A songbirds soulmate- hunger games catching fire/mockingjay fanfic

chapter 11

I can't see. My face has been masked by cloth; it has been since the show ended. I can sense my surroundings and I'm in a car, my destination: unknown. After around half an hour that I'm able to work out in my head the car comes to a halt. 

"Hello?" I ask after a few moments of silence. The door opens and I'm dragged outside. After I and Acanthus have walked a few meters I hear him smoothly open a set of gates. We enter inside and I'm directed around a few corridors and a steep, spiralling stair case. The peacekeeper shoves me out a door and I instinctively know where I am. The smell of roses is a dead giveaway. 

"Acanthus?" I ask feebly, looking around even though I still can't see. "Ac," 

"Hello Peeta." 

My wander is quickly ground to a halt; a cold chill suddenly overcomes me. Frost fills my lungs, makes it's way up my throat and out of my mouth; the ability of speaking escapes me. Without letting fear enter my mind I spin slowly, concentrating on every step I take. Each one may be my last. Finally I'm facing in the direction of the devilish old man. President Snow steps forward, his face in front of mine. The stench of blood as he breaths on me crawls up my nostrils and fuzzes my exhausted brain. The blindfold is gracefully taken from my head and the first thing I see is his deep snake-like eyes. His lips creep forward, the air he breathes entwining my ear.  

"Handsome." 

Much to my own horror, I sigh a stuttering, frightened out of my mind sigh. He knows I'm weak. He knows I'm vulnerable. A small tear rolls down my cheek and splashes on the floor. I try not look at him, his head nearly touching mine. Instead I look forward, into nothing. Snow takes a step back from me and searches his surroundings. Only us two are in the rose garden. It's quite dark apart from small lights hanging from towering trees above our heads. The lights illuminate different colours reflecting from the roses circling the both of us. Flashes of colour dart across the ground patching shades of red, pink, blue, green and many other's bellow my feet. 

The President walks around me; the balls of his feet gently rolling on and off the floor. Once he is behind me he reaches out his arm and twiddles with the chain on my handcuffs for a few moments.  

"I was like you once." He begins in a graceful yet lingering tone. "When I was young. Brave, strong, not bad with women." He laughs lightly at the remark. I remain physically paralysed.  

"We." I start but I hastily bite my tongue.  

"We?" 

"We. Are nothing... alike." I cry mercifully. 

"Well I beg to differ. Or, at least you will be. Soon." At this I spin rapidly, now facing him once again. I begin to speak but he stops me with a quick lift of his hand.  

"Now, Peeta it's not the time for questions." He walks over to a bush filled with midnight blue roses. A sort I've never seen grow back in District 12.  

"For now it's time for you to rest." Then he pulls a petal from the rose, and before I have the time or the energy to react, the petals in my mouth. And I'm on the floor. 

*

I wake up slowly, yawning and fluttering my eyes. I'm back in my cell; the others are laying half motionless ether on their floors or their beds. Mine is still broken. I roll my sleepy eyes upwards, first I see Avel. Then the empty cell, then Johanna. I turn my head; then Darius who is bandaged but as white as a sheet. I'm guessing loss of blood. Next, Annie then what should have been Effie's cell, Lavinia's now empty one. Then the last one, empty. Empty! 

"Johanna, where's Enobaria?"