74th - part 15
katniss’s pov
Everyone’s muttering when Johanna and I enter the viewing room the next morning. For a second, I wonder if they’re talking about Johanna’s outburst, but nobody’s looking at us. They’re huddled around each other, heads pressed together, scheming about something. I raise an eyebrow at Haymitch.
“Word around town is the Gamemakers want to finish it today,” he grumbles.
“What do you think?”
Haymitch shrugs noncommittally. I guess it could be true. After all, it’s been a decently long Games so far and if they wait any longer, the tributes will start to freeze to death. Not an exciting finale. I look at Johanna to try and gauge her thoughts, but she just stares at the TV screen.
“Well,” Haymitch grunts as he stands, “if they start building up the suspense, come get me immediately. Don’t wanna miss the action.”
Honestly, I kind of hope it ends today. I don’t know how much more I can take. Between being in the Capitol, being away from Prim and Gale, worrying about Santhe and Cole, and watching the brutality of the Games, I can’t wait to get home. Thinking about the train back to District 12 almost makes my eyes tear up.
But I’m also dreading the finale, because I really don’t know how my tributes will manage to kill the boy from 1. I guess there’s two of them and one of him, but even then, he’s stronger and more skilled. And it would be absolutely unbearable for them to get so close to winning only to be killed in the very end.
Johanna clears her throat and I realize I’ve been staring off into space, so I sit down quickly.
“You know,” says Johanna, watching me carefully, “they say the first tributes are the hardest. I thought it was bullshit at first because, I mean, aren’t they all the hardest? But…what it means is…you really believe in your first two, yknow? You think they have what it takes…”
Is she trying to comfort me? Because it’s not helping, but she’s right. I believe in Santhe and Cole.
“And I’m not saying you’re naive for believing in yours,” she hastily adds, “I’m just saying…” She sighs and her face hardens, like she’s angry. “It’s brutal being a mentor. Nobody understands until they have to do it themselves.”
I know what she means. “I thought Haymitch was useless,” I confess. “Up until…well, I still think he’s an idiot. But I don’t blame him. For being drunk and angry all the time.”
“You know, he believed in you and Peeta from the beginning,” Johanna says. It’s nice to hear. I smile as she continues, “I thought he was crazy for thinking you’d both get out alive, but then…”
My smile falls, because we didn’t get out alive, even though we should’ve. Haymitch did get us out alive, but the Capitol was too slow picking us up. Or I didn’t do enough in the cave to save Peeta. I still haven’t quite decided who to blame. “Peeta should’ve won,” I mutter.
Johanna doesn’t say anything.
“Everyone knows it. Peeta was supposed to win.”
“Bullshit. He wouldn’t have lasted 10 minutes without you,” she insists. “And if he was here in your place, he’d be saying the exact same thing. Everyone knows that. You saved his ass and your own, so trust me, you earned the right to be a victor.” She gives me a firm look, like she’s daring me to try and argue.
For a moment, I consider telling Johanna about everything. The Victory Tour, Snow’s warning, what Haymitch said about playing the game. I didn’t tell her before because I wasn’t sure if I could trust her, but I’ve changed my mind. I want to trust her. She was vulnerable last night, and she sort of trusted me. I’ve seen sides of Johanna that I wouldn’t have believed existed when I first met her. And I think we’re sort of friends, despite only calling each other allies.
While I’m considering all of this, Johanna watches me with steady eyes, waiting patiently for me to speak. I never thought I’d see her do anything patiently.
“I miss him,” I blurt. It’s not what I wanted to say at all, and I immediately wish I could take it back.
Johanna barely reacts. “Did you really…yknow,” she says quietly, “love him?”
Did I love him? I look for him everywhere I go. In the Capitol, in District 12. I owe him my life, because even though I saved him in the cave, he saved me in the fight with Cato, and probably in the interviews if we’re being honest. And he saved me in the rain. Me, my mother, and Prim. I owe Peeta Mellark a debt I can never repay. I miss him, and I know I miss him…but did I love him?
“I don’t know.”
Johanna considers this for a moment. “Honestly, I thought it was fake when I watched you in the Games,” she admits with a small grin. “But…you’re grieving. Trust me, I…I know grief when I see it.”
“So you think I loved him?”
“I said you’re grieving him. Don’t put words in my mouth.” She stares at me for a moment, then breaks into a smirk. “That ‘cousin’ of yours…was he your boyfriend before the Games?”
I’ve only mentioned Gale a few times to Johanna, but one time I forgot to call him my cousin. I was talking about the first time that we were chased by a pack of wild dogs and I accidentally blurted “my friend, Gale” before I could think about it.
“No. I told you, he’s just a friend,” I insist.
“So have you ever had a boyfriend? I mean…besides…”
I shake my head, cutting her off. I don’t know what sparked her sudden curiosity in my love life, but maybe we’ve just run out of things to talk about after so many watches together.
Johanna gapes at me. “No fucking way. But you’re…you…never?” Honestly, I don’t understand why it’s so hard to believe. “Not even like, as a kid or something?”
“Have you had a boyfriend?” I counter.
She smirks. “We’re not talking about me.”
Well, I guess if I considered trusting her earlier, telling her this is nothing in comparison. “I kissed Gale, but he wasn’t my boyfriend. And…” Johanna raises her eyebrows eagerly. “I kissed a girl.”
Johanna’s mouth falls open comically. “Seriously?”
“Right before my Games,” I chuckle.
“Oh, well now you have to tell me everything.”
“I thought you hated kissing,” I say suspiciously, but Johanna just laughs.
“Please, I hated watching kids kiss in the arena,” she replies, swatting the air with her hand. “This is something totally different, and it’s gay, which is much better than straight kissing, in my humble opinion…” I could swear she winks at me, but maybe I imagined it.
Before I can make sense of what Johanna just said, a bunch of yelling from the other side of the viewing room snaps both of our heads toward the screen. The boy from 1 is walking right by the cave where my tributes are camped out, and it looks like he just heard them talking. Now he’s trying to track them down. This is it. I can hear people yelling, “FINALE!”
“Should we get Haymitch and Blight?” I ask Johanna.
She shakes her head without looking away from the screen. “No time. If we go now, we might miss it.”
“But he said—”
“Katniss, people are screaming all over the Capitol right now, which means Blight definitely woke up. Effie’s awake and watching in your living room, so she’ll get Haymitch. We’re staying put. Now pay attention to your fucking tributes.”
Although I wish she wouldn’t have been so aggressive about it, I kind of needed that. Otherwise, I would’ve run off to get Haymitch and missed the moment where my tributes need my support more than ever. Even though there’s nothing to do but watch, I never would have forgiven myself for not being here.
The boy from 1 has found the cave. Out of pure terror, I grab Johanna’s hand and squeeze it like a vise, forcing myself to not look away from the screen. The boy accidentally snaps a twig under his shoe, and both Santhe and Cole leap up into a defensive position. They’re each armed with a knife, and the boy from 1 has a shortsword. He stands at the mouth of the cave, waiting just out of sight.
“Come out,” shouts the boy. “I know you’re in there.”
Santhe looks at Cole and makes a motion toward the back of the cave. In the semidarkness, I can just barely see Cole nod before they slowly creep deeper, crawling through the opening into the tunnel system. Meanwhile, the boy from 1 stays outside, yelling threats but not daring to round the corner. I’m sure he thinks that his only hope is to flush them out.
Santhe and Cole manage to escape into the tunnel system, then she leads him over to another small opening. There’s no way she knows where it goes. They haven’t explored this area, at least from what I’ve seen and from what Haymitch and Blight told me.
“They’re trying to find another way out,” Johanna murmurs next to me. “Then they can catch him off guard. Genius.”
It will be, if it works. Somehow, they manage to find a way out, squinting at the light of day as they emerge from a nearby cave. Santhe holds up a hand to stop Cole in his tracks, listening for a moment. Then the boy from 1 yells loud enough for them to hear him, and she races off in his direction.
He never even sees them coming. Cole gets up behind him, grabbing him in a bearhug, while Santhe slits his throat.
“It’s over,” I say, loosening my grip on Johanna’s hand.
“It’s over,” she agrees.
I drop her hand and murmur, “Sorry.”
“It’s ok,” says Johanna softly. “You were scared. Shit, I was scared too. That was fucking intense.”
In the arena, Santhe and Cole are hugging. I feel like I can breathe normally again, and suddenly I’m overwhelmed with an urge to hug Johanna. We made it through this, together, and now my tributes are going home. But instead of hugging Johanna, I just smile at her. My ally. I couldn’t have done this without her.
As I stare at Johanna, the announcement begins, and I watch the color drain from her face.
“The previous revision has been revoked,” Claudius declares. The words slice through me, sending me back to this very moment a year ago. Before I lost Peeta. “Only one victor may be crowned. If you refuse to fight, you will face the consequences. As always, may the odds be ever in your favor…”
The consequences. He didn’t say “you will both be killed,” he said “face the consequences.” Honestly, it’s more terrifying than if he’d threatened death. The Capitol is capable of untold horror, like the mutts, and who knows what Snow has planned if they refuse to fight?
But I know what’s going to happen before it does: they lower their weapons and hold each others’ hands, then salute with three fingers to the sky. If they’re going to face the consequences, they’re going to do it together, with dignity. I’d respect it if I didn’t want them to come home so badly.
Johanna takes my hand again, wordlessly.
Suddenly, an explosion rings out through the speakers, and I watch Santhe get shot in the head. The blood starts to pour from her before Cole can register what happened, and she tumbles to the ground. I don’t know where the shot came from, but it makes my body tense up and now Cole’s screaming, bending over Santhe’s body, begging her to wake up…
I distantly feel my body start to shake. Suddenly, I can smell the scent of blood. Cato’s pleading with me from under the Cornucopia and I can see his mutilated body under the mutts, blood everywhere, his screams fading to low wails as he becomes weaker. His screams stop and instead I’m the one screaming, bent over Peeta who is not dead because he can’t be dead. He cannot be dead. We’re going home, and this can’t be the way I lose the boy with the bread.
I think I actually screamed, because now everyone’s staring at me and Johanna’s ushering me out the door. Into the elevator. Somehow we end up in my quarters. She stands in front of me as I sit on my bed, she’s asking me something but I can’t understand it, she’s trying to get me to look at her. I don’t feel like I’m present. I’m back in a hospital room, realizing that Peeta’s not coming to get me. I touch the outside of my reconstructed ear and realize I can hear.
“Katniss, can you tell me where we are?” Johanna says patiently. “We’re safe. We’re not in the arena. Can you tell me what this building’s called?”
“The Tribute Center,” I say, fumbling over the words.
“Yes. The Tribute Center,” Johanna sighs. She’s crouched on the ground in front of me, watching me with a pained expression. Slowly, she stands up and assesses me. “Can I do anything for you?”
“Stay,” I murmur in a voice that doesn’t sound like my own. I sound weak. I feel weak.
Her expression softens. “Ok,” she says, sitting down next to me so that our shoulders touch. “I’ll stay.”
I exhale deeply, feeling a weight lift off my chest as I fall backwards onto the bed. Johanna does the same, and I kind of wish I could ask her to hold me, but that would just be too much. Too weird. It’s weird enough that I asked her to stay and comfort me. I should be able to handle this on my own.
“You get better at managing it after a couple years,” she says, as if reading my mind. “Not a lot better, but…a little. Like, now I know to get the fuck out of the situation so I can calm down. I used to try and tough it out.”
“Why’d you ask me what building we’re in?” I ask.
She scoffs quietly. “Because you thought you were in the arena, right?”
“At first, but then I thought I was in the hospital.”
“Hmm,” she replies. She stretches her arms toward the ceiling and groans, then rolls over onto her stomach and looks at me. “Well, for future reference, it helps if you try to pay attention to your surroundings. And it helps if there’s someone else there to make you say it out loud.”
I nod. Has Johanna really dealt with this for three years? I never bothered to ask Haymitch, but I figured I couldn’t be the only victor who felt this wrecked by the arena. I just wish it wouldn’t take control of me like this.
“Do you get the nightmares?” I quietly ask Johanna. Nightmares aren’t a new thing to me, since I’ve had them about my dad for several years now. But if Johanna knows how to handle whatever just happened to me, maybe she has some kind of tip for the nightmares.
“‘Do you get the nightmares,’” Johanna scoffs. “Of course I get them, brainless.”
“What do you do about them?”
“Nothing.”
“Do they…” I want to ask if they get better, but I think I already know the answer. Johanna shakes her head to confirm. She looks so fragile, like she might fall apart if I touch her. But then she notices me watching her and rolls back over to stare at the ceiling, emotionless.
Once the panic is gone, the full force of losing Santhe finally hits me. She’s dead. Not going home. Shot by Snow. I feel like my chest has been hollowed out. I believed she’d come home, she believed she’d come home…she hugged Cole after they killed the boy from 1. She was supposed to come home after that. She and Cole, together.
Cole. He’s still in the arena. The thought makes me leap off the bed and race into the living room, with Johanna calling after me.
Haymitch and Effie are sitting on the couch with the TV turned off, talking to each other in hushed voices. When I come into the room, they instantly turn to me and fall silent. Effie’s been crying, based on the state of her makeup. She takes a brief look at me before bursting into a fresh round of tears.
“We have to get Cole,” I say thickly.
“No, we don’t,” Haymitch sighs. “They’re still working on healing him. We have about four hours until we have to leave.”
“No, we can’t leave him there, we have to—”
“Katniss,” Johanna says, suddenly standing next to me, “he’s safe. You just have to wait to see him, but he’s ok.”
Why is she being so nice to me? I mean sure, I guess I’d do the same for her, and I’ve been wondering for a while if we’re actually friends now instead of allies. If we are friends, I guess it makes sense why Johanna wants to look out for me. But still, I don’t understand why she’s being so gentle about it.
I make Haymitch promise to get me before he goes to pick up Cole, then walk back into my room. Johanna follows me, thankfully, and we spend the next few hours lying on my bed. Although we talk a little, we mostly just stay there in silence, because her presence is enough to keep me from spinning out again.
And when it’s time for me to go get my tribute, she doesn’t say goodbye. She just looks at me for a moment, then leaves the apartment without another word.