CHAPTER 3.14
'Hollow eyes haunt me.
Voice poisons my dreams.
No easy night's sleep.
You're all around me.'
'"They're back." Haymitch announced, bursting into the room. "We're wanted in the hospital and that's all I know."
Heart leaping from her chest, Katniss wished she could run the long walk to the hospital. Both Gale and Peeta could be there safely as she was only minutes away from finding out. The prospect of seeing Peeta for the first time had her heart pounding a thousand miles an hour.
On the other hand, her feet stumbled through an agonisingly slow walk as she had to help guide Finnick out of the room. Shocked by the news, the man from Four appeared to have lost the ability to walk as his feet shuffled along.
Was Annie down there?
Were Indiana and Johanna alive?
Was Cato alive and happy, having reunited with Indiana?
He was going to see Annie but somehow his body couldn't move. He was too terrified for any bad news he could receive.
Bursting into the hospital wing, there was a flurry of activity as all the returned soldiers were being given mandatory checks and the 'rescued' were undergoing severe medical assessments.
A gurney passed by with a bald, young woman laying unconscious on it. She was covered in bruises and scabs; she was unhealthily skinny and her skin pale. Johanna Mason was alive but she was certainly not well. The woman had been through Hell and back and she looked it.
Fear coiled in the pits of the two healthy Victors as they dreaded to see the state of the other prisoners.
In one room, a doctor was seeing to Gale. He had been stripped of his shirt and the doctor was removing the bullet from his shoulder. Blood dribbled out of the window, mixing with the slight sheen of sweat coating his chest. Relief washed over Katniss upon seeing her friend and she called out for him only to be shut out of the room by a nurse.
"Finnick!" A joyful voice echoed around the vast space of the hospital.
Turning to face the dark haired woman who was dressed in nothing but a sheet, Finnick's face broke out into a huge grin, highlighting how handsome he was. Colliding with each other, the reunited pair smashed into a wall but neither of them paid it any attention as they remained wrapped in each other's arms; the world around them faded away. Nothing else mattered but each other.
Smiling at the loving display, Katniss couldn't help the small pang of jealousy that struck her as she watched them, so certain of their love for each other. On the other side of the room, Cato watched his friend with a similar expression to Katniss. Whilst he was grateful that Annie had been rescued safely and Finnick had gotten the woman he loved back, Cato was also jealous because he had been robbed of a reunion with his fiancée.
Finding the blond brute, Katniss made her way over to him, noting his bloodshot eyes. Before she had the chance to greet him, she was pulled in for a tight hug.
"I got Peeta out. He's safe." Cato informed her, reminding himself that something good had come out of the rescue mission.
Tears pooled into the young woman's grey eyes as she thanked him profusely. Cato had found Peeta and he had rescued him. She would be eternally grateful. However, there was a pain in his eyes that made Katniss uneasy. Noticing that he didn't have a certain deadly blonde by his side, Katniss gulped and prepared herself for the bad news.
"Cato, where is she?"
"No one-." Cato hiccuped and furiously brushed away a tear, leaving a steak of red across his face. "No one will tell me anything. Gale was the one who found her but she was unconscious and covered in blood. There was so much blood. She was rushed into that room and they won't let me see her. Katniss, what if-."
The young woman's heart broke at the pain her friend was going through. He had come so close to getting her back only for this to happen. She couldn't imagine the amount of pain she was going through.
Looking down at Cato's shaky hands, Katniss noticed that they were plastered in blood, which meant the streak of red across his face was somebody's blood. Boggs, completely uninjured but looking exhausted, walked over to the trio before he dismissed Cato.
"Go wash up and rest, Soldier Hadley."
"But-." Cato gestured wildly to the door that Indiana was behind.
"All I can tell you is that she won't be waking up for a while. Therefore, you have time to shower and sleep. If anything changes, you'll be the first to know. Now, go. That's an order."
Cato's face contorted with hurt and anger but he knew his place within Thirteen was already in a precarious position already. Refusing basic orders would only threaten it further and he needed to be on his best behaviour to ensure the wellbeing of Indiana. Nodding stiffly, Cato stormed out of the hospital wing, unaware of the danger that would befall Katniss at the hands of the man he had rescued.
Not even six hours later, Cato had washed himself thoroughly and managed to achieve four hours of rest. Making the journey back to the hospital, he examined his large hands. Not a single fleck of blood remained. He had spent almost twenty minutes scrubbing them under the boiling water of his tap; front and back, under all the nails and in all the little creases. They were absolutely spotless.
However, he couldn't shake the image of Indiana's blood coating them out of his head.
Stumbling over his own feet, the wall caught him as he staggered into it. Sliding down onto the floor as tears coated his vision, Cato struggled to breathe properly for a few moments. If Indiana died, his bloodstained hands would be the last memory he would have of her. Bile rose in his throat and he had to force himself to swallow it back down so as to avoid heaving in the corridor.
Images of her lifeless body played in his head. Blood coating her arms, her cheeks hollow and her skin practically translucent, her lips blue.
Resting his head against his knees, Cato allowed the events from the past day to wash over him like a tidal wave. Every day since Indiana had been taken from him, he had been terrified of the fate that would befall her. During the rescue mission, he had been so high on adrenaline that emotions had been foreign to him – all that mattered was surviving.
He was meant to be spending his morning in joy – his fiancée safely in his arms, happy and healthy. The pair of them would've moved into new quarters, big enough for two. They would've spent the night wrapped in each other's safety and comfort. Instead, he would be destined to spend another night alone, plagued by the dreams and memories that refused to leave him.
Cato felt like he was drowning.
Indiana had spent a night in a hospital bed, unconscious – her life possibly ebbing away with each passing moment. She could die thinking she was still trapped in the Capitol. She could die thinking Cato had never come for her.
The emotions were suffocating him, pushing him back under anytime he tried to reach the surface.
Huddled up in an empty corridor, Cato tucked himself into a ball and wept.
'But tell me the truth.
Are you haunted too.
By the ghost of you.'
