Sparks Fly

Chapter 12

Someone gives my shoulder a shake and I sit up. I've fallen asleep with my face on the table, the white cloth leaving creases on my good cheek. The other, the one that took the lash from Thread, throbs painfully. Gale's lays still, dead to the world. I smell fresh bread and turn my stiff neck to find Peeta looking down at me with a tired, but warm expression.

"Go on up to bed, Katniss. I'll look after him now," he says.

"Peeta. About what I said yesterday, about running—" I begin.

"I know," he says. "There's nothing to explain."

I see the loaves of bread on the counter in the pale, snowy morning light. The blue shadows under his eyes. I wonder if he slept at all. Couldn't have been long. I think of his agreeing to go with me yesterday, his stepping up beside me to protect Gale, his willingness to throw his lot in with mine entirely when I've given him so little in return. The words I uttered to Gale in the silence of the woods yesterday threaten to resurface. "Peeta—"

"Just go to bed, okay?" he says. Then, more gently, he tucks a strand of hair behind my hair and kisses my forehead. "Get some sleep, Katniss," he whispers, leading me to the stairs.

I stumble my way up, crawl under the covers, and fall asleep at once. At some point, Clove, the girl from District 2, enters my dreams. She chases me, pins me to the ground, and pulls out a knife to cut my face. It digs deeply into my cheek, opening a wide gash. Then Clove begins to transform, her face elongating into a snout, dark fur sprouting from her skin, her fingernails growing into long claws, but her eyes remain unchanged. She becomes the mutta-tion form of herself, the wolflike creation of the Capitol that terrorized us the last night in the arena. Tossing back her head, she lets out a long, eerie howl that is picked up by other mutts nearby. Clove begins to lap the blood flowing from my wound, each lick sending a new wave of pain through my face. I give a strangled cry and wake with a start, sweating and shivering at once. Cradling my damaged cheek in my hand, I remind myself that it was not Clove but Thread who gave me this wound. I wish that Peeta were here to hold me. Then I remember he's downstairs, and I scramble to look for him. The table is still occupied by a sleeping Gale, my mother now watching over him. She nods towards the sitting room when she sees the question in my eyes, and I find him with my sister at the coffee table, nibbling on a piece of bread. My heart feels a bit lighter at the sight.

Peeta and Prim have developed an endearing relationship in the days since the Victory Tour. She was the first to congratulate us on our engagement when, upon seeing us for the first time in over a week, she threw her arms around his neck, squealing "Welcome to the family, Peeta!" in his ear. He was a bit surprised at her enthusiasm, but accepted her hug happily. The next day, when he presented her with the portrait he painted of Buttercup, he immediately became her favorite person in District 12. The painting in question now hangs on the mantel, golden firelight dancing acrosses the rich yellows and oranges of the cat's fur. Even the real cat seems pleased with Peeta, the only person – other than Prim, of course – who he has allowed to pet him without so much as eliciting a single hiss.

My mother has been consistently polite, bordering on distant. It doesn't matter how wonderful of a person Peeta is – she's not exactly thrilled at the idea of her sixteen-year-old daughter getting engaged to a boy who she's just met. But we have an unspoken agreement that, in spite of the reparations we've tried to make to our relationship since the Games, she doesn't get to have a say in the going-ons of my life. That, unless asked, she is to hold her opinions on our relationship to herself. This is the only way to maintain our tentative peace.

Peeta notices me first, and his face lights up at the sight of me. "Good morning, beautiful," he says.

Prim makes a face at his use of the term of endearment, to which Peeta just flicks her nose playfully. She giggles and turns to face me. "Your cheek looks a lot better today."