Chapter Text
For the 6th time this week I walked out of the woods with empty hands. Every animal has gone into hidding and all the plants are dead. There's nothing. Nothing to eat. Kantiss knows as the winter goes on like this she and Prim will not survive.
The idea of seeing Prim die is to much. She has to find an other option. She knows there is one but it’s something she detests having to do. Something she promised to do never. But right no she doens't she an other option. She has to sell herself to one of the peacekeepers. Her biggest hop is the headpeacekeeper but the got recently a new one and she doens't know if he will except it. Gray loved to break the young girls that came to his house, but this new peacekeeper looks so much younger and stronger. It will not surprise her if he let her kill her for only asking. But she doens't have a choice so she preparing for the worst.
Katniss starts walking to the peacekeeperheadquarters. A place she never came before. It's all ready let when she begins her walk to the place so it's reallty cold outside. She feels the cold everywhere on here body. Especially at her feet, which are soaked through by the deep snow she has to keep wading through.
With every step she gets it colder and and at every step she wonders whether this was really a good idea. What if he hangs her. Then will Prim have nobody. Then reminds she herself that if she doesn't do it she also will have nobody because they will die from the cold and hunger. So she goes further.
After a five-minute walk through the snow, Katniss arrives, soaked to the skin. She fears for her life and that of her little sister, but she overcomes her fear and knocks on the large wooden door of the headquarters. She straightens her back. ‘I can do anything,’ she tells herself. ‘I’ve survived for so long. I can do this too.’
She waits a few seconds, and then the door opens. Immediately, she feels the warmth against her face. A young peacekeeper called Darius, whom Katniss knows from the Hob, opens the door and looks at her with sad eyes. He knows what she’s come to do, and he knows why.
He knows that the forests are frozen and that there is no more food to be found. He also knows that this is her last shred of pride and that she is giving it up in order to survive.
Katniss glances at him briefly but immediately feels a wave of embarrassment wash over her. Darius lets her in, and the moment she steps inside, she feels the warmth even more keenly. She feels a tingling in her ice-cold toes, and it almost hurts. Here, they have the money to keep warm and eat their fill, but in the Seam they have neither. She hates Panem’s system, but she forces herself to look past it because she’s here for a reason.
Darius leads her through the corridors to a large door. He looks at her one last time as if to say she can still turn back now, but Katniss has no choice. She thanks the Peacekeeper and is left standing alone in front of the door. She waits two seconds before raising her fist to knock.
She knocks twice, firmly, and almost immediately she hears a deep voice say he’s coming.
The door opens and there stands a man, or maybe more like a young man. She has never seen him from this close before, and she has to admit that he is handsome, maybe even more than handsome. He looks like he is about twenty-one years old, with curly blond hair and green eyes. For a few seconds Katniss almost forgets why she is standing here, but then she remembers and immediately looks down at the floor. She feels embarrassed again and suddenly doesn't know what to say. She had thought about this moment the whole way here, but now that she is finally standing in front of him, all the words she had prepared seem to have disappeared.
“What do you want?” he asks. His voice is deep, but there is something calm about it. It is not the voice she remembers from Gray, and there is no cruel smile on his face. Katniss looks up at him and takes a deep breath. “I... I need something.” The young Peacekeeper doesn't say anything and just waits for her to continue. “My sister needs food,” she finally says. She tries to keep her voice steady, but she can hear the fear in it herself. The Peacekeeper looks at her for a moment before his eyes move down to her wet clothes and the snow still covering her boots. “You walked here like that?” he asks. Katniss nods. She doesn't understand why it matters how she got here. She is here now, and that is all that matters.
“There is no food anymore,” she says, speaking a little faster now because she wants to get it over with. “The forest is frozen. There are no plants left and I haven't caught anything in days. My sister is hungry.” She looks at him, waiting for his answer, but he just keeps looking at her. Katniss can feel her heart beating faster and faster. She knows what he is thinking. She knows what everyone would think if they saw her standing in the house of a Peacekeeper like this. A girl from the Seam doesn't come to a Peacekeeper's house in the middle of winter for no reason. There is only one thing they would think she came for, and Katniss hates herself for being here.
“I heard you might be able to help me,” she says quietly. The words feel horrible coming out of her mouth, but she forces herself to keep looking at him. For a few seconds there is complete silence between them. Then his expression changes. It isn't a smile, and it isn't the cruel look she remembers from Gray. It is something else, something that almost looks like pity. Katniss immediately hates it. She doesn't want his pity. She doesn't want him to feel sorry for her. She just wants food for Prim.
“I can help you,” he finally says.
Katniss's heart jumps for a second, but before she can say anything, he continues. “But not in the way you think.” She freezes and looks at him with confusion. He steps aside and opens the door a little wider. “Come inside. You're freezing.” Katniss doesn't move. Every part of her tells her that this is a bad idea. She came here knowing exactly what she was willing to do, and now he is making everything different. “I don't need anything else,” she says, trying to sound stronger than she feels. “I just need food.” The young Peacekeeper looks at her for a moment before answering. “I know.”
He looks at her again, this time more carefully, and Katniss suddenly feels like he can see right through her. “And I know why you came here.” Her face immediately turns red and she looks away. She wants to leave. She wants to walk back into the snow and pretend that she never came here in the first place, but then she thinks about Prim lying at home, cold and hungry, and she knows she can't leave. She takes one last breath and finally steps inside. The warmth immediately surrounds her, making her cold skin almost hurt, but she doesn't care. She has come here for Prim, and she will do whatever she has to do to make sure her little sister survives.