If Fire Caught

Chapter 6: Katniss

I jolt up from a nightmare and feel my baby rapidly moving around. I look around for Peeta but see that he isn't here. I get up and walk to the next car, which is a glorified sitting room. Peeta sits on the couch watching one of the old games.

"Couldn't sleep?" he asks.

"Of course not," I say. "I get a nightmare, get upset which just get him agitated," I say referring to the baby."Which just makes me more upset and it's a vicious cycle." Peeta opens his arms and I don't hesitate to go into them. He holds me tight and buries his head into my hair. His warm breath on my neck warms my body and makes me feel better.

"I'm sorry," he whispers again.

"I'm so angry at you I could just kill you right now," I say. "But I can't. I know why you did it, but that doesn't mean I like it."

"I know you don't," he says. "But I couldn't let you go in there with that drunk. I thought this was the only way to protect you."

"What are you watching?" I ask him, pulling away as a Capital attendant sets two mugs of hot chocolate in front of us.

"Haymitch's games," he says. "Its the only quell we have to refer to. The other winner is already dead so Effie couldn't get the tape."

"How do you think he won?" I ask.

"I think he out smarted them," Peeta says. "I think he figured out something that allowed him to outlast the rest of them." I hear a scream from the TV and look up to see Haymitch running through the jungle, towards the scream. When he gets there he watches as a flock of candy pink birds pierce the throat of a girl that looks eerily like Madge Undersee. On her jacket there is a pin that looks eerily familiar.

"Is that your Mockingjay pin?" Peeta asks.

"Madge said it was her aunt's," I say. "Her aunt was Maysilee Donner."

"So your pin was already in the Hunger Games long before you went?" he asks.

"I guess so," I say.

"Then why was it such a big deal for you to wear it?" he asks.

"The Capitol probably didn't want to see it again," I say. "Why does the Capitol do any of this? We aren't gonna live long enough to know."

We turn back to the screen to see Haymitch running towards a cliff, holding in his guts. The girl chasing him, I think I hear the announcer say she was from 1, is wielding an ax and her eye is missing. As they reach the cliff, the girl throws the ax but misses Haymitch as he collapses from the pain. The girl too collapses and it looks like one of them is just going to have to outlast the other. Suddenly the ax returns and lodges itself in the girl's skull, killing her and naming Haymitch the winner.

"How, how did that happen?" I ask Peeta. "How is that possible?"

"There was a forcefield on the edge of the arena," he says. "Haymitch figured it out just before you came in here."

"It's like the roof of the training center," I say.

"I know," he says.

"I don't want to go back in there," I cry.

"I know," he says. He gently rubs my back and grazes over the wrapping I use to try to hide our baby. "Why are you still hiding him?"

"Because the Capitol attendants are crawling all over this train and we agreed how we were going to handle this," I say referring to his plan.

"I just wish it didn't have to be this way," he says. "I wish we could be happy about him."

"I wish that we were both home and we were getting everything ready for when he is born," I say. "Now we don't even know if we'll have a baby."

"What are you talking about?" he asks.

"Mother is afraid that even if I make it out, the stress of all this could kill him," I say.

"Nothing is going to happen to you," he says. "I promise you that even if I don't get to be there to hold you in my arms, you are gonna get to hold our child in your arms."

To bad Peeta didn't know how tragically true his words were.