Tortured but Together (A Hunger Games Fanfiction) [UNDER EDITING]

Chapter Twenty-Six

A/N: Usual PSA that the Hunger Games characters belong to Suzanne Collins and not to me. With that out of the way, enjoy!!

(Katniss POV)
Rue screams my name, and I run towards her as fast as I can. The details and the scenery around me is a bit fuzzy but I can tell that my friend is in trouble; that's enough to send me running in her direction.

My minute of hesitation proves to be fatal for her though, as a boy who looks about my age fires a spear through her chest before taking off back into the woods. I manage to catch her body as she falls, and I lower her gently onto the ground.

"Katniss, could you sing to me?"

Her voice sounds faint and weak, and even though I'm no doctor like my mother or Prim, I can tell she doesn't have long left to live. My throat chokes up with tears as I say "Of course Rue. I'll sing you a lullaby so it's more peaceful when...when you go."

She nods, already struggling to breathe. Shaking like a leaf, I start to sing, and the birds go silent. I sing one of the oldest songs I know, a song about a meadow where it's safe. Safe from the Hunger Games, safe from the Capitol, safe from President Snow.

Almost as if it was planned, the second I finish the last note of my song, the cannon sounds. Tears running down my face, I close her eyes, she died too young, we're all too young. Letting out an angry and grief stricken scream, I decide what I have to do.

Grabbing wildflowers from all around the nearby area, I place them around Rue's body, covering the blood and the wound. She won't face the Capitol as just another dead tribute, she'll face them as a child taken too young. And hopefully, hopefully this can be a start to making the Capitol and President Snow end the games, once and for all.

Stepping back a decent amount, I let the hovercraft come. Let them see the flowers, let them see that even in their death games we have souls. As soon as the hovercraft picks up her body, I blink, and the body isn't Rue, it's Prim.

"NO! PRIM!" I frantically run after the hovercraft as fast as I can, I can't let them take my sister away from me. I volunteered in the games so that this wouldn't happen, I volunteered to save my sister.

When the hovercraft lifts up into the air, I swear I can hear President Snow's laughter coming from somewhere nearby. "There's no way to save them Miss Everdeen. The games claim everyone one day, in one way or another..."

"PRIM! PRIM! YOU CAN'T BE GONE, YOU CAN'T!" I'm screaming at the top of my lungs, this nightmare feels so real that I can see all of it play out in my head again and again.

My screams wake up Peeta, and he immediately tries to comfort me. "It'll be alright Katniss, you're safe." I want to believe him, I really do, but we aren't safe here, we're not safe anywhere.

"We're not safe Peeta, we never were and we never will be, not here, not anywhere. No matter where we turn, our nightmares and our enemies will follow us. It'll always follow us," I say, shuddering.

"What will always follow us? You're scaring me Kat."

"The games. No matter where we go we'll always be the star crossed lovers from district 12. But there is no more district 12, our home is gone. I don't know what's happening to my family in district 13, it's falling apart Peeta. All I wanted was to keep my sister safe and keep you alive, and now I've caused all this. What's happening now, it's because of me..."

He doesn't say anything for a minute, and his face turns a ghostly white. The look in
his eyes makes me even more afraid, something bad is about to happen, I can tell. All he does is wrap his arms tightly around me, almost like he's trying to shield me from something, trying to protect me. But from what?

I get my answer when the bright lights are abruptly turned on. A chair squeaks as it moves along the floor, coming closer. Then, the voice that I dread more than possibly anything else in this world. President Snow is here.

"So, Miss Everdeen, you remember the Hunger Games now I take it."

He doesn't phrase it like a question because it isn't one. It's not a question because he already knows the answer. "Yes, I remember them." I'm shocked by how steady my voice sounds.

"Well then, why don't you tell me what exactly you remember, and we can decide how to proceed from there. Shall we?"

Gulping, I nod. "Children, children were sent into an arena to die or be murderers. Some of them as young as twelve, they were taken too young, none of them deserved to die!"

"Miss Everdeen, you must understand that the Hunger Games serve a purpose here in Panem. They are a tragic reminder of what war against the Capitol would look like, and they represent that war is chaos. If we have war, then all of Panem will be the arena, and there will be no rules to follow other than staying alive. I will not let Panem fall into chaos, and I will do whatever I need to in order to prevent the return of the Dark Days."

"They're just children, they're all still so young, we're all still so young..." I say, unable to keep the quiver out of my voice.

"And the children are the future of Panem, Miss Everdeen. Like Panem did, each of them has a chance to survive, to win. There could easily be no victors, no games. I could have twenty-four children rounded up and randomly executed every year, but that would serve no purpose. You can think of me as a monster if you want, but be assured that I am not a wasteful man. Everything I do has a purpose."

"But you could stop all of that! You could stop the games, stop the death! You make a show out of us, fattening us up before the slaughter! Why would we put up with that? Why did you think we would keep letting you take everything from us!"

He nods but his eye has a slight twitch to it. "Miss Everdeen, you did learn about the Dark Days in school, did you not?" I nod. "The districts must be punished for their uprising, and the Hunger Games was the chosen solution. Sometimes, you must accept that things are the way they are, and that you cannot change them. You are not as powerful as you think you are, and you must learn your place."

"How can I stand by and let random children go off to die? How can I possibly do that when the same thing almost happened to my sister!"

President Snow chuckles at that, "Tsk, tsk, tsk Miss Everdeen. I thought you knew better than that. Nothing I do is random, nothing I do is left to chance. Do you really think that it was a coincidence that your sister was chosen after you wished so desperately for her to be spared? One slip of paper in thousands, tell me Miss Everdeen, what are the odds of that?"

It was all rigged...it was all rigged from the start...

I barely have time to turn and face the other direction before I vomit, retching up anything that might have been in my stomach. "You meant to choose my sister, you meant to choose Peeta, you knew I would volunteer, you planned everything," I shout. The acidic taste still lingers in my mouth, but it does nothing to temper my rage.

"Not everything Miss Everdeen. Even I didn't foresee your little stunt with the berries at the end. That caught me off guard, and let me tell you that that doesn't happen often. Now, the only question is what to do with the two of you..."

"You could let us go, you could let us leave, let us leave this whole nightmare behind..."

"Let you leave? You make me laugh. No, you're too valuable for that. You'll keep doing the interviews with Caesar Flickerman, keep calling for a cease fire, that sort of thing."

"And what if I refuse?"

"Then I will stage a tragic accident and the two of you will be nothing more than two more lower district scum who thought they could take on the Capitol and win. This is no Hunger Games, there are no poisonous berries to eat or force fields to electrify. If you truly want a war Miss Everdeen, then a war is what you shall have."