The Hunger Games: Book Four - How it Might Have Been ... Gale.

Page Sixteen

Peeta

This time when the guards enter the cell, they don't even say hello. Not that they've said hello at all to me yet - but if they're insisting on keeping me prisoner, at least a civil greeting now and then would help. But maybe that's just my fatal flaw kicking it: I'm too polite. Even in the Arena, I was polite.

They first thing these guards say to me instead is:

"We have your wife."

This information, funnily enough, has the total opposite reaction a nice greeting would have had. I jump up, my wrist shackles clanging loudly and banging against my wrist bones. The skin has become raw, but I don't feel the pain now. I feel panic.

"Where is she?"

"She's currently in our custody in an undisclosed location. She will be travelling here soon via hovercraft." The guard's voice is monotonous, almost indifferent. It maddens me.

"Which District is she in?" Though I should worry for my wife's life and sanity, and I do, there is an uncontrollable tingling feeling in my gut that has aroused a suspiscion I cannot afford to believe in. She loves me. I know it took her a while to adjust, to return the feelings I have felt since I was only a child. But she loves me now. We have children; we are married. She wouldn't do this to me.

The guards glance at each other, exchanging silent opinions. I lose my cool; a rare occurance. "Where is Katniss?" I slam my fists into the metal wall, causing a clanging sound to echo across the entire building. Or so I assume. The guards do not move to restrain me - in fact, they look amused by my frustration.

"You're right not to trust her, Mellark," one smiles at me. "We did find her in a location that we thought might interest you..."

"Don't," the other guards cuts him off. They are playing a game with me; with my mind. "Let him guess."

"What do I get if I guess correctly?" Two can play a game.

"We won't kill her... slowly," one laughs. My blood boils. I want to ask about the children, but now I feel like they are lying to me, and that they mightn't even know we have children. That perhaps the new president sent them to tell me this message to make me believe I had to do what they told me, as blackmail. Katniss didn't fare well in hostage situations. Neither did the people who kept her hostage. Their answer will confirm my suspicions: if they really have her, and if she has betrayed me. "So, where do you think we found her, Mellark?"

I don't pause. "District 2. Gale Hawthorne's house."

One guard's mouth falls open, the other smirks. I have fallen into a trap, and they have been triumphant. By trying to play out of their hands, I have given away her potential location. Now they will find her, and my children, and kill them. In all my years dealing with the Capitol, I have never seen a tactic like this. This new president - he means business. And now my worst fear has been confirmed.

Katniss has run away - to live with a man she still loves.