The Hunger Games: Peeta's POV

Chapter Nineteen

UPDATE: Here's chapter Nineteen! Hope you enjoy! Like, comment, and follow! 💗
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Peeta's POV-
I've been waiting for, who knows how long. My leg certainly isn't cooperating at all. All it does is give me severe pain. Very severe. It stings, badly of course, but that's not the real pain of it. The true pain is, it's keeping me away from Katniss. I could be allies with her at this very moment. Protecting her and keeping her alive, but because of the condition of my leg, I can't pick myself up an inch. I sit here laying in the dirt, helpless waiting to see if Katniss will come to my aid. But she doesn't.

I wait. And I wait. And she never comes. There's no sign of her. No movement. Nothing. Eventually, I do give up on any hope I once had. I try to grasp it back, but it slips away from my helpless hands and that's when I know she's not coming. She doesn't care about me. She probably never has. I should have known that from the fact that she nearly strangled me after I admitted my love for her in front of the entire nation of Panem. And then I hear it....

The footsteps. They echo in my ear and and give me hope. The wonderful feeling floods back into me and I can feel it bubbling inside me like a volcano ready to spew out its lava.

They come closer and closer. I look up and I see it. I see her. Her silky brown hair pulled back into a messy braid. Her eyes searching for me in concern. I was wrong. She does care and she wants us to be allies.

I put my hand out and grab her leg to catch her attention. She's startled at first, but then she looks at me and my helpless condition. "Oh my god, Peeta!" She screams and I'm shocked that no one heard her. "Peeta!" "Hi." I say in a barely audible voice. I push myself up and when I'm only about an inch of the ground she takes me in her arms and embraces my broken body. "Your okay." She whispers to me in a soft, yet audible tone.

She drags me out of my hiding and washes me off with the water I laid by. She starts to put water on my injured leg to clear it of all the blood. When the cool substance touches my horribly damaged skin I immediately flinch.

"Katniss." I say. "Sh!" She spits back at me. "Katniss!" I say a little louder so she knows that I mean business. "No!" She shoots at me. "I'm not gonna leave you. I'm not gonna do that." I'm taken aback by what she just said. Why not? I ask myself. Why doesn't she just leave me here to rot and die. "Why not?" I say as I echo my thoughts. She doesn't answer. She just keeps trying to nurse me back to health.

After I'm finally cleaned up, she makes me hop my way to a cave she finds. She lays me down. "Nobody's gonna find you here." She says. "They already found me." She looks back at my awful cut. "We'll just get you some medicine." "Katniss I don't get many parachutes." I say breathing heavily. "We'll figure something out." "Like what?" She's taken aback and I'm searching her eyes for any kind of answer, but all she comes up with is, "Something."

It's doubtful I'll survive, I know by the hopelessness in her voice. Before I even have time to react, she leans into me and kisses me lightly on the cheek.

What?

What did she do that for? Does she like me? Love me? The way that I love her? I stare at her with doubtful eyes and then she tells me to get some rest.

The next time I awake, Katniss is shaking me. For a moment I think someone has intruded the cave, but then I see she's holding a silver container. "Medicine?" I ask hopefully. "No, soup." I bring my hands up to grab it, but Katniss objects. "No, I'll do it." She feeds me spoonfuls of the warm broth.

"That's nice." I say. She sets down the bowl. "You saved me once."

She remembers that?

"I think about that all the time." I say. "How I tossed you that bread." She looks up to me. "Peeta..." "I should've gone to you, I should've gone out in the rain." "Sh." She says trying to calm me down. She places her hand on my forehead, which trickles with sweat. "You feel hot." "I remember the first time I saw you. Your hair was in two braids instead of one, and I remember when you sang in the music assembly, and the teacher said, 'Who knows the valley song?' And your hand shot straight up. "After that I-I watched you going home everyday." She stares at me with a blank expression like always. "Everyday." I repeat. She stares off into space and fixes her eyes on somewhere in the distance. "Well say something." "I'm not good at saying something." She says. I so eagerly want her to lay with me. It's probably the only thing that would make me feel any better. "Then come here." I say and she stares at me with a blank expression. "Please." She places her stuff down and lays her head on my chest. She positions herself as I start to drift off. "Even if I don't make it-" I say, but Katniss cuts me off. "Sh!" She interjects. "Stop." She says softly.

We lay with each other for the rest of the night until the sound of the of the trumpets awakens us.