Disclaimer – I am not Suzanne Collins. I do not own the Hunger Games, Catching Fire or Mockingjay or any of the situations or characters from those books.

Note – Mature subject matter, including suicide.

Reviews welcome. Criticism particularly welcome.

And thanks so much to IrishLuck19 for the great beta work!

Monster

I could see them as they came and took me off of the table. I was surprised to see my body still there. I thought it had melted away. But no, there it was, although it had turned a strange blue-gray color. My body was lifted into a gurney. Eyes wide open. Not moving. They listened to my heart with a stethoscope. I couldn't possibly still have a heart, but they noted something down and went on to take my blood pressure. I saw an IV injected into my arm, but didn't care what it was. They put all sorts of tubes into my mouth, my nose, my side.

They took me out, down the halls, onto an elevator, to the roof, into a gray egg-like stretcher pod, up to a hovercraft . . . .

To a hospital in District 2. Doctors, nurses came and went. Morphling added to my IV, then unconsciousness.

When I woke my mind was thick. I ached. I couldn't breathe. My ribs burned. Then I saw Prim again. Exploding. I screamed until they knocked me out.

Every time I woke up I had a few minutes of confusion before I remembered, then screamed. I started begging them to court martial me, to throw me into a dungeon, to turn me over to the Peacekeepers. No one would listen. They just gave me another shot of morphling and we did the whole thing again.

At some point they gave up on the morphling and gave me something that just made me numb. I couldn't eat. I couldn't move. I was a leaden weight. I was aware of the nurses. They would take my arm out of its sling. They would slide a giant belt under me which attached to a frame above the bed. That would help them flip me over, change my bandages, check the tube sticking out of my side, give me a sponge bath. It hurt, but not as much as I deserved.

People spoke to me, but I couldn't focus on what they said, who they were. Why would anyone visit me? I felt filthy, contaminated, contagious.

One day I noticed there was a window in my room. Outside I was surprised to see the sky. How could the world still be there? I thought I had slipped away from time, but it still had me in its grip.

"Hello – anyone home today?" a voice called. I made out the words, but I couldn't think of any reason to move.

"Gale? How are you doing?" Someone sat on the foot of my bed. My side gave a twinge. Johanna. I looked at her, but could not find the energy to speak. She found the controls to the bed and raised me up so that I was sitting. My ribs screamed. I wanted them to.

"I told them to ease up on your meds. You look like you're focusing now. Hello? Blink if you hear me."

I think I kind of blinked.

"Well, there we go. That wasn't so hard. Blink if you need me to get anything for you."

I did not blink. She couldn't make me be gone forever. That was all I wanted.

She stood up and smoothed my hair. I didn't want her to touch me. I didn't want her to be contaminated. I pulled away.

"What did they do to you?" she asked, not talking to me. "I guess I should be glad I didn't make Squad 451. So many went and only 3 still alive. Sort of."

She turned and went to the door.

"Alive?" I asked. I meant to ask who was alive? Somehow she knew that.

"You, Katniss and Peeta. They are in bad shape too. Both of them were burned by the fireballs."

She came back over to me. "No one told you that?"

Fireballs. I was seeing Prim explode again. I turned to look back at the window. I heard the door click as Johanna left.

Katniss was alive. And Peeta. Of course. Good.

No one understood what I had learned about myself. No one understood what I had done. Except Katniss. Prim was gone and she would know it was my fault. She knew I was a monster. I had promised to take care of her family. Instead I had destroyed it. If she was alive enough to be conscious, then she hated me. As I deserved. It still felt like a bullet slamming into me. I stared out the window without seeing. I tried to remember that I deserved this pain.

I did not cry. I hadn't cried through it all. I knew why. Tears were for the injured innocent. Monsters didn't cry.

I sat there all night. My mind was frozen on the facts: Prim was dead, I was a monster and Katniss knew.

The next day, sometime mid-day, they came in, offered me food as usual. I couldn't even look at it. Then they put me in the sling, cleaned me off, changed my bandages. Someone took the tube out and replaced it with a bandage.

When they had left I thought of what Johanna had said. Katniss and Peeta alive. Sort of. I wondered how Peeta was doing. Would he be able to take care of Katniss? Had he conquered the demons in his head? Or at least gotten control of them? Or would he lose it and try to strangle her again?

The Capitol had made Peeta believe that Katniss was a monster. He had tried to kill her. I was different. I had seen what was true all along. But now I saw something else, too. Maybe the solution was the same. This way I would never contaminate anyone. The monster couldn't hurt anyone else.

Johanna came again. I didn't talk to her. She checked my charts, asked me some questions, then glanced at her watch and left. She paused at the door to look back at me. "See you tomorrow," she said.

"I don't think so," I thought. I was forming a plan. I didn't intend to be here when she returned. I wondered if she would be sad. Only because she didn't know who I really was.

I thought about my plan all night. It was perfect. I had killed with my snares and my traps. I would be my own last victim.

After the nurses came in in the morning for the usual sling/ bandage-changing routine I knew no one would be in again for hours. They only tried once a day to bring me a meal, too busy to waste more time than that. Johanna had been coming in later in the day.

I looked around. No restraints. Just the IV, the breathing tube and some sort of monitor attached to my hand. It would have to be fast. I leaned forward and pulled the sheets out from around my feet. I'd use the sheet to make a noose. I was good with knots. All I had to do was put it on, throw it over the frame and tie it to the bed frame. The frame was strong enough to hold my weight. They used it to lift me every day. Then I would throw myself off of the side of the bed.

I decided to practice on my best knot, a snare. I twisted the sheet first to make it more like a rope, stronger, then tied the snare. I tugged it to make sure it slid. I took out the snare knots and started on the noose. I needed to work quickly.

The first one was sloppy, too loose. I remembered sitting around the fire at home one night showing Rory and Vick how to tie snares. Posy wanted to try. I held her hands and helped her, but her knots were too loose. We did it again and again until she got it right. I always made sure to spend extra time with Posy. She had been born after Dad died. She had never even met him.

I dropped the sheet, now tied into a sturdy noose.

I couldn't do this. I couldn't leave Posy. She couldn't lose me, too. In my mind I could see her beautiful face, crushed, grieving. She shouldn't grieve for me, but she would. I lay back on the bed and closed my eyes.

I couldn't do it.

I don't know how long I lay there. Suddenly I heard "Getting naked for me? You have made progress." It was Johanna. I thought vaguely that I shouldn't let her see the noose, but it was too late.

"What are you doing? Are you crazy?" She grabbed it from my hands. I didn't resist. "Don't answer that. What am I going to do?" She sat down on the bed, still holding the noose and rested her head in one hand.

But just for a moment. Then she stood up and came over to me.

"I should report this. Put you on suicide watch. But then it will go on your record. There is only one way that I don't. You are the most ridiculously honest person I know. So look me in the eye and promise me that you will never try to kill yourself."

I knew now that I couldn't do it anyway. I looked Johanna in the eye. "I promise."

"Swear it. On your family's lives," she demanded.

"I swear."

She was relentless. "Swear that you won't even think about it."

"No."

"Okay. I know you can't stop thoughts like that when they pop up in your mind. I've had them too. Swear that you won't play with those thoughts when they come. That you will push them away. Think of something else. Swear it." Johanna glared at me.

Could I do that? My brain was so sluggish. So full of things I couldn't or wouldn't control.

"No, but I'll promise to try."

Johanna untied the noose. "I'll get the nurses to come get you a new sheet. And tuck it in nice and tight so you are not tempted."

She sat on the bed again. "I don't know what they did to you, but hang on. It will get better. You are one of only about 5 people I know who aren't dead. Don't leave."

"You need to meet more people," I said.

She looked at me in surprise. "Did you mean to be funny? Wow. You are making progress. By the way, get yourself gussied up. You have visitors coming tomorrow." She smoothed my hair. I let her. I didn't want to hurt her feelings. It would sound crazy if I told her that I didn't want to contaminate her. She gave me a wave and left.

Visitors? Who could that be? Not Katniss. Unless she came to kill me.

None of nurses treated me any differently when they came in the next day. Johanna had kept her word. She didn't tell them anything. I tried to help this time when they rolled me over. I was tired of being a burden.

As they left, one of the regulars, a thin but strong older man, said "You may get out of here yet, buddy."

I found myself staring out of the window again. The sky was deep blue, covered all over with thin wispy clouds. I didn't deserve to see anything so beautiful. So I turned my head away and found myself looking at my mother.

I didn't know how long she had been there. She had always been able to move soundlessly.

"Gale, baby," she said as she came over. She put her palm gently against my cheek. She acted as though she was afraid to touch me. She should be.

"How are you?" she asked.

"Not good."

"We came as soon as we could. Can I get you anything? I am under strict orders to get you to eat something." She pulled up a chair.

"Not now. I'm not hungry."

My mom could never sit still without doing something with her hands. She took some lotion from the table next to my bed and began to massage it into my hand. My hands were so dry they were cracked. I wanted to tell her to stop. Tell her I didn't deserve anything that felt that good. But she wouldn't understand. I tried to tell myself that if I didn't want her to do it, but I let her anyway, then I was denying what I wanted, a kind of pain. But it felt too good to count.

"Honey, I've been so worried. I'm so glad you are alive. Do you want to talk? You can tell me anything."

"No. I can't." I didn't know where to begin. I couldn't tell her how Prim exploded. I couldn't bear to tell her what a monster I was. We sat in silence as she took my other hand and massaged it.

"Hey, the kids are waiting down the hall. The boys are reading Posy stories. That won't last long. Can they come in?"

"Yeah," I said.

"By the way, I have to warn you. Rory has grown a bit." Then she left.

How could I say 'no?' But I didn't want them to see me. They wouldn't know what I was, what I had done. They couldn't even imagine the evil I had done.

I looked at the door and drew my breath in fast enough to stab me in the ribs. I was looking at myself standing in the doorway. Younger than I was now and a fuller face. Wow.

"Rory?"

"Hi," he said, enjoying my reaction.

"I told you he had grown," my mom said, coming into the room.

"See what happens when I get some decent food." He came over and started to punch my arm. Mom's hand flew out and stopped him.

I didn't see Posy coming. She jumped up onto the bed and hugged me. "Galey!" she exclaimed.

I bit back a moan. The impact with my ribs hurt, a lot, but the hug was amazing. I couldn't hug her back because my arm was in its sling. I buried my face in her hair. I didn't deserve her. I couldn't contaminate her. But it would hurt her if I pushed her away and I couldn't do it.

Vick peeked through the crowd. "Did you really get shot? Can we see it?"

"Vick, not now," my mom interrupted.

But I said "No. It's okay."

Rory helped me pull the sheet out. I flinched as I remembered pulling out the sheet yesterday. What if they had gotten here and found out that I . . . .

I focused on turning my leg so that they could see both bandages.

"Two. Did it go in one and out the other?" Rory asked. He always loved gory details.

"In the back, out the front." I said.

"Can we look under the bandages?" Vick asked.

"Vick, no," mom protested.

But, again, I said "I don't mind." I lifted the corner of a bandage. I hadn't even seen the wound myself yet. It was just a small gash.

Posy wasn't sure if she wanted to look.

Vick glanced at her and said "Come see - the bone is sticking out."

She let out a shriek and buried her face in my shoulder. I winced again, but welcomed the pain.

"Not really, Posy," I said. "You can look. It's not that bad. You've had cuts bigger than that." She peeked under the bandage, then came back and climbed up onto the bed next to me.

"Not that came out the other side," pointed out Rory.

"How many times did you get shot? Is there another one?" asked Vick.

"Twice, but the other one was blocked by body armor," I explained.

"So, did it hurt? That one?" asked Rory.

"Yeah. I broke some ribs. And I think I hurt my lung."

"You have broken ribs? How many? Which side?" said my mom.

I looked at her. "I don't know how many, on this side," I said pointing to my right side, where Posy was sitting.

"Posy, get down," my mother said. Posy jumped off the bed.

"Can we see it? What's it look like?" Vick asked.

"Okay," I said. It took a long time to take off my sling, unsnap my hospital shirt. I couldn't move very fast. I kept reminding myself to welcome the pain. I was mostly covered by a wide white bandage, which felt like it was holding me together. Underneath the clean whiteness my skin was black with an enormous bruise. I pulled back. My skin looked as hideous and foul as my soul felt. I shouldn't be letting these kids so close to me. I lay back on the bed. I looked at my mom. I wanted to yell "Get away," but I didn't have the strength to do it.

Mom noticed right away, but she misunderstood. "Okay, you guys, that is enough for now. Everybody out. Gale needs to rest." With plenty of muttering the boys headed out for the hall. Posy came over to me.

"I have something for you. This is my good luck charm. Keep it. It's for you," she put a small bundle into my hand, kissed my cheek and followed her brothers out into the hall.

I watched her go. I was torn in two. I should send them all away. Yell at them. Tell them to get away from me. Warn them. They didn't see how cruel and bloodthirsty I was. They didn't know how many children I had killed. Kids no older than they were. Who died screaming in pain. I saw Prim again. And again. And the others. Someone mourned them, just as I mourned Prim.

I couldn't tell them. Posy's eyes were so beautiful. Like mine, but soft and innocent. I couldn't tell her that the world held monsters who would do hideous things to the innocent. That her brother was one of them. And I would kill her innocence just by telling her.

But one day she would find out. She would see me for who I was. And her skin would crawl wherever I had touched her.

I realized my Mom was standing next to me. Mom kissed me on the head and said "We'll stop by later to see how you are doing."

I had to say something. Now. She had just reached the door when I gasped out "Mom, you have to get them away from me."