Chapter Text
The fate's already fucked me sideways
Swinging by my neck from the family tree
He'll laugh and say: You know I raised you bеtter than this
Then leavе me hanging so they all can laugh at me
Family Tree (Intro) - Ethel Cain
“Who do you think is behind this?”, I asked Katniss, breaking the silence. We walked back all the way from Haymitch’s hut without pronouncing a single word, too overwhelmed with everything the older man had told us. It all seemed too surreal.
“I don't know. The government, maybe?” She guessed. “It could be just a conspiracy theory, but it kind of makes sense if you think about it”
“I guess so”, we fell into silence again, thoughtful.
“We can't go to the police and tell them this”, she said. “It could put us and Prim in further danger”
I nodded in agreement. If the theory was true and it was really the government, the police could be implicated in it too. But even if not, they could become a problem if they took us for lunatics, because they would not believe us if we told them the truth. No one would believe us.
“But what do they win from this? Whoever is behind this”, I questioned. “I mean, the creatures could be products of failed experiments. It would make sense for the government -in case it’s really them- to want it being kept a secret, but why kidnap girls? That doesn’t make any sense”
“I have no idea”, she admitted. “but I have to find Prim before it's too late. The real Prim, not like Louella and her double”
It was dark when we exited Haymitch’s hut and Madge and Thom had probably finished with the papers without us, so we headed home. We arrived at her street in the Seam, the poorest part of town. It was where most of the miner families lived. Even if her mother was a doctor, her father had been a miner before he passed, so they still lived in the miner neighborhood.
All the lights inside her house were off and there was no smoke coming from the chimney, no signs of anyone inside. Her mother must have been out, working at the health center, apparently she had shifts until really late. To everyone’s surprise she hadn’t accepted any days off from work after Prim’s disappearance. Maybe she wanted something to distract her from the fact that she didn’t know where her daughter was, which was understandable, but it seemed to upset Katniss.
“I can’t bear to sleep another night in that room without my sister”, her voice was almost a whisper.
I gave her an apologetic look, because I could understand that feeling, and she didn’t deserve to go through that.
“The sentiment is shared, we could sleep together and keep ourselves company”, I joked, not really meaning what I said.
She gave me a quizzical look and my face went red, quickly regretting saying anything in fear I could have offended her. I was about to clarify that it was a joke when she spoke again:
“Really?”, Katniss asked. “Can I stay at yours?”
“I mean-”
“Just for a night”
“I don’t know”, I said. “Won’t your mother worry if she comes back and doesn’t see you at home?”
“Please”
I sighed, how could I say no to her?
“Alrigth”
My house was a mess and I didn’t know how to warn her about that. I still hadn’t done something as simple as organizing my things, dust the walls or even mopping the floor. Her seeing that made me anxious, what would she think of me? I had actively avoided inviting anyone in so no one could see the mess I had become, I damned myself for -accidentally- inviting Katniss out of all people.
We walked toward the bakery, which was placed in the center of the town. As we approached the square, the number of papers with Prim’s face on them augmented significantly. I noticed Katniss avoided looking at them.
“Buttercup?” she whispered.
I frowned, not understanding what she meant.
There was a cat in the middle of one of the streets leading to the square. Unfriendly face, orange, missing half an ear, dirty, objectively ugly. It walked in our direction, seeming to recognize Katniss.
“What are you doing here?”, she took the cat in her arms in a careless way, it was evident she wasn’t used to holding one. “Are you looking for her too?”
The cat meowed as an answer, seeming to understand her question. It was funny to see her talking to the cat, she didn’t use the usual baby voice most people talk to animals with, no, she spoke to it like if she was speaking with an actual human adult.
“Where have you been?”, she asked the cat, leaving -almost throwing- it on the floor. “Look at you all stained in coal”
She cleaned off the black powder from her hands on her shirt.
“It’s my sister’s cat”, she clarified to me. “He’s a free soul, does as he pleases”
“Are you going to leave him here?”, I asked as the cat continued his path in the opposite direction to where we had to head to.
“Don’t worry, he knows the way back home”
We watched as the cat disappeared into the dark before continuing the path towards my house in silence.
“I haven’t gotten time to clean up yet”, I warned her as I opened the door that led to the flat above the bakery.
My brothers and I always said that that door was pretty useless. Behind it there was just a small hall that led to the stairs to the flat and another door to the left that led to the bakery. Technically, you could also get home using the principal door of the bakery, the other one was just a way to get in and out of the house without having to say hi to any customers. Anyways, it served me now as a way to not show Katniss that I hadn’t put a foot downstairs yet.
I led the way upstairs as she hesitated to enter first.
My bed was unmade, the dirty dishes waited to be cleaned in the sink and my open suitcase was still on the floor.
“I apologize for the mess”, I said.
She shrugged, downplaying it.
“What do you want for dinner?”
“I’m not very hungry, but thank you”
I arched my brow. Was she even eating? She was worried sick about her sister, but she needed to eat, she needed strength to keep on looking for her.
“Pizza?” I insisted. “It’s frozen I must warn you”
“Okay”
She sat on the kitchen table observing everything with close attention as I got the pizza from the freezer and put it in the oven. I knew it wasn’t the fanciest dinner, but it was what I had around.
“Thanks for letting me stay here, I really couldn’t bear to spend another minute alone with my mother, you know?” She said. “When dad died she stopped caring about us, she wasn’t there for us. I mean she was there physically, but not emotionally. She changed completely. I know she was depressed back then and now she’s better, but I don’t know, do you think I’m a bad person for wanting her to react the same way now? Her own daughter is missing and she goes to work as if nothing happened, I cannot understand her”
“You’re not a bad person”
“Hmm, I don’t know”, she sighed. “It’s just… a lot, everything. Sorry I’m not good with words”
“No, I get it”
“We have to find her”, she stated. “I don’t care what Haymitch says, I don’t think everything is lost, and I can’t just sit with my arms crossed and do nothing”
We put on some quiz show on the TV that we paid no attention to as we ate dinner. We were both exhausted, so we went to bed rather early, just after we finished cleaning the dishes, which Katniss insisted on helping with.
She said she didn’t mind sleeping on the sofa, but I couldn’t let her sleep there, not when there was an empty double bed in my parent’s room. I guess she didn’t want to overstep by sleeping in the bed of a dead couple, but she would be far more comfortable there, so, after insisting for a bit, she accepted.
I was awoken by some noise. At first I wasn’t very sure if I was dreaming it or not, but I was in my bed and, even half asleep, I was pretty sure I was hearing some chatting downstairs.
It came to my attention that the shadowy creature that watched me every night wasn’t there, it was the first time this happened since before the accident. I frowned, suddenly feeling weirded out at the idea of it going away.
I got up from bed with the intention of following those voices downstairs. It was probably just Katniss and someone else, but I wanted to check, just in case it wasn’t really her. The door to my parents room was closed, so I couldn’t see if she was still sleeping inside or not, I wasn’t going to open it like some weirdo just to make sure. I tried to make as little noise as possible to not wake her up in case she was sleeping.
As I descended the stairs the voices became a bit clearer and I felt a lump in my throat as I began to recognize them.
Was I dreaming?
I had never had a lucid dream before, but there was no other reasonable explanation. Unless…
“Oh, Peeta! We were waiting for you, son”, my father exclaimed.
They were all at the bakery kitchen. My father and my brothers were kneading some dough on the table, with their arms and aprons all stained with flour. I calculated that it must be around four in the morning, the hour my brothers and I started to work every day to help with the bread before going to school.
Dad, Rye and Pan seemed happy to see me. They looked good, healthy.
I couldn’t say the same about my mother.
She observed me from a corner with a terrible expression. She was mad at me, I could tell it, I had seen that look a million times before.
But there was something else wrong with her. Her eyes had no iris or pupils, pearl white. There was blood all over the right side of her head coming from a wound there that had sunken part of her skull. I wanted to throw up at the sight.
No one else seemed to notice the state she was in, they acted too normal, like this was how she looked every day. There was no way they hadn’t seen her eyes or the blood on her face.
“Mom?”, my voice was no more than a whisper, too scared of upsetting her.
She didn’t move a muscle, though. It seemed to be one of those days in which her anger led her to ignore us and act as if we didn’t exist. It still hurt, her silent treatment created an unbearable atmosphere of anxiety, but I preferred that, at least those days none of us showed up to school with a black eye.
“Don’t mind her, you know how she is”, Pan commented as he continued making bread.
“Why didn’t you join us earlier? Two extra hands would be helpful with the dough”, Rye protested.
“Let him be, he looks tired”, dad said. “He needed that extra time of sleep”
I was speechless. I had dreamed about them tons of times since the accident, but never like this. I was never aware that I was dreaming before I woke up to remember my entire family was dead. But now it was different, I was here completely aware of everything, I could do whatever I wanted. So I took a step forward and hugged my dad like I hadn't in a very long time, feeling his strong arms around me. At that moment I felt like a kid again.
This was something foreign to me, my father rarely showed us this kind of affection, he always tried to be more subtle about it. Mother would get mad if he was too soft with us, she hated him for being too soft. She thought that was a debility. She had a lot of wrong opinions.
I hadn’t noticed how much I had missed him until then. My father was a kind man and, although he had never stepped up to defend my brothers and I from mother’s abuse, his kind arms were always there to console us afterwards. He wasn’t perfect, but he did his best. I was so lucky to have him.
But this embrace wasn’t real. He wasn’t really there, none of them were. They were gone forever and I was left alone.
“Peeta?”
I opened my eyes to find they were no longer in the bakery kitchen. I looked around, there was no sign of anyone baking in there for a long time. Everything was as dusty and inhabited as I guessed it would be. Katniss was behind me, though, looking like she had just woken up completely horrified.
“I’m sorry”, I said, embarrassed as I noticed I was crying. “I’m sorry I-”
I was struggling to keep breathing, it felt as if there was no air in the room. I had to sit on the floor in fear I might pass out. God this was pathetic. I was having a nervous crisis in front of my childhood crush. What would she think of me?
“I am so sorry”
“No, I heard them too”
I blinked, confused.
“You saw them?”
“No, I guess they were already gone when I arrived”, she said, sounding worried. “But I heard their voices”
I waved my head, incredulous. I should have known it hadn’t been just a dream. They weren’t ghosts, not really, not entirely. This was something like the creature we had seen in the forest.
“We have to do something”, my voice was shaky. “Whatever it is that’s behind all of this has to stop or this entire town will go crazy”
“Yes”, she said before pausing for a moment. “Are you alright?”, she asked, carefully.
I nodded, wiping away the tears from my eyes.
“Let’s get back to sleep”, she said.
I wasn’t going to be able to go back to sleep, not that night, not for a while. Not after witnessing my mother in that state. That image would haunt my dreams for a long time after that. I was so grateful Katniss had come to my help. I don’t know what would have happened that night if I had been alone.
“Katniss”
“Yes?”
“Thank you”
She nodded and I followed her upstairs.