kill for your love - the hunger games

(048) oranges. double-knot. switching knives.

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KILL FOR YOUR LOVE.

act three.

(chapter forty-eight, oranges. double-knot. switching knives)

the white room, 75 ADD.

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DR. CLAMPITT DID NOT return back to the white room of hell after Juniper had attacked her. The woman spent all day laying in the blood-stained sheets, nose numb and swollen, as she waited for the door to burst open, but it never did. She was completely alone for the entire day with no Peacekeepers' bringing her breakfast or dinner and her stomach was growling, roaring, and whimpering. 

The Hale girl had no idea what time it was, but she was sure a full day had passed as she was curled up in a tight ball in an attempt to diminish the pain in her stomach. The last meal she had was the chicken and grain and Juniper sighed at the thought of it. She would even eat the freezing cold porridge if she was given it again. Her stomach would not be silent and would not back down with its roaring that Juniper nearly begged it to. 

But she couldn't do anything to take her mind off of it. Juniper was sure Clampitt would not be returning after she had attacked her and she wouldn't dare exercising on an empty stomach again. She wasn't even sure if her limbs could take standing up. The searing, beating pain came back and was enveloping her entire being. It trickled from up her feet, to her legs, to her stomach, spreading to the tip of her fingers, all the way until it reached the top of her head. It infected every muscle, joint, and bone in Juniper's body and that, doubled with not eating for nearly a week, the woman was in severe pain. 

She could feel the tears dribbling down her cheeks, soaking into the blood-stained quilts as she laid in a curled ball. The blankets still felt as if Juniper was laying on a hundred pins, but the pain that flared through her entire body numbed it after a while. 

How did it come to this? How did Juniper deserve this? Three years ago, she was a seventeen-year-old girl who stole meat from the Barn of Death with her twin, laughing as they tripped the farmer over during their escape. She was pure back then. Innocent. Unknowing. But now, at twenty, she was a killer. A murderer. Victor of the Seventy-Second Hunger Games. Reaped for the Third Quarter Quell. Locked in the white room of hell with her stomach rumbling.

What had Juniper done to deserve this? She knew people's blood was on her hands, she knew that and she would have to live with that. But what had she done to deserve this?  To be trapped within the Capitol's grasp with no escape? She tried to do what Plutarch told her, to protect Katniss. And she was alive, wasn't she?

Or maybe she wasn't. 

Was Katniss dead? Did Plutarch leave her in the arena because Katniss was dead? But she couldn't be. There were only two cannons that fired on the last night of the Quell. Chaff and Brutus. But what if Katniss died after destroying the arena? She could have been electrified, she could have been crushed by the falling panels. So much could have happened to her and it would make sense why Plutarch had left Juniper in there. The arena was destroyed so no cannons would fire. The Gamemakers' would have no clue who died. 

But then suddenly, Juniper furrowed her brows. What if Plutarch tried to get her, but couldn't? What if the Capitol was already there by the time he picked everyone else up? But no, Plutarch must have purposely left her there because if he managed to get all the other tributes, then why couldn't he get one more? Why did he not get Juniper?