Life goes on

Chapter 8

Prim and Rue are being tortured in front of me and I am chained to the wall across from them. They scream out my name and cry for my help but I can't help them, no matter how much I struggle.

I scream back to try to let them know I'm there but I am helpless, and so are they. I look out a window not wanting to watch anymore but I realize the window doesn't lead outside.

It's a window connecting to another room, a room which holds the person who causes all my troubles. Snow.

I'm staring at him as he's grinning at me through the window and that's when I hear two gun shots go off.

I wake up screaming my head off. I don't know if I started when I woke or if I was screaming the whole time, the second seems more likely.

My door bursts open and I think that it's Snow. That my dreams haven't ended and I'm just entering a new set of nightmares. However, as the figure walks closer to me I realize it's Peeta.

"Katniss, are you okay?" He asks me. Hearing him gives me a bit or relief but then I think back to my nightmare and pain overcomes me.

I am crying now rather than screaming and my eyes are squeezed shut trying to block out everything.

I feel Peeta slide onto my bed and wrap his arms around me. I settle myself on his chest and continue to cry.

"It was only a dream," Peeta says in a soothing tone. "It wasn't real, you're safe in District 12 and the games are over."

"But. It, it," I try to get out over my sobbing. "It, it was real. They are dead. Rue and, and Prim." I say trying to get myself under control. "Be, because of me."

"Shh, you saved both of them. Snow was the one who killed them and he's gone now. You kept them both alive, they're not dead because of you, Katniss," he says.

Even after his hijacking Peeta still is amazing with words. After a while I stop crying and I just lay there with my head on his chest.

For the first time I realize he doesn't have a shirt on, however I'm too tired to care. He begins to get up but I pull him back down.

"Please, stay until I fall asleep," I say. He replies with a line that is almost an old joke between us now because we have used it so much.

"Always," he says. At his words I smile and drift back into a peaceful sleep.

*********************************

Peeta has staying with me at night ever since he ran over that first night. My nightmares haven't stopped but they're much more manageable now that I have someone to comfort me when I wake.

It's been a few weeks since Peeta started helping me through the nights and now it's the middle of winter. It's been snowing for a few days now so I am staying indoors.

Peeta ran home to get changed and I'm waiting for his return when I get a phone call. This is strange, I hardly ever get calls.

"Lock your door, right now," He didn't say his name but I can hear it's Haymitch. He has a urgency in his voice that worries me.

"What, Haymitch?" I say. "What's going o-" I try to say but he cuts me off.

"Damn it Katniss! Go lock your door right now!" Haymitch yells into the phone. I bring the phone with me as I'm heading downstairs to the door as he tells me what's going on.

"Peeta's having a hijacking episode. A bad one. He called and told me shortly before because he said he could feel it coming. He didn't want you to get hurt. I called the authorities and I'm heading over there now."

"Haymitch, I can't just sit here while he's going crazy! I have to help!" As I say this I look out the window by the door and see Peeta's door swing violently open. He's screaming like a mad man and sprinting to my house.

I see Haymitch's door open too and he's trying to catch up to Peeta who is already off his patio and on the ground running.

I drop the phone and sprint out of my house towards Peeta. When Haymitch sees me he yells for me to go back inside. Peeta's face fills with hatred when he sees me. His eyes aren't the clear blue I have came to know. From here they look completely black.

"Peeta!" I scream and run towards him. I think I can help him out of his hijacked state. I have to at least try. I can't just sit inside my locked house every time he has an episode.

"Peeta, it's me. It's Katniss," he is very close to me know and I'm starting to second guess myself when he screams at me.

"Mutt!" He yells. "YOU'RE A STINKING MUTT!"

He is only a foot away from me now and instead of tryint to run I stand there knowing I won't be able to escape him.

"Peeta it's me, it's Ka-" I'm cut off when his hands grab me by the throat and send me crashing into the ground.

It feels the same as the time after he came from back the Capitol. Except then I didn't know what was happening. I was expecting to see my old Peeta, not the mutt the Snow designed.

Peeta's pinning me down and yelling awful things at me. Instead of squirm and kick to try to get him off of me I cry. I can't fully burst into tears because he's choking me but I whimper and close my eyes like a defeated pray.

I was so stupid to think I could help him. The pressure in my neck is becoming unbearable and I feel myself start to slip into an unconscious state but not before I feel him release my neck.

"Katniss?" I hear him say in a sympathetic tone is the last thing I register before I black out.