A Million Pieces - Hunger Games (Catching Fire & Mockingjay)

Chapter 25

The pounding in my head has been replaced by a deafening silence.

It takes a minute to work my eyes open, and then to start moving my neck. My fingers wriggle, and I realise I am in a hospital bed. The feeling returns to my arms, and I realise there's a needle in my right forearm, hooked up to a drip. I blink and realise that gauze is plastered to my bruised cheek.

I manage to turn my head to the left. Johanna is laying in a bed similar to mine, her arm heavily bandaged. My head moves to the right, and Peeta is here.

Where is here?

Straining, I lift my neck. The room has clinical bare white walls, no windows. On Johanna's other side, Enobaria is sleeping. And by the door -

Snow.

I inhale sharply and push myself into a sitting position, struggling to back away. My metal bed hits the wall behind me. The sound jolts Johanna and Peeta awake, although Enobaria doesn't move. That's when I notice the straps. We are chained to our beds.

"Miss Ayers," Snow says, in his perfectly calm, cold voice. "Please do not panic. We do not want to cause your friends any distress."

"What's going on?" Johanna yells, ripping her drip out and tugging at her restraints.

"Where are the others?" asks Peeta, alarmed. "Where's Katniss?"

"Unfortunately Miss Everdeen is not with us. It seems that District 13 had coordinated a plan to take her away. After your lovely wife destroyed our arena, they picked her up, along with Beetee Latier and Finnick Odair." He waits for it to sink in. "They abandoned you. Took the tributes they wanted and left."

"No," I whisper, but I know he is telling the truth.

"What are you talking about? District 13?" Peeta says, but in our devastation, he is ignored.

"No!" Johanna shouts. "No, they wouldn't have left us!"

"The way I see it," Snow smiles, "Mr Mellark and Miss Ayers still had their trackers, and Miss Mason was too far into the jungle for them to find and extract quickly. You three were simply... liabilities."

Everything in me deflates. I had held on to a tiny bit of hope, all throughout the Games. Hope because despite everything, Caspian had told me I would get out, that the revolution would come, that life would get better, that we would be together.

Caspian.

I try to be careful with my words, but at this point, I can't see how the situation could get worse. "District 13 sacrificed everything and saved only three people?"

Snow's snake-like lips curl into a scowl. "It would seem that District 13 has also taken Haymitch Abernathy and Caspian Rivera and his mother and sister, who had the luck of being in the Capitol at that moment, as well as some of our own Capitol residents."

I let out a soft cry of relief, burying my head in my hands. Caspian is safe. Coventina is safe. Malila is safe. Finnick is safe. But...

"I did, however, bring a special guest for you, Miss Ayers," Snow's malicious voice confirms my fear. The door opens and a person is shoved inside.

"Annie," I breathe. I jump off the bed, but my restraints trip me and I fall to my knees. Annie yelps and jumps towards me. She's cautious at first, but then she hugs me and I feel her entire body relax. I pull my own arms as far around her as my restraints will let me, holding her tight.

"Yes, while you were unconscious, we tried to get information from Miss Cresta..." Snow begins. My whole body freezes, and I pull back from Annie. Tears are bubbling in her eyes. "It quickly became clear that she was told absolutely nothing. It seems like your friends may not be such good friends, doesn't it?"