I have no shame in admitting that this chapter made me cry as I wrote it and cry again as I reread it. I do have shame, however, in acknowledging the fact that it's been, oh, nine months since I updated. I am a monster.
Have you heard that song, by the way? Monster by Kanye West, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj and Bon Iver. Well, that was off topic.
Either way, this chapter is up and I hope all you beautiful people can find it in your spacious hearts to forgive me. So much has happened.
I own nothing except the plot, and this one CD I have, Watch the Throne by Kanye West and Jay-Z. Jelly?
"Get off me!"
"Katniss, calm down! It's okay now! We're okay!"
She wrenched out of the doctor's grip and swung at him, screaming wordlessly. There wasn't much room on the tiny hovercraft to fight with each other, but Katniss had seemed to find a way. She knocked over a metal tray on wheels and sent all kinds of tools flying, and Peeta tried to grab her. "She'll hurt herself!" he cried, but another, and much stronger, nurse grabbed him from behind and pulled him away. "Sir, your injuries!" the doctor said, and pulled him aside into a smaller room, seperated with a thick sheet of glass. Katniss kicked at the doctor again, eyes bloodshot and wild. All the moving had disrupted her bandage and now blood was flowing freely from the wound on the back of her thigh. The doctor gave up on trying to stop her and instead moved to a panel on the wall. He jammed down a large black button and said into the speaker, "We need to land, now, I repeat, we need to land immediately."
XOXOXO
Five men had to struggle to get Katniss off the hovercraft and across the landing pad to the hospital, where tons of people dressed in their weird Capitol fashion stood with cameras, gawking. Every few seconds a man yelled out and lagged behind the procession, holding his jaw or private parts. Never did the doctors have a grip on more than two of Katniss's limbs for more than five seconds, so the trek into the hospital was swift.
"Get off me! I'll kill you!" Katniss screamed, thrashing wildly around. A few children who had been standing with their parents, huge flowers pinned to their jackets and tied in their hair, jumped back, cowering.
"I'll kill you!" Katniss shrieked at the doctors, who were still trying to shush her, as they carried her through the previously-calm waiting room. Patients and guests pressed themselves flat against the wall, staring and whispering madly. Katniss tensed all her muscles and went completely rigid, then threw her head back and screamed. The doctors took the opportunity of Katniss's immobility to run down the hall, still carrying her between the five of them, like she was a trampoline that a person in a burning building could jump onto, each of them with one of her limbs.
"Calm down, sweetheart, it's okay," Haymitch, who had heard her screaming from down the hall, said in a soft voice, walking alongside the doctors. Katniss had given up trying to stay tense the entire time and turned her head to look at Haymitch, who put a hand on her cheek. She turned her head and bit his hand. Any other time he would've yelled at her or stormed off, but he only shook the pain out of his hand and kept walking, Effie and Cinna, both trying to hide tears, following at a distance behind them.
"No, no!" Katniss cried, panicking now. The doctors tried to set her down on a table and scrambled to get supplies, leaving three of them to try and hold her down. Katniss wrenched her leg free and kicked one man in the face, and spit at another man. "You can't kill him!" Katniss yelled, trying to get her wrists away from the doctors, "Leave Peeta alone!"
The sound of her screaming made everyone cringe, but Haymitch wouldn't relent. "Sweetheart, look, it's me, it's me, you're out, you're okay, it's over, you and Peeta are safe."
Katniss stopped kicking and screaming for a moment, long enough that the doctors could bring up the restraints and fasten her to the bedrails. Her chest was positively heaving now, her pupils were dilated, her leg was bleeding everywhere, and she screwed her eyes shut, trying to breathe.
Dirt caked her clothes and skin, along with her and various other people's blood; her hair had been ripped out of its braid and now hung wildly around her shoulders; her face was afraid and tearstained; every part of her body was aching from fighting back so hard; her stomach flipped uncomfortably, she was going to throw up, she couldn't stop it, she felt it at her lips, it came up, she was choking-
Haymitch lunged forward and ripped the restraint off her left arm so that she could sit up and spit it out. Haymitch, clenching his jaw so hard he thought his teeth would break, grabbed a nearby garbage can and held it under her face, catching the bile. She coughed and spit it out, and once she was done and her throat wasn't burning anymore, she gave one more heave and then sat up. She tipped her head back, so quickly that Haymitch couldn't tell what was happening and lean away, and she rocked her head forward, sending her forehead crashing into Haymitch's. He yowled and stepped back, and by this time Peeta had escaped from his own hospital room and was being held at the door by two doctors.
"Haymitch, do something!" he cried, trying to get past the guards.
Haymitch spun back around and saw that they had gotten Katniss's arm strapped back down. Every part of her body that wasn't tied down- being her torso- heaved up as if someone had shocked her repeatedly with the paddles from a crash cart. "Can't you knock her out or something?" Haymitch asked, trying to keep hysteria from creeping into his voice. Never before had he seen a tribute so... broken.
The doctor who was trying to hold her torso down grunted, "Can't unless she stays still."
Peeta broke through from the guards, watching Katniss convulse from Haymitch's side. He clamped his hands over his mouth, sobbing, knees threatening to buckle. "Haymitch," he moaned.
"No! No!" Katniss said, eyes slipping closed. "She's going to pass out!" one doctor warned. Everyone in the room, and a few people who had been passing by, was watching as Katniss cried, eyes rolling madly in her head. "No! No!" she yelled, jerking slowing down, "Don't let them- Peeta- get out- NOOO!"
Peeta cried a bit harder and Haymitch vacantly noticed Effie start sobbing behind him, but he was too busy watching Katniss. Katniss wasn't writhing to get away anymore; she was shaking and rolling around as though she were in pain. "No-ho-ho..." she sobbed, eyes finally closing all the way.
"Get me that fluid! She's hallucinating!" one angry doctor yelled, and a needle connected to a tube was stabbed in Katniss's arm. Haymitch, still watching her intently, stepped forward. "Daddy!" Katniss cried, and Peeta finally fell to his knees, Effie gave a loud cry, and Cinna gasped, holding his head in his hands. "Daddy! Get out! Run, Daddy! RUN!" She panted loudly for a few seconds, tried to clear her throat, and shrieked at an octave thought to be impossible for humans to reach, "DADDY!"
Haymitch stepped forward, put a hand on her cheek, and said softly to her, "I'm right here, sweetheart. Daddy's right here." Katniss's face crumpled and she tried to open her eyes. "Where's my sedative?" another doctor demanded.
"Daddy's right here," Haymitch said, brushing Katniss's wild hair back from her face. "I love you, Katniss," he whispered. "Daddy loves you."
The head doctor pushed down on a plunger, and Katniss fell asleep.
XOXOXO
"It has been reported that there will be a delay on all fruit coming from any outlying districts, as the train cars have broken down, so be sure to stock up on what you can. Gas prices have gone through the roof, so it might be wise to just take a walk, folks." There was a fake chuckle and then a trumpet piece, and everyone drew a collective breath. The people of District Twelve all huddled forward to get a better view at the huge screen in the square, on which the Capitol news was being projected.
"And finally, the topic everyone's been talking about, right, Lark?" the first announced asked his news partner, and he responded, "Right you are, my friend, it's the seventy-fourth annual Hunger Games that's got everyone buzzing."
Gale's eyes narrowed and he pushed by a man to get a better view. "Rumor has it that one of the two victors this year is having some trouble readjusting to the world outside the arena."
Lark chimed in, "Wow, wow. Which one is it?"
Gale rolled his eyes. He was always soft.
"I'll bet nobody expected this," Lark said, shuffling his papers importantly. Gale nodded his head to himself, frowning. "I expected it," he mumbled to himself.
"Katniss Everdeen was reportedly seen being forcibly carried into the President Snow Hospital just outside the Square just yesterday afternoon," Lark said, and Gale's heart stopped. Lark continued, "Alright, mothers, you may want to move your kids out of the room, these images are a bit disturbing. Let's take a look."
The men in their spinning chairs turned around to see a projection of footage that someone had taken from a helicopter of Katniss being carried into the hospital, thrashing and kicking and screaming. Gale swallowed hard, trying to keep his face indifferent. "Woah, Lark, and if you listen close enough you can hear her screaming. Again, parents, you may want to relocate your children for the moment. Disturbing it is, my friends."
They rewound the tape and everyone strained their ears to listen, and, just to help the people along, the news people put captions of what Katniss had screamed across the bottom of the screen, using asterisks to blank out the swear words. "I'll kill you!" the screen read, and Gale spun on his heel, stalking out of the square. He received a few sympathetic looks as he left.
"And here's wishing her a speedy recovery," Lark said, and Gale gave a shout, tearing at his dark hair.
XOXOXO
"How much longer?" Peeta demanded in a hard voice. No one answered, and he continued pacing from the high window, looking down on Katniss's bed.
He hated the huge group of doctors in white coats with tablets crowded around Katniss while she was in a medicine-induced coma, taking notes on her like she was some kind of animal. Katniss and the researchers were seperated by a curved wall of glass, like they were at a zoo. Peeta, Haymitch, Effie, Cinna and the head doctor had stayed in this too-white room for the three days that Katniss had been unconsious, some pacing and crying and cursing and drinking. Effie was the one who smelled like alcohol.
"The theory is-" the head doctor started, but Peeta turned on him and bellowed, "Stop telling us your stupid theories and wake her up!" The doctor gave him an even look and then continued to speak. He said, "The theory is that the reason she was behaving so erratically once she was out of the arena is that the shock of... what the Games entail, along with previous trauma, like her family dying, has tampered with her ability to seperate fantasy from reality." The doctor turned to Haymitch, who had been staring at his feet, and asked, and eyebrow quirked, "Do you know what hijacking is, sir?"
Haymitch nodded.
"Well, hijacking is a purposeful way to spur the same effect as what has happened here. She hasn't been implanted with different memories, per say, it's just that... well..."
Peeta stopped pacing and puffed his chest out. "Well, what?" he asked angrily. The doctor continued a bit sheepishly, "The researchers have proposed the idea that Miss Everdeen believes she is still a participant in the Hunger Games."
The only sound in the room was Effie's steady hiccupping and the beeping of Katniss's heart monitor over the speaker hooked up to this observation room.
"So what are you going to do about it?" Peeta asked, and the doctor spread his hands. "I'm afraid, at this point, we have no remedy to this predicament. This has never been recorded before."
Peeta yelled angrily and kicked at a trash bin, sending it flying into the opposite wall. Effie flinched, but everyone's faced remained either pained or blank. The doctor nodded his head and then left the room, and a few people from the research group started to move away from Katniss's bed.
Peeta sat in his chair next to Haymitch, panting, and staring down at Katniss. She was still much too pale for his liking, the beautiful olive color seeming to be permanently gone from her skin, and she was still very skinny, and-
"Peeta?"
Peeta shot up out of his hair and asked quickly, "Did you hear that?" Everyone shook their heads and looked at him, concerned. Peeta moved to the window and pressed his palms against it. This time, it was louder.
"Peeta?"
This time, Cinna heard it. "Katniss," he breathed, and the group of researchers flocked back over to her, pencils poised over their pads. "Where's Peeta?" Katniss mumbled, trying to sit up. There were all kinds of tubes attatched to her arms and a breathing tube in her nose, and her leg was wrapped thickly, stiff under the crisp sheets.
She looked around at all the researchers, who were scribbling rapidly and whispering to each other, and then up at the window where Peeta and Haymitch were staring down at her, tears streaming down both their faces.
"They've got Peeta," Katniss mumbled, more to herself than anyone else, and she shifted anxiously in her bed. Her heart monitor started to go up. The head doctor bristled.
"They've," Katniss's eyes widened and she sat up, pulling anxiously at the tubes, "they've got Peeta." She looked away from the researchers in front of her and up to the window. "Peeta!" she screamed. The head doctor rushed over to the wall and said sternly, "Get that sedative going." Another doctor, one completely covered in blue scrubs, pushed another button and then flashed the thumbs-up sign at the window. Everyone waited for a moment, but Katniss didn't settle down. She shuffled her feet back and forth and glared at everyone. "Let him go!" Katniss growled, but the researchers only wrote on their pads.
"Why isn't it working? Why isn't the sedative doing anything?" Peeta asked, turning to the doctor. He pushed by Peeta, snapping blue latex gloves on his hands. He started out the door and down a long set of stairs, entering Katniss's room through a door under the window.
Katniss had pulled the tube connected to the sedative out of her arm and was now tugging at the restraints. The head doctor rushed toward her and she yelled, "Let Peeta go!"
He put both his hands up and slowly moved toward the thick wall of glass; all the researchers moved out of his way. She stared angrily at the doctor who said calmly, "Katniss, my name is Dr. White, I'm not going to hurt you-"
Katniss jerked her right arm forward, as if she were going to punch someone, and the plastic restraint snapped. Cinna covered his mouth with both hands, and everyone in the observation room continued to watch breathlessly. She quickly undid the other restraint and then lunged for her feet. She got them both undone before Dr. White could get through the pane of glass, and by this time Katniss was out of her bed. They had given her white cotton pants and a pale pink shirt, after the female nurses had showered her.
Katniss pushed past all the researchers, who made vain attempts to grab her arms, and looked madly around the room. Finally Peeta couldn't take it anymore and he dashed down the stairs, followed by Haymitch.
"We have to get out of here!" Katniss yelled a Peeta, pushing by a few doctors. Peeta rushed forward and grabbed both her forearms, trying to keep her still. "We have to leave, we have to run," Katniss whispered over and over again. "Before they kill us," she urged, eyes wide and bloodshot. Peeta could only stare at her, mouth hanging open, tears filling his eyes.
Katniss wasn't looking at him, shaking his arms. Peeta didn't know who that was. Not anymore.