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

Page Thirty-One

A/N - Sorry for the delay in updating - I was sick, and school started again!! Updates will be more frequent from now on - this has to be finished by October for the Watty Awards! Remember to click 'vote' at the side when you finish reading! :) Who picked up their copy of The Hunger Games DVD? Lemme know below!

Peeta

I hear Katniss scream; a high-pitched wail full of agony. She watches Gale falls and cries out again, but I hear it from far away, as if I'm not in my own body. But that's the problem - I am in my own body, trapped.

My plan seems to have worked - I don't have the bizarrely untamable urge to kill my wife anymore. I still have the yearning desire in me to kill someone, but it is not her. And suddenly, it is not Gale. I look down at him on the ground, unconscious, blood trickling down his dust covered face. He's still, very still, and extremely pale. I wonder if I've already killed him, and with a frightening lack of remorse, I don't really care. I move on. 

It's as if I can sense my next target. I can feel their prescence in the building - no, wait. They're leaving! Swiftly, my body steps over Gale's lifeless form, ignoring everything Katniss does intentionally in case the desire to murder her comes flooding back. I carefully but quickly tread my way through the rubble, my lungs clogging with dust. The ache from physical exertion doesn't come, even though sweat pours down my face, and even the blows from my fight with Gale aren't bothering me. I'm numb inside this tomb that is my physical self.

My target is running down stairs, winding their way down, down. The building is empty, eerie, and I'm sure if I could feel, I'd feel a shiver go down my spine. But I'm fearless, dauntless, and bloodthirsty.

And fast.

I hear their breathing soon, thanks to my heightened senses. They're panting, urging each other to keep running. Two voices - one is panting, more out of breath. Younger.

Then I see her.

She looks like Katniss, a smaller version of her, not in looks alone, but in the way she moves, the charachteristic scowl on her face. Her braid whips out behind her as she frantically yet carefully ushers her brother to keep moving.

But Oenothera is mine.

Faster than a mockingjay, I swoop down, grabbing the little girl's braid. The father inside of me wouldd be aching, but he's dormant now. I'm almost all machine, totally corrupted. She cries out, and Kuwai turns back, his eyes wide with fear. I see a little bit of Gale in him, in his colouriing, which is strange, as he is my son. My blood bubbles and burns in my veins.

"Run, Kuwai!" Oeno screams, still in my clutches. Her shouts aren't frantic - no, they're controlled, even in a situation like this. She is so like her mother.

I grab her in my arms, tight enough that she can't even wriggle, and bound back up the stairs. I don't even glance at Katniss and most likely dead Gale next to her as I reach the damaged hovercraft, Oeno in my grasp. I hear a pitiful cry, and I assume her mother has just seen me. It's her worst nightmare, having her children taken by the Capitol, as if we were in the Games again. I taste bittersweet irony on my tongue at the fact that I urged Katniss to have kids, promising the Capitol would never get them. Now, look.

Kuwai is at the door, screaming for his sister. He runs at the hovercraft as the door closes, his cheeks coated in dust and tears, anger scrunching his little face. He's too young for this. And I should be protecting him. He's my son.

I look down at Oeno who is limp in my arms, not struggling, but not accepting her fate, either. I can see her calculating her escape, where she's going. So like her mother.

I'm not sure what the Capitol will say when I return with her instead of Katniss.

And finally, the human part of me dissolves, and I don't care.

Kuwai's angry face, Gale's lifeless body, and Katniss's anguished glare are the last images I see before the hovercraft door slides shut.