There's a pack chasing me and she's at the lead. Laughter hits me like shards of glass, raking at my leg, pulling away flesh and muscle, nerves exposed burn with the air hitting them.
There's no way I can run fast enough. I'm pulled towards her.
"Katniss, stop! Let me go! This isn't..."
Her face is twisted, fangs reaching for me, saliva dripping into my eyes. I punch her jaw twice and she reels back and then comes at me again hissing. I kick with my right leg and punch again. We roll over and over a clawing, punching mess, until we're separated and I try to run again, but I'm surrounded.
The ground is slick and I'm falling.
That laugh again.
I can't.
My whole body is tingling.
My chest aches.
Bright light.
A face surrounded by curls.
"Oh, good. You're awake. She would have been useless to us if you were dead. You're only alive until you stop being useful to us. You know that, right?"
My face is burning. No-no-all of me is burning. I can't get away from the burning. It's like I'm in an oven, everything is on fire. No matter where I grab or move or pull everything is fire. My fingers are falling apart as I try to claw my way out.
I can't even scream my throat is too far gone.
Then I can't even see because my eyes have popped and I'm scrabbling around in the dark with nubs of hands until I crumble away into nothing.
Screaming. Who was it?
Was it me? No.
It came from outside. Where am I? What's that movement? It's a train. I'm on a train...it's a rocking from side to side, that's the moving, and the scream came from across the carriage. I move quickly. There shouldn't be anyone on board that's dangerous but with the Capitol you never know.
She's up in bed, hugging her knees, wrapped in a sort of blanket coccoon.
"Katniss?"
"Stupid. Just a stupid nightmare. I'm sorry. Go back to bed." It's muffled.
"I wasn't asleep."
She looks over at me, teary-eyed, "Then...would you stay with me? I'm an asshole for asking, I know."
"It's fine. I will."
She moves over on the bed, but winds up in a cover-person-mess of a knot which sends me laughing and makes her frustrated and she winds up thudding on to the floor, and emerging a moment later, while I'm laughing, bent over in the door frame.
Haymitch walks by, puts up his hands one holding a bottle, the other some sort of meat on a stick and mumbles something food in his mouth about not wanting to know and not seeing anything. I step fully into the room and close the door.
"Do you need a hand?" I ask Katniss as she's stopped moving, buried somewhere in the tangle of sheets.
"NO." she mutters, "I did not beat the Hunger Games and survive half this stupid tour to be defeated by sheets."
Kneeling is still sometimes awkward but I manage it without too much trouble, "Are you sure? I think I can-"
"Ah-ha!" She cries out, "Victory!" and I'm stabbed in the eye.
I jerk my head back trying to scrabble at my face but I can't my arms won't move that far. I'm attached to the wall, trying to move pulls at my shoulders and I feel as though I'm going to snap in two.
My hands pop and crackle as they move, all my joints are stiff. But there's nothing in my eye. There's no one in the room. It's just me and the echoes of my shouting. I look around again to be sure. No. No. It's just me. It's just me. It's just me.
"Blondie?"
It's not just me.
"Blondie, how we doing in there?"
Johanna. Johanna is in the other cell. The cell behind me. We're in cells in The Capitol. We're in cells in The Capitol. The Capitol is the enemy. Johanna and I are prisoners of the Capitol. We're prisoners.
"Peeta. Talk to me."
"Johanna."
"Yes. That's me. How are you doing in there?"
"I'm alive."
"Some times that's all we've got to go with."
"Yeah...what's been going on with you?"
"Oh, you know, just...hanging around..." she gives a faint laugh, "I-I'm super clean...I...I guess I've got that going for me."
"What-what have they been doing?"
"Nothing much."
"I may be all jumbled, but I could swear you said something a few..." it can't be hours? days? weeks?, "a while ago about being real with each other."
There's a heavy sigh, "Showers from hell. They've..." she sighs again, longer this time, "They've added electricity, but I'm holding out."
"Good." More than I can say for me.
"Blondie?" Johanna asks.
"Yeah?"
There's a long pause.
"If my counting's right they'll be coming back for me soon."
"If you kill them and break out-"
Her voice is very small then, "Talk to me when things are done?"
I have no idea how to count any passage of time in here. I don't want to break a promise, "If I'm here."
"It'll have to do."
Neither of us say anything for a while.
"Where do they take you?" she asks.
"Some times I talk to Caesar. Some times...some times I don't know...medical, but then I...I don't know."
"Caesar? Why would you?"
Fortunately I'm spared from having to keep that real because unfortunately for her people show up to question her again.