Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and core personality traits are the property of SC. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended.
Chapter Seven
Katniss gaged discretely on food that felt like tree bark inside her mouth and shivered as her doting captor rubbed up and down the length of her arms with large, sympathetic hands. Her flesh there was starting to cool in the dropping temperatures of nightfall-exasperated by a state of shock so profound it felt as though it had weakened her at a fundamental level—and the career male seemed to notice as much with palatable displeasure. He grumbled something undistinguishable and pulled her even closer into his body to share his warmth.
She sensed that her vulnerabilities vexed him and felt even less his species at experiencing such mundane human inadequacies while the perfect boy seemed to generate his own internal flame. As always, Mellark felt to her like something more; something greater and terrible.
But she was not the only one who looked disinterested in Peeta’s plan.
Clove and Cato frowned their mirrored objections.
“We’re about to lose the last of our daylight. Tracking in the dark is a waste of energy,” the District Two boy pointed out.
“And moving through the forest while everyone else is sedentary in their night shelter? We’ll be making ourselves easy targets,” Clove added.
Mellark behind her didn’t instantly rebuttal and Katniss wondered if he might have been bested by their logic. She under no circumstances wanted to spend the night prowling for hiding children, but—as the well contested stranger wrapped tightly in his arms—also knew the subtle danger in Peeta’s authority and rationale coming into question.
Katniss felt a moment’s defensiveness over her guardian and threw the others an impressively convincing look of irritation.
”The sun is barely fading and the temperature inside the arena is already uncomfortably cold,” the beautiful female leaned into Peeta’s heat to display her point, her features bored, “How long do you think most of them will last until they light a fire?”
Cato beamed at her with a small amount of twisted affection, interpreting her snub at their hang ups as a kin to his murderous spirit. “Time to channel our inner moths and follow those flames, Kitten?”
“Don’t call her that,” Peeta objected again, like a second swat at a persistent gnat.
“And the Tributes that run from the initial battle at the Cornucopia aren’t of character to leave their shelter and attack an armed alliance in the dark,” she addressed the rebuttal to Clove.
Katniss knew this to be true better than anyone, as she herself had been of the run and hide variety. “They are more concerned with surviving the elements at this point and I couldn’t imagine any of them having much in the way of offensive weapons.”
The Career female shrugged her unenthusiastic acceptance but didn’t give the other girl the satisfaction of verbal agreement. Out reasoned, she went back to her meal silently and ignored the couple altogether.
Peeta huffed out a laugh at the display.
He pivoted his head to the side and pressed his lips against her throat, much as she had done earlier. His movements however, were no farce, and Katniss gasped as she felt his teeth graze her hyper-aware skin so softly she couldn’t tell if she was being kissed or bitten. It wasn’t painful, quite the opposite, and the way her body responded to him had her eyes tingling with confused tears.
“My brilliant girl,” he praised. She could hardly hear it over the blood pumping rhythmically through her ears.
He dulled out affection when pleased as easily as he threw menacing threats at her disobedience. The Career was proud of her participation. She surmised at once that he had set her up to impress the others.
He knew full well that the cold would led to several desperate fires this early in the games but had held back to let her shine. Katniss tried to feel appreciation but was again unsettled by just how calculated his every action seemed to be. Mellark might have labeled her the Queen, but he himself was not her King and never would be. She was sure he was instead the master competitor that moved each of them in accordance to his plan.
The arena was his board.
“I’m done,” she said firmly, pushing her food away, “I’m full.”
She knew what a gift food of any kind was in The Games to someone from her district, much less the nourishing meat the power group had provided her. Katniss was sure that Haymitch was cursing her name into a bottle of whiskey after watching her turn away this first alliance perk. The buffer of large meals she’d gotten during her training and tour of the Capital, mixed with her reluctance to have anything in her stomach to purge if the night’s hunt proved as brutally successful as the opening battle, made it simply impossible for her to power the bites down.
Mellark looked like he was about to force the issue and she didn’t want to be made an example of by trying to test his leniency in front of the others.
She looked up at him with all of the upset and desperation she had brewing just below the surface of her skin, “Peeta,” she spoke quietly to only him, “I just can’t.”
He searched her face with a thoroughness that left her feeling naked but his expression was warm, “We’ll need to learn to differentiate between inability and unwillingness,” he quipped lightly but grabbed the skewered beef.
His teeth looked abnormally white, perfect and inhumanly sharp as he used them to scrape a chunk of the left overs into his mouth. He swallowed the piece down seemingly without having chewed at all, throwing his head back slightly like a crocodile gulping down a shred of torn, raw flesh.
“But not tonight. Come.”
The muscled boy stood, holding Katniss against him with a firm hand across her belly until she realized she too was suddenly on her feet. She squeaked but quickly scrambled to take back her weight.
“Be ready and back here by dark fall,” he said to the group without checking to see if they’d heard. It was not the leader’s job to spoon feed them orders; just to issue punishment if they were not obeyed.
She caught a brief glimpse of everyone springing into action, running off into their individual shelters as Mellark guided her back into theirs.
The Seam beautify watched as he sped purposefully around the metal cave, throwing odds and ends into two huge backpacks. He chose his items quickly but carefully, having an obvious understanding of the large amount of inventory at their disposal. Katniss would have felt infinity lucky to have had a fraction of the items back in her harsh district but noted they were survivalist odds and ends.
“Why are we packing so much? Aren’t we coming back?” She squirmed, unsure if she even wanted to know.
He gave her a withering look but kept packing; silver water-proof blankets, first aid, dried food.
“We plan on coming back, yes. But plans have a way of going awry in the arena, don’t they?” His tone hinted at irony and she knew he was referring to her botched start to the games, “You have a plan B or you die, Katniss. Now, grab whatever you deem useful.”
She lifted her chin defiantly and went to his side, picking up another blanket. Katniss barely contained her yelp when he reached out and caught her arm in his large, very inhibitive grip.
“I’ll take care of our needs,” he turned her arm gently and gave the inside of her wrist a light kiss before he released the dazed female and gestured over her shoulder. His eyes held no jest as he pointed to the wall of weapons they’d discussed earlier, “Go pick out something that will suit you. Glimmer has your bow but you’ll have to find a workable replacement. Several, if you can.”
It seemed an impossible feat, to replace something so efficient and familiar to her. It pained her to be in such a dangerous environment without the weapon that had always been her greatest asset. Katniss knew the game makers and sponsors interested in her had put that bow in the arena just for her—long range weapons were rarely placed in the games—and failing to secure it had been her first major failure.
“They wouldn’t have trusted you with it,” Peeta said suddenly, as if he could hear her thoughts as clearly as her spoken words. She shivered lightly at the intrusion. “They know you are a threat, but at the moment you are our threat. You’d have an unacceptable edge over us if you had your bow. The Careers wouldn’t tolerate it.”
Katniss was surprised that they knew that archery was her craft; she had been careful to hide that fact with the exception of the scored judging in front of only the Game Keepers and highest ranking sponsors. Though she shouldn’t have been surprised at all, in retrospect. The wealthy districts always had a way of acquiring supposedly classified information.
A thriver in a very hard life, she forced herself to accept her situation for what it was and focused on her task. As they had covered earlier, some of the flashiest and most attractive weapons were impractical, or completely inoperable to her—swords nearly 3 feet long, a shiny silver axe that she’d have to drag across the ground to move, the mace Peeta had mocked.
The knives made more sense than anything else. Katniss pulled a few small, light weight throwing knives from the wall, seeing no harm in taking them as a backup. There were a number of different larger fixed blades to choose from. Aside from the hunting knife she used to prepare her kills back in Twelve—which was more of a shaped and sharpened piece of scrap medal than anything—she had very little experience with legitimate weaponry. Any difference in design between her options looked negligible to her eyes.
She picked up a simple but ominously large straight blade, inspecting it quickly before putting it in its provided sheath and attaching it to her belt. It looked exactly like the one Cato had pulled out to execute Marvel, so at least she wouldn’t be embarrassed by it.
Mellark walked up behind her and plucked another selection off the wall. It was a viciously sharp looking knife with an unusually shaped, curved blade.
It was only slightly smaller than the machete hanging beside it but had a pointed, deadly tip while the other ended bluntly. He turned it over in his hand, studying its balance and deciding on the quality of its construction.
Looking satisfied with the piece, he turned the handle away from himself and presented it to Katniss. “I’d like you to carry this, for tonight at least,” he held it out until she took the offering, “It’s like a Kukri. It’s a slash or chop blade. You’ll do some damage with that even if all you do is flail it around.”
She shot him a sharp glare, rejecting his fun at her expense, but fixed the blade and its sheath to her now heavy belt on her dominant side.
“What if we don’t find anyone tonight,” she questioned him, trying for casual. She couldn’t wrap her head around the words “chop” and “slash” in reference to actions against another human being.
“Us finding someone isn’t the only reason you’d need to us that, baby,” he frowned, concern on his brow, “Someone can find us. The District Twelve male is still out there.”
“Thresh,” she corrected.
“The District Twelve male,” he insisted with finality. “They are numbers, Katniss, don’t forget that.”
She shook her head, heated by his lack of respect, “They have names, and families… They are scared, just like us.”
“I am not scared,” He dismissed her passion, turning back to the wall to continue pursuing the knives, “They are targets now. You’ll need to accept that, and soon.”
She looked at him sadly, grey eyes imploring him to explain how he could possibly think that way. “If that’s true, then I’m not Katniss, I’m the District Twelve female, the lowest of all these numbers—most destitute of all these targets.”
He turned, looking furious all at once and she instantly regretted her candidness. The Career took a step forward and it was all that was needed to press himself flush against his small companion. She instinctively diverted her eyes in a gesture of demure but it didn’t appease him in the slightest. He drove his figures into the nape of her long black hair and tugged until her head was angled up at his face, her eyes having no where else to go. His hold, like always, caused no discomfort while she didn’t resist but was sweltering in its dominance. She trembled against him, leery of his anger.
“What you are is mine, and I’ll call you what I want,” he breathed, stunning eyes wild, “You might not have anything in this Arena to protect except your own pretty neck, little girl, but I have you. And if I need to see numbers while I’m mowing them down to keep you alive, I will,” he hissed at her quietly, “They are numbers because you are Katniss.”
They could both feel her heart hammering against chest.
The usually unemotional girl had hardly known she was capable of producing tears before this nightmare had began but now she could barely stop them from mortifying her at every turn. Peeta’s declaration stated plainly that others would die so that she could live and she had to remind herself that she had known this to be true all along.
As repugnant as that reality was, ultimately Katniss wanted to live. She needed to go home and continue protecting her Prim more than she wanted to protest the injustice of their forced fight or her distaste for the process.
She bit down on the skin of her cheek until she could taste blood, desperate to ground herself and prevent an emotional spiral. Weakness would not get her the aid of the sponsors, if she had managed to maintain any interest thus far. They wanted a love story but more than anything, they wanted to put their bets on a tribute that stood a chance at winning.
She took an unsteady breath and met Peeta’s intense stare. “I understand,” she nodded, though the movement was curtailed by his hold on her hair. “I’m sorry.”
With what she was sure were no less than a half dozen cameras broadcasting her every move across the wealthy Capital, Katniss eased up on the tips of her toes and pressed her lips against his.
What surprised her most was that Peeta was capable of being surprised; but she felt it clearly in the small startle his body tensed with before his hands and lips pressed against her.
It was probably foolish to think that she could both initiate and end the kiss on her terms. His mild shock lasted for a scant half second before he had taken control of the embrace and turned her tentative appeasement of the Capital’s interest into the heart stopping entanglement of two legitimate lovers.
The fingers that had held her hair softened to cradle the nape of her neck and she gasped as he dropped a possessive hand to the swell of her back. Peeta pressed her so closely against him that it was difficult to tell that they were two separate beings. Though she’d experienced it before, there was very little she could do to protect herself from the sensations of the Career’s hold. This kiss felt intensely different as an active participant and even through the threads of fear and insecurity Katniss experienced a stirring of heady empowerment; not a sensation a lowly Capital pawn such as herself was otherwise likely to ever live to see.
“As much as I’d love to wait it out and see where this goes,” Cato’s bubbly draw cut through her Mellark-tainted mental fog like a splash of ice water. “You two are about to be late to your own party.”
Having that particular blonde catch her while distracted sent a thrill of panic across her body that she hadn’t realized Peeta’s presence had eased until it came rushing back with a spike in blood pressure. Red cheeked and not particularly wanting to look anyone in the eyes, she noticed instead that the light flooding in behind Tribute Two was fading into non existence.
Embarrassed, she went to pull away but again found her Career trap her in place. Peeta glanced over at Cato without apology, his hands holding Katniss’ small pelvis against his with an airy sense of entitlement.
Making sure to take his time, lest he give Cato the satisfaction of rushing him, Peeta leaned in and kissed her lips gently before releasing her. Her face flooded with heat and she used her recently freed hair as a curtain to hide her embarrassment.
Cato grinned with too many teeth as Peeta passed a heavy pack to Katniss before pulling the straps of an even larger bag onto his own shoulders. He, in contrast, carried almost nothing on him aside from weapons; speaking a great deal about his general strategy in these games. Cato wasn’t focused on keeping himself alive so much as he was planning on killing everyone else so quickly that he needn’t account for long term survival in the arena.
“You guys sure you have everything? You remember your kitchen sinks? I wouldn’t-ugh-” Cato doubled over the extremely heavy but blunt rubber sledge hammer Peeta had sent sailing across the room directly into his gut before either of them had seen him grab it off the table.
Why don’t you get back outside and wait with the others and if you get bored waiting for a fresh kill you can start with yourself,” Peeta intoned, already refocused on adjusting his pack straps for a good fit.
Cato straighten himself out painfully, trying to recover from the sudden loss of breath, “You know-” he gasped, “I might enjoy a bit of murder here and there but you don’t have a sense of humor and that shit’s fucked.”
Despite his injury, Cato gave Katniss a charming wink that made the flesh on her arms stand on end before turning and leaving them as instructed.
The small sparkle in Peeta’s eyes as he watched his subordinate hunch out of the room made Katniss seriously doubt that Mellark lacked an appreciation for amusement that met his own standard.
Trying to continue her to decision play the part, Katniss preened her hair and tidied her clothes before walking toward the exit. “Now or never” wasn’t quite fitting when “never” was not at all an option but a portion of her mind had made a commitment to getting the night over with.
She stopped short of the fabric draped entrance of the cornucopia, her heart in her throat. The sky was the most unsettling shade of red as sun faded quickly. It wasn’t an entirely unnatural color—she had seen so many different shades as each hard day of life in the Seam came to an end over the years—but in this case she knew it was an intentional element projected into the arena’s faux sky. The eery crimson expanse was like a promise of the night to come, decor to set the mood.
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