Pretty As a Primrose (A Hunger Games Fanfiction)

Chapter 19

Two cannons fire overhead signaling two dead tributes, which had to be the pair from 8 because Peeta, Cato, and I were very much alive. I gasp and clamp my hand over my mouth to hold back the sounds of terror. Peeta and I glanced at each other, long enough for him to hold up a finger to his mouth, then he burst forward with a knife in his left hand.

"No!" I scream as he tackles Cato, knocking him to the ground. I wanted to help -which was the oddest thing I've ever felt because usually I want to help save lives, not end them- but I was desperate and the Games have made me into a new person. I wasn't Primrose Everdeen, the small girl from district 12 who hated the woods and had gentle, healing hands. Now I was Primrose Everdeen, the girl who won the 74th Hunger Games alongside Peeta Mellark and could throw knives almost as good as Clove. The Games have remade me. I grip the knife with the decorated handle in my fist and run towards Peeta and Cato. Peeta was struggling under Cato, who held his sword over his head. It glinted in the pale moonlight, the gamemakers were probably enjoying this moment since this was the moment that made tributes into victors. I drew my arm back, prepared to throw the knife straight into Cato's exposed skull when the birds dove towards us.

"Cato! Cato!" The screaming made my hands fall to my side, the voice wasn't mine or Peeta's and surely Cato wasn't screaming his own name. She sounded vaguely familiar, the sound of her voice echoed throughout the whole arena and Cato snapped his head up, real desperation in his harsh eyes.

"Clove!" He yells, looking around as if somehow she wasn't dead and had returned to the arena for Cato. He stood up and ran towards the screaming, leaving Peeta lying breathless on the ground. I positioned myself to throw the knife again when I heard another scream, except this one broke me.

"PRIM!" She screamed. "Prim! Prim, help!" My sister. She was screaming my name, almost in the same scratchy voice that she used at the Reaping. I took off, abandoning Peeta to find where the sound was coming from. Maybe the gamemakers dropped her into the arena to distract me, to get me killed. The screams of my name swelled around me, all merging into one long, neverending scream that scewered straight through me. I covered my ears, dropping to my knees and making any desperate attempt to quiet the endless screams around me.

"Prim, it's okay! It's not real! It's just the jabberjays!" This time Peeta was yelling at me, his voice deeper than the screams coming from my sister -or the birds, as he said. He was running towards me, swatting away the birds, each time he hit the jabberjays the screams crackled. The sounds became mechanical for a moment, then returned to their realness, even the Capitol can't create something flawless.

"It's Katniss, what did they do to her?" I whimper, Peeta just shook his head and behind him I could see Cato realizing what he just told me. The screams were obviously not real, especially in his case because Clove was dead, and he was going to finish what he started. I only had a few seconds, but I sprang to my feet and pushed Peeta to the right of me so I could have a direct aim on Cato. In those fragile seconds, I suddenly gelt very aware of the situation, of myself. I could hear beyond the still-screaming jabberjays, the sounds of regular birds hopping in the trees and the shudders of the leaves as cold gusts blew through them. I could feel the shudders of an entire nation as they watched this moment unfold, the suspense holding my sister's eyes unwillingly on the screens. I have to win, I have to go home for her and my mother and my friends and for myself. My heart beating like someone was pounding my chest in with a brick and I could see the shaking of my hands, the knife quivering slightly as I turned it over in my hand and drew my arm back. I used my last second before throwing to concentrate on my aim, a perfect shot to his head just under where his blonde hair fell in damp wisps. I imagined his forehead as the middle of the targets on the practice dummies at the training center instead of the forehead of a boy, and that made it easier for me to throw the knife and even easier for me to hit the center of the target.

I turned back to Peeta and he pulled me into his arms, the sound of the cannon shuddering through the whole empty arena. I lost the ability to catch my breath or speak, and my head was whirling around so many different things at once the only thing I could really do was hold onto Peeta until the hovercraft came for us. I could feel my whole body shaking now, all the way down into the deep recesses of my bones, and no matter how tightly Peeta hugged me I still trembled.

"We did it." Peeta says, his voice so distant and disbelieving. I close my eyes and let myself float on the waves of disbelief until I feel the hovercraft blowing the strong gust down on us as it descended. I open my eyes and for a second, I expect to be in my bed at home in district 12 on the day of the Reaping. That all of this was a bad dream and I was waking up to the reality, but there was Peeta and I looked up, there was the hovercraft.

"Ladies and gentlemen. May I present to you the victors of the 74th Annual Hunger Games, Primrose Everdeen and Peeta Mellark." The voice rang out over the entire empty arena, the enitirety of Panem.

Once we were inside the hovercraft, the task became turning Peeta and I into something beautiful to look at because no one wants to stare at someone that looks like a wild animal. The team of doctors could hide the scars and the bruises and feed us large meals to make us appear normal but they couldn't fix the mental scars the Games had given us. On the first night after we land at the training center I found myself waking up in the early morning hours screaming so impossibly loud, worse than the screams from the nightmares that haunted me before the Games. I woke up to a scream that was entirely too loud and petrified to come from such a small pair of lungs, then out of the corner of my eye I saw the needle coming and I was slipping away into a black unconsciousness.

I woke up and my body was no longer strapped down and there was a meager meal sitting on the table next to me. I pulled myself up and noticed that my skin was smooth and pale now, every scratch and scar erased. My nails filed into neat rounded squares and my hair scrubbed clean, softer and blonder than it was even before the Games.

"Good morning, Miss Everdeen." I recognize the voice almost immediately, the same voice that echoed regally throughout Panem as he welcomed us after the chariot rides. He wasn't safely guarded by his elevated balcony surrounded by peacekeepers. He was in my room with me, sipping from a white tea cup, putting his life on the line by coming alone.

"President Snow." I whisper more to myself than him, but he smiles.

"Do you know what you just did, my dear?" He asks, his eyes narrowed and they looked more like snake eyes.

"Won the Games?" It's such a stupid thing to say but my mind is foggy.

"Well, yes. But at what cost?" His eyes drift towards the doorway. "At what cost?"

"I don't understand, Peeta and I won. We didn't do anything..." I say quietly. He stares at me for so long, I half expect him to lash out and attack me and he's probably expecting me to do the same. But no, we sit and stare expectantly at one another.

"You didn't once remember that for 73 consecutive years we've only had one victor? That there must be some mistake? I did not approve of these rule changes and Mr. Crane will pay the price. As will you, my dear, and the cost is great."