Darker And Colder

2.04: Keep Fighting

Chapter 21
Peeta's POV

My brain hurts. Every day they come in with the needles, and every day I let them inject me and lose consciousness. Every day I wake back up in my cell.

The door opens and I expect the doctors to come in, but this time a couple of Capitop soldiers shove someone in with me, and they fall to the cold floor. I can hear the air being knocked out of their lungs, and they tense, but they don't cry out. The Capitol people slam the door and the person next to me let's out a small sigh. I can't quite make out their features in the dark.

"Hey Peeta," they say. I recognise the voice, but I can't quite catch who it is.

I squint in the darkness and see a face, and I can put it together, but he looks nothing like he did before the games. He looks and sounds... broken.

"Hey Finnick." He pushes himself up, his arms shaking where they used to be steady.

"So," he says, "Do you know who else may be here with us?"

I shake my head.

"I think I saw Enobaria, and..." his voice falters. "Annie." Annie. Finnick's lover from District 4.

"I'm sorry Finnick. But isn't it good she's okay?"

Finnick pauses. "Okay- no. Alive- yes. I'm glad she is alive. But not like this. Not here. This, this... torture chamber," he says, waving his arm up to the walls. "At least Katniss is okay. I knew there was an aircraft planning to fly them to 13, they were supposed to get us too but I didn't have time to get your tracker out." I just about see him give a false smile in the dark. "Katniss is okay, Peeta.... Peeta?"

"No."

"What do you mean?" Finnick's eyebrows crease in concern. "13 found her, she's safe-"

"Yes. They got her."

"So-"

"She's dead." Saying it aloud just makes it worse. My head hangs lower. My eyes sting.
Finnick sits in silence with me for a minute. "Peeta," he begins softly. "I know you may not believe me, but that's wrong. If that's what Snow told you I promise it's a lie. He's trying to stop you fighting. But you need to." He moves in front of me and rests his hands on my shoulders. "You need to fight. We all do. There is a spy in the Capitol, he brought me information. They got Katniss and Johanna and Beetee out, and they are all fine. She's alive Peeta, please believe me. You need to fight. To get back to her. We can do it. Just please, don't give up."

◇◇◇

Katniss's POV

"So, today we are giving you your own compartment. I thought you were supposed to move in with your mother and your sister, but I just got told you are having your own. If you'd just follow me this way." The woman who presented herself to me as Beatrice leads me down a corridor. She looks about my age and seems kind, but has stern grey-blue eyes. Her blonde hair seems to be the only colour in the grey district 13. She wears the standard grey jumpsuit but I can see she has a black shirt underneath and her shoes are black boots. I think I can make out a tattoo on her collarbone. She doesn't look like she is from anywhere in Panem. Maybe there are other places that we don't know about that people live in.

Maybe they are better than here.

"Yours is just down the next corridor I think." She fumbles in her pocket and takes out a key. "That was really brave of you, going into those games. I've not been here long, but you hear all the stories."

"I, um, I don't mean to be rude but... you aren't from here are you? Not just 13, I mean, Panem."

She slides the key into a lock. The door reads 213. "No, I'm not from here. I came from a place called Chicago. We had completely different systems there. I'm not supposed to talk about it." She moves the key in the lock until it clicks and shoves the door open with quite a force, and I note her bulging muscles, which are the only difference in our builds; we are both short, skinny and lacking in some areas. "But you are doing the right thing. Get your lover boy back. I wish I could get mine back too."

I walk into the compartment and she leaves the keys on a small dresser. It is small, and all it has is two small dressers and twin beds. Just as I sit down on the bed, a knock comes at the door and I go to answer it.

In the door frame stands Johanna Mason. "Aparrently I'm moving in with you," she says. I try to smile, but she just scowls more and walks in. She opens a drawer on the dresser closet to the door and dumps a pile of clothes she is holding into it. She kicks it shut with her foot and slumps down onto the bed. "Finnick was one of the only people I'd be able to call a friend," her voice is muffled behind her hands. "And the Capitol took him. First my family, then my lover, now my only friend."

I sit on the bed opposite her. "I guess we should probably just stay out of each other's way. I need to collect some stuff anyway."

Closing the door behind me, I walk from the compartment back into the corridor, and a wave of grief crashes down on me. I'm going to live with Johanna. Not Peeta. Peeta's gone. He's gone. And I'm left with a child I will never be able to take care of properly on my own. I need Peeta. I need him. To take care of the baby, to take care of me, for me to take care of him. So I know he is okay. But I won't get that again. Ever.

No, I tell myself. We are going to get him back. I will only have to live with Johanna for a small while. We will get Peeta back. We will.

I feel a movement in my stomach and rest my hand over the baby growing inside me. I wonder if that time 6 or seven months ago was a mistake, whether I am too young to be a good mother to this child. But carrying them, I want to be. I want to hold them in my arms.

I walk through the door in the hospital, and collect my things. The pin is amongst them, the silver parachute, the spile. A single wooden arrow.

And the pearl. I hold the pearl in my hand. It is smooth and round and reminds me of Peeta. His kindness.

I see flashes of him, painting, decorating cakes, smiling. That smile he does when nobody is looking. I drop my things off and rush to Haymitch's compartment.