Author's Note: Just to clear some things up, the year is the 65th Hunger Games, which occurred (if you paid attention to the first chapter) only about a month ago from this present time of the story. Finnick Odair won last year, Haymitch Abernathy won fifteen years ago. So Haymitch is probably around 32 years old, just in case anyone's wondering.
Without further ado, I present to you the third chapter! (Which is unusually short, because I didn't have a lot of time on my hands and because I was dying, absolutely dying, to update.) The next chapter will be longer, I promise you.
From the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of Tania Sinclair's ashen face as she grins and sends a foot over her metal plate, and then I'm thrust backward by a force so impregnable, so inviolable. Amidst the earsplitting, deafening crackle of the explosion, I am vaguely aware of a female high-pitched shriek echo though the entire arena. As I fly, smoke and ashes and burnt soil blocks my vision, and I can understand nothing except that something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.
For a while, I am suspended in air, almost in a sort of delicious moment of counterfeit freedom. It's ridiculous, though, because most likely this will be the death of me. Then the breath is knocked out of me as I take impact on the tousled yet hard soil. How far back have I landed? Ten—perhaps eleven—feet? I don't know. And I don't care. I'm wheezing, begging for air, scrounging on the ground as I hope to retrieve sweet oxygen.
Hot tears stream down my cheeks. Air! I beg to no particular person. Air! I need air! It's my new refrain, my new wish. It's strange, actually, to beg for air. Usually, I would beg my parents for a brand new, all-the-rage cellular unit. Or even my own helicopter, since it would be nice to roam around the city, being able to skip the traffic on the ground in trade for a breezy trip overhead. But air? Really? It's free for all. But not for me, apparently, I think. And, as the cloud of dirt and smoke clears away, I realize that it's not for my companions, either. Everyone is sprawled all of the ground, paralyzed just as I am.
Just as I hear frantic footsteps all around me, I regain my breath. But I almost lose it again when Kait Desser's intense voice reverberates through the empty, once beautiful valley that is blanketed with dirt now, not any higher in value than a lot of cow dung. None of Kait's words makes sense. She's just shrieking nonsense, stomping around frantically, and I think she's shaking.
People are coming. People in all-white uniforms that sort of remind me of the patients in those mental hospitals. Peacekeepers, could they be? I've never actually seen one before in real life. At least, not one on duty. Just on television, when they show the activity of the districts or when they air the annual Games. Anyway, the Peacekeepers seem to be muttering something to Kait. Something that outrages her, because she starts thrashing around again, shrieking gibberish.
"Take them away! Take them away!" Kait screams in a voice twenty octaves higher than the norm. "Take them away!" Her voice carries on as she is guided away from us, onto a metal plate than disappears under the ugly dirt.
Out of the corner of my eye, I'm mentally begging Kait to stay. She's the only one we know here, and I don't think I'm comfortable around the Peacekeepers. I mean, in the Capitol, the Peacekeepers are honored. They are an elite group managed and hand-picked by President Snow himself. Each Peacekeeper undergoes an excruciating, humbling training before he passes his test and is sent off for fieldwork in the districts. When they come home from duty, they are greeted with celebrations and parties galore. At home, they are simply harmless Capitol people. But here, where apparently there is no safety, they are not the least bit reassuring. If anything, intimidating.
Much to my biggest fear, a red-headed Peacekeeper walks over beside me and gazes down at me. His stocky build blocks the blinding glare of sunlight, as, for a moment, my eyes zero in on his features, trying to make them out. His face is emotionless, as hard as stone itself. His eyebrows are knit together in a scowl that never leaves his face.
"This will hurt," he says. I don't understand him, but it suddenly all clicks together when he lifts a syringe filled with a sloppy purple liquid. I can feel my eyes widen, my mouth gape about a centimeter. I want to trash around, but I can't. I'm still paralyzed by fear, by the impact, by the explosion.
As the needle penetrates my skin, I immediately come to the conclusion that the Peacekeeper was not kidding around. The pain slices through my entire arm where the needle is, a scream threatening to push its way through my throat. It doens't, however. I can do nothing. I can say nothing. I can only feel the quaggy liquid being shot into my veins, feel it polluting my bloodstream with a cool sensation. And, slowly, my eyelids close and my consciousness withdraws.
The next time I'm conscious again, I wake to see that I have been displaced into a sterile, pearly white room with rounded corners. I'm on a bed, also white, with smooth silk covers pulled up to my stomach. On my right hand, I'm vaguely aware of pinching needles. My eyes run down from my elbow to my hand, to the person sitting along my bedside that's holding my hand gently.
The bright light of the room sends his hazel hair glistening. In his warm hand sits my own, cradled mildly. I notice a large cut across his forehead, and I realize this must be what he carried on from the explosion, which I still do not completely understand. His blue eyes are set on the wall opposite my bed, his eyebrows crumpled together intensely, as if he were trying to figure something out. He remains like that, scowling at the wall, until he finally breaks his stare and shakes his head contritely. What must he be thinking about?
"Abel," I say, thinking I've done enough observing. Though my voice is barely there and it's rough with sleep, he hears me, and turns his attention toward me immediately.
A smile lights up his downcast face as his thumb strokes the back of my hand gingerly. "Hi," he says. His voice is about as hoarse as mine right now. "You've been out for a while. Your brother has been watching out for you all night; I decided to give him a couple of hours of rest." He nods to his right. I glance to his line of head-nodding and find my brother sprawled on a chair, mouth open, eyes closed, and snoring on full-throttle.
"What time is it?" I choke out.
"Three in the morning," he says almost instantly. "The... um, uh... incident happened yesterday afternoon."
Now it's my turn to scowl. "Incident? What—?" I try to search his eyes for some sort of clue, but they're as rock solid as that Peacekeeper's. Abel is silent for the longest time since I've started talking to him yesterday.
He looks at me, his eyes questioning my ability to comprehend what he's about to say. I nod fervently, hoping I can convince him. He hesitates, but then fixes his mind to tell me. He takes a deep breath, and drops his gaze to our intertwined hands.
"Tania Sinclair is dead."