People in white coats.
Doctors.
Smelling of antiseptic with sterile tools and masks on their faces. The complete opposite of nightmares but I am pulling away from them and threatening to knock in their death.
Fine. What do they care? I wasn't the point of the rescue. I was the fine print that they had to save.
Annie for Finnick. Peeta for Katniss.
Not that I blame them. I am far from cuddly.
Then Peeta attacks Katniss and they start asking questions. Acting hurt and suspicious.
What happened to you? What did they do?
Oh, you know. Tea parties and picnics.
She starts to visit me. Sits in silence that asks more questions then words.
What happened to you? What did they do?
When I can walk I explore. Make faces at those who come too close until I soon cut a wide breadth. The insane tribute from district 7.
The one no one wanted but got anyway.
I start stealing Morphling from the other IV's. Just a little. Not a lot. Enough that I stop crying. Shaking and screaming. Into a pillow. My sheets. I can still feel their questions. Their needles their shocks.
What happened to you? What did they do?
They let me visit Peeta who went quiet for once. He stares at the ceiling and remembers and I slowly take his hand. He doesn't answer for a while. And then he squeezes back.
I'm not the handholding type. But even I'm inconsistent.
She comes to see me for me then. As an ally if not a friend. You're on my side, she seems to say. There are no sides, I answer back. No one will truly win this war.
She doesn't ask me what happened. She doesn't ask what they did.
I take off my shirt to show her. The needle like scars on my back. Up and around and curved and sharp. Like Wings, I tell her.
The wings of a Mockingjay.
It's cruel. It's ironic. And then I laugh until I taste blood.
I hear her have her nightmares. She hears me have mine.
I start to convulse when I hear water. Cry when it gets too close.
Peeta comes out and explores with me. We don't talk.
But sometimes I take his hand.
They broke every bone in my fingers. I swear with each crack. I was sobbing by the end. Laughing and then crying.
I start training as soon as they let me. Me and Katniss allies again. She pushes until she breaks. Too bad I'm already broken.
I will be there when he dies. When there is blood in his beard and fear in his eyes.
I will bash in his skull and scream obscenities at him.
Fuck you Fuck you Fuck you.
I think I've gone insane, I tell her. Lying across from her on the bed.
Me too, she answers quietly. We go to sleep after that.
I almost make it. Bear the resemblance to a soldier. But they flood the streets and I cup my ears. Block out the rushing and my screaming.
Please no. Anything but that.
Back in the hospital with my own IV in my arm. I tell her she has to kill him. If nothing else then that.
I scream into my pillow at night. Agitate the other patients. They come to calm me down and I lunge and cry and bite.
I'm vicious. I'm an animal. I am the worst kind of patient.
I hear that we won. The Capitol is taken and Snow is now prisoner.
But Finnick is dead. Her little sister Prim.
I hold her hand when I see her. I'm not the handholding type.
They ask if they should die. All the capitol children as punishment. I'm bitter and I'm angry. I am their result. Their calculation without the carried one. I'm vicious. I'm an animal.
I hope they all die.
She misses when she executes him. Kills the Silver Lady instead.
They say she was insane. Couldn't be held for her actions.
I think I've gone insane, I told her.
Me too, she answered back.