Chapter 30
(Madge POV)
I'm holding so tightly to the arm of the chair that my knuckles have gone white. The room is still all a frenzy with commotion and there still hasn't been any response from Gale's hovercraft. It's been nearly ten minutes and they still aren't able to locate them on the radar system. Everything around me is such a whirlwind that I can't catch full conversations, only bits of sentences filed with words I don't understand.
What the hell happened and where the hell are they at? Did they crash? Is it just a radar glitch from the bad weather? Please, please let that be all that's going on here. Please, please don't let them have crashed. Please let him be okay. He just has to be okay. He has to.
"We're approaching 15 minutes, no contact, no signals." Someone says.
"Let's give em 5 more and then we'll send out a searcher." Haymitch instructs.
"And keep your eyes on that damn radar screen. I wanna know if we pick up even a blip of activity anywhere in a 50 mile radius of where we last tracked them." He then orders to Sawyer who nods in response.
"You, get me a crew down here now. If we end up needing to send them out, I don't wanna have to wait for em." He barks at someone else. "And make sure we get a medic for that crew."
I see two different workers pick up handsets and begin putting in requests for a fresh crew to come down. I look over at Sawyer who is tapping away at his radar screen and sending up requests to Lucie. I wish there was something I could do to help. Anything at all. I don't think I've ever felt so helpless in my entire life. I sit and wait as the panicked feeling in the room continues around me.
"Where are we with medical? Are they sending someone?" Haymitch asks after his 5 minutes have come and gone.
"They said they'll send someone as soon as they can."
"Well when the hell will that be? Where are we with a pilot and a runner?"
"Already in the loading dock, awaiting green light."
"Call back and tell Medical that if they don't get me someone in the next 3 minutes, I'm going to come over there and get them myself!" Haymitch shouts.
He slams his fist down on the desk, rattling everything on it, swearing aloud to no one in particular. Two more people enter the room and immediately begin to question what happened with the mission. They both appear to be of the same type of position as Haymitch and the three of them begin to whisper in a sort of huddle together, making it impossible to eavesdrop on what's being said. This, plus the continued flurry of commotion in the room are making me even more anxiety riddled. My fingertips feel numb and my head feels like it's spinning. I close my eyes and try to take a few steady, deep breaths.
I open my eyes again only because I hear the command go out for the Searcher Crew to depart.
"Alright, give them the green light to go ahead. We won't wait for a medic if they haven't got anybody there yet. We've got people out there who need us and we can't wait." Haymitch orders.
A worker nods and relays the message over to the crew waiting at the loading dock. I look around the room and notice an eerie calm beginning to fill the space. All the workers are less frantic. The volume of voices, much lower. More people sitting, less standing. The mood is definitely shifting.
Sawyer turns and looks at me, then whispers. "A searcher crew will find them, bring them back."
I'm uncertain if he tells me this out of explanation's sake or out of a need to comfort me. Either way, it only mildly helps. I barely respond, giving him a half nod.
"You hanging in there okay?" He whispers, leaning a little closer.
"I just feel so helpless right now." I whisper back, tears threatening to spill over at any moment.
"You want to help? I could always use a second pair of eyes. Here, watch this screen, this area here. You see any blinking dots, of any color, let me know. Got it?" He instructs as he zooms the screen in for me.
I scoot my chair forward and focus on the screen. This is good. This will help me feel like I'm helping Gale and keep me from losing the battle I'm waging with my anxiety. "Thanks." I say quietly to Sawyer, my eyes still peeled on the screen.
He goes back to watching his own screen. I whisper to him once more. "Why did the mood shift in the room when the searcher crew left?"
He takes a moment to answer me. "Just a shift from unexpected chaos back to ordered process."
His answer would make perfect sense if I believed that really was all there was behind it. But I don't. This isn't just ordered process. This feels like they're already expecting the worst. Like they already think this will end badly.
"Alpha. Bravo. Charlie. 2. We're turning back. No way we can get through this storm." I hear come over the speaker.
"Copy."
What? They're stopping? They have to keep going!
"They'll go back again after the storm passes." Sawyer tells me as he leans in towards me.
"But what if he's hurt? What if we don't have time to wait for the storm to pass? They have to keep going!" I plead, all the while knowing he can't help me. It isn't his decision.
"Look princess, it's been great having ya down here but I think it'd be best if you skedaddled for now. I'll send for you again when we know something new." Haymitch cuts in before Sawyer can respond.
"No, I need to be here. I need to know what's going on. Please Haymitch, you have to tell them not to turn back, to keep going! Make them go around the storm if they have too but please just don't let them come back without at least looking!"
"No can do. Now I mean it, get on out of here and I'll send for you later. We've got work to do and there won't be anything for you to see in the meantime." He says as he grabs hold of my arm, pulling me to my feet. My resistance not fazing him one bit as he leads, or pulls me rather, me out of the room.
Once he has me out in the hall, he shuts the door leaving me alone and more frustrated than ever. I can't believe this is happening. I cannot believe it. I lean against the wall and let myself slide down to the floor. I pull my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around my legs, chin on my knees. Haymitch might be able to make me leave the room but he can't make me go home. I'll sit right here and wait for as long as it takes.
(Gale POV)
Ow. My entire body aches. Something heavy is on me and I can't stand up. I feel rain pouring down on me. I open my eyes and look around but can't see anything for all the smoke. I hear coughing, someone must be choking on smoke. There's a baby crying I think. We just crashed. Yes, that's what happened. The storm was bad and we crashed.
"Hello? Everyone okay?" I yell through the smoke.
"We're over here! We're okay!" The woman, whose name I haven't even had a chance to learn yet calls out.
"I'm okay too! We need to get out of here, move away from the crash site." Tull, the communicator calls out to the group.
I expect to hear the pilot next but his voice never comes through the smoke. I try in vain to wriggle out from underneath whatever landed on top of me before calling out to Tull. "I'm gonna need some help getting up. Something has me pinned down pretty good."
He finds me and helps shove the hunk of metal away enough for me to escape it. "Come on, we need to get them out of here. Crashes draw attention and we don't have much time."
"The pilot?" I ask.
"No." He is all he says. I know that means he didn't survive the crash. I have no idea if the pilot and Tull were close. If they were friends or not but I know now isn't the time to think about that.
"Got it." I say as I ignore the throbbing in my legs, making my way through the smoke towards the sounds of the crying child.
We find them and help get them out of the harnesses. I take the crying kid and Tull takes the other. The woman holds tight to my hand as we climb out of the wreckage. Once we're far enough away from the crash site, I take a look at our surroundings. We're near the lake I think. If that's true, we could seek out shelter in the cabin. No, wait. That wouldn't be a good idea. If our crash attracted any Capitol attention, they'd find us too quickly at the cabin. The church is more hidden, a little further away.
"Look, I know the area. If I'm right about where we are, there's an old church, a place we can take shelter in. It's a bit of a walk though."
"Probably a good idea. Don't want to stay too close to the crash site in case unwanted company comes our way. But we have to think about how we'll be rescued too. They'll send out a searcher crew but I don't know how far out the crew will look for us and I don't know how soon they'll get here. Staying doesn't seem like a good plan though, not in this weather." He agrees.
"You guys okay enough to head through the woods?" I ask the woman.
She nods, not speaking. Her eyes look so weary. There's a cut on her cheek but it isn't too bad. Both kids appear shaken but not harmed. I nod back at her and we all begin walking. As we walk, my entire lower half is aching like crazy. A weird ache like I haven't felt before. I fight through it though, relying on my adrenaline to get me through this. The rain makes it difficult, soaking both us and the ground and we all jump every time the thunder booms overhead.
It turns out I was right about our location. We end up passing by the lake and cabin. At the cabin, we go inside for a minute to rest and I'm glad we do. Some of the things Madge and I left here will come in handy at the church. A couple blankets, some candles and a canister with a few matches. After our short break, we head for the church but not before I take a few seconds to scrawl a message using mud with my finger on the wall of the cabin. A clue for anyone from 13 looking for us. Just one word. Proposal. If the searcher crew finds the cabin, they'll see this and if they're smart enough to call it back to the communication bay, Madge will hear it. She'll know what it means. The church is where I proposed. She can tell them how to find it. If anyone else finds it, they won't know what it means and it won't give away our hiding spot.
Once we find the church, I can barely stand any longer. My legs ache. And strangely, my stomach is killing me too. We get inside and I practically collapse on the floor.
"You okay Hawthorne?" Tull asks looking at me with concern.
"Yeah, I think I'm just real sore from being tossed around the craft when we crashed. Wasn't strapped into my seat when it happened." I explain as I rub my hand over my ribs. Nothing feels broken. I must just be sore.
"Amazing you survived." He says quietly, almost as if to himself and I think back to the pilot we left behind. He must be thinking of him too.
"I'm June. This is Simon and the little one is Hank." The woman says gesturing to the children curled up against her: her voice still terribly scratchy.
"I'm Tull. This is Gale. We're from 13."
"I know who Gale is. Everyone knows him." She says in a tired voice. "But I didn't know about 13." She adds. Her eyes close and she leans her head back against one of the benches.
"What happened to you? How long were you in the woods?" I ask.
"We escaped to the woods when the bombings started. There were more of us in the beginning. We didn't know what to do, where to go. When we ran, we didn't take anything with us. There wasn't time. Between the elements and the hunger, we're all that's left of 12." She says, eyes still closed.
I'm freezing and these wet clothes aren't helping one bit. I look around. There isn't a fire place so I can't warm us up. I do need to get out of these clothes. And everyone else should get out of theirs too. But we can't sit here totally naked. We'll get sick. I get up, wincing at the pain in my stomach as I do. A quick survey of the church turns up a dusty old table cloth and not much else that could be of use. It isn't very thick but it's better than nothing.
"I think we should get out of these wet clothes. Try to let em air out a bit, see if they'll dry." I suggest. "You can wrap up in these blankets in the meantime." I add as I hand one blanket to June and one to Tull. I keep the tablecloth to use.
I peel off my clothes, only now noticing how ripped up they are. Sliding around that hovercraft really banged me up. My body already has it's fair share of purple bruises showing up. I wrap the tablecloth around my lower half and knot the corners together so it doesn't fall off. I'm still freezing but at least I'm not in wet clothes anymore. I wring out my clothes and hang them over one of the benches.
"So what do we do now?" June asks.
"We wait for the good people of 13 to find us. They'll know we crashed. They'll be coming for us. Soon." Tull tells her optimistically.
"You'll like 13. It's nice." I tell her as I ease back down to the floor, my breath sucking in as I get a searing pain across my stomach. What the hell did I do to myself? Had I pulled a muscle? Torn a muscle maybe? I've been banged up over the years a few times but I've never felt this rough before.
"I'm sure we will." She says as she huddles beneath the blanket with her kids. The youngest one is sleeping and the other one seems close behind.
I close my own eyes and lay back on the floor. I hear June and Tull talking about 13 as I drift off to sleep, shivering as I do.
When I wake up, I'm covered with one of the heavier blankets, the tablecloth folded like a pillow behind my head. There's a candle burning, but just one, giving the small church a soft, dim glow. My stomach is really hurting something awful now and when I try to sit up, Tull stops me.
"Hold on there. No need to be sitting up."
"How long have I been asleep?" I ask, a little disoriented with how much time could have passed.
"About 7 hours." He says before leaning down to speak more quietly. "Listen, I think you may be hurt pretty bad. You were moaning in your sleep a lot, holding your stomach. We tried to wake you but you didn't seem to want to wake up. Thought maybe you were just cold so I put the heavier blanket on you. And I think you might have a fever. Your head feels hot. Does anything else hurt?"
"My stomach. It's killing me. Think maybe I tore a muscle or something." I admit as I rub my hand over my stomach. It feels tight and stiff. Something is definitely wrong.
"Just hang in there. They'll find us soon. Storm passed a couple hours 're probably already on the ground searching for us."
"How are June and the boys? They still holding up okay?"
"Yeah. They're sleeping right now. Not much energy. Don't think they've had a lot to eat lately. Think they're glad to be inside though, even if it's cold in here."
"Gotta beat the shelter they built in the woods." I tell him.
"Your clothes are mostly dry. You want me to help you get dressed?" He offers.
"Nah, I can manage." I tell him as I move to sit up. The pain shoots through me so badly that I double over, grasping my stomach.
"Sure you can." He jokes nervously as he slips my shirt over my head and helps me pull my arms through the sleeves. I can't even muster the strength to joke back with him.
After I'm fully dressed, he tries to give me a drink of water he says they collected from the rainwater but I end up spitting it out because I feel like I might puke if I swallow it. I'm so nauseous. Maybe I'm just getting the flu or something. Maybe that's why my stomach hurts so bad. Whatever it is though, I sure hope the searcher crew gets here soon because even as I lay here trying to convince myself that I have the flu, I know that isn't it. Something is seriously wrong.