Captured || Book 1

Chapter 24 | Going to War :(

Peeta's POV

I sit in the dining hall with Delly, as she holds my hand tightly. I pick at my food, but don't put any in my mouth, I just play with it.

"What's wrong?" Delly asks as she eats her own food.

"You don't wanna know," I tell her. I've been reluctant to tell anybody, especially Prim and her mother. I feel as if it would break their hearts.

"No, I do wanna know," she says. "What is it?"

"It's Coin," I answer. "She's... sending me to war."

"What?" She says, shocked. "She can't send you to war, you're way too valuable to this rebellion."

"Well, now I'm more valuable on battle ground," I say. 

"Oh, please don't go, Peeta!" She begs. "I couldn't live if I had lost you!"

"Well, it's not really my choice!" I say, kind of rudely. "I agreed to be their Mockingjay and this is what I get for doing that! I get to walk into a death trap!"

She stays quiet for a minute and then asks, "Who else is going?"

"Boggs, Gale, Finnick, and some others." I answer her quietly. "Finnick and Annie will be getting married before he has to leave... you should come."

"I will," she answers softly. "I just don't want you to go to war. It's not fair that they're forcing you to go!"

"Yeah," I agree. "It's not fair... but I'm going... as long as I can end this war."

I don't tell her the fact that I had fought with Coin for so long, trying to make her change her mind. But not for Delly's sake, like some may have thought, but I wanted to stay for Katniss. She is doing so good in her therapy and I'm afraid if I'm gone for a day it will all go downhill. 

"Well, will they at least give you some training before you go?" She asks.

"Yeah," I answer. "But not much, only a couple weeks worth before we have to leave. We'll be mostly learning things we already know anyways. We learned it the first couple weeks we were here."

"Well, can I come if I do some training?" She suddenly asks.

"What?" I ask, shocked. "You, in war? I don't think that's a very good mix." I laugh a little.

"Well, why not?" She asks. "If you can go shouldn't I be able to? I could handle."

"I'm sure you could handle it," I say, partly lying. "But this sort of thing requires more than just a few weeks of training."

"But your only getting a few weeks of training!"

"Believe it or not I survived the Hunger Games... twice!" I smile.

"I would have never guessed," she jokes. "But I seem to have helped your mood a lot. So your welcome, I guess."

"Yeah, you did lighten my mood!" I say truthfully. 

"Good!" She smiles. "I like when you're happy!"

"Happy is a strong word for the given circumstances."

"Well, you're as close to happy as you can be when your about to go to war." She says. "Hey! Look over there!" She says, pointing behind me. I turn around and see Katniss walk in with two guards behind her and handcuffs around her wrists whilst holding a tray of food. She must really be getting better because this is the first time they've let her come into the dining hall to eat with everyone else.

She walks over with the guards and takes a seat across from us, keeping her eyes low.

"Hi, Katniss," I say with a smile.