself to look at her with the calmest expression I can mange.
Because she’s still just a little girl, who doesn’t deserve any of the hardships life has already managed to throw at her.
“Don’t worry, Posy,” I say with a perfect false assurance in my tone. I scoop up a large glob of stew and shovel it into my mouth, just like her big brother did. “I’ll finish my lunch just fine without it.”
“He’s a big boy, Posy. Peeta can feed himself,” Finnick says, giving her a playful, genuine smile, eliciting her tiny laugh.
Gale shoots me a look from across the table but for once it’s a look of gratitude. I’m not surprised. Just like Katniss, his little sister is his soft spot.
Delly starts telling Posy that she likes her hair, that her mother, Mrs. Hawthorne, did it especially nice today. I’m about to join in and compliment her as well when the television screen that resides above the cafeteria tables suddenly flickers to life.
And Katniss’ face fills the screen without warning.
My first reaction is to stare in surprise at the image in front of me, of the beautiful girl who overtakes my thoughts day and night, of the person who President Coin is so desperate to turn into a martyr for her cause.
But after the initial shock of seeing her on-screen wears off, horror overtakes every part of me that’s still able to feel.
Katniss doesn’t look like the girl I saw on the television no more than a handful of days ago. How many has it been now? Five? Six? The number of days separating the two broadcasts don’t make sense. It’s not possible the Katniss on screen is the same Katniss who appeared unharmed and disinterested only a few short days ago.
Her face is inarguably thinner, her eyes look gaunt and unnaturally wide open now and her shoulders have a hunch to them that I’ve never seen before. She’s lost at least fifteen pounds, developed a severe tremor in her hands and is covered in thick makeup, a shade too pale for her olive skin.
I can’t even form words. Staring at her forces my throat to close up in the most pitiful way possible. Not even as a child, when my mother used to berate me until I cried, when she lost her temper and would smack me with a breadboard, when my father drank himself into a stupor, did I feel quite like this.
Staring up at Katniss now feels like my heart is being ripped to shreds, right on sight.
And then she starts speaking.
I can barely understand her. Her typical melodic tone is hoarse and muted and raw. I doubt anyone in this room really understands the first few minutes of her interview. She’s mumbling and shaking and biting her lip until it looks like it’s about to crack open and bleed.
“She…” Finnick starts before hesitating. No one prompts him, too focused on the girl before us, the girl who once set the nation on fire — me included — but now looks as if she were burned by her own embers. But Finnick still finishes his thought, even without being cued. “She looks small. Young and small.”
It’s Haymitch who replies first, surprisingly enough. “She is young and small.” I can see, burning within his gray eyes, that he’s filled with regret for not better protecting the girl he just claimed was young and small.
But I’m still angry with him. I’m still so uncontrollably angry, to the point that I feel unhinged just by thinking again about what he did to us. So I don’t care if he’s dying of remorse. I don’t care if Haymitch chokes on his own guilt. I’ve washed my hands of him.
Katniss clears her throat, abruptly sitting up as tall as she can make herself appear before opening her mouth and staring right into the camera lense.
“Peeta doesn’t know what he’s doing,” she asserts but she was never an actress, as hard as she may have tried, and I can see the truth behind the sentiment just by looking into her glassy eyes.
“And what about the way the rebellion are using you as their symbol?” Caesar asks, his usual vigor evaporated from the interview. He appears to be enjoying this interaction as much as she is right now.
“They’re using me. Obviously,” she says, too quickly to be convincing. Her voice waivers again as she adds more. “They’re trying to… to whip up the rebels. Neither me nor Peeta have any idea what the rebels are up to.”
“Does Peeta know what’s at stake?” Caesar quietly prompts after a beat of silence, as if Katniss forgot one of her lines.
“No!” Her voice raises in volume but it cracks. On the one syllable word she manages to utter, her voice cracks. “Peeta doesn’t know anything about the rebels or what they could do. I mean,”she stumbles again and corrects herself erratically. “He doesn’t know what damage they could do to the country.”
“And is there anything else you wish to tell Peeta while on the air?” Caesar asks evenly, nodding like he’s giving her a hint.
She takes a deep breath and nods, still staring right into the camera. She’s still so beautiful, I think to myself, feeling as paralyzed as she appears at the moment. I want more than anything to rescue her from Snow, even if I die in the process. I want more than anything to go back to that last night in the Quarter Quell and never let anyone separate us, never let Beetee and Finnick and Johanna pressure us into splitting up.
I’d do anything to take those last few minutes back. Reverse our positions and put me in the line of fire in the Capitol. Let me take her place, no matter the cost.
Katniss opens her mouth to speak but nothing comes out. There’s a long pause, where whoever is operating the camera waits for her to recite her spiel. When she fails to do so, Caesar begins to redirect the interview back towards him speaking and her merely nodding.
But Katniss is nothing if not a fighter and however terrified and choked up she may be, she doesn’t let it stifle her entirely from what she’s determined to say.
“Peeta, don’t trust President Coin or the rebels. You can’t!” She urges, lurching forward so that she’s right up on the camera, giving herself an involuntary close-up.
Her bright gray eyes still shine so bright, like stars in the sky. Even sparkling with tears.
“Do not trust anyone, Peeta! Just get my family and run! Listen to me! Coin cannot be trusted! Coin is just as bad as Snow-“
As soon as the words slip out of her mouth, the screen goes instantly black. The seal of Panem flashes across the screen. And then an eruption occurs within the room.
But I’m not here. I’m not here, mentally speaking, inside this cafeteria.
I can’t listen to any of the commotion unfolding before me. My body isn’t even within my control in this moment. I hurriedly stand from the table, in a trance that I couldn’t snap out of even if I wanted to. And I don’t. I don’t want to feel anything. I don’t want to hear anything. I don’t even want to think.
My legs propel me forward, out the doors to the hall and down the corridor. I don’t know where I’m headed and, frankly, I really don’t care.
Because I already know how this will play out. Coin has the option of either claiming Katniss is a traitor to the rebels or she’s a captive girl who is saying what she needs to survive.
And I can already guess which alternative she’ll choose.
I don’t know how far I make it before Gale catches up to me. I’m almost to mine and Finnick’s quarters before he grips my shoulder with a forceful hand.
He of all people should know better than to grab someone who fought in two hunger games like that. Before I can reason with myself, my body instinctively swings around and aims a jab at his left cheek.
Luckily he ducks just in time.
“Good reflexes,” I retort in a sarcastic tone, not in any mood to fake pleasantries towards Katniss’ best friend.
But Gale is, as per usual, all business. “Mellark, we have to get to class. Okay, we need to focus and train now more than ever.”
I shoot him an extremely dirty look. “Training isn’t going to save Katniss from whatever Snow’s doing to her at this very minute.” The images flashing behind my lids every time I close my eyes is enough to make me sick.
But it would seem Gale is already prepared for my dismissive response, as if he predicted it already. Which is odd, considering how little time we try to spend alone together. “You said yourself days ago that the more we train, the harder we work, the closer we are to getting Katniss back.”
“Hawthorne, she was fine days ago. She was unharmed.”
“And now she just made herself an enemy to both sides of the war. She just stuck a target on her own back.”
“Why do you think I had to escape?”
“Peeta,” he finally addresses me by first name. But it doesn’t have the desired effect over me. My brain is still swirling with images of Katniss being beaten, tortured and killed in insane and unusual ways. Going to a class to learn about assembling beginner bombs and then running five miles around an indoor track just doesn’t sound productive to me anymore. “We need to get ready. She doesn’t have much time left,” Gale says.
He’s referring to the mission we’ve only spoken about a small number of times. The mission to extract Katniss, no matter the cost, if it looks like Snow is about to kill her.
Of course, we have to consult Coin and Boggs and all the other high ranking soldiers on the president’s payroll before we even have a chance of attempting the rescue mission. But the first priority is to learn all we can in as short amount of time we can possibly manage.
It’s not a terrible plan at all. It’s downright logical, strategic, simple and it results in Katniss’ escape from Snow.
I of all people should think it’s good though. Considering I’m the one who came up with it.
But the image of Katniss on Caesar’s talkshow is still burned inside my mind and I don’t think I can focus on anything else quite yet.
“Just go train by yourself,” I snap when Gale begins pressuring me again.
“You need to be there too,” he barks, having lost all sensibility now, just like me.
“Oh, I think class will proceed just fine without me today.”
“Not in training, you idiot. I’m saying on the rescue. You need to be there.” There’s a glint in his eyes now that looks outright furious. It takes me half a second to realize he’s furious that I’m making him admit this.
“I need to be there?” I repeat, my voice no kinder than his now.
“Yes.” There’s a long, awkward pause as he carefully contemplates his next words. “Mellark, she needs you. Alright, you need to keep working here so you can go on the mission and get her. Katniss needs you.”
“Nobody really needs me.”
“I do. I need you.”
“Katnis needs you,” he repeats again, sounding no happier about it than before. “She needs you and that means you have to be ready to go-“
“Okay,” I cut off, my voice shockingly collected. “Okay. I’ll go to training. I’ll learn as much as I can.”
There’s a long, pregnant pause before we start moving. Neither of us are enthralled to be together but we both know the other is necessary to our overall goal.
Because Katniss needs her family. And Gale is a part of that, now and forever.
And she needs me. She said so herself on the beach. She needs me.
I take a deep breath and use that admission as my motivate to keep going. My motivate to keep working until I can find a way to Snow’s mansion, until I can find a way to break her out of there, until I can find a way to get her here in District Thirteen safely.
I just hope that when I do find her, she’s still alive.
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