Peeta's Games - Chapter 8 - igsygrace - Hunger Games Trilogy (2023)

Chapter Text

Chapter Seven

When I get upstairs, I wearily greet the grown-ups, who - by the way they jump tensely up when I enter - have been waiting anxiously for our return. Portia looks at me expectantly and I give her a faint smile as I go to the dining room and get myself a glass of water. I join the others in waiting for Katniss, refusing to speak, and really feeling nothing but relief that this portion of the Hunger Games is over.

After fifteen minutes, we hear the elevator, and then the doors to the suite open - and rapidly close - on Katniss. I can just see her red, furious face before she bolts down the hall toward the bedrooms and disappears.

"Oh, shit, now what," says Haymitch and he and Effie both hurry after her. Portia, Cinna and I sit in awkward silence listening to them demand, beg and plead for Katniss to leave her room. To no avail. They come back without her and Effie says, "Well, we'll let her relax until dinner. It's been a stressful … day."

I glance down the hallway, trying to read the situation. It's not much of a stretch - I know it probably has something to do with the Gamemakers' lack of attention.

"I'm going to go up to the roof until dinner," I announce, and take off myself. I know I'm leaving behind a roomful of anxiety, but I've decided to indulge my own for the moment.

I've got two hours until dinner and I need every bit of it to sort through my thoughts. It's time - really time - to start thinking about what is going to happen in just a couple of days, and to synthesize what I've learned so far.

I've learned what weapon I'm most comfortable with, so if I do want to defend myself, I need to look for a large knife.

Alternatively, I've also learned that I'm good at concealing myself, and that's a tempting strategy - to find some water, cover myself with mud and grass and wait for starvation to take me. The arena might not fit this design, but more than likely it will. There's a specific window for the length of time the Games considered the "best ones" run - somewhere between two and three weeks. Between a quarter and a third of the tributes die in the bloodbath at the opening, and then if there's a death every one or two days from there on out, it keeps the Capitol viewers entertained. Barren arenas without water sources or hiding places tend to lead to Games that end too quickly.

I'm good at starting fires, but if I'm by myself, that will be a mixed bag. Fires in the arena draw predators of all kinds.

That's it for my useful skills, which is depressing. And none of them seem adequate to keeping Katniss safe, unless she wanted to team up and hide out with me. That would be an unusual strategy, but it would keep me alive a little while longer, and her, too, possibly. The problem is, she doesn't trust me and she'd always be thinking of when to pull the trigger and kill me. And - even though she doesn't trust me, and doesn't really seem to like me too much, either - I think that she would hate to be put in that spot.

What will her strategy be? Get a bow if she can? Get away from the cornucopia, otherwise - run as fast she can away from the Careers and the bloodbath. Find water, sleep in trees, snare or shoot her food. If she HAD a bow, she'd be a formidable opponent for the Careers. But that could be 4, 5 or 6 on 1 - bad odds, even for Katniss. She'd want to wait out the fighting until there are fewer tributes left, hopefully fewer careers. If I have any hope of being useful to her, this is what I must do. Help thin out the Careers.

Well, that should be easy.

When I go back inside, Effie is in the hallway exhorting Katniss to come out for dinner. There's a bit of desperation in her voice, so, this ought to be fun.

I sit down at the table and start on rolls and soup. After a few minutes, Katniss finally makes an appearance, but she looks like she has spent the last two hours crying her eyes out. She's feigning calm as she sits down and accepts a bowl of soup.

Maybe she senses me looking at her, but she eventually looks up the table and right at me. I raise my eyebrows - what? She shakes her head. I'm uneasy. Clearly, her session went badly. So badly that it will make a difference? Scores posted after the training session don't really make much of a difference; even very high or very low ones can be deceptive. It's just to help get the betting started. And yet - it's hard not to care that my own score is guaranteed to be pathetic. That must go double for her.

So, as the main course is served and Haymitch finally turns to us and asks us how badly it went, I jump in first. "I don't know that it mattered. By the time I showed up, no one even bothered to look at me. They even started singing some kind of drinking song, I think. I just threw around some heavy objects until they told me I could go."

Katniss smiles at me gratefully.

"And you, sweetheart?" asks Haymitch.

Her eyes darken at the endearment and the smile abruptly vanishes. "I shot an arrow at the Gamemakers," she says.

The pause in the room is even more intense than the night Katniss mentioned the Avox. I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't that. My mind staggers between admiration and horror.

"You what?" exclaims Effie, echoing everyone's thoughts.

"I shot an arrow at them," continues Katniss - trying to act cool about it, but not entirely able to hide the panic in her eyes. "Not exactly at them, but in their direction. It's like Peeta said, I was shooting and they were ignoring me, and I just … lost my head, so I shot an apple out of their stupid roast pig's mouth!"

I put my hand to my mouth to hide an unexpected grin. Damn, would I have loved to have seen that. There's no way - no way - that has ever happened before. She really is something else.

"What did they say?" asks Cinna.

"Nothing. Or - I don't know. I walked out after that."

"Without being dismissed?" Effie gasps.

"I dismissed myself," she replies, and her eyes search out Haymitch's for his reaction.

"Well, that's that," he says, buttering a roll. I'm not sure whether it's a good or bad sign, but he seems a lot more relaxed than he did when he was berating us for our training day behaviors.

"Do you think they'll arrest me?"

"Doubt it. Be a pain to replace you at this stage," he answers coolly.

"What about my family?" she gets out, finally revealing the heart of her fears. "Will they punish them?"

"Don't think so - wouldn't make sense. Remember, they can't reveal what happens in the Training Center, because it's secret, but they'd have to, to use what you did to punish anyone. More likely they'll make your life hell in the arena."

"Well, they've already promised to do that to us anyway," I add.

"Very true," says Haymitch lightly.

Katniss looks from him to me and her expression is lighter. There is real gratitude in her face, and for a moment the three of us - we mismatched tributes from District 12 and our alcoholic mentor - are all on the same page.

Haymitch continues eating and actually starts to laugh. "What were their faces like?"

"Shocked," she says, grinning. "Terrified. Uh, ridiculous, some of them. One of them tripped backward into a bowl of punch."

We're all laughing now, except for Effie, of course, but even she has the capacity to surprise us today. "Well, it serves them right. It's their job to pay attention to you. And just because you come from District 12 is no excuse to ignore you. I'm sorry," she adds, looking around, "but that's what I think."

"I'll get a very bad score," says Katniss, sobering again.

"Scores only matter if they're very good," says Portia. "No one pays attention to the bad or mediocre ones. For all they know, you could be hiding your talents to get a low score on purpose. People use that strategy."

"That's good news for me," I say. "Hopefully that's how people interpret the four I'll probably get. If that. Really, is anything less impressive than watching a person pick up a heavy ball and throw it a couple of yards? One almost landed on my foot."

Katniss grins at me, which makes my unimpressive day today - indeed the last three days - all completely worth it. That's when I realize that - if it weren't for this whole Game thing - she and I really could have been friends. Hardly anyone I know appreciates my sense of humor like she seems to.

Her mood remains good for the rest of dinner, then we move into the sitting room to watch the scores announced. The Careers are mostly 8s out of 12, though both District 2 tributes, Cato and Clove, score 10s. This isn't a surprise to me. They're both not only quick and skilled with weapons, they are the leaders of the career pack. After District 4, the scores drop down to 4s, 5s and 6s. Although the District 11 tributes, Thresh and Rue are both above average, with Thresh getting a 10 and Rue a 7. I don't have time to ponder that surprising turn, because it's me, next and, despite my indifference to it, it's still awful waiting for my low score to be broadcast throughout the country. What will my brothers think? Or my friends?

But my score is an 8, surprisingly - well above average, and within the Career range.

"I guess someone was watching," says Katniss, and Portia squeezes my arm.

But I shake my head. That's weird. But even more surprising, Katniss scores an 11.

She gasps, Effie squeals in delight and Haymitch claps her on the back. Katniss turns to him, shock all over her face. "There must be a mistake. How - how could that happen?"

"Guess they liked your temper," says Haymitch heartily. Too heartily. I look at him closely; something about this is making me uneasy. "They've got a show to put on. They need some players with heat."

"Katniss, the girl who was on fire," says Cinna. He hugs her. "Oh, wait until you see your interview dress."

"More flames?"

"Of a sort."

Katniss then turns to me. "Congratulations," I say, trying to sound pleased.

"You, too," she says, but her smile is already fading.

She heads to bed and Portia takes her place next to me on the sofa. "Good job, Peeta. So for tomorrow …."

"More flames for me, too?" I ask.

"Not literally. You'll spend most of the day with Effie and Haymitch, preparing for your interview. If you finish with your prep early enough, I'll stop by with my sketchbook, as promised."

I blink at Portia - suddenly and unexpectedly the final friend I'll ever make in my life - then give her an impulsive hug. "Thank you," I manage to choke out.

She and Cinna take their leave, and Effie goes to bed, and then it's just me and Haymitch. Haymitch pours himself another drink. I think I'm actually going to miss this sight. "You and me - we need to talk," I tell him.

He turns to me with a pained expression that is hard to interpret. "Yes," he says. "We do."

"How bad is that 11 - or how good is it?"

He shakes his head. "If I could read the Gamemakers' minds, this mentoring would be a lot easier."

"Is it going to put a target on her back?"

He sits down on a chair opposite me, and frowns at his glass of clear alcohol. "It could. It will help her attract some sponsors at the outset, too, though. It's always hard to tell, in balance, which is better. Here's what you should know. You both made a splash on the first night, but Katniss is who everyone's talking about. They've dissected her upbringing, her motivations for volunteering. They are used to thinking of only Careers as volunteers, so they're wondering if she is more prepared, more eager for the fight, than most District 12 tributes. Some of the Career mentors have actually approached me about her joining them."

"Really? Is it really that hard for them to comprehend volunteering for your little sister? When she -."

Haymitch puts up his hand and I swallow my words. "Let's stick to subjects we can resolve. I've tried to keep you together so you can both benefit from her popularity, but there's only so far that can go. Sorry."

I smile at this. "You don't need to apologize. I get it. So, now what? Is there a way we can mitigate this situation at the interviews tomorrow? Take the target off her back, or - something?"

He transfers his frowns to me. "You need to worry about yourself, boy."

I shake my head. "That's what we need to talk about. I'm not going home - if I didn't realize it before tonight, I do now. There's no way I'll be able to fight off the Careers. If I try to stay out of their way, I'll just starve to death - and that's the best case scenario."

"That's no way to go in," he replies. Not that he can contradict what I'm saying.

"There's no other way for me. But what I want - what I really want - is for Katniss to get out."

"Look, that's very chivalrous of you, but -."

"It's more than that," I object. "She's Twelve - she's one of us - she's -."

"-but, as your mentor, I can't actively choose one of you over the other. Impossible task though it is, I need to try to keep both of you alive."

I frown through this for a moment. What he's saying can't be true; there's no reasonable way he could do it. "Well - that's … what if I put it this way? Can you figure out a way to keep me alive long enough to help keep her alive?"

"Did you have something in mind?"

"Yeah - get me in with the Careers."

The next morning, my sense of calm self-assurance has returned, but with it a feeling of anxiety. Katniss is not going to be happy with me today. I will likely die with her loathing me. But my strategy will hopefully be evident to the watching audience, and that will be preserved on tape - my own shot at immortality. Eventually, she'll understand.

Over breakfast, Haymitch murmurs instructions to Effie and I pretend to doodle on the top of the table. Katniss joins in much later. She looks relaxed and she's hungry. The girl can eat, there's no question. This morning, she piles a plate high with rice and lamb stew, and she's wolfing it down as soon as her butt hits her chair. We're silent. Effie is looking at a clipboard, absently tapping a pencil against it. Haymitch is drawing circles around the rim of his empty glass. I stare down at the table.

"So what's going on?" asks Katniss, suddenly stopping and, as if sensing something wrong, eyeing us. "You're coaching us on interviews today, right?"

"That's right," says Haymitch.

"You don't have to wait until I'm done. I can listen and eat at the same time."

"Well, there's been a change of plans. About our current approach." Haymitch glances at me and I brace myself. He shrugs. "Peeta has asked to be coached separately."