Mockingjay Manor - Ch 7
Chapter One /// Chapter Two /// Chapter Three /// Chapter Four /// Chapter Five /// Chapter Six
Happy Tuesday dear everlarkers! Last week’s installment of Mockingjay Manor concluded with a drugged and injured Everlark finding themselves whisked away from the terrifying Doctor Snow and hidden in a secret room by an unknown rescuer. You voted to put their trust in this unidentified saviour. What happens next? Let’s check in with the incredible @mega-aulover to find out....
A note, friends, that this chapter is rated M for canon-typical violence and begged-for sexual content.
As always, you have 48 hours, until noon EDT on Thursday, October 12th, to cast you votes in the notes or reblogs, not in the tags!!!
I crumple the note in my fist and toss it on the floor and the syringe I’d hidden in my sleeve drops onto the carpet and rolls away. The warning to stay put doesn’t sit well with me. I’m pissed off, angry at this man, Snow, and his tricks. The stupid portrait looms over me, mocking me. We’ve been attacked, stung by some experimental wasps, and threatened. He will not get away with this.
Peeta groans and my plans for vengeance fly from my mind. I kneel at his side and gently check his stings. “Are you okay?”
“Katniss, I’ve been stung before. Remember? Eleventh grade when you were trying to get rid of that hive.”
The hive had fallen to the ground and we’d both been badly stung. I thought I’d killed Peeta and I kissed him hard on the lips. It was my first kiss. The memory makes me want to blush but instead I grunt, “Yeah, but those were regular wasps.” I gingerly touch a red bump on his neck. “These weren’t ordinary wasps. I couldn’t move.”
“I was knocked out,” Peeta rubs his neck. “Did you find a note or something?”
The discarded note lies at my feet, and I’m fuming once more at the absurdity of the situation. “It says to stay here and that Finnick and Jo are safe.” It’s the last thing I want to do. Fulfilling the will’s requirement to fix up the house has transformed into a personal quest for the truth.
Peeta frowns. “I know that look on your face.”
“What look?” I try not to appear defensive but my arms are crossed and my face has turned into a scowl.
“That nothing-I-say-will-convince-you-to-give-up-or-leave-this-house face.”
Standing, arms akimbo, I say, “Haymitch might have been an asshole, but he was family. I’ve got to clear his name of whatever is going on here. I want answers! Who is Snow and how can I get rid of him?”
“Not alone you won’t.” Peeta struggles to sit up and I pull him to his feet. “We agreed we’d do this together.”
Peeta leans toward me, his sweet face at once disarming me and stirring my libido. It's been this way since we were kids. I’ve never been able to pinpoint whether it’s his boy-next-door face, his sturdy but welcoming arms, or his good natured soul, but it drives me wild.
His hand slips over my chin and its rough texture causes my heart rate to triple. Right before he places a chaste kiss upon my lips, his eyes smolder with unfulfilled passion. Instantly, my panties become soaked, and I think, awe hell, I need him.
I nearly lost him tonight and it’s making me desperate. The anger I’d been kindling is quickly replaced by desire, thick pulsing desire that has me panting.
All of the adrenaline flows south to the juncture between my legs; I feel my body pulse there. My arms wind themselves around his neck. The kiss deepens as his sweet tongue invades my mouth. Peeta always tastes of cinnamon and vanilla. It’s addictive and draws me in further. Passionate electrical torrents pass between us and our kisses become rushed. His large hands grip my hips, then my ass.
He’s still aroused and I can feel his hard length pressing against me. My nipples tighten into buds at the thought of having him. We walk backwards into a wall, and I grind against him. My hand gravitates downward and grabs him through his jeans. He is already thick with need and he groans before tearing his mouth away from mine.
Hungrily he pants, “Katniss.”
His blue eyes are the dark like the night sky; his hands desperately skimming over my body. Seeing him so uncontrolled makes me feral for more of his touch and sends dirty thoughts racing through my mind.
His hands make their way to my zipper and I shimmy just enough out of my pants to give his fingers the freedom to find my needy core.
“You’re so wet,” he mutters against my neck where his lips are burning a path to the sensitive spot under my jaw. His fingers part my folds, rubbing my clit in that magical pattern he knows I like so much. Spending so many hours on the edge of danger has done something to me and the need to feel alive, to know that we are both well, stokes the fire within me until I burn out of control.
“Peeta I neee….” The rest of the words fall away when his thick fingers slip inside of me. It satisfies my cravings for a moment, but soon his fingers aren’t enough.
“Tell me what you want,” he says against my skin.
I am at the summit and I can feel a familiar tightening in my womb. “I need you inside...now!”
He pushes my pants down. I hear the rasp of his zipper and I feel his tip aligned with my entrance.
“NOW,” I urge, as his tongue invades my mouth and his thick member stretches my taught body. My bones melt like ice-cream on a hot pavement.
A muffled groan escapes both of us, his member sliding in and out of my slick, tight walls. Tearing my mouth away from his, I bite his earlobe, causing Peeta to pound into me. My body begins to convulse around him and everything fades to white as we come at the same time.
When I come to, Peeta is softly kissing me. Our bodies slide onto the thick plush rug, somehow I end up lying on top of Peeta. His voice rumbles through his chest, “If the situation weren’t so dire we could play out one of those smutty fanfics you're always reading. Maybe hang from that chandelier.”
My cheeks tinge pink at the mention of my one vice. Fanfic is my one and only guilty pleasure. Peeta happens to be the only person on the planet who knows about it. Playfully I hit him on the arm, “Wiseass.”
Spent, we straighten our clothing. The lightning crackles in the sky and the bright light illuminates the portrait of Maysilee. In the background, I spot white bell flowers cascading from a tree. “Devil's breath,” I gasp, pointing at the painting.
“What?”
“Those flowers in the background, they’re called Devil’s Breath. It’s a plant my mom uses to calm her patients. She’s always careful about using it, because it can make you incapacitated, almost zombie like. It can erase your memories. If Snow has this, it explains why those wasps affected us the way they did.”
“Note to self, stay away from wasps,” Peeta murmurs to himself.
“Quick, help me.”
Startled by the voice we spin around. The dumbwaiter is back, and inside we find an exact replica of Maysilee Donner Abernathy, very much alive and definitely not a monster. “Maysilee?”
“Nope, just her niece, Madge Undersee,” she says, hopping out of the dumbwaiter. “Help me get your friend to the sofa. He was stung pretty badly.” Peeta springs into action, helping maneuver an unconscious Finnick to the couch while Madge disappears in dumbwaiter again to go back for Jo.
“He’s pretty out of it,” Peeta says as he holds Finnick's face in his hands. The dumbwaiter rattles back into the room.
“They need the antidote, Katniss,” says Madge. Together, we move Jo, “Their hearts can stop just like my aunt and your uncle.” Madge takes two syringes from her back pocket.
“Wait, how did you know who we are?” I blanch at the thought of having to administer the antidote. Needles make me squeamish.
Madge rolls up Finnick’s sleeve and administers the antidote as she speaks. “My aunt left me a letter with my mom. After Haymitch died, I did a small inquiry.”
Jo is badly stung and her body is spasming. Rolling up her sleeve, I manage to accomplish what my mother and my sister have tried to instruct me to do a thousand times without success. As the contents of the needle are introduced into her blood system, Jo’s body calms down. “How’s that possible? Your aunt’s been dead for over 25 years?”
Peeta exclaims, “Like in the second Back to the Future when Doc leaves Marty behind in 1955 and writes him a letter from 1855 with instructions to deliver it to Marty in 1955.”
Peeta’s infatuation with Back to the Future could be the only non-attractive thing about him, but I can usually forgive it because that boyish look on his face is yummy.
Madge laughs at his Back to the Future reference. “Sort of,” she agrees. “About six months before I was born, my aunt thought she was going to die and wanted to make sure her killer was brought to justice. She wrote a letter and instructed my mother to give it to me if anything happened to Haymitch. In her letter, my aunt Maysilee wrote that Haymitch wouldn’t rest until he solved her murder, and that if he died, then someone else needed to take up the torch. She also said that if anything happened to her, my mother wouldn’t be emotionally or mentally capable of finding her killer. It’s true, she wasn’t. She still isn’t. She couldn’t even hand me the letter without dissolving to tears.” Madge took out the folded letter from her pocket and held it up. “She died the day she wrote this. As soon as I got her letter, I requested a copy of the coroner's report. It said my aunt died of an overdose. But one of the first things she stated in her letter was that she never took drugs.”
“So that thing in the attic with your aunt’s look, it isn’t her?”
Finnick groans and tries to sit up and Peeta pulls him upright. Clearly, the medication is taking effect. I shudder to think of what could have happened to all of us without Madge’s help. Losing Peeta is my worst nightmare.
“No,” Madge shakes her head, “That thing in the attic isn’t my aunt.”
“Tell me what you know and what’s with that symbol on your locket.” I point to her shirt.
“According to the letter, my family owned Mockingjay Cosmetics. This was the brand symbol. Dr. Snow was in charge of creating and testing out new products. You’ve met his secretary.”
“Effie,” Peeta says as Finnick sits forward. “Haymitch once told me he met her at work. I thought it was at the tech firm he owned.”
Madge pulls out a necklace with a locket. “From what I could find out from the old records my family had, your uncle Haymitch was a genius. He was working with reproducing skin cells, so that they could test the cosmetics without human or animal testing.” She opens the locket to reveal that her aunt and her mother were twins. “When FDA laws became stricter, my family complied, or so we thought. There was an investigation and we lost the company, because of Snow. My aunt believed Haymitch had something on Snow, but she couldn’t prove anything and before she could find out, she died. Your uncle moved to Silicon Valley, where he made his money. My mom has never gotten over the death of her sister.”
“Do you think that beast could have your aunt’s genes?”
“I only know that Snow’s been manipulating the genetic makeup of that mutt. I found some files that seemed to indicate that Effie’s been involved. Snow and Crane experimented on her with the Devil’s Breath, manipulating her memories.”
Peeta speculates, “He made her into one of his mutts.”
Madge nods,“I’ve been able to grab samples of the vials in his lab and send them out for testing. It’s how I was able to get an antidote.”
“So how do we-” My words were frozen mid-sentence as a piercing howl echoes inside the house. A crashing and thumping noise penetrates the air, followed by the high-pitched, panicked screeching of birds. The chandelier shakes above us, and several crystals fall to the ground like broken stars.
Finnick’s eyes shoot upward. Like me, he’s a hunter and he’s instantly alert.
“He let experiment M loose,” Madge whispers, her face and eyes filled with horror.
Grabbing Madge by the arms, I shake her “Are there any weapons in the house?”
Madge gives me a blank stare right before she nods. She pulls on a wall sconce, “I found this one day by accident.” The picture springs open revealing two automatic crossbows. I’m overjoyed as I load it with arrows. The ceiling above shakes, bits of debris of dried plaster and dust fall on our heads . I hear the birds screech in fear and pain. There is no doubt the ape is killing the birds.
Madge bends down and picks up the forgotten syringe. “Katniss, we can stop that creature with this. There’s enough of the Devil's Breath in here to kill it.”
“We did the mash! We did the monster mash,” Finnick sings, as he checks over the other crossbow.
“Finnick,” I warn as I macgyver the syringe onto the tip of one of the arrows with my hair tie.
“Katniss, are you sure this is the wisest thing to do?” Peeta’s voice always has a way of reaching me, even when I’ve got my blinders on and I cannot reason.
We can hear its steps echo through the threadbare walls. The mutt is hunting us. “We got to get rid of it Peeta. If it gets out…you need to take care of Jo.”
“Okay, I’ll take care of Jo, but I swear if I don’t see you in hour, I’m coming after you.” He places a soft kiss on my lips.
I want to tell him that I love him but there’s no time for this so I express it in my kiss. Stepping away, I turn to Madge, “Since you know the house better than us, is there a place where you can take Jo and Peeta, maybe call the cops?”
The howling is getting closer. There is no time to lose. We stare at each other in that pregnant peace before the storm. It knows we’re in here.
“Help me with Jo,” Madge shouts. Peeta tenderly puts Jo into the dumbwaiter and Madge wraps an arm around her waist to hold her up. We realize too late that three people cannot fit inside.
“Take care of her,” Peeta tells Madge and pulls the door closed. As the dumbwaiter rattles away, I hear the mutt sniffing at the door to the room.
“Peeta, get behind us,” I shout. Looking behind me, I see Peeta picking up a chair. The door smashes to splinters and the snarling wolf lunges inside, its eyes glittering with evil. Blood drips from its canine teeth and I spot feathers mixed in with its golden hair.
It snarls and snaps at Finnick, I aim the crossbow. It senses my movement and jumps at me as a blood curdling roar rips from its jaws. The arrow is released and it lodges itself in its chest. It roars in pain and stumbles, but lands on its paws and lunges at me again. Finnick is shooting at it, but his arrows do nothing to it. He tosses his crossbow aside and rams the beast in its side.
“FINNICK NO!!” I scream as he struggles with the mutt.
The chair splinters behind me. I spin around. Snow is holding on to Peeta, who has a syringe buried in his jugular. Snow is wounded. Blood seeps from his nose but his eyes are wild, animalistic. Peeta is limp in his arms and his eyes are glazed over. Yet another secret door gapes open behind them.
“Peeta,” I whisper, my heart is thumping. I hold up the crossbow, Snow in my sights. My mind is flooded with images. Mutts in the attic that look like people, wasps, singing deranged birds, Devil’s Breath and that snake like Dr. Snow accusing my uncle. Finnick is being mauled and Snow holds Peeta. Do I take the chance, shoot at Snow and risk hurting Peeta? Or do I put my weapon down?