KATNISS' POV
My lips formed a silent scream as I watched Peeta fall. There was suddenly no more Gale, no more gunfire, hovercrafts, no more screams in the distance. I dropped to my knees next to him, pulling him up onto my lap.
"PEETA!" I wailed. "No, no…"
Blood already soaked his front. It ran down his torso and drenched my lap with the sticky, metallic-smelling fluid. I did my best not to retch at the smell, but that was the last thing on my mind.
I cupped Peeta's face in my hands, forcing it to turn to me. "Come on, Peeta, stay awake," I pleaded, a maniac tone rising up into my throat.
His pupils had dilated to just a tiny dot as they wheeled around blindly. Trying to keep him awake, I slapped his cheek and forced him to look at me. Finally, his eyes latched onto mine and his mouth opened, releasing a drip of blood.
"You stay with me, Peeta Mellark," I growled, tears budding in my eyes. "Don't you dare leave me. Do you hear?"
Nothing happened. He just kept staring, mouth twitched as if he was trying to say something.
"I have to…I have to staunch the…the…" I told myself, blinking through the haze of tears, and struggled to twist Peeta's shirt up so I could see the wound.
Dark blood flowed out like a tap left half-on. It had already saturated every inch of his torso, running onto my legs. Letting out a wail like a wounded animal, I tried pressing my hands on the wound but it just squirted around my fingers, splattering across my chest.
I didn't even notice when a District 13 hovercraft froze above us and a dozen uniformed officials leapt out and shackled an unconscious Gale up and dragged him into the cab with them.
Peeta had stopped moving. His eyes stared blankly up into the sky.
"Peeta…" I wailed again, quieter, knotting my fists in his wet shirt, closing my eyelids tight against the world.
No. Stop that.
I unclenched my fists.
You have to be stronger than this, Katniss. Don't lose yourself, he needs you.
I slid Peeta off of my lap and allowed myself one deep breath before wiping my eyes and clenching my jaw.
"There's no way in hell I'm letting you die," I whispered to him in such a severe voice I frightened myself.
He said nothing, of course.
Stretching my arms out, I checked for a pulse in Peeta's neck. My fingers slid through the slick liquid coating his body but I found it. Slow and weak, but there.
I was wearing an undershirt, right? Without even pausing, I ripped off my top shirt and after bunching it up in a little ball, pressed it as tight as I could against the gash in his stomach. It went all the way through him, though. Could have punctured a major organ or his spine or—
A tiny, choked sound burbled from the back of my throat but I sucked it back in. Despite my efforts, fear ripped through my veins, and it was hard not losing myself within that thought. Peeta may die.
My shirt was dripping wet in a matter of seconds.
"Now's a really good time to get a medic hovercraft over here!" I yelled up in the sky, furious at District 13, furious at the Capitol, furious of myself.
A continuous wounded-animal sound was coming from my mouth now. I was trembling like a leaf, but tried to hold the shirt tight anyways.
"You're not dying," I howled, tears flooding down my face as I bent over his motionless form. "You're not dying, you're not leaving me. Please don't leave me."
Another hovercraft appeared above us.
I wouldn't let go of Peeta's body.
Someone touched my shoulder.
I shrank away, gripping Peeta even harder. No, no, no… Please, no…
"Katniss,"
"NO!" I screamed, struggling against the hands that were now trying to pry me off of him "Let go of me! NO! PEETA!"
Arms held me like a vice away from Peeta and I watched through a heavy flow of tears as men dressed in white hauled Peeta up into their craft.
"Peeta!" My wails were pitiful, and my effort to break free of the hold was even more pitiful.
In the end, the medic hovercraft disappear in the sky, leaving me on my knees, hunched towards the ground, coated in tears and blood, screaming at the world.
"Just hold together, Katniss, another hovercraft will be here for us soon…" Finnick said next to me. His voice sounded a million miles away, barely penetrated my mind.
I covered my face in my bloody hands, turning away. His arms were the only things keeping me on the ground, whether they were violent and trying to restrain me or gentle and trying to comfort me.
On the ride home I cried myself to sleep.
Nothing else to do.
When we got there, I'd have to face my mother. Face Prim.
Face Forest.
My wonderful son.
What could I tell him?
He deserved more than this, more than me. Today, the Capitol took away from me my everything. My soul. I wasn't complete any more, and Forest deserved something better than a partial mother.
How could this happen? Was I going to leave just like my own mother did so many years ago?
No, I couldn't do that.
I'm stronger than that.
I will go on, if just for Forest.
I will go on in hopes that someday I'll be whole again.
For Forest, if for nobody else.