"I warn you dear child, if I lose my temper, you lose your head. Understand?"

The Queen of Hearts, Alice in Wonderland


The first thing I feel is confusion.

There's a dull throbbing in my left temple, my ears are ringing, and it takes my eyes an unusually long time to adjust to the blinding light of the room I'm in. I have no clue where I am, how I got here, or how long it's been since that last night in the arena when everything went wrong.

I try to lift my hand up, to brush the straggly hair from my eyes, and find it's pinned to my side. I glance down and see that both of my arms are bound to the bed, and a shiny steel bar holds my chest to the bed I lay in. I wonder if I'm so injured that I'm being held still in order to heal properly.

Those final moments in the arena come back to me in flashes. Beetee and Finnick wrapping wire around the tree. Johanna and Katniss disappearing into the trees with the other end of the wire. Brutus killing Chaff, then killing Brutus myself.

And Katniss. Her voice calling out to me from somewhere impossible to reach, sounding scared and brave and distant. Then the explosion. And nothing more.

Katniss. Where is she now? Did she survive the explosion? Her voice rings through my mind, the voice of her calling out to me. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what transpired that night when a concealed door to my left slides open and a Peacekeeper strides in.

Why isn't it a healer? This woman's face is set in a hard, unreadable expression. I open my mouth to ask for answers, but she speaks before the words leave my lips.

"The President has demanded you be brought to his quarters immediately. You are not to speak unless spoken to. Understand?" Her voice is clipped and monotone and sends a shiver of fear down my spine. President Snow? Why? What's going on? I swallow hard and nod.

Where's Katniss?

The questions plague my mind as the Peacekeeper, whose nameplate reads '47427', pushes a button that releases my chest and wrist restraints. The freedom is temporary because the moment I attempt to sit up, cringing at the unexpected pain in my ribs, I am forced to my feet, bound by the wrists and shoved out the door unceremoniously.

I don't get a ton of time to absorb my surroundings because the Peacekeeper leads me briskly down the hall and into an adjacent one, around another corner and to a grand set of double doors. It's all I can do not to fall to the ground, trying to maintain my balance with the artificial leg I'm still not completely used to.

I do realize, however, that this is not a hospital.

Suddenly I want to run. I want to find Katniss, get out of this place as fast as we can, and go home. Settle back into a familiar rhythm, though I sense her feelings towards me have shifted since being in the arena. Maybe we could have a real relationship, the kind I thought we would have after our first Games... but it's too much to hope for. Something tells me I won't be going home any time soon.

The doors swing slowly open without a sound and I'm hit by the inexplicable smell of roses.