The Girl Who Sparked the Capitol - Book 2 - Peeta

Chapter 27

Everything seems to erupt at once. The earth explodes into showers of dirt and plant matter. Trees burst into flames. Even the sky filled with brightly colored blossoms of light. Alessia can't think why the sky's being bombed until she realizes the Gamemakers are shooting off fireworks up there, while the real destruction occurs on the ground. Just in case it's not enough fun watching the obliteration of the arena and the remaining tributes. Or perhaps to illuminate their gory ends.

Will they let anyone survive? Will there be a victor of the Seventy-fifth Hunger Games? Maybe not. After all, what is this Quarter Quell but ... what was it President Snow read from the card?

"... a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol..." 

Not even the strongest of the strong will triumph. Perhaps they never intended to have a victor in these Games at all. Or perhaps Alessia's final act of rebellion forced their hand.

I'm sorry, Peeta, Alessia thinks. I'm sorry I couldn't save you. Save him? More likely she stole his last chance at life, condemned him, by destroying the force field. Maybe, if they had all played by the rules, they might have let him live.

The hovercraft materializes above her without warning. If it was quiet, and a mockingjay perched close at hand, she would have heard the jungle go silent and then the bird's call that precedes the appearance of the Capitol's aircraft. But her ears could never make out anything sodelicate in this bombardment.

The claw drops from the underside until it's directly overhead. The metal talons slide under Alessia. She wants to scream, run, smash her way out of it but she's frozen, helpless to do anything but fervently hope she'll die before she reaches the shadowy figures awaiting her above. They have notspared her life to crown her victor but to make her death as slow and public as possible.

Alessia's worst fears are confirmed when the face that greets her inside the hovercraft belongs to Plutarch Heavensbee, Head Gamemaker.What a mess she has made of his beautiful Games with the clever ticking clock and the field of victors. He will suffer for his failure,probably lose his life, but not before he sees her punished. His hand reaches for her, Alessia thinks it's to slap or hit her, but he does something worse. With His thumb and his forefinger, he slides her eyelids shut, sentencing her to the vulnerability of darkness. They can do anything to her now and she will not even see it coming.

Alessia's heart pounds so hard the blood begins to stream from beneath her soaked moss bandage. Her thoughts grow foggy. Possibly she can bleed to death before they can revive her after all. In her mind, she whispers a thank-you to Johanna Mason for the excellent wound she inflicted as Alessia blacks out.

When Alessia swims back into semi consciousness, she can feel she's lying on a padded table. There's the pinching sensation of tubes in her left arm. They are trying to keep her alive because, if she slides quietly, privately into death, it will be a victory. She is still largely unable to move,opens her eyelids, raises her head. But her right arm has regained a little motion. It flops across her body, feeling like a flipper, no, somethingless animated, like a club. She has no real motor coordination, no proof that she even still has fingers. Yet she manages to swing her arm arounduntil she rips the tubes out. A beeping goes off but she can't stay awake to find out who it will summon. 

The next time she surfaces, her hands are tied down to the table, the tubes back in her arm. She can open her eyes and lift her head slightly,though. She's in a large room with low ceilings and a silvery light. There are two rows of beds facing each other. She can hear the breathing of what she assumes are her fellow victors. Directly across from her she sees Beetee with about ten different machines hooked up to him. Just let us die! She thinks. She screams in her mind and slams her head back hard on the table and goes out again.