Doe In The Meadow | Peeta Mellark

eleven

I watched as Katniss climbed higher up into the tree. Cato and the others slept sound asleep on the ground below as Katniss cut into the tree branch, attempting to get the hive to fall down.

She hadn't noticed me, but no one had.

Finally, the hive came crashing down and the insects swarmed the tributes nearby. They all ran off, in fear and pain, while getting attacked. And then Katniss lunged herself to the ground and ran the opposite way. "Peeta." I whispered, nudging the boy awake. "Come on, she ran off. They were swarmed." I informed him as his eyes fluttered open and he lifted his head from the tree stump behind us. We stood up and rushed to our left, making our way back to the river to fetch water. I slid to my knees and placed my cupped hands into the stream, taking sips frequently. I slowly backed away from it, looking to Peeta, noticing he had been staring at me. "What?" I asked.

"How'd you know?" He asked me.

"Know what?" I questioned, standing to my feet.

"That she'd cut down the hive." He said. I looked down at my blade and stuck it into the ground, then sat on the rock just a foot or so behind me.

"Because it's what I would have done." I told him. He nodded and sat next to me.

In the middle of the night, I had snuck onto their sight and woke Peeta, bringing him back to my hiding spot where he continued to sleep next to me. I could go days without sleep, so it made it easy to keep a look out. I looked into his eyes as he sat next to me and fidgeted with his hands. "We'll find her." I said.

"That's what I'm afraid of." He finally spoke up after a few moments. My eyebrows furrowed and I tilted my head to the side in question. "I want to find her, but I don't want her to find you." He had continued. "Because she will kill you."

"Yeah, I got what you meant." I said, placing my bloody hand on the rock, between us.

"What happened?" He asked, brushing the hair away from my biten ear.

"Fucking birds." I laughed. "I come to the hunger games and instead of fighting other tributes, I get eaten by a bird." He now joined in the quiet laughter. We quieted down and he looked to me as our eyes matched with one and others again. But both of us were at a loss for words. "If it comes down to us, I'm not going to kill you." I breathed quietly. He looked to my hand and slowly placed his over it, intertwining his fingers within mine and then replacing his eyes back up to me.

"Then I guess we'll be stuck here forever." He whispered. I felt a subtle smile creep upon my face as my heartbeat a little faster and butterflies formed in my stomach.

"Wouldn't be so bad, would it? No other tributes to worry about, away from the rest of the world, and just living off the terrors?" I joked, as he smiled again.

A loud crashing noise caused us to jolt apart and to our feet. But before I knew it, Peeta was on the ground beside me, with the boy from District 4 on top of him, punching his jaw. I lunged forward, tackling him to the ground beside Peeta and began hitting him in the face, to keep him down.

"Peeta, run!" I screamed at him as the boy began fighting back.

"No!" He said as I noticed a girl rushing towards us.

"Peeta, run!" I demanded now. "Seriously, I can handle it. Go find Katniss!" I shouted in between breaths, as he began to slowly back away, unsure of what to do. "I'll find you." I looked to him, for a moment in which felt like hours. He wanted to stay. But he knew what I knew, which would be that one of us needed to live. And I was halfway to the sacrifice while he still had some time.

Finally, he turned and ran off. I felt my body crash into the water and my throat began to fill with it. The girl was holding me under as I was desperately gasping for air. My hands reached around as dirt began to fill around me. I felt for a sharp rock and then without a single hesitation, grasped onto it and bashed it into her temple. She fell into the water next to me, and I jumped out of the red liquid and straddled her, taking the rock and smashing it a few more times into her skull. I stopped myself, noticing she had a few quivering breaths left in her, and I looked to my hands, noticing more of her blood staining them. My heart began to drop. I did something bad, something I swore I'd never do.

The sound of the cannon rang in my ears, snapping me out of the hazy daze I was stuck in, and I looked down at the girls face, noticing truly what I had just done.