Chapter 54
(Madge POV)
I hover outside the door to the processing room and wait a moment before I go in. I'm not sure why, but I'm nervous to see everyone. I take a deep breath and go in. I see Haymitch and Prim have arrived. Pemberly isn't in here so she must already be on the next step of processing. I see a family that I'm pretty sure is Rue's family being led away by one of the processing workers. Martin is sitting over in the far corner alone.
"Well, well, if it isn't the princess of 12. We thought you were dead." Haymitch says when he looks up as I come in.
I smile and lift my hand in a wave. Prim runs over and hugs me. She's so thin. They probably haven't been feeding her at all in that prison.
"Hi Prim, welcome to the new district 13. You're safe here." I tell her as I hug her back.
She looks up at me with tear filled eyes. "Are you sure? How do you know they won't find us?"
"It's very safe here. This place has been here for a very long time and they've never been found. You're safe, I promise." I reassure her.
She doesn't have a chance to respond because a woman comes in and calls Prim's name, it's her turn to go. I feel Prim's grip tighten on me and I try to reassure her again. "It's okay Prim. This lady will take you to get some new clothes and get settled into your new bedroom. Go with her and get some rest tonight. Tomorrow I'll make sure Gale finds you, I know he wants to see you."
Her face perks up and she asks "Gale is here too?"
I nod and smile. "He is. All of the Hawthornes are here and they are so happy you've made it here too!"
She takes the woman's outstretched hand and as they go to leave, I say quietly to the woman "I'm not sure she'd had food in awhile. Can you make sure she gets something to eat?"
The woman nods and smiles. "I'm taking her to the children's unit. She'll get everything she needs there."
With Prim gone, I turn, meaning to go talk to Martin but Haymitch stops me first. "I always knew you were more like your mama than your old man. She'd be really proud seeing you here now."
"You think so?" I ask, appreciating that he remembers her. They'd been friends I was told.
"She was one of them you know."
"One of who?"
"An informant for 13."
My mouth gapes open and I stare at him, speechless in disbelief.
"Yep. Right up until she got so sick she couldn't do it anymore."
"Did my father know? Was he one too?"
He lets out a deep laugh at that. "No darling, he most certainly was not. Your mama was very stealthy and very wise. She never told him a damn thing."
"So you knew 13 was here all this time? Why did you stay in 12 all these years when you could've left?"
"Victors are watched so closely that I never thought I'd make it here without them catching me. Not on my own accord anyhow."
"Well I'm glad you're here now." I tell him with a huge smile.
"How'd you get here anyway?"
"Gale Hawthorne. He and I had been secretly dating one another for a little while and when things starting going bad in the games, he helped set up an escape plan for me just in case."
He shakes his head, smiling and says "Secret boyfriend in the Seam, huh? Yeah, you're definetly more like your mama than you know."
I laugh and make a mental plan to find him sometime in the future to sit down and learn more about the mother I know very little about. I love that he can help me get to know who she was and show me all the ways I'm like her. I've always been known as simply the mayor's daughter but I'm excited at the notion that I am also the daughter of someone who dared to think independently.
I make my way over to Martin and sit down across from him.
"I'm glad you made it here. You're free now. You'll never have to be a servant again."
His face is relieved looking and he lets out a little puff of air.
"There's a special unit here that's just for those who used to be Avox. You won't be the only person here who's unable to speak verbally."
He nods. I wish I'd brought paper and pen so he could write things he wanted to say. I'll make sure I have them next time I see him.
"Listen, I wanted to thank you for the warning you gave me on the train that day about not trusting Drew. It saved my life probably. Had you not warned me and made me suspicious of him, I very likely would've been at his house when the Capitol bombed my district and I wouldn't have been able to escape. The Capitol would've arrested me and then killed me. So really, you saved my life." I tell him.
He smiles softly and nods, accepting my thanks. I don't want to, but I know I need to tell him that Drew is here in 13. I don't want him to randomly discover it on his own and feel betrayed.
"I need to tell you something else too." I say with a lump in my throat.
He nods as if telling me to go ahead.
"You probably heard that Drew was killed in the bombings of 12. He wasn't. He's here in 13." I see his jaw tighten and his face turns a deep red so I pause and place my hand on his.
"He won't hurt you here. And he actually helped me get your name on the rescue list. You don't have to be friends with him ever again and you don't have to forgive him for what he did to you. You can hate him forever if that's what you need to do but you will have to be civil with him should you run into one another."
He folds his arms across his chest and shakes his head, his jaw still locked tightly, face still red.
"I know now what he did to you and it's the most deplorable thing imaginable. I am so sorry for all that he did to you. He won't hurt you here though. I won't ever let that happen."
He studies me for a moment and then points at me and then in the air with a questioning look on his face then links his pointer fingers together. He's asking me something and I have to ask him to do it again before I figure out that he's asking if Drew and I are still a couple.
I shake my head. "No, Drew and I will never be together again. I broke things off with him as soon as I discovered what he'd done to you. He and I aren't really even what I'd call friends. We're actually just coworkers. I'm in love with someone else. Someone wonderful from my district who I'd love for you to meet at some point. You'd like him, he's not a fan of Drew's either."
A smile spreads across his face finally at that last little part. He then reaches out and taps his finger lightly on the bandage still on my forehead. I know he's asking what happened.
"Oh, I fell and hit my head on my flight home from seeing you. I'm fine though." I say as my hand reaches up to touch it.
"Did you know that you and I scored the only perfect score on the matching system ever?" I ask, not sure if he even knew we'd been matched.
He smiles again and nods once. He looks around and then motions for something to write with. I shrug and shake my head. "Sorry, I should've brought pen and paper. I didn't think." I apologize.
He takes his finger and points at himself then takes my palm and starts drawing letters with his finger. L.I.E.D. Lied? Is he saying he lied?
"You lied?"
He nods and gestures rapidly between the two of us. He's trying to explain.
"You lied on the matching tests?" I finally ask as my mind lands on that possibly being what he's trying to tell me.
He smiles and nods then gestures between us again and makes an x with his arms and gestures between us again. He's telling me we weren't a real perfect match after all. I laugh and smile back at him. We may not have been a true perfect match on the Capitol testing but I definetly think we could've been friends in our old lives if we'd been given the chance. He seems like a genuinely good person.
(Gale POV)
I'm asleep when Madge comes in and I feel her whisper against my ear. "Wake up."
"So you're speaking to me again?" I ask as I yawn and roll over to face her.
"I was never not speaking to you. I simply told you what you needed to do."
"And had me taken out of your room."
"Oh we both know that just for dramatic effect." She says as she leans over to kiss me.
"So you weren't serious about me having to apologize?" I ask, pulling back and withholding my kiss.
"Oh no, I was serious about that part. Did you do it?"
"More or less."
"What's that mean?"
"It means I said I was sorry but I probably didn't do it as nicely as you imagined I should."
She laughs. "Honestly, I'm surprised you already did it. I was prepared to nag you about it for at least a couple days."
"You can thank my mother for that."
"How so?"
"Oh she found out I hit him and threatened to come with me and make me apologize to him in front of her." I tell her.
She doubles over in laughter. "Now that's something I would've loved to have seen!"
I reach up and loop my arms around her waist, pulling her down on top of me and finally kiss her. "You would've been waiting a very long time to see that. No way was I letting my mother march me over to him and apologize with her overseeing it. No freaking way."
She giggles and kisses me again. "Thank you for apologizing to him. We have to remember to always be the better people. You can't hit people just because you're angry. Really, you shouldn't be hitting anyone at all unless it's in defense."
"Fine, fine. Whatever you say." I mumble as I pull her closer to me for more kisses.
She pulls back. "Hey, before we get carried away with one another, I wanted to tell you I saw Prim."
"She made it here okay? How is she?" I ask, suddenly wanting to talk more than kiss.
"She's scared and looks very frail, like they probably barely fed her at all while she was in that prison. I told her you were here and she perked up at that. I told her you'd go see her tomorrow."
"I will, first thing."
"I also saw Haymitch and guess what he told me?"
"No idea, what?" I ask, genuinely not sure what he could tell her.
"My mother was an informant for 13." She tells me with eyes wide with excitement.
"Seriously?"
She nods rapidly. "Right up until she got sick. He told me she'd be really proud of me for getting here."
"Was your father too?"
"No. I asked that too and He laughed, told me my mother knew better than to tell my father anything about 13. Apparently she had secrets that Haymitch knew and my father didn't."
"Were they friends or something?"
"That's what I've always been told. Although, I'm wondering if it was more than friendship because when I told him that I was with you now, he laughed and said I was definetly like my mother if I was dating someone from the Seam."
"Your mother dated someone from the Seam?" I ask in shock.
She shrugs. "If she did, I never heard a word about it. I'm hoping to eventually find tme to talk more with Haymitch about my mother. He seems to know so much about her that I never knew. It'd be nice to get to know more about who she really was."
"I'm curious too. Let me know what you find out."
"Also, I saw Martin. He is not at all happy that Drew is here but he liked the idea that you also hate Drew so there's that." She says woth a little laugh.
"We could start a club." I joke.
"Haha. Seriously though, guess what? He told me that he wasn't really my perfect scoring match either. He said he lied on all the testing so it was actually just a huge coincidence that we scored as a perfect match."
"Oh yeah?" I reply, kinda liking the idea that they never were a perfect match on that test..
"Mmhmmm. Guess he didn't want the Capitol to know who he really was. I lied on some of my questions too because I knew my own answers wouldn't be acceptable."
"Well you're more than acceptable to me." I tell her with another long kiss. I love this girl so much. Even when she makes me do things like apologize to people I don't like, I love her more than anything and I feel so lucky that she's mine.