Pregnant in the Quell | ✔️

Chapter 2

Peeta takes me home. He doesn't ask me what happened. He makes a fresh loaf of bread. We share it, not saying a word to each other. I think he knows I don't want to talk about whatever happened with my mother. I go to bed, but he stays up. I know he will want to know what happened in the morning.

I lay awake. My nightmares will surely be about me and my unborn child dying in the arena. I hear Peeta coming upstairs, so I pretend to be asleep. He sees that I'm "asleep," so he doesn't bother me.

In the morning, I see Peeta is awake before me. Honestly, not a surprise since I did all that crying yesterday. I go downstairs and see him talking to my mother. Uh oh, I think. She's going to tell him... It would be better if it came from me. I plop down next to them. "Hi," I say.

"Hi, Katniss," my mother says. She looks me straight in the eye, telling me that I have to tell him or she will. I nod, telling her she has to leave. She leaves, and Peeta and I sit there in silence for a few moments. It's nice, thinking that in a few moments, there will wither be crying or yelling. Or both.

"Peeta... I have to tell you something," I say nervously.

"What is it? Is it about yesterday?" He asks. I nod.

"I... I'm pregnant." He doesn't say anything for a long time. That is what worries me the most. After a while though, he just hugs me. We sit there for a long time, neither of us moving. That was not the reaction I was expecting, but okay.

We release each other, and we talk about how we have to keep this a secret. Especially from Effie and Haymitch. Sober Haymitch will keep it a secret, but Drunk Haymitch will let it all out. Effie no matter what would try and slip it into a conversation.

We manage to keep the pregnancy a secret until the reaping, which was only a few weeks after I learned about it. Only my mother, Prim, Peeta, and I know about it. We make our way to the square, where Effie will read two of our names. Either Peeta or Haymitch will volunteer... that is the scariest part.

We make it to the square, and I stand alone in a small roped-off area with Peeta and Haymitch in a similar pen to the right of me. The reaping takes only a minute. Effie, shining in a wig of metallic gold, lacks her usual verve. She has to claw around the girls' reaping ball for quite a while to snag the one piece of paper that everyone already knows has my name on it. Then she catches Haymitch's name. He barely has time to shoot me an unhappy look before Peeta has volunteered to take his place.

We are immediately marched into the Justice Building to find Head Peacekeeper Thread waiting for us. "New procedure," he says with a smile. We're ushered out the back door, into a car, and taken to the train station. There are no cameras on the platform, no crowd to send us on our way. Haymitch and Effie appear, escorted by guards. Peacekeepers hurry us all onto the train and slam the door. The wheels begin to turn. The train speeds away, and I watch with sorrow as district 12 fades away from view.