The Beauty Beneath The Beast

Chapter 9: Katniss

I feel betrayed. I feel lied to. I feel used. I know I love him, I know he loves me. But I still don't know how to feel about what he said. I know he didn't lie to me, but he never told me the truth either. But that's not why I cry.

I cry for my little sister. She's dead. My little duck is gone. I will never see her again. I cry myself to sleep and when I wake up, I feel numb, hollow. Like part of my soul has been ripped out. I look at the wall and what catches my eye is the beautiful painting Peeta had given me.

The magnificent stag in the autumn time forest. I don't know why, but since the day I first laid eyes on it, I have felt a presence I haven't felt in eleven years. I feel my father with me. As though he's standing by my side.

"Daddy," I whisper "What am I supposed to do now? She's gone. How am I supposed to go on?" I get frustrated and turn away from it. "What am I kidding myself! You're not really here! You're just a painting!" I throw myself onto my bed and start crying again.

"Somebody, please tell me this is just a bad dream. Please tell me I'll wake up tomorrow in the cottage and my parents will still be alive and Prim will be out in the meadow riding Lady," I cry. I just lie there and sob, trying to understand how I ended up like this. No family and in love with someone who could be so cruel as to lock a twelve year old in a dungeon just to get me here.

I'm startled as I feel a small warm hand on my shoulder. I lift my head to see a small girl, about five, standing aglow in a soft blue light, holding a small white bundle.

"But if this were all a dream," the girl says. "What would happen to us?" I get up and back away from her.

"Who are you?" I ask. "What do you want with me?"

"We are Peeta's children," she says. "The children you will one day give him."

"How is it possible?" I ask. "You can't be here. You haven't been born. I never intend for you to be born. I swore off children of my own a long time ago." The little girl smiles at me, Peeta's blue eyes shining mischievously from where they set in a face very like my own.

"Father is very persuasive," she says smiling down at the baby in her arms. "Thats how you got me. My brother, on the other hand, well he was your idea."

"I'm sorry I wish I'd never met him, but what he did," I start but the girl raises her hand to stop me.

"The man who did that was a desperate person, whose good honest, loyal heart had been tarnished by years of ridicule and loneliness. It was his last chance, his only chance. He loves you with all his heart, Mother," she says.

"But my sister's gone," I say. "She died because she came looking for me."

"That was not Father's fault," she says. "He made sure she got home safely. She went to Gale, to ask him to come look for you. He refused. She went out by herself, got lost in a storm. But she never came back."

"She isn't dead?" I ask her, hope in my eyes.

"No Mother," she says smiling. "She is very alive. Living on the coal mountain, using the skills you taught her so well." She looks down at the baby in her arms. "The skills you will one day teach us."

"I need to find her," I say but my daughter holds up her hand.

"She will return," she says. "But it must be on her own. This is her destiny, just as saving father was yours."

"But, I," I start but she reaches out and lays a hand on my cheek.

"I know," she says. "I would want to do the same if it were my brother in her place. But you cannot play with fate. You must allow Prim to write her own destiny. You must have faith." I hear a soft knock on the door.

"Katniss?" Peeta says through the door. "I know you're probably still mad at me, but please come eat something." I turn to my little girl and she smiles.

"It's time fore us to part," she says. "But within' a year, we'll meet again" She starts to fade away into the blue lights.

"Wait," I say. "Can I at least know your names?" She laughs as she starts to fade away.

"Mommy, you already know them in your heart," she says with a smile as she, the baby, and the light disappears. I turn to the door and open it.

"Katniss, I'm so sorry abo-," Peeta starts but I press my fingers to his lips.

"Shhh," I say. "You have nothing to be sorry for."

"But your sister," he starts.

"Is in the mountains, alive and making her way back to us," I say.

"But Gale said," he says.

"He lied," I say. "She's still alive, using what I taught her to survive out there and get back here. She's looking for me."

"How do you know that?" he asks me.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," I say.

"Try me," he dares.

"I saw our future, Peeta," I say. "Our children came and visited me. A little girl and a baby boy. They were perfect."

"You really saw them?" he asks, smiling so brightly.

"Yes," I say. "I didn't believe it, but she just looked to much like me to not be ours. But she had your eyes."

"She sounds beautiful," he says.

"And she'll be ours very soon," I say. "Some day in the near future."

"I love you," he says.

"I love you too," I say before I pull him into a kiss, the first of many.