The Hunger Games: Retold

Chapter 10

The audience is silent while the camera holds tight on my face. Then, accompanied by a few anguished cries and a surging murmur as it comes clear to everyone, the camera sweeps to Katniss and locks there. Her mouth dropped open in shock and eyes wide with surprise, a becoming flush rises up her throat and lights her cheeks.

"Oh," breathes Caesar, and there is actual pain in his voice, "that is a piece of bad luck."

"It's not good," I agree, sneaking a look at him from under my lashes. He looks stricken, just like the crowd on the screens.

"Well, I don't think any of us can blame you. It'd be hard not to fall for that young lady," he sympathizes, and I could kiss him. Perfectly cementing my suggestion that she is vibrant and desirable back home and now to the whole nation. "She didn't know?" he asks.

"Not until now," and I finally lift my eyes to her. The camera follows my gaze and the huge screens broadcast her downcast eyes and burning cheeks. The audience is losing their minds.

"Wouldn't you love to pull her back out here and get a response?" Caesar teases them, and they shriek for more. "Sadly, rules are rules, and Katniss Everdeen's time has been spent." He turns back to me with a sympathetic smile. "Well, best of luck to you, Peeta Mellark, and I think I speak for all of Panem when I say our hearts go with yours."

The circle shakes with the thunderous response from the crowd and I wait until I can be heard to offer a quiet, "Thank you," before returning to my seat, careful to avoid eye contact with Katniss. As we stand for the anthem I can see every screen is focused on Katniss and me, the tragic pair from the poor outlying district, doomed to find one another so briefly, before each ferociously fighting for the other's death. I want to dance right there on stage.

As we are shuffled off the stage and funneled into elevators I lose track of Katniss and Portia. I find myself riding up the elevator with the girls from 5 and 7, and the boy from 10. The girl from 7 gently touches my hand and whispers, "I'm so sorry."

"Oh, thank you. I'm not sure how that all came out," I smile sheepishly.

The boy from 10, possibly Bril, nods and frowns back. "That's rough dealing and no mistake," he says. "Whatcha think they saying back home?"

"Oh please," the girl from 5 sneers. Luckily for me, the door opens just then and she leaves without a backward glance.

The next couple floors fly by and when the doors finally open onto 12 to find Katniss waiting I grin and step toward her. Furiously, she shoves her hands into my chest and in my surprise I go over with a crash into a giant urn of flowers. My hands break my fall, but I feel my palms shredded by the broken pottery and suddenly there is blood everywhere.

"What was that for?" I cry, stunned and grimacing with stinging pain.

"You had no right!" she shrieks. "No right to go saying those things about me!"

Unbelievable! This is her reaction to the best possible outcome from this horrible night? She must be thinking of Gale, watching at home while I declared myself. The elevator shushes open and Effie, Haymitch and the stylists pour out, aghast at the bloody mess in front of them.

"Did you fall?" Effie cries.

"After she shoved me," I offer disgustedly as she and Cinna help me up.

"Shoved him?" Haymitch demands.

"This was your idea, wasn't it?" she hisses at him. "Turning me into some kind of fool in front of the entire country!"

Her words sting as much as the slices in my skin. That's how she feels about me liking her? It makes her look foolish? Just some slow-witted baker, why would she want my attention when she can run off into the woods with dashing and dangerous Gale?