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Johanna is roused from sleep sometime around evening. They stayed an extra day, both to rest more, and so that they could leave at night. It would be hard to get over the border of the Capitol into District 2 lands to begin with, but now that the Avox have explained the situation more, or what is understood of it, it's clear that there's no chance they can take the train. They will have to go on foot.
The Avox are a great source of information. For one, they are often right next to people in power, so they overhear important decisions as they are made, and they can share information quickly among each other with handspeak. For another, they are often ignored. None of the important Capitolites thought twice about speaking in the presence of an Avox. To them, the Avox are less than human, more like animals, so it doesn't matter what they hear. Aspen has been lurking here and there in the alleys of the Capitol that haven't been bombed to rubble, and more or less has gathered the situation:
The rebels bombed the city center four days prior. President Snow and all of the council except 1 was killed. The councilor who survived, Hierophant Price of the defense council, was moving to get things in the Capitol in order, under his control. "You have to get out before they get organized," Aspen writes. "They'll be raiding buildings, I'm sure Victors will be good hostages."
Johanna likes Aspen. She's from District 7, though she's about ten years older than Johanna, and Johanna doesn't remember her. She's practical and smart, though she's far too empathetic, sticking her neck out for them far more than Johanna knows she would, had the situations been reversed. "You should come too," Johanna says. "You know they're not going to be kind to Avox."
"I have to stay here, there's work to be done."
Johanna thinks Aspen may well be killed doing this work, but she thinks Aspen understands this as well. The Avox help them pack up their bags again, and show them a map of the two best crossings to get over the border. The Capitol is surrounded by mountains, and there are Peacekeepers stationed along the border, keeping an eye out for anyone trying to sneak through, but Aspen reports they have sent Avox successfully through at these points. Enobaria looks it over and immediately picks one over the other.
"This is much lower elevation," she says. "And it's a shorter distance to get there."
Johanna bites her lips. She knows the implication. You're bad at walking, bad at climbing, you're a liability. She can't contest this, so she goes along with Enobaria's plan. She hasn't failed them so far, in fact, she's gotten them out of the prison and gotten them treatment. Even Annie has done far more then Johanna has, finding them a way out of the tunnels, and keeping her cool when the Avox first approached.
Truly, Johanna feels useless, weak and in pain all the time and holding the group back, but she so badly needs to leave the Capitol that she refuses to be left behind. No, she will drag herself despite the constant pain in her head and the nausea and the blurry vision and the fact that she feels exhausted after half a mile of walking because every step takes her further from that horrible prison and the risk of ever going back there.
Annie is hugging Aspen, whispering something in her ear. Annie is sweet like that, and affectionate. It makes Johanna feel sour, jealous maybe, that Annie can bond so quickly with someone from her district, that even though Annie is being absolutely insane for keeping the baby, Peeta and Aspen support her because she is sweet and caring and nice, and doesn't have the same rough edges Johanna has.
But she puts this out of her mind because it doesn't matter, really. If there is a war in Panem, which it sounds like is inevitable, she needs to focus on getting out of the Capitol and finding the others. A part of her is hurt, really, that they had to get themselves out of the prison. That Enobaria, who wasn't a rebel at all, had to kill the Peacekeepers and free them. Even Annie Cresta, who didn't kill a single tribute in her Games, killed a man in that prison to help them escape, and yet the rebels who bombed the Capitol didn't come for them. There's the possibility they didn't know where they were, or that they thought they were dead, but Johanna thinks the latter is false, at least, since they took Peeta out to show him off, and Aspen explained that there was footage of Annie circulating on television from the one time they took her out of the prison.
Johanna almost laughs. They had sent Annie to the woman in the bunker, thinking she was the least conspicuous. And perhaps she was, but she had been on television!
Finally, it's time to walk, and they set off. Johanna has a gun - one taken from the prison guards - refilled with ammunition before they left. 6 shots, should she need them. She keeps her hand on it, where it's tucked in a little holster on her belt, her other hand over the ridge of the morphling tin in her pocket. Just to assure herself that it's still there. It's quiet at first, with Enobaria charting a path and the rest of them falling into line behind her, but gradually, they begin to chat, a little.
"How long are we expecting this to take?" Peeta asks.
"I've never had to walk it," Enobaria says. "But there's a lot of desert between the border of District 2 and the main city. Aspen predicted 2 weeks."
Peeta nods. "Two weeks is doable. Two weeks was how long we had to survive in the 74th Games. I mean… I think it was, wasn't it?"
"It was," Annie confirms.
They go on like this for a while, correcting and asserting Peeta's memories, and eventually they clear the buildings of the Capitol, and they're out in the open, among the low brush and foothills of the mountains that seem to caress the Capitol. The foothills give way to larger and larger mountains, and Johanna can't comprehend them, the sheer size of them is baffling once she's up so close. But she's also wary. She imagines Peacekeepers in hunting blinds, aiming rifles down at them, and she feels exposed, even under cover of darkness.
"Look!" Annie is pointing up at the stars, and Johanna sees what she means. They're so bright, without the artificial lights of the Capitol. And she's been underground for so long without fresh air or the sky, she forgot about the stars, really. The moon is only half-full tonight, but it's better for them to stay hidden with its dimmer light.
"They're beautiful," she says. They're the stars she remembers from 7, impossibly numerous. Even Enobaria has stopped to look, and she seems caught up in wonder. Johanna wonders if it ever gets dark enough in District 2 to see the starts like this, if it's possible that Enobaria has never really seen the night sky before.
They keep going after a bit, through a pass between two mountains, and past a lake. It's a large lake, and they stop to eat and drink and wash the sweat from their faces. "Don't disturb the surface of the water too much," Enobaria warns. "And no fires!" She's overly cautious, almost paranoid, but Johanna can't blame her. If a wrong move gets them killed, or thrown back into prison, it's better to be extra, extra careful.
And then, finally, near dawn, they see it: the fence that separates the Capitol and District 2. "Should we wait until dark?" Enobaria asks. It is the practical thing to do, now with the first small rays of light coming up over the horizon. The other size of the fence has been clearcut, so they will be exposed for the first hundred meters or so after crossing.
"We should just go," Johanna says, because she wants to be over the border. Even if District 2 captures them, it will be away from the Capitol, at least. Though a small warning in her mind remembers that 2 is aligned with the Capitol, that they might get turned back over.
"I agree, we ought to go now, let's not waste any time," Annie says.
Peeta nods, steeling himself. Aspen had told them how to get across, to throw a towel on the top of the fence where the barbed wire was, to grab onto that fabric as they were crossing and only with gloved hands, to jump down into a roll, and sprint for cover. They would have to go two and two, since they only had supplies to cover the fence in two places. "I will go," Enobaria says. "And place it. Johanna come right behind me. Peeta do the same with Annie behind you. Remember to run in a zig-zag pattern."
The instructions are clear. It's not any harder than anything she's tried in the arena, really, and it's more or less like the Quarter Quell, where the goal was more 'stay alive' than 'kill the others'. But she's not conditioned for the arena. She's not conditioned to climb an eight foot fence and jump down the other side, let alone with a pack on her back. And then another thought strikes her. What if the fence is electrified?
The idea of being electrocuted hadn't even occurred to her until this moment, and now it's all she can think about. She can't bear to touch the fence if it will shock her. She wants to stop Enobaria, to warn her the fence might be electrified, but she's missed her chance, somehow. Enobaria and Peeta have already started running. They're out in the open, now.
Annie is next, and she needs to go, too, if she wants to keep up. She takes off after them, but she waits, watching to be sure. Enobaria climbs quickly, tossing the towel over the top. She is limber, maybe a little less fit than she was in the Games, but her adrenaline is making up for it. The fence seems to be just a fence, except for the barbed wire on top, and Johanna takes off after her.
She climbs more slowly, as she knew she would, and she can only hope no guards are watching this section of the fence. Her arms and legs don't work quite right since she was electrocuted, and her grip is poor on the fence. She has to pause halfway up as spasms of pain shoot down her legs and render her vision white for a few seconds. Enobaria and Peeta have jumped down to the other side. Annie is close to the top.
"Come on, Jo," Annie says. It's the nickname Finnick uses and she feels bile in her throat as she pictures him beside her, sliding a hand under her shirt.
"I'm coming," she manages. And somehow, she does. It's brighter now, almost dawn proper, and she finally heaves herself over the top. Her jump down is not graceful, and it hurts now when she's only skin and bones. But she thinks she's avoided major injury, and she stands again, heaving the pack back onto her back, and taking off towards the tree line.
She's almost halfway there when there's a gunshot, and then a second, and then it's all she hears, a rapid spray of ammunition aimed in their direction. She sees the dirt spray up at her feet, and near Annie who's running nearby. Something angry flares up in her, a horrified rage that they would shoot at a pregnant woman. She doesn't dare turn around. Left. Right. Left. Right. She tries to veer back and forth until she trips on a root, just at the edge of the tree line. She feels someone tug at her arm and drag her back behind a tree trunk. The bullets continue to spray, whizzing inches from where she is tucked.
Annie has dived into a small area behind the next tree, and Peeta is nearby as well. But it's Enobaria pressed against her, who pulled her away from danger. Her eyes are shut, and she leans her forehead against the tree, as if trying to find some calm in the midst of the chaos around them. The bullets have slowed but Johanna is not fooled. She knows if any of them were to step out from the trees right then, they'd be killed. And she's there, between Enobaria and the tree, amazed they're not dead.
"We need to get away from here before the guards call the District 2 border police to come retrieve us," Enobaria says. She's quiet, pensive, but back to her usual self, taking direction again.
Johanna nods. "We shouldn't follow the path, then."
"No, we ought to wait until dark in a cave on the mountain. Annie might know a thing or two about that."
Johanna remembers Annie's Games, a torturous week of waiting, of her hiding in a cave while the others killed each other off, and they wondered if she would be discovered. In the end, the dam in the arena broke, flooding everything, and she won by being the best swimmer, outlasting the others.
"Let's go back, incrementally," Enobaria suggests, loud enough for the others to hear. "One tree at a time."
They find their next spot and sprint back, settling back under cover again. Johanna fingers the tin of morphling in her pocket, assuring herself she can use it just a little later, once they were safe. She can feel the headache growing, becoming close to unbearable as the sun rises higher overhead. They move to the next tree, then the next, further and further from the fence until they can see the path they ought to take through the mountain pass. "Let's go up a bit and wait," Enobaria says. "Just until dark."
It's hard to climb, just like it's hard to do everything, but it feels even worse, because she knows they're so close to the end. Johanna isn't even conscious of what they're doing, really, she just has her eyes on Enobaria's footsteps and she mirrors those, following her up the mountain until they tuck themselves into a little cave. She doesn't know if it's been minutes of hours, but as soon as they're inside, in the cool shade of the cave, she lays down and curls on her side, taking a long sip of water and then pushing a full fingertip of morphling up into her gums. The others can deal with the next steps. It's time for her to sleep.
It quickly becomes clear that they will need to move at night. It's frustrating, because it's harder to read the map, and the desert is cold and it's harder to see danger before it's upon them, but the disadvantages are outweighed by the advantages. The daylight makes them far too conspicuous to anyone in a watchtower or flying overhead, and it's far too hot for a long hike. At night, they can use the main path provided they take precautions, and find somewhere to rest and hide out during the day.
Enobaria leads, as she has since they left the prison. She's holding the map they got from the Avox, and she is the strongest. Johanna usually walks beside her, which slows her down some, but she'd probably end up walking far ahead of Johanna had she not had her there to be reminded of her slower pace. Honestly, she's impressed by how well Johanna has kept up overall, though perhaps she shouldn't be, based on how well she's done in the Games each time.
She knows Johanna has continued to use the morphling, but who is she to stop her? She watched them shock Johanna and drown Johanna, of course she needs something. A day and a half in a makeshift clinic wasn't going to fix everything wrong with her. Just as Enobaria assumes it hasn't fixed Peeta. Certainly his demeanor is improved, and he's much more even-keeled, but the suspicion is still there, the confusion and fear that something is not right, and Enobaria wonders if it will give way to violence eventually.
Annie usually walks in the back, and Enobaria can keep track of how far back she is with her distinctive humming and stomping. Enobaria had thought this was just something Annie did in the prison, something fear and anxiety caused her to do to cope with the situation, like Enobaria had done with her pacing, but now she sees that it is just how Annie is. She repeats words sometimes, or covers her ears, or holds her breath at odd points, rituals that she seems to have to complete in some order that Enobaria cannot figure out. She assumes this is one of the reasons she was kept in an insane asylum. That, and perhaps the rumor was true that she burnt down her house in the Victor's Village. Enobaria hasn't found a way to ask.
"Tell me about District 13," Enobaria says to Johanna. There's a building in the distance, dark and abandoned, and they've already decided to stop there and spend the day inside it, provided there were no people inside, so this is just conversation to pass the end of their walk. Johanna looks tired, or in pain, so it's a distraction, mostly.
She shrugs. "I don't know much about it," she says. "They said it's underground, that's how it stayed hidden."
Enobaria hadn't exactly believed Johanna at first, when she had spoken about District 13. She had spent her whole life being told there was no District 13, that obliteration was the punishment for rebellion, and District 13 was the proof. For that to be a lie was… difficult to accept. But then again, she's had to accept for difficult truths in the past couple months, so she's come around to the idea that District 13 could exist. "Wait, like literally underground?"
"Right. Like all their people and their equipment are in these rooms and tunnels."
"I think it's good we didn't decide to go there," Enobaria says. "I've had enough of underground tunnels for a while."
Johanna nods. "This isn't so bad," she says. She takes a few breaths, and there's almost a smile on her face. "I thought… maybe I'd never see trees again, or the sky."
The building is empty, just like the one before it, and the one before it. All the buildings in this remote part of District 2 are old, much older than any Enobaria has ever seen, and she wonders who lived in them, or what purpose they served. But this one works well enough for shelter, and they set up inside of it, using their spare clothes to lay on and their rucksacks as pillows.
Peeta opens some cans of food and they drink water, and the portions are too small, but it's alright, Enobaria tells herself, since they'll come to District 2's main city before long. She wonders if it's really alright, with Annie pregnant and Johanna so malnourished, but they could only carry so much, so what choice did they have. Johanna never wants to eat by the end of the walk anyways, she just wants to use the morphling.
It's morning, but it's the end of their day on the backwards schedule they keep. She sees Annie and Peeta sitting together as they eat, and she knows Johanna won't go near them, since she's too argumentative when she's in pain. And then Enobaria feels a pang of embarrassment, or confusion, perhaps, because why does she know Johanna so well, and why does she care so much?
She sits in a back room of the building, alone, but today, it's Johanna who comes to sit beside her, setting her pack down next to Enobaria's. Her hair is still too short, the buzzed military cut that's so unexpected, but her burn scars are healing well thanks to the treatment from the Avox. "Hey, I never said it, but I'm sorry," Johanna says, her voice unusually serious. "About the interrogations."
Enobaria wonders why she's bringing this up now, what she's been thinking about that caused this. Or if this is all she's been thinking about for days, and she's finally able to say it aloud. "It's not your fault," she says, because it's not.
"It's not. But I'm sorry, if I made it worse for you, somehow." Johanna has her knees to her chest, and she's chewing on one of her knuckles. They both know what they saw in the interrogations, and it's natural to wonder if saying or doing something different would have changed things.
"I accept your apology," she says, not because she thinks Johanna needs to apologize, but because she thinks Johanna needs to hear her accept it. "I wish I would have killed them sooner."
"I'm glad you killed them at all."
She'd spent a week, maybe a little longer, sharpening the spoon they gave her for the gruel. It was a risk to keep it off her breakfast tray. She thought perhaps they would find it missing and punish her for this transgression, but it was not noticed. She wonders now how much the guards simply didn't pay attention to. "Me too."
Johanna lays down, her head on her pack, and sighs. "What are you going to do when you get home?" she asks.
It's a difficult question. It's hard to imagine what home looks like anymore. She imagines it's probably different than she left it, and it won't be easy to just knock on her mother's door or go back to her home in the Victor's Village. "I won't know until I get there," she says. She lays back as well, resting her head on her rucksack. A part of her feels nervous suddenly. Johanna will rejoin the rebels if she can, certainly. Would that mean they'd be separated, then? Does she care that much?
"Tell me about District 2." Johanna is curled on her side facing Enobaria, and although the sun has now risen, it feels like it's late at night. "I was so nervous on my Victory Tour, I don't even remember it."
"It's beautiful," she says. "The sky is so wide, and the earth is so red. There are markets selling the most delicious food, and deep rock quarries that cut right into the earth for hundreds of feet. All the streets are in a perfect grid, and there are trams that take you all over the city. They make the most delicious red wine."
"I miss wine," Johanna says.
"Not as much as I do," Enobaria replies. God, she misses sipping a glass of wine, having it with a good meal, something hot that would fill her stomach. She misses dancing, and dressing up, and sex, and it isn't until they mention wine that she even remembers any of the pleasures of life.
She looks at Johanna who seems to be having a similar thought, about how there used to be more to life than simply surviving, and suddenly she craves pleasure desperately, in any form. She leans forward, kissing Johanna, almost chastely, and then backs up realizing what an impulsive move that had been. "I'm sorry," she says.
"I didn't mind." There's a hint of a smile on Johanna's lips, behind her surprise, and Enobaria leans forward a second time, more daring. She doesn't dare touch Johanna's hair, where she knows the burns are still healing, but Johanna reaches forward for Enobaria's hair, drawing their bodies closer together as their tongues meet.
Johanna pulls away, smiling a bit more readily. Then she yawns and, holding onto Enobaria's arm, rearranges herself to go to sleep.
Somehow Annie's body knows when it is morning, even though she's been awake for hours on the opposite schedule they keep. They settle down to rest when the sun comes up and she waits, nauseous and hot, for her stomach contents to come back up before she tries to eat any of their small rations. She tires easily as they walk, fatigue setting in long before it's time for them to set up camp. Her feet are swollen, from miles and miles of walking along the endless desert.
She tries not to complain, because she knows Johanna and Enobaria think she shouldn't have kept the baby in the first place, but she is learning to accept that she doesn't have to be agreeable all the time. She and Peeta are younger, they have not spent the same time in the Capitol that Johanna and Enobaria have, but that doesn't mean they can't have opinions, or disagree with what the other two want.
But the desert is hot in the day and cold at night. It's long stretches of absolutely nothing, no shelter, no signs of life, just a long-abandoned road they walk along and birds circling overhead. And Enobaria never seems to tire as she leads them, despite her rations being just as small. Their water wasn't an issue, at least. They passed a stream recently, and refilled their bottles, which weighed down their packs again. Though they do all have to pass around the one filter Johanna brought along whenever they want to take a drink.
Peeta is doing alright, too, though the hunger makes him irritable. She had always thought of District 12 as one of the poorest places in Panem, but apparently his family ran a bakery, so despite him never having new clothes or shoes or the nicest home, he did usually have a full stomach. No, Annie and Johanna are the slow ones, though if Johanna isn't going to complain, Annie doesn't dare.
Johanna fell the day before yesterday, tripping on a stone she should have been able to step over easily, but it was dark, since it's always dark when they walk, and they have almost no food and Johanna looks a moment a way from falling over when they start walking. She scraped both her knees, and Annie can see the red stains on both her pant legs now.
But even still Johanna doesn't say anything about taking a shorter day, she just keeps her place beside Enobaria as they wind their way south. When they stop at the end of the night, there's a small stream nearby. Annie uses it to wash away her sweat, rinse her hair, and she changes her underwear, and washes the last pair she wore and her spare T-shirt, hanging them to dry on what seemed to be a power line that no longer worked. She isn't nauseous this morning, and she takes it as a good sign that perhaps she is getting over that symptom of her pregnancy. So she sits to eat, enjoying the sun for the first hours of morning, before it becomes too scalding hot. She puts her feet up on a second chair to try to help the swelling that never goes away, from the constant walking and all the salt from the canned foods.
Johanna had been whispering about something with Enobaria as they ended the walk that night and it set her on edge. There are only four of them, what could they possibly have secrets about? Annie can't tell if Johanna is irritating her more because of her comments about the pregnancy, or if the pregnancy itself and her discomfort is making her sensitive.
Johanna approaches her now, just under the shade of the building they would sleep the day away inside of. "Do you hear anything?" This isn't the first time Johanna has asked such a question. She often hears 'something', but can't describe it, precisely.
"No, I only hear the wind." Annie is good at hearing things, really. She heard things no one else did in the arena. She can still hear things now, compulsions to do things no one else hears. But the morning is quiet, and she is calm. She isn't lying when she says she doesn't hear anything.
Johanna licks her lips and presses a couple fingers to her temples. She has headaches, Annie knows she has headaches from whatever they did to her in that prison, but the motion also serves as an indicator of impatience, like it is Annie who is giving her the headache. "I just want to be sure no one is after us," she says. "Enobaria says we're only a few days away from 2, now. I don't want to mess up right at the end." Then, as an afterthought, she turns back to Annie. "I'm sure you want to find out if Finnick is there."
And she does, desperately. But something irritates her about this. "Do you?"
Johanna had been half-turned away, but now she turns back. She's squinting against the sun. She never stays outside without the scarf and sunglasses. "Want to see if Finnick is alright? Of course."
And it's the way she's so unabashed about it that just grinds into Annie. Shouldn't she at least have a little bit of deference, to at least pretend, in front of Annie? But now that Annie has met Johanna, she realizes this would never happen. She doesn't even know what she wants, really, but she's frustrated and scared and so, so, tired, and she needs to take her anger out somehow. "You knew," she accuses, and it gives her at least a small bit of satisfaction that she has several inches of height on Johanna, that she can speak down to her. "You knew he had a girlfriend and you still slept with him year after year."
Johanna looks confused for a moment, but this quickly changes to her more typical spiteful, annoyed expression. Behind her, Annie can see Enobaria pause, watching them with interest. "Newsflash, it takes two," Johanna practically spits. "Did you never ask your precious Finnick why he kept sleeping with me?"
Annie wants to recoil from such vitriol, but she forces herself to stand firm. In truth, the only time she had dared bring up the topic of Johanna to Finnick, he had called her his best friend, and she didn't press the issue. She and Finnick weren't engaged, they couldn't even really call it dating for Finnick's safety, but still, she knew whatever he had with Johanna was more than friendship. She'd seen them together in the arena at the Quarter Quell, and in the tabloids while she sat in the mental hospital.
But Johanna is unrelenting, and when Annie doesn't have a response, she digs in further. "Don't drag me into your issues. Do you know what I did, what we both did, to keep you from having to come back to the Capitol?" Johanna is almost trembling with anger now.
But so is Annie. "I didn't ask for that! And don't give me that bullshit! I know the only reason you did that is for Finnick, you didn't think of me at all." Annie can see Peeta peek his head around the corner at the raised voices. "I would have liked to come back, then I wouldn't be left behind every year!"
Johanna looks like she's about to lose her temper, but it's Enobaria who steps forward, just an inch or two in front of Johanna. Her voice is low and calm, deadly serious. "Don't ever say that," she says. "Not coming back is a privilege, and whatever Johanna's reasons, she helped you."
Annie is much more inclined to listen to Enobaria, who has done nothing but help her, even if she disagrees with her on some things, but she's too riled up with emotion, it's impossible to come back down. She can't understand what Finnick and Johanna were keeping her from if she never experienced it in the first place. When Finnick came home from the Capitol, he was a closed book, he never talked about it. She just saw the tabloids with their parties and the fun, him beside Johanna beautiful and happy, smiling faces. "Whatever," she says, pushing past them to go somewhere else, somewhere away from them where she can sip water, sit down, try to calm down until it is time to walk again.
Peeta meets her out on the ridge, about a hundred meters from the ruins of a building where they decided to set up camp. It's hot now, and normally she would hunker down inside, but she is too angry to look at Johanna and Enobaria, or maybe she's too frustrated with herself, for letting them get under her skin.
"Hey," he says, tossing her the scarf from her pack. She drapes it over her head and immediately feels a bit better to be out of the direct sunlight. She's sure she has a terrible burn, not just from the past hour but from all the little bits of time she let herself be exposed to the brutal desert sunlight in the past ten days or so. Peeta is wearing the fishing hat he tended to wear during the day, and the shadow it cast over his face hid a bit of the change his face went through in the prison: the sunken cheeks and the pallor and the haunted, paranoid look in his eyes.
"Hey," she replies. She's been drawing lines in the sand with a stick, watching the little insects emerge and then burrow back underneath.
"You should come inside." Even so, he sits down beside her, as if he knows she's not going to move quite yet.
"I know, I will. In a bit."
"We're all tired, and sick of each other," he tries. "Once we're in District 2 proper we should have some breathing room."
She doesn't know how to reply, exactly. She wants to put into words what she's feeling, the exact combination of guilt and frustration and jealousy and anger and fear and slough it off onto another person, but how can she encapsulate years and years of things she's tucked away into the guise of happiness and steadiness now, and explain it to someone she's just gotten to know in the past weeks? "But that won't solve anything," she says.
He sighs. He puts a hand on her shoulder, and it's steady, warm and comforting. "Listen, I appreciate all of you helping with my memories, and I've more or less figured out who I am and what's happened to me, but I've realized that there's things that maybe aren't so nice to remember, either," he says. "If Katniss and I are friends, or something closer, there's also Gale, and I have to contend with the fact that Katniss knew him first and knows him better. She could be with him now, for all I know, and even if she's not, she might be thinking about him and I can't control that. I just get so frustrated…"
Annie nods, licking the dryness away from her lips. The desert is unrelenting like that. At first, she hadn't understood what Peeta was saying, and then she wanted to contest him, maybe just to be contrarian. To say that him getting to know Katniss a year ago was different from the years she's known Finnick, from the deep and intense love she has for him, and the history they share. But maybe it isn't so different after all, she thinks. He's just young, and everyone thinks their love is the most important thing in the world, right? She was called insane, locked up for it, even, and they tried to make Peeta insane in that prison. "I understand," she says. "It's enough to make you want to tear your hair out some days."
Before he can reply, she puts a hand on his leg, her entire body frozen like a prey animal. She does hear something now: the distant drone of some kind of hovercraft. "We need to get under cover!" she says, on her feet in an instant. "Someone is coming!"
They're caught. There's no way they can outrun a hovercraft, not in the open desert. Even if they abandoned the packs, which is tantamount to suicide, they would not be able to outrun a hovercraft, or soldiers at the height of fitness on foot. And they were too brightly colored. Peeta can see Annie's T-shirt hanging to dry, and it is light blue, contrasting with the sand and shrubs. They hadn't planned to be camouflaged, which in hindsight was stupid of them.
He and Annie run into the ruins of the building, pulling Annie's pack inside with them. "Wake up!" he shouts. "Hovercraft incoming!"
Enobaria is up in an instant, but she stumbles, like she has a cramp. His panic grows, seeing this. Enobaria had led them through everything. Enobaria was endlessly reliable. Enobaria could not be running out of gas now, of all times. Johanna is slower to respond to his shouts, and Peeta realizes she must have taken something, a medication or a drug, based on her slow responses.
"Did you see the insignia?" Enobaria asks. She's already got a gun out and she's looking at sightlines through the windows, rubbing a knuckle on the back of her calf.
"We didn't see it at all. Annie heard it."
Enobaria drags Johanna under a window ledge, and kneels beside her. "Shit. We have no choice but to kill them, but then their command will wonder where they got to. This is bad."
"We don't have to kill them," Annie says. She's standing in the middle of the room, like the calm in the eye of the storm. "Maybe we could try to talk to them."
Peeta appreciates what she's saying: they did speak to the people in the tunnels, and they were able to make acquaintances with the Avox in the Capitol. But somehow, he doubts that they're sending run-of-the-mill citizens or Avox in a hovercraft to pursue them. Enobaria pulls the gun out of the holster at Johanna's waist and hands it to him.
He realizes that this is the first time she's trusted him with a weapon since they've left the prison. He doesn't particularly want a gun, and he very much doesn't want to kill anyone, but he wants to live. He wants to see his father again, and Katniss. He wants to see his friends from school, and taste freshly baked bread. He wants to sleep in a real bed and drink as much water as he wants and not be nocturnal and hear music and that's enough to allow him to hold the gun steadily.
He crouches at the window next to Enobaria as the hovercraft lands. Johanna puts her hands to her head, moaning at the noise. She still seems to be half in stupor. "Hey, shh," Enobaria whispers. "You need to be quiet just for a bit. It will be alright in a few minutes."
It works, somehow, and she's quiet, and he and Enobaria position themselves with their guns just barely out the window. But none of them had been watching Annie, and she must have left out the back, because he sees her now, coming around the side of the house. He wants to yell at her to get back inside, to hurry and get behind some cover, but she walks into the open, between the building and their aircraft, waving a white T-shirt.
"Don't go after her," Enobaria hisses.
He wants to, but he doesn't dare. How could he? All he can do is watch as she walks even closer, her boots making footprints in the sand from their camp towards the hovercraft, which is unmarked. She stops about twenty feet away, waving the shirt like a white flag. She looks mad, sunburned and too-thin and hair ratty from their trek.
The door of the hovercraft opens, and Enobaria makes a minuscule adjustment to her position. They're too far out to shoot with pistols, but if the soldiers came sprinting in, it would save time to already have them locked on.
One soldier steps out, followed by another. Two more follow, and then Annie drops to her knees. She wails, some terrible sob, and then reaches forward to grab onto one of the soldiers' legs. He doesn't kick at her, though, or even resist. He stands there for a moment, as if he can't believe his eyes, and then he crouches down slowly, and touches her face.
The other three move closer, but they don't have their weapons drawn.
"Those aren't District 2 uniforms," Enobaria says. She nudges Johanna with her knee. "Do you know District 13 uniforms?" she asks, not letting her sight leave the soldiers walking towards the building.
"Never saw them," Johanna says, her voice slow and flat.
The soldiers move closer, as if they know any other living person has to be inside the ruins. "Who's in there?" one of the soldiers calls. "How many? What are your names?"
"Who's asking?" Enobaria calls back. Peeta can see her hands trembling just barely on the pistol. He doesn't want her to shoot. He doesn't want anyone to die, but he knows how she feels. He can't imagine being locked up again, going back to some other prison.
"Peeta, are you there?"
Peeta falls to his knees at this voice. It seems to rock through his entire psyche, like a Jabberjay crafted just for him. He's down, beneath the window-frame now, and his hands are shaking too as her voice reverberates through him. Some shadow of a dream is telling him to run out there and kill her, to put his hands to her throat and choke her now, before she even knows what's happening. But mostly he just is trying to swallow down the anxiety and the lump in his throat that is keeping him from being able to answer. "Yes, Katniss. I'm here!" he shouts back.
He can't see her face yet, and he's forced to look away as Enobaria's pistol falls to the ground, the metal loud and echoing as it hits the concrete floor and seems to ricochet as it clatters. He jumps - too late, he's sure - in reaction, but it doesn't go off. Enobaria's forehead creases, and she grabs at her leg, like there's a bad cramp. And then she falls to the ground.
Peeta knows they're coming - the soldiers - and he also sets his gun down. There's no way he's going to shoot anyone, and he doesn't want to even have a weapon in his hand. Johanna has crawled over to Enobaria and has grabbed her hand. "Baria, what's wrong?" Enobaria is breathing through clenched teeth, the tendons in her neck stiff with tension.
Enobaria, ostensibly their leader, collapsing, seems to have brought Johanna to attention at last, and she moves herself between Enobaria and the door as the soldiers approach. "We're coming in!" someone announces, and then they're there, several of them, rifles still out, and it's chaos. Peeta is still in the back, against the wall with the windows that looked out towards the hovercraft, but Katniss is there, somehow, in seconds, and it's hard to remember how much time has passed, really, because she's back at his side.
"Peeta, you're alive!"
He nods, overwhelmed. He can't see the others, anymore, but he lets himself relax for just a moment. The others are here, to help them, to get them out of this wasteland. He would be going to somewhere safe. They would be getting help. He looks at Katniss properly now, and tries to force his face into a smile. "I am."