Chapter 2
When I look buck up from Peeta, I am surprised to find a group of people standing a distance away. I was even more surprised at the people that made up the group. Effie, my prep team, Plutarch, two medics, and what really caught me off guard, my mother. The medics pushed past the group carrying a black stretcher between them and lay it on the ground beside Peeta and one checks his pulse. They nod to each other and straighten the stretcher then position themselves to lift Peeta. They count to three and lift him onto it. I keep hold of his hand as they lift the stretcher and start back towards the through the group.
"Haymitch! I leave for two days to plan a party and you're already back to your old drinking habits." Effie's voice is sharp.
The medics continue down the hall and I barely hear Haymitch's response as we head out the door, "Well you left for no reason, thought I'd done something. And in light of the current predicament, yes I thought I'd have a drink or two."
Out in the cold air I could just see the sun beginning to rise over the hovercraft that waited at the end of the victor village road leading into town.
Walking onto the hovercraft I felt like I might breakdown at a moments notice. The group followed us silently except for Effie and Haymitch who continued to banter each other.
"Loosen your corset, have a drink!" Haymitch says.
"Have a drink?" Effie asks in an unbelieving tone after we've boarded the hovercraft. "Haymitch if you keep drinking like this you won't live to see another sunrise! 'Have a drink,' Hah! That's just like saying 'Here have some Nightlock!" she says going into a high pitched voice.
"Effie!" Haymitch and I snap. Effie's eyes widen and she takes a step back. After a moment she regains her normal cool composure and avoids eye contact with anyone. We stand in the hangar bay and wait.
"I'm sorry." She says after a little bit. "But if I don't focus on something, I fear I'll cry." And that would just be terrible. But harping on Haymitch hadn't been smart, he'd had a lot of criticism in his time, but coming from Effie it was different I could tell, he actually cared what she said.
"I'm going to see what's taking the pilot's so damn long." Haymitch says. The medics start to move Peeta again and they move to a room just off a hall of the hangar bay with machines and wires, the same he went into after the games.
The tallest medic turns to me, "You're going to have to leave." I ignore him. That is until he places his hand lightly on my shoulder. "Miss Everdeen, you're going to have to leave." He says a little more firmly. I do not trust my boy with the bread to be here alone. So I stayed, ignoring them. Out of the corner of my eye I see him nod to the other medic and he pries my hand from Peeta's and in a swift motion they pick me up and began carrying me away. I start thrashing and screaming, fighting to break free. But they have to firm a grip. Once outside the room they set me down in the midst of the group that had gathered, my mother standing in the front, and run back to the room and shut the door before I make it back inside. And then a thought hits me. I run to my mother.
"You have to let them do their-" she starts.
"Will you go help them?" I ask cutter her off.
"What?" her expression is confused and worn.
"Will you go in there and help them with Peeta?"
She looks at me a moment then to the room through the glass door, then cups my face gently. "I'll do my best Katniss." Then she moves around me and knocks on the glass. One of the medics appears and has a short conversation and lets her in. I feel gratitude towards my mother. For the first time I feel Peeta is in good hands, and maybe he has a chance. That chance though could have been doubled if my mother had her little helper… I move to the doorway and lean against the wall and look in, and watch them start hooking Peeta up to the machines, but eventually I just slide down not able to watch anymore.
Haymitch comes back, but I don't get up.
"Plutarch, do you know how to fly a hovercraft?"
"Yes." He says look at Haymitch with a questionable look.
"Good. The pilot's dead, blow to the back of the head. Looks exactly like Peeta's wound, but he was more unfortunate, guess he didn't fight back." Peeta's warning suddenly echoes in my mind, be careful, Snow's mutt. But these are human attacks. Yet Peeta's hijack was human. I stand up slowly as my mind tries to wrap around the realization of what must have happened to Peeta, what his warning means.
"Take off and lower the ladder, I've got to get something." I say and for a moment some communication passes between me and Haymitch and I give him an I'll-tell-you-later-look. He nods to me.
"Hurry sweetheart." I nod and dash back out of the hallway and hanger bay towards the house. Barely stopping to open the front door I run into the living room, careful to go around the pool of blood and to the fireplace where I grab the quiver and sling it over my head, my Mockingjay pin is pinned to the strap. I reach up and grasp my bow.
"Hello." I say to it and it purrs to live humming in my hand, the quiver on my back responding in the same manner. I start around the pool of blood and I'm just about to turn from it when I see the pill, untouched, unsmashed on the floor. I bend down and pick it up and put it in my pocket and take off out of the house. The hovercraft is already up in the air. I decide I can find new clothes on the hovercraft, my shirt is under Peeta's head covered in blood and my pants have blood spots on them.
I see the hovercraft lower ladder and I grab hold, the electric current freezing me to it as I'm lifted up inside. When the ladder unfreezes me, Haymitch is there with a blanket that he puts immediately around my shoulders, covering my arrows.
"Katniss," he starts in a grave tone. "Peeta died." If Haymitch wouldn't have been there I probably would have fallen, maybe even right back out of the hovercrafts door that's just closing.
"I want to see him." I say numbly.
We walk down the hallway. I am numb. The only sense that there is a world left is Haymitch, who's trying to keep me upright as we slowly make our way to the room. But when we get to the room, Effie, smiling and bubbly, steps in our way.
"Your mother is an absolute miracle worker!" she trills. Confused I push past her and the others that had come to the room. The monitors were not showing a flat line or making the sound of someone whose heart's just stopped forever.
"Capitol medics give up hope to easily." My mother says coming up beside me, staring at the screens. I'm startled by her but I don't jump.
"They didn't grow up in a place where that was something as valuable as life itself. I respond quietly. My mother's arm goes around me and she kisses the top of my head.
"I couldn't have saved him unless he fought to. That's twice in that boy's life he's died and come back." She looks at him. "He really loves you Katniss. I think-" her voice catches. She clears her throat and tries again. "I think your father would be proud of your decision. So am I." Hearing my mother speak of Peeta this way, then about my father when she never even went near any subject of him, I felt like I was standing by a stranger, by someone from the past. The time when my father was actually around.
"Can I see him?" My mother looks down at me and frowns.
"Yes, but it won't do any good I'm afraid. He's in a coma." My heart sinks. "You should get some sleep Katniss," she says noting the change in me. "I'll get you if anything changes."
"Ok," I say. But I still go to Peeta and kiss his forehead. "I love you," I whisper into his ear. Then as I leave I stop and lean close to my mother, "Watch them carefully," I whisper about the medics. She nods and I leave. The group has dispersed except for Haymitch.
"When you're rested you're going to spill to me your secret sweetheart."
"I can't rest with you demanding things from me," I counteract.
"Right this way." Haymitch says and leads me down the hallway and down another to a room and leaves.
The room has a small bed with a pillow and blanket and I immediately go to the bed, taking off the quiver and setting it and the bow at the ready by the bed. Then I strip off my pants, leaving me completely in my undergarments, and climb in. I looked at my blood stained arms and hands and wished I could strip off that to, but I would just have to wait and take a shower when I reached the Capitol.
When I close my eyes and try to sleep, no nightmares com, just empty lonely darkness, which could be a nightmare in itself.