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I knew something was wrong as soon as I got out of the hob. It was a feeling, something within me that got a chill. Something inside me went still. It started with the wrong kind of silence through the streets. I’ve lived in the Seam long enough to know all its different silences, the quiet of an empty mine shift, the hush that falls when people are too tired to speak, the heavy stillness that clings to the air after someone’s died. But this… this was different.
Then I started to notice the strange noises coming from the square, getting clearer as I approached more and more. It was a whistling sound, then an impact and then the intake of breath from the crowd. I would recognize that noise anywhere. Whipping.
They used to do a lot of those when I was younger and the head PeaceKeeper wasn't Craig, when he came those stopped. So I haven't heard it for a minute but they are recognizable nonetheless.
When I reach the square I can't see anything because the crowd's too thick to see. I try to push my way through the crowd. And People start to panic. They try to shove me back.
"Get out of here,girl"
"What do you want to do? Get him Killed?"
Is what I hear the most as I make my way. I only know that whatever waits in the middle of the square is meant for me. When I finally break through to a cleared space, at first, I didn’t understand what I was looking at.
There was a wild turkey nailed to the wooden post.. a nail driven straight through its neck, blood dripping. My mind jumped to the obvious conclusion. I had seen Gale shoot a turkey like that earlier this morning. I was already bracing myself for the sight of him beneath it, face defiant, fists clenched. But when I see the first blonde curls is when I start to lose it. I would recognize that hair anywhere, that isn't Gale... that's Peeta.
My vision tunneled. The world roared in my ears.
Peeta was kneeling, his wrists bound to the wooden post, his beautiful blue jackets was meters away from him, cast aside on the ground, and his shirt torn away. What used to be his back it was a raw, bloody slab of meat.
Standing behind him is a man I've never seen, but he's definitely a peacekeeper. The head Peacekeeper. But it wasn't Cray, this one was new. I don't register anything until I see his arm raise to whip him again. At seeing the movement something in my head snapped.
"STOP! STOP!" I scream, leaving all my voice on it. It was too late to stop his arm from descending, so I throw myself between the whip and Peeta, I try to open my arms to protect as much of him as I can. I take the full force of it across the left side of my face. They pain comes to me instantly, flashes cross my vision and I fall next to Peeta. The stones beneath me are wet with Peeta's blood.
"Stop it you're going to kill him!" I call from the floor "He didn't do anything! He doesn't hunt! That animal is not his" I know I sound desperate, but I don't find it in me to care truly, I just want that whip as far away from Peeta as possible.
Peeta shifted beside me. I heard the softest breath leave him... no it wasn't a breath, it was him trying to say something "Please leave"
"He's a victor, you can't do this" I state. The man raises his arm again, my hand flies to my shoulder, hungry for an arrow, but of course, my weapons are no longer on me. I put my hands over my face in anticipation of the next lash.
"Hold it" a voice barks. Haymitch appears "Are you out of your mind?" he asks "Do you know who that is? That's Peeta Mellark, Victor of the 74th Hunger Games, The capitol's darling. You think Snow will thank you for carving him up like a pig before his wedding pictures?"
Then he turns to me "Oh excellent, you also marked her face? They got a photo shoot next week! What am I supposed to tell her stylist?"
I see a flicker of recognition in the eyes of the man with the whip.
"He had illegal game, and she interrupted the punishment of a criminal" he says
" I don't care if they blew up the Justice Building. Look at her cheek! Look at the boy! You almost killed a victor" Haymitch snarls.
"He was poaching" the peacekeeper repeats
"He doesn't know how to do that, this is a mistake" Haymitch promises.
"He's my fiancé so If you want to get to him, expect to go through me first" I say, the words come up without thinking too much about it. Half of this square knows Peeta and I are not truly engaged but no one says anything. I look through the crowd, seeing if someone around could help. I exchanged a glance with Gale who was in the first lines of the square. He looked guilty... over what? I would think about it later.
The new head peacekeeper glances over at his backup squad. I see they're familiar faces, and you can tell by their faces they're not enjoying the show.
Purnia, one of them, steps forward "I believe for a first offense, the required number of lashes has been dispensed sir" I thank her in my mind because I know if I do it out loud this new man is going to know I know her.
"Is that the standard protocol here?" The head peacekeeper asks.
"Yes sir" Prunia promises.
"Very well, then get the victor out of here" as soon as he says that I run to Peeta, Haymitch and a couple of man I recognize from the mines, including Gale, help me undo the ropes around his wrists and Peeta collapses to the ground.
"It's okay Peeta, I got you, I got you" I keep promising him, my eyes filling with tears while the people try to find something we can put him in, like a board or a door so we can take him to my mom. I out his head on my lap, caressing his bloodied blonde hair.
It was all happening too fast, too much to process. The whipping. The blood. The pain. But I focused on Peeta. I focused on the feeling of his warmth beneath my fingers, the rise and fall of his chest... fragile, but still there.
When they finally managed to find a wooden board, the men carefully lifted him. His body was limp, barely holding on. I moved beside them, my hand pressed firmly against his. He hissed a little when they pulled him up.
As we walk, I hear Bristel and Thorn, Gale's crewmates, piecing together the story of what happened. Peeta must’ve gone to buy something from Gale, as he’s done a hundred times before, knowing Gale always has something to trade. This time, he bought a wild turkey. But instead of finding a simple transaction, Peeta found himself face to face with the new Head Peacekeeper, a man they heard someone call Romulus Thread. No one knows what happened to Cray. He was buying white liquor in the Hob just this morning, still apparently in command of the district, but now he’s nowhere to be found. Thread must have seen an opportunity and put Peeta under immediate arrest. Since Peeta was caught with the turkey in hand, there was little he could do to defend himself. He was dragged to the square, forced to plead guilty to poaching, and sentenced to a whipping to be carried out immediately. By the time I showed up, he had already been lashed at least forty times.
When we reached the house, I pushed the door open with shaking hands. My mother was already there, having heard the commotion. Her face went pale when she saw Peeta’s condition, but she didn’t hesitate. She barked orders to Prim, who ran to fetch the supplies.
“Get the clean towels,” she said, her voice steady despite the panic in her eyes. “Boil more water. The salve. We need the morphling.”
They start pouring alcohol to clean up the wounds. Peeta lets out a scream that I don't want to hear more.
"IT'S HURTING HIM" I cried out, my voice trembling as I ran my fingers through his bloodied hair, as if that small act could shield him from the agony he was in. But it didn’t. I could feel the tension in his body, the way he clenched his teeth against the pain, the way his hands trembled in a mix of fear and exhaustion.
Even in my mother's expert hands, it takes a long time to clean the wounds, arrange what shredded skin can be saved, apply a salve, and wrap it in a light bandage. The blood clears slowly, but each stroke of the lash is still visible, a cruel map of punishment on Peeta’s back. I can feel every lash echo inside me, especially the single cut on my face. The pain is a constant reminder, multiplied with every thought of what he endured.
For the pain, They decide on an herbal concoction he can take by mouth.
“That won’t be enough,” I say.
They pause, turning to look at me.
“That won’t be enough—I know how it feels. That’ll barely knock out a headache.”
“We’ll combine it with sleep syrup, Katniss, and he’ll manage it. The herbs are more for the inflammation—” my mother begins, her voice steady and composed.
“Just give him the medicine!” I snap. “Give it to him! Who are you, anyway, to decide how much pain he can stand?”
Peeta begins stirring at the sound of my voice, trying to shift toward me, his face twisted with pain. The motion sends a fresh bloom of blood onto the bandages wrapping his back. A low, agonized sound escapes his lips.
“Take her out,” my mother says sharply.
Haymitch and Gale step in, each taking one of my arms, and begin dragging me from the room as I thrash against them.
“No! Let me go! He’s in pain, he needs more than that!” I scream, struggling with everything I have.
They don’t say anything. Haymitch’s jaw is clenched, and Gale won’t meet my eyes. They carry me to one of the extra bedrooms and press me down onto the bed while I kick and curse and scream at the top of my lungs. I finally give a kick on Gale's lower back and Haymitch can't take me fast enough so I reach Peeta again.
"If you make me get out of this room again, I will kick you out of my house" I say to my mother, taking Peeta's hand in me, and holding it against my chest.
Whatever my mother had given Peeta, I was right, it isn’t enough. His jaw is clenched so tight I can hear the grind of his teeth from across the room. His body trembles, every muscle pulled taut, and his skin glistens with sweat.
My mother finally gives in. She takes one of the vials from the high shelf, the ones she always says are only for the worst cases, and draws the clear liquid into a syringe.
Without a word, she injects it into his arm.
Almost instantly, Peeta’s face begins to relax. The deep lines of pain around his eyes soften, his breathing evens out, and the rigid tension in his body starts to ease.
I don’t move. I just watch him. Watch the pain fade from his face and try to ignore the ache still pulsing behind my own eyes.
"It's okay Peeta" I whisper.
Now that Peeta has finally drifted off, carried away on the painkiller, the whole house seems to exhale. The tightness in every shoulder, every breath, starts to ease, if only slightly. Prim insists we eat something, and we all obey more out of habit than hunger. The stew is hot, the bread dry, but it fills the silence, even If I eat it right next to Peeta.
A room is offered to Haymitch, but he waves it off. “I’ll be more useful passed out in my own bed,” he mutters, already halfway to the door. She doesn't bother telling me to leave.
We both know there’s no point. She knows I won’t leave Peeta. Not tonight. Maybe not for many nights.
Once the house is quiet and the others have gone to rest, I return to his bedside.
He lies still, his breath shallow, skin damp with sweat. The bandages on his back are clean for now, but I know that won’t last. I sit beside him, brushing damp curls off his forehead. His face is pale, almost colorless, and though the painkiller holds him in its grip, there's still a faint line of pain drawn tight across his brow.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, though I’m not sure he hears me. I take a moment to take him in, he looks even more handsome, he looks younger and the weight of the games are not present in his factions. I caress his lower lip with my thumb, and his fever is noticeable with that little movement. My boy with the bread. This was the fourth time, at least, that I hurt him with my actions.
I reverse our positions for a minute in my head. What if I had been the one to love him, openly, deeply, only to have him pretend, deny it, twist it into something false? What if I had been the one who had to stand next to him, smile in public, promise to marry him, all while knowing he didn’t really want me?
I would’ve hated him for it. But not Peeta.
Not him.
He had been patient, endlessly kind, impossibly good. Always loving me in the quiet moments, without demand or condition. And I had repaid him with silence. With distance. With my cowardice.
But I saw it now, clearer than ever.
Peeta is mine. I am his. Anything else is simply unthinkable.
And I should’ve realized it long before he was pinned to a post and lashed like a criminal. Before forty strokes broke his back to pieces. Before I had to throw myself in front of a whip just to stop them from ending him.
“I love you,” I whispered, finally saying the words aloud, barely trusting my voice to carry them.
Then, almost instinctively, I leaned down and kissed him.
His eyelids fluttered open, hazy and unfocused, but he saw me.
“Katniss?” he croaked, voice ragged from pain and morphling.
“I’m here,” I said, my hand tightening around his. “I’m not going anywhere.”
His eyes, those blue eyes that always looked at me like I was something worth saving, tried to smile even as his face winced from the movement.
“I thought I was dreaming,” he murmured. “You never kiss me like that in dreams.”
My throat tightened. “Then maybe I’m finally doing something right.”
His hand found mine beneath the blanket, his fingers brushing weakly against my palm. “Don’t leave,” he said, barely more than a breath.
“I won’t” I promised. My choices are simple. I can die like a quarry in the woods or I can die here beside Peeta "I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to stay right here and cause all kinds of trouble"
Peeta manages a smile before the drugs pull him back under. I follow soon after, laying my head on his hand.
When I wake up is because someone gives my shoulder a shake and I sit up. I look at Peeta first making sure it wasn't him who woke me up because he needed something. He is out cold but his fingers are locked around mine. Then, I turn from where I felt the touch and I see Gale looking down at me with the same guilty expression I saw yesterday. I get the sense that he's been watching us awaile.
"Go to bed Katniss, I'll look after him" He states with a rough voice. The words hit wrong. Not the offer, but the tone. Like a command, like I was a soldier under his rule.
"No" I answer.
"Katniss..." He starts
"I said no" I say again
"I'm just trying to help, you need some..." He starts again, but something snaps in me when he assures he's trying to help.
"Help?" I say standing up “Peeta got whipped nearly to death because of you. You handed him that turkey without even thinking what could happen. You didn't defend him, you were 1st row Gale! And he took 40 whipps! While he was tied to that post. While they tore his back open. You didn’t step in. You didn’t stop it.”
Gale doesn’t say anything. He just stands there, jaw clenched, looking like he’d rather be anywhere but here.
“He took forty lashes,” I go on, low now but no less furious "40, Gale. And he still tried to tell me to go away to protect me. That's who he is"
“And what does that make me?” Gale asks bitterly.
I stare at him. “I don’t know anymore.”
There’s a long silence between us. He looks away first.
“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen,” he says, quieter. “I thought...”
“You didn’t think” I cut in “I’m staying,” I say firmly, lowering myself back into the chair beside Peeta. “You want to help? Fine. Go get more snow"
He backs away slowly, and for once, Gale doesn’t argue. He just nods and disappears down the hall.
I turn back to Peeta, to the boy who never made me feel like I had to earn his softness. His breath is steady, shallow but constant, and I press my forehead to his hand.
The days blur together in a rhythm of hushed voices, careful hands, and the scent of herbs steeping in boiling water. Peeta doesn’t leave the house. My mother insists that his injuries are too severe, that any movement could reopen the wounds that now stretch, raw and angry, across the soft skin of his back. I don’t argue. I’m grateful, in a strange and selfish way, that he has to stay. That I can be near him without question or excuse.
My back is grateful that at least after a couple of days on the kitchen table Peeta can move to one of the beds in the guestroom. Now I sleep on the bed with him and not in the uncomfortable chair.
At night, I lie on my side, facing him. His hand always finds mine in the dark. Sometimes he’s awake. Sometimes I am. But we always know when the other is near. My mother checks in occasionally, eyes lingering a little longer than necessary on the sight of us curled together, but she doesn’t say a word. Maybe she understands.
Peeta’s recovery is not a straight path. There are good days and bad ones. I count the milestones like they’re sacred: the first time he sits up without help, the first time he eats something solid, the first time he makes a joke and it actually sounds like him. But it’s the nights that stay with me the most.
One evening, after Prim has left his room with the nightly round of medicine, and the house has settled into its usual nighttime hush, I shift beside him in the bed, feeling the warmth of his body against mine.
“Katniss,” he says quietly.
I turn my head to him. “What is it? Do you need water?”
"No, it's not that" He assures. His eyes are open, watching me in the dim moonlight, and for a second, I forget that he’s injured. I only see the boy who gave me bread in the rain “I keep wondering,” he says, voice raw, “if you’d be here if it were someone else in this bed.”
It’s not a trap. Not a challenge. Just a question from someone whose heart has been used too gently and too often as a shield.
“Peeta,” I say, and I press a hand to his chest, where his heart beats. “There is no one else. There never was.”
He exhales like he’s been holding his breath for weeks. I lean in and kiss him, soft and slow, one hand in his hair, and his fingers tighten ever so slightly at my waist. When I pull back, he’s smiling, not with triumph, but with relief. And for the first time in days, I feel warmth settle in my chest that isn’t born from rage.