Three more days pass with numbing monotony. I think it's three days. I'm guessing they feed me once a day and I've had three bowls of sludge, but no beatings. Instead of feeling relieved, I'm pitched to feverish anxiety in anticipation of what's to come. Johanna and I tried talking to each other the first night I was here, but the retribution for her had been so swift and so brutal I quickly gave that up. She's tried again a few times, but they punish only her when we speak so I ignore it determinedly. After the conversation between Snow and the other man, I've come to think of him as simply Nephew, I've been frantically trying to figure out what they want from me. They must know I had no idea about the rebellion, most of their questions are superficial, and sometimes they don't even ask anything. Why would they be messing with my memories of the arena? What could that gain for them? Why have they stopped beating me at all? Snow said he can use me still, what did that mean?
The questions echo and reverberate in the empty room, growing in scope until I bury my head in my arms to try and escape. Once, when I was small and very sick, I was confined to the room I shared with Jasper. My mother strictly forbade anyone to break my quarantine, the doctor having warned her I was extremely contagious. Jasper, however, made it a point to sneak in through the outside window several times every day to visit me. He said it wasn't healthy for people to be left all alone, and I would heal more quickly if I weren't fighting the despair of isolation as well. I squeeze my eyes tightly closed and wish I could talk to him again. Just a few minutes, some news of home, plans for the wedding.
I grip my hands behind my neck. I hope they go through with the wedding. Is it this week? Last week? They had threatened to call it off after the announcement of the Quarter Quell, but I'd made them promise to keep to their plans. Nothing would please me more than to know of Jasper and Lila starting their lives together, to think of them holding each other and keeping each other happy. I hope they keep their promise, I have enough shattered dreams to answer for.
I keep wondering what they thought of my interview. Is my father disappointed in me? Does he think I'm a traitor? Or does he agree with me? He can't have seen the terror and destruction happening in the other districts, but before I left I had explained about the uprisings, and he was far more supportive of the rebel cause than I'd have anticipated.
As always, my jaw clenches when I wonder for the millionth time what Katniss thinks. Does she understand how devastating it is out there? Whoever she's with, would they have shown her the magnitude of the loss, the complete destruction of our existence that looms on the horizon? Does she hate me for what I said? Even if she does, I comfort myself knowing that when I lie calmly in the dark, when my heartbeat slows and my breathing is deep and steady, I can feel her out there. I can feel the connection between us and I draw my strength from it.
"Be safe," I whisper.
I hear the scraping down the hall and lift my head quickly. It's too early to eat again, nothing good can come of this. I hear a grunt from the other side of the wall. Johanna has not been beaten either and I can feel the tension radiate through the cell, which of us are they coming for? The keypad beeps outside my door and I don't know whether to feel afraid or relieved. When the hinges squeal open, I settle quickly on confused. Only one guard faces me, and he holds manacles and a prod. He tosses the manacles to me and orders me to shackle myself. My raised eyebrow is my answer and he grins slyly. Two more guards swarm inside and make rough work of binding my wrists and ankles, the original one getting in a few solid zaps with the prod for good measure.
They grab me by the elbows and guide me out the door into the hallway. I stare around in bewilderment, I've never seen outside the cell. The guards hustle me along, but I see there are at least three more cells like mine. At two, guards stand in the open doors as we go by. In one I see the curled back of Johanna Mason. She lies on her side on the floor, facing away, huddled in the fetal position. In another, a beautiful, red-haired girl stares wide-eyed as I go by, trembling hands held to her mouth, head shaking slowly back and forth.
I'm led through a swinging door into a room unlike any I've ever seen. It's empty except for a straight backed chair in the center and the guards shove me into it, buckling my chains into attached straps. My heart sinks wondering what could be coming, but I clench my jaw and keep my face as impassive as possible. The guards leave without a word and my anxiety pitches higher. I notice the front and sides of the room are actually a curtain, or a screen? It's difficult to tell, but as I try to work it out, the light flashes on and I turn my head from the glare, squeezing my eyes shut.
When I open them again, I blink rapidly, trying to clear the spots dancing in my vision until I see the room has opened out in front of me, or appears to have. A table, tilted about thirty degrees, is in the new room and a man in a tunic like Nephew's is fiddling with knobs on a machine next to it. Dread floods my bloodstream, what is happening? A door opens and another man in a tunic leads in a girl, about my age, with coppery red hair and huge eyes. She sees me and a tremor shakes her whole body. The first man turns from his work and asks, "Is it Lavinia?"
She nods tearfully and I recognize her. She is filthy and woefully thin, but undeniably she is the avox girl who was our servant in the Training Center.
"Lavinia, do you know the person seated behind the glass?" he asks her blandly. She freezes for a second, trying to find the trap. Of course she does, everyone in the nation knows me, even if they hadn't been handpicked personal servants.
"Answer!" the second man barks, giving her a rough shake. She nods rapidly, blinking back tears.
"Were you aware of him plotting treason against your President while you knew him?" the first man asks, his tone still flat, but Lavinia shakes her head vigorously, desperate sounds of fear coming from her mutilated mouth.
"She denies it," the second man smiles. "I was hoping she would."
"Hang on," the first one grumbles. "I can't work out the voltage."
Lavinia's knees give out and she sags in the hands of her captor, trembling and making terrible noises. With a disgusted snort, he heaves her against the table and holds her down while the first one straps her in. Nephew's words echo in my ears and I try desperately to remain impassive, hoping against hope they'll let her off easier if it doesn't seem to be bothering me. She turns her head and looks at me through the glass. Our eyes meet and hers are bottomless pools of despair and terror.
"I'm sorry," I mouth silently. She shakes with silent weeping, but her sobs are suddenly cut off as her body arches up away from the table and a crackling sizzle zips through the air. I scream and pull at the restraints of my chair as her rigid back and clenched muscles jerk and thrash. The man curses and flips a switch back and she goes limp, twitching and jittering, but loose in the restraints. I sag back in my own chair as the man swears, glowering with disgust at the curl of smoke rising from her body. I hang my head and sob openly for the avox in the woods.
Back in my cell, I curl into myself on the floor. Trying to block out the fear in Lavinia's eyes as she realized what was about to happen. That she had no way to stop it because there was no answer that could satisfy them. She was being used as nothing more than a display of power to try and manipulate me. My fists press against my eyes and my clenched teeth are bared in a fierce grimace. I burrow into the corner, trying to hide as much as I can from their prying eyes, but knowing they see my despair. They know they have won.
The next time the door opens, I sit against the wall, hands curled and empty at my sides, staring dully ahead. For the first time, they let me sleep a full night through. Another cruel ploy. Exhausted to the point of collapse, my body never pulled me away from the dreams where Lavinia jerked against the restraints, screamed for me to help her, to make it stop. Dreams where Katniss flew away and left me, alone and crying out for her return. Dreams where my family is tortured and mutilated for the sin of knowing me.
The guard doesn't even try to get me to cuff myself, coming in and quickly clipping cold metal around my unresisting hands and feet. He hauls me to my feet and I shuffle along where he guides me, into the echoing hall. The two cell doors are open again, today Johanna is sitting against the wall, knees drawn up but head turned away. She has several bald patches where it looks like they've shaved her hair. The skin showing through looks burned and raw. Annie stands as before, but her trembling hands are covering her eyes and she shakes with sobs.
I notice these things absently, my clouded mind is so slow to piece things together. Until I realize where we're going. The door to the room swings open and I see the chair with its biting restraints and the long curtain in front.
"No, no, wait!" I cry, backpedaling furiously against the grip of the guard. My bare feet can't find purchase on the slick floor and the manacles do their job well, restricting my movement so I can't swing at him, can't kick or run. He drags me to the chair and another guard buckles me in. "No, no, no." I'm rocking against the restraints, my head swinging back and forth. Not again, please not again.
The flash, blinding me as the lights pop on, and there's the table. Today, the victim is already strapped down and my stomach knots in wretched misery. Darius. Of course, "the redheads," Snow had said. Darius has two black eyes in a swollen and battered face and his shirtless chest shows fresh lashes criss-crossing the flesh. Cuts and bruises cover his body, and he hunches slightly toward his right side. The man in the tunic is standing back and to the side, a Peacekeeper looms over the table, a short, heavy club in his hand.
"When did Peeta Mellark confer with the rebel leaders?" he asks in a monotone. Darius shakes his head silently and the guard slams his jaw with the club, Darius' head jerking to the side. "When did Peeta Mellark confer with the rebel leaders?" Again, the silent denial and the brutal crack of the club. Darius spits a stream of blood and a tooth clatters to the floor.
"Stop!" I howl. "He doesn't know anything! I don't know anything!" But they don't even look toward me. I don't know if he can hear me at all. "Sto-" My voice freezes in my throat as the guard turns to the man in the tunic, who hands him a wicked looking tool with large, curved snipping blades. The guard lifts Darius' hand and pries free his two middle fingers from his clenched fist. Darius, eyes wild with fear, is wailing like a caged animal, his brutalized mouth incapable of giving the answers he doesn't have anyway. The guard repeats his question and Darius repeats his frantic denial.
At Darius' scream I turn and vomit violently onto the floor. His choking sobs sear through me and I retch again, heaving myself empty of the little my stomach had to offer. The glass blanks in front of me, but I can still hear Darius moaning and choking.
A shift in the light and the glass is a screen, Katniss frowning down at me from high in a tree. The sound of Darius gagging and crying overlays images of Katniss flashing across the screen. I shudder in my restraints, the chains clanking and ringing with the violence of my tremors. Katniss lifts her arrow and fires into the sky, trailing the golden wire. The sky explodes and the screen goes blank. Darius sobs in muffled agony, out of sight. I weep along with him.