Mocking Jay

16
"Always."
In the twilight of morphling, Peeta whispers the word and I go searching for him. It's a gauzy, violet-tinted
world, with no hard edges, and many places to hide. I push through cloud banks, follow faint tracks, catch the
scent of cinnamon, of dill. Once I feel his hand on my cheek and try to trap it, but it dissolves like mist through my
fingers.
When I finally begin to surface into the sterile hospital room in 13, I remember. I was under the influence of
sleep syrup. My heel had been injured after I'd climbed out on a branch over the electric fence and dropped back
into 12. Peeta had put me to bed and I had asked him to stay with me as I was drifting off. He had whispered
something I couldn't quite catch. But some part of my brain had trapped his single word of reply and let it swim
up through my dreams to taunt me now. "Always."
Morphling dulls the extremes of all emotions, so instead of a stab of sorrow, I merely feel emptiness. A
hollow of dead brush where flowers used to bloom. Unfortunately, there's not enough of the drug left in my veins
for me to ignore the pain in the left side of my body. That's where the bullet hit. My hands fumble over the thick
bandages encasing my ribs and I wonder what I'm still doing here.
It wasn't him, the man kneeling before me on the square, the burned one from the Nut. He didn't pull the
trigger. It was someone farther back in the crowd. There was less a sense of penetration than the feeling that I'd
been struck with a sledgehammer. Everything after the moment of impact is confusion riddled with gunfire. I try to
sit up, but the only thing I manage is a moan.
The white curtain that divides my bed from the next patient's whips back, and Johanna Mason stares down
at me. At first I feel threatened, because she attacked me in the arena. I have to remind myself that she did it to
save my life. It was part of the rebel plot. But still, that doesn't mean she doesn't despise me. Maybe her
treatment of me was all an act for the Capitol?
"I'm alive," I say rustily.
"No kidding, brainless." Johanna walks over and plunks down on my bed, sending spikes of pain shooting
across my chest. When she grins at my discomfort, I know we're not in for some warm reunion scene. "Still a little
sore?" With an expert hand, she quickly detaches the morphling drip from my arm and plugs it into a socket
taped into the crook of her own. "They started cutting back my supply a few days ago. Afraid I'm going to turn into
one of those freaks from Six. I've had to borrow from you when the coast was clear. Didn't think you'd mind."
Mind? How can I mind when she was almost tortured to death by Snow after the Quarter Quell? I have no
right to mind, and she knows it.
Johanna sighs as the morphling enters her bloodstream. "Maybe they were onto something in Six. Drug
yourself out and paint flowers on your body. Not such a bad life. Seemed happier than the rest of us, anyway."
In the weeks since I left 13, she's gained some weight back. A soft down of hair has sprouted on her
shaved head, helping to hide some of the scars. But if she's siphoning off my morphling, she's struggling.
"They've got this head doctor who comes around every day. Supposed to be helping me recover. Like
some guy who's spent his life in this rabbit warren's going to fix me up. Complete idiot. At least twenty times a
session he reminds me that I'm totally safe." I manage a smile. It's a truly stupid thing to say, especially to a victor.
As if such a state of being ever existed, anywhere, for anyone. "How about you, Mockingjay? You feel totally
safe?"
"Oh, yeah. Right up until I got shot," I say.
"Please. That bullet never even touched you. Cinna saw to that," she says.
I think of the layers of protective armor in my Mockingjay outfit. But the pain came from somewhere.
"Broken ribs?"
"Not even. Bruised pretty good. The impact ruptured your spleen. They couldn't repair it." She gives a
dismissive wave of her hand. "Don't worry, you don't need one. And if you did, they'd find you one, wouldn't they?
It's everybody's job to keep you alive."
"Is that why you hate me?" I ask.