Broken Pawns

t h i r t e e n

Lies. It was lies. Gale wasn't going to be okay, he was going to die and all I could do is watch. I wasn't okay. Not one bit. The man I loved laid near dead on the floor next to me, I was trapped in a cell I was never going to escape from. I didn't know if my sister was alive at all, and the Hawthorne family was suffering because of me.

"Get some sleep Katniss, you too Posy. Vick."

------------------------------ Gale's POV ----------------------------

   My eyes flutter open and then closed. Open then closed. It took me a minute or so to adjust to the bright light in the place I was in. The capitol. I sit up quickly and yelp out at the pain the rippled through my body. My head felt as if I was hit by a bus and both my shoulder and stomach hurt like hell as they started to bleed. My memory slowly started to come back to me. Prim, capitol soldiers, shots fired, darkness. It was all a blur but after a few minutes of sitting up, with my eyes closed as I tried to think of something other than my pain it came to me clearly. 

Katniss.

Her name popped into my head and my eyes snap open. Katniss. I needed to find Katniss. I needed to apologize, I needed to find my mother and my siblings. I needed to tell them I was sorry for leaving-

"Gale." 

My head snaps in the direction of the voice and my eyes go wide. My mother sat in a jail cell, a thin blanket wrapped around her body. Last I saw her she barley had any grey hair and she looked younger. Now her hair was almost all grey and I could see wrinkles I never knew were there.

"Ma?" I ask quietly.

   She breaths out a smile and I go to stand up despite the pain I was in. I am stopped. I look down at the arm that pulls me down. A wrist holds onto it tightly. I look up at the arm of which the hand is attached to and I fall right back down on my butt. 

"Gale, honey you need to stay still." My mother says.

   Her arm is slid through the bars of her cell so her hand could hold onto my wrist. Her body is slumped against the bars and from the look on her face I know it's uncomfortable. The hair she usually kept in a braid was down, flowing over her shoulders. Simple jeans and a t-shirt dressed her body. Heavy bags showed under her eyes along with a small figure that made it look as if the clothes didn't fit her right at all. God she looked as if she was twelve years old again.

"Are you listening to me?" Ma asks.

"Yes." My mouth feels dry.

"What did I tell you to do?"

"Stay still, lie down." I don't think she told me to lie down but I can only presume that's what she wants me to do. I've already bleed enough in the time I got the wounds till they stopped bleeding. Lord knows how long it took for them to stop bleeding.

"Don't wake her." My mother warns. "She's been sleeping for almost two hours."

   My eyes meet my mother. She knew that I wanted to wake her. That I wanted to tell her I was sorry. That I wanted to deny everything I said the day of the bombing. That I wanted to make sure that whatever the hell Mara did to my brain, It didn't affect her. That I wanted to make sure I haven't hurt her. A blur memory told me I have.

"Ma." 

"That girl never sleeps, never." My mother growls quietly.

   I look around and notice Posy and Vicky. They both lay in their cells with thin blankets around their bodies as well. Both of them have curled themselves into balls, I presume this is to keep warm.