Chapter Twenty-Six
From my vantage point on the ground, I can see a patch of sky. It has lit up with thin streaks of electric blue lines, criss-crossing each other in a neat grid. The lines sputter and die out, and as they do, a dark, natural sky appears overhead. The moon is gone, but the stars are out, as bright and thick as a summer night in District 12. Then the sky reignites, but this time with bursts of fireworks, like multi-colored sparks.
What … happened?
"Katniss!"
But I can't even hear my own voice in the rushing sounds of the exploding trees. Would I have even heard a cannon in all this noise? Was Katniss in the twelve o'clock section when the lightning struck? What is going on?
I stagger to my feet and fight my way up the slope again, dodging the flaming particles of tree bark and leaves falling all around me. When I approach the crest, again slowing down before I come to the force field, I stop at a strange and confusing sight. Beyond the last ring of trees at the top of the hill, the arena has fallen away. Before me, as still as a painting, is a place far removed from the tropical humidity of the clock. I see a hard, flat plain, bare as a desert.
Panting, I grip a tree for balance. My mind is trying to make sense of it all, even while my gut tells me what has happened. The force field has failed with the last lightning strike. The world - the real world (but a strange, infertile, alien-looking place) - lies spread out before me, empty, unenclosed. I fight the sudden temptation to run out into it and see what is there.
A motion in the sky catches my eye and I look up to see a hovercraft, lifting up its claw from somewhere in the vicinity next to me, collecting the dead. No, no, no.
If she is dead, if she is, I need to know. There's no more force field to run into, but I have my knife. And I would deserve the painful end, if I failed to keep her alive in this spectacular way. Beetee. Why did she trust him? Why?
I plunge onward. The noises are starting to fade - the fires dying out - the ground shivering now, not shuddering.
At the lightning tree, I see only Beetee, lying still as death, and Enobaria, lying down, also, with her lips trembling and her eyes wide open. I'm about to step into the charred clearing around the tree when the claw comes down and grabs Beetee, slowly pulling him up. I hang back, staring up as his body retreats up into the night. That's when I see the second hovercraft. This one pulses with a red light, and as the other craft pulls abruptly up, it shoots some sort of firebomb toward the first. The first one accelerates suddenly and flies away.
Still, nothing makes sense.
The remaining hovercraft lowers down, down, so low its wind fans the trees. When I understand that it is actually landing, not scooping in to pick up tributes, I make a break for it, running back down the slope, towards the lake. Hoping that if I go straight down, I will see that Katniss has fled there.
The beach is gone, swallowed by the lake. I stumble into the water before I have even cleared the trees. That's where they find me - the six Peacekeepers who pin me against the water before I can decide what to do.
We reach the lightning tree in time to see Enobaria carried out of the jungle and right into the hovercraft. While we wait, another group of Peacekeepers comes out of the jungle, with Johanna walking in front of them, at gunpoint, just like me. She gives me a quick, bitter glance. We're urged forward by the Peacekeepers, and Johanna scowls, "Don't touch me, I'm going."
We're marched out onto the plain. The night air here is hot and dry. The hovercraft opens and, once inside, we're led to the little room that the tribute and his or her stylist always sits in on the journey to the arena. Me, Johanna, and Enobaria - who is stretched out on the floor.
Johanna and I are urged to sit at the table, and then the door is closed and we can feel the hovercraft power up again and start to lift. I wonder who, besides Beetee, was on the other hovercraft? And also - why did this hovercraft attack it? I must have misinterpreted what happened, because it really doesn't make any sense.
"Johanna -." I start.
She glares at me. "You'd better get used to keeping your mouth shut, where we're going."
"About what?" I ask angrily. I look at her closely, and see the blood covering her hands. "What happened to Katniss? Were you attacked? Where did she go?"
"I don't know shit," she says. "And neither do you."
"Yes, I know - I really don't know shit."
From the floor comes the sound of a low moaning. Enobaria tries to move, but she seems incapable of it.
"Be quiet, bitch," hisses Johanna. "If you so much as make a peep I will choke you dead. Fucking District 2."
A couple more times I try to engage Johanna in conversation, but she scowls and eventually just buries her face in her arms. I try to decide between shaking her until she speaks, bursting into tears or breaking out of this room. The only thing that keeps me glued to my seat is the hope that someone will tell me Katniss' fate when we get to the end of this ride. But whether it would be better for Katniss to be dead at this point, or imprisoned like me, I'm not sure.
Not dead. She isn't dead. She can't be dead. My mind will literally go if she is dead.
When we land in the Capitol and disembark, the first thing to greet me is the tinkling sound of the roof garden. We've landed on the Training Center roof. But - of course. This is where the Victors come at the end of the Games. But this time there are three of us - at least. I get a quick glimpse of the city lights surrounding us, and a taste of the cool light summer wind from the mountains - as if the last four days had never happened. Four days. Just four days ago, I had been here with Katniss.
Johanna and I are ushered into the elevator, where the sub-basement level is selected. That's when it starts.
"You going to strip for us, darling?" one of the guards says to Johanna, grinning.
She spits in his face, and is thrown against the elevator wall, landing on the floor.
"Hey!" I yell, impulsively starting forward. That's when I'm punched in the face, and stagger backward myself.
"Everybody calm down!" one of the Peacekeepers yells. "You're rocking the car. There will be plenty of time for that once they're down below."
I rub my jaw.
"Probably shouldn't mess up that one's face," says another voice. "He'll probably be needed to be kept pretty for TV."
The sick laughter above us makes my head spin even harder.
The sub-basement is where the tributes are brought after the Games to be pieced back together again before being presented for public consumption. This is the place I woke up without my lower left leg, a year ago. We're led through interminable corridors and a long hallway until we come to a huge room, almost as large as the gym above us, but lined with a row of cells against one wall and large steel tables, sinks and counters on the other.
I'm shoved into one cell and Johanna into the one next to it. There is a low bed and a chamber pot. The cell is closed by a door of narrow steel bars. A camera is mounted to the high ceiling above me. Fuck.
"Johanna?" I say tremulously. "Are you OK?"
"Sure."
I look over at the tables and see beakers, needles lined up in glass cases on the wall. Sharp knives, forceps, cords and ropes. "What are they going to do with us? Where are we?"
"Hell," she says simply, her voice flat with despair.
The End