kill for your love - the hunger games

(066) everything true and fake

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KILL FOR YOUR LOVE.

act three.

(chapter sixty-six, everything true and fake)

district thirteen?, 75 ADD.

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DISTRICT THIRTEEN. 

LUCY STEVENS had to explain it over and over for it to finally be engraved in Juniper Hale's head. She was in District Thirteen, the vanquished district, and with the rebels. She wasn't in the Capitol. She was rescued. And she was in Thirteen. She was safe. But was she? 

She was still detained to her bed, both wrists attached to the sides of the frame with some type of zip-ties. There were bandages littered across her skin. She had wires going into her. A morphling drip. A drug that seemed to make her brain go slower than it usually did. A sedative was on the bedside table if needed. And the curtains were drawn shut beside her. It was like she was in a much more comfier prison than what the Capitol had given her. 

Lucy visited occasionally, trying to tell her what was going on, but it never seemed to reach Juniper's brain. Whatever she was saying, it was muffled and fuzzy. She normally gave up after an hour. She was the only person that had visited. Juniper supposed the mentor was the only one allowed to come see her. That was until Haymitch Abernathy, Beetee, and Plutarch Heavensbee came into her sight, a nurse behind them.

"Ah, Juniper." Plutarch smiled. 

Whilst rage should have filled Juniper at the sight of the man, she couldn't help but stare at Beetee. The man, like everyone else, looked terrible. Exhausted. But he was in a wheelchair. Why was he in a wheelchair? 

"Why the hell are you in a wheelchair, Beetee?" Juniper questioned with a raised brow. 

"I tire so quickly, it's the easiest way for me to get around," Beetee told her. Haymitch and Plutarch went to go stand at her bedside. "Complications of the arena, of course."

And as Plutarch did, Juniper eyed him. That man was supposed to get her out of the arena. He was to retrieve her from it after she protected Katniss. But he didn't. This man was the main source of betrayal for Juniper before she realised she wasn't the only one in the Capitol. And it took him a month to rescue her and the others. 

"Plutarch." Juniper sneered. 

"Juniper," he repeated. "First things first, I am so glad you're finally here. I do apologise for what happened." 

"Wow, I'm touched."

"Juniper," Haymitch said as he sat down in the plastic chair. The man looked slightly yellow and seemed to have lost a lot of weight. He looked exhausted and not at all drunk. "How are you feeling?"

"My ribs hurt," Juniper told him. "And so do my wrists... are these zip-ties necessary?" 

"Yes, they are," Plutarch said too quickly. "You slashed your father's face open with your nails. It's necessary." 

"I had every right to," Juniper snapped. The anger would have risen within her if it wasn't for the drugs pumped into her system. "He... he knew and did nothing."