Nightingale

Chapter 1

Peeta

I look at the disarray of the shattered District 12. The seam, where Katniss grew up is little more than a pile of grey ashes and a crumbling stone chimeny. I sigh as I sit on the edge of the crumbling stone looking at my dust covered boots.

"Not exactly the nicest place to grow up," Finnick says. "The bombing didn't do much to help the image. This was her house?"

"Yeah, until she was in the games," I reply. "She still came here alot, when she'd go hunting."

"You ever come here?" he asks.

"No, this was her place," I say. "I let it stay her place." I get up and nod towards the road. "We should keep moving. They only gave us two hours." We follow it up towards the victor's village.

Where Katniss and I used to live and had planned a family.

I purposely avoid the bakery, not wanting to see the wreakage that swallowed my family and the life I used to have. I know that it is almost symbolic as to say that that life is very over, but I can't help bu wish to never see it. I walk up to Katniss' familiar house and feel an increased sense of loneliness despite Finnick.

Normally, this quiet, cold, dusty, dark house would befilled with Prims laughter as she would drag a string for Buttercup, Katniss' mother stirring a poiltice or dinner in the kitchen, and Katniss....

Katniss would be playing her guitar by the fire, or reading in the big picture window. She might be writting in her notebook or just simply observing as I tried to teach her sister to paint.

I still can't believe they took her.

Not just her, but Johanna and Finnick's Annie. After the sky fell, two hovercrafts fought over the living bodies, scooping up who they could. Unfortunately, the Hovercraft that grabbed them took them to the Capital and they are being held prisoner, presumably dead even.

But I forbid to think that she and my unborn child are gone.

"Homey," Finnick says. "But why are we here?"

"I'm gonna grab some things for Katniss and her family," I say. "She'll need more than the District 13 sanctioned handouts." I go to her closet and pull out her coat and boots along with her parents' wedding photo. "You can see if you can find her mother's herbal remedies. I'm gonna go upstairs." I go up into her room and sigh.

Her bed is messy as ever, a sigh of her terrible tossing and turning, the curtins shut tight, blocking out the sun. I sit down and run my fingers through my hair. I haven't seen her for fifty days. I can't even see her when I close my eyes anymore. I lay back in the soft bed I've spent so many nights with her curled close to me and sigh. Even the sheets seem to have lost her scent.

Theres a low growl and I pull up her thick green deuve and find Prim's cat staring at me. I chuckle and pet him, fond of him dispite Katniss' distain of him.

"Hey, buddy," I say. "Prim'll be happy to see you. Wouldn't have expected you to be curled up in here." I fold up Katniss' blanket and stuff it in her leather game bag. I also grab her notebook and guitar, figuring she may need them. I also grab her flannel baby blanket she sleeps with on her pillow in her house. I pick up Buttercup and place him in the gamebag."Sorry, but we're gonna have to be incognito about this."

As I'm about to leave, I notice something. I set down the bag, making the cat growl lowly. I walk over to the windowsill and pick up the long stem of a white rose. Stuck to it is Katniss' necklace and her ring strung on the silver chain. There's a tag on the rose, like a gift label.

"My deepest love and conviction didn't save me. Neither shall you.

~Katniss"

I tear the necklace from the stem and crush the rose under my boot. The clear taunting doing its job of irritating me. I go to her bathroom and grab her hairbrush, cliping her necklace around my own neck as I grab the bag and leave her room.

I come down from the bedrooms and find Finnick packing jars of herbs into an old crate. He sees the look on my face and stops.

"What happened?" He asks.

"Lets just go," I say. "We need to start planning how to get them back."

"We've been planning," Finnick says, grabbing the crate and following me out. "But Coin hasn't listened to a single one of your proposals, Peeta. And we don't have the kind of support we need to launch a rescue."

"She's pregnant Finnick!" I say. "She's not strong enough to resist them for long. She wouldn't do anything against her will normally, but she's got our baby to protect."

"Johanna and Annie will defend her," He says before stopping himself. "Well, Johanna has the capacity to make sure they don't hurt her."

"How do you know that?" I ask. "Johanna wouldn't have the power to keep more than one or two at bay. You know they'll use more than that."

"Then we'll just have to keep trying,"he says. " But Peeta, you have to cooperate with them. They won't agree until you do."

"I'll do whatever it takes," I say as we get back to the craft. I sit down, clutching her necklace. The message was clear.

"I have her. Soon I'll have them. I can see you and control you even now. You can run and hide all you want, but you're little bird will be as easily crushed as that rose over time."

I need to get her back.

Now,