Catching Fire: What If Katniss Had Really Gotten Pregnant?

Chapter 11

"No!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. Tears ran steadily down my face as I dropped to my knees involuntarily, cupping my face in my hands roughly. "No..." I sobbed out once more. I felt like dying then. But there was no proof that it had been Peeta who died.

I shook my head in denial, and forced myself to my feet. I began to jog around the trees once more, not accepting the fact that Peeta had died until I saw his face in the sky with my own eyes. But even if he was dead, I had to find him for myself. See him one last time.

But he wasn't dead, and I refused to believe that fact for one second. I screamed his name again and again, but I never heard him yell in return, or found him dead. I didn't know what to think, I was going out of my mind with worry and distress. "Peeta, please, answer me!" I screamed once more. "Please!" When I finally thought I had lost and had given up, I crumpled to the ground, completely overwhelmed with emotion, literally crying until I was pretty much dehydrated and threw up.

But then, as I lied there in the silence, I heard it. The single note of a mockingjay that signaled the arrival of a hovercraft. I sat up immediately. I had to see it, follow it, find Peeta. I had to. I stood and saw it at once. It was merely a few meters ahead of me. I ran as fast as I could towards it.

It was gone before I could even get close to getting there, gosh they moved so fast! But I remembered the spot and hurried there with all my might.

But I froze when I made it to the line of trees right outside of the area. I peered through them cautiously, slowly, fearing the worst. What I saw was Peeta lying there in a pool of blood.

"Oh my gosh, Peeta!" I ran forward and knelt next to him in a flash, but what I soon realized was that most of it wasn't even his blood. "What...?"

He coughed as I helped him sit up. "The other tribute. There -- There was a cannon while you were sleeping, and I came to investigate. The other tribute had killed Finnick, and when I got here he attacked me."

I hugged him and kissed him though he assured me multiple times that he was absolutely fine, except for a moderately bad cut on his arm. I bandaged it and sat next to him. "So it's really just us and Johanna?" He nodded.

I gulped. Not only because me and Peeta were dangerously close to being the last two left, but also because Johanna really frightened me.

"What are we going to do?" He shrugged. "If we wait too long, the gamemakers are sure to do something."

And just as soon as I said that -- as if by mere coincidence, though the gamemakers probably did it on purpose -- there was a clicking noise and Claudius Templesmith's voice was projected throughout the arena.