AN – Warning – This chapter involves some serious death and grossness. I don't think it is up to an "M" rating – i.e. I think they could pull this off in a movie without an "R" rating, but if you are faint of heart, or of stomach, you might want to skip this one.

Embedded

My head hurt. Not just my head, my face, my arm, my chest, everything hurt. Opening my eyes, I found nothing but darkness. I tried to breathe and felt like I was being crushed. Was I already dead? Surely, being dead wouldn't hurt this much. I tried to move, to shift in some way and a ripping pain shot through my left arm. I froze.

I lay still and tried to gather my thoughts. I wasn't dead, yet. I could breathe, not full breaths, but something. There was something seriously wrong with my left hand and arm. I was pinned there and the slightest shift was excruciating. Half of my face felt hot. My upper lip was swollen and tasted like dried blood. I tried not to think about water. My head, the rest of me, was just aching. I was being crushed under a heavy weight, but it felt different than what was crushing my arm. It was cold, but not rock. I experimented with moving my right arm and found that I could work it free from the rock that was on it. I used my right hand to grope around, find out what I could blindly decipher.

I felt the space above me, trying to figure out what was on top of me. I couldn't make sense of it. There was cloth, then something cold, but not hard. Like a piece of ripe fruit. Then I felt a face and my mind and body locked.

There was a dead body on top of me.

I jerked away and a flash of pain from my arm overwhelmed my mind. I squeezed my eyes shut and turned my head away as far as I could. I fought down my nausea and tried with my free hand to push the thing away. It wouldn't move.

I had never heard of a way I wanted to die, but this was worse than any I had considered: To be slowly crushed or starve under the sick weight of a dead thing. Maybe this was the death I deserved. The way others had died in this pit, the way I had killed them. I lay back and wondered how long it would take.

How long had I already been out? It could be three hours or three days. I had no way of knowing. My mouth was dry, but I wasn't hungry. Who could be hungry? I felt sick. Whoever was on top of me was cold, so some time had passed.

It had to be Shine. The last thing I remembered was struggling with him. Where was everyone else?

"Hello?" I called, my voice thin and dry. With my head as far to the side as I could turn it without tasting dirt I took a deep breath and tried again: "Hello?"

"Gale?" I heard a faint, but deep voice answer.

"Marik? Are you there?"

"Yeah, at least for now."

"Are you okay?"

"No. . . . I'm gonna die. . . ." His voice sounded so much weaker than the booming voice I knew. "I'm seeing . . . thought I was gone . . . ."

"Hang on. First, I've got to get loose. Then I'll patch you up."

"Gonna carry me out?" There was a smile in his voice. We both knew I couldn't do that. Even if I wasn't hurt. But maybe I could make him a tourniquet, stop the bleeding, something.

"Hang on," I repeated. I took a breath and braced myself against the pain I knew was coming. I moved my right arm across my chest, under Shine, grabbed his far shoulder, took another breath, and heaved with all my strength.

The pain exploded in my left arm. I might have blacked out for a while. When I shook my head clear I realized that Shine's body was now bent sideways across my torso. That was progress.

"Marik? You there?"

"Not . . . going anywhere."

"Good."

With Shine's body moved, I could twist and reach over with my right hand. I felt a rock, crushing my left arm almost up to my elbow. I took another deep breath. Until my left arm was freed I wasn't going anywhere either. I rolled so that my right hand could reach the rock pinning me. This was going to hurt worse than the last one, but I needed to get to Marik. Soon.

I filled my lungs and whispered: "One, two, three." And I threw what weight I could into the rock, willing myself to keep going even as agony gripped my mind. I started to be sick and choked it down. I felt the rock shift, took another breath, and pushed again. This time I pulled my left arm back as I pressed against the rock, trying to lift it just enough to free my arm. With a sudden lurch my left arm came sliding out. I saw bright lights in the darkness and passed out.

I heard the ocean, waves slapping into the sand. The sun was warm against the back of my neck; the water cooling my legs. I felt soft circles drawn onto my knee, heard Katniss's voice, talking, although I couldn't make out the words. . . . Then I was being pulled away; the images blurred into meaningless colors; the sound faded into nothing.

She was gone.

I woke with a groan. So many things I had been planning, hoping for: making two rings with the wire I had bought in District 4, going home, sitting together on our rock again, putting one of those rings on Katniss's finger, having a life with her. I wondered if they had called her. She must know about the explosion. I couldn't let her lose someone else to the depths of a mine. And my mom. They would have called her, too. She'd be waiting for news from below once again. Posy, this would be her first time to have to wait, to see who the survivors were. I had to be one of them. I wondered if Posy was holding her rock. Mine was in my pocket.

"Come on, Posy. Help me."

My left arm was free now. I tried to move my fingers. Pain shot through my hand, up my arm. That was good; they must be moving then. I felt with my right hand to try to figure out how bad the damage was. The communicuff was crushed into my wrist. My hand was swollen and bloody. Any movement was excruciating. Not good.

"Marik? Still with me?"

I heard a groan. I needed to get over there. Now that my hand was free I could work on getting out from under Shine.

"Marik? Hang in there."

"Trying."

I used my good hand to lift Shine's body as much as I could, then pushed with my feet against rock, scooting back.

"Don't go. Stay with me." I wanted him to keep talking, make him stay conscious while I struggled to get free. "Where are you hurt?"

"Seeing . . . weird stuff." Marik sounded more entranced than scared. That was worse.

"What? What did you see?"

"I could see . . . you."

"That weird." I almost smiled, but he seemed serious. "It's too dark. You were dreaming."

He let out a single laugh, a shadow of his usual booming laugh. "Some dream." He paused. I could hear him trying to gather his breath. "No. I could see . . . see Shine . . . on you . . . rock on your arm."

I froze. How did he know that?

"What else did you see?" I had to remind myself to keep wriggling. I was almost loose.

"Just to your side, your right side. . . . Your helmet."

I had to know. I reached my right arm out as far as I could. My hand touched the hard plastic of my helmet. A cold shiver slid down my neck.

"It's there." I said. Marik deserved to know.

"Yeah." He didn't sound surprised at all. "Hey, is there a lamp on it?"

"Yeah. I'm almost out of this mess." I pulled myself the last few inches and Shine's body fell onto the floor. I pulled my legs away, getting as far from the body as I could. Then I fumbled with the helmet until I found the light switch on the side.

"Let there be light." Marik proclaimed. I wondered who he was quoting now.

Flinching away from the brightness, I set the helmet down and looked around. Its light only reached a small way into the darkness. Almost everything I could see was rock. I could see the huge stone that had been on my arm, Shine's body contorted on the floor, and over by what had been the lift - Marik's mass. I got up and crept toward him, bringing the helmet. My legs ached with a thousand scrapes and bruises, but they worked. I sat down next to Marik.

"Hey buddy, let's dig you out of here." He had a large gash on the side of his face. Most of the rest of him was covered in rock. I could smell something salty, metallic.

"No." He put a free hand on my arm and stopped me. "Don't waste your . . . I'm going."

"You can't. Don't go." His calmness was horrible.

"You gonna . . . make it out."

"I need you. You need to help me get the others."

"I saw . . . alive . . . in office. . . Asher broke leg."

He was scaring me with this weird talk. He seemed to think it was no big deal. With a start I realized that what I smelled was his blood. Lots of it. He made a coughing noise and I saw blood run down his chin. I reached over and wiped it off with my hand.

"Gale, . . .favor?"

I closed my eyes. My breath shuddered. I didn't want to hear this. "What do you need?"

"Pictures . . . in trunk. Give to . . . Mom." All I could do was nod. "Tell her 'Good-bye' . . . see her again, . . . on the other . . . ."

I couldn't say anything. He took my good hand in his huge one.

"Good knowing you. . . I'll . . . ." He never finished the sentence. His head fell back, eyes open. He was dead.

I don't know how long it was before I reached over and closed his eyes. I threw my head back and let out a wordless cry that echoed off the dead walls of the pit. I had no tears. But something inside of me broke.

I wanted nothing more than to curl up in a corner and pass out. Let the pain take me. But I couldn't. I had to get out of here. I had to get my squad out of here. Was there a rescue operation started? Probably. But I knew from District 12 that they needed the lifts, or at least the lift's empty shaft, to get below. Just looking over at the huge pile of rock where the lift had been, I knew no one would be coming down that way. There were probably other ways down, but it was going to take a while. It would be risky to send anyone down through the Pit up front. We were going to be down here a while.

They would probably pour some extra resources into the rescue since the president was down here. At least we had that going for us. But someone had wanted Shine to kill her. That someone, maybe several of them, would not want her coming back up at all. We'd better figure out our own way up.

Marik hadn't mentioned the president. That was good. The only one he had mentioned was Asher and that was because he thought his leg was broken. Who was in there? It would be Asher, who came down with our group, then Mercurius, Redstone, Paylor and her two attendants: Horrock and Batton. Doc and the rest of the squad, Chervil, Groves and Walker, were up on L3. Their evacuation should be a lot easier since the elevators, or at least the shafts, were probably okay. I didn't need to worry about them.

What I did need to worry about was water. I was already thirsty and it would only get worse. My pack had everything I needed: water, food, a sleeping bag, ammo for my gun, maps. How could I have agreed to send it down ahead of me? I never thought that I wouldn't be able to get to it once I was down. Stupid. At least I had my knife. It was kind of funny that with all the concern that our guns be unloaded they never mentioned any other kind of weapon. I guess media liaisons don't usually carry knives.

Now that was all I had to work with. And the helmet. I brought the helmet over to get a good look at my arm in the light. My stomach lurched. This was going to be trouble. It wasn't bleeding too much, but all of that dirt in the small cuts was bad. If I could find some water I could wash it off. Then again, the communicuff was crushed into the skin. I needed something that could cut metal to get it off. Unless I could get it off it was going to get infected. In fact, it already looked infected – red, swollen, pus around some of the cuts. The skin was a funny color, purplish. The communicuff was cutting off the circulation. Great. Death by communicuff.

I turned off the helmet light to save it while I came up with some sort of plan. My head felt light, it kept flopping on my neck. Where could I find some water? Just like Katniss in the Arena, water was the first thing. I remembered how she had taken her bow off of a dead tribute's body. I wondered if either Marik or Shine had any water on them. A gross thought, but I was desperate. I tried to think it through before I checked their bodies.

Shine didn't have a canteen on him. I would have seen it if he had when I was checking weapons after we got out of the lift. Marik wasn't the type to ignore rules either and his canteen got in the way when he hoisted the lift. Everything they had needed was probably in their packs in the office.

At least the rest of the squad was well supplied. We had sent our packs down to the office because that was where most of us were planning to camp. The office, where the rest of my squad was now according to Marik, was to my left, behind a wall of rock. I listened in the darkness to see if I could hear anything, anyone, there. Nothing. Marik had said they were there and, creepy as it was, I believed him. But there must be too much rock blocking them for sound to get through. It was going to take a lot of digging to get them out. Blasting them out would be just as likely to collapse the tunnel as get them out, especially if I did it since I was no expert in delicate dynamiting.

To the right, down the corridor, were some residential units. The plan had been for Paylor to be given one of those. There had to be some perks to being president. Now, the rockslide around the lift might be blocking the corridor. We'd already cleared the first units in the hall, but down a bit were some that we hadn't gotten to yet. Most of the ones we had cleared had had some bottled water stored somewhere. No food. They must have been as strict as 13 about food.

I turned my helmet light back on and headed over to check.

There was a decent gap between the rocks and the wall. I climbed over the small pile of rocks, but my foot slipped on some unstable rock and I went down. I tried to catch my weight on my right hand, but my left flew out and smashed into the wall. I screamed and, once again, stars exploded in my brain.

I lay there on my side, cradling my arm and catching my breath. The rocks I had dislodged finally stopped their rolling. I needed to be much more careful. I finally got up and moved more slowly over the rock. I did not want to trigger another rockslide. It wouldn't take much to block off this corridor and it was probably our best escape route. It was also my best chance to find water.

How to get in to one of the rooms? The steel doors were too solid to kick in. We usually cut in with a blow torch or blasted the lock off with a door charge. All I had was my knife. And lots of rocks. I decided to check down the hall in case there was a room where the door was not properly shut. We had already found a couple of those and I needed to save my strength.

The blast had not affected this hall very much. It must have been well enforced. But some of the door frames on the right side were askew. Maybe it was under more pressure than I'd thought.

I found an open door, but it was one of the ones we had already cleared. I walked and walked down the hall, checking each door on either side as I went. My steps were becoming more and more unsteady. I was getting cold which wasn't right. The temperature down here was warmer than up above and I still had on my body armor. No way I should be cold. Not a good sign. My brain was fogging, too. I made slow progress down the hall, holding onto the wall with my right hand.

And no doors open. I reached the gaping pit. Everything beyond that was demolished. I sat against a wall and tried to come up with a new idea. All I could do was go back.

I woke with a start. I must have fallen asleep. I headed back down the hall. I checked each door again, hoping I had missed something. When I finally reached the one door that had been open I went inside the bare room and sat on the floor. Somehow it felt more sheltered to be in a room, even if there was nothing useful here. I turned off my helmet light and hoped that I would need it again later.

My mouth was parched and my stomach roiled too much for hunger. I had started to shiver and knew I must have a fever. My mind was getting fuzzy, like our old T.V. back in 12. I couldn't think of what to do next. There had to be something. I curled up into a ball and fell into feverish dreams.

I faded in and out of consciousness. Once I thought I heard a noise in the hall, then decided it was only rocks shifting in the distance. I slipped away again.

I was following someone through the mine in 12. I could make out a gun in his hand. He was here to kill, someone, everyone. I heard a sound, a little girl laughing. Posy. She wasn't supposed to be down here. There were pods everywhere. I saw a shadow and followed the killer down the corridor, past old mine carts, skeletons in Peacekeeper uniforms, the lifts. He was looking for her. I had to stop him. I lunged for him and he turned. It wasn't a human; it was a mutt. It stood up taller, twice my height, its face a twisted mix of reptile, wolf and teeth. "Posy" it hissed. I had no weapons, just my bare hands. I swung at it and found – nothing. It shimmered and disappeared. It was gone.

Then I heard her scream.

I jerked awake and felt an answering throb in my hand. I was sweating and short of breath. It was just a dream. I knew the fever was making my dreams more vivid than usual, but I couldn't shake the panic. I glanced out the door and into the hall.

There was light in the hall.

I started to call out, but stopped. Better to find out who it was first. Someone was trying to kill the president. Would they send down an assassin?

I heard a soft footfall. Only one. I rose to my feet, then had to lean against the wall until my neck could support my head. I gripped my knife and peeked through the crack by the door hinge. I could see a figure approaching, a small headlamp on, making very little sound. I couldn't see past the light. I had to pause after every movement, clench my eyes and try to keep the ground still beneath my feet.

As the figure passed my doorway I saw that there was no uniform, only a dark suit, face covered in dark paint. Whoever it was, they weren't part of an official rescue mission.

I stepped out into the hallway. I was too weak to give chase. I would only have one chance to stop them. I would have to use both hands and that was going to hurt.

I took two quick steps, grabbed their neck with my mauled left hand and pressed my knife into their throat with my right hand.

"Hawthorne. Give it a break already." I jumped back in surprise, almost dropping my knife. Johanna turned quickly to face me. "Fancy meeting you here."

"How did you . . .?" I meant - how did she know it was me? It was the only thing I could think of to say. I blinked to try to clear my head. My arm was throbbing. I felt hot nausea sweep through me. Then everything went black.

"Ow!" I pulled on my hand. Once again it was stuck, but this rock was a lot more stubborn than the last one. In fact, when I tried to pull back it yanked hard on my arm.

"Great. This will be easier for both of us if you just conk out again." Johanna had an iron grip on my bad arm. She was sitting cross-legged, her sleeves rolled up, wearing surgical gloves and cleaning my skin with some sort of antiseptic wipe. I was lying on the floor, with my legs propped on something I couldn't see since I was covered by a blanket. I even felt a pillow under my head. This was all puzzling, but it led back to the bigger question.

"What are you doing here?"

"Surgery."

"How did you get here?"

"Climbed. Now shut up with the questions. I need some info from you. Where's the rest of your squad?"

"Shine and Marik are dead."

"Shine set the charge?"

"Yeah. . . . How the hell did you know that?"

"Tell you later, if you're good. Where's the president?"

"The president and her goons are with some of the squad. Trapped in the offices behind a ton of rock."

"Who's with them?"

"Ow. What are you doing?" She had some tweezer things out now. She seemed to enjoy making me flinch.

"Just pulling out a metal shard. Want some morphling? I like you better unconscious." Before I could answer, she went back to the questions. "Who's with the President?"

"Redstone, Mercurius, Asher. Asher's got a broken leg."

"How do you know?"

"I'll tell you later, if you're good."

"Never mind. Thirsty?"

"Yes." She handed me a canteen and I took a long drink.

"You need to drink all of that and another one before we take this communicuff off of you."

"What?" I asked as I kept drinking.

"The communicuff has to come off so you don't lose your hand. But first you need to drink all of that to prevent crush syndrome."

"Crush syndrome. Will that make me lose my hand?"

"No. The lack of circulation will do that. The crush syndrome will kill you."

"Great. No need to sound so hopeful."

"Here, take these." She handed me two little white pills.

"What are they?"

"Just analgesics." I had no idea what she was talking about. She enjoyed that. "Painkillers. They won't do much. Just take the edge off. And help with your fever. Take them. I've already given you some antibiotics. Those should help, too."

I didn't have much choice. I needed to get rid of this foggy feeling in my head. So I took them with the rest of the water.

"Give me that," she said holding her hand out for the canteen. She grabbed a bottle of water, poured it in, then added a tablet.

"This tastes funny. What did you add?" It would be just like Johanna to poison me, although it would be a waste of all the work she'd already done.

"Out of arsenic. Its baking soda. Still preventing crush syndrome. Just drink it."

"How much water do we have?" I asked as she gave me back the canteen.

"Plenty. I have a stash down here." I raised my eyebrows, questioning as I drank more salt water, but she just opened a new wipe and started cleaning some sort of tool. Asher had been right about someone sneaking around down here.

"Is that where you got the blanket, and the pillow?"

"No. I broke into one of the resi units with a door charge."

"Not a good idea to be blowing things up down here right now," I pointed out.

"It was just a door charge. No more impact that when you hit the floor. If you don't like it, you can give back the blanket."

"What's that?" I asked, changing the subject. She was done cleaning my arm. I checked it, but in the dim light it seemed pretty clean.

"Wire cutters. A bolt cutter would be better, but I don't have one. This should be good enough. Ironic injury though."

"What?"

"I'll show you later. Give me your arm back."

"Tell me why you're down here first."

"Smart. Holding your own arm hostage. So die of infection. See if I care." She glared at me and I gave her my arm. She was obnoxious, but she was right.

She started turning my arm looking for a way to use the wire cutters. It hurt every time she moved it, but I clenched my jaw.

"No sign of compartment syndrome. Yet. That's good."

"When'd you become a doctor?"

"Lots of first aid training, with a little extra focus on digging idiots out of rubbish," she snapped. "This is gonna hurt." She dug the wire cutters in under the communicuff, scraping into my skin. I remembered that her preferred weapon was an ax.

"Wait. Let me do it."

"No way, Pretty Boy. You'll just faint again."

"I won't." I couldn't. She would enjoy it too much. She frowned, but handed me the wire cutters. I pulled my arm back and sat up to get a better view in the light from her headlamp. "So – why are you down here?" I wanted some distraction while I worked on this.

"I'm with I.I. Well, I was. Now I'm AWOL."

I stopped. "What?"

"I.I. Maybe you've heard of them. They've sure heard of you. Be still." She wiped my bleeding lip off with one of her wipes.

"Ow! Do you have to do that?"

"You'll be even more of a baby if you get infected. You look like you were in one hell of a bar fight."

"Shine used my face to set off the charge," I muttered. She looked slightly surprised but didn't ask for any more detail.

"Here. You need this." I held still again as she rubbed some kind of lotion onto my face. It hurt at first, but then felt great, cooling. "Burn cream. You got toasted."

As I slowly cut away the communicuff, stopping every few minutes to breathe deeply before digging in again, she told me her amazing tale. I decided that I was still delirious. Or she was just messing with my head. I was having trouble processing her words while I focused on my arm.

"Damn." I kept catching the skin below in the wire cutters. Of course, that was part of the reason I wanted to cut it off myself. I could feel where the wire cutters were. But it wasn't helping much. On the other hand, at least I didn't actually enjoy causing myself pain.

Johanna was busy taking stuff out of a huge pack she had.

She turned over her shoulder. "By the way, Katniss says 'Hi.'"

I looked up at her again. "Don't mess with me." I was never going to get this Communicuff off if she kept playing with my mind.

"No. She's here. Up top. Saw her this morning. I was her welcoming committee when she got off of the train. I sent her to help Beetee."

"Beetee? Why Beetee?"

"Because at the moment he is one of only two people that I trust up top."

Suddenly I remembered that there had been only one person I knew I could trust in my squad: Marik. I closed my eyes. I needed to focus. I would think about him later.

"What's wrong?" Johanna pried.

"Nothing." I went back to work. I was making slow progress. Katniss was here. That meant that if I could get out of this hellhole she was waiting. It also meant that I needed to come out alive. But I already knew that.

"How was she?"

"Just peachy. Do you want to see why your injury is ironic?" I looked up at Johanna. "Of course, once I show you this I'll have to kill you, but I'll probably end up doing that anyway."

She turned her left hand over and started messing with her own wrist. Strange. Then I saw that there was a green glow coming from under her skin.

"What the . . ."

"See you have a communicuff embedded in your arm. I had mine implanted." She was pushing buttons on it, through her own skin. "One of the perks of I.I. It's a bit more subtle that the clunky things you wear. Now, for the fun."

"What fun?" I needed to get back to work getting this thing off of me, but I was transfixed.

"I have a feeling that there is someone else down here with one of these. It's time to find out."

She spoke into her wrist: "This is Delta-Oscar-Victor-Echo. Station check. Over."

We waited. I stopped with the wire cutters. I had just about given up when we heard a strange mechanical voice: "Delta-Oscar-Victor-Echo. This is Whiskey-India-November-Golf-Sierra, otherwise known as Seven. You are 5 by 9 in the ear. What the hell are you . . . ."

Johanna hit a button, then put one hand over her ear. Apparently she had decided this call would be private. I wondered who it was since a huge smile broke out on her face and I would swear that I saw pink under her black face paint.

Thanks again IrishLuck19 – say "hi" to Algernon for me.

Thanks again to all my readers, and extra thanks to the reviewers. Love to hear from new folks, but I wait anxiously to find out what my regulars think: Alwayssmile8, GirL0vesDoom, wisdomgoddess26, katieg343, GaleKatniss, Allie, MnLrock, DreamReaderGirl, Solaryllis, XanimexotakuX, MsRXS, RipredtheGnawer, KidsinLovex and Melafield Kitty