And she updates again twelve days later! Sorry, everyone, it's getting harder to write nowadays. But like I said before, I will finish this story no matter what! Thanks for all of the reviews you guys left for the last chapter. I like reading what you all have to say!
Please enjoy!
Chapter 25: Dispute
Updated: 4/21/2014
My eyes slowly open, feeling heavy. This simple action seems to take up all of the energy that I have left in my body. The smoke in the atmosphere sting my eyes, forcing me to squint in order to see. I see dust flying about, causing this whole area to appear foggy and obscured. There are no sounds entering my ears, except for the humming from the aftermath of the explosive. Temporary, I'm deaf. I try to sit up, feeling pain shoot through my entire body. There's a building next to me and I seem to have flew over here from the explosion because I was just near the warehouse which is a distance away now. As the dust begins to disperse, I'm able to make up the pile of debris scattered about from the bombs and a few other buildings destroyed. Then I notice the other figures rising to their feet weakly.
There's a voice in my ear, but it's barely audible. I stand to my feet shakily, my head throbbing painfully. I feel dizzy for some reason, so I lean my shoulder on the building until it goes away. There's a burning pain in my left side that I have to clutch with my hands, grazing my teeth together through the pulsing. The voice in my ear starts to get louder and I am able to make out Haymitch's voice on the other end.
"Katniss, are you there?" he shouts. He sounds desperate. "Katniss!"
"I'm…" I start slowly, pulling my hands from my side. My palms are coated with blood. "…bleeding."
"What? You're bleeding?" Haymitch says on the other end. He almost sounds worried.
I shake my head, realizing how that sounds. "No, I-I'm fine," I say instead as I wipe my hands on my shirt. There doesn't appear to be any serious wounds on me, so I guess it's not a problem. If calling the deep cut on my side not serious, then I'm fine. I do have a few scratches, though nothing that needs immediate attention, I don't think. I can see that the others are rising to their feet around me, a few far off, having been blasted far from the blast.
"Katniss, are you okay?" Haymitch demands. I must've been quiet for too long because he sounds frustrated now.
"Yes, yes, I'm okay," I say firmly, pulling my weight from the building.
Haymitch starts talking to me again, telling me that we have to hurry and get to the hovercraft before more bombs are dropped, but I pull the earpiece from ear to block him out, as I search my eyes around for the one person that matters most to me here.
There's Cressida and Messalla, climbing out of a pile of debris. Then Pollux and Castor, still shaken up from the bombs. No Boggs. No Gale.
"Gale!" I call. I search around almost frantically, the others not reacting to my calls. Pollux and Castor are helping Blight out from a pile of rubble. He seems slightly bloody in his abdominal area and doesn't seem conscious, eyes closed tightly shut and body limp. I call for Gale again, more desperately this time. Fear grips at my heart, tugging me in complex directions. I can't lose Gale. I can't lose my best friend. Not to the Capitol. Not to Snow.
Then I hear a muffled voice, somewhere near me. My heart nearly leaps from my chest in relief as I hurry over to the voice. There's movement underneath a pile of debris and I begin to shove the stuff away. This isn't Gale. It's Boggs. He reaches a bloody hand toward me and I grasp onto him as I drag him out from the clump that formed on top of his body. He grunts in pain, letting out the occasional shout, until I finally pull him all the way out. One side of his head is matted with blood and his left leg has a nasty cut going down his left shin.
Boggs leans on me for support and I slink my arm around his waist to help hold him up.
"We have to get to the hovercraft as soon as possible," he murmurs weakly. "We don't have time to lose."
I nod, as I look over my shoulder to see Messalla helping Gale out of a pile of rubble. When he's all the way out, I can see him more clearly. He doesn't look seriously injured, scratched up a bit, but fine. I sigh through my nose in relief, glad that he's okay.
I glance up, in the distance, to see one of those Capitol hovercrafts. I'm not sure if it's the same one that dropped that bomb on us, but I'd like to see it get blown up. As Castor and Pollux take Boggs from me, letting him lean on them, I'm quick to bolt away. Gale seems to be thinking the same thing, because he's quick to follow. He knows me well. I hear Boggs calling us back, but we're already running toward the hovercraft. Our shoes scuffle against the concrete, and we leap over crumpled cement and pot holes. I realize that I'm still holding my earpiece. For a second I consider putting it back on. Then I think better of it and drop it to the ground and run over it with my boot. Haymitch can shout at me about it later. Right now, I need to teach the Capitol a lesson.
There's a tall building up ahead that has a long ladder leading up to the roof. Gale and I make our way toward it. I climb up first with Gale following closely behind me. Once we're nearly there to the top, the ladder begins to shake due to the building rumbling after a sudden bombing in the distance. I hold still for a second, waiting for the shaking to stop. Unexpectedly, the ladder loses it's bearings on the building and starts to lean backwards, taking us with it. We're too high to jump down, too high to survive this fall. And before a yell can escape my mouth, two hands dart out and grab hold of the top bar of the ladder, keeping it in place.
When I look up I'm surprised to see no other than the Commander of District 8.
"Commander Paylor?" I'm surprised. I thought she had died in the collapsing of the hospital.
"Don't talk, just climb!" she says through gritted teeth. Another soldier becomes visible above the building as he starts to help Paylor hold the ladder steady.
I hurry up the ladder, gripping hold of each bar firmly. The soldier takes my hand and hauls me up, onto of the building. I release a low sigh, glad to be safe on flat ground. I turn to watch the soldier pull Gale up as well.
"Keep this ladder steady," Paylor orders the male soldier. "We'll need to get down from here eventually."
"Yes, ma'am."
There are other soldiers up here as well, several that I didn't notice before, all holding weapons of their own. Geared with vests, bullets, and grenades in their pouches.
I turn to Paylor. "I didn't think you made it out of the hospital."
"As well as I to you," she says. "But I should know that the Mockingjay isn't an easy target." She inserts a load of bullets into her handheld machine gun. "That looks like a bad cut there." She tilts her head toward my left side.
"It's nothing fatal." I wave at her in dismissal.
"Does Boggs know you're up here?"
"He'll find out soon enough," I reply.
"Well then I'm glad I'm not you." She cracks a small smile of amusement. "Well, do you have guns?"
"We don't carry guns. Our bows will do just fine," says Gale from beside me. We show her our large bows, with an arrow ready.
Paylor nods curtly. "They will have to do."
I turn around to see two others climbing atop the roof; Cressida, and Messalla who's holding the camera. I guess they followed us here to get a few shots for the propo. That's the whole reason why we came here. Surely Boggs is angry with us. Hopefully Castor and Pollux will get him to the hovercraft safely because his leg looked pretty bad.
The Capitol hovercraft is moving closer to our building now. It doesn't fly directly over us, fortunately, and we begin firing at the tank. My bow feels really strong and powerful and each shot I take makes an explosion on the large aircraft. It's not long when the Capitol hovercraft erupts in flames. The aircraft begins to fall, exploding in the air, debris flying all over the place. My ears pound with the sounds of exploding metal and fire catching steel.
Within the deepest depths in me, feels a sort of satisfaction at the hovercraft's demise.
"Katniss, are you ready?" asks Cressida.
I turn to her and Messalla. Messalla is pointing the camera at me and I know that it's filming because of the red blinking light. "Yes," I say firmly. Then I hesitate. What will I say? I can see the hospital in the distance, still hovering with smoke. All those people. All those patients who were so happy to see me. Just by seeing that gives me enough strength and confidence to say my speech. My words are filled with so much hatred and meaning as they are directed towards Snow, my eyes boring into the camera lens. And my last line goes, "If we burn, you burn with us!"
And with that, Cressida calls that a wrap.
The blinking light stops.
(o)(o)(o)
The next thing I know I'm on a hospital room bed. I had slept the whole way back to District 13 with my head resting on Gale's lap. Nurses had come in earlier to fix up my wounds, by dabbing them with cotton balls and checking them for infection. Now I'm alone, staring up at the ceiling. From what I heard from Plutarch, he says that Boggs's leg wasn't as serious as I thought and he's also in the infirmary. Gale and the others are in their own rooms as well, getting their wounds checked out. Luckily no one was injured seriously.
I turn to lie on my right side and allow sleep to take me easily. My dreams are plagued by that hospital blowing up over and over again, and the faces of those patients exploding in their beds. When I wake up later, Finnick arouses me with bowls of fruit for us. He sits on the edge of my bed as I pull myself to a sitting position. I take one bowl from him, thanking him, before eating delicately. Finnick tells me that Plutarch informed him of what happened in District 8.
Good. I didn't want to relive the experience anyway. I can't stop thinking about all those innocent people. That little girl that resembled Prim too much. I feel like I left my sister behind. Then I have to remind myself that she wasn't Prim and Prim is the Capitol's clutches. I can't decide which is worse.
The Capitol. Anger burns in my belly at the thought of the Capitol. One way or the other, they will perish, starting with stupid President Snow. I almost can't wait to pierce his heart with an arrow and watch him crumble to the floor in agony. We'll see how he likes it.
"It's on!" Finnick says suddenly.
I turn my attention toward the television that's on the wall across from us. I can tell that Beetee's trying to get through the Capitol's broadcasts to push his through because the screen keeps flickering on and off. The news cuts off and on comes the propo. It starts off with me in the hospital with the patients, giving autographs to smiling people. I push my face in my pillow to block out those faces. I pull my face back out when the screen cuts to a different part. Gale and I are on the tall building, watching as the Capitol hovercraft flies by. There a few other shots with Gale or Paylor explaining what has happened to the hospital, before turning back to us shooting at the Capitol hovercraft. Then it cuts to a few other parts. Then I'm on screen again, looking furiously at the camera as I shout my speech. Then words pop up on the screen "if we burn, you burn with us" before bursting into flames. Then the screen cuts back to a boring Capitol broadcast.
Finnick turns off the TV with the remote. He's silent. He's not even eating his fruit anymore.
I can imagine everyone – Coin, Plutarch, or Fulvia or Beetee ─ clapping and cheering at the success of the propaganda. Am I the only one who thinks this isn't a victory? The Capitol still won. They got away with destroying the hospital; well at least not that one hovercraft we destroyed. But still… I hand my bowl to Finnick before pulling the pillow to my chest. My eyes stare off at the white wall below the TV, at nothingness. I'm not focusing on the wall itself, but through it at the blankness of emptiness. I remember how that soldier threw himself on top of me when the ceiling nearly collapsed on me. He died. For me. I just can't stop killing people, can I?
"I'm sorry, Katniss," Finnick murmurs as he sets both of our bowls down onto the desk next to the bed. "I know that upset you. I shouldn't have made you watch it."
"You didn't make me watch it," I say. "I was going to watch it eventually, with or without you." After I've said it, I realized that sounded harsher than I'd meant to. "Sorry…" I mumble hastily. "I just don't understand why they had to destroy the hospital with all those sick people…"
"I know," Finnick says softly. "It was wrong of them."
"But why?" I look at him now, expecting an answer.
"I don't know," he says. "But for whatever sick, twisted reason, we'll make them pay for it."
I nod slowly, my chin resting on the pillow. He sounds pretty confident about it. I'm genuinely glad he's here with me. I don't think I would've been able to watch the propo if he weren't here, despite what I said. Those images really got to me. I hate reliving horrible experiences.
"There was a girl," I say.
Finnick looks at me.
I'm holding the pillow close to my chest, almost squeezing the life out of it. "She reminded me of Prim...and she died."
"But she wasn't Prim," he points out. "Prim isn't dead. You have to believe that."
I nod slowly. Now he's comforting me. Earlier it was the other way around.
"Did you visit Blight?" I ask. I remember seeing that he was badly injured after that bomb exploded on us. I didn't get a chance to see him after he was brought into the infirmary. I know that Blight had to have had it the worse, because of all that blood I saw matted on his stomach.
"I was going to stop by on my way here but they wouldn't let anyone in his room," Finnick says. "He must've had it bad."
I snort. Honestly I don't like Blight as much, he's kind of annoying. But I never asked for him to get hurt. Hopefully he's not as badly injured as I think.
"Do you want to try and eat some more?" Finnick asks, extending my bowl toward me.
I shake my head. "It'll only make me sick. Thanks though." I give him a small, grateful smile.
He nods brusquely, positioning the bowl onto the table at the bedside. I watch him as he pokes at his own fruit bowl in thought, not plopping any of the fruit into his mouth. His eyebrows are furrowed into a crease, eyes narrowed, a contemplative expression. My eyes travel over to the blank screen TV, remembering the images that were once running across the surface not moments ago. Then I turn my vision away from the blankness, annoyed with my constant thoughts.
Ultimately, Finnick sets his own bowl on the table beside mine and I just stare at the two bowls. The freshly cut, red apple pieces remind me of the blood I saw on my hands after that explosion. Which brings my attention to the pain in my side from that wound I suffered. It's not serious but the pain is still there to annoy me. If Finnick weren't here, I would've gone insane by now. I'm grateful for his company.
"Did you get to see your new trident?" I ask. Maybe talking about another subject will get my mind off of the events of District 8.
Finnick doesn't gaze at me when he responds, "Yeah. It's more technical than the ones I'm used to," he says. "Beetee designed it in the same way as yours, minus the mockingjays. He said that he's going to make all the weapons that way from now on."
"Have you tried it out yet?" I remember how my bow felt when I used it when I was in District 8. How powerful it felt in my hands and the weight of the arrow leaving the bow. Strong and firm. Made me feel like I was invincible.
He shakes his head. "Not yet," he murmurs. "Couldn't leave the district. I was told to remain in the hospital until you returned."
"Oh."
"They still think I'm insane," he adds. "I can tell by the way they speak to me."
"They're wrong if they think you're crazy," I murmur, feeling sorry for him. I wish these doctors wouldn't be so idiotic when it comes to Finnick. Yes, he may get carried way when it comes to Annie, but other than that he's completely sane. "Are you doing okay though after…?" I trail away, not wanting to mention Annie's name. Then I regret ever bringing it up at all.
Finnick's expression becomes grim for a split second and disappears before I can realize it was even there. Then he shrugs his shoulders lightly, finally glancing at me. "I'll be okay…"
His hand is pressed on the bed cushion at his side and I edge my hand closer until my fingertips touch the top of his hand. Slowly, he circles his hand around my own, until we're gripping each other tightly. His palm feels lonely against mine. I can see his green eyes, becoming blurred with water now. And I don't wait a second to lean forward and close our lips together before the tears can fall. I don't want to see him cry, not in the most solemn place in the district. It takes a moment for Finnick to register, but eventually he starts to kiss me back, placing his hand on my arm. I close my eyes briefly, feeling myself getting familiar with him again. And then I pull away first, brushing my thumb across his cheek.
I rest my forehead against his for a moment, breathing in his breath. Then he moves closer to me to close off the gap between us. This one lasts longer than the previous one, I can feel myself starting to lose my senses after a while. I grip the front of his shirt tightly while he squeezes my arm.
What am I doing…?
That's when Haymitch unexpectedly comes through the door.
Finnick and I break away abruptly, turning toward the man standing in the doorway.
"Out," he snaps to Finnick. "I need a few minutes with her." He looks frustrated.
I try not to let out a groan of annoyance. I don't want to hear a lecture right now.
"Thanks for coming," I say to Finnick, giving his hand a gentle squeeze. He nods toward me as he slides off the bed. He leaves through the door. As soon as the door shuts I start, "I'm really not in the mood for a lecture."
"How unfortunate for you then," grumbles Haymitch as he slides into the chair next to the bed.
I glower at him. "Then why are you here?"
I notice that Haymitch's hand is bowled into a fist. He tosses the nearly destroyed earpiece on the bed, in front of me. My frown falters. Oh that's right… Why did I have to throw down my earpiece? I knew I was going to hear it later, but I didn't bother to care at the time. I was too caught up in the moment and I wanted to make the Capitol pay for destroying that hospital.
I hadn't realized that I was sinking down in the bed under Haymitch's harsh gaze. "You disobeyed a direct order!" he bursts out. "And what's worse is that you could have gotten yourself killed!"
"I was fine!" I shout back. "Gale was with me and Cressida and Messalla. I couldn't have died. I was fine."
"You may be fine now, but I don't think you're thinking about the future." He lifts the broken earpiece, dangling it in front of me. "See this? Do you want me to have one of these attached to your ear so you wouldn't take it off? Want to listen to me talk to you 24/7?"
I glare at him again. "No!" The thought of listening to Haymitch in my head 24/7 makes me shudder in horror. No way.
"You know if this happens again, I'll personally super glue an earpiece to your ear," he says, leaning back in his chair, dropping the earpiece back onto the bed.
"No you won't," I say. "I'll keep the stupid thing on next time, alright?"
He raises an eyebrow, mockingly. "Are you sure? Because I'd rather much go with the super glue."
I shake my head. "No super glue."
He gives me a hard look for a moment. Then he lets out a hefty sigh and stands up. He leaves the room without another word. I hear his footsteps retreating and then the door slamming shut. I stare down at the earpiece, unblinkingly. With a heavy sigh I kick it off the bed and throw the covers over my head, feeling my body vibrating with anger.
To be continued…