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At five o'clock, everyone was up and about, eating the few cans they had left for breakfast and leaving one as thanks for all the things Tigris had done for them. The stylist seemed to appreciate the gesture since she immediately started doing what she did best, dress people up.
Their clothes were changed to conceal their uniforms better. Something similar to furry slippers covered their military boots. She secured their wigs with pins. Cleaned up their faces and reapplied the make-up. Hid their weapons perfectly under their outwear. And finally, gave them handbags and bundles of kick-knacks to carry. With that final touch, they looked exactly like the refugees going to the centre, away from the rebels.
"Never underestimate the power of a brilliant stylist," said Peeta, causing Dove to nod along, touching slightly her wig to admire the weird sight. It was the first time she had paid attention to herself while wearing the wig.
If it had been years, or even months ago, she maybe would have loved the idea of hiding her real hair. The blood-red mess, the source of most of her nightmares, which she hated so wholeheartedly. However, now, she couldn't wait to take the wig off.
She twirled a wig's strand of hair around her finger, watching as it went back to plain straight once she let it go. That type of hair wasn't for her. Such straight, perfect hair just didn't match with who she was.
I've been a mess of a person since I was little. So, I guess my hair is just like me, huh? Uncontrollable. Unpredictable. Complete chaos. Dove thought, turning her back to her reflection to focus on her mission. Not the one she had made everyone think she wanted to follow.
Dove wasn't planning on killing Snow. Not at the moment, to be exact. Her most important mission was her family. To find those who had come to the Capitol, guide them to the rest of their family, and protect them. Snow could wait. And if he couldn't, she didn't care. She had spent all her life fearing for her family's safety. She wouldn't stop worrying now that they were so close to freeing themselves from the life they had been putting up with since they were born.
"No, I'm not leaving her side," Finnick said, making Dove concentrate again on the group's discussion. Something about splitting up into different groups to not attract as much attention. Twelve people all together fleeing from the rebels would look incredibly strange. "I'm her husband. You can't expect me to let her leave my side like that."
"And I'm her brother. Dove is going nowhere. She's coming with the three of us," Melo added, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
Dove kept quiet, trying to figure out exactly what was happening. So they were splitting up, and they wanted her to leave her family's side? Holmes did have a point when he said that, if she was with them, they wouldn't concentrate on anything else but her safety, which could inevitably end up in disaster.
"Dove is unstable. She can get triggered at any point. Will you be able to knock her out or tackle her, so she won't do anything that could endanger her life? No, you couldn't. Because you would be too concentrated on what she was going through," Mitchell argued, trying to make the rest understand why they wanted the four of them to split up. "You guys are reliable on your own. But when it comes to family, you're vulnerable. There's a higher chance she'll be safer with us than with you."
"What do you say, Dove?" Johanna asked, turning around to face her friend.
"Mitchell and Holmes are right. You guys would never do anything to stop me," she muttered, sighing loudly before declaring her decision. "Mitchell, Holmes, I'm going with you."
"All right," both replied, nodding to show they were satisfied with her decision. While the rest wished luck to the first group, consisting of Cressida, Pollux and Castor, Dove said her personal goodbyes to her family. After all, her group would be the next to go.
"I beg of you. Promise you'll be careful. Don't do anything stupid," Finnick said before trying to take her necklace off of him.
"No. You keep it. I need to know you still have it with you. Please. Don't give it back to me until Snow's dead," Dove requested, adding in her mind. Be it to my dead body or not. You must keep living. Finnick, how would you react if I told you this? After so many years, would you still get surprised if I told you I'm not planning on surviving? Or is the fact that you know that drives you this worried about me?
"I love you," he whispered, engulfing her in his arms, with no clear plan of ever letting her go. "Please, come back to me."
"I promise I will. Love you, too," she whispered back, kissing him lovingly before letting go to hug her brother and best friend. "What are those distressed faces for? We'll see each other later, right?"
"Yeah, of course," Melo muttered, pulling his sister closer to him. It was an endearing sight, but it had to end. Holmes was the one to remind them, as he cleared his throat loudly enough for them to hear it. "We'll see you later. Be careful."
"You better be alive when we get there," Johanna added, giving her friend one last hug.
"You too. And don't, any of you, do anything stupid," Dove warned playfully.
"I promise nothing," Finnick said just as she went to join her little group, causing her to let out a chuckle and turn back around to face him.
"Then, I won't promise it either . . . Be careful," she concluded before leaving through the door behind Holmes. Mitchell, who walked next to her, took his secondary mission of protecting her too seriously. She appreciated it, although she wanted to make one thing clear with her fellow squad members. "If I go mutt, shoot me. I don't care if I'm just hurting myself. If we're found out, everyone else will as well. And that might mean my family's imprisonment. I'm not taking any chances. If I lose it, I die."
"All right," Mitchell answered immediately, although Holmes took some more time to accept. Likely because he was a healer. Killing somebody when they didn't represent a direct threat would probably trouble him mentally. However, Dove didn't have time to be thoughtful about his feelings.
"I count on you, Mitchell. You have the right to do it, too. I almost killed you," she muttered, clucking just as she finished her brief comment.
Looking back in front of her, she took in the atmosphere. It was cold, and the sun was barely breaking through the gloom. There was only enough light to see what was directly in front of them, but not any further. They couldn't locate the first group whatsoever. It wasn't until later, when they were in the principal venue, that they could locate them a few metres ahead.
Dove turned her head around, trying to find anyone else behind them. She couldn't spot any of them, much less when a sudden rain of gunfire forced everyone to run for shelter. It was meant to take out the Peacekeepers. Still, they weren't doing too much of a good job, since every second another Capitol refugee fell to the ground, their coats drenched in their own blood.
"Let's go. This place will blow up for sure if they keep shooting like this," Mitchell inquired, helping Dove move by grabbing her arm. They walked hurriedly towards President Snow's mansion, trying to evade the best they could the bullets, Peacekeepers and any other danger in front of them.
Just as they passed the next interjection filled with rebels waiting for the Peacekeepers, wounded and unarmed people, a pod got activated behind them. It released a gush of steam and parboiled anyone in its path.
"No," Dove muttered, pausing to watch as the scene became more and more desperate. Her arm kept being pulled, but she couldn't move, waiting to see anyone from her family leave the intersection unharmed. She waited a full minute, but no one appeared. "Dead. They're dead."
"Pull yourself together!" Mitchell shouted, grabbing her shoulders to force her to look away from the scene. "Hey! Listen to me! There's a chance they're not dead, but if we stay here, we're dead for sure. So move it!"
They continued moving forwards, running instead of walking to avoid the pods that were likely being triggered manually. They had great luck since they barely evaded a few of them. An entire block was engulfed in a purple glowing light just as they left the section.
As they continued walking, they encountered fewer soldiers and more refugees, which probably meant the rebels hadn't fully made their way there yet. They kept evading the pods in their way, pausing sometimes and running away in others, to not be engulfed by them.
An entire block's street behind them fell down to nothing, a puddle of black mass that killed painfully those who survived the fall. Holmes shouted for them to hurry, and soon they were in the City Circle. They couldn't see Pollux, Cressida, or Castor anywhere. However, with all the pods that had been triggered and the rebels shooting uncontrollably, it would be a miracle if all of them were alive.
They strolled around the City Circle, being mindful of the possible pods that could be triggered. However, none appeared for now. The lack of imminent danger allowed them to look around at the people. And, for the first time, to acknowledge the barricade of people by the mansion's side.
"Are they the chosen to go inside?" Mitchell wondered out loud, advancing slowly towards the mass of people. Just as they approached more and more, they realised something that didn't seem to fit. "Why are there only children?"
"No, they won't go inside," Dove muttered, causing both men to look at her as if asking her to explain further. "They're freezing, and haven't been given anything to protect themselves. Apart from that, they have Peacekeepers at every turn. This is not for their protection. It's for Snow's. If it were for them, they would be in a bunker or somewhere safe inside the mansion by now."
"So they're being used as human shields?" Holmes asked, completely disgusted with the sole idea of using little children to defend oneself.
There wasn't much time for relaxation as a few people came into the City Circle running and screaming. "The rebels! The rebels!" Not long after, the rebel army entered the Circle, driving the refugees back into the venues.
The group of three began to expect a pod to be triggered at any turn, but nothing similar to that happened. Instead, only a few metres away from them, a hovercraft with the Capitol's seal appeared over the barricade of children.
Out of the hovercraft, silver parachuted descended calmly towards the ground. Dove didn't know what to expect, but the kids did. Food. Medicine. Gifts. They were excited to receive any of those. However, just five seconds after the hovercraft vanished, at least twenty parachutes blew up, causing Dove, Mitchell, and Holmes to fly backwards due to the explosion.
The flames hadn't reached them. The explosion hadn't been strong enough to do that, although it had been enough to make the children's blood land near them, staining the pure white snow. Not only blood, limbs as well. Many kids had died in the explosion. But others were still alive, struggling to even breathe between the smoke and the immense pain they had to be suffering.
From the group, Dove was the first to incorporate herself. The scene was heartbreaking, although, judging by the Peacekeepers' reactions, that wasn't meant to happen. She got up abruptly, cursing at her dizziness and the constant ringing in her ears.
She tried looking around for any sight of the rest of their team, but there was no one. Or at least, so she thought, since her sight wasn't too great either. The smoke had reached where they had landed, making it difficult to see. Once it dissipated, she was looking back at the once barricade.
This time, she found something even more confusing than anything else she had lived the past hour. Primrose Everdeen, who was still not fourteen and therefore not legally a soldier, wore a white uniform. A rebel medic white uniform. She had just arrived with the rest of the medics to where the children were.
But that wasn't everything. Next to her, there was a perfectly intact silver parachute. Not all of them had blown up, which meant the others had malfunctioned or were prepared for another round of nightmares.
Designed to target an area . . . The first round of bombs . . . Rescues come in . . . and they get blown up too. Dove realised, remembering Gale's and Beetee's booby trap. They had really created it. But how did Snow get his hands on it? Who fucking cares! Dove focus! Prim is about to get killed! She reprimanded herself internally, taking off running towards Prim's tiny figure, and leaving behind her still confused group members.
She ignored Prim's confused cries and, with all the strength left in her body, picked the little girl up and started running away from the barricade. There was barely much time to do anything. However, Dove decided to change Prim's position in her arms to one in which she could serve as a human shield for the little girl.
Just as the position had been changed, and Dove started to pick up the pace again, the next round of parachutes exploded. They were way more powerful, burning Dove's coat as she fell to the ground, Prim crying for help under her.
The explosion had also knocked Mitchell and Holmes out, who were the closest to them, leaving the two men paralysed on the floor. Not moving, but still breathing, although with some difficulties.
"Help! Someone help!" Dove heard Prim shouting desperately for anyone to come just before passing out. Her entire body was burning. As if she was in constant flames.
"Did I die?" Dove wondered, glancing around at her surroundings. There was nothing surrounding her. Just clouds of white everywhere. She could walk around, but she never reached anywhere. It was like being stuck in a loop. No new places appeared. No familiar faces. If that was the afterlife, it was strangely empty.
"No, but you were close," a boy in the distance said. She recognised that voice. How could she forget? It had been years since she had heard him, but his voice kept replaying over and over again in her nightmares.
"Alder," Dove breathed out his name. A feeling somewhere along with relaxation and relief took over her at the sight of him.
"Hey, Dove. I'd say it's nice to see you again. But you almost died, so I think that would be stupid of me to say," Alder greeted, a grin plastered on his face.
"Where am I? Is this heaven?" She asked, walking closer to him.
"Not really. It's in the middle, I think. Something between life and death. A limbo of sorts," he explained, showing her an empty space where the clouds let room for a marble floor.
"What are you doing here, then?" She questioned, following him into a small, clear area. There, a pure white marble tree appeared out of thin air. "And why is it all made of marble here?"
"No idea about any of those two questions. Who knows? I might be part of your imagination, playing a trick to comfort you while your body is fighting to survive. Or I might actually be . . . well . . . me. Sort of alive, I guess? I don't know. The afterlife is so confusing." He rambled, caressing the tree before taking a few steps back, bowing slightly before adding mockingly. "After you, my lady."
"I'm still not good at climbing, and I doubt my weak body will be able to climb that high," she said, looking up to try and find the tree's top, to no avail.
"That's the fun of being dead, sweetheart. Or half-dead in your case. You can do anything you want. That body you're worried about is already having its own battle in the real world. The body you have right now is your own election. The way you perceive yourself is reflected in your appearance. I've even seen literal spheres up there. Some people are too lazy to keep their appearance for too long," he said while beginning to climb up, being closely followed by her.
They continued climbing in silence until they stopped to chat somewhere that looked like halfway to the top. There was a soft breeze coming from a strange white sea, not too far from the tree.
"So, you finally saw the sea, huh?" Dove muttered unknowingly, glancing from her friend to the mass of white, which was supposed to be the sea.
"Please, that's not even near as beautiful as the real deal," he huffed, resting his back against the trunk as he swung his leg off the branch he sat on. "It was difficult, you know? Sending the Mockingjays and everything."
"You really did that?" She questioned, raising her eyebrows, astonished.
"Who knows? I might be part of your imagination, remember? If you think I did, I can't contradict it, can I?" He teased, causing her to shake her head playfully. "Rest assured. They aren't dead. Your family is fine in the world of the living."
"So they're alive, huh? That's good," she whispered, letting her back slam against the trunk. Exhaustion was taking over her 'body', making her extremely sleepy. Looking down, the floor seemed to be farther away than when they had sat down."Why am I suddenly so tired?"
"Probably because your body thinks you can finally rest in peace. Your mission was a success. Your family is alive and safe. I guess, subconsciously, you don't see a point in battling your way back to life," he explained. Normally such an accurate explanation would have made Dove question how did he know. But she couldn't think of anything other than how tired she was.
Her eyes were still looking at the marble floor, which continued to get steadily further and further away. The more up they were, the more the light engulfed them. Two voices echoed around her, calling a name. But it wasn't hers, at least not her adoptive name. The voices were happy and excited.
However, a third one joined in. This time, not from above, but from downstairs. The voice was sad, shouting something she couldn't understand. It was painful to hear it. Just like hearing a person crying over the death of a loved one. The desperation and agony that it held. The distinctive sobs echoing around. Not from just a sole person. They were multiple.
Then the tree stopped in its tracks. Not going up, neither down. As if it was waiting for her to figure out the voices before taking any turn. The more she concentrated on making out the painful voices between the joyful ones, the more she could hear.
Until she could make out Finnick's painful cries for her to wake up. Hopelessly asking her not to give up. Claiming she had promised to be back to him. With the sound of his sniffs, the sea by the tree's side seemed to fill with actual water. Shinning brightly in a beautiful sea-green colour. The same one she had fallen in love with years ago.
"Finnick . . ." She whispered, sitting up correctly to watch the sea better. The tree descended slowly. Sometimes, going upwards for a few seconds before going back down. As if her body was battling to wake her up after almost dying. Her anxiety started to grow as the voices stopped. "Finnick! Finnick! Wait! I'm going . . . I'm . . ." she trailed off, glancing behind her to see Alder smiling at her.
"Just go back to him already. It's not like we won't see each other ever again," he said, chuckling slightly as he saw her eyes filling with tears before going all the way to where he sat to hug him. "Hey, could you do me one last favour?"
"Anything for my soulmate," she joked, letting go of him to look into his eyes.
"Can you go to Twelve? I'm pretty sure my grave was blown up during the bombing. Grab whatever's left of my body and take me to the sea, please. That would be a nice place to be," he asked, wiping her tears out of her cheeks with his thumb. "Don't forget to sing. I've loved every single one of those songs, so obviously written towards me." He added with a hint of tease in his voice, causing Dove to chuckle through her tears.
Before she knew it, the branch they were in was just above the ground, letting her jump off easily. "I promise I'll do that, even if I have to take over an entire train and go to Twelve myself. I guess I'll see you again in some years. Take care, Alder."
"Take care, Dove." He waved her goodbye, and then nothing. He was gone with the tree. Vanished as quickly as it had appeared. She continued looking where he once was, taking her left three middle fingers to her lips before showing them to the empty space.
After a few seconds, she turned around, walking to the sea. She didn't know what she was supposed to do. However, she felt as if the sea was the place to go. The only place where she could meet Finnick and her family again. The only place that could take her home.
As soon as she stepped in, a refreshing breeze engulfed her, pulling her deeper and deeper into the water until she was completely under it. Her body was numb again. Completely at the mercy of the waves.
"It's been a long day without you, my friend
And I'll tell you all about it when I see you again
We've come a long way from where we began
Oh, I'll tell you all about it when I see you again
When I see you again."
Someone sang. A masculine voice, rather familiar to her. The sound got clearer and clearer. It was as if she was floating towards it. Her surprise was when the feeling of being surrounded by water was replaced by the soft sensation of sheets under her. A cloth over her, keeping the breeze from reaching her chest. A stinging sensation came from her arm. And a weird, wet feeling. As if there was a small cloud raining slowly over her, letting the water drip slowly on her cheeks.
Sounds started softly emerging. From her right side, near where the water was slowly dripping on her, someone sniffing could be easily heard. Over her left, there were cries, one from a high-pitched voice, maybe a little girl, and the others seemed more mature.
The sound of metal being slid over another metal surface stopped all the other sounds abruptly, although there were still a few that remained, like a soft beeping, or the plastic rubbing against metal.
After a brief exchange in a conversation she couldn't hear, the same metal dragging sound from before was heard again, although the other sniffing and crying sounds didn't appear along with it.
There were many voices. At least twelve. Some sounded like elders, others were younger. That was all she could distinguish, since she couldn't hear a single word they were saying.
As time went by, the sensations became clearer. She couldn't move, but could feel the pillow under her head. The sheet that carefully covered her body until her chest that continued to be tucked in. As if someone was taking care of a baby, making sure they didn't get cold. Something that felt like hair found its way to her eyelids multiple times. But the same person from her right, the one that was sobbing moments before, always took it off of her face, tucking them behind her ear.
How could she feel so loved by such small interactions? It was almost as if those people were desperate, hopelessly waiting around for her to open her eyes. Maybe not even that. Perhaps she could move a sole finger, and they would be happier than ever.
However, she didn't have time to try, as the exhaustion she had felt a long way before she left the tree completely evaporated from her body. It was rather sudden. Just like waking up. One moment she was in her inner world, listening to everything unfold in front of her, and the other her eyes were open, adjusting themselves to the small artificial light before looking around at her surroundings.
There was no wonder why the voices had ended before. It was nighttime. Probably quite late. Perhaps even early morning. She couldn't see outside, so there was no way to know.
On her right, she could finally face the person who had acted so lovingly towards her. The one who had cried for her. Had caressed her cheeks multiple times. And always took her hair out of her face.
How touching that the person was her husband, Finnick Odair, sleeping in a horribly uncomfortable position right next to her bed on an armchair. Her right hand, which had a needle that injected some type of liquid directly into her veins, made its way to his cheek.
Carefully, she caressed his face as affectionately as she had felt while she was asleep. The touch seemed to wake him up since his eyes slowly closed tightly and then fluttered open, glancing for a second at the hand that rested on his cheek before looking at his wife with a hopeful, yet astonished expression.
"Good morning, sleepyhead," Dove whispered, a single tear leaving her eye, although her lips formed into a warm smile. "I'm back."
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