Pregnant in the Quell | ✔️

Chapter 6

I know that Prim is saying her goodbyes, our mother crying because she is losing another one of her girls. Then she will be boarding the train to make her way to the evil filled place we call the Capitol. She will be here tomorrow.

Everyone is trying to comfort me, even though they don't know what I feel. The feeling I feel is too complicated to explain and I wish I could. To let that go. To let all my feelings go. After a while, we all go to the dining room, no one saying a word. They don't have to. They know no word will comfort me. Fix me. I am a tool beyond repair. The red headed Avox girl and Darius bring out lamb stew. The Capitol's way of comforting me. I don't need its comfort. They are the ones who created the Games that are killing innocent children every year. I don't eat. I don't talk for the rest of the evening. No one expects me to. After dinner I go to bed. I don't expect to sleep much tonight. After about two hours of laying there in complete darkness, Peeta comes in. He lays down next to me. He stretches his arms around me and pulls my body against his. The touch of his skin against mine is comforting. I eventually fall asleep.

In the morning, I see Peeta has left. Effie knocks on my door to call me to breakfast. Prim will be here soon. I don't eat once again as the Avoxes serve breakfast. A few hours later, I go to the train station to see Prim. There are so many cameras awaiting her, and as soon as I walk up they all turn and face me. The doors of the train open and Prim comes running out into my open arms. We embrace like the cameras aren't even there. We leave and go to the Training Center. This year, Peeta and I will be the mentors, not Haymitch. Haymitch will already know what to do, but poor Prim has no idea. I have an idea. If I could get a private training session between me and her we could see what her strengths are.

Later, I gather everyone to tell them my plan. "I can talk to Plutarch to see if we could get a day. Maybe two," Haymitch says. Prim nods in agreement. Haymitch goes to talk to Plutarch and I sit and talk to Prim.

"Hi."

"Hi."

"How has it been going back in twelve?" I ask. "How is Gale handling the news?"

"Well..." she looks down. "Gale isn't happy. He came to say goodbye, though. He said that he didn't like the news and to tell you hi."

"Hi Gale," I say as I roll my eyes. "Well, we are running out of rooms up here, so you can have Peeta's old room. They expect us to sleep together now. Not like we didn't do it before." I hug her. "It's so good to see you but not on good circumstances."

She stays silent. She was always the quiet one. We are called for lunch. I tell her not to eat too fast because the food is very rich.

"You haven't talked this much since the second reaping, Katniss," Peeta laughs. He smiles. I smile back. We all just sit there in silence as the Avoxes bring out our food.

Prim is very curious about them. I tell her they cut out their tongues so they can't talk. And that usually only people who commit very bad crimes are turned into Avoxes. Then, she saw Darius. Her eyes widened in recognition. I look her in the eye and shake my head as if to tell her to not say anything.

After Haymitch was gone all day, he came back and said that Plutarch agreed to let us have the training room for two days. "Well, that's good at least," I say and everyone agrees. The next day, we go down to train. "Haymitch is the soberest I've ever seen him," I whisper to Peeta once we got off the elevator.

"Yeah, I don't think he has had a drink since the announcement," Peeta agrees. Peeta agreed to "train" Haymitch and I train Prim. We all know Haymitch will just attempt each of the weapons but not be very good at any of them.

"Where do you want to try first?" I ask as I look around the room.

"Um..." she looks at each of the trainers. "Let's do camouflage first!" She runs toward the station. I follow a little slowly, I never really liked the trainer. I get there in the middle of his spiel.

"-Then, you just stroke the brush over your skin to cover it. Of course, you won't have these exact supplies in the arena, but they are pretty close." Prim is nodding at every word, soaking up the information like a sponge. We all go the way around the room, and I didn't think we could make it to the weapons today, but we did. Prim was surprisingly good at spear-throwing. She hit the dummy in the middle of the abdomen.

"Good job!" I say as I know she never had much praise after our father died.

"Thanks... I knew this was going to happen... I told Mother I wanted to practice just in case. I picked which weapons I wanted to use... the peacekeeper that called my name didn't actually pull my name... well, they did but all of the names were Primrose Everdeen. The Capitol's way of torturing you." I sink to my knees. The Capitol really is evil. I knew it. "Katniss? Are you okay?"

"Y-yes. Sorry," I say and I get back up. "Where next?"

"You look exhausted. Let's go back upstairs. You can't do as much as you could before because of the baby," She sounds like our mother.

"Okay," I say, a little annoyed. We go back upstairs and as soon as I sit on the couch, I realize how exhausted I am. Peeta and Haymitch come back up soon after and we all just sit there not doing anything. Prim looks depressed, she probably just realized she could have a chance, but not a very good one. Haymitch doesn't care. He knows he is going to die. Peeta, well... Peeta is hard to read right now. And I am exhausted, depressed, and I don't know what else. I wish I could call my mother and say I'm sorry. Gale too. I decide I need to talk to Haymitch. I get up and call him into the other room.

"What is it? I was thinking about me dying and I was happy with me dying," he says. I hate his sarcasm.

"I want you to protect Prim. In the arena. Please," I add after I see his face. "I don't want her to die."

He thinks for a moment. "Fine."

"Thank you, Haymitch," I say as I wrap my arms around him. He slowly wraps his arms around me and squeezes me like my father used to.

"Don't worry. She will be protected by the drunk," he says jokingly.

As we return to the living room, Caesar returns on the screen. "Hello, ladies and gentlemen! We will be having the gamemakers have their private sessions with Primrose Everdeen and Haymitch Abernathy, the new District 12 tributes, in two days! Four days from now, we will have them have their interviews, then the Games will begin!" Peeta turns the screen off after his last words.