Fourteen night times after Hazel and I discussed our curse, seventy one nights in total, neither of us even contemplated walking out of that room alive. We hadn't talked in days, not only because there was nothing but hopelessness to discuss, but because we didn't have the energy. For the week before only two bread roll a day had been tossed through the grate on the bottom of the door. They'd given us a jug of water though and we'd rationed that carefully, even if it meant feeling constantly thirsty.
Something had changed and we could both feel it even if we didn't communicate. Not just the lack of food and water but the strange noises that we heard almost every day. I had become used to complete silence but now loud bangs that rattled through the hallways had be jumping several times a day. There was shouting too, from the guards. A few times the pounding of several pairs of feet sprinting passed our door had us both holding our breath and watching the door with learned fear. They didn't stop though and just faded into the distance where there would be more banging and shouting. I didn't know what it meant but the agitation of the entire place seeped under the door and drifted in the air like smoke. Perhaps it was that edginess but every single time I managed to fall asleep I would be woken by nightmares, and I knew that often enough Hazel was too.
Perhaps it was that exhaustion from lack of sleep and food that found us both just lying curled into little balls on the ground more and more. At nights we curled up next to each other, silently agreeing to share what little body warmth we had. The night times of endless shivering and broken sleep reminded me too much of my Arena. Perhaps that was what inspired the nightmares of snow and blood and frightened eyes.
By the seventy fourth night I knew we were in trouble. A hunger unlike anything I could ever remember had faded into a nothingness that I knew was worse. There had been no food for three days and I think it had been perhaps that long since either of us had moved. We'd taken up residence under the little window, as if being as close to freedom as we could possibly get would help. I had been drifting in a hazy, dreamless sleep when an unusually loud bang shocked through my mind, dragging me briefly back to consciousness. As I focused on the door I realised it hadn't been the usual noise of boots slamming into metal doors, but rather an explosion. Another came, ricocheting off the walls even though it sounded distant.
I tried hard to focus my mind on the fact but my thoughts kept slipping away. Even though deep down I knew what I was sensing was important, the only thing my mind wanted to do was sleep. My eyes drifted shut again and I tuned my senses to darkness. Hazel and I were curled up together and I could just feel her breath against my arm, though it was so light it could have been my imagination. She hadn't woken in a long time and I'd decided perhaps it was more merciful to let her sleep. Neither of us expected to live much longer anyway, and a death drifted into from sleep was one far better than I'd ever expected to receive. It was still cold but, like many things, that had faded into numbness some time ago.
In the scheme of my life how I was feeling then, sure as anything that I was dying, was relatively quite pleasant. It was similar to how I'd expected to die in the snow of a blizzard in my Arena, except this time there was no shame tugging me down. There was no one left to mind if I died and no one to see it even if they had. This death would be the opposite of one in an Arena; private, silent and unnoticed by everyone.
I'd been lost in my thoughts, drifting again without realising it, when ice cold fingers on my skin broke through. The sensation was so unexpected, so unusual despite the coldness of the room, that it forced me to open my eyes again, even if only marginally.
My first instinct, buried deep down in my brain even if the message didn't get through to my limbs, was to scream and fight out at the person I saw kneeling in front of us. Then he pulled a fur lined hood from his head and the fear turned to confusion as I recognised the blonde hair matted with melting snow.
"Hyde?" My voice came out as a pathetic croak but he heard and his eyes flew from Hazel to me, wide with worry. He tried to give me a small smile, which I suspect was supposed to be reassuring, but just looked shaky and alarming. He looked older than when I'd last seen him, years ago at the bar in the Capitol when he'd watched with the rest of the Victors as they announced Hazel's death. But to my shock he was definitely real, as his icy fingers on my skin again confirmed. Vaguely, already feeling the tug of tiredness pulling me back down I let my gaze drift passed him to where the door to our cell was wide open. The thought sent a shiver of something through me. He hadn't been locked in here with us but I was too fearful of disappointment to even consider the alternative. The word slipped into my brain just as another, familiar figure appeared in the doorway half a second before I couldn't fight it anymore and I let myself be swallowed by darkness.
Freedom.
I don't know how much later it was when I felt consciousness nudge at the edges of my mind. Reluctantly I let it pull me from the peacefulness of sleep, though I refused to let it wake me fully. Still wrapped firmly in darkness I slowly tried to process the other senses that were trickling through to my mind in fractured parts. It was confusing at first. It took me a long time to understand that the strange feeling that seemed to belong to none of my senses was movement. It was rhythmic, gentle, but definitely movement though it wasn't until I had processed my other thoughts that I could understand it.
I heard the stamp of footsteps which sent a cold shard of ice through me until I realised they weren't footsteps stomping towards our cell door. They were as purposeful as those, and there were a group of them, but the noise was travelling with me, not to me. Combined with the sensation of the movement I suddenly realised what it meant; I was being carried by someone.
At the realisation, I was glad for the haziness of sleep still washing through my mind, because the alternative was utter terror and I was simply too tired to deal with that.
The next two sensations hit me almost simultaneously and both brought a new crash of jumbled emotions down on me. The first was coolness against my skin, a coolness that it took me one long moment to realise was the absolute bliss of fresh air. We were outside. Whatever was happening I wasn't going to die in that room. I'd thought for weeks that anything could happen as long as I could breathe the outside air again and now I was. I never thought anything could feel so good, even through my numbness. The overwhelming joy of that realisation had left me exhausted again and the second sensation hit me just before I dipped into sleep again. It was a scent, familiar as anything. Instantly I knew it was the scent of my home; sweat and metal and pine. It was the scent of the woods and the Training Centre. It was the scent of years of training and fighting. And it was how I knew without a doubt, even as I drifted back into sleep, that the person who carried me wasn't an enemy at all. It was Domitius.
I knew immediately that I was no longer imprisoned when I woke up. Even though all I was looking at at first was a plain white ceiling something just told me it was safe. Well, safer. My head hurt, but that was nothing new, and it was absolutely freezing. Slowly processing this I blinked at the ceiling and came to the conclusion that I was in a bed. I felt the scratchiness of fabric against my bare skin and flexed my fingers, scrunching them in a blanket that came up to my waist. Instinctively I pulled it higher, gathering it around my shoulders. Even before I had figured out where I was, or why, my first reaction was to do anything I could to banish the cold.
Eventually I half rolled over to inspect where I was, and got a fright as I realised it looked scarily like a healing centre. I'd never been in the District 2 healing centre before and even though it was remarkably different, it still looked frighteningly similar to the Capitol. The only thing stopping me from panicking instantly and flinging myself from the bed was the distraction of catching sight of two people. Hazel was in a bed parallel to mine, about five feet away, and Hyde was perched on the edge of her bed, looking down at her with a worried expression on his face.
As I watched he inhaled sharply as her eyes fluttered open and she blinked up at him, frowning.
Hyde's whole expression instantly changed from tense and worried to utterly relieved. A broad grin spread across his face and his shoulders relaxed.
"Hey, Hazelnut."
She gave him a tired smile in reply and suddenly he leant forward and pressed his lips to hers in a fierce kiss. From the look on her face and the way her whole body stiffened I wasn't sure who was more shocked, Hazel or I. For her it only lasted a moment though and then she was kissing him back, her hands lifting slightly to tangle in his golden hair.
"It's amazing what a near death experience will make people realise." I pulled my surprised gaze from the two of them at the sound of the familiar voice and looked at Domitius where he had appeared at the edge of my bed. Either he had walked into the room without me hearing or I had not noticed him there the entire time. He was watching Hazel and Hyde with a dryly amused expression, then he glanced back at me and his expression darkened.
"How do you feel?" he asked gruffly, running a hand through his hair self consciously. He looked uncomfortable, hovering there beside the bed, and I knew exactly how he felt. I threw him a scathing look and struggled into a sitting position, hiding a grimace as my muscles protested. I still felt exhausted but I was determined not to show it.
"Don't play Doctor. It doesn't suit you."
He gave an annoyed grunt and glared at me. That was more familiar territory. "I'm not playing Doctor. There are enough real ones around here. Can you try not to bite them or anything? They are trying to help you."
"Do I look like I need their help?" I asked grumpily as I ripped some needle thing connected to a tube from my arm. It stung like hell but I hated the idea of them giving me stuff. It was too much like the Capitol.
"Yes, actually. You look like shit." He looked wearily at the needle that I'd discarded but didn't say anything about it.
I tried to untangle myself from another cable that had somehow twisted itself around behind my neck. I guessed it had somehow been measuring my pulse because as soon as I got frustrated trying to free myself from it, and gave it a savage yank, an insistent beeping begun. Domitius sighed and rolled his eyes. "Really, Rabbit? Can you not be co-operative just once in your life?"
It took several days before anyone would relent to my demands and tell me what was happening in the rest of Panem. The hum of war was constant though, as was the presence of armed men and women crossing outside our room and the tense, distracted manner of everyone who spoke to us.
When Hyde finally revealed the truth, Hazel and I listened in silence, each attending to our own dark thoughts from the knowledge that our country was disintegrating around us.
We hadn't travelled far from the site of our imprisonment; we remained in District 3. It was not a hospital as I'd first thought, merely a civic building that the rebels had converted for their own use. It made me feel an odd mix of pride and shame to know that, while almost all districts were now in rebel control, District 2 was still fighting fiercely.
It made perfect sense though. Regardless of the crimes of the Capitol or the lures of the rebellion, the people of District 2 fought as easily as they breathed. It was our instinct to protect ourselves at any cost and sweet-talking rebel leaders asking the citizens of the district to sacrifice the lives they'd worked so hard to protect for decades, would not have been met with favour. Too many hard decisions had been made to preserve life in District 2; they would not throw them away lightly.
But there was enough poverty and misery in the district that some people were joining the fight. I knew of my friends and comrades who would be standing with the rebels and hurling anything they could place their hands upon at the Peacekeepers.
The whole idea of the rebellion was still strange to me. I knew it had been a few months since the Arena, and I knew how much could change in only a few days, but it was terrifying to think that the world I had walked from when I entered that Arena was now entirely changed. It was not just the physical scars of war – the fact that my house may have become rubble, that the trainline I'd travelled every year was blown into pieces, or that the hated buildings of the Capitol were slowing falling, one by one – but the knowledge that the balance of power that had defined my whole life had suddenly shifted. It made me question every decision, every action, every death... every sacrifice.
Where would Clove be right now, if she had survived the Games? I couldn't answer that question.
It was a few days after our arrival at wherever we were when Hazel and I first properly talked. She'd been sleeping mostly whereas I simply couldn't. At times I thought I'd be happy if I never slept again, and all I wanted was to be out of that room and experiencing the freedom that had been denied to me for months. For once though I'd had to obey my body, slightly, on that matter because small trips to the window of our room was enough to leave me exhausted and out of breath. I hated that more than anything. Weakness was not something I was used to experiencing and I definitely did not plan on letting it last.
I'd been reluctantly napping when I was woken with a start by the weight of someone settling on the side of the bed. I sat bolt upright I almost collided with Hazel.
"Panem! Relax!" she exclaimed breathily, pulling backwards. Then she rubbed a hand tiredly over her eyes. "Eh what am I saying? It's you. You're like permanently wired, aren't you?"
Unsure how to reply I carefully sat up in the bed and looked around. It was night time and the room was empty. There was darkness out the window but lights still blinked everywhere in the room. I hated it, so artificial.
With shaking arms Hazel pulled herself further up onto the bed, nudging me out of the way without a care. I guess two months in that room together meant that our personal space didn't matter so much anymore. In perspective it really didn't. Settling herself in comfortably against the headboard of the bed she sighed and ran a hand through her hair. It still looked lifeless, though she'd got some colour back to her cheeks. I had a suspicion Hyde had a lot to do with that.
"Where is he then?" I asked, continuing my train of thought and glancing around. He'd barely left the room in the last few days but he was nowhere in sight now.
"I told him to get some food or he'd end up looking like me," she joked with a small laugh that didn't sound quite right. She held her arms out before her and inspected her wrists disinterestedly. "I don't think skeleton would be a good look on him." She lined her arm up with mine where it lay on the covers and tilted her head to the side. "You and I can carry the bones look off but I just don't think it would suit him." I didn't laugh. Hazel's sense of humour had always been strange and I think her time alone had only made it stranger.
She still had the habit of staring off into space for hours. Sometimes she didn't even notice when Hyde entered the room. Whenever he sat down next to her and gently wrapped his arm around her shoulders I could almost visibly see her pulling herself up from the depths of her thoughts back to him. He always smiled when she surfaced.
Apart from that though, it was remarkable how sane she seemed. I honestly don't think I could have lasted another few days there, and she'd been doing it a lot longer than me.
She gave another sigh and dropped her arms. "So how much did they tell you?"
Shaking my head and I shrugged the blankets further around my shoulders. It was cold again. "Not much. I'm not sure any of them trust me," I replied, trying to keep the bitterness from my voice. It wasn't new to me, obviously, but I had thought at least Domitius would have told me some things, even if he'd had to do so against orders. After all, I was hardly an uninvolved bystander anymore. Didn't I have a right to know why I had been locked up and tortured these last two months?
Hazel snorted. "It's not that they don't trust you, Two. Honestly." I looked sideways at her frowning, not understanding her words, and she laughed rudely again. "They think you're fragile." She said the word with all the contempt intended and it stung. Fragile? I was not fragile, I had never been and never would be fragile. Hadn't I proved myself enough yet to show them all that I was not that weak little girl in the Training Centre anymore? I felt a mixture of anger and sadness well up in my throat and I turned away from Hazel, embarrassed. Even if from no one else, I would have thought I'd have more respect from Domitius. Surely he knew how strong I could be by now.
"Oh relax," Hazel said, still contemptuous. "They think the same of me. The only reason I know anything is because I threatened a certain body part of Hyde's. Worked like a charm." She grinned and raked a hand through her hair. "No, they think we're unstable or something. Probably scared we'll both lose it and start murdering people or something." She shrugged. "Can't say that's unusual for me though mind you. Probably not for you either." I listened intently to her words and felt the mix of emotions subside slightly. She had a point.
"I've overheard enough," I commented after a pause of watching the lights blink. "I still can't believe most of it though."
"Except the part about District 2 still fighting for the Capitol," she said. "Somehow that doesn't surprise me at all."
I shrugged again but didn't answer her. There was too much that no longer seemed simple. I thought back to the previous night, when I had overhead Hyde and Domitius talk in hushed voices, thinking I was asleep. They talked about the rebellion as if it was an established part of their lives, as if it had been growing under the soil for much longer than I realised. My ignorance went far beyond the cryptic messages that Johanna and Finnick had been giving me throughout training. I'd wanted to believe that others had judged me and made the choice for me whether or not I was involved in this rebellion, but the shameful truth was, I'd made the choice myself long ago, every time I ignored an overheard conversation or a caught glance that just didn't feel right. There was no one to blame but myself. As usual.