1
As I open my eyes, I can see Haymitch dozed off in the chair at the end of my bed. I gaze up to the ceiling as if I can't remember where I am. It hits me when my mind is cleared. What is Haymitch doing here anyway? When I try to sit up, I feel something yanking on my arm. As I look to my side I see I'm hooked to machines. There is dripping a clear substance into my arm. I try to yank it out my arm a Haymitch stops me. "Wouldn't do that if I were you, sweetheart." He looks at me and his hand is wrapped around my wrist. I want to object but I decide it's a waste of energy. As I sit up for real this time I gaze around. I'm the only one in the room except for Haymitch. But I'm the only one in a hospital gown. My arm has a bandage on it, covered in blood. I try to take a look underneath the bandage, but all I find is nothing. Just a huge scar from where Johanna cut out the tracking device. That remind me, "Where's Johanna?" I ask, looking at Haymitch, locking my eyes on his, but he doesn't lock his on mine. "And where's Peeta? And Gale?" Those are the only three names I can speak out loud. The names that matter most to me, aside from Johanna's. "Haymitch?" I repeat as he stays silent. "We decided to rescue you first from the arena," he starts. My eyes are still locked on his, and he finally locks his on mine after what seemed like a long pause. "They were all in on the game," he continues. Before I can ask what he means, he continues, "Peeta and Johanna are captured by the Capitol."
"What do you mean captured?" My face freezes. Every muscle in my body tenses.
He starts explaining his plan, how the Head Gamemaker Plutarch was it on it. How Peeta and me were the only ones who didn't now anything about the plan. I thought Johanna tried to kill me, but all she did was save me. She also has been captured by the Capitol. I know that's not a good sign at all. I know Snow wants me dead and he will do everything in his power to succeed. After I pulled the stunt with the berries in the first Games, he has been determined to kill me off.
I survived the Quarter Quell. I try to put the ends together, of what happened in the arena. I remember the gold wire Beetee had secured to the tree. The lightning tree. We figured out that the arena was a clock because Wiress kept saying 'tick, tock' over and over again. What I also remember is almost being washed out by the island where the Cornucopia was sitting on. We also figured out that each hour, there would happen something. We figured some stuff out, but since we never made it through the whole arena, some things are still unsorted. I remember the blood rain, the mutt monkeys, the jabber jays, the flood, the lighting tree, poisonous fog, insects and the still unsorted 'beast,' as we call it. I mute Haymitch out sometimes, trying to clear my thoughts. Trying to come up with an explanation, when Haymitch says my name. He must have thought of the fact that I wasn't paying any attention to him. "Katniss!" Hervaises his voice which snaps me back.
He continues, it's been a few weeks since I've been rescues. He also tells me what I already knew, in the back of my mind; Cinna's dead. They'd beaten him half to death when I was in the tube underneath the arena. I can see myself trying to get out of it, without success.
My mind goes back to the part when Haymitch says 'a couple of weeks.' "What do you mean a couple of weeks?" I ask him. My eyes are trained on his. It looks me dead in the eye. "Peeta has been in the hands of the Capitol since?" He answers my question by keeping quiet. "But, we got him out," he says. I don't know why he just told me this. "I want to see him," I utter. I don't wait for Haymitch to reply. I clear myself of all tubes and stand up. I slide down the bandage, since the bleeding has stopped. Why did they leave it on? Where's Prim? My mother? I don't pay attention to this right now, since I'm in the hospital, so they could've visited me when I was out. I can't remember having any nightmares, which I had ever since I got back from my first Games. I must have been a real pain, not even Haymitch wanted to deal with me, or Plutarch.
I run down the hallway, running towards the screams. I register them as Peeta's. When I reached his room, I got called to a halt. "Forbidden." A guard stands in front of his door. "Let me in!" I shout. I see Haymitch has followed me. "They refuse to let me enter," I say. He grabs me by my arm and pins be down on one of the becnhes. "I told them not to let you in," he sighs. "The Capitol really worked their ways with him. He's not himself." He speaks in a calm voice. "Sweetheart, he has been hijacked. They gave him large amounts of tracker jacker venom." Before he can continue I cut him off. "The Capitol turned him in to a weapon, to kill me."
"Yes."
"What did they do to him? To make him hate me?"
"They showed footage of you and him in the arena, the venom helped make the hate stronger." Every word Haymitch says hit in like a bomb. I'm not sure why, but it hurts. My mind of completely blocked. I can't even think straight. "Until we have worked out how to reverse it, you're forbidden to see him. The only way you can get a glimpse of him is through here." He leads me through a door a few meters away from Peeta's guards. The room I walk into is very bright. It has a large window. As I walk forward, I see Peeta lying in a hospital gown, strapped to his bed, screaming his lungs out. "Katniss! Katniss!"