Disclaimer: Only a few more chapters of this!
Immediately, we run. Run towards the bombs. Finnick pushes through with the adrenaline. Katniss and I fire arrows every way we can at the peacekeepers and the Capitol Armies. A bullet grazes Boggs and he falls but does something with a pod and avoids death once more.
Katniss and Finnick fight through the mobs of people until the second wave comes.
That's when I see the children.
Hundreds upon thousands of them. Being used as a human shield.
"We can't hit them." Boggs says, defeated when the first wave passes us.
"We can shoot in the mob. Not at the kids." Finnick says. "Gale, you and I will get them away from here. Everyone else... Just shoot."
It's risky. Very risky. To try to get as many kids away from this as we can without hurting them.
As soon as I see the kids, I know they're district children. Not Capitol kids. They're in tattered clothing, thin, and terrified. They look normal, some that I remember from 12. Some from other districts. Which makes it only harder. One of Katniss' explosion arrows explodes in the middle of the mob and Finnick and I jump at some of the kids.
"Go! Get out of here!" I yell, and kids scatter. "Tell the others!" Hopefully they'll find a way out.
This routine continues for several minutes, until Katniss misfires. The arrow lands in the middle of children.
Finnick and I realize it's too late even before the arrow flies. She's hurt, she can't aim. She's just shooting to do something.
I can hear Katniss screaming when the explosion goes off and I'm thrown backwards by the force of it.
I can hear all of the children screaming, and it hurts, _, it hurts! When the flames die down, I hurry into the smoke and pick up as many living kids as I can. Boggs follows me.
The two of us run with about five children each away from the mess.
We're able to deposit them away, and immediately medics are on them.
We sprint back and do the same until it happens again. Except this time, it's a bomb.
My bomb.
This time, though, the bomb lands in the middle of the fighting. Where both Rebels and Capitolites are. I know it's mine before the second bomb drops.
I hear Katniss scream something incoherent before she's running into the flames.
"Katniss!" I yell, and pull her back.
"No! I have to get in there!" She screeches back, struggling against me.
"You can't! It's hopeless, Katniss!"
"I think Prim's in there!" She wails and then she's breaking free of my grasp and sprints into the smoke.
The Capitol collapses around me. Buildings fall, planes drop, people fall. The City Circle is on fire. Everything's on fire or exploding.
No one's attacking anyone anymore. The Rebel's are cheering about something.
Then I see the white flag of surrender from the Circle. It waves in the wind, the tattered strands going every which way.
I nearly fall over from exhaustion. We've won. It's over. It's all over.
Katniss comes panting out of the smoke, and she leans on me.
"I can't find her!" She screams, tear tracks down her grimy face. She's covered in red, hot burns, down her arms, her face, her neck, through her clothing. And it's my fault.
"It might've not been her!" I tell her, and the two of us limp away. Finnick and Boggs are no where to be seen.
She's delirious as we limp to a station. She's immediately whisked away to the President's Mansion for treatment. They've knocked her out before she can even say a word.
A medic automatically pulls off my ripped army shirt and goes to work on my wounds. She quickly wipes off the blood and stitches up the wounds. Then, wraps a whole heck of a lot of gauze around me. Gives me a pill. The pain subsides. Unfortunately, the mental pain does not.
My brain hurts as I'm escorted to the circle. The chaos is dying down, and the Rebels are rounding up the remaining Capitol armies and Peacekeepers. They're all being brought to the underground prisons for holding. There are already dead and missing lists up. Then, I hear someone calling my name.
"Gale!" I turn to find Bristel.
"Thank god," I say, and give her a quick hug. "Are you okay?" I ask, taking in the scrapes and burns and bruises across her body.
"I've been better. It's been a long war." I nod and wince when I try to breathe.
"What happened to you?" She asks quickly, eyeing the gauze.
"Mutts. Underground. About drove Katniss crazy." I push the thoughts out of my head, the lions.
She glances at the lists. "Have you seen them?"
I shake my head. "No. I'm afraid to look." She nods. Fear overtakes my system. I'm so close to seeing her again, but I may not see her.
"They were on the same squad. Where we find one, we find the other." She says, and we turn to more yelling. There's a bunch of Rebels running underground, yelling something about prisoners.
"C'mon. Peacekeepers may have grabbed them." We jog to catch up to the Rebels and we descend underground once again. Immediately, I feel like I'm suffocating. I never want to be underground again.
It's still chaotic under here. We search through the throngs of prisoners and try to locate the two.
When I see Bristel run left out of the corner of my eye I turn to find Thom. Bristel's sobbing and trying to get him out of the chains he's in. He's doing everything he can to comfort her.
When he's finally released, he holds onto her for a very long time, whispering something to her that I cannot hear.
Thom turns to me and before I can even ask, he shakes his head. "I don't know. We were separated about a month back in some explosions. I know she was having some problems, something was hit right before the explosions. I don't know, though, man." I swallow thickly and nod.
"Okay." I leave the two and hurry back into the sunlight. I find Finnick and Boggs sitting together, and Boggs gives me a nod.
"What's going on?" I ask and Finnick looks up at me panicked.
"Annie's in labor." My eyes widen and I haul him up.
"Well then get on with it! Go!" I shove him and he shakily hurries toward the hovercraft which has landed. He's still limping.
"He needs medical treatment," Boggs murmurs next to me and I nod.
"His wife's in labor. I think he gets a pass. They'll get him on the way back."
Boggs nods and stands. "I'm going to find Mellark and Everdeen."
"I need to find my girlfriend." We shake hands and I hurry to the lists on the wall of a building. I have to wait a very long time, and my nerves build as I get closer and closer. I can feel the worry coursing through my veins, the fear landing a cold fist around my heart. I can't lose her. I can't, it's not even a I don't want to lose Madge, I can't. She's everything to me.
When I reach the front, I scan the missing lists for Undersee, and I don't find anything, thankfully. When I look over the dead lists, I find a name that looks exactly like hers, and my body freezes. I check the first name, and find that thankfully, it's not her. Relief floods my system. Thankfully, I know she's alive. She made it through.
Thom mentioned that something was hurt. Something was wrong. Maybe she's at a medical station.
I hurry through the crowds to find my girlfriend. When I make it to the first station, there's no such luck. I ask about an Undersee, but the woman doesn't know the name.
"I'm sorry, son. I don't know. There's another station in the President's Mansion that was just set up. Maybe she's there?" I nod and run my fingers through my dirty hair. I just need to find her. I walk quickly through more people, blood, and dead soldiers, Capitol and Rebels alike. And I know I killed them. I killed them all with that bomb.
I fight the onslaught of horrible thoughts that rush to my head and force my feet to keep going.
Once I enter the mansion, I immediately want to gag. It smells like roses. Roses filled with blood. I retch into a plant, but keep walking through the halls. I manage to get lost at least twice in looking for the medics. Once or twice I run into people who're wheeling someone on a trolley who's missing a limb or two.
Eventually, I get to the station, and hurry in.
Instead of finding Madge, I find someone else I thought I killed.
"Prim!" I yell, and hurry across the room. She was definitely in the bombing, but somehow she's okay.
"Gale," She says, and I weakly give her a hug.
"Are you okay? Katniss thought you were in that last bomb, and she went hysterical."
"I'm okay. And I was. But I'm okay. Just a little banged up."
"Good." Part of me feels relief. I don't think I even would've been able to forgive myself if I had killed Prim.
"Where is she?"
"Katniss?" When Prim asks, I hesitate. I don't even know. Last I remember, she was hysterical. "I don't know, Prim. I thought she was being treated for burns."
Prim bites back her tears and nods. "Okay, I'll try to find her."
"I'm sure she's fine, Prim." I reassure her, and then swallow. "Have you.. By any chance seen Madge?"
She nods slowly. "Yeah. She was over there, on one of the cots. She's a little... I'll let her tell you." I swallow thickly and nod.
"Okay. I'm going to go find her. If I see Katniss I'll tell her that you're looking for her." Prim nods and lays back down on her cot, wincing as she does so.
I hurry through the rows of people, looking for the one girl I need to find. As I travel through, I see so many Rebels. So many hurt, or half-dead Rebels. I must look half-dead.
"Gale," I hear someone say, and I turn around to see a blonde.
"Madge," I breathe, and then it's just me and her. There's no one else in the room. No death, no people in pain, just us.
I don't even realize that something is seriously wrong until she's in my arms.
A/N: BUM BUM BUMMMM I've been waiting for this next one for a long time. There were a few major hints in this chapter about what happened to Madge, but you will all know soon enough. Sorry for the wait, life has been very hectic. Thoughts? Tell me your predictions!