Sorry for no update in 2+ months. Everything goes down these next two chapters!
Chapter 12
Katniss Everdeen
Gale returns later, when the sun is setting over town. He is grim and his face is streaked with dirt. I watch him warily from the other side of the room.
"The cabin is elevated," Gale says. "But there's a cliff, sort of like a plateau, about twenty meters away from it, but it takes about a three-mile hike to safely get to the top of it, because you have to go all the way around. The cabin is on a hill, and it's valley all the way around it."
"Is Mallory there?"
"At least six people. Including Mallory. I saw him. A woman, I think, too, but I think she's with Mallory."
"We should go tonight," Peeta says unexpectedly, jolting me. I give him a hard look. Has he forgotten the Games, the war? Does he really want involved in this?
Before I can say anything, Gale shakes his head. "Not tonight. Not all of us, anyway. Tomorrow night."
"We're not forcing any of you to come," Ezra adds quickly. But in my head, I add, What choice do we have? None, really. Not unless Gale goes rogue and does everything. Which wouldn't be the first time.
I don't sleep well that night. Images of blood and guns visit my dreams on continuous loop. I wake up in cold sweat, the room swelling blackness and night lurking outside the window. I don't try to go back, but instead stay awake and stare at the ceiling.
When dawn breaks on the horizon, it comes as a relief.
Evangeline Moffat
Ezra's not here.
He is physically, but that's nothing. That's nothing. I don't know where he is, who he is. Somewhere deep inside that shell of a man is Ezra, but today he is the ruins of Jericho.
Gale asks me before he goes to bed about him, and I'm hesitant to reply. Isn't Ezra angry with him? Wasn't Gale being a giant asshole?
"How's Ezra?" The concern in his eyes.
"Ezra's…surviving." Ezra's fucking dead. The predatory instinct inside of him was killed sometime in this trip. He's never been anything but a raptor. Now we're the quarry.
"Good," Gale says brusquely, before things can get awkward, and before I can ask him what his problem was earlier. He turns to leave but hesitates in the doorway. "He's no good for you. You know that, right?"
"He doesn't have anyone." Ezra's family-gone, because they think him mad. My family-dead, burnt to ash in factory explosions and train wrecks. "But he has me."
"He has me," Gale corrects. "I've known him years longer than you have. He's no good for you. I'm sorry. But if you were wise, keep away from him after this."
I know I should heed his words, but I don't want to. "Who said I was wise?" I ask softly.
Ezra and I stay in the room. We watch the news for updates on the carnage. We sit, just sit, beside each other. I want to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid.
In District 4 today a man was hanged by officials after he claimed he helped plant the bombs. The Mayor of District 4 has officially resigned. Paylor has made an official statement regarding the terror. New Agency jurisdiction states that no one can now enter or exit District 4. In District 3, several refugees were deported. A constant stream of agony emits from the screen. I don't know when I fell asleep, but I wake up the next morning to sunlight flitting through the dusty curtains.
Ezra is in the kitchen cooking. He smiles at me as if he hadn't had a meltdown yesterday, hadn't went crazy.
"Are you okay?" I ask.
"Fine."
He's playing a dangerous game, not getting whatever illness is plaguing him sorted out. And it has to be an illness; Gale said he wasn't always this uptight. Icarus, flying closer to the sun than he should. It's time Ezra resigned. I don't say so. I will later, when today is yesterday.
He's looking at pictures of his children, and something in my heart expands. I lower my eyes. I think he notices, because he says, "You ready for tonight?"
Ready to face death? "Of course I'm ready."
"It's your first field mission."
"I know." I hold his steady gaze.
"Good," he says.
Katniss Everdeen
I need air.
Stuck in this suffocating, stifling apartment for days has done little to help me survive. Living in such close proximity to Gale-a room over, to be exact-haunts me. I want to be close to him, want to breathe the same air as him.
I have Peeta, I tell myself. There is no need for this. Don't forget Prim. Don't forget the bombs.
I get up in the early morning, before anyone else in the apartment is up. I slip outside in the hallway, and through the tiny window on the door parallel to me, I see Ezra and Evangeline talking. He's smiling, his lips speaking words I can't hear, and she's laughing, her teeth perfectly white against windburnt skin. They stand close to each other, something warm in their eyes. Peeta and I were never like that. We were never upbeat. Maybe that's where the root of our problems lie.
"Where are you going?" a voice drawls. I flinch. Haymitch stands at the end of the hall, rifle in hand. I hadn't realized he was gone when I woke up.
"Outside."
He frowns, opens his mouth to spout out some wisdom from his own Games, but I cut him off. "I need air."
He hesitates, and for one moment I'm afraid he's going to block my way out, but then he sighs. "Be careful, sweetheart."
I give him a kiss on the cheek. "Don't worry about me. Keep yourself safe."
He's gruff. "We'll see."
"Stay out of the fighting tonight."
"That's too far."
I know there's no reasoning with him, even when he's nearing sixty and finally feeling the lasting effects of alcohol. I nod toward Ezra and Evangeline's door. "Do you know what's with him?"
Something tightens in his face, and he nods. "You know too. You and Peeta both."
"Gale doesn't."
"Gale needs to get his head out of his ass," Haymitch says steadily. "Be back in fifteen minutes. I'll tell them you went to the bathroom down the hall."
I nod and head down the hallway towards the stairs. Haymitch yells over his shoulder, "Where's your mother?"
"She's here now, she called me a few days ago. She's living in one of the hospital's spare rooms."
"Good for her."
I open the door to the fire escape and slip down the stairs, my footsteps echoing off the frozen wasteland. Mounds of snow, twelve feet high, line the streets, six new inches lying on the street. I lean against the wall and inhale, the frigid oxygen filling my lungs. Gale and Peeta, upstairs, don't know. I wonder what they'd do if they knew I was here, possibly jeopardizing our whole mission by revealing myself.
Shit. Maybe Haymitch didn't think of that when he said I could, but now I am. I move to head back up the fire escape just as a van pulls up. It slides on the ice and the person in the passenger throws down their window, and I see the machine in hand just before pain rips through my leg. I look down and see a hole through my calf. I can see light through my leg. Red is everywhere. My blood. My blood is everywhere. And before I can even scream, a wave of black submerges me.
Gale Hawthorne
"The house is here," I tell Rory, pointing at a map on the table. "And the lake is just behind them. The cliff's to the right. If we get on the cliff, we'll have the advantage of higher ground. They won't be able to shoot us."
"But the angle's too steep to shoot at the house," he points out. "I think we'll just have to attack head-on."
"I don't know," I say doubtfully. "More chance of casualty."
"Hiding by the lake is out," Rory says, "because it's too low. They'll see us. Maybe if we hike around from the hill behind, we'll still have the advantage."
"Maybe, but-" I stop at the sound of a gunshot outside. I see Haymitch's eyes widen, and he drops his bottle. It busts on the floor, liquor bleeding into the carpet. He pushes past me and out the door. Rory, Peeta, and I quickly follow suit. In the hall, Ezra and Evangeline are opening their door.
"What's going on?" Ezra asks me.
"I don't know."
Haymitch stands in the doorframe of the fire escape. "Katniss!" he yells.
Where the hell is Katniss?
I push past them and see it. Blood coats the stairs, the snow dark red.
"Where is she?"
Rory has to restrain Peeta as Haymitch explains that he didn't stop Katniss from leaving. Peeta lunges out of his chair at him, but Rory rips him back.
"She's not dead," Ezra says. "They would have left her if she were dead."
"That's supposed to help, is it?" Peeta spits.
"They're keeping her to lure us in. So that we'll find them easy enough and they can kill us." I know that what Ezra's saying is only statistically half-true. But I shut my eyes and exhale. I hope Peeta doesn't see I'm just as concerned for his wife as he is.
You have Oline.
But all I want to do is turn tonight's assassination into a rescue mission.
