The Hunger Games - I'm Still Burning

Chapter 23

There's a girl with brown hair and blue eyes, picking daisies in the meadow, her yellow dress swinging in the breeze. Her round face lights up when she turns and sees me, waving her little posy of flowers in the air.

Suddenly, a body materialises in front of her, their lifeless eyes facing skyward. She screams, falling backwards. I go to run to her, her name just reaching my lips when a second body appears. Then another and another. She's surrounded by them.

I start to see their faces. Marvel. Rue. Finnick. Cato. Prim. To name a few because I know there are so many more.

The little girl looks at me with tears streaming down her face.

"Mama did you do this?" she asks, her lip quivering.

I shake my head, "I didn't mean to, Willow."

I hold my arms out to her but she flinches, a look of terror taking over her face.

"Please don't hurt me," she cries, curling in on herself. Her knees are tucked into her chest.

My heart breaks as I stumble over body after body trying to get to her. A figure appears from my left, his blonde hair matted, his face bloody and bruised. Peeta.

He gets to Willow first, gently tilting her chin up. She takes in his beaten face and lets out another sob.

"Peeta you have to tell her I didn't mean to! I never wanted any of this," I cry.

He ignores me, scooping Willow into his arms.

"Why did you let daddy get hurt like this?" she asks, the accusation in her voice ripping me apart.

"She's a monster, Willow. A mutt." Peeta says coldly, turning away from me.

"NO! That's not true. Tell her the truth! Snow hurt you because I love you!" I yell.

The snake of a man himself appears in front of me, blocking my family from view. His lips puffy and bleeding, pulled back in a twisted smile.

"Oh my dear, sweet Everdeen. A pathetic, little girl from a pathetic, little District."

"I'm not a little girl anymore!" I spit.

His cackle makes the hairs stand on my arms.

"How's your sister?"

Sense and reason leave me as I charge towards him, hands poised to wrap around his throat, ready to squeeze the cold, calculating life right out of his eyes.

I'm squeezing, choking him. Screaming, crying for everything he's put me through. The monstrosities the children of the Districts have had to face. Because of him. For the horrors I will be forced to tell my own child.

"Katniss!" he croaks.

I open my eyes but it isn't Snow's eyes staring back me. It's Peeta's startled blue ones. My hands instantly pull back from their vice-like grip and Peeta chokes on the air I've been neglecting him.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" I cry.

He heaves himself away from me, sitting on the edge of the bed gasping. I run to the bathroom to get him a glass of water, my shaking hands spilling the majority of it on the way back to him.

"I'm so sorry, Peeta," I whisper.

He takes the glass and pats the bed beside him. I gingerly sit next to him, waiting for him to speak.

"What was that nightmare about?" he asks, taking a sip of water.

I try to tell him but the words keep getting stuck in my throat. The dead bodies. The fear in Willow's eyes. Peeta's beaten face. Snow. I squeeze my eyes shut, my hands are in my hair pulling as though it will make the picture fade away. I open my mouth to try and speak again, all that emerges is my misery coated sobs.

"Katniss you're okay. It's okay you're safe. You're here with me."

Peeta's strong arms are wrapped around my trembling body.

"She can't know, Peeta. She can't know what I did," I cry. I shrug his arms off so I can face him and clutch at his hands.

His eyes sadden as he cups my cheek in his hand. "I don't want her to know what I did either."

This brings an exasperated sigh out of me. "It's different, Peeta! She's going to see that I'm the reason her daddy was captured and tortured in the Capitol because I let you out of my sight in the arena. Every time you have a flashback and she see's, she's going to know its all my fault! She's going to see me murder children and then parade around in a costume like I'm some kind of war hero!"

"And she's going to see me attacking you in the Capitol, attempting to slam the butt of a gun into your skull! She's going to see me kicking Mitchell into the net of barbed wire," Peeta says, as if the reality of that is just hitting him now. He sucks a quick breath in and pulls me close.

"Killing Mitchell was never your intention though," I say, quietly.

"We have to make her understand."

"How?" I ask.

We sit in each others arms, lost in our own thoughts about the dreaded day when her questions will start. When we will no longer be just her mum and dad but apart of her history lessons at school.

Peeta eventually shifts and flips the lamp switch on, opening his side table drawer. He pulls out the book I haven't looked at in a while, partly because it's too painful. He opens the pages and the faces of those we've loved and lost greet us in Peeta's careful sketch along with the memories in my neatest handwriting.

"We'll show her this. We'll read every single happy memory to her and explain how special they all were to us. We'll tell her about the promise we made to live well to make their deaths count." Peeta runs a hand through my hair as my tears begin to fall freely again.

I pull his face in towards me, gently grazing my lips against his. The boy with the bread and the girl on fire. I'll never understand how two ruptured people like us managed to create the most perfect little girl.

We break apart when the phone begins to ring downstairs, making us both jump. Peeta's eye brows pull into a frown.

"Who would be calling at this time of night?" he asks, making his way towards the door.

"Probably Effie with some emergency that's not really an emergency," I say, thinking back to how she's done that before when she was designing my wedding dress. She'd lose track of time and ring panicking when a certain type of material hadn't turned up.

I follow Peeta out of the room, watching as he retreats down the stairs. No harm in checking on Willow while I'm up, I'm surprised she's slept through the commotion in our room.

I creep into her room, gingerly missing all the baby toys strewn on the floor from her and Peeta's earlier play session. I let out a quiet laugh when I get to her crib and see that she is wide awake.

"You're supposed to be asleep," I whisper to her, reaching down my finger for her to latch on to. Her tiny fist wraps around it and I feel my eyes begin to well again. Her little face is so full of innocence; I don't want her to see the cruelty this world has to offer.

"Katniss," Peeta says, coming into the room.

"She was awake this whole time," I smile, wiping away my tears, not taking my eyes off her.

"Katniss," Peeta says again, his voice full of worry.

When I turn and look at him, at the sombre expression on his face, I get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Something bad has happened.

"What is it, Peeta?"

I don't think I've heard him right when he says it. Think he must have heard it wrong on the phone. It's not until he strides over and wraps me in his arms that it sinks in.

"Your mother has taken a Morphling overdose."