Author's Note: Hello there! Thanks again for sticking around with me. If you're reading this now, I guess you sort of like this story. Or you could just be bored and browsing around what I have. Either way, I'm glad you're here!
So I updated approximately twenty three hours after the last update I made, which must be a record. It's just that the last chapter was a bit short and lame, and so I thought I'd make up for it with this relatively long post. Now, this chapter might be slightly boring. There's less action in it, and a whole lot more thinking. But I hope you enjoy it in any case.
Dead. Dead. Dead. The word bounces around the inside of my skull like a ball in a pinball machine. It's so unusual, so surreal to me. In the Capitol, the usage of the word often pertains to dead batteries, dead grandparents, or dead goldfish. But Tania Sinclair? Dead? It doesn't make sense. No one in the Capitol dies before they're a hundred years old. That's why they invented the Life Machine. You take a trip to the doctor, pay him an amount of money, step into the Life Machine, come out the other end, and presto. You're good as new. The machine has it's side effects, though, and it's costumers never last longer than a hundred and fifty years, but that's still longer than the natural age that people die.
But Tania Sinclair was nineteen years old. Not even two decades old. She was as youthful as anyone can get. She was desired by most boys at school, envied by the whole lot of schoolgirls. She was the epitome of conjectural beauty. She was the exultant daughter of the renowned plastic surgeon, Doctor Leto Sinclair. She was once alive, but now dead. Dead, dead, dead.
I try to seek Abel's eyes for some sort of sign. A sign that says he's kidding, that Tania Sinclair really is still alive. I stare at his cerulean blue irises, and he stares back at me with a certain pity. No, not pity. Compassion. But for what? I don't know. I haven't actually gotten around to fully comprehending Abel Harter just yet, and it frustrates me to know that I probably may never be able to. He's just such a complex human being, if he is one at all.
"What do you mean, dead?" I manage to say out loud. He may mean dead in a figurative sense. As in, she's dead because she got in a lot of trouble and is being kicked off the fieldtrip right now as we speak. Yes, that definitely sounds more likely. And a lot more likeable, for that fact.
Abel holds my gaze this time. "I mean dead. Really dead." I just stare at him, eyebrows scrunched together in confusion. I don't understand. Or, I don't want to understand, but I know I have to. When he sees this is going nowhere, he sighs and looks down at our hands. He licks his lips for one second, and then gazes back up at me, eyes glassy. "Skye, she's gone. The mines around her metal plate were accidentally reactivated. She stepped off her plate before the sixty seconds were over. She got blown out into pieces. Because your plate was right next to hers, you received the worst of the blow. Got a lot of injuries, broken bones. They didn't think you'd make it." He stops short, and his eyes are shakingly searching my face for something.
"But I did?" I ask, somewhat unsure. This is all so surreal, so dreamlike that I can't help but feel iffy on my survival. Maybe I've lost it, maybe I'm dead, too. Or at least, I'm getting there.
Abel still looks at me intensely for a while, but then suddenly chuckles. It sounds awkward, though. Almost bitter. "Yes, you did," he says. He says something else, but he's muttered it in a voice so low that I can't decipher his words. Abruptly, his eyes fly down and land on our hands again. This time, however, he seems aware of the fact that he's been holding my hand for the entire conversation. "Uh. Sorry," he mutters, chuckling again with the same bitterness as he pulls his hand away gently in an awkward fashion, pausing in between as if hesitating on whether he wanted to let go or not.
Embarrassed, I pull my hand back, too, and set in on my stomach. I'm momentarily hypnotized by the red liquid in the tubes attached to the back of my hand, until I realize it's blood and I force my eyes to stay locked on Abel's. I hate blood. I've never seen it before in real life. It scares me to death.
"So what happened to you?" I ask suddenly, trying to get my mind off the blood and the pinching sensation that has become immediately agitating. "And the others? What about the others?"
He shakes his head. "Nothing happened," he says in an indifferent voice. "I got a couple of cuts, some bruises. Nothing major. Same thing goes for everyone else." Then he pauses. "Well, except..." His voice trails away.
I raise my eyebrows in anxiety. "Except?" I urge him.
"Except for Rita Lorkerstone," he sighs. "She was on the other side of Tania. She's not as injured as you are. In fact, she's already fixed up and roaming the catacombs."
"Then what's wrong with her?" I ask.
"Well, she's really depressed. She won't talk to anyone. Not even me," he says. Oh, that is bad. She must be downright depressed if she won't even give herself in to talk to Abel Harter. For a while, I don't understand why she would be so sad about Tania Sinclair dying. Maybe she could be shocked, or perhaps frightened. But sad? That's something new. I'd imagine a senior girl so sick of Tania Sinclair would be ecstatic to have her finally wiped out for good. But suddenly I remember a crucial fact that I haven't paid much attention to all these years—Tania Sinclair was Rita Lorkerstone's half sister by way of their mother.
Suddenly, I feel crushed. Sad for Rita Lorkerstone. Sad for Tania Sinclair's terribly unlikely lot. Sad for her parents. But then, I'm not exactly sad anymore. The emotion transitions into something else, something fiery inside of me that makes me feel warm. No, not warm. I feel like I'm burning for something. Longing for something. Revenge? But against who, or what? The mines? I would have to be crazy to want revenge against the machine mines that the Capitol Gamemakers have made...
BAM! The realization hits me like a wrecking ball. But it's so repellent, so different from what I usually feel that I think I've crossed over to the crazy side. I could die right now if I said it out loud. I want revenge against the Capitol Gamemakers, I realize.
"Oh no," I whisper, and I snap out of my reverie. No, no, no, no! This is wrong. I cannot want revenge against the Capitol Gamemakers. I cannot want revenge against anyone in the Capitol at all. It's crazy. It's unquestionably crazy and unethical. But it's unethical, what your people are doing to these poor people who are forced into the arenas to die, a voice inside my head answers my thoughts.
No, it can't be unethical, can it? It's a punishment for them. They dared to defy the power of the Capitol years ago. They started that revolution to kill us all. They wanted control over our lives. It's only fair that they are put through this. If anything, it's disciplinary, isn't it? It's making them all better people. It's making them all dead people, the voice says again.
No. No. No. It can't be. We're not murdering them, are we? The tributes themselves are the murderers! They're the ones with lethal weapons in their blood-stained hands. They're the ones that kill the innocent ones. The victors. They've all killed at least one person, right? The Capitol forced them to kill for their lives. What would you expect? No. No. No. No. NO!
Suddenly, I realize that my brother has awakened in a start, and Abel is searching me, panick written all over his confused face. "What is it?" Abel asks frantically, and it occurs to me that I may have been screaming during my blurring chase with the train of thought. "What is it, Skye? Are you hurt? Are you hurt? Skye?" He's shaking me by the shoulders now, but I can't say anything. I feel like dirt. I feel horrible.
"What's wrong?" he asks again, cupping my chin in his hand, forcing me to look up and answer him. "Tell me, Skye!"
Tears suddenly spill out from my eyes, and I hunch over, sobbing like you wouldn't believe. I'm making these horrible choking sounds, wheezing for air as I exhale them in gasps. I don't say anything, because the sobbing is just so uncontrollable, I'm afraid of looking like a fool if I attempted anything remotely close to uttering a word. Not that I would know how to explain this to Abel anyway.
It's my brother's voice that finally tells me enough is enough. He's harshly questioning Abel, asking him what he has done to me. My brother's tone is cold, and it sounds as if he could kill Abel if he found out anything unpleasant. Abel is confusedly reassuring my brother that he has said nothing wrong, that I'm only probably shocked to hear about Tania. It's at his helplessness to my brother that I resolve to stop sobbing. I gather my composure, and lift my face to theirs, but only to break out crying again.
Abel gets out of the way, and my brother takes his seat almost immediately. Levi reaches out, pats my leg. "What's wrong, Skye?" he asks me gently. "Does anything hurt? Your wounds? Your back? What?"
I gaze up at him through my watery eyes. Levi's image is blurry in my sight, but it doesn't take a lot to realize that he's got a large bump the size of half a tomato on his forehead. The lump is a disgusting bruise-like color, and then for the first time, I wonder what I must look like. "Nothing, Leevs," I say in between hiccups. "I just... Tania Sinclair is dead." I sigh. "I can't believe it."
"Me niether, Skye, Sweetheart," he tells me. "No one can believe it. But listen, they won't cancel the fieldtrip. The school's strict about keeping us here for the rest of the month until the trip is done. They say leaving will waste a colossal lot of money. So we'll have to stick it out, okay? But I'll be here. I'll be here to help and to keep you safe, and I promise not to let anything happen to you," Levi says, then he glances momentarily at Abel. "And Abel promises the exact same thing," he adds, humor slipping into his tone. Abel grimaces, looks away.
I look away, too. Because I don't have the heart to ask them what their little exchange means. And because I really don't want to know. Make that, I don't care. The only thing I care about now is my questionable sanity. My questionable physical condition. And most of all, my potentially questionable lifestyle.