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Chapter 11; in which there is a rebellion, cats (yay!), and people.
I wake up to a bright light and voices I don't recognize. There's a woman I can hear clearly, another woman whose words I can barely make out, and a man. "She won't be happy about . . ." Says the first woman.
"Forget her . . . fate . . . rebellion . . . his life," says the other woman.
The man snorts loudly. "He doesn't matter at all and nor does she. They don't help us at all unless we have both here, both safe, and both willing to help us. Not to mention if one dies, the other does too."
I'm nearly certain they're talking about Jayden and me, but I don't understand what they're talking about. What are they trying to do? Why do they need either of us at all? What use would I be to whatever they're planning?
"She's awake," the first woman says.
I sit up as the people came in. One of the two women is blonde with pale blue eyes, the other is a red head with dark green eyes, and the man has greying black hair and very dark, very intense blue eyes. "What do you want from me?" I ask, surprised I sound much more sure than I really am.
"Nothing right now, I'll call somebody down to show you around." The red head woman says, leaving.
The man examines me carefully. "She'll probably be good to go into training with the others. I will see you tomorrow in training." He turns and leaves.
The blonde woman rolls her eyes, "don't worry, I swear I won't bite, but I can't speak for them. I'm Cynthia Haralson, the Genetic Engineering specialist here. I'm sorry about them, they're not too happy about not being able to rescue everybody they wanted to. The other woman was Kitty Storm, our Communications specialist, and the man was our training expert Bernard Wood."
"I'm Rouge," I say softly, still unsure why I'm here. "Who did you get out of there?"
She thinks about the question for a moment. "Well, I don't know many people by name, but I know your mother is here and we have at least a hundred from your district, Haymitch included, a few dozen from district one including me, the Capitol, and very few from other districts. There haven't been many others from other districts but we expect more to come."
"So my father and Jayden . . ."
"Were taken by the Capitol, I'm sorry, we're really trying to figure out where they are."
I consider it for a minute. "Well, I guess we'll know if they kill Jayden, but I think I'd prefer not seeing him next wherever we go after we die." I consider this for a minute. "Check the upper west side of the Capitol for his tracker. If they didn't deactivate it, wouldn't you still be able to detect it on some kind of radar?"
She looks surprised and amazed, "That's not my area of expertise, but that sounds plausible. Why do you think this?"
"I don't know," I say, thinking carefully about it. "There's just this thing in my head that's telling me this."
She appears completely enthralled. "Like a voice?"
"No," I say slowly, "More like a . . . magnetic pull. You know how it is when you know somebody really well and you can just . . . feel it when they're close to you?" I pause and try to get my words straight. "It's kind of like that, just stronger and over a longer distance."
"Amazing," she whispers, "it must be part of the bond."
"Maybe," and if it is, I'm starting to hate this. It feels like something is missing, like I'm missing a lung or my heart or some other vital organ. It's kind of like a cavern that's dug deep into my chest and is only home to loneliness and pain. But for a metaphoric cavern, it really hurts.
The door opens and a girl who looks a few years older than me walks in. "Hey, I'm Cheyenne West; I'll be showing you around."
Cynthia smiles, "I'll let you two talk; I have to go. I'll be in my office if you need me." She leaves the room quietly.
Cheyenne watches her leave then turns to me. "I'm Cheyenne, as she said, I'm eighteen and I was from twelve too. We never met because we're a few years apart in school. My little brother also was friends with your little brother. You probably remember Alexander."
I knew he had a sister but I never met her, at least, until now. "Yeah, I remember him. Those two were inseparable. How's Alex handling Chase's death?" If he's handling it at all like me, he's not handling it well.
"Very well actually," she says it like she's surprised as I am. And she very well may be. "He said that the true meaning of life is true happiness and that Chase had found it so he had no reason to live anymore."
I want to cry but I hold back the tears. "Why are young kids always more intelligent than us teens?"
"Maybe the hormones destroy creativity? I'm not sure, but either way, I'm supposed to show you around." I stand and follow her out into a long, white hallway before she starts speaking again. "This is our medical facility, as you've probably figured out. Up one floor are the farms, and above that are the classrooms, the mess hall, and command rooms. Everything above that are our compartments and below us is the indoor training area."
I nod slowly, "no problem."
"I'll show you where your compartment is; its number 263, top floor, closest to the surface. You'll be staying with your mother."
"Alright, anything else I should know?"
She stops for a second and thinks, "well, they're really strict about supplies and rules and everything, so just be careful, and they'll probably be watching you pretty carefully because of the wings."
Nothing I didn't expect, but it shouldn't be too hard to fit in. Well, all except the wings, but I'll live with that. "No problem, it's not like I'm really a potential arsonist, I can barely control my powers."
"That's what they're worried about." She says, leading me into an elevator. "They think you'll try to figure out the extent of your powers unsupervised and the whole district will be burned to ashes."
I roll my eyes, "like I haven't heard that before. It's like whenever we do anything adults are afraid something will happen. A tornado, hurricane, tsunamis, but most often fire."
"Exactly," she says, "and they start more fire than us. Smoking, leaving the stove on, causing wildfires, then there's also deforestation, nuclear war, the melting of the polar ice caps. Adults have ruined this world for us." She turns to a door, "Here we are; your new home. Make yourself comfortable. I'm a floor down in 352 if you need me. Hey Katniss, I'll see you later." She turns away and exits, leaving me alone with my mother.
It's a medium sized room with two beds one stacked on top of the other. My mother sits on the bottom one. She had been engrossed in a book that didn't have a title on the cover but now she looks up to me. She puts the book aside and stands before pulling me into her arms. "I love you Rouge," she whispers.
"I love you too mom," I respond, slightly in shock. I can't remember the last time she told me she loved me. I knew she did, but she never said it.
I hear someone snicker from the doorway. "What a sweet mother-daughter moment. Funny, what was it I remember you saying in the woods, Catnip? That you were never going to have kids?"
"That is not funny Gale." My mom says, letting go of me. "Why are you here anyway?"
I turn to the man in the doorway. He has dark hair like mom's and grey eyes like my mom's; they were both from the Seam, the poorer part of twelve. I remember mom saying they were hunting partners until he left for district two. "I just thought I'd bring you some stuff from twelve that looked like something you might be interested in." He takes a backpack off his shoulder and opens it. He pulls out my mother's gold mockingjay pin and the locket my father wore as his district token in the seventy fifth Games and drops them into my mother's hand.
"How'd you get into our house?" She asks skeptically.
He smirks, "I have my ways. Now what else do we have here." He drops a small, round pearl into my mom's hand and gives me my charm bracelet I got for my fifth birthday before pausing. "Now, just a few more things," He reaches into the bag and pulls out my black and white cat, Nightberry, "I figured she was yours." He gives me my cat and nods slowly as I cradle her gently. "Now, there were a few other things I found that she refused to let me leave behind." He pulls out two small balls of fur from the bag.
"Kittens," I can't help but smile. I knew Nightberry was getting fat, but I just thought I was feeding her too much. Of course, I didn't feed her; she fed herself so that was a pretty stupid idea.
"Exactly," he says, "I should go; I'll see you around."
"You too," my mother says dryly, taking the kittens and practically shoving him out the door. She puts the kittens on a pillow on the bottom bed. "Never thought I'd see him again," she sounds pretty annoyed.
I pause for a second. "Is this one of those 'you had to be there' moments? Because the girl with a hundred twenty IQ is not following you, maybe you can clarify just a little bit?"
"Don't worry about it, Rouge. You have plenty to worry about as it is, I'll worry about him." She sits back down. "So, how are you doing, Rouge?"
I shrug, "it's pretty nice here. The arena kind of sucked, but otherwise I'm fine. Not too many scars just the ones that guy ripped into my face as you can probably see. I'm going to bed, it's already eight. Goodnight."
"Alright, goodnight, I have to go talk to somebody." She leaves silently, leaving me to go to sleep, but I can't. No matter how hard I try I can't fall asleep with the feeling that there's something inside me eating away at my internal organs.
