Marcus lets out a moan. His lashes flit open, green-gold eyes dull with pain. "Wh—" he struggles to raise his head.
"You're alive," I lay his head back down gently, glancing to the trickling line of Peacekeepers disappearing down the steps. "We both are."
"He is awake, then?" Snow approaches us.
There is no advantage in lying. "Yes."
"Well then. It appears your efforts were not in vain, and Panem is once again safe," the tone is sincere, but his eyes are mocking. "But this new friendship, Petra Angelovna, it comes at great cost."
"You know I know," I snort.
"Indeed," he nods. "And may perhaps will come to rue."
My face and chest bear welts and whip marks. My right cheek hangs like a poorly cut loin, still clinging to bone. But Marcus Raelius is alive. I don't matter. Pain doesn't matter: he does. "Perhaps."
"Come," Snow dismisses me as I shelter Marcus against his advance. "I would speak with him."
"This hurts like hell," I gesture with my chin. "But I could still bite you."
"Nothing of the sort," Snow assures me, kneeling down on one knee. "I have merely come to congratulate you, Marcus Raelius. Gamemaster Crane has just informed me of your imminent promotion. By this time tomorrow, you'll be chief Medic aboard the Games chopper…" his voice trails off. "What an honor."
A promotion—? But—?
"I don't understand," I look bewilderedly between them.
Marcus rolls. Represses a sob.
Snow rises. "Tell her."
"It's p-punishment!" he gasps. "M-making me Games Medic. I w-wanted District 12, I asked for District 12 I b-begged for D-District 12 but Snow gave me this instead!"
"Farewell then, Petra Angelovna," the most powerful man in Panem bows his head gravely. "I fear we will not speak again."
And suddenly we're alone.
Marcus Raelius cries. Really, actually cries. Openly. In pain. Exhaustion. Fear. For ideas and people I can't ever hope to understand. I've…I've never been good with other people. Haven't seen a man weep since my sisters died, when my father's eyes and hands ran red carving a grave for them beneath the bitter, frozen ground. I couldn't comfort my father or Holli. Don't know how to comfort him. Don't know if I want to, don't know if I should. Libertas made those bombs, killed all those people, and Marcus was willing to let his own brother die…
He saved you, durak. Do something! Say something!
But Marcus Raelius is a great Man. Just like Snow. One good deed isn't enough to absolve him.
"What did you do?" he cries out in accusation. "What did you do!"
"He was going to kill me now or later," I return. "I gambled with the devil and I won."
"There is no winning," Marcus weeps. "Not with Snow. Shouldn't've, shouldn't've—"
"Tried to save you?" I snort. "I could say the same." A blind anger takes me. I press against his bruised and broken ribs, elicit a shriek. I am satisfied. Pull away. "That was for Cinna," I tell him. "And you're a bastard, you know that?"
"You risked yourself and family for Panem tonight, Petra Angelovna," he struggles to say. "Why should my sacrifice be any different?"
"Damn you people!" I throw a fistful of ash and sand at him. "I'm done thinking for tonight, you hear? Done! Somebody so much as asks me one more question and I'll punch their fucking teeth in!"
"Here," Marcus pants, holding out a quaking fist. "…yours."
My tooth. When Snow first hit me. I lick the blood from the socket in sudden recognition. "Um. Thanks."
"Ordinarily I would offer," he whispers, clutching one wrist in the other, "but it appears my phalanges and meta—"
"You've got broken hands, mudillo. I get it." I suck the long roots clear. Spit the grit and sand. Use one shaking hand to hold the skin of my cheek and mouth up, the other to jam it in.
Snick. Squelch. Shit. "Pizda!"
"You're quite the expert," his broken lips whisper.
"You think that's the first time I've lost a tooth in a fight?" My father taught me never to aim for the face, but my tormenters didn't always get the same advice. Too many bones. You'll break your hand, fingers, wrist…and if you get bit? Bites are nasty. Especially the human kind. Some drunk from our village died just this year after raping a girl. He left her pregnant, but in the end he was the one who got fucked. My father amputated the hand in the kill shack, green and black and full of pus, but it was too late. There were still three days of screaming for all the village to hear. My mother said it would be more merciful if we would give him vodka so he could die.
…my father said he didn't deserve our mercy. That girl—and I—agreed.
"So what now?" I finally insist.
"You'll require a skilled surgeon," he attempts to raise to his arm, his lean body wracked with pain. "Antibiotics, and blood born pathogen screening."
"And you?"
"Likely extensive surgery and prolonged recooperation."
"No, I mean, right now." I explain. "How do we get down? Is my Escort coming for us or what?"
"That I very much doubt, Petra Angelovna, though you'll have a Peacekeeping force looking out for you, surely," he collapses back into the sand. "I suppose you can still walk?"
"That doesn't help. Not both of us."
"You'll need to get back. The hotel…can you remember where it was?"
I stand. Look out across the horizon. Here the stars are both strange and muted, and the sun has set. The lines and lights stretch on in a myriad of colors and confusion, but my eyes make out the familiar shape. "There."
"Good," he pants, once again prone. "Now this is important, Petra Angelovna. You'll, you'll have to travel through the sewers. The network is extensive, but the first levels are well laid and largely free of both policing and muttations. The tunneling will not follow the streets exactly, so you must resurface to ensure your course. The distance…the distance is less than five kilometers. You should make it well before dawn."
"I can't use the roads?" there's a strange sensation growing in my churning stomach. "Why?"
"Not safe," his green eyes have shut, and his neck is taut, bracing against the pain.
"Why not?"
"Teenagers," he struggles just to breathe. "In cars. Chase you down."
That knot in my stomach tears through my intestines. "Why?" I ask, appalled.
"The Hunger Games," his split lips spit. "They think it's fun."
A tear falls from my eye. Lands stinging against that raw flesh. "Fuck it!" I snarl, unable to wipe the salt away.
"There will be grates in the streets," he continues stoically. "Wait for traffic to subside. Open them by turning the pegs to the right. You'll repeat the same process from underneath to monitor your progress."
"You're not coming with me?"
"In my current condition I would only serve to slow you down."
"Damnit, Marcus, this isn't the Hunger Games!" I hiss, knowing Snow and Pettra are listening, even now. "I'm not leaving you here."
He attempts a smile at my stubbornness. "You can't very well take me with you."
"I said I'm not leaving you here, damnit!"
"Then I fear, Petra Angelovna, that we are again at an impasse."
"Can you stand?" I press. "On either foot at all?"
He shakes his dark head, green eyes closed tightly. Concludes the argument: "You can't carry me, Petra Angelovna."
...Mudak. He thinks he's won. "You don't know anything, do you?" I place my hands on my hips. "I once carried a hundred kilo boar pig through knee deep mud. I can catch and castrate more rams per minute than any man I know. I stood down Snow and I saved your fucking life. So don't tell me what I can and can't do, Marcus Raelius, and I won't tell you to fuck yourself."
"Semantics is hardly my area of expertise," Marcus pants, "but I believe you already have."
I don't recognize half the words he uses, but the message is pretty clear. "Don't be a mudillo," I snap, kneeling and placing elbows under his armpits. "Now help me."
I pull him up, nearly seated, when he slumps backward in shock. Pizda.
"You're worse than Cry-baby, you know that?" I say as he flits to.
"I've lost too much blood," he gasps, lips a pale grey and gold-flecked eyes unfocused. "Petra, this isn't going to work,"
"You're a medic, not a baby, damnit," I hoist him to his feet, his weight over my right shoulder and hanging head now even with his heart. "Now you're going to walk, Marcus Raelius, or Games help me I will push you down the fucking stairs."
