A/N: Hey guys, here's the next chapter! (:
Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games.
Chapter Twenty One
"I can't believe," Katniss breathed. "How many people are following me?"
Madge shrugged, fringe falling into her eyes as she examined the gunshot wound. Rue was standing nearby, a first aid kit clutched in her hands. "I told you so," the sprite chirped up. She looked at the woman who had arrived with the injured man and blinked. "Where are you from?"
"1," the woman replied, biting her nails. She tapped Madge's shoulder. "Is he okay?"
"Should be fine," Madge muttered under her breath, taking what felt like the thousandth bandage out of the first aid kit in Rue's hands. "I got the bullet out, which is good." She glanced over her shoulder at the girl. "How long ago was he shot?"
"Three days ago," the girl piped up. "I thought he'd have woken up by now . . . I had to drag him the whole way here . . ."
Katniss' eyebrows lifted in disbelief. "You carried him here all the way from 1?" she asked. "You poor girl, how did you manage?" The blonde girl looked at her, slightly confused, and blinked almost blankly.
"You'd be surprised how much fear propells you forward," she said. "I thought you, Katniss, of all people, would know this."
Katniss gulped, feeling like a scolded child. She should be the person who knows all this. She was the one who inspired all these people to get to 12 and risk their lives in the process. But under what pretences was it that inspired them to come? They think she was in love with Peeta. Even she didn't know how she felt for him yet and yet the rest of the country already felt they had the relationship sussed out. She didn't know what to say, what to do or how to act.
"I just thought I sounded like a rambling fool," she whispered.
The girl from District 1 sighed, her eyebrows bowing forward in sympathy. "I'm Cashmere," she said, holding out her hand for a shake.
"Katniss." Katniss shook the outheld hand. She glanced nervously at the bleeding man on the floor and gestured towards him with her hand. "Lover?" she asked softly. Cashmere surprised her by snorting in amusement.
"Unless you believe in incest," she chuckled. She brushed a strand of gold hair behind her ear and smiled sadly. "His name is Gloss. He's my big brother."
The word sounded alien. Brother. Not many families kept their boys once they were born, especially if they later had a girl. If they had the female they wanted then there was no reason for them to keep the boy any more. Apparently it was more suitable to give away the boy and get a slave that wasn't blood related to the daughter in any way to prevent 'unnessecary attatchments.'
"Brother?" Madge, being more openly poignant, asked.
"Yes, brother," Cashmere replied. She knelt down beside the injured man and brushed the hair off his face. "My mother was too lazy to give him up."
"Lazy? You're District 1! You're literally right beside the Capitol!" exclaimed Madge. She was tightening off the bandage around Gloss' arm and expertly snipped the cotton with her scissors. "I thought the people from 1 were closest to the Capitolites than anyone else."
Cashmere shrugged. "We are," she said. "But our mom is an alcoholic and was always lazy. She hated going to the Capitol. She'd been planning to give him to the compound but then our dad was killed and she just lost interest. You have no idea how relieved I was when she told me he was staying . . ." Her eyebrows screwed up as she fought back tears. "He's my big brother . . . I don't know what I'd do without him."
Katniss felt a stab of pain in her heart. There wasn't only the passionate desire of young lovers in Panem, there was also the unconditional love of siblings, the unbreakable bond between shared blood . . . It was heartbreaking.
Madge stood up and placed a reassuring hand on Cashmere's shoulder. "He's going to be fine, I promise. The bullet is out of his arm and the bleeding isn't as strong. I'm almost positive he's going to survive this."
"Almost?" Cashmere whispered.
"I'm sorry but nothing is certain," Madge replied. Katniss wished that she would sometimes lie, that the woman would realize that some people would rather hear a reassuring lie than a heart-wrenching truth. But Madge's ability to be blunt was what saved people from unnessecary hope, even if it did hurt to listen to.
Cashmere nodded, tears dripping from her eyes. "O-okay," she said, her voice wavering. Madge nodded and started up the stairs to the office. Katniss went after her, almost stumbling up as she reached out and grabbed her elbow.
"We can't just leave him there on the floor," she hissed, trying to be discreet. Cashmere was clinging to her brother's limp hand with Rue hovering behind, not sure whether to say anything or just stay quiet. "He could catch an infection or something."
"Katniss." Madge's voice was resigned and heavy. "There's no infirmary or safe place here. It's a Justice Building. This is war, Kat. You need to toughen up. This-" She pointed at the brother and sister-"isn't even the worst of it." Katniss watched Cashmere carefully, feeling the ache in her heart spread into her limbs, leaving nothing but a numb sensation behind. As she stared at the siblings, Madge started walking up the stairs again.
"Wait," Katniss called, following her up to the top. The blonde girl stopped outside an oak door, a room Katniss hadn't been inside yet, and turned around to face her. "What do you mean, not the worst of it?"
Madge sighed heavily. Looking around to check no-one was watching, she grabbed Katniss by the arm and dragged her into the room. It was a small store room, the size of a box bedroom. There was no light and Katniss had to squint to see as she was pushed inside. Madge followed in after her and shut the door, effectively cutting off the only other source of light.
"I understand that you didn't ask to be part of this, Katniss, I do," Madge said, her voice a raspy whisper. "But you need to toughen up. It's in your best interests. It's war. People get injured in war. People die in war. The mockingjay can't show weakness, not when you've got some many people looking at you to see how they should act."
"I'm not weak," Katniss said firmly, slightly offended.
"Now, maybe," Madge said. "But in the future, when Jackson and Harper come back into the picture . . . I can't predict what they'll do."
Katniss frowned, her heart thumping in her chest. "What do you mean 'when Jackson and Harper come back into the picture'?"
Madge clenched her jaw and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Right now, one of our technitions, Beetee, is trying to hack into the Compound's relay systems to hear what's happening and what their situation currently is. Our main piority right now is to find out what Jackson and Harper are up to. We don't know what we're going to find when we finally get in. We don't know what they'll be saying, what they'll be doing . . . who they'll be with . . . and we need you there. The Mockingjay needs to be there to show the rebels who have already joined us that you are part of the system, you know?"
"Who they'll be with?" Katniss asked quietly.
"Yes . . . the likely hood being that they'll be with . . . him." Madge's blue eyes stared at her through the darkness. She blinked and the colour momentarily winked out before flickering back again. Katniss studied the colour, thinking about how, even though they were blue, Madge's eyes weren't even nearly as hypnotizing or beautifully perfect as Peeta's had been.
"Him," Katniss said. "Him. He has a name, you know."
Madge's eyes narrowed. "Fine," she said. "The likely hood is that they'll be with Peeta. Happy? I doubt there's a difference."
Katniss scowled. "It's his identity. I thought you of all people would recognize that."
There was a pounding on the door and both girls looked at the wood like it had barked at them to open up itself. Madge scrambled for the handle, blindly blundering in the dark to find purchase on the golden knob. She finally flung it open with a sigh, revealing a nervous looking Rue on the other side.
"Beetee told me to come and get you guys," she said. She looked behind herself at the buzzing reception below the staircase. "He told me to say he's in."
Madge immediately pushed past Rue and flew down the stairs. The little girl from 11 gave Katniss a confused look that was full of innocence. Katniss shrugged, expressing that both her and Rue were on the same page.
"Katniss!" Madge yelled from downstairs. "Come on! We need you!"
Sighing, Katniss climbed down the stairs and joined Madge, who was hovering over the computer. A man with black glasses perched on the end of his nose was tapping stuff into the keyboard, his fingers a blurr as they flew over the letters furiously. "Almost there," he murmered. "I think I can get into the sound system of the T room."
"Sound system?" Madge asked.
The man glanced apprehensively at Katniss as she approached before quickly reastering his gaze to the computer screen. "I didn't think hacking into the cameras at such an early time in the rebellion would be very intelligent. Especially for such a raw time in the Mockingjay's mental rise."
Katniss fiddled with her fingers and watched as Madge shrugged and tapped the enter button. A thin green line appeared on the black screen, like a beat line on a hospital heart monitor. Beetee stopped his typing and pushed his glasses up his nose. "We're in," he said. Madge shooed him out of the computer chair and sat down on it herself, clicking on the sound icon until it was up on full. Beetee, who was now standing where Madge previously stood, pointed at the green line on the monitor.
"This represents the level of sound in the room," he explained.
"It looks like a heart monitor," Cashmere said. Katniss looked over her shoulder. The girl from 1 sat where she had been when she'd went up the stairs, squinting at the computer as she refused to let go of her brother's hand.
Beetee's eyes lit up at the girl's description of the sound level and grinned. "Whenever there is a sign of life, in this case sound, the line will jerk up, the height and length depending on the volume and pitch of the sound. Like a heart monitor, as you say." He seemed delighted to be explaining all this to them. Katniss could see him as a Professor at an academy, the type of cheery guy who enjoyed his job and the subject he was teaching. It just made the realization that up until this point he'd never been able to express it all the more painful to think about.
"Then why is isn't it moving?" Katniss found herself asking.
"Obviously because there's no sound," Madge said, glancing at her over her shoulder and giving her a sharp 'just sit there and be quiet' look. Genuniely interested, Katniss ignored Madge and looked at Beetee, who was watching her, prepared to answer whatever questions she may have. Definitely an Academy professor.
"But there's always sound," Katniss said to him. "Always something, right? Humming of machinery, tinkling of wind chimes, you know, not nessecarily man made sounds but nothing is ever solid silence. Unless it was in one of those specially conditioned rooms that are specially built to be completely silent but you said it was the T room, didn't you?" She wasn't exactly sure what the T room was but judging by the compound's history of just naming floors and rooms after the first letter of what happens in that area, she had a fair idea of what it meant.
Beetee glanced at the computer with a quzzical frown. "Hmm," he contemplated. "Well Miss Everdeen, you certainly have a point."
Katniss was surprised. "I do?" she asked. She'd thought that Beetee would have answered her question with ease and they'd have been able to move swiftly on. Madge tapped the screen wtih her finger, a repressed expression on her face.
"Maybe it's broken?" she suggested.
"I spent ten hours hacking into the mainframe of the Compound's computers to then work my way into the matrix of the sound systems," Beetee stated matter of factly. "I can assure you with absolute clarity that it is not broken."
Madge huffed. "Then what the hell's wrong?"
A small figure rushed past Katniss, almost knocking her off her feet in the process. Once they'd skidded to a stop, she realized it was Rory, Gale's little brother. He'd cleaned up since the encounter with Jackson and Harper and his spirits seemed to have rose considerably. Katniss had expected him to have been scarred, depressed even, but the little boy seemed to have become even more lively since the incident.
"Sensory deprivation," he said breathlessly.
"What?" Madge asked.
"Sensory deprivation," he repeated. "It's a form of torture, normally used on slaves to get them to admit they'd comitted a crime."
"Of course!" Beetee exclaimed, slapping his forehead with his palm. "How could I have not thought of that!"
"Wait," Katniss said, stepping closer to the computer. "What's sensory deprivation?"
"It's when all senses are cut off," Beetee answered.
"Apart from one, right?" Madge asked. "I've heard of that. If you cut off all senses bar one then it heightens the sense that is left? Like if you blind fold someone, gag them and put ear and nose plugs in then when you touch them it would feel like a thousand volts, right?"
"Well, while that is correct, it is not what they do in the Compound," Beetee answered. "No sense is left. If a slave is suspected to have comitted a crime but won't admit it, the drivers would put gloves on their hands, bind their wrists together, force them onto their knees, gag them, plug their ears and noses until there's nothing left. They then leave them like that for hours on end until they finally squeal."
Katniss covered her mouth in muted horror. She couldn't imagine having her senses completely dampened like that. What would it feel like? A numb abyss where there's no feeling, no sound, no nothing? How could anyone survive five minutes of that, let alone hours on end, was beyond her comprehension.
"If that is what they're doing in there, then what do we do?" Madge asked.
Beetee's glasses slid down his nose as he thought about it. "I suppose we wait until something happens. To get into the sound systems of another room could take another ten hours and I doubt we have time like that to waste."
"We don't," Madge said bluntly, pushing back from her seat and heading to the stairs. "As soon as something happens, inform me immediately. I'll be in my office."
As the curious onlookers in the reception dispersed, Katniss' eyes found purchase on Rory. The boy she'd helped up in the square that day. If it hadn't of been for him, none of this would have happened. She wondered what she'd be doing right this minute if he hadn't of tripped. Would she still be with her Aunt Effie? In a class with Johanna? Inpregnanted with Peeta's baby under the orders of Jackson and Harper?
She found herself drifting towards the youngster. "Hey," she said, sitting down on the computer chair so their faces were at the same height. "That was very clever, knowing what was going on in that room." Rory beamed at her happily, enjoying being praised. Katniss couldn't help but smile back, his joy being infectious. "How did someone of your age know of the deprivation?"
"Oh, I've been in the Compound for twelve years," Rory said. "Believe me, I know how it works."
"Twelve years?" Katniss asked in astonishment. "How old are you? If you don't mind my asking."
Rory shrugged. "I don't mind," he said. "I'm twelve and three quarters. My mom bought me two weeks ago. I'm not sure why, having Gale and all. I suppose she's gone crazy from the hormones and all."
"Hormones?" questioned Katniss.
"Uh-huh. She gave birth to her first girl recently," Rory explained. "My little sister, Posy."
Effie's voice crept into Katniss' mind. Something she'd said on her first morning in 12.
"She was just telling me about how our friend Hazelle just had a little baby girl last night. She's been cursed with three sons so far so it's a miracle she's finally gotten a little girl."
"Is her slave the father?"
"Uh-huh. She's a lucky one, she has two slaves."
"Really?"
"Yes. The recepitant of the four children, and one of the boys she carried. She was lucky to get one of her own back as a slave, many of us never see our boys ever again, thank the heavens."
"Is your mom Hazelle?" Katniss asked.
If Rory was surprised that she knew his mother's name, he didn't show it. "Yeah," he said. "Hazelle Hawthorne . . . She's nice, my mom is. I love her very much, even though she does get mad a lot. It's not her fault that her mom raised her weird. Dad said to never judge the women on how they behave because it was how they were raised. Just like the people before them were. I hope Posy will be raised right once we win."
Katniss felt something pang in the pit of her stomach. The boy that stood before her was full of preconcieved hope of the new world. Of the future life of his baby sister. Because he'd already decided that they were going to win. Katniss wished that she felt the same way.
"Your big brother," she said, looking around to check that he wasn't around. "He's very protective of you, isn't he?"
Rory shrugged. "I guess. I'd say it's not easy to watch both siblings taken away from you while you're helpless."
"Both?"
"Yeah. Me and Vick," Rory explained.
Oh, that was right. Hazelle had three children. "Where is Vick?" Katniss asked tentatively, hoping that she wasn't going to strike a sensitive nerve.
"He's in heaven," Rory said. Katniss' eyebrows rose in amazement. He'd said it so simply, like it was as common a fact as the sky is blue and the grass is green. The statement was spoken with such clarity that there was no mistaking what he had said.
"He-heaven?" she stuttered.
Rory nodded. "Jeminia shot him," he explained. "Any slave who is considered too mild or weak or unable to complete a job due to meek inability are killed. Apparently they're a waste of space . . ." he trailed off. "They used to drag siblings in to watch."
Katniss' mouth fell open in horror. "They made you watch?" she near-whispered.
For the first time, Rory wavered. "He died quickly. It was swift, merciful. Kind of contrasts to how people like Jeminia normally behave. Sometimes I can hear the shot in the middle of the night, ripping through the air and shattering my eardrums like it did back then . . ."
As she watched his resolve crumble, Katniss remembered something else.
"He wasn't good enough. He was too afraid. They killed him when he was ten for cowardice. A bullet through the brain. At least that was something, short and painless."
Peeta's brother had been shot for being weak. Did that mean that he was also forced to watch? Only a child, having to witness his older brother murdered for not being good enough for the slave driver's liking? Katniss suddenly felt very sick.
"Older or younger?" she found herself asking.
Rory looked at her through watery eyes, full of tears he was desperately trying to repress. Katniss felt guilty for making him cry. "Younger," he answered. Katniss nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
"I'm sorry," she managed to croak.
He shrugged as if there was no possible impact her words could make on him. "It was a long time ago," he said. "He's in a safer place now. I sometimes think that he's the lucky one, we're in more of a hell than he is now."
Katniss found that there were tears of her own in her eyes. She held her arms out and pulled Rory into a hug, wanting to cling to the boy until everything was okay again. Until there was no pain or sorrow left. "You're such a brave boy," she whispered. "You're so strong." Rory sniffled, hiding his crying by burying his face into her shoulder. Katniss had never been much of a comforter but she found it coming naturally as she rubbed his back and stroked his hair. She was so lost in her need to rid Rory of his demons through the embrace that she almost missed it.
The line on the screen jerked.
Rory noticed it before she did, pulling away from her and staring at the screen with wide doe eyes. Katniss turned to screen too just in time to catch the second jerk.
"Beetee," she called. The man joined her by the computer almost instantly. "It jerked." As soon as she spoke, the green line spiked for the third time. It caught her by surprise and she jumped a little in the computer chair. Beetee reached over her, simultaneously pushing the glasses back up his nose, and tapped the volume button on the keypad. The dial shot back up to one hundred and they waited for what made the jerk.
When it came again, the sound that had caused it seemed to be the clinking of metal against metal. Once the spike lurched up the screen again it was followed by a long and loud, "Damn it!" Katniss almost fell out of her seat, not expecting such a brash sound after the soft tinkling of the metal.
"Rue, could you get Miss Undersee for me?" Beetee asked in a polite manner. Rue nodded and flew up the stairs. The metal clinking continued after that, no sign of the voice again. Madge came out of her office almost immediately and charged down the stairs to get to the computer, thinking she'd missed a lot when really she'd missed nothing special.
Beetee was leaning over Katniss, typing on the keyboard at the speed of light velocity`he had done earlier. Loads of windows jumped on the screen, blurring together as Katniss tried to comprehend them all, swiftly failing as Beetee seemed to read faster than her. "The voice recognition says that Jackson Wayford was the one who yelled."
Katniss' stomach churned and the neuseated feeling increased. Even just the name. Jackson. It sent shivers of dread jittering up her spine.
A loud bang blasted out of the computer's speakers and everyone around the computer jumped. "Finally!" the same voice exclaimed. "Jesus Christ how old is that door?! I could barely get it fucking open!"
"Jackson, you had the key in the wrong way," a different voice said.
Beetee was quick to run the voice recognition. "Harper Middlesbrough," he murmered. Katniss didn't expect any less. It seemed that Jackson and Harper were joined at the hip, almost like simease twins that had been seperated at birth.
"Whatever," Jackson huffed. "Ah! There he is! Why did you put him in here again, Harp?"
"We had no use for him," Harper replied. "Sensory deprivation was the best way I could think of storing him . . ."
"And the most humane," the other muttered under her breath. "You do realize we still have the leather chair down the corridor, all straps still perfectly fine, right?" There was a pause where all they could hear was breathing through the speakers.
"Whatever," Harper finally said. Footsteps then echoed and Katniss realized that she was holding her breath. There was then nothing for a very long time. Madge shot Beetee a confused look before enclosing Katniss inbetween her arms as she reached over to tap something out on the keyboard.
"Miss Undersee, I really wouldn't tamper with the equipment," Beetee said.
"The speakers might have cut out," Madge replied.
"I think I'd know if the speakers cut out-" He stopped as a different window came up. Madge's fingers paused over the keyboard and her mouth fell open in shock. It took Katniss a moment to actually realize what the woman had brought up. On the screen there were three figures, two standing and one kneeling.
"What did you press Miss Undersee?" Beetee asked seriously.
"I-I don't know," Madge replied.
Katniss' heart thumped against her ribcage as each figure suddenly morphed into the people she recognized. Jackson and Harper were the people standing. The person on the floor were harder to recognize. It was the hair that gave it away in the end. Katniss didn't think she could ever mistake his hair for anything.
"Miss Undersee, what did you press?" Beetee insisted.
"I don't know!" Madge explained.
Katniss barely blinked as she watched Jackson slink up to the sensory deprived boy. Her hands were stuffed in her pockets and her heels clicked against the steel floor ominously. Every sound was like a punch in her gut, making her more and more worried about what they were going to do.
"So he really can't see or hear us right now?" the blonde asked in astonishment.
Harper nodded. "Unless you took the plugs or blind fold off," she said. Jackson nodded with pursed lips, obviously impressed. "Of course the hardest sense to cut off is always touch. He can feel the material of the gloves but it's the closest I think we'll ever be able to get with that one."
Madge and Beetee were argueing animately with each other but their voices blurred together in Katniss' mind as all she could watch was the people on the screen. She couldn't tear her eyes away from the boy on the floor. Peeta didn't look in pain or distress, in fact he seemed quite calm kneeling there in the middle of the floor with all his senses cut off. But that didn't nessecarily ensure that what was going on in his head was automatically sane.
"So if I touched him right now it'd . . . ?" Jackson questioned.
Harper fiddled with her fingers, suddenly sheepish and reluctant to answer. "It would burn," she said softly.
The word made Katniss' heart stutter and she sat up straighter in her seat. A hand landed on her shoulder but she shrugged it off almost immediately. Burn as in like fire. They wouldn't do that to him without him knowing it's coming, would they? She reached out towards the computer as if she could reach into the computer screen and pull Peeta out. But, of course, she couldn't.
"Oooh, interesting," Jackson said. She took a step forward and Harper lurched forward, grabbing the blonde by the sleeve and furiously shaking her head.
"Jacks, you can't," she said. "The shock of it happening without him realizing it's coming could be catastrophic on his nerves. Especially with all the venom in him from the experiments earlier."
Experiments. The word bounced around in Katniss' mind like a bouncy ball being constantly threw against walls. Madge and Beetee even stopped their arguing to listen in horror. Beetee had pushed his glasses back up his nose and Madge's mouth was gaping like a fish.
"They wouldn't," she said.
Jackson glared at her partner and made a show of walking towards Peeta, adding an unnessecary bounce to her step. "Jacks!" Harper insisted. "Please, don't!"
"He was talking about that girl eariler," Jackson sneered, looking down at him in disgust. "I think he needs punished for it." Katniss' stomach coiled in fear as the word 'punished' passed Jackson's lips.
Harper's petrified expression froze. "What was he saying?" she asked.
"Some damn poem," Jackson replied distastefully. "But you could tell it was about her."
"What was he saying?" Harper pressed.
"To the girl who was burning so brightly, like light from Orion above, and still I will search for her nightly, if you see her, please send her my love," Jackson recited flippantly. "That damn Everdeen girl has ruined everything. Even the venom experiments have went haywire since he's been in love."
Katniss' throat dried up and her mouth felt like sandpaper. She didn't want to take the word of Peeta's torturers on who he was or wasn't in love with but judging by Jackson's anger, there was no reason for her to be lying. Tears burned in her eyes, on the verge of spilling.
"To the girl who was burning so brightly," she found herself whispering. "Like light from Orion above."
"And I will search for her nightly," Rory murmered beside her.
"So romantic," Madge said dryly.
"Jackson!" Harper's voice screamed through the speakers. "DON'T!"
"Calm down preacher," Jackson replied. She was now right behind Peeta and Katniss found the tears in her eyes teetering over the edge of the eyelid, so close to falling that if she moved in the slightest, they'd drip out. "He deserves it."
Katniss squinted as she saw Harper mouth something. She wondered if she saw it wrong but even Madge made a surprised sound. Because the red head had mouthed, "No he doesn't." What was Harper's angle? Did she know they were being watched and was building up an image to make them believe she was on their side when she really wasn't? No. Impossible. How would see know they were being watched?
"Take the gag out, I wanna hear the screams," Jackson said, rubbing her hands together like a kid in a candy store.
"Jackson-"
The blonde raised a quizzical eyebrow and Harper fell silent. She stepped forward and carefully undid the gag around Peeta's mouth. He gasped, as if thankful to have it off, but did nothing else. How could he? The rest of his senses were still gone.
Jackson lifted her index finger with a flourish, making a proper show out of defying Harper's demands.
"No," Madge said, as if telling Jackson herself to stop. When didn't and continued to slowly lower her hand, Madge repeated it. "No. No. No. No. Beetee, turn it off."
"I can't, I don't even know how you got it up-"
"Turn it off!"
"I can't!"
Two hands suddenly grabbed Katniss' arms and she was heaved off her seat. She yelped as Madge dragged her away. She dug her heels into the floor and fought against her, wanting to see what was going to happen. But Madge continued to push. There was a pause once they reached the bottom of the stairs where everything stood still.
But then the scream ripped through.
Katniss recognized it immediately as his. Madge stopped pushing her and whipped around to looked at the screen. She didn't let Katniss see though and slapped her hand over her eyes. It didn't stop her from hearing it though. It tore up her ear drums and made her stomach churn. The tears fell out of her eyes as her hands covered her mouth in horror.
All she could think of was Peeta.
Peeta.
Peeta.
Peeta.
They were hurting him.
"Stop them!" Katniss cried, slapping Madge's hand off her eyes. "You have to do something! Stop them please!" In reality, all Jackson was doing was pressing her fingertip against Peeta's temple but apparently with all your senses caught off, it heightens what's left so much that it can sometimes be too much to handle. And with all the venom running through the boy's veins, apparently it was thrice as bad.
"We can't stop them," Madge said gravelly. "There's nothing we can do."
Katniss' mind whirled. Her eyes darted around the room as the scream continued to fry her brain and rip apart her self control. She looked pleadingly at Beetee, who refused to meet her gaze. Rory was on the floor, hands over his ears and his eyes squeezed shut. Rue was pressed up against the wall by the stairs, tears freely flowing down her face. Even Cashmere looked on the verge of bursting, the hand that still clutched her brother's was turning white-knuckled while she fearfully bit the finger nails on her spare hand.
"Do something!" Katniss screamed at no one in particular, knowing that there really was nothing no one could do but needing to scream at someone, something, anything. "Please!"
Eventually, Rory had enough, crawling towards the computer and ripping out the plug. Even though the screen went black and the sound went dead, the scream continued on in Katniss' head, pouring in through the thick silence in her mind and driving her insane.
She clutched her head, knowing that even though the screaming wasn't going through the speakers anymore, it was still happening. In the Capitol. In her mind. She felt dizzy and stumbled, carefully falling to her knees so she didn't hurt herself. The floor filled her vision but she could still see Jackson touching him, making him scream like that.
Katniss screamed his name, tears falling from her eyes and soaking the carpet. Something sharp was jabbed into her elbow and she fell forward in a haze, her eyes crossing and her mind subcuming to the darkness. She fell unconcious with the sound of Madge's voice giving orders mingling with the sceams in her mind.
"And still I will search for her nightly, if you see her, please send her my love."
A/N: Please review with your thoughts! Please and thank you!
P.S: Peeta's poem lyrics are from Next to Normal. They're not mine.
:D