find her kill her she's coming she's here I stand in the smoking ashes of my home, the district around me a rubble of chaotic destruction. Cries for help, screams of the dying, wailing of the bereaved, all the clamor cannot block out the hissing demand. A vibration in my head, attuned to my bones so my entire body hums in response. burned killed devoured I look out over the decimated landscape, nothing but murderous wreckage as far as the eye can see.
A quick flutter of movement catches my eye and I turn swiftly to see the tiny girl skipping lightly away from me among the ruins. Her dark braids are sifted with ash and her dress smeared with blood. Her progress is marked by a small cluster of mockingjays who trill the song she hums back and forth, the melody hauntingly familiar. Closing my eyes, I concentrate on the delicate strains weaving together. The beauty of the song sends a warm glow spreading from my belly up through my limbs and it almost drowns out the whisper.
I open my eyes at the touch of a small hand on my arm. The girl stands next to me, her face turned away, eyes on the birds. Their song fills the air all around us and she turns to look into my eyes, her clear gray gaze reaching deep into my own and seizing the breath from my lungs. "Stay with me, Peeta."
With a scream I leap awake to pandemonium. The whisper rises to a shriek as I claw my way backward from the uniformed strangers clustering around me. I topple off the gurney and crash to the floor, scrabbling away until my back presses against the cold wall and my palms search frantically for a way to move further. I've never seen this room before, and that cannot be good news. Machines bank the walls and no one looks familiar as my wild-eyed gaze sweeps the strange surroundings. All new staff? What do they specialize in? My stomach drops as I anticipate the new development, but the cold fear is well-known and helps to ground me. I have to pull myself together in case they turn to someone else as punishment for me not cooperating.
With a shuddering breath, I press my palms backward and push myself up to standing, the trembling in my legs almost dropping me to the floor again. Two uniformed men step forward cautiously, eyeing me warily, but taking my arms gently and helping me back to my seat on the gurney, speaking in low, calming voices.
bite scrape claw scream I shudder violently when a woman holding a syringe puts her hand on my arm, then flinch at the expected reprisal, but it doesn't come. She smiles gently and apologizes, explaining she's going to draw some blood. bite burn claw scream break I clench my jaw against the need to sink my teeth into her throat, my entire body trembling with the effort to stay seated while the hiss screams at me to run, tearing flesh as I go. I focus my mind on the table in the other room, the straps, the buckles, the latches. I run over each in careful detail, imagining who they will strap down next to punish me if I don't comply. The thought is enough to allow me to stay seated while they murmur around me, poking and prodding, lifting my eyelids, shining bright lights into my blank stare. claw tear rip
A clamor behind and all the people around me pause, looking up, then, almost as one, stepping back from me. I turn to see the cause of this behavior, preparing myself for the new way they've decided to try hurting me. But I am in no way prepared for what I see. Shock drags the room into slow motion around me as the whisper pitches to an insane scream inside my head. My vision darkens around the edges, closing into a tunnel that blocks out everything and everyone except for the girl running toward me. I leap from the gurney, sweeping aside the bodies in my path as I reach for Katniss Everdeen.
With a guttural snarl, I smash her to the ground, my fingers closing around her throat, digging deep into the soft, white flesh. I feel her windpipe beneath my hands, feel it tremble and struggle and I squeeze tighter, jaw clenched and teeth bared as the hiss shrieks for her blood. Her eyes roll wildly, hands clutching at my wrists as she bucks beneath me. Bared fangs snap at my face and talons rip into my skin, but I don't release her. Her wings flare out behind her, flames running up my arms and engulfing my head, but I don't release her. She screams a high, ragged shriek that reverberates with the hiss in my head, the two tones looping together, twining into one screeching pitch that shatters behind my eyes, shards of my mind splintering away and spinning into the darkness that consumes me, but I don't release her.
Her face shimmers before my eyes, wet from the rain, cowering beside the bins, empty and hollow and desperate. protect her A tearing in my head, my fingers spasm tighter but then loosen.
A crashing blow to my temple and my bones turn to jelly. I slump to the floor, blackness wheeling in sparks and snaps as my vision fades, my flopping hands clutching for her throat and the hissing demand echoing into the gathering black. kill her kill her kill her kill her kill her kill her kill her
Darkness holds me under like miles of cold seawater. I can't fight my way out from under it, no matter how hard I struggle toward the surface. When I finally wake, drenched in icy sweat and every muscle burning from the tension it's been held in, I gasp for air around my sandpaper tongue. I'm strapped to a bed in an unfamiliar room, a watchful attendant rising to press a call button when he sees my eyes crack open.
"Would you like some water?" he asks, holding a straw to my split lips. The sweet wetness flows over my tongue and down my parched throat. But I shudder violently before heaving it back up, my knotted stomach unprepared to process it.
Another man in a gray jumpsuit, holding a clipboard, strides through the doorway in time to see me gag weakly. Clucking his tongue, he deftly scoops an ice cube from a tray and holds it against my lips. "Only IV for him for now, I'm afraid," he admonishes the other attendant. "Ice chips are ok, but he hasn't had anything in his stomach for days, we need to go slowly."
"I'm so sorry," the first man apologizes sincerely. "I didn't realize."
Bewildered, unable to understand the first kindness I've experienced in weeks, the whisper tears into a screech and I voice it, thrashing and howling against my restraints. don't trust liars tricks The siren wail screams through my mind and I buck and pitch, hauling against the manacles and scraping my throat raw with my cursing rant. My vision begins to blacken and sparks pop behind my eyes. I sag against the restraints, my body too weak to continue to heed the manic call of the hiss. I lie shivering, gasping ragged breaths and fading in and out of consciousness.
liars tricks hurting kill burn gouge The whisper chants its litany of rage through my consciousness and I clench my eyes shut, unable to escape, unable to block it out, unable to relegate it to the back of my mind. All I can see are visions of Katniss, her throat gripped in my hands, eyes bulging, flames haloing around her as I try to squeeze the life from her. failure weakling disappointment I couldn't do it.
But another sound begins to make itself heard in my black awareness. Like a drowning man, I clutch at the gentler tone, sharpening all my attention to the whispering flutter buried far and deep beneath the bile. protect her When the sound comes into focus it sends me into renewed frenzy, rage searing through my exhausted throat and limbs, terror blazing through my icy veins. I scream and thrash, fighting and bucking and straining.
"Put him out," the regretful command slices through the riotous noise. A cold needle, then clutching darkness.
When I wake again, my limbs are leaden and my thoughts like syrup. I pull weakly at the manacles tethering me to the bed, but I can't summon the strength to fight it. The whisper is low but steady, a slurred chanting of hunger and rage. Watching from the corner is the man in the jumpsuit. The same man? I can't tell. He approaches carefully, slowly and without sudden moves.
"Peeta?" His voice is equally cautious and a searing shame shivers through me. I'm like an animal they have to subdue, incapable of controlling myself.
The humiliation washes over me and hot tears well behind my eyes, spilling silently down my temples to pool in my ears, my manacled wrists unable to even wipe them away.
"Peeta, you're ok. We have you on a mild depressant to help you stay calm while the venom works its way out of your system. It may tamper with your mood slightly." The man hovers over me, concern etched clearly on his face, but nowhere close to outweighing the readiness to flee. "My name is Vespan Aurelius. I'm sorry to drug you again, but you were extremely distraught."
This wild understatement provokes a low, grating chuckle that takes me by surprise. e's I nod my agreement, and he relaxes very slightly. "I'm sorry," I rasp. "Why are you here?"
He swallows nervously and seems to search for his reply. My thoughts swim through molasses and crash slowly off one another. A vision of a mask, gray eyes peering into my own. A shudder runs through me, the whisper sharpening its call for blood. Was I carried from my cell? My eyes cannot be trusted.
"Actually," he says with false cheer, "the 'here' is the interesting part of that question." He smiles weakly and the whisper begins to ramp up. liar liar liar My hands fidget and clench, my feet twitching sharply and my neck twisting my chin forward. I fight to remain clear -headed but the drug only slows my reactions, it doesn't negate them, and they are beginning to rise to the surface.
With a narrow-eyed glance, he twiddles a knob and syrupy weight floods my veins, my hands like bricks and my eyelids are slate shingles. "Don' do tha'" I slur heavily, my tongue thick and slow.
"I'm very sorry, Peeta, but I must speak with you, and you quickly become…unreachable." He shrugs apologetically, but I shake my head.
"I can' speak," I try to force the words to be understood, "bu' I can still fill it."
"You can still feel what?" he asks earnestly, pen poised and ready.
"Hurt you."
He nods, a sympathetic frown pulling his brows together. rip rip claw scream bite "Well, perhaps we should try and get this over with quickly. Peeta, do you know where you are? How you got here?"
"Cap-sherd," I mutter, "She lef' me."
Scribbling frantically, he nods quickly as he writes. The whisper is sharpening in focus, coming closer to the surface. tear scrape gash
"Yes, Peeta," he agrees, without looking up. "You were captured. You were taken to the Capitol where you were held prisoner, and, we believe, tortured for information, and I'm so sorry that happened. But," he looks up from his notes, his pale blue stare holding mine intently. "You are not there now."
liar liar liar liar don't trust trickery liar tricks "Where?" I force out. I can't focus, can't make sense of what he's saying. The whisper is winding up to a deafening screech and the drug makes it impossible to concentrate, to reason.
"Peeta, you are safe. You are in District 13."
she's here she's here she's here she's here she's here My rage slices through the cottony fog wrapping my thoughts and I arch my body against the manacles, straining to pull myself free, shrieking for her blood. I scream and writhe and buck, madness overwhelming every other sensation as I thrash to slake my ravenous thirst for her destruction. A quick, stinging jab and I'm limp, gasping against the black void that rushes in to devour and consume me. kill her kill her kill her kill her kill her kill her kill her