Hijacked

Revolutionary

Lying on the ground of my cage, I traced an invisible pattern of swirls onto the metal ground. "She's gone nuts." A voice said none to quietly.

"No I haven't." I muttered, assuming Johanna was talking about me. "There's just nothing to do." I sat up slowly, brushing my hair back. "I don't want to talk because what's there to say and it's not like I have anything better to do."

"You could count." Annie said quietly.

"Then we'd all end up like you." Johanna said, rolling her eyes. Annie shook her head furiously back and forth.

"No, no. I mean count things. The number of eyes in the room. The number of fingers, toes." She said slowly, seeing if we would understand. "It calms me down sometimes." No one said anything.

"Sometimes, to pass the time, I think about how many people it would take to fill this room." I turned to Mack confused and he must have known we'd be confused because he began to explain himself. "For example if we filled this room with a bunch of peopled standing back to back, how many people would it take to fill the room? Assuming if we put people standing on top of each others shoulders too..." He pauses. "It sounds weird saying it out loud but its really not.."

"I understand what you're saying.." I replied looking around the room slowly. "Do you think about it in terms of people lying down too? And if we just piled them to the ceiling?" Mack started laughing.

"Yeah, I do." Annie laughed too then. Everyone laughed except Johanna.

"Loonies all of you."

"Well what do you do Johanna?" I demanded. "You can't tell us that you just sit there and think all day long. You have to do something else to pass the time."

"Time isn't relevant in here. We don't know what day it is or if it is even night or day.."

"They seem to feed us the correct meals at appropriate times." Mack said. Johanna shook her head.

"They feed us in eight hour intervals." She grumbled. "Except when we're asleep or being tortured." She stopped and started up again. "Then we don't see food for nine hours."

"How do you know? Have you been counting time?" Annie asked.

"No. I heard a Peacekeeper say it once."

"You shouldn't believe everything the Capitol says." Johanna smirked at my response and then turned away from the rest of us. There was no more talk about time and how we passed it.

As I was left to think, my mind drifted to Peeta. I sighed heavily.. Peeta.. How could he love me? Love what I had become? Did he even love me? Sometimes I would have flashes of him being disgusted by my presence but then I would have those same memories of him being delighted to see me and I was beginning to forget which memory was real.

At the same time, I kept thinking back to what Annie, Johanna and Mack were saying about Rue and how I hadn't killed her. Were they telling the truth? But that wouldn't make sense. I knew what I remembered.. That didn't seem like something I would do though. Thinking back to Rue I remembered watching her reaping with Peeta and Effie on the train. I had felt so awful watching her walk up there. How could I feel that then and then leave her to die in the Games? I knew she would have to die eventually.. If I wanted to live and I couldn't kill her myself.. I wanted her dead.. I just made someone else do it.

Shaking my head and pulling my knees up to my chest, I stared blankly at the ground and decided to go back to thinking about Peeta. Though my memories of him and I were a little warped, I knew that I loved him. I've loved him my whole life. If what Johanna, Annie and Mack were saying about Rue was true.. Then I didn't want to forget about Peeta. I didn't want to forget how he made me feel. I didn't want to forget every sweet little thing he told me. I didn't want to forget our last night together. If I lost him.. I would loose myself.

----

I plopped down next to Katniss at the table trying not to look as displeased as I felt. I didn't think I was doing a very good job though. We were eating lunch with at the same table as my prep team and Gale's family. Posy giggled when she saw me and smiled. Vick waved and Rory merely looked up at me and looked back down. Since they've been here, every kid from the seam has been thriving. I've never seen them happier or healthier.

"Hello Peeta." Mrs. Hawthorne says.

"Hello." I reply politely, managing to not use a gruff voice. She smiles lightly.

"What's on the agenda today?" Katniss asks me, capturing my attention.

"Well we have to address his uh... State." Effie pipes in. I glance over at her, eyebrows arched.

"My state?" I demand.

"I think she means your appearance." Portia explains lightly.

"Oh great." I mutter. Portia smiles lightly.

"Well I mean, you like fine darling but.. There is room for improvement." Effie said, chipper as I ever. I snorted, rolling my eyes as I began to eat my portioned out food. 

"I think Peeta is cute." Posy spoke up. I glanced over at her. Her fine dark hair curled out and framed her face. Mrs. Hawthorne scooped up her daughter and Gale even seemed a little embarrassed that Posy thought I was cute.

"Thanks kid." I said, smiling at her. A genuine one, those didn't happen much anymore. Posy nodded and started eating her food again with her mom's help.

"Well.. Just as soon as we finish here we'll get right to work." Effie said commandingly. She had made up her mind and I knew it would be in my best interest not to argue with her.

They wanted to fix the scar. When Finnick had cut that gash in my arm and dug out the tracker, it wasn't stitched up in a uniform fashion. They wanted to slice me back open and fix it up but weren't sure if I had time to heal and let the scar fade. It would take too much time. Tired of their arguing I finally said,

"Can't it just be edited out?" I demanded. Everyone turned to me. "If it's really that important for me not to have it, erase it from the stupid videos." They agreed with this and praised me for my quick thinking. I just rolled my eyes. After my look had been decided, it was almost time for President Coin to announce that I was to be the Mockingjay. It hadn't been announced yesterday due to scheduling issues but Coin assured me the people would be made aware of my demands.

I stood with Gale and Katniss, waiting for President Coin to head to the mic. People were talking around us, wondering what the meeting was about. I saw several people glance my way. I tried not to acknowledge them.

After the initial, "Peeta Mellark has decided to become our Mockingjay." spiel, I virtually tuned out until she began to mention the other tributes and their immunity. Nobody was happy, especially after what Catora had said to Caesar. I began to get some hateful looks but I could care less.

"Now all you have to do is not step out of line otherwise Coin might retract the immunity." Gale said looking bored as he stared up at Coin on the balcony.

"She wouldn't do that." Katniss argued. She paused. "Right?" They both turned to me for an answer but I said nothing because the truth was, Gale was right and I hated that it was the truth.