As soon as the door of the hatch clicked shut, Cressida sprang into action, darting over to Taiya. Peeta had gently laid her down on an old coat in the corner, with both him and Katniss hovering anxiously over her.
"Let me take a look," Cressida swiftly moved Katniss aside, assuming her place by Taiya's side.
"There's a lot of blood," Peeta stammered, lifting the garment he'd been using to apply pressure.
Cressida glanced up at the younger boy. He looked distraught. He and Taiya had escaped the Capitol together, only to find themselves right back run its clutches. "We need to assess the wound," Cressida explained as she began to remove Taiya's bulletproof vest. "What happened to it?" she frowned, as she noticed the strap on one shoulder had been slashed. It had shifted the vest's position, allowing the bullet to strike her. Unbeknownst to Cressida, it had been broken during the chaos with the mutts tunnel when it had been just her and Finnick. Cressida unbuttoned the top of Taiya's uniform and slid it down so she could examine her chest.
Taiya let out a pained groan as Cressida lifted her up. Peeta instantly reached for her hand, his grip tight with worry. "She's responsive," Cressida reassured him. "That's a good sign. Here," she handed him the vials of morphling. "Keep an eye on these. If she starts to wake up more, you need to administer it. Can you do that?"
"Yeah," Peeta nodded, tucking the vials in his pocket.
Cressida lifted her up slightly and looked underneath her. "No exit wound," she observed. Then, her expression shifted to concern as she watched Taiya's chest struggle to rise and fall with each breath.
"What is it?" Peeta asked anxiously.
"Her breaths..." Cressida pressed her hand against Taiya's ribs. "They sound horrible." She leaned in closer, listening intently to Taiya's chest. Her heart was racing; but it seemed the right side of her chest, the injured side, wasn't taking in any air. "Oh no," she realised. She immediately jumped up and raced over to the hatch door, banging on it four times.
Tigris immediately opened it. She'd been waiting just there for an update.
"How close is that doctor?" Cressida demanded urgently.
Tigris' expression darkened; she understood the gravity of the situation. It wasn't looking good. If Cressida wanted to seek out a doctor they couldn't fully trust, it meant Taiya's condition was dire and required immediate attention.
"He's just around the corner. He won't cooperate willingly," Taiya interjected, shaking her head weakly.
"Not a problem," Cressida grabbing her gun. "She has a collapsed lung. We need a doctor to relieve that pressure before it's too late."
"I'll go as well," Gale immediately volunteered.
"You're injured as well," Cressida protested, striding over to him. "You're going to need stitches."
"I'm the one who shot her," Gale shook his head. "Let me help."
Cressida sighed, glancing at Katniss. The girl on fire seemed hesitant, but she nodded in agreement. They needed to make sure this doctor came quietly without attracting the attention of any Peacekeepers that might be around.
"I'll find disguises for you," Tigris offered, scurrying away.
"Let's move," Cressida motioned for Gale to follow as she dashed up the stairs. "We'll be back soon. Peeta," she called over to him, noticing Taiya's flickering eyes. "Give her a vial," she instructed before shutting the hatch behind them.
"Hey," Peeta whispered softly. Taiya struggled to keep her eyes open, but at least she was somewhat conscious.
"What happened?" she managed to ask, her voice strained.
"You got hurt," Peeta sniffled, his voice thick with emotion.
"Ah," Taiya groaned as she attempted to draw in a breath. "I'm going to kill Gale."
"He's gone to get a doctor for you," Peeta replied, trying to offer some reassurance.
"Still gonna kill him… Oh god, that really hurts," she let out a small scream, the pain evident in her voice.
"Here," Peeta said, popping open a vial. "Morphling," he explained as he administered it to her.
"Where's Finnick?" Taiya inquired, puzzled by his absence. She couldn't comprehend why he wasn't by her side.
Cressida hadn't had a chance to share Tigris' advice about keeping Finnick's current situation from Taiya, so Peeta hesitated, looking at Katniss for an assist.
Katniss, her bottom lip quivering, as she stared at them. She let out a shaky breath as she turned to look at Pollux, who was weeping for his fallen brother.
"I made it up…" she confessed. "All of it. There is no special mission from Coin, there's only my plan. Everyone that's dead, is dead because of me. I lied."
"Duh," Taiya croaked out, her head lolling to the side as the morphling took effect. "I lied for you too," she gasped, struggling to breathe. "I told Jackson I was meant to help you find your way through the mansion. I'm not going in there… Everyone knew. You're a really bad liar," she scrunched her face up in pain.
"Soldier's from 13…"
"Everyone knew," Taiya drawled out, interrupting her.
"I never meant for this to happen," Katniss tried to suppress her sob, overcome with guilt. "I failed. I… I killed them. I… I might have killed Finnick. I'm so sorry Taiya. I'm so sorry Pollux. I'm sorry."
Peeta was distracted now, he wasn't watching Taiya, he was looking at Katniss. He hadn't noticed the girl next to him freeze up.
"Glimmer. Marvel. Clove. Wiress. Rue. What do all those deaths mean? They mean that our lives were never ours. There was no real life because we didn't have any choice. Our lives belong to Snow and our deaths do too. Look, if you kill him Katniss, if you end all of this, all those deaths, they mean something. Cinna. Boggs. Castor. Jackson. They chose this. They chose you."
"Finnick?" a terrified whisper escaped from beside him.
"No, no, no, no," Peeta instantly spun back to Taiya, realising what she must be thinking. "No. He's not dead," he insisted, gripping Taiya's face gently.
"Where…" she began, her voice trailing off. She couldn't finish her sentence.
"He got away. He ran back into the tunnels so we could use the holo to set off an explosion and get rid of the mutts. He'll be fine."
"I want Finnick," Taiya started to panic, her breathing quickening. Her single-functioning lung struggled to keep up.
"Taiya?" Peeta's eyes widened in alarm when she didn't respond. "No, no, no, no, no, wake up! Wake up! Katniss!"
The basement door burst open, and Gale was hauling a struggling doctor inside.
"I won't aid rebels!" the man protested defiantly.
"You willing to die for that sentiment?" Gale snapped, pushing the man into the centre of the room and aiming his gun at him.
"I'm not afraid of you rebels."
"Fix her, or the next shot goes in you," Gale advanced on the man, his tone steely.
The doctor glanced over at the wounded girl before laughing cynically. "Are you serious? Ambersnow? Taiya Ambersnow. Your tribute, Tigris? You never learn, do you?" he cast a derisive glance at the Capitolite lurking at the top of the stairs. "You always were the weak one in your family," he sneered.
Gale had heard enough. He seized the man by the neck and forced him over to Taiya, throwing him down beside her. "Get to work," he prodded the back of the man's head with his gun. "You got a family back in that house of yours? I can go check."
The doctor huffed loudly and looked down at Taiya's chest wound. "She needs surgery, I don't know what you expect me to do."
Cressida, the calmer one, answered that. "We can't transport her for surgery yet. There's no safe corridor to take her through. You need to fix her collapsed lung so she can breathe. Then keep her stable until we can evacuate."
"You're not getting out of here," the doctor snorted. "The Capitol has this area locked down. There's no escape."
"We got in, didn't we?" Cressida retorted. "If we can get in, I'm sure we can get her out."
"Yeah, well your infiltration was a real success," he mocked, listening to Taiya's chest. He then lifted his head and looked around the room before a smirk played on his lips. "Where's the girl's district partner?" he asked. He'd seen the engagement propo on the television. There was no way that girl would be in the Capitol without him.
"He's alive," Peeta instantly answered. "He's waiting for us." He didn't know how much of this conversation Taiya could hear in her current state, and he didn't want to worry her even more.
"It's a sucking chest wound, that's why her lungs collapsed," the doctor diagnosed. "Give me my bag," he held his hand out to Cressida who hurried over with it. "I'll put a chest seal on it. It should restore the pressure balance," he explained, applying the medical bandage to Taiya's wound. "Can I leave now?"
"Not a chance," Gale shook his head, raising his gun back up.
"I did what you asked."
"We're not letting you go so you can run straight to the Peacekeeper's. Take a seat, doctor. You're on call," Gale commanded, glared at the man.
The doctor glanced up at Tigris, expecting some support from his fellow Capitol citizen.
"Will she be ok?" Tigris inquired.
"Not unless she gets surgery soon," the doctor shook his head.
"She'll make it through the night?" Tigris pressed.
"Probably. Can I go now?"
Tigris redirected her gaze to Cressida. "Let me know when she wakes up. We can reassess in the morning and decide what to do. The rebels are making quick gains, if we can hold out long enough, they might be able to seize the whole Capitol, which would give us access to the hospitals that would be able to help her. If she gets worse, come and get me, I'll take her to a hospital myself, they'll let me through, but they'll take her away and I don't know if we'll get her back," Tigris bit her lip anxiously before she closed the hatch, leaving the doctor locked in with the rebels.
"Unbelievable," the doctor scoffed, his disbelief evident.
"Gale, the doctor should take a look at your neck," Cressida suggested, his neck was still bleeding, and he needed stitches.
Gale shook his head firmly. "No. He needs to stay watching over her. If she dies, you won't make it to the morning," he warned the doctor. "Katniss can help me."
"Yeah, yeah, ok," Katniss mumbled as she approached Gale, bringing the doctor's medical kit with her.
Cressida took the kit from Katniss and began rummaging through it while Katniss examined Gale's neck wound.
"Do you have any anaesthetic?" Cressida inquired, directing her question to the doctor who was slumped down near Taiya and Peeta. "We need something to numb the pain."
"No," he snapped curtly.
"You might want to bite down on something," Katniss suggested softly to Gale. "I've seen my mom and sister do this, but I'm no expert," she dabbed at his wound, wiping away some of the blood so she could see better.
"I'll be fine. Just do it," Gale took a deep breath.
As soon as Katniss began stitching, Gale let out a groan of pain. "I'm sorry," Katniss' voice trembled. It'd been a gruelling day for everyone. The sutures she'd put in were far from pretty, but they'd do for the time being. As soon as she was finished, she was digging through the kit. "Here," she handed him some painkillers. "You can rest now. It's safe here," she reassured him, her eyes darting towards Taiya in the corner. "It wasn't your fault," she added, trying to comfort him.
"I shot her, Katniss," Gale shook his head. "I should've been paying more attention."
"You were trying to kill the mutts. She just ran. It was an accident. Wrong place, wrong time."
"Why do you think the mutts didn't attack her or Finnick?" Gale asked, his brow furrowing. "They were attacking everyone else. We heard them attacking the avoxes. Why spare just them?"
"I don't know," Katniss admitted, shaking her head. "Maybe Snow wants them alive? Maybe he has plans for them?"
"I doubt it," Gale dismissed the notion. "You saw Taiya's propo, she knows more than she told in that. She has information she was too scared to share. Snow would want her dead. There's some other reason they weren't being attacked."
"Just rest," Katniss stood up. She didn't want to sit there all night theorising with Gale. "You can think about it later."
Gale seemed to accept that, and soon he drifted off to sleep.
Katniss turned her attention to Peeta, who was still keeping a vigilant watch over Taiya. She and Delly were the only two people he tolerated immediately after getting to 13. He'd used them as lifelines as he slowly opened himself back up to other people. Katniss couldn't fathom everything he and Taiya endured together while the two were kept captive together in the Capitol, but she remembered seeing them bond in the Quarter Quell. Where Katniss and Finnick had been bickering, Peeta and Taiya had been smiling. They'd bonded immediately. Them with their stupid pirate hats and cartwheels. Peeta couldn't lose her now. Katniss dreaded to think of his reaction if the worst were to happen.
"Hey," Katniss greeted quietly as she settled down next to him. Gently, she took ahold of Peeta's wrists and pulled them towards her. His wrists were streaked with blood. The cuffs that had bound his hands together had been pulled so tight when the mutts attacked that they'd torn into the skin beneath. Katniss didn't say anything to him as she gently cleaned and bandaged the wounds. "You've got to keep them clean, otherwise the infection could spread and-"
"I know what blood poisoning is, Katniss," Peeta finally looked up at her, a hint of weariness in his voice. "Even if my mother isn't a healer."
Katniss jolted at those words. She'd heard that before. In their first Hunger Games. "You said the same thing to me in the first Hunger Games. Real or not real?
"Real," Peeta nodded. "And you risked your life getting the medicine that saved me?" he recalled.
"Real," Katniss smiled lightly. "You were the reason I was alive to do it."
"Was I?" Peeta frowned. He was sorting through his memories, trying to decipher what was real, and what the Capitol had put in there. "I'm so tired, Katniss," he shook his head.
"Go to sleep."
Peeta shook his head. "I can't," he looked down at Taiya. "I feel like if I do, she'll slip away."
"There's nothing you can do by staying awake though. You can't keep watch all night,"
"I can hold her hand," Peeta glanced up at Katniss. "Let her know someone's here. I can hold her hand until Finnick gets back."
"Peeta…"
"He's alive," Peeta shook his head. "You didn't kill him. He wouldn't have told you to drop the holo unless he was sure he could get far enough away."
"I keep thinking he can't be far behind us," Katniss admitted, her gaze drifting towards the stairs. "I keep imagining him running down those steps."
"If he did that he'd be caught," Peeta sighed. "He has to lay low. If he walks around those tunnels, he could stumble on a pod. If he comes out above ground, he could also run into a pod or a group of Peacekeepers. You're going to end this first, then we'll go find him. We'll have him back safe and sound before Taiya is even out of surgery."
"I hope you're right," Katniss nodded.
As she moved to leave, Peeta grasped her arm. "You should cuff me. It's not safe with me yet. I have moments when I'm here, and my memories are getting better, but a lot of times it's like I'm sleepwalking." That broke Katniss' heart. He seemed better, so much better, but he still didn't trust himself. She laid a hand on his back and went to reassure him, but he cut her off. "You should cuff me."
Katniss sighed, but she nodded, slipping a pair of cuffs on him, the same ones that Taiya had managed to lock-pick her way out of a few days ago.
"She's going to make it," Katniss assured him, brushing her hand down his arm before pulling away. "She won't die before she's had a chance to kill Gale," Katniss attempted to joke. Despite assuring Gale it wasn't his fault, Katniss knew Taiya wouldn't see it that way. He'd be target number 1.
Peeta chuckled softly. "You're probably right about that. Gale had better hope Tyler gets here before Taiya's healed. Tyler intervening is his only hope."
ShiaraS46: I actually have been considering having Finnick run into those two! Tigris is going to have some nice moments coming up!
Mim31: Gale va certainement être en danger bientôt haha ! La seule chose qui peut empêcher Taiya de devenir folle, c'est sa blessure. Peut-être pourrait-elle demander à Gloss de causer des ennuis à Gale ? Je pense qu'il serait d'accord